If youre like most of us, you overindulged a bit too much in 2019. No, not on calories (well, maybe those too!), but on noise. Thats the name for the dizzying onslaught of information from work emails, app notifications, the 24/7 news cycle, social media updates, and other forms of screen time that leaves us unable to focus, listen, or do deep work.

A smidgen of noise now and again is okay. (We all have our guilty pleasures!) But consuming it mindlessly, all day long, is as bad as keeping a bag of chips, a monster-size soda, and a can of frosting at our desk and reaching for them every few minutes.

Too many empty brain calories won't make you fat but they will make you mentally anemic. Noise keeps you in a constant state of distraction. And like actual junk food, a high-noise digital diet is addictive, yet it never satisfies or nourishes you.

The real problem with giving into noise temptation isnt what youre doing; its what youre not doing. Youre tuning out what really matters. Youre skimming the surface. When youre scrolling Facebook, for instance, you arent learning a new language, refining that career-changing presentation, or engaging with your kids in a meaningful way.

The new year is the perfect time to put yourself on a noise diet. To help with your calorie count, lets take a look at what noise junk food looks like:

The irritatingyet addictiveparade of social media stock characters in your newsfeed. This band of noisemakers assaults your brain with their cries for attention. For instance:

The humble bragger. Your college rival who subtly slips into her post that she just got another promotion at her swanky company. #blessed #gag

The cryptic drama-stirrer. That self-righteous friend who calls out people anonymously for perceived slights or makes vague poor me pity posts. (Cue the wave of very concerned commenters.)

The over-sharer. We dont need a play-by-play of your colonoscopy. Thanks.

The drop-of-a-hat ranter. Whose day would be complete without a furious recounting of how the barista screwed up your nonfat, dairy-free, double-shot, decaf, extra-hot mochaccino with extra foam? The nerve!

The overly zealous kid promoter. Yes, yes, we know Junior is the smartest, cutest, cleverest tot around your other 15 posts this week made that perfectly clear.

The amateur political pundit. Do not engage...just dont.

Dumb shows on TV. You dont need to waste your precious attention span watching Jerry Springer, B-list celebrity lip-synch contests, or those morning talk shows. Substance-free television combined with the lure of a cozy couch can quickly turn into a lost day or evening.

The 24/7 news carousel-of-darkness. Sadly, most news is bad news, and during a controversial election year it can also be fodder for controversy, vitriol, and the loss of civility with friends, family, and neighbors. (Hint: You don't need to totally disengage, but its good to be discerning about what you let in and about how often you engage in debates with the people in your life.)

Your work email. Your boss just had to email you at 9:30 p.m. ... again. The moment you jump out of the bath to write back is the moment work email becomes yet another source of noise.

Are you feeling that noise hangover settle in? Dont worry, you can kick off the new year with a different kind of diet one that cuts the empty brain calories of digital distraction and gives you what youre really craving: a more intentional life. Join my Just Say No to Noise Movement and tip the scales in the other direction. A few suggestions:

Try going a week without social media. (We promise, youll survive.) A short detox from social media is a pretty painless way to unplug and reclaim a lot of lost time. When the week is over, you can see if you even want to go back to occasional scrolling.

Reduce temptation by hiding distracting devices from yourself. OK, you probably can't hide your computer but you can shut the office door. As for cell phones and tablets, treat them like what they are: gateways to digital distraction (and it is a very slippery slope). Find an out-of-the-way place to charge and store your devices so youre not constantly reaching for them.

Break the idiot-box background noise habit. It's easy to mindlessly turn on the TV when you get home. Problem is, its broadcasting nonstop noise into your work-free hours. Instead, plan a time to watch your favorite shows. Daily exposure to the depressing litany of pain and conflict we call news isn't making your life better. Neither is watching the Fatty McButterpants episode of King of Queens for the 50th time. (OK,we admit that one is pretty funny.)

Set some work/life boundaries with the 7-to-7 rule. The company won't crash if you stop answering emails around the clock. After 7 p.m., put away your devices for the night. Don't pick them up again until 7 a.m. the next day.

Insist on phone-free family dinners ... Yes, the kids might whine at first, but soon enough they'll get used to conversing with the out-of-touch Boomers and Karens at the table.

...and screen-free family fun days. For instance, make video games and TV completely off-limits every Wednesday and Friday. Yes, even if the kids swear they have no homework. Instead, do something fun or productive as a family. Play a board game. Go bowling or skating. Cook a great meal together. Volunteer at the local animal shelter. Heck...maybe even read.

