In this article, “Diet” doesn’t necessarily mean what you have been led to believe by all the fads and trends in the fitness industry. It DEF doesn’t mean to start cutting this and starving yourself from that.  Our new definition of diet is simply this: a consistent and conscious decision of what you are fueling your body with in relation to your fitness/health goal.

With that in mind…  Here are 3 quick  tips to enhance your “diet” starting TODAY!

A) Eat More Vegetables

50/50: Half (or 50%) of your main meals (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner) should consist of vegetables. You will be fueling your body with the nutrients it NEEDS, meet the daily requirements of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and if your goal is fat/weight loss you don’t have to worry about counting those calories.

B) Snacks & Water

There is nothing wrong with snacking! The issue comes with what we choose to eat as a snack. In my opinion, the best snacks to fuel you between meals are assorted nuts (almonds, pistachios, walnuts etc) and fruits/vegetables. Be aware of the serving size when it comes to nuts, which can easily be overeaten.

Feeling hungry? Drink some water. Usually we confuse dehydration with hunger and therefore, OVEREAT. “Drink first, eat last” is a good motto to diet by if your goal is weight loss.

PS. It should go without saying that juices/soda (unless freshly squeezed by you or in front of you) are not your friend.

C) Portion Control (America’s biggest adversary when it comes to fighting obesity.)

Invest in a food scale. If you’d rather be a chef in your kitchen instead of eating out then you should be weighing/measuring your portions.  Here are a few rules or thumb:

Chicken/Turkey: about 3-4 oz. per serving

Fish: about 3-5 oz. per serving

Beef: No more than 6oz per DAY

Grains: 1 cup per serving

Vegetables: EAT IN ABUNDANCE per serving

Fruit: 1 whole fruit/1 cup per serving

If you are not weighing/cooking your own food here are a few visual contrasts you can make:

Chicken/Turkey/Fish: The size of your checkbook

Beef: a deck of cards/bar of soap (thickness also)

Grains: a baseball

Vegetables: EAT IN ABUNDANCE per serving

Fruit: 1 whole fruit/1 cup per serving

Be creative, have fun, TREAT yourself, and enjoy your BETTER diet!

- Mr. BeTheBetter

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from BarringtonBFit.

Here are the top news headlines that may interest you for Tuesday, May 21st, 2013. Read, be informed, discuss, and prosper.

At Least Twenty-Four Dead After Devastating Oklahoma Tornado ”At least 24 people are reported dead after Monday afternoon’s huge tornado, which destroyed whole neighborhoods of an Oklahoma City suburb. Authorities have released conflicting information about the death toll as survivors emerge from the rubble, moving away from earlier accounts of between 50 to more than 90 fatalities.”

Oklahoma Tornado Rubble “Even for a city toughened by disaster, Moore has never seen this kind of devastation. A massive, howling tornado pulverized a vast swath of the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, chewing up homes and businesses, and severely damaging a hospital and two elementary schools.”

Judge Criticizes ‘High Error Rate’ of New York Police Stops “A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” Judge Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said on Monday during closing arguments in the trial. “So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the cases.”

Another Reason to Hate Hipsters Thanks to hipsters, the price of cheap beer like Pabst Blue Ribbon is on the rise. A recent study by Restaurant Sciences found that low-cost beers like Budweiser, Miller Light and Coors Light are going up thanks to the rise in popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR)– favorite among the community of bearded men in skinny jeans.

More on the IRS Scandal “New details emerged of what the White House knew about the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, with spokesman Jay Carney disclosing Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was among the top officials made aware of the matter late last month.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

We have all been the proverbial rock in a hard place at one time or another. The past few days I have been in some thought about love. I’m very aware of how strong of an emotion love is. I also understand that love doesn’t always correlate into relationships at all times.

Many aspects of our lives are circumstantial. I realized that there are times that people could be with someone but their hearts might be with someone else.  The list of reasons for this could really be long as hell. What prompted me to write this piece today was the fact that I have never been in such a situation. So like any intelligent person would these days, I took to twitter to get a barometer of what a situation like this would be like. What I ended up getting was two totally different answers, and I wanted to examine them both.

Question: Have you ever been with someone but your heart was somewhere else? 

Janine:  Well it’s hard because I think about the person a lot; I even yearn for them to contact me. I try to focus all my feelings and love on the person I’m with and hopefully the next one will fade out of my mind.

Arielle: I left; I did what my heart was telling me to do and what felt good to me. It was what made sense then.

