icon-account icon-glass

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.

Innermost Recommends: September 2020

28th September 2020

28th September 2020

By Innermost

This month at Innermost, we’ve been thinking all about the idea of slowing down, resting, resetting, and readjusting to the 'new normal'. In today's busy world it's easy to forget that sometimes we all need to take a moment to pause. We wanted to find out more about how we could do this through what we've been reading, watching and doing this month, and with books, TV shows and more, we've found some amazing advice and life lessons. We love sharing our finds with the Innermost community, so without further ado here’s what we got up to in September.

Reading...

 

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

“This book about sleep, news, social media, addiction, work and play in the digital age is unbelievably honest, personal and motivating. It helps me look at life and think about how it’s all connected and in need of balance. It's one to make you feel whole again.” - Allison

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

“This is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel about love and friendship, and the limits of human endurance. Tracing the stories of four classmates who move to New York, we witness their relationships become affected by ambition, pride, success and addiction.” - Grace

The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World by Haemin Sunim

“The world moves so fast these days that it’s easy to forget to slow down. This amazing book is a great guide to mindfulness, and offers brilliant advice on everything from dealing with setbacks to handling your relationships. Absolutely not to be missed.” - Robyn

Dune by Frank Herbert

“Frequently cited as one of the best sci-fi stories of all time, I had to squeeze this one in before the film with my fave Timothée Chalamet comes out in a few months. At over 600 pages it's a bit of a tome, but I'm told it's one of those stories where knowing the book will make the film all the more enjoyable.” - Catherine


Watching...

Schitt's Creek

“I've watched it before and I'll watch it again! I always try to put something on that makes me laugh and is easy to watch. Alexis Rose, one of the main characters, always cracks me up or at least motivates me to do everything with a bit more pep.” - Allison

Chef’s Table: BBQ on Netflix

“For this season of the Emmy-nominated food series, we go deep into the world of all things barbecue. Featuring some of the best chefs in the business from the USA, Australia and Mexico, you’ll be left with your mouth watering.” - Grace

Get Organized with The Home Edit on Netflix

“This eight-part series sees super organisers Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin help a range of both celebrities and regular people clear and de-clutter their homes. As a clean freak myself, I love seeing how they help change peoples’ lives by showing them how to organise their personal space. An incredibly satisfying watch.” - Robyn


The Social Dilemma
on Netflix

This new documentary explores the dark side of social media and the industry at large. Are we in control, or even aware, of the direction that such technologies are heading? Do we truly understand the damaging effects that social media has on ourselves as individuals and within society? Can we trust some of the largest companies in the world to remain ethical? Super eye-opening.” - Catherine

Doing...

Yoga nidra

“Here at Innermost HQ we’ve been loving yoga nidra. Also known as yogic sleep, yoga nidra is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, typically induced by a guided meditation. We recently took part in a session hosted by Kanan Thakerar (@kananyogabliss) that left us all feeling ultra relaxed and ready for bed.” - Shiv

Baking

“I used to bake all the time as I found it really therapeutic and a great way to relax and de-stress. I think I missed the boat with the banana bread trend at the start of lockdown that everyone got on board with, but I’m definitely getting back into the swing of things now. The Hummingbird Bakery’s cookbooks are my all time favourites to get inspiration from.” - Robyn


Journaling

“Recently I’ve been journaling in the morning. My day seems to start on such a brighter note whenever I take the time to journal my thoughts when I wake up. Even if I'm trying to do it quickly, I’ll at least just jot down a few things I'm grateful for.” - Allison

Smoothies and juicing 

“After watching Reese Witherspoon make her morning green smoothie, I’ve been experimenting with different ingredients and variations myself. It’s a great way to hit your body with loads of nutrients in one go and it keeps you feeling fuller for longer. Perfect for when you’ve been feeling a bit run down or under the weather!” - Grace

Morning walks

“Getting up an hour earlier to enjoy a walk in the autumn sunshine before work makes me feel on top of the day and ready to take everything in my stride. It feels great to be out in the fresh air and soaking up nature - find a local park or trail if you can! - and it really calms and focuses my mind for the day ahead.” - Catherine

 

That's all for September. But if you can't wait until October and want to see what we got up to last month in August, check it out here

Need Expert Advice?