Learn to save your appetite for the stuff that really matters ... Your appetite is really your attention span, and its your most precious resource. Filling up on headlines, emails, and social media means there's little left over for doing the deep and meaningful work that helps you reach big goals at work and in your personal life. Before you cozy into an hour of lurking on your ex's Facebook page, close the laptop and find something productive to do.

...and choose some meaningful goals to pursue. When you are able to sharpen and aim your focus, you can do some pretty impressive stuff. Want to start a website? Get a better job? Learn to code? These North Star goals are the best incentive to rethink your relationship with noise and see how your life changes.

We don't realize that very often our addiction to information is the thing holding us back from getting a huge promotion, becoming valedictorian, or training for a marathon, but thats exactly what happens as time passes. Once you think of it this way, its so much easier to put yourself on a noise diet. Make this the year you take back your time and use it to do something that matters.

Joseph McCormack is the author of NOISE: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus. He is passionate about helping people gain clarity when there is so much competing for our attention. He is a successful marketer, entrepreneur, and author. His first book, BRIEF: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less (Wiley, 2014), sets the standard for concise communication. Joe is the founder and managing director of The BRIEF Lab, an organization dedicated to teaching professionals, military leaders, and entrepreneurs how to think and communicate clearly. His clients include Boeing, Harley-Davidson, Microsoft, Mastercard, DuPont, and select military units and government agencies. He publishes a weekly podcast called Just Saying that helps people master the elusive skills of focus and brevity.

To learn more, visit http://www.noisethebook.com

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The New Year's Noise Diet: Why you should cut the empty brain calories in 2020 - Boothbay Register

Here we are, once again in the purge part of the annual binge-purge cycle. We do this every year so that by the summer holidays we will be what is termed 'beach ready' - or at least a bit less fat, after a month of mince pies and gin cocktails.

There are around 30,000 diet books on the market, despite widespread acknowledgment that diets don't work.

One fifth of people in the UK is on a diet at any given time, and slim people - that is, those with a BMI of 25 or less - are in the minority. Since the Second World War, we have become wider, taller, heavier.

Modern humanity does not, however, hold the monopoly on fad diets, despite many people currently thinking that copying the diet of our Palaeolithic ancestors is a good idea.

It isn't. We don't know what people ate in the Palaeolithic era, plus life expectancy back then was about 25.

People have always gone to extremes to lose weight, very often relying on bad science.

Only recently are we starting to realise that long-held assumptions around calorie counting are wrong, because the body burns calories differently, depending on food type. A chocolate brownie calorie does not equal a carrot calorie. We have long been told that it does.

In his book The Diet Myth, genetic epidemiologist Tim Spector writes about the "misleading medical calorie dogma", and the importance of the microbiome, which "predicts obesity better than genes", and the importance of "diverse microbial gardens to flourish".

He recounts an experiment conducted with his wife to show how when it comes to diet, one size does not fit all. Both ate bread and pasta, and tested their blood sugar. Then they both ate grapes and orange juice, and tested it again. The bread and pasta caused a blood sugar spike in his wife, while barely registering with him; the opposite happened with the fruit.

"Confusing and conflicting messages are everywhere," he writes. "Knowing who and what to believe is a big problem."

And now we are online, we can access bad science and quack diets in seconds. But they pre-date the internet by centuries.

The 11th-century Persian physician Avicenna, one of the early fathers of modern medicine, advised eating bulky low-nutrient food, and encouraging it to pass quickly through the body with the aid of laxatives and exercise. He was one of the first to link food reduction with recovery from disease.

The first printed cookbook, published in Latin in Rome around 1470, was titled On Honest Indulgence & Good Health.

It was an early bestseller. This was followed by the earliest diet book in 1598 - The Art of Living Long by another Italian, said to have lived on one egg yolk a day.

In England, an overweight doctor called George Cheyne (1671-1743) linked obesity and depression, and advocated teetotal vegetarianism - his fans included Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope. In 1820, a porky Lord Byron kick-started the celebrity diet that haunts us to this day, with the vinegar diet, in which he used apple cider vinegar as an appetite suppressant. Apparently it worked.

In 1864, Banting became all the rage after a publication, Letter on Corpulence, became a bestseller. Dr William Banting advocated a diet of just meat and fruit to a fat undertaker who had tried everything to lose weight but could not. The man lost 29kg in a year and kept it off, pre-dating the Atkins diet by a century.

During the Edwardian era, Horace Fletcher, an American known as the Great Masticator, promoted chewing 100 to 700 times, and swallowing only the resulting liquid.

