9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year

 

How small actions lead to big results.

“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

To reach your goals, you need a system. You need to build habits and you have to stick around long enough to let them do their magic. You hear it over and over again because it’s true.

In 2019, one of the most popular books was Atomic Habits, by James Clear. It’s a practical guide to break bad habits and build good ones. The author explains clearly why small, everyday habits lead to great success.

If you haven’t read the book yet, make sure you do. But don’t just read it. Put in practice everything you learn from it. Until you do so, here are 9 micro-habits that can improve your life.

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1. Delay Your Reactions

I know, I know, it’s a fast-moving world. But that does not mean we have to respond quickly to everything. Learn to say “I’ll let you know later”, “I’ll get back to you on this”, and other similar phrases.

Instead of saying yes to an offer only to realize later that it doesn’t fit your schedule, better to take a few minutes to think about it.

It will save you a great amount of time and disappointment in the long run.

2. Push Yourself to Complete a Task When You Don’t Feel Like It

Every day, pick a small task you don’t want to do then go ahead and complete it. From washing the dishes to making your bed and from going for a run to making dinner instead of ordering food. It can be anything.

After doing this for a few days, you’ll realize the problem is not the task itself. It’s your habit of postponing things. It’s being comfortable, especially when you have a choice. But often, once you make the first step, you get yourself in the mood and get the job done.

Once you’ve spent a few days completing small tasks, make the jump to bigger ones.

3. Spend a Day Away From Social Media

There were days when my phone was the extension of my hand. I would pick it up for no reason and then scroll on social media for 30 minutes without realizing it. And I’m not even big on social media platforms. I never post anything on Facebook and have around 200 followers on Instagram, whom I spam with pictures of my travels from time to time.

But I can’t give it up for good, nor do I want to. Facebook is a great way to find out about local events, and Instagram is a great source of inspiration for my writing. But all of these are useful if I use the platforms in moderation.

So instead of deleting the apps from my phone, I’ve decided that I’m not going to use them on Sundays. And so I did. After four weeks, I’ve drastically reduced my screen time and even set a 1-hour limit for social apps.

So if you’re struggling with this as well, start small. Spend a day away from social media or don’t connect your phone to wifi at all. After you realize you’re not missing out on anything, by being offline for one day, you’ll consciously choose to spend less time online, every day.

4. Prepare Your Next Day the Night Before

Choose your outfit and put everything in your bag (men might not understand this, but most women have a looong list of things that they need to have in their everyday bag).

Write down a to-do list and check your calendar to see if you scheduled any meetings or calls. Do anything you can to make the next day easier.

If you have a plan, you get things done faster. There’s no magic involved, it’s pure logic.

5. Eat Mindfully

When you’re eating and working/reading/watching a movie at the same time, you often eat more than you need. Plus, you’re not enjoying the food, nor are you being productive. Can you even taste those vegetables if you’re busy trying to make sense of an excel document? Probably not.

Having lunch or dinner shouldn’t take more than 10–15 minutes. So when did we become so busy that we don’t even have 10 minutes to spare to fuel our bodies?

Next time you eat, do just that: eat. You’ll see it’s not easy at all to not reach for your phone. And the simple fact that we have to talk ourselves out of doing it should raise some questions.

6 Use a Timer for Your Tasks

The Pomodoro Technique might as well be called the Bible of Productivity. It got so famous because it works so it does deserve all the praise. Out of all the micro-habits I mention here, this one has helped me the most.

Working and traveling full-time is not always easy (or fun, might I add) and you have to come up with a schedule and stick to it. So I’ve adjusted the Pomodoro Technique in a way that works for me: I write for one hour, take a 10-minute break, and then write for another hour.

This is one of the main tricks that have helped meet my deadlines while exploring a few different cities every month.

7. Place Your Phone on the Opposite Side of the Room

If you keep your phone next to you when you sleep, you’ll just keep hitting the snooze button until it’s almost too late to get out of bed. But for most of us, the hard part is standing up, not waking up. And this is why this method works.

When your phone is on the opposite side of the room, you have to get up and take a few steps to stop it from ringing. Then you might realize you are also thirsty and have a lot to do in the next following hours. So your bed doesn’t look so comfortable anymore.

8. Set a Spending Waiting Period

For the past few years, I’ve been applying two rules before buying anything. First, if I see something I like, I never buy it on the spot — unless it’s something I need and have been looking for. Instead, I wait for a few days to see if it’s still going to be on my mind.

If after three days I still dream about a dress or some shoes, I go ahead and buy them. If I completely forget about them, then I just dodged a bullet because it was probably just compulsive shopping.

The second rule applies to items on sale. Everybody loves the sales periods, right? Of course we do. But it’s also when we tend to buy a lot of stuff we don’t need. It’s how our brains are wired. That’s why marketing works. Getting a good deal makes us happy. Satisfied. Until we get home and realize it was just a temporary feeling.

To avoid buying unnecessary things, ask yourself a simple question: “ Would I pay the full price for it?” If the answer is “yes”, then take out your wallet. If it’s negative, walk away.

9. Write Down Every Idea

“It’s ok, I’ll remember it” should go down in history as the biggest lie we tell ourselves. Out of all the things you pick up during the day, you end up forgetting more than half of it.