Obviously we’re all different, so I can only retort from a point of who I actually am. With Janine’s response I can certainly understand her. If you’re with someone currently you feel a certain loyalty to them. The idea of leaving someone for a past love can seem a bit mean. At the same token I always say that this game doesn’t come without casualty. It’s all part of how things go. Janine believes the more she focuses on her current lover the less she would think about the past one. What is evident is that the past fellow is still heavily on her mind. I don’t know the particulars of that past situation, but what she theorizes has not come to pass.

Arielle on the other hand followed her heart. She said she made the move that was truest to her. If I ever found myself in this pickle I’d probably lean more towards how Arielle handled things. When you really love someone I think it’s perfectly fine to see that through. If your prior relationship wasn’t one of a toxic or violent nature then I think you should test the potential for your emotions.

Everyone has their views on exes. I know that they vary and some are very brash in nature. I just know as a man that if I’m with a woman and I’m constantly thinking of an ex then something should change. I would just want to see the finality of something; knowing whether or not it was meant to be or not.

Have you all ever been in a situation as described here? What did you do? If you haven’t, what would you do? Let’s start the discussion, where should our loyalties lie? With ourselves or with someone else?

DamnPops is a guest writer on the staff at SBM. His bio: “I’m not a biter, I’m a writer for myself and others. ” Brooklyn born dude trying to figure out this life just like you. Come on this journey with me. Follow me on Twitter @DamnPOPS 

“Damn He Got A Point” (My Column) http://viralstatus.com/category/kahlilhaywood/

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Guest Post.

“It’s funny how one pic can f*ck up the game”

So sometime last week, the pic above was released. It looks like Drake, DJ Khaled, and Rick Ross on a random video shoot. Drake is rocking a Dada Supreme (!!) short set and random money is on the floor. Rick Ross has a bewildered look on his face. Khaled is oblivious, and the women in the picture seem to be kee-keein about things unrelated to the hilarity around them. The Internet didn’t waste any time with the jokes. I don’t know how some of you got so good at photoshop, but your talents are blessings for our amusement. The good folks at SBM compiled their 20 favorite Drake Memes created from the picture above. Enjoy and laugh away.

Any pics that didn’t make the cut? Let us know!

StreetZ

For those using Internet Explorer this slideshow might not appear. Use Chrome/Firefox/Safari etc. If that’s not an option, check the pics HERE

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Streetz.

While many of us were looking at the NBA Playoffs and the NFL Draft, about a quarter of the baseball season came and went.

Time to play catch up.

The good thing about waiting a few weeks to look at this season in baseball is that I’m 25% less likely to look foolish when I make my predictions. That said, there is a lot of season to go, so don’t count me out of looking ridiculous just yet. Here are the most intriguing things to happen thus far in Major League Baseball.

The Yankees are…a rootable underdog?

Consider me “Yankees Annoyed.” I don’t care enough to be a Yankee Hater, but I do get annoyed at the huge contracts, incredibly LOUD fans, and relative lack of championship success since the 90’s. I know they won in 2009, but their fans will have you believe they are going 162-0 every year.

With the turnover of team ownership in 2010 to Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, a shift has occurred. The Yankees have become increasingly “cost aware,” valuing productive role players over their tendency to bid for gaudy All Stars. So far this season, those role players have delivered. The Yankees sit atop the AL East, above the upstart Toronto Blue Jays, rival Boston Red Sox, and sneaky Tampa Bay Rays. This despite a number of injuries to the team’s best players.

Take away the logo on the front of the jersey, and isn’t this a team you’d want to root for? This is basically the baseball version of the Chicago Bulls from this year’s NBA Playoffs. The arrogant fans in NY will probably ruin this, but the pieces are in place for an underdog story out of Yankee Stadium. That’s something I would never have predicted.

The Marlins are the worst team ever.

Not according to their record, though they’ll be close to that too.

The Marlins earn this distinction for the terrible way their owner, Jeffery Loria, snaked the city out of millions of dollars for a new stadium, then put a crap team on the field. Loria will cash a big check from the league from broadcast rights revenue sharing with a payroll that you could compare to an undergraduate’s checking account. This was covered well here, so I won’t dwell on it too long. Suffice it to say, the Marlins and Loria are a joke. Nice stadium though.

What’s wrong in Los Angeles?

On the opposite end of the spectrum of expectations from the Marlins, both Los Angeles area baseball teams have been a flop thus far. The Dodgers were purchased for a couple billion dollars last year by a group fronted by Magic Johnson. They went on a spending spree matched only by the other team in LA. Reading the rosters of each team seems like an All Star ballot.

