Shared posts

07 Jan 15:20

Art Feature: Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

by Marie Denee
Margot Foster

Good advice for all.

Backhanded Compliments. I am sure you and I could go back and forth with the many received as a plus size woman, but when I saw this series by Van Scribbles on Tumblr, I knew that I had to feature this series in our latest of plus size art! Granted, this is more than plus size, as she delves into quite a few, but I definitely wanted to feature the plus size picks that Vanessa has fashioned for us!

I mean… most recently, I was on a plane and the man sitting next to me says, “You do not look like you are into tech or are a nerd.” Oh. Okay… -_- major side eye.

So before I share with you the initial series, let’s talk about Van Scribbles’ prefacing post about Giving Compliments! Are you ready?

How to Give a Compliment- by Van Scribbles

Art Feature: Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

I love this and this must be shared everywhere. I promise you that SOME one SOME where can learn from this set!

Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles

Nooooow which ones of these have you heard? I am sure more than we can count! You can see and learn more about the other series from Van Scribbles here!

How cool is this? Make sure you share so we can help someone from a future foot in mouth situation! Hehehehe

What do you think? Have you seen her work? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Art Feature: Backhanded Compliments by Van Scribbles appeared first on The Curvy Fashionista.

04 Jan 02:12

There Are Way Too Many ‘Best Of 2014′ Lists

by Hayley Munguia

They’re everywhere. You can’t escape them. You can even set your watch by them. Every year, as the air begins to chill and radio stations begin flipping the Christmas music switch, the inevitable comes: the annual year-end “best of” lists.

These lists of course tell us which books, movies and TV shows the critics liked best. But a closer look also reveals which cultural products critics agreed upon most this year — for books, it was Marilynne Robinson’s “Lila”; for movies, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood”; and for TV, Amazon’s “Transparent.”

These titles appeared so frequently on 2014 “best of” lists that it made me wonder about the whole year-end enterprise. If the lists basically agree, do we really need so many of them?

I spoke to Maureen Ryan, The Huffington Post’s TV critic, who told me that, at least as far as television goes, “there’s consensus in the top half [of critics’ top 10 lists], but when you get to numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, that’s when you see people’s personal taste or quirks of what they like.”

I found this to be true across the board, but to different degrees depending on the medium. I set about compiling lists of the best books, movies and TV shows of 2014 in prominent national publications.58 My colleague Andrew Flowers helped me run the numbers to see how much critics agreed. Here are the top 20 most frequently cited titles in each category59:

munguia-feature-bestof2014-1

One way to look at just how unique these lists are is to compare how frequently the most popular selections appeared with how many of the selections were only made once.

munguia-feature-bestof2014-2

munguia-feature-bestof2014-3

As far as the most frequent selections are concerned, the lists of best books were the least uniform, whereas every movie critic in my sample agreed that “Boyhood” deserved to be listed among the year’s best films. TV shows had the lowest percentage of titles that appeared on only one list.

One reason the “best books” lists were the most diverse is because they were the longest. While most of the lists looking at movies and TV shows were limited to 10 or 20 titles, a lot of the books lists topped 100 titles. I asked Publishers Weekly’s deputy reviews editor, Gabe Habash, why he thought lists of the best books were so long.

“I’d imagine the reason so many best books lists are 100 or so titles is because of the sheer volume and variety of books that are published in the U.S.,” he said. “Even if, as you’ve found, there is the least overlap in year-end book lists, I would like to see even more variety. … The truth of the matter is there are so many wonderful publishers and books out there that don’t get the recognition they deserve.”

As it turns out, Habash hit the nail on the head. According to the bibliographic information publisher Bowker, there were 1.4 million books published in the U.S. last year, whereas the Motion Picture Association of America‘s data shows that only 659 films were released. Numbers on TV shows in production are harder to come by, but Showtime’s president of entertainment, David Nevins, has estimated that there are currently about 350 scripted original shows in production. By those numbers, it seems like book critics are actually a lot more unified than they should be.

So critics in some areas simply have less choice when it comes to making their “best of” lists. But even where there’s still plenty of room for originality, consensus is pretty powerful.

Who are the main culprits of groupthink here? Of the 30 publications included in this analysis, who’s most willing to go out on a limb? First we need to determine a baseline. For movies and TV shows, Metacritic puts together a list based on “a weighted average of reviews from top critics and publications.” And for books, the National Book Critics Circle finalists would be the best equivalent, but those awards don’t come out until next year, so National Book Award finalists will be the proxy.

munguia-feature-bestof2014-4

In the chart above, the closer the publication’s score is to 0, the more unique its lists are. The “best movies” lists are by far the least unique, with Rolling Stone leading the herd. But while New York magazine looks good by comparison in picking unique films, it has the most unoriginal picks for both books and TV shows.

There’s a lot of variation across lists, but there is a slight trend in which publications that are more popular or general interest adhere more to the consensus while the more niche publications are less unified. Publishers Weekly, Slant and Culturalist — the mavericks in books, movies and TV shows, respectively — are all among the most niche publications on the list.

