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If you're just starting out on the journey to change your health for the better – whether by shedding excess fat, gaining muscle or both – or have already begun but not found any success, the sheer volume of information out there on what to do can be staggering and contradictory. This is particularly frustrating when you don't have any good way to sort out the good advice from the bad. We decided to help take some of that confusion away by condensing our tested and proven methods into one easy to digest guide.
This is a guide to our philosophy for attaining epic health and fitness. Everyone should be healthy and fit, and everyone can do it.
Fat loss is 80% diet, 20% exercise.
Which is why 80% of this article is about what you should focus on eating, and how you should eat it. Only a small portion is devoted to exercise. The how you should eat part of the guide is half our philosophy on what a healthy diet is followed by our interpretation of Leangains, a method of body recomposition we've found incredibly useful.
Who this guide is for: This guide is for beginners. This guide is for all the average people out there who want to be healthy and look good naked. This is for those who have tried so hard to get healthy and in the shape they want but have not found any success yet and are frustrated. This is for people who want to get to and maintain a healthy weight and reasonable level of fitness that will keep them healthy and enable them to do pretty much whatever they want.
This is a guide to the foundations of a healthy diet and how to successfully attain a healthy weight while getting stronger. Yes, having lean strong muscles is a basic part of being healthy and everyone should have a basic level of strength. Although we do provide a little bit of extra information for those looking to get larger muscles for aesthetic purposes as well.
We know this is is a lot of information, but we have tried to present it in a way that is simple, easy to understand and easy to follow so anyone can do it.
Who this guide is NOT for: If you are a professional athlete, this obviously is not for you – you'll have needs and requirements well out of the scope of this article. If you generally don't care about your health, looking good naked or being able to maintain physical activity this is also not for you.
We highly suggest you give this a read and if you are willing to try it, spend a little time doing the prep (figuring out what and how much to eat, making a grocery list, etc.) and then sticking to it for at least a month but ideally two. After the end of your first successful month, go over again and assess your progress and adjust as necessary. Remember that fat loss takes time, and health is a lifelong commitment. Starting out with small goals will help you get the ball rolling. Also, if something isn't clear or you have a question or comment, please let us know below (or send us an email.)
Table of Contents:
- Part I. What To Eat
- Part II. How to Eat For Your Goals
- An Introduction to Intermittent Fasting
- Meal Composition: Macro-Math
- Training
- Final Notes on Diet & Training
- Part III. How To Succeed
- Part IV: Go Forth and Succeed!
Part I. What To Eat
Food should make you more healthy, not less. Sure, you can get lean eating twinkies all day – people have done this before – but what's the point of attaining your ideal look if you're risking a heart attack any day?
While the calories-in-calories-out philosophy works fairly well, it cannot account for health – things such as hormone balance, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. Food is for fuel – a car has a set amount that it needs in order to get from point A to point B. If it doesn't have enough, it will burn up its energy and die part way. If it has too much, it stores the excess for the future.
The human body is similar, we burn up both what we eat and the stored fat on our bodies to have the energy to do our daily activities – and if we eat too much that excess will be stored away for later. However, whether or not you put in enough is just as important as the type of fuel you use. If you put the wrong kind of fuel in your engine it'll have issues and break down eventually – the same goes for our bodies. Attaining health, looking good naked and being able to perform your favorite activities don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Another way to look at it is with money. If you have an excess then we tend to store it for use later. If you don't have enough money, you'll always be stressed out, struggling every day and generally miserable. Similarly, if we eat more calories than we need, it gets stored as fat. If we don't eat enough, we'll use up all that fat we have stored for energy.
How you spend your money can have a big effect on your happiness – if you first pay your bills and use the leftover for things you enjoy or like, you'll be a debt-free happy person. If you spend too much on things you like and not enough to pay your bills, eventually you'll wind up in a tough financial spot (and if you combine this with not having enough to begin with, then you are really in trouble!) If you spend your caloric budget on junk food, while you'll be happy that happiness will soon be overshadowed by health problems. Having a treat once in a while certainly won't hurt you – but it needs to not be the majority of your calories. I could make a connection between investing and building strength but I'll spare you that one.
Eat Real Food
The basis of a healthy diet is simple – eat real food. Base the majority of your diet on quality, real, unprocessed foods like meats, vegetables and fruits along with some healthy fats. Keep in mind that foods higher in fats like nuts and oils are also higher calorie and really easy to over eat, so make sure you keep it in check.
Choosing whole foods that are nutrient dense and that were raised, fed and grown properly gives you a strong foundation from which to start – they'll keep you healthy and satiated and support most basic activity. Using these as the basis of your diet you can then further tweak what and how much you eat to help you reach and maintain your goals. Eating quality ingredients from local, sustainable farms (think grassfed beef, sustainable farming practices, etc) is ideal but if your budget won't allow, just do your best.
Also, eat more vegetables. Seriously. The majority of people don't eat enough vegetables.
Now, you may have noticed that we left a lot of foods out – like processed foods, grains, legumes and dairy. In the case of grains, legumes and dairy we leave them out because they aren't universally tolerable like lettuce and chicken are. Everyone is different – from metabolisms, preferences to evolution – there is no single perfect diet. Since some may have food intolerances we obviously aren't going to tell those people to eat food they can't handle.
If you suspect you may have a food intolerance or are just curious, at some point try going without a particular food for at least 30 days and then adding it back in (one at a time if you do multiple) about a week apart and seeing how you feel, along with the necessary tests from your doctor. If there don't seem to be any negative effects like irritable gut, low energy, acne, etc. then keep on eating. If you do notice negative effects though simply limit your intake to whatever you are comfortable with.
Another big reason why we suggest people leave these things out is because we've seen too many who base their diets on bread, pasta, pizza, processed meats and cheeses while failing to know how to make healthy, vegetable-filled meals. Grains, dairy and legumes can be a part of a healthy diet, but they shouldn't be the basis of your diet if you are trying to lose fat. Additionally, we give preference to lean proteins as they are have a high satiety level and we love vegetables as they are nutrient dense while not being calorie-dense, so you can eat a lot and by the end of the day feel full and well-fed. Oats, rice, beans and the like are tasty, but try to give yourself a bit more variety.
Know how food affects you. As I keep saying, we all have different needs and reactions to various foods, so how your diet is actually composed (how many fats, sugars, carbs, dairy, etc.) really needs to be based upon how they make you feel. For example, I absolutely love dairy-based foods like the sauces in many Indian foods, but it makes me feel bloated and horrible and I get acne – therefore I only eat it once in a while but I'm fully aware how I'll feel later.
The same is true if you are trying to gain or lose weight – grains like bread and pasta, for example, just don't fill me. They make me feel ravenously hungry and I wind up eating a lot of calories on that day. If I wanted to lose fat, eating this way every day probably isn't a good idea. If I wanted to gain, then it would be a great idea. I've also known people who have the complete opposite reaction – bread and pasta fill them up completely and they don't eat much all day. Again, we are all different so experiment.
Processed foods are a separate dirty little beast all of their own. They're tasty, addictive and they are designed to be that way. Processed foods are not only unhealthy because of their ridiculously high caloric content and lack of nutritional content, but also because they've been designed by scientists who know how to make these processed foods addictive and how to trick your brain into thinking it's not full and wanting more. They're empty calories, plain and simple, and should be controlled.
Don't drink your calories either. Things like sodas, shakes and smoothies make it really easy to consume excessive calories and de-rail your progress. Unless you're trying to bulk or are having a protein shake to hit your macro-nutrient targets, just don't do it. Choose foods that are nutrient-dense and that have high satiety factors (like steak or chicken) to stay full and happy. If you're thirsty, drink water or unsweetened iced tea.
We're not saying you need to eat perfect 100% of the time. As long as you eat healthy 80-90% of the time, the little bit of bad food that you eat won't make a difference to your overall health. Experiment to find a sustainable balance that you are happy with.
Finally, remember that these are just some loose rules – there's no single perfect diet for everyone. This will get you started and it is up to you to tailor it to your preferences, needs and lifestyle.
Thou Shall Not Demonize any Food or Macro-Nutrient
Say it with me: Fat is not evil. Carbohydrates are not evil. No food is evil. Except durian.
I kid, I kid.
Seriously though, you'll hear us say this again and again: everyone is different. Some people are able to tolerate foods that others aren't able to. Some people are able to eat more than others. Eating fat won't make you fat, and eating carbohydrates won't make you fat either. Eating too much of anything while also being inactive makes you fat and unhealthy. The goal here is to craft a diet that is tailored to your preferences and goals, one that is based primarily on healthy foods while also allowing the occasional treat. This is sensible, not extreme.
Your body needs fat. Your body also needs carbohydrates and protein. The key is eating the right amount for you and focusing first on getting them from good sources. Especially if losing fat is your goal, try to get your carbohydrates from primarily vegetables. It'll be hard because many require that you eat a high volume – but this is wonderful because you're guaranteed to feel full afterward. Don't be afraid of fats either – butter, olive oil and fatty meats are delicious and can be beneficial in the right amounts.
Hormones also play an important part of fat loss and overall health, so by eating nutritious food, exercising and working to keep your stress down you are setting yourself up for success. Don't forget to treat yourself once in a while.
Stress can be a huge problem when dieting – it not only makes you miserable but can negatively effect your waistline and health, so please try to avoid it however works best for you. If you have a day where you slip – don't worry about it. Accept it and move on. Don't let a bad day derail you from success.
Most importantly of all…
Eat For Your Goals
This is just plain good sense. If you want to lose weight eating a lot of high-calorie foods will have the opposite effect. If you want to gain strength, then eating everything but protein is going to slow you down.
Part II. How to Eat For Your Goals
Not everyone can or should eat the same way as anyone else, however there are some basic principles that can serve as great starting points to get you on the right track to losing fat, looking good naked, getting stronger or whatever your goal may be.
Our favorite method, and the one that we've personally had great success with, is Leangains. Leangains, the brainchild of Martin Berkhan, is made up of three main components: intermittent fasting, a diet protocol and training. The diet is tweaked to match and support training so you can get leaner, maintain or even bulk, while burning off any excess fat. It works by keeping protein high on all days, and cycling higher carb/higher fat days based upon whether it's a training or rest day. Not only is Leangains simple and effective, but it's also easily tailor-able for varying goals.
An Introduction to Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting (IF) is a method of alternating periods of being in a fasted-state, and a fed-state. You could also call it Intermittent Feeding if you find that a more friendly term.
There are many IF protocols, the most famous likely being Brad Pilon's Eat STOP Eat, all with varying fasting/non-fasting schedules. This doesn't need to be complicated – Leangains is essentially just skipping breakfast.
The Leangains IF protocol is 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of feeding. During the fasting period, consume no calories or food. Coffee, tea and obviously water are fine, but no soda and nothing to eat. If you really must, a small spoon of milk in your coffee or a small amount of sugar free gum shouldn't mess up your progress. During the feeding period, eat at whatever frequency you like (2-3 meals is most common.)
Your Schedule: 16/8
Pick an 8-hour window during the day of when you want to eat and don't eat outside of that. How you set up your fasting schedule will ultimately be up to you and your lifestyle. For example, if you like to go out to eat on Friday nights with your friends you'd be better off skipping breakfast in order to allow your feeding window to be open later. Like with what you eat, don't obsess over being perfect about your fasting schedule. As long as you stick to it 80-90% of the time, you're on track.
A small note for women: Martin has noted that women tend to do better on a 14 hour fast than they do a 16 hour fast, so if you're female feel free to play around with your fasting time.
An example: For us, we like to eat out and are more willing to skip breakfast than we are dinner, so our feeding window is usually around noon-8:00 p.m. Yes, you can sleep during your fasting phase (convenience FTW!)
Why fast in the First Place?
Skipping a meal may sound odd but there are real benefits to doing this as opposed to only counting calories. We'll devote a full post to the finer points of fasting and what it does, how and why it's something you should consider doing and its many benefits beyond aiding fat loss. But for the purposes of this guide there are two big things fasting does that helps burn fat:
Hunger Regulation: Fasting and restricting your eating hours causes the hunger hormone Ghrelin to get used to the new schedule and reduces hunger and cravings throughout the day. This is particularly beneficial for those looking to lose fat since hunger and cravings can sabotage progress. Don't confuse this with starving – you'll still eat the same amount of calories in a day, just in a more controlled time frame.
Greater Time Spent Burning Fat: There are two things your body uses for energy; fat and glycogen. After a meal your body switches to using its glycogen stores from the carbohydrates you've eaten for energy. Gradually, your body will switch from glycogen to body fat for energy as the glycogen isn't being replenished. So, by increasing the time you spend not eating you'll be spending more time burning up that fat.
Meal Composition: Macro-Math
The second main portion of the Leangains method is the rules about how your diet is composed – or macro-nutrient portions. On Leangains you'll be doing a workout (some type of resistance work, ideally barbell but bodyweight or dumbbell workouts are fine too) three days a week, so on those three days you'll eat a higher number of calories than on your four rest days. Protein will be high throughout the week but on training days you'll consume higher carbohydrates and less fat, while on rest days you'll eat lower carb but higher fat.
Now, that's just the basics of it. Martin gives some more specifics on the diet itself but not much – although you can hire him to guide you directly (which, if you can afford it and can get a hold of him, is almost assuredly worth it.) You could stop there but it's extremely useful to go through the various numbers you'll be targeting in your diet. Based upon pouring over pages of information on the topic along with our own experience following Leangains, we've put together this guide to help you figure out your target calories and macros.
Now we'll have to break out some formulas to help you figure out your ideal starting point. First off we'll need to get an estimation of your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), then adjust for activity, then finally figure out target intake based upon your goals.
We highly suggest you go through and do this yourself, for the sake of having more control and insight into how things work. However, if this proves to be a barrier to entry, open up 1percentedge.com/ifcalc in a new tab and go through both the rest of this and it together. Most calculators are really terrible, but this one is relatively accurate and easy to use.
Estimate Your BMR
First we figure out your BMR since that is how many calories you burn just being alive. The best way to have this tested is to go to a facility and run tests, but that can be expensive so we use a formula to get a rough estimate of your BMR.
Mifflin St. Jeor BMR Equation
Men: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age in years) + 5
Women: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age in years) – 161
Harris-Benedict BMR Equation
Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years)
Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in years)
If you know roughly your body fat percentage then the Katch-McArdle BMR formula would work better, since the above two don't take into account body fat % which, if you are on one of the two extremes, can cause problems in calculating.
Katch-McArdle BMR Equation
BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)
Curious to know more about how BMR equations work? Nerd out on the Wikipedia article for BMR estimation formulas – it's really interesting if you are into that sort of thing.
Estimate Your TDEE
Secondly, we need to adjust the calories you found with the BMR estimation to reflect activity levels. There's a lot that can go wrong in this element, usually via activity multipliers being terrible setting calories too high. Our suggestion is to guess a little low and if you find you are low on energy then you can recalculate with a higher activity multiplier. So, use caution and adjust as necessary. Pick a conservative activity multiplier to find your estimated Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
To get you started, here's a very general list of multipliers:
- Sedentary = BMR x 1.2
- Exercise 3x/week = BMR x 1.375
- Exercise 4x/week = BMR x 1.4187
- Exercise 5x/week = BMR x 1.4625
- Exercise 6x/week = BMR x 1.55
- Exercise Every Day = BMR x 1.6375
- Exercise Twice Daily or Intense Daily Exercise = BMR x 1.725
Losing Fat, Getting Stronger or Bulking Up: How to Match Your Calories With Your Goals
Third on the list is to match your eating with your goals. How you set up your calories and macros are highly dependent upon your goals. By now you should know how many calories you burn sitting around, along with your estimated TDEE. If you stick to eating just this number of calories per day, your weight should stay about the same. But if you're still reading this, I'm willing to bet staying the same isn't what you want to do. This is going to require a bit more math, but not much.
Now you need to choose between one of three main categories: Cutting, Recomposition or Bulking. These can certainly be further broken up, but for simplicity/beginner's sake we're going to just focus on these three.
Cutting: 90% of people will want to cut first. If you are somewhere from significant excess body fat to I-can-see-faint-ab-lines you will want to start with a cut. Keeping protein high while on the cut will ensure that you maintain (and often, gain) muscle while getting rid of the excess fat. You'll want to maintain/gain as this will give you not only a significant hormonal advantage but having lean, strong muscles will keep you healthier overall (yes, ladies, you'll get stronger. But don't worry, you won't become a body builder unless you set out to become one.)
To achieve a cut, you'll need your calories overall for the week to be less than your maintenance calories. To achieve this you'll want to consume between +10% to -10% calories on your workout days and between -20% to -35% on a rest day. If your maintenance is 2,000 kCalories per day then you are looking at 1,800-2,200 kCal on workout days and 1,600-1,300 on your rest days. Obviously, the lower you go the faster you'll cut, but be careful doing this as going too low can damage your metabolism and cause unnecessary stress on your body, which will make you hold/gain fat, not lose. This is why it's important to focus first on consuming nutrient-dense foods that have a high level of satiety since they will keep you feeling full longer.
If you are very overweight, as long as you keep your protein high on both days you can get away with eating at a deficit on both days, however leaner people will want to eat at least at maintenance on a workout day. If you feel tired on your workout days, you're probably eating too little on your rest days and you'll have to up your rest day calories a bit (make sure you are eating enough fats too.) Cutting within these ranges will ensure that you are strong and getting enough food. Do not cut more than -35%
