When your bucket of bolts clicks over a major milestone you can’t help but smile and feel proud. “We made it, rusty lady,” you say out loud, slapping the dash and honking the horn as you sit jammed in the KFC drive-thru. “Happy birthday, you ol’ highway roller. Never thought we’d get this far.” And […]

The post #773 Celebrating when your odometer clicks over a major milestone appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 12 mins

Put your hand up if you’ve ever accidentally yanked the entire roll of aluminum foil out of the box when you were trying to swipe a small slice? My brother, if your hand is up right now, you are not alone. See, I’m a bit clumsy in the kitchen, too. My oven burners are covered […]

The post #774 Those little tabs on the side of the aluminum foil box appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 4 mins

1587 AZTEC MANUSCRIPT, THE CODEX TOVAR/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Jacqueline Detwiler, in Popular Mechanics, with her personal biohacking journey.

Richard Harris, in NPR, covers the world’s crankiest tweeting oncologist Vinay Prasad (disclosure, I’m a fan)

Lizzie Wade, in Science, on the massive scale of Aztec human sacrifice.

       

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Hey, nobody likes walking around with big bulging pockets. So today let’s give thanks to the Bag Ladies of the World for their giant purses and free storage. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Follow me on Instagram —

The post #775 When someone holds your keys, wallet, and cell phone in their purse for you appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Clocks in the digestive system have a ‘mind of their own’

Detection of a neutrino from ‘the most violent astrophysical processes’ gives scientists a new way to understand the cosmos

Parrot smarty-pants challenge ‘bird brain’ insult

Most meat-eating dinosaurs had limited depth perception because their eyes were on the sides of their heads, but not all, including T-Rex.

Scientists create first ever hybrid white-rhino embryo to prevent species extinction

Men and women differ at estimating each other’s strength from vocalizations, scientists find

Fungus treated plants can turn hydrocarbons in oil sands’ tailings into CO2 and water.

Read time: 3 mins

BlackFly has been in development secretly for the past nine years by OPENER, an aviation company founded in Warkworth, Ont. and now based in Palo Alto, California. (Photo: Courtesy OPENER)

BlackFly is the world’s first ultralight all-electric fixed-wing extreme short/vertical take-off and landing aircraft, and on July 6 Transport Canada qualified it for operation as a Basic Ultralight Aircraft. The single-seat personal aerial vehicle (PAV) created by aviation company OPENER has simple controls and requires no special skills to operate, though in Canada, operators are required to have an ultralight aircraft license.

You know the feeling. Your favorite characters are introduced, the story kicks off, but then a couple plot twists and turns seem a bit unfamiliar. Suddenly it dawns on you: you have no clue how the movie wraps up. No, you can’t remember who the killer is, who dies, or if the cats ever get […]

The post #776 Realizing you love this movie but forget how it ends appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 6 mins

Can you believe we’re more than halfway through the year? I sure can’t. When it hit me that we were 6 months into 2018, I did a bit of a mental check-in on how things have been going so far this year—it’s definitely had its ups and downs. My challenges this year have been mainly […]

Read time: 7 mins

Sometimes you just gotta peek. As you unwrap the Lindt truffle, peel open the McDonald’s cheeseburger, or scoop that second bowl of ice cream, you can’t help turn the package around to glance at the nutritional information panel on the back. And guess what’s waiting for you over there? You got it, baby: 64% of […]

The post #777 Inspecting the nutritional label … and eating it anyway appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

three moves in three years hasn’t been fun but along with the stress is the opportunity to create a life that resonates to find a home that is a closer reflection of the person you are becoming i’ve…

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Read time: 4 mins

Read time: 10 mins

If you even remotely follow dieting zeitgeist, there’s no doubt you’ve come across intermittent fasting.

Briefly, intermittent fasting involves, yes, intermittently fasting. Sometimes for 8 hours a day. Sometimes for 24 hours. Sometimes even more.

And if you’re wondering if it’s for you, the simple answer is, if you find it helps you to control calories and weight, and you enjoy it enough to keep doing it, then go for it.

But putting aside the needing to enjoy living with it part for a moment, and assuming everyone could happily follow this strategy forever, would intermittent fasting lead to a greater weight loss than plain old old-fashioned dieting?