But where consensus does exist, it’s not necessarily intentional. Ryan told me that when she’s writing her own year-end list, she tries “to go into a mental lockbox” and that she refrains from reading other people’s lists because she doesn’t want to unconsciously imitate them. She thinks that’s how most critics out there behave.

“Sometimes I think there’s an attitude that there’s a cabal meeting that we all have about what we’ll make popular,” she said. “That’s just not the case. If a lot of people named ‘Transparent,’ it’s because they all really liked ‘Transparent,’ not because they want to be one of the cool kids.”

04 Jan 02:09

Designing The Best Board Game On The Planet

by Oliver Roeder

The game ends in nuclear war only about 5 percent of the time. That’s a good thing. It gives Ananda Gupta faith in humanity.

The game is called Twilight Struggle, and it’s the top-ranked board game in the world. It occupies the No. 1 spot on the authoritative gaming-world website BoardGameGeek.

Gupta, 38, of Columbia, Maryland, is the game’s co-designer. A video-game designer at Firaxis Games by day, he recreated a post-World War II universe out of cardboard. In Twilight Struggle, players peddle influence and alter history with playing cards in an effort to win the Cold War. And, ideally, avoid nuclear apocalypse.

I spoke with Gupta, and turned to a vast board game database, to uncover what makes a board game great.

Serious games — whether they be hobby games, boutique games or Euro games — are having a moment. Over the past five years, their market has grown an average of 15 percent a year, to $700 million in 2013. The Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride — popular gateway drugs of the genre — are the third- and fourth-best selling board games on Amazon.64 There’s more to these games than “roll the dice, move your mice.” Games in this broad category are typically characterized by deep strategy, an emphasis on skill and the lack of player elimination. In other words, they’re not Monopoly.

On BoardGameGeek, Twilight Struggle is ranked No. 1. Settlers of Catan: 138th. Monopoly: 10,441st.65

The site’s database contains more than 74,000 games. Ratings are determined by users, who rate games on a 1 to 10 scale. Github user Rasmus Greve has posted data from the site online. To consider only board games with fairly reliable ratings, I restricted the data set to just those games with at least 50 ratings. This leaves us with a closetful of 7,553 games.66

These are the BoardGameGeek ratings of all such games, by the date of their original publication.

roeder-feature-twilightstruggle-1

We may now find ourselves in the middle of a golden age of serious board gaming. The number of titles, and their average ratings by players, increase each year. Impressively, amid this renaissance, Twilight Struggle maintains its No. 1 spot despite having been published in 2005.67

So, how do you design the world’s best board game? The first lesson is persistence.

Twilight Struggle traces its roots to the early 2000s and a board gaming club at George Washington University. That’s where Gupta and co-designer Jason Matthews met. Not GW students themselves, they were friends with some, and would go to the school to play and also to bemoan the increasing complexity of historical games — a genre especially dear to them. The rulebooks were overlong, the game mechanics baroque.

Simplification, to Gupta and Matthews, was the name of their design philosophy. Rather than overwhelm players with a fat rulebook at the start, the designers spread the information required throughout the gameplay, on cards. A typical Twilight Struggle card reads, “Truman Doctrine: Remove all USSR Influence from a single uncontrolled country in Europe.” The Twilight Struggle rulebook is a relatively slender 24 pages.

They originally intended to do a game about the Spanish Civil War but realized they’d been scooped by a guy in Spain. “We’re probably not going to do a better job than he is,” Gupta joked. They eventually settled on the Cold War. Most games on the topic had focused on when the Cold War got hot. But thermonuclear war is depressing. Gupta and Matthews instead designed a game about the geopolitics, rather than a hypothetical military conflict.

Matthews, of Alexandria, Virginia, is an American history expert and was the legislative director for Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Gupta, a history buff, was doing policy work at a think tank, then was in school for computer science, before dropping out after he landed his first job in the video-game industry. The two would discuss key aspects of the Cold War — the domino theory, the arms race, the space race — and these would make their way into the game.

ollie-board-game-image

The first Twilight Struggle test map, circa 2002. Courtesy of Ananda Gupta.

But publishers balked. “The Cold War? Why would anyone want to play a game about the Cold War?” Gupta recalled being asked.

Salvation came in the form of the company GMT Games, and its Project 500 — a kind of Kickstarter before Kickstarter was cool. Interested gamers would pledge money, and GMT would print the game if enough capital was raised. Even then, it took a grinding 18 months for Twilight Struggle to generate enough pledges to warrant a printing.

That first printing sold out in 20 minutes. It has gone on to amass 17,781 ratings on BoardGameGeek, as I write, with an average rating of 8.33.

Gupta has a few theories about why his game has done so well. For one, it’s a two-player game — the Americans vs. the Soviets. Two-player games are attractive for a couple of reasons. First, by definition, half the players win. People like winning, and are likely to replay and rate highly a game they think they have a chance to win. Also, with just one opponent, there is little downtime. You don’t have to wait while the turn gets passed around the table to three, four or five other players. That’s boring.

