So our world is one big commercial con. Another Walmart Xmas has gone bye and another Year strolls in... Well at least you have this to make you smile and laugh and rejoice that there is still a bit of innocence in this world... Until we get a hold of it of course...

Laughter - video powered by Metacafe

How does is make you feel to be part of the heard? Part of the masses or 98%? Do you actually feel special if you are part of the elite 2%?
Hopefully not, but we seem to be circled by tests and quizzes that box people in little forms. 5 numbers determine a persons personality, skills, mind set and even weaknesses.
This is a binary world, you are either in or out. You are a finger printed and you intellect is tagged by your grades, your CV and any other psycho test. Oh and make sure you do not have any relationships in the workplace... Where are we going with this? Taking the human outta humanity... Long live stereotyping and number...


Amazing Psycho-Test A - video powered by Metacafe

I found a wonderfully saying that legitimises all the daft experimentation with dodgy advice a person can do... I love it.

"It's not because things are difficult that we don't dare;
It's because we don't dare that things are difficult."

-Seneque

Think about it...

The best worst piece of advice I have ever seen!
You have probably heard of the incredible effects of mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. If not, see the video below.
Now at the end of a party a friend has stomach pains. Too much junk food and booze. So another buddy has a bright idea. Basing his advice on the digestive effects of Coke, he proceeds to bring a very large glass of diet coke and a hand full of antacid tablets to the friend in pain.

"You have to chug this glass of Coke (diet Coke in fact) and swallow these 3 acid tablets (mentos)."

Gullible, well, drunk, the friend in pain drinks the Coke (diet coke) in a few gulp and proceeds to swallow the tablets (mentos).

I guess that the warning should read: "Do not try this on people you like"

It was like a painful geyser, jet powered nostrils, strong gagging effect as the foamy diet Coke poured out of his mouth and jetted out of the nostrils at least half a meter away! Incredible!

I have never laughed so long and hard. His eyes almost popped out like a cartoon. Do not do it to a sober person, he / she will kick your ass as this treatment is painful and kick starts a bit of vomiting... How cruel

Ok, holidays are here and means food, food and more food. Topped with bose, bose and more wine beer and champagne... This spells one thing: Digestion Hell!
So I have one amazing really good (this is the truth!) digestion settling, diarrhea stop tip:
I used to work as a chef in a 5 star hotel in Caracas, Venezuela. This is one of the best tropical countries of Latin America with the greatest tropical fruit. Well every day I had loads of fresh foods and tons of fresh juice. 3 days into this food heaven, my gut was shot, stomach cramps and diarrhea galore. Ouch!
I am sitting at the bar one night (I lived in the hotel) and my stomach is in pain. So I call on Jesus, "Jesus help me!" so Jesus came over and asked. "So whats up?". Now this is Latin America and Jesus is the name of my good friend the barman. Its a common name down there. This is not a miracle in the making.
I explain my gastric situation to him and he tells me of a simple cure. He puts 2 shot glasses in front of me and fills both of them with Pernod. He instructs me to drink the full one now, straight no water added. Wait 45mn and take the second one. No eating or drinking anything 90minutes before or after the two shots.
Pernod is a brand of French liquor, it also goes under the name "Ricard" and they are all variations of the same basic recipe of "Pastis". Originally it was a medical beverage to cure... you guessed it... stomach cramps, indigestion and diarrhea. It is made from a concoction of over 15 different natural herbs. The basis is from Anis. Its strong but the effects are amazing.
The next day... cured... felt great, amazing... perfect... so I had a large glass of fresh pineapple juice... yummmmy! So grab a bottle of "Pastis" for the holidays.... you'll thank me for it. Or else, have it in summer, one doze with ice cubes in a tall glass with water. Delicious.
Enjoy the holidays.

Well its been... ah .. a week or so that I have included some grapefruits before every meal... and the results are in. "Blrghh". You have to picture the face and the nasty grin...
I figured that minus well get ready for the holidays and lose a bit of weight before having to tackle the 25lbs turkey, stuffing and 2 pints of cranberry jelly.
Other than managing insulin levels to control carb intake and so one... there are a number of effects that are not so nice. Adding an acidic fruit like the grapefruit kick started my digestion faster and made me much more hungry. Secondly, it screws up your digestive system. Seriously we are not designed to eat so many grapefruit all the live long day. After 4 daysof I had gas and diarrhea. Lame detox diet.
I think that the only weight loss result (lost a pound or two) is due to the fact that I was wearing heavier shoes and spent 4 hours on the toilet and perhaps reduced the carbs. (that is part of the diet as well). There is no point to the grapefruit diet. You can't sustain it, you have to buy a supply of adult diapers and your stomach just keeps on talking back to you in a gurgling way, day and night...