Recomposition: If you can just see your abs but want to get into the really low body fat percent ranges, and to add strength and/or bulk while doing it, you'll want to do a recomposition.
For the standard Martin-approved recomposition, go for +20%kCal on a workout day and -20%kCal on rest days. If your maintenance is 2,000 kCal/day then this would be 2,400 kCal you'd need to eat on a workout day and 1,600 kCal you can eat on a rest day.
Bulking: If you are lean and looking to add mass (aka make your muscles bigger) then you'd want to bulk. If you aren't already lean, do a cut or recomposition for a bit to get down to visible abs first. Once you're there, come back here.
There? Okay, to build muscle mass you need to combine a proper diet and training. For the purposes of this article, we'll only focus on diet. Building muscle requires calories so on days that you exercise you will want to eat in excess up to 40%. On rest days, you'll want to shoot for a -10% deficit, or just enough under to burn off any excess fat you may have gained from eating over on training days.
If you eat more carbohydrates than you use to replace your depleted glycogen, your body will store those excess carbs as fat. The key, as with the other two, will be to track your progress consistently and if necessary tweak your macros and percent over/under.
For anyone familiar with the bodybuilder/bulking type diet, you'll notice that this is different from the common approach of cycling between "eat ALL THE THINGS!" for a season and then cutting later. Going about adding mass Leangains-style will go slower, undoubtedly, BUT you will look great and keep your visible muscle the entire time.
Protein, Carbs and Fat: Your Macro Nutrient Targets
Next and fourth, is to figure out your macro-nutrient targets. Now we get to figure out how much protein, carbohydrates and fats you'll be shooting for every day. You may have seen this before, such as in the Zone diet's "magic" 40/30/30 split. The point is not to get too obsessive and to try out a few different splits to figure out what you do best at. Need I say it again – everyone is different.
These numbers will change as your body changes so it is good to take some time every 2-4 weeks to reassess where you are and adjust as necessary.
Protein: Protein needs to be kept high on both days not just for satiety but also to ensure that you don't lose any muscle. All too commonly do people allow this to slip and it not only makes them weaker, but it makes fat loss much harder To maintain, you'll need to have around 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) or, in metric, around 2.2-3.3 grams of protein per kg of lean body mass.
Depending upon personal preference, how significant of a cut you're going for and how much you need to feel full you can eat within this range but don't go any lower so as to preserve your muscle. As far as your lean body mass goes – there are very few ways to accurately (much less afford-ably) measure your body fat percentage, so just take a guess and then subtract your estimated body fat percent from your total weight. To measure your body fat percent, there are ways to visually guess, scales that measure via electrical impedance, calipers and all sorts of other tools. Pick the one that you are able to do and use that, while keeping in mind that it's not 100% accurate but that being perfect doesn't really matter either.
Fats: Here's where we get a bit more freedom – how much fats and carbs you eat will largely depend upon your lifestyle. As mentioned above, you'll want to have your fats lower on a workout day and higher on a rest day. Low, most of the time, will be somewhere between 20-50 grams of fat. For your higher days, you can go up to double. Try it out for a while and adjust as necessary. If you are very active, doing double might restrict your carbs too much and you'll want to lower it. However, for people who literally will only workout on the three workout days, double should be just fine (but, again, adjust as you feel necessary for satiety and performance.)
If ratios are more your thing, try going for somewhere around a 25/75-75/25 fat/carb split (doesn't have to be exact) on workout and rest days respectively. Or, you can go 25/75 on a workout day and 50/50 on a rest day. Try it out for a few weeks then tweak as necessary.
Finally, please don't be fat-phobic. Don't be carb-phobic either, for that matter. Both macro-nutrients are necessary for hormonal regulation and for performance. Just make sure you are getting your fats primarily from good sources – olive oil, avocados, coconut oil, grassfed butter, steak, fish, etc. and you'll be full, healthy and happy.
Carbohydrates: Again, you have a lot of room to play with how many carbohydrates you get. The more active you are, the more carbohydrates you should be getting. To begin, just fill up however many calories you have left with them and adjust after a few weeks if/as necessary.
To figure out how much this really means, you'll have to figure out how much calories have been used up already by protein and fats, then how much the rest of those calories are in carbs. A single gram of protein is roughly 4 kCal, 1 gram of fat is roughly 9 kCal, and 1 gram of carbs is roughly 4 kCal.
I know this was a lot of information all at once, so I'll give you two examples to illustrate.
Macro Calculation Examples
Takeshi is at 190lbs and 18% body fat – so not really overweight but not super lean either – and burns 2,300 kCal. He chooses to recomp at +20/-20%. So his target calories are 2,760 on a workout day and 1,840 on a rest day.
His target protein, at 1.5/lb lbm, would be 234g/day. He goes easy and does 30g fat on a workout day and 60g fat on a rest day. After calculating the calories used up by protein and fats, then subtracting that number from his overall daily caloric allowance, he gets 1,553 calories he can use for carbs on a workout day and 363 calories he can spend on carbs on a rest day, or 388g and 90g carbs.
Workout Day: 2,760 kCal = 234g protein, 30g fat and 388g carbs
Rest Day: 1,840 kCal = 234g protein, 60g fat and 90g carbs
All he has to do next is pick foods that fit his macros, plan his workouts, and get to it.
Next we have Mary, a 5'7" 160lb girl at around 32% body fat – in other words she's average height and has a spare tire around her belly. She needs to cut, first and foremost. We find from the equation that her BMR is around 1,867, and since she has a desk job her estimated TDEE is around 2,000. She wants to cut relatively quickly so she opts for a -35%/0% range: 1,300 kCal on a rest day and 2,000 kCal on a workout day.
She opts for a 1.5x lbm protein target as well, which comes out to around 165g of protein per day. She also takes the easy route of 30/60 grams of fat on workout and rest days respectively. This leaves her with 266 grams of carbs on a workout day and 24 grams on a rest day.
Workout Day: 2,000 kCal = 165g protein, 30g fat, 266g carbs
Rest Day: 1,300 kCal = 165g protein, 60g fat, 24g carbs
Making a Meal Plan
Like with Takeshi, all she has to do now is prepare her kitchen and fill it with foods that fit her macros. Within the Leangains community lots of people love to use the phrase "if it fits your macros" (IIFYM) meaning that you can eat anything you like and still drop the body fat and build strength. This is completely true, however we caution against doing this too much – base the bulk of your meals on foods that will fill you and know that having something "bad" once in a while won't hurt you so long as you can keep it within your macros, and if you know that you won't still be hungry afterward.
To help you make your meal plan, play around on Swole.me and NutritionData.com in addition to finding a calorie/nutrition tracker that you like most. We like Daily Burn Tracker and MyFitnessPal personally. Play around adding in various different foods and see what kinds of combinations work for you. Keep your food simple for the first few weeks to a month to make tracking as easy as possible until you've gotten the hang of it.
Exercise is an important part of health and fat loss which, like your diet, will depend on your goals. Everyone should at least do some kind of resistance training. Both men and women should make lifting heavy things a part of their workout routine as the health benefits of doing so are numerous and ridiculously worth it. This is another reason why we like Leangains – a fundamental part of it is lifting heavy things 3 times a week, for no more than one hour per session.
Exactly how much and what kind of exercise you get depends on your goals and lifestyle, but at the very minimum you can do 3 sessions a week of lifting heavy things – they don't even need to be an hour each. An easy walk on your rest days, preferably before your first meal, would greatly benefit you from a hormonal advantage but is not necessary. Just remember that the more active you are the more calories you'll need to intake to sustain them.
For the lifting heavy things requirement – how you go about it depends on what equipment available to you such as barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, or your own body weight. There are lots of programs out there that are excellent, but each are for different sets of goals.
Focus First On Compound Exercises
The key feature of your workouts will be compound movements – or exercises that utilize multiple muscle groups to complete. Compound exercises can be though of as working the essential muscles to make you stronger and more capable. They're also sometimes referred to as the "functional exercises" since they work what you need to do very basic movements: climbing, picking up things, moving things, carrying things, so on and so forth.
So, base your workouts on compound movements along with accessory exercises as needed/desired. If barbells are available to you do squats, bench presses, overhead presses, rows and deadlifts. If you can only do bodyweight exercises then do squats, push ups, dips, pull-ups (inverted rows if you cannot do pull-ups yet) and glute-ham raises. In the beginning you might do most of these exercises on the same day, but as you get stronger and the weights get heavier you will want to have an A/B routine where you switch between exercises each session.
Your resistance workout should take anywhere from 30-60 minutes, and you should only do it three times a week. That's 1.5-3 hours per week, you can find that much time to devote to making yourself stronger, better and more awesome. Experiment and find a routine you enjoy.
Pick The Right Program
If you can do barbell workouts, we highly recommend getting the book Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe as he is the master on form and technique. There's also a Starting Strength Wiki which has videos and breakdowns of the program and exercises.
Pavel Tsatsouline is a big proponent of using kettlebells to get a full body workout and attain strong, lean muscles. If kettlebells are your thing we suggest checking out his book Enter The Kettlebell.
Bodyweight exercises are by far the most accessible – everyone has a body they can work with! Additionally, everyone should know some basic bodyweight exercises so that they can stay fit while traveling and not have to suffer the horrors that are hotel workout rooms. Some excellent bodyweight programs to get you started are You Are Your Own Gym by Mark Lauren, Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade, and The Naked Warrior by Pavel Tsatsouline. Additionally, we've posted several great workouts here as well.
Now, you may have noticed that we didn't separate these workouts by gender – this is because both genders should do compound movements! We've outline before why women should lift weights too, so we won't get into that here. Just know that lifting gives both men and women metabolic and hormonal boosts, increases various health factors and builds the muscles many of us find oh-so-attractive. Wink, wink.
Final Notes on Diet & Training
Again, we want to reiterate that this is a loose guide for beginners. This is your starting point.
For the first few months, keep everything as simple as possible. Stock up your kitchen with good food and buy a digital food scale (they are $15-$20 on Amazon.) Track your foods meticulously for the first month or so; by the end of the month you will be a pro at guesstimating and will be able to do so even when eating out.
Most importantly, don't over-think this. This is not a perfect science and there are many variables here, so focus on trying to stick to it as much as you can, and don't worry about the little things.
Again, here are your priorities:
- Eat only within an 8-hour window every day, try to keep it consistent.
- Resistance training at least 3 times a week.
- Eat more on workout days, less on non-workout days.
- Keep your protein consumption high every day.
- On a workout day, eat more carbs and keep your fat intake low.
- On a rest day, eat less carbs and more fats.
- Cardio is generally unnecessary, but a walk before you break your fast on rest days is beneficial.
- If you are very active and want to/must do cardio, make sure to up your food intake so your deficit is not too low.
Part III. How To Succeed
Sticking to any diet and exercise plan can be a challenge, which is why we want to help you succeed. The best way to stick to a plan is to track smart, remove barriers and to have ambitious but realistic goals.
Track Smart
How to Measure Progress the Smart Way
First of all, let's stop saying "lose weight" because what you really want to do is lose fat, right? You can lose weight by dropping muscle and/or fat, and losing muscle can cause serious problems so you shouldn't want to do that. If you stick to this plan, you will likely get stronger and thus will build some amount of muscle. Furthermore, your weight can fluctuate wildly day-to-day and even throughout the day depending on what you've eaten. Therefore, stop worrying about the number on the scale.
There is no perfect way to track your fat loss and muscle gain, but there are two ways you can easily do at home that should help immensely – the best part is that you likely won't need to buy anything!
To track your progress, pick a day and time each week to take some pictures of yourself and measure various points on your body. Measure around the same place on your biceps, chest, waist, hips and thighs. Use these numbers to track total fat loss and to ensure that your muscles either stay the same or get larger (depending on your goals.)
What Gets Measured, Gets Managed
Tracking your diet and workouts can be a huge pain in the butt, which is why we like to use apps to our advantage. The best apps are not only easy to use but are accessible everywhere – from smartphones to the Internet. Our favorite apps for logging food are Daily Burn Tracker and MyFitnessPal, but experiment to find the one that you find easiest to use. Once you start using it, log every single thing that goes in your mouth with the one possible exception being things like green vegetables, which pretty much have no calories. Apps like MyFitnessPal also track your measurements for you, so it's a handy all-in-one app. One word of caution: these apps tend to ridiculously over-estimate calories burned through exercise so don't track them there. Instead, use…
Fitocracy! Logging your workouts is beneficial not only to track progress, but also the fact that seeing this progress can help keep you motivated to continue. Fitocracy is our favorite app to log workouts as it has a fun gaming element to it (get ALL the achievements!) but also has a supportive community that has built up around it. There is also a handy timeline overview option to see how far you've come on your various exercises. Log your workouts, stay motived, learn from others and eventually help others learn.
Remove Barriers
Remove barriers to make it easier to stick to your plan and achieve your goals. A lot of this will be individual as barriers can vary widely between different lifestyles. Some of the most common barriers are not having a meal plan, not having a ready kitchen, and a lack of planning ahead when dining out.
Have a Meal Plan
Spend some time playing around on your diet tracker or, as we mentioned above, on websites like Swole.me. Taking half an hour to figure out how much chicken, potatoes, rice, oats, beef and fish it takes to hit your macros seems small in comparison to how much you have to gain by doing it and being able to stick to the plan.
Prepare Your Kitchen
You can prep your kitchen a couple of ways – first by filling it with the foods determined by your meal plan but also by having plenty of vegetables like lettuce and carrots to have on hand in case you get hungry but are at your limit on calories. Having these things on hand not only helps you eat more nutritiously, but also helps deal with hunger if you have trouble with it.
Make sure that the foods you choose to stock up on are limited and sustainable – or foods that you enjoy and won't mind eating a lot of. From a nutritional standpoint variety is better, however the opposite is true from an adherence standpoint. Don't give yourself too much to track, but don't make yourself miserable.
Another way you can prepare is by having a proper food scale, as noted above. Unless you have a lot of experience in working with food, being able to guess how much you are actually eating can be difficult and very inaccurate. A good food scale is only $15-$20 – if you are serious about being lean and healthy you'll find a way to get one. A good scale also has the dual benefit of being much more accurate than food scales when cooking (especially baking), however that's a chemistry lesson for another day.
Plan Ahead When Eating Out
Generally you can get by as long as you stick to the basics of the diet – if you worked out that day pick a lean meat with a carbohydrate and vegetables. If a rest day, pick a fattier cut with vegetables and skip the carbs. Use your best judgment and don't be afraid to politely ask your waiter or waitress questions or for substitutions.
If you know where you are going out in advance, Google the restaurant name plus "nutrition" and see if the venue has posted the nutritional information of their items (large chains are required to do this in the United States, however small restaurants are not and are less likely to have this information posted.) This takes the guesswork out and might actually surprise you as far as how high-calorie dining out can be.
Set Ambitious, But Realistic Goals
Finally, by having realistic goals you are promoting your own success and by being ambitious about those goals you are challenging yourself to work harder to achieve them. Start by picking a smart deficit, eating primarily real, whole foods and plan for long-term success.
Pick A Smart Deficit
To lose a pound of fat, the average person needs to burn around 3,500 kCal. Using the Leangains style of calorie management, you can lose anywhere from .5 to 2 pounds a week safely while keeping your sanity. Some people may not be able to handle the lower calorie restrictions to lose faster, and trying to do it makes them crazy. That's a diet that is unsustainable and bound to fail – so be realistic with yourself as far as how much you are really willing to cut.
Eat Real, Whole Foods
I'll say it as many times as I need to, choose first and foremost healthy foods and allow yourself a small amount of room for "everything else." Unhealthy foods are more often than not high calorie and not very filling. While healthier foods like chicken and sweet potato are low calorie and very filling. Most of us aren't really happy being hungry, so choose first foods that will fill you and if you can work in a treat that fits your macros and won't make you break your diet out of hunger later – go for it.
Plan For Long-Term Success
Fat loss is a slow process. Getting stronger is a slow process. Getting bigger is an even slower process. You cannot realistically expect to lose 20 pounds in a month. Remember that you are in this for the long haul – you want sustainable, lasting results. On a good plan a much more realistic and sustainable goal is around 1.5 lbs per week. Everyone's different though and it's much more important to track measurements than weight.
As I mentioned it takes around a 3,500 kCalorie deficit to burn one pound of fat. Multiply your daily TDEE (estimated total calories burned in a day) by 7 to find how much you burn in a week. Now, figure out how many calories you will consume in a week on your plan ([workout day calories x 3] + [rest day calories x 4]) then subtract it from your estimated weekly calories burned. That will be able to tell you roughly how much you'll lose in a week. Multiply that by how much you estimate you have to lose, and you should be able to figure out roughly how many weeks until you reach your goal. Mark that date down in a place you'll see it every day.
The final part of planning for long-term success is to simply stick to it, and at the end of each month assess how you did. Tweak your diet and exercise as necessary to maintain your loss until you reach your goal, then reassess your goals and either work to maintain (much easier than losing!) or progress toward some other goal.
Part IV: Go Forth and Succeed!
One last time, we'd like to reiterate that this is just the starting point. Take into consideration your goals and that everyone is different, and adjust accordingly. There's too much genetic diversity for there to be a "one-size-fits-all" diet and eating plan that works for everyone, and different goals require different approaches.
So please just consider this a starting point: page one of your journey to being epic.
Additional Resources for Over-Achievers
For the over-achiever and voracious reader, here's some additional resources for you to read up on Leangains:
- Leangains.com – The Original Leangains Program
- Examine.com/Leangains-faq/ – A Wiki for and by Leangains Fans
- RippedBody.jp – Great FAQs and Articles on Leangains
- 1percentedge.com/ifcalc – One of the better calorie and macro calculators
- Fitocracy.com – A fitness tracker and social network with a gaming element
- Starting Strength Wiki – Tips on lifting form, technique and programming based on the book, Starting Strength
Was this guide clear and useful? Feel free to comment and let us know your thoughts or ask any questions you may have for us below – don't forget to share what your goals are too!
Photo Credit: Caro Wallis