So make a habit of writing everything down, even the silly stuff that seem unimportant.

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Final Thoughts

The main reason why people don’t reach their goals is that they make drastic changes instead of building small, everyday habits. To do so, you only need to follow these two simple rules:

1. Drop a Bad One

Make a list of all the bad habits you have and want to get rid of. Instead of going on a war against yourself, trying to get rid of all of them at the same time, pick only one and focus on that. Take baby steps. Smoke one less cigarette. Buy one less unnecessary item every week. Stop eating one thing out of a few you want to give up.

Only after you’ve managed to give up a bad habit, start working on another one.

2. Add a Good One

The same goes for good changes you want to make. Don’t try to drink 2 liters of water every day if you only drank 1 glass before. Instead, try to drink 2 glasses per day and slowly increase. Add one more vegetable to your plate. Run one more minute on the treadmill. Read one more page every night.

Choose something you’re struggling with and slowly increase the time you spend building that good habit. When you feel like it became a habit, start working on the next one.

Source : Youngsters

I Asked My Wife If I Could Date Her Sister

 

A five-week honeymoon in South America.

What could go wrong?

Everything.

Our relationship was already struggling to stay afloat. Kind of like ripping the rudder off on the dock while casting off. The Titanic at least made it out to open waters before sinking. We didn’t make it out of port.

Perhaps a skilled captain could have navigated the choppy relationship waters and found a way to keep everything afloat.

I am not a skilled captain.

But I absolutely made sure I went down with the ship.

Prior To Departure

Our wedding day and honeymoon bookended about six-weeks of open space. We needed time for her to receive her new passport, plus we figured South America would be that much warmer if we waited further into the continent’s summer months.

Those six weeks weren’t all that eventful. Outside of me finding out she was still shacking up with the guy she’d been shacking up with prior to our wedding.

A minor detail.

Needless to say, we were not in the best of places when the time to leave for our honeymoon came.

We lived together yet I couldn’t look at her. We shared the same bed yet I couldn’t sleep next to her. When she’d return from work my heart would jump from excitement before falling down a ravine and bursting into pieces. Like a lenticular work of art, I’d see her for the woman I loved before the angle changed and she became a stranger I hardly knew.

And I hated it.

In ways I hated her.

It wouldn’t be a lie to say I looked forward more to the honeymoon than the wedding. She stole the idea of perfect honeymoon and stuffed it in a sack with my heart and soul.

What she did with that sack I don’t know.

Why did I decide to go with her? Why didn’t I just cut her loose and enjoy the trip on my own? All good questions. Basically, I wasn’t sure if my ticket would be canceled if I tried to check in to the airline without the other half of my party. I figured it wouldn’t, but I also didn’t want to find out.

Besides, shouldn’t five-weeks in a dream destination help right the ship?

No. It didn’t.

Because the last thing you want to do when you despise someone is spend weeks on end with that person in a place neither of you speaks the language.

Every step in Peru. Every cab ride in Chile. Every dinner out in Argentina, I found the void in my chest begin to consume myself.

When your heart is gone it just isn’t an empty space. It creates a vacuum, and something needs to fill that space.

I very quickly lost my mind.

I thought of ways to escape. Maybe during the next cab ride I’d let her get in first, then dart away as the car rolled her out of my life. I considered slipping out at night. I dreamed of some mystery goddess coming down from the heavens and taking me away.

None of that happened.

I couldn’t return back home on my own. That wouldn’t be good. Especially if something happened to her. Murder charges were not things I wanted to deal with.

So instead, as we toured Machu Picchu and watched the crashing Pacific Ocean waves from a clay tennis court in Chile, I considered how I could share my hurt. How I could off load some of my burden onto her.

A childish line of reasoning, but I was becoming desperate. I was starting to worry my own thoughts would jump off the next bridge and take my body along with it.

Although then maybe she would have had to deal with the murder charges.

Instead, what I came up with was making her feel less than whole. To feel inadequate.

Like she’d made me feel.

I’m not proud of it. I don’t even know if it’s something I’ve told many (or any).

But it is the only logical reasoning behind some of the questions I’d eventually ask.

The “What If” Game

Our honeymoon jumped around South America a bit. We landed in Lima, went down and did the Machu Picchu thing, hopped on a few buses through northern Chile, and had found ourselves in Santiago, waiting for a flight to take us to Easter Island.

That morning the manager of our hotel accused us of trying to leave without paying. Not sure how that’s possible when it’s pre-booked and pre-paid, but that was the start of our day. Nothing like using Google Translate at 4 AM while you’re trying to make it to the airport on time (and this was Google Translate circa 2010, so it wasn’t exactly as accurate as the current rendition).

Eventually, we made it out, but there weren’t any taxis driving around the neighborhood at such an early hour. I also didn’t want to walk back into the hotel, wake up the manager, and ask him to call a cab.

That left the two of us alone, walking the streets of Santiago with our backpacks, for several hours. Nothing to do but to think, and to talk.

We’d exhausted our talking points over the previous two-weeks. The conversations we really needed to have were always there, lingering, but neither one of us wanted to fully dive in.

Deep down we both knew what would eventually happen when we returned home. We didn’t talk about that.

We didn’t need to.

Instead, we often played the “what if” game. We’d throw out random, hypothetical questions involving futures we knew would never come to pass. But thinking of improbable futures was easier than focusing on logical ones.

