I’m Sami Reiss and write SNAKE SUPER HEALTH covering dark wellness, normal health, health news, psycho health—all of it—in this newsletter. I also write the design newsletter SNAKE and have been writing about health and design GQ, WSJ, ESPN, Ssense, Inverse and elsewhere for a decade and change. I have been lifting since high school and even played competitive water polo for years. Follow me on Instagram.
What is Super Health?
Super Health is a newsletter covering the edge of health. This stuff:
And the fundamentals. Dispatches cover nutrition, training, sleep, supplements, skin, wellness… the space between yoga, bodybuilding, Huberman, calisthenics, red light, raw milk and collagen. I’ve filled notebooks as a reporter on these topics for years, and more importantly have been lifting and breaking a sweat and trying things out since high school. Two-plus decades. Some of these protocols helped me recover from an invasive spinal surgery, a decade ago, that left me nearly paralyzed.
Read about that here:
Basically it’s this: I shouldn’t be able to walk, but I can. I recovered through simple things like moving around, working out with some weights (but not always barbells) and eating right (but not only broccoli). There’s skepticism here, but I’ve seen this stuff work.
What to expect from the Snake Super Health newsletter:
Clear, normal writing on these topics is not easy to find. Neither are specifics. I’m rounding up both here on Super Health.
Free subscribers can expect:
Explainers on specifics from the edge of health—the Venn diagram above: skin, nutrition, lifting, movement, sleep, energy…. red light, red meat, raw dairy, collagen, anti-nutrients, posture, cold plunges, glute bridges, cortisol, peptides… a final word on these topics, an introduction…
Essays/features about general ideas and structural issues in health and wellness.
How did we all miss seed oils? • Why is being healthy in America extremely not chill? • How did veganism become for rich people? • Why is ClassPass so beat? (Why are gyms so abhorrent?) • What’s with three-hour morning routines? • Is Huberman unswag? • Why did we get it wrong with sugar? •
News posts that round up sicko crap in the health and wellness world (and which is kind of usually right…), with context so you don’t have to
followturn notifications on for Carnivore MD, the ankle health guy, and that whispering steak chick.Interviews, videos, archival shit, whatever else comes up which smart readers might like…
Paying subscribers get it all:
The writing above and specifics on how to implement whatever changes you see fit. Or… the road to feeling good and full of energy AND being capable.
Specifics. An explainer about raw milk is great, understanding how to test the waters on RM is better—what to buy, how to start if you’re lactose intolerant (yes there’s a way, I did it), my list of best farms that deliver to New York City, best LA groceries, best places in other states… in plain English, supplementary reading material:
And so on for collagen, red meat, red light, bodybuilding, any supplement, pull-ups, any topic, really.
Actual no-bullshit product recommendations. Look, everyone buys stuff, even experts and objective journalists. Why not buy the right thing? You think I don’t have a shower filter? Or a red light mask? Get outta here. There’s an upright way to recommend this. I do that. Everything from the stuff above to supps to equipment to cookware to lightbulbs to whatever else.
Resources and hacks: Look, I’ll be straight here: getting healthy is mostly, on most days, pretty boring, actually, incredibly boring. It really just involves a few simple things done consistently over time. Exercise, movement, sleep, nutrition, light, purpose. I’ll mention here I’m not reinventing the wheel. I didn’t invent any of this, and there are no secrets.
But there are hacks out there you can pick up after time spent in the trenches. Hacks that make habits easy to stick to, or easy to understand. Need back of the envelope math on how to avoid seed oils? Hit macros? Improve your sleep environment? Find fun cardio? Find nutrient dense foods? Work out on vacation? Bulk up or cut down? Got you.
The real psycho stuff I frankly can’t write about for a general audience, and would not dream of discussing in my introductory newsletter. The stuff that needs lots of context but is lowkey as true as it gets, but which is only “right” in very narrow and specific contexts. Stuff your trainer will tell you but which would be too long to contextualize in a journalistic piece. Like DIET for skin health (yes this exists; it’s insane that this is even controversial and isn’t completely out there). Like raw milk titration. Like post-calories in/out models for weight loss.
Lots to like for both subscription.
Reader testimonials for Super Health:
“Super Health is already changing my life brother, I pivoted to a diet you recommended and feel better than ever. My energy is way up, my blepharitis (eye condition) symptoms are 99% gone, and I have a massive positive change in my strength, I upped my bench press 40 lb. after it had been stuck for a year." — paid subscriber in Illinois
“Sicko health god”—Alexis Page (Self Involved)
“Three years ago, my wife and her parents were in a horrific traffic accident that broke my mother in law’s knee. Sami reached out with links and reading recommendations—specifically a book about intermuscular work—which I sent to her and which aided her in her recover. Support this guy.”—paid subscriber in Texas
“I wanted to say thank you for your articles and advice these past few years. In a sea of terrible wellness advice your writing about fitness has been a guiding light lol. I recently weighed in under 190 on the scales for the first time since Junior high and im down 10 pant sizes since I started working out again.”—reader in Texas
"Good writing about meathead shit is my favorite thing and also nearly impossible to find.” — paid subscriber
"Quickest subscribe I’ve ever hit. Well-researched, common sense, not know it all in tone, but know most of it in application"—paid subscriber
“THIS [Sami Reiss launching Super Health] is exciting to me, considering most of the health and fitness publications I grew up with are basically affiliate farms online, and are filled with pet food and big pharma ads in print. I want honest accounts of med spa workers, hangover reviews of electrolyte powders, and interviews with the hot guys who work at This Bowl.”— Emily Sundberg in Feed Me (link)
“Snake is my source for keeping up with world events” — Laura Reilly (Magasin)
Book/merch:
There’s a book, Sheer Drift, on Shining Life Press, that collects the first decade of the Snake (vintage) newsletter. Merchandise for Snake and Snake Super Health is available on snakeUSA.bigcartel.com and can occasionally be found at Fantasy Explosion (NYC), Supply Tokyo, Varsity Los Angeles and Lower East Coast (Miami).
Contact me:
My Substack page is here: https://substack.com/@snake
To contact me you can reply to a newsletter, or email me at sami.reiss @ gmail.com, or on social channels @ samisreiss.