That was the question researchers in Norway recently took on, and their paper, Effect of intermittent versus continuous energy restriction on weight loss, maintenance and cardiometabolic risk: A randomized 1-year trial, has some answers.

The style of intermittent fasting they chose to study was the 5:2 style, whereby 5 days a week you eat normally, and then 2 days a week you eat no more than 400 calories if you’re a woman, or 600 calories if you’re a man. They compared a year worth of this approach to a year worth of reducing total daily calories by the same theoretical amount as the 5:2 fasting would provide but spread out evenly over 7 days rather than the 2. In all, 112 middle aged people with obesity were randomly assigned to one of the two treatments and then followed for a year – the first 6 months being a weight loss effort, and the next 6 months weight maintenance. All participants received individualized counselling, were trained in cognitive behavioural methods to help with adherence, and encouraged to follow, whether fasting or not, a Mediterranean style diet. The outcomes studied were weight loss, waist circumference, blood pressure. lipids (including ApoB), glucose, HbA1C, CRP, and RMR.

Participants were also asked to rate their degrees of hunger, well-being, and overeating quarterly.

Follow up was terrific, with only 4 lost in the intermittent fasting group, and 3 in the continuous.

Outcomes wise, at a year, weight loss (and the spread of weight loss with identical percentages of participants achieving 5-10% and >10% weight loss) and weight circumference were the same. There was also no difference to the various measured metabolic parameters.

In fact pretty much the only between group difference was hunger, whereby the intermittent fasters, when rating, “I have often felt hungry while on the diet”, reported significantly more hunger (p=0.002).

Which brings me back to my wholly unsurprising tl:dr summary: Intermittent fasting provides no magical weight loss benefits, and is hungry making, but if you enjoy it, it’ll probably work just as well, but not better, than anything else.

       

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A jammed photocopier is a terrible scene. Yes, toner fumes fill the air, plastic doors are swung open, and crumpled papers lay wedged tightly in the Xerox machine’s Plinko board torso of hot springs and bright green clasps. And there you stand at the scene of the crime in your pleated pants and button-down shirt. […]

The post #778 Unjammer Man appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 7 mins

Geologist, explorer and RCGS founder Charles Camsell, pictured here in an undated photo, was the first to officially map the Yukon’s Peel River watershed. This summer, Camsell’s great-grandson and great-nephew will retrace part of his journey on the territory’s wild rivers. (Photo: RCGS Archives)

In March 1905, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society founder Charles Camsell set out from Ottawa to do the first official mapping and exploration of the Peel River watershed in the Yukon and Northwest Territories for the Geological Survey of Canada.   

Stubble-free legs and cool, clean sheets combine to form a silky-smooth ride into Dreamland. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Follow me on Twitter —

The post #779 Getting into clean sheets right after shaving your legs appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 6 mins

Thanks to the Canada Child Benefit, 9 out of 10 families are getting more money to provide for their children. On July 20th, the CCB will increase to keep up with the cost of living, giving Canadian parents even more money each month for clothing, scho…

Today’s guest post, a review of The Picky Eater Project 6 weeks to Happier, Healthier, Family Mealtimes, was written by Christine McPhail MSc RD. Full disclosure: I was given a review copy of the book by Dr. Muth.

I work with parents, and picky eating is a common issue. Fortunately, there are some general recommendations that I can review such as following the division of responsibility in feeding, where parents are responsible for the what, when and where of feeding and children are responsible for whether they eat and how much they eat out of what parents offer. Within this, I ask parents to focus on neutrality when offering different foods, bridging from foods their family already enjoys, involving children in grocery shopping, growing food and cooking for buy-in and avoiding pressure in general to eat more or less of certain foods.

The most important part of addressing picky eating with my clients is working on practical steps collaboratively with them. That’s where I have found the resources within The Picky Eater Project: 6 weeks to Happier, Healthier, Family Mealtimes by Natalie Digate Muth MD, MPH, RDN, FAAP and Sally Sampson from CHOPCHOP MAGAZINE to be very insightful and useful.

