Fun, Amazing, Etc.

This is the official blog of indie author / adventure writer Andy R. Bunch, author of the fantasy book, "Suffering Rancor." As always, I'll post funny or amazing things I find in my travels or from poking around online. This is a great place to kick back and relax a bit. You may note that I’m not too clean or too dirty. For more information on my book, go to http://andyrbunch.weebly.com/. Here are links to first two books http://goo.gl/iHP1i and http://goo.gl/kK13W

Friday, March 13, 2015

Hack to Eat Better

From MyFitnessPal.com

Keep it simple. Instead of following some fad diet with lots of rules, keep your healthy eating routine simple. Eat real food that’s mostly plants with lots of color and variety. Balance every meal with high-quality proteins like lean meat, fish, tofu or beans and complex carbs like brown rice, potatoes, quinoa, and healthy fats like avocado, nuts, seeds and olive oil. Make half of your plate fruits and vegetables to meet your daily fiber needs while keeping calories in check.
Don’t bring junk into the house. If you’re easily swayed to nosh on chips, cookies and ice cream, keep the processed snacks out of the house. This simple trick makes healthy eating easy. Out of sight, out of mind.
Eat more fat. Yes, you read that right. People who snack on healthy fats like a handful of almonds eat fewer calories over the course of the day because they feel more satisfied. So don’t skimp on fat; it keeps you fuller for longer so you will, in turn, eat less. Try these 6 high-fat foods that are good for you.
Make lunch the night before. Stop telling yourself you’ll have time to pack a lunch on your way out the door in the morning. While you’re cleaning up from dinner, put together your lunch for the next day. Whether it be leftovers from dinner or a mason jar salad, planning ahead makes it easy to walk out the door with a healthy lunch.
Use Pinterest with a purpose. Make a board of “Must-Make Meals” filled with weeknight go-tos so that when you’re planning and prepping your meals you know right where to turn (or scroll to). Take it a step further and organize recipes by category like “chicken,” “fish,” “vegetarian,” to get more variety in your diet.
Carry a water bottle. Because hydration is a vital part of being healthy, make it a priority to carry a water bottle around with you and refill it throughout the day. The Institute of Medicine recommends men that drink 120 ounces and women 90 ounces of fluid per day. If you’re active, you will need to replace what you lost through sweat as well. Here are some more great tips to stay hydrated!
Eat on a schedule. A person who eats 2,000 calories throughout the day will often have more energy and tend to lose more weight than the person who eats the same amount of calories all at one meal. By skipping meals or ignoring our hunger cues, we force our bodies to run off of fumes. Listen to your body when it says it’s hungry and you will find that it’s easier to resist the temptation of overeating later at night.
Make breakfast in 90 seconds. Breakfast doesn’t need to be a large production; keep it simple for mornings when you have to be out of the house fast. Homemade breakfast burritos are a fast, simple way to grab a meal in the morning using only a microwave. Place one 6-inch tortilla in a cereal bowl and crack an egg onto the tortilla. Add toppings like green chilies, a sprinkle of cheese, onions and leftover roasted veggies from the night before. Microwave for 90 seconds or until the egg is cooked. Top with salsa and voila: breakfast in 90 seconds.
Catch some ZZZs. Getting enough shut eye at night goes a long way to protecting your body. Because hormones are regulated while you sleep, people who get quality sleep on a daily basis tend to make better food choices and have slimmer waistlines.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Update #??

Okay so it's been a while since I updated. Argh. Life went sideways for a bit. I think its important to be candid about life's setbacks as well as the goals and successes, but I don't want to devote too much time/attention to the mistakes. So let me recap here.

My big/awesome whale contract ended and it took three weeks to replace it. That's always a busy time for me. I am back to work but at half time and that's cramping my style a bit.

My wife and I spent some tax return on a beach trip but our ten month old sucked any sort of relaxation out of the experience leaving us stressed from trying to prep for the week and recover from the trip.

We immediately started car shopping to replace my wife's tiny yet loved car with one that fits our baby's car seat. That turned into a mess, but ultimately we triumphed, so it ends well.

I managed to get my scifi secret project drafted off to the editors about a day early so that I could try to relax at the beach. Best laid plans, right? Anyway that's another win. Not sounding too bad, right?

Well I haven't updated my project hopper in about two months and that leaves me a bit stressed. You see I try to go through quarterly with a big review which keeps me on track and my end of year/new year review is vital to my peace of mind. More than just the annoyance of working budget files and plans that say 2014 not doing a review is an indication that I haven't taken the "me" time defrag my brain. It's hard to explain but if you read "Getting Things Done" by David Allen there's a good explanation of my situation under the term Open Loops. (In short: things we unconsciously feel obligated to do that we don't have any plan to accomplish.)

So I started asking myself, "am I doing an other avoiding behaviors?" Yes, I was being intolerant of other humans when they did very human things. Then I asked myself, "what am I avoiding?"

The truth, after much reflection, is that I'm waiting on a few big projects, and job opportunities that are long over due and I'm feeling like God is holding out on me. I let that unconsciously keep me from moving closer to God in my spiritual life. Items in my project hopper would have made plain that I was neglecting some of the important things in my life.

I read a brief article by Mike Pink that talked about spending deliberate time honoring God. My prayer life hadn't gone down hill all this time, but I wasn't setting aside time to meditate on how big and how generous God is. Even though I accepted that it was true, when I tried out Pink's suggestion I could feel myself realign from inside out. It's embarrassing because one of my works in process is a book on living from inside out. Yet here I was taking my self worth from my circumstances instead of being who I am uniquely in those circumstances.

When we take our identity from our relationship with God, when we remember we're built in His image and restored to perfection by his work, that's when stress goes down and we start impacting the environment around us, instead of being transformed by our environment.

For more on this topic, read my book "On Becoming a Man."