WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

WOWOW: Cognition Nutrition

Food for thought, very elaborate, circular visualizations, cable ties and ghost towns, Knol and as always, ... things to do before you die.

Cognition Nutrition --

Children have a lot to contend with these days, not least a tendency for their pushy parents to force-feed them omega-3 oils at every opportunity. These are supposed to make children brainier, so they are being added to everything from bread, milk and pasta to baby formula and vitamin tablets. But omega-3 is just the tip of the nutritional iceberg; many nutrients have proven cognitive effects, and do so throughout a person's life, not merely when he is a child.
Circos: Visualizing the genome, among other things --

Circos uses a circular composition of ideograms to mitigate the fact that some data, like combinations of intra- and inter-chromosomal relationships (alignments, duplications, assembly paired-ends, etc) are very difficult to organize when the underlying ideograms (or contigs) are arranged as lines. In many cases, it is impossible to keep the relationship lines from crossing other structures and this deteriorates the effectiveness of the graphic.
Art Students Build Massive Environment Using Only Cable Ties --

Students at the Academy of Arts in Munich spent over 16,000 hours weaving together an impressive environmental installation made entirely out of cable ties. The space was made using 1.3 million ties and has the look of a highly advanced plastic spider web.
Knol is open to everyone --

Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we're making Knol available to everyone.
10 Most Amazing Ghost Towns --

The Kowloon Walled City was located just outside Hong Kong, China during British rule. A former watchpost to protect the area against pirates, it was occupied by Japan during World War II and subsequently taken over by squatters after Japan's surrender. Neither Britain nor China wanted responsibility for it, so it became its own lawless city.

Its population flourished for decades, with residents building labyrinthine corridors above the street level, which was clogged with trash. The buildings grew so tall that sunlight couldn't reach the bottom levels and the entire city had to be illuminated with fluorescent lights.
Things to Do Before You Die ... Yes, I know, but you too know what and why --

At least once in his life, a man should...

There is no checklist. Nothing on this list is that automatic. Every element here is a matter of the choices you make, the chances you take, the courage you are willing to show. You can trick yourself into thinking bungee jumping somehow satisfies those criteria, but willfully falling off a crane in a mall parking lot is more or less a rite of passage by now, isn't it? Maybe you call that a big moment. The trick is choosing to experience them all that way.

Once you participate in life, it really works. I'll see ya.

Labels: chutzpah, excellence, experience, google, insanity, knol, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, nutrition, personal+development, productivity, success, travel, vanity

Cascading Diet Recommendations

by Alexander Becker

Improving your health through your diet isn't an all-or-nothing game.

The two general directions -- exercise × nutrition -- apparently weren't enough.

Try it this time with some structured and even more importantly, cascading recommendations, meaning you start with the first and work up the ladder with each adhered-to point making your diet more and more healthy and your body more and more lean.

Let's set up a baseline to work your way up from --

Each one of the following nos works almost equally as a less. In other words, you don't have to go strict, instead you can go slower on these items and benefit as well -- albeit slower. It's a simple progression. Please note that, the higher on he list, the more important it is to say no rather than less.

What to avoid

Transfat; therefore no fried foods.
(Even partly) hydrogenated fats; therefore no margarine, no peanut butter (except natural) -- eat regular butter if you like.
Refined, white flour; that's no cake.
Simple or added sugar; no candy, that is.

What to eat

The goal: Eat as much "whole and natural, fresh food" as you can.

Note that this is no advice to go low-carb, eg. on a diet low in carbohydrates. In fact, it is nothing more than trying to get you to eat as healthy as possible.

How much?

As much as you want. Chances are you don't eat enough anyway.

And no. A calorie is not a calorie. Or do you really think that a five-hundred-calorie cake is worth the same, nutrition-wise, as five-hundred calories in vegetables or meat?

That's it. Again, eat as clean as possible and move as much as you can. Everything counts.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, diet, excellence, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, nutrition, personal+development, productivity, success, vanity

WOWOW: The Observer Edition [Links of the Week]

by Alexander Becker

Food or fuel? The universe and your own university, more resolutions and the observer question.

Pick up these 20 foods to snack on for enhanced productivity --

Most people eat to lose weight, get healthy and build muscle. There are some people, however, who snack correctly in order to enhance their productivity.

