Fitness

Tips for Successful Fitness Plans in the New Year

By Bryan Greene

Welcome to the New Year! 2023 here we are and now let us roll out the resolutions! The crowd favorite is always fitness. Either it is small goals of working out more or larger goals of looking like you wash clothes on your abs for a living. Whatever your fitness goal may be, make sure you know that there are possible obstacles out there that may hinder your goal or may make your goal more expensive to achieve.

Gym Membership

The number one fitness sale in the beginning of the New Year is always gym memberships. If you don’t believe it, count the membership staff at your local gym in the month of October, and then count them in the month of January. Now what you don’t know is that the gym tries to make up for the loss of income for the overstaffing or worse they are greedy and want to make twice the money. They do this with extra fees. Initiation fees, enrollment fees, towel fees, all fees to make more money from you for no justified reason. When you ask why the fees, they will give you an awful excuse that it pays for the processing then continue with excuse after excuse until you get tired and just shut them up by paying for it all. Bull excrement! Your membership fee pays for all of that. Refuse to pay it. They ultimately want your membership. Bully them, do not let them bully you. If you walk away and they do not chase you down, go to Costco and get the membership or call the gym you just went to over the phone and speak to another membership representative.

Fitness Tip: When cancelling your old gym membership, always call your credit card company and cancel the future payments. Gyms are notorious for continuing their automatic withdrawal and not refunding your money even after you cancel your membership.

Gym Etiquette

Let us start off with gym equipment etiquette. First and foremost, wipe off your nasty sweat. I do not care if you are a peach tree and your sweat is sweet nectar; wipe it off so no one else contracts what you might be hosting. Then go rack the weights you just used. Yup, you lifted them from there; take them back

to their rightful place. Hey, just think you are getting even more of a workout. Finally, use the machine or piece of equipment it is supposed to be used for. No, you are not cool doing bicep curls in the squat rack and using the smith machine for a leg press, that is just asking to be hurt when the bar comes crashing down.

Now, social etiquette of the gym. No, and I mean no yelling. There is no need. People are going to watch you not for the fact that you are lifting so much weight that you have to scream like a banshee, they are going to watch you cause you are that Costco size tool that is making a scene and making them uncomfortable. Next, wear appropriate clothing. What’s with the shirts cut in the arm pit all the way down to the waist? What a waste! You do not see your muscles more than if the shirt was a regular cut. All you did was take away the extra material that was soaking up your sweat and preventing it from dripping everywhere.

Fitness Tip: Want to be left alone during your workout and not get hit on or interrupted for small talk? Put headphones on/in, put your head lower to avoid eye contact and lift away with a mission.

Supplements

Another massive new year’s sale is supplements. Weight loss pills and protein powder is the number one sold item in every supplemental nutrition shop. Supplements are marked up from 30-70 percent. To bring this into more of a reality, something that takes one dollar to make and not even regulated by the Food and Drug Administration is sold to the consumer for at least thirty dollars. Number one, you do not need supplements; food will always be your best option for nutrients. Supplements are made to supplement, meaning that it is a last resort because you do not have the option. Now if you choose to purchase supplements there are many sources to purchase them at a lesser marked up cost, Costco, the internet, or you can always ask the supplement nutrition shop for a discount. Ask them, they will give you a discount.

Food preparation

You want to win a war? Strategy is key. Let me clue you in on something you should already know… eating clean and healthy is hard. The population of America fights a constant war with unhealthy food choices. Why is it harder to find healthier sources of eating than healthy sources? The battle is real, the unhealthy food war is continuous, and it can be won. Prepare and you will win.

Unless you are dead and not on Instagram, you will see that “food prep” is a very popular post. Food preparation is multiple meals prepared in proper portion containers for convenience and quick access. It gives you the time to fit in your meals when time is of the essence. You’re less likely to skip a meal or eat out when your food is already waiting for you. Take it out and heat it up! POW!

Now there many ways to accomplish your goal of a successful food preparation week to week, either you cook it yourself or you purchase meals prepared from many of the companies out there in the market. Carrying your food may become an issue, so bags that the companies provide can be used or a specific food case can be bought, such as the 6 Pack Bag.

