On Applying Makeup

(Written for people who don't know how to use makeup.)

Purchases

Sunscreen

Sunscreen is a must. Either built in to the foundation or tinted moisturiser, or used underneath. As high an SPF as possible. Be careful of built-in sunscreens, some aren't anywhere near as good as a product intended solely for sun protection can be.

Foundation and Primer

Test several types of foundation. Even if your skin is smooth and near-perfect, foundation helps other makeups stick properly. A good foundation will either feel good on your skin, or feel like nothing at all once it's dried.
If your skin isn't near-perfect, a foundation will usually smooth out the colours of your skin and leave you with a much more even-looking skin tone. It can also reduce the visibility of broken capillaries or other blemishes.
Go to many makeup counters, and get the staff there to apply foundation, telling them you're trialling foundations. Leave the foundation on at least half the day, and keep notes on what they feel like and look like. (If you prefer ethical stuff, research which makeup companies you want to use before you start testing.)

There's also primer, which is usually a cream and it helps keep foundation and other makeup on your skin. It doesn't colour your skin. I'm not aware of primers which include sunscreen, but if I found one I'd be on it in a flash.

Primer options:

• primer only.


• primer then foundation. Any foundation type.


• no primer. Primer is optional, and many people don't use it or don't like it. When trialling foundations, if the company has primer, have them put primer on one side and no primer on the other.

Foundation options:

• Tinted moisturisers. These have the least colour, but will smooth the appearance of your skin to some extent. If you want to hide broken capillaries or other blemishes, use a concealer under them. Many have sunscreen built in.


• Cream foundations. Colour in a cream. Many include sunscreen, some are their own primer.


• Mineral powder foundations. Colour in a powder. The powder often acts as a barrier-type sunscreen, which is the highest SPF possible. However, to get the barrier effect, you need to apply enough powder to completely cover your skin. Many people love powder foundation - including me. Since purchasing it, my skin has become less tanned (great!) and I need to replace mine with the next shade paler.


• 'face powder'. Some people get shiny-faced with a cream foundation, and this is just a coloured powder in a matching shade. Face powder isn't intended for covering facial colouration or blemishes, but is great for making a shiny face look more naturally matte.

Concealers

When testing your foundations, if you mention an interest in concealers, you'll discover many blemishes, marks, and variations in skin tone you never noticed in your own face. The makeup sales staff will have concealers in a bewildering variety of colours and intensities of concealment. Decide which, if any, blemishes or colour variations you actually want to hide, and use whichever concealer/s hide them to your satisfaction. The rest of the markings you can consider of no more significance than the unique patterns of colouring in your pets' fur. They make you you, and not some photoshopped barbie doll.

Colours

To start with, buy an inexpensive kit with lots of colours - there are always some around. You'll play with them, and decide which colours suit you best, and what types you like to use.
There are a lot of options in colour and shape. For eyebrows alone, you can dye them, or use eyebrow pencils, or eyebrow powders. You can pluck them or leave them natural, or even take them off completely. And there's no 'right' way, it's all to your personal taste. That's just the eyebrows!
Colour and shape is all down to your artistic choice. I'll speak more about colour and shape in the section on application.

Tools

In Australia, there are a couple of companies that produce makeup tools aimed at the low-middle end of the market. They do reasonably good tools, certainly good enough to get started with. There are probably similar companies elsewhere.

• Pick up a sponge set for creamy sunscreens, primers or foundations. You'll learn which shape and type of sponge suits you best as you try them, so if there's a bag of mixed types, go for that as your first sponge purchase.


• Pick up a big brush to use for powder foundation, face powder, or blushes. If you chose two or three of those, buy two or three big brushes.


• Pick up a stiff-bristled brush for eyebrow powder, if you want to try that.


• Pick up a set of eyeshadow sponges and a thick and thin eyeshadow brush, if you can get both sponges and brushes cheaply. You'll decide which you prefer after you've used them for a while. Otherwise, get the brushes - most eyeshadows come with sponges. Lousy sponges, but good enough to decide if you want to get your own later.


• Pick up an eyeliner brush, some people love them, some hate them. You won't know until you try.


• Pick up a lipstick brush. I've never met someone who started using them who didn't love them.

