Play Bold – by Magnus Penker

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This book is very different to what you might expect, from the title.

We often see: “play bold, believe in yourself, the universe rewards action” etc… Instead, this one is more: “play bold, pay attention to the data, use these metrics, learn from what these businesses did and what their results were”, etc.

We often see: “here’s an anecdote about a historical figure and/or celebrity who made a tremendous bluff and it worked out well so you should too” etc… Instead, this one is more: “see how what we think of as safety is actually anything but! And how by embracing change quickly (or ideally: proactively), we can stay ahead of disaster that may otherwise hit us”.

Penker’s background is also relevant here. He has decades of experience, having “launched 10 start-ups and acquired, turned around, and sold over 30 SMEs all over Europe”. Importantly, he’s also “still in the game”… So, unlike many authors whose last experience in the industry was in the 1970s and who wonder why people aren’t reaping the same rewards today!

Penker is the therefore opposite of many who advocate to “play bold” but simply mean “fail fast, fail often”… While quietly relying on their family’s capital and privilege to leave a trail of financial destruction behind them, and simultaneously gloating about their imagined business expertise.

In short: boldness does not equate to foolhardiness, and foolhardiness does not equate to boldness.

As for telling the difference? Well, for that we recommend reading the book—It’s a highly instructive one.

Take The First Bold Step Of Checking Out This Book On Amazon!

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  • Is TikTok right? Can adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your coffee help you burn fat?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Cinnamon has been long used around the world in both sweet and savoury dishes and drinks.

    But a new TikTok trend claims adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your daily coffee (and some cocoa to make it more palatable) for one week can help you burn fat. Is there any truth to this?

    Evannovostro/Shutterstock

    Not all cinnamon is the same

    There are two types of cinnamon, both of which come from grinding the bark of the cinnamomum tree and may include several naturally occurring active ingredients.

    Cassia cinnamon is the most common type available in grocery stores. It has a bitter taste and contains higher levels of one of the active ingredient cinnamaldehyde, a compound that gives cinnamon its flavour and odour. About 95% of cassia cinnamon is cinnamaldehyde.

    The other is Ceylon cinnamon, which tastes sweeter. It contains about 50-60% cinnamaldehyde.

    Does cinnamon burn fat? What does the research say?

    A review of 35 studies examined whether consuming cinnamon could affect waist circumference, which is linked to increased body fat levels. It found cinnamon doses below 1.5 grams per day (around half a teaspoon) decreased waist circumference by 1.68cm. However, consuming more than 1.5g/day did not have a significant effect.

    A meta-analysis of 21 clinical trials with 1,480 total participants found cinnamon also reduced body mass index (BMI) by 0.40kg/m² and body weight by 0.92kg. But it did not change the participants’ composition of fat or lean mass.

    Another umbrella review, which included all the meta-analyses, found a small effect of cinnamon on weight loss. Participants lost an average of 0.67kg and reduced their BMI by 0.45kg/m².

    Spoon of cinnamon
    The effect appears small. Radu Sebastian/Shutterstock

    So overall, the weight loss we see from these high-quality studies is very small, ranging anywhere from two to six months and mostly with no change in body composition.

    The studies included people with different diseases, and most were from the Middle East and/or the Indian subcontinent. So we can’t be certain we would see this effect in people with other health profiles and in other countries. They were also conducted over different lengths of time from two to six months.

    The supplements were different, depending on the study. Some had the active ingredient extracted from cinnamon, others used cinnamon powder. Doses varied from 0.36g to 10g per day.

    They also used the two different types of cinnamon – but none of the studies used cinnamon from the grocery store.

    How could cinnamon result in small amounts of weight loss?

    There are several possible mechanisms.

    It appears to allow blood glucose (sugar) to enter the body’s cells more quickly. This lowers blood glucose levels and can make insulin work more effectively.

    It also seems to improve the way we break down fat when we need it for energy.

    Finally, it may make us feel fuller for longer by slowing down how quickly the food is released from our stomach into the small intestine.

    What are the risks?

    Cinnamon is generally regarded as safe when used as a spice in cooking and food.

    However, in recent months the United States and Australia have issued health alerts about the level of lead and other heavy metals in some cinnamon preparations.

    Lead enters as a contaminant during growth (from the environment) and in harvesting. In some cases, it has been suggested there may have been intentional contamination.

    Some people can have side effects from cinnamon, including gastrointestinal pain and allergic reactions.

    One of the active ingredients, coumarin, can be toxic for some people’s livers. This has prompted the European Food Authority to set a limit of 0.1mg/kg of body weight.

    Cassia cinnamon contains up to 1% of coumarin, and the Ceylon variety contains much less, 0.004%. So for people weighing above 60kg, 2 teaspoons (6g) of cassia cinnamon would bring them over the safe limit.

    What about the coffee and cocoa?

    Many people may think coffee can also help us lose weight. However there isn’t good evidence to support this yet.

    An observational study found drinking one cup of regular coffee was linked to a reduction in weight that is gained over four years, but by a very small amount: an average of 0.12kg.

    Good-quality cocoa and dark chocolate have also been shown to reduce weight. But again, the weight loss was small (between 0.2 and 0.4kg) and only after consuming it for four to eight weeks.

    So what does this all mean?

    Using cinnamon may have a very small effect on weight, but it’s unlikely to deliver meaningful weight loss without other lifestyle adjustments.

    We also need to remember these trials used products that differ from the cinnamon we buy in the shops. How we store and how long we keep cinnamon might also impact or degrade the active ingredients.

    And consuming more isn’t going to provide additional benefit. In fact, it could increase your risk of side effects.

    So if you enjoy the taste of cinnamon in your coffee, continue to add it, but given its strong taste, you’re likely to only want to add a little.

