Month: March 2018

2 Ways To Stimulate Autophagy & Why You Want To Do That

Autophagy is how a cell naturally clears away dead or unhealthy cells in your body. You can do that 2 ways and both of those ways require stressing the cell.

Way number 1 – exercise

If you exercise you can stimulate autophagy.

Way number 2 – fast or deplete your body of nutrients

Fasting and caloric restriction has been shown to increase autophagy.

Why you want to do that

Autophagy clears away the dead and unhealthy cells in your body. The older you get the more of these cells you get in your body.

So autophagy promotes health and healing in your body by clearing away dead and unhealthy cells.

If you are not doing these things then you are essentially speeding up your own destruction.

  • Reduce inflammation
  • Speed healing

Source:

A Super Fast Joomla Template – Minimal Code, Maximum Speed

Are you looking for a super fast Joomla template? How about a fast loading and responsive Joomla template? Or do you need a high speed solution to slow loading pages?

The problem…

Joomla can be slow

Here’s why:

  • lots of CSS files
  • lots of javascript files
  • unminified CSS, Javascript, HTML
  • lots of images and icons
  • Google fonts
  • lots of http requests
  • lots of components

And if you add Google analytics, Adsense, or Youtube videos they will also slow your site down. Although I share something later in the template that will speed up your Youtube video loads.

Out of the box Joomla is usually not optimized and it is often slow. This can depend upon the template, but there are often lots of CSS and JS files.

So I created my own template over the years that is extremely simple and fast.

Should a website be fast?

People prefer fast websites and since people prefer fast websites so does Google. It’s likely that the faster your website is the better you will rank in Google.

I don’t know about you…

But if I go to a website and it locks up my page because it’s loading a bunch of ads and other stuff I hit the back button.

And…

I silently wish to myself that their bounce rate goes up and Google demotes them.

If you want a lot of bells and whistles then you will pay

If you want a flashy website then it’s going to slow you down. Some things may look cool, but just add to the overall weight of the page.

The flashy stuff may look cool, but it doesn’t make up for something that is missing in your content.

The bells and whistles should be in your content. If you try to make subpar content look better by adding cool effects and what not then you will slow your site down.

Think Wikipedia or Craigslist.

Are these flashy websites? No. Are they popular websites? Yes. Why? Because they help people.

A flashy website isn’t go to make you any more popular.

Enter my speedy template that will get a 100% on most page speed tests

Javascript and CSS files will slow down a page. So how many CSS files does my template use?

Zero.

How many JS files does my template use?

Zero.

I eliminated them both.

What?!

Yes, it’s possible. Out of the box Joomla open source software is for everyone. It’s versatile and you can build a massive site with all kinds of different functions.

But what if you just want a simple site that’s fast and responsive in mobile view?

I didn’t need that much. I just wanted a fast simple site for my content which was mostly a blog and videos.

Is this template for everyone?

Absolutely not.

It’s for the minimalist. If you want a simple (minimal), fast loading Joomla template that’s responsive then this is it. If you want something fancy then this is not for you.

How can a site work without a CSS file?

As per Google’s recommendation for small css files I inlined the css. This template uses very little CSS.

How can a site work without Javascript?

Javascript is often used for Joomla components, so if you don’t need any components then you probably don’t actually need to be loading Javascript files.

By default Joomla is going to load a bunch of files. But they can be removed.

If you decide that you want to load these files or need them for a component you can add them, but remember that comes with a cost. They will make your site slower which may decrease your ranking.

How does this template do on speed tests?

You can check out this minimal and super fast Joomla template here. The following are some checks for Google’s Pagespeed. My template gets 100% on all of these.

The template will score 100% on speed checks, however if there is an image on the page that will slow it down a bit.

  • Reduce server response time
  • Leverage browser caching
  • Avoid landing page redirects
  • Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
  • Enable compression
  • Minify CSS
  • Minify HTML
  • Minify JavaScript
  • Optimize images
  • Prioritize visible content

How does it compare to other “fast” Joomla sites?