Other Insights

The Glow Blend: A Confession
I need to tell you something I've never said publicly, and it's not flattering. When our product team first brought me a plan for a collagen supplement, my honest reaction was no. Not "let me think about it." A flat no. And if I'm being fully honest about why, it wasn't the science. It was that collagen felt, in my head, like a beauty category. Something for someone else's brand. Not ours. I built Innermost around performance and evidence. Protein, creatine, mushrooms, electrolytes. Things I could point to a study for and feel comfortable talking about at a dinner table full of people who workout regularly. Collagen sat in a different mental folder. Skincare aisle. Jars with gold lids and brand sponsorship by one of the Kardashians. I'd absorbed a version of what "beauty" meant without ever examining it. The argument in the room So we had the argument internally. A proper one. A few people on the team pushed back hard, and rightly so. One of them put it to me plainly: we started Innermost to follow the evidence wherever it goes, not to follow it everywhere except the places that feel awkward. That line stuck with me. Here's what changed my mind, and it wasn't a feeling. It was the research. What the evidence actually says Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's structural, it's in your skin, your joints, your gut lining, and production declines steadily from your mid-twenties onward. That's not a marketing claim, that's basic physiology. The question was never whether collagen matters. It was whether supplementing it actually does anything, and that's where most of the category falls apart. Most collagen products on the market use whole collagen molecules, which are too large to be absorbed effectively when you drink them. The ones that do use hydrolysed peptides, which are broken down into smaller chains your body can actually take up, still run into a second problem: dose. A lot of labels list collagen content that sits well below the 2 to 10 grams used in the trials that show measurable effects on skin elasticity and hydration. You're paying for a placebo with good branding. The ingredient most brands leave out The third problem is the one that convinced me completely. Vitamin C isn't a nice-to-have alongside collagen. It's a required co-factor for your body to actually synthesise collagen at the cellular level. Without adequate vitamin C, the enzymes responsible for stabilising collagen structure don't function properly. You can take a perfectly dosed hydrolysed peptide and still get a fraction of the benefit if the product doesn't include enough vitamin C alongside it. Most don't. They sell you the raw material and leave out the one thing your body needs to use it. Once I saw the category clearly, laid out like that, the decision stopped being about how I felt and started being about what the evidence supported. That's the whole operating principle of Innermost. I couldn't defend saying no to a legitimate, well-evidenced product category. What we built So we built The Glow Blend properly. Hydrolysed collagen peptides at a dose that reflects the research, alongside vitamin C, hyaluronic acid for hydration, biotin and folic acid for hair and nail health. Nothing in it that doesn't earn its place. What surprised me after launch The part I didn't expect was the response once we launched it. A good number of the messages came from women, as you'd expect, and they were generous and specific about what they'd noticed. But a surprising number came from men. Customers writing in to say they'd felt exactly what I'd felt, that awkward little flinch at "collagen," and had quietly bought it anyway because the ingredient breakdown made sense to them. That response told me more about why this category needed an honest voice in it than any research paper did. I'm not going to pretend I have this fully figured out. I still catch myself, occasionally, hesitating slightly before I mention it in a room. Old habits sit deeper than good evidence sometimes. But I take it, and increasingly a lot of men I respect take it too, quietly, without needing to make a thing of it. If this sounds familiar If any part of this resonated, and you've felt that same small resistance to a category you assumed wasn't for you, hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely like to know I'm not the only one who had to get over it. And if you know someone, a friend, a partner, who could use this exact reasoning rather than a tesimonial, forward it on. It might do more good coming from someone else's honesty. Read more
Your Summer Survival Kit (From Someone Who Travels A Lot)
