Healthy Eating Today

Major life transitions come with an expected emotional toll, but until you face a life-changing event yourself, you may not fully realize the impact it can make on your personal finances. Many of life’s major events come with a slew of unanticipated expenses that can leave you reeling.

The good news is, everyone makes mistakes that have financial ripple effects they never intended. Beating yourself up over transitions that lead to a negative economic outcome does not mean you’re foolish or unintelligent. It simply means you’ve joined the ranks of those who have been there, done that and lived to tell the tale, so applaud yourself on your newfound wisdom while also bracing yourself for what may come.

Here are a few steps to consider if you’re dealing with a change, whether it’s a graduation, career switch, a bad breakup or more.

1. Focus on Your Emergency Fund

If you’re starting a part of your life over, your emergency funds have probably taken a hit. And that’s okay — that’s what they’re there for! But when you feel like you’re getting back on track, make sure you budget what you can to slowly build your savings back up. It’s always better to have financial support in place for the next major transition.

I felt the horror of losing my emergency savings firsthand when I moved hours from home after graduating college. While I was eager to start my adult life, everything I had carefully saved working my part-time job over four years vanished in less than a month. Purchasing a used car? Poof, thousands of dollars gone. Putting down a security deposit and first and last month’s rent for my new apartment? Another $2,000 down the drain.

By the time I started working, I had never been in greater need of a paycheck in my life. And although it was tempting to invest in real furniture and start saving to visit all my college friends, resurrecting my emergency fund became key to my stability in those first few months.

Here are a few pro tips:

• Figure out your overall plan for your emergency fund. What can you afford to save? Even if it’s just enough to create a buffer for unexpected expenses, it’s better than nothing. If you want six months of expenses or enough to survive job loss, then you’ll want to create a long-term saving strategy to help you reach that amount.
• Make it less accessible. The best way to grow your emergency fund is to avoid touching it for non-emergencies. If you’re prone to cheating a little bit, make sure you’re not tying your fund to a debit card. I shuffled it to a high-interest savings account separate from my normal bank, which helps me avoid using my savings and also helps the account grow a little faster.
• Automate! I calculate how much I can afford to save every month and automatically send it to my emergency fund first thing. Trust me, it’s a lot more likely to get done if it’s out of my hands.

2. Don’t Make All Your Assets Unreachable 

While it’s sometimes hard to control, keeping your housing costs to a manageable percentage of your income can be a huge help when you’re getting back on your feet. Whether you need to find a new place or you’re struggling to deal with a current lease, it’s crucial to avoid situations where your budget is eaten up by your living expenses.

If you’re looking for a new place, for example, then carefully plan out what you can afford. Most experts recommend capping costs at 30 percent of your income, although this will partially depend on the cost of living in your location. The more uncertain you are about your budget, the less you should stretch. Sure, a beautifully updated apartment in walkable location would be a dream, but is it worth sacrificing your savings goals?

If you’re dealing with the loss of a partner or roommate, on the other hand, you might find yourself on the hook for more rent and utilities payments than expected. The best you can do is work out agreements with the other parties, whether it be your ex-roommate or your landlord. Prioritize finding a new tenant to help you with expenses or hold the other person accountable for making up their share of the rent.

Life transitions, whether they are moving, career changes or breakups, can create sticky housing situations. Always try to keep your new housing situations well within the realm of affordability, and remember that clear communication can sometimes make a difference in your landlord’s acceptance of troubling financial issues.

3. Live Within Your (New) Means

One of the hardest parts about dealing with financial setbacks is realizing how much they can affect your day-to-day life experiences. The grocery list you’ve kept for years can suddenly take up too much of your new budget. Your attempts to keep up a social life can sabotage new savings goals. And perks that you have become accustomed to —like developing a morning coffee habit because your old job had a cappuccino maker — might suddenly disappear.

When you’re dealing with a change, make sure you’re consciously changing your lifestyle to accommodate it. This can be especially vital when your income changes, especially following job loss or career change. My sister recently started an MFA program, where a stipend cannot possibly cover her current spending habits. A good friend is leaving military life after years of service, and learning to balance a budget without many of her previous benefits. Lifestyle adjustments can help you bounce back more quickly from even the most dramatic transitions.

