Author: Abdullah Yahya

How to Lose Weight By Eating Foods with Low Energy Density

There’s a very simple formula for losing weight. The total number of calories you consume from eating must just be less than the total number of calories you burn living and exercise. However, the problem with this is you need to eat enough to feel full so you don’t eat too much. Therefore, there are two key things to focus on when deciding what to eat:

  • foods that have a low energy density (low on the energy density index)
  • foods that make you feel full longer (high on the satiety index)

To understand energy (calorie) density, look at the picture below. Both desserts have the same amount of energy (calories) but the one on the left is heavier and contains more mass (grams) which would make you feel full longer.

Continue reading How to Lose Weight By Eating Foods with Low Energy Density

Travel Checklist / Tips

Money

  • Use a credit card with no foreign transaction fee
    • Amazon Visa Signature
    • Costco Citi Visa Signature
  • Set a credit card travel notice
  • If you need cash, just withdraw it from the ATM of a big bank. The currency conversion rate is just 3%. However, there are withdrawal limits.
  • Upon arrival, look for an ATM of a big bank at the airport to withdraw cash. The money exchangers will rip you off big time.
  • If you need to exchange cash at the airport, do so after you pass through immigrations near the exit rather than before passing immigrations. There are more options and the rates are cheaper there.
  • Get and set up a currency converter app

Booking Sites

If purchasing plane tickets, buy direct from airlines if the price is not much more expensive. It’ll be much easier to make changes and cancellations by dealing directly with the airline.

Hotels

  • If traveling within the US, consider Extended Stay America. Some nice features of it are
    • on-site laundromat
    • full-size kitchen
    • usually cheaper than regular hotels since house cleaning only comes once a week (daily housekeeping available for extra fee)
    • stable rates
    • unworrisome cancellation policy
    • free wi-fi
    • and more

For all hotels, make sure to notify the hotel if you will be arriving late.

If staying at Extended Stay America for a few days, be sure to bring

  • disposable plates and cups
  • disposable eating utensils
  • napkins
  • mini dish soap
  • dish scrubber

Pre-Departure Planning

  • Get and read a travel guide (Lonely Planet)
  • If travelling internationally, enroll in STEP (Smart Traveler Enrollment Program) and register your trip
  • Print a copy of all trip arrangements (plane tickets, hotel reservations) as a backup
  • Download a copy of all travel documents to your phone. You can do this by uploading them all to a folder in Google Drive and then setting the folder to “Available Offline”.
  • Make a Google Doc and Sheet list of
    • places to visit
    • opening hours
    • costs
    • directions
    • etc
      See template
  • Save each place of interest in Google Maps
  • Download Google map of all destinations for offline viewing
  • Download videos, e.g. from YouTube, to watch on plane, in hotel.
  • Check the weather forecast

Carry-On Bag

  • For your carry-on, if you can, just bring a backpack. It can be pointless to bring a carry-on luggage since max weight allowance is so low.
  • Within your carry on backpack, bring a thin, lightweight backpack to put under the plane seat in front of you. This will not take a lot of space and carry your in-air essentials like laptop, munchies, smartphone, earphones, etc.

Munchies

  • Trail mix
  • Chewy nutrition bars, e.g. Nature Valley Peanut Butter bar
  • Goldfish
  • Sunflower seeds (without the shells) in a zip-loc bag
  • Pringles
  • Beef Jerky + Cheddar Cheese (Costco)
  • Hawaiian Sweet Bread + Nutella + plastic knives
  • Disposable cup in which to put munchies for easy access

Toiletries / Bathroom Accessories

  • Hair dryer
  • Sunscreen
  • Plug adapters
  • Shampoo
  • Soap
  • Medium towel
  • Wet tissue / Bring fragrant-free wet wipes to wipe the sweat and dirt off your hands and face.

Swimming

Day-to-Day Clothing

  • Cap / hat
  • Visor
  • Sunglasses
  • Columbia thin, waterproof hiking pants
  • Wear shirts designed for hot and humid weather when traveling to hot and humid destinations. Golf clothes usually meet this requirement (PGA Tour Airflux – 100% polyester)
  • Walking shorts (cargo shorts with many pockets are good to hold many things)
  • If you’ll be doing a lot of walking, bring comfortable walking sandals. Test your shoes thoroughly before departing. What may feel comfortable at first may not actually feel comfortable after a few hours of walking. Maybe get a memory foam one, e.g. from Skechers.
  • Pickpocket-proof pants

Gadgets / Electronics

  • Power pack to recharge phone and laptop
  • USB adapters / cables, e.g. USB-C to USB
  • Voltage converter (220 -> 110)
  • Laptop + charger
  • Cell phone + charger
  • Portable digital luggage scale
  • Neckband Bluetooth earphones with plane plug adapter
  • Noise-canceling headphones
  • Extension cord and power strip (since houses and hotels in many countries don’t have enough outlets where you need them or the outlet is too high above the floor)
  • Mini USB fan. Some planes don’t turn the A/C until takeoff, and even then, it can still be very hot and stuffy in a plane. Since most planes include a USB port, having a mini USB fan can keep you cool while flying.
  • 3 prong to 2 prong plug adapter

