Tell Yourself a Better Lie – by Marissa Peer
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As humans, we generally lie to ourselves constantly. Or perhaps we really believe some of the things we tell ourselves, even if they’re not objectively necessarily true:
- I’ll always be poor
- I’m destined to be alone
- I don’t deserve good things
- Etc.
Superficially, it’s easy to flip those, and choose to tell oneself the opposite. But it feels hollow and fake, doesn’t it? That’s where Marissa Peer comes in.
Our stories that we tell ourselves don’t start where we are—they’re generally informed by things we learned along the way. Sometimes good lessons, sometimes bad ones. Sometimes things that were absolutely wrong and/or counterproductive.
Peer invites the reader to ask “What if…”, unravel how the unhelpful lessons got wired into our brains in the first place, and then set about untangling them.
“Tell yourself a better lie” does not mean self-deceit. It means that we’re the authors of our own stories, so we might as well make them work for us. Many things in life are genuinely fixed; others are open to interpretation.
Sorting one from the other, and then treating them correctly in a way that’s helpful to us? That’s how we can stop hurting ourselves, and instead bring our own stories around to uplift and fortify us.
Get Your Copy of “Tell Yourself A Better Lie” on Amazon Today!
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Watermelon vs Grapes – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing watermelon to grapes, we picked the watermelon.
Why?
It was close! And certainly both are very healthy.
Both fruits are (like most fruits) good sources of water, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Any sugar content (of which grapes are slightly higher) is offset by their fiber content and polyphenols.
See: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
While both are good sources of vitamins A and C, watermelon has about 10x as much vitamin A, and about 6x as much vitamin C (give or take individual plants, how they were grown, etc, but the overall balance is clearly in watermelon’s favor).
When it comes to antioxidants, both fruits are good, but again watermelon is the more potent source. Grapes famously contain resveratrol, and they also contain quercetin, albeit you’d have to eat quite a lot of grapes to get a large portion.
Now, having to eat a lot of grapes might not sound like a terrible fate (who else finds that the grapes are gone by the time the groceries are put away?), but we are comparing the fruits here, and on a list of “100 best foods for quercetin”, for example, grapes took 99th place.
Watermelon’s main antioxidant meanwhile is lycopene, and watermelon is one of the best sources of lycopene in existence (better even than tomatoes).
We’ll have to do a main feature about lycopene sometime soon, so watch this space
Take care!
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The Green Roasting Tin – by Rukmini Iyer
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You may be wondering: “do I really need a book to tell me to put some vegetables in a roasting tin and roast them?” and maybe not, but the book offers a lot more than that.
Indeed, the author notes “this book was slightly in danger of becoming the gratin and tart book, because I love both”, but don’t worry, most of the recipes are—as you might expect—very healthy.
As for formatting: the 75 recipes are divided first into vegan or vegetarian, and then into quick/medium/slow, in terms of how long they take.
However, even the “slow” recipes don’t actually take more effort, just, more time in the oven.
One of the greatest strengths of this book is that not only does it offer a wide selection of wholesome mains, but also, if you’re putting on a big spread, these can easily double up as high-class low-effort sides.
Bottom line: if you’d like to eat more vegetables in 2024 but want to make it delicious and with little effort, put this book on your Christmas list!
Click here to check out The Green Roasting Tin, and level-up yours!
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Rest For The Restless (Legs)
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Any tips for dealing with restless legs syndrome?❞
As a neurological disorder (Willis-Ekbom Disease, as it is also called
by almost nobody outside of academia), there’s a lot that’s not known about its pathology, but we do know that looking after one’s nerves can help a lot.This means:
- Avoid alcohol, as this is bad for everything, including nerves
- See also: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- Don’t smoke, as this is bad for everything, including nerves
- Do exercise those restless legs! It may sound funny, but in seriousness, movement promotes nerve health
- See also: Walking… Better.
- Take care of your blood sugars, because diabetic neuropathy can also cause this
- See also: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
- Massage your legs, and enjoy a hot bath/shower
You can also take into account the measures recommended for dealing with peripheral neuropathy, e.g:
Peripheral Neuropathy: How To Avoid It, Manage It, Treat It
There are also medication options for RLS; most of them are dopamine agonists, so if you want to try something yourself before going the pharmaceutical route, then things that improve your dopamine levels will probably be a worth checking out. In the category of supplements, you might enjoy:
NALT: The Dopamine Precursor And More
Take care! And… Want something answered here? Send us your questions!
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- Avoid alcohol, as this is bad for everything, including nerves
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Loss, Trauma, and Resilience – by Dr. Pauline Boss
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Most books about bereavement are focused on grieving healthily and then moving on healthily. And, while it may be said “everyone’s grief is on their own timescale”… society’s expectation is often quite fixed:
“Time will heal”, they say.
