Discipline is Destiny – by Ryan Holiday
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We’ve previously reviewed another of Holiday’s books, The Daily Stoic, and here is another excellent work from the same author.
We’re not a philosophy newsletter, but there are some things that make a big difference to physical and mental health, the habits we build, and the path we take in life for better or for worse.
Self-discipline is one of those things. A lot of the time, we know what we need to do, but knowing isn’t the problem. We need to actually do it! This applies to diet, exercise, sleep, and more.
Holiday gives us, in a casual easy-reading style, timeless principles to lock in strong discipline and good habits for life.
The book’s many small chapters, by the way, are excellent for reading a chapter-per-day as a healthy dose of motivation each morning, if you’re so inclined.
Bottom line: if you’ve noticed that one of the biggest barriers between you and your goals is actually doing the necessary things in a disciplined fashion, then this book will help you become more efficient, and actually get there.
Click here to check out Discipline is Destiny, and upgrade yours!
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Top 10 Unhealthy Foods: How Many Do You Eat?
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The items on this list won’t come as a shocking surprise to you, but it can be a good opportunity to do a quick tally and see how many of these have snuck into your diet:
The things that take away health instead of adding it
Without further ado, they are…
- Alcohol: not only is it high in empty calories, but also it’s bad for pretty much everything, especially increasing the risks of liver disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.
- Processed snacks: low in nutrition; contain unhealthy fats, refined sugars, and artificial additives that often aren’t great.
- Potato chips: get their own category for being especially high in fat, sodium, and empty calories; contribute to heart disease and weight gain.
- Processed cheese: some kinds of cheese are gut-healthy in moderation, but this isn’t. Instead, it’s just loaded with saturated fats, sodium, and sugars, and is pretty much heart disease in a slice.
- Donuts: deep-fried, sugary, and made with refined flour; cause blood sugar spikes and crashes, and what’s bad for your blood sugars is bad for almost everything else.
- French fries & similar deep-fried foods: high in saturated fats and sodium; contribute to obesity and heart issues, are not great for blood sugars either.
- White bread: made with refined flour; cause blood sugar spikes and metabolic woes.
- Sodas: high in sugar or artificial sweeteners; can easily lead to weight gain, diabetes, and tooth decay.
- Processed meats: high in calories and salt; strongly associated with heart disease and cancer.
- Hot dogs & fast food burgers: get their own category for being the absolute worst of the above-mentioned processed meats.
This writer scored: no / rarely / no / no / no / rarely / rarely / rarely / no / no
How about you?
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Antioxidant Matcha Snack Bars
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The antioxidants in this come not just from the matcha, but also the cacao nibs and chocolate, as well as lots of nutrients from the hazelnuts and cashews. If you’re allergic to nuts, we’ll give you substitutions that will change the nutritional profile (and flavor), but still work perfectly well and be healthy too.
You will need
For the base:
- ⅔ cup roasted hazelnuts (if allergic, substitute dessicated coconut)
- ⅔ cup chopped dates
For the main part:
- 1 cup raw cashews (if allergic, substitute raw coconut, chopped)
- ½ cup almond milk (or your preferred milk of any kind)
- ½ cup cacao nibs
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tbsp matcha powder
- 1 tbsp maple syrup (omit if you don’t care for sweetness)
For the topping (optional):
- 2oz dark chocolate, melted (and if you like, tempered—but this isn’t necessary; it’ll just make it glossier if you do)
- Spare cacao nibs, chopped nuts, or anything else you might want on there
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Blend the base ingredients in a food processor until it has a coarse sticky texture, but isn’t yet a paste or dough.
2) Line a cake pan with baking paper and spread the base mix on the base; press it down to compact it a little and ensure it is flat. If there’s room, put this in the freezer while you do the next bit. If not, the fridge will suffice.
3) Blend the main part ingredients apart from the cacao nibs, until smooth. Stir in the cacao nibs with a spoon.
4) Spread the main part evenly over the base, and allow everything you’ve built (in this recipe, not in life in general) to chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
5) Cut it into blocks of the size and shape you want to eat them, and (if adding the optional topping) separate the blocks slightly from each other, before drizzling with the chocolate topping. Put it back in the fridge to cool this too; an hour should be sufficient.
6) Serve!
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Which Tea Is Best, By Science?
- Which Plant Milk?
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Cashew Nuts vs Coconut – Which is Healthier?
- Cacao vs Carob – Which is Healthier?
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The Recipe For Empowered Leadership – by Doug Meyer-Cuno
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This is not a “here’s how to become a leader, you young would-be Machiavelli”; it’s more a “so you’re in a leadership role; now what?” book. The book’s subtitle describes well its contents: “25 Ingredients For Creating Value & Empowering Others”
The book is written with the voice of experience, but without the ego-driven padding that accompanies many such books. Especially: any anecdotal illustrations are short and to-the-point, no chapter-long diversions here.
Which we love!
Equally helpful is where the author does spend a little more time and energy: on the “down to brass tacks” of how exactly to do various things.
