21: Use a Fat Pen

Writing with a pen that has a fat barrel can place as much as 50 times less stress on the bones and ligaments at the base of your hand, according to research at Duke University. Changing to a chunkier pen can cut in half the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome as a result.

~Magazine Excerpt

When I was growing up I wrote by hand several novels, now I cant jot down more than a sentence without pain in my hand. Now i have some chunky pens (as in wider than your thumb) and now I can go without pain for at least a paragraph. If it can work for me it can work for you.

20: Stand Up

Whenever you talk on the phone, get up off your backside. By Standing just one extra hour a day an average 80-kilo person will burn 377 kilojoules (90 calories) more, according to calculations in the Jornal of the American College of Sport Medicine.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Its those little things that all add up don't they. Stand while talking on the phone, using a computer than a tv, walk to the dairy instead of driving to the supermarket. Over the course of your life you can burn off a huge volume of energy and making your waistline thinner.

19: Don't Have Dressings.

We know salads don't taste as good as a juicy steak, so its tempting to put dressings on them. But dressings are where the calories are so skip the commercial dressings and try to make your own from vinegar or olive oil.

~Magazine Excerpt

The words "Light" or "Lite" DO NOT under any circumstances mean they are low in fat or calories. The words are used under law to describe the colour and not fat/calorie content. Try making your own dressings without using sugar, fat, or eggs. Try making a sweet basil and Italian herb dressing with olive oil. yummy

18: Get a New Toothbrush

And make sure it comes with a tongue scraper on the reverse of the brush head. Your tounge has fissures that hold onto bacteria, so using a tongue scraper helps to remove it. You will probably gag when scraping but bacteria leads to bad breath. And get one with soft bristles; its better for your gums.

~ Magazine Excerpt.

Its been proven that the sensitivity and diversity of your taste (your palette) can improve by 200% from regular use to a tongue scraper. These bacteria sitting in those fissures block receptors to your sensitive taste buds. Clear out the goop and experience that roast your mother made in a whole new way.

Its also proven that soft bristles remove just as much bacteria as hard bristles (as long as you scrub just as frequent). The only difference is that hard bristles can micro-scar your gums by the repetitive scratching and bruise them, leading to early onset of a receding gum line.

17: Laugh with Them

What to get over a fight with your partner/relatives? Laugh together. According to Psychology Today: "Laughter establishes or restores a positive climate and a sense of connection between people, who can literally take pleasure out of being in the company of each other" Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers.

~Magazine Subscription

If you ever put yourself in the third-person view when you laugh you realise that laughter can literally take over the brain. you think of nothing but the feeling of laughing. and because its process in your brain is 100% identical of every other Homo Sapien you can connect with people in a unique and completely understanding way. Plan with your partner or relatives to watch comedies or when you talk over the phone, prepare a joke beforehand. They'll actually look forward to your phone call or email if you have a new joke to share.

16: A Banana A Day

"Reported to be the best selling fruit worldwide, the athletes favourite should be part of everyone's diet. Benefits are too numerous to list here, but highlights include their ability to boost energy, improve mood, reduce the effects of heartburn and hangovers"

~ Magazine Except

This is quite a no-brainer. there were times in the past when I knew in advance that I needed the best brain power money can buy I go out and buy bananas. Due to their popularity this does mean they are a "sometimes" food for most people. One thing I want to point out is its alkinity (bananas are alkaline-based). When you eat Alkaline-based foods this improves the PH level in your body that those fatty fast foods are turning the other acidic way. Feeling sluggish but cant seem to shake it off? take a 3-day diet of 3 bananas a day for 3 days. (remember to eat other healthy foods too).

Triva: Bananas don't boost your energy levels from its sugar content. Bananas contain several key elements and vitamins that boost the efficiency of your metabolism, making more energy out of the same amount of fuel. (these vitamins and minerals are easier to absorb than a multi-vitamin pill so less of the good stuff will be flushed down the loo)

15: Go Dark

If your going to have chocolate then switch to dark chocolate with a high cocoa content as research has found it can lower blood pressure, high in antioxidants that reduce the risk of strokes, cancer, heart attacks.

