Chapter One
The Viking my brother got me for my birthday was tall and had muscles. Even if you were not an expert on Vikings and had not read Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings, you would say, that is a Viking. He looked like he could defeat hordes of villains and commit acts of bravery, like Beowulf, the most famous Viking, who defeated Grendel, who was not only a regular villain but also a monster.
But since I am an expert, I noticed many incorrect things. For example, the Viking’s sword wasn’t made of real metal, and his outfit was plastic instead of brynja, which is an armor made of rings to protect warriors from being cut with swords. His blond hair was not really blond. I could see that it had actually been colored.
After seeing the Viking, I chose a new Word of Today. The word ended up being gargantuan, a way of saying something, or someone, is amazingly large. It was a word that I had written on my list, with the help of my best friend, AK47, and since I remembered the definition, and since the Viking and the word went together, I decided I would put my other Word of Today (eloquent) away and make gargantuan the new Word of Today.
The Viking boomed through the door of our apartment, past Gert, and stood holding his sword. The first thing he said was: “WHERE IS ZELDA?”
He looked around the room, which was empty except for the couch, Gert’s chair, the lamp in the corner, the coffee table, and Gert’s TV, the most legendary thing we owned.
Gert pointed at me and made a sound with his throat.
“You,” the Viking said, waving his plastic sword at me. “Are you Zelda?”
The Viking had already broken three of the rules that Gert and I have posted by the door to make sure our apartment stays clean and orderly and a good place for us both to live:
- Take off shoes to stop outside dirt from going all over the apartment.
- Do not stand in the doorway instead of closing the door and locking it as soon as possible, since people will try to rob us if they see the chance.
- Do not drop bags and things by the door, instead of taking them to the right place in the apartment.
The rules are written in big block letters that say: RULES OF COMING IN AND OUT, and there’s a picture of the door and a person walking in that Gert and I drew together using the box of crayons I borrowed from the Community Center.
The Viking didn’t see the rules, but when Gert made a noise and pointed to his own shoes, the Viking said, “Oh, shit,” and kicked them off. “Sorry,” he said.
(Even though swearwords are allowed, one of the House Rules is that we should at least try not to use them, which Gert finds harder than me.)
“The door too,” Gert said, smiling.
The smiling was not a rule that we wrote down, but something we did for each other to show that we were happy with what the other person was doing without actually having to say, THANK YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING SMALL THAT I LIKED. That way we could save our Big Thank-You’s for more gargantuan things.
“I have come to wish you a happy birthday,” the Viking said to me. When he came closer he smelled like oranges sitting on the counter too long.
“Góðan dag!” I said to the Viking.
“Excuse me?” the Viking said.
“Góðan dag!” I said, louder and making sure that every sound of the words was clear and enunciated (Word of Today, June 4).
Góðan dag is the traditional Viking greeting, according to Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings. Kepple’s website has a video guide to pronouncing Viking phrases and words. Góðan dag is pronounced “go-than-dag.” When you say words in Old Norse, you should sound like you’re spitting. One of the things I did when I started trying to speak Viking was hold my hand in front of my mouth, so that I could tell if I was saying things properly by how wet my hand got.
He looked at my brother. “What’s she saying?”
“Góðan dag,” I repeated, then said: “Ek heiti Zelda! Hvat heitir þú?”
Which was me telling him my name and then asking what his name was.
“Tell her what I told you to say,” Gert said to the Viking.
Gert was sitting on the arm of the couch, wearing a cone birthday hat with wrinkled fingers coming out of the top. The wrinkly fingers waved around from the balcony wind.
The Viking stared for a second, not knowing what my brother was talking about, and then his face got big with understanding. “Oh, right. One second.”
The Viking closed his eyes and cleared his throat, like he was the President about to tell the world something very important. Gert turned down the drum music, which I had him download specially off the Internet from Kepple’s website.
“Ack anne there,” he said, stopping after each word and looking at me the entire time. “Ack anne there.” The Viking turned to Gert. “Am I saying it right?”
“Is he?” Gert asked me.
“Ack anne there,” I said.
It sounded like Old Norse, or sort of like Old Norse, only with less spitting. “Can you say it again, please? With more spitting?”
“Ack anne there.” He coughed and took out a sheet of folded paper from his plastic underwear, which was shiny and gold (something a real Viking wouldn’t be wearing). He handed me the piece of paper.
The words were in Old Norse. I sounded out each letter. “Oh,” I said. “Ek ann þér.”
Gert smiled. “Right?”
It was not perfect, but I told Gert that I liked the Viking very much with my smile.
Excerpt of When We Were Vikings courtesy Simon & Schuster Canada.
Find out why When We Were Vikings is our March Book Club selection.
Join the conversation: Visit Reader’s Digest Canada on Facebook to share your experience of reading When We Were Vikings with fellow Reader’s Digest Book Clubbers. Comment on plot twists, speculate on who should play Zelda in the (forthcoming?) movie and post photos of yourself in a Viking costume (sure, why not!).
