Have We Taken the Protein Craze Too Far?

It’s hard to scroll social media without coming across a video from a creator who “prioritizes protein” or has a strict daily protein goal. 

These creators will show us all the things they do to hit these protein goals: Everything from making high-protein desserts to chugging egg whites to incorporating protein bars and powders and popcorn and cold foam and…well, you get the picture.

Obviously, protein is important…but has the craze gotten out of hand? It feels like we’ve reached a place where we can’t just eat something without making sure it is protein-ized, even if that something is a cookie or a bowl or ice cream. 

Anna Bohnengel, a registered dietician, agrees: The protein craze has gotten a little out of hand — at least to some degree. But that’s not to say protein is not incredibly important. 

“Many people are now chasing numbers with powders and bars instead of building meals from whole foods. Highly processed protein supplements often displace fiber, phytonutrients, and micronutrients that you get with real food sources like eggs, beans, dairy, fish, and meat,” says Bohnengel. “There are also legitimate concerns around contaminants, added sugars, artificial sweeteners, and poor bioavailability in some powders and bars.”

And this — this is exactly what feels so contradictory about the diet and wellness crazes we’re being fed (no pun intended). On the one hand, we’re told to focus on eating “clean” whole foods, yet on the other, we’re told to protein-ify every single thing we eat, and sometimes, those two things feel at odds with one another. 

The exact solution here isn’t super clear, but I do think it’s worth taking a step back and reevaluating how fixated we’ve all become on making every single thing “protein-packed”.

Here’s what we ought to keep in mind: “Hitting a protein target matters,” says Bohnengel. “But not at the expense of other nutrient & health concerns."

Ask Clara:

"How much protein should I be eating?"

Is There a Perfect Way to Announce Your Pregnancy to a Friend Struggling With Infertility?

When I was going through infertility, hearing friends announce their own pregnancies felt like salt being poured into my wounds. It wasn’t just painful, it was uncomfortable. I felt like everyone was looking at me to gauge my reaction.

Because of this, I preferred to receive pregnancy news from friends via text or email, but even those always seemed to strike a nerve for me. It just feels like when it comes to telling a friend who is struggling with fertility stuff about your own pregnancy, there’s just no right way to do it.

Recently, I came across a post from Lucky Sekhon, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist, who shared an incredibly thoughtful message from one friend to another.

In the message, the pregnant woman shares that she has been thinking of the friend going through IVF ever since she learned of her pregnancy, and wanted to give the other woman plenty of time to process the news. “I so wish I was sharing this with you at a different stage in your own journey,” she writes. 

But even in the comments of Dr. Sekhon’s post, people are divided. “Do not text. If this is a close friend it should be in person if possible. If I got this in a text Id be upset. This happened to me. I was doing fertility with multiple losses. My best friend, unmarried and not trying got pregnant, came over and told me before anyone,” one commenter writes. Personally, I disagree — but that just goes to show that there’s no perfect way to do this.

And while many commenters call this “beautiful”, some find it a touch condescending, or say it veers into toxic positivity territory. And truly? I don’t know how I would have felt if I had received a message quite like this one. Yes, it’s very, very thoughtful — but would it have made me feel like I was being pitied a bit? 

The thing is, when you’re going through infertility, you’re basically a bundle of exposed nerves. So many things hurt you or feel wildly insensitive because you’re just in so much pain. But I think the issue here is that there’s just no perfect way to navigate this particular issue of telling someone you’re pregnant when you know they are working through fertility challenges. It all just comes down to approaching the issue with as much sensitivity as possible.

Ask Clara:

"How can I support a friend going through infertility?"

Let's Unpack TikTok's 'Headband Theory' and the 'I'm Just a Girl' Trope

I'll admit it: When I first started hearing the phrase "I'm just a girl" on social media, I was fully on board. It felt like the cute, cheeky reclamation of girliness — a way for us to proudly declare that we hold on to girlhood throughout our lives. 

But there's a fine line between celebrating girlhood and participating in the infantilization of women. And I feel like a lot of the conversations I've come across on social media have gone too far in the latter direction.

Take the “headband theory” that’s going around right now. In a viral video, a young woman talks about a theory she and her friends have: They wear headbands to work every so often. “It signifies to people you’re working with that you are in fact just a girl”, she says.

