Matador Network's Blog, page 2251

35 reasons you're not getting laid

Photo: Zach Dischner

1. Your boner is your #1 pickup tool at the club.

2. Immediately after orgasm you get up and do a series of air punches.

3. You consider the fact that most women have ears a sign that they want to listen to you talk.

4. You’re scared of a girl’s period. But you spent your entire Sunday watching a Quentin Tarantino marathon.

5. The last girl you brought home had to watch you pee in your sock drawer and pass out on your comic collection. Too many Twisted Teas.

6. You take it upon yourself to remind women to “Smile!”

7. Your best travel story begins, “This one time, at Punta Cana, I blacked out.” And that’s it.

8. You don’t think the clitoris is all it’s cracked up to be.

9. You don’t believe a woman should be president.

10. You didn’t crop your camera or your toilet out of your Tinder profile selfie.

11. You have at least three pictures of your penis on your phone. Ready to go in case any female shows interest.

12. Your tattoos are either tribal, Celtic, or fraternity-related.

13. You cannot say the word “vagina.”

14. 80 percent of your workout routine consists of standing in front of a mirror and flexing your biceps. The other 20 percent consists of watching YouTube videos of weightlifting.

15. You think Daniel Tosh is hilarious.

16. When a girl doesn’t laugh at your joke you assume she doesn’t get it.

17. You have no idea what a “pay gap” is.

18. You ask girls if they are “DTF” and expect a response.

19. You drive some variation of a bright yellow vehicle.

20. You still wear Abercrombie & Fitch. Getting dressed every day feels like squeezing into a PVC pipe.

21. You’ll talk any girl’s ear off about your “intense drug past” (the two times you tried cocaine in college).

22. When you get drunk you start speaking in a Boston accent. Not because you’re from Boston. Because you consider Mark Wahlberg to be the man.

23. You see a girl you like at the bar. So you buy her a Jagerbomb.

24. You don’t have a job.

25. You don’t have a job because you still get a weekly allowance from your parents.

26. You believe the key to every woman’s legs is “interesting accessories.”

27. Your mother still does your laundry. As soon as you get a girlfriend, though, she’ll take over.

28. Your go-to story on a date involves winning a raffle at your bank.

29. The last time you read a book was when the seventh Harry Potter came out.

30. You use the pet name “muffin” for most interactions you have with females.

31. You own a “Cool story, babe, now go make me a sandwich” t-shirt.

32. You don’t tip 20 percent. But you’re still entitled to slide your arm around the server’s waist.

33. You often mistake a sympathy laugh for a real laugh. So you tell your joke again but louder.

34. You’re a member of this Facebook page.

35. You think feminism is a thing of the past.

25 things to know about Georgia

Drinking that sweet tea. Photo: Rachel Carrier

1. The weather here is just as inconsistent as your ex-girlfriend.

2. We call all interstates in Georgia, “The Highway.”

3. Only in Atlanta is everything named “Peachtree” without a single tree with peaches around.

4. Terio and Honey Boo Boo were born and raised here.

5. “Knuck if you Buck” is the song we will always get hype to no matter the age.

6. White girls wear Nike shorts with big t-shirts covering their shorts. (How many can you spot?)

7. Zaxby’s is what you eat.

8. We call it a “rag,” not a “washcloth.”

9. Going outside at anytime during the summer instantly guarantees a minimum of 7 bug bites.

10. In Georgia when someone asks, “Where you from?” people usually reply with a county not a city.

11. The speed limit is 65mph, but if you’re not going at least 80 you’ll be run off the road.

12. In Georgia it’s not a shopping cart, it’s a buggy.

13. We get more inches of pollen in a week than inches of snow in a full year.

14. You say Georgia, we say Jawja.

15. Sweet tea is our water.

16. The night has been a success if you ended up at Waffle House.

17. In Georgia it’s necessary to look at the weather before picking out an outfit.

18. We pray that we get snow during the winters.

19. We are the creators of “turn up.”

20. Here in Georgia white girls can twerk. No Miley Cyrus.

21. You will usually be 30 minutes away from just about every destination you’re heading to.

22. There’s a Waffle House in walking distance of every Waffle House.

23. Any dark soda is simply called “Coke.”

24. We pronounce it “Atlanna.”

25. Braves, Falcons, and UGA are the teams we really care about.

This article originally appeared on Thought Catalog and is republished here with permission.

