Stefan Nilsson on Personal Development

Wisdom from the TV show Psych

Just watched an episode of Psych in which Spencer made a terrific comment:

Take lots of pictures. Not of sights, don’t take pictures of buildings. Take pictures of moments, because that’s what matters. Capture them in your mind and hold on to them in your heart.

Love it. Just make sure you don’t get stuck in your past and spend your days complaining on how everything was better back then. Remember Al Bundy? Seize the day, focus on the present and experience new adventures!

Is this where you waste your time?

When it comes to getting things done I personally believe every one of us use the time we have. Meaning, if you have two hours to finish a project it will take two hours. If you on the other hand have four hours, it will take four hours and you will get about the same [...]

See work as a chance to lose weight

Last summer we replaced our old roof and demolished our conservatory which resulted in a busy week. It was a lot of hard work with heavy tiles but I could encourage myself by the knowledge that work burns calories and as everyone should know by now – energy deficit results in weight loss. You can encourage [...]

Smoked salmon with riced potatoes and caviar sauce

This is without doubt my favorite fish dish. It tastes absolutely amazing, is pretty cheap, healthy and takes no time to cook. Well, the potatoes might take up to 30 minutes to cook but they can handle themselves. The most important part in this dish is to take an extra minute to rice the potatoes. [...]

Lose weight without exercise

To a lot of people it would be a dream come through to be able to lose weight without the need of exercise. I’ve touched the subject briefly through my posts on weight loss without hassle and why you need to prioritize nutrition before exercise but an american study might be even more helpful. In [...]

Amazing lecture by Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver has gone from being a highly entertaining and skillful chef in English television to being the chosen one. Since this lecture, from 2010, he has continued his fight and is now opting for a food revolution day. The lecture shows some startling facts. I’ve previously mentioned that your lifestyle will kill you but [...]

Your environment is more important than you think

I recently had a few days off so I decided to travel home and visit my family during the easter. Happy easter in arrears, by the way. What I noticed was how easy it was to fall back to old habits – this includes my whole family. During the last weeks I’ve exercised every morning [...]

Prioritize nutrition before exercise

Don’t misunderstand me, there’s a bunch of great reasons to exercise but way to often people proclaim they’ll begin exercise to lose weight for the beach. The problem is that if you eat to much there’s not a chance that you’ll lose much weight just by exercising. Nutrition is everything if you want to succeed! [...]

Is unhealthy food in schools making us overweight?

Obesity is increasing and in Sweden one out of five kids are overweight which has resulted in people blaming the food in schools. Sure, the food probably isn’t ideal and it’s even worse in countries (Great Britain) where the kids are served fast food for lunch. However, I don’t believe the schools are to blame. According [...]

Share your thoughts and experiences

One of the major problems with blogging is that, when your blog grows, you tend to attract a lot of people who enjoy trashing others as long as they can do it anonymously. After a while, you learn to ignore most of them but some will irritate you and give you a bad mode for the rest of [...]

Quote on motivation

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily. - Zig Ziglar

Journey – Don’t Stop Believing

Today is motivating monday and what can be more motivating than Journey? Lyrics Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world She took the midnight train going anywhere Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit He took the midnight train going anywhere A singer in a smoky room The smell [...]

Challenge: No computer or TV after 11 PM

I believe in personal development and what can then be better than monthly challenges together with other people? I’ve a few interesting challenges in mind but we’ll begin with the most important – sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep you won’t be able to succeed in the upcoming monthly challenges. Other reasons to get [...]

How to get better sleep and feel rested when you wake up

I’ve written some posts on the consequences of not getting enough sleep and now it’s time to find out what really works. Newspapers and magazines publish trends and myths everyday so I’ll dig deeper and see what the science says. But first, a summary on why you need your sleep: Sleep deprivation will make you less attractive [...]

Take a day to sort your life and overcome your stress

I believe our guilt is one of the most common problem when trying to get asleep. The reason is that instead of having to think about all your problems you simply insist on watching TV or listening to radio until you fall asleep. Obviously watching TV and listening to radio will disrupt your sleep and [...]

Why you shouldn’t eat before bedtime

There seem to be a disturbing myth saying that everything you eat right before bedtime magically turns to fat. This is not true, whatsoever! These results show that eating at night is not associated with an increased propensity to gain weight, suggesting that individuals trying to lose weight should not rely on decreasing evening calorie [...]

