Time Smart – by Dr. Ashley Whillans
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First, what this is not: it’s not a productivity book.
What is rather: a book of better wellbeing.
There is a little overlap, insofar as getting “time smart” in the ways that Dr. Whillans recommends will give you more ability to also be more productive—if that’s what you want.
She talks us through time traps and the “time poverty epidemic”, as well as steps to finding time and funding time. Perhaps most critical idea-wise is the chapter on building a “time-affluence habit”, making decisions that prioritize your time-freedom where you can—which in turn will allow you to build yet more. Kind of like compound interest really, but for time.
The writing style is a conversational tone, but peppered with bullet-point lists and charts and the like from time to time, and often with citations to back up claims. It makes for a very readable book, and yet one that’s also inspiring of the confidence that it’s more than just one person’s opinion.
Bottom line: if you sometimes feel like you could do everything you want to if you could just find the time, this book can help you get there.
Click here to check out Time Smart, and live your most satisfying life!
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Getting to Neutral – by Trevor Moawad
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We all know that a pessimistic outlook is self-defeating… And yet, toxic positivity can also be a set-up for failure! At some point, reckless faith in the kindly nature of the universe will get crushed, badly. Sometimes that point is a low point in life… sometimes it’s six times a day. But one thing’s for sure: we can’t “just decide everything will go great!” because the world just doesn’t work that way.
That’s where Trevor Moawad comes in. “Getting to neutral” is not a popular selling point. Everyone wants joy, abundance, and high after high. And neutrality itself is often associated with boredom and soullessness. But, Moawad argues, it doesn’t have to be that way.
This book’s goal—which it accomplishes well—is to provide a framework for being a genuine realist. What does that mean?
“I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist” – every pessimist ever.
^Not that. That’s not what it means. What it means instead is:
- Hope for the best
- Prepare for the worst
- Adapt as you go
…taking care to use past experiences to inform future decisions, but without falling into the trap of thinking that because something happened a certain way before, it always will in the future.
To be rational, in short. Consciously and actively rational.
Feel the highs! Feel the lows! But keep your baseline when actually making decisions.
Bottom line: this book is as much an antidote to pessimism and self-defeat, as it is to reckless optimism and resultant fragility. Highly recommendable.
Click here to check out “Getting to Neutral” and start creating your best, most reason-based life!
PS: in this book, Moawad draws heavily from his own experiences of battling adversity in the form of cancer—of which he died, before this book’s publication. A poignant reminder that he was right: we won’t always get the most positive outcome of any given situation, so what matters the most is making the best use of the time we have.
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How To Stop Binge-Eating: Flip This Switch!
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“The Big Eating Therapist” Sarah Dosanjh has insights from both personal and professional experience:
No “Tough Love” Necessary
Eating certain foods is often socially shamed, and it’s easy to internalize that, and feel guilty. While often guilt is considered a pro-social emotion that helps people to avoid erring in a way that will get us excluded from the tribe (bearing in mind that for most of our evolutionary history, exile would mean near-certain death), it is not good at behavior modification when it comes to addictions or anything similar to addictions.
The reason for this is that if we indulge in a pleasure we feel we “shouldn’t” and expect we’d be shamed for, we then feel bad, and we immediately want something to make us feel better. Guess what that something will be. That’s right: the very same thing we literally just felt ashamed about.
So guilt is not helpful when it comes to (for example) avoiding binge-eating.
Instead, Dosanjh points us to a study whereby dieters ate a donut and drank water, before being given candy for taste testing. The control group proceeded without intervention, while the experimental group had a self-compassion intervention between the donut and the candy. This meant that researchers told the participants not to feel bad about eating the donut, emphasizing self-kindness, mindfulness, and common humanity. The study found that those who received the intervention, ate significantly less candy.
What we can learn from this is: we must be kind to ourselves. Allowing ourselves, consciously and mindfully, “a little treat”, secures its status as being “little”, and “a treat”. Then we smile, thinking “yes, that was a nice little thing to do for myself”, and proceed with our day.
This kind of self-compassion helps avoid the “meta-binge” process, where guilt from one thing leads to immediately reaching for another.
For more on this, plus a link to the study she mentioned, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
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Loaded Mocha Chocolate Parfait
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Packed with nutrients, including a healthy dose of protein and fiber, these parfait pots can be a healthy dessert, snack, or even breakfast!
You will need (for 4 servings)
For the mocha cream:
- ½ cup almond milk
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ⅓ cup espresso
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the chocolate sauce:
- 4 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the other layers:
- 1 banana, sliced
- 1 cup granola, no added sugar
Garnish (optional): 3 coffee beans per serving
Note about the maple syrup: since its viscosity is similar to the overall viscosity of the mocha cream and chocolate sauce, you can adjust this per your tastes, without affecting the composition of the dish much besides sweetness (and sugar content). If you don’t like sweetness, the maple syrup be reduced or even omitted entirely (your writer here is known for her enjoyment of very strong bitter flavors and rarely wants anything sweeter than a banana); if you prefer more sweetness than the recipe called for, that’s your choice too.
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Blend all the mocha cream ingredients. If you have time, doing this in advance and keeping it in the fridge for a few hours (or even up to a week) will make the flavor richer. But if you don’t have time, that’s fine too.