In short: if instead of a lofty-minded book of vague idealized notions selling a pipedream, you’d rather have a manual of how to actually be a good leader when it comes down to it, this is the book for you.
Pick Up The Recipe For Empowered Leadership On Amazon Today!
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Walk Yourself Happy – by Dr. Julia Bradbury
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Notwithstanding her (honorary) doctorate, Dr. Bradbury is not, in fact, a scientist. But…
- She has a lot of experience walking all around the world, and her walking habit has seen her through all manner of things, from stress and anxiety to cancer and grief and more.
- She does, throughout this book, consult many scientists and other experts (indeed, some we’ve featured here before at 10almonds), so we still get quite a dose of science too.
The writing style of this book is… Compelling. Honestly, the biggest initial barrier to you getting out of the door will be putting this book down first.If you have good self-discipline, you might make it last longer by treating yourself to a chapter per day
Bottom line: you probably don’t need this book to know how to go for a walk, but it will motivate, inspire, and even inform you of how to get the most out of it. Treat yourself!
Click here to check out Walk Yourself Happy, and prepare for a new healthy habit!
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Pistachios vs Pine Nuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing pistachios to pine nuts, we picked the pistachios.
Why?
First looking at the macros, pistachios have nearly 2x the protein while pine nuts have nearly 2x the fat. The fats are healthy in moderation (mostly polyunsaturated, a fair portion of monounsaturated, and a little saturated), but we’re going to value the protein content higher. Also, pistachios have approximately 2x the carbs, and/but nearly 3x the fiber. All in all, we’ll call this section a moderate win for pistachios.
When it comes to vitamins, pistachios have more of vitamins A, B1, B5, B6, B9, and C, while pine nuts have more of vitamins B2, B3, E, K, and choline. All in all, pistachios are scraping a 6:5 win here, or we could call it a tie if we want to value pine nuts’ vitamins more (due to the difference in how many foods each vitamin is found in, and thus the likelihood of having a deficiency or not).
In the category of minerals, pistachios have more calcium, copper, potassium, and selenium, while pine nuts have more iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. This would be a tie if we just call it 4:4, but what’s worth noting is that while both of these nuts are a good source of most of the minerals mentioned, pine nuts aren’t a very good source of calcium or selenium, so we’re going to declare this section a very marginal win for pistachios.
Adding up the moderate win, the scraped win, and the barely scraped win, all adds up to a win for pistachios. However, as you might have noticed, both are great so do enjoy both if you can!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
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Pneumonia: Prevention Is Better Than Cure
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Pneumonia: What We Can & Can’t Do About It
Pneumonia is a significant killer of persons over the age of 65, with the risk increasing with age after that, rising very sharply around the age of 85:
While pneumonia is treatable, especially in young healthy adults, the risks get more severe in the older age brackets, and it’s often the case that someone goes into hospital with one thing, then develops pneumonia, which the person was already not in good physical shape to fight, because of whatever hospitalized them in the first place:
American Lung Association | Pneumonia Treatment and Recovery
Other risk factors besides age
There are a lot of things that can increase our risk factor for pneumonia; they mainly fall into the following categories:
- Autoimmune diseases
- Other diseases of the immune system (e.g. HIV)
- Medication-mediated immunosuppression (e.g. after an organ transplant)
- Chronic lung diseases (e.g. asthma, COPD, Long Covid, emphysema, etc)
- Other serious health conditions ← we know this one’s broad, but it encompasses such things as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer
See also:
Why Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Is More Likely Than You Think
Things we can do about it
When it comes to risks, we can’t do much about our age and some of the other above factors, but there are other things we can do to reduce our risk, including:
- Get vaccinated against pneumonia if you are over 65 and/or have one of the aforementioned risk factors. This is not perfect (it only reduces the risk for certain kinds of infection) and may not be advisable for everyone (like most vaccines, it can put the body through its paces a bit after taking it), so speak with your own doctor about this, of course.
- See also: Vaccine Mythbusting
- Avoid contagion. While pneumonia itself is not spread person-to-person, it is caused by bacteria or viruses (there are numerous kinds) that are opportunistic and often become a secondary infection when the immune system is already busy with the first one. So, if possible avoid being in confined spaces with many people, and do wash your hands regularly (as a lot of germs are transferred that way and can get into the respiratory tract because you touched your face or such).
- See also: The Truth About Handwashing
- If you have a cold, or flu, or other respiratory infection, take it seriously, rest well, drink fluids, get good immune-boosting nutrients. There’s no such thing as “just a cold”; not anymore.
- Look after your general health too—health doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and nor does disease. Every part of us affects every other part of us, so anything that can be in good order, you want to be in good order.
This last one, by the way? It’s an important reminder that while some diseases (such as some of the respiratory infections that can precede pneumonia) are seasonal, good health isn’t.
We need to take care of our health as best we can every day along the way, because we never know when something could change.
Want to do more?
Check out: Seven Things To Do For Good Lung Health!
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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