Here is what I liked about this book:

• It is a project. The book is very interactive and includes goal setting, action planning strategies, and ways to measure your progress at each stage of the project. Each section also uses to do/check lists.
• Picky eating is defined and explained and the book follows examples from real life families as they progress through the project. This shows families that it’s OK to stumble when they are trying to make changes and it allows them to see the recommendations translated into realistic outcomes.
• The concept of picky-free parenting allows parents to review their current behaviours around food to see if there is anything they could change in their behaviour that may be influencing their child’s picky eating behaviours. This also aligns well with learning about the Division of Responsibility in Feeding.
• There is a focus on changing your home food environment with sample pantry lists, snack lists, a how to use herbs and spices resource, recipes etc. which can be a useful tool for parents especially when they are tried and tested!
• Involving kids in the kitchen has its own section with a focus on age-appropriate kitchen tasks, tips for beginner chefs, meal ideas and recipes. This is so important for families to review and understand as we know that kids who participate in meal preparation are more likely to WANT to try new foods.
• Similarly, there is a section on involving kids in grocery shopping, growing foods, and visiting local farms with a focus on learning about food but also math and literacy skills too. It’s all buy-in and family involvement.
• Family meals are a primary focus of the picky eating project with tips on how to make them a priority, meal planning, meal time rules, and even packed lunch mix and match ideas.
• The project does not leave out all of the other factors and people that can either support or hinder your efforts to have your family eat a wider variety of foods. Those important people include peers, school staff, caregivers, grandparents etc. As the section is appropriately titled…it takes a village!
• To finish up the project, there is a section that addresses that behaviour change is hard! I think this is important for parents to understand but it’s equally important to for them to have tips on how to make changes stick. The focus is on starting small, using SMART goals, having a plan, anticipating problems, and involving your kids the whole way!
• The last section of the book discusses severe picky eating and when to seek more professional help. I was impressed with this because it identifies red flags for parents to watch out for so they know when they may need to incorporate health professionals into their journey.

The only issue I had about the picky eating project was the risk associated with labelling your child as picky i.e. they live up to the expectation. On the other hand, with the family-focussed nature of the book the journey is not simply for the “picky” child, it’s for the whole family to expand their palette in an open and honest way that includes all family members.

Christine McPhail MSc, RD is one of our Registered Dietitians at the Bariatric Medical Institute (though is moving on soon to work with the eating disorders team at Hopewell). Christine has worked in academic, clinical and public health nutrition settings and has been fortunate to have worked on projects relating to food sustainability, food security, food policy and politics, childhood nutrition, body image, and school nutrition programs. She believes in the power of connecting with your food from farm to table. She feels fortunate to share this passion with her clients, as she helps them strengthen their relationship with food and learn more about nutrition.

       

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Tiny squirts of adrenaline pump into your bloodstream when you pull off this classic move. Yes, suddenly you morph from Guy Walking To The Subway After Work into Indiana Jones In That Scene Where He Slides Under The Wall At The Last Second. Your hands stay clean, your strut stays mean, and you zip through […]

The post #780 Squeezing through a door as it’s shutting like Indiana Jones appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 6 mins

Now that’s commitment. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Follow me on Instagram —

The post #781 Guys who wear no shirts at freezing cold sporting events appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 4 mins

By https://www.flickr.com/photos/150594450@N07/ [CC BY 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Hilda Bastien, in PLoS, on what the PREDIMED retraction and republication means for the Mediterranean diet.

Roxanne Gay, in The Undefeated, on trying to find her way back to her body following weight loss surgery and life as a whole.

Daniel Summers, in Slate, on introducing his husband to his childhood, homophobic, preacher.

       

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Yeah, yeah, health nuts, we know, we know. Hands are the dirtiest part of our body — turning doorknobs, flushing toilets, shaking hands all day in a hot, neverending exchange of sweat, grime, and bacteria. And yes, those germs form tiny Ewok Villages in the cracks of our palm and corners of our fingernails and […]

The post #782 Squeezing cookie batter with your bare hands appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 5 mins

Ottawa, ON – Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, will deliver remarks at a Laurier Club donor appreciation reception in Calgary on July 7, 2018. The Liberal Party of Canada has committed to the strongest standards in federal politics for openness and transparency, and is challenging other parties to do the same. […]

We’re in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, so when we look at it from Earth, we’re seeing the centre.