What it's like to stand above Rio

Photo: The Flash Pack / SWNS.com

THERE ARE PEOPLE who are satisfied with ticking off, “Hanging out at Rio’s Christ The Redeemer statue” from there bucket lists, and then there is Lee Thompson, who wants to take your bucket list, crumple it up, and toss it in the garbage. After getting special permission from the Brazilian tourism board, Thompson scaled over 124 feet to stand on the top of one of Rio’s most famous landmarks. Pretty much no one is allowed to do that.

I don’t really know how I feel about Thompson’s accomplishment. On the one hand, it is definitely cool to see the photos and views from the top of the statue, and he must feel pretty badass to be one of the only people who can lay claim to such an achievement. On the other hand however, I’m kind of like, “So what? This guy won’t be a big deal in a few hours, when the internet has moved on to something else to fuel their short attention spans.”

What do you think? Is Lee Thompson’s Christ the Redeemer “selfie” something you aspire to achieve, or nothing special?

Mapped: Spanish speakers by state

IN AMERICA, Spanish is the most common non-English language. Over 37 million people speak Spanish at home.

The American Community Survey, conducted annually by the US Census Bureau, collects social, demographic, and economic information on Americans, including language use. The map above shows ACS data on the number of people five years or older who speak Spanish at home, by state.

Mouse over your state to find out the percentage of people who speak Spanish!

A song of oil in the Amazon

The sprawl of scorched pavement and crumbling cement buildings in the heart of the Amazon rainforest — Lago Agrio, Ecuador — was once a small oil boomtown. Founded by Texaco in the late 1960s (and given, appropriately, the name “Sour Lake,” after Texaco’s hometown in Texas), Lago Agrio is now a bewildering and feverish mess of oil workers, drug traffickers, street children, shopowners, impoverished farmers, and indigenous people stripped of their ancestral territory and forced to survive, as the Cofán people say, in the kokama kuri sindipa ande (“white man’s world of money”).

Earlier this year, at the edge of the pavement on the city’s outskirts, where the Cofán people have recovered (read: purchased) a narrow tract of their ancestral territory, I spent the afternoon with Marina Aguinda Lucitante, an elder of the tribe. She was born along the banks of the Agua Rico river. She was married at a young age to a Cofán Shaman, Guillermo Quenama, who died, she says, “because the oil company poisoned him with alcohol.”

She remembers when the forest was filled with animals. And she remembers when the river ran black with crude oil. She seems to remember everything — and all of her memories are divided into life before the oil company, and life after the oil company.

It has been nearly 50 years since Texaco began oil operations here in the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Nearly 50 years since the death of Marina’s husband. Over that time, the effects of Texaco’s (now Chevron’s) reckless pump-and-dump oil operations have been well documented: abandoned oil pits littering the rainforest, billions of gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into rivers and streams, clear-cut primary old-growth forest, noxious gases rising into the sky from 24-hour-a-day flaring, crude oil sprayed on roads, towering black plumes of smoke from spilt-and-burning crude, and the resultant public health crisis wracking indigenous and mestizo farmer communities including cancer, spontaneous miscarriages, and birth defects.

But what has not been documented — what cannot possibly be understood by anyone who has not endured the last 50 years of oil operations — is how the oil conquest has affected the spiritual life, the inner world of those who live here.

Marina has asked me to share with the world a song that she has been carrying within her for these last 50 years. Marina is one of the last Cofán women who remember how to sing in the way of her ancestors. This is her song.