Queen Elizabeth is once again on the hunt for a sous chef.
According to the Royal Household, the Queen is hiring a sous chef who will be based at Buckingham Palace but will be expected to travel to the Queen’s other residences, Balmoral Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
What does it take to be the Queen’s sous chef?
Her Majesty is looking for someone to plan and develop menu items for events. The ad lays out the ideal candidate: “You’re an experienced and qualified Chef with a background in premier catering, looking to take on a new challenge.”
It sounds kind of like a royal caterer! The job listing doesn’t mention exact salary, but it has been reported to be £33,000 annually. That’s about $57,115 CAD. Not exactly royal, but as a bonus, the position does come with 33 days of vacation, free meals and accommodations. It’s hard to beat living in a castle. (Find out the highest paying job working for the royal family.)
Before you pack your bags, find out the one food the royal family can’t eat while travelling.
What does the Queen eat?
While the Queen is British, obviously, the posting specifies the chef must also be trained in classic French cuisine.
What might that entail? Lots of butter and cream to be sure. Maybe a slow-cooked beef stew Provencal, or a classic French onion soup topped with a thick layer of melted Swiss cheese, or a vegetable-heavy ratatouille?
We don’t have to speculate, though. Former personal chef to the Queen, Darren McGrady, spilled the beans on Queen Elizabeth’s favourite foods. Tea sandwiches and chocolate mousse might not be surprising, but starting the day with a bowl of Special K is perhaps less regal than expected.
If your tastes run more fish and chips than crepes suzette, you’ll appreciate these surprisingly frugal habits of the British royal family.
Soaring sales mean increased production
Dairy milk sales have been on a downward slide for years now, as more and more people are opting for plant-based milks and other alternatives for health or dietary reasons. Among the most popular is almond milk.
Almond milk sales in the United States, for instance, have soared recently, exceeding $1 billion in 2018, a number that is expected to continue climbing 14.3 per cent before the end of 2025.
That’s a lot of almond milk—which requires a lot of almonds. In the United States, virtually all of those almonds are produced on almond farms located in a 800-kilometre section of California. California produces 80 per cent of the world’s almonds, and 100 per cent of the U.S. commercial supply, according to the Almond Board of California.
The sting of pollination
Almond farms need one critical resource that many people might not think about to grow all those almonds: bees. The bees are needed to pollinate the almonds. The vast acreage of Californian almond farms requires significantly more bees than other crops—and it’s not a bee-friendly environment, according to a recent article in the Guardian.
Almond pollination is taxing for bees because the season starts early, requiring bees to be “deployed” at a time of year when they are normally dormant, thus disrupting their natural cycle. Making matters worse, almond farms have a number of hazards for bees, including toxic pesticides, parasites, and even aggressive species of honeybees imported from overseas.
Bees in crisis
The plight of bees around the globe has been getting a lot of buzz lately; a lot of bees are dying, in unusually large numbers. The Climate Institute reported in 2016 that the United States saw an average loss of 1.6 million bees each year, for a total of more than 10 million bees over a seven-year period.
The winter of 2018-2019 was a particularly harsh one for bees, reported Science News, with more than one-third of beekeepers’ colonies dying out before the winter ended, making it the worst winter season for bees in more than a decade.
A complicated issue
Most experts cite climate change and the increasing use of pesticides and other harsh chemicals are the biggest culprits. A few years ago, several species of American bees were added to the endangered list. Many scientists, though, were quick to clarify that this represents a very small segment of the bee population, which encompasses thousands of individual species.
Not so cut and dry
Not everyone agrees that the future is bleak for bees—or at least, not as bleak as what was reported in the Guardian. The Almond Board of California issued a statement disputing some of the points reported in the article, noting, “As an industry, we are committed to protecting and improving honey bee health.” The statement also noted that “the California almond community has funded 125 research projects supporting bees, more than any other crop group.”
Still, everyone agrees that bees in general are facing some formidable challenges, and it’s in all of our best interests to make protecting bees a top priority. While there is no easy solution, there are things we can all do to help the bees, including not using pesticides or other chemical lawn treatments and supporting local farmers.
Next, find out how climate change is making you sick.
“Help. In Danger. Call Police.”
In August 2018, Aimee Spevak rented a cabin in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains to get away from the New York City heat. Like many people who can never truly break away from work, Spevak, a freelance medical writer, found herself stuck inside on a lovely summer day, finishing an assignment. In a moment of procrastination, she checked her Facebook news feed and was delighted to see a post from her friend Michael Lythcott.
Lythcott was an intrepid traveller. In fact, he and Spevak had trekked through Nepal together a few years earlier. Spevak knew he was at that moment in Bali, and she was eager to hear about his experience. But then she read the post. Rather than beautiful travel photos or a detailed narrative of Lythcott’s journey, there was a stark plea: “Help. In danger. Call police.”