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Breast Lift Scars
Any surgery—medical or cosmetic—that requires cutting the skin is going to leave a scar. The scar's size will depend on the length of the incision that must be made, which will depend on the procedure being performed. When you have a breast lift (also called a mastopexy), you will be left with vertical scars that extend from the bottom of your areola to the inframammary fold, the area where your breast meets your chest. The good news is, both you and your surgeon can do a few things to try to minimize your breast lift scars. While you won't be able to avoid them completely, with a little effort, you may be able to reduce the severity and visibility of your scars.
Understanding Breast Lift Scars
How Breast Lift Scars are Minimized During Surgery
Usually, medically necessary surgery dictates where incisions must be made, and it's sometimes difficult to place those incisions where visibility is reduced. In addition, because medical surgery is performed to improve your health—or possibly even save your life—the surgeon's focus will be on the primary purpose of the procedure rather than the cosmetic aspects. This may mean closing the incision in one layer, or using staples, which themselves cause scars in addition to the incision. Because cosmetic surgery is elective, your surgeon usually has a little more leeway in where incisions can be made. For example, making the incision in a natural skin crease or fold can often minimize a scar's appearance. Your surgeon will also use a suturing technique that closes the wound in layers, thereby evenly distributing the tension on the tissues, and reducing the amount of pull on the overlying skin. This means the topmost layer of skin can be sutured in a straight, smooth line, further reducing the visibility of the breast lift scars. Suturing the breast tissue in layers also provides more support to counter lost elasticity, and help maintain breast lift results for a longer period of time. It's important to note that some cosmetic surgery scars will only be visible when you're undressed. This is true of breast lift scars. Because they will be located on the bottom portion of your breasts, they will most often be covered by your clothing, bra, or swimsuit. Only you, your doctor, and anyone with whom you're intimate will ever see your breast lift scars. To get an idea of the potential results (your results may differ), take a look at our breast lift before and after photos.
Have your procedure now, make payments later!
Before & After
Post Op Care
How to Further Minimize Your Breast Lift Scars
Regardless of their being hidden most of the time, you may still want to minimize your breast lift scars as much as possible to feel more comfortable with yourself. Six weeks after your mastopexy, you can begin using scar treatment products, including, but not limited to: Silicone – At TCC, we use self-adhesive silicone strips to reduce surgical scars. They are effective even for scars as old as 20 years. Cortisone – If you develop a keloid scar, cortisone injections made directly into the scar can break down the hard, fibrous tissue. This will help to flatten and soften the scar. You may need several injections, spaced four to six weeks apart, depending on how well this steroid therapy works for you. Please note that TCC does not provide cortisone injections. Hydroquinone – This is a depigmenting agent that inhibits melanin production, which can increase while the skin is healing from an incision. Left unchecked, it could make the skin around the breast lift scars darker, thereby making the scar more visible. A 4% hydroquinone cream can be especially helpful if you have a darker complexion, and may be prone to hyperpigmentation. Applying the cream to the scar on a daily basis can help reduce pigmentation irregularities that can result from scar development. After six weeks, you can also begin manual manipulation of the area. Massage – By massaging the scar, you can soften it and prevent further hardening. Using your fingers, apply firm pressure to the scar, and massage it in a circular motion a few times a day. You may do this for up to one year, if necessary. Six months after your surgery, you can pursue laser scar removal. Laser – If your breast lift scars develop into depressed scars (rather than raised or bumpy), TCC can address it with our non-ablative (non-wounding) fractional laser resurfacing treatment. Feel free to ask about this during your consultation before your breast lift surgery.
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CATEC's Culinary Class Hosts Hurricane Harvey Relief Benefit
Join us on Thursday, September 7th from 5-8 p.m. at CATEC. Our Culinary Arts class is offering a spaghetti supper to the community. All net proceeds will benefit the Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund. Dine with us, or order it to go. Cash or checks only, please.
RSVPs preferred, but walk-ins welcome. Call 434-973-4461 to RSVP.
Dinner includes spaghetti (meat or meatless), salad, dinner rolls, assorted desserts, water, coffee & tea. Prices are:
Family of 4: $20.00
Adult: $7.00
Children under 10: $4.00


