health

Someone Is Feeling Salty (National Nutrition Month)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Nutrition is important to me. It should be to you too.

And here’s why.

According to pretty much every nutritionist and health professional ever, food is vital for us to live because it provides us with nutrients. Nutrients are essential for every day life because they give us energy and good health (when taken in the correct quantities and varieties). If you pick the right foods, you can boost your happiness, get better mental functions, and maintain a healthy body weight. But that’s not all, nutrients also help with prevention and treatment of illnesses.

Some foods are better at supplying energy (carbohydrates, proteins, fat) while others are better at regulating our bodily functions (vitamins, minerals, water).

Staple foods like rice, wheat, potatoes and plantains are relatively cheap and supply energy with good regularity. I’ll call out protein in particular, because it is needed to build, maintain and repair muscle, blood, skin and bones and other tissues and organs in the body. Because good nutrition is important in leading a healthy lifestyle your diet is key to this end; when combined with physical activity a lot more can be accomplished to keep the engine running, so to speak.

Now with all of that shared, eating a varied, well-balanced diet is no simple task. It means eating a variety of foods daily AND in recommended amounts. On top of that, different foods provide different types and volumes of nutrients. Which is frustrating to investigate, and that’s putting it simply.

Salt of the Earth

You’re probably wondering why I even mention this, because this is a creativity and arts based blog.

But the harsh reality is that we too as creative types need all the support we can get. It’s really easy to fall into bad health habits, eating quick and easy to prepare foods that provide little to no health benefits. Or worse, buying from the drive-thru. Once you get into a cycle of bad health, it can be difficult to climb out of it. Believe me when I say that I STILL struggle with this one.

Fortunately for me and for you, it’s National Nutrition Month, which means that there is a bunch of literature out there right now which we can all take advantage of and better ourselves with. You absolutely need to eat right for your lifestyle because there is no one correct diet for everyone. This article covers the essentials rather well, but if you don’t want to spend the time rooting through 3500+ words right now, I’ll summarize my thoughts with short list of tips and tricks now

  1. eat lots of different fruit and vegetables. cooked or raw depending on your needs. (7-10 servings a day)
  2. whole grains are not the enemy. whole grains have fibre and are not the same as white bread or pasta. (wild rice, quinoa, oatmeal, hulled barley)
  3. protein, protein, protein. This is so important I’m putting it in the middle. Eat fish, beans and lentils, dairy and lean meats EVERY SINGLE DAY to get your daily protein (between 45-60 grams, based on weight)
  4. sugar definitely is the enemy, especially in drinks. unsweetened coffee, tea, tea or milk for beverages are best. fruit juice has almost as much sugar as soda
  5. say no to processed food. if its not from the ground, walks around or flies, its no bon.

I’ll leave you with this timely thought for now. It doesn’t matter what you change, only that you make the change yourself and from within. I hope you have an excellent weekend creative cuties, no more theories from me.

I’ll see you on Sunday with an updated LOGO(s).

Tim!

Sweetheart Swing (Sugar Swing Ballroom)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Did you know that one of my very first posts (read: the fourth one) was about dancing, dear readers?

Just over two years ago, and hot off the heels of New Years Eve, I wrote a cute little post about a social night. A night at what was then called Sugar Swing Dance Club.

Dancing With Myself

Some of my learnings from that night were clear to me and still ring very true – I wanted to be healthier, have more social intelligence, and feel inspired to make visual art by whatever creative experience I exposed myself to. Well, those of you that have been there from the start of timotheories definitely would remember that post. I mean, it’s only been about 330 posts ago, so of course you’d remember, right?

It’s back when we were young and beautiful.

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Other things I learned that night quickly disappeared from my memory – the names of my fellow dance lesson participants, what songs played, what I wore, and most importantly, the dance moves I learned.

Definitely the dance moves were forgotten.

Hey Ya!