... to the tune of the previous "food is fuel" recommendation --
Accurately monitoring the progress of your resolutions helps to keep them and you on track: 5% down, 95% to go --
Today is January 22nd. That means 21 days (3 weeks) have already passed in 2008. That's a little over 5% of the year gone already. So let's do a quick "goal review" or a resolution recall. Are you 5% towards your goals?

The point is - you need to constantly assess where you are in relation to your desired outcomes.
- Are you on track?
- Are you headed in the right direction?
- Have you even moved off the starting line?
There is still time to reload your resolutions and start all over.
Knowledge is still king: How to set up your personal university --

No, you don't need to rent a campus, hire professors and start charging tuition. Setting up a personal university means taking your self-education as seriously as any schooling you manage pay for. While regular university is expensive and stops when you get a degree, your personal university continues indefinitely and can be run for free.

Please consider the necessity to authenticate the authority of any expert, yourself included.
A great way to put things in perspective, especially You, is a look at the universe within 1 billion light years and the neighbouring superclusters --

Galaxies and clusters of galaxies are not uniformly distributed in the Universe, instead they collect into vast clusters and sheets and walls of galaxies interspersed with large voids in which very few galaxies seem to exist. The map above shows many of these superclusters including the Virgo supercluster -- the fairly minor supercluster of which our galaxy is just a minor member. The entire map is approximately 7 percent of the diameter of the entire visible Universe. Individual galaxies are far too small to appear on this map, each point represents a group of galaxies.

Make sure to zoom in...
Finally, the question of the week: The key to innovation: Becoming an observer --

We all need to innovate to stand out from the crowd. But what is the key to innovation? The answer, or at least an important answer, is becoming an observer. By observing how we and other people do things, we will spot opportunities for improvements. The more we observe, the more opportunities we will find. We can then work to provide solutions for some of the problems. By becoming a good observer, we will recognize the problems before many people do and have first-mover advantage.

... this is, obviously, correct. It is valuable information for anybody at least remotely concerned with observing.

What people are yet to realize is that most things you cannot learn, either you are an observer or you are not. Yes, you can learn anything and everything, I know, but when it comes to competition day, the born observer, the naturally talented observer will have the divine advantage.

Build your skills and to get started, study as broad as possible but make sure to not neglect finding out what you are best at.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, education, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, nutrition, productivity, resolutions, self-education, success, tracking, universe, university, virtuosity

Multiply Exercise and Nutrition to Look Even Better in 2008

by Alexander Becker

It's not rocket science. You know what to do. You know what you should be doing.

Health and fitness is a great foundation for any lifestyle and you can start right now. If you think there is nothing you can improve, your nutrition and your exercise regimen, you can always refine.

It is not about whether or not you exercise and watch your nutrition, of course you do, right?

Executive Summary: Exercise × Nutrition

Pay attention to exercise and nutrition and you will look good and be healthy. There isn't much more to get started and eventually end up leaner and healthier.

Consider -- and follow -- these two very simple recommendations --

Eat as much unprocessed food as possible and cut everything processed or refined. Food is fuel.
Move your body and your mind as much as you can in as many directions possible. Stagnation and inertia mean death.

Fat Loss

With spring coming soon and after just another year and just another month of feasting, the fat loss issue comes up.

Let's start with four rules from Christopher Mohr from T-Nation's 2008 Fat Loss Roundtable, Part I --

Eat a fruit and/or at least one vegetable with every single meal.

Plan ahead. Don't go to work without any food at all, then wonder why you opted for fast food at noon, hit the vending machine at 3 PM, and are famished on the way home so you decided to order a pizza to pick up for dinner.

Define your goals and write them daily. If you don't know what you're working toward, you're going to continue to struggle.

Move more! I'm all about complexes, interval training, large body movements like deadlifts, etc. but what about the other 160-plus hours during the week when you're not at the gym? Walk more. Get on a bike and use that as your transportation. Use the stairs instead of the elevator.

... and continue with Mike Roussell's 6 Pillars of Naked Nutrition from The 2008 Fat Loss Roundtable, Part II --

Eat five to six times a day.

Limit your consumption of sugars and processed foods.

Eat fruits and vegetables throughout the day.

Drink more water and cut out calorie-containing beverages (beer, soda, etc.).

Focus on consuming lean proteins throughout the day.

Save starch containing foods until after a workout or for breakfast.