What’s in your food prep is very important. All macronutrients and micronutrients should be catered to for your specific needs and goals. It is great to love potatoes, but love must be shown to the meat and veggies as well. Keep changing your meals up with a lot of variety. The point of meal prepping is to keep it fresh. Eating the same meal over and over again will lead to cheating, defeating the whole purpose of preparation.

The success of all diets is the plan and the execution. Food preparation is not a diet, it is an eating lifestyle. You are making your food adapt to you, not you adapting to your food like a diet will do or worse eating out at a restaurant. Live your life on your rules, on your terms, with your eating schedule to fit your life. Now prep and fight back!

Fitness Tip: Prepare your food on Sundays so your food is fresh and ready for the week!

Fitness is already a challenge. The key to fitness success is taking some of the nonsensical challenges out of the equation. Take away the excuse. No excuses, it is 2023!

Back to the Slopes Elevation Turns 21

By Ethan Laird

You can legally drink, but can you be a Daddy at 21 years old? That’s a rhetorical question, but you’ll be able to answer it if you join more than 2500 guys and girls at the 21st anniversary of Elevation Mammoth Gay Ski Week from March 15-19th, 2023. You’ll have fun (read: sexy, silly, adventurous fun in the outdoors and indoors) figuring out the answer. After all, Daddies are “in” right now.

Speaking of Ski Daddies, LA event producer Tom Whitman put his love of producing big gay events together with his lifelong love of skiing and snowboarding and remixed the two to create the first Elevation in Mammoth more than two decades ago.

If Elevation Mammoth is the Daddy of gay ski weeks, Elevation Utah is the smoking hot big brother. Almost as large as Mammoth, the Elevation Utah event has grown incredibly over the last 13 years and takes Park City by gay storm each February. In 2023, it is entirely possible that Elevation Utah will be the biggest Elevation of the year for the first time!

The baby sister of the family, Elevation Tremblant, is still on a timeout this year due to COVID, but according to Whitman, we can look forward to the return of a third Elevation event in 2023. The Elevation Gay Ski Weeks have become the gold standard of gay getaways, and their legendary status is due, in large part, to Whitman’s uncanny ability to be always dependable but never predictable.

Whether you attend Elevation Mammoth (the friendly Cal-centric snowboarder and ski-bro heaven with blue bird spring skiing) or Elevation Utah (an adorable mining town turned into upscale gay ski paradise at the largest ski resort in the US) you know exactly what you’re getting into: superb slopes for shredding, damn-good DJs for dancing, and fun feisty dudes for… having a nice conversation by the fire. ;)

You will also never know exactly what you are going to get. Whitman’s magic lies in his ability to give people those expected extravaganzas that we look forward to every year at Mammoth, mixed in with just the right number of new tricks pulled from his snowproof sleeves. One event that we look forward to every year in both Park City and Mammoth is the Onesie ApresSki, an Elevation Gay Ski Week tradition that manages to be sexy without losing its sense of humor. Where else can you find a collection of burner boys in rainbow bodysuits, gaymers in unicorn-horn hoodies, circuit boys in ass-less onesies and lumberjocks in wool socks?

all photos courtesy Elevation

The Friday night neon party is now called “Glow Ho,” and if you don’t bring any black light reactive clothing, they’ll have boys to glow paint your face (or chest or butt or whatever.)

The Saturday night event, GEAR, is the most overtly sexy party of the week, but again, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s like a warehouse party at altitude (don’t think about it too hard). The dress code is gear – leather gear, sports gear, ski gear. Just put some THOT into it. (What’s the difference between a straight ski week and a gay ski week? A harness.)

All the themes are fun, but Brian, an attendee based in LA, says that it’s all about the connections, “I love Elevation because it provides a unique opportunity to see so many friends in a radically different environment. And it’s also an event that spawns new friendships each year.”