But you see, a lot has happened since then, I went on some dates, changed jobs no less then three times, moved, bought a lot of movies and albums, and made a ton of new friends while I learned how to edit videos. I even reconciled a broken bridge with one of my oldest friends. And now I’m in a newish relationship, one that is going rather swimmingly and which makes my heart pitter patter.

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But to pause the love thoughts, the reason why I forgot the dance moves is because I did it ONE TIME, of course I forgot the moves. And so I decided to get my girlfriend a Sweetheart Swing couples dance package for Christmas, so that I could learn some more moves, she could ease herself back into dancing, and we could do something arts related together.

We had our first lesson at the new Sugar Swing studio last week.

Our instructors are neat, the new building is nice (but still in construction), and the location is ideal. It’s been a good idea so far, and I hope to share my learnings when it’s all said and done (hint: February post).

But now you’re probably wondering the details. This is a timely post after all.

The Sugar Foot Ballroom is now located at 10019 – 80 Ave, Edmonton Alberta, and is open
both Friday and Saturday nights for drop-in lessons and social dances. If you are interested in taking a program of any sort, like the package Mysticque and I are taking, then you should definitely check out the lessons page of the Sugar Swing site! Other than that, I don’t any theories to share. At least until Sunday!

Tim!

The Bends (Decompression)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

The past few weeks have just been nuts for me, dear readers. On top of it all, I got sick not once, but twice. I’ve already written about this experience in my post about community, but today I wanted to focus on the practical side of dealing with a seemingly never-ending illness, jam-packed days filled with meetings, hundreds of emails to wade through, and all of events that happen over the holidays, plus the holiday aftermath.

Normally I pride myself on being calm no matter what the circumstance, working through the pressure, deadlines, and workload. But sometimes our bodies just shut down, and we get sick.

You see friends, stress suppresses the immune system, and as a consequence it becomes easier for you to get sick. So while stress cannot “make” you sick, it definitely contributes to the environment.

You have to make time to care for yourself when in stressful situations.

Decompression

What that really means is that you have to teach yourself some decompression techniques. No, I’m not writing about decompression sickness (also known as the bends or divers’ disease) but that is another type of illness that requires treatment early on.

What I’m referring to creative cuties is decompression from stress. I may have written about this in a different capacity once before, focusing on things like self-care, taking breaks, reviewing previous successes, enlisting support and seeking inspiration, but today I want to focus on things you can do immediately to help with the decompression process.

Most of these actions are physical which is good when you’re sick or stressed. We hold a lot of tension in our bodies from stress.

Here are some of the best options:

  1. Deep breathing. Take a breath in, slowly exhale, and start over again. If you do this for about ten seconds each time and keep at it for ten minutes, you’ll feel it quick.
  2. Self-massage. Tense and then relax each muscle, from your toes to your head.
  3. Take a walk. A five minute walk in the midst of a stressful day does wonders.
  4. Exercise. This can be great for quiet thinking AND all of the chemicals your body releases while exercising are great stress relievers.
  5. Get outdoors. Just connecting with the outdoors can be helpful, but the fresh air helps too.
  6. Sex. An obvious choice. Just ask my girlfriend.
  7. Vacation day. Take the time to focus and recenter.
  8. Meditate. Be somewhere quiet, close your eyes, relax, and focus on your breathing. Your mind will be very active during this process, so embrace the thoughts and allow them to leave.
  9. Read. Whether you read fiction or something more practicaI like a biography. Taking some time with a good book is great exercise for your mind.
  10. Love. Get in some hugs and cuddles with your loved ones. It’s a win-win-win scenario and helps strengthen intimacy for all involved.
  11. Disconnect. Technology can be both a godsend and water torture. Do yourself a favour, and turn off the phones, computer, and ignore the outside world for as long as you can.
  12. Take a nap. A shot nap does wonders for refreshing the mind and the body. Thirty minutes should do the trick.

