Pokémon GOGOGOOO

Okay, here’s a very up to date post today! Recently, the Pokemon GO hype has started, but it’s not something like your normal game. Last night, I downloaded the game myself, ‘finally’ giving into the craze. Even though I didn’t even go out the door yet, I can’t wait to do so. I found myself thinking about groceries and whether I needed something, just to go outside, WALKING to the supermarket just to spot some Pokemon, but I didn’t. While for me, this is still some sort of barrier, it’s not for others.

People are dying to go and walk the dog, walk to the supermarket or work and take a walk extra around the block, just to see whether there are any interesting and rare Pokemon, now that’s what I call a game anno 2016! It’s no surprise that we don’t move enough these days, and using this game will encourage people to go out there and move.

So, while this game is still in its test phase, it’s already moved people to go onto the streets and actually do something. On the longer term, I can really see a quality of life improvement there. It affects the sectors human movement , leisure but also health a lot. So when people say it’s ‘just another stupid game’,  first off: it’s Pokemon, so back off (I still own my Pokemon cards from back in the days). Second: it does so much more than making people act a little crazy because of a game. So I would love to see how this develops! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to go swimming later, as maybe, there will be Pokemon near the swimming pool J

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World Health Day

Every year, on the 7th of April, World Health Day takes place. The WHO raises awareness for certain health related problems. Last year, food safety was the main theme and today they raise awareness for the illness diabetes. That’s why, in this article today, I’m listing some facts about diabetes and of course about sugar, since those two are inextricably connected.

First, some facts about diabetes. Diabetes is an illness which strikes 1 out of 16 Dutch people. There are two different types of diabetes, namely, type 1 and type 2. In both cases, the body doesn’t create enough insulin. With type 1 diabetes your body even breaks down the insulin by accident. 9 out of 10 people have this type 2 diabetes and 1 out of 10 people get hit by type 1 diabetes. With type 1 you need to insert insulin multiple times a day and in some cases, you have to wear a pump which manages the insulin level.

In 2014, the WHO lowered the recommended amount of sugar intake per person drastically. Before, a woman who needs 2000 calories a day could consume 50 grams of sugar, but that’s been lowered to 25 grams a day (approx. 5,5 sugar cubes). In addition to that, fresh fruit doesn’t count in this recommendation. Fruit does contain a lot of sugars but those aren’t bad by definition. But do mind your intake of fruit juices, because they add a lot of sugar to it. Okay, to give you an idea what is 25 grams of sugar:

1 can of coke: 35 grams of sugar, there you go.

Glass of orange juice: 20 grams of sugar, didn’t see that one coming.

Bag of paprika chips (200 g): 5 grams of sugar, however, it contains thousands of carbs and fats. Light chips usually have more added sugars. This is tricky because chips aren’t sweet but still they have a lot of added sugars.

Bottle of Fristi: 28 grams of sugar, keep going, parents.

Slice of bread: 1,45 grams of sugar, whohoo!

Danio light quark strawberry: 16 grams of sugar, and you were thinking you were doing good.

Glass of Rivella:  2,5 grams of sugar (move over, coke)

*Note: I’m talking about the pure amount of sugar, so the ‘sugars’ category on the labels. Carbohydrates are sugars, but not all carbohydrates are counted in this advice (eg. Bread and potatoes). In case you want to eat less carbs, then forget all products which are listed above, welcome to my life. Vague shit, but okay.

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Okay, I won’t try to make you eat fewer carbs, but too much is never a good thing and taking less pure sugars is really doable. Some awareness can be enough to change your lifestyle without leaving out the social stuff. It can also be about the small things, such as realizing you don’t need that one can of coke and drink water instead (or Rivella, I’m recruiting fans).

In case you want to pay attention to your sugar intake, this book from Anne Marie Reuzenaar can help you. It’s filled with a lot of information about (hidden) sugars and how they work in your body. besides that, there are a lot of recipes which you can use in case you’re done with sugar in your life. In case you do want to reduce all carbs in your life, especially potatoes, this article of mine can probably help you.

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Good luck!

Via www.culinice.com, written by me

Where are those potatoes?

No, it is not the newest hit from K3 (which got stuck in my head the whole day while writing this, so now you must also suffer), but a question asked fairly frequently over the years. People tend to eat too many carbohydrates (sugar, but also pasta, potatoes, rice and bread) and too much is never a good idea. That is why – a little heartbroken – here is  an article about the dilemma which is called eating or not eating potatoes. 

I love potatoes and the reason I decided to eat fewer carbs I completely forgot. That I could live without bread was no question. I did eat bread every day but not with much pleasure. The same goes for pasta. The challenge was the homemade fried rice from my mother and the potatoes, in every form, as well fries as chips.