Cleaning, moisturising and caring for your face (and your tools)

Personally, I use baby shampoo (no more tears!) to remove makeup. You need to use something that will take even waterproof mascaras and long-lasting lipsticks off, but honestly I've found soap or shampoo gets rid of almost all makeup. The shampoo is gentler on my skin and eyes than soap, so I use that. When I brush my teeth, I also brush my lips lightly. That gets rid of lipstick and any dry, chapped skin on my lips.
Sales staff will promote the virtues of their cleansers - frankly, use what works and leaves your skin in good condition. Even if it's soap or shampoo.
Skin that has been stripped of its sebum by soaps and cleansers needs replacement sebum. Myself, I use a vegetable-oil based massage oil (or even olive oil from the supermarket). I put a few drops on my palms, and lightly rub it over my skin. An avocado mask is also an excellent sebum-replacer. Peel an avocado badly (so you keep avocado on the inside of the peel), eat the yummy bit, smear the skin with the avocado and avocado oil inside the peel. Wash the avocado off your face with water when you're sick of it sitting there.
I never exfoliate my face with anything more harsh than a facecloth. All you need to remove are the actual flaking-off cells - the rest of the dead cells are supposed to be a protection for the living cells underneath.

I clean my brushes and sponges with either soap or baby shampoo, rinse them with water, and leave them where they'll dry thoroughly. I ensure the brushes are placed so the bristles will dry smoothly and in the right position.
If you use natural bristle brushes, a weekly smear with a light massage oil or a little bit of olive oil from the kitchen will help keep them in good shape. Put a drop in your palm and lightly brush each side of the brush over your palm. Start with the big brushes, you don't want a whole drop of oil on a tiny brush! With the big brushes, work the bristles lightly with your fingers, to try to spread the oil over the whole brush.

When to throw things out

Never keep an opened mascara longer than 3 months. (For this reason, I don't bother to use mascara. I don't use it often enough.)
Liquid eyeliner also touches very close to the eye. Toss that every three months too. Pencil eyeliner is less vulnerable to bacterial propagation, as every time it's sharpened the outer layer gets taken off.
Get rid of any cream that looks like it's separated, or that has started to smell.
Get rid of any lipstick with a taste or texture that's changed from how it started out.
Get rid of anything that's a different colour from how it was when it was new.
Powders and pressed powders (like eyeshadows) last longer, but don't use anyone else's, and don't use them if they look, smell or feel 'off' or odd.

You can see lots of different 'when to discard' articles on the 'net. Some will say to get rid of even your powders every six months. Other than mascara or eyeliners, I'm not that vigilant - if I was, I'd never use any makeup! I certainly don't use anything often enough to use it up in six months, and I won't buy things that are mostly wasted.

Using testers

• Always use hygiene and courtesy when you're using testers.

• If there are applicators provided, take your sample with the applicator, and don't reuse an applicator that's been on your skin. This is usually how blushes and concealers are tested.


• If a foundation is in a common-use tester, apply the foundation to the base of your cheek, where the jawbone is. You can check how well it matches the base shade of your skin, and still stay clear of your eyes, mouth and nose.


• Test lipstick shades with the skin on your hand, usually the skin between your wrist and thumb. Never use a tester lipstick that's available for common use on your lips.

• If you want to test a lipstick on your lips, go to a makeup counter where the staff apply the makeup. They put a sample of the lipstick into a clean dish, and then apply it from the dish with a disposable brush. That level of hygiene is necessary.


• The hygiene rules for your lips are even more important for your eyes. Common use eyeshadow, eyeliner or mascara never goes onto your eyes. Always test the shades on your arm - usually the underside of your arm is a decent approximation for your eyelid colour.


• If staff are applying eye makeup for you, ensure they use the dish-and-disposable-applicator method. If they don't, leave. You don't want an eye infection!


• Anything applied by putting a sample into a clean dish and using a disposable applicator is safe. For any common-use tester, use an unbroken stretch of skin that is not near your eyes, nose, or mouth.


• If you're using testers yourself, only use enough to determine whether you like the product.