This post was republished from our friends at Clearwater, an indigenous-led movement for clean water and cultural survival in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

10+ best airports for a layover

Beyond the airport bar, there are few constants aimed at alleviating the burden that is spending time in the airport. Some airports have free wifi, while others (especially internationally) have glass boxes you can smoke a cigarette in. Either way, I’m always grateful for whatever amenities I can get to help me forget, if only for a minute, that I’m still waiting to sit on a plane for a few hours. Yet, there are some airports that put even the most outfitted resorts to shame. Ones with amenities so epic I’d almost look forward to that layover.

10. Taiwan Taoyuan International

At Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the library is literally at your fingertips. As the world’s first “e-book airport library,” TTIA offers rentable iPads and e-readers, each loaded with over 400 books and thousands of magazines and newspapers. Fortunately, these publications are available in both English and Chinese, so as long as you can read one of those languages you’re set for any length of layover.

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9. SFO

The beginning of 2012 put SFO on the map as the first airport in the world to have its own mirrored yoga room, an effort to “make the entire experience less stressful and more enjoyable” (as quoted from Airport Director John L. Martin). Given the amount of traffic an airport sees, it’s very likely that by now this shiny new room is no longer the clean beacon of health and restfulness it once was, but yoga still seems like a stellar way to shake off the airport security stress (and, if you’re like me, the heebie-jeebies that invariably result from passing through the backscatter dude-sees-me-nude machine).

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8. Vancouver International

I may be a bit materialistic, but a huge part of vacation and adventure for me is collecting souvenirs — little pieces of this-and-that with an entire memory tied to them (since I’m notoriously too slow on the camera draw). At the Vancouver Airport Fairmont, they have a special service for those who come to partake in the renowned fishing Canada has to offer. Their “fish valet” allows you to store your catches in a 575ft freezer while you enjoy cocktails, and will package them up specifically to survive the flight home.

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7. Munich Airport

Munich Airport has two things that make it fairly unique against the backdrop of today’s modern airport. First and foremost, it’s got a seasonal indoor ice-skating rink, so (if you’re like me) you can garner endless entertainment from watching people (fail to) conquer nature’s frozen majesty. While doing that, you can also enjoy the onsite beer garden courtesy of Airbrau, the onsite brewery. Nothing goes better with killing time than alcohol and ice sports.

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6. JFK

Possibly the hottest thing since in-flight wifi, JetBlue’s Terminal 5 has been home to the “Live at T5” series since 2009. Since it started, Live at T5 has been a regular popup concert series, featuring artists such as Taylor Swift, James Blunt, Robyn, Jason Derulo, and Raphael Saadiq. To attend a show (which until recently took place exclusively gate-side), you actually have to have a boarding pass for a JetBlue flight.

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5. Zurich Airport

Airports almost always have that super sterile brushed-metal and polished-granite look. Everything is angles and beams and beacons of humanity’s conquering of gravity. At Zurich Airport, however, you can get back to nature on their massive conservation reserve between terminals. A full range of recreation equipment, from bicycles and inline skates to Nordic walking poles, is available to rent for use on the reserve.

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4. London’s Heathrow and Gatwick Airports, and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport

These airports are the homes of the (until recently) exclusively airport-bound hotel chain Yotel, at which you can catch a quick respite from the airport chaos by booking a room for the day through one of the handy-dandy check-in kiosks. $52 buys you a small but comfortable futuristic private pod room with a bed, desk, and shower. After a long flight, I’d pay 50 bucks just to shower, so the rest is gravy. Fun fact: Schiphol Airport is also the first airport in the world with its own museum, featuring a collection of Dutch art and historical artifacts.

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3. Hong Kong International

You know you’re in for a treat when the “entertainment” tab on the airport’s main page is subdivided into terminals, each better than the last. Terminal 1 is all about shopping, from high-end and designer products to duty-free goods and every variety of cuisine you can imagine. Terminal 2 is home to the Aviation Discovery Center (including flight simulators and some Star Trek-sounding thing called SkyDeck), the “Dream Come True Education Park” featuring “[education] by role playing in related uniforms” (y’know, for the kids), an IMAX theater, and the Sky City Nine Eagles golf course. It’s a nine-hole golf course, right next to the terminal.