Still, eating fewer potatoes can be a good idea if you want to live more healthily. Of course, the potato isn’t the only wrongdoer, but that what it’s about in this article. Potatoes contain a lot of fast sugars and that’s why it has a high glycemic index, which means it makes your blood sugar level rise like crazy when you eat a potato. I hear you thinking, is a potato just as bad as a bag full of candies? Certainly not. Potatoes consist of plural carbohydrates and your body has to work harder for those sugars in order to absorb them and convert them into energy. With a bag full of candies, this happens more quickly because those sugars are singular. Because of this, your blood sugar level rises (too) quickly and then your body has to produce more insulin. This has as effect that you will feel like you need more sugars and then, congratulations, you have arrived in the vicious circle we call sugar and then you’re sort of addicted.

Okay, over to the positive aspects. There are enough alternatives when you choose to eat fewer potatoes every now and then. My personal favorite are these delicious and low carb turnip cabbage fries. The recipe I always use is this one from Healthy Living in Heels. By the way, this dish is overall low in carbs, even though it doesn’t look like it. It isn’t that bad, as you see.

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Besides turnip cabbage, you can also eat cauliflower as an alternative to potatoes. You can turn them into mashed stew if you want. With some meatballs and/or pieces of bacon in it, you won’t notice that you’re actually eating vegetables instead of potatoes.This recipe from ‘Uit Pauline’s Keuken’ proves that!

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The art of it all is, of course, to balance it all a little. Aren’t you a sportsman/woman but do you want to lose weight in a healthy way? Then it’s an idea to set the potatoes, together with other carb loaded products, aside for a few times a week. Obviously, I hope you understand that if you want to lose some weight that you don’t eat bad sugars at all, I’m just saying. What I do hear a lot from people is: huh? Can you eat that? Products like mayonnaise and other products loaded with fats you can eat when you don’t eat many carbs. Because your body needs some fuel, it burns fats when your body lacks carbs. Because I love cheese with whole my heart, I’m happy I never have to look that much whether the cheese I’m eating contains much fat. What I do find difficult is not eating a delicious Dutch potato stew with smoked sausage and bacon. The same goes for those delicious potato squares and pommes duchesses from the oven. Hmmmm. But if you want to be healthy, there need to be some consequences, and in this case, means justify the ends. Of course, I’m eating small(er) amounts of potatoes, but it’s about the art of (being able to) leaving out. So when someone asks you, where are the potatoes? From now on, you know what to answer!

If you do have questions about what and what not to eat, and about how you can combine this lifestyle with a normal social life and a life as a student, leave a reply! Not that I’m an expert, but still.

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Via www.culinice.com, written by me

Detoxing: cleansing your body and mind

Mens sana in corpora sano, that is a healthy mind in a healthy body. Detoxing has been known for several years already, but more variations are coming up. Detoxication of the body and becoming zen again was (and still is) hot. Detoxing literally means ‘cleansing of the body’ and this cleansing can be done in different ways, but most of the time it includes less eating or no eating at all. This can’t be good, but for the ones who want to try it some time or for those who just want to amaze themselves, here’s a list.

Lemon detox

This detox method, the Neera Detox Cure (also called the lemon juice cure, the lemon detox diet or lemon fasting) is very intense. The idea to eat nothing at all for ten days in a row and only drink 8-12 long drinks (approx. two liters) of a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup and hot or cold water with some cayenne pepper, isn’t that attractive. Besides that, you may drink laxative teas and normal water. The best tip for this cure is to go to the movies to forget a meal. Way to go!

But after this cure (and some palpitations, ailments, headaches and a yellow-looking tongue later) you are completely zen and detoxified. After these ten days, you may start with some orange juice and after three days you may eat two, I repeat two, rice crackers and some soup.

The effects of this cure do seem to be positive, though. You lose weight, feel conditionally stronger and it’s been said that you can free yourself from addictions to coffee, sugar, alcohol or smoking.

Click here for more information.

The Teatox

What’s in a name? It seems clear that this cure is all about drinking tea to tea-tox (sounds like a good song title, it takes tea to teatox). This 14 – or 28 for the diehards – day cure from BooTea doesn’t sound that bad actually. They clearly stress that this cure can function as an addition to a healthy lifestyle or to really lose weight and create a more healthy way of living. You must drink one cup of tea from the box in the morning and then one in the evening every other day. This tea’s are laxative and because of that, it cleanses the body which may lead to weight loss. Of course, you cannot eat kilos of fried foods because the tea isn’t that laxative. They did compose a complete eating plan to assist you and to give you an idea of what you can and can’t eat.

Click here for more information.

The Enema

This cure which suspiciously resembles ‘enemy’ is an addition to every other detox cure. An enema is a process of cleaning your intestines with some insert piece (I suppose it’s clear where to insert) and then let some special liquid flow. All contents of your large intestine will need to be emptied in the toilet after 15 minutes of rinsing. I’m writing this at 10:30, so bare with me. The tip is to do this twice a year and every day of one week. After that, it’s important to take some probiotics in order to restore your intestinal flora. In case you’re very enthusiastic after reading this, click here for more information on how to do an enema.