But…why are we still shrinking ourselves in this way? We’re not “just” girls. This isn’t just about words. It’s about the way women are never taken seriously, and how instead of pushing back against that, we’re contributing to it by playing into the stereotypes.

Maybe there’s the illusion of protection when we lean into the “just a girl” thing, but ultimately, all what we’re really doing is positioning ourselves as  less capable and competent and less worthy of being listened to than we truly are. 

And being listened to, heard, taken seriously, is already such a hurdle women face in every part of their lives, from career, to health, to relationships, and everything in between. Why are we contributing to this?

Ask Clara:

"What happens when we don't listen to women?"

Can We Finally Start Taking Hyperemesis Gravidarum Seriously, Please?

I just came across a story of a mother who came close to terminating her pregnancy due to how debilitating her symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum were. And in my opinion, the main takeaway from her story, which was shared by BBC, isn’t about choice — it’s about how our world views pregnant bodies as vessels. We don’t care much about how women feel in their bodies, especially during pregnancy. If we did, we would take conditions like hyperemesis gravidarum more seriously.

Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is a condition that causes intense sickness throughout a pregnancy. This particular mom, who considered terminating her second pregnancy (which was unplanned), could barely care for herself, let alone her child, while dealing with HG. This tracks: Everyone I've spoken to who has had HG reports that they could barely function. It was, in their words, "absolute hell". 

The mom in question did not terminate her pregnancy — and luckily, she found relief. She was able to get her hands on xonvea, a drug that is not routinely prescribed in the UK — this woman was only able to access the drug because she reportedly had an ectopic pregnancy scare for which she saw a physician who was able to prescribe the medication. Her story could have taken a very different turn without this. Last year, a woman died by suicide while dealing with HG, according to ITV.

And listen. This is a big topic that brings in many other big topics. But here’s my takeaway from all this: We need to start taking women and their concerns, pain, and discomfort more seriously. And the lack of understanding and accessible treatments underscores just how little we care about helping women when they’re suffering — and how truly dangerous this can be.

Ask Clara:

"What is hyperemesis gravidarum?"

Snowed In and Slowed Down

I’m writing to you from my house, which is where I’ve been snowed in for the past five days (and counting). The weather in my city is bad enough that my kids have been out of school all week, but not bad enough that my husband’s business trip was cancelled. So I’m here: Solo parenting and managing my kids virtual learning while also working. It has been a lot, yet also…kind of relaxing in a strange way.

Being snowed in feels a lot like the early days of the pandemic. There’s nowhere to go and not much to do, yet so, so much to manage and think about — and so much that exists outside your control, which is a weird feeling for…well, most millennial women, who tend to thrive on being in control.

How exactly does this relate to women’s health? I suppose it doesn’t exactly. But it does all feel very relevant to the idea of wellness.

A snowstorm invites you to lower the expectations, adjust the standards to which you hold yourself. That’s the tension so many of us feel when it comes to wellness: We know that sometimes, the healthiest thing we can do is give ourselves a break, a rest, or some grace. Yet we also know that sometimes pushing through and getting in that workout, or cooking that nutritious dinner instead of ordering pizza is the healthy choice. 

I guess that’s why I’ve been really connecting this snowstorm experience to the larger concept of wellness. Grocery deliveries are limited (and I’m not about to load two kids up to drive through the storm), so meals are just simple and made up of what we have. Exercise is very much on the back burner at the moment. And a friend of mine who was attempting dry January recently shared that the snowstorm made her ditch the attempt. A glass of wine at the end of the day helps her unwind, she says.

Ultimately, we’re doing what we have to do to get through this disruption to our routine, and that’s okay. But there's also this guilt of being off our game, out of our habits, and just generally...kind of functioning at a lower level, I guess.

The timing is especially interesting: While many people are probably still working to maintain their resolutions for the year, this snowstorm kind of asks us to throw the goals out the window.  And for me at least, this type of thing always makes me thing about it truly means to pursue wellness.

Ask Clara:

"What is the difference between health and wellness?"

Are We Wasting Our Precious Time on Earth Worrying About Beauty Standards?

Not to take this to a morbid place, but we have one life, and it’s not going to last forever. And the only thing we’ll have for the duration of that limited lifetime is…well, ourselves.