~ Magazine Excerpt

An interesting thing to point out is upper-end dark chocolate has more tannins than cheaper brands so slightly counteracting the positive outcome of it benefits. So if you want the best nutrition balance of dark chocolate vs the taste and nutrition? Find the best brand you like and choose one two steps cheaper.

14: Switch Sugar To Honey

White table sugar is the one thing you should keep to an absolute minimum. Its got far too many negative effects to list here, but natural honey is much better for you if you really feel the need to sweeten something.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Fructose sugars are very good for you, Glucose and Sucrose are not. Fructose sugars are found in honey, fruit and many other natural sources. A minority of soft drinks also use fructose sugar instead of table sugar (high sucrose) so if you want a soft drink, try to find one with a high % of sugar as fructose. three other points you need to remember.

• Raw sugar (brown sugar) is just as unhealthy as it contains glucose as a main ingredient in the molasses colouring they place in many brands.
• Icing sugar is the sweetest form of table sugar and if used as a replacement, you would need a lot less to have the same sweet intensity
• Not all sugars are equal, Sucrose and glucose are very unhealthy, Fructose is one of the healthiest and only has 8 more molecules than sucrose.

13: Goji Berries

Kilo for kilo they contain 500 times more Vitamin C than oranges, more beta-carotene than carrots and more iron than steak. They are also packed full of antioxidants so a small handful of these dried berries are a fine boost to start the day.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Goji Berries are part of a select group of antioxidants that actually increase in volume (antioxidant volume) when treated with heat, sunlight or dehydration. This includes Tomatoes, capsicums, carrots e.t.c (this does mean tomato sauce is healthier for you than raw tomatoes) so poping a few of them in every day is very close to taking a naturally grown mutlivitamin pill that tastes great and no chance of vitamin overdose.

12: Adjust Your Coffee

Although green tea or water would be better, coffee is not too bad for you and actually contains a large volume of antioxidants. Just remember to switch to black coffee or use skim milk. A skim milk coffee will contain half the amount of calories as one with regular milk.

~ Magazine Excerpt

It is not the caffiene in coffee that is not good for you. (your body even naturally produces it) it is the tannin that can be unhealthy for you, Less milk and more coffee beans that have been filtered several times can be more beneficial. Use proper filter paper for the best removal of tannins. To receive the health benefits of caffeine that include weight loss, stress relief e.t.c, a healthy amount of energy drinks can replace caffeine loss from less coffee.

11: Black Out

You will sleep better and feel more rested if your room is ink black when your sleeping and a low level of white-noise. And get an alarm clock that gradually gets louder rather than one that is suddenly noisy so as to gently rouse you from your sleep - it's the best way to wake up.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Studies have shown that if you get an alarm clock that suddenly wakes you up your stress hormone levels can be up to 15% higher for the rest of the day. Sleeping with mild white noise can reduce stress hormones for the following day by 8%. (ever wonder why you sleep better when its raining? now you do) and sleeping with some source of light in the room can increase your following days average stress levels as high as 35%. So please, turn off those computers, turn off the nightlight's, put the radio on almost mute and sleep tight.

10: Delay Contact

According to research at the University of Illinois in Chicago, showering with your contacts on each morning increases the chance of catching an airborne microbial infection. Put them on post-shower and once your out of the bathroom.

~ Magazine Excerpt

There is two things to take out of this, Put your contacts lenses on after taking a shower in the morning and put them on outside the bathroom, doing both can decrease the chance of infection by a whopping 80%

09: Get Steaming

Boiled vegetables lose a lot of their water-soluble vitamins to the cooking water. Steaming vegetables helps keep the vitamins intact. These include the eight B vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, folate biotin and panothenic acid as well as vitamin C. Water-soluble vitamins are more common in fruits, vegetables and grains equally.

~ Magazine Excerpt.