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By Jonathan McNamara
The Summer heat didn't slow Downtown Phoenix Public Market down a bit this Saturday. While just across the street early morning people scrambled to get a seat at Matt's Big Breakfast, market shoppers selected fresh produce, traded crafts and oh yeah, got autographs from Top Chef cast members Richard Blais (season four) and Betty Fraser (season two).
See more Top Chef shots in our slideshow.
The two chefs were in town as part of 20-city road tour promoting the popular Bravo! cooking competition series Top Chef.
But there was more cooking for Top Chef fans than getting their books and T-shirts felt-tipped. Inside the Top Chef custom 18-wheeler, diehard fans with reserved tickets got to sit in on a cooking demonstration by the two chefs while dishing about the show.
It is unknown whether Mayor Phil Gordon and State Representative Robert Meza were ticket holders, but they two made it in to the tiny truck studio for the demonstration.
When asked if he's an avid Top Chef fan, Meza said, "Oh yeah! I was just telling my friend to get cable to watch it."
Meza and the rest of the audience watched Blais and Fraser prepare coconut shrimp served on an apple slaw. The shrimp were marinated in coconut milk, sriracha hot sauce and fruit juices for four hours, then dredged through unsweetened coconut flakes and placed on a baking sheet where they were sprinkled with a jerk seasoning. The dish was finished with a coconut rum and honey reduction which Fraser added liberal amounts of honey to.
"I'm not big on measuring," she said.
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As Blaise put another heaping tray of shrimp into an oven, he turned to the audience and asked where all their questions were. "I know of you want dirt," he said.
Someone from the back row asks how long the competition actually lasted. "We were asked to be available for 30 days," Fraser said adding that contestants were completely disconnected from any form of outside communication during the competition. "My restaurant could have burned down and I wouldn't have known about it," Fraser said. "You kind of start to slowly go nuts and it makes for great TV."
How's Blais' restaurant business since putting his skills to the test on the tele? "Up 113% from where it was before the show," he said. "People ask me how to have a successful restaurant and I tell them 'go on a television show.'"
Where did the two chefs eat while they were in town? They checked out Elements on their first night in town and looked forward to eating at Pizzeria Bianco after the final autograph session...assuming they could, you know, get in.


