#so like always take any numbers or stats in an article with a grain of salt

[fimflamfilosophy]

“Is DnD Still Popular?”

To some of you giant nerds, the question, “Is DnD still popular,” is probably one of the stranger things you’ll read today, but within a specific context it makes a lot of sense. Speaking of, the show “Stranger Things” presented a popular, physical look at what DnD beasties might feel like, even if it didn’t present an honest view of what DnD games really play like. Along with more online media referencing the game and sites like Roll20 making it easier to join a group, it makes sense. Is this a temporary boom or has the roleplaying community seen a lot of permanent additions to its nerdy hobby?

I wouldn’t have numbers to say, myself, but for what it’s worth, roleplaying is always a very personal experience. And for a few of us, the question isn’t, “Are people still playing DnD?” Of course they are - it’s all anyone plays! The question is, “Can you get anyone to play anything else?”

What Is DnD?

For some people, Dungeons & Dragons has become so intertwined with the concept of roleplaying that people think DnD and roleplaying are synonymous. If you roleplay, you play DnD. Originally, this had a kernel of truth. There are articles about the history of the system, and during its inception the game had a hard time taking off. Fundamentally it was asking people to play make-believe, but with a system of mathematical rules and designs. We know now that this type of thing is like catnip to massive dork-faced neckbeards, but at the time it wasn’t expected to have much appeal.

Eventually it did get off the ground, and it became the standard for the entire concept of a roleplaying game. And as with all “firsts to the market”, there have been many competitors and copycats, but it’s difficult to pry the audience away when you need everyone to use the same system. In economics they call this “network utility value” - that is, a fax machine is useless if only one person owns one. You can only send faxes to other people with fax machines, so if another company tries to invent their own offshoot of the fax machine, they’ll never get anyone to adopt it because everyone is already using the existing fax machine network. Everybody knows DnD, which means that if you go to a convention or look for games online, you know you’re going to find more players for that system than any other.

Why Does DnD Continue to Work?

In early editions of DnD, there were a lot more rules, and as a result more freedom to design your characters. When I first started roleplaying, it was during the 3rd edition of the system, where you could still allocate skill points to become better or worse at specific skills like lying, climbing, forgery, or crafting. This meant that with good planning, you could play a sub-optimal wizard and make up for it somewhat by investing a lot in your “persuasion” skills to rely on talk more than magic.

But being the system that everyone has to learn isn’t enough to stay on top forever. Other systems like GURPS have taken hold by now, and some types of popular nerd media have introduced their own completely unique systems designed to simulate their specific media universes. The owners of DnD had two choices: either make the game more open and try to eat the lunch of other companies, or make all of DnD easier to play in general to capture a broader audience.

So they released 4th edition! We don’t talk about 4th edition. And then they quickly released 5th edition (and a few mumbled apologies), which streamlined a lot of things about the game to the extent I’m not sure why they even let you control your character stats at all now. Skills became baked in with your level, and most of the game is about choosing abilities when you level up. It’s become very similar to playing an MMO, and I believe that’s the point.

One of the big things you always see in a complicated roleplaying system is players spending hours putting together a character. For your experienced player, this is a labor of love. You really care about the small details and want to make sure you get it right, or you’re a Win-At-All-Costs type who wants to make sure you’re rolling the biggest numbers. Either way you’re familiar and know what you’re doing, but it presents a hurdle to new players, and that hurdle has been largely done away with in 5th edition.

No matter how old you are, how experienced you are, how creative you are (or aren’t), or how much you know about any aspect of the game, you can play 5e DnD. I think you could play as young as seven years old and have minimal problems, because all you have to do is choose a job and virtually everything else is filled in for you, as if by a program, as if a video game. An experienced player can help a new one whip up a character within fifteen minutes, and that new guy will be rolling dice at the dragon about as well as everyone else.

DnD is the Worst System

But DnD’s accessibility is also its greatest downfall. Because everything is sort of programmed out, you find a lot of players eventually growing bored with the same-old, and they try to find ways to inject new life into the system. They invent new races, new classes, new abilities, and so on - they call this “homebrew”. yet many people are bad at creating balance and fairness for something they personally intend to play, and DnD recognizes this problem. It has a lot of supplemental books telling you all you need to know about other races and classes you might want to play, and in theory they are as fair and powerful as anything in the base system.

Yet no amount of homebrew or supplementary material will solve DnD’s core problem: it’s rigid. If you want to play, you need a battle mat, because every spell, every action, can travel or act within a certain number of squares and you always need to know exactly where you’re standing. Players are expected to be able to take a certain number of actions per turn based on their level, and do an expected amount of damage. Monster encounters are built loosely around the concept of “Challenge Rating”, which is meant to imply a group of four players will find a CR of 5 suitably challenging if they are all level five. Basically it plays like “X-Com”.

And as you lock people in these mechanical, video game-styled designs, you find people champing at the bit. Not everyone wants to choose their abilities at level up or have their skill proficiencies dictated by what level they are. Some people want to express truly outlandish concepts, or play something that isn’t specifically designed around the idea of walking room to room blasting monsters. You’ll see people in roleplaying communities often asking, “Does anyone have any good ideas to homebrew [this idea] and make it work?”

Fans of DnD argue the homebrew approach works. Yes, it’s complicated and frustrating to invent entirely new classes and races for a single game where you don’t know how long you’ll play or what level you’ll reach, but DnD’s strict rules and design philosophy is a perk to those people, not a drawback.

Yet a fact of note is that a quote from a game I run got into a popular “Out of Context DnD” blog. The quote was, “ Mecha-Jesus unleashes a barrage of flames from his palms, but the train-snake martially dodges out of the way!”

It received 337 notes, and I was a little surprised by that. The game is a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior setting where the team boss decided to kill God as revenge for one of the gang members dying. Also featured in that day’s session was a battle between two men operating bucket cranes in a duel to the death above a giant grain silo, among eight other equally implausible events based loosely on Dante’s Inferno. For me, Mecha-Jesus is not a 300 notes event - it’s literally every other Friday.

What Do You Want to Play?

In my view, DnD often poses the question, “Are you even roleplaying?” I mean really. A lot of players feel like they are because they do an accent and come up with a backstory, but if you set yourself next to another player who has the same character stats and you’re playing together in the same game, has the system really given you the tools to solve problems all that differently? And the answer is is broadly, no.

I understand the counter-argument. Every player is unique. But in their way each Paladin in “World of Warcraft” is unique too. They have different gear, different competencies of player, and may take different abilities, but fundamentally they’re expected to crash dungeons and use what they’re given to kill monsters. The only advantage DnD has is that the GM can allow his players to interact with scenery items or talk to things, and you’ll see debate on exactly how much leniency a GM should give his players to act outside DnD’s base mechanics.

That’s a mentality. Some people like the safety of the system. They like to know what all the monsters are, what the risks are, what the rewards are, and have it all neatly lined up where you can see it. They want to join an Adventuring Guild that will bureaucratically assign a dungeon for them to attack so they always have something to do and a sure reward for doing it. The GM went through the trouble of drawing that dungeon out, after all. DnD is extremely safe.

And then there’s the alternative. I actually learned to roleplay among theater nerds who were already big into the concept of improv and narrative. One of them used to joke, “If you think DnD is the best system for the game, you know it’s not character-driven,” because any time you’re fine with trying to build an actual human around a set of level-up choices, you’re probably not designing the strongest possible personality.

Going back to media making DnD more popular, the first televised introduction to DnD I can personally recall is an episode of “Dexter’s Lab” where they address exactly this conflict. In it, Dexter runs a game where he forces his friends to play by his rules, where he wins. When Dexter rolls poorly, he turns the dice over to a better number and declares his evil wizard “fried” the team of adventurers. Then his sister, Dee Dee, takes over, and with no knowledge of the game’s rules at all, embarks on an improvised session of pure roleplaying where the guys tell her what they do and she tells them what happens. The sheets are just guidelines for them, and if they say they can do something Dee Dee accepts it.

Dee Dee’s roleplaying is open. It’s a void, and for some people, when you look into the void it looks back. How do you control everyone when they can do anything? It requires a certain level of trust that some players have a difficult time not abusing, yet weirdly everyone I’ve ever known who would lie and cheat during a roleplaying game actually preferred DnD, and I think I know why.

Rules Can Be Broken, but the Suspension of Disbelief is Immutable

The grognards that break the rules in DnD do so because the rules are so strict that they ironically can be easily broken. If the system says people take a certain amount of damage when they fall, and you find a way to throw to them that elevation consistently, by gum they’ll damn well take that damage. It’s in the rules! A friend I know combats this by saying if his players exploit the rules, then the monsters will start exploiting them too, to discourage arms races of bullshit.

What I’m describing is often called “rules lawyering”. So named because it involves finding a rules passage, interpreting the rule so the wording sounds like it favors an exploit, and then leveraging that into a powerful ability players were not meant to have. Because DnD requires you to know absolutely everything about your relative locations and words like “Attack” can have important diverging meanings depending on context, it’s a system extremely vulnerable to lawyering.

But with a more open system based on narrative and characters, it becomes harder to lawyer something you shouldn’t. In an open system, you build what the game calls for without consulting a bunch of charts and level guides. If you’re super heroes, you build super heroes. Cyborgs are cyborgs, Orcs are orcs - it’s whatever, and if you try to do anything outside the believability of the game, the GM tells you no. He has more authority in a more narrative game because the GM leads the narrative.

I’m personally fond of the Hero System, which ascribes massive ranges to all forms of weapons (a gun or eye laser can reach you down a long hallway) so the only general questions that need to be asked are, “Are you close enough to punch a guy?” and “Are you bunched up close enough to all be hit by this grenade?” You don’t need battle mats and the games play a lot more intuitively. There are two books of rules in Hero and they can be specific, but most of the rules revolve around character design rather than how to play, and fiddly things like physics or bursting through walls are meant to be decided depending on the type of game, at the GM’s discretion. There are guidelines, but they’re only that.

So if someone tells you they can punch through a wall in your noir investigator game, you tell them no, because the rules are just guidelines and in this game you can’t just drive your fist through a concrete brick even if you can find figures in the book that say maybe you can, because the book also says maybe you can’t - you’re expected to play the narrative, not the game. You can punch through walls in the super hero game where that’s typical, but not in this one.

From DnD to Anything Else

Of course, the open systems also present an opportunity for players to be very different in skill sets and abilities. You could imagine DnD is like “Power Rangers”, where everyone’s a different color and has different weapons but they’re basically all pretty much on the same level. An open system will wind up more like “Avatar the Last Airbender”, where one player is going to be Toph and someone else is going to be playing Sokka. 

It’s important in DnD that everyone be the same, because a lot of the game is spent in a 20ft x 20ft room full of skeletons (or Putties) - Toph would single-handedly dominate every challenge. Whereas in a narrative-driven game the ability to crush everything with a rock doesn’t actually solve half your problems and whoever’s playing Sokka probably winds up more active than the person playing Toph.

At the end of it all, that’s why the question for me is whether you can take the players out of DnD and take DnD out of the players. Everyone plays DnD, but can you get people to play Sokka and have a good time if Toph is in the party? Personally I think it helps to start people on systems other than DnD, and then they can go into DnD if they like being in small rooms full of skeletons.