While injuries have played a part, each team has won an inexcusable 17 games this season, good for last (Dodgers) and next to last (Angels). Now that I think about it, maybe Loria was onto something…

The Prediction:

It’s nearly impossible to know what’s going to happen when there are about 120 games left to play for every team. I’m going with the Atlanta Braves, the team of my childhood thanks to TBS, losing to my beloved Detroit Tigers in the World Series. Both teams are loaded and have played relatively well thus far. There is no dominant team this season that everyone is chasing (part of the fun of rooting against the Yankees), so nothing will surprise me. Here’s hoping both teams I cheer for anyway make it to the World Series. I can’t lose!

–

These are my thoughts on the baseball season thus far. Who do you have making it all the way through October? Anything else pique your attention in this young season?

Hit the comments and let me know!

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Joe Sargent.

I recently read an article on (the sarcastically titled) BlackGirlsAreEasy.com called How to Talk to Women – a post offering advice to men on how to approach and talk to women – that contained a one-liner that caught my attention.

Any dude who says he doesn’t know what he wants from a girl he’s known for more than 30 days is a liar.

Last week, Dr. J wrote a post sharing his thoughts on why men like younger women. His post contained the following paragraph:

It’s because no matter how hard they try and deny it, they want companionship. Not only do they want it, but they want it now. When you get to over the age of 25, you’re not going to find women who want to frivolously date, or “see where things are going.” They want to know now where things are going and where you think things are going to be in a short amount of time. When I was 23, I never imagined that I would be in a conversation about marriage within the first three months of a relationship. Those same civil liberties are not afforded to you when you’re in your late twenties.

I don’t blame them. At this point, we should be able to know if a woman is someone that we can spend the rest of our lives with. We’ve been playing the birds and bees for a long time now, we know when we mess up and we know what we should be doing in a relationship.

To the casual observer, it might seem like these two thoughts contradict one another, but they actually support one another. I’ve said for years – to the huffs, sighs, teeth sucking, and generally dismissive eye rolls of many women – that men fall in love faster than women. The race isn’t even close. (Supporting my own personal observations on the subject, a recent study also found that single men are 33% more likely than women to believe in “Love at First Sight.”)

This mainly occurs because although women think they have a monopoly on love, men and women fall in love differently. It has been said, “Men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears.” If true, then men have a head start over women on falling in love. Additionally, in most cases, men need fewer requirements met before they deem a woman “good enough” to fall in love with. So not only are men subject to falling in love quicker than women, men need less justification to allow themselves to fall in love in the first place. Rather than explain this in detail, I’ll cite a Google+ Commercial that demonstrates the difference between the typical progression of love for men and women.

In my observations, it doesn’t take men very long to figure out where a woman falls in his life. I have married friends, and I have friends that will probably never get married, but when I look back on all our years of combined experiences, it was always pretty clear which women these men were seriously and emotionally involved in and which women they were not. Further, this was evident early on or as BGAE stated above, about 30 days or less.

In contrast, many women will say this doesn’t mirror their experiences because they’ve invested time in men for months, years, or even decades who “still don’t know what they want” from a relationship. I guess anything is possible but that is not very probable. What makes more sense? A man who is perfectly capable of making hundreds of decisions each day is somehow incapable of making one decision about one woman at least one time?

I doubt it.

In fact, the absence of a decision is itself a decision. In other words, a man who doesn’t know what role a woman plays in his life is simultaneously deciding that the woman is not important enough to even determine a role for her. Honestly, this isn’t wrong as long as it’s clearly conveyed. Unlike women, most men decide they’re ready to be in a serious commitment then look for a woman they’re willing to commit to; whereas, women tend to already know they want a serious commitment before they even meet the man they’ll eventually commit to.

This is why it’s equally important for both women and men to know their own value so they can set the role they will (or will not) play in another’s life instead of having it dictated to them by the other person. Stated another way, if you want a serious commitment, there is no reason that you should be dating someone who does not. None, like at all. Whether they state it through words, actions, or inactions, there is no reason for a full-grown adult – loosely defined as someone over the age of 25 – to claim to be “trapped” in a relationship role or status in which they are not satisfied. This includes a lack of commitment for women and the friend zone for men.

Over the years, I have consistently observed women attempt to make a man they are dating and want a serious commitment from “see” their value. As I’ve gotten older, this has made less and less sense to me. For one, as I covered above, men generally know a woman’s place in his life very early on, and if he doesn’t know that probably means he doesn’t see a permanent place in his life for her. Further, his inability to articulate or demonstrate this through actions or words should be answer enough. If you want more from a man (or woman) than he is offering, his not offering it to you is usually not a reflection of his inability to do so more often than it is a reflection of his lack of desire to do so, which leaves you with two relatively straightforward choices: 1) Stay; or 2) Leave.