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Canvas Camps & Workshops – Limited Availability
Grab a friend and join us for a Canvas Camp this summer. Availability is limited and some camps are filling quickly, so register soon. Canvas Camps are an enriching alternative to the beach and will run late into the summer… through August 31st.
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22nd World Energy Congress
WhenMar 13, 2013 08:20 AM to
Mar 17, 2013 08:20 AM
This Congress will mark the 90th anniversary of the world's largest and most prestigious energy event. The Congress offers delegates, sponsors and exhibitors the best insights into the global energy sector and access to the leading global energy markets. Hosted by the World Energy Council (WEC) and the WEC Korean Member Committee, the event is being organized by the WEC Daegu 2013 Organizing Committee. Under the theme of "Securing Tomorrow's Energy Today," the 22nd World Energy Congress will welcome 5,000 government and business leaders and other delegates from more than 100 countries. The event's 22,000㎡ exhibition space provides a forum for up to 25,000 participants to learn about the latest products and opportunities in the energy sector and to serve as a platform for companies to conduct business. The 22nd World Energy Congress will provide delegates with a high-level exclusive and informative program featuring addresses by government ministers and chief executives along with experts from around the world.
More information about this event…


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A 50-year-old man has drowned while swimming off the coast of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, according to the British embassy in Cairo.
In the Egyptian capital, a British embassy spokeswoman confirmed the fatality but could give no further details on the circumstances surrounding his death.
"We can confirm the death of a British national in Egypt on 22 February. We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time," said a Foreign Office spokeswoman.
Sharm el-Sheikh is one of the most popular Red Sea holiday destinations. The resort is well known for its white sandy beaches and rich marine life.
In November last year, a British father-of-two drowned on holiday in Egypt after going missing during a scuba diving lesson.
Steve Cracknell, 46, failed to surface following a routine dive to explore a reef at the White Knight dive site, a relatively shallow canyon, with his Italian instructor off the coast of Sharm el-Sheikh.
A rescue operation failed to recover the bodies.
In December 2010, a spate of shark attacks killed one German woman and injured four other tourists, forcing the closure of Sharm el-Sheikh's beaches for several weeks.
A variety of theories were put forward to explain the attacks. By late December 2010, the most plausible theory to emerge was that the dumping of sheep carcasses in the Red Sea by a livestock transport had attracted the sharks to the shore.
More than one million Britons visited Egypt last year, despite the political violence that has rocked the country.
The biggest danger posed to tourists in the Sinai is terrorism - there have been three bomb attacks on the peninsula since 2004, with British nationals killed or injured in each.
The most recent occurred in April 2006 in the resort town of Dahab, which is less developed than Sharm el-Sheikh and popular with backpackers.


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uShaka Marine World is one of Durban's most popular tourist attractions. You can find it on the upmarket stretch of beachfront known as the Golden Mile, and when you do, you won't be disappointed.
uShaka is essentially an outdoor entertainment complex, and an impressive one at that. It lays claim to a number of grand titles such as the largest jungle gym in Africa, the highest water slide in Africa and the largest aquarium in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also home to the important South African Association for Marine Biology and its world famous Oceanographic Research Institute. These two bodies take care of uShaka's conservation concerns while the rest of the complex is devoted to adrenaline, wonder and straight-up fun.
Sea World is a section of the complex devoted to underwater interactions. The aquarium is found here as are the show pools where you can witness interactive dolphin and seal shows as well as penguin presentations. If you are interested in diving with sharks, walking on the 'sea bed', snorkelling or meeting a dolphin, this is the place to do it.
Wet 'n Wild is the home of the fresh water rides and pools, where you can choose from a gentle tunnel tube ride which meanders throughout the Sea World enclosure, to the Drop Zone, a plunging free-fall slide which is guaranteed to get the adrenaline pumping. There is a lot to do in-between too, including child-friendly options.
Alongside Sea World is the uShaka Kids World, a haven of sand-pits, jungle gyms, craft activities and shows. There are child minders on duty and a café not far so that parents can chill out knowing their kids are safe and happy.
The last two complements of uShaka Marine World are the uShaka Beach which offers the choice between sand and grass, and the Village Walk, a unique outdoor shopping area with everything from surf shops and curio stores to outdoor adventure outlets and smoothie joints.
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Luxurious Self Catering Fully Furnished Penthouse at Quayside on Timeball. Double volumed ground floor apartment on the water, the only block with direct access to the watersports clubs and beach, ... More Info
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Durban (71)
Point WaterfrontAmazing fishes are mind provoking and I just wish the construction should be completed sooner so that we may have a clear sea view - Denise Ferreira
Point Waterfront Nice place to be and it's so much peacefull and a quiet place to be, I'll be visiting the place again soon. - Lebo Mphahlele
Point Waterfrontperfect. - Siza Mazibuko
Point WaterfrontThe area is beautiful and the views are just breathtaking, but after my experience I will never go back nor suggest or promote the place after my experience. - Buhle Ngubane
Point WaterfrontBig up to Waterfront lovely place quiet and value for money - Mpumi Masondo