Skinny Fat

Misguided diets or radical diet attempts often lead to a skinny-fat look. Try to eat more and get lean --

Don't you think it's about time to eat in order to get healthy and lean?

Complacency

Do you think it's enough? How do you know? There are at least 5 reasons to get even leaner --

Something that gets infinitely harder, the closer you come to reaching the absolute goal, is the ideal feat to fight for. If it was easy, anybody would do it and succeed. Competition is the ultimate comparison. There is only one first place.

Time

You say you're short on time? Try something like the 4 minute-workout --

The X-minute workout, a running gag among fitness professionals, can still be employed effectively, especially as an addition to a well balanced schedule involving resistance training, intervals, and aerobic work.

Labels: complacency, decisions, diet, exercises, fat+loss, fitness, health, lifehacks, lifestyle, nutrition, success, testosterone

Eat as Much as You Want: Experiences with the Warrior Diet

by Alexander Becker

One of the advantages of the Warrior Diet is the clear and simple distinction between what is allowed and when: Undereat for 20 hours and indulge in overeating the remaining four hours -- each and every day. It is easy to adhere to the principles and to defeat potential attempts to cheat -- refined sugars, for example just aren't allowed.

Certain other diets prescribe exact times for exceptions or specific amounts that basically invite you to eat some more or some stuff that would be off, but... seems to be... with some stretching of the rules... and so on.

After eating according to the rules of the Warrior Diet for more than five weeks now, here are some impressions, in no particular order:

Weight: Although I don't follow the Warrior Diet to actually lose weight, it definitely works to get rid of some bodyfat (Hofmekler calls it "stubborn fat" in the book) if you combine the diet with physical training.
Undereating: Absolute undereating; only water, coffee, and fruit juices seem to work best for me in terms of alertness, energy, and overall well-being throughout the day.
Overeating: I eat as much food as I ate during the first half of the year all in one month and I still lost some weight; in excess of four pounds over the first three weeks. Overeating, and especially the included compensation feels very real and converges with my take on moderation.
Coffee: I stopped drinking coffee, the compulsive, repetitive, hourly coffee, half a year ago. Since then, I only drank a cup or so once a week. Now, on the Warrior Diet, I drink coffee again daily, one small cup in the morning and another one in the afternoon. Drinking that black bitter dervish on an empty stomach feels great, in contrast to what you and I expected. It really supports the undereating phase.
Food groups: I am still eating vegan, no meat, no dairy -- all warrior... My eating vegan is an ongoing experiment and I am happy with the results so far. As of now, I experience no deprivations or deficiencies. (Note: The Warrior Diet is not about eating vegan.)
Diet composition: A week on all veggies and almonds feels great. Extraordinarily great. I ate an average of 200g almonds each day and I even lost weight. (I even felt great after eating more than 400g on one single day -- don't try this on any other diet, you probably don't want to try this at all...)
Exercises: An intense workout on an empty stomach, right after work, in the evening just before preparing the big meal feels amazing and leaves me with even more energy than I brought home. I don't even feel hungry after exercising.
Cravings: The body seems to crave exactly what is nutritionally necessary. It's always amazing to see the vegetative functions working so well.
Instincts: Eating vegan, my instincts aren't too bloody... but I am taking care of the almonds and the fat intake and I believe that all instincts respond and react the way they should.

Conclusion: I still and highly recommend the Warrior Diet for everyone, for physically active people as well as for the 24/7-in-front-of-the-screen crowd.

Labels: books, diet, discipline, eating, exercises, experiences, fasting, fatloss, health, instincts, lists, nutrition, ori+hofmekler, recommendation, vegan, warrior+diet, weightloss, wow, wow-diet

Review: The Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler

by Alexander Becker

Based on undereating during the day and eating that one big meal at night, the Warrior Diet is appealing in many ways and modeled after the ancient hunter's schedule of hunting and collecting during the day and resting and eating in safety at night.

No calorie counting, no restrictions, the cyclic nature of the program and the sequence of salad, veggies, and carbohydrates at the end over the course of the night time meal is important and makes this diet -- work. Even killing an occasional pizza is allowed.

The starvation vs. compensation cycle is intriguing in that it is obviously triggering something that Ori calls the warrior instinct.