2) Stir all the chocolate sauce ingredients together in a small bowl, and set it aside. This one should definitely not be refrigerated, or else the coconut oil will solidify and separate itself.
3) Gently swirl the the mocha cream and chocolate sauce together. You want a marble effect, not a full mixing. Omit this step if you want clearer layers.
4) Assemble in dessert glasses, alternating layers of banana, mocha chocolate marble mixture (or the two parts, if you didn’t swirl them together), and granola.
5) Add the coffee-bean garnish, if using, and serve!
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (Or Is It?)
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
- Cashew Nuts vs Coconut – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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What Size Breakfast Is Best, By Science?
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“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, the popular wisdom goes. But, what should it consist of, and how much should we be eating for breakfast?
It has been previously established that it is good if breakfast is the largest meal of the day:
…with meals getting progressively smaller thereafter.
Of course, very many people do the inverse: small (or skipped) breakfast, moderate lunch, larger dinner. This, however, is probably more a result of when eating fits around the modern industrialized workday (and thus gets normalized), rather than actual health considerations.
So, what’s the latest science?
A plucky band of researchers led by Dr. Karla-Alejandra Pérez-Vega investigated the importance of breakfast in the context of heart health. This research was done as part of a larger study into the effects of the Mediterranean Diet on cardiovascular health, so if anyone wants a quick recap before we carry on, then:
The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← the answer, by the way, is “pretty much everything”
…and there are also different versions that each use the Mediterranean Diet as the core, while focussing extra on a different area of health, including one to make it extra heart-healthy:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean ← most anti-inflammatory / gut-healthiest / heart-healthiest / brain-healthiest
What they found
In their sample population (n=383) of Spanish adults aged 55–75 with pre-diagnosed metabolic syndrome who, as part of the intervention of this 36-month interventional study, had now for the past 36 months been on a Mediterranean diet but without specific guidance on portion sizes:
- Participants with insufficient breakfast energy intake had the highest adiposity (which is a measure of body fat expressed as a percentage of total mass)
- Participants with low or high (but not moderate) breakfast energy intake had the larger BMI and waist circumference over time
- Participants with low or high (but not moderate) breakfast energy intake had higher triglyceride and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels
- Participants who consumed 20–30% of their daily calories at breakfast enjoyed the greatest improvements in lipid profiles, with lower triglycerides and higher HDL (good) cholesterol levels
- Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had higher blood pressure levels
- Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had higher blood sugar levels
- Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (which is an indicator of kidney function)
- Participants with higher breakfast quality (higher adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had lower waist circumference, higher HDL cholesterol, and better kidney function
You can see the paper itself here in the Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging:
What this means
According to this research, the heart-healthiest breakfast is:
- not skipped
- Mediterranean Diet adherent
- within the range of of 20–30% of the total calories for the day
Want to make it even better?
Consider:
Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting
Enjoy!
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What to Eat When – by Drs. Michael Roizen and Michael Crupain
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Here at 10almonds, we cover a lot of the “what to eat”, but tend to only sometimes touch on the “when”—and indeed, this is a reflection of a popular focus. But what if we were to pay a little more attention to that “when”; what would it get us?
According to Drs. Roizen and Crupain… Quite a bit!
In this work, they take into account the various factors affecting the benefit (or harm!) of what we eat when:
- in the context of our circadian rhythm
- in the context of our insulin responses
- in the context of intermittent fasting
The style throughout is very focused on practical actionable advice. For example, amongst other lifestyle-adjustment suggestions, the authors make the case for front-loading various kinds of food earlier in the day, and eating more attentively and mindfully when we do eat.
They also offer a lot of “quick tips” of the kind we love here at 10almonds! Ranging from “how about this breakfast idea” to “roasting chickpeas like this makes a great snack” to “this dessert is three healthy foods disguised as a sundae”
All in all, if you’d like a stack of small tweaks that can add up to a big difference in your overall health, this is a book for you.
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Buckwheat vs Rye – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing buckwheat to rye, we picked the buckwheat.
Why?
Both are good, wholegrain options for most people! On which note, yes, we are comparing whole groats* vs whole grains here, respectively.
*buckwheat is, you may remember, a flowering plant and not technically a grain or even a grass (and is very unrelated to wheat; it’s as closely related to wheat as a lionfish is to a lion).
In terms of macros, buckwheat has more protein, while rye has more carbs and fiber, the ratios of which mean that rye has the higher glycemic index. All in all, we’re calling this category a win for buckwheat on the basis of those things, but really, both are fine.
When it comes to vitamins, buckwheat has more of vitamins B1, B3, B6, B7, B9, K, and choline, while rye has more of vitamins B2, B5, and E. An easy win for buckwheat here.
In the category of minerals, buckwheat has more copper, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while rye has more manganese and selenium. Another clear win for buckwheat.
Lastly. it’s worth noting that while buckwheat does not contain gluten, rye does. So, if you’re avoiding gluten, buckwheat is the option to choose here for that reason too.
If you don’t have celiac disease, wheat allergy, gluten intolerance, or something like that, then rye is still very worthwhile; buckwheat may have won on numbers in each category, but rye wasn’t far behind on anything; the margins of difference were quite small today.
Still, buckwheat is the best all-rounder here!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?
- Gluten: What’s The Truth?
- Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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