Miscellaneous

  • Bring plastic bags to hold your wet clothes, dirty clothes, etc
  • Scissors
  • Gray duct tape
  • Clear plastic tape
  • Small tape measure
  • Black mock turtleneck long-sleeve shirt
  • Stretchy fleece-lined pants
  • For long plane rides, wear the black pants pictured. They are stretchy and all pockets are zippered so things won’t fall out.
  • For long walks, wear the beige Columbia pants.
  • For fashion and taking pictures, wear the white pants.
  • Use the small sling bag while exploring. When traveling by plane, put the sling in a larger backpack so you can take more stuff.
  • For colder weather, wear the black mock turtleneck long-sleeve shirt and fleece-lined pants

Run Simple Local Web Server for Testing / Development

When you’re testing or developing a simple HTML-based website, you don’t need to go through the hassle of installing and configuring Apache or some other server. Following are two simple options:

  1. Python’s SimpleHTTPServer
  2. BrowserSync 

If you’re on a Mac, then Python is probably already installed and you can just start up the server from the folder containing your website files using the command: python -m SimpleHTTPServer. If you’re on Windows, you can download Python and then run the command. Detailed instructions can be found on Mozilla’s website.

BrowserSync is another option that has the added benefit that it watches changes to your website files and if it detects a change, it’ll reload the browser for you.

Delicious Egg Panini Sandwich

‘The other day I had an egg panini sandwich at a corner bakery (the place is actually called “Corner Bakery”).

The sandwich was so good, I just had to learn how to make it. Turns out it’s not hard at all and the results are delicious. Also, it turns out that eggs are super nutritious and high in satiety so you feel full longer. In other words, it’s great for helping you lose weight.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/eggs-weight-loss-food

Check out other healthy foods for weight loss.

Here’s the recipe: Continue reading Delicious Egg Panini Sandwich

Fastest Way to Learn a Language

If you want to learn a language, you will probably feel overwhelmed as there is a lot to understand and memorize and there are many different approaches to learning. Below is one approach that I’d argue makes sense and will allow you to be able to communicate as soon as possible.

Step 1: Grammar

Grammar is like a language’s formula. Understanding a language’s grammar will allow you to understand a language’s structure and build words and sentences based on a particular formula. There are many grammar resources available and you simply need to find one that you like.

Step 2: Vocabulary

When it comes to building your vocabulary, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with thick vocabulary books as that will be discouraging and non necessarily useful. Instead, it’s more useful to initially focus on a language’s most popular words. For English, following are the most popular words grouped by part of speech.

Step 3: Read Dialogues and Essays / Short Stories

Once you’ve reached this step, you can proceed to reading dialogues and essays. Reading dialogues is important because when you speak to people, you are having a dialogue with them. Reading essays  such as short stories is also important because when you communicate with people, you will often be telling a story, whether written or verbal. One online resource that contains thousands of dialogues and essays is Zabuun.

Step 4: Write

At this point, you should be able to put together sentences and write stories. You can write about anything although it’s probably better to just write about yourself since when you meet people, you will often talk about yourself. When you come across a word you don’t know, look it up and make a list to improve the chances of you remembering.

Step 5: Listen to Dialogues, Watch Movies & Talk to People

The purpose of this step is to practice pronunciation and hearing how native speakers speak. You can play audio dialogues, e.g. phone conversations or interviews while driving to work. There are many movies online that offer subtitles in your target language. If you are at an advanced level, you can try following the news.

Language Tools

  • TransOver Chrome Extension
    This extension will allow you to see a translation of a word you click or hover over on any web page. It’s handy.
  • Google Translate
    This site will allow you to translate website, words, phrases, and more.
  • Google Translate App
    This phone app allows you to use your phone’s camera to see a translation of any text you point it at in real time. Pretty amazing.

Language Resources

Language Difficulty Levels

According to the Defense language Institute (DLI), following are the difficulty levels of various languages for English speaking people. One primary factor is the difficulty in learning the writing system (different alphabet).

Difficulty Categories Duration of instruction Languages
I 26 weeks French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
II 34 weeks German, Indonesian
III 48 weeks Dari/Persian Farsi, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, Serbian/Croatian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Uzbek, Urdu
 IV 64 weeks Arabic (Levantine, Iraqi), Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pashto

Audio Speed Changer

Some people, like Egyptians, talk really fast. This can be frustrating as a learner. If you’re watching a YouTube video, you can slow the playback speed in the player controls. If you are listening to MP3s, you can also slow playback. For example, the Podcast Addict app allows you to load a one or more mp3s in a folder and adjust the playback speed.

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