I guess if you have a PhD it gives you the right to go on television on morning shows and get free advertisement for your new latest book: The Anger diet, how to overcome anger in 30 days from Brenda Shoshanna. A friend showed me the book and I later found this video. It makes me want to scream, at my friend... "why oh why would you buy this book?".
This is like the western days with so called miracle doctors selling miracle ointments from cloth covered wagons. Please, fixing 24 forms of anger in 30 days? How can you be gullible and spend money on such forms of advice. "Give up a grudge", "stop gossiping", "don't judge people".
If life was as simple as this, if people were this simple, we would all be perfectly balanced and healthy beings.
I have a beef with this book and books like it. You are not going to fix 35 years... or more of mental and personalty issue on 30 days. That you try something that is free, that is your prerogative. When you hijack TV, magazines to pimp your simplistic arrogant product and try to sell it, you end up hurting more than you help. The more gullible and fragile a person is the harder the fall when the miracle 30 day book fails. I really do not like people like Brenda Shoshanna who's righteous beliefs and PhD allow them to make money off the weaker persons back.

How important is breakfast?
I am a "cup of strong coffee for breakfast" kind of guy. I find coffee to be intoxicatingly nutritious in the morning. It'll keep me going through to lunch easily. But many... many years ago i had a flat mate that was from New Zealand - they are called Kiwi's, based on the animal not the fruit.
Our first grocery shopping experience was interesting. My Kiwi mate was 240lbs of muscle, over 6 feet tall and workout every day. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day.
In the store we went to the cereal isle and loaded the kart with 12 boxes of Quaker oats oatmeal. 12 litres of whole milk were then added.
I was stunned, "it will take month to eat all this!" I said...
We then needed to find him a bowl... none were big enough... we bought a salad bowl!
His concept of breakfast: a box of oatmeal, 1 liter of milk and 2 bananas... every day for breakfast.
I started having breakfast as well, but didn't work out the 2 hours a day he did. The result was that eating in the morning kick started my digestive system early in the day. I was hungry a 10am, lunch was also a full meal. Guess what... I put on weight.
Sudden changes in the diet, because other people do things with apparent positive effects need to be taken in context. Nutrition is a balance of food intake and calorie burn... Don't forget the burn part.

Its simple to loose weight, the first step is to feel ok about yourself. Feel that those weight goals are achievable.... Yes "You can" do it. So this is the best worst self motivation video I have found to date. But this advice does come from a cartoon squirrel so what do you expect?

Isn't family supposed to support you and give you good health and nutrition advice? They are or should, right? One of my aunts has a far different concept of family and a strange concept of good advice.
Young kids, at least some of the stranger one have a tendency of cramming crap in there pie hole. Or eating just about anything. This terrible dietary habit generally disappear around 4 or 5 years old, or your mom smacks it outta you.. or a surgeon cuts it out.
Well I was a bit different and the habit stayed till 10yrs old... and there was nothing the doctor or mom could do... And so my aunt thought it to be funny.
In the wild many birds eat gravel, sand and hard stuff in order to help them digest and break down food in there gisord... good knows how that is spelt.
I had some Parakeets then, they are dead now... And you had to add a special type of sand to their diet.
My aunts great advice when at the beach was, if birds need so do you, well me, not you as in the reader... Like a subliminal message and not to be over heard by my mother she repeated it over and over in my ear through out the day... the timely effect came weeks later with a tummy ache.
I thought that self medication would beat a visit to the devil doctor and so went to the pharmacy (I was 10 then) in my house garage. There I found a large bag of sand used for the sidewalks when it snowed. I proceeded to fill a plastic dish and sit for an interesting dry meal.
The consequences were petty cool. You should have seen the X rays, the doctors couldn't stop laughing, until mom blew a her lid.
Sand is not for little kids diet, you shouldn't eat but it makes for great X rays. It eventually passed after ingesting several pints of some sort of medical lubricating gel like liquid. My number 2s were a bit painful for the next few days.... like crapping roles of sand paper but at least they did not have to operate on my appendix.
Didn't help family relations when I told my mom her sister made me do it...

