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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The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
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There’s a lot more to breast cancer care than “check your breasts regularly”. Because… And then what? “Go see a doctor” obviously, but it’s a scary prospect with a lot of unknowns.
Dr. Simmons demystifies these unknowns, from both her position as an oncologist (and breast surgeon) and also her position as a breast cancer survivor herself.
What she found, upon getting to experience the patient side of things, was that the system is broken in ways she’d never considered before as a doctor.
This book is the product of the things she’s learned both within her field, and elsewhere because of realizing the former’s areas of shortcoming.
She gives a step-by-step guide, from diagnosis onwards, advising taking as much as possible into one’s own hands—especially in the categories of information and action. She also explains the things that make the biggest difference to cancer outcomes when it comes to eating, sleeping, and so forth, the best attitude to have to be neither despairing and giving up, nor overconfident and complacent.
She does also talk complementary therapies, be they supplements or more out-of-the-box approaches and the evidence for them where applicable, as well as doing some high-quality mythbusting about more prescription-based considerations such as HRT.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one have a breast cancer diagnosis, or you just prefer knowing this sort of thing than not, then this book is a top-tier “insider’s guide”.
Click here to check out the Smart Woman’s Guide To Breast Cancer, and take control!
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Chocolate & Health
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Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
“Chocolate Is Good For The Heart”
“When making chocolate chip cookies, you don’t measure using cups, you measure by heart”
…but how good is chocolate when it comes to heart health?
First, what is heart health?
A healthy heart typically has a low resting pulse rate and a strong, steady beat. This is affected strongly by exercise habits, and diet plays only a support role (can’t exercise without energy from food!).
It is also important to have blood pressure within a healthy range (with high blood pressure being a more common problem than low, so things that lower blood pressure are generally considered good).
- Flavanols, flavonoids, and polyphenols in chocolate contribute to lower blood pressure
- Dark chocolate is best for these, as milk chocolate contains much less cocoa solids and more unhelpful fats
- White chocolate contains no cocoa solids and is useless for this
- Some of the fats in most commercial chocolate can contribute to atherosclerosis which raises blood pressure and ultimately can cause heart attacks.
- If you’re diabetic, you will probably not get the usual heart-related benefits from chocolate (sorry)
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good heart health.
“Chocolate Is Good For The Brain”
Chocolate has been considered a “brain food”… why?
- The brain uses more calories than any other organ (chocolate has many calories)
- The heart benefits we listed above mean improved blood flow—including to your brain
- Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a powerful chemical that has a similar effect to amphetamines… But it’s metabolized in digestion and never makes it to the central nervous system (so basically, this one’s a miss; we had a good run with the other two, though!)
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good brain health
“Chocolate Is An Aphrodisiac”
“If chocolate be the food of love, pass me that cocoa; I’m starving”
Most excitingly, chocolate contains phenylethylamine, the “molecule of love” or, more accurately, lust. It has an effect similar to amphetamines, and while we can synthesize it in the body, we can also get it from certain foods. But…
Our body is so keen to get it that most of it is metabolized directly during digestion and doesn’t make it to the brain. Also, chocolate is not as good a source as cabbage—do with that information what you will!
However!
Chocolate contains theobromine and small amounts of caffeine, both stimulants and both generally likely to improve mood; it also contains flavonoids which in turn stimulate production of nitric oxide, which is a relaxant. All in all, things that are convivial to having a good time.
On the other hand…
That relaxation comes specifically with a reduction in blood pressure—something typically considered good for the health for most people most of the time… but that means lowering blood pressure in all parts of your body, which could be the opposite of what you want in intimate moments.
Chocolate also contains zinc, which is essential for hormonal health for most people—the body uses it to produce testosterone and estrogen, respectively. Zinc supplements are popularly sold to those wishing to have more energy in general and good hormonal health in particular, and rightly so. However…
This approach requires long-term supplementation—you can’t just pop a zinc tablet / bar of chocolate / almond before bed and expect immediate results. And if your daily zinc supplementation takes the form of a 3.5oz (100g) bar of chocolate, then you may find it has more effects on your health, and not all of them good!
The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, may promote “the mood”, but could be a double-edged sword when it comes to “the ability”.
“Chocolate Is Good During Menstruation”
The popular wisdom goes that chocolate is rich in iron (of which more is needed during menstruation), and indeed, if you eat 7oz (150g) of dark chocolate made with 85% cocoa, you’ll get a daily a dose of iron (…and nearly 1,000 calories).
More bang-for-buck dietary sources of iron include chickpeas and broccoli, but for some mysterious reason, these are not as commonly reported as popular cravings.
The real explanation for chocolate cravings is more likely that eating chocolate—a food high in sugar and fat along with a chemical bombardment of more specialized “hey, it’s OK, you can relax now” molecules (flavanols/flavonoids, polyphenols, phenylamines, even phenylethylamine, etc) gives a simultaneous dopamine kick (the body’s main “reward” chemical) with a whole-body physiological relaxation… so, little wonder we might crave it in times of stress and discomfort!