Now with that said, finding and using different ways to reduce tension is important but it should never add to your stress. You need to pick the techniques that best suit your lifestyle, but I have this theory that as you add different habits, you’ll be hungry for even more.

Another thing to consider folks.

On a really busy day it might feel like you are faced with an impossible task and that none of those techniques will do the trick. Just stick with it though. I can assure you that taking the time to unwind will be huge for your health and I have this theory that you’ll be more productive in the long run.

Tim!

Destined For Great Things (Arnold, The Eduation of A Bodybuilder)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

This is a story in progress.

It’s not finished yet because… well, I’m not dead. Yes, I realize that’s something of a graphic and incredible overstatement of a point I haven’t even made about the importance of living in the moment, but I suspect you already knew that dear readers.

today-i-will-live-in-the-moment

I’ve always wanted to be better. When I was a boy, I imagined a better life for myself, something far behind the loving family environment of my middle-class upbringing. It was a typical and uninspired belief for a white kid in a first world country, in a province on the rise. I had everything going for me. I should have been happy to have what I had available to me and just ease into a life of what was supposed to be full of comfortability.

Politics, gender norms, and cultural appropriations aside. Of course. Of course.

But as I got older, I couldn’t shake that feeling. I tried dammit, I tried. I suspect it started around junior high school, but this isn’t a post about my story, no. It’s a story about following a feeling.

To indirectly quote from the first episode of Netflix Original – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

And I noticed an acceleration of strangeness in my life. A continuing series of intense and extraordinary events, which, up until a certain point, seemed unconnected, with the exception of each being separately bizarre.

Perhaps ever day before then was, for the most part, been humdrum and inane, my life a mundane, unvarying slog through unfulfilling jobs, shallow depression, and boring, boring sex.

And then suddenly, everything changed, and my life became a swirl of interesting activity.

This is a story about one of my heroes. Well, it’s a story about the story one of my heroes wrote about his own story. Still following me?

Reading Into It

This month, I decided to take a book off of my own shelf for The Reading List. A book which I have been meaning to read before I ever even had this idea of undertaking a project to expand my mind and demonstrate a way to get myself thinking creatively often.

I did this to show you, that you too can achieve results if you set up a reading regimen for yourself AND want more than just success. That’s why every month, I use the Reading List for another book to read and another artist for you to consider in your own personal journey.The 5 L’s of Language give us LIFE (Biographies/Art/Music) LOVE (Classic Fiction/Non-Fiction/Graphic Novels) LEARN (Business/Leadership/Self-Help) LABEL (Philosophy/Sociology/Psychology) and LEET (The Internet).

This month is all about LIFE, because it’s almost the end of the year, I’ve seen another wave of personal growth and it’s in the holiday season that I purchase most of my movies. Which reminds me of one of my favourite actors – Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I Have a Headache

It might be a tumour…. no, it’s not a toomah, it’s not a toomach, at all.

Arnold Schwarzenegger co-wrote this great book called Arnold The Education of A Bodybuilder with Douglas Kent Hall in 1977. This is well before he had broken into Hollywood and definitely before he was the governor of California (remember that?). Arnold had already taken the international bodybuilding scene by storm – First he became Mr. Europe, then Mr. Universe, followed by Mr. World and shortly thereafter Mr. Olympia.

He did all of this because he wanted to be the best bodybuilder in the world. Not the best of the season or best of a particular year. His vision was for a perfectly balanced and well considered champion that was undisputed by the world at large. He worked hard and challenged himself every day to accomplish over 18 titles in bodybuilding. Over time he has acquired several businesses related to practice and education of future generations of bodybuilders.

Schwarzenegger is one of my heroes because he knew he achieves results before he achieved them. Yes that last sentence is a bastardization of the English language, but that’s the point. You have to work at the rules before you can break them proper. Work them over, and over and over. This man has continuously committed himself to his vision, lived his life while in pursuit of goals he wanted to realize, and believed he would do what he wanted. And he has.

