My reasons are that I drink at least one diet soda a day and I’ve always heard there are some health effects, although I can never get to real solid science that seems to totally pin this down.

I’ve also liked the fact that diet sodas allowed me to substitute one thing for another harmful thing, i.e. a soda with NO sugar for regular sodas with way too much sugar.  The substitution technique is always a good way to make incremental improvements in your life and/or break an existing bad habit.

But when I read about artificial sweeteners I see shocking claims that they cause anything from headaches to various neuropsychiatric disorders, including panic attacks, mood changes, visual hallucinations, manic episodes, and isolated dizziness. Other artificial sweeteners are said to be related to increased cancer risk and heart disease.

Okay, so that doesn’t sound so good, but when I read on, I see phrases like, “anecdotal evidence suggests.”  See what I mean.  That’s not hard science.  After all, anecdotal evidence is all we have for UFO’s as well, although there seems to be about one hundred sightings a year by airline pilots – individuals I would consider pretty credible witnesses.

Or maybe the pilots were all drinking diet sodas and the artificial sweeteners were causing said visual hallucinations.  Hmmm … this may be worth further research.

But that aside for the moment, a new report has just been released stating that diet sodas are linked to an increased risk of stroke.  This comes after the results of a nine-year study of 2500 people over the age of 40 who consumed one or more diet sodas per day.  Hmmm … that’s me – over forty and consuming at least one or more sodas a day.

But the culprit in this study is sodium intake, not artificial sweeteners.  So now I have two things to worry about, apparently.

Reading through the articles further, I come to the same caveats, ifs, buts’ and whatevers when they say “it’s important to note that the leaders of these studies acknowledge the need for more research before drawing any conclusions on the effects of diet soda on human health.”

Just great.  And I might say, not definitive or particularly actionable.  The conclusion is that for the time being, cutting back on sodas is probably not a bad idea anyway.

Okay, somewhat actionable, but it would be nice to get a solid answer on this someday.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll cut out diet sodas for a while.  But I’ll need to find a substitute, and I’m not sure what that is, really.

What do you think about the health effects of diet sodas?  And if you have cut them out, what have you substituted?

Have a healthy, bubble-free day – J. Daniel

I checked out some of her photos, and, well, yes, she has held up remarkably well.

I’m always curious about the diet and exercise of these stars, because fitness and beauty is the key hallmark of their trade.  I found out two things about Bo.

The first is that she is on a vegetarian diet.  I’m beginning to think there is something to this.  You’ll recall in an earlier post that the actress  Natalie Portman was also a vegan – one of the variations of a vegetarian diet.

Bo Derek and Natalie Portman also have a similarity in their exercise plans.  Rather than doing regimented workouts, they both integrate more physical activity into their daily lives.  In Bo’s case, this is rather colorful, in that she says she does much of the physical activity on her ten acre horse ranch, and that nothing is quite as physically invigorating as shoveling horse manure.

A bit comical perhaps, but I think by just leading an active lifestyle doing things they love – in Bo’s case, taking care of her horses – it gives them the discipline to exercise in a way that doesn’t seem like exercise.

We can all take a lesson from that.  Walk more, take the stairs, all these things are quite possible, even for those of us with office jobs.

And the vegetarian diet?  I don’t think it’s necessary to go totally meat free, but eating much more fruits and vegetables, and less meat, can’t possibly do any harm and certainly much good.  This also has the benefit of reducing our intake of the many biotics we may be ingesting from the meat supply in our country.

That said, I intend to walk even more, and add more vegetables, including raw ones, to my diet.

So what do you think.  Would making these simple modifications help you too?  They certainly seem to work well for Bo and Natalie.

Have a healthy day – J. Daniel

“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare

This month we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.  It’s appropriate to remind ourselves of some of the lessons we can learn from this great man’s life.

The list is extensive, and so, in the interest of brevity, which is what this is article is really about, I choose to focus his Gettysburg address.

His famous speech, given on a Thursday afternoon, November 19, 1863, has remained one of the most enduring speeches in American History.  Its stated purpose was to dedicate a new cemetery at Gettysburg where just three months before 7500 soldiers had lost their lives in one of the worst battles of the Civil War.  As an interesting historical aside, he may have had another reason, which was to muster support for the war because he felt he was going to lose the next Presidential election.

Lincoln clearly achieved both objectives, but what has always impressed me about his address was its brevity.  Few people know that he was actually the second speaker at the event, following Edward Everette, a widely famed orator, who had just given a 13000 word, two hour speech.

President Lincoln then got up and spoke ten sentences – the Gettysburg address — in it’s entirety.

That was it.  Imagine the contrast if you were there in the audience.

Which takes us to our topic of brevity, and how effective it can be.

Clearly effective in this case because Lincoln’s speech was remembered.  Everette’s 13,000 word oration was not – indeed, Everette himself is forgotten.

So if brevity is so powerful why does it seem to be so rare?

Because it takes effort to distill an idea down to brevity.  The effort is why it is often not done.

Contrary to a common myth, Lincoln had put some effort into his ten sentence speech.  Beginning his writing in Washington D. C., he wrote at least five drafts, dispelling said myth that he completed his address while on the train and wrote it on the back of an envelope.

