

12 Fab Black Women To Follow To Meet Your 2021 Fitness Goals
As we're thinking about our new year's resolutions, fitness always seems to creep up the list. Whether you'd like to become more active, change your weight, try something new, or reach a specific wellness goal, it's always a good idea to add more physical activity and challenge yourself to feel and be better. If you need a little kick in the pants, here are 12 black female fitness trainers who offer workout plans, strength motivation and much more to get you on the right track now and into 2021:
Jeanette Jenkins
This fitness industry veteran is founder of The Hollywood Trainer LLC and has more than two decades of experience in changing the lives. Along with a celebrity roster of clients including Alicia Keys, Tracee Ellis Ross, Nia Long, and Kelly Rowland, Jeanette Jenkins has helped thousands of everyday folk reach their wellness goals.
Caprice O'Bryant
She's the founder of Excuse Free Fitness, a platform that offers online wellness coaching and lots of positive reinforcement. A strong up-and-comer in the game, Caprice O'Bryant gives a daily dose of real-talk motivation along with a free 7-day jumpstarter that includes recipes and HIIT workouts.
Kells James
Gotta love a woman who is all about the #StrongandSnatched movement. Kells James' story of shifting focus from trying to achieve a stereotypical look at 225 pounds to seeking overall good health is super-uplifting and a much-needed reminder that wellness is a unique journey of self-awareness and self-love.
Massy Arias
Chiseled abs, tight glutes, and delish food photos that will keep you engaged are all part of Massy Arias' allure. The CEO of Tru Supplements also offers online resources like the Booty Guide, a macro calculator and fitness challenges.
Quianna Camper
Quianna Camper is a trainer who mixes her background in dance with her passion for transformation, and her website offers ways for you to keep yourself in check and organize your efforts for detoxing and toning.
Lita Lewis
Founder of Thick Athletics Apparel, Lita Lewis is another trainer who's been in the business for years and has been working to transform the traditional image of what "physically fit" looks and feels like. Cultivating the "best version of yourself" is the resounding message of her platforms, and we're always here for that.
Jessamyn Stanley
Jessamyn Stanley is the founder of the Underbelly, a community and yoga practice that embraces racial inclusivity, authenticity, individuality, and body positivity. Her online platforms have a common theme of peace and unapologetic confidence.
Lauren Leavell
Lauren Leavell is a motivational coach who not only helps clients with fitness but adds financial wellness consulting in there as a bonus. Goal-setting and tracking are her forte, and she provides space where all women of all sizes, shapes, and abilities feel welcome, loved and empowered.
Traci Copeland
Traci Copeland, who was a competitive gymnast for more than a decade, offers online yoga tutorials on her IG and hosts classes as a Nike Master Trainer. Her fun, upbeat vibe will have anyone wanting to do a handstand---well, at least, attempt to.
Lana Ector
Lana Ector is a powerhouse who took the fitness world by storm as one-half of a mother-daughter duo that gave new meaning to the popular phrase, "She get it from her mama." The co-founder of Gymnetics Fitness also holds her own as an entrepreneur, having launched the Double Body Curve waist sculptor.
Nicci Robinson
Nicci Robinson is all about the gains and gives her all in the realm of weightlifting and toning. She also offers training programs to meet specific targets including increasing lean muscle mass and back and arm sculpting.
Monique Collier
Monique Collier has a decade of personal training and health coaching under her belt and her gym sessions, which she features prominently on her IG page, promote a can't-stop-won't-stop energy that's utterly contagious.
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Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
Why Do Millennials & Gen-Zers Still Feel Like Teenagers? The Pandemic Might Be The Reason.
There’s nothing quite as humbling as navigating adulthood with no instruction manual. Since the turn of the decade, it seems like everything in our society that could go wrong has, inevitably, gone wrong. From the global pandemic, our crippling student debt problem, the loneliness crisis, layoffs, global warming, recession, and not to mention figuring out what to eat for dinner every night. This constant state of uncertainty has many of us wondering, when are the grown-ups coming to fix all of this?
But the catch is, we are the new grown-ups.
As if it happened without our permission, we became the new adults. We are the members of society who are paying taxes, having children, getting married, and keeping our communities afloat, one iced latte at a time. Still, there’s something about doing all these grown-up duties that feel unnaturally grown-up. Enter the #teenagegirlinher20s.
If there’s one hashtag to give you the state of the next cohort of adults, it’s this one. Of the videos that have garnered over 3.9M views, you’ll find a collection of users who are overwhelmed by life’s pressing existential responsibilities, clung to nostalgia, and reminiscent of the days when their mom and dad took care of their insurance plans.
@charlies444ngel no like i cant explain to her why i had to buy multiple tank air dupes from aritzia #teenagegirlinher20s #fyp
The concept of being a 20-something or 30-something teenager is linked to the sentiment of not feeling “grown up enough” to do grown-up things while feeling underprepared and even nihilistic about whether that preparation even matters.
It’s our generation’s version of when we ask our grandmothers how old they are and they simply reply with, “I still feel 45,” all while being every bit of 76 years old. In this, we share a warped concept of time while clinging to a desire for infantilization.
Granted, the pandemic did a number on our concept of time. Many of us who started the pandemic in our early or mid-20s missed out on three fundamental years of socialization, career development, and personal milestones that traditionally help to mark our growth.
Our time to figure out and plan our next steps through fumbling yet active participation was put on pause indefinitely and then resumed provisionally. This in turn has left many of us hanging in the balance of uncertainty as we try to make sense of the disconnect between our minds and bodies in this missing gap of time.
Because we’re all still figuring out what the ramifications of being locked away and frozen in time by a global pandemic will have on us as a society, there really is no “right” way of making up for lost time. Feeling unprepared for any new chapter of life is a natural rite of passage, pandemic or not. However, it’s important to not stay stuck in the last age or period of life that made sense to us because self-growth is the truest evidence of personal progress.
So whether you’re leaning on your inner child, teenager, or 20-something for guidance as you fill the gap between your real age and pandemic age, know that it’s okay to grieve the person you thought you would be and the milestones you thought you’d hit before you ever knew what a pandemic was. If there’s anything that the pandemic taught us, it’s that we have the power to reimagine a better world and life for ourselves. And if we tap into our inner teenager as a compass, we can piece together our next chapter with a fresh outlook.
Sure, we’ve lost a couple of years, but there are still some really amazing ones ahead.
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