Lythcott, a 40-year-old web developer from the United States, had landed in Bali to meet his friend Stacey Eno, 27, just the day before. Excited for their adventure, the two Americans had rented a scooter on the outskirts of Ubud and driven into town, where they stayed late into the night doing what they both loved: chatting with strangers from all over the world.
It was well past 2 a.m. and nearly pitch-dark when they hopped back on the scooter and headed for their hotel. Lythcott had placed his iPhone in the pouch of the scooter and was using it to navigate. As they climbed a hill past the jungle, he glanced down at the GPS and back up at the road—and saw a curve ahead. Deciding not to try the bend, Lythcott hit the brakes—but his bike didn’t stop.
He awoke sometime later to the babble of water nearby. He was flat on his back on a steep slope, surrounded by vegetation. The jungle. He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. What happened? he wondered. Where am I? Then it came to him. Bali. But why am I in the jungle? He strained to think, but his mind was a fog.
Oh man, I was in a scooter accident, he thought. That much came back to him, but nothing more. Nothing about flying 18 metres through the air down a ravine, nothing that explained the blood he could taste and the dull pain he felt all through his body.
He took stock. His glasses were gone. The scooter was gone, and with it his cell phone. His left wrist and torso were smashed up badly, as was his neck. Finally he called out to his companion. “Stacey! Stacey, where are you?” His voice came out surprisingly quiet. (He’d learn later that both his lungs had collapsed.)
“I’m right here.”
Eno was only a few feet away. Lythcott dragged himself through the darkness until he was beside her.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “Why are we in the woods?”
“We were in an accident. Can you move?”
“No.”
“Stacey, I need you to get up and walk and get us help.”
“I can’t.”
This alarmed Lythcott. No one knew they were there. His neck was probably broken. We might die here, he thought. Making matters worse, he had begun slowly sliding down the wet jungle floor past thick-trunked trees.
“I’m scared,” Eno said. She sounded farther and farther away. At last, Lythcott came to rest in a tiny depression on the hillside, where he could grasp a tree root. There, in his nook, an eerie calm came over him. If he was going to die, let it be like this, in a peaceful place. Let him close his eyes and allow it to take him over.
No, he scolded himself. Stop thinking that way. You have to save Stacey.
If only he hadn’t lost his phone in the wreck. Then he remembered he had a second phone, the one with his American SIM card he used for contacting people in the United States. He searched his jacket pocket—and there it was! He turned off airplane mode and activated international data roaming, balancing the phone on his chest. Battery charge: 42 per cent.
Lythcott tried calling 911. When that didn’t work, he noticed a few of the apps he’d left open on the phone, including Facebook. An idea struck. Taking great care not to let the blood-slick phone tumble down the dark ravine, he navigated to his homepage and typed away. Less than two minutes later, Spevak saw the post.
At first, Spevak had no idea what to do. She didn’t even know where in Bali her friend was. Then she remembered that Facebook has a function that allows you to call your friends. She gave it a try. To her surprise, Lythcott picked up.
“Aimee,” he said, “I’m in the woods. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Okay,” Spevak said. “Can you send me your location? I’m going to call somebody, and then we’ll get you out of there.”
After they hung up, Lythcott sent his GPS coordinates on a map using Facebook’s pin drop function. Now one person in the world knew where he was.
Spevak wasn’t sure whom to call or how to proceed, so she decided to enlist the help of Lythcott’s vast circle of friends from around the globe. She posted a screenshot of the pin drop to the Facebook comment thread and watched nervously as every few seconds another friend jumped into the conversation.
“Mikey!! ARE YOU OKAY???”
“Mikey, what police do we call???”
“Do you know what to do here?”
A friend named Ricardo Mendes, in Portugal, proposed Lythcott should activate Apple’s emergency SOS call. He wrote, “PRESS THE OFF BUTTON OF YOUR IPHONE 5 TIMES QUICKLY.”
Kaitlin Haggard, a friend in Las Vegas, Nev., found all the local police numbers by district and shared them.
Misty McKenzie-Hill, in Toronto: “Please, please let him be okay.”
Emilie Stein, in Woodbridge, Va.: “Dude, I will fly out tonight and come get you if you need.”
Meanwhile, Eno continued to struggle. She was trying to scream for help, but she was too weak and each time it came out like a whimper. She was in and out of consciousness, confused and numb. The bones in her face had been shattered. Something had slammed into her mouth during the crash, slicing her tongue and loosening teeth.
“Stacey,” Lythcott said. “I’m trying to get help.”
Why aren’t either of us getting up? Eno wondered. She tried to move her legs but her body was in shock, and she couldn’t get them underneath her. Any movement made her feel as if she might fall down the steep incline to whatever dangers lay below. She dug her fingernails into the soil to avoid slipping and waited for the help that Lythcott hoped was on the way.