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2. Incheon International

Always a hot contender for the “best airport in the world,” and winner in 2012, Incheon makes its name for a variety of factors, including cleanliness and efficiency. Obviously that’s for a different article — instead let’s talk about its kickass amenities. So that all passengers can take advantage of the ubiquitous free wifi, Incheon offers free computers for patrons to use. In an effort to attend to any possible eventuality that could arise during travel, they also have a full-service medical center, dentist, post office, and dry cleaner, and a host of free showers. For the leisure inclined, there’s also a golf course, casino (located immediately adjacent to the airport), two movie theaters, an ice rink, the Korean culture museum, and a spa and sauna.

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1. Singapore Changi Airport

This is the be-all and end-all of airports. I can’t believe this place actually exists. It’s got everything you’ve ever seen at an airport, plus a hikeable nature trail, butterfly gardens, swimming pool, arcade, and movie theater. Oh, and the tallest indoor slide in Singapore (the 40ft behemoth at Terminal 3). Take a minute and let that sink in: You have two-and-a-half hours to kill on a layover between who-knows and who-cares. Do you see a movie, or do you just spend a little too much on a couple beers and ride the big-ass slide a few times? Honestly, I’d hope for a lengthy layover if I were getting routed through Changi, so I’d have enough time to do everything before resting on the plane.

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12 reasons to buy a CSA this summer

Photo: Ed Yourdon

CSA STANDS FOR Community Supported Agriculture. You pay a farmer a flat fee up front in the spring. In return, you receive a weekly share of the farm’s crop throughout the summer and fall. If CSAs are offered in your area, you should buy one. Here’s why:

1. It saves you money in the long run.

CSAs usually cost between $300 and $500 for a family of 4 and span a period of 20 weeks (more or less depending on a location’s growing season).

The cost might seem a little daunting up-front (tip: split it between roommates), but by the end of the season you will have received pounds and pounds of organic produce without the grocery store’s retail markup.

2. The food is better quality.

When you buy a tomato at the grocery store, it has most likely been grown thousands of miles away, picked before it was ready, ripened with chemicals, trucked across the county, and unloaded onto a display where maybe hundreds of sick children (exaggeration) have touched it with their booger-encrusted fingers.

When you buy a tomato directly from a farmer, it has been allowed to grow and flourish on the vine before being proudly picked and placed in your CSA box. And (bonus!) it actually tastes like a tomato. Not like a dirty piece of sponge.

3. CSAs teach you patience.

You know when it’s January and they have random sales on strawberries at the grocery store? So you buy 2 boxes for 5 bucks. And then you eat one in the car and even though it looks like a strawberry and feels like a strawberry, it tastes like a moustache-and-fedora-wearing imposter of a strawberry? That’s because you bought strawberries in January. Strawberry season is in July.

4. You’ll have to learn tons of different ways to make food last.

At the beginning of your CSA, you might get your first few boxes and think, “I’ve been hustled by a man in Carhartt overalls.” Your box might only contain a small bunch of radishes and some random herbs you don’t want (thyme). And you might be angry. But that will pass.

By the height of the season, you’ll barely be able to carry your box and there will be no way in hell you’re going to eat all the veggies it contains in a week. That’s when you’ll realize you can pickle / can / ferment / make a wreath out of pretty much anything.

5. CSAs are economically and environmentally conscious.

They support a need-based economy rather than a profit-based economy, meaning your contribution supports the small-scale needs of the consumer, the farmer, and the land. Plus, local produce hasn’t been trucked here from the opposite side of the country, in the back of an 18-wheeler, just so you can make 7-layer dip for Superbowl Sunday.

6. Your money is going directly into the hands of a fellow community member.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

7. CSAs offer the opportunity to experience a lifestyle you might not be familiar with.

If you work a 9-to-5 in the city, it’s possible you’ve never commingled with a farmer before. And farmers are excellent people to hang out with. (They love animals. They’re usually tan. They eat things like “salad turnips.”)

So are 9-to-5ers (They’re always well-dressed. They know where all the great Happy Hours are. They say things like, “Let’s circle up.”)