"Nature will castigate those who don't masticate," he said, promising his followers that they would poo only once a fortnight, and that it would smell of biscuits - he carried a sample around with him in a tin, to show people. Franz Kafka and Henry James were fans.

The early 20th century saw prototype fitness guru Sylvia of Hollywood trying to pummel the fat out of movie stars "like mashed potato through a colander"; she was employed by Pathe Studios for $750 a week, and as well as diet books, in 1932 wrote an indiscreet tell-all, Hollywood Undressed.

In 1939 diet guru - and Greta Garbo's lover - Gayelord Hauser published Eat & Grow Beautiful. Movie stars, he said, "simply can't afford to become fat and unattractive".

Two years later, Stanley Burroughs created the Master Cleanse, aka the lemonade diet, involving nothing more than lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for at least 10 days. People still do it - most famously, Beyonce in 2006.

Some diets were deadly, as well as disgusting. The last chance diet of 1976 involved a low-calorie meat smoothie of pre-digested animal by-products - hooves, hide, horns - which was taken off the market after several people died. Psychosis-inducing amphetamine diet pills enjoyed quite a moment during the 20th century, immortalised in Darren Aronofsky's film Requiem For A Dream, but Elvis Presley used pills to knock himself out in what was known as the sleeping beauty diet, the idea being that you could sleep yourself thin. Turns out he couldn't.

When it comes to food, we employ all kinds of mind games to trick ourselves - Andy Warhol's routine in restaurants involved ordering food he disliked, putting it in a doggy bag, and later giving it to a homeless person.

A French diet, le forking, involves eating only food that can be speared on a fork - broccoli, basically - while several American diets such as pray yourself slim and the Daniel fast (21 days of fruit, veg and grains) are popular with Christians.

While many diets remain scientifically suspect: does eating alkaline foods, superfoods, raw foods, foods that put the body into ketosis - think constipation and bad breath - really work? Dieters are nothing if not optimistic; or - if you apply Einstein's definition of doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results - insane.

Perhaps then, the greatest dieting advice ever comes from Miss Piggy: never eat more than you can lift.

The Hay diet, of which business magnate Henry Ford was a fan, involved food combining, and was developed by New York doctor William Hay in the 1920s. It was complicated. "Any carbohydrate foods require alkaline conditions for their complete digestion, so must not be combined with acids of any kind, such as sour fruits, because the acid will neutralise. Neither should these be combined with a protein of the concentrated sort as these protein foods will excite too much hydrochloric acid during their stomach digestion," wrote Dr Hay in How To Always Be Well.

The Beverly Hills diet, created by Judy Mazel in 1981, sold over a million copies and was popular with Engelbert Humperdinck and Dallas star Linda Gray. Like the Hay, it involved food combining, but was ultimately dismissed as quackery.

The Atkins diet formulated by cardiologist Robert Atkins in 1989, sold us the idea of carbs bad/fat and protein good. You could have all the meat and cheese you wanted, but no toast. When Dr Atkins died from slipping on ice, his medical records revealed a history of heart attacks and congestive heart failure.

The South Beach diet, from physician Arthur Agatson, was 2003's weight management best-seller. Originally called the modified carbohydrate diet, it became known after its place of origin, Miami's South Beach. Agatson believed in 'good' carbs and 'bad' carbs, and advocated low-glycaemic foods. See also the GI diet.

The Dukan diet, developed by doctor Pierre Dukan, is a high-protein, low-carb regime in four stages, popular in the 2000s. Despite its popularity, it is associated with renal and cardiovascular issues, and should be avoided, according to the British Dietetic Association.

The 5:2 diet takes an ancient idea - intermittent fasting, in the past associated with religious pursuits -and hitches it to weight-management and well-being. You fast for two days a week, and eat normally the other five days. The idea is that the body has a chance to rest from digesting, which not only regulates weight, but improves overall health. Side effects include outbreaks of hungry-angry, but unlike having carb-free steak and cream for breakfast, it is a relatively sensible way of regulating your weight.

Belfast Telegraph

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From the celebrity diet kickstarted by Lord Byron to the regimes followed by today's stars, how we've always gone to extremes in a bid to lose weight...

Everyone who has taken a bite of a fondant-covered cake knows that aesthetics arent everything when it comes to food. Sure, its fun to eat something that looks nice, but its better to eat something that tastes good and even better when its actually good for you.

Jeremy Cummings, the Eugene-based creator of the latest craze in energy snacking, knows this well.