• At a makeup counter where staff apply the testers for you, it's generally good manners to at least consider making a purchase. The company is investing staff time and makeup on you, and deserves to have you be a real prospect. However, I have a personal rule: I'm honest with the sales staff and tell them the reason for my visit. If they know that I'm intending to try at least a dozen foundations, they can choose for themselves how much time to spend on a one-in-twelve chance that I'll buy from them.
  If I ask for a full makeup test, or ask them to teach me how to do a particular look, I feel it's only fair to buy at least one thing from them, usually more.
  However, if they take it on themselves do to a full makeup, then whether or not I buy anything depends on how nice they are, how I like the product, and what my finances are like. I've let them know my intention, and I'll remind them a couple of times, but some people are just pushy. I'll buy from the nice ones who are trying to share with me something they like or think will help me, but the pushy ones don't get anything.
  

Application

Wash your hands and face. Always use clean hands to apply makeup, and apply onto a clean face. Baby shampoo or mild soap is fine.
If your hairstyle is going to go over your face anywhere, brush your hair back and use pins, a hair elastic, or a hairband to keep it out of your way. Do your hair after the makeup.
If your hairstyle isn't going to go over your face, do it either before or after the makeup as you prefer. Keep it out of your face while you're applying the makeup, though.

Sunscreen

If the sunscreen isn't built in to your makeup, apply the sunscreen. Blend it in to the hairline, actually in among the hair. Make sure to apply it thickly enough to do you good - instructions will be on the bottle.

Concealers
Follow the sales staff's instructions. There are so many concealers, and so many methods of application, that I can't be more precise.

Foundation, primer and/or tinted moisturiser: creams
Squeeze some of the cream into the palm of your off hand or into a clean dish. How much depends on how thickly you like using it - if you don't know, start with a bit the size of an Australian 20c piece or an American quarter. Using your dominant hand, dab your finger into the cream on your palm and smear that onto the tip of your nose, then another dab's worth into the middle of your forehead, another onto each cheek, and the rest onto your chin.
Get a sponge, and using smooth strokes of the sponge, spread each of the five dabs into their area of the face - nose and its immediate surrounds, forehead, chin and mouth, and each cheek area. Spread it right into the hairline. Then pat the sponge lightly over each eye area, getting foundation onto the eyelids and the skin between eyelids and eyebrows. Pat the sponge over your lips, you'll want some foundation or primer on your lips for lipstick.
Finally, stroke the sponge along your ears, the underside of your chin, down and around your neck, and along your decolletage all the way to beneath the neckline of the shirt or dress you'll be wearing. The point of this is to blur the edge of your makeup - you don't want a noticeable line where the makeup stops.

Foundation powder
Tap a bit into the lid of the powder container, or a clean dish or bowl. How much depends on how thickly you like using it - if you don't know, start with a bit the size of an Australian 20c piece or an American quarter.
Using your powder brush (you bought one, right?), dab the brush into the powder and brush it lightly onto the tip of your nose, then another dab's worth into the middle of your forehead, another onto each cheek, and the rest onto your chin.
Using smooth strokes of the brush, spread each of the five dabs into their area of the face - nose and its immediate surrounds, forehead, each cheek area, chin and mouth. Spread it right into the hairline. Then pat the brush lightly over each eye area, getting foundation onto the eyelids and the skin between eyelids and eyebrows.
Finally, stroke the brush along your ears, the underside of your chin, down and around your neck, and along your decolletage all the way to beneath the neckline of the shirt or dress you'll be wearing. The point of this is to blur the edge of your makeup - you don't want a noticeable line where the makeup stops.
If you run out of powder at any stage, add more to the dish and lightly touch the brush to the powder.

Colours: general

The fun part.

Study your face, and think about what part of your face gets the most compliments. Maybe you have amazing eyes. Maybe your lips are perfect. Maybe you love your high cheekbones, or the shape of your jaw, or the curve of your eyebrows. Maybe you have two or more features you love. Those are the features you'll highlight.

It's usually a good idea to only go all-out on one feature. Strong eye makeup and bright red lipstick can be too 'busy', with each distracting the viewer from the other. Even worse, it can make you look cheap. Make it a rule: go all-out on one feature, and make all the rest only an enhancement of nature. It's the makeup equivalent of Coco Chanel's rule: When you're done dressing, you should look in the mirror and take one thing off before you leave the house.