Among those glued to Lythcott’s rapidly moving Facebook feed was Josh Hofer, a long-time friend who was at his office in Morrisville, N.C. Like Spevak, he was stunned when he first read Lythcott’s post, then was relieved to see the pin drop Spevak had posted. But his enthusiasm quickly waned: the location was frustratingly vague. He decided to fiddle with it and opened up the pin drop on his phone instead of on his computer. Instantly it showed greater detail. He took a screenshot and sent it to a U.S. consulate in Indonesia via email.
In Los Angeles, Paul Rocha was watching the thread with interest. Lythcott had mustered sufficient consciousness to let commenters know that he could hear running water nearby. Using Spevak’s screenshots, plus Lythcott’s detail about the flowing water, Rocha, a self-professed map nerd, created a new map of his own, with a circle indicating the likeliest search area. Then he posted his update.
A more precise picture of the situation was emerging: Lythcott and Eno were outside of Ubud in the jungle near a place called Sweet Waterfall. On the thread, friends from all over the world had begun posting contact information for police, hospitals and ambulance services in Bali, and many of them were bombarding those numbers with calls. Someone posted the number for the U.S. consulate in Indonesia.
In Surabaya, Indonesia, one island away from Bali, Christine Getzler Vaughan, who was the public affairs officer at the U.S. consulate general at the time, was monitoring the night-duty emergency phone when it began to ring. “My friend posted on Facebook that he’s hurt and needs help,” the caller said.
Getzler Vaughan grabbed her notebook. “What’s his name?” she asked. “What’s his last known location?” The caller supplied as much detail as possible. Seconds after they hung up, the phone rang again: another one of Lythcott’s friends. And so it went for the next two hours.
Getzler Vaughan frantically multi-tasked, working by phone, text and email, receiving and parsing a landslide of information from the Facebook posse: screenshots, maps, tips, phone numbers, Lythcott’s date of birth, his family contacts—all with the aim of sending a physical search party to the correct location. Someone had even alerted the U.S. State Department’s operations center in Washington, D.C.
Getzler Vaughan passed on what she knew to officials in Bali. Around 5:30 a.m., less than an hour after his Facebook SOS, she texted Lythcott: “Someone from our office in Bali has the info your friends have sent us.”
“Can’t move,” he typed back. Then he added: “6 perrxcntt batt.”
Tempers were beginning to fray on Lythcott’s feed. His well-intentioned friends were clogging the thread by voicing concern or requesting updates. In so doing, they were burying important information Balinese authorities would need if they were to rescue him and Eno.
“For Christ’s sake, EVERYONE STOP POSTING,” one poster snapped. “Unless you have an update we need this thread to STOP NOW.”
Another took exception: “Dude. Please stop yelling.” The reply: “Our friend is in serious trouble. I’ll yell my face off if that helps get a point across.”
Meanwhile, Eno and Lythcott lay bleeding in the ravine.
“Try to hang on,” Lythcott said. “Help is coming.”
“How long?”
He had no idea. His phone battery had died. Now they were truly all alone.
About three hours after the crash, Lythcott was drifting in and out of consciousness when he heard the sound of brush rustling. He tensed up. Bali has snakes—cobras and pythons—and he wasn’t exactly in a condition to defend himself. He heard voices. A search party!
Speaking English, four rescuers carefully cradled Lythcott’s neck as they carried him up to a flatbed truck and placed him beside Eno in the cargo area. Her hair was soaked and matted with blood and grime. More blood covered her torso and legs. Lythcott barely recognized her.
At 8:14 a.m.—four hours after Lythcott posted his plea for help—Caitlin from Prague, who had been regularly checking with the hospital in Ubud for Lythcott’s arrival, posted: “UPDATE—HE IS OKAY AND IN THE HOSPITAL!”
Friends from Portland to Prague, Seattle to Sydney, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Their sentiments could be summed up by a post from a friend named Jay Holmes: “Thank you, that’s what we all needed to hear.”
Eno spent seven days at a hospital in Bali before returning to her teaching job in South Korea. She had suffered a fractured wrist, shattered cheekbones, severe injuries to her mouth and tongue, and a badly broken nose. Lythcott’s condition was worse: internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, a broken wrist, cracked ribs, an injured neck, a fractured skull, a perforated bowel and a lacerated liver. But three weeks after the crash, he was out of hospital and recuperating at his sister’s house in Atlanta. Officials still aren’t sure what caused the crash. Since Lythcott had been sober and driving carefully, the leading theory is that the pair was affected by a powerful earthquake that hit while they were driving.
The rescue was miraculous, it also illustrated an important lesson. As Georgia Chapman Costa, one of Lythcott’s Facebook friends, put it on the thread that saved Lythcott and Eno: “When people come together, wonderful things happen.”
