Sometimes You Shouldn't Listen

So safe and kind, full of positivity and connectedness, where people share only truthful and uplifting content based on good intentions and solid information. Yeah, right. The truth about social media, as we all know, is that it's a deeply complex and conflicted arena. It can bring joy and connectedness, but, boy, can it also bring pain and negativity. At best we get to enjoy highlights from our loved ones' lives, and access useful and interesting content from individuals and organisations we choose to follow. At worst, we get all manner of stuff that can make us feel isolated, upset, jealous, worried and angry. Nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to alcohol-related content. There is a veritable crap-tonne of booze-related material floating around social media. Most of it is targeted at women, especially mums. We seem to be ripe for the picking when it comes to online alcohol promotion. In articles 4 and 7 you learned that protein consumed with starch triggers a first-phase insulin response, which improves insulin's efficiency so that you need less of it to keep your blood sugar down. Some of us have a glass of wine with meals, which helps the liver remove sugar from the bloodstream after eating. We save our dessert for last. If we slip up and have a little too much sugar for dessert, the sugar blockers we had with our meal help keep it from raising our blood sugar. Some of us even go for an after-meal stroll, which, as discussed in article 7, allows our muscles to remove sugar from the bloodstream without the need for insulin. There you are--an eating pattern that lets you combine several sugar blockers while conforming to the way we customarily eat. When you eat starch with a meal, try to do the following: Have a fatty snack 10 to 30 minutes before your meal. Start your meal with a salad. Use a vinegar-based dressing.

When we see an animal in a strange setting or around other animals that it may have to fight with it will be positioned in a way where nothing will be able to access its heart, its lungs or its stomach area. Thinking of humans in this way will be a great tool for analyzing them. Now we will look at other areas of the body and the messages we can get from learning how to read them accurately. First, is the movement of the arms. The arms themselves can close us off or open us up to the world. The positioning of the arms in relation to the body can be something that happens automatically. Someone may be extremely comfortable with the situation they are in if they have their arms at their sides, resting on the armrests of the chair in which they are seated. This may happen automatically as a result of feeling unthreatened and safe in their surroundings. A person may cross their arms when they are feeling threatened or hug their chest in an effort to protect themselves from the outside world. When people do this they are attempting to physically put a barrier between themselves and you, whether they know this to be true or not. Quirky memes with vintage cartoon images chirp `Motherhood: Powered by love, fuelled by coffee, sustained by wine' and `Wine is to women what duct tape is to men: it fixes everything'. Photoshopped images show mums guzzling from ginormous wine glasses under the words `I wish my tolerance for my children would increase as much as my tolerance for wine' and `Tick-tock it's wine o'clock'. Babies are snapped wearing onesies with slogans saying `I'm the reason mum drinks'. Cutsie nicknames for alcohol like `mummy's juice' or `mummy's little helper' get liberally bandied about. This is the Wine Mum culture online and it's rampant. Images are liked, shared and commented on at such a rate they've spread around platforms like Facearticle, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat like the plague. What once offered a cheeky laugh has now been bastardised and cynically commercialised to the point where it's simply no longer funny. The once subversive little in-joke is now a deafening roar, and we can't hear ourselves think (let alone parent) without being hit with the message that we need alcohol to help us carry out our motherly duties. We'd all still be laughing if it wasn't so bloody damaging. Being a mum is wonderful, but it's also hard work on so many levels.

