#1/2 the time he could not fucking care less ab the damn island and the other half he’s like I Am Sent By The Island Spirits As Your Guide
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You see what I love about Desmond Hume is that he is simultaneously absolutely insane and like, the most sane person on the island. Like he’s the craziest fucking dude you’ve ever met, he has so much wild shit going on but he’s also overwhelmingly Just A Normal Guy. He’s one of the few people in the damn show that does not give a SINGLE shit about the drama or the mysteries of the island, my man literally just wants to go home to his girlfriend and take a nap!! But he’s also had like 20 jobs and he’s time travelled (but only in his brain really) and he’s selected to be the fucking Island Prophet or some shit and he’s the singular chosen one who’s immune to electromagnetism but at his core he’s simply a Dude, he’s a damn magic leprechaun but he’s also just kind of a sad loser, You Know???
#desmond hume#lost abc#lost show#when they were like ‘the islands not done with you yet’ and he said ‘well I’m done with the island’ what a power move baby#and I was so worried in like season 5/6 that they were foreshadowing some arc where he CHOSE to go back to the island but he didn’t!!#they LITERALLY had to drag him kicking and screaming away from his wife and son and heavy drug him#and when he woke up he tried to fuckin KILL widmore#but then he has some damn prophetic dream again and suddenly he’s like. a fucking messenger of the lord or something#1/2 the time he could not fucking care less ab the damn island and the other half he’s like I Am Sent By The Island Spirits As Your Guide
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CANADIAN THINGS PART 2, THE SEQUEL NO ONE ASKED FOR!!!!
hiiii yesss!! so if you’ve seen my last canada post (HA that’s a pun bc our mail service is called “canada post” har har har...anyway) u know that i had some records to set straight, so to speak, so i’m back at it again w canada FACTS aka things you probably don’t know but might be useful and helpful in your attempt to flesh out realistic Canadiana™. this is in honour of me hitting 500 followers, thank y’all so much ily all and thanks for bein awesome!!!
without further ado, buckle up, buds, here we go again!!!!
canada eradicated pennies not too long ago. basically, we don’t have a 1¢ coin anymore, we only have 5¢ coins ergo all payments paid in cash are rounded up/down accordingly. jack and ransom 100% hate this because now they’re so annoyed by the concept of carrying around pennies (”what’s the point!?!? 1¢??! USELESS!!)
along this same vein, canada doesn’t have a $1 bill, we have coins known as a loonie ($1) and a toonie ($2), the smallest bill we have is $5 (jack is still consistently weirded out by paper dollar bills. it feels wrong.)
ALSO while we’re on the topic of money, all our bills are different colours (blue for $5, purple for $10, green for $20, red for $50, brown for $100), they’re also waterproof (not heatproof tho!!!), and the $100 ARE NOT officially created to smell like maple syrup but i can assure you i’ve sniffed some bills that do smell like maple syrup and i cannot explain why (ransom still gets confused w american money “it looks like monopoly money, jack!” “i know, bro, i know”)
IN OTHER MONEY RELATED TRAINS OF THOUGHT, there are two main canadian airlines: air canada and westjet. they both have a total monopoly on canadian travel so it’s real damn expensive to fly anywhere in canada from within canada. it sucks a whole lot. (just remember than whenever you write ransom/jack flying home. it’s a pretty penny even if jack is loaded)
age of consent is 16 across canada
the drinking age in canada is 18/19 (dependent on provinces), however, CANADA WIDE the legal adult age (to vote, essentially) is 18.
driving ages differ province to province (you’d have to google because even i don’t know every province)
SPEAKING OF PROVINCES, canada is split into provinces and territories: 10 provinces and 3 territories. here’s a breakdown of each (it’s long, skip if you wanna!!):
british columbia (BC)
west coast best coast, lots of mountains, very hippy dippy, home province of vancouver aka movie city central, capital city is VICTORIA not vancouver, rains a lot, is known for being the birth city of ryan reynolds (your welcome), is split into two main sections: the mainland and the island (even though BC is composed of many islands, vancouver island is referred to as THE island), bland football team, even blander NHL team.