Before you start playing with colour, look at people. Not in magazines or on TV, look at people in the street or at the mall. In magazines and on TV, eyebrows are evenly coloured all the way along, and never meet in the middle. Real people have eyebrows that thin on the outer edge, and some meet in the middle. Models seem to have perfectly symmetrical lips and relatively even upper and lower lips. People in the street or shopping malls don't. Magazines portray people with smooth, even skin and delicate lines of blush precisely placed wherever the current fashion is. In the street you see people with cheek colourations ranging from none at all to the entire cheek a dusky rose set in an alabaster-pale face. (I've only seen the extreme version of rose-cheek/pale skin in one person, but I've seen a lot of less extreme versions of it.)

Now you can look at magazines and TV. Look at how differently the professional make-up artists colour different people. A dark-haired dark-eyed woman might get smokey eyes and rich, deep colours; while a pale-skinned redhead is more likely to get a pastel look. However, even the pale-skinned redhead can have smokey eyes, they just have to be a different sort of smokey.

Use the professional looks to see what's likely to be possible on you, and to see what's less likely but are looks you love. Use your research in the streets and at shopping malls and other public places to see what you can really expect, and to see what's normal and human and doesn't require professional techniques, lighting, camera work and photoshopping to achieve.

Colour: main face & blush

There are three reasons to add colour to the main part of the face (as in, not the eyes, lips and eyebrows). One is face painting - playing with adding colour in unexpected places, or intentionally painting ourselves with butterflies or the colours of our favourite sports team.

The second is to simulate or enhance natural colouration. People with little natural colour on the cheeks, chin or forehead may prefer to add some, or those with colour may want to vary the intensity or tone of theirs. If this is your goal, look for people with a base skin tone similar to yours, notice where they have colour and what shade it is, and play with putting similar shades of powder on the same places in your face. Or if you prefer, just use the blushes in your colour kit, or testers in a store, and play with putting blush on your face until you find a configuration you like.
Applying blush to enhance natural colouration is an art - you just do it until you like it.

The third reason is to enhance or highlight contours. This requires subtlety.
The human face is usually lit from above - this is why as teenagers we hold a torch beneath our face to make it look spooky. However, holding a torch beneath your face is a good exercise for learning what our face contours are.
Study your face in many kinds of light, and also with a torch under it. Notice the cheekbones, the jawline, the lines between the nose and the mouth, the shadowing and highlighting around the eyes.
The basic rule to enhance a contour is this: apply light colour to the place where you want it to look like light is falling directly onto it, and darker colour to the place that you want to look shadowed.

Colour: lips

If you decide to use lipliner, one good technique is to put a dot each on the two points of the 'cupid's bow' at the top of your top lip, a dot each at each side of the lower lip below the 'cupid's bow' points, and a dot near each of the four corners of the lip. Then look at yourself in the mirror, and wash off and redraw any dots which look wrong to you. Then join the dots.

Lipliner should be on the edge of the coloured part of the lip - don't go past that, it'll look odd. You can apply lipliner as a drawn line around the edge of the lip, or all over the coloured lip - it's your choice. I often use it as a base layer of lipstick, covering my whole lip with it.

Use your lip brush to paint lipstick on your lips: on the coloured part, and if you used lipliner, right over most of the liner. Don't leave yourself with a blatantly obvious line: that only looks good on drag queens.

To make lipstick last, do several light layers of lipstick. Apply the lipstick, pat it with a tissue, apply another layer, pat with a tissue, repeat. Three times is a good minimum.

To prevent lipstick from sticking on your teeth, wrap a tissue around your finger, stick the tissue-clad finger into your mouth, close your lips around it, and pull it out. That will remove the lipstick that would have stuck to your teeth.


Colour: eyebrows

Your eyebrows have a natural line and colour to them. Try to mostly match this line and colour: it will be most appropriate to your face. (Unless you're doing a dramatic look like a Gothic or Punk look, then you can do whatever you want.)

Hold a pencil (or a brush) up beside your nose, vertically. The eyebrow should start about where the pencil crosses the eyebrow line.

Hold the pencil beside the base of your nose, tilt it so that it crosses the eye at the outer corner. Your eyebrow should end about where it crosses the eyebrow line.

Use the eyebrow colour to thicken or darken any thin parts of your natural eyebrow between those two points.

If you're using a powder, just lightly brush it where you need it. Rather than dumping a lot on at once, lightly brush it once, look at it, brush it again if it's not dark enough, and keep repeating until it looks even with your naturally darker sections of eyebrow.