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Enhancing SSO
Today we're announcing the addition of two key features which make SSO with AuthRocket more powerful and versatile than ever. They work with LoginRocket, our turnkey solution for logins and signups.
Login State Tracking
Until now, every time a user arrives at a LoginRocket login page, they have to login again. LoginRocket won't silently re-login a user who still has an unexpired session. Our new login state tracking changes that.
With login state tracking, LoginRocket will remember the user's login. Each time the user arrives at the login page, LoginRocket will first check for an unexpired session. If found, the user will automatically be logged back into the app without having to login again.
This feature is enabled with a single click.
Flexible Redirects
Every Connected App within LoginRocket has a Login Handler URL, where a user is redirected after a successful login. Managing multiple destinations has required adding multiple Connected Apps, each with its own Login Handler.
This option remains available, but to it we've now added the ability to define multiple allowed redirect URIs for each Connected App. Once configured, when sending a user to the login page, include a target redirect URI and, after the login is complete or an existing session is found, the user will be redirected there instead.
This works with a single app, but is especially powerful when used with multiple apps. When paired with login state tracking, it allows your users to seamlessly jump between multiple apps without being prompted to re-login.
Redirect URIs and login state tracking are part of Enhanced SSO and available on selected plans.
A basic LoginRocket configuration doesn't require any special handling of redirects and can be accomplished with as little as 10 lines of code. Customizing your login flow only takes a few extra lines. To learn more about customizing your login flow using redirects, visit LoginRocket Redirect Handling.
To learn more about these new features and the rest of SSO, visit docs/SSO.
As always, if you have questions or need help implementing SSO, please let us know. We'd love to help.


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Charity Events
The team at Brooks endeavour to work with charity organisations on an ongoing basis in an effort to help those less fortunate. Each year we partner with a different charity and work closely with that organisation by supporting them and participating with them in their fundraising and raising awareness ventures.
We are delighted to be working closely with the Alzheimer's Society of Ireland as our partner charity for 2016.
The Alzheimer Society of Ireland works across the country in the heart of local communities providing dementia specific services and supports and advocating for the rights and needs of all people living with dementia and their carers.
We have been busy over the last 6 months getting together to make a difference with ASI and other affiliate charities.Here is an insight into of some of the events we have hosted and participated in recently;
VHI Women's Mini Marathon : June 2016 - In association with ASI
This is an annual Charity walk / run that occurs in Dublin every June Bank holiday Monday. With nearly 40,000 participants , it is the biggest single daytime charity event in Ireland and the biggest all female event of its kind in the world. It is a wonderful fun event and all the money raised goes to a number of different charities.
On June 6th we hosted a post marathon reception for our friends from Alzheimer's Society of Ireland and their particpants after the race.
A great day of fun was had by all and we look forward to getting involved again in 2017.
ASI National Tea Day : May 2016
Tea Day is a national day of celebration and fundraising that honours people affected by Alzheimer's and Dementia. Each year, thousands of generous people gather together. They drink tea, eat cake and sandwiches, take part in raffles, quizzes and games... and crucially, raise urgent funds for local Alzheimer services.
On Thursday 5th May we were delighted to host ASI's National Tea Day at Brooks.
Members of ASI, local TD's and other friends of the wonderful organisation joined us for tea, coffee and treats in out Café Lounge as awareness was being raised all around the country for ASI in various venues.
Well done to all our friends at ASI for the hard work they do on an ongoing basis.
Darkness into Light : May 2016 - In association with Pieta House
Darkness into light is the flagship fundraising and awareness event for Pieta House, it involves hundreds of thousands of people gathering at various locations throughout the country to either walk or run a 5km track.
This year once again we were delighted to join our friends at Peta House for this very special event. Our head chef Pat McLarnon and his team prepared some delicious treats for the participants to enjoy when they crossed the finish line.
Well done to all involved.
Sing for Simon : Dec 2015 - In association with Dublin Simon Community
Each year 'Sing for Simon' brings together over 100 groups and choirs who sing Christmas carols and songs in numerous shopping centres and across Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow.
Thanks to the generosity and goodwill of their supporters it has grown into an annual fundraising campaign with the 24-Hour Carolathon on Grafton Street; plus many other carolling locations in the lead up to Christmas.
Each year the team at Brooks visit the Dublin Simon Community volunteer singers with Tea, Coffee and tasty homemade treats during their singing marathon.
Upcoming events
Dublin Simon Community – Sing for Simon 2016


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How long should you try online hookup
ADELINE LEAFriday, February 22, 2019 12:07:46 AM
Do online dating websites work? Differences Between Dating Apps Tinder vs. Differences Between Dating Apps With so many different dating apps out there, how do you know which one is the right one for you? Don't worry, here's a breakdown of the four most popular choices. To explore this topic, I pulled aside two individuals who I knew were hunting for a long-term relationship using online dating websites, and asked them about their experiences with the services.
The two services used by these individuals were OKCupid and Match. What I learned from carrying out an interview of a female and the interview of a male trying to dig into this intriguing subject was that using the Internet for dating is equally painful for men and for women, but for very different reasons. No…online dating involves just cold, shallow text. As far as a guy is concerned, women have it made. The Origins And Misuse of the Term Have you noticed the word "mansplaining" appearing a lot lately online?
Are you not sure what it means, or why people seem to be upset about it? Read More All they have to do is get online every day, sitting on their princess throne and file through the dozens or more profiles of men who have messaged them throughout the day.
Unfortunately, the reality is nowhere near that fantasy. To get some insight into what women go through on these dating websites, I pulled aside one of my family members who I knew had spent some time on these sites looking for her future spouse.
By the time of this interview, she had already given up and moved on, finally discovering her future husband while visiting old friends
How long should you try online hookup her alma mater. Her responses completely surprised me. What year did sign up with an online dating website and how long did you keep your account?
I was active on the account for a week…if that. Use these tips to have the perfect selection of profile photos How long should you try online hookup no time. Actually, now that I think about it, that was how most of the messages I got started.
That was one of the main reasons I called it quits. I am getting terribly uncomfortable just thinking about it. Did you get ANY messages from guys that seemed nice at all? Worth meeting up with?
No, but the creepy messages most likely ruined it for any decent guys that might be around.
Those messages made me run far, far away from online dating. Personally, I think there is so much more to be gained from talking with someone face to face — you are able to read their body language and listen to intonation in their voice, which are much better indicators than online messages or profiles. But there are still many good dating websites out there.
Here's a wide selection of the free online relationship websites out there. Read More can be at all useful for girls? I know people who had great successes with online dating!
If there are guys looking to actually get the attention of a girl on these dating sites, do you have any advice for them? Do your best not to be a creep.
Remember that a simple message can go a long way. We lived across the hall from each other our first year of university. We became good friends first and we only started dating 2 years later. That was mostly because I transferred schools, but because we became friends first, we had a connection that drew us back together for a chance at something more.
What we found out was that we had much, much more than friendship in store for us. Being a nice guy is probably the worst thing to be when it comes to online dating. You How long should you try online hookup a little more than collateral damage, as the large majority of guys slather, drool and stomp their way through the crowds, scaring off most of the nice girls that arrive on these sites, as evidenced by the interview above.
This experience is best exemplified by my close friend who I will call Eric. Eric has been using a couple of online dating websites off and on for the past year, with very little success.
Despite his efforts, few girls ever answer his carefully crafted, very kind messages. I started out using Match.
Most importantly is that she likes doing similar things that I do. Secondly of course is that the profile gives me some feeling that there could be chemistry.
Do you think the algorithm and the other tools the dating sites offer help at all? Some of them I guess. Like, OKCupid gives you a percentage of match or non-match you are with certain people. Do you have any advice for women out there who use online dating sites and might be reading this? Stop ignoring all of us. Instead, you know, I think a lot of them are still hung up on hunting for the bad boys, the smooth-talkers. So there you have it — the whole story from the female perspective and from the male perspective.
Read More there are nothing but creeps on these dating sites, and with guys claiming there are plenty of nice guys. I met the love
How long should you try online hookup my life my second year of college, and was married before I graduated.
The extent of my online dating was chatting to a few girls at other colleges over the now-archaic IBM-mainframe based chat network. In the end, I met my wife in person, at a party. Why is there this disconnect between the sexes when it comes to online dating.
Is there some magical solution Confused About Bumble? Bizz, BFF, Boost, and Next Modes Explained With its many functions and modes, the Bumble app caters to people interested in dating, meeting friends, and even networking. Read More that would make "How long should you try online hookup" of the nice girls and all the nice guys of the world come together more easily? Your email address will not be published. Hi Folks, I won't reveal who I am on OkCupid, But i'm a software engineer and made my own program to datamine the profiles to find out the odds of everything.
I don't live in Melbourne, Australia but I datamined this city as an example. What it revealed was the following:. There is about users active within the last month at the time I datamined. Turns out Dubai has better odds for dating.
The most conflicting question between the two sexes were "men like playing video games a lot" and women don't like men playing video games. For one particular question that was asking what is the most annoying thing about dating online, women said "men just want hook ups" while men said "Sick of the same type of dates each time". The "research" of this article seems pretty weak and uses a bad example. She was active for a week or less? Meanwhile, the guy had been active for months.
Try reading this article: I tried online dating for a couple of years.