Here are games’ average ratings by the number of players a game supports.

roeder-feature-twilightstruggle-2

The data offers some evidence for Gupta’s hypothesis. Games that support three players rate highest, with an average of 6.58. But two-player games are a close second, with an average rating of 6.55. Next closest are five-player games, which average 6.39.

Another element working in Twilight Struggle’s favor is its length. BoardGameGeek lists its playing time at three hours, but Gupta said it’s more like two and a half. (When designing, he was aiming for two.) Games’ lengths need to strike a balance.

“You have to feel like something meaningful has been done in the game. You have to feel like the game had a beginning and had a middle and had an end, and that you were engaged,” Gupta said. You don’t, however, want to get burned out.

roeder-feature-twilightstruggle-3

Again, Gupta’s suspicion seems borne out, empirically. The shortest games are the lowest rated, on average. But players don’t favor length without bounds. Three hours seems to be right around the point of diminishing marginal returns.

Another key to the game’s success is its mix of luck and skill. Twilight Struggle is clearly a game of skill. There are expert-level players and tournaments, and the experts put even the game’s designer to shame. Gupta played in a Twilight Struggle tournament, and “by luck of the draw, I faced the previous year’s champion,” he said. “It was embarrassing how quickly he wrecked me.”

There’s even a website — Twilight Strategy — devoted to the strategic intricacies of the game. “They are doing a great public service,” Gupta said.

But there’s also a healthy dollop of luck. Players draw cards randomly and, by the laws of probability, are not likely to have had any specific hand before.

“Without luck, Twilight Struggle would not be what it is,” Gupta said. “I think that’s what keeps Twilight Struggle sticking is picking up that first hand and you’re like, ‘Okay, what are we doing here?’ ”

Remarkably, the empirical success of the game came mainly not from the fine calibration of some statistical model, but rather from game designers’ intuition.

“Twilight Struggle was designed and balanced by horse sense, rather than by number crunching,” said Gupta, who does the latter much more in his video-game job. “Looking back at some of the shortcuts we took on Twilight Struggle makes me cringe.”

He added: “There is definitely a split between people who design primarily from horse sense, from instinct, and then let the spreadsheets fill in the blanks. And then there are the people who start with the spreadsheets.”

A final piece of the puzzle is balance — the idea that either side thinks they have a fighting chance to win. That makes for a good game. Balancing Twilight Struggle, in particular, was tricky. The creators were trying to design a game in which the Soviets had the advantage early, and the U.S had the advantage late — “To basically mirror the dynamic that eventually the liberal democratic capitalist economy would outpace the socialist one.”

Here, too, they relied more on brute force than any sophisticated model. To achieve balance, Gupta played the game a lot — often against Matthews or other not necessarily thrilled members of the GW club. So, it’s not surprising that Gupta doesn’t play his own game much anymore. But there are online tools that can help generate gameplay data. CyberBoard and Vassal, for example, can help crowdsource test plays of the game. Gupta hopes to take further advantage of these in his coming game, Imperial Struggle.68

Twilight Struggle is emblematic of a sea change from older, magisterial games with titles like Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, War in Europe and The Civil War. (The Civil War’s listed playing time is 1,200 minutes.) The redistribution of game information from massive rulebooks onto game cards was a revolution that can be traced to Mark Herman’s We the People, a game about the American Revolution, and Paths of Glory, a World War I game by Ted Raicer.

“What that meant was the game was a lot easier to learn,” Gupta said. “That started a renaissance in historical gaming.”

Twilight Struggle, in turn, has its descendents. Its most direct is 1989 — no, not that “1989” — another Cold War game. Other offspring include 1960, a game about the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election, and Labyrinth, about the war on terror after 9/11.

But these games aren’t the end of history. The next innovation, predicts Gupta, is topic — what the games are about. Historical game designers are beginning to move beyond Gettysburg, the Bulge and Waterloo.

“Ninety-five percent of human conflicts are not covered by games. We’re seeing more games that are less focused on America. We’re seeing more games focused on struggles that are not of interest primarily for their aesthetics.”

He added, “I think most of the interest in the Napoleonic Wars, to be honest, is because the uniforms are so cool.”

In addition to spawning the next generation of games, Gupta is busy spawning the next generation of gamers. Much of his gaming is now done with his 10-year-old son. He recommended the games King of Tokyo and Sushi Go! for the budding gamer.

But Twilight Struggle has topped the leaderboard for a long time. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown? Not necessarily. Gupta thinks there’s a chance for a successor.

“People have understandably said, ‘Isn’t it somebody else’s turn?’ At this point, it wouldn’t break my heart if another game were to eclipse it,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when and how.”

