Diet aid

Fridge watchman via.

Link roundup

1. Hugh Jackman is supposed to bulk up even more for The Wolverine:

GB: Are you going to have to go back to that intense diet, eating whole chickens so you can get that muscle mass back up?

HJ: I’m on it right now, mate, already doing it. It’s 6,000 calories a day, it’s rough.

GB: How much you weighing?

HJ: Right now, I’m at 210.

GB: Wow, so you’re going to be bigger this time? Last time, you looked about, what, 190?

HJ: Yeah, right, I was 190, something like that. I don’t know how much I want to give away about it, but Darren said with the last one, ‘Hey you looked great, but you’re so tall that in those long shots you looked kind of like Clint Eastwood, and that’s not Wolverine.”

Via.

2. "Kids Sail Free on Seven-Night Alaska Cruises Aboard the Disney Wonder."

3. Tyler Weeks:

Weight loss advice is only good if someone listens to it. If you tell people they can't have pizza, they'll ignore you and keep living "fat and happy."

I'm telling you, I'm going to start a movement in this country: eat the foods you want, just less, and move around. You'll be healthy and happy as a clam.

Via.

Fake butter packets

Mudra planted fake butter packets to promote Nutralite.

*Buy Las Vegas Vintage Graphics at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Former Next Iron Chef competitor Nate Appleman is currently making burritos at a Chipotle in New York (so he can learn and eventually improve the business). Via.

2. Gizmodo reviews the new Chrome OS laptop. TechCrunch, too. (Please send me one Google, I promise to write more posts and serve more Adsense ads.)

3. This actually works really well for me - - "People who imagined eating an indulgent snack ate 50 percent less of the real thing when given the chance."

Link roundup

1. The Fifth Element pin-up. (click on the image)

2. Man goes on Twinkie diet and loses weight (because he watched calories):

while 2/3 of his total intake came from junk food the professor was also eating vegetables every day, took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. He also cut out meat, whole grains and fruit.

3. "British special forces are parachuting into Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan with dogs strapped to them, then using the dogs—with cameras attached to their heads—to scout the surrounding area."

*Buy Twinkies at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Megan McArdle:

But experiments with students and prisoners who deliberately set out to gain weight show that appetite decreases, and metabolism increases, if people consistently overeat. That's why most of us stay in a relatively stable band, rather than seeing our weight fluctuate wildly. Gina Kolata argues that most people have a pretty narrow band of weight that their bodies are comfortable in--about 10-30 pounds. Stay at the low end, and you'll feel a bit hungry; get to the high end, and you may lose some of your interest in food. But it's actually very hard to bust out of that band on either side.

2. Monstrous cake.

3. Comment and win The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read!.

*Buy Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Gregg Easterbrook:

The U.S. Treasury is seeking to save $100 million per year by removing nickel from the nickel; nickel lobbyists are fighting this in Congress. The International Zinc Association is lobbying to maintain the existence of the penny, which is mostly zinc. If the United States, at a time of record mega-deficits, can't even get rid of pennies because members of Congress fear the loss of donations from the zinc lobby, how will fiscal sense ever be established?

2. Some absolutely fascinating observations about human sexuality.

3. Now maybe donuts for breakfast is a good idea? Via.

*Buy donut makers at Amazon.

Losing enough weight to go on the rides at Universal Studios' Harry Potter park

Banks Lee was to large to go on the rides at Universal Studios' Harry Potter park. But he lost weight, and the park modified the rides to accommodate larger people. Lee has a blog dedicated to his efforts to go on the rides. Via.

*Buy Disneyland toys at eBay.

Fat Super Mario

Fat Super Mario can't fit through a warp pipe in this t-shirt design by Alex Solis for Threadless. Click on the voting widget if you'd like the chance to buy it:

Self Indulgence

"Self Indulgence" by Nouar, who has lots of prints on sale at Etsy.

Link roundup

1. Drink water before meals to lose weight.

2. Rocky & Bullwinkle (and Mr. Peabody and Fractured Fairy Tales) is on Hulu.

3. Adam Koford has a bunch of original comic strips on sale for about $20 at Etsy.

*Buy Bullwinkle toys at eBay.

WW II-era Iron Man designs (link roundup)

Some of the World War II-era Iron Man designs Bill Presing tried out for his Iron man cover. He's looking for a copy of Iron Man:Legacy #3 with his variant cover, so if you have one, get in touch.

And a few more links:

1. Kafakesque tale of how plumbers unions fought against acceptance of waterless urinals (if you need less plumbing, you need less plumbers, too).

2. Funny dieting tips, including, "Instead of three big meals per day, try eating five or six smaller meals. Then watch that gradually evolve into five or six huge meals, and rue the day you took that advice."

3. Tilda Swinton learned to speak Italian with a Russian accent for her role in I Am Love. Via.

4. Impressive Sin & Punishment 2 gameplay.

*At Toycutter: Custom Iron Man and War Machine toys.

*Buy Iron Man toys at eBay.

Vampire with a nose bleed (link roundup)

Vampire with a nose bleed by Michael Hacker.

And a few more links:

1. Good suggestions for losing weight.

2. Scvngr hunts for the Getty Center and other museums in LA.

3. Good Food Restaurant Map in Los Angles. I'm particularly excited to learn that there's a place selling fried Twinkies nearby (although I think I'll pass on the Fried Twinkie hot dog).

*Previously: Comicon scavenger hunt.