The music at Elevation is always top-notch, with DJs bringing a total of 25 events to life over the course of 10 days at the 2 locations. After an insane Elevation debut in Mammoth last year, DJ Joe Pacheco is spinning his first Elevation Utah this year, and DJ Dan Slater is headlining Elevation Mammoth. The roster of other DJs will include the incredibly talented Josh Peace, Casey Alva, Max Bruce, Dawna Montell and others to be announced. (Whitman does like his surprises.)

Elevation brings up what feels like a busload of go-go dancers (we’re not complaining), and some amazing drag performers for party performances, drag brunches and more.

Choosing which Elevation to attend can be a tough choice. (And you don’t have to choose, do both!)

Every year, regardless of which I pick, I have a different experience at each ELEVATION. I‘ve made new friends each year, sometimes a future ex-boyfriend, I’ve had bluebird ski days and fresh powder snowy days. You can ski all day and crash early, party hard and sleep in, or be the first-chair-last-call hero we all wish we were.

Get ready. Let’s have a ski-ski.

All the Elevation event information is at www.elevationgayski.com.

Acceptance: Just What the Doctor Ordered Steven Henke Adds His Signature to DAP Health

By Kevin Perry

Photo credit: Aaron Jay Young

Our scars form a roadmap of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Setbacks push us forward, injuries fortify us, and exclusion inspires us to craft our own network of inclusion. But some wounds aren’t visible; they are emotional, simmering traumas that shape our souls from the inside out.

It is a uniquely queer phenomenon that requires copilots who understand our trajectory.

“The key to healthcare is we all want to be seen by someone that’s going to affirm who we are,” explains Steven Henke, Director of Brand Marketing at the most essential LGBTQ+ care center in Palm Springs – DAP Health.

“DAP Health welcomes everyone, period, full stop. It’s the reputation that they’ve built for 40 years, that you can expect judgment-free, quality care and you can expect it regardless of your ability to pay.”

Steven pinpoints the particular challenge that faces the gay community whenever we seek medical attention.

“As LGBT folk, we know how to hide and withhold. Nobody needs to teach us that. We learned it when we were three. But learning how to be open and honest and trust that the doctor sitting across from you can hear your truth and provide the care you need, that’s a gift.”

It’s a life lesson that Steven has been teaching himself for years.

“My journey was exactly the same as every other gay man’s journey, and it was, of course, completely my own.” By tapping into the commonalities of queer existence, Steven has emerged as a thought leader in the field of well-earned wellness.

“I’ve had a lot of success in life. I’ve also lived with alcoholism, you know, and that was part of my journey. I didn’t want to fully feel or experience my life. I didn’t want to deal with the trauma. My alcoholism was a disease of isolation, of loneliness. And you know the loneliness and the isolation so surely started when I was growing up in North Dakota. I was a little boy who knew he was gay and whom everyone else knew was gay too, and that that notion of hiding and trying to be invisible and trying to be quieter and ‘less than’ so that I just didn’t provoke anyone, just didn’t ever risk being found out or or discarded or hurt.”

Steven has a knack for alchemizing pain into progress.

“Everything that I used to think was bad has turned out to be a positive or a motivator or driver in how I live my life today. Everything. One example is, when I was growing up, I was obsessed with fashion. I just loved playing with Barbie. People called me Barbie Boy and they did it to make fun of me.”

Brushing off the bitter memory like gossamer strands of doll hair, Steven continues. “Later in life, I was developing product for Target, and I was doing trend forecasting… I was able to take that love of Barbie and walk into Mattel and give a presentation. And you know, suddenly somebody in the room was saying, ‘Oh my god, you’re a real Barbie Boy,’ but they meant it as a compliment. I was able to then make it part of my professional identity.”

Punctuating his anecdote, Steven declares, “I believe everything comes from intention.”

Stitching the past with the queer-and-now, Steven assesses, “I will be unpacking that origin story for the rest of my life. Not in the same sort of dramatic way. It doesn’t have the same power as it had, but it informs me, it informs how I make space for other people, it informs what I prioritize, and that’s a good thing.”

There are so many good things (understatement alert!) swirling through Steven’s sphere of influence. From personal to professional, he is a beacon of inspiration.