This is where I somewhat detract from Dr. J’s opinion. If a woman (or man) – of whatever age – decides she needs to know as much information about the progress of (or lack thereof) a relationship she should feel free to ask whatever she wants to know, whenever she wants to know it. Honestly, the type of men who shy away from conversations about commitment are usually: 1) men who are not looking for commitment, period; or 2) not looking for commitment from her, specifically. Therefore, it seems that a woman would have everything to gain and nothing to lose – aside from a bruised ego – from finding this information out as early as possible before she vests any more of her time (emotions and sex notwithstanding).

I’ve said this before, but the only women I’ve never committed to are women I didn’t want to commit to. If I’m being honest, there were times where I BS’d around the inevitable, because I knew the additional burdens and requirements an updated relationship status on Facebook entails, but I still knew long before the conversation came up what I wanted from most women who have entered my life. If I didn’t know it from first sight, I surely figured it out within 30 days. Looking back on the few times when I wasn’t sure, I mistakenly thought I wasn’t sure because I needed to waste more of her and my time figuring it out. In reality, I knew almost from day one that nothing serious was ever going to materialize between us. I just didn’t have either the maturity, life-experience, or the courage to call it for what it was or was not.

Again, it’s possible that a man who isn’t looking for something serious will meet a woman that will change his mind, like all those Disney movies and romantic comedies women love; however, it is far more probable that a man will decide he’s ready for a serious relationship and then he will “see” all women differently. Eventually, he will meet and commit to one of those women. After a certain age, I think all men are looking for a serious relationship, but although the two are not mutually exclusive, there is a big difference between a man who is looking for a date and a man who is looking for a wife. Women should feel free to determine which of these types of men they are engaging, because a man who is honest with himself should know which type of man he is long before she asks him this question. By this same token, a woman should know what type of woman she is willing to be in a man’s life, the type he dates or the type he marries, long before she asks. If my theory that men fall in love faster than women is true, then he should already know the answer anyway. If we’re keeping it real gentlemen, all women are really doing is asking us to share what we already know.

Do men or women fall in love faster? What allows men/women to fall faster? Do you agree with BGAE’s quote, “Any dude who says he doesn’t know what he wants from a girl he’s known for more than 30 days is a liar.”?

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from WisdomIsMisery.

Here are the top news headlines that may interest you for Friday, May 17th, 2013. Read, be informed, discuss, and prosper.

IRS Scandal ”Lawmakers this morning accused leaders of the Internal Revenue Service of lying as they opened the first in a series of hearings about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.”

Scandal Finale Re-Cap “The most intriguing thing about both seasons of Scandal is that everyone is a mess. Very few people have redeemable qualities, and most reveal a murky, sinister side more often than not. Last night’s finale was glorious, as the psychopathic, sycophantic, murderous, heart-attack-inducing personality disorders were on full display.”

Phil Jackson Compares Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant ”One basketball lover, however, has largely been reticent to compare the two legendary shooting guards — Phil Jackson, the man who coached Jordan and Bryant through their respective championship-winning, Hall-of-Fame-securing primes with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.”

Should the Redskins Change Their Name? “Changing the NFL franchise’s name won’t go over well with diehard fans, nor will it reverse American history. But there’s no excuse for continuing to commercialize a racial slur.”

Yahoo Might Buy Tumblr for $1 Billion “According to sources at AllThingsDigital and Adweek, Yahoo is currently in talks to acquire social blogging giant Tumblr for up to $1 billion USD.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

Growing up they always told us that older men preferred younger women. We came up with answers for why this may happen; maybe it was because they kept their looks or maybe it was because younger women didn’t have all the baggage of older women. Being a young gunner in the game, I dated older women and it didn’t much matter to me what their age was. That was until one day it became clear; I understood why men dated younger women.

It didn’t have anything to do with their looks or their lack of baggage for me, it had to do with trust.

Yes, trust.

I recently told myself that I don’t think I’m equipped to date women my age and it wasn’t because I don’t think they’re beautiful or have a lot to offer. I’ve always been a fan of older women; I thought they knew what they wanted and how to treat a man. But in my experiences I realized that I just don’t trust them.

Newsflash, this will be a personal post.

I’m going to turn 29 again this year and one thing I’ve learned is that, “[Women] be mother****** tripping.” I find myself in a barrage of situations where I think I’m on the same page as the woman and then next thing you know… she’s on her own agenda. It’s hard for men to cope with this reaction from women. We say, “Why can’t we just be cool and that just be it?” but that ain’t cutting it. I know we’re dealing with biological clocks but why is it so hard to be able to trust the words that come out of a woman’s mouth.