alberta (AB)
neighbour to BC, cowboys, hyper-conservative, also mountains, capital is EDMONTON not calgary, lots of extreme weather (sunshine and +20 (celsius) and then it’ll snow. alberta is weird like that), oil oil OIL, two mediocre football teams, home of the calgary stampede (again, cowboys), i often refer to alberta as the texas of canada and i’ve never had someone disagree tbh, mediocre hockey teams (including connor mcfuckingjesus don’t get me started)
saskatchewan (SK)
neighbour to AB, pronounced SASS-CAT-CHEW-WAH-N, flat flat FLAT, farmers galore, capital city regina (hahaha laugh it up it’s not that funny once you’re beyond the age of 10), even more mediocre football team (i’m only saying that bc i’m from manitoba, the rival province), tbh i don’t know much about saskatchewan except that we drove all the way across it once for a roadtrip and i swear to god we didn’t see another vehicle or human for the entirety of our trip across
manitoba (MB)
neighbour to SK and also the prime rival, capital city winnipeg (YES IT’S A REAL PLACE, I WAS BORN THERE, I LIVED THERE FOR 18 YEARS, CAN CONFIRM, STOP IT), cold as FUUUUUCK in the winter (-40 (celsius) and schools don’t close until it’s -45, so, deal w THAT), mosquitoes fucking galore (it’s disgusting and awful and makes being outdoors AWFUL), we also have polar bears!! (more north, but, still!!!!), really cool live theatre and music vibes, very dry heat, UBER MEDIOCRE FOOTBALL TEAM (but still better than SK rough riders bc provincial rivalry!!!), SUPER mediocre NHL team (i only say this because my mom’s a jets fan whereas i’m a pens fan...lmao BYE MOM), tbh can’t say many mean things bc i still love wpg with at least half my heart!!!!
ontario (ON)
neighbour to MB, capital city toronto, home of the capital city of CANADA, ottawa, muskoka chairs, so many fuckin lakes (everyones fave place to camp/own a cabin), extreme winters just like MB, niagara falls, again a rly cool arts district here (in TO and surrounding area), 3 football teams bc why the fuck not (fffffuck the TO argonauts), 2 NHL teams (everyone in canada hates the leafs. that’s not a fact but i could find enough evidence of it to convince you it is), basically TO is considered the center of the fucking universe according to everyone who lives in TO and everyone who lives outside of canada bc no one knows anything else about canada. canada might as well JUST be TO for all people fucking care. just. fuck toronto. (i think it’s a canadian thing to be Bitter and Annoyed about toronto’s unending praises from every corner of the map) ((jack is V much “fffffuck toronto” and ransom is V much “fuck you toronto is RAD”)
quebec (QC)
neighbour to ON, pronounced KUH-BECK not KWUH-BECK or KEY-BECK and lord have mercy on your soul if you dare say it like “Q-BECK”, capital city quebec city, french-canadian province that’s threatened to “leave” canada multiple times, HOME OF OUR DING DONG HIMSELF, MSSR. ZIMMERMANN!!!, poutine holy fucking HECK god bless poutine (if you think it’s gross i already don’t like you sorry 100000% NOT SORRY. jack and ransom love some good ass poutine oKEEEEER), a rly good music scene (osheaga music festival is top notch), essentially a canadian paris except people speak quebecois not france-french (but you can get away with it in most respects, there’s differences but the foundations are the same, bc DUH they’re the same language but essentially different dialects, KIND OF similar to mandarin and cantonese (although that particular case has more nuances than this one but you get the idea))
newfoundland and labrador (NL)
neighbour to QB, capital city st. john’s (not to be confused with saint john, NB...yeah there’s another province w almost the EXACT SAME CITY NAME sigh i know it’s dumb and rude) i’ve never really been to the east coast so idk what to tell you but LOBSTER and FISHING and WEIRD FUCKIN ACCENTS, another coastal place so it’s p weird and hippy dippy, but i’ve only ever heard that they’re lovely people, often referred to as newfies.
now, the maritime provinces....starting with new brunswick (NB)
just south of QB, capital city fredericton, v small in comparison to other canadian provinces (as u can tell), again don’t know much about NB but i know they’re big on fish and are basically Maine The Second (they’re pressed right up against maine so, it’s basically maine
nova scotia (NS)
south-ish of NB, capital city halifax, HOME TO THE REAL LIFE DING DONG OF MY HEART, MISTER 87, SIDNEY CROSBY, a full on island, full of wonderful kind people a la mister crosby himself (honestly, it’s just a bunch of super kind people), really cool coastal scenery with amazing seafood (as you’d expect), home of the city that many a traveller has confused for sydney australia, very old-fashioned (idk how to explain???) but just like...you feel like you’re in a storybook when you’re there, lots of lighthouses, overall a v nice place to be
prince edward island (PEI)
the teeny-tiniest place in all of canada i’m certain, north-east-ish of NB and NS, capital city charlottetown, honestly i’m running out of things to say, it’s exactly like NB and NS had a baby that never grew out of infancy it’s so small.