Ever thought as a kid if those heavily boiled minted peas were good for you? well they weren't, even the healthy soluble fibre is lost to the cooking water. you could've had pea tea with the water and would do better at your health then those minted peas. You can steam them or if you don't have a steamer, put them in a microwave. The microwaves only react with the water molecules in the food, its been proven many times it doesn't break down the vitamins (unless the food gets too hot at ~250+ celcius and it will definitely will break the microwave if it gets that hot.).

08: Joy of Onions

If your going to have a doner kebab, treat yourself to onions with it. Onions have significant benefits and boost good type HDL cholesterol, reduce total cholesterol levels and increase blood clot dissolving activity, reducing risk of diabetes...

~ Magazine Excerpt

For my entire childhood i despised onions, i stayed away from them as far as freaking possible. Now i absolutely love them... why? because people I grew up with never knew how to cook then properly. Im sure a lot of people out there remember when your a child and eating all that raw onion in those lettuce salads and how much it made you turn away from them for life. Unless you naturally love those rancid chemicals that onions naturally make to stop things (including humans) eating them you need to do more than chop them up. Steam them, fry them, deep fry them, barbeque them until they are soft and about to fall apart.

Any further cooking will reduce all the good chemicals, if you see black charred onions on the grill, well just remember that cardboard has more nutritional value than those. Cook till theyre soft, will only take a few minutes and they become sweet and tender. Your kids will be more willing to trust any vegetables you put in front of them.

Just remember, Raw onions are designed by mother earth to not be eaten. Cooked onions are far better in almost every case.

07: Ditch the Antiperspirant

Use a basic deodorant instead. Antiperspirants are designed to trap sweat and that works in opposition with what your body does.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Well obviously if your sweating its because your not removing excess body heat. Ways you can prevent perspiration is to

• Eat warm food (your body does produce extra heat to warm up cold food and in-turn heat up your body)
• Wear breathable footwear and wear less layers of clothing

If you are worried about smelling badly because regular deodorant doesn't work, try different brands that have different active ingredients, some people's body odour bacteria are resistant to certain active compounds. For example i found out that the zinc related active compound actually makes my body odour worse, now I know I smell pretty good.

06: Take an Aspirin Every Day

Researchers at the University of North Carolina found that regular aspirin consumption cut the chances of coronary heart disease as much as 28% in high-risk people that have never had a heart attack or stroke. For Maximum impact on your blood pressure, take a low-dose just before going to bed. With heart disease more of a problem then ever, taking an aspirin to thin the blood is important.

~ Magazine Excerpt

When you sleep your blood pressure rises, adding undue strain on your cardiovascular system, just half a tablet before bed can do wonders over time. Its also proven that you cant become addicted to Aspirin and no withdrawal symptoms occur in any person taking them. By reducing blood pressure you can also reduce the chance of strokes, varicose veins and other blood pressure related issues.

05: Use Mouthwash

Rinse your mouth with mouthwash that is alachol free. It will reduce oral bacteria which in turn significantly reduces your risk of a heart attack according to researchers at the university at Buffalo. It will also stop your mouth smelling like a blocked drain.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Including for above it can also reduce the risk to diabetes, blood poisoning and increase overall immunity with less bacteria in your mouth. Alcohol free mouthwash is also designed to leave the good bacteria alone and kill the bad stuff, so don't use sparingly to build a resistance and don't use too often. Once a day or once every second say is perfect. I have even had mild blood poisoning due that's linked to not using mouthwash. No longer is it a luxury, it should be a necessity in taking care of your body.

04: Air Out Your Clothes

Remove drycleaning from the plastic wrapping as soon as you get it and air it out for at least an hour. A toxin almost all drycleaners use is a substance called perchloroethylene, and its really not something you want in your body.

~ Magazine Excerpt

This goes for new clothing. Most new clothing have been treated with chemicals, but don't bother about washing them before you use them first. New clothing have treatments that are oil-based chemicals(as in unless you use scaling water (120+celcius) or soaked in hot sugar soap, they aren't going to come off). Quite a few other chemicals also react with sunlight so put them on the outdoor clothes line for an hour or so and should be ready to wear without a wash.