Of course, trying to start people on anything but DnD is usually defeated by the network utility! Everyone knows DnD! It’s THE system synonymous with the hobby! A few too many times I’ve seen people play a DnD game and say roleplaying just isn’t for them because it’s boring. All you do is wait for your turn and then roll dice at goblins.

But all I can say to that is, you never roleplayed, man. You joined a pen-and-paper video game. I agree, throwing dice at goblins sucks. I used to have a friend who would compulsively roll dice when he got bored waiting for turns in games like that, and when asked what he was rolling for, he’d joke, “I’m killing the dragon! I’m killing the dragon!” Him, enjoying the experience of DnD combat in between other people’s turns.

In many groups that’s all DnD is, silly accents and go-nowhere backstories aside. Acting is hard. But if you’re very lucky, and you know just the right people, it’s possible to land in a game that is pure story and character, and those things are a rare treasure and a real blast.

[roypstickney]

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

While growth is excellent news, it also means that your competition is getting stronger. SaaS companies need to keep up if they want to stand out, and one of the best ways to stay ahead is to tap into marketing practices that are sometimes overlooked by your competition.

Surprisingly, content marketing is one of the most popular marketing strategies in the wider world, but it often gets disregarded or—worse—is done haphazardly in the SaaS space. This shouldn’t be the case.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

In this article, I’ll suggest a few types of content that are efficient in different stages of the customer journey, starting with interactive content. We’ll also focus on one SaaS marketing technique that has been somewhat forgotten in the digital sphere: direct sales.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Creating interactive content (like quizzes, surveys, polls, and calculators) is one of the best ways to attract new customers and engage them in a conversation. According to Kapost, interactive content generates twice as many conversions as passive content. And around 88% of marketers who use it say that interactive content helps them stand out from competitors.

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

And this, in turn, enables you to learn more about your customers (about, for instance, any problems and issues they might be facing or goals they’re looking to achieve). Then you can offer them a personalized solution that will cater to their specific individual needs. After all, your software already solves a particular problem—be it organizing employees, setting up an accounting system, or helping someone lose weight.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

LeadQuizzes is marketing automation software that started off as a marketing agency. After repeated success with using quizzes to build our clients’ email lists, we decided to turn quizzes into a business in its own right. And what better way to advertise quiz software than to use it to reach potential customers among the target group of professional marketers and small business owners.

With this in mind, we created a quiz that sought to address one of the most common challenges in the digital marketing world: generating leads and sales. The quiz targeted marketers and small business owners in the form of the Facebook quiz ad.

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

No

Before they got the answers, they had to fill out an opt-in form asking for their name, email, and number. And based on the respondent’s answers, we offered personalized solutions in the form of the quiz results.

In the first quiz, results led to a Calendly page where a potential customer could schedule a consultation because the goal was to acquire as many early adopters as possible. (Today, a similar quiz on the website leads customers to the landing page that includes useful marketing tips, an industry leader’s testimonial, and an offer to sign up.)  

This is what worked for us, but if you feel that personalized results aren’t enough of an incentive for people to share their contact info, you can always use a lead magnet, such as a free ebook or discount, in combination with the quiz.

What’s the lesson here?

Based on the buyer’s needs and readiness, as well as your ultimate goal, the results can differ greatly. That’s why your landing page is a crucial detail that can make or break your user’s interactive experience. This is where your goal and their need should ideally meet.

Median conversion rates for classic PPC ads are between 3-6%, according to Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report. Interactive content can double this percentage, while an effective landing page can boost it to 27%.

Using interactive content along with optimized landing pages, LeadQuizzes went on to close 189 clients in 2 years and generate $720,000 in annual revenue. But the road to that number took more than two steps.

Inevitably, however, some people who engage with your interactive content and landing page simply won’t sign up for your software. That’s life. The reasons may vary: they don’t need it at the moment, or it doesn’t entirely meet their requirements. So how do you keep them coming back?

Build and launch campaigns quickly. As Jeremy says, using landing pages in combination with interactive content can produce remarkable results. Unbounce’s drag-and-drop builder lets you create high-converting landing pages without developer bottlenecks. Read more about how we power your SaaS marketing here.

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

Around 70% of people who leave your website will never come back. Collecting their email addresses using interactive content is an insurance policy against this problem—and a way to stay in touch. If they’re not interested in your product, of course, they’re likely to unsubscribe. As long as they remain on your list, though, you keep the opportunity to offer them the right answer at the right time.

Having access to your potential and existing customer’s inbox is a perfect opportunity to build and nurture a good relationship. High-quality, personalized blog content enables you to assert yourself as an industry authority and a friendly partner to your customers.

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Using interactive content allows you to understand the level of customer’s buyer readiness, which dictates how “sales-y” your content should be. For example, if you sparked a customer’s interest but they didn’t purchase your product yet, you may want to use content to educate them. You can start with basic guides and 101-themed posts, and slowly build up their knowledge to more specific topics.

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

It’s a good example because they’re setting the expectations in terms of the follow-up emails that are to come (so they won’t seem too spammy), while the content of those emails is expected to educate you about the tool and convince you it’s valuable enough to make a purchase.

Personalizing content

Personalization comes in different forms. It starts with basic things, like using a personalized subject line that addresses the person by name. This small detail increases your open rate by as much as 50%. It’s also important to email your leads according to their time zone and location.

But personalization also means crafting content that responds to the person’s specific needs. A small business owner and manager in a large corporation may use your software. But they probably use it differently, face separate challenges, and have different goals and benchmarks.

Here’s an example of an email I got from a content aggregation platform Zest. One of their projects is creating an algorithm that will display super personalized content for each user inside the browser. This is one part of the experiment.

Social Media Lab (from social media management software Agorapulse) provides another good example of SaaS marketing at work. They seek to educate their customers through engaging experiments. While this email is fairly rudimentary (and lacks a simple personalization tweak: my name!) its content manages to be straightforward while arousing curiosity.

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

The great thing about generating leads using interactive content is that it allows you to take the guesswork out of this personalization. By asking the right questions, you can understand your target customer’s varying needs and problems, and write content accordingly.

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Once your email list grows to a certain point, using automation becomes a must. Marketing automation allows you to analyze your leads’ interaction with emails and your content, and optimize them for maximum effect.

Most importantly, automation enables you to forward the right messages to the right people at the desired time, without having to waste a lot of time doing everything manually. There’s a wide variety of available marketing automation tools that can help you scale your lead qualification and nurturing efforts.

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

While white papers and case studies are one type of classical passive content, they deserve special attention in SaaS marketing. In B2B SaaS, in particular, you’re going to engage with people who are professionals in their industry. And wowing them takes more than a good ad copy or engaging blog post. They want to see credibility and authority.

White papers

White papers are used in numerous fields, but the general definition is an authoritative report that addresses certain issues and offers solutions for them. In terms of SaaS marketing, a white paper represents a theory behind your product or technology. Just like with blog posts, its main purpose is to educate customers and help them make a decision. 

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write. 

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

The white paper’s main purpose is to assert yourself as a credible, authoritative solution and source of guidance. More than half of business-to-business marketers consider white papers effective marketing tools, and we agree. (Check out this sample of Google’s white paper for a little inspiration.)

Case studies

Case studies can also take a long time, although they are easier to assemble than a white paper. While they can be written in an informal style, and require only essential information, they still demand serious research. 

But it’s worth the hard work: case studies help convert and accelerate leads, according to Marketing Charts. A case study can give a huge boost to your credibility—people automatically feel more confident about your software if they see you are working with big brands they already know and trust.

The case study requires your client or customer to be ready to reveal their specific, detailed business strategy, show you and the rest of the world their numbers, and prove that it was your software that helped them reach great results.

But how can you produce case studies if you’re just a beginner in the industry? Apart from approaching your existing customers, it’s also possible to approach the industry leaders with fine-tuned cold outreach. But these users have to be incentivized to share their business secrets with you—whether it’s going to be a discount, free subscription, mutual marketing arrangement, etc.

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

It’s all too easy to forget the power of 1-on-1 conversation in the world of digital solutions. But sales are a marketing technique in their own right and doing them like in “the good old days” may be just what makes your SaaS business stand out.

Of course, we’re not talking about the annoying telemarketer calls. We are talking about reaching out to the customers who are ready and highly likely to buy your product. Engaging them with each type of content we’ve mentioned so far will give you a fairly clear picture of their readiness over time.

Remember that we mentioned in the first section that LeadQuizzes led some quiz takers directly to a Calendly page? Alternatively, some were contacted after a lead nurturing email sequence. But in both cases, the phone calls were incredibly successful and the investment paid off.

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

They help you close a mutually satisfying deal. Sure, you can list all of your software’s features on the landing page. But presenting them to a client personally, explaining how each feature plays into their specific goals, is much more effective. It enables you to improve retention and reduce churn early on because you are making sure the customers get everything they need in their subscription plan.

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

Making your name in the crowded SaaS world isn’t easy, but it becomes easier when you realize that your marketing strategy stems from the specific nature of your product. As you’re building software, build it with the user in mind. You want to make things simpler and more effective for them. SaaS marketing is all about communicating these thoughts to the customers.

Content marketing and direct sales are a fantastic way to truly empathize and connect with your customer. Once that happens, you build a mutually beneficial relationship in which enables you to develop your product and stay ahead.

[howtoloseweightfastsafely]

Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Good news.

You're not imagining things.

Some people have it way easier when it comes to weight loss. And some people have it way easier when it comes to muscle building, or maintaining weight.

Some people are naturally skinny, naturally heavier and naturally muscular, and some have naturally fast metabolisms.

You see, there are actually 3 distinct human body types, and there are various genetics that play a role in our body's shapes and processes.

These varying body types and genetic backgrounds end up playing a major role in whether it's difficult or easy to lose fat and gain muscle.

Here are the 3 types:

Type 1 - Ectomorphs: We've all met someone like this. Ectomorphs are naturally thin, agile and often tall, lanky people. These are the guys and gals who, no matter how much or little they eat, seem to gain no weight at all.

Type 2 - Endomorphs: These are the guys and girls whose bodies are extraordinarily skilled at storing fat, and have the hardest time keeping weight off. (Most overweight/obese types, myself included, are natural endomorphs.)

Type 3 - Mesomorphs: Mesomorphs naturally maintain a larger muscle mass. For these "blessed" types, fat loss is easy, and muscle gain is quick. They tend to be more athletic than the majority of people, but not necessarily thin.

The good news is that no one is "stuck" because of their body type.

Endomorphs can become thin, and ectomorphs can become muscular. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to learn/understand our body type. In doing so, we can help custom tailor a diet and exercise routine that provide the best results in the shortest amount of time.

If You're an Ectomorph (Carb Type):

A lot of people think being an ectomorph is a great thing due to the fast metabolism and natural "skinny-ness". But if you're an actual ectomorph, you know you have tons of trouble gaining weight and building muscle.

Anyone who eats an excess of calories can gain weight (and build muscle when the diet is complemented by exercise), but ectomorphs often have to eat specific high-calorie foods (generally starchy carbs) or their body just won't stay hungry enough to be able to ingest a substantial amount of calories.

Due to their higher carb tolerance, ectomorphs are often called "carb types".