With a broad range of health-food business interests, Cummings is currently focused on one product: Dirtballs. These date-based energy balls look like clumps of dirt, but trust me, they dont taste like it not that Ive ever eaten dirt.

Cummings says he did some farming in Fiji during the summer of 2017 before moving to Eugene from San Jose, California, in 2018. In Fiji he started to develop a diet that would later influence the flavors of the Dirtball.

Id always buy a bunch of dates from the store for energy while we worked, Cummings says. Afterward, wed drive down to the beach and pick a bunch of papayas and coconuts on the way. I already liked papayas and coconuts, but having it fresh off the tree was He trails off, imitating the sound of a mind-explosion.

The fresh fruit is that good.

When Cummings returned to the U.S., he used some of the Fijian-inspired flavors in a vegan oatmeal cookie snack he made to sell at a college bake sale.

They were just little brown clumpy things, he says. On my way to school, carrying the Tupperware full, I was like, huh, what if I call these things Dirtballs? I wonder what people are going to think of that?

The snacks sold out, and the name stuck. After graduating from San Jose State University, Cummings was stuck at a post-grad crossroads.

I said, You know, people like this Dirtball thing, maybe Ill walk down that path, Cummings says.

He moved to Eugene, and Dirtballs became a career. With help from the University of Oregons Regional Accelerator & Innovation Network, or RAIN, he learned how to create a business and started working on his own.

Enter SnakTak, Cummings company that was officially founded March 2018.

Dirtballs are Snaktaks first product, but he is looking to execute some of his other ideas soon and take his mission to the next level.

I have always wanted to do something that helps the world, Cummings says.

Through SnakTak, he has been able to articulate the impact he wants to have.

The mission is to fight global depression by promoting healthy diets, strong communities and connections to nature through thoughtfully designed products and experiences.

Currently, SnakTak offers thoughtful, critical protein bar reviews, which Cummings admits may have a slight bias because hes trying to market his own protein snacks. These reviews, however, are not just to attack his competitors Cummings really wants to help people find healthy options.

I just want to feed people better stuff, he says.

To get a good review from Cummings, a protein bar cant have added sugar (an absolute no-go for us) and should be interesting and innovative. (Boring snacks have no place in our hearts, minds or bellies.)

Cummings wants to be able to add an outdoor element to SnakTaks offerings. One idea he has is to offer well-curated camping trips to lead people into nourishing, healthy activities.

He says Eugene is a great place for people to be active in lots of different niches, fostering relationships along the way. He compares this community of connections to the natural world.

Fungi grow on a mycelium, which is basically a dense, distributed network through which they share nutrients, Cummings says. Eugene has a really dense community mycelium thats just right under the surface of things.

Find out more about Dirtballs and SnakTak at SnakTak.com. Check out Cummings music by searching Dirtballer on Spotify and Apple Music.

Originally posted here:
Eat Dirt and Live - Eugene Weekly

ROCKFORD (WREX) The New Year often brings a lot of people to the gym, but that dedication tends to fade after a few weeks.

Health professionals like Anytime Fitness Personal Trainer Eli Whipple believe that's due to setting too big of goals too early.

For example, he says that starting out with six workouts a week after not working out over a year is a recipe for failure. He suggests starting with three days a week so the body can adjust.

Ultimately, he believes that any and all long term health goals need to account for time.

"It's not a race," Whipple said. "A lot of people look at it that way, but we're trying to change your lifestyle. It's something that you're trying to change in the long run."

Whipple also recommends staying away from fad diets. He says making small changes before trying any rigorous diets like the Keto Diet.

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Health professionals give tips to help you achieve fitness goals in 2020 - WREX-TV

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January 2, 2020, 9:16 AM

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Welcome to GMAs New Year, Best You. As we ring in the new year, we are sharing everything you need to start the new year strong. From keeping your New Years resolutions going to Instagram-worthy meal prep to workout programs to eating plans to taking time for yourself, we have it all covered.

Angela Colabucci describes herself as someone who was overweight her entire life.

The 30-year-old decided to make a change two years ago after giving birth to her son.

Today, Colabucci has lost nearly 130 pounds and celebrated her weight loss by completing a Tough Mudder obstacle race in November in her home state of California.

"If you had told me 10 years ago that I would run a 10-mile obstacle race I would have said, "No, theres no way I could do that," Colabucci told "Good Morning America." "Now, I just go for it."

Colabucci, an office administrator in the pharmaceutical industry, started her weight loss journey in early 2017 by committing to be active every day.

"That was my first goal, just 30 minutes of cardio, either on the Stairmaster or walking because those were easiest on my joints," she said. "At my heaviest, around 280 pounds, I had to just walk because I couldn't run even a mile."