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President Obama and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were informed that BP would drill an unprecedented 35,000 feet well bore at the Macondo site off the coast of Louisiana. In September 2009, the Deepwater Horizon successfully sunk a well bore at a depth of 35,055 below sea level at the Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102 in the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Houston.
During the September drilling operations, the Deepwater Horizon drill penetrated a massive undersea oil deposit but BP's priorities changed when the Macondo site in the Mississippi Canyon off the coast of Louisiana was found to contain some 3-4 billion barrels of oil in an underground cavern estimated to be about the size of Mount Everest. It was as a result of another 35,000 feet well bore sank by the Deepwater Horizon at the Macondo site that the catastrophic explosion occurred on April 20.
According to the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) sources within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Pentagon and Interior and Energy Departments told the Obama Administration that the newly-discovered estimated 3-4 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico would cover America's oil needs for up to eight months if there was a military attack on Iran that resulted in the bottling up of the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic, resulting in a cut-off of oil to the United States from the Persian Gulf.
Obama, Salazar, Chu, and Gates green-lighted the risky Macondo drilling operation from the outset, according to WMR's government sources.
WMR learned that BP was able to have several safety checks waved because of the high-level interest by the White House and Pentagon in tapping the Gulf of Mexico bonanza find in order to plan a military attack on Iran without having to be concerned about an oil and natural gas shortage from the Persian Gulf after an outbreak of hostilities with Iran.
BP still has an ongoing operation to drill down to 40,000 feet below sea level at the Liberty field off the north coast of Alaska.
The above report takes on added significance in the light of an email received Tuesday from a reliable psychic friend. According to our friend:
"The Iran issue right now is a diversionary tactic to take attention away from the gulf oil rupture. And the gulf oil rupture is a diversionary tactic to take away attention from the Iran issue. A double edged sword…
"The war may happen. Iran will be used to divert attention away from the gulf which is the real threat to us all. If they get the oil rupture under control you can expect war with Iran within two months of that "miracle".
"Watch this space…."


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I think we're all guilty of thinking we don't need God sometimes, as we can cope on our own.
Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you. ~ Corrie Ten Boom
God remains by our side and always there for us, so whether things are going well or we're struggling, put your trust in Him, because He will get you through, and help you do His work.


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Just wanted to give a birthday shoutout to Stan Lee. I've always been more of a DC Comics guy than Marvel, but Stan the Man has been an influence on me nonetheless.
In fact, I'd have to say that he's one of two influences on my writing voice. The other is Judy Blume. You probably won't detect either one reading this blog, but they're there, I assure you.
Happy birthday, Stan.


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Sustainability is a matter of principle for Qatalum.
Qatalum is committed to promote and maintain a balance between the three main components of sustainability as defined globally. These are:
Qatalum adds resilience and variation to the already strong hydrocarbon economy in Qatar. It is socially responsible and provides ample opportunities for young Qataris interested in pursuing careers in an industry parallel to that of hydrocarbon. Also, Qatalum aggressively pursues steps to make the Aluminium production process more energy efficient with reduced emissions by employing all the best available technologies.
The Qatalum Production System combines best practice principles, methodologies, and tools to achieve continual operational improvement. Our process is designed to create a high quality aluminium product that meets the best international standards. In 2012 Qatalum marked its first year of full capacity operations. This is reflected in its earnings: products were sold around the world, resulting in over US$ 1,558 million in revenue.
The 2004 creation of Qatalum was the result of Qatar's strategic decision to invest in the upstream aluminium industry via creation of a primary aluminium smelter, serving the demand from booming Asian economies and the significant planned investment in infrastructure within Qatar.Qatalum's workforce plays a key role in ensuring that all of our operations perform at an optimal level. We invest considerable time and resources into training, developing, and engaging our workforce.
At Qatalum we try, in every step of our production process, to reduce and minimize our impact on the environment. We are keenly aware of the importance and value of our planet and its environment, and we refuse to compromise on its health and long-term sustainability.


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This policy is valid from 27 November 2014
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com.
This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.
The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
To get your own policy, go to www.disclosurepolicy.org
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The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection is one of the nation's leading research facilities for the study of the history and culture of African Americans. The core collection was donated to Temple University in 1983 by Charles L. Blockson, a historian, bibliophile and collector of Afro-Americana. As a major research facility, it provides materials, expository programs and service for Black Studies research scholars. The collection is used by a wide spectrum of researchers ranging from high school students to well-established scholars.
Located in Sullivan Hall on the main campus of Temple University, this collection of over 700,000 items has materials on the global black experience in all formats: books, manuscripts, pamphlets, journals, broadsides, posters, photographs, audiotapes, videos, DVDs and rare ephemera. In addition, the collection houses selected artifacts, including statues, busts and figurines.
Most of the titles are in English and others are in languages of areas in the world with sizeable black populations, including Africa and various parts of the Caribbean and South America. Information contained in fliers, newspaper and magazine clippings, pamphlets and ephemera is available in the Blockson Clipping File. Books and other materials owned by Blockson Afro-American Collection are included in Library Search. One can search by author, title, keyword, or subject and then select Blockson Collection before clicking the submit button. Temple University Libraries Digital Collections offer access to the primary historical and cultural resources of Temple University Libraries, including the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection.
A permanent rotating exhibit which changes themes periodically is on display upon entering the Collection. The exhibit is displayed in the foyer of the reading room. Other exhibit items are located within the reading room, along the wall.


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Stanley Park – Vancouver's First Park
It was Monday, June 16, 2008. I went to the office at Burnaby for a day of work and training. Then I met new people whom a friend of my colleague in my team. Without any careful plan that night I went out together with new friends that I met after inviting me to a walk in Stanley Park. I


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I know what you're probably thinking.
Does this girl ever stop wearing sequins? Yeeeah... not likely.
But rest assured, I am putting this jacket up for awhile when the weather gets warmer.
As a college student, I have been drifting towards shoes that are comfy enough to walk around everywhere on campus in and these UrbanOG combat boots definitely top that list.
What are your comfiest pair of shoes?
P.S. have you entered my $75 Belk gift card giveaway yet?! It ends on Monday!
P.S. have you entered my $75 Belk gift card giveaway yet?! It ends on Monday!
Wearing: sequin sleeve jacket | Forever 21 plaid button-down shirt (old) similar here | Forever 21 skater skirt (old) similar here + here | Francesca's pearl necklace (old) similar option here + here | Diamond & Bows ring c/o HelloFab | Timex watch c/o | Ray Ban aviators c/o | Kushyfoot fleece tights c/o | UrbanOG combat boots (very similar here) |


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THE AUDIO TOOLS you NEED!
THD-LABS creats the best audio tools to enhance your creative process. We believe that merging the analog audio path and digital control technologies is the way to go. It brings the best of the analog "feel" and "tone", while gaining access to the practicality of the digital control protocols, and that's where this technology really shines.
We plan to re-issue some of the best "undiscovered" audio devices of the last 60 years not yet touched by the vintage hype.
Repurpose, redesign, reintroduce, reinvent and reproduce...
What's up ?
May 18, 2018
Demos in London June 4th to June 7th
THD Labs is organizing private demos in London June 4th to June 7th.
THD Labs will present its latest upgrade, the Tangerine Protools Plugin, allowing to do Out of the Box mixing for up to 96 channels with ProTools.
January 4, 2018
Visit THD Labs at NAMM Show 2018
Visit THD Labs at NAMM Show 2018 booth #17605
October 8, 2017
AES 143st Convention in NYC October 18th to 20th
THD Labs will do live demos of the Ultimation Tangerine Automation Interface and the Neve Flying Faders Tangerine Automation Interface during the AES 143rd convention in NYC from October 18th to 20th.