now onto the TERRITORIES which are all up north...yukon (YT)
pronounced YOU-CON, north of BC, east of alaska, capital city whitehorse, cold as heck (tundra baby!!), extremely expensive living conditions ($9 for a 2L of milk, $18 for some fuckin apples...absolute fuckin robbery), lots of hunting and fishing goes on up here (aka lots of people hunt/prepare their own food), lots of mountains and such, v beautiful.
northwest territories (NT)
above AB and SK, capital city yellowknife, used to be bigger but then it was divided up (creating the new territory nunavut), v similar to yukon but with less mountain and more lakes, again v cold bc TUNDRA, my cousin met her husband while working in yellowknife...she’s from MB and he’s from ENGLAND aka what kinda fucking fateful BS...amazing, p cool w lots of islands and such far up north, it’s neat and suuuper beautiful in the summer (so many flowers lksdfjlskad)
nunavut (NU)
pronounced NEW-NUH-VUH-T, north of MB, capital city iqaluit (pronounced EE-CAL-EW-IT) used to be part of NT but they separated into two territories circa 1999, again v similar to the other territories, beautiful scenery with an OBSCENE amount of islands (colouring in maps was always a fucking DOOZY), again, not much to say. just a rly lovely place.
WOO congrats if you read all that lmao now lets get into some other stuff!!
our thanksgiving is in october, the second monday in october to be exact. it’s only been a thing since like??? the 60s??? like it’s a brand new concept, essentially, and i’m not even 100% sure why we have thanksgiving but we do (it’s mostly a charade, thanksgiving means nothing in canada, it’s a completely arbitrary reason to be grateful and eat some fuckin turkey) (jack and ransom both support arbitrary turkey holidays)
canada’s national sport is actually, like, officially lacrosse?????? i know what the fuck (i bet ransom follows lacrosse)
marriage equality has been a thing since 2005 (doesn’t mean jack wasn’t excited about the USA, just, not quite as overcome as bitty was)
winnie the pooh? based on a real bear from winnipeg, MB. yeah, be fuckin jealous y’all
if you didn’t know canada has universal health care. it’s pretty fucking rad.
idk if this is Too Obvious but canada has two official languages, english and french, so all of our packaging/instructions has to be in both languages. everything. from toothpaste to trampolines. everything. signage is a bit more dicey, most trans-canada highway signs are in both languages but more rural/urban ones probably aren’t (jack gets thrown off still when he instinctively looks for the french translations on packaging for nothing to be found. it happens more than you think)
oh also?? we used british spelling, meaning we add a bunch of ‘u’s where they don’t really need to be. this is 100% a point of contention between bitty and jack.
CANADA IS METRIC. IT’S RLY SIMPLE PALS. everything is in groups of 10s. 10 millimetres = 1 centimetre. 100 centimetres = 1 metre. 1000 metres = 1 kilometre (aka how we measure speed, km/hour) you get it? (the prefixes, ie. milli, centi, kilo, are huge helpful hints)
the exception to this is baking measurements??? unlike the UK we couldn’t escape the wrath of cups and teaspoons and all those other arbitrary measurement devices. we still use those (for the most part)
we use fucking celsius okay (except on ovens, mostly because they’re american distributed machines ergo run in fahrenheit) anyway it’s p straightforward:
celsius is in relation to water temperature, ergo, 0 degrees celsius is waters freezing point, anything below that is freezing (relatively, of course), anything above it is not. this is especially useful for discussing weather, as, y’know, most people typically use temperature for (outside of the kitchen and hospitals, that is)
+20? nice summer day. -40? typical MB winter, +30? typical fuckin central canada summer, +7? dependent on where you live it could either mean SHORTS!! (central canada) or a light jacket (west coast), again it’s all relative to your acclimatization
okay i think this is long enough!! here’s some random nostalgic things that ransom and holster def remember/love dearly
i pray with all my heart that jack has this funny little soft spot for ‘corner gas’ in the same way i do (it’s a canadian prairie sitcom CLASSIC and i love it SO MUCH)
jack and ransom both have a strange crush on rick mercer
MO FUCKIN FRAGGLE ROCK BIIIIITCH
ransom definitely had some misconceptions about what being 16 would be like because of this fuckin show (he also 100% did the air guitar to the theme song)
this show meant a whole heck of a lot to lil bb jack (who 100% watched cartoons in english AND french okay????)