Colabucci also began to change her mindset on food.

"I didnt think about what I was eating, just whatever sounded good at the time I would eat," she said of her "before" diet. "A lot of processed foods, anything that I felt like."

Angela Colabucci, 30, of Oceanside, Calif., transformed her diet and lifestyle to lose weight.

She asked a friend in dietetics school to teach her about portion size and began to pay attention to both what and how much she was eating. She also cut out sugar and refined carbs -- going for an all-or-nothing approach to her diet.

"I just told myself that I dont eat that," she said, referring to sugar and carbs. "That was the first mental change I had to make."

Now, Colabucci focuses on eating a high-protein diet and allows herself quality carbohydrates like black beans and sweet potatoes. On a typical day she said she'll eat an apple and peanut butter for breakfast, a salad with protein for lunch and a chicken breast and vegetables for dinner.

"I feel so much better," she said. "I get sick less and I just have a completely different relationship with food."

Angela Colabucci, 30, of Oceanside, Calif., poses with her son.

Colabucci found a gym with daycare so she could workout outside the home, and found inspiration after the rush of resolution-makers in January had faded away.

"I noticed the gym was now empty and I thought all these people have fallen off and Im still here," said Colabucci, who added strength training and running to her exercise regime. "I wanted to prove them wrong. I was still there."

She also found ways to make her new lifestyle work. If she knows she cannot work out after work, Colabucci squeezes in something during her lunch break.

When she got tired of meal prepping, Colabucci switched to packing up her leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day.

"Time is going to be your best friend and your enemy," she said. "Its so easy to say, 'I dont have time to do this,' but there are so many ways to make it work."

"And changes take time to see, so even if youre seeing changes on the scale, it can be demotivating if you dont feel like its noticed," added Colabucci, who took photos of herself every month for motivation. "But if you keep going, itll happen."

Most importantly for Colabucci, she can now keep up with her son and has made healthy eating habits part of the norm for their family.

"I can definitely keep up with my son now and he's exposed to a lot more healthy foods," she said. "I feel happy, finally."

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This mom lost over 100 pounds and celebrated by running a Tough Mudder race - ABC News

Greggs, the UKs largest bakery chain, will end speculation about its hotly anticipated new vegan snack by launching a meat-free version of its popular steak bake.

Since the runaway success of its meatless sausage roll, the chain which serves more than 6 million customers a week from its 2,000 outlets has been working to develop vegan versions of its other bestselling items.

The new product arrives on Greggs shelves at the start of Veganuary a growing movement that encourages people to embrace plant-based diets during January.

The vegan steak bake has been created to mirror some of the original snacks features, including 96 thin layers of puff pastry but without the egg glaze. The filling is made with pieces of the fungi-based protein Quorn instead of beef, mixed with diced onions and meat-free gravy.

Costing from 1.55, it will go on sale in 1,300 shops from Thursday before being rolled out to the remaining 700 outlets on 16 January.

Greggs chief executive, Roger Whiteside, said: Our vegan sausage roll launch was a huge success and weve been working tirelessly to expand our vegan-friendly offering and provide more delicious savoury food on-the-go options for people looking to reduce their meat intake.

Greggs vegan sausage roll also with a bespoke Quorn filling launched in January 2019 and has become one of its top 10 bestselling products, helping company sales soar by 13.4%. The chain says only 14% of the products customers are strictly vegan, with two-thirds aiming to reduce their meat intake.

Speculation about its successor has been mounting for months but has been rife for the last few days after a sign for a steak bake was spotted in a store and circulated on social media.

The launch comes as retailers expand their vegan and plant-based offerings amid the growing popularity of flexitarian diets where a largely vegetable-based diet is supplemented occasionally with meat.

The Co-op chain is rolling out a new vegan range, called Gro, featuring 35 products, including alternatives to its steak bake, chilli con carne and sticky toffee pudding, that will be stocked in 2,000 stores and up to 4,000 independent retailers through its wholesale operation. The Co-op already offers almost 120 vegan wines but its entire beer and cider range will become vegan in 2020.

This month Waitrose is doubling its vegan range, adding more than 30 new own-label and branded products, of which many are first to market. They include crisp-crumbed fishless goujons made from banana blossom a flesh flower that hails from south-east Asia and a pizza topped with vegan pepperoni.

Meanwhile, diners at KFC will from Thursday be able to buy its new vegan burger now a permanent item on its menu after the success of an earlier trial. The fast-food chains usual finger lickin good chicken breast is replaced with a Quorn fillet coated in herbs and spices.