Calories in pizza

There seems to be a common misconception that pizza contains 2000+ calories and you can’t eat anything else during a day if you have a pizza. Well, I’m not promoting pizza every day but since I live above a pizzeria I tend to order pizza once or twice a month and therefore decided to check the amount [...]

Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now

Another motivating monday video and what could be more motivating than a song from Queen? I promise you’ll see more of them here. Lyrics Tonight Im gonna have myself a real good time I feel alive and the world turning inside out yeah! And floating around in ecstasy So don’t stop me now don’t stop [...]

One reason to why Americans are more obese than the french

It’s no secret that Americans tend to be more obese than Europeans but why? I recently found an interesting study over at Barking up the wrong tree. They decided to investigate the amount of food people get at restaurants so Rozin equipped his research team with portable digital scales and sent them to restaurants in Paris and Philadelphia to weigh portion [...]

Sleep deprivation will make you less attractive

This shouldn’t come as a surprise since we’ve all seen someone who almost looks ill due to sleep deprivation but in 2010 a Swedish study was done and came to the conclusion that sleep deprivation will make you less attractive. Participants were photographed after a normal night’s sleep (eight hours) and after sleep deprivation (31 [...]

Sleep deprivation may lead to overeating and weight gain

Observational studies has for a long time shown a correlation between sleep deprivation for an long time. For an example, in 2008, a literature search showed that both children and adults who get too little sleep tend to weigh more than those who get enough sleep. Now they have finally made a detailed study within a lab [...]

How to stop wasting time on the internet

Cyberloafing is an increasing problem and estimated to cost UK employers £300m a year. There are probably several reasons to this such as increased availability and more socially acceptable then before but two studies mentioned in a new article at BPS Occupational Digest hints that there might be a simple solution to reduce the amount of time you spend on cyberloafing. [...]

Discover your passion for food and cooking

Just watched an old episode of Gordon Ramsay’s the F-word in which Gordon visited two guys who basically lived on pizza, noodles and kebab. Unfortunately a lot of people buy fast food because it’s easy. They convince themselves that they can’t cook or that they don’t have the time to cook. Therefore, I challenge you to once [...]

What heroin addiction during the Vietnam war can teach us

Did you know roughly 15% of the U.S. servicemen where addicted to heroin during the Vietnam war but only 5% out of those continued their heroin addiction once they returned to the U.S.? This means that 95% of those who where addicted to heroin during in Vietnam managed to overcome their addiction once they came [...]

How bad do you want it?

We all have dreams. Some want to lose weight, other want to make money and a third want to travel the world. The question is – how bad do you want it? Are you willing to go the extra mile to reach your goals? Watch the video above and become inspired by Giavanni Ruffin. Then ask [...]

Water gives weight loss without hassle

I’ve previously mentioned the frightening amount of soda we drink and concluded why you should replace your soda with water. Now there’s a study, proving in black and white, how you can easily lose weight. The study included 318 obese people who where divided into three groups. Replaced calorie dense beverages with water. Replaced calorie dense beverages with a [...]

Roast beef with mushrooms and lemon juice

It may not look much but this has recently become my favorite recipe thanks to its simplicity and low calories. It takes less than 15 minutes from the second you set your foot in the kitchen til you’re done with the dishes. That’s probably even less time than it takes to order and pick up [...]

Don’t let your masculinity ruin your workout

This is a common problem for guys. Instead of beginning with light weights and actually finding contact with their muscles they takt a look at their friend and decides to lift heaver than him just to outshine him. As a result they end up with terrible form, not knowing if they’re working the right muscles and sometimes [...]

It’s not a failure until you quit

Everyone has setbacks. What differentiates the successful from the unsuccessful is how the handle setbacks. You can either learn from your misstakes and avoid doing them in the future or you can give up and definitely fail.. Thomas Edison is often quoted with the following: “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work” Don’t beat [...]

Crash course in bad science

Newspapers are built to make money on their visitors so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they jump on every interesting study. Unfortunately, journalists rarely care about the truth and as a result they publish falsehoods. This is why everyone should take a crash course in bad science so you can look at a [...]