Ben Askren‘s life turned upside down in 2025 … he battled severe pneumonia that resulted in a 59-day hospital stay and a double lung transplant … but thankfully, he tells TMZ Sports he’s going into the New Year moving in a “positive direction.”

The former MMA star said at times it feels like his health scare was a “bad dream.” While there’s not much he remembers from those days … he says there are still lessons to take away from the whole ordeal … citing a book called “Finish Empty” by Josh Metcalf, which gave him a good perspective.

“I kind of died once, you know, like for all intents and purposes, left Earth for 40 days,” Askren said. “I had no real communication to anyone. I had no recollection of anything. So I get to kind of reflect on like, okay, had I not woken back up? How do I feel about what I did prior to this time?”

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Eating healthy doesn’t have to mean cutting out all of your favorite foods.

If you’re starting the new year on a wellness journey, kick things off right in your kitchen. With so many cookbooks for whipping up healthy and delicious meals, eating clean has never been so easy. Whether you’re following a specialized diet or just want to eat less processed foods, these cookbooks are filled with crave-worthy recipes you’ll actually want to make again.

Giada De Laurentiis is back with her latest cookbook, Super-Italian: More Than 110 Indulgent Recipes Using Italy’s Healthiest Foods.

The Food Network star is sharing the Italian approach to healthful eating, meaning ingredients that promote wellness and cooking simply. Each recipe is packed with superfoods that are nutritionally dense, supportive of health, and still completely craveable … because Giada believes that when you start with truly excellent, minimally processed ingredients, you can have your pasta and eat it too!

Gordon Ramsay has spent the past decade on a transformative fitness journey and now he’s sharing it all in Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy, Lean & Fit: Mouthwatering Recipes to Fuel You for Life.

But just because the Michelin-star celebrity chef is whipping up healthy food, doesn’t mean you have to compromise on taste and flavor. The cookbook is divided into three sections: Lean, which encourages healthy weight loss; Fit, for fueling your next workout; and Healthy, for general well-being. With 108 recipes that range from breakfast to lunches, dinners, sides, and snacks, each nourishing meal has an array of different health-boosting benefits. 

Benji Xavier lost 100 lbs by eating healthier…and now he’s sharing with his millions of social media fans exactly how he got there in The Rebel Diet: Feed Your Appetite and Lose Weight.

These recipes that fueled his weight-loss journey include healthier versions of burgers, pizza, desserts, and more. By swapping high-calorie ingredients like sugar, full-fat dairy, and fatty meats for healthier, lower-calorie ingredients, he created leaner and lighter versions of recipes that still deliver all the flavor of the originals. 

Considered dinner covered. With Dinner Tonight: 100 Simple, Healthy Recipes for Every Night of the Week, Alex Snodgrass aimed to make “cleaned up” comfort food a breeze, because who wants to be working on a complicated recipe at the end of a long day?

With meals like Chicken Pot Pie Chowder and One-Pan Coconut-Lime Chicken and Rice, you don’t have to be an expert and won’t have to spend hours in the kitchen…because delicious food should be within anyone’s grasp, no matter how busy they are. 

Skinnytaste founder Gina Homolka is all about creating super-simple, weeknight friendly, flavor-packed recipes…and now they’re available in Skinnytaste High Protein: 100 Healthy, Simple Recipes to Fuel Your Day.

As her most recent release, this cookbook focuses on high-protein meals with at least thirty grams of protein per serving, catering to a variety of different dietary preferences. Whether you’re looking for creative ways to incorporate more protein into your diet, go-to recipes to jazz up your favorite proteins, or ideas for nutritionally balanced meals that will keep you satiated, Gina has you covered. 

As another one of Gina Homolka’s most popular cookbooks, Skinnytaste Simple: Easy, Healthy Recipes with 7 Ingredients or Fewer is all about no-fuss meals when you’re tight for time and short on energy.

These recipes utilize minimum ingredients but maximum flavor and nutrition, allowing you to put easy, healthy meals on the table with little-to-no effort.

The Heart-Healthy Mediterranean Cookbook for Two is your passport to a life where healthy eating feels like a luxury vacation, not a punishment.

With these recipes, you can craft meals that use heart-healthy ingredients to nourish your brain, support healthy blood pressure and maintain healthy cholesterol…all without sacrificing flavor. With tasty recipes, meal plans and scientific research explained, this cookbook will become a staple in your kitchen.  

Improve your health and reverse chronic inflammation with the help of The Complete Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Beginners cookbook.

Filled with easy recipes and weekly shopping lists, it breaks the process down into simple, actionable steps that anyone can take. Along with a meal plan, there’s 75 healthy recipes to try that can help you strengthen your immune system, relieve pain, ease healing, and feel more satisfied and energized every day!

Losing weight and having fun usually aren’t in the same sentence but with Care Free Keto: How to Lose Weight and Have Fun Doing It, social media star iRick Wiggins has created a realistic approach that anyone can use to create healthy habits.

This simplified guide to living a keto lifestyle includes over 100 low carb recipes as well as two weeks worth of meal plans and a keto-friendly grocery list with a fast food and dining out guide. These hacks make living a healthy lifestyle easier and prove that your weight-loss journey can be a fun and stress free experience.

If you just got an air fryer for Christmas or have been struggling to figure out what to whip up in the handy kitchen device, then Cathy Yoder’s Air Fryer Cookbook is exactly what you need.

With over 150 mouthwatering recipes, it’s perfect for making meals that are both flavorful and fast. Using simple ingredients, these recipes cover everything from easy cookbook classics to meals with creative twists, it’s a true gem among bestsellers.

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Kate Beckinsale has had it with trolls who have commented on her recent weight loss … Kate says her mother’s death is severely affecting her appetite — and anyone who kicked her while she’s down should be ashamed of themselves.

The British actress buried her mom, Judy Loe, in July after a battle with cancer. Kate admitted the death made for an extra tough 2025 … but what made it worse is she had just watched her stepfather die the year before.

The back-to-back losses — along with the perhaps unresolved grief from losing her biological father as a little girl — compounded to give her a feeling as if her body had “closed down.”

She explained, “I think it’s shock and trauma … I think watching — especially alone — the people you love the most dearly suffer and have horrific and sometimes violent and awful deaths, really makes you not hungry.”

But in a lacerating critique of her haters, Kate said she is grateful to have been brought up by people who raised her in such a way that it would never occur to her to see someone suffering and comment on their appearance.

“For all the people who are inconvenienced by me being too thin or not what they expect me to be like, I really wished you had parents like I had,” she said. “I’m so glad that suctioning blood clots from my stepdad’s bladder while he’s suffering heart failure and trying to save his life, and having to be the one to stop chest compressions on my mother as they broke all her ribs has not turned me into the type of cruel piece of s*** that would say the stuff that a lot of you guys say to me.”