Our bodies are our forever homes, yet we live in a world that makes us spend our time fixating on all the things that are wrong with those bodies. This has always been a thing, especially for women. I don’t know if there was ever a time when women weren’t made to feel like their value could be distilled down to how closely they matched up to the beauty standard. But now, there’s more to process than ever…and it’s exhausting.

That’s why, when I came across this post on Instagram, I literally let our a massive sigh of relief. We spend so much time and energy in 2026 thinking about all the ways we can alter our looks, and at some point…well, it kind of feels like a waste of time.

In the video, creator Hayley Hoover points out the amount of time we spend thinking about “hip dips and lip flips and microdermabrasion and lipo 360” and protein intake and…well, all the things. Honestly, I’m tired just beginning to think about the full list of aesthetic pursuits Hoover mentions. 

I reached out to Hoover and she told me a bit more about the inspiration for the video. 

“This video is really a message to myself,” she said. “It came to me after a long scrolling session, where I just felt totally bombarded by man-made terms for man-made concepts that were created just to stir up my insecurities. I really needed to remind myself that I don't have to let beauty industry marketing get under my skin.”

Listen, this is all so complicated. I believe we as women have the right to do the things that make us feel better about ourselves — and if that includes calculating the optimal amount of protein proportionate to our body weight, or going under the knife, or getting Botox, or whatever…that’s for each of us to decide.

But I do think it’s important that we realize how all-consuming these standards have become, and how hard they’ve made us on ourselves. 

We don’t have forever in our bodies. And I’ve got to say it: We’re wasting some of that precious time.

Ask Clara:

"How do beauty standards affect women?"

I'm Turning to Escapism During This Dark Time — and I'm Still Trying Not to Feel Guilty About That

It has been a hard, heavy few days. Oh, who are we kidding? It's honestly been a hard, heavy few years.

I know I'm not alone in feeling pulled under by the state of the world right now. For me, and I'm sure many of you, it feels like I'm playing a constant game of emotional ping pong, my thoughts bouncing back and forth between dread and the mundane realities of real life. As hard as it is to show up in real life, we have to — for our jobs, our families, our responsibilities.

And between the mental load of life and the dread of living in this timeline, it feels like I have very little room for joy and escapism...but I also know that I owe it to myself to find those pockets for me.

And so for me, that looks like finding avenues for escapism. It means getting invested in a TV show (Tell Me Lies is so good and made for us millennials). It means treating myself to a new cozy sweatsuit, because sometimes physical comfort helps bring emotional comfort as well. It means reading lots of romance (I typically prefer thrillers or heavier reads in the winter, but this year, I'm sticking with my spicy romance novels even through the colder months).

I won't lie. I have a lot of guilt when I find myself caring about things that feel really frivolous right now, and this is something I've been struggling with for years at this point. Maybe even my entire adult life.

But the reality is, there's always something heavy happening. A school shooting, a natural disaster, a humanitarian crisis...the list goes on and on. And we can't harden ourselves and stop caring...but we also can't let it consume us entirely, and finding the line between those two things is incredibly hard.

This is something we struggle with so much as women: We hold the world’s burdens on our shoulders, and we have a really hard time not beating ourselves up if we focus on the things that take us out of the darkness. But we owe it to ourselves to indulge in healthy doses of escapism. Because it’s not healthy to carry the weight all the time. We all deserve to put it down and allow ourselves moments of frivolity. 

Emotionally, I truly believe that is one of the greatest challenges we face as women: The constant tendency to put our own needs last. We have to fight that tendency — and remind each other that it’s okay to care about the light things that bring us out of the darkness.

Ask Clara:

"How can escapism help us in tough times? "

Wait, We're Still Doing the Surrogacy Shaming Thing in 2026?

So Meghan Trainor recently welcomed her third baby, and when announcing the baby's birth, the singer revealed that the baby was born via surrogate. 

Cue the opinions of the masses. Because any time a woman makes a choice around her own life, motherhood, and body...well, that's ripe for public criticism, right?

A few of the comments on Trainor's post include statements like "surrogacy shouldn’t be a thing. it is not ok to exploit women for their wombs" and "poor baby and mom. This is so dystopian and unnatural". One commenter asks: "How have we, as a society, come to normalize this?"

To which I ask: How have we, as a society, come to normalize being so judgmental of women and the reproductive decisions they make?

Trainor doesn't owe the public answers, but she does provide a bit of context.