But what if it doesn’t? What happens when that’s not possible?
Ambiguous loss occurs when someone is on the one hand “gone”, but on the other hand, not necessarily.
This can be:
- Someone was lost in a way that didn’t leave a body to 100% confirm it
- (e.g. disaster, terrorism, war, murder, missing persons)
- Someone remains physically present but in some ways already “gone”
- (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia, brain injury, coma)
These things stop us continuing as normal, and/but also stop us from moving on as normal.
When either kind of moving forward is made impossible, everything gets frozen in place. How does one deal with that?
Dr. Boss wrote this book for therapists, but its content is equally useful for anyone struggling with ambiguous loss—or who has a loved one who is, in turn, struggling with that.
The book looks at the impact of ambiguous loss on continuing life, and how to navigate that:
- How to be resilient, in the sense of when life tries to break you, to have ways to bend instead.
- How to live with the cognitive dissonance of a loved one who is a sort of “Schrödinger’s person”.
- How, and this is sometimes the biggest one, to manage ambiguous loss in a society that often pushes toward: “it’s been x period of time, come on, get over it now, back to normal”
Will this book heal your heart and resolve your grief? No, it won’t. But what it can do is give a roadmap for nonetheless thriving in life, while gently holding onto whatever we need to along the way.
Click here to check out “Ambiguous loss, Trauma, and Resilience” on Amazon—it can really help
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- Someone was lost in a way that didn’t leave a body to 100% confirm it
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Rosehip’s Benefits, Inside & Out
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It’s In The Hips
Rosehip (often also written: “rose hip”, “rosehips”, or “rose hips”, but we’ll use the singular compound here to cover its use as a supplement) is often found as an extra ingredient in various supplements, and also various herbal teas. But what is it and what does it actually do?
What it is: it’s the fruiting body that appears on rose plants underneath where the petals appear. They are seasonal.
As for what it does, read on…
Anti-inflammatory
Rosehip is widely sought for (and has been well-studied for) its anti-inflammatory powers.
Because osteoarthritis is one of the most common inflammatory chronic diseases around, a lot of the studies are about OA, but the mechanism of action is well-established as being antioxidant and anti-inflammatory in general:
❝Potent antioxidant radical scavenging effects are well documented for numerous rose hip constituents besides Vitamin C.
Furthermore, anti-inflammatory activities include the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, reduction of NF-kB signaling, inhibition of pro-inflammatory enzymes, including COX1/2, 5-LOX and iNOS, reduction of C-reactive protein levels, reduction of chemotaxis and chemoluminescence of PMNs, and an inhibition of pro-inflammatory metalloproteases.❞
Note that while rosehip significantly reduces inflammation, it doesn’t affect the range of movement in OA—further making clear its mechanism of action:
Read: Rosa canina fruit (rosehip) for osteoarthritis: a cochrane review
Anti-aging
This is partly about its antioxidant effect, but when it comes to skin, also partly its high vitamin C content. In this 8-week study, for example, taking 3mg/day resulted in significant reductions of many measures of skin aging:
Heart healthy
The dose required to achieve this benefit is much higher, but nonetheless its effectiveness is clear, for example:
❝Daily consumption of 40 g of rose hip powder for 6 weeks can significantly reduce cardiovascular risk in obese people through lowering of systolic blood pressure and plasma cholesterol levels. ❞
~ Dr. Mona Landin-Olsson et al.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Is It Possible To Lose Weight Quickly?
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In Victorian England, weight-loss trends like the dangerous tapeworm diet were popular. While modern fad diets can seem less extreme, they often promise similarly fast results. However, these quick fixes can have similarly harmful consequences:
Not so fast
To illustrate the difference between gradual and extreme dieting, the video bids us consider two identical twins, Sam and Felix:
- Sam adopts a gradual approach, slowly reducing calorie intake and exercising regularly. This causes his body to burn glycogen stores before transitioning to fat as an energy source. Regular exercise helps Sam maintain muscle mass, which boosts his metabolism and supports sustained weight loss.
- Felix drastically cuts calories, forcing his body into starvation mode. He quickly depletes glycogen stores, loses muscle mass, and burns fewer calories, making long-term weight loss more difficult. Although Felix might initially lose water weight, this is temporary and unsustainable.
You cannot “just lose it quickly now, and then worry about healthiness once the weight’s gone”, because you will lose health much more quickly than you will lose fat, and that will sabotage, rather than help, your fat loss journey.Healthy weight loss requires gradual, balanced changes in diet and exercise tailored to individual needs. Extreme diets, whether through calorie restriction or things like elimination of carbs or fats, are unsustainable and shock the body. It’s important to prioritize long-term health over societal pressures for quick weight loss and focus on developing a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.
In short, the quickest way to lose weight and keep it off (without dying), is to lose it slowly.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Lose Weight (Healthily)
Take care!
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