Blog Posts by Intent.com

Here, today - I share my Favorite Food Myths. They're my favorites, because I actually believed them before I began to dig a bit deeper and question their validity.

What is a Food Myth?

Somewhere between here and there, someone came up with a thought that seemed somewhat reasonable and a good many of us bought into it, hook, line and sinker. A food myth is something that is based on an old wives' tale, urban legend, wishful thinking or outdated science. It is something that is not true!

Every so often (like right now), one might question their food and diet beliefs and ask, "How do I know that it is true?"

1. The Negative Calorie Food Myth:
The act of chewing certain low calorie foods, such as celery or cucumbers, burns more calories than the food itself.

Truth: Chewing burns approximately 11 calories per hour. The reason celery and cucumbers appear on most healthy living plans is because they are low calorie, high nutrient foods; not because you will lose

Loneliness is recognized as a growing health problem. Isolation has been shown to adversely affect the cardiovascular system and implicated in depression. The internet and TV continue to build a higher wall. A broad research study from the University of Chicago Medical Center has found the root cause of loneliness and so, the treatment. The surprising findings: Addressing loneliness is not about attending support groups with other lonely people or teaching better social skills. Rather loneliness can be healed by improving one's self-esteem - creating a more positive self-perception in relation to others.

This is a new approach to an old problem. Loneliness is really about the relationship one has with the self. Consider telling a person who feels he or she doesn't measure up to others to engage in a social activity! Their response would be: "This party is out of my league. Everyone will ignore me." "I can't take a class at the gym. Everybody is so much better and will laugh at

As a workaholic nation with extremely short vacation days, we can get pretty masochistic when it comes to working. Many of us find it normal to work late at the office, volunteer to take up extra projects we don't have to do, and enslave ourselves to our work BlackBerrys even on weekends and evenings.

So why is it so hard for many of us to take it easy?

Here are some common reasons:

- We feel that we haven't worked hard enough to "deserve" this break.

- We feel guilty if we take a break: other people are working just as hard, if not harder, and they aren't taking any breaks.

- We are afraid of being punished for taking a break: if we take a break, we might be seen as lazy and lose our jobs.

- We take pride in overworking ourselves and it becomes a competition. If we pull in the longest hours and sleep the least, we are better than our peers.

- We are ego-driven to work harder: we want the next promotion, the next raise, the more superior job title.

Instant human: just add coffee.

A lot of us need coffee to get through the day. We need coffee like cars need gasoline, or like crack addicts need their crack. The idea of a world without coffee is too blasphemous to consider--because all chaos would break loose. We would crash our cars into our neighbor's mail boxes from sleep deprivation. We would accidentally forward lolcats to our bosses, and important Excel documents to our friends. We would fall dead asleep in the middle of an important presentation. Because life without black coffee, frothy cappucinos, soy lattes and expresso shots is simply not possible.

But lo and behold! Word on the street is that too much caffeine is not good for you, and it will do our mind and bodies a whole lot of good if we make the effort to cut back on our caffeine intake. What gives?

Yes, a strong cup of coffee wakes you up. But it is a jittery kind of energy that can make your thoughts go at warp speed, decrease your concentration,

You know it's back-to-school season when notebooks and pencils are suddenly dirt-cheap everywhere you look. Students across the nation are trekking back to school with new backpacks, classes and classmates. Are you eager to get back into the learning groove, too?

Fortunately, you don't have to be enrolled as a full-time student at an official school if you want to be a passionate student of life. All of us--regardless of our age, income or time availability--can be passionate learners every single day for the rest of our lives in any subject matter we are interested in, whether it is as specific as learning how to knit or as broad as becoming a more informed global citizen. Here are 8 general tips to really get yourself into the learning groove in the school of life this season.

1. Always have a reading book in hand no matter where you go. Reading stimulates creativity, critical thinking, and opens the horizons of your imagination. Even if it is only for ten minutes a day,

We all have different ways of dealing with the tribulations of life. Some of us hit the gym to exercise away our worries, some of us call a good friend for a shoulder to cry on, or if you're anything like me, a bowl of instant mashed potatoes and When Harry Met Sally usually do the trick. But no matter how you deal with it, pain in all its forms & glory, is a universal factor of life. We all have to deal with being hurt. Whether it's a divorce, a death or rejection at work, the path back to happiness is not always an easy one and it's one of those few sicknesses that you can't just pop a pill for... Or is it?

A new study says help just might be a medicine cabinet away!

Do you always feel like you are fighting against time? Would things be "perfect" if only you had those magical extra 15 minutes in the morning? Are you constantly running late or entrenched in a deadline?

Some of us are lucky to have personal assistants and secretaries. For the rest of us, a little attitude adjustment and a few handy lifestyle changes is enough to make time work for us, not against us.

- Attitude is everything. Don't have enough time to get anything done? Of COURSE you're going to feel that way if you keep telling yourself that. Much of our worldview comes from the story that you tell yourself. So how about changing the story to: "I have all the time I need"? If you believe it, you really will.

- Wake up early after a night of good sleep. Get the day started early, and your mornings will feel magically unrushed. Also, making extra time to get a good night's sleep actually is saving time--because you finish tasks and come up with brilliant ideas more

I don't know about you, but I start to question my biological clock when everyone including my dog is irritating me and I start crying at a dinner party because someone says something that reminds me of The Cove. It's like, "Ah, right, my body is about to start celebrating how not pregnant I am" and I take cover for the PMS tornado of mood swings and Midol.

Many woman experience the symptoms of PMS around their menstrual cycles and endure depression, anxiety and anger. Most of us just chalk up the truck load of stress that unloaded on our life to PMS. PMS just stresses us out...

Right?

Wrong!

New studies are showing that stress isn't induced by PMS, but PMS is induced by stress.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and colleagues studied 259 women for two & a half of their cycles. The study recorded the amount of stress the women encountered prior to their periods and how it affected it. The women who scored higher on the Perceived Stress