The detox massage

This isn’t a whole cure either unless you want to be massaged every hour of your day (not so bad actually?). This massage strengthens the cleansing process of your body and makes sure that after one hour you’re completely zen. You can book this massage at several massage studios across the country.

Detox holiday

For real fans of detoxing, there’s also a possibility to go on a complete detox holiday. These 8-day holidays are composed in a way that you will return completely cleansed and radiant. With additional walks and yoga exercises and shakes, tea and soups you will be completely detoxified. Doesn’t sound that weird. For more information, click here.

After finding all this stuff out I have become slightly enthusiastic for the teatox, since this method clearly stimulates that a healthy lifestyle is important, which includes eating, and because I love tea. In case you have had any experience with any of these methods (enema not included), let me know!

Via www.culinice.com, written by me

Walking on the Scooter

Okay, this is cool. What I saw lately was the strangest yet most innovative scooter I saw in a long time. This so-called ‘Lopifit’ is (I think) a Dutch innovation to let people cycle while walking. You can use this scooter like a real scooter, but you can also see the landscapes while walking on the scooter on a sort of treadmill. It’s rechargeable and you can travel a distance of 55 km in one go.

Though it looks a little weird, this will actually improve the health of many people. Sitting whole day is bad, and even though you’re cycling, you’re still sitting. This innovation lets you stand up, but you can decide for yourself how fast you want to walk. It’s like the more active version of the segway!

While people have to walk more and more to stay healthy, this innovation is a major contributor to the physical quality of life. In your free time, you can still be active, but not sweat that much as a workout would cause. Still, for elderly people, this will have positive consequences according to their health and movement. When you can’t walk that far, the Lopifit is ideal to cross more kilometers while not getting exhausted.

While this is still a little expensive – one Lopifit costs around 1700 euros – you can also hire them at several spots in the Netherlands. I love to see how this invention will spread across the country and how it will continue to improve health!

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Public Breakthrough

Lately, a dream has come reality. In China, they developed a bus which could decrease the amount of traffic jams for public transport. This ‘Straddling Bus’ can ride over ‘normal’ traffic such as cars and motorcycles, so that it in fact, creates a second layer of traffic. This way, the government wants to encourage Chinese citizens to choose the public transport over their cars, because car usage will grow very fast in the coming years. This bus can then take around 1400 passengers per bus!

Now, this bus certainly increases the quality of life of forensics, but also the environment. It works on electricity and therefore is very sustainable. While my inner Star Wars geek gets really excited from the idea to have a two-layered highway, it might be a major change in the human movement and living sector. If more people would use this bus, then this would be very significant for the amount of other traffic in the world. Cities do have to be altered, however. Think of the lanterns, they have to be placed outside of the rails of the straddling bus, just as trees and other objects. But, it’s just an idea, but a very realistic one. It would certainly decrease travel time for people who must travel every day.

While I’m a little skeptic about altering too much in the cities, I can see this would be very convenient for everyone. Though major changes have to be made according to the height of other vehicles like trucks and other buses to avoid crashes. The whole city has to be altered so that these buses could travel safely through cities. But we never underestimate the Chinese, so why would we now?

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No, no limit!

 

Cycling through water impossible? Not in the Belgian province of Limburg! In April this year, they launched a new cycling road through the water. Not over the water, but really through it! They wanted to attract more tourists to this beautiful province which has a lot of tourist potential, according to the designers. The landscape is very pretty and this aqua cycling road allows people to really be one with the landscape and really enjoy it to the fullest, without any natural boundaries water usually forms. With the water on eye height, you can enjoy the landscape to the fullest.

Now this is also interesting for the rest of the cycling area’s all over the world. Back in the days, water could be a natural boundary to mark countries, just like forests or mountains. We could not easily cross them, only by boat and by swimming (in the case of water of course). Then, bridges became the normal way to cross water. But now, we can ‘just’ cycle through it, and I think it’s awesome! It’s a feeling of freedom, not being restricted by nature, as is the case most of the time. But this innovations is really humans winning from nature, but in a non-harming way. That is, if people treat the road and the surrounding water with respect, by not throwing in some trash.

But, if you’re a real fan of cycling (which I am certainly not, but this is cool), this could really be breaking news. It doesn’t say how they made this road exactly, but I can imagine there have been and are more difficult projects in the world. For the sector human movement, as well as leisure this could mean that people can move the way they want to. It’s good for tourism, and I can imagine it makes people cycle more often in their free time. Double win!

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PS: song reference from this post’s title here, yeahhh oldschool! Hahaha imagine singing this song while cycling through the water, made me laugh.