More than 100,000 people have already pledged to stick to a plant-based diet for Veganuary, double the number who took part last year.

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Greggs launches meatless steak bake to beef up its vegan range - The Guardian

The New Year offers a sensational opportunity to harness the unrivaled goodness and power of healthy living. Here are 10 easy, delicious and totally doable New Years resolutions that come with a science-backed guarantee to guard and improve your health and vitality.

Adding beans to your diet is a healthy, filling trick. (Getty Images)

Dark leafy greens should be part of your everyday diet. (Getty Images)

Nuts are a good snack when counting calories. (Getty Images)

Adding oily fish like salmon enhances our overall diet. (Getty Images)

Getting good sleep goes a long way in your overall wellness. (Getty Images)

Its easier than ever to substitute whole grains for the traditional white starches. (Getty Images)

Wishing you and your loved ones joy, peace and good health in the New Year.

Dr. Ann Kulzeis founder and CEO of Just Wellness and has a knack for breaking down the science of healthy eating and living into simple and easily digestible messages. She has been featured on Dr. Oz, Oprah and Friends, WebMD and U.S. News & World Report. Alabama NewsCenter is publishing advice from Dr. Ann.

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Dr. Ann Kulze shares New Year's resolutions that really work - Alabama NewsCenter

Its been a year since I said goodbye to you. Your cheesy delights, your garlic-dusted edges. I gave you up for a full 365 days, and to be frank, it was a terrible year. I dont mean that in the hyperbolic way that lovers do when theyre finally reunited. I mean that it was a Bad Year, and after all this time, I guess Im just one pizza-hungry Andrew Lincoln, standing outside your door with several sheets of poster board that reveal my Dominos order. But like Andrew, I know now that I can walk away.

Over the year, I attended way more pizza parties than youd think youd ever come across as an adult. Seriously, people love you, you delicious muse. Hell, I went to an actual pizza wedding, where I saw you across the room, piping hot and waiting for me. But I turned my head away, mostly because the wedding was in England, and can you even imagine if the one time we reunited was when I was drunk and you were English? Banish the thought. But in all those parties and weddings and other moments of temptation, I resisted. Ive learned that I can live in this world without you. I just dont want to.

A year ago, I wanted to find a better me, so I put distance between us, blaming my shortcomings on a hand-tossed crust that had never asked for anything more than my presence. I'd turn to you in the face of any problem, and then I'd blame you for the consequences. When I had a bad day? Pizza. When I got into an argument with my boyfriend? Pizza. But when you weren't there, the problems didn't go away. In the wake of your absence, I gained 15 pounds and nursed bad days with chicken wings or French fries or wine. I realized the problem in our relationship had always been me. I could blame that seared cheese topping, the crisp of a pepperoni, all day long. But the operative word there is "blame." Thats a tough place to be inlooking at your considerably less-defined jawline in the mirror and knowing its that way because of, well, your own actions. To quote Billie Eilish, Im the bad guy. Duh.

A year ago, I looked to you as the cause of hardships I wasn't willing to face. I cast my best friendnay, my loveraside because it was easier to blame you than it was to recognize that I funnel other issues into the things I love. Pizza nor fries nor wine can fix any problem that isn't hunger or sobriety. They sure as hell can't fix a bad day. And for all of 2019, I imagined that if something happened to me...if I werent on this earth anymore...the last memory Id have of you was from so long ago. A break-up made in haste, after a life spent loving you so wholeheartedly.

A break-up made in haste, after a life spent loving you so wholeheartedly.

Maybe this year apart was worth it, because I learned that to love youtruly love youis to not take advantage of you. To have pizza in my life is to also be able to recognize the days when it shouldn't be there, days when I would have previously used pizza as a band-aid for a bigger problem. On those days, perhaps its worth looking inward and asking if Im inviting you in because of our mutual love, or just because I need your presence to distract from something else, like work anxiety or the release of a subpar Taylor Swift album. Maybe I can find other ways to re-channel that stress, like running or vegetables. Just kidding, vegetables are gross.

I hope youre not mad at me. If youll have me, Id love for us to meet up again. Because as tempting as it is to turn to you in times of stress, I also know that some of my favorite moments were spent with you. Remember all those nights watching The Bachelor? You loved The Bachelor! Monday evenings filled with crazy white people choosing each other for high-end dates and then explaining away how they were there for the right reasons. On those nights, we were the ones there for the right reasons. Just one man, one pizza, mutually respecting each others saltiness.