ALSO (i think i mentioned this in the last post but!!) ransom grew up watching caillou in english, jack in french, and they argue all the time about the differences between the two.
ransom remembers being a little bab watching this nonsense right before bed with a cup of warm milk and exactly two oreos (just me??? pshhh i don’t believe it)
jack had very strategically thought out how he would destroy his competitors at this game show
jack loved babar. don’t even touch me. just. imagine tiny jacques w a lil stuffed elephant my hearT!!!!!
ALSO MCFUCKING T’CHOUPI ET DOUDOU!!!!!! i watched this one in english but i can only imagine jack loved it
okay. okay. again, thank u for reading, i hope this was helpful!! lemme know if there’s anything i missed!! who knows, i might make a third installment one day!?!??!
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New Post has been published on Healthy Food and Remedies
New Post has been published on http://healthyfoodandremedies.com/2017/03/21/leveling-attractive-5-easy-steps/
Leveling Up: How To Be More Attractive In 5 Easy Steps
One of the ongoing debates that crops up when it comes to dating advice for men is: “How important are men’s looks?” Just check the comments section of this blog; whenever I talk about what women find attractive in men, people will inevitably show up and insist that all of this is bullshit and that women are interested in tall dudes with rippling washboard abs, blindingly white teeth, pecs you could bounce rocks off of, an Audi R8 and a 7 figure bank account.
Which is why Dwayne Johnson has been People’s Sexiest Man Alive for seven years running…
Others will insist that looks don’t matter at all and that it’s strictly a matter of one’s character.
So here’s the cold hard truth: good looks matter. But they also don’t.
Confused? It’s understandable. The issue comes down to the differences between how men and women define “attractiveness”. Men tend to have a more uniform definition of what they consider attractive while women’s definitions tend to have more variability. Men tend to assume that women view men with the same metrics that men view women – that is, that women will put greater importance on facial symmetry, height, body fat percentages, penis size and muscle tone.
In reality, being attractive to women is a combination of a host of factors, coming together to build a holistic version of desirability that’s based on more than just whether or not one has Scandinavian cheekbones and piercing blue eyes.
Good looks in men certainly help when it comes to attraction; nobody is denying that. But there’s a difference between being good looking and being attractive. And there are many ways for a man to make himself more attractive.
The Difference Between Good Looks and Attractiveness
There’s no question that good looks help in life. Humans are psychologically predisposed to be more positively inclined toward people who are physically attractive; a cognitive bias known as the “halo effect” influences people’s judgements and impressions about a person based purely on their physical appearance. A person who is blessed with good looks will frequently have a leg up in the world.
However: The definition of what women consider to be “good looking” varies wildly. Men tend to think that all women go for Chris Hemsworth’s god-like build and leonine mane of hair, when women may be far more likely to scream for Joseph Gordon Levitt’s more wiry frame, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s gap-tooth smile or Matt Smith’s unique fivehead.
I mean, some women dig the Easter Island Moai look, y’know?
A person can be good looking… but still be unattractive and have little success with women. A man can be far less than model-gorgeous and still be incredibly attractive to women; in fact, one of the most popular, sex-gettingist men I have known is short and fat, yet attracts women like cheese attracts mice.
The men who are most invested in the idea that women only like guys who look like X often need to believe that attraction is immutable; it takes the pressure off of them to be responsible for their own successes – or lack thereof. It allows them to put the blame on others – on women who have “unfair” standards, on the media for promoting certain looks, on their own genes. After all, short of painful surgeries, there’s not much a man can do about the shape of his face or his height.
Attractiveness, however, is about more than facial symmetry and height. It’s about how a man presents himself – the way he talks, the way he dresses and his attitude… and it’s surprisingly easy to sabotage one’s own attractiveness by accident.