Oh please... Self hypnosis taught from a womens magazine!

Some people just can stop giving lame advice, false hopes or simply calling things by their wrong names. How about: "How to hypnotize yourself" 3 simple steps for 3 minutes a day for 3 months.

This is advice on achieving your fitness goals... This is a lose lose situation. If this is hypnosis then you don't try to teach it in a woman's magazine with "3 easy steps to.... Elle McPherson's body in 2 days." Or, you do not call this Hypnosis and call it what it is self motivating yourself to feel good because you are almost as gullible as I am... These things are, can be dangerous, well maybe not this particular example, but trivializing medicine, the body and mind... makes me want to burn a stack of Cosmos and Elles (the magazines, not the Auzie model).
Who has done hypnosis raise their hands...

Hyponosis for will power

I have noticed this creeping up more and more in the search results for weight loss: Lose weight with hypnosis.
Most people must be worried or like me, paranoid of the risks and dangers of hypnosis. Let alone getting hypnotised to lose weight. Not just any presume person can and should offer such services. Surely they must be licensed. Many are not even licensed and certified yet they offer false promises.
Hypnosis for weight loss it very much unproven. At best I found a 47 person study that showed that the effects were an additional 10% effectiveness. But hypnosis is only effective at reinforcing will power to stick, respect and follow a nutrition, dieting and fitness plan.
You don't simply walk into a doctors office, stare at a golden watch listening to the doctor say: "you are thin, you are thin... you no longer need to eat 3 Big Macs a day". At best hypnosis for weight loss and dieting constitutes positive moral reinforcement to help you along your journey.
Be careful with this, ensure he is not only licensed but certified, ask for references, on average you are looking at 8 to 14 hypnosis sessions and you might end up telling him your darkest secrets.
Who has done any form of Hypnosis...?

Oh My Lord, how gullible can you be? $35 for a bottle of Mangosteen juice!
I don't understand why I hadn't thought of writing this earlier.
I went to lunch several weeks back to catch up with an old friend that had been traveling around Asia. During the course of the lunch we were talking about his trip and the many wild and beautiful things he discovered, then he opens his bag and pulls out a bottle of Mangosteen juice that he had just bought in a nutrition shop. $35 Buck!
Unbelievable! He was pitched this amazing miracle health juice buy a tourist in South east Asia he had met, not being able to import food, he found a nutrition shop which sold Mangosteen juice. He is now on a bottle every three days @$35 a bottle.... seriously he make too much money.
Now we all know and if we don't we should, when it is too good to be true = IT IS.
So I did a bit of research:
Mangosteen is indeed a South East Asian fruit. Other than it was loved by Queen Victoria who paid a bundle of gold bullion for it, it has no greater nutritional value than say apple juice, if that. Yet I found it on the web for over $45! if people buy Mangosteen juice well... you know... its crazy.
If at the most it was used by Aborigines, Indians, Tribesmen, ancestral witch doctors or something of the sort... then maybe I would say there is something in it. After all, 80% of drug patents are derived from molecules found in plant life in rain forests, so, fair enough.
But not even the locals drink Mangosteen juice, other than kids perhaps that pick the fruit coming outta school and starving homeless people.
There is no scientific research or medical studies that back up the claims for any of the 200 million benefits companies trumpet that Mangosteen juice provides. Now if mangosteen sellers charged the same price for a liter of mangosteen juice as for a bottle of Evian mineral water it would be different, or even the price of a bottle of water from Fidji, (yes there is such a thing... don't get me started on mineral water from Fidji...). But seriously who follows this kind of advice, especially from some sundrenshed tomato red, sandle wearing, white socks wearing tourist?

At the end of that lunch, I swore that if I squinted my eyes and tilted my head to the left just like so... it looked like he had the word "Sucker" tattooed on his forehead.


Who is on a Mangosteen purification diet /treatment /experiment? Why do I bother asking? After the above, I doubt anyone has the courage to step to the comment plate.

Like many homes, we have womens magazines laying around. Call them the guinea pig manuals of inspiration. 50% advertisment, 50% miracle cures for something you never knew you had.
I really do not like these magazines, they make women feel bad and give them weird ideas and I am generally on the receiving end of that stick.
My girlfriend comes into the room and points to an article, "this is what we need to start doing... Yotox!". What in gods earth is Yotox? It sounds like a truck of yogurt ran a red light and hit a delivery van full of Botox! Well, I wasn't too far out.
Yotox is a new US workout class for the stars fresh out from the New York Health and Racket club. It is meant to keep you looking younger and to fight off wrinkles with a combo of Yoga (fair enough), rediculous facial exercises and acupressure treatments (what is accupressure? acumunture with 9inch nails?).