18 Apr 13:56

Lessons I’ve Learned From Being a Therapist

by Emily V. Gordon
Margot Foster

Everyone should read this.

images-1I was a practicing couples and family therapist for six years, working with families of kids in facilities, people with schizophrenia, children, and single moms. I could tell you about all the things I’ve learned about love and lust and dating from this six years, but those relationships are analyzed to death. Instead, here are some of the things I’ve learned about every other kind of relationship- families, friends, strangers. The relationships that are often ignored and thought to be “second nature” are the ones that end up being the toughest to navigate at times.

1. Being able to say “I’m sorry” is a skill, and one that not a lot of people possess. Hone that skill. Apologizing shouldn’t be followed by “but here’s why I did it” or “and then you did this”. An apology is you taking responsibility for hurting someone else, not a notch on a scorecard in some bizarro battle of “Who’s Right?”

2.  People behave in very intense ways when their feelings are hurt. I’ve seen teenagers start punching things when their parents don’t show up for visits. I’ve seen parents hysterically cry and call themselves failures when they are told their child is setting fires. I once had a woman tell me that my dye job was hideous when I confronted her about her drug use. We are all human and we don’t like feeling embarrassed or hurt, and it’s best to keep that in mind when dealing with others. That doesn’t mean you excuse their behavior, but it’s always helpful to remember that sometimes the ego has an ugly way of protecting itself.

3. Childhoods don’t last forever, they just feel like they do. Don’t be in such a hurry to speed up a childhood that you will be pining for a few years down the line. This is why people in their 30s are so obsessed with nostalgia. Dating and drama will be there for you whenever- you do not have to chase them.

4. The only thing that is permanent is change. You cannot stop change from happening, you can only decide how you react to it, and whether or not you grow from it.

url-25. If a friend is making you feel small, end the friendship. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been friends for years, or if you don’t have that many friends, or if you have to see them all the time. Nothing is more damaging to your sense of self worth than surrounding yourself with people who pick away at you. Feeling lonely is better than feeling small.

6. So let’s talk about friend breakups. They are intensely painful and traumatic, and while we have a pretty standard script for romantic breakups- “It’s not you, it’s me”- we still, as a people, have no good way to break up with a friend. Years ago, I had a female friend that I glommed onto right after a breakup. Sure, I was pouring all of my relationship energy into this girl to avoid dealing with a breakup, but therapists are human too. We spent all of our time together, which I was grateful for at first, until she started getting angry with me for spending time with other people. I also noticed that she would put me down in front of other people, but at that time I felt pretty low so it matched up with my opinion of myself. After a few weeks I started feeling especially stressed and anxious around her, and I finally realized that this relationship was toxic for me. I sat her down and did my best to focus on my experience of the friendship, and not on the wrongs I felt like she had committed. I told her I cared about her and didn’t want to resent her, so I was going to have to back off a bit. It was excruciatingly awkward, and for the next few weeks, I felt incredibly lonely, but I also felt less anxious.

A note: I don’t disapprove of fadeaways with friends you no longer want to hang out with, just because the awkwardness and pain is so intense.

7. Don’t take responsibility for other people’s choices, and don’t let people bully you into taking responsibility for their choices. We are all captains of our own ships and have enough to worry about keeping ourselves afloat- the minute you take on, as your duty, someone else’s joy/career/well being, you have entered into a codependent, unhealthy alliance with them. I have worked with many parents who are trying so force to make their children to be more “normal.” I have worked with many jilted lovers who are desperate to win their exes back. In both cases, by trying to convince yourself that you can somehow control the other person’s choices, you are only setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. One of the scariest things in life is realizing how little control you have in this world. All you can really control, ever, are your own actions. That’s it.

url-18. At some point, your parents go from being your leaders and trusted mentors (I’m speaking VERY generally here) to being advisors and loving but occasionally annoying adults in your life. I once worked with a completely miserable couple who came to me with problems in their marriage, but it turned out the problems in their marriage stemmed from the fact that the husband was still continually seeking permission from his parents for things ranging from what couch to buy to when to have children. Both the parents and the (adult) kid weren’t sure how to evolve their relationship, but once they did, the marital problems settled down.

9. It is tough to be considered an adult by your parents when you are still financially dependent on them. Not impossible, but tough. You can be emotionally dependent on them forever if you like, but not relying on them for finances gives you a level of freedom (albeit destitute freedom) that is unrivaled. Being financially independent makes you able to fake smile and nod at them when they make ridiculous suggestions.

10. Always always strive for more self-awareness. If you are feeling an intense emotion, do some self exploration before you decide to act on that emotion. Sit with yourself, and when you do act, act with intentionality. Sometimes that intention may be “to make you feel like shit”, but at least be aware of your intentions. Tapping into your awareness of your own behavior is my number one tip for improving your life.

11. I am especially sensitive to, and annoyed by, people who pride themselves on “just telling it like it is”. Sometimes these people possess a rare gift of insight and kindness, but more often, they’re being cruel and disguising it as some sort of lame superpower. Giving someone the hard truth doesn’t make you more insightful, it makes you the asshole who saw the same thing everyone else saw and decided it might make you feel better to say it out loud.

