Slim by Design

Recent research co-ordinated by psychologist Brian Warsink has revealed that your kitchen may not be helping you to stay a healthy weight and that the way we perceive things may not help either.

The Kitchen

• What is in the kitchen makes a difference, not the size of the kitchen. Women are more susceptible to this than men (this may be because women spend longer in the kitchen).
• Don't leave food lying around on the counter. This does not just apply to crisps and biscuits - but also breakfast cereals. They may have 'healthy' messages on the packaging but are typically calorie heavy.

Serving food

• If you serve the main parts of a meal at the stove or counter, people will eat 19% less in total than if they serve themselves at the table. But to encorage salad and veg eating, put these in bowls on the table.
• If plate colour is similar to food colour, you'll serve yourself more (e.g. white starches - potatoes, pasta, rice on a white plate). Try to use contrasting plate colours.

Eating out

• People seem to order healthier food if sat by a window or in a well-lit part of a restaurant. If sat at a dark table or booth, then tended to order fattier, calorie laden food and more of it. Those sat farthest from the door ate the fewest salads and were 73% more likely to order dessert.
• Those at tables close to the bar drank more alcohol than those seated 3 or more tables away from the bar.
• The closer the TV screen, the more fried food was ordered.
• Those at high-top bar tables ordered more salads and fewer desserts.

Acohol

• People pour 12% more into a wide glass than a tall glass of the same capacity. Even bartenders do this with cocktails, etc.: The survey showed that bartenders poured 32% more into wide glasses, and continued to do so even when the experimenters explained why it happens. (The brain registers the height of the liquid and not the volume.)
• Pour standing up - people pour less into a glass when looking down into it, as it appears fuller.
• Red wine is easier to see, so we pour about 9% less than white.

Quick checklist

• Do you serve salad or vegetables before a main meal?
• Do you put the main course on plates at the stove or counter?
• Are your dinner plates no more than 22 to 25 cm across?
• Do you eat at the table with the TV off?
• Do you have a maximum of two cans of soft drinks in the fridge at any time?
• Are your kitchen counters clean and organised?
• Do you pre-prepare fruit and veg and keep on the middle shelf of the fridge where it is easily seen?
• Do you have a minimum of six servings of protein in the fridge (e.g. tofu, yoghurts, eggs)?
• Do you keep all snacks in one inconveniently placed cupbaord?
• Is fruit the only food on the kitchen counter?

From an article (on his new book Slim by Design) by Brian Warsink in New Scientist, 10 January 2015

Declutter Tips from Marie Kondo

Tidy once and you'll never need to do it again. If you put your house in order, all you'll need to do from now on is to put your things away at the end of the day. People think it's best to tackle one room at a time or to do a little every day. Marie believes the secret is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible. Start by discarding and don't even think of putting things away until you've finished getting rid of things you no longer need. When you tidy your entire living space in one go, rather than little by little, you change not only your space but also your mindset. The same impact can never be achieved if the process is gradual. As soon as you start to think 'I wonder if this will fit in this drawer', the essential work of going through everything to decide whether to keep or chuck comes to a halt.

A proper clear out involves three actions.

• Take the time to examine every item you own.
• Then decide whether or not not you want to keep it.
• Finally choose where to put what you keep.

The storage myth

• Storage methods promise quick ways to remove visible clutter - but just create the illusion that the problem has been solved.
• You need to be ruthless, even for things you feel obliged to hold onto, like a present that you don't like. You may feel guilty, but think about it like this: the true purpose of a present is to be received.
• For the clothes you choose to keep, fold as many as possible - you can fit 20 to 40 pieces of folded clothing in the space required to hang 10. Fold each item into a neat rectangle and store standing up rather than laid flat. This way you can see everything at a glance.

Don't do the following:

• Don't keep anything you don't use.
• Don't keep things at your parents' home.
• Don't scatter your storage spaces around the house - store items of the same type in the same place.

Does it bring me joy?

• Tackle your belongings by category, rather than one room at a time, so you can compare like with like.
• Start by going through your clothes, then books, papers, miscellaneous items and, lastly, sentimental keepsakes, as they're often the hardest to throw out. By the time you reach them, you should be in the swing of it.
• Starting with clothes, take everything out of your cupboards and drawers and pile them up together on the floor, then go through them one at a time. For each one ask 'does this bring me joy?'. If it does, keep it. If not, throw it out.
• In the end the things that remain are the things that you really treasure.

