Happy lazy Sunday afternoon! Welcome to another edition of The Skinny Mini, which will take you exactly 1.5 minutes to read. This is designed to help enhance your Sunday by inspiring you to enjoy the day with activities that simply make you feel good. As one of our subscribers told us: “You’re like my favorite magazine, just without all the annoying pop-up ads.” 

(And for anyone new here, this is The Skinny, a free newsletter designed to entertain and save you time, which is everyone’s most valuable resource.)

What we’re covering in today’s news: 

• The Sicily edit: passeggiatas, pomegranates & spritzes

• Secret spots to peep the leaves 

• A practical (and cozy) guide to sweater weather 

• Micro meditations, the TJ’s tote with hyped-up resell value & loungewear with built-in bras

We love an entertaining, 2-second poll—and in honor of one of our favorite recent items on fall décor trends—we would LOVE it if you answered this question: 

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Walk this way

A healthy postcard from Sicily

The Skinny: Buon pomeriggio, lettori! Reporting live from Sicily, we’d like to first discuss the art of the after-dinner walk known as the passeggiata. This is not a new topic for us, but it's worth emphasizing the beauty of putting it into practice (ideally, against the backdrop of a setting Sicilian sun) and we hope this embodiment of fitness, wellness & fashion is finally getting the stateside attention it deserves. While it is a worldwide custom with 10 different terms for this activity, including “toddle” and “stroll,” the Italian word is sexier and therefore makes us more likely to actually do it. So whether it’s a śatapāvalī or a verdauungs spaziergang, here is why it’s so beneficial and could be the simplest possible way to help improve health. 

Directions: 

• Eat dinner 

• Get off your a$$ and walk a minimum of 3 minutes, ideally up to 20

• That’s all!

Use your post-meal walk for socializing, or time alone to meditate. If you’re looking for a way to ease into this new routine, we have the perfect passeggiata Spotify playlist. 

Add to cart for your next after-dinner walk: 

• Our favorite headphones ever.

• Best sneakers to walk in—Jill has these from On and is currently Euro-strolling about in them. Supportive, comfortable, lightweight and slip on and off. 

• We bought this athleisure skort on the last Prime Day and we would (and probably will) buy it again.

• For the gents, we have the men’s skort equivalent for you as well! You know you’re feeling these athletic shorts with liner that cost around $20 and comfortable for toddling about. 

• As temps drop, get yourself a matching two-piece set: this is comfy and comes in a bazillion colors, so choose one that will keep you motivated to walk after dinner.  

More Sicily-inspired news includes:

• The fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice Jill was scoring for 5 EURO a cup, which was the freshest and most delicious pick-me-up she’d ever tasted. Taste aside, from a clinical nutrition perspective the stunning pomegranate packs a ton of nutrients and special benefits for men—and if you only need one reason to drink (or eat) pomegranates, the doctor in the above article says that "It has the largest and most potent polyphenol antioxidant” that is known. 

• For dessert, or anytime, the spritz to order and seek out is the Limoncello Spritz—proudly on display here in our IG spritz carousel.

Peep this

Secret fall foliage hot spots

The Skinny: Hey New England, we love you, but you’re not the only region with its fair share of mind blowing fall foliage! For nature’s annual leaf-changing event, we’re not sure what we can tell you that is new, but hopefully this story of the best places in the U.S. to leaf-peep that aren’t New England will serve as inspiration to get out on a road or trail. Because getting outside in the fall is as good as it gets for a fresh mental perspective. If you’re planning a foliage road trip, look no further than the trusted Farmer’s Almanac, which has a foliage predictor and all the science behind the changing scenery. 

Other hot foliage tips from the reddit threads: 

• Blue Ridge Parkway

• NW PA: “it slaughters” New England

• Great Smoky Mountain National Park “can’t be beat”

• The upper Midwest

Sweater weather

It’s officially cozy time

The Skinny: Break out the turtlenecks, v-necks, cardigans, ’90s-inspired collared and cashmere…these are the sweater styles to look for this fall (for women), the best men’s and women’s cashmere sweaters and aside from that, for your Sunday cozies: 

The best way to tie a sweater: Look No. 4 is in full force on the streets of Soho, and we love it for the reason explained by this author: it’s the edgy way to meet in the middle if you don’t want to go too grunge (around waist) or preppy (around shoulder). 

How to wash a sweater: Nicole has not sent a sweater to the dry cleaner in 10+ years and her tried-and-true formula is washing them on cold/delicate in the actual washing machine with The Laundress’ Wool & Cashmere Shampoo. Dry on racks, they smell great, done. Yes, you can do it (and Martha Stewart even backs us up—noted in link below)! 

Storing sweaters: The best guide we found for storing sweaters, included a tip we had not heard: using cotton bags instead of plastic. We also live by the rule of making sure to wash before storing, since pests are attracted to the tiniest drop of food or oil on a sweater. And if you have just a small hole or holes, we have also discovered that the internet yields a wealth of how-tos about how to stitch up so you keep your sweater for a couple more years (we’ve tried, and it works).

Ohm, there’s more

This week’s newsfeed

• Because we do sometimes relax and unwind with “Dairy Trends News,” ICYMI they’re reporting butter prices are down this week. 

• Mini-meditations are a thing; here’s how and why to find time for them. 

• Find your drugstore beauty vibe, based on your Zodiac sign. 

• This week’s grocery store news: 75% of costco stores have sold out of gold bars and this $3 mini Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bag hauled in $500 on the resale market.

• No need to burn the bra, just don’t use one: thanks to an alert reader for tipping us off to Skivys, which makes loungewear, “side hustle” dresses and more with built in bras so you can go from bed to pickup/errands to a Zoom call—all without changing your undergarments.

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