The genetic elements that make ectomorphs thin are the same that make weight-gain and musclebuilding difficult. As a result, the genetic makeup severely limits the amount of muscle your body can maintain. So you can build muscle, but you're unlikely to ever look like Arnold Schwarzenegger (unless you are rigorous with your dietary intake, day in and day out, year after year).

Ectomorph Stats:

Best results when eating higher carbs, moderate protein, and low fat

55% Carbs, 25% Protein, 20% Fat

Start at these numbers, and decrease calories gradually to burn fat.

If fat loss is slowing, reduce calories by 5% every two weeks. It's best to reduce this percentage from carbs, but reducing from protein or fat usually works just as well for ectomorphs

Never go below 15% or above 35% of fat as a percentage of calories.

If You're an Endomorph (Protein Type):

Endomorphs are naturally heavier people who will always be a little bit thicker and "pudgier" than ectomorphs or mesomorphs. This is generally attributed to their sluggish metabolism.

BUT, that doesn't mean they can't be sexy! Some of the most famous - and beautiful - people in the world are endomorphs.

Russell Crowe, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce are all physically fit natural endomorphs, and there's nothing wrong with the way they look. (Seriously, we all know "Jlo" and Beyonce are HOT, and the little extra junk in the trunk definitely doesn't hurt!). If anything, they've just had to work a little harder than their counterparts to maintain a body size/shape that they're happy with.

If your goal is to have a low body fat percentage, you can definitely do it, but you've got your work cut out for you.

Endomorphs are often called "protein types" due to their lower carb tolerance and higher protein needs for successful body re-composition.

Endomorph Stats:

25% Carbs, 25-35% Protein, 40-50% Fat

Start with a much lower level of carbs. The 25% mentioned is a great "maintenance" point, once insulin resistance/leptin resistance/inflammation and other issues are handled.

I recommend starting at 50-75 grams of carbs per day - this will be low carb, but above the ketogenic threshold. When combined with adequate protein, your body will have a sufficient amount of natural glucose.

Do not stay in the 50-75 carb range for more than 12 weeks at a time, without a 2-week break with higher carb intake.

In the long-term, for maintenance and/or during heavy exercise phases, I would keep around 25% (and a maximum of 30%) of carbs as a percentage of calories.

If You're a Mesomorph (Mixed Type):

Congratulations! You swim in the deeper end of the gene pool. You have the body type of the best fitness models and bodybuilders in the world.

You have a great metabolism, great bones, you're naturally lean (not skinny, like an ectomorph) and naturally muscular (not "thick" like an endomorph.)

If you're a mesomorph, you're probably not reading too many books on how to lose weight - after all, if you keep up even a modicum of exercise and diet, you've got a body most of the rest of us would kill for.

However, there are, in fact, mesomorphs out there struggling with their weight because of the typical American diet. Take this to heart. You don't have to work anywhere near as hard as ectomorphs and endomorphs to get the body of your dreams, but if you're a few pounds above where you want to be, you'll have to put in some effort!

Mesomorph Stats

Body shape - Wide shoulders, narrow hips, muscular body/low body fat, square jaw

Examples - Michael Jordan, Madonna, George Clooney, Halle Berry

Dietary/Hormonal Points - fast metabolism and great nutrient     partitioning; strong levels of testosterone and growth hormone; unhealthy foods may not cause subcutaneous (visible/under the skin fat), but can quickly cause visceral, "hidden" fat surrounding the vital organs

When decreasing calories, start by cutting carbs. In the long-run, though, mesomorphs can get by with cutting calories from any source.

 Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "How to beat your mental roadblocks and why it can be the difference between a happy, satisfying life and a sad, fearful existence (these strategies will reduce stress, increase productivity"

Read the next article about "If you want maximum results in minimum time you're going to have to work out (and workout hard, at that)"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

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How to Come Up With Content Ideas That Drive Traffic

There's so many topics that you can be blogging on. But how can you pick blog post topics that consistently generate more traffic? Hey everyone I'm Neil Patel and today I'm going to break down how to come up with blog topic, ideas that consistently generate traffic ( upbeat music ) Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel and if you're on YouTube click the alert notification. Now. First, off what I want you to do is go to Ubersuggest, So neilpatel Com/Ubersuggest - and I want you to put in your domain name If you don't get a lot of traffic well, you can put in one of the competitor domain names see what they're blogging on, But I recommend that you first start off by putting in your own domain Name And when you put in your own domain name it'll, look something like this. This breaks down all the other, similar websites that are related to yours. So when you put in your URL it'll allow you to analyze your competitors And you'll see a list here at the top. You see, I see Forbes Word Stream, Neil Patel, which is mine, Searching Journal, HubSpot, Hootsuite And there's many many more options. What I want you to do is cross off the ones. Click the X buttons to the ones that aren't that related See Forbes, I'm a marketing blog. They talk about many more things than just marketing. So I'm going to X that one out - And this right here is pretty good. So what I want to do now is scroll down and you want to look at key word gaps. Keyword gaps shows you all the keywords that your competitors rank for, that you don't rank for, And you want to go through the list. So let me start off with WordStream, So if I click view all under WordStream, this will show me the keyword gaps for WordStream Now. Some of these keywords don't get tons of traffic. Some of themdo And you know presentations So presentations marketing. They go well together. Podcasts advertising look at the CPC on that one. So I'll! Look at podcasts advertising here And then I want you to do - is Google for podcast advertising You'll see if you rank, I look my buddy Eric ranks high up Our WordStream rank's there Marketing land - I don't see neilpatel.com, And it doesn't mean that I don't have a blog post on podcasts advertising. This is why I'm scrolling a little bit just to make sure to see if I have a post on podcast advertising. Because if I don't, I can then write a article on podcast advertising. Next you'll want to go into your own WordPress back end or your blogging back end and search for posts with that term. So I'm going to search for podcast advertising and I have tons of content here, as you can see, 7,100 Podcasts through paid ads How to promote your podcast to pay ads. That'S not on podcast, I don't know how to get podcast sponsors, As you can see here, based on the titles, there's nothing that really focuses just on podcast advertising, such as how podcasts advertising works or how to advertise on podcasts. Those are all examples of podcasts advertising. So if I go back to page one, I can then look at podcast advertising. The number one ranking site is Midroll, the world's largest podcast advertising network, The Single Grain, one is podcast advertising. What you need to know - And this URL here gets around 33,792 visits. I can click that and it'll load up all the other keywords that the URL ranks for In many cases it can be a lot and lot of URLs . So then, that way, once it loads up, you can see it All right: advertise podcast, podcasts advertising, podcast marketing, podcast advertisers, podcast ad. I can keep clicking next and it'll. Give me more and more suggestions. What you'll want to do is export these keywords and it'll. Take you to neilpatel.com, where you can export'em And once you export'em you'll have a list of keywords that you can include in your blog posts. So now I know, look Eric's getting a lot of traffic for podcast advertising, This one's getting 15,000 And it's not all about. If you rank at the top, you get the most traffic. As you can see here, this one ranks higher gets 15,000 This one ranks here: second, it gets 33,000. The reason being is the second one is going after more keywords: more than just podcasts advertising. Ex, as I showed you here, podcast ad or podcasting marketing, These are all other variations that can also drive traffic as well, And then what I want you to do, if you actually don't have this actually a quick step you can take. Is you just google Ubersuggest Chrome extension It'S the first result here You can install it and then that way, whenever you do, Google searches like I did you'll end up getting the traffic estimation right here, which is the estimated visits for that specific URL And the WordStream one as you can see, which is Where I got the idea from gets 5,700, So you can go through a few of them and it'll, give you ideas And then I'll also want you to load up the actual blog post. So this one is on Single Grain, I'll load it up. Let me load up the WordStream one, Let's see who else gets decent traffic? Some of these don't get much traffic 2,000. 1,000. This one gets 15,000 And the reason you want to load up, the bigger ones is, keep in mind. You may not always rank as high as other people. Sadly, no matter how good you are at SEO. A lot of it has to do with content, quality and factors that you can't control. Such as relevancy, how much authority your site has in the niche, But what you'll want to do is you'll want to load up a few of the blog posts. So here's a Single Grain, one podcast advertising, what you need to know. And it's pretty thorough. I would take much much more time reading it to see what they're doing really well And then I can end up trying to create a better version of it And then let me go to the WordStream one podcasts advertise 101. 4 tips to get you started. Similar, I would just go through the whole process. See what they're doing that's unique and just try to create a better version, The Midroll one. This is more so like a landing page that just talks about that they're, a podcast advertising network. So I wouldn't copy this one, And even these I wouldn't copy'em. I would try to create better versions of it. So you want to poke holes. What is their content not covering? Is it up-to-date? Do they talk about networks where you can advertise on podcasts? Do they talk about what you should be paying The more end-up you can get, the better you can be The better. You can separate yourself from the other competitors, the more likely you are to rank. So when I go through the process of writing content for neilpatel.com part of the content that we create is advanced expert content. For example, the other day I published a piece of content that is on the new way of blogging. And I'll load it up really quickly, so you can see - And with this piece of content, this piece of content wasn't meant to get Google traffic. It was meant to get social traffic and back-links, And I broke down stats here where, if you write advance content with a lot of stats and data - And I use stats like I'm not going to break down all of them that you can see here in the Charts And I talk about how advanced content gets less SEO traffic, but it gets more social shares and it gets more back-links per post And I also break that down for other blogs. That'S not Neil Patel, but more Facebook shares more back-links per post. I even have a little stat here for content with graphs and data. They tend to get more back-links versus content without And a portion of my time, roughly 10 % of the time which I break down in this post. I write advanced content, But 40 % of the time. What we do is we use this process that I broke down in Ubersuggest, where Let me go back to Ubersuggest. I can't find the tab Either way where we use a keyword gaps like I showed you to write content on stuff. That gets a lot of search traffic Like how to's how to change a toilet. How podcast advertising works? And then 20 % of the time we update our old content, because that way Google wants to rank fresh content. So anything, that's outdated, just make sure you're updating it. If it has any outdated information change it, If there's anything irrelevant change it. If that topic's no longer relevant EX talking about how MySpace is a popular social network, You can either delete the posts and 301 redirect it to maybe a post on Facebook, And then you would want to try to make your content better over time. When I say update it, maybe there's images that you can include. Maybe there's videos that you can include to get your message across better And then the other 30 % of the time I promote the content, As I mentioned, don't forget the marketing in content marketing. So that's how I create content that drives traffic I really go and dig deep see what my competitors are ranking for that I'm not That's what the keyword gaps is all about, And then I create content around that topic. Read more : Free Traffic Source For Affiliate Marketing In 2021 – Secret Method Revealed! Read the full article

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How to Get High-Quality B2B Leads with Facebook Ads

Allen Finn already wrote the definitive piece for WordStream on why Facebook ads can be great for B2B.

But at the time I write this, only 39% of marketers say they’ve even tried using Facebook ads to create conversations with B2B prospects, according to Zoominfo.

If Finn’s piece wasn’t enough to convince you, I’m going to share my own experience about why I think it’s insane that Facebook is so underrated for B2B, and I’ll tell you three ways to generate high-quality B2B leads.

The Case for B2B Facebook Ads

According to Marketing Charts‘ summary of a Hubspot report, the average cost-per-B2B-lead for agencies in 2017, from all channels, was $172.72.