Say thank you and let it go

• It's human nature to resist throwing things away. It's easy of an item is broken, but harder if it can still be used, contains useful information or has sentimentalism ties.
• When you come across something that is hard to discard, ask yourself why you have it in the first place. Why did you buy certain clothes if you never wear them? If you bought something because you thought it looked great but never wore it as it didn't suit you, it's fulfilled two functions:  it gave you joy when you bought it and it taught you what doesn't suit you. Say thank you and recycle it.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo

The Power of Three Rule

Here is a tip for keeping your wardrobe to manageable proportions - the Power of Three from Lisa on the Shopping Brake blog.

How many of each item of clothing do you ideally need for in your wardrobe? Lisa noted that when she had four pairs of skinny jeans, she wore three regularly and the fourth was always passed over for a bootcut pair. The same with long sleeve t-shirts - the fourth one was always passed over for a button down shirt.

Worth thinking about next time you do a wardrobe overhaul or clearout.

Happy Brain

In order to survive, our brains developed a negativity bias, which makes us alert to danger, loss and conflict, and good at storing those experiences for future reference. While this was successful to the survival of our species in the past, we still store bad experiences and easily forget good ones.

However, we can change the way we think.

• Identify a positive experience, focus on pleasant moments that make you feel good. 
• Hold on to it and stay with it for 5 to 10 seconds. Open yourself up to the feelings and let them fill your mind, noticing how the experience affects each of your five senses.
• Absorb it. Imagine those feelings becoming a part of you. Feel the sensation of stroking a cat, or the warmth on your skin as you sit in the sun.

Make it a habit. Like a muscle your brain gets stronger with exercise, so try focusing on happiness several times a day. Your mind is more receptive just before sleep, so think of what went well in the day as you drift off.

• Find a souvenir of calm. Go somewhere you feel at peace. Imagine that feeling of calm as a protective bubble and pick up a small object, like a stone, to keep in yourpocket and hold when feeling stressed or anxious.
• It's not information that changes the way people think, but behaviour.
• It's easy to be frustrated by your partner's domestic failings, so it's important to focus on the good bits.
• Encourage your partner to be positive. Ask what good things happened that day, not simply what happened, which gives them the chance to be negative.
• While we think the support of a partner or friend in tough times is what counts, it's even more crucial to share the good times.

Good Housekeeping, April 2014

Gap Year Money

If your children are heading off on their own abroad during a gap year, a pre-paid currency card is safer and gives a better exchange rate than concealing cash or wiring expensive emergency money abroad. It is also cheaper than using a debit or credit card. Here's how to be smart in setting it up.

Register the card in your name and request a secondary card in your child's name. Depending on the company, you'll have to pay a nominal charge for this - about £5. You can then load funds onto the currency card in the UK (online, by phone or even text message) that your child will be able to access overseas. You'll be able to check the card balance in the same way too. Registering online for a currency card takes just minutes and you set your own PIN and password.

European only travel? You'll get better exchange rates with a euro currency card. Only going to America? A dollar only card is best.

The online foreign exchange services - ICE, Travelex, FairFX and Caxton FX and mytravelcash.com - offer the best rates on prepaid cards (July 2014). To compare cards, go to moneysupermarket.com/prepaid-currency-cards.

For more information on currency cards, go to goodhousekeeping.co.uk/money/guide-to-prepaid-currency-cards.

Good Housekeeping, July 2014

10 Item Core Wardrobe

This is the capsule wardrobe plan used by Jennifer L. Scott of The Daily Connoisseur blog.

The 10 item core wardrobe includes trousers/jeans, skirts, dresses and some tops (but does not include outerwear, exercise/activity clothing or sleepwear). This is supplemented by a range of extras (t-shirts, sweaters, cardigans, outerwear, shoes and accessories).