Other famous people have labored at  brevity as well.  Supporting the idea that concise writing takes effort is Mark Twain’s comment to a friend when  he said, “Sorry about the length of the letter, if I’d have had more time it would have been shorter.”

And he illustrated how it can cost you dollars when he told the story that “when he had listened for five minutes to the preacher telling of the heathen, he wept, and was going to contribute fifty dollars, after ten minutes more of the sermon, he reduced the amount of his prospective contribution to twenty-five dollars, after half an hour more of eloquence, he cut the sum to five dollars.  At the end of an hour of oratory when the plate was passed, he stole two dollars.”

All that said, no one can beat my final famous person in the area of brevity.  I’m referring to Albert Einstein.  He wrote a book (among others) entitled The Special Theory of Relativity.  I’ve read that book (not saying I understood all of it) and Einstein takes the cake.  His summary of it was just five characters.

E=mc2.

Which lead to the atomic bomb.  That’s fairly effective, I would say.

So it’s clear that brevity can lead to enduring fame, effectiveness, and save you money.  Fair enough, you say.  But what does lingerie have to do with it?

While researching this post, I stumbled upon a fun quote I just thought I’d share with you so you can use it as a memory aid.  The most effective memory aids, it is said, are those that cause you to create a vivid mental picture.  So here’s the quote.  It’s by Dorothy Parker, an American short-story writer and poet (1893-1967).

Dorothy said, “Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”

I’ll leave you with that memory aid, and brief(s) thought-picture.

Have a nice day – J. Daniel (chuckle)

P.S.  Feel free to send your comments by clicking the post name at the top of the page and writing in the box below.  And no need to be brief with them – we love to hear from you.

I always have two central questions in this area.  They are 1) what is her diet and 2) what is her exercise regimen.

It turns out that Natalie is on a vegetarian diet.  She started gradually y eliminating meat from her diet and then gradual ally eliminating fish, cheese and milk.  Note there are varying degrees of Veganism and her diet approaches a Vegan diet which is eating only plant based foods.

So, to stay on this diet, she can eat organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, soy products, legumes, vegan soups, lentils or raw foods.  Also recommended is to seek out interesting restaurants or cookbooks to prevent boredom on this limited diet.

Natalie also combines this diet with portion control, another form of diet we wrote about in Crystal Harris vs. The Twinkie Diet in a past post.

So what are the advantages of her diet?  Well, for starters, there’s no arguing with her results.  And certainly, she eats plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, which is always a good thing.  She doesn’t have to worry about accumulating antibiotics and hormones that seem to be put in many farmed animals and eventually end up in our bodies.  And she gets a mental satisfaction from knowing that no possible cruelty to animals was involved into her food source.

There can be disadvantages to the Vegan diet.  The most obvious is the limited food choices it imposes.  Ad vegans have to plan their meals carefully to assure they get all the vitamins and minerals required for good health.  Some nutrients vegans need to be careful to get adequate amounts of are Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B-12, calcium and iron, among others.  But this can be done through adequate meal planning and is not a given just because meat has been eliminated from the diet.

Natalie’s exercise ideas are similar to those I favor in that she works them in to her daily regimen.  You can exercise like Natalie by simply increasing the activities in your daily life.  Much of her exercise seems to be walking, one that I consider to be the ultimate, easy to do exercise.  You can walk on your work breaks, do errands on foot where possible, park further for the store to walk more, take the stairs when possible, and if the weather is bad, use a treadmill.

Natalie also does Yoga, something I have been interested in for some time.

So there are the highlights of how Natalie keeps so fit and trim.  She stays active and walks for exercise.  She is primarily on a vegan diet, with some use of a portion control diet, and no mention of a low carb diet.

Like all diet and exercise programs, you don’t have to do everything all at once.  Just pick a couple of the ideas you think you can do and try them.  If that works, pick a couple more.

Diet is a personal thing for all of us and over time you will be able to custom tailor the one that works for you.

Good luck and have a nice day – J. Daniel

Here’s a couple of helpful tips for you. 

First, you can do this for free.   There are many free blog programs out there.  I’ve tried most of them and I can save you some time by telling you what I consider to be the best for beginning (and professional) blggers.

Overall, the best blogging program is WordPress.  WordPress is used by more bloggers than any other blogging software i n the world.  This site (The WoodChips) is actually created in WordPress, so you can see how far you can actually take the concept.

WordPress has two versions.  They are the internet version (the easiest) and the self-hosted version (more complex with more features).  If you want to start out, I’d recommend the WordPress internet version.  They take care of all the hosting for you and all you do is write and post your blogs.

You could literally have a blog posting out on the internet in thirty minutes to an hour from now by starting out this way.

The other advantage of this approach is if you really get into it, and want to move up to the more complex version, they have a conversion program that helps you make the change.  That way, all of your earlier work can be preserved.

So if you’ve got the blogging itch, and it’s something you’ve wanted to try out for some time, check out WordPress.  I think you’ll like it.

Go here and choose the Geting a free account on WordPress.com option on the page.  You’ll be up and running in no time.

Have a nice day – and good luck with your blog – J. Daniel