Many of you have set intentions at the top of the year that getting healthy would be your mission in 2021. If you’ve begun the process of exercising regularly and cleaning up your diet, we see you, sis! If you’re still trying to find the motivation to do so, don’t beat yourself up…you’ve got this!
No matter what boat you find yourself in, one thing is for sure – you’ll want to invest in some fitness equipment. 2021 still has us living that quarantine life, which means many of us are working out from home at least some of the time. There’s a variety of products and that promise to help you on your journey to get fit, and we’ve scoured the internet in search of the best.
From resistance bands to fitness trackers, we’ve rounded up the best products that will help torch those calories from the comfort of home.
01
Apple Watch Series 6
The Apple Watch isn’t just a shiny, techy toy to brag about. It’s an investment piece that’ll make getting fit a fun endeavor. Not only does the series 6 design monitor your calories burned, but also make life-saving observations, such as notifying you if your cardiorespiratory fitness level, or VO2 Max, falls into a low range. If you’re looking for a little guidance with your workouts, sign up for Apple Fitness+ which offers 10 different workouts types across a range of durations.
If you’re ready to intensify your training and get those buns and thighs toned, invest in a sturdy set of resistance bands like these. Working out with resistance creates muscle definition and speeds up results. These ultra-wide bands are guaranteed not to slip or bunch up.
A reliable pair of workout gloves, like this cute pair from Black-owned fitness brand Joie In Life, will protect your hands from developing callus while lifting weights or doing floor workouts.
It’s always a great idea to amp up your workouts with a pound or two of resistance. You can add some extra oomph to exercises like jump squats, leg lifts, and high knee drills by strapping on a pair of ankle weights. This pair by Bala wins for its comfort and style.
The importance of a good running sneaker cannot be overstated. Nike’s Air Zoom Pegasus is ideal for runners or those looking for a light-as-air shoe to workout in. It’s proprietary Nike React foam at the midsole is lightweight, springy and durable, and the mesh upper sole provides plenty of ventilation for your feet.
Since taking office about three weeks ago, Donald Trump has issued a blizzard of 200+ executive orders. Among them are two key anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) directives that threaten to roll back decades of progress in expanding opportunities for people of color, women and other historically marginalized groups.
The first executive order eliminates DEI enacted under President Biden, who required all federal agencies to create plans to “address unequal barriers to opportunity” and ensure workplace equity. Trump’s order terminates all DEI, DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility), and environmental justice jobs as well as any programs, grants, or contracts related to its implementation, calling them “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”
The second executive order eliminates all DEI orders from previous administrations, including one by President Lyndon Johnson from 1965, which required federal contractors to provide equal opportunity measures. In rolling back the policies, Trump called DEI “immoral” and “illegal” and painted it as a “corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system” that robbed “hardworking Americans”—implicitly white men—“of opportunities because of their race or sex.”
President Trump also warned of “adverse consequences” for those federal workers who fail to report colleagues who refuse to dismantle DEI policies.
While the order is limited to the federal government, it directs federal agencies to find ways, including potential litigation, to pressure the private sector also to abandon its DEI policies. This threatens to accelerate a corporate anti-DEI trend that has already been in the works. Walmart, which back in 2020 announced a $100 million investment in a center for racial equity, announced several days after Trump’s election that it was dropping the center and would no longer use the terms DEI and Latinx in official communications. McDonald’s, Meta and Target have also dropped their DEI initiatives as reported by Axios.
After the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which deemed affirmative action in university admissions unconstitutional, attacks on DEI proliferated, and the term became a right-wing bogeyman blamed for almost anything that goes wrong in any workplace. For example, just one day after the tragic plane and helicopter collision over the Potomac River which claimed 67 lives, Trump baselessly blamed DEI policies for the crash—while the investigation into the crash’s cause had barely begun. Language in President Trump’s executive order also portrays DEI policies as inherently dangerous declaring they “threaten the safety of American men, women and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society.”
These statements seem to suggest that DEI exists in opposition to excellence and hard work—and that providing opportunities to non-white people automatically lowers standards.This is false. DEI requires the same standards for everyone and only hires those who fulfill the requirements of a given job, a point echoed by Everett Kelly, National President of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees “The federal government already hires and promotes exclusively on the basis of merit. The results are clear: a diverse federal workforce that looks like the nation it serves, with the lowest gender and racial pay gaps in the country. We should all be proud of that.”
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Black people make up a larger share of the federal workforce (18.6%) than they do of the civilian workforce (12.8%),according to Pew Research. It’s unclear how many people will be affected by the order. Still, the federal government is the biggest employer in the US and Black people, who have the highest unemployment rates, risk greater job loss as a result.
The vagueness of President Trump’s orders have also left agencies struggling to comply and erasing Black history in the process. For example, the Air Force recently removed the Tuskegee Airmen from their training videos, and it was only reinstated after public outcry.
The anti-DEI trend is part of a larger attack on anti-discrimination efforts, sparked by the push for racial progress after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Now that DEI is under fire, the question is—how do we keep these policies alive?
Despite mounting political pressure, companies like Apple, Costco and JPMorgan Chase remain steadfast in their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, refusing to bow to conservative attacks. Additionally, most Fortune 500 companies have not abandoned their DEI policies.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a non-partisan group that fights “government abuse” primarily through lawsuits, counters President Trump’s claim that DEI or DEIA is illegal, saying, “The executive orders attempt to conflate these lawful efforts with discrimination, weaponizing enforcement to bully institutions into abandoning critical programs.” “However, no court has declared DEIA efforts inherently illegal, and President Trump cannot override decades of legal precedent.” The ACLU supported and launched numerous lawsuits against the rollback of DEI during Trump’s first term and have vowed to do so again.
In the meantime, the Civil Rights Act is still the law of the land, and it remains illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race, gender, and other protected characteristics.