The 10 Item core is changed 4 times a year [Winter (Jan-Mar), Spring (Apr-Jun), Summer (Jul-Sep) and Autumn (Oct-Dec)]. Around the changeover from one season to another, the core wardrobe will also have a couple of transitional items: for example, at the end of the summer season there might be a warmer sweater and a heavier weight trousers, while the autumn core might also have a summer dress and top for warmer days.

Example Fall/Winter Wardrobe: wrap dress / print tunic / 2 x silk top / print dress / tank (pinafore) dress / tie front blouse / peplum sweater / skinny jeans / crop linen trousers.

Example Spring Wardrobe: 3 x short sleeve sweaters / long sleeve sweater / 3/4 sleeve cardigan  / trousers / tailored shorts / A-line skirt / pencil skirt / jeans.


Take a look at the following posts on Jennifer's blog for more details: 10 Item wardrobe - getting started ## Getting started - the video ##  Customizing your 10 Item Wardrobe ## The Extras in my 10 Item Wardrobe ##

Get Your CV Noticed

• A CV is a personal marketing document to get an interview.
• List the basics at the top: name, email, mobile or phone number and website, if you have one. Don't mention your age, birth date (you are not required to by law) or relationship status.
• Write a summary of five lines, explaining your experience/skills, uniqueness. If an employer is reading hundreds of CVs, yours needs to get their attention fast.
• List details of relevant qualifications, experience or jobs you've had in the past 10 years. List others but leave them undated. If you are unemployed and/or returning to work, list things you have done and skills you've used in the interim.
• Style rules: maximum two pages (use both sides of an A4 sheet). A simple typeface like Calibri or Verdana, at least 11 point size. No photos, no spelling mistakes, no jokes. 
• Do not use jargon in a job application or interview. Avoid: team player, proven track record, self-starter, attention to detail, fast-paced, core competancy, blue-sky thinking and the helicopter view, giving it 110%. They are meaningless and overused by young applicants.

You could also think about setting up your own website. The first thing anyone researching you as a potential employee, or your new business, will do is to search online. There's lots of advice online on how to do this - take a look at goodhousekeeping.co.uk/how-to-build-a-website.

Feature by Penny Rich in Good Housekeeping, July 2014

The Language Wars

The Language Wars: a history of proper English by Henry Hitchings
John Murray, 2011

Living languages continually change and evolve - but in doing so they generate arguments over correct usage. Henry Hitchings traces how English has changed over time (both in the United Kingdom and overseas) and how people have responded to these changes - sometimes arguing against change and sometimes attempting to make changes. He explains how often the arguments have more to do with morality, politics and the values of the age than with language itself.

Finding Images on the Web

Flickr has more than 4bn photographs. An option in Advanced Search allows you to limit your search to Creative Commons licence images only, which can be used for  various purposes, within the limits of the licence.

Tag Galaxy works on the principle of a 'galaxy' of images which create different 'planets' of images. Visually appealing and great fun to use.

Behold searches more than 1,000,000 high quality images from Flickr within the Creative Commons collection. It uses both aesthetic and technical quality indicators so so you don't have to sift through hundreds of photos to find a good one.

Panoramio is a geographical image search engine. Choose your place (e.g. London, Oxford Street, new York) and Panoramio will display images from that location, superimposed on a Google map.

Seeklogo database has more than 200,000 images available for viewing and downloading. Straightforward and easy to use if you need a logo.

CoverBrowser searches through the covers of comics, books, DVDs, games, music and movie posters to find images. With over 455,000 illustrations, you can search by keyword, title, colour or artist. This is a sister site to VintageAd.

VintageAd contains over 123,000 advertisements, arranged chronologically - with some going back to the early 1800s.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update, July 2011

Stamp Out Sexism

Everydaysexism.com is a website set up by Laura Bates, where women can upload their experiences so that people would start to see the connections and the bigger picture.

The website states: The Everyday Sexism Project exists to catalogue instances of sexism experienced by women on a day to day basis. They might be serious or minor, outrageously offensive or so niggling and normalised that you don’t even feel able to protest.