She asked me if I envisioned us being friends should everything continue down the same path. I guess her question remained grounded in a likely future.

I told her I didn’t know.

We had struggled to stay cordial the entire time. Many nights ended poorly. The hotel we’d been accused of sneaking out of had a bunk bed in our room. We used it.

I didn’t know what to ask. At least I didn’t know what real or even potential hypothetical question to ask. But I knew what question would make her feel less than whole. Would make her feel inadequate.

If we broke up what would you do if I dated your sister?

She didn’t like that question.

I knew she wouldn’t.

She’d always felt second fiddle to her sister. The thinner sister. The better-proportioned sister. The sister all the guys hit on growing up.

Over the years she’d often talk about the jealousy of her younger sister without ever outright saying it.

She never had a weight problem. She just wasn’t thin like her sister. She’d dealt with that comparison her entire life.

She would complain about how her breasts sagged a little, while her sister’s were perky. How her sister had the kind of booty all jeans looked good on.

Every physical comparison she ever made was always to her sister. And, in her own mind, she almost always lost.

I’d always told her I didn’t care about sisters, I was in love with her.

And in one little question, I reminder her of everything her sister had and that she didn’t. Including, hypothetically, me.

The entire honeymoon I struggled putting the images and messages from my wife’s not-so-secret fling out of my mind. I couldn’t. Nor could I pull myself out of that dark place slowly consuming me. So instead I did what I could to drag her down with me.

To her credit, she eventually answered. She said if the two of us were happy then she’d get over it.

Did that mean yes, I could?

I didn’t ask again.

I thought I’d enjoy seeing her squirm a bit, but she avoided any visible turmoil, and I felt myself slip a bit deeper into the abyss.

Thankfully Easter Island proved to be more than a desirable distraction. Exploring the island, posing with heads permanently frozen in time. Making friends with the stray dogs. Wondering how a tomato and basil sandwich could cost $80. All welcome distractions.

For a moment it almost felt like we were on an actual honeymoon.

That feeling didn’t last forever.

Nor did the marriage.

Although one thing from that entire honeymoon has survived the test of time.

I still wouldn’t mind going out on a date with the sister.

Source : Youngsters

I’m Paying a Small Fortune For the Permission To Eat Whatever I Want

 

Here's why.

I honestly can’t remember when I first read an article about “food freedom” nutritionists, but I vividly recall thinking to myself how much I wanted that to be my life. Of course, it was a very awkward, aching sort of desire. I wasn’t even sure that I (a super fat woman with PCOS and lipedema) could contemplate that sort of path.

Isn’t food freedom the sort of thing that chubby women get into after finally throwing in the towel? Or something that slim women do when they’ve never been more than a few pounds overweight? And if I actually decided to “eat like a normal person,” would that make me an even bigger failure?

For many months now, such questions have swirled around my head. Although I sometimes do write about food and body issues, many of these thoughts are things I’ve kept to myself. I haven’t been sure how to talk about it, not to mention, how to go all-in on the idea.

One thing is certain. Whatever I’ve been doing — this weird dance with restrictive diets that cycle on or off with demoralizing episodes of binge eating — it’s not working. As 2020 rolled around, I felt heavier and more unhealthy than ever before. Worse yet, all of my research on “the right diet for my body” only left me more conflicted.

So, it’s with a very heavy heart that I admit even the most “effective” diets I’ve ever followed (including those where I lost over 100 pounds in roughly eight months) were unsustainable for me.

Though not just unsustainable. They were harmful to my health. The most effective diets I’ve ever followed have been mentally, physically, and emotionally draining. The “easiest” one had me eating 1,200 calories of raw fruits and veggies every day. I also used the treadmill for two hours a day — no time off since it was “just walking” up an incline.

My feet blistered, my sleep sucked, and I couldn’t enjoy a dinner out with anyone. But I lost weight quickly and I got to (binge) eat all of the watermelons I wanted.

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That raw vegan diet never got me to my goal weight. Actually, no diet ever did help get me to that goal. I tend to ditch my diets whenever I go through a significant life change — I quit the fruit diet when I got involved with the ex who would eventually become my daughter’s dad. I quit various iterations of a very low-calorie diet (VLCD) anytime I moved or entered a new serious relationship.

It’s not exactly that I thought eating under 800 calories was weird, but I did worry what my significant others might think about my food habits. And frankly, whether I lost 30 pounds, 80, or more than 100, every diet or weight loss plan reached a point where it simply felt too exhausting to continue.

Every time I ditched a diet, I did what plenty of other dieters do: I ate haphazardly, and with an enormous amount of shame or guilt. In hindsight, it’s not hard to see what was happening. Whenever I “gave up” on a diet, I still felt somewhat bound by its rules.

For me, that meant I was either “perfectly on plan” or “off the wagon,” with very little in between or so-called normal eating. Today, I realize I’ve spent decades feeling like shit for my very human habits, like eating a piece of cake on my birthday or consuming carbohydrates. Though the deeper my guilt, the more likely I was to wind up binge eating the food that made me feel so guilty in the first place.

My dysfunctional relationship with food has been the longest damn relationship in my life.