For example, transitioning to freelance income forced me to take a hard look at my habits. Though I had cut some of the obvious luxuries out of my budget, I didn’t realize how much I needed to adjust. I was used to purchasing new shoes when I wanted them and spending on snacks, but these old habits were holding me back from rebuilding my savings and preparing for my future.

We get used to our standard living expenses. So even when you know things have changed, you might still be leaning into habits you can no longer afford. While you get your finances back on track, it’s important to adjust your lifestyle so it matches your current reality. With some smart planning, you can hopefully get those luxuries back soon enough.

Finding Lifelong Financial Security

Adulting means discovering that much of life remains a matter of chance. One relationship or job gone wrong can devastate your finances. Prevention remains the best cure, so all women benefit from saving money early.

However, you also win by weighing the economic impact major life transitions can bring so you can make the best choices. It’s not a bad thing to be set back because you needed to relocate, find a new career or start over. These changes can cause strain, but they also create growth. These tips should help you enjoy that growth a little sooner.

Holly Welles believes anyone can learn to make the most of their space. She’s a real estate writer with her own blog, The Estate Update. Find more of her tips on Twitter @HollyAWelles.

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Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/small-steps-to-financial-security-after-major-life-transition/

What review and viewpoint pieces are prominent medical journals choosing to publish these days? In 2018, we saw many low carb-friendly articles get ink.

Here are our five favorite perspectives:

1. Jennifer Abbasi in JAMA:
   Interest in the ketogenic diet grows for weight loss and type 2 diabetes
2. Dr. David Ludwig and Cara B. Ebbeling in JAMA Internal Medicine:
   The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity — Beyond “calories in, calories out”
3. Dr. John Ioannadis in JAMA:
   The challenge of reforming nutritional epidemiologic research
4. Gary Taubes in BMJ:
   What if sugar is worse than just empty calories?
5. Dr. Fiona Godlee in BMJ
   Pills are not the answer to unhealthy lifestyles

• Nita G Forouhi, et. al. in BMJ:
  Dietary and nutritional approaches for prevention and management of type 2 diabetes
• Dr. David Ludwig, et. al. in BMJ:
  Dietary carbohydrates: role of quality and quantity in chronic disease

Physical exertion in low glucose availability situations (dietary carbohydrate restriction) increases mitogenesis and increases the capacity of your muscle cells to oxidize fatty acids for energy. You're cheating yourself of this beneficial adaptation by jumping straight into pre-carbing protocols.

Ultimately it's up to you but there's plenty of reasons why r/ketogains suggests you stick to SKD for a good ~6 months (conservative adaptation timeline) before re-introducing the carbs.

In 2014, Professor Tim Noakes was reported to the Health Professions Council of South Africa for giving unprofessional dietary advice. He advocated a low-carb, high-fat diet – in a tweet. And this tweet came close to ending his career.

Here’s the amazing story of Noakes’ fight, interviews with participants, and video from the court, in a Diet Doctor mini documentary: Tim Noakes on trial.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 14, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Strictly limiting carbohydrates and eating more fat may help the body burn more calories, a new clinical trial shows.

Researchers found that among 164 adults in a weight-loss study, those placed on a low-carb, high-fat diet burned more daily calories, versus those given high-carb meals. On average, their bodies used up 250 extra calories per day over 20 weeks.

The researchers estimated that over three years, that would translate into an additional 20-pound weight loss for an average-height man.

"This study refutes the conventional thinking that it's only calorie-cutting that matters," said senior researcher Dr. David Ludwig. He is co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital.

Instead, he said, the source of those calories may make the difference in whether your metabolism "works with you or against you."

According to Ludwig, the findings support a theory called the "carbohydrate-insulin model." The premise is that diets heavy in processed carbs send insulin levels soaring, which drives the body to use fewer calories, and instead store more of them as fat.

"Our study suggests that you'll do better if you focus on reducing refined carbohydrates, rather than focusing on reducing calories alone," Ludwig said.

He and his colleagues reported the findings online Nov. 14 in the BMJ.

Many studies over the years have attempted to answer the question of whether low-fat or low-carb is better for weight loss. Often, they've concluded there is little difference.

But those studies, Ludwig said, have typically been behavioral studies where people may or may not stick with their diets.