What this has to do with the arts is both everything and nothing. It’s nothing if you choose not to be effected by others success and see inspiration in the world around you. It’s everything if you want to be an artist and see that no matter what the stakes, I will be a cultivator of the arts for you. This always has been and always will be digital curating at heart.

And I too am destined for great things. A theory for now.

Tim!

 

Notoriously Problematic (Income)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Money is money is money is money. Everything likes to think that if they had more money all of their problems would be solved. And maybe there is some truth in that statement. But have you ever heard the old adage by the poet The Notorious B.I.G.

Mo money, mo problems.

I’m not going to point out all the obvious analogies being made in the song, I instead want to focus on a specific one, which is that as you gain more money you indeed do solve the current problems you have, but you trade up for new ones, and the risk of those problems is sometimes greater than the reward.

Which means, is it really within your means to aim for more means?

Income The Problems

I may have already written about this once or twice before, but there are a myriad of factors to consider in the OECD Better Life Index. You know what I am referring to dear readers? Where you rank housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance. Those are all pieces of the puzzle, and as I’ve mentioned previously, they vary by importance from country to country in how we measure well-being.

Inspired by this concept and following the footsteps of a post I wrote up on the website Postconsumers and how they view health and wellness, I realized there is a great way to address these factors. Writing dedicated posts to each topic. And today I want you to consider the second of these points, your income. This is a difficult topic to write about because, generally speaking, we are very protective of sharing what we make with others, and for good reason.

When we reveal our incomes certain things can happen. You associate your identity with your income for starters, and depending if you make more or less than others it can swing you upwards into arrogance or downwards into submission or depression. People will target you as a source of wealth and liquidity, which means you might get gamed by strangers or expected by friends, not to top judgment on how you spend your money. And it also puts you into the spotlight with business and agencies.

And if you have to share you income be prepared. If you make within a certain median grade for your job description, it’s less likely for you to be targeted when the situation calls for a share and care session.

Incoming

It is important to figure out what a health income is for you, you don’t want to make money just so you can now spend it on things that you don’t really need. That’s counter to the purpose of the wisdom being imparted. However, I do disagree with the notion that you should settle for a certain income just because you don’t know how to get to it.

But maybe that’s not the issue here, you could just not see the value of additional income. Consider this theory for a minute.

If you spend more than you earn, you have negative money, correct? Conversely, if you spend less than you earn, you have a positive flow of cash into your personal finances. Which means you can pay off debts if you have them OR if that is not the case you can begin to invest into retirement or other personal goals you have. As a for instance, you could buy a car outright and avoid the financing costs OR get a brand new iMac upfront with no credit card fees.

Being frugal allows you to move towards wealth, which can make you independent and allow you to focus on your positive contributions in the world. Say by travelling to areas of the world, making art, performing in theatre or going on a comedy tour.

I’m not going to dive deep into how exactly you increase your income, a lot of the time it’s a result of limiting spending and investing money, but here are some key examples that you can look into, and an article that details it better than I could do in this post space.

 

  1. Max out your salary – negotiation, raises, and planning are key, maybe a second job
  2. Get an education – stats prove those with better education earn more
  3. Monetize your hobbies – mystery shopping, photography, and baking for starters
  4. Start a side business – you choose the commitment level, and can earn much or little, blogging too
  5. Real estate – it’s complex but you can be an investor, landlord or combination thereof
  6. Selling old things – it’s not a one-to-one return, but old items get new use, and you get some money

Again, I’m not rolling in the dough by any means dear readers, but I’ll let you in on a secret, I have done or am currently doing all of the six things I’ve listed out for you. You can live the lifestyle you want, you just have to commit to it and like the author of this GetRichSlowly article I referenced says, if you are willing to make some sacrifices, you can make more money than you do now. But hey, that’s just a theory.

Tim!