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I’ve struggled with disordered eating for so long that I can’t recall a time in my life where I wasn’t fixated on or simply nervous around food. My fears about food have controlled so much of my life and even informed my feelings about myself. After so many failed attempts at lasting weight loss, I felt like the complete failure. Like my whole life had this big fucking asterisk thrown on top of it just because I have issues with food.

Sigh.

So, of course, the whole concept of food freedom and intuitive eating interested me, but I didn’t have the confidence to believe any of that was “for me.” As a woman with PCOS and lipedema, I’ve been told my whole life that my fat is a moral failing and a clear lack of willpower.

Or, you know, I just “don’t want it bad enough.” If only I loved my body enough to quit failing so hard.

Maybe? I’m not the only woman who’s been told she can’t have her cake and eat it too. Plenty of so-called experts have explained that every time I overeat or binge, I need to tamp down or “budget” my eating.

Unfortunately, it’s been more than 30 years now. The whole budgeting mindset didn’t work then and it’s not working now.

Now what?

Several months after I first read about food freedom nutritionists on social media, I decided to seek a few out and follow them on Instagram. After a few months of reading those updates, I finally got the courage to ask if they did one-on-one coaching.

I wound up being referred to another nutritionist whose whole deal is “diet culture rebel.” Going through her posts was incredibly strange because I don’t think it once occurred to me that a straight-sized woman could ever understand how I feel about food. Yet, there she was on Instagram, verbalizing all of the things I never even admitted were problematic. She even said the stuff I never knew how to explain.

For as long as I can remember,

I’ve felt so deeply ashamed of the fact that I wake up wondering if I’m going to “be good.” Every day.

My entire sense of self-worth has been wrapped up in my weight going up or down and my food choices being “good” or “bad.” It’s such a sad and dysfunctional way to get by.

Going through these “diet culture rebel” posts helped me see that all of my “weirdness” about food wasn’t so unheard of after all. Unhealthy? Uh, yeah. Maybe I’d underestimated just how much diet culture has impacted my life.

On a nervous whim, I set up a free call to learn more about Bonnie’s three-month one-on-one coaching program. At the end of the call, I made a rather out-of-character and split-minute decision to do the program. I paid for the first month right then and there — and that fee happens to be $25 more than my monthly rent. Various thoughts flickered through my head, like how much I hoped I wasn’t being an idiot and whether or not it was stupid to make such an expensive commitment in the middle of a pandemic. As a rule, I’m not the sort of person to throw money down on coaching at all.

A larger part of me, however, and hopefully the honest part, argued that this particular step was long overdue. In the past, I’ve spent a lot of money on weight loss programs, crazy diets, and all sorts of special foods (which were usually awful). None of those investments ever left me better off.

“I am not going to overthink this decision,”

I told myself. “Instead, I am going to embrace food freedom and see where it gets me.”

At that moment, I decided that some progress would be better than no progress at all.

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Last week, I had my first one-on-one coaching session with Bonnie. Let me tell you — Zoom chats? They are not my favorite thing in the world, particularly when I’m feeling so self-conscious about my body and food choices.

As if my appearance makes me the poster child of “women who can’t get their shit together.”

I really had to fight back the urge to cancel or somehow get out of it, and I took the time to answer a pretty long questionnaire about my history with food. Filling in my answers was a time-consuming process (yuck), but it was such an eye-opening experience too.

Every time I muttered to myself about how exhausting it was to try to put my dysfunctional food like into words, it occurred to me that there needn’t be any wonder why I’m so damn tired. Coping with a lifetime of food guilt is exhausting.

To my surprise, though, I didn’t feel “othered” or ashamed when I talked with Bonnie about my food issues. I didn’t even feel annoyed that this small blonde woman couldn’t understand what it’s like to carry around hundreds of extra pounds of fat. Rather, speaking with her felt reassuring because she kept describing the unhealthy food habits and feelings I know so well, and she affirmed that these are unhealthy for everyone.

That’s not how conventional healthcare providers approach fat people. In my experience, nobody cares about your unhealthy food feelings until you’re deemed “too thin.” As long as you have the weight to lose, most doctors don’t give a damn how you drop the pounds — they only care that you do it.

This is the way you begin to see your body. Like something you’ve got to press into submission at any cost.

During that first session, Bonnie helped me identify positive affirmations to help replace my negative self-talk surrounding my body and food. She also helped me understand some of the ways dieting has harmed my health and overall ability to eat.

With her guidance, I agreed to pursue two small goals for the week. First, I’d eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and try not to let more than 5 hours come between them. The point is to give my body consistency, and avoid binge eating due to restriction.

The other goal was simply to try to drink more water since I’ve been feeling like I don’t drink enough water lately, but I hadn’t been doing too much about it.

Since I’d already made the financial commitment, I figured I may as well try.

Lo and behold, I did try. No, it wasn’t perfect, but there were several wins anyway. I haven’t had a binge eating episode all week. I also haven’t felt especially guilty or anxious around food.

A few days ago, I took my daughter to Sonic (the drive-up restaurant), and I didn’t panic inside. I also didn’t feel compelled to eat, well, everything. Unlike my usual fast-food experiences, there wasn’t much anxiety about the decision to throw away the remaining cheese sticks or cinnamon bites once we finished eating. I felt done.

For somebody whose life often revolves around my food anxiety, it was a very big deal.