I'm putting the finishing touches to this post from an airport, which feels appropriate. By my count, I'll be going through three countries in the next six weeks. Meetings, a trip to see family including my niece and nephew, a supplier visit in Italy that I've been putting off for a year. And every summer the same thing happens. The carefully built routine, the one that took months to lock in, gets thrown into a suitcase and I hope for the best. Most people react to this by either giving up on the routine entirely ("I'll sort it out when I'm back") or overpacking so aggressively that half of it never leaves the bag. I've done both. Neither works. What actually works is deciding, in advance, which two or three things earn a place in my bag and which ones can wait until September. So here's mine. Not a wellness influencer's "what's in my bag" video. An honest list, built over about a decade of getting this wrong first. Why travel breaks routines specifically It's worth being precise about what actually changes when you travel, because it isn't just "less discipline." Three things shift at once. You sweat more and drink less water than usual, because you're distracted or the flight dried you out or the hotel room is warmer than home. You're outdoors more, often somewhere sunnier than wherever you live. And your meals stop being yours. You eat what's available, when it's available, and protein is usually the first thing to slip, because sugar, carbs and fat are what's on offer at 6am airport cafes. None of this is a discipline problem. It's an environment problem. The fix is making sure two or three specific things are in my bag before I leave home, so I’m not relying on willpower to begin with. 1. Electrolytes, non-negotiable Most people remember to pack sunscreen. Almost nobody packs electrolytes, and it's the one that actually catches up with you. Water replaces volume, not what you lose through sweat, which is mostly sodium and potassium and magnesium doing the quiet work of keeping muscles firing and fluid balanced properly. Miss that balance for a few days in the heat and you get the symptoms everyone blames on jet lag: the headache, the flat energy, the slight fog by 4pm that a coffee doesn't fix. It's usually not jet lag. It's electrolytes. I take The Hydrate Blend  for exactly this reason. Six electrolytes, no sugar, no synthetic flavouring, dissolves in a bottle of water in about ten seconds. One sachet on a travel day, first thing in the morning, does more for how I feel by evening than anything else in the bag. 2. Something for the sun you're actually going to get Here's the part most people don't think about until it's too late. UV exposure accelerates collagen breakdown, which is a slightly clinical way of saying that a week of proper sun does more to skin structure than most of the year combined. This isn't about vanity. It's a straightforward mechanism: UV generates free radicals that degrade existing collagen faster than your body can replace it. Sunscreen protects against the burn. It doesn't do anything for the collagen you're losing underneath. I've been taking The Glow Blend through summer for this reason specifically. Hydrolysed collagen peptides paired with vitamin C, which matters because vitamin C is a required co-factor for collagen synthesis and most collagen products leave it out entirely, then wonder why customers don't notice anything. It won't undo a week in the sun. It gives your skin something to rebuild with while it's under more pressure than usual. 3. Protein, especially when the meals aren't yours This is the one I've learned the hard way. When your diet goes inconsistent, protein is usually the first macronutrient to drop, simply because it's the hardest to find on the move. Airport food, hotel breakfasts, whatever's left at a conference buffet by 1pm, none of it is built around protein. And the honest science here is less dramatic than people expect: you don't need to train harder to maintain muscle through a disrupted period, you need to keep protein intake somewhere close to normal. That's the whole trick. I'll say this honestly because I'd rather be straight with you than pretend otherwise: my go-to for this is still The Strong Protein (whey based) and The Health Protein (vegan). They earn their place in my bag because they travel well, mix with nothing but water, and does the one job that actually matters on the road, which is making sure protein doesn't disappear from your day just because your routine has. The actual point None of this is about maintaining perfect discipline on holiday. Nobody does that, and if a brand tells you they do, they're not being honest with you. It's about deciding in advance which three or four things matter enough to bring, so the choice isn't being made for you by whatever's in the hotel minibar. If you've got a system that works for you when you travel, reply and tell me. I read every one of these, and I'm always looking to steal a better idea for my next trip. If this is useful, forward it to whoever in your life is about to live out of a suitcase for the next few weeks. It's the email I wish someone had sent me a decade ago. Read more