A traditional "Guernsey" wool seaman's sweater in navy blue. I've had mine for 30 years.
A "Bar style" blender. (Very powerful motor and the jar has the blades permanently attached).
A full set of Henckels knives. Keep them sharp. (I use a stone, but it doesn't really matter... You can even use an old mousepad with a sheet of automotive sandpaper glued to it.)
If you don’t want to sharpen knives yourself you can always bring them to a knife sharpener like cooks do. It‘s like 10 - 20 bucks a knife and they will feel like new.
You should also have a honing steel and use it before using your knives. This makes a big difference.
Strongly recommend the 750. I had a blendtec prior which was a piece of shit by comparison.
The motor unit on the Vitamix 750 is very robust and heavy compared to competition. It does have a digital motor controller, but at least it's not a touch screen interface that will fail in about a year due to kitchen duty issues...
One especially powerful secret is "decide in advance".
You will have some eating plan in place... then there will come a day when the food available does not match your eating plans, or some social/cultural event, or when you simply have a bad day and "fall off" your eating plan.
The secret is to anticipate/expect these things to happen. Decide now, when you can be dispassionate, where you can compromise, for how much, and how you will get back on track afterward.
Will you eat cake at the birthday? How much?
You fall off the plan. How will you coach yourself back onto it? etc.
Waiting until the heat of the moment is how a small misstep (I planned to have one small handful of [whatever], and I just realized I've eaten half the bag) turns into a disaster (screw it! I already broke my diet. [insert bad self-talk and self destructive behavior here]. I'll just finish the damn bag)
Advance planning is how a small misstep is acknowledged (oh crap, I ate half the bag), then recovered (ok. I ate too much. What's done is done. I can't change that but I CAN stop the damage here so it doesn't get even worse.)
I also successfully set up a "three times a week" running program and typically run 5km each time and sometimes 10km on the weekend. Today I completed Year 2, Week 52, Run 3. So I'm feeling pretty good about that.
>I'd love to know how you pulled this off...
Here is what worked for me. Maybe some or all of it will work for you.
The foundation rule is: I will not injure myself. (I'm pushing 50 and don't heal like I used to)
To avoid all-or-nothing thinking I explicitly decided against making this a lifetime commitment. Instead I would re-evaluate at 4-week intervals if I wanted to continue. Knowing there was a GO/NOGO milestone in the near future really helped me get through the first few weeks. (After the first few cycles I had integrated the jogging habit into my lifestyle and didn't need the GO/NOGO milestones anymore)
Then, I sat down and figured some stuff out in advance. Namely:
1) Deciding (and committing) what days and times I will jog.
For my schedule, Tue/Thu/Sat mornings before work was best.
2) Decide what I will do if the weather is bad, or there is some other reason why I could not go at the scheduled time.
3) Define a set route to follow.
I follow the same route every time. I never need to think about it and I don't get bored since there are several unique stretches of environment along my route. Also all the plants and things change through the seasons which is something to notice and appreciate.
What worked best for me was to follow a set path until mid-way through my run, then turn around and retrace my steps. (Setting a countdown timer on my watch to beep when I was halfway through the session, rounding the session time up a bit if necessary.)
4) Follow an established program.
I chose the popular "Couch to 5K" program. Using the "NHS Choices 5K" podcast with Coach Laura.
5) Set the bar for success as LOW as possible.
For me, a run "counts" if I put on my jogging clothes and shoes. Then step outside my front door and walk even a single step away from the house. Seriously. I can turn around right then and go back inside and it counts as a win.
For my personality, consistency and reliability are FAR more important than time spent or distance travelled.
6) Accept that I'll need to repeat episodes. Let go of needing to progress through the program at the pre-determined pace.
The important thing was getting out and moving. The program is advertised as taking 9 weeks. It took me a lot longer than that but I accepted that up front so it didn't bother me.
--
I quickly found that carrying my phone in my hand was uncomfortable, so I bought an armband holder for about $10.
I also found using wired earbuds was a hassle (the wires) and maybe dangerous (they block environmental sound). So I bought a pair of "AfterShokz" bone conduction headphones for about $150. They're great and I'm glad I got them.
Finally, I should note that I only started the jogging plan after I got my weight down to under 200lb. For that, I went with the "Slow Carb" eating plan since it was simple to follow, seemed sustainable long-term, and gave me a "cheat day" once a week. Honestly, as far as I can tell, just about any popular eating plan will work. So if you need to lose some fat (like I did), just pick one and try it for a few months to see if you like it.
One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he asked
an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the
world, could bring the greatest happiness.
"The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse
under you," responded the officer after a little
thought, "and a falcon on your on your wrist to
start up hares."
"Nay," responded the Khan, "to crush your enemies,
to see them fall at your feet -- to take their
horses and goods and hear the lamentation of
their women. That is best."
If you have stocks in a pre-tax retirement account like a traditional IRA in the US (or RRSP in Canada?), now could be a good time to sell them, move the money into a post-tax account like a ROTH IRA (or TFSA?), then buy the equivalent number of stocks there.
You will pay reduced taxes because the value of the stocks is relatively low, then pay no tax when you finally withdraw from the ROTH. (All else being equal and imho, the market is likely to recover over time)
That is, if you don't mind the risk that the market might massively rebound in the middle of the transaction.
There are a bunch of assumptions here. Do your own research and don't blindly believe a stranger on the Internet. Make sure you understand the taxes, fees, penalties, or whatever you will have to pay.
Like you rightly said, this is a gamble. You're playing against volatility we haven't seen in almost 40 years. Look at VIX. You would likely burn yourself, especially as an amateur. If you want to play this game, there is room for put options in your portfolio to counter some of the bleeding.
You’d have to be sitting on a cash savings equal to the value of the retirement account? Because you couldn’t use the proceeds from the retirement sale?
>Just look at Tokyo ... Every major transport hub is filled with shopping and food.
They are designed that way.
New transit construction is often the result of a joint venture between a rail company and one or more shopping construction companies / real estate companies.
They work together to identify where they can profitably build a new station, with attached (or nearby) shopping + residences. Then work with financing companies to pay for the land acquisition, construction, and advertising.
Point is, they wouldn't design them that way if it didn't work or if people didn't like them. Retail works best when it's convenient. Classic American malls were not.
Cities are designed too. Why don't we design them to be desirable places to be?
Because in America these things are designed by zoning and the political process. What you describe in Japan sounds like the Horrors of Captialism and can't possibly be allowed in America.
(Except I suppose it does happen, since the whole point of the article is that NYC does it).