“I used to be really ashamed of the fact that I was an alcoholic, but today I have 15 years of sobriety and a different lens on it. My recovery informs every decision made; it informs the work I do. I always wanted to have a job that had purpose, meaning I always wanted to have a job that gave back to the community in some way.”

His road to recovery led Steven to a sales job in Palm Springs.

“I just kept getting to know these incredible people who live in the desert and who were doing all of this incredible work. They’d all come from someplace else, they all had to reinvent themselves and they were all looking for a way to make this community what they wanted to be. They wanted to create this magical space that we all love but, as we know, it has a lot of dark corners. There’s poverty and there’s ad-

diction and there’s people without work and there’s people without shelter and there are a lot of incredible people trying to bring relief to that.”

Steven’s passion for compassion made him the perfect fit for DAP Health.

“There’s a lot of stigmas around healthcare. I mean, I’ve lived with depression and anxiety my whole life. What I know for sure, is it takes courage to make that call and ask for help. Mental health is health care, and the same is true of sexual wellness.” Steven continues, “There’s a lot of stigma around it, especially STIs. But sex is a natural part of being a human being. You may at some point get an STI [sexually transmitted infection]. If you do, the answer isn’t shame or avoiding the appointment at the doctor’s office. Right? The answer is to walk-in and say, ‘I’m an out gay man and I think I may have an STI, and I’d like to be tested and treated.’ You’re lucky in this community because if that’s your story you can walk in and you can get that care unquestioningly. I mean, it’s free first of all, but it’s also, more importantly, judgment free.”

Much like orientation, healthcare is best when it’s brought out of the shadows.

“When you look at things like anxiety and depression, they’re often driven by isolation, and so community is an important part of wellness. So, I’m a big believer that brand isn’t your name, it’s not your building. The brand is the story that other people tell us.”

And Steven strives at telling DAP’s story boldly and brilliantly.

“We got permission to begin the process to evolve the brand and changed the name from Desert AIDS Project to DAP Health,” he recounts. “We went on a lot of listening tours of our donors and our patients and our employees to get their feedback. But what happened is what always happens when you listen. They were so honest, and everyone knew that it was time to change the name, but they were so proud of the legacy that Desert AIDS Project had in this community… How do you step in the future but protect the past? The answer came with just simply leaning into the nickname that everyone uses when they love the organization, which is ‘The DAP.’ And simply adding a clarifying word to the end of that, which is Health.”

According to Steven’s philosophy, “Words matter, and they start to build your world view and your belief of where you belong in the world and what you deserve.” us. As a public figure, Steven is acutely aware that his image is an ever-shifting lava lamp of what is seen and unseen.

“[People] watch me on the news or they watch me in a video or something and they see a moment in time, they see a moment in time that’s well-lit, and that’s great because I love good lighting. I’m a gay man.”

Pivoting deftly from humor to heart, Steven specifies, “I deserve it because I’ve had enough years of darkness.”

But you can’t judge a person based on their studio pastiche.

“That moment that was well-lit is true, and then the moment where I take care of my mental health is true. And the moment where I take care of my recovery so that I can be of service to others is also true… I’m finally at a place where I’m able to bring it all together and use all of it to think just to be a better participant in this human experience.”

Perfection is never the assignment.

“I’m still very much a work in progress and I think I’m really comfortable with that,” Steven says. “I want to stay curious. I finally replaced fear with curiosity and it’s a place that I really, really enjoy.” And for all the haters out there, Steven is serving a sassy cup of Haterade.

“I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and for them I say: order coffee.”

But it’s impossible to imagine how anyone could dislike the aw-shucks charisma and oh-yeah enthusiasm that has guided this wildly accomplished human from his roots in North Dakota to the pinnacle of Palm Springs actualization.

“That’s my journey,” concludes Steven. “I finally found a way to put all the pieces, even the ugly little pieces, together and to create a whole that I’m proud of and to create a whole that I think makes me able to come to the table and think in a way that other people don’t… Ideas are kind of my superpower, but it’s a gift.”