If you're using a pencil, draw thin, short lines. Try to mimic what eyebrow hairs look like, and the angle of those hairs.

Colour: eyes

There are many, many ways to colour your eye area. I'll describe a classic 3-shade method.

Start by making sure you have a little primer and/or foundation on the eye area. This will help the colour stick.

Using eyeliner, draw a line around the rim of your eyes, just above or on the brow line. If you're going for a natural look, make this a thin line of a colour similar to your eyelash shade, and either leave the lower lid bare or have a line that starts thick at the outside and fades down to nothing. If you're going for a dramatic look, this line can be thicker - as thick as you want it.

For the eyeshadow, use a brush, sponge or your finger, as you feel most comfortable.

Apply the palest eyeshadow shade you intend to use over the whole upper eyelid area, all the way up to the eyebrow. If you wish, apply some below the eye itself: especially on the outer edge.

Apply a median shade on the eyelid and the fold, letting it go onto the upper eyelid area but leaving the most prominent part of the brow bone pale. Let it smudge in the outer corner of the eye.

Apply the darkest shade on the eyelid itself, and smudged slightly into the outer corner of the eye.

If you want to use a fourth shade, have an even darker shade which you apply only into the fold itself. Or you can have an even paler shade, which you apply in a vertical stripe along the very centre where the brow bone and eyelid are most prominent.

Using a brush, sponge, or your fingers, smudge all the shadow colours so they're blended into each other.

Apply mascara with a mascara wand. Pull the wand out of the mascara tube, brush off the excess mascara on the end onto the edge of the tube or onto a clean tissue. Lightly stroke the wand along your eyelashes. Put the wand back into the tube, pull it out again, wipe the excess off, stroke the wand along the eyelashes on your other eye. Repeat until you like the look of your eyelashes. Use lots of light applications, rather than one thick one. And never 'pump' the wand into the tube, that introduces air into the mascara and can make it go off more quickly.


Look: enhancement of nature

To have a look that's very natural, search for lipstick, foundation, blushes and eyeshadows in colours that are already on your skin. If you study your skin, you'll see that you actually have a lot of different shades, especially around your eyes.

Once you have these, apply them lightly.

For a less natural and more 'enhanced' look, choose your eyes or your lips (or some other feature), and apply your makeup a little more strongly there - or in a colour that's a bit stronger than your natural shades.

Look: dramatic

Decide on one feature, usually your eyes or your lips, and apply makeup in very strong shades on that feature. Use strong shades on other features, but not quite as strong as those on your chosen feature.

For smokey eyes, use dark grey (not black) eyeliner and apply it heavily, apply the mascara strongly, and use eyeshadow colours that range from charcoal-dark to mid-shades. People with darker skin can use darker colours, alabaster-pale redheads should make their smokey eyes in middle tones.

For lips, use a very strong shade of lipstick and definitely use lipliner.

Recipe: White Sauce

This is one of the basic tools I use for cooking. I've explained how to use it before how to make it, because I think it's easier to understand that way.


Using white sauce

The basic sauce with no modification can be used as a sauce for vegetables or pasta. It's fairly bland unless you add herbs or spices for flavour, however.

Melt cheese into the sauce (at any stage, probably best done after the sauce itself is made if you're a beginner) to make a cheese sauce for pasta, vegetables and some meats.

Add frozen vegetables and let the sauce heat them, or add tinned or cooked vegetables after the sauce is made, to make a vegetable mornay. Tinned asparagus works really well. You can substitute the liquid from tinned vegetables for some of the milk to add more flavour.

Add cooked white meats to a vegetable mornay to make a chicken or fish mornay. Very yummy. You can substitute stock or dripping (the liquid from cooking the meat) for some of the milk to add more flavour.

(If you use dripping, look to see if it has two layers. If it does, the top and comparitively clear layer is fat. Skim that off and use the lower layer only.)

To make lasagne, make a white sauce with cheese melted into it, and make a saucepan of your choice of meat (I cook fat-trimmed mince with a can of chopped tomatoes and a bunch of mixed veg). Layer the lasagne with lasagne pasta at the bottom, then repeat a pattern of mince mix, lasagne pasta, cheesey sauce and lasagne pasta, topping with cheesey sauce. Bake as directed on the lasagne packet.