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That’s not to say this week hasn’t also been exhausting — believe me, it’s actually been pretty tough. I’ve got one of those digestive systems that seriously feels every dietary change. Besides, embracing food freedom and intuitive eating over decades of shame-based diet rules doesn’t happen without a great deal of work. For as long as I can remember, I’ve used food and dieting to cope with my difficult feelings.

Now I’m trying to actually work through the discomfort.

This new path requires me to dismantle my old beliefs and replace them with healthier ones. But that isn’t easy… which partly explains why I haven’t done this earlier. Or, why I’m not trying to do it alone.

This first week, I had an interesting epiphany. When I look back at my life as a writer, a mother, and even a single woman, I can see how often I’ve been wrong about what I thought I wanted. I once thought that single motherhood was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Or that I’d lead a miserable life if I remained unattached and didn’t remarry.

However, once I finally pursued my own writing career, I began to discover that I was wrong — a lot. Time passed and I realized that I’m very happy with my singleness. Perhaps the life I thought I wanted wasn’t the life I needed after all.

I’m not sure why I felt my relationship with food should be any different, but apparently, I did. For years, I kept collecting “thinspiration,” researching various diets, and dreaming about finally reaching my “ideal body weight.” It didn’t matter what I learned about myself as a woman with lipedema, PCOS, or disordered eating.

I kept buying into the fantasy that weight loss was going to fix the most pressing problems in my life. Meanwhile, I kept ignoring the damage every failed diet did to me.

My life with endless food rules never gave me the boundaries I craved. On the contrary, those rules left me feeling so confused that I second-guessed every single food choice I made. Apples and bananas weren’t just fruit — they were “gateway carbs.” A salad was only virtuous if the calorie counts were exceptionally low. But worst of all?

No restriction was ever good enough.

Even an 800 calorie day of eating became a failure because it wasn’t even less. Why not eat 500 calories a day? Why eat at all?

See, as long as I inhabit a fat body, diet culture rules are there to shame me into submission. At the same time, there is no amount of submission that ever eases my anxiety around food.

Of course, virtually everybody who says they want to lose weight cites “health reasons.” I sure have. But even then, we don’t admit that the way diet rules control a person’s life is far from healthy.

The more I reflect on my food issues, the more I realize I don’t want to keep following this same path of restriction, guilt, and shame. I don’t want my life to revolve around food rules like “never drink your calories,” “avoid high carbs like fruit,” or “eat before a party just so you don’t (over)eat when you’re there.”

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So far? Here’s what I’m learning about food freedom. Despite my fears that “eating whatever I want” will make me gain weight, this journey isn’t about mindlessly eating ice cream and cookies all day. It’s also not about “throwing in the towel.”

It’s about learning how to live in a world where food is such a big part of the way we connect, communicate, and celebrate. Food freedom is about establishing a healthier relationship with food that is free of negativity, morality, and any other judgment that only takes us further off-course.

Some folks joke that you don’t need a coach to give you permission to eat. But do you know what? I sort of do need that. I need a commonsense voice to help counteract the mixed messages and harmful “help” I’ve absorbed over the years.

All of this freedom is tough to grasp for anyone who’s spent much of their life tuned into diet culture and the food police. But it’s important if we want to quit the restrict-binge cycle and begin living in real freedom. Sure, I’m only at the beginning of my journey, but I believe in it as much as I believe in my writing career and positive parenting. It’s more than something I want to try. It feels like part of my calling.

My daughter is just six years old, and so far,

I’ve been very careful not to burden her with my food issues. I see how she eats in total food freedom and I don’t want to mess that up, so she’s never heard me talk about the constant, painful dialogue that happens in my head about my body or food.

It’s important to me that I go into the next six years of her life with much more peace in my skin.

Honestly? I know I’m going to need a lot of help to navigate these waters,

but I’m so glad to have taken this first step.

Source : Yonugsters

 

There’s a Nasty Ingredient Hidden in These Common Foods

 

You might not even realize you’re eating it

I can still vividly remember specific moments from my childhood. I don’t remember everything, but there are certain memories that still stand out to me, as if it were yesterday.

For example, in elementary school, I remember going to the grocery store with my parents and sisters just before classes started. We got to pick out a few special treats to pack in our lunches for the first week of school.

We always picked junk food, like packaged snack cakes, chocolate cookies, or potato chips.

All understood that these weren’t considered the healthiest choices, but they were a special treat that gave us something to look forward to during that rough adjustment period of heading back to school. Plus, it wasn’t like this was all we were eating each day.

We still got plenty of nutrients in our diets as well. My parents regularly cooked up fresh pasta with vegetables, made us avocado sandwiches on whole wheat bread, and served us baked potatoes with broccoli.

However, there was a single nasty ingredient hidden in some of my favorite “healthy” foods that even I didn’t realize was so prominent for many years.

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And these are foods you are probably eating daily.

Foods like ketchup, peanut butter, bread, bagels, cereal, and much more, all contain it.

The ingredient is called processed sugar. And unlike donuts and cookies, where it’s easy to realize they contain a lot of sugar, the sugar in the common foods is sneaky.

At first, I didn’t realize my natural peanut butter actually had added sugar.

After all, the label did say natural.