Next, find out how 70 strangers rescued two boys from a riptide.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda
Farrah* stood on the porch, stunned. Lying on the grass, surrounded by their closest friends, was her husband of seven years, staring longingly into the eyes of a female coworker who had become part of their social circle. Farrah, who lives in Vancouver and is in her 40s, had known for at least a year that something was off in her marriage. Her husband chatted constantly about his new colleague, but Farrah dismissed it as an innocent crush. “I believed he would never cheat on me,” she says.
Looking back now, eight years after the fact, it’s obvious to her that he was having an affair. At the time, however, Farrah couldn’t even admit it to herself, let alone call him out. And so the relationship dragged on for another year, with Farrah experiencing chronic pain and fatigue—her body seeming to know what was coming before her brain did.
The end, when it finally came, was ugly. And almost immediately, she began to beat herself up. “I regretted not valuing myself enough to ask the hard questions, and I regretted the time I wasted,” she says. In her darkest moments, her regret even extended back a full decade, to when they first got together. Why did she let the relationship bloom when she knew they had so little in common? What might her life have looked like if she’d never met him?
Feeling regret is a normal part of life, but wallowing in the woulda-coulda-shouldas can lead to anxiety and depression—and prevent you from moving forward. Here are some tips to train your brain to move on.
Give your past self some slack
In the field of psychology, regret is known as “downward counterfactual thinking”—reimagining a past where the decisions we make lead to the best possible outcomes.
“When people engage in regretful thinking, they don’t think, ‘If I’d gone out with that guy, he might’ve been a serial killer,’” says Dr. Simon Sherry, who leads a personality research team at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “They think, ‘He could’ve been the love of my life.’”
Sure, the best-case scenario might’ve come true. But just as likely it wouldn’t have—and besides, you probably had some very good reasons at the time for going another way. Maybe you were too young to accept that marriage proposal or too broke to pursue that master’s degree. Unfortunately, we tend to lose that perspective when we’re in brood mode. “Regret is using what we know now to look back and punish ourselves for decisions we made back then,” says Dr. Natasha Williams, a Toronto-based clinical psychologist.
Although it can be difficult to do, it’s crucial to be compassionate toward your past self and, as Williams puts it, “take off the knapsack of responsibility.”
Focus on the now
Only a couple generations ago, we lived in a world of very few choices. You grew up and did pretty much what your parents did.
“The problem these days is that we have seemingly limitless possibilities, and opportunity creates regret,” says Sherry. Should I have studied engineering instead of history? Should I have gone travelling instead of settling down and starting a family? It doesn’t help to see your friends posting images of their best lives on social media, causing what Sherry calls “upward social comparison” (and kids call FOMO, or fear of missing out).
But ruminating on the past is counterproductive. It leads to inaction, since regretful people are often too busy surrendering to retrospective self-loathing to get off the couch. One immediate antidote is to get moving: go to the gym, pick up a guitar, tackle a complex recipe. The point is to keep your brain too busy to obsess—after all, it’s hard to brood while gasping your way through a 5K, says Sherry.
Practising mindfulness—a form of meditation that encourages you to allow your regretful thoughts to pass in and out of your head without getting stuck there—is another way to do away with anguish about the past. “Mindfulness is almost the antithesis of regret, in that you make a deliberate effort to direct your attention to the present moment,” says Sherry.
Learn from your mistakes
While regrets can be enormously painful, they can also provide a powerful motivation for self-improvement. “Over time, regret can become less intense because those feelings trigger you to do something about it,” says Dr. Mike Morrison, a professor at King’s University College.
In many cases, it’s not too late to satisfy a long-standing itch: you can go back to school, take another crack at that novel or mend fences with an old friend even after many years. The toughest regrets are ones that aren’t so easily fixed, however—say, wishing you hadn’t put in 70-hour workweeks at the cost of watching your kids grow up. In those cases, Morrison suggests engaging in “positive reframing,” like vowing to spend more time with your grandkids. “There are ways any regret can have some potential future value,” he says.
This is where the word “but” can come in handy. “You need to get to a space where you can say, ‘I regret what I did, but here’s how I’m addressing it and moving forward,’” says Williams. “When I’m ready to get into another relationship, I can use those regrets to help identify red flags and flip the script.”
That’s what Farrah did. With the help of a therapist, she spent two years processing where she went wrong and figuring out how to avoid making the same mistakes in her next relationship. Part of that work included making a list of the values she considered to be most important in a partner. High among them: an ability to have open and honest communication about difficult subjects—something she and her husband had never done well.
When she met her current partner, she soon knew he was right for her. He’s not perfect, of course—who is?—but he was open to talking about his feelings and sharing his vulnerabilities. They’ve been together for five years. “It’s not that it’s not hard, because we still have disconnects,” says Farrah. “But we talk about them, and that makes all the difference.”
Next, try these tips for living a happier life.
*Name has been changed.