To make a gravy instead

Substitute the milk for stock (or dripping, see above) and water.

For 'white' gravy, use stock and milk.

For vegetable gravy, use vegetable stock (purchased or home-made).

(To make your own veggie stock, use the water your veggies have been boiled or steamed with. Or save the offcuts of your veggies - broccoli steams and celery tops and carrot tops and the like, and boil them. Keep the water, throw the solid stuff into the garden as mulch. That water is your stock.)

Making white sauce

Approx 1 tablespoon olive oil (or your preferred alternative)
Approx half a cup of flour (or gluten-free flour or anything like that)
Approx 1 litre milk (or soy milk or stock or water or almost any water-based liquid)
Salt, pepper, herbs and spices to taste

Into a large saucepan, put the olive oil and the flour. Mix them together with a wooden spoon (or other stirring tool) until they're fully mixed, then put the saucepan on a hotplate at medium heat.

Add a small amount of milk and stir it in. Keep adding milk and stirring for a while - see below.

Here's the tricky part: you've got a chemical reaction going, and you want to control that reaction. You do it by controlling how much heat you apply. I recently realised that what I do is hold the saucepan with my off hand and stir with my right, and I keep moving the saucepan to get a fine level of heat control.

Watch the mixture when you add milk and stir - you'll see that there's some areas where the milk is truly blended in with the thickening sauce, and some where it isn't. You want to get the milk all blended in, which is part of why you stir.

You'll also notice that where there's more heat, the sauce is thickening faster. This is the other reason you stir - to try to get it to thicken evenly.

If you find you get it lumpy, take it off the heat and stir it smooth, then try adding a little more milk before you put it back on the heat. Turn the heat down, and make the sauce with lower heat until you get better at it.

As you get good at making this, you can use higher heats. If you're not so good yet, you can slow it by using lower heat.

Continue adding milk and stirring it in until the sauce is at a thickness you like, and if it hasn't boiled at that point, turn the heat up just a bit and keep stirring (and adding liquid to maintain the right thickness) until it does.

Add the salt, pepper, herbs and spices at any stage. As a beginner, add them when the sauce is almost ready.
As an expert, put herbs and spices in the oil and heat the oil before you add the flour. This brings out a bit more of the flavour of the herbs and spices, but can add a bit to the challenge of keeping the sauce smooth.

On Exercise and Nutrition

What is health?
Actually, I don't know. All I do know is how to give my body the same kind of care I give my car and my house. Decent fuel, decent maintenance, sensible use. If I do that, I hope it'll repay it with as much health as it can give.

So let's talk about fuel. Food and drink.

If you read my article 'On Bodies', you'll know that I think people come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. This 'standard serving' stuff that nutritionists talk about is useless. People aren't all the same, they don't all need so many grams of this, so many litres of that.

I use the hand as a measure. Why? Because if you're a small build, your hand is small. If you're a large build, your hand is large. It's a measure that adjusts to suit you.

Each person needs the following:
Protein.
Vitamins and minerals.
Fibre.
Energy-providing fuel.
Trace amounts of fats and oils.
Water.

Protein
Protein is available from animal sources, such as meat, fish, eggs and milk. It is also available from plant sources, most commonly seeds. The usual seeds humans eat are legumes and grains, and in combination, one legume plus one grain will provide a full set of proteins humans need.

Vitamins and Minerals
We humans need a bewildering variety of vitamins and minerals, and get most of them from plants. I have a mnemonic which ensures I get them all: I make sure I eat each part of a plant at least three times over the course of a week.
To eat roots, I eat potato, carrots, swedes, turnips, or onions.
Stems are celery, asparagus stalk, broccoli or cauliflower stalk, and rhubarb.
Leaves are easy to recognise: lettuce (any variety), spinach, cabbage and brussels sprouts are all leaves.
Flowers are harder to recognise, but broccoli and cauliflower are both flowers. We eat very few flowers.
Green beans are seed pods and seeds (the seeds inside the pods).
Seeds are all grains and legumes, most nuts, and many spices.
Fruits are tomato, pumpkin, and squash, as well as all the things we call fruits at the grocer's.