I think you guys should meet. There’s some potential steamy chemistry here. (Actually interested? FarmersOnly.com)

8. Small-scale farming needs your help.

In 1935, there was a peak of 6.8 million farms in the United States. According to the 2007 census, there are only 2.2 million farms today. Even though the amount of farmers has severely decreased, the demand for agricultural products is constantly increasing.

The majority of farmers today are machines. Not the guy pushing a free carrot sample on you at the farmer’s market, though. He’s a real human being.

9. You are forced to eat healthier.

When you have umpteen million beets to deal with, you can’t go to the 24-hour gas station and buy one Klondike Bar for every episode of Dexter you have left.

Because you already bought the beets so…you can’t do that anymore.

10. Picking up your CSA is a social endeavor.

Usually, pickup locations are at community centers, parks, or general stores. You’ll get to meet people who are out of your usual circle. And you can chat with them about organic sausage recipes. Your other friends won’t talk to you about organic sausage recipes!

11. You will eat vegetables you would normally sneer at.

Radishes. Am I right? Why do those exist? But put a slice of raw radish on a crostini with butter. I think you’ll lose the ‘tude.

12. You’ll feel better.

You really will. I promise.

14 signs you're from West Palm Beach

Photo: Kim Seng

1. You’ve eaten a Cuban sandwich from Havana’s walk-up window at 3am.

Havana’s famed Cuban sandwiches, tostones, and papas rellenas were a welcome sight after a night out in downtown Lake Worth. You probably weren’t sober either, which made the food taste much, much better.

2. You’ve been on a field trip to Kennedy Space Center.

And if you were one of the lucky ones, you went on a field trip to SeaWorld (I know, we don’t talk about that place anymore) or Universal Studios. A St. Augustine field trip was never out of the question, either. No matter where, the bus ride was always half the fun.

3. You’ve been stuck in “bridge traffic” thanks to all three of Palm Beach’s bridges.

And you know they have important-sounding names: The Flagler Memorial Bridge, the Royal Park Bridge, and the Southern Boulevard Bridge.You call them the “north bridge,” “middle bridge,” and “south bridge” anyway.

4. You’ve been told to avoid Tamarind Avenue by everyone and their mother.

And you’ve heard multiple accounts of robberies and crime in the area back in the day — but somehow, you still managed to end up on Tamarind at some point before freaking out and finding your way off the street.

5. You’ll fight to the death regarding Publix’s superiority over any other supermarket on Earth.

Not to mention the subs. I’ll have an Ultimate. Boar’s Head please. (Why did you even ask me?) And everyone knows you have to order the chicken tender sub at least once. You said “toss it in buffalo sauce please” if you were smart.

6. You’ve willingly gone or been dragged to at least one BUZZ 103.1′s Buzz Bake Sale.

You may have gotten stuck in a whirlwind of people swinging elbows and fists by accident at some point near the Coral Sky, er, Mars Music, er, Sound Advice, er, oh, the Cruzan Amphitheater. And you definitely needed about 4 showers after the event.

7. You’ve get chills up your spine on seeing license plates from the Northeast.

And suddenly, driving on I-95 got a lot slower. Malls got more crowded. The average age of West Palm Beach rose about 25 years. You always breathed a sigh of relief once you heard “the snowbirds are going back up.”

8. You know several people who own lifted pickup trucks.

And the only time you’ve seen these rather expensive pickup trucks get muddy is when they’re dragged out to the St. Lucie Mud Jam or the Okeechobee Mud Fest. You’re still not exactly sure what the point is, either.

9. You’ve spent a day at Sunfest in the rain.

But then the sun came back out quickly, thanks to Florida’s “it’s going to rain between 3 and 5pm everyday” weather policy. A great time was always had by everyone, thanks to the ever-improving music and floating party barges.

10. You’ve seen the Palm Tran bus, but don’t know more than 5 people who’ve taken it.

You know where some of the stops are. You’ve seen people getting on the bus (likely, none of whom you know). You’ve noticed the Palm Tran Connection drive by all the time. Yet you still have no idea where the bus can take you.