Heightened levels of energy and alertness in reminiscence of the old warriors on the hunt for their meal are a reality in the undereating phase and a means to counterbalance our lazy, civilized habits. The body isn't preoccupied with digestion during the waking hours and even more, almost starving -- you are allowed to eat, as long as you chose low glycemic index fruits and veggies in order to keep the insulin output low to regulate the balance of the most important hormones.

The fascinating opposite is the overeating period. The day is divided into 20 hours of undereating and 4 hours of overeating in which you can basically eat what you want -- sans sugar and refined starch of course, but this should be common sense by now.

Try this diet as a lifestyle and you will be amazed by the newly found energy and vigor and the sheer amount of food that you will eat during the hour-long eating sessions at night without gaining weight. In fact, you will even lose the last pounds of fat that are on top of your chiseled six-pack abs.

Wild and raw, instinctive eating, and living... who doesn't want to feel like a predator in an otherwise sterile, domesticated world?

Conclusion: Highly recommended, both the book and the diet.

Labels: books, detox, exercises, fasting, health, instincts, nutrition, ori+hofmekler, recommendation, review, warrior+diet, weightloss, wow

Resolve to Improve

by Alexander Becker

As with most human issues, healthy eating is not about being perfect. You won't be able to eat perfectly anyway. Yet most people set the threshold too high and keep eating what there are eating, reasoning that they are not going to be able to keep up their discipline anyway.

So what? Eat one apple as soon as possible and ideally eat it instead of something unhealthy. Too hard? Eat it in addition.

You not only make the first step but you improve your health in a practical way that you can build upon. Every little thing, every decision in favor of good health is great. You don't need to change any habit -- at least not for now -- eat exactly what you always eat but add that apple and you will end up healthier than ever before.

The idea is, of course, to raise your awareness but you don't need an elaborate diet plan or starvation routines or a mean workout program to get that beautiful life started.

Eat an apple today, add a glas of water and a walnut and you are better off than yesterday. That apple will have a hard time counterbalancing the junk food that you may be addicted to, but it won't travel unnoticed through your body either.

Resolve to improve something. Everything accumulates over time.

Labels: apple, diet, discipline, goals, motivation, nutrition, personal+branding, personal+development, wow

The Transition from Eating Mindlessly to Eating Consciously

by Alexander Becker

You commonly start with mindlessly eating what's being served to you. We all do. Most people don't think about their food throughout their whole lifetime, they just eat.

At some point you may notice that what's being served is probably not what you'd really like to eat and you shop around and find the convenient stuff that is available at the corner. You end up being seduced by fast food, hamburgers, fries, sweets, and candy. Sounds familiar? I can relate to the satisfaction that comes after the seduction.

You may or may not gain weight but somehow you begin to notice that a certain sense of well-being or lack thereof must be related to the food you eat. You still enjoy hamburgers with french fries but you are aware that it's not the ideal solution for that hunger and your bodies' wants and needs.

Now, being aware that what you are currently eating is probably not the most healthy food available, you start noticing how other people's eating habits are even worse than your own and you feel much more healthy and generally better and more advanced than those mindless junk eaters. They are just not aware of their wrongdoing and you have to tell 'em.

With your newly aquired knowledge -- remember, you're still on fast food -- you just have to point out that what I am eating, -- researched, composed and designed around principles of nutrition, digestion, and added value for the brain -- is possibly not the holy grail. (I appreciate that, I am constantly experimenting and optimizing.)

Also because I feel like saving animals from being killed for my meal, you just have to point out that I may be, at some point in the future, lacking some protein because you maintain that animal protein is the most important thing in the world. You tell me about mineral deficiencies, and lack of iron, ... don't get me even started about milk and butter.

Please, only one thing, ... please refrain from talking about nutrition while holding a hamburger in your hand, with cheese.

P.S.: I'm still sucking up every piece of information I get, even with two hamburgers in your hands do I evaluate your well-meant advice -- it's just that you look so funny.

Labels: diet, eating, fast+food, hamburgers, humor, nutrition, parody, vegan, weightloss, wow

WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

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WOWOW: Cognition Nutrition

Cascading Diet Recommendations

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WOWOW: The Observer Edition [Links of the Week]

Multiply Exercise and Nutrition to Look Even Better in 2008

Executive Summary: Exercise × Nutrition

Fat Loss

Skinny Fat

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Time

Eat as Much as You Want: Experiences with the Warrior Diet

Review: The Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler

Resolve to Improve

The Transition from Eating Mindlessly to Eating Consciously

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