03: Games Are Better Than Television

Plug in the console or buy an MMO. Researchers at Beth Israel Medical Centre in New York discovered that playing videogames improves your performance in situation requiring precise hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills, keeping neural pathways fresh. Helping you prevent neural diseases like parkinsons, dementia and other diseases in later life. The experience of gaming also releases dopamine which has been found regularly to help improve and develop neural pathways from the brain to the hands. Dopamine is also a natural stress relieving hormone.

~ Magazine Excerpt

Okay, first things first... “I told you so!” It’s not surprising that i’m sure most of my readers remember your mother or relatives saying “games rot your brain” or “there’s no way to earn a living from games” now with proof arising every month about how online games like World of Warcraft, EQ2 and game console games on a Playstation or Xbox improves your mental flexibility into later life. And with the gaming industry beginning to become a trillion dollar industry ifs even easier to make a living from it (even I get paid to play games now). Below I have some physical proof.

This is a recording of mouse actions. Every white dot is a mouse click, black dot means a pause of the mouse movement and the lines represent where you’re moving a mouse. Analytical thinking on the left (3 hours of work) shows very few pauses and hence very few problem solving events occurring, on the other hand on the right with someone playing World of Warcraft for 3 hours shows many pauses and actions.

When you have to complete some creative problem solving you pause, this is so your problem solving processes take full control of your focus. Also games have also proven to be beneficial to user’s self-esteem by increasing their social activity by learning trust, team-work and how to cope better when things turn south.

Also, by using more cognitive processes and moving your arms frequently at a computer means you are burning for calories than if you’re sitting at the television (probably eating snacks) if you’re in the middle of a 20-man team encounter trying to keep everyone organised on killing a creature inside the game I’m sure your too busy to eat snacks while playing the game.

Should it be called “play” anymore? It’s more like “mental training”

02: Eat Popcorn

Having Popcorn as a snack instead of crisps or chocolate is a far better alternative. Get a popcorn maker and make your own as it's quick, cheap, fat free, sugar free, low in calories and contains no artificial additives.

- Magazine Excerpt

Popcorn contains a lot of fibre (makes you feel full) and is something you can buy in bulk, popping corn keeps for a very long time making it very cost effective. Below are some recipes to help you out.

Healthiest Sweet Popcorn

Spinkle icing sugar over it while your tossing it, icing sugar is the sweetest form of natural sugar so you need less, keeping your insulin in check at the same time.

Healthiest Savoury Popcorn

Get some salt (while popcorn is still hot) mix it in well, next sprinkle a little bit of paprika over it while tossing it. Paprika is well known to boost your metabolism while boosting your immune system at the same time.

My Favourite Popcorn Recipe

Chicken, Garlic and Basil Popcorn

I get some salt and grounded chicken stock (very natural favouring) mix it in and then dip it into a Garlic & Basil Pesto. mmmmm yum

01: Wear Thongs

Anaerobic bacteria smell really bad and can lead to a lowered immunity, Wearing thongs also protect you to picking up anything contagious on the floor (worms, athletes foot, fungi e.t.c)

-Magazine Excerpt

It is a common consensus think that breathable shoes help minimise foot

smell from bacteria and fungi but thats only if your active. Most people are sitting at a desk working and the layers of sock, sole and shoe prevent a full ammount of oxygen getting to your feet's skin.

Anaerobic bacteria cannot floruish as well when a good dose of atmospheric oxygen around your feet. That is why people with a bad foot smell, smells worse just after they take their shoes off.

Does the thong bit between your toes rub you raw? don't worry about it; there's many fashionable brands out there that have a single band across the foot, just make sure your feet aren't wrapped up. (socks and thongs never looked good)

Introduction

As part of my wish to start projects and finish them I will begin a 50-day project. Based on the article I cut out of a 2009 Men's Fitness magazine and stored away for "a while" I finally kicked myself in the behind and decided to do this project I wanted to do for a very long time. I will post here once a day for 50 days one item that the article says you can do to be healthy without effort. I will also share my opinion on each of them and may expand factualy on why they are healthy activities.