So his team conducted a "feeding study" to carefully control what people ate.

First, 234 overweight and obese adults were recruited for a "run-in" phase, with the goal of losing about 12 percent of their weight over 10 weeks. Their diets were low-calorie and had moderate amounts of carbs.

Of that group, 164 lost enough weight and moved on to the next phase. They were randomly assigned to either a low-carb, moderate-carb or high-carb diet for 20 weeks.

People on the low-carb diet got 20 percent of their calories from carbs like vegetables, fruits and beans; a full 60 percent of their calories came from fat, including sources like meat, whole milk, cheese and nuts. The remaining 20 percent of calories came from protein.

The situation was flipped for people on the high-carb plan: 60 percent of calories from carbs and 20 percent from fat. The moderate plan divided the two nutrients equally, at 40/40.

After 20 weeks, the low-carb group appeared to be burning more calories -- an average of 250 more per day, versus the high-carb group, and 111 more than the moderate-carb group.

The researchers did not look at the effects on any further weight loss. Instead, each person's calorie intake was calibrated to maintain what they'd already lost. The point, Ludwig explained, was to zero in on the effects of the different diets on calorie burning.

According to Dr. Anastassia Amaro, an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania, "The study design is very clever."

Amaro, who was not involved in the research, said she already suggests that patients cut back on carbs when they are trying to lose weight.

These findings, she said, will boost her confidence in that advice.

However, Amaro said, the low-carb diet used in this study is not ready for a "direct translation" into the real world. For one, she explained, it's not clear whether it's the lack of carbs that was key.

"This is also a high-fat diet," Amaro pointed out. "Is it the lack of carbs, the fat content, or both?"

What about the nutritional value of such a diet? Ludwig said it's healthy -- allowing fruit, legumes and an "unlimited" amount of vegetables, for instance.

"What it doesn't have is grains and added sugar," he said.

Ludwig agreed, however, that more research is needed to show whether the approach is the best way to maintain weight loss. He and his colleagues recently started a new trial that will pit a very low-carb diet against one that is high-carb but low in sugar, and another that is high-carb/high-sugar.

And what about people who currently have a healthy weight? Would a low-carb, high-fat diet cause their bodies to burn more calories?

That's a "good question," Amaro said -- but this study can't answer it.

Copyright © 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

SOURCES: David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., co-director, New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, Boston Children's Hospital; Anastassia Amaro, M.D., assistant professor, endocrinology and metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Nov. 14, 2018, BMJ, online

There is no one-size-fits-all productivity hack for all of us. I wish it was that easy, but we are each unique with our own strengths and weaknesses, which has fostered such a rich and diverse society. That’s why I am a wider advocate of philosophies over regimented systems — anyone can adopt a particular mindset and use that thinking to create their own operating systems that suit their needs.

Kaizen, which translates to “the act of making bad points better,” is one such philosophy. When applied to productivity, it means improvement and “good change,” which stands juxtaposed to the conventional Silicon Valley mindset of “Move Fast and Break Things,” a motto that’s notoriously written on the walls inside Facebook. Instead, approaching your work using the kaizen philosophy is more methodical: it’s the constant cycle of building, standing back, evaluating what could be improved, and then building again.

The best analogy is working on a complicated puzzle that has lots of pieces. You’re not just looking for the right puzzle pieces to fit together; you’re also regularly looking back at the picture on the side of the box, looking at your puzzle, and seeing whether there’s a smarter way to work. Should I first start working on this section of the puzzle? Or does it make sense to collect all the same-colored puzzle pieces and see how fast I can put them together? I should probably complete the border first, shouldn’t I?

Kaizen is assessing as you work and, bit by bit, you begin to not only work better but raise the quality of your product.

1. Make Mistakes

There are three aspects to the kaizen philosophy. The first, and perhaps the most important, component is to make mistakes. Instead of striving for perfection, strive for progress. It’s approaching each project with the mindset that mistakes are often the most useful learning opportunities, so make them as much as possible. Inherent in this mindset is an encouragement to experiment. What’s the worst that can happen? There is no downside.