By contrast, when we run Facebook campaigns for our agency clients, it’s not unusual to see it as low as $50. In fact, here’s a screenshot from a real campaign we’re running for an agency client.

(And, as I’ll explain below, we’re excluding a lot of the cheaper leads because we focus on quality.)

What’s more, the average cost per click on LinkedIn, the most popular social channel for B2B (the source of over 80% of B2B leads) was $6.50 in 2017. On Facebook, those same clicks are available for $1-$2.

So it’s clear there’s a gap between Facebook’s utility as a source of bargain B2B leads and how business owners and marketers perceive the platform.

Facebook’s reputation as a recreational network – in contrast to LinkedIn’s as a place where “serious business people” congregate – is doubtless responsible for some of the misunderstanding.

But I’ve also spoken to plenty of small businesses who have tried Facebook, and many believe it simply doesn’t work.

“We can drive clicks all day,” they’ll tell me, “but we never close any of them. They’ll almost all unqualified.”

One business owner I spoke to had gotten more than 50 leads in the last month, and only one was qualified.

Again, that contrasts with the results we’ve seen firsthand. For instance, here are some stats for a client campaign from the last ten days: 18 leads* for a total of $691.73 in ad spend. After an audit, we determined that seven of them appeared “qualified” (full-time entrepreneurs, legitimate websites).

That’s just under $100 per qualified lead.

All of which begs the question: if many business owners and marketers are only generating unqualified leads, what are the successful marketers doing differently?

In the remainder of this article, my goal is to share with you the things we know for sure moved the needle to improve the quality of B2B leads – as opposed to untested theories, or things that might have had an effect but we can’t isolate it – so that you can apply them in your B2B lead generation strategies and skip past the part where most businesses get stuck.

*The reason we get fewer leads overall – although many more qualified leads than some campaigns – is that we introduce friction in the funnel, by requiring people to certify they are full-time business owners, and/or meet a certain income level, before they can book-a-call.

Use Proof

Think about the last time you made a big procurement decision for your business.

Did you look at lots of options, compare a number of features, seek the opinions of others, and approach the decision deliberately and carefully?

Or did you immediately hire the first sponsored result that came up after a 15-second Google search?

If you said option two, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

In all seriousness, your clients likely arrive at decisions the same way. If you cater to million-dollar businesses with marketing departments, they don’t take lightly the decision to hire an agency. The most qualified prospects are efficient and forthcoming, and they respect your time.

But, I’m sure you’ll agree, most don’t make knee-jerk decisions

That’s why using proof in your Facebook ads is one of the best ways to ensure that qualified prospects will fill out your contact forms and call you on the phone.

To illustrate the magic of proof, we ran the following split test:

We were already using proof in one client’s ad:

But we decided to pull out all the stops. We removed all the numerical proof from both the ad and the landing page of one ad, and we doubled down on another, punching up the headline with even more proof:

Here’s the sub-headline of the landing page from the “Uber-Proof” version:

And here’s the landing page with the sub-headline removed:

Then we let the test run for two weeks to collect data.

The results?

Caveats first: a split test expert will tell you this is by no means statistically significant. You’d need thousands of conversions.

But it’s strongly suggestive that the data underpins what makes sense to us intuitively when we put ourselves in the shoes of a business owner considering hiring the business running the ad: proof works.

Let the Algorithm Work

Most of the articles I’ve read on B2B lead generation on the Facebook ads platform mention the multiple ways you can slice-and-dice your audience.

And many mention defining a client avatar really specifically…

Are they a CEO or a CMO?

Are they male or female?

Do they like apple pie or cherry pie?

Okay, maybe not the last one. But most articles do go on to suggest making a fine-grained uber-audience, with tons of cross-referenced targeting parameters.

There’s just one problem: we’ve tested these “smart” audiences against “dumb” audiences, and they’ve got a pretty poor track record.

Here’s how a “dumb” audience, with just three interests and little else, performed in a recent campaign:

Here’s how a “smart” one, with seven total parameters – two demographic and five interests – performed in the same campaign (fewer impressions because we shut it down once it got blown away):

Zilch.

Of course, we’re cherry-picking here (even though there are dozens of other examples I could include if I weren’t conscientious of taking your time).

But it only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory – that complex audiences and “pre-defined” avatars always perform better – and we’ve got countless such examples.

In fact, we’re hard-pressed to find a “smart” audience that does outperform a dumb one.

I’ve got two hypotheses for why this is: one theoretical and one grounded in Facebook ads theory.

First, if you’re a fellow fan of Nassim Taleb’s books The Black Swan and Antifragile, you’re familiar with his theories on “teaching birds to fly.”

Simply put, human beings have a pretty garbage track record of predicting the future (see the ‘08 financial crash) or determining in advance what people will buy and what they won’t (see practically any business case study).

A “smart” audience in Facebook does just that: tries to predict in advance the exact characteristics of buyers, subscribers, clickers, or leads.

The more effective way to tell?

Trial and error.

That’s why, for every campaign, we put up to 100 potential interests in a spreadsheet and test at least five of them in parallel at all times.

We let the results tell us which targeting parameters work best.

My second theory is really just a Facebook fact: as long as you’re tracking the right conversion parameter, the algorithm will figure out who to show the ad to in order to get the lowest conversion costs. (It’s worth shouting out another important point of Allen Finn’s article: make sure you know how to use the tracking pixel!)

When it comes to how much audience you give Facebook to “play with,” there’s a balance. Make your audience too broad, and you’ll run out of budget showing your ad to everybody in the universe before you get any conversions. But narrow your audience too much, and you’re limiting the algorithm’s ability to find potentially qualified prospects.

And a lot of the “smart audiences” do just that: exclude people Facebook could potentially identify as good prospects.

Get SUPER Specific with Your Copy

There’s a marketing saying that goes “Google is where people go to make a decision; Facebook is where they go to avoid making a decision.”

And yet, as I’ve shown, some of the cheapest qualified B2B leads are not on Google ads but rather on Facebook.

So what gives?

Well, there’s less competition, for one, as long as most business owners continue to believe Facebook “doesn’t work” for B2B.

And it’s also harder to create bidding wars of the type you see on Google ads, because Facebook’s platform is audience-based rather than keyword-search-based.

But the above axiom does get one thing right: You don’t have the luxury of just being the-thing-somebody’s-searching-for:

That’s an advantage if you don’t want to be commoditized and comparison-shopped, like the mowers above.

But it requires getting your prospect’s attention while she’s on Facebook to do something other than search for solutions to her business problems…

…and that requires specific copy.

First, a self-evident example:

Say you’re fed up with your inventory software.

You wish it pushed real-time updates to all the handsets. That way your employees wouldn’t have to waste time logging on to one of the core computers to check their inventory.

Now, say there was a software company who made just that.

Do you think you might click on an ad that said “Finally – an inventory software that pushes updates in real-time,” with a headline that said, “Stop Wasting Time Logging on and Get Back to Business”?

I sure would, in this obviously completely hypothetical example.

What if instead it said, “Acme Inventory Software, for all your inventory needs”?

You might, if you were bored. Or desperate.

But hopefully you see my point. Specificity matters when you’re getting people’s attention while they’re looking at baby pictures on Facebook.

Want to Try Facebook Ads for Your Business, But Scared of Unqualified Leads?

When businesses see crappy results from Facebook ads, it usually takes on of the following forms:

Part-timers/”wantrapreneurs”

People who want something-for-free

Time wasters

But, as we’ve shown, qualified prospects are out there, and they will respond to your company. You need to:

Show them proof you really do what you say you do

Define your campaign goals carefully, and find the right balance with targeting

Get ultra-specific with your copy

Unqualified leads will waste your time. Apply these tactics to your Facebook ads account, and I guarantee you’ll not only have fewer of those but also attract more of those high-quality B2B leads you’re looking for.

About the author

Nathaniel Smith is a direct response marketing strategist who specializes in Facebook ads for B2B.

Original Article

from https://www.imapplied.co.za/social-media/how-to-get-high-quality-b2b-leads-with-facebook-ads/

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Learn How To Use SEO To Be Number One

The world wide web can be a nonsensical, unorganized, heap of a mess if one does not know how to optimize their efficiency when using the various search engines available. This article will discuss the various effective ways to optimize your search results so you stop wasting time trying to find what you are actually looking for.

When setting up site SEO, don’t forget about your site’s URL. Having a domain is better than a subdomain, if you can set one up. Also, any URL longer than about 10 words risks being classified as spam. You want about 3 to 4 words in the domain and no more than 6 or 7 in the page name.

Try creating robots text file in your root directory to achieve this. txt file, which must be added to the root directory. This makes certain files found on your website inaccessible to the search engine.

Be true to yourself and true to your readers. If you are putting content on your site that links to a product or service you don’t actually believe in, or that just brings you money, savvy people will see that greed and not want to come back to your site. Worse yet they will stop referring others to you.

Make your page friendly to search engines. Do some research on search engine optimization and incorporate some of the easier tips and tricks into your site. The higher ranked your page the better. Make sure you include keywords in your posts and in your titles. This will make your site easier to find for a search engine crawler.

Attract more traffic to your site and boost your search ranking by establishing relationships with other sites. Sharing links with well-respected sites will help raise your profile and bring in more visitors. Be sure to reciprocate by linking back to their site as well, and avoid “link farms” with bad reputations.

Visit the websites of your competitors. Do internet searches for the keywords that are related to your personal business to find other sites that are related. It is a great way to get fresh ideas for your site and to learn what it is that your competitors are doing to have a successful site.

Providing content that can be linked to and referenced by other websites, bloggers, etc., is the simplest way to optimize your standing in search engines. Say for example you are a graphic designer and have a site that operates as your portfolio. If you were to provide unique tutorials on your website, others can discover these, appreciate them and share them on their own site, which in turn increases the amount of times your page is referenced on the whole of the Internet as well as increasing the traffic coming from those pages where your tutorials were referenced.

Ask for help, or better yet, search for it. There are hundreds of websites available that offer innovative expertise on optimizing your search engine hits. Take advantage of them! Research the best and most current methods to keep your site running smoothly and to learn how not to get caught up in tricks that don’t really work.

Always be aware of your website standing. Use ranking sites like alexa and googlerankings to keep track of whether you are losing or gaining visitors. Do it yourself SEO begins with keeping an eye on your status regularly. Checking these stats will allow you to find out if your optimization is having an effect.

Never stop trying to get more inbound links for your site. If you only make an effort to get inbound links once, you will see a momentary boost in your rankings but it won’t last. Having links coming in over time gives you higher credibility and improves your standing.

Keep your site focused on 1 or 2 keywords and phrases. If you try to include every related keyword you will suffer from keyword dilution. Focusing on too many will end up confusing both the search engines and your readers. Your rankings for all of the keywords will suffer as a result of this dilution.

Try to avoid having too many links coming from the same IP addresses. It’s tempting to add in links from other sites that you own in the hopes that it will increase your rankings, but it usually backfires. Some engines penalize you for it and others may start. Just avoid doing so to be on the safe side.

Write a good meta description to rank higher. A meta description is the short text that appears when your website come up in search results. You should keep your description under fifty words so that it is not cut short. You should describe the content of your website, in order to attract visitors.