I didn’t realize that my favorite blueberry bagels had almost 10 grams of added sugar, or that one of my go-to breakfasts, two packets of flavored instant oatmeal with a spoonful of peanut butter, added up to about 20 grams of sugar.

Thus, in a single meal, I was close to exceeding the American Heart Association’s recommended limit for daily sugar intake for women, 25 grams.

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And the worst part is, I didn’t even know it.

Product labels have a way of disguising the foods as healthy. When the low-fat craze was around, everything was advertised as a healthier, low-fat option. But,

what was left out was the fact that the fat was replaced,

with added sugar and salt so that the products still tasted good.

So, it can be easy to buy something you think is pretty healthy, when the opposite is actually true.

Still, a little sugar isn’t going to ruin you. You just have to make sure to eat it in moderation. Unfortunately, that can be hard when it is hidden in so many products.

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Here are some things I started doing that help:

• I check ingredients labels — The only way to know what is actually in a product is by looking at the label. If the ingredients list is a mile long, it might not be the healthiest option. If sugar is one of the first ingredients, then the food probably has quite a bit of added sugar.
• I mainly shop the perimeter of the store — If you focus on the perimeter of the store, you will be shopping the more natural stuff (fresh fruits, vegetables, and things like that). What lies within the isles is mostly junk food and packaged products. So, it’s best to avoid these most of the time.
• I make my own homemade desserts — When I make my own desserts at home, I can sweeten them naturally with fruit sugars and control the amount of added sugar that goes into them. Try these delicious high protein peanut butter chocolate chip muffins, and you might find that healthy desserts can still satisfy your sweet tooth.

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Final Thoughts

Sugar is hidden everywhere, even in the most common foods that you probably eat daily.

Once I started paying closer attention to the ingredients lists for foods I was buying, I was able to choose healthier options, like natural peanut butter that is actually natural.

So, the next time you go to the grocery store, check the labels. It only takes a few extra minutes, but it truly could help you live a healthier life.

Source: Youngsters

5 Dishes to Remind You That Eggplant Is Delicious

 

You’ll go to these recipes again and again for as long as it’s eggplant season

Grilled eggplant is a summer favorite for good reason: It’s one of the most satisfying of summer vegetables to cook and eat. And while eggplant shines when it’s prepared on a grill, you won’t want to miss out on these eggplant meatballs, either. Read on for more.

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Grilled or Roasted Eggplant Dip

Makes: 6 to 8 servings. Time: About 1 hour, largely unattended.

There is nothing like grilled eggplant, and its smoky flavor makes a sensational dip; if you grill or roast a red pepper at the same time, so much the better. Serve with bread or crackers, or use as a sandwich spread.

Ingredients

2 medium or 4 small eggplant (about 1 pound)
1 red bell pepper (optional)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, or more as needed
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic, or to taste
Salt and pepper
Chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Turn the broiler on and position the rack about 4 inches below the heat, prepare a charcoal or gas grill for high direct cooking, or heat the oven to 500°F.

Pierce the eggplant in several places with a thin knife or skewer. Grill or roast it, along with the pepper if you’re using one, turning occasionally, until the eggplant and pepper collapse and their skins blacken, 15 to 30 minutes depending on size. Remove, wrap with foil, and let cool.

When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, unwrap it, make a cut in the skin (if it hasn’t split on its own), scoop out the flesh, and chop it as finely as you can manage. Peel and core the pepper if you’re using it, then chop it. Mix the eggplant and pepper with lemon juice, oil, and garlic, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Baba Ghanoush
A little more elaborate: Omit the oil and bell pepper. While the eggplant is grilling or roasting, toast 1/2 cup pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat, shaking occasionally, just until they begin to brown. When the eggplant is cool, put it in the food processor with the pine nuts, lemon juice, garlic, реpper, and 1/3 cup tahini. Process until very smooth, adding a few teaspoons water or olive oil it necessary. Taste and add salt and/or more lemon juice or garlic to taste. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

— Recipe from How to Cook Everything

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Eggplant Meatballs

Makes: 4 servings. Time: About an hour, largely unattended.

Vegetable meatballs are certainly they’re not the same as meat meatballs, but the different textures and flavors are terrific. To round out the meal, serve these over pasta, rice, salad, or steamed greens with a squeeze of lemon.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound eggplant, unpeeled, cut into cubes no larger than 1 inch

1 teaspoon salt

1 ⁄ 2 teaspoon pepper

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup cooked or canned white beans

1 ⁄ 4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 cup breadcrumbs

Pinch red chile flakes (optional)

2 cups any tomato sauce (like this one)

Instructions

Heat the oven to 375°F. Use 1 tablespoon olive oil to grease a large rimmed baking sheet. Put 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add the eggplant and 1 ⁄ 4 cup water. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pieces shrivel a bit and are tender and beginning to color, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer the eggplant to the bowl of a food processor.

Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the pan along with the onion and garlic and return to the heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until they’re soft and translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Meanwhile, drain the beans; if using canned, rinse them before draining. Add the beans and parsley to the work bowl with the eggplant and pulse until well combined and chopped, but not pureed.

Toss the eggplant mixture with the onion and garlic, then add the breadcrumbs and red chile flakes if you’re using them. taste and adjust the seasoning. Roll the mixture into 12 balls about 2 inches in diameter; transfer them to the prepared pan. Bake, undisturbed, until they’re firm and well browned, 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm the tomato sauce. serve the meatballs hot or at room temperature along with the tomato sauce.