Well, I know why now.

It’s because no matter how hard they try and deny it, they want companionship. Not only do they want it, but they want it now. When you get to over the age of 25, you’re not going to find women who want to frivolously date, or “see where things are going.” They want to know now where things are going and where you think things are going to be in a short amount of time. When I was 23, I never imagined that I would be in a conversation about marriage within the first three months of a relationship. Those same civil liberties are not afforded to you when you’re in your late twenties.

I don’t blame them. At this point, we should be able to know if a woman is someone that we can spend the rest of our lives with. We’ve been playing the birds and bees for a long time now, we know when we mess up and we know what we should be doing in a relationship. However, for most of us men, we can’t do it. We’re not willing to let go of everything that makes us men so fast.

I told a woman the other day, that I’d rather bow out of dating because I’m not sure that I can trust the words that come out of women’s mouths at this age and she looked at me like I was bowing out of the game altogether. I wasn’t. I just felt that somewhere between the space when I said, “I like you and want to see where this goes” and “I’m ready to have babies with this girl” there was a chance for me to make sure that’s something I wanted.

I understand that clocks start ticking and that things are getting rough for some women out there, but I… matter fact, us men are all feeling the pressure of these women. We want to be in committed relationships because we don’t want to die alone, but we don’t want to be forced into situations that aren’t becoming of us. We’re trying, I’M TRYING, my best to put myself in a position to give a woman all of me. Faced with these decisions on the first or second date, I cringe. I cringe because I know that’s not what I want right now, it’s a goal and not a requirement.

I’ve lost faith because I think that time constraints and relationship pacts have ruined dating. It’s no longer organic but something that’s a calculated decision about will I date him or will I not. That’s not something I’m down for anymore. I’m too old for that. I just want to know that I can find a companion to spend my life with, not someone who is trying to meet a deadline.

Dr. J

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Dr. J.

Here are the top news headlines that may interest you for Thursday, May 16th, 2013. Read, be informed, discuss, and prosper.

Don’t Lower Threshold on Drunken Driving ”In 2010, adults self-reported drinking and driving about 112 million times. Only 1.4 million drivers — about 1% –were arrested. In other words, if someone has had one too many drinks and gets behind the wheel of a car 100 times in a year, they might get caught once. How do you convince a nation that gets away with a crime 99% of the time that it’s a serious matter?”

Tornadoes Hit North Texas; 6 dead, Dozens Injured “Tornadoes ripped through North Texas on Wednesday night, part of a weather system that killed at least six people and injured more than 100 others, officials said.The fatalities occurred when the storm struck… There were about 120 homes in the neighborhood, and most of them were destroyed.”

Maine Man Arrested in Death of Girl, age 14 ”Police have arrested a 20-year-old Maine man in connection with the death of a 14-year-old girl whose naked, charred body was found on a Brooklyn beach in January, authorities said.”

Stem Cells Being Produced from Cloning Technique ”Scientists create human embryos that are genetic copies of living people to make stem cells, which may help treat many diseases but also raises concerns about human cloning.”

Toilet Paper Shortage in Venezuela “Venezuela’s government has ordered 50 million rolls of toilet paper after a widespread shortage has left the nation irritated… Foreign economists are blaming the shortage on price controls that Venezuela has used to make the most basic items affordable to the poorest communities.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

For a certain generation of young, professional folks of color, Jay-Z’s lyrics have provided more than just entertainment.

Many of us, born on blocks our friends never made it off of, raised in an era where our older brothers, uncles, and sometimes our fathers were hustlers, but reared to understand the value of educating ourselves and transcending our environment, hear Jay-Z’s lyrics differently than the average fan. For us, many of his lyrics have come to represent the millennial’s cross between W.E.B, Dubois’ Souls of Black Folk and Sun Xu’s Art of War. Jay’s duality is one we can relate to — that of trying to reconcile, exist, and prosper in a world vastly different than the one from which we’ve come. His commitment to winning by outthinking his peers mirrors our own navigation through the rough waters of a professional career.

Today, I want to take a moment to share with y’all some of my favorite Hov lyrics. These are the ones I constantly repeat on the job… whether I’m feeling like I’m under attack, plotted against, or like I’m just the Illest Motherf*cker Alive – Hov always has a line to match my mood. Flip through the slideshow below, check out some of my favorites – and share with me some of yours.

And of course, I gotta leave you with one of the most universally applicable Hip-Hop lyrics of all time:
Stay low and keep firing.

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Mr. Spradley.