I would like for us to try that now. The long-lost 2004 country band Lonestar said it best: Lets be us again. Life is too short to give up the things you love, yet too long to abuse them. Ill see you whenever youre ready, with a bit of hot sauce on the side.

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How I Lived a Year Without Pizza - No Pizza Diet Results - Esquire.com

The holiday season is notoriously indulgent: holiday parties and gifts lead to an abundance of sugary foods, meat, and alcohol. Like clockwork, many indulgers commit to a shift in diet upon themidnight stroke of the clock on December 31. This social construct of resolving to have "good" health in the new year takes many forms:Dry January for some, fad diets or exercise resolutions for others.

I found myself applying this same logic of indulgence over Christmas dinner extra glasses of wine and seconds of myuncles perfectly seared ribeye I excused as "indulgences" for which I'd atone in the next year. Then, on January 1, I would take on a cleaner diet, abstain from alcohol, and avoid meat for a month, or maybe longer. I even vowed not to weigh myself in December, and to wait till January to do so. Like I said, I was indulging.

If youre an American who makes a New Years resolution an estimated 40 percent of us do there is a high chance it relates to exercise or nutrition. At some point in recent history, New Years resolutions became synonymous with physical well-being, generally the shape and state of our body. But what about mental health? The obsessing over diet and weight, of which I am clearly a victim, is of course related to mental health to the way I was socialized, and how my mind has interpreted the way that my body should appear and look in public, a byproduct of a patriarchal culture. Pondering this led me to think: am I focusing on the wrong "kind" of health? What if my insecurities about my body were what was unhealthy?

Of course, the two "types" of health physical and mental are intimately intertwined, even inextricable, as health experts and doctors will attest. Studies show that mental health disorders are strongly associated with the risk and outcome of diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. That suggests that focusing on mental health is of utmost important when it comes to physical health, and one may beget the other.

In 2019, the most-Googled health question was How to lower blood pressure? Google's top search results for this query included diet suggestions, weight loss and exercising more. But what about reducing stress? A randomized trial of adults showed that an eight-week program of relaxation response and stress management techniques lessened the amount of medication some of the participants needed to control their blood pressure.

What is keto? ranked number two among all health questions asked of the popular Internet search engine. The most Googled diet in 2019 was the Intermittent Fasting Diet, in which dieteres eat in specific time intervals. The second-most Googled diet was the Dr. Sebi diet, which consists of a list of approved vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, oils, and herbs. (Animal products are a no-no under Sebi.)

Unless one's goal is in weight loss or dieting is to fulfill a doctor's recommendation, it may well be healthier to have other resolutions related to other aspects of health particularly mental health.Dieting is often driven by the desire of wanting to feel better not just physically, but mentally. We want to go from feeling sluggish in the morning to excited for the day when we wake up, anxious to secure, being caught in a brain fog to feeling clear. There is science that suggests what you eat affects your mental health, but good mental health can lead to good physical health. Perhaps its time to reframe which one we prioritize or at the very least, treat them both equally.

The status of mental health across all generations in the U.S. could be better. According to a Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report published in 2019, major depression rates among millennials have increased by 31 percent. Psychotic conditions have increased by 15 percent. Substance abuse has risen by 10 percent.

The health status of millennials will likely have substantial effects on the American economy over the next two decades including workplace productivity and healthcare costs, the Blue Cross researchers stated. Separate research found that younger Americans are very lonely, and college students face an anxiety epidemic. The number of 18 to 26-year-old college students who report suffering from anxiety disorder has doubled since 2008. According to the CDC, 20 percent of people 55 years old or older experience some type of mental health problem; the most common are anxiety and depression.

Focusing on your mental health doesnt have to mean getting a therapist if youre not ready, although that is a great place to start. It could be as simple as spending more time in nature, exercising more (not to lose weight, but to generally feel good), volunteering, spending more time with people you love, or as Jenny ODell writes in her book "How to Do Nothing," do nothing in a way that refuses the act of being productive. In other words, follow the advice of a cheesy bumper sticker: be in the moment, do you.

In 2018, Mel Schwartz, a psychotherapist, explained to me that a lot of depression is situational (clinical depression aside). Obviously there are many cases of people who are clinically depressed, Schwartz said. But the majority of depression is situational it is not seeing your way out of debt, living in a culture of intense competition where you are being told if you dont succeed you are a loser. Schwartz added that situational depression is also about a loss of meaning and purpose, which can be enabled by the culture of capitalism. The hyper-focus on winning and succeeding drives a lot of this emotional and psychological disaster, he added.