"It wasn’t our first choice, but we had endless conversations with our doctors on this journey, and this was the safest way for us to be able to continue growing our family," she tells PEOPLE. "We are forever grateful for that option."

A lot of people are assuming that Trainor, who many people speculate is on Ozempic, turned to surrogacy to avoid pregnancy weight gain. We don't have the answers as to why exactly Trainor went the surrogacy route. We also don't deserve them. 

But what we need to remember is this. Trainor has written about suffering PTSD after delivering her son. Maybe that's a "good enough" reason for her to pursue surrogacy for some people, but here's the thing: We don't get to make those decisions. It doesn't matter if we deem her reasons "vain" or "valid". Because at the end of the day, it's not our body, not our baby, not our business.

Ask Clara:

"What are some common misconceptions about surrogacy?"

Is 'Emotional Outsourcing' the New Relationship Trend?

I haven't been single for 14 years, and as you can imagine, the world has changed a lot since then. I see so many obvious shifts, from the change in social behaviors, to the increase in digital dependence....and of course, all that affects how people are dating too.

There's a whole new lexicon, for starters. Ghosting, situationships...and now, emotional outsourcing has entered the chat.

Dating.com released its Millennial Intimacy Forecast for 2026, and coined the term to describe a new dating trend. Here's what emotional outsourcing looks like: Rather than putting all their eggs in one proverbial basket, people may start spreading their energy across multiple connections. 

Data from Dating.com backs this up: Nearly half their survey respondents said they'd be open to splitting their relationships, using one to satisfy their physical needs and another for emotional connection, for example. Enter: Emotional outsourcing, which may occur when a person is in a relationship, but has a digital connection they can open up to in different ways. 

But…is this a recipe for disaster? I have a hard time imagining that things wouldn’t get messy in a situation like this, but as always, communication is key.

“The research found that 40% say having a platonic online soulmate while in a relationship is acceptable, and this is happening more every day. People are finding that they are not emotionally fulfilled in their relationships, so they seek out a person online with whom they have a strictly emotional connection. If both parties are on board, then it can work,” says  Jaime Bronstein, LCSW , resident expert at Dating.com. “Both people need to be honest if they are going to enter into an online relationship while staying committed to each other.”

It sounds complicated, but the expert says this helps some people open up in new ways. 

“I also see that many couples are in open relationships today than ever before,” says Bronstein. “It is becoming a very popular way of life for some couples.”

Ask Clara:

"What is an open relationship?"

The Food Pyramid Just Flipped. Here's What That Means.

You may have seen that the food pyramid — yes, that thing we were all taught about in elementary school but probably haven't really considered since — flipped earlier this month, when the Department of Agriculture released a new set of dietary guidelines.

While the pyramid many of us grew up with featured a base of grains, the updated version places protein, dairy, and produce at the largest point of the pyramid. This isn’t terribly surprising: We have definitely been more focused on protein and fiber intake in recent years. But what does this mean in a larger context?

Our go-to registered dietician Anna Bohengel weighed in on the changes and the larger implications of them.

“The original U.S. food pyramid (1992) emphasized low-fat eating and placed carb-rich foods at the base. A ‘flipped’ pyramid prioritizing protein, fiber-rich plants, and healthy fats is now touted in the wellness world as a course correction — but an important shift already occurred with the USDA’s MyPlate model (2011), which urged filling half the plate with fruits and vegetables, 25% with protein, and 25% with grains,” she says.

When I saw this news, I found myself wondering if it would really have a major effect. After all, most of us don’t spend much time thinking about the food pyramid in adulthood. And when it comes to messages about what we “should” be eating and prioritizing in our diets? Well, it already feels like the advice is constantly changing.

According to Bohnengel, the overall impact of this is debatable. “Adherence is low, with most Americans’ diets falling well short of recommendations,” she says. “That said, a flipped food pyramid could have ripple effects beyond individual choice — it influences what millions of children and families receive through school meals, WIC food packages, and SNAP.” 

We’ll have to see if policy follows suit, according to Bohnengel. But if it does, we could see public health impact from these revised guidelines.

“We could see more protein, produce, and healthy fats replace ultra-refined grains and added sugars that disproportionately contribute to metabolic conditions and nutrient gaps in low-income communities,” says Bohnengel. “Done well, this shift could strengthen preventive cardiometabolic health at the population level.”

Ask Clara:

"How much protein should I be eating?"