11. You’ve wanted to shower again on walking from your front door to your car in the summer.

Thanks to the hot, humid, 100-degree weather, your simple walk from your front door to your car felt more like a sweltering walk through the Peruvian jungle. Post-walk, you’ve definitely hopped in your car, turned it on, cranked the AC, and gotten back out, standing next to the car, door open, until it cooled down.

12. You’ve returned from a trip anywhere north of Orlando with love bugs plastered all over your car.

When love-bug season arrives, you know better than to open your windows while driving up the Florida Turnpike, I-95, or I-75. On your return home, you were given ten different answers from ten different people when you asked how to remove them from your car’s bumper and windshield.

13. You know the streets of downtown West Palm Beach are in alphabetical order.

And you tell everyone who doesn’t know: Banyan, Clematis, Datura, Evernia, Fern, Gardenia, Hibiscus, Iris…. Okay. So it ends there. So what? At least you knew which street was next when you were trying to give someone directions!

14. At least half of your graduating class attended FSU, UF, UCF, or UM.

The majority of the remaining ones attended FAMU, FGCU, USF, FAU, or FIU. For those not paying attention, those schools are all in Florida. It pretty much seems like no one wants to leave the state, right?

#MatUTalks transformative travel

ON JUNE 12, 2014 at 2:30 EST, Matador will be be hosting our third Twitter chat. We’ll be talking with MatadorU faculty, students, Matador editors, and many others, around the topic of the transformative feeling of travel. You can join us by following our Twitter profile, and sending in replies using the hashtag #MatUTalks.

We are soliciting questions surrounding the topic of travel and how it can transform you. We’ll be choosing six questions to help facilitate the chat, so if you’d like a chance at being featured, leave your question in the comments section below. MatadorU students can also leave their questions and responses in the U forums. We look forward to chatting with you on June 12!

7 keys to a healthy lifestyle

Photo: Brendon Burton

WHEN MOST OF US think of health we think of weight, so the focus tends toward how much weight we need to lose to be healthy. The usual method to do this is: diet and exercise. Right? Sort of. While these are obviously key factors in being healthy, there are many others you need to consider to have a well-balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Weight vs. body composition

Following a week at Mountain Trek, after exercising intensely for 5-6 hours per day (hiking, cardio, strength training) and eating healthy, my partner left weighing exactly the same. Some would see that as a failure, but the bigger picture is she lost 3lbs of fat and an inch off her waist. She gained the difference in muscle (and a bit of water). This is body composition. The true metric of health is body fat % (not BMI, which is just a ratio of height and weight). The healthy range for a woman, at any age, is 25%-30% body fat. For a man it’s 20%-25% (below these you would be considered athletic).

I weighed in at 139.8 lbs (I’m 5’6”) and left weighing 139.0 lbs. But I lost fat, gained muscle, and trimmed 3/4” from my waist. A guest we befriended who spent two weeks in the program lost around 7lbs of weight, but 9lbs of fat. The difference? Muscle. And building muscle increases your metabolism.

Don’t obsess with weight. Focus on body composition.

Sleep

Not all sleep is created equal. Even if you’re getting 8 hours per day (likely you’re not — the average American sleeps under 7 hours per day), if you’re not sleeping at the right time you’re not giving your body the best chance to repair and renew itself (especially important if you’re exercising and working those muscles). The hours before midnight are crucial as this is when that happens. This has to do with our circadian rhythm and hormone release; it’s biological. Midnight to 8am? Not bad. 10pm to 6am? Better.

Also important is what you’re doing before bed to support a good, deep sleep. Turn off the screens well before bedtime and stay away from caffeinated drinks in the evening.

Toxins

We have both biological toxins (like when we’re sick) and environmental toxins (the list is too long) in our bodies. Our body works to get rid of them through our sweat, breath, and bodily waste. If we don’t detoxify — through sweating, massage, diet, breathing properly, etc — we get enlarged and concentrated fat cells. Adding a detox regimen to your efforts will help to shed fat and keep you healthy. Many cultures around the world have been detoxing for centuries (think sweat lodges, European saunas, Russian banyas, Roman bathhouses, etc). It’s essential.