12. Regardless of what you choose to do with them, your blood relatives will always be your blood relatives. As you grow older your boundaries with those people may change a great deal, but it’s important to remember that you don’t get to decide how other people show love. You can only choose to accept their love or not.

Margeonthelam13. Notice I didn’t use the term “family” above? That’s because one of the greatest lessons of life is that you get to create your own family as you get older. This family, for a lot of us, will include blood relatives. For some of us, it will not. The best family members are people who have seen every side of you, who accept you for who you are, and who are always pushing you to be the best version of yourself.

14. Saying “That is inappropriate” is a great way to shut down weird behavior. I’ve said it to children, teenagers, clients, old people, weirdos masturbating on trains, coworkers, and once, to a celebrity in a restaurant.

15. Literally everyone is struggling with some sort of demon. Yes, you are absolutely unique and your demons are unique to you, but we’ve all felt helpless/angry/miserable/empty/vengeful. Take comfort in the fact that other people have felt how you are feeling, and they’ve survived it.

Read more Lessons I’ve Learned From Being a Therapist at The Toast.

20 Mar 13:25

Digits

Margot Foster

True story.

It's taken me 20 years to get over skyline tetris.
19 Mar 17:44

Top 16 TED Talks for Foodists

by Darya Rose
Margot Foster

Mostly sharing to save for later...

JO_ted

This week the amazing TED conference is going on in Vancouver. For those of you who have never heard of a TED talk until today, you’re welcome.

TED collects the most interesting people in the world and gives them the stage for 20 minutes. Inevitably they will expand your mind in some way or another, even in topics you didn’t think you were interested in.

To commemorate the awesomeness which is TED, I compiled a list of my favorite TED talks to educate and inspire foodists. These talks focus on food, health, habits, happiness and quality of life. I’d love to hear which are your favorites and what you enjoy most about them.

Stay thirsty, my foodists.

16 TED Talks for Foodist

1. Dan Buettner: How to live to be 100+

 

2. Jamie Oliver: Teach every child about food

 

3. BJ Fogg: Forget big change, start with a tiny habit

 

4. Mick Cornett: How an obese town lost a million pounds

 

5. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

 

6. Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness

 

7. Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish

 

8. Matthieu Ricard: The habits of happiness

 

9. Sandra Aamodt: Why dieting doesn’t usually work

 

10. Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

 

11. Dan Barber: A surprising parable of foie gras

 

12. Mark Bittman: What’s wrong with what we eat

 

13. Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce

 

14. Michael Pollan: A plant’s-eye view

 

15. Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread

 

16. Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

What inspires you?

03 Mar 15:46

Baby Steps

by carnivøre
Margot Foster

This is a really well written article on making small changes over time rather than trying to make big changes all at once.

baby-stepsOne of my favorite blogs has another excellent post up, 12 Baby Steps to Optimal Nutrition.  I love how this guy uses steps, provides references, and gives all around awesome information.  If you find my stuff even remotely interesting, check out his site, Authority Nutrition.

Anyway, sometime I lose sight of the fact that people aren’t all super freaks and can’t just go from eating like garbage, to 100% clean, overnight.  I honed my love for meat, veggies, fruit, and nuts over the course of many years.  I’ve probably also read 10,000 articles about it, and still learn new stuff every day.  Buying books, like “It Starts with Food” and grinding out a 30 day challenge are a great start, but its not for everyone.  So… start small.  Take a single principle, like, no more bread, and do it for a week or two.  Next, cut candy/sweets for a few weeks.  You keep building, sooner or later you will get there.  A healthy lifestyle is only as good as it is sustainable anyway… so no sense in starting something you can never stick with.

—————————

What works for one person may not work for the next.

When making changes, some people (like me) prefer to go all-in and change everything at the same time.

But others prefer the longer, slower approach… making small changes, one at a time.

Neither approach is better than the other, it’s just that people have different personalities and like to approach lifestyle changes differently.

Young Smiling Man Eating a Salad

This article is for those who prefer the longer, slower approach.

It explains how to adopt a healthy, real food based diet in 12 simple, easily manageable steps.

You can do one step per week, one every two weeks, or one per month… whichever suits you. Waiting until you get used to one change before making the next is a good idea.

Whatever you do, you should start seeing results right away, because each step can have a powerful effect.

When you’re done with this, you should have lost a significant amount of weight and improved your health, both physical and mental, in every way imaginable.

Remember… habit puts willpower on autopilot. Changes in lifestyle and behavior can be tough in the beginning, but become effortless when you turn them into a habit.

By mastering one small habit at a time, you will set yourself up for long-term success.

Here are 12 baby steps to optimal nutrition.

1. Eat More Protein to Boost Your Metabolism and Reduce Your Appetite, Making Future Changes Easier

Girl Eating Kebab, Very Large

Before we subtract, we add.

This first step will change your metabolism in a way that makes subsequent changes easier.