There are a few sites out there that say they are fast. And some of them may be compared to others, but the ones I have tested are still not that fast.

Test out the high speed Joomla template here.

Bonuses included in the template:

  • How to load Youtube videos faster on your own site
  • Joomla SEO tips

30 days eating no animal products

For the last 30+ days or so I have been eating a vegan diet basically. I basically cut out eggs and A2 dairy like goats milk cheese and occasional turkey or fish.

It wasn’t that hard because I was at one point a vegetarian for 10+ years.

I had read some bad things about eggs and decided to test it out.

Well, it really depends on what you read, because there is a lot of different information out there. To some eggs are a super food and to others not.

How do I feel?

I don’t really feel any different, not stronger or weaker. I didn’t really gain or lose weight. Instead of eating 4-6 eggs a day and a little bit of cheese I ate more nuts, seeds and carbohydrates from mostly sweet potatoes.

I have tried the ketogenic diet, vegetarian diet, the plant paradox diet, intermittent fasting and now a vegan diet which wasn’t so different from the diet that I was already on.

I’d say my diet is rough combination of all those diets with fasting one day a week and occasional longer bouts.

I have been making these really yummy pancake like thingies with:

  • sweet potatoes
  • nut/seed flours from: almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds or chia seeds
  • tapioca flour
  • coconut powder
  • and a little stevia

I used to add eggs to them too, but I found the addition of tapioca flour to work great at holding everything together while giving it a crispy outer and chewy center.

I’d say for the nut flours that almond and pumpkin seed are the best. I bought a coffee grinder to grind all the seeds up which is great for making flour.

You could sprinkle that flour/meal on all kinds of things.

I think grinding them also makes them more digestible, easier on your teeth and according to some grinding may reduce the phytic acid. I also started to soak them too for the same reason.

I am pretty content being a mostly vegetarian. I am not planning on becoming a militant vegan or anything. I just wanted to test it out.

My experience with another 3 day fast

Fasting makes you really appreciate food. I think this was my second or third 3 day fast.

This time I drank ginger and astragalus tea in the morning, water and a little plain mineral water. So for some it’s not that strict of a fast, but it was pretty good for me.

Anyways…

The first day was like normal. I stopped eating at 4:30 on Saturday which is not that unusual. Usually I will stop on Sat. somewhere between 6-8pm and then not eat until 6-7pm on Sunday. But this time I decided I’d go longer.

The first day was a bit harder than the second day. I felt pretty good on the second day. So good that I even went to Jiujitsu and by then I hadn’t eaten anything in like 50 hours.

I kinda wanted to see how I would do. I did surprisingly well. In fact I felt rather euphoric and happy. I had plenty of energy and I didn’t pass out or anything. I might have been slightly weaker, but it wasn’t too noticeable to me.

I even felt great after class. I was wide awake, but.

The problem came when I stayed online writing past 11pm which is like the magic time to get off for me. If I stay on longer than that then it’s pretty likely I am going to mess my sleep up.

I was right.

I hardly slept.

I kept thinking that if I ate something I would fall asleep. I slept like maybe 1-2 hours. So I woke up not feeling so good. I couldn’t sleep so around 4-5am I just got up and started working online.

I took a short nap in the afternoon and just wasn’t feeling so good. It was then when I decided what is the point of all this????

So I ate a little.

I was hoping for 5 days, but…

Fasting is good for autophagy. Something like when your body starts eating itself, but not muscle or anything I think it’s like dead cells.

  • Fasting is supposed to help healing.
  • Fasting for 3-5 days is supposed to stimulate stem cell growth when you start eating again.
  • It’s good for your immune system.
  • Fasting is supposed to help increase growth hormone.

Some people do some intermittent fasting before working out.

Your body can burn fat for energy.

It’s pretty cool. I feel good. Thumbs up for fasting ;-).

I fasted for 2 plus days and this is what happened…