Tip: There are over 3,000 chemicals approved by the FDA in processed foods. Eat whole, and as much organic fruits/veggies and hormone-free meats as possible. (See the dirty dozen.)

Eating habits

I’m not talking about reaching for an apple instead of the bag of Doritos, although that’s important. Even if you’re already eating a relatively healthy diet, there are other important factors to consider, like when you’re eating, how you’re eating, and how often you’re eating.

When you’re eating — For many people, skipping breakfast and eating a big dinner late in the evening is normal. This is a surefire way to store more calories as fat. Eating a big healthy breakfast is important to fuel your body for the day (and burn it off) — ideally you want to eat something within 30 minutes of waking up to kickstart your metabolism and to let your body know that “food is coming.” Breakfast is breaking the fast, and if your body thinks it’s famine time it will store calories. Think of food as fuel and when you need that fuel the most.

How often you’re eating — Feeding your body every three hours (healthy snacks between main meals) will also keep blood-sugar constant and stop the body from storing calories as it does as a famine response. Try to get two-thirds of your calories within 9 hours of waking up.

How you’re eating — “Drink your food, chew your water” ~ Taoist saying. Chewing your food until it has the consistency of liquid greatly assists in digestion. It’s easier on your system and it also decreases stomach acidity. Another reason to do this: It takes 20 minutes for your brain to be signalled that the body is full. If you eat more slowly (i.e., chewing more) you’re much less likely to overeat. When drinking water don’t gulp; take smaller mouthfuls and swish it around to mix it with your saliva. This will also reduce stomach acidity as saliva is alkaline.

Stress

As human beings we all have physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. If you only focus on diet and exercise (physical) to be healthy and ignore the other three elements in your life, you’re effectively sabotaging your efforts. Stress, in the right moments (like fleeing a dangerous situation), is helpful. Chronic stress depletes energy and keeps cortisol levels high, which is conducive to larger fat cells. Attend to your mental (e.g., creativity), emotional (e.g., sense of belonging), and spiritual (e.g., contemplation) needs and decrease your stress.

Body feedback

Listening to our bodies is crucial when we’re exercising. Target heart rate, as seen on gym equipment, does not give an accurate picture since it’s only based on age (220 minus your age in years), ignoring other factors like gender, lifestyle, and fitness level. Instead, use Perceived Rate of Exertion (PRE). On a scale of 1 to 10 — 1 being sitting on a couch, 10 being you just finished a triathlon and are about to collapse — measure how you’re feeling in whatever exercise you’re doing. If you’re below 6.5 PRE (e.g., going for a walk) you need to exercise longer than if you’re in the 6.5-8.5 range (e.g., hiking uphill, running on a treadmill) to burn stored fat. With less intense exercise you need to be at it for 90 minutes continuously before burning stored fat, versus 40 minutes if you’re above 6.5 PRE.

Tip: The “talk test” is a good indicator of PRE: If you can only manage a few words between breaths you’re in the intense range.

Goal setting

Underpinning everything above is how you go about setting and achieving your lifestyle goals. In the business world, SMART is an acronym that describes how to set these. Goals are much likelier to be reached if they are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Set yourself up for success, not failure. If you’re setting unrealistic goals, you’ll be hard on yourself when you don’t achieve them (more stress). If your goals aren’t specific enough, you won’t know how to focus your efforts.

If you have several goals or several habits you’re trying to change, prioritize them. Focus on one or two max at a time until they’re on autopilot, then move on to the next one. In studying the most highly effective people, this has been found to be a common method of success.

Be kind and gentle to yourself. The stricter you are, the less likely you’ll be to stick to the program. Remember, this is a lifelong journey.

Author’s note: These were lessons I learned in the 1-week Reboot program at Mountain Trek, a health and wellness retreat in the mountains of British Columbia, as an invited media guest.