First of all, protein actually boosts your metabolic rate… that is, how many calories you burn at rest.

The studies show that high protein diets boost metabolism by 80 to 100 calories per day, compared to low protein diets (12).

Second of all, protein can reduce your appetite, making you automatically eat less of other calorie sources (34).

In one study, eating protein at 30% of calories caused an automatic reduction in calorie intake of 449 calories per day. The people lost 4.9 kg (11 lbs) in 12 weeks, without intentionally restricting anything (5).

Of course… adequate protein also has many other benefits, including increased muscle mass, stronger bones, lower blood pressure, to name a few (678).

Good protein sources include meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs and full-fat dairy products (if you can tolerate them). Some people like beans and legumes, which areabsolutely fine if properly prepared.

I recommend eating about 1.5-2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, or 0.7-1.1 grams per pound.

You don’t really need to weigh or measure this, but it may be a good idea to track your foods in the beginning to make sure you are getting enough.

Eating more protein is the easiest, simplest and most delicious way to give your metabolism a nudge towards a lower body weight, reduced appetite and better health. It will also make the rest of the changes easier.

Bottom Line: Adding more protein to your diet will boost your metabolism and reduce your appetite, giving your metabolism a nudge and making subsequent changes much easier.

2. Start Eating a Healthy Breakfast, Preferably With Eggs

Young Man Holding a Chicken and Eggs

The second step involves changing one of your daily meals… breakfast.

Most people are eating cereal or something similar for breakfast, but that really is the worst thing you can eat at the start of the day.

Most breakfast cereals are loaded with refined carbs and sugar (even the healthy looking ones).

Eating this stuff for breakfast will spike your blood sugar, leading to a crash a few hours later… followed by cravings for another high-carb meal (9).

Instead, eat eggs for breakfast.

Eggs are pretty much the perfect breakfast food… they’re high in protein, healthy fats and contain a ton of nutrients (10).

There are a few studies showing that if you replace a grain-based breakfast (bagels) with eggs, it can help you lose fat (1112).

Eggs are best served with vegetables or a fruit… but you can have quality bacon with them if you want.

If you can’t eat eggs for some reason, any high-protein, nutrient dense food will suffice.

There really is NO valid excuse not to eat a healthy breakfast. Once you get this into a routine, preparing an egg-based breakfast doesn’t take more than 5-10 minutes, at most. Just set your alarm a bit earlier.

That being said, there is no need to eat breakfast in the morning if you don’t feel like it, just make sure that your first meal of the day is a healthy one.

Bottom Line: Eating a healthy, nutrient-dense breakfast with protein and healthy fats is the best way to start the day.

3. Replace Crappy Fats and Oils With Good Fats and Oils

Vegetable Oil in a Plastic Bottle

Simply replacing unhealthy fats and oils with healthier ones can have a major impact on your health down the line.

Most people are eating a lot of seriously unhealthy fats… including trans fats and refined vegetable oils.

Although trans fat consumption has gone down in the past few years and decades, it is still way too high.

To avoid trans fats, make sure you read the label on anything you eat. If it says “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” anywhere on the label, avoid it.

Refined vegetable oils are also problematic. They have a different composition than other more natural fats, being unnaturally high in Omega-6 fatty acids. This includes corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil and several others.

Without getting into the details (you can read about them here), consuming vegetable oils may be leading to increased inflammation and oxidative damage in the body, potentially raising your risk of heart disease and cancer (13141516).

Instead of these nasty fats and oils, choose fats that are mostly saturated and/or monounsaturated. Grass-fed butter, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil and others. Whole nuts are an excellent source of fat as well.

Bottom Line: The relatively simple act of replacing trans fats and high Omega-6 vegetable oils with healthy, traditional fats should lead to some pretty impressive health benefits and make your body function better.

4. Remove Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Fruit Juices From Your Diet

Tops of Soda Bottles

Sugar is bad news… but sugar consumed in a liquid form is even worse.

Studies show that the brain doesn’t “register” liquid sugar calories in the same way as it does calories from other foods (1718).

So you might drink several hundred calories of soda in one day (not uncommon), but your brain doesn’t take them into account when it is trying to control your energy balance.

If you were to add a whole food to your diet, you would automatically eat less of other foods instead. In other words, your brain would “compensate” for those added calories.

That doesn’t happen with liquid sugar calories. Your brain doesn’t compensate for them, so you end up taking in more than you need.

One study shows that consuming a single serving of sugar-sweetened beverages per day is linked to a 60% increased risk of obesity in children (19).

Many other studies support this… sugar-sweetened beverages may be the most fattening aspect of the modern diet (20).

Keep in mind that fruit juice is just as bad. It contains the same amount of sugar as a sugary soft drink (21).

Bottom Line: Sugar may be the single worst ingredient in the modern diet, but consuming it in a liquid form is even worse.