The Everyday Sexism project aims to take a step towards gender equality, by proving wrong those who tell women that they can’t complain because we are equal. It is a place to record stories of sexism faced on a daily basis, by ordinary women, in ordinary places. To show that sexism exists in abundance in the UK workplace and that it is very far from being a problem we no longer need to discuss. To provoke responses so numerous and wide-ranging that the problem becomes impossible to ignore. To report the way you have been treated, even if it has not been taken seriously elsewhere. To stand up and say ‘this isn’t right’, even if it isn’t big or outrageous or shocking. Even if you’ve got used to thinking that it is ‘just the way things are’.

Women who complain about disrespectful comments being made to female members in the House of Commons are accused of ‘overreacting’, yet only 22% of MPs are female. Those who object to the sexist portrayal of women in the media are branded ‘killjoys’, yet nearly 70% of speaking parts in Hollywood films are taken by men, (though female characters are five times more likely to strip down to sexy clothing.) Women who object to the over-sexualisation of female celebrities are told ‘it’s a choice’, yet it is almost impossible to think of a modern female singer who hasn’t bared all. Women are told that modern ‘equality’ means career girls can have their cake and eat it, yet only around 13% of FTSE 100 corporate board members are female.

We are encouraged to celebrate the advance of women into the cockpit, yet Ryanair still releases an all-female nude calendar and Virgin flight attendants go to work every day on a plane emblazoned with a cleavage baring, swimsuit clad caricature. We simply aren’t living in an equal society, but we are blasted for ‘whining’ or ‘not knowing how lucky we are’ if we try to point it out.

Simple Way to Lose 1lb a Week

Carol Sarler finally accepted the need to lose weight after a health check showed blood sugar levels close to tipping her into diabetes. Although she had tried diets in the past, this time she decided to lose weight - but nor using a diet. She needed to lose three stones, and aimed to lose 1 pound a week to reach her target weight. So how did she do it?

While she cannot properly tell anybody else how to do it, here are her rules for herself. She didn't count calories or weigh any foods, but relied on more, less and sometimes none. If the pound refused to budge, she would revise the more to less. The none was pragmatism. While some pleasures remained in her eating plan (e.g. butter, Yorkshire pudding, red wine), others were so difficult to restrict that she cut them out entirely (e.g. cheese, beer, sugar). She accepted that food might be dull and repetitive. Breakfasts were usually yoghurt with seeds, nuts and fruit, lunches a small sandwich and dinner a piece of meat of chicken with lots of vegetables. If you try Carol's way, you'll have your own non-negotiables and banishments.

The weight loss is slow, and she as she was doing it for health reasons, she kept track of progress on a BMI chart. Even better was the realisation every now and again that she could do something again that the excess weight had prevented. And clothes started fitting better, then not at all, while her shoe size dropped, her ankles stopped swelling and her puffing stopped.

And having achieved her target weight after 42 weeks, she stopped trying to lose weight. Not a pound has gone back on, as she has retrained her eating habits to a healthier way of eating.

Carol Sarler in Good Housekeeping, April 2014

Exalead Search Engine

You can add some shortcuts to this search engine, allowing you to personalise it. There are some useful advanced search options. You can use:

• Word stemming such as 'librar*', phonetic spelling, approximate spelling.
• Proximity searching, nested logic, reguar expressions.
• Search for pages modified before or after a specific date.
• Country / langauge searching.
• Filetype searching.

Display options are: text only; text with thumbnails; text with thumbnails and extra data.

You can also can narrow searches in a variety of ways - related terms, site types (blogs, forums and non-commercial sites), multimedia, geographical location (by country or region - e.g Euope or Africa). There's also a directory option.

You can use it to search images (with advanced search options for image size, facial content, orientation, filetype, colour/b&w/greyscale.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update, December 2008

Teen Tips

The teenage years are stressful for the whole family. If you have a teen in the family, try reacting this way if you hear the following.

• They say 'I don't have the money to get there'. You say 'I'll give you a lift'. It gives them a chance to open up on the way (easier than with eye contact).
• They say 'I hate you'. You say - Nothing. Meeting angry outbursts with sympathetic silence gives them a chance to regain control.
• They say 'You don't understand'. You say 'Tell me how you are feeling'. Take them seriously. Don't laugh, or try to rationalise their worries, they need to say them aloud.
• They say 'Here are my results'. You say 'You worked really hard to get these grades'. Don't judge; empower them by praising their efforts instead.

Good Housekeeping, June 2014