Day: July 26, 2025

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
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Hello! I’m Mia de Graaf. I run health coverage at Business Insider, and I’m stepping in for Joi-Marie this week while she’s on vacation.

Physically, I will be at home in New York City this summer. Mentally? Not so. This weekend, I am attempting to transport myself from my kitchen to Florence, Italy, with a zesty homemade agnolotti. Garlic, chiles, dill, and lime? Sign me up.

On the agenda:

• Colonoscopies aren’t fun. These new at-home colon cancer screenings offer a shortcut.
• Eight successful women in different industries told BI how they start their days.
• Here’s one trick to escape huge crowds in Japan during peak season.
• Moms love this Yeti tote bag — and it’s catching Wall Street’s attention.

But first: Let’s check in on gym bros.

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This week’s dispatch

Hot peptide summer

Earlier this week, I fell down a truly epic TikTok rabbit hole. It started with one video: a guy with cartoonish muscles bulging out of a tank top, sitting at his kitchen counter with six vials and a syringe. “It’s time for me to get back in shape,” he said. “So this is my new peptide stack.”

A whole hour later, I was deep in the bro wellness multiverse, where peptides rule.

Peptides are short-chain amino acids, the building blocks of protein. In theory, you can use different peptides to stimulate different hormones for all kinds of results. You may have heard of peptide serums promising to boost collagen in your cheeks, or the weight-loss drug Ozempic, a peptide that suppresses hunger.

Then, there are peptide shots that you can inject for muscle growth.

The chiseled men on my phone screen told me that the idea is to “stack” various peptide shots because each one has slightly different effects. One may stimulate lean muscle, or melt fat for muscle definition, or heal your gym injuries, or slow aging. They rattled off laundry lists of technical names: BPC-157, CJC-1295, ipamorelin, follastatin 344, IGF-1… it goes on.

There is a catch. As my colleague Hilary Brueck reports, the science behind muscle-building peptides is scant. Still, the trend is booming. Doctors say they are increasingly fielding questions from patients about which peptides they should use to retain muscle mass. The Vitamin Shoppe has seen a huge uptick in searches for peptides.

Why? We’re in our “natural gains” era. These days, quiet glow-ups are the hottest thing in cosmetic surgery. Similarly, drugs like steroids, which replace growth hormones, are seen as old-fashioned and toxic. Peptides stimulate your body’s natural processes, so they’re seen as more natural.

This summer, beach bods are in — with a little help from a fridge full of syringes.

Check your risk (at home)

Colon cancer is the second-deadliest cancer in the US, in large part because people aren’t getting their colon checked often enough. While colonoscopies are the most reliable tool, a new suite of at-home tests is rapidly expanding.

One recently approved screening tool checks your blood for signs that something is awry. Another highly anticipated test, which isn’t out yet, may require nothing more than your breath.

Four colonoscopy alternatives.

She wakes up like this

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to optimizing your morning routine. However, there are a lot of options to try out and many recipes for success.

BI spoke to eight successful women across different industries, from professional dancers to bankers and CEOs. Most said they wake up around 6 a.m., but their routines diverge from there.

Some hit the gym, while others do affirmations.

Also read:

• Seven men told us how they start their days. Fancy alarm clocks and morning runs are key to their success.

Sakura season, without the crowds

BI’s Anneta Konstantinides visited Japan for its famed cherry blossom season in March, right as the country was experiencing record tourism.

While the most popular attractions in Tokyo and Kyoto felt crowded, Konstantinides quickly figured out an easy, affordable, and crowd-free way to enjoy the sights in peak bloom.

The secret was in Japan’s gardens.

The holy grail mom bag

The Yeti Camino 35 Caryall Tote Bag has a chokehold on moms on TikTok. They tout it as the sleekest, most durable bag for carrying an array of items while also ferrying their children from place to place.

It’s even got Wall Street’s attention. In a recent note, Jefferies analysts said the Camino 35’s virality is boosting confidence in Yeti Holdings’ stock.

Check it out.

What we’re watching this weekend

• “Happy Gilmore 2”: Nearly three decades after Adam Sandler’s comedy about an unlikely golf hero hit theaters, the comedian’s star-studded sequel is coming to Netflix.
• “The Phoenician Scheme”: Wes Anderson’s latest film, a surprisingly comedic crime caper starring Benicio del Toro, makes its streaming debut on Peacock.
• “Hitmakers”: Netflix’s new reality docuseries about the glamorously cutthroat world of professional songwriting is an entertaining peek behind the curtain at how some of your favorite pop songs get made.

What to shop

• New Yorker must-haves: Discover editor Gabrielle Chase’s guide to NYC essentials — packed with smart recommendations on what to pack, where to shop, and how to blend in like a local.
• One ring to track it all: We put the Oura Ring 4 to the test. It packs powerful health tracking into a sleek, screen-free design. It’s discreet, durable, and lasts a week on a charge, but its high price keeps it in luxury territory.
• Small desk, big upgrade: This sit‑stand desk blends space‑saving design with effortless electric height adjustment — perfect for tight spaces. We tried it, and loved its customizable finishes, sleek design, and smart features.