Since the world wide web is full of useless information these days, it is important to take these tips given in the article with importance and not with a grain of salt. Otherwise, you will end up spending more time searching than necessary to find what you are looking for.

The post Learn How To Use SEO To Be Number One appeared first on Kari Hallock.

from Kari Hallock https://ift.tt/2yNfwHA via Article Source

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9 Evergreen Content Formats for Long-Term Success [Examples]

Does your online content have an expiration date?

Is it only good for 30 days? A year? Two years?

Thanks to search engines – whether you like it or not – your content is evergreen.

But while your content’s always discoverable technically, you need to think strategically about how it can be valuable all years round for searchers and Google’s algorithm.

These content types can work well for evergreen content that does well with your audience and in search engines.

Reference ‘books’ for tools

If your audience uses online tools, organize them into one or more articles that can serve as a go-to reference. As you learn about new or better tools, update the article so it remains fresh.

Don’t be deceived by the 2018 reference in Brian Dean’s SEO Tools: The Complete List (2018 Update). He started it years ago and continues to use the same URL as he faithfully expands this incredible resource.

Evergreen #content tip: @backlinko updates its #SEO tool guide annually so it remains fresh. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

It’s exceptionally well organized, allowing user input to customize the results.

TIP: Follow Brian’s lead (https://ift.tt/2eXUgs2) and use non-dated URLs. If you include a date in the link, searchers will perceive your content as dated.

Glossaries

What’s your take on popular industry terms and acronyms? Demonstrate expertise by supplying definitions, which in most cases rarely change.

Sales Hacker did a great job with this glossary. I would have listed the alphabet over a few columns, but the vertical list makes it easy to click any letter to see a list of the industry words and their definitions for that letter.

TIP: Like Sales Hacker’s list, keep the word and its definition on the same page to eliminate a click and increase the use of that page – a positive in the eyes of search engines and users.

Blog posts and other website content

Some website content can’t be evergreen. Product announcements and events, for example, come and go. But much of your blog posts and other website content can offer sufficient depth on topics searchers are always interested in.

Focus on questions and share wisdom your team has gleaned over time. Write for experience – what worked well from your perspective or how you overcame a mistake. Help your visitors solve problems by making sure your content explains the how, why, and what. Deloitte does it well in its article, An Alternative Approach to Strategy in a World that Defies Prediction.

Help website visitors solve problems by making sure content explains the how, why, & what. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

TIP: Deloitte gives readers the option of choosing the sections they want to visit. A table of contents is essential for more in-depth pieces that touch on multiple related topics.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Why Content Creators Are Using This Simple Article Format to Draw a Bigger Audience

Infographics

Some infographics simply explain a process or system, which makes them ideal candidates for evergreen content. But infographics loaded with stats can be invaluable for years.

Infographics explaining a process or system are ideal candidates for #evergreencontent, says @mikeonlinecoach. Click To Tweet

Column Five compiled a comprehensive collection of infographics that reflect a wide range of styles, including this one from USC Marshall. While the infographic later contains dated stats, it sets up a premise that won’t change, illustrating the historical foundation and general impact.

TIP: To design infographics for an evergreen impact, ensure that you demonstrate the timeless theme at the top.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

7 Principles to Creating Great Infographics

The One Thing That Can Make a Big Difference in Your Infographics

Q&A interviews

Create an elaborate Q&A with one of your in-house experts or interview someone else in your industry. Plenty of their suggestions and approaches can live a long time. Even if the expert changes jobs, his or her thoughts will have value.

In this Chief Marketer example, the page looks a little busy, but the Q&A stands out and is surrounded by multiple ways for someone to engage with the website:

TIP: Plan to incorporate video into the Q&A to expand your content options and include a transcript for viewers to scan and search engines to index.

Secureworks executes a quality eight-minute video interview in The Future of Cybersecurity: Securing the Digital Transformation.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

Original research

I understand that it takes a ton of effort to pull off a study. Though research likely contains dated content, you can use it to create evergreen content.

Lisa Murton Beets, CMI’s research director, provides an overview of B2B Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. While she includes year-over-year comparison, she also draws conclusions from the research that are universal (and not time sensitive).

TIP: When designing your research, include questions where the answers are unlikely to change in the short term.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Thinking of Creating Original Research? 8 Things to Consider

How-to guide

One massive guide will serve you well. But the length could bother visitors if it’s not packaged well. You need visual cues to make it easy to consume the content, including images, quotes, and calls to action to other website content.

Some marketers include a table of contents so users can decide what parts to explore. Or divide the guide into multiple sections with an intro that showcases each sub-topic.

Single Grain has a number of useful guides, including How to Choose the Best Digital Marketing Agency.

TIP: Not all how-to guides have to contain the words “how to” for your audience to understand it’s a prescriptive guide. Neil Patel is the master of long-form content and usually doesn’t use the word “guide” or “how to.” I think he had fun naming this one: A Quick Look at Content Marketing in the B2C Niche – Why it’s Easier Than You Think.

Checklists

Some of your evergreen content may be familiar to readers. You don’t have to break new ground with each image or paragraph you create. Sometimes you can provide value simply by rounding up ideas and reminders into a handy checklist.

Don’t break new ground. Create checklists from published ideas & reminders. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

Here are examples that show how checklists can provide ample content or be part of articles that also feature templates and time-saving tools as Jodi Harris did in this post: 2018 Content Marketing Toolkit: Tips, Templates, and Checklists.

TIP: This post is an example of how it can appear fresh on publication day (using date of 2018), but its contents are evergreen. Revise the new-year lede and the content will work just as well in late 2018 and beyond.

Case studies

A short case study with a few bullet points may not seem like the type of evergreen content that takes off. But good case studies can support brands and provide some insights for years. SOASTA’s case studies are easy to digest, including this one about Lowe’s.

TIP: I especially like it when marketers include a link to an optional PDF for more details. While the case study is evergreen content, you could change the link (and update the PDF) for more topical, date-specific content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Case-Study Writing Made Faster, Better, and Less Painful

Incorporating evergreen content

What kind of evergreen content works for your business? How have you framed your knowledge? Maybe you’ve created something to bust a few myths; created a fun, elaborative FAQ; or curated facts, stats, and wisdom into a useful package.

The key is to create content that people – and search engines – will find when they have a question about or an interest in your topic. Since you don’t know when that time will come, evergreen content in a variety of formats will enable your site to be the answer for them today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Get evergreen AND on-trend content marketing tips and much more at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7. Register today using code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 9 Evergreen Content Formats for Long-Term Success [Examples] appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

9 Evergreen Content Formats for Long-Term Success [Examples] syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

[a-breton]

9 Evergreen Content Formats for Long-Term Success [Examples]

Does your online content have an expiration date?

Is it only good for 30 days? A year? Two years?

Thanks to search engines – whether you like it or not – your content is evergreen.

But while your content’s always discoverable technically, you need to think strategically about how it can be valuable all years round for searchers and Google’s algorithm.

These content types can work well for evergreen content that does well with your audience and in search engines.

Reference ‘books’ for tools

If your audience uses online tools, organize them into one or more articles that can serve as a go-to reference. As you learn about new or better tools, update the article so it remains fresh.

Don’t be deceived by the 2018 reference in Brian Dean’s SEO Tools: The Complete List (2018 Update). He started it years ago and continues to use the same URL as he faithfully expands this incredible resource.

Evergreen #content tip: @backlinko updates its #SEO tool guide annually so it remains fresh. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

It’s exceptionally well organized, allowing user input to customize the results.

TIP: Follow Brian’s lead (http://bit.ly/2yqUKQj) and use non-dated URLs. If you include a date in the link, searchers will perceive your content as dated.

Glossaries

What’s your take on popular industry terms and acronyms? Demonstrate expertise by supplying definitions, which in most cases rarely change.

Sales Hacker did a great job with this glossary. I would have listed the alphabet over a few columns, but the vertical list makes it easy to click any letter to see a list of the industry words and their definitions for that letter.

TIP: Like Sales Hacker’s list, keep the word and its definition on the same page to eliminate a click and increase the use of that page – a positive in the eyes of search engines and users.

Blog posts and other website content

Some website content can’t be evergreen. Product announcements and events, for example, come and go. But much of your blog posts and other website content can offer sufficient depth on topics searchers are always interested in.

Focus on questions and share wisdom your team has gleaned over time. Write for experience – what worked well from your perspective or how you overcame a mistake. Help your visitors solve problems by making sure your content explains the how, why, and what. Deloitte does it well in its article, An Alternative Approach to Strategy in a World that Defies Prediction.

Help website visitors solve problems by making sure content explains the how, why, & what. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

TIP: Deloitte gives readers the option of choosing the sections they want to visit. A table of contents is essential for more in-depth pieces that touch on multiple related topics.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Why Content Creators Are Using This Simple Article Format to Draw a Bigger Audience

Infographics

Some infographics simply explain a process or system, which makes them ideal candidates for evergreen content. But infographics loaded with stats can be invaluable for years.

Infographics explaining a process or system are ideal candidates for #evergreencontent, says @mikeonlinecoach. Click To Tweet

Column Five compiled a comprehensive collection of infographics that reflect a wide range of styles, including this one from USC Marshall. While the infographic later contains dated stats, it sets up a premise that won’t change, illustrating the historical foundation and general impact.

TIP: To design infographics for an evergreen impact, ensure that you demonstrate the timeless theme at the top.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

7 Principles to Creating Great Infographics

The One Thing That Can Make a Big Difference in Your Infographics

Q&A interviews

Create an elaborate Q&A with one of your in-house experts or interview someone else in your industry. Plenty of their suggestions and approaches can live a long time. Even if the expert changes jobs, his or her thoughts will have value.

In this Chief Marketer example, the page looks a little busy, but the Q&A stands out and is surrounded by multiple ways for someone to engage with the website:

TIP: Plan to incorporate video into the Q&A to expand your content options and include a transcript for viewers to scan and search engines to index.

Secureworks executes a quality eight-minute video interview in The Future of Cybersecurity: Securing the Digital Transformation.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

Original research

I understand that it takes a ton of effort to pull off a study. Though research likely contains dated content, you can use it to create evergreen content.

Lisa Murton Beets, CMI’s research director, provides an overview of B2B Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. While she includes year-over-year comparison, she also draws conclusions from the research that are universal (and not time sensitive).

TIP: When designing your research, include questions where the answers are unlikely to change in the short term.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Thinking of Creating Original Research? 8 Things to Consider

How-to guide

One massive guide will serve you well. But the length could bother visitors if it’s not packaged well. You need visual cues to make it easy to consume the content, including images, quotes, and calls to action to other website content.

Some marketers include a table of contents so users can decide what parts to explore. Or divide the guide into multiple sections with an intro that showcases each sub-topic.

Single Grain has a number of useful guides, including How to Choose the Best Digital Marketing Agency.

TIP: Not all how-to guides have to contain the words “how to” for your audience to understand it’s a prescriptive guide. Neil Patel is the master of long-form content and usually doesn’t use the word “guide” or “how to.” I think he had fun naming this one: A Quick Look at Content Marketing in the B2C Niche – Why it’s Easier Than You Think.

Checklists

Some of your evergreen content may be familiar to readers. You don’t have to break new ground with each image or paragraph you create. Sometimes you can provide value simply by rounding up ideas and reminders into a handy checklist.