The Verdict: it helps, not because it serves a special nutritional purpose, but rather, because the experience of eating chocolate makes us feel good.
Fun fact: Tiramisu (this writer’s favorite dessert) is literally Italian for “pick-me-up”
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9 Reasons To Avoid Mobility Training
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Why might someone not want to do mobility training? Here are some important reasons:
Make an informed choice
Here’s Liv’s hit-list of reasons to skip mobility training:
- Poor Circulation: Avoid mobility training if you don’t want to improve or maintain good blood circulation, which aids muscle recovery and reduces soreness.
- Low Energy Levels: Mobility training increases oxygen flow to the brain and muscles, boosting energy. Skip it if you prefer feeling sluggish!
- Digestive Health: Stretches that rotate the torso aid digestion and relieve bloating. Definitely best to avoid it if you’re uninterested in improving digestive health.
- Joint Health: Mobility work stimulates synovial fluid production, reducing joint friction and promoting longevity. You can skip it if you don’t care about comfortable movement.
- Sleep Quality: Gentle stretching triggers relaxation, aiding restful sleep. Avoid it if you enjoy restless nights!
- Pain Tolerance: Stretching trains the nervous system to handle discomfort better. Skip it if you prefer suffering 🙂
- Headache Reduction: Mobility work relieves tension in the neck and shoulders, reducing the occurrence and severity of headaches. No need to do it if you’re fine with frequent headaches.
- Immune System Support: Mobility training boosts lymphatic circulation, aiding the immune system. Avoid it if you prefer your immune system to get exciting in a bad way.
- Stress Reduction: Mobility exercises release endorphins and lower cortisol levels, reducing stress. So, it is certainly best to skip it if you prefer feeling stressed and enjoy the many harmful symptoms of high cortisol levels!
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Mobility As Though A Sporting Pursuit: Train For The Event Of Your Life!
Take care!
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Common Sense Labs: Blood Labs Demystified – by Dr. Ken Berry & Kim Howerton
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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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Oranges vs Lemons – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing oranges to lemons, we picked the oranges.
Why?
In the battle of these popular citrus fruits, there is a clear winner on the nutritional front.
Things were initially promising for lemons when looking at the macros—lemons have a little more fiber while oranges are slightly higher in carbs, but the differences are small and both are very healthy in this regard.
However, alas for this writer who prefers sour fruits to sweet ones (I’m sweet enough already), the micronutrient profiles tell a different story:
In terms of vitamins, oranges have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline. In contrast, lemons have a (very) little more vitamin B6. You might be wondering about vitamin C, since both fruits are famous for that—they’re equal on vitamin C. But, with that stack we listed above, oranges clearly win the vitamin category easily.
As for minerals, oranges boast more calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while lemons have more iron, manganese, and phosphorus.
Technically lemons also have more sodium, but the numbers are truly miniscule (by coincidence, we discover upon grabbing a calculator, you’d need to eat approximately your own bodyweight in whole lemons to get to the RDA of sodium—and that’s to reach the RDA, not the upper healthy limit) so we’ll overlook the tiny sodium difference as irrelevant. Which means, while closer than the vitamins category, oranges win on minerals with a 6:3 lead over lemons.
Both fruits offer generous helpings of flavonoids and other polyphenols such as naringenin and hesperidin, which have anti-inflammatory properties and more specifically can also reduce allergy symptoms (unless, of course, you are allergic to citrus fruits, which is a relatively rare but extant allergy).
In short: as ever, enjoy both; diversity is great for the health. But if you want to maximize the nutrients you get, it’s oranges.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Lemons vs Limes – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Chaat Masala Spiced Potato Salad With Beans
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This is an especially gut-healthy dish; the cooked-and-cooled potatoes are not rich with resistant starches (that’s good), the beans bring protein (as well as more fiber and micronutrients), and many of the spices bring their own benefits. A flavorful addition to your table!
You will need
- 1 lb new potatoes, boiled or steamed, with skin on, quartered, cooled ← this is a bit of a “mini recipe”, but we expect you can handle it
- 5 oz blanched broad beans
- 2 oz sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp amchoor
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground asafoetida
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Juice of ½ lemon
And then…
- To garnish: finely chopped cilantro, or if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, then substitute with parsley
- To serve: a nice chutney; you can use our Spiced Fruit & Nut Chutney recipe
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Mix all the ingredients from the main section, ensuring an even distribution on the spices.
2) Add the garnish, and serve with the chutney. That’s it. There was more work in the prep (and potentially, finding all the ingredients) today.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we scored all five today!
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More ← don’t underestimate those sun-dried tomatoes, either!
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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