Happy Sunday! (And for anyone new, this is The Skinny, a free newsletter with an entertaining take on this week's lifestyle news and designed to save you time, which is everyone's most valuable resource. The goal: stop mindless scrolling, live a better and more informed life.)

What we're covering today:

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The Skinny: How do you hit your protein goals when you don’t want to drink lunch through a straw using a tub of mystery powder? While powders score points for convenience, eating actual food is the smarter protein move for satiety (they take longer to break down, so you’re less hungry longer) and nutritional intake (real foods naturally have additional cofactor ingredients, which are often stripped from protein powders during manufacturing).

First, does protein intake matter, and how much? Stanford's lifestyle medicine team recommends 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for adults over 50, so for example: about 90 to 120 grams a day for a 165-pound person, or roughly double the federal guideline. Per meal, dietitians still say 20 to 30 grams for most of us, but the old rule that your body can only use 30 grams at once is out: a Maastricht University study found a 100-gram serving kept working longer than 25 grams, at least in young men after a workout. Translation: a nice steak dinner isn't wasted.

For the spooners: Cottage cheese, which we've been cooking with since E40's cottage cheese scramble. The rest of the country caught up: sales topped $2 billion in 2025, up 82% since the end of 2022, and stores ran short. A half cup of full-fat has about 14 grams. Empty shelf? The same AARP story's swaps:

For the curd-averse, try Friendship Dairies, which whips its cottage cheese smooth enough to spread on toast, no watery runoff, with 16 grams of protein per half cup in the 1% version.

Make it:

1) Jill's Penance Skillet. After a trip, or any week that went off the rails, Jill browns 1 pound of ground beef, chicken or turkey, adds each and every vegetable she can find (fresh, frozen, whatever you have) in the house (esp a whole bag of spinach, which shrinks down to nothing), and she finishes it with one sauce (spaghetti sauce, Frontera pouch, or Soy Vey Asian) and she eats it for 2 to 3 days. Get Jill's recipe. Problem solved.

2) Nicole’s Swicy Cottage Cheese Toast: Ready in 30 seconds, looks pretty, tastes delish. Use any old bread or English Muffin sitting around, top with cottage cheese, drizzle with hot honey and EVOO, top with sweet pepper flakes.

Pick-six snacks: For the no-cook, grab-and-go crew, 6 snacks and their grams (some from Nutrition Advance's high-protein snack list):

Our take: You don't need a blender. You need a fridge with a plan. Pick 1 from each list and the grams start adding up, no straw involved.

Reply and tell us your no-blender protein move. The best one runs next week.

The Skinny: It’s Marathon Day in NYC, aka when the streets along the route are the happiest in town with the drive and excitement of 60 thousand runners pounding through. The hype and vibe today was real, and Nicole hit Fourth Ave. this morning trying to [unsuccessfully] cheer on some friends and, as always, was blown away by the energy of the runners’ sheer, adrenaline-fueled joy.

So, back in E18 we wrote about the art of not running in your running shoes, and how the category has expanded beyond shoes you actually use for their intended design: obviously, running. (Team Nicole: lace up. Team Jill: only run if you're being chased, which is a rule borrowed from our friend Salty's brother-in-law.

Today, running clubs on Strava grew 3.5x in 2025, and new clubs nearly quadrupled, bringing the total to 1 million.

HOKAs over handbags: We’re on board with the value of an IRL athletic achievement as a status symbol. The 2025 New York City Marathon had a record 59,226 runners, and 25- to 29-year-olds were the biggest group, nearly 25% of the field (this year’s numbers not in yet). Fortune says Gen Z "has dismissed dreams of owning a Birkin bag and has picked up sneakers instead," and 1 influencer told them running the marathon is "huge clout". Jill, for the record, will take the Birkin, thank you.

For the run-curious (and the run-averse): Marathon not required!

Good news for your knees: A review of 17 studies covering 7,194 runners found running is not associated with worsening knee osteoarthritis. Follow these Cleveland Clinic tips for happy knees:

For anyone with a love-hate relationship, (or you just hate running) talk about how you really feel with the "Running Sucks" trucker from our friend's company, Ski Town All-Stars: $38, designed and assembled in Vail. Their motto: "Attitude at every altitude."

Our take: Join a run club, or just run to the mailbox and back. 5 minutes counts.

The Skinny: Alaïa's Rhinestone Ballet Flat, lambskin densely dotted in rhinestones with a buckle strap, is $1,450 at Nordstrom. Jill's are Target's $39.99 Issa Rhinestone Mary Jane, and they sold out so fast they now only turn up on resale. She gets stopped for compliments every time she wears them, and nearly put them in the donate pile. They're staying. The lesson: when a dupe is this good, buy it now. If you missed the boat on Target, H&M's Rhinestone-Embellished Ballet Flats are $34.99, and they won't be around forever either.

The math: the $1,410.01 difference buys about 457 hot dogs at Yankee Stadium ($3.08 each, for Nicole, a Yankees fan) or 225 Fenway Franks ($6.25 each, for Jill, Red Sox all the way), because in this newsletter even the hot dogs have a rivalry. Or, just down the road, 11 of the cheapest seats to see Oasis at Gillette Stadium next August, $122.65 each with fees, if you'd snagged them before they sold out. The last time we ran these numbers, it was Target's $30 kitten heels against a $1,190 original.

Verdict: Dupe it.

The Skinny: Jill is writing this 1 from the lanai. The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opened in 1965 as the Big Island's first resort, Laurance S. Rockefeller's idea, and reopened this summer after the biggest renovation in its history, reported at about $240 million: all 252 rooms redone, the mid-century lobby and tile kept.

How it got built: Hawaii's governor brought Rockefeller over in 1960. He spotted Kauna'oa Bay from the air, floated in it, and that was that. Parker Ranch owner Richard Smart leased him 500 acres for 99 years and called it "land the cows don't like, but the tourists love". The site had no roads, no power and no fresh water. Robert Trent Jones worked out how to turn lava rock into soil so the golf greens could grow, the roof got black beach pebbles from more than 90 miles away, and the job took about 1.5 million hours of work. It opened July 2, 1965, for more than $15 million.

Free things, coming soon: our favorite free things to do at Mauna Kea (1 is a secret) land on Instagram this week. Follow @theskinnynews so you don't miss it.

Next week: the house cocktail a guest invented here goes head to head with the mai tai, plus the hotel merch everyone on property is wearing.

PS: More from the Big Island all month. Reply with the one Hawaii spot you'd send us to next.

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