How To Avoid The “I’ve Blown It” Christmas Food Trap
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Dr. Ruth Machin advises not just on why, but also specifically on how:
Consistency is key—but flexibly
When it comes to healthy eating plans, a lot of people feel that one indulgent Christmas meal means they have “blown it” and might as well give up until January.
In psychology, this is known as the cognitive bias of all-or-nothing thinking, resulting here in the idea that “if I can’t do this perfectly, then I might as well not do it at all”.
The “give up until January” approach also fails, since most people lose only 5–10% of body weight on a restrictive diet and regain it thereafter, making it unrealistic to undo several weeks of excess with a short reset.
So, what to do instead?
- Intentional imperfection: enjoy chosen foods without guilt, recognizing that one imperfect meal makes no difference in the long term and that intentional eating differs from stress-eating or other emotionally-motivated binges.
- Drop food morality: stop labeling foods as good, bad, or cheating, and instead observe how food affects mood, energy, sleep, and digestion. On which note…
- Practise embodied decision-making: skipping dessert or alcohol because of fullness and anticipated poor sleep shows listening to bodily cues rather than relying on willpower. Including if you have already signed up for such and then decide against it—eating past fullness is not morally superior to throwing food away, and it is acceptable to leave food when satisfied.
- Favor consistency over perfection: follow an 80–90% nourishing pattern most of the time while making space for joy, recognizing that sustainability beats nutritional perfection.
As for the “how”, Dr. Machin offers the following tips:
- Daily habit anchors: maintain one or two simple habits every day, such as protein at breakfast and a daily walk, to provide structure during otherwise disrupted holiday routines.
- Remember that every meal is a fresh start: replace the spiral of self-criticism with the thought that the next choice can support health, reinforcing personal agency and consistency.
- Indulge! But, with quality over quantity: choose foods that are genuinely enjoyable and well-made, eating smaller amounts with mindfulness rather than large quantities of mediocre options.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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You might also like:
What Flexible Dieting Really Means
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Missing Microbes – by Dr. Martin Blaser
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You probably know that antibiotic resistance is a problem, but you might not realize just what a many-headed beast antibiotic overuse is.
From growing antibiotic superbugs, to killing the friendly bacteria that normally keep pathogens down to harmless numbers (resulting in death of the host, as the pathogens multiply unopposed), to multiple levels of dangers in antibiotic overuse in the farming of animals, this book is scary enough that you might want to save it for Halloween.
But, Dr. Blaser does not argue against antibiotic use when it’s necessary; many people are alive because of antibiotics—he himself recovered from typhoid because of such.
The style of the book is narrative, but information-dense. It does not succumb to undue sensationalization, but it’s also far from being a dry textbook.
Bottom line: if you’d like to understand the real problems caused by antibiotics, and how we can combat that beyond merely “try not to take them unnecessarily”, this book is very worthy reading.
Click here to check out Missing Microbes, and learn more about yours!
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Cherries vs Elderberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cherries to elderberries, we picked the elderberries.
Why?
Both are great! But putting them head-to-head…
In terms of macros, cherries have slightly more protein (but we are talking miniscule numbers here, 0.34mg/100g), while elderberries have moderately more carbs and more than 4x the fiber. This carbs:fiber ratio difference means that elderberries have the lower glycemic index by far, as well as simply more grams/100g fiber, making this an easy win for elderberries.
In the category of vitamins, cherries have more of vitamins A, B9, E, K, and choline, while elderberries have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, and C. The margins of difference mean that elderberries have the very slightly better overall vitamin coverage, but it’s so slight that we’ll call this a 5:5 tie.
When it comes to minerals, cherries have more copper, magnesium, and manganese, while elderberries have more calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. A nice easy win to top it off for elderberries.
On the polyphenols (and other phytochemicals) front, both are great in different ways, nothing that’d we’d consider truly sets one ahead of the other.
All in all, adding up the sections, an overall win for elderberries, but by all means enjoy either or both!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing ← one of them is elderberry, which hastens recovery from upper respiratory viral infections 😎
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An Underrated Tool Against Alzheimer’s
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Dementia in general, and Alzheimer’s in particular, affects a lot of people, and probably even more than the stats show, because some (estimated to be: about half) will go undiagnosed and thus unreported:
Alzheimer’s: The Bad News And The Good
At 10almonds, we often talk about brain health, whether from a nutrition standpoint or other lifestyle factors. For nutrition, by the way, check out:
Today we’ll be looking at some new science for an underrated tool:
Bilingualism as protective factor
It’s well-known that bilingualism offers brain benefits, but most people would be hard-pressed to name what, specifically, those brain benefits are.