With a simple, satisfactory flourish, Steven finishes on a decidedly empowering note.

“I ended up doing what I am supposed to be doing. I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s where I can make the most impact.”

His vital work ripples from DAP Health, through the Coachella Valley, and resonates to the world at large. We can all give a hearty, healthy thanks to Steven Henke.

Photo credit: Aaron Jay Young

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EUREKA O’HARA We’re Here, We’re Queer

By Alexander Rodriguez

Renowned drag queens Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara, and Shangela, continue their journey across small-town America, spreading love and connection through the art of drag. In the current Season 3, the queens recruit a diverse group of local residents from Granbury, TX; St. George, UT; Brevard County, FL; Jackson, MS; and Sussex, NJ to share their stories, increase awareness, and promote acceptance in their communities by participating in one-night-only drag shows. In each town, the queens inspire their “drag daughters” to express their genuine selves in front of their families, friends and communities, at times facing increased opposition and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation laws. We got some tea from Eureka on growing up gay in Tennessee, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and wanting to be science teacher.

Where were you when you found out that you had been cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race?

I was at home in my government apartment, to be honest, wondering how I was going to pay the bills and buy this wig I really wanted. Signing up for classes for the new semester at ETSU.

What was it like growing up gay in Tennessee?

East TN can be a lot less open-minded. Growing up I was the sissy boy (that was bullied), but I had sisters that beat people up for me. [laughs]. I didn’t come out officially until my senior year, when I lost my best friend and was convinced to stop going to church. I just fell into nightlife because of it.

You had a very close relationship with your Mom that you shared with the public. I can’t even imagine what it was like losing her. There is a lot of grief in our community, whether involving loved ones we’ve lost or ones we grieve for that are still with us. What advice can you give someone from our community in dealing with grief?

I honestly don’t know. No one can tell you how to grieve, I think we all do it in different ways, but you have to allow yourself to grieve and process it. Turn to people in your life that love you and just talk about it. I miss her more than I ever thought I could miss someone. Honestly, I wish I knew the right answer.

Is it hard to make and maintain real relationships with your status in the entertainment industry?

No, I think you must be more selective. Also, I just think everyone should be careful no matter what job you have. If you’re living life, you’re busy and you can only invest time into so many people without overextending yourself. Quality, not Quantity. At the same time, I Know No Stranger.

Cher-Rusical, because I let an emotional moment from my past doubt my ability. I love to sing, and I enjoy it. I would have loved to have sucked up my fear at the moment and really turned it for Cher and the world. Rockstar Fantasy!

Spill the tea girl, what is one gossipy thing about the behind the scenes of RuPaul that we didn’t get to see?

Orange Alert was a runway that we were potentially going do on Season 10 but didn’t, so we all had orange looks we didn’t use, except Asia who used hers for the Twin Styling challenge. Then they ended up doing that Runway on season 11.

You have been a, pardon the pun, big spokesperson for body positivity and self-confidence. Has body acceptance really changed in the LGBTQ community or is it just a phase?

It’s not changed completely; it has a long way to go. Lizzo is helping a lot, I believe, in the idea to just accept yourself and others will follow your lead. People don’t like “different” or “conventionally sexually unattractive”, but we are changing the image of attraction. So, I believe there is hope.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing drag? What is a challenge that you would add to RuPaul’s Drag Race?

I miss the Puppet Challenge (The Challenge where you dress puppets up as fellow contestants while mimicking them). They recently did it on Drag Race UK and I was like, I wish we did that on Season 10.

You did a makeover on Zachary Quinto. Did he mention me at all? Did you fall in love?

I love my Daughter Noa Fence. What a dream to work with. I mean he is truly a gem.

It takes courage to release your own music, especially since the RuPaul fan world can be chatty in a negative way. What inspired you to cross that line and go solo?

For fun. Why not? I love music and performing and making art. I do my music how my character Eureka would. That’s what makes it different.

What do your fans tell you the most?

Proportionizing; I love you too; and girl those pants are a lil tight we can see your... muffin top (dirty minds)!