5. Start Exercising… Find Something That You Enjoy and Can Stick to

Woman Running With Headphones

Exercise is one of the most important things you can do for both physical and mental health, as well as disease prevention.

On its own, it is unlikely to lead to significant weight loss (22).

However… it can help improve your body composition. You may not be losing weight, but you may be losing some fat and gaining a bit of muscle instead (23).

Exercise leads to so many benefits that it is beyond the scope of this article to list all of them… but let’s just say that exercise is highly protective against pretty much any chronic, Western disease (24).

It is also incredibly beneficial for mood, well-being and avoiding depression, which is a very common problem today (252627).

When it comes to exercise, what you do exactly is not that important. What IS important is finding something that you enjoy doing and can stick to in the long run.

Although a combination of cardiovascular exercise and some type of resistance training may be the best, something as simple as walking also has incredibly powerful health benefits (28).

If you’ve already done steps 1-4, the function of your hormones should have improved and your energy levels increased, so starting an exercise program may not be that hard.

Work your way up to doing some sort of exercise at least 3 times per week.

Bottom Line: Exercise is just as important as nutrition when it comes to optimal health. It can improve both physical and mental health, while being highly protective against most modern, chronic diseases.

6. Replace Sugar, Refined Carbs and Modern Wheat With Other Healthier Foods

Both Healthy and Unhealthy Carbs on a Plate

Time to get rid of all the “bad” carbs.

Sugar and refined carbs are some of the unhealthiest aspects of the modern diet.

They’re low in nutrients and fiber and contribute to overeating, which brings with it a plethora of metabolic problems and diseases (2930).

Wheat is in a league of its own. Modern dwarf wheat, introduced around 1960, is low in nutrients compared to older varieties of wheat and is much worse for celiac patients and gluten sensitive individuals than older types of wheat (313233).

Instead of the “bad” carbs, choose healthier carb sources instead. Vegetables, fruits, potatoes, sweet potatoes, healthier grains like rice, oats and quinoa, even legumes if you can tolerate them.

For now, let this suffice and don’t restrict total carb intake (not until step #8).

Whatever you do, just get rid of the sugar and processed carbs from your diet. Eat real food instead.

Bottom Line: Sugar and refined carbs are some of the most damaging aspects of the modern diet. It’s time to get rid of them and eat healthier carbs instead.

7. Start Eating Meat or Fish and Plenty of Vegetables For Dinner

Woman Wondering Whether to Eat Meat or Vegetables

Now it’s time to transform another one of your daily meals… dinner.

Replace whatever it is that you’re eating with a meal based on either meat or fish, along with plenty of nutritious vegetables.

I find that dinner is the easiest meal to fit in plenty of veggies.

If you enjoy starches (like potatoes or rice) with dinner, then feel free to eat those too.

Definitely try to eat fatty fish at least 1-2 times per week for all the super healthy Omega-3s. If you can’t or won’t eat fatty fish, then supplement with fish oil.

Bottom Line: Start eating a healthy dinner based on meat or fish, with plenty of vegetables. Try to eat fatty fish at least 1-2 times per week.

8. Match Carb Intake to Your Metabolic Health and Activity Levels

Female Doctor Holding Two Apples

Carbs are a highly controversial nutrient.

Some think the biggest part of our diet should be coming from carbs, while others think they are downright toxic.

As with most things, the truth is somewhere in between and depends greatly on the individual.

The optimal carb intake for any one individual depends on many factors… including metabolic health, activity levels, food culture and personal preference.

Whereas someone who is lean, healthy and lifts weights 5 times a week may function well eating a lot of carbs, someone who is overweight and doesn’t exercise much will probably do better with a low-carb diet.

Although there is no scientific paper that explains exactly how to match carbohydrate intake to individual needs, I’ve personally found these guidelines to be effective:

    • 100-150 grams: People who are lean, healthy and physically active (some people may need even more than this).

 

    • 50-100 grams: People who are overweight and/or don’t exercise much.

 

  • 20-50 grams: People who have a lot of weight to lose, or have metabolic problems like type 2 diabetes.

If weight loss is your goal, you can slowly add back in healthier carb sources when you reach your ideal weight.

Bottom Line: Some people function best eating plenty of carbohydrates. For others, low-carb diets have life saving benefits. It’s important to match carbohydrate intake to your individual needs and preferences.

9. Take Care of Your Lifestyle… Emphasizing Adequate Sleep and Reduced Stress Levels

Woman Relaxing With Cup of Tea

Often overlooked, sleep and stress levels can have a major effect on your health.

Studies show that not getting enough sleep is strongly linked to many serious diseases, including obesity (3435).

Short sleep duration may actually be one of the strongest risk factor for weight gain. It is linked to a 55% increased risk of obesity in adults and 89% in children (36).

There are many ways to improve sleep… such as sleeping in a completely dark room, avoiding caffeine in the afternoon and evening, as well as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule.

Another major lifestyle factor is chronic stress.

Excess stress raises your levels of the hormone cortisol, which can make you gain a lot of fat in the abdominal cavity and raise your risk of all sorts of health problems down the line (3738).