Include a serving of vegetables with your meal. Include protein with your meal. Consider having a glass of wine or a shot of alcohol with your meal. Eat sweets for dessert only. Go for a walk afterward. And most important of all, never eat refined carbohydrates on an empty stomach. Of course, it may not be realistic for you to incorporate all of those sugar blockers with every meal. But remember that combining sugar blockers works better than relying on just one kind. As a rule of thumb, use three types of sugar blockers for each serving of starch. How Much Does It Take? Our bodies are made to automatically protect us from danger. Our emotions and feelings signal to our body that there may be a threat and our body acts accordingly. This happens regardless of whether there is a real physical threat, or simply a topic of conversation that is making us uncomfortable. When someone is feeling comfortable and welcoming, they may open their arms and leave themselves fully open to receiving the world. A rms behind the back indicate that the person is feeling secure and welcoming a challenge. We know this because they have their protecting elements (their arms) behind them and their chest out and exposed meaning that they will not be able to quickly protect themselves if need be. This is an indication of feeling secure and comfortable or feeling like they are stronger than those around them. The hands being up around the face indicates a desire to remain mysterious or not to show one's true expressions. H ands on hips may indicate that a person is trying to assert dominance. When someone puts their hands on their hips, it makes them take up much more space.

Births can be traumatising, sleeplessness is crippling, hormone surges are overwhelming, information overload is intense, insecurity hobbles us, opinions come from everywhere, cabin fever is real and loneliness sometimes achingly painful. Having a drink at the end of a long and tiring day can offer us a way out, and I've been very open about the fact that my drinking escalated hugely when I started being at home more after having kids. Opening a bottle of wine at 5 p. I was drinking alone, but there's no doubt I felt supported and encouraged in my solo habit by all the Wine Mum content pouring from my computer. It helped me justify my regular, heavy drinking. It normalised it, and it made me feel connected with other mums who were dealing with the same shit (literally, at times) as I was, in the same liquid way. I was there on the front lines slurring, Yes, way! The memes, hashtags, mimosa brunches, and Insta pics of moms drinking cocktails to deal with their kids--they were enabling me and I loved it. Anna, who shares her story with us here, reads very clearly the underlying message we're sending every time we click, like, comment and share. You're putting on Facearticle about how you can't cope with everything so you're taking drugs. You need only a little fat to slow stomach emptying. Five grams--about a teaspoon--will do. A handful of nuts or cheese easily provides that. It takes 2 to 4 tablespoons of vinegar to slow starch absorption--about as much as you would normally put on a typical serving of salad. A modest serving of protein--say, 4 ounces--will boost the first-phase insulin response to starch. It takes about 1 1/2 ounces of alcohol, approximately the amount in a typical-size glass of wine or cocktail, to reduce your after-meal blood sugar. Fiber is another matter. You need a lot of it to do the job. It takes 10 grams--about two large servings of high-fiber fruits or vegetables--to reduce your after-meal blood sugar surge by 25 percent. Most fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds contain soluble fiber.

Putting the hands on the hips is usually accompanied by a wide stance. This type of body positioning causes people to spread themselves out as if to say, you can try to cross me but it will not work. H ands in the pockets can indicate nervousness and even deceitful behavior as they are hiding a part of themselves that tends to move in an indicative way. Look out for this along with other signals that the person may be trying to withhold information or remain vague. T he hands holding something between the person, and you create another type of barrier like crossing the arms does. For example, holding a article or a notepad out in front of them is putting something between themselves and you in order to distance themselves from the conversation. The feet are another important place to look in order to analyze a person. This is because people are usually expecting their face to be the place people look to for clues into their subconscious, so they forget all about their feet placement. The feet placement is similar to the glance mentioned earlier in that it tells you where the person wants to be. Just as someone will glance in the direction of what they want, their feet will usually point in the direction of where they want to be. We're saying, Look at us, we fall apart at the end of the day, we can't cope. Joanna, whose story you'll hear next, also reads the messages loud and clear and it grates: `I hate with a passion that whole thing of wine o'clock. I just hate it. I see so many women I know on social media posting about their drinks, and I just think, Do you not get what you are promoting here? Maybe it's okay for them. But then most of the ones who put those photos up online, I know that they're not okay. And therein lies the problem with the Wine Mum culture. It masks the truth. It makes light of something that is often very heavy. It sells the idea that all is fun and laughter when it comes to mums and alcohol, when often it's anything but.