*Buy vampire toys at eBay.

This should convince you to stop drinking sugary drinks (link roundup)

Photos of sugary drinks next to food containing the equivalent amount of sugar. Via.

And a few more links:

1. Tweet and win an iPad.

2. Someone divided a New York City street into a side for residents, and a side for tourists.

3. Clever, subtle way to suggest someone see a shrink and that their "illness" is all in their head. Via.

*Previously: Sugar batteries.

*Buy pedometers at Amazon.

Passover roundup

1. Download Exodus 2.0, a "special Idelsohn mixtape to help you celebrate Passover. Perfect for any seder." Via.

2. Download a 48-page Passover workbook. Via.

3. Matzoh Brei with Caramelized Apples recipe.

4. Apparently, the meal served at the Last Supper has grown in artistic interpretations over the last 1,00 years.

*Buy Moses toys at eBay.

DJ Delta (link roundup)

Big Daddy DJ by Juan Pablo Forero. See also: Big Daddy and Little Sister doll.

And a few more links:

1. Desktop wallpaper-sized screenshot of Rapture during an underwater scene in Bioshock 2.

2. I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating - - french fries are shockingly bad for you. Via.

3. Ahsoka Tano fan art by Dan Hipp.

*Previously: Bioshock 2 video playthrough.

*Buy Bioshock toys at eBay.

Rocketeer art (link roundup)

One of two Rocketeer images by Mihajlo Dimitrovski.

And a few more links:

1. Poster for Funk Bowl, a bowling event in New York.

2. Slick Nick Fury pinup by Evan Shaner.

3. Nightline looks at celebrity chefs who have lost a lot of weight, including Nate Appleman, who starred on the most recent season of Next Iron Chef.

*Previously: The Rocketeer vs The Zeppelin Thief.

*Buy Nick Fury toys at eBay.

Losing weight

It's that time of year when everywhere you look people are talking about going to the gym, going on a diet, and losing weight. Let me make it easy for you.

Exercise can make you stronger, more athletic, and healthier. All noble goals. But exercise, aside from extreme, constant exercise, has almost nothing to do with weight loss. Anyone who has run on a treadmill watching the calorie counter knows how depressingly long it takes to burn a few hundred calories. And you'd probably know by now if you were the kind of person who was going to regularly, vigorously exercise.

If you want to be thinner than your genetic destiny, i,e, mom, dad, and the grandparents, then you need to start eating less calories. Many diets are more or less based on that philosophy, although they complicate it with formulas and points and diaries and other tricks designed to separate you from your money.

You don't need any of that nonsense. Yes, it's a good idea to educate yourself about calories (milkshakes can easily fill you with 1500 calories), but it's tedious and difficult to really keep track. Especially when companies lie about the calories in their products.

No. It's easy to know if you're taking in fewer calories - - you'll feel a little hungry, pretty much all the time aside from when you're eating. That's it. That's the secret to being thinner than your DNA want you to be.

Of course, it's hard to resist food. So here's a few tips (aside from smoking, hard drugs, bulimia, Photoshop, and other techniques used by the famous).

1. Don't eat out of boredom.
2. Don't eat because it would be a shame to let that food go to waste. (Brutally difficult if you have young kids.)
3. Want something sweet to end your meal? Have a diet soda.
4. Eat slow. Chew your food and enjoy it. If you eat too fast, you'll miss out on your body's signal that it's full.
5. Mix healthy, filling items like salad or fruit with a small amount of whatever it is you actually want to eat - - order one slice of pizza and a salad, instead of two slices of pizza.
6. Stall. Try to talk yourself out of snacks, at least for a little while. If you delay each snack/meal for 20 minutes, then by the end of the day, you may have totally skipped a snack. Skip a week's worth of snacks, and that's easily 1400 calories saved.
7. Put small portions on your plate and force yourself to get up and go into another room for seconds. If you're at a restaurant, immediately divide portions into what you plan on eating at the meal.

In a nutshell, go find a hobby, keep yourself busy, and count every skipped bite a victory. You'd be amazed at how much weight you can lose in six months.

*I am in no way saying that being thin is the key to happiness, or that being super thin is desirable.
*Big Red Riding Hood courtesy of Dina Goldstein.

Colgate Candy (link roundup)

To promote Colgate, Y&R gave away lollipops, ice cream and cotton candy with toothbrush shaped sticks embedded inside.

And a few more links:

1. Interesting diet idea - - photograph your food. Via.

2. Preorder the new Monster Commute book and depending on the amount you want to contribute, you can get anything from a sketch, to limited editions prints, to a day with the artist.

3. Lost Persian army, possibly as large as 50,000 soldiers, found in the desert. Via.

4. This week's MojiZu finalists are both good.

*Previously: Map of the Persian Gulf as a Crocodile.

*Buy vintage cameras at eBay.

Papercraft Hockey Mask Murderer(link roundup)

Papercraft skeleton, werewolf, hockey mask murderer and monstrous fridge can be downloaded here. Via.

And a few more links:

1. Some ultramarathoners get their toenails surgically permanently removed - - you can read more about how and why, if you can stomach it, here. Via.

2. Trent Reznor made a song for a Fringe commercial.

3. One strategy that might help you resist eating dessert? When you see something tasty, imagine using it as a doorstop. Via.

*Previously: Fringe's Selectric 251.

*Buy NIN concert posters at eBay.