Step One: Embrace Proper Grooming
This is a no-excuses step. There’s more to grooming and self-care than the usual male ritual of “a couple of spritz under the pits and out the door you go”… if you even get that far.
You wouldn’t think that much of this would be necessary… until you’ve spent some time at a convention; there’s a reason why nerds are associated with stench. If a woman gags when gets within two feet of you… well, you’re not going to get anywhere with her, let’s just put it that way.
Absolute minimum of grooming means brushing your teeth, flossing, mouth wash and a decent deodorant. The 99 cent drugstore special is not going to help you here and most of them are going to leave white residue on your clothes. You’re better off to shell out for something at the level of Anthony’s Logistics for Men than Speed-Stick.
Also: no Axe anything. Ever.
However, most men stop here when it comes to personal grooming. This is a mistake; part of grooming means taking care of your face and skin. After all, 99% of communication means being face to face with people – why wouldn’t you want to keep up the maintenance of the one area that everybody is going to be looking at?
It’s time to embrace proper skin-care. Many men will avoid this for fear of being too “metro” (read: gay) and as a result… they look terrible. Their skin looks old and dull and detracts from their natural looks. Proper skin care will make you look younger, more alert and – importantly – more attractive. Start with going beyond washing your face with bar soap, which will actually dry your skin and make things worse. You want a facial cleanser – preferably one with 2% salicylic acid – in the morning to help wash away dirt, debris and oils that lead to clogged pores and zits.
OH GOD HYGIENE BURNS IT BURNS US PRECIOUSSSSS!
Follow this up with a moisturizer with sun-screen. Sun exposure ages your skin and leaves you at risk for skin cancer; this is why you need the sunscreen. Meanwhile, the moisturizer keeps your skin firm and smooth, minimizes fine lines, and preserves skin’s elasticity.
At least once a week, use an exfoliating scrub. Think of it as sanding away the top layer of paint on an old house; you’re getting rid of the old, damaged, and dead skin and letting your real face shine through.
Also: learn to corral your unwanted hair. Get a decent pair of tweezers and attack your eyebrows and any ear and nose hair. Keeping bushy eyebrows under control (especially if you tend towards a unibrow) will work wonders for improving your look and confidence, and you don’t want anyone getting in close to notice stray nose or ear hairs.
(This, I might add, gets much more important the older you get; when you start losing hair on your head, you start gaining it everywhere else.)
While I’m at it: take care of your damn hands. You don’t have to go out and get a mani/pedi (but I do recommend it) but you want to keep your nails neatly trimmed (not bitten) and filed with care to avoid points or raggedy edges. Women definitely notice your hands… and there are many (ahem) performance reasons why you will want to keep your nails short and clean.
Step Two: Get a Haircut.
Cold hard truth: women hate your hair. Sorry.
Most men have absolutely no idea what to do with their hair. They go to the barber or Supercuts, get the exact same haircut over and over again, and never stop to think just how much a decent hair cut can change how they look. There’s more to a haircut than just trimming off a couple of inches here and there; a proper hair cut can completely transform your face, bring balance to your features and help frame your personality.
Also: No ponytails. Very few men can pull off long hair and unless you are ripcord, rockstar thin, that includes you.
Some of us learned this the hard way.
This means you need to get a decent hair cut.
Find a good stylist. Do not go to SuperCuts or that place in the mall; you want a proper salon or barbershop and that means being willing to pay. Sorry, but this is definitely one of the areas where you get what you pay for. It can be hard to find a new barber or stylist (I hate it, personally) because it can be hard to find a good one, but it’s vitally important. Word of mouth is the best way to find one, but Yelp and Google Reviews can help lead you in the right direction.
Bring a photo. Yup, it’s a chick move, but it helps you communicate exactly what you want to your barber instead of trying to convince him or her to read your mind. Just be willing to be flexible; a good barber will be taking your head and face shape, hair thickness and texture into account and not everybody is going to be able to pull off the same style. If you have curly hair, you’re going to have to learn how to work with it. If you have thinning hair, you need to learn to embrace it and just start cutting things short.
Use some product. Different hair products are suited to different hair styles – wax works better for thicker, coarser hair while clay or pomade works better for thinner or silkier hair. A little bit of hair product can turn a sloppy look into something nice.