The truth about counting calories
Reader’s Digest Canada: For decades we’ve heard that the secret to weight loss and maintenance is calories in–calories out. Is that idea changing?
Abby Langer: Yes. We’ve started to take a more holistic view of nutrition and health, and there’s an understanding that the quality of food is more important than calorie counting. Back when I was studying nutrition at university, we learned that if you eat 3,500 calories over and above what you need in a day, you’re going to gain one pound. It’s not that this is untrue, but it’s extremely simplistic. Calories are processed differently depending on which food they come from, individual genetics and gut bacteria.
Let’s backtrack. What exactly is a calorie?
A calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. It was actually first used to measure efficiency in steam engines. The concept as it relates to food and diet came about in the 1860s, based on the idea that calories are to our bodies what fuel is to fire.
How is a calorie from an apple different than one from a chocolate bar?
A calorie is always technically the same, but there are differences relating to nutrition. For instance, when you consume a food that has natural sugar in it—like an apple—the sugar is bound up with other nutrients, like fibre and antioxidants. That means it’s going to fuel you for longer than a chocolate bar, where the sugar will be absorbed very quickly—resulting in a spike in blood sugar followed by a crash.
Speaking of fruit, it’s demonized by a lot of trendy diets, like keto and Whole 30. How come?
I hate that. The anti-fruit trend is an extension of the anti-carb movement, and a lot of fruit is high in natural sugar and therefore relatively high in carbs. But as I was saying, fruit has a lot of benefits that simple carbs don’t. It’s absolutely part of a healthy diet. Nothing makes me angrier than when people use fear tactics to sell a new way of eating, leading to more confusion and anxiety around food.
When I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, fat was the enemy.
Right. That was the era of fat phobia—fat-free salad dressing, diet and processed everything. This goes back to our topic of calories because fat is very calorie-dense. Of course, now we’ve swung in the opposite direction with high-fat, high-protein diets, and processed foods are the bogeyman. A lot of people don’t even know what “processed” means. Pasteurized milk, roasted almonds and hummus are all processed foods—anything that has been altered from its natural state. But they’re not the same as a Twinkie.
What do you make of the criticism that the organic food movement is elitist?
That is absolutely true. Most people can’t afford to spend money on whatever Gwyneth Paltrow is recommending. I get annoyed by “clean eating” culture. Not just because the science doesn’t support it, but because it turns food and weight into a morality issue. Food fundamentalism is like a new religion and a way of assessing how “pure” we are: detoxing, fasting, giving up sugar for 21 days.
Do those methods even work?
No, not for sustained success. In fact, the research shows that people who lose weight from extreme dieting are more likely to gain it back, and more.
If not calorie counting, what do you recommend for improving our eating habits?
It’s not that I’m totally against calories. I have clients who say counting them is an easy way to keep on top of what they’re consuming, and that’s fine. I just don’t like the obsession with numbers. The new Canada Food Guide, which focuses less on serving sizes and more on common sense, is a step in the right direction. It highlights healthy habits and rituals around eating: preparing your own food when possible, eating with other people and being aware of how marketing can influence food choices. It’s exciting to see those factors being recognized as part of a healthy diet.
Next, find out the essential vitamins your body needs to stay healthy.
Bill Murray’s problem with Groundhog Day
It didn’t take long for Groundhog Day, the 1993 comedy about a contemptuous television weather reporter who repeats the same day over and over, to gain cult classic status. It even won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) film award for Best Original Screenplay. Considering the film’s notoriety, it will probably come as a big surprise to learn that its star, Bill Murray, hated the flick. Not only was he displeased with the final product, but he was downright miserable during production. What made Murray so unhappy with a movie that boasted a smart, funny script? Well, there are several factors that come into play.
Creative differences
First and foremost, Murray had the idea that Groundhog Day should be more of a thinker piece; the type of movie that makes you question life and our very existence. According to Joe.ie, he didn’t agree with the comedic vision of writer-director Harold Ramis, who also happened to be one of his good friends. While Murray is an actor with the ability to make magic out of any role he is assigned, clearly Ramis had his own ideas for Groundhog Day. Still, this irked Murray the entire time he was on set. Reportedly he constantly tried to persuade the creative team to look at the project differently.
Physical comedy
“He asked me to really slap him,” MacDowell said in an interview with The Wrap. “It’s hard to hit someone that many times!” Not only did he receive a series of slaps from MacDowell, but that snowball fight scene was no piece of cake, either. Ramis reportedly directed the snowball-throwing kids to really nail Murray, which just sounds unpleasant. (Don’t miss these movies that have hilarious titles in other countries.)