This brings me to my next point: New Years resolutions have a tendency to cause more harm than good. When accomplished, setting goals in general can lead to many benefits. However, if there is failure to achieve that goal, anxious and depressive symptoms may follow, especially if it is prompted by motivational conflict, which is when someone has an urge to fulfill a goal, but there is an opposing factor to their achieving that goal like the reality of everyday life. While we want to make change, its important to not set ourselves up for failure.

As author Jessica Knoll wrote in a popular op-ed for the New York Times: The diet industry is a virus, and viruses are smart. Today, expensive diet regimes, diet pills, and meal plans are sold under the guise of wellness and being healthy. I've written before about this exploitative aspect of the wellness industry, and why it is crucial to resist it. Better to focus on your mental health. Theres a lot of stress and change on the horizon like the rise of the far-right and the threat of climate change and we must be in a good place mentally to persevere.

Continued here:
Why a mental health resolution might be superior to a diet resolution - Salon

Tis the season for eating all of the things, followed by feeling bad about eating all of the things, followed by vowing to get your shit together with the help of a trendy, hard-to-pronounce lifestylebecause body positivity may be brightening our feeds, but diet culture is still here to tell us we suck at food.

Lets be very real: This whole new year, new you mess isnt entirely about getting clearer skin or improving your gut health (although if those are your true goals, then, obvi, fine). Most people attempt super-restrictive diets to become smaller versions of themselves. And honestly, Im going keto is now a more socially acceptable phrase than Im trying to lose weight.

Eating according to a hyperspecific plan is stressful and makes you miss things like noodles, wine, and fruit. FRUIT! So then when you inevitably cave and eat a bag of Cheez-Its, you feel shitty, hate yourself, and swear on your Lululemons that on Monday youll start being good again. Can we all just...not anymore? Even science is over ithard-core dieting for anything but medical necessity negatively impacts peoples mental health, says clinical psychologist Sari Chait, PhD. Here, more reasons to sit out the restrictive food crazes this year (and maybe, like, forever).

Every January, curious Googlers search for this elimination diet every January, which puts a 30-day ban on added sugar, soy, beans, peanuts, sweeteners, grains, dairy, almost all processed foods, and booze. (If you consume one of said substances, even on day 25, you have to start all over). The theory is that these things cause inflammation in your body, and skipping them will curb cravings and boost your metabolism.

But while slashing processed foods and alcohol is definitely not not good for you, theres no evidence that following this plan will squash your chip cravings or spike the amount of cals you burn, says Jessica Cording, RD, author of The Little Book of Game Changers. As for the suggestion that this or any diet can reset your body...well, take that claim with a big grain of pink Himalayan salt, says Cording.

Created in 2014 by Mark Hyman, MD, this bb is a mashup of paleo (no processed foods, dairy, alcohol, added sugar, or grains) and veganism (no animal products). Yet some sustainably raised, grass-fed animal protein and fish and eggs are allowed, as are gluten-free grains and beans. So? Its just a more restrictive version of the Mediterranean diet, says Scott Keatley, RDN. Its heavy on fish and healthy fat, but it demonizes dairy and gluten, which are fine for most people. FWIW, telling the average person that nutrient-rich foods are bad for them just encourages a shame-y relationship with eating. (Not the healthiest news, considering Pinterest searches for eating pegan skyrocketed 337 percent last year.)

Okay, so this emotional roller coaster of a diet involves eating whatever you wantbut only during certain hours or on certain days of the week. Then you go long periods (like, up to 16 hours) without ingesting anything. Google searches for this fad hit an all-time high last January and show no signs of stopping. But science is way less enthusiastic. Studies suggest that calorie restriction can increase life span in animalsbut not, so far, in humans. And fasting does def cause some people to go HAM when they do eat. Were wired to consume more after restricting, says Cording. So to repeat: This. Is. Pointless.

"I stopped giving so many fucks and it changed my life."

amazon

The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy

Ive done Atkins and South Beach. I once dabbled in calorie counting before going raw vegan. When that left me exhausted, I tried paleo. For 10 years, I micromanaged everything I ate to the point of obsession. But no matter how diligent I was (or how long I lurked on diet message boards), all I thought about were cookies. I started dreaming of being a food writer because I was so passionate about bougie foodbut turns out, I was just hungry. My new lifestyle: less effs, more carbs. Now, my appetite issues are healed. I sleep better, have more energy, and no longer obsess over pastaI just eat it. And I finally feel like a human again.

Read more from the original source:
Three Diets You're Considering RN and Why They're Dumb - Cosmopolitan