    And no matter how much we’d like this to be true, we certainly won’t gain any fat-loss benefits by consuming cinnamon on doughnuts or in buns, due to their high kilojoule count.

    If you want to lose weight, there are evidence-backed approaches that won’t spoil your morning coffee.

    Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Common Sense Labs: Blood Labs Demystified – by Dr. Ken Berry & Kim Howerton

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Most people, if given their test results as a set of numbers, will have no idea what they mean.

    And a doctor or nurse saying “this is good”, “this is a bit low”, “this is very high” etc isn’t that much more informative, as it doesn’t really give a true feel for the information.

    Dr. Berry produced this book to bridge that knowledge gap, and in his words, “put the power of health back in the hands of the people”. The book also covers what blood tests to recommend annually (finding common recommendations insufficient), and how to go about asking for those if your doctor might be keen to brush you off.

    This is a short book (weighing in at a lithe 78 pages), but the information contained therein is very dense, and very convenient to have it all in one place.

    As one Amazon reviewer wrote,

    ❝Someone said you can find the information on the Internet, but I would say good luck with that. It will be many many many hours compiling the gold that is in this book.❞

    Writer’s anecdote: indeed, I recently had 14 blood tests done as part of a regular checkup (I’m pleased to report I could not be in better health), and while interpreting the results, I had to look up a lot of things (which were often in the wrong units*), and if I’d had this book already, it would have been a breeze, as it covers everything I had done!

    *On which note, this book does provide results in US and International units, so you won’t be left wondering how to convert mmol/mol into mmol/L or mg/dL or such.

    Bottom line: if you are a person who has blood, this book will at some point be of immense value to you, if not immediately!

    Click here to check out Common Sense Labs, and understand what your blood is saying!

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  • Finding Peace at the End of Life – by Henry Fersko-Weiss

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This is not the most cheery book we’ve reviewed, but it is an important one. From its first chapter, with “a tale of two deaths”, one that went as well as can be reasonably expected, and the other one not so much, it presents a lot of choices.

    The book is not prescriptive in its advice regarding how to deal with these choices, but rather, investigative. It’s thought-provoking, and asks questions—tacitly and overtly.

    While the subtitle says “for families and caregivers”, it’s as much worth when it comes to managing one’s own mortality, too, by the way.

    As for the scope of the book, it covers everything from terminal diagnosis, through the last part of life, to the death itself, to all that goes on shortly afterwards.

    Stylewise, it’s… We’d call it “easy-reading” for style, but obviously the content is very heavy, so you might want to read it a bit at a time anyway, depending on how sensitive to such topics you are.

    Bottom line: this book is not exactly a fun read, but it’s a very worthwhile one, and a good way to avoid regrets later.

    Click here to check out Finding Peace at the End of Life, and prepare for that thing you probably can’t put off forever

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  • Fast-Pickled Cucumbers

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Pickled vegetables are great for the gut, and homemade is invariably better than store-bought. But if you don’t have pickling jars big enough for cucumbers, and don’t want to wait a couple of weeks for the results, here’s a great way to do it quickly and easily.

    You will need

    • 1 large cucumber, sliced
    • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
    • 1½ tbsp salt (do not omit or substitute)
    • 3 cloves garlic, whole, peeled
    • 3 large sprigs fresh dill
    • 2 tsp whole black peppercorns
    • ½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
    • 1 bay leaf

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Mix the vinegar and salt with 1½ cups of water in a bowl.

    2) Assemble the rest of the ingredients, except the cucumber, into a quart-size glass jar with an airtight lid.

    3) Add the cucumber slices into the jar.

    4) Add the pickling brine that you made, leaving ½” space at the top.

    5) Close the lid, and shake well.

    6) Refrigerate for 2 days, after which, serve at your leisure:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • The No-Nonsense Meditation Book – by Dr. Steven Laureys

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve reviewed books about meditation before, and when we review books, we try to pick ones that have something that make them stand out from the others. So, what stands out in this case?

    The author is a medical doctor and neurologist, with decades of experience focusing on neuronal plasticity and multimodel neural imaging. So, a little beyond “think happy thoughts”-style woo.

    The style of the book is pop-science in tone, but with a lot of hard clinical science underpinning it and referenced throughout, as one would expect of a scientist of Dr. Laurey’s stature (with hundreds of peer-reviewed papers in top-level journals).

    You may be wondering: is this a “how-to” book or a “why-to” book or a “what-happens” book? It’s all three.

    The “how-to” is also, as the title suggests, no-nonsense. We are talking maximum results for minimum mystery here.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to be able to take up a meditative practice and know exactly what it’s doing to your brain (quietening these parts, stimulating and physically growing those parts, etc) then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, and re-light the less glowy bits of your brain!

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  • Remember – by Dr. Lisa Genova

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Memory is often viewed as one thing—either you have a good memory, or you don’t. At best, a lot of people have a vague idea of selective memory. But, the reality is much more complex—and much more interesting.

    Dr. Genova lays out clearly and simply the various different kinds of memory, how they work, and how they fail. Some of these kinds of memory operate on completely different principles than others, and/or in different parts of the brain. And, it’s not just “a memory for faces” or a “memory for names”, nor even “short term vs long term”. There’s working memory, explicit and implicit memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, muscle memory, and more.

    However, this is not just an interesting book—it’s also a useful one. Dr. Genova also looks at how we can guard against failing memory in later years, and how we can expand and grow the kinds of memory that are most important to us.

    The style of the book is very conversational, and not at all textbook-like. It’s certainly very accessible, and pleasant to read too.

    Bottom line: memory is a weird and wonderful thing, and this book shines a clear light on many aspects of it—including how to improve the various different kinds of memory.

    Click here to check out Remember (we recommend to do it now before you forget!

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