As doctors Kristina Coulter and Natalie Phillips found in a recent study, one of the measurable benefits may be a defense against generalized (i.e. not necessarily language-related) memory loss Alzheimer’s disease.
Specifically,
❝We used surface-based morphometry methods to measure cortical thickness and volume of language-related and AD-related brain regions. We did not observe evidence of brain reserve in language-related regions.
However, reduced hippocampal volume was observed for monolingual, but not bilingual, older adults with AD. Thus, bilingualism is hypothesized to contribute to reserve in the form of brain maintenance in the context of AD.❞
Read in full: Bilinguals show evidence of brain maintenance in Alzheimer’s disease
This is important, because while language is processed in various parts of the brain beyond the scope of this article, the hippocampi* are where memory is stored.
*usually mentioned in the singular as “hippocampus”, but you have one on each side, unless some terrible accident or incident befell you.
What this means in practical terms: these results suggest that being bilingual means we will retain more of our capacity for memory, even if we get Alzheimer’s disease, than people who are monolingual.
Furthermore, while we’re talking practicality:
❝…our subsample may be characterized as mostly late bilinguals (i.e., learning an L2 after age 5), having moderate self-reported L2 ability, and relatively few participants reporting daily L2 use (33 out of 119)❞
(L2 = second language)
This is important, because it means you don’t have to have grown up speaking multiple languages, you don’t even have to speak it well, and you don’t have to be using your second language(s) on a daily basis, to enjoy benefits. Merely having them in your head appears to be sufficient to trigger the brain to go “oh, we need to boost and maintain the hippocampal volume”.
We would hypothesize that using second language(s) regularly and/or speaking second language(s) well offers additional protection, and the data would support this if it weren’t for the fact that the sample sizes for daily and high-level speakers are a bit small to draw conclusions.
But the important part is: simply knowing another language, including if you literally just learned it later in life, is already protective of hippocampal volume in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.
Here’s a pop-science article about the study, that goes into it in more detail than we have room to here:
Bilingualism linked to greater brain resilience in older adults
Want to learn a new language?
Here are some options where you can get going right away:
If you are thinking “sounds good, but learning a language is too much work”, then that is why we included that third option there. It’s specifically for one language, and that language is Esperanto, arguably the world’s easiest language and specifically designed to be super quick and easy to get good at. Also, it’s free!
Do, kial ne lerni novan lingvon rapide kaj facile? 😉
Want to know more?
For ways to reduce your overall Alzheimer’s risk according to science, check out:
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Top 5 Anti-Aging Exercises
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There are some exercises that get called such things as “The King of Exercises!”, but how well-earned is that title and could it be that actually a mix of the top few is best?
The Exercises
While you don’t have to do all 5, your body will thank you if you are able to:
- Plank: strengthens most of the body, and can reduce back pain while improving posture.
- Squats: another core-strengthening exercise, this time with an emphasis on the lower body, which makes for strong foundations (including strong ankles, knees, and hips). Improves circulation also, and what’s good for circulation is good for the organs, including the brain!
- Push-ups: promotes very functional strength and fitness; great for alternating with planks, as despite their similar appearance, they work the abs and back more, respectively.
- Lunges: these are great for lower body strength and stability, and doing these greatly reduces the risk of falling.
- Glute Bridges: this nicely rounds off one’s core strength, increasing stability and improving posture, as well as reducing lower back pain too.
If the benefits of these seem to overlap a little, it’s because they do! But each does some things that the others don’t, so put together, they make for a very well-balanced workout.
For advice on how to do each of them, plus more about the muscles being used and the benefits, enjoy:
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You might also like to read:
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Acupuncture vs Massage, For Jaw Release!
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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!
No question/request too big or small 😎
❝I was wondering if there have been any studies showing the comparison between Acupuncture for jaw release and using Massage?❞
Thanks for asking! We will start by assuming that you are referring to myofascial release of the temporomandibular joint, and not, say, unhinging your jaw like a snake*.