Career concerns
There’s some speculation that Murray didn’t care for Groundhog Day because it was one in a series of films he did with Ramis. The pair had become a highly-coveted comedic team after working together on a stream of hit comedies (more on that below). Allegedly Murray was concerned that people might attribute his big-screen success with Ramis and Ramis alone. Whether or not this is true is up for debate, but after Groundhog Day premiered, the two friends didn’t speak again for over two decades. “At times, Bill was just irrationally mean and unavailable; he was constantly late on set,” said Ramis, who passed away in 2014, in an interview with the New Yorker. “What I’d want to say to him is just what we tell our children: ‘You don’t have to throw tantrums to get what you want. Just say what you want.'”
Personal problems
While Groundhog Day was in production, Murray was experiencing a shakeup in his personal life, which could also contribute to his distaste for the film. The actor was in the middle of a divorce from his first wife, Margaret Kelley, with whom he shares two children. According to Uproxx, any personal stress quickly became evident on set. They report he showed up to work well past his assigned call time and would regularly throw what was described as “tantrums” whenever he and Ramis would disagree over the way a particular scene should play out. It stands to reason that the movie could be a reminder of a difficult period in his life, pretty ironic considering his character Phil has to endure experiencing the same horrible day over and over again on Groundhog Day.
Forgone friendship
Groundhog Day also marked the end of Murray’s close friendship with Ramis, seemingly due to the actor’s disappointment with the movie. Murray never spoke of the dissolution of their relationship, but Ramis opened up about his former friend to AV Club. “I think if you looked at his career, he got tired of being the crazy, life-of-the-party guy,” he said. “That’s quite a load to carry, and he carried it a bunch of times so successfully, and he just didn’t want to do it anymore, and started exploring this more adult, serious side of himself. That’s fine, I’d admired and respected it, and like his work in those films. I just had so little social contact with him that I don’t have any perspective on anything he does, thinks, or feels, and he gives no clues.”
Paying homage
Sadly, it wasn’t until just before Ramis died from an autoimmune disease that Murray tried to reconcile their friendship. In her memoir Ghostbuster’s Daughter: Life with My Dad, Harold Ramis, Violet Ramis Stiel, the director’s daughter, said that Murray came by to bring her dad doughnuts and chat. At this time Ramis had lost most control of his speech but the pair spent some time together regardless of any communication issues. After Ramis passed away, Murray released this statement about his friend: “Harold Ramis and I together did the National Lampoon Show off Broadway, Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day. He earned his keep on this planet. God bless him.”
Broadway-bound
When a Broadway version of Groundhog Day came to fruition, no one really expected Murray to pop by the theatre to catch the show considering how much he despised the film. But as per usual, the actor was full of surprises. Not only did he go to see the show once, but he also went back the next day as well. In fact, the production even produced a few tears. “The idea that we just have to try again. We just have to try again,” Murray said. “It’s such a beautiful, powerful idea.” He even commended the show’s cast and crew for their phenomenal efforts. “As actors, I can’t respect enough how disciplined you are and how serving you are of the process,” he told them, according to Rolling Stone. “There’s nothing worse than seeing someone that’s out for themselves. And you are all in it for each other.”
Rethinking a reboot
Seeing as Murray and Ramis reconciled, he enjoyed Groundhog Day on Broadway, and appears to be in a much more content place in life, would he consider a reboot? In short: Don’t hold your breath. “People always say, ‘Let’s do Groundhog Day again,'” said MacDowell, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “First of all, Bill Murray’s never going to do it, so you can forget that,” she said. “I know him. He’s not going to do it.” Hey, Murray lived Phil Connor’s life repeatedly for the entire duration of the first production. It’s safe to say this is one role he’s happy to leave in the past, no matter how much fans clamor for more. Besides, not all movies deserve a reboot, including these remakes that should have never been made.
As the world reacts to Kobe Bryant’s tragic passing on January 26, 2020, the outpouring of heartfelt tributes extends far beyond the sports world—a testament to his massive influence. He wasn’t just a record-setting basketball player, devoted father, and Oscar-winning producer. His work ethic, unwavering motivation, and constant commitment to self-improvement made him stand out among his contemporaries.
Case in point: his tactic of calling successful businesspeople—often ones he’d never even met before—and picking their brains about how they became successful. He was willing to put the legwork into growing his success, even (or perhaps especially!) if it meant admitting that he always had lots more to learn.
In a 2014 interview with Bloomberg, Bryant described his process and name-dropped some of the people to whom he’d reached out. “I want to know more about how they build their businesses and how they run their companies and how they see the world,” he said. At the time, he was building his company, Kobe Inc., and clearly didn’t want to fake his way through the process. “Some of the questions that I’ll ask will seem really, really simple and stupid, quite honestly, for them,” he admitted. “But if I don’t know, I don’t know. You have to ask.” Humbling, maybe, but necessary. (Serious about getting ahead? Using these phrases can make you more successful at work.)