More of this week’s top reads:

• The hidden dilemma of Ozempic: eating disorder recovery.
• Drew Brees says he’s a “very common-sense dieter.” Here are five simple wellness rules he lives by.
• Seven things you should never do when traveling by train, according to an etiquette coach.
• I’ve lived in the Hamptons for most of my life. Here are five mistakes I see visitors make every summer.
• The Coldplay “kiss cam” situation underlines a lesson I learned as a 15-year-old cheerleader.
• I went to a medical clinic in Portugal — thousands of miles from my NYC home. I saved $500 and found an answer for my back pain.
• I was born and raised in Italy. There are seven things I wish tourists would stop doing when they come here.
• The millennial case against having baby number three.

The BI Today team: Mia de Graaf, deputy executive editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.

• Back in 1997, I was working the night shift when I met a man online who lived in the UK.
• We started chatting every night for hours, and after six months, he flew to the US to meet me.
• After dating for three months, we got engaged, and we’ve been together ever since.

In 1997, I met my husband thanks to an obnoxious coworker. I was a 27-year-old data entry clerk at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. My coworkers were other recent graduates making ends meet. We were friends — all of us except one.

This particular coworker, as she liked to remind us, came from a wealthy family. She didn’t talk to us often — that is, except when she felt like bragging, as she did the day she trounced into the office to announce her brother had won a radio.

My coworkers and I decided we, too, would win something. And our prize would be cool because it would be won online. (Remember, in 1997, the internet was a shiny new toy.) Unfortunately, I was the only one with a computer, as very few people had personal computers then.

So, every night, I entered all of us into a plethora of competitions. I got in the habit and kept at it even after I got a much better-paying job, working the night shift at a publishing plant. In the process, I discovered a site that paid virtual coins for clicking on other webpages.

One of the sites it paid me to visit was American Singles, a simple and slightly boring bulletin board. As I was about to log out, I met a 26-year-old guy calling himself Dionysus. We immediately hit it off, and I stayed logged on.

We chatted every night for 6 months

He was finishing his degree, and though he was in the UK, because I was working the night shift, it was basically like we were in the same time zone. We talked about everything, for about six hours each night for six months. I told him things I hadn’t shared with anyone else. In fact, I got so wrapped up in talking to him that I completely forgot to keep entering contests.

I chatted with abandon, completely unaware that he was paying for the internet by the minute. When his bill came, he decided it would be cheaper to fly to the US to meet me in California. He asked if that would be OK, and I said yes.

Then, he came to the US to visit me

I was both anxious and excited, and those co-workers, with whom I was still friends, didn’t help. They asked how I knew the man I was talking to wasn’t a 60-year-old grandmother. I didn’t; I’d only learned three months into chatting that his real name was Adrian.

His timing was also unfortunate. At the time, there was a story all over the news about a stalker using the internet to prey on a young girl. So, when I told my mom a guy I met online was coming, she panicked. “He’s an ax murderer, I’m driving down,” she said. I begged her not to come, but our conversation did nothing to alleviate the apprehension that had been building. A stranger from another country would soon be staying in my apartment. Was this a good idea?

It was a bit awkward at first, but we got through it

When we finally met, we discovered a few cultural differences. Though English people generally don’t tend to have a flair for the dramatic, picking up stakes and coming to a new country just to meet someone you’ve been chatting with online is pretty bold. So, Adrian tried to compensate during our first visit by making his surroundings a bit more English.

On his first night in the US, we had pizza. I opened the box and took a slice. He sat staring at it. “Do you have a knife and fork?” he inquired. I assured him I did. “Can I have them?”

I gaped, and watched with amusement as he attempted to eat a pizza with utensils. After a while, he gave up and ate with his hands. (When we went to the UK to meet his family, I understood. You can’t eat British pizza any other way.)

Since pizza was not an unalloyed success, I decided to take him to Starbucks, thinking, who doesn’t know about Starbucks? It turned out, the British. (The chain’s first store opened in London in 1998, and Adrian had never been to one before. He asked me if it was named after Battlestar Galactica.) Welcome to America.

But we persevered and, over time, learned one another’s routines, insecurities, and quirks. When it got serious, I took him to meet my mom. She really liked him — possibly because he passed the test of not hacking me to death.

We dated for about three months after he came to the US. During that time, we toured San Francisco and camped on the beach in Monterey. Then, he asked me to go to the UK for two weeks to meet his family. His family was incredibly welcoming, and one of his friends took a week out of his life to show me their corner of England. I loved it, and I loved his family.

When we got back to my apartment in Davis, we settled down to watch a documentary about mummification. As the narrator described the process, Adrian asked me to marry him. I said yes, and we eloped in 1999.

It’s been 27 years since we met in person. We are now 54 and 53 years old, and of course, we are still chatting.