Unfortunately, stress can be hard to deal with. Many of us are overwhelmed with various duties and worries.

Meditation can help with this, but if you are severely stressed all the time and can’t find a way to change it on your own, then it may be a good idea to seek professional help.

Bottom Line: Lifestyle factors like getting adequate sleep and avoiding chronic stress are incredibly important for optimal health, but often overlooked.

10. Start Eating Healthy Lunches and Snacks… Now Each of Your Daily Meals Should be Healthy and Nutritious

Man and Woman Eating Lunch

Now that you’ve already taken care of breakfast and dinner, it’s time to move on to lunches and snacks.

These meals tend to be the most problematic for a lot of people, because they are often eaten away from home.

A good way to always ensure you can eat something healthy for lunch is to cook an excessive amount at dinner, so you can eat leftovers for lunch the next day.

But today, because the world is more health conscious than ever before, “fast food” places that serve healthy food have started appearing all over the place.

It might be a good idea to write down a list of places that serve healthier foods, so you always have some options on hand if you find yourself hungry away from home.

Snacks are pretty easy… a piece of fruit and a handful of nuts works well. A few hard boiled eggs, a bag of baby carrots… all of these are easily portable.

Chances are that you won’t even need snacks at this point, since avoiding sugar and processed carbs tends to reduce hunger and lead to stable energy levels.

Bottom Line: It’s time to start eating healthy lunches and snacks every day. Now each of your meals should be healthy and nutritious. It can help to plan ahead and have a list of “fast food” places that serve healthy foods.

11. Cut Out All Processed Foods and Start Focusing on Quality

Woman Smiling and Holding a Fried Egg

Now it’s time to go completely real food based.

You should already be 90% there, but if you’ve been hanging on to anything that you think may be doing you harm, now is the time to get rid of it.

Clear out your pantry… throw away all soda, bread, cereals, flour, sugars, pastries and processed foods.

Start focusing on quality ingredients… look for quality sources of animal foods, choosegrass-fed if you can.

Eat quality produce and try to avoid any food with artificial ingredients.

Remember… real food doesn’t need an ingredients list, because real food IS the ingredient.

Bottom Line: It’s time to clear your house of all unhealthy, artificial stuff. Start focusing on quality, unprocessed foods at every meal. Look for the healthiest sources of plants and animals.

12. Commit to a Lifetime of Improvement

Healthy Man Reading a Book

The final step is a lifelong endeavour.

Turn health and nutrition into a hobby.

Subscribe to some blogs and try to read a few health related books per year.

Stay health conscious for the rest of your life and you will live longer, look better and avoid most of the chronic diseases that people suffer from in old age.

01 Mar 15:48

TO BE LOVED! Zen Pencils readers get romantically creative

by Gav

comicpic

Ah, I love when Zen Pencils inspires others to make good art. A couple of lovely couples in love have lovingly completed projects inspired by my CS Lewis To Love at All comic that I absolutely … love!

Before you scroll down, you should read the comic so the rest of this post will make sense. I’ve had such positive feedback from the comic and I’m really honoured that so many of you relate to it. And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the cartoon couple. I know their relationship is currently up in the air, but there will be definitely be a part three in the future.

Ok firstly, Zen Pencils readers Eric and Armi loved the comic so much it inspired them to use it as the basis of their pre-nuptial video. They’ve made a super-cute and funny version of the comic starring themselves. The video made me smile so much and they’ve managed to capture the humour and heart that’s in the comic. I might have squirted out a few tears while watching it (I ain’t afraid to admit it). Check it out and congrats to the both of them!

Eric & Armi Pre-wedding concept video from The Lightshapers Studios on Vimeo.

And secondly, super-talented photographer and Zen Pencils fan Moriah did a photoshoot with her boyfriend Matthew based on the comic. Moriah had gone through a tough break up before she found love again with Matthew:

“When my boyfriend and I met a year ago I found it so hard to trust again, and yes, to be vulnerable. When I came across your cartoon I felt that it perfectly illustrated my own heart ache and the experience I went through. I immediately emailed the link to Matthew, and said, “this is you and me.” Then there was an exchange about my red hair and the fact that Matthew also likes to wear bow ties, similar to your characters. We both felt such an affinity for this cartoon that I decided to create a styled shoot inspired by it.”

moriahrionallc_01
moriahrionallc_02
moriahrionallc_03
moriahrionallc_04
moriahrionallc_05
moriahrionallc_06

Beautiful stuff! Visit Moriah’s blog to see the rest of the pics and more of her work.

Zen Pencils readers are the best – am I right or am I right? Leave a comment to let me know if Zen Pencils has motivated you to unleash your own creativity!

24 Feb 19:37

For the Love of Food

by Darya Rose
For The Love of Food

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week low-fat dairy is pointless, farmers may plant foods that are actually healthy, and how the color red can help you eat less.

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

What inspired you this week?