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Aida here from Salt & Wind, where we're on a mission to help you taste the world. I travel on the regular in search of the best food out there and then recreate those tastes back home. So, I'm excited to share those flavors with you in this new Global Kitchen series here on The Kitchenthusiast blog.
My most recent travels found me on my first trip to Thailand and I fell even more in love with Thai food than ever before. Growing up in Southern California, I ate a lot of amazing Thai food (FYI, the Thai Town in Los Angeles is worthy of its own food crawl, should you find yourself here), but I never really cooked much Thai food until recently. And the recipe I started with was the meat salad known as larb. But calling this "meat salad" doesn't really do it justice as it's more like Thai lettuce wraps that you'll want to serve for everything from a weeknight meal to a cocktail party.
You've probably seen larb on the menu at your local Thai restaurant and, if you've tried it, you know that the combo of herbs, sautéed meat, and spices makes for something totally special. What's particularly great about larb is that it's really easy and quick to make. Actually, larb is fast enough for a weeknight meal, so you can have a taste of Thailand in just a few minutes.
Oh, and, if chicken isn't your thing, don't worry because larb is super versatile. Make it with what you want—pork, duck or even tofu. The key is getting really good meat and super fresh vegetables.
For this recipe, I'm partial to using freshly ground meat. In Thailand, the larb is made with super finely ground meat and you won't usually get that from most store bought ground meat. I've found that using my KitchenAid® Stand Mixer fit with the Food Grinder attachment is key to get the right texture for larb. I like to mix all the main flavors—the lemongrass, chiles, and garlic—in with the meat and then grind it so that you get major flavor in every bite.
To get started, have all the ingredients prepped and chopped before you begin cooking. Because you are going to pass the chicken, the onion, the lemongrass, the chiles, and the garlic through the Food Grinder, you don't need them perfectly cut, but just try to get them small enough to pass through the feed.
In a medium bowl, stir together the prepped chicken, the onion, the lemongrass, the chiles, the garlic, and salt until they're thoroughly combined. Make sure everything is evenly mixed because you want all those flavors coming through in every bite.
Place about a third of the chicken mixture in the Stand Mixer fit with the Food Grinder attachment.
Switch the Stand Mixer to the stir setting, place a bowl under the grinder spout, and feed the remaining chicken mixture into the Food Grinder.
Once most of the chicken mixture is in the Food Grinder, you can increase the speed of the mixer so it grinds more quickly.
Cook the chicken mixture until it's golden brown then add in half of the lime juice dressing mixture. Remove the mixture from the heat, taste, and, as desired, add in addition lime juice dressing mixture.
Once the larb is flavored to your liking, serve it as you like. You can toss it all together for a quick salad or scoop it into lettuce leaves for a cocktail party-worthy appetizer.
For a quick meal, I serve it all deconstructed—with lettuce leaves, mint, cilantro, cucumber, scallions, lime wedges, and additional Sriracha sauce—so everyone can add as much or little of the toppings as they'd like!
Share your take on this Thai-Style Lemongrass Chicken and Herb Wraps recipe on Instagram using #MadeWithKitchenAid for a chance to be featured.
Thai-Style Lemongrass Chicken and Herb Wraps
Makes 4 servings
For the larb
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2/3 cup roughly chopped red onion
1/4 cup roughly chopped lemongrass (from about 2 pieces of lemongrass)
1-3 Thai chiles, stemmed and roughly chopped (use fewer and seed for less spicy)
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 tablespoons coconut oil or another neutral oil, for sautéing
For the lime dressing
4 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Dash Srirarcha or another chile-garlic sauce, plus more for serving
For serving
Baby Romaine hearts, little gems or butter lettuce leaves
Thinly sliced Persian cucumbers
Fresh mint leaves
Fresh cilantro
Thinly sliced scallions (green onions)
Lime wedges
For the larb
Stir together the chicken, the red onion, the lemongrass, the chiles, the garlic, and the salt in a medium bowl. Fit the KitchenAid® Stand Mixer with the Food Grinder attachment and the large holed blade, place a bowl under the grinder spout, and turn the Stand Mixer on to stir level.
Place the meat mixture into the Food Grinder feed, spoonful by spoonful, until it is all used up. Increase the Stand Mixer speed to medium once you have most of the mixture in the grinder. Set mixture aside until ready to cook (keep it very cold until you're ready to cook it).
Place a large frying pan over medium-high heat and add the oil. When the oil shimmers, add the meat mixture and stir to coat. Cook the mixture, breaking it up into small, uniform pieces and cook until the chicken is cooked.
For the lime dressing
Meanwhile, combine the fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, and Sriracha in a jar or bowl and shake or whisk to combine. Add half of the lime juice mixture to the pan and stir to coat. Remove the chicken mixture from the heat.
Add the chicken larb to a serving bowl along with as much of the additional lime juice as desired.
For serving
Serve with additional Sriracha, lettuce, cucumbers, mint, cilantro, scallions, and lime.
*The Contributor of this post has been compensated by KitchenAid for this post, but this post represents the Contributor's own opinion.*


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Game 130 - Red Sox
Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 5 (11)
Record: 75-55
Pretty stirring victory for the Sox, and a much-needed one as the summer draws to a close and the games take on more import. You could've received long odds on the prospect of a Coco Crisp/Jed Lowrie homerun exacta box, and even longer odds on Manny Delcarmen closing out a one-run game on the road, but all of those things happened in Toronto yesterday. The single-tally win ended a stretch of 16 consecutive one-run losses on the road for the Red Sox, a testament to the randomness of baseball if there ever was one. And hopefully a sign from the Baseball Gods (or at least the Baseball Poets) that the good guys may be in line for a few bounces over the next 32 games.
The Sox play three in New York starting tomorrow, marking the final regular season Boston/New York conflagrations in Yankee Stadium. (And unless something markedly changes in the next 5 weeks, the final contests of any kind between the two old rivals in the House That Ruth Built. My day's gotten well away from me, or I'd wax rhapsodic about the old ballyard, but...who am I kidding. That place is a dump, and not a quaint dump like Fenway. Just a plain 'ol dump.
Not kidding about the day getting away, though.


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2012 was a zipless election. Although the public was demonstrably present for the experience, somehow we didn't feel completely engaged.
It seemed to morph into a contest between dirty tricks and voter suppression tactics on one side, countered by techno wizardry and micro-sampling of key voters in swing states on the other. As a result, while celebrating big wins for progressives, women, and people of color, and some clear policy victories, we're left feeling stunned as much as euphoric.
We need to find new ways to create and sustain civic engagement that cross the lines between Tahrir Square, the town hall meeting, and Twitter, to feel like we've won the policy debates that we actually have, on taxing the wealthy and protecting reproductive rights, and to take on the entrenched interests blocking progress on the big issues that lie ahead.
Some encouraging clues from the cyber campaign: It helped that the polling was remarkably deft. Finally, someone figured out how to frame a question about the right to abortion that gauged and activated the power of this issue to motivate women voters positively. It made sense to reach out to people in beauty parlors and barber shops as well as likely voters with landline phones.
Voters responded most to hearing directly from people they perceived as being like themselves, and who created a bond of accountability about the intention to vote. In other words, Organizing 101 still applies. Group identity and personal relationships do influence how we think and vote, and ultimately our policies.
The Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign is launching initiatives that blend cyber solidarity with our presence in the public square. For the 40th anniversary of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., the TWSR coalition will offer an online campaign. And on January 26, 2013, we'll Celebrate Women, Life and Liberty in San Francisco.
For a good time, call, click or email.


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How and why to choose exposed aggregate concrete
Exposed Aggregate concrete is a great look for driveways, pathways, hardscaping, and patios. It's made by laying the premixed concrete and then carefully removing the top layer to expose the aggregates. Here's just a few reasons to enjoy aggregate concrete.Read more
Choosing timber flooring
When it comes to flooring which is remarkable, long lasting, timelessly beautiful, and natural, you can't go past timber. However, there are many different types of timber floors to choose from, and it can become confusing if you don't know what you're looking for. Solid, hardwood floors made from new or recycled timber are traditional and remain popular, however floating and engineered floorboards and parquetry are also great options.Read more
Tiling - should you DIY or use a professional?
Are you considering tackling a tiling project at your place, it's a lot more complicated than it looks, here's some points to consider before deciding whether to DIY or call in an experienced Tiler.Read more
Maintaining your Stone floors
Natural stone floors are an investment that can last a life time if cared for properly. Stone floors add a wow factor to any home and should be maintained regularlyRead more
Time to replace your carpet?
If your home has old carpets that will need replacing sooner rather than later, start doing some research into your replacement options. Whether you want to go with carpet once again or try something new, the following is a brief look at a few of the many options you have available.Read more
Increasing the market value of your home
Increasing the value of your home is always a good idea, regardless of whether you are thinking about selling soon or not. Investing in a few upgrades for your place will significantly increase what it is worth, especially if you focus on the right elements.Read more


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Today's Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin and kosovorotka shirts
Personally, I blame my fascination with all thing Russian on growing up in Alaska and reading The Hunt for Red October at far to young of an age. I hope you all will interperate today's paper doll outfit as an expression of love for the art of Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin and not a statement on current events in the United States.
(I'm not really sure what a fantasy Russian outfit would be saying about current events, but that's neither here nor there.)
I've loved Russian fairytales for most of my life. Well, I love all fairy tales, but the Russian ones I think resonated with me more than a lot of the others. Perhaps it was growing up in Alaska where there was a lot of Russian culture still or perhaps I saw in Ivan Biliban's illustrations a landscape I recognized- over grown forests and snow.
In fact, I sometimes think my fondness for flat color and heavy line is in part because of the exposure to those illustrations. At the time, those things were a limitation of the printing medium, but Biliban took advantage of them to make incredible works of art. It really was the golden age of children't book illustration.
Anyway, today's set of printable paper doll clothing consists of a traditional Russian style blouse, a corset, trousers tucked into books and a big fur hat. Everything is better with a big fur hat. The blouse is based on a kosovorotka which is a side fastening men's shirt.
See? I did some research.
Questions about today's paper doll outfit? Thoughts on other wonderful classic children's book illustrators? Let me know in a comment!
And consider following the facebook page, if you want to show the blog some love and support.
Need to get a Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear these fabulous clothes? Pick one out here.


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Launch update: World Investment and Political Risk
Just back from London where MIGA launched its new report, World Investment and Political Risk, and partnered with the Financial Times to host a symposium on Managing Global Political Risk. The event was standing-room only, packed with experts from the political risk insurance industry. Debate was lively on the future for investing in emerging markets, managing global political risk in uncertain times, and whether investors are moving into a riskier world.