While you’re at it: start attacking your facial hair. Some people can pull off facial hair. Some can’t. If you have patches of bare skin in your beard, you need to just accept that you may not be one of them; a patchy, scraggly beard makes you look more like Chester The Molester than the God of Testosterone you think you are.
That being said, a nicely trimmed1 beard can help strengthen and add definition to an otherwise weak jawline. Keep it short and neat and for fuck’s sake don’t let it grow into neckbeard territory. Shave your neck; your beard should stop just under your jaw line – not so close that you look overly groomed but not so far that you look like you spend all your time in your mother’s basement running 25 man raids in World of Warcraft.
Step Three: Your Clothes Need To Fit
There is nothing that drives me crazier than people who wear clothes that don’t fit properly.
Most men out there do not wear clothes that actually fit them. Many times, it’s that they are so simply out of touch with how clothes are meant to fit; they dress for comfort, under the assumption that clothes are supposed to be roomy. Others are insecure about their bodies and wear larger clothes in an attempt to disguise it.
This never works. In fact, wearing clothes that are too large will serve to draw attention to the fact that you’re trying to camouflage a perceived flaw.
(The less said about “relaxed fit” anything the better.)
At best, wearing clothes that don’t fit looks sloppy and immature, making even the most expensive, stylish clothes look like something you picked up from the Lost and Found. At worst, you look like a kid trying to play dress-up in his daddy’s clothes.
PLEASE stop doing this.
Here’s what you need to know:
A shirt’s shoulder seam should sit at your shoulder joint. If it goes any further, it’s too big. Cuffs on a dress shirt should not reach past your wrist.
A dress shirt’s collar should be loose enough so that you can slip two fingers into the neck without effort.
Blazers, jackets, and sports coats should also have shoulder seams that sit at the shoulder joint. The sleeves should stop around 3/4 of an inch from the back of your hand, allowing just a little cuff to show.
Pants are meant to sit at your natural waist, approximately three finger-widths below your navel. If your pants sag below your waist without a belt holding them up, they’re too big.
Jeans should feel snug; they’ll loosen up as you wear them, so you want a pair that fits slightly tighter in the waist, thighs and seat than you’re used to.
The bottom of your pants leg should sit just at your shoes. Some dress pants will have what is known as a “break”, where the pants crease into a natural fold from resting on the top of the shoes. A “medium” break is traditional – a shallow crease with the back of the pants coming down to midway between the top of the back of the shoe and the sole. A full break is more daring as it creates a very deep crease and brings the back of the pants leg to just above the sole of the shoe. No break is considered to be more retro – think Mad Men – and is often a feature of tailored Italian suits. Jeans should have a very slight break. No pants should have more than one crease; if they do, they are too large.
If you’re the sort of person who has a hard time finding clothes that fit, then a tailor is absolutely your best friend. A skilled tailor can make clothes look absolutely amazing on you. This is why so many celebrities look like a million bucks even when they’ve thrown whatever shit they have to go to the grocery store: they have everything tailored, including t-shirts and jeans. Find clothes that fit over your widest, hardest-to-size feature2 and have the rest adjusted to fit. It costs less than you’d think; just factor the price of tailoring into the cost of the clothing.
The simple act of switching to clothes that fit you properly will completely transform your look and sillouette with minimal effort from you.
Step 4: Straighten Up
This is another simple tip that so many men seem to miss: sit up straight young man!
We’ve become a desk-bound, sedentary society and we’ve been paying the price for it ever since; we hunch over our desks and computers like monks illuminating manuscripts in drafty monasteries and it is absolutely ruining our backs. Good posture can make a night-and-day difference in your appearance. Straightening out your posture will leave you looking taller, stronger and more confident… and you’ll feel infinitely better too.
No jokes here. You’d be amazed at how many back problems result from poor posture.
Look in the mirror, then turn to your side. Look at where your head and chin fall in relation to your chest and shoulders; you want a straight line from the crown of your head to your spine. Your ears, shoulders, arms, knees, and feet should all form a straight line, not hunching forward with a curved back and spine. It helps to imagine a string attached to the top of your head, directly above where your spine meets your skull, pulling you slightly upward. Use that imaginary string to lift yourself up, letting your arms dangle loosely from your side and leaving your knees slightly bent; you want a relaxed, at ease look, not military precision.