2. Find Problems and Fix Them

On the opposite side of the same coin, kaizen is about praising the location of problems and resolving them. In order to improve the quality of our service or product, we need to seek feedback from our clients and colleagues. Instead of reacting defensively to constructive criticism, we must learn to separate our feelings from the objective quality of our work and train ourselves to accept all feedback as important.

Even more difficult, we — as the original maker — are the most intimate with our work and are therefore in a privileged position to scrutinize it. Is there some aspect of the service or product that is not as strong as the rest? What problems can you anticipate occurring in the future? We cannot always rely on others to let us know what might be wrong with our work.

3. Remain Innovative

The final aspect of kaizen is constant innovation. When you’re done with one client project, it’s on to the next one. And with the next one, it’s another opportunity to revisit your process and see what can be improved upon. Perhaps you leave more time for the “research” stage. Perhaps you ask your client about what their expectations are in a slightly different way. Perhaps you simply decide to work in silence without music and see how effective (or ineffective) it is. It’s about small modifications to the existing process.

We often fall into the trap of deleting everything and starting afresh. Who doesn’t like the idea of a new start? But if the focus is on enhancing our productivity, making higher-quality products through smarter, more efficient processes, it makes sense to build upon what works and toss out what doesn’t.

It’s favoring strategic progress over tearing apart the entire system.

The additional benefit of approaching your work with a kaizen mindset is that you begin to know your system more intimately since you are focusing on the same process. You’re not constantly forcing yourself to learn new hacks or procedures. You’re refining what you already know. This is a system that you’re already an expert on because you helped build it.

Kaizen favors a community approach to work; you don’t work in a cave and come out with a finished product. You receive constant feedback from clients, colleagues, and other stakeholders who become invested in the success of your work. It emphasizes diversity in opinion, constant revision, and leveraging the power law to double-down on what works and scrap what doesn’t. Its strength endures and its weaknesses are exposed. At the core of kaizen lies the beginner’s mindset: the willingness to change one’s mind after eagerly been proven wrong. It’s feedback, iteration, feedback, iteration, feedback, iteration. Rinse and repeat.

To summarize, in the words of Winston Churchill:

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

Jennifer Chan is a lawyer and blogger. You can find her at jennifertchan.net where she focuses on connecting the dots between work, money, and happiness. She resides in Toronto, Canada with her girlfriend, full-figured rabbit, and a deaf & blind cockapoo.

Image via Unsplash

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/the-simple-japanese-productivity-philosophy-that-can-rejuvenate-the-way-you-work/

In my 20s and early 30s, I got myself in a good bit of debt. I didn’t have great work relationships and wasn’t all that productive. Out of necessity, I was adept at paying down my debt using some solid strategies. But I also used my debt as an excuse for social isolation and deprivation. It wasn’t until I increased my social intelligence that I really started to make money and build wealth.

Recently, I was asked by a reader what mistakes a young professional should avoid. As you’ve seen above, I have experience making mistakes and I also see them made by colleagues, vendors, and job applicants every day.

1. Thinking you are entitled to a job just because you have a college degree.

The quicker you learn that experience and results are much more important than your degree, the better off you’ll be.2.

2. Thinking that anyone else cares about your success.

People are busy. They have their own lives and weird hangups to deal with. No one is going to come along and say “Hey Jimmy, I noticed you have been in this dead-end job for three years. Remember all the dreams you had? Let’s work on those!” You have to advocate for yourself and proactively make friends and mentors that do care because 99% of people won’t – nor should they. You are responsible for your life.

3. Not taking advantage of a 401(k) match.

This is free money. You give yourself an instant raise by contributing up to the match from both the match and the tax savings on the money you contribute. Time is on your side so contribute right away to access the full match – even if you have student loan debt.

4. Spending more than you earn.

This is obvious. Just don’t spend more than you earn. Otherwise, you’ll get into debt and that will have long term consequences. I know that life is expensive if you just go on autopilot and do what everyone else is doing. Be different and creative.

5. Being a victim of debt.

You have debt. Stop wallowing in it. Attack it. There has never been a better time in history to crush debt. Technology allows you to make $1,000 a month with your extra time and you don’t even have to have a boss. Get a second or third job (“side hustle”) to pay off the debt. It can be a side hustle like walking dogs on Rover or Wag, delivering food on your bike with Postmates or Uber Eats, blogging, etc. Get out of debt quickly and don’t sit around being negative like the other 95% of those in debt. Just take care of it and get on with your life.