*If you do want to unhinge your jaw like a snake, then a) we do not recommend that b) anecdotally, we may comment that massage can certainly achieve it if sufficiently vigorous, but we hope you’ll forgive us if for legal reasons we don’t write a how-to.
Silliness aside and addressing the more serious question, the answer is yes there has, albeit not much and the quality of evidence remains low.
First, let’s look at the evidence for massage:
❝Three studies showed significant improvements in headache intensity and frequency following TMJ or orofacial physiotherapy. One study favored the control group, and one showed no significant difference. However, variability in study quality, therapist roles, and poorly reported interventions limited comparability and prevented meta-analysis.❞
Translating from sciencese:
“We don’t know, because we got mixed results and the methodology was sloppy”
You can read the paper in full, here: The effectiveness of physiotherapy for chronic headaches in patients with temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review
And now, let’s look at the evidence for acupuncture:
❝the evidence for acupuncture for TMD management, especially for TMJ and masseter muscles pain, is weak❞
~ this after about 3,000 words detailing the litany of failures in methodology.
You can find the paper itself here: Acupuncture for treating temporomandibular joint disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, sham-controlled trials ← unfortunately, you can’t read this one in full unless you have institutional access or want to buy access from the journal. Failing that, you can trust us that it wasn’t inspiring reading.
Finally, let’s look at the evidence for each when compared head-to-head (so to speak):
❝There was moderate evidence that classical acupuncture had a positive influence beyond those of placebo (three trials, 65 participants); had positive effects similar to those of occlusal splint therapy (three trials, 160 participants); and was more effective for TMD symptoms than physical therapy (four trials, 397 participants), indomethacin plus vitamin B1 (two trials, 85 participants), and a wait-list control (three trials, 138 participants). Only two RCTs addressed adverse events and reported no serious adverse events.❞
Source: Acupuncture for temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review
👆 So this one was the most positive towards acupuncture, but even we were not able to find the full text for this one. It’s not merely paywalled like the previous one (for which we enjoy institutional access and can read it on your behalf), rather this one’s simply not there. All we can find is the abstract, so we cannot comment on the validity of their claims, and can rather only report that those are the claims they make.
In summary:
- Yes, science has been done
- No, it isn’t very compelling
About the best we can say is that if you want to try it, the (admittedly weak) evidence that exists suggests it is quite safe.
Want to learn more?
You might like our main feature on…
How Does One Test Acupuncture Against Placebo Anyway?
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Did You Believe These Skincare Myths?
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Dr. Michelle Wong gives us the insider knowledge:
If you scratch the surface…
Here are some popular myths that just aren’t true, and their continued prevalence has more to do with cognitive biases than anything else:
- “Chemical sunscreens need time to activate”: both chemical and mineral sunscreens start blocking UV immediately after application, and the recommendation to apply them 20–30 minutes before sun exposure mainly exists so the product can dry and thus not get accidentally wiped off.
- “You should avoid layering products under chemical sunscreen”: there’s no special requirement to use fewer products under chemical sunscreen compared with mineral sunscreen.
- “Ingredient percentages tell you how effective a product is”: the listed percentage of an ingredient (such as 2% niacinamide) doesn’t guarantee performance because stability, formulation, packaging, and delivery systems determine how much actually reaches your skin.
- “Peeling gels remove large amounts of dead skin”: the solid mass formed when rubbing peeling gels are in large part the product itself reacting with oils on your skin rather than quite that much skin being removed.
- “Hyaluronic acid can hold 1,000 times its weight in water”: there’s no reliable evidence supporting this claim, and experimental analysis suggests hyaluronic acid binds roughly 40–85% of its weight in water instead.
- “Hyaluronic acid dries out your skin if you don’t use a moisturizer on top”: humectants like hyaluronic acid don’t pull water out of your skin, because hydrogen bonds only work at extremely short distances.
- “Hyaluronic acid must be applied to damp skin to work properly”: serums and moisturizers already contain large amounts of water, so applying them to damp skin doesn’t significantly change hydration results.
For more on each of these, plus a short discussion of the cognitive biases involved, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Skincare “Scams” That Are Actually Very Recommendable
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Don’t Forget…
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