While you’re straightening up your back, look at how you’re holding your shoulders. You want to pull your shoulders back so that you have a straight line from the junction of your neck and shoulder to your deltoid; this is where you want to position your shoulders when you’re standing naturally. Years of slouching and computer use will have trained your shoulders to slope forward, so it will take a lot of concentration and practice to make this natural.
Your feet should be shoulder-width apart, with your weight evenly distributed and your toes pointing straight forward or at a slight outward angle.
Learning to adopt proper posture will help lengthen your spine, which will help you stand a little taller. A straight spine and your shoulders held back will also help you project confidence; when you hunch in on yourself, you’re tacitly telling the world that you’re afraid to take up space and you’re curling into a defensive position. Confident people stand up straight and aren’t afraid to take up space; having your arms dangle at your side will make you seem more at ease and add a swagger to your walk.
Incidentally, this is one more area where yoga is absolutely invaluable. Practicing yoga twice a week will make adopting good posture a habit and help build up the muscles you need to maintain it.
Step Five: Clean Up Your Diet
The food we eat is killing us.
We as Westerners eat too much fat, too much high-fructose corn syrup, far too much salt, and entirely too much caffeine… and we’re paying the price for it. The health cost is obvious – plenty of ink has been spilled about the obesity epidemic in this country – but it also is making you less attractive.
Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t about weight; this is about the way food affects the way you look and feel. You are literally what you eat and shitty food is going to make you look like shit – it screws up your skin, your hair and body… not to mention the effects of all that salt and processed food on your internal organs and circulatory system.
I’m not going to advocate any particular diet because, frankly, diets are like putting a bandage over an arterial hemorrhage. They’re a stop-gap solution at best and never last in the long term. Proper health comes from proper nutrition and that means a total lifestyle change, not just “going paleo” to fit into a new pair of jeans.
Now I’ll be the first to tell you: this is an area I struggle with. My addiction to Diet Dr Pepper is legendary and I will eat damn near anything if you deep fat fry it. But even minor changes can produce major results. Start simple and small and build up; trying to go cold-turkey is only going to ruin your efforts and sabotage any progress you make.
Here’s what you want to do:
Drink more water. Just upping your water intake will do amazing things for your skin. Cut out sodas entirely if at all possible, as well as most fruit juices; these are liquid calories, period. If you have to have fruit juice try to stick to freshly squeezed and organic; your morning Tropicana has more chemicals and added sugar than you realize. Diet sodas, by the way, aren’t any better. Aspertame is known to actually make you consume more calories; your body is convinced that it should be getting more calories and tries to make up the difference by tricking you into eating more elsewhere. Coffee and tea are… ok; odds are that you need to cut back on the caffeine as well so try to keep them to a minimum and as little milk and sugar as you can get away with.
Eat more fruits and vegetables. You almost certainly aren’t eating enough; however much you’re eating, you need to increase it. This is where most of your nutrition is going to come from, not to mention fiber that’s going to solve many of your (ahem) gastric problems. Wherever possible eat it fresh and organic – health claims aside (many of which are scientifically dubious at best) organic produce just tastes better. It’s night-and-day different.
If you’re like me, you just recoiled like a vampire from a cross.
Cut the hidden calories: fatty sauces, salad dressings and spreads. All of these are sources of bad fats that you often overlook when you’re considering trying to eat better. It doesn’t help to eat more broccoli if you’re going to drown it in ranch dressing first.
Stick to lean protein: chicken, lean cuts of beef, turkey, fish.
Avoid simple carbs – potatoes, white bread, sugar, white rice. Yes, you need carbs for energy, but these turn to glucose and from there to fat with absolutely no nutritional value to justify eating them. Complex carbs – sprouted grain breads, brown rice, sweet potatoes, green leafy veggies, legumes, apples, pears, mangos – have nutrients and fiber that offset the bump to your glucose levels and they’re far better for you.
Cut out processed foods entirely. If your dinner involves ingredients you can’t pronounce, never mind find on its own at the grocery store, you’re eating crap that should never be put in your body. This includes high-fructose corn syrup: that shit is in everything.
A healthier diet will make you feel like a new man – you’ll have more energy, you’ll feel more positive, and your immune system will be boosted… and you’ll look better too.
The tricky secret of attraction is that it doesn’t take very much to make it happen. A couple of minor changes have a major impact that can turn your dating life around.
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