How Yotox works, you gotta picture this, you have to do a series of grimaces with your face and hold the pose for 60 seconds, here are examples of the exercises:
"To detox eyes and prevent frown lines", stick out your toungue as far as you can and hold for 60 second.
"To plump lips without collagen", pucker up, kiss fingers and blow kisses to fans, repeat five times.
"To sculp cheeks", inhale and scrunch face muscles for 2 seconds. Exhale rolling eyes and extend toungue and chin. repeat five times.
Yep that is Yotox, picture a class of 25 ladies doing these exercises for 45 minutes in a gym... Seriously! and they charge for this... my oh my.Obviously there is no proof that this will work . No evidence that this will not create side effects like looking like and idiot when a paprazzi takes your picture. I am sure that celebrities will love this and be promoting the celebrity Yotox video soon. The crap people can come up with when they call themselves professional trainers, doctors, therapists and guru what nots.

Like most people I enjoy a nice vaction in the sun. A few years ago before the sunny trip my girlfriend influenced diet included a supplement vitamins and a daily beta carotene pill, 800mg of vitamin A.
As we all should know vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin, at least I learnt this later. That men that he body naturaly stores it in fat. Unlike water soluble vitamins that you need to replenish on a regular basis, you're actual daily requirements of Vitamin A aren't that bid... about 900mg. So all this seemed harmless enough.
I also have a problem, I am called double dose man. I generally take off the shelf stuff in double doses thinking that if it was on the shelf it was weak to prevent idiots such as myself from overdosing. keep that in mind... that is bad advice right there.
Not wanting to hit the beach pale white like a typical turist and wanting the sun to have a maximum tanning effect on my pale white shell of a body I double the dose thinking that I would tan a million times better.
The effects of Vitamin A are improved eye sight, that is why rabbit have great vision, or so we are told. That is why Bugs always saw Elmer Fud coming. It is also an great antioxidant that prevents free radicals and like vitamin C thought you could not get too much of it, only vitamin is a water soluble vitamin.
Well the end result is that I took between 800mg and 1600mg a day, putting me in overdose territory and I turned orange with the first rays of sun. i don't know if it was going to happen with or without the sun, but vitamin a affects you skin pigment, it s found in carrots they they always say that it is good for your skin, but not at twice the dose.
What I also didn't know at the time was that vitamin a in strong doses is toxic when mixed with nicotin, very toxic. I was a smocker then.
I am just glad today that turning a weird shade of orange was the only effect of the vitamin a. I did a bit of reaserch and the effect can be quite bad. The truth is that we in modern life rarely suffer from vitamin a defficiency. If you are not a smoker a little bit of extra vitamin a wont hurt, but don't use it for to boost your tan you probably will not like the shade of orange you will turn, the stares at the bar and the odd questions from the drunken tourists at the bar... oh and it takes quite a bit of time to fade.

So whats the problem with a blog about health bad advice?
Your own girlfriend wants you to be her Guinea pig! God i'm whipped.... whaaapa!
Got back from the super market this morning... with 2 dozen frakin grapefruits.... why you might wonder. It's to start a grapefruit detox diet plan!

Please point me in to the nearest gun shop... I hate women's magazines. She read an article on the virtues of the grapefruit diet, the basis of which you need to eat a grapefruit before every meal. That is at least 3 grapefruits a day! Man my gut is going to feel this...
The theoretical benefits of this grapefruit diet is that it benefits your cholesterol levels is good for the heart and kick starts some sort of digestive enzymes that break down fats better... oh and it is rich in vitamin c. Not really true actually, I mean red peppers have 3 times more vitamin c than oranges and you don't see me eating a red pepper salad 3 times a day.
Plus these industrial balls of acidic hell (the grapefruits if you are not following), are not the sweetest of detox foods. So in order to swallow these yellow bellied hell spheres I need to put tons... well a couple of table spoons of sugar on them!