— Recipe from The VB6 Cookbook

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Eggplant Parmesan With Grill-Roasted Tomato Sauce

Makes: 4 servings. Time: 40 to 50 minutes.

This recipe is so easy and fast you’ll never go back to breading and frying. The sauce is nothing more than chopped grill-roasted cherry tomatoes — all the seasoning they need is a little salt to heighten their natural flavor, concentrated as they gently hiss over a hot fire.

Ingredients

5 Tablespoons olive oil

2 eggplants, 3/4 to 1 pound each

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

6 cups cherry or grape tomatoes

1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

About 1 cup fresh basil leaves

8 ounces thinly sliced mozzarella

Instructions

Start the coals or heat a gas grill for medium-high direct cooking. Make sure the grates are clean.

Peel the eggplant if you like, and cut each lengthwise into 4 slices not more than ¾ inch thick each. Whisk 4 tablespoons of the oil and the vinegar together with some salt and pepper in a small bowl. Brush the eggplant slices with the oil mixture on both sides. Put them on a baking sheet until you’re ready to grill them.

Toss the tomatoes with the remaining tablespoon of oil and either skewer them or put them in a perforated grill pan and spread them into a single layer.

Put the tomatoes on the grill, directly over the fire. Close the lid and cook, turning the skewers or shaking the pan several times, until they start to look wrinkled and get charred in places, 5 to 8 minutes total. Don’t let them cook too long; they should be saucy when you cut them up. Transfer the tomatoes to a bowl.

Put the eggplant on the grill directly over the fire. Close the lid and cook until the slices are browned and tender, 5 to 8 minutes per side.

While the eggplant is cooking, chop the tomatoes by hand on a cutting board or in the bowl with an immersion blender, leaving the sauce somewhat chunky. If you chopped by hand, transfer the tomatoes and any juices back to the bowl. Sprinkle the sauce with salt and pepper; taste and adjust the seasoning.

As the eggplant is ready, transfer the slices to a platter. Top each slice with 2 tablespoons parmesan, a layer of basil leaves, and a layer of mozzarella. Return the slices to direct heat, close the lid, and cook until the mozzarella melts, 4 to 5 minutes. Return the eggplant to the platter. Reheat the tomato sauce if you like, top the eggplant with the sauce, and serve.

— Recipe from How to Grill Everything

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Grilled Eggplant Salad With Yogurt and Tomatoes

Serves 4. Time: 30 to 45 minutes.

A room-temperature salad at the intersection of savory, smoky, tart, and refreshing. Eat it as is, over a bed of baby spinach or steamed basmati rice, or stuffed into pitas. If cherry tomatoes look better, use them instead of the big guys. Skewer about a dozen — or toss them in a perforated grill pan — and grill them with the eggplant for a double dose of fire flavor.

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, 1 1/2 pound

1/2 cup good quality olive oil, plus more for brushing

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 or 2 minced cloves garlic

1/4 cup chopped scallions

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1 tablespoon lemon juice, or to taste

1 large or two medium fresh tomatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks

Ground sumac for garnish, optional

Instructions

Start a charcoal or wood fire or preheat a gas grill. Make sure the grates are clean.

Peel the eggplants if you’d like. Cut into 3/4 inch slices. Brush with oil and salt and pepper to taste, both sides.

Put the eggplants on the grill directly over the fire. Close the lid, turning once, until the slices develop deep grill marks and are tender, 5 to 8 minutes per side. Brush the eggplant with more oil if it starts to look dry. Transfer to a cutting board and chop into bite-sized pieces.

Put the yogurt, garlic, scallions, mint, and lemon juice in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the tomatoes and eggplant to the yogurt and stir to coat. Serve chilled or bring to room temperature and garnish with sumac if you’d like.

— Recipe from How to Grill Everything

Source : Medium

7 Ways to Do a Workweek

 

Monday through Friday isn’t for everyone

With many physical offices closed for the foreseeable future, the regular workweek has seldom seemed like a more artificial construct for office workers. Commutes have been replaced by a short amble to the desk, if you aren’t just tapping away on your laptop from the heights of Mount Duvet. And the “weekend,” especially for those without children, has become a rather abstract concept.

With the world in flux, it’s not surprising that the shape of the workweek is shifting too. It wouldn’t be the first time. After the French Revolution, the government implemented a radical calendar: From 1793 to 1805, French workers operated on a 10-day week with one full day and one half day off. Stalin tried something similar: For 11 years, the Soviet Union had no weekends, working a five-day “continuous week” with staggered days off.

Obviously neither of those systems had staying power, and few would welcome similar state-mandated shifts in the workweek today. But there’s also no need for us to be so universally wedded to the five-days-on, two-days-off workweek. It’s a vestige of early 20th-century industrial labor, a far cry from the realities of the modern connected workplace. Technology has allowed us to be productive on our own time, yet somehow we’re still committed to that structure of a 40-hour week.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Remote work has given us more options for flexibility than ever before — and many are learning that one size doesn’t fit all. Now is a great time to consider whether the Monday-through-Friday workweek is truly right for you, or whether another structure works better for your needs and rhythms. Here are some options.