Who were some of these successful people that the already-very-successful Kobe Bryant so looked up to? To name a few: Oprah Winfrey; Mark Parker, president and CEO of Nike; Arianna Huffington; and Hilary Swank. And he didn’t just call them to say he called them; he made sure they were all leaving him a little (or a lot!) more knowledgeable. Three years ago, Lowercase Capital founder Chris Sacca described his own interactions with Bryant. Sacca said he told Bryant to “do his homework” on investing—and, sure enough, Bryant went above and beyond. “For the next few months my phone never stops buzzing in the middle of the night,” Sacca marvelled on The Bill Simmons Podcast. “It’s Kobe, reading this article, checking out this tweet, following this guy, diving into this TED Talk.” Clearly, this was someone unafraid to give his all.
Though it might make his passing even more heartbreaking, Bryant’s constant desire to do more and be better is inspiring for sure. While the rest of us may not be able to just dial up Oprah or high-profile CEOs, we can certainly follow his example in other ways. We can surround ourselves with other motivated people that we can learn from, and not be afraid to ask potentially embarrassing questions if we know they’ll help us.
Next, check out this inspiring advice Bill Gates would have given his younger self.
According to the latest research, this is the best city to raise a family
Exactly what makes a city “family-friendly”? Although it’s hard to pin down exactly what gives a city that unmistakable “good vibe,” there are certain criteria that can be measured—criteria that make a city a stable, supportive and healthy place to raise a family.
According to new research by Berlin-based relocation company Movinga, that city is none other than Helsinki, Finland. The Nordic capital earned top billing as the best city to raise a family thanks to its generous paid parental leave, high-quality education and excellent healthcare. Helsinki also routinely rates high on lists of the world’s most liveable cities.
“In the last decades some cities have shown impressive initiative in developing family infrastructure and increasing their family-friendliness,” said Marta Blanco Amez, VP of Marketing at Movinga, in a press release. “Helsinki, for example, is known as a fun place to take children during the winter holiday period, however many may not be aware of the extensive government support systems available to local families.”
One-hundred-and-fifty countries were reviewed in Movinga’s study, which ranked them based on general affordability, housing, education, employment rates, paid parental leave and whether a city is inclusive for same-sex parents. Three Canadian cities were included in the top 10: Quebec City (#2), Calgary (#8) and Montreal (#9). (Check out how the results compare to Reader’s Digest’s own rankings of the best places in Canada to raise a family.) Oslo, Munich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Reykjavik and Gothenburg rounded out Movinga’s top 10.
Although the following cities were shut out of the top 10, they did earn top marks on certain criteria:
- Singapore received the highest “safety” score in Movinga’s study.
- Honolulu, Portland and Colorado Springs received the highest scores in the study’s “air quality” category.
- New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco received the highest scores in the study’s “kids’ activities” category.
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You Can Do Better
Worried that your dull problems and weak-sauce neuroses are putting your therapist to sleep? Spent yet another tedious session talking about your mother? Again?
Don’t fear: therapy is about self-improvement. Yes, your counsellor is in this field because she wants to make a positive difference in the lives of others, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make her day positively different. This helpful guide can help you spice up your sessions—and self-actualize in ways neither of you have expected!
Share Your Interests
She may know nearly everything about your relationships with your family and friends. But does she know about your relationship to the hit 1990s television series Friends? While it’s true that your therapist pursued her career path to help others navigate life’s toughest circumstances, it’s also true that an hour spent determining whether you’re a Ross or a Phoebe is a valuable psychological exploration that says a lot about both of your capabilities.
Dress for the Occasion
Your therapist may have a master’s degree in psychology, but you can still wow her with your mastery of fashion. A nine-foot velvet cape makes a powerful statement without you having to use any words at all.
Add Some Mystery
Even the most professional relationship needs the element of surprise. Yes, it’s been wonderful having your therapist help you unpack your emotions every Thursday afternoon. But mixing things up with a Monday session will have her saying, “Did your schedule change?”
You can eagerly reply, “No, it did not. I just thought this would make things more interesting for you,” to which she will doubtless respond, “I’m happy to schedule appointments during all available work hours.” Exhilarating!
Saying “Thank you for helping me to see my worth” is so boring, and your kind, professional therapist deserves more. Try instead, “I bought a duck farm, but I’m not sure what to name all the ducks.” I assure you, she has never heard this line before, and that’s a much better thank you.
Change Your Makeup Routine
It’s really amazing how your therapist has helped you make boundaries for yourself. You can reflect that by literally drawing a line on one side of your face with a thick black Sharpie and not ever acknowledging it. She probably gets pretty tired of seeing all her other clients’ faces without lines drawn on them. This is sure to leave a mark on your face—but also in her heart.
Go on Adventures Together
So many of your appointments involve talking about the same locations: work, home, your innermost self. While it might be wildly inappropriate to literally travel with your therapist, a bit of emotional sightseeing could be just what you need to keep things fresh. Use mixed metaphors to let her know that “This early bird has bigger fish to fry.” The biggest adventure of all will be figuring
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