Don’t break new ground. Create checklists from published ideas & reminders. @mikeonlinecoach Click To Tweet

Here are examples that show how checklists can provide ample content or be part of articles that also feature templates and time-saving tools as Jodi Harris did in this post: 2018 Content Marketing Toolkit: Tips, Templates, and Checklists.

TIP: This post is an example of how it can appear fresh on publication day (using date of 2018), but its contents are evergreen. Revise the new-year lede and the content will work just as well in late 2018 and beyond.

Case studies

A short case study with a few bullet points may not seem like the type of evergreen content that takes off. But good case studies can support brands and provide some insights for years. SOASTA’s case studies are easy to digest, including this one about Lowe’s.

TIP: I especially like it when marketers include a link to an optional PDF for more details. While the case study is evergreen content, you could change the link (and update the PDF) for more topical, date-specific content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Case-Study Writing Made Faster, Better, and Less Painful

Incorporating evergreen content

What kind of evergreen content works for your business? How have you framed your knowledge? Maybe you’ve created something to bust a few myths; created a fun, elaborative FAQ; or curated facts, stats, and wisdom into a useful package.

The key is to create content that people – and search engines – will find when they have a question about or an interest in your topic. Since you don’t know when that time will come, evergreen content in a variety of formats will enable your site to be the answer for them today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Get evergreen AND on-trend content marketing tips and much more at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7. Register today using code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

from http://bit.ly/2tak7AT

[alexhomes01-blog]

Learn The Tips Of Real Estate Buying Here

You may feel inclined to put your trust in any number of supposed experts in the field of real estate. Check credentials and remember to take everything they say with a grain of salt. These are, after all, the same professionals who watched the real estate market crash. Be sure and read the tips in this article if you are serious about buying real estate.

When you are negotiating the price of real estate, it is best to have a moderate approach. Most people are too aggressive in aiming for the very best deal. This usually ends up backfiring on them. Be clear about what you want, but let your lawyer and real estate agent negotiate, since they have experience with those types of negotiations.

Houses that need some "tender loving care" are priced less. This gives you the opportunity to get in at a lower cost, and spend money in smaller bursts over time as you make repairs. You will be able to design the home you have always dreamed of and significantly enhance the value of your property. So try to focus on what the house could be, or its potential, as opposed to looking at the negatives involved with its current state. Your dream house could be hiding beneath some dingy carpet and outdated wallpaper.

Keep your options open. You may find that your ideal home isn't affordable in your ideal neighborhood, but with a small bit of compromise, you might find an acceptable alternative. If you can't find a home in the perfect neighborhood with all your amenities, find one with the amenities in a different neighborhood.

Try to understand mortgage loan terms before you go to buy a home. This can help you to save a lot of money in the long run and will provide a clear picture of what you will pay in the future.

You will know what the seller is asking for a home you are considering buying, but you still need to determine your own offer. Be respectful when explaining your offer to the seller, and you will be able to compromise on a good price for both of you.

Before choosing a neighborhood to settle down in, check the national data base for sex offenders living in that area. Although sex offender registries are available to the public, real estate agents are under no obligation to disclose information to potential buyers about registered sex offenders in the neighborhood. Research on your own!

So you have decided to look for a home to purchase, but now you need to find a qualified real estate agent. Certainly, you want one that is trustworthy. You want an agent that can show a great track record of helping people find homes they want for good prices. Research as much as possible and locate an agent who will keep you in mind, and lead you to the best home for you.

Buying a piece of property should only be undertaken after conducting much research. There are a lot of people who rush into property purchases that end up being poor decisions, and as a result, they lose significant amount of money and time. Remember, before you hand out the money for any type of property, you should check out crime stats, property values for the immediate area, the condition of the home, and many other factors.

If you want to buy a portion of a building, or perhaps the entire building, to open your own business, be sure that the building is in a nice, safe neighborhood. When you open a business that is located in a poor neighborhood, most likely you will not have a large pool of customers. Talk to a professional to find the best locations.

Always ask real estate agents about the length of time they have resided in the area you are considering. For those unfamiliar with the area, advice about the roads or neighborhood itself will be sparse. Ideally, look for an agent who has lived in the area for at least 10 years.

https://integrityfirsthomebuyers.com/

Purchase the home you've always dreamed of. There is a controversy over whether this is the right time to buy and sell real estate; therefore, consider both sides before making a decision. Housing prices right now are low, which means finding your dream property could be a reality.

Vehicle owners who are on the market for a new home should verify that all prospective properties have access to ample parking. This holds especially true for properties that do not feature driveways. You don't want to end up paying more money to rent a parking space, and you don't want to walk a mile to get to your car.

Take somebody along with you that knows what they are doing to check out the house for things that you might not see or think to check. Do this even if you are buying the home as a single individual. It is always helpful to have another set of eyes while looking at properties, particularly if that person has experience buying a home. Make sure they are asking the realtor questions too.

As mentioned earlier in this article, you shouldn't rely on so-called experts. If these experts are so knowledgeable, why did they let the real estate market collapse? Avoid people who act like they know everything. Make sure you stick with what you've learned from tips like that in this article and apply it as much as possible.

[thrashermaxey]

What Does Kesler’s Return Mean For Your Cap League?

  This week's Capped quacks about Ryan Kesler’s return for the Ducks.

****

Ryan Kesler made his return for the Ducks last night, and looks like he has a little rust to work off, going minus three, with three giveaways, and a showing of less than 50% in the faceoff circle in just under 16 minutes of icetime. That being said, having him back is a massive boost for the depleted Ducks lineup, currently without Corey Perry, Patrick Eaves, and a few others. Kesler immediately brings the depth so necessary for teams to compete in the Western Conference. We have seen the Nashville Predators go on a big winning run since acquiring Kyle Turris, and we could see a similar winning streak from the Ducks with their second best centreman healthy again. It should be expected though that Kesler will need a few games to get back up to speed, so don’t expect a full production right from the get-go; it is going to take a few games, and maybe even a month.

Kesler is owned in only 57% of Yahoo leagues and 63% of Fantrax leagues at the time of writing. I assume if you check it now that it would be much higher. And even in other leagues where he is owned, he may be pried away a little easier due to the injury factor and the wariness of getting back up to speed. Doesn’t hurt to send out an offer, especially since he is past the magical age-30 plateau where players lose all value in keeper leagues.

  Production

With a player such as Kesler, we know what we are getting. He should score around a 55-pace, and provides excellent cross-category coverage, with above average numbers in shots, hits, block, penalty minutes, faceoffs, and more. Take a look at Scott Maran’s Geek of the Week feature on Vincent Trocheck from a couple days ago if you want a more accurate sense of the numbers to expect. Trocheck is emerging as a younger Kesler-type player as the second line centre behind a star first liner. The advantage to Kesler over Trocheck is a little more reliability along with a better plus-minus stat.

  Lineups

The Ducks forward group has seen so much line shuffling recently with all of the injuries, that any arrangement has to be taken with a grain of salt for now. However, we have initially seen Kesler lining up on what should be labelled as the team’s third line, alongside Andrew Cogliano and Chris Wagner. Going back to the Turris comparison, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to see a bit of an offensive boost from the wingers Cogliano and Wagner just like Turris brought to Craig Smith and Kevin Fiala in Nashville. We won’t see a point-per-game from the whole Anaheim trio, but if you bank on a small bump you should be rewarded. Even in DFS there may be some short-term value to be found in that line before prices adjust.

The current downside to the look of the lineup, is that Kesler is only seeing second-unit powerplay time, and has Cogliano and Wagner on his wings to leech faceoff wins. It didn’t come to pass much in this game, with Wagner only seeing one faceoff, and Cogliano with two. If anything, the bigger threat to Kelser’s faceoff numbers may be the left-handed Cogliano, giving the ability to split with the right-handed Kesler based on matchups and strong sides of the ice. Especially with Kesler returning off of surgery, the last thing to come back is a player’s timing, which is absolutely key to faceoffs. Expect more along the lines of a 600-faceoff-win pace instead of the 1000-faceoff-win pace to which we have become accustomed.

  Salary

Kesler is in the second year of a six-year deal seeing him paid pretty well what he is worth, at $6.875 million per season. In lots of cap leagues, the team with Kesler coming back may not be ready to take on his salary, expecting him back two weeks from now. For that reason, if you have some space, then he is worth the investment. He may not be a big bargain relative to most other players, however, looking solely at the centre position, if you’re comparing him to others in the same cost range, I would pick Kesler over others such as Jordan Staal, Ryan Johansen, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Matt Duchene, Brandon Dubinsky, and others.

As a small side note, there isn’t much of a better cap league bargain right now in multi-category leagues than Kelser’s linemate Wagner. Wagner is being paid a paltry $637,500, has racked up 167 faceoff wins, 132 hits, and added 13 points on the season to boot. The right winger could give your team a much-needed boost to the grit categories from the bottom third of your roster, while being paid filler level money.

***

On an unrelated Duck note, but still relevant to all cap-leaguers, keep an eye on the world juniors for the next breakout bargains to help out your cap situation. Pick these players up, stash them, watch their value grow, and then trade them for immediate help. Don’t fall for the ploy of overpaying for these players while the hype is at its peak. If you want to try and get ahead, and haven’t yet, shame on you go check out the DobberProspects site.

  ***

That caps off another Thursday. Thanks for reading! As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean where I post some of my other smaller musings that don’t make it into the articles.  

from All About Sports http://www.dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/what-does-keslers-return-mean-for-your-cap-league/

[ionecoffman]

New Nutrition Study Changes Nothing

If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ve noticed that some things are popular, and other things aren’t. The popular ones have something in common. It’s not quality, or importance, or accuracy, but novelty.

An example of this is Moby Dick. It’s a timeless novel by an acclaimed writer, and most people haven’t read it. The complete text is free on the internet. You could be reading it right now. But are you? And how many of your Facebook friends shared Moby Dick today? Probably not more than one or two.

Obsession with novelty has been called “neophilia.” The term was used as early as 1965 in a story by J.D. Salinger, who was apparently wary of it. Though being attracted to novelty doesn’t necessarily mean readers are dumb or attention-deficient. To some degree, novelty-seeking is evolutionarily adaptive and associated with good health.

Readers are trained to expect and value newness in what they read. I can’t blame people who see in the term news an implicit promise to deliver something new. When a story fails in that, comments flood in, like “this is not news!” and “this writer looks like he’s 12!” and “The eclipse is real!”

Neophilia is a problem for science, though. And especially the sort of science pertaining to nutrition. Demand for newness leads writers and publishers to focus on narratives that upend conventional wisdom. If new research doesn’t change or challenge the way readers think about the world, why is it a story worth publishing? Eggs are in, and now they’re gone. Butter? It’s back. Every six weeks, The New York Times is legally obligated to tell us either that breakfast isn't important or that skipping it causes death.

The effect of all this, day after day, year after year, is a perception that all kinds of contradictory evidence is coming up every day—and that each bit is roughly equally valid.

Of course, it’s not. Eating in ways that are good for our bodies isn’t conceptually complicated. It’s complicated by money and time and access—but eating based on scientific findings is not. Though recently you might have heard otherwise. There is new news about dietary health, and that news is more important than the typical weekly nutrition news. But it doesn’t upend conventional wisdom.