All this seems logical to women it simply does not compute in my book.
Oh and what are the common effects of increase regular intake of citrus fruits? That's right, diarrhea! Freakin Cosmo magazine... Imagine what would happen to some skinny person wanting to be a model and going on the grapefruit diet to become an anorexic cat walk model?
And what happens when you stop eating all these grapefruits? another fad diet from an ohhhh so scientific magazine will come and replace it... I will keep you posted!

Anyone tried this one before... tell me it failed!

Say it isn't so... colon cleanings?
In colon cleansing and colon detox a new fad? While discusion the previous post a Friend just shared an interesting story... about colon detox and cleansing. Surely this can't be good for your body.
Apparently colon cleansing is good, as the advice would go, in removing toxins and buildup in the colon and to restore a natural balance of bacteria that will help the appropriate absorption of nutrients.
Some of the proclaimed benefits of colon cleaning and detx include nicer skin... (how is that possible, some doctor please explain), reduce food intolerance (eject button please), boost energy and help the immune system.
Seriously I have heard of claims, but this is nuts.
According to my buddy... (his girlfriend made him do it... so he says.. too ashamed to post this himself) the experience was two fold, first using pills for colon cleansing, "they were organic" he said, how is that better I ask? Then he received a liquid cleansing with mildly tepid water and from a "pro" with plastic gloves.
The results you ask? Well, make sure you are on holidays when attempting to take nutrition supplements aimed at colon cleansing or detox and do not forget to stock up in men's diapers.

The effects of the process was four days. He had to change his diet, liquids only I believe and bought a cute little fly swatter for the consequences of his action.
The came the water cleansing, it was in gallons, to remove the "sludge" still packed on the inner walls and preventing proper nutrient absorption... right...
In the end he lost a few pounds, had abdominal pains for a week, and pains in more sensitive areas... I think the lady with the rubber gloves was brutal... and he was hungry like a 3 legged lion (they can't hunt for themselves.)
In the end he had to take a bunch of pills to redo the fauna in his intestines to ensure balanced bacterial growth for proper nutrition absorbtion.
He spent the following 2 days eating like a mad man... or a lion, avoiding to sit uncomfortably on his soars.

Is this necessary, and does your partners or spouse want to put you through this? Lets all petition against this type of abuse... and humiliation

Whether its summer, trying to impress a hot girl or getting ready to for a school reunion... which I am, I am always on the look out for the fast and easy health solution, fad diets I guess. So I tried the Cabbage diet!
I though it would be : "add a little cabbage to your daily diet, maybe have some on rye bread"
Wrong!
First, in this fad diet you have to like the stuff, because if you don't like cabbage ... you will definitely hate it after.
Principals of the cabbage diet or the cabbage detox is done for a period of say 7 days. 3 day cabbage detox is not enough but you wished it was finished in 2. fad diets are not as short as they shoud be.

How the cabbage detox diet works:
You have to have cabbage soup or fresh cabbage every day, you put all the nice foods you like on hold, for a week, no alcohol meats and the rest... ouch
You are entitled to accompany your cabbage soup with vegetables, not all of them and not all the fruits either, things like potatoes, bananas, beans, corn and the like are out... Out out out!
As you go through the days you can bring in more and more vegies and fruits.
By the fifth day of this cabbage soup detox plan of ours, you add a bit of meat. Chicken please, not medium rare sirloin or T-bone steak... sniffff
On the seventh day bring back some rice... what a freakin treat...

How I felt:
Blarrrggghhh, this cabbage diet detox soup thing is pretty much disgusting. I didn't like cabbage much to begin with. Bad detox advice. It is so brutal to your digestive system that I could not stop passing gas, as they say politely. In other words I farted all the time.
Side effect #1 of the cabbage detox soup thing: You walk in a cloud of fart, just like in cartoon with that rain cloud over your head. Try going to work and getting along with people!
Side effect #2 of the bad detox plan: You are hungry, it is such a change in nutrition habits, eating cabbage all the time I could have eatin a door knob.
Side effect #3 of this dumb cabbage detox: If you sweat you smell like... yes you guessed it! Like a freakin Cabbage!
Side effect #4 of the bad bad Leroy brown cabbage in your face diet?: You are so freakin starved... for real food (no matter how much soup you have) that you put the weight back on later.
Side effect#5 this is an important bad effect of this cabbage detox: You actually have a lower calorie intake, there is so much soup you can drink, that it screwed up my workouts and felt quite weak.

Has any one had similar experiences? Did you end up sweating cabbage soup too?