1. The four-day workweek

It sounds like a fantasy: full pay, full work output, and 80% as much time chained to your computer. It’s a relatively new concept, but the little data that exists on the four-day week is very promising. In early 2018, a New Zealand company called Perpetual Guardian ran an eight-week experiment with its 240 employees. Workers would set out to accomplish the same work for the same pay — with three days off rather than two.

The results were striking: Workers were more productive, more efficient, and happier. Two years on, the company has a permanent option of a four-day workweek (though the company retains the right to “withdraw” the extra day off if employees aren’t getting their work done). Since then, founder Andrew Barnes reports, revenue has increased by 6% and profitability by 12.5%. “This is a work revolution whose time has come,” Barnes wrote in Marker.

If you think that it could be the right option for you, try pitching it to your boss, but make sure you’ve given some careful thought ahead of time to exactly how it would work. First, consider who else it could affect and how your new schedule might affect everybody else on your time. Then, be prepared for tricky questions.

2. The early start

If you’re at your sharpest while the sun is still low in the sky, go with that instinct. Working from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. could be a fantastic way to maximize productivity and make the most of your early-bird body clock. While the rest of the world wakes up, you’ll have the quiet you need to focus and get a head start on the day’s tasks without interruptions from chatty colleagues or demanding clients. By the time your first morning Zoom calls starts, you’ll be prepared and hopefully in the right headspace.

There are other advantages: According to researchers from the University of Washington, managers often display a bias toward early birds. Even when total work hours were the same, employees who began earlier were consistently rated as better performers and more conscientious.

Working a slightly different schedule could give you more time to spend with nonworking members of your family. And outside of a pandemic, it’s also a sure-fire way of escaping rush hour traffic.

3. The 21-hour week

You probably can’t just march into your boss’s office and ask them to halve your hours. But if you’re considering going part-time and are able to take a pay cut, the benefits are huge: Voluntary part-time workers are often happier and feel better able to take care of themselves and their families.

In heterosexual couples, there’s a strong feminist argument for both partners to work part-time, if it’s financially feasible, in order to engage more equally in the emotional and physical labor of running a household and shared life. Women in the U.K. spend an average of 16.8 hours a week in paid work and 29.75 hours in unpaid work according to data from Eurostat. For men, the numbers are reversed at 29.16 hours of paid work and 16.1 hours unpaid. Balancing out the discrepancy could lead to a more equal sharing of childcare and other responsibilities, making it easier for women to succeed.

It’s one reason why the think tank New Economics Foundation has proposed a 21-hour week as the standard for the 21st century. They argue that it’s best for everyone: As well as creating more gender equality, it would help countries to decarbonize by cutting down on commutes, spread labor and resources more evenly, and make workers happier and more productive.

4. The five-hour workday

If you’re able to manage your own time, there’s no reason to be “on” for the standard eight-hour day. Digital marketer Felicia Sullivan advocates for working smarter rather than harder or longer. By gut-renovating her own workweek, she has managed to maintain a cool five-hour workday, five days a week. “I don’t get less done,” she writes. “I just do it in less time, freeing myself up for the things that matter.”

Her own strategies involve confining phone calls to Thursday and Tuesdays, mapping out blocks of time on her calendar, and avoiding task-switching at all costs. Sullivan also automates as many processes as possible.

One nonnegotiable part of her workday is a morning walk, Sullivan writes: “I take my walks in silence, free of distraction, because I know the rest of my day will be filled with noise. That lone hour gets my body moving, my head ready, and my heart anxious to dive into the work I absolutely love — in healthy moderation.”

5. The seven-day workweek

It sounds terrible, but hear me out: For some people, working a few hours every day can solve the conundrum of the pandemic weekend.

“When the world was put on lockdown, weekends quickly started to feel exactly like weekdays, only with less work and stimuli,” wrote Stephen Moore in Forge. “And I started feeling off. I was anxious, unsatisfied, bored.”

For Moore, waking up early on Saturday and Sunday to get in a few hours of work before lunch put a stop to 48 hours of “Netflix and doomscrolling,” he said. And it has done wonders for his mental health: “Working on the weekends actually helps me relax — when my workday is over, I can be fully off, knowing that I spent my morning being productive.”

This could work for some people even during non-pandemic times. More than 70% of American workers check their work email outside of office hours. If you’re already working far beyond your office hours, why not embrace it? That might mean working 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays and then slotting in eight hours of work spread over the weekend.

6. The 30-hour workweek

It’s easier to make the case for a 30-hour workweek than you might anticipate. That’s the lesson from one long-ranging Swedish study, where nurses at a Swedish retirement home were put on six-hour shifts with an eight-hour salary.

On the face of it, nursing seems like one of the professions least suited to a shorter workday. Patients often need support around the clock, and medical care can’t generally be rushed. But the retirement home found that its bottom line was barely affected, even after taking on more nurses to cover the extra hours. Over a year, nurses on the new schedule took half as much sick time and were almost three times less likely to take time off in a given two-week period. More than that, they were happier and more focused.

Those are the points to lead with if you’re considering proposing it to your employer: that with this new schedule, you’ll be a more productive, more satisfied employee. That’s a change that’s as helpful for them as it is for you.

7. The classic five and two

Love working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday? Great! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Source : readitworld