This week, the world learned the results of an enormous study of food and health. The study included 135,335 people from 18 different countries across five continents who were followed for seven years. It’s known as the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study, or PURE, and the results were presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Barcelona and published in The Lancet.

The practically important findings were that the healthiest people in the world had diets that are full of fruits, beans, seeds, vegetables, and whole grains, and low in refined carbohydrates and sugar.

Melissa d'Arabian / AP

As a writer and a reader, though, this is very boring. If I pitched that to my editor, he would laugh at me. What is new here? Why is this interesting? You know what would be novel? You getting fired! Now get out there and find me a story, dammit!

Let’s look at the internet. The coverage of the study was mostly fine, but the headlines alone promise novelty. Stat ran “Huge New Study Casts Doubt on Conventional Wisdom About Fat and Carbs.” Reuters ran “Study Challenges Conventional Wisdom on Fats, Fruits, and Vegetables.” Medscape ran “PURE Shakes Up Nutritional Field: Finds High Fat Intake Beneficial.” Even the editors at The Lancet used the headline “PURE Study Challenges the Definition of a Healthy Diet.”

Does it?

These assertions are all predicated on the idea that most people’s definition of “healthy diet” is “low fat.” That was the recommendation from the USDA in the 1990s. But given that there have been a lot of nutrition studies and books and stories since then, that idea has been disproved again and again. There is still some disagreement over exactly how much of various types of fats are optimal for human health in which populations, but the differences are academic.

In a press release, the study’s lead author, Mahshid Dehghan of McMaster University, described the study’s novelty relative to the World Health Organization’s dietary recommendations: “The current focus on promoting low-fat diets ignores the fact that most people’s diets in low- and middle-income countries are very high in carbohydrates, which seem to be linked to worse health outcomes,” she said, noting that in these countries, “guidelines should refocus their attention toward reducing carbohydrate intake, instead of focusing on reducing fats.”

Low-income countries eat diets that are high in starches like white rice and low in protein and fats because they lack access, not because they’re meticulously adhering to bad guidelines. This isn’t a finding that’s accurately extrapolated to anyone reading this article and deciding between a salad and a burger. Still, Dehghan’s conclusion, lumping together all people, for what it’s worth: “The best diets will include a balance of carbohydrates and fats—approximately 50 to 55 percent carbohydrates and around 35 percent total fat, including both saturated and unsaturated fats.”

“My hope is that our results will stop the whole population from feeling guilty if they eat fat in moderation,” said Salim Yusuf, another author on the study. “While very high fat intake—when it accounts for 40 percent or more of your dietary intake—may be bad, the average fat intake is about 30 percent, and that’s okay. We’re all afraid of saturated fat, but actually we shouldn't be.”

Are we all afraid of saturated fat? The evidence on that particular type of lipid has shifted over the past half century. The story of the public perception of saturated fat is long and embattled, but essentially there was initially an argument over how harmful it was, and as more evidence as come to light, it became clear that saturated fat is like other types of macronutrients—good in moderation, bad in scarcity, and probably bad in overexposure. Some experts argue that it’s impossible to eat too much saturated fat, and a few outliers believe it should be significantly limited, but mostly there is agreement that it’s unwise to either chase or fear it.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines still recommend that people limit saturated fat intake, and many experts find this inappropriate. These guidelines are issued by the Department of Agriculture, though, which is not a scientific entity. Its supporters argue that telling people to go wild with saturated fat leads to bad decisions: People take it to mean ice cream and fetuccini alfredo and bacon, not so much the saturated fats from nuts and avocados.

While it's likely that recommendations to limit saturated fat will be lifted entirely in the future, there is less chaos to the debate than it often seems. Even some doctors contribute to that perception. Last year, the chair of cardiology at Cleveland Clinic, Steven Nissen, wrote in The Annals of Internal Medicine that there is a “nearly complete absence of high-quality randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) studying meaningful clinical outcomes for dietary interventions.” This lack of high-quality RCTs “has left dietary advice to cult-like advocates, often with opposite recommendations. One group advises virtually complete elimination of carbohydrates from the diet, whereas others promote a virtually fat-free diet.”

That sort of obsession with randomized-controlled trials is common and misguided, a case well made this week in New England Journal of Medicine by the former CDC director Tom Frieden. When measuring diet, for example, life-long randomized-controlled trials are impossible. Even if people would volunteer to change their diets for a decade or so—a period long enough that rates of death and cancer and heart attacks could be meaningful—it would be impossible to keep the research subjects blinded. Our perceptions of how well we’re eating change how we behave in a lot of other ways.

Insofar as randomized control trials for diet can be done, many have. One, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared food with medication for treating type-2 diabetes. The food was a better than the common drug metformin. And that diet? High in vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds—more or less the same diet that proved effective in this week’s study, and in many other long-term observational studies, too.

This should all be reassuring. There is a tremendous amount that’s unknown about how food affects our health, and there are subtle difference in every study, but on the whole it’s generally consistent. There is some disagreement over precise numbers about which macronutrients are best for which populations with which diseases, and discovery is happening constantly, and this is all part of science.

But almost never is the news upending conventional wisdom. And to regularly pretend that it does invites readers to lose faith in the ability of science to discern truth, or the idea that truth exists at all.

All that said, I should end with something novel. There’s always something new and interesting in any study, and there were a few things in this one. For instance, eating vegetables in any state was associated with good health, but as compared to cooked vegetables, eating raw vegetables was more strongly linked to a lower risk of death (during the study) compared to cooked vegetable intake.

As researcher Victoria Miller of McMaster University put it, “Our results indicate that recommendations should emphasize raw vegetable intake over cooked.”

There is a novel idea. Dietary guidelines usually don’t encourage people to prioritize raw vegetables over cooked. Maybe they should. That could be a headline. “Cooking Your Vegetables? Welcome to Early Death.”

... Except that raw vegetables often don’t taste as good as cooked vegetables, and cooking is the basis for human social interaction and culture.

People are complex, and the ways we perceive and communicate and relate to one another are complex. But the basic agreement on what to eat for the health of people and the planet is not: diverse, naturally high-fiber, minimally processed foods, mostly plants. Sufficient amounts of protein and fats, as people in wealthy countries get in their diets without thinking.

Article source here:The Atlantic

[nancygduarteus]

New Nutrition Study Changes Nothing

If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ve noticed that some things are popular, and other things aren’t. The popular ones have something in common. It’s not quality, or importance, or accuracy, but novelty.

An example of this is Moby Dick. It’s a timeless novel by an acclaimed writer, and most people haven’t read it. The complete text is free on the internet. You could be reading it right now. But are you? And how many of your Facebook friends shared Moby Dick today? Probably not more than one or two.

Obsession with novelty has been called “neophilia.” The term was used as early as 1965 in a story by J.D. Salinger, who was apparently wary of it. Though being attracted to novelty doesn’t necessarily mean readers are dumb or attention-deficient. To some degree, novelty-seeking is evolutionarily adaptive and associated with good health.

Readers are trained to expect and value newness in what they read. I can’t blame people who see in the term news an implicit promise to deliver something new. When a story fails in that, comments flood in, like “this is not news!” and “this writer looks like he’s 12!” and “The eclipse is real!”

Neophilia is a problem for science, though. And especially the sort of science pertaining to nutrition. Demand for newness leads writers and publishers to focus on narratives that upend conventional wisdom. If new research doesn’t change or challenge the way readers think about the world, why is it a story worth publishing? Eggs are in, and now they’re gone. Butter? It’s back. Every six weeks, The New York Times is legally obligated to tell us either that breakfast isn't important or that skipping it causes death.

The effect of all this, day after day, year after year, is a perception that all kinds of contradictory evidence is coming up every day—and that each bit is roughly equally valid.

Of course, it’s not. Eating in ways that are good for our bodies isn’t conceptually complicated. It’s complicated by money and time and access—but eating based on scientific findings is not. Though recently you might have heard otherwise. There is new news about dietary health, and that news is more important than the typical weekly nutrition news. But it doesn’t upend conventional wisdom.

This week, the world learned the results of an enormous study of food and health. The study included 135,335 people from 18 different countries across five continents who were followed for seven years. It’s known as the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study, or PURE, and the results were presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Barcelona and published in The Lancet.

The practically important findings were that the healthiest people in the world had diets that are full of fruits, beans, seeds, vegetables, and whole grains, and low in refined carbohydrates and sugar.

Melissa d'Arabian / AP

As a writer and a reader, though, this is very boring. If I pitched that to my editor, he would laugh at me. What is new here? Why is this interesting? You know what would be novel? You getting fired! Now get out there and find me a story, dammit!

Let’s look at the internet. The coverage of the study was mostly fine, but the headlines alone promise novelty. Stat ran “Huge New Study Casts Doubt on Conventional Wisdom About Fat and Carbs.” Reuters ran “Study Challenges Conventional Wisdom on Fats, Fruits, and Vegetables.” Medscape ran “PURE Shakes Up Nutritional Field: Finds High Fat Intake Beneficial.” Even the editors at The Lancet used the headline “PURE Study Challenges the Definition of a Healthy Diet.”

Does it?

These assertions are all predicated on the idea that most people’s definition of “healthy diet” is “low fat.” That was the recommendation from the USDA in the 1990s. But given that there have been a lot of nutrition studies and books and stories since then, that idea has been disproved again and again. There is still some disagreement over exactly how much of various types of fats are optimal for human health in which populations, but the differences are academic.

In a press release, the study’s lead author, Mahshid Dehghan of McMaster University, described the study’s novelty relative to the World Health Organization’s dietary recommendations: “The current focus on promoting low-fat diets ignores the fact that most people’s diets in low- and middle-income countries are very high in carbohydrates, which seem to be linked to worse health outcomes,” she said, noting that in these countries, “guidelines should refocus their attention toward reducing carbohydrate intake, instead of focusing on reducing fats.”

Low-income countries eat diets that are high in starches like white rice and low in protein and fats because they lack access, not because they’re meticulously adhering to bad guidelines. This isn’t a finding that’s accurately extrapolated to anyone reading this article and deciding between a salad and a burger. Still, Dehghan’s conclusion, lumping together all people, for what it’s worth: “The best diets will include a balance of carbohydrates and fats—approximately 50 to 55 percent carbohydrates and around 35 percent total fat, including both saturated and unsaturated fats.”

“My hope is that our results will stop the whole population from feeling guilty if they eat fat in moderation,” said Salim Yusuf, another author on the study. “While very high fat intake—when it accounts for 40 percent or more of your dietary intake—may be bad, the average fat intake is about 30 percent, and that’s okay. We’re all afraid of saturated fat, but actually we shouldn't be.”

Are we all afraid of saturated fat? The evidence on that particular type of lipid has shifted over the past half century. The story of the public perception of saturated fat is long and embattled, but essentially there was initially an argument over how harmful it was, and as more evidence as come to light, it became clear that saturated fat is like other types of macronutrients—good in moderation, bad in scarcity, and probably bad in overexposure. Some experts argue that it’s impossible to eat too much saturated fat, and a few outliers believe it should be significantly limited, but mostly there is agreement that it’s unwise to either chase or fear it.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines still recommend that people limit saturated fat intake, and many experts find this inappropriate. These guidelines are issued by the Department of Agriculture, though, which is not a scientific entity. Its supporters argue that telling people to go wild with saturated fat leads to bad decisions: People take it to mean ice cream and fetuccini alfredo and bacon, not so much the saturated fats from nuts and avocados.