6. Paying your full rent.

As an example of the above, you can be creative with your living situation since you are young. Try to get a property as soon as you are able and rent other rooms to friends so that you can get them to pay what would have been your rent. Yes, this is hard and it requires some capital but it will pay off relatively quickly financially. Don’t get sucked into making someone else rich by just doing the easy thing and getting an apartment in an expensive area. If you can get a duplex or other multi-family situation, so much the better.

7. Cash is king.

You may not feel you have a lot of it but find ways to save cash. Cash can allow you to make a down payment on a property to do the above house hacking. Cash can provide you the freedom to leave a bad employment situation. Have liquid cash of three months living expenses available so you never feel stuck and you can take advantage of opportunities.

8. Think about how to add value.

A big mistake is not having empathy for your boss and teammates at work. You need to learn to see things from their view. What in life is important to your boss? Is it getting home by 5:30 to her kids? If so, you should never hold something you need to be reviewed until 5:15 and you should do everything you can to optimize her workday to help her get out the door. If you help her, that is how you get ahead. Find other people’s motivations and help them achieve them where you can. You’ll be rewarded tenfold.

9. Don’t take low-paying “change the world” jobs.

Personally, I think taking jobs with organizations that don’t have budget and resources is a big mistake. You can change the world a lot faster by taking a consulting job or a Wall Street job than at an underfunded non-profit that can’t pay you your economic value (many non-profits are funded well enough to pay you but that isn’t what I’m warning against). When you take better-paying jobs, you can donate money back to causes and you also make connections that can better influence those causes. Get moving on building wealth and making an influential network early so you can affect great change in the world as your wealth grows and network matures.

10. Consider what you are buying with grad school.

Going to grad school can be an expensive mistake if you are not very intentional about it. Except for the top five schools in your field, it really isn’t worth paying for a brand name. If you can’t get into (or don’t want to get into) a top-five school in your field but you need an advanced degree in your field, find a school that is economical but that will provide a great network. If you don’t need a network (most people need a network during their career) then just find the most economical school. Really make sure you need the degree and not just more experience and results (see my first point).

*****

I am sure there are tons more mistakes I could list, but if you try to avoid these as a young professional you’ll be way ahead of where you’d be if you didn’t. Enjoy the time in your youth! You cannot get it back.

The FIIntrovert’s goal is to help 1,000 introverts reach financial independence through his blog. Extroverts and ambiverts are welcome too, but he knows they didn’t need a special invite. When he’s not writing about personal finance and career advice, he enjoys making his wife jealous by spending copious amounts of time with his dog, consuming non-fiction, playing guitar, and skiing. 

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Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/10-easy-to-make-mistakes-all-young-professionals-should-avoid/

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Whether it's a regular Tuesday evening or you're heading out to a dinner party, this question is very important: should you go for red or white wine? Certified personal trainer Maria Brilaki (known as @fitnessreloaded on Instagram) posted a comparison to answer your burning question.

Five ounces of Pinot Noir compared to Chardonnay is about the same number of calories and the same number of carbs - it's basically a tie. If wine is one of your favorite indulgences, go for it! Celebrating with one drink at a holiday dinner or family get together is good for your soul and your health (thank you, antioxidants!). Wine also contains compounds that may be helpful for the heart (resveratrol), and drinking wine can help you relax and control stress (which you could use this time of year!).

If you're watching your weight, Alix Turoff, a registered dietitian and nutritionist, said that you'll want to watch how many times you toast - not only because the calories can add up if you go for glass after glass, but "wine can also decrease your defenses, and if you drink too much, it could cause you to not care very much about how much you eat or what you're choosing."

While drinking too much wine can cause weight gain, too much alcohol isn't good for your health either. The United States Dietary Guidelines 2015 to 2020 recommend "up to one drink per day for women, and up to two drinks per day for men." So go ahead, and enjoy that one glass of wine - red or white - but remember to drink responsibly!

Video: The best fast-food items for people on Weight Watchers (Courtesy: Buzz60) 

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Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/weightloss/is-red-or-white-wine-better-for-weight-loss-the-answer-is-amazing/ar-BBQiN9q?srcref=rss