While it's likely that recommendations to limit saturated fat will be lifted entirely in the future, there is less chaos to the debate than it often seems. Even some doctors contribute to that perception. Last year, the chair of cardiology at Cleveland Clinic, Steven Nissen, wrote in The Annals of Internal Medicine that there is a “nearly complete absence of high-quality randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) studying meaningful clinical outcomes for dietary interventions.” This lack of high-quality RCTs “has left dietary advice to cult-like advocates, often with opposite recommendations. One group advises virtually complete elimination of carbohydrates from the diet, whereas others promote a virtually fat-free diet.”

That sort of obsession with randomized-controlled trials is common and misguided, a case well made this week in New England Journal of Medicine by the former CDC director Tom Frieden. When measuring diet, for example, life-long randomized-controlled trials are impossible. Even if people would volunteer to change their diets for a decade or so—a period long enough that rates of death and cancer and heart attacks could be meaningful—it would be impossible to keep the research subjects blinded. Our perceptions of how well we’re eating change how we behave in a lot of other ways.

Insofar as randomized control trials for diet can be done, many have. One, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared food with medication for treating type-2 diabetes. The food was a better than the common drug metformin. And that diet? High in vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds—more or less the same diet that proved effective in this week’s study, and in many other long-term observational studies, too.

This should all be reassuring. There is a tremendous amount that’s unknown about how food affects our health, and there are subtle difference in every study, but on the whole it’s generally consistent. There is some disagreement over precise numbers about which macronutrients are best for which populations with which diseases, and discovery is happening constantly, and this is all part of science.

But almost never is the news upending conventional wisdom. And to regularly pretend that it does invites readers to lose faith in the ability of science to discern truth, or the idea that truth exists at all.

All that said, I should end with something novel. There’s always something new and interesting in any study, and there were a few things in this one. For instance, eating vegetables in any state was associated with good health, but as compared to cooked vegetables, eating raw vegetables was more strongly linked to a lower risk of death (during the study) compared to cooked vegetable intake.

As researcher Victoria Miller of McMaster University put it, “Our results indicate that recommendations should emphasize raw vegetable intake over cooked.”

There is a novel idea. Dietary guidelines usually don’t encourage people to prioritize raw vegetables over cooked. Maybe they should. That could be a headline. “Cooking Your Vegetables? Welcome to Early Death.”

... Except that raw vegetables often don’t taste as good as cooked vegetables, and cooking is the basis for human social interaction and culture.

People are complex, and the ways we perceive and communicate and relate to one another are complex. But the basic agreement on what to eat for the health of people and the planet is not: diverse, naturally high-fiber, minimally processed foods, mostly plants. Sufficient amounts of protein and fats, as people in wealthy countries get in their diets without thinking.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/09/moderate-intake-of-things-linked-to-health/538428/?utm_source=feed

[dietpillswatchdog]

Top 10 Myths About Weight Loss

The scientific study of nutrition is essentially in its infancy, only being studied and researched thoroughly within the past 100 years. For example, it was only in 1912 that the term vitamin was coined. It is only within the last 60 years that the roles of vitamins and minerals in the body have been studied, and somewhat understood.

Because we are learning new things about nutrition and weight constantly, it is understandable that over the years, myths about weight loss have developed that just aren’t true. These myths are still often presented as facts, even if they have been conclusively disproven by research!

Below we unpack the truth behind the top 10 myths about weight loss.

1. Eating fat makes you fat

Quite often we see dietary fat and body fat confused and referred to interchangeably in forums, reviews, and even in supplement marketing. The idea that fat eaten in the diet becomes the fat stored in the body is incredibly prevalent, and fats being demonised over the years as the cause of the obesity epidemic hasn’t helped. As long as you are not consuming too many calories, eating fat will not make you fat.

Eating a high fat (and high protein), low carbohydrate diet can cause weight loss, as shown by numerous studies. Of course, these diets still need to be somewhat calorie restricted, the same as all weight loss plans. (Source: http://ift.tt/2wcPyxO & http://ift.tt/2jNk87a)

2. Eating carbohydrates makes you gain weight

Obviously eating too much of anything will make you gain weight over time, but this is primarily due to the total calorie count. Eating carbohydrates as a part of a calorie controlled diet will not lead to weight gain. There are numerous studies that show that people can eat carbohydrates and lose weight, if the diet is calorie controlled or portion controlled.

Want to make your carbohydrate choices healthier? Limit your simple sugar intake, and choose whole grain and wholemeal carbohydrates. For example, choosing brown rice and wholemeal bread and pasta over refined options. Try eating potatoes with the skins on to increase your intake of fibre.

3. Your weight loss will be consistent

Whenever you join a weight loss group, or download any weight loss app, you are asked how many pounds or kilograms you are going to aim to lose per week. Looking at this alone, it is easy to think that if you stick to a diet plan rigidly, then you will consistently lose 2lbs each week, and that to go a week without losing weight is to fail and let yourself down. This is certainly the approach taken by some weight loss groups, who shame the dieters who fail to lose weight between one meeting and the next.

The reality is though is that your weight loss chart is not going to be a straight line heading down steadily. A person’s weight can vary by as much as a few kilograms either way within a single day, due to various bodily functions including how much water weight a person is carrying. Muscle is also much denser than fat; if you are exercising regularly then you can expect your muscle mass to increase, which could even completely counteract your fat loss in some weeks.

Don’t just focus on the number on the scales as a goal; instead, focus on how your clothes fit, how you look in the mirror, and how fit and healthy you feel with each passing week.

Can’t ignore the scales? Try weighing yourself at the same time each day (such as after you get up but before breakfast) for consistency, and turning the stats into a graph. As long as the graph is broadly going down over time, you are on the right track!

4. People with obesity are unhealthy, thin people are healthy

Statistically, people who are obese have an increased chance of developing several chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. However, there are thin people who develop these chronic diseases every year. Consider fitness as well; some people who have a healthy BMI may be incredibly unfit and never exercise, whilst someone whose weight indicates that they are obese could be very active.

Other markers of health can be improved by losing weight, but are not exclusively tied to obesity. For example, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are both associated with obesity, but are also influenced by stress, metabolic factors, genetics, and sometimes what seems to be luck of the drawer.

5. It’s more expensive to eat healthily

Whilst it is true that some of the most exotic and fashionable health foods and “superfoods” can be expensive, especially if they are hard to find or need to be imported, eating healthily does not need to be more expensive than your previous diet.

How you eat plays a big part in this. Fruit and vegetables will be much cheaper to purchase when they are in season; BBC Good Food offers a comprehensive table detailing when different foods are in season (and therefore at their cheapest and tastiest). This also applies to seasonally caught meat and fish.

Beans and pulses are also cheap options that are low in calories.

Researching and planning ahead will also help to make eating healthy as cheap as possible. There are plenty of Youtube channels that offer recipe tutorials for healthy and affordable meals.

6. Starving yourself is a good way to lose weight

Whilst intermittent fasting has been proven to be one way of losing weight, more extreme approaches, such as crash diets and starvation diets will not aid sustainable long-term weight loss.

Starvation diets can lead to nutritional deficits, which can lead to a whole host of health problems. By depriving your body of food, you also will have low energy levels and increased cravings for unhealthy foods; when you do give in to your hunger, you are more likely to eat unhealthily.

Finally, deprivation and starvation diets do not help to develop new healthy habits; this means that once you quit the diet and begin eating according to old habits, you will quickly regain weight. Starvation diets can also cause the body to lose muscle mass, as the body does not have enough fuel to maintain muscle; this leads to a lower metabolic rate, and ultimately, to future struggles with weight loss. Skipping a single meal is not going to lead to this, but if you are considering a diet that recommends eating hardly any calories per day, you should probably reconsider.

7. Foods labelled ‘low fat’ or ‘reduced fat’ are always a healthy choice

Fat has been demonised by much of the dieting industry, and food manufacturers pounced on this to launch various reduced fat, low fat, and fat-free products. However, some of these food manufacturers add extra sugar into their products to improve the taste, which just increases their calorie content again.

There is some oversight and regulations covering food labelling and how a product is described, but marketers find ways around these rules to suggest that products are healthy, even if they are not.

To be labelled as low-fat (in the UK and EU), for example, a product has to have 3 grams or less of fat per 100 grams. However, to be considered a “reduced fat” product, the new product only has to have 30% less fat than the original or comparable product.

So if a ready meal reduces its fat content from 30 grams per 100 grams down to 21 grams per 100 grams, it can technically advertise itself as having “reduced fat”, even though it is very high in fat overall. (Source: http://ift.tt/2uqusaO)

Consumers should always look at the nutrition and ingredient labels on their food, keeping an eye out for high sodium levels, high levels of saturated fats, and foods with added sugars.

8. Some foods have “negative” calories

The idea of negative calories is that the body uses more calories to chew and digest the food than the food contains, with celery being the most famous example of a negative calorie food.

Unfortunately, this just is not true! A large stick of celery contains around 10 calories, far more than are used to chew and digest the vegetable; celery has a lot of fibre, which means that it has a thermic effect of about 20% of the calorie content. This means that digesting each stick of celery burns around 2 calories. (Source: http://ift.tt/2x6NP9J)

Foods with different compositions require different amounts of energy to digest. Fats have a thermic effect of about 3 percent. If you consume 100 fat calories, only 3 calories will be spent digesting the fat. Fibrous vegetables and fruit have a thermic effect of about 20 percent, while proteins have a thermic effect of about 30 percent.

9. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

Oddly enough, the evolution of breakfast has a long and complicated backstory. (Source: http://ift.tt/2fJZzZU) But the thinking that breakfast is the most important meal of the day comes from a marketer, Edward Bernays, whose job was to sell more bacon for his employers; he got a doctor to agree that a breakfast of bacon and eggs was healthier than a lighter breakfast, and then sent that statement to around 5,000 doctors for their signatures. He then got newspapers to publish the results of his petition as if it was a scientific study, leading to the view that breakfast is medically recommended (and increasing bacon sales in the process).

Studies have shown that skipping breakfast does not lead to weight gain, and new studies are suggesting that intermittent fasting (which features skipping breakfast) can aid weight loss. Read our article on the benefits of fasting for more information.

10. The number of calories you burn exercising, and exercises’ impact upon your weight loss

Studies have repeatedly shown that we over-estimate the value of our workouts significantly. One study even found that when asked to guess their own calorie burn, participants overestimated remarkably.

People who have exercised recently are more likely to indulge in compensatory behaviours as well. For example, they opt to take the elevator instead of the stairs, or buy a donut with their coffee, justifying the less active or unhealthier choice by reminding themselves (and others) that they have already been to the gym that morning. Making just one of these compensatory behaviours may be fine, but researchers believe that we often make numerous decisions like this per day, to the extent where we are essentially undoing all of our hard work in the gym.

The value of activity and exercise has definitely been overstated in relation to weight loss, but leading an active lifestyle has a plethora of benefits for the entire body and your general health.

The post Top 10 Myths About Weight Loss appeared first on Diet Pills Watchdog.

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