If you aren't sure which part of a plant a fruit or vegetable is, ask your grocer. A specialty grocer can also give you advice on how to prepare anything in his or her shop.

Fruit and vegetables are best fresh, and start to lose nutrients from the moment they're picked. Freezing, canning or drying preserves most of the nutrients.

Herbs and spices also contain vitamins and minerals. Flavour your food with a variety of different herbs and spices: it increases both the 'yum' and the nutrition factor.

Fibre
Fibre is found in fruits and vegetables, and is in fact the indigestible part of the plant. It helps signal when you've eaten enough (by making you 'feel full'), helps your body digest the rest of the plant, and then acts like a gentle cleaning sponge as it goes through your digestive system.

Energy
Energy in food comes from carbohydrates, fats, and (to a small degree) proteins. Carbohydrates are found primarily in fruits and vegetables, and have been refined by animals into honey, and by man into sugars such as 'sugar' aka sucrose, glucose, and corn syrup. We don't actually need the refined stuff, it just tastes good. Our bodies are good at doing the refining.

Fats and Oils
There are certain fats and oils which the body requires. Fruits, vegetables and lean meats actually provide them in sufficient quantity for health, though certain oils are better for the body and brain than others. Exactly which are best is still a matter of study, but in the interim I'm splashing a bit of semi-refined olive oil on my salads.

Water
Or rather, any liquid that is mostly water, and most foods. You'll feel the lack of it more than you'll feel an excess. Dehydration symptoms include dry mouth, dry eyes, dark urine, tiredness, headaches, dizziness, or hangover-like symptoms.

It's easy to experiment and find out if you're feeling icky because of dehydration: drink water. If the ickiness eases or goes away, you were dehydrated and you can prevent future occurrances by drinking more water.

Portion sizes

If you get your protein from an animal source, you need about enough lean meat to cover the palm of your hand each day, at about the thickness of your hand.
If you get it from legumes and grains, eat about a handful of each daily.

If you eat dairy foods, you can get enough calcium for your bones from three serves of dairy a day. One serve is a piece of cheese about half the size of your palm, or a glass of milk or yoghurt. (Milk or yoghurt are too messy to measure with your hand.)
If you don't eat dairy foods, you'll need to make a special effort to get calcium. Supplements are available, or you can get it from some tofu, some green leafy vegetables, some nuts, or the edible bones of some fish. See a nutritionist, or a good vegan information source.

Eat about seven handfuls of vegetables or fruit a day, and try to eat a wide variety of them over the course of a week. This will give you enough fibre and enough vitamins and minerals.

Eat a range of herbs and spices over the course of the week. This will help you get trace elements you might otherwise miss out on.

We do not need to eat anything specifically for the energy. We did when most people were doing heavy work all day every day: a pioneer going out to weed and plough a farm with no machinery, or chop trees with a hand axe, needs the energy provided by a traditional farmer's meal laden with syrup and fried in lard or oil.
If you're doing that sort of heavy work or heavy exercise, please consult a nutritionist. Modern , healthier versions of the farmer's breakfast are available.
If you aren't doing unusually heavy work or exercise, your hand-measured portions of fruits, vegetables and meats will provide you with plenty of energy.

NOTE: These portion sizes are based on the minimum exercise given below. If you do more exercise, you'll need a little more of the fuel, protein, vitamins and minerals than is stated here. How much more will depend on the amount of exercise, but if you learn to listen to your body, it will tell you.

Is that enough?
Learn to recognise the hunger that comes from the guts or the muscles, rather than from the mouth or the 'appetite' part of the brain.
Your gut-hunger is a bit slow to realise it's fed, so eat until you're still just a little bit gut-or-muscle hungry, then put the rest of your meal away in the fridge. If you're still hungry half an hour later, come back and eat more.

Your body also needs exercise.
How much exercise you give it will affect how much of each type of fuel you need - just like your car needs more petrol (gas to some) if you run it further.

My minimum exercise standard for a body:

Every day

• make each joint go through its full range of motion.
• stretch each muscle bundle.

Every other day

• go for a walk which challenges you slightly. Measure your distance by fatigue: you should feel a kind of pleasant tiredness when you return through your front door. Do it at a speed where you can speak comfortably, but not sing.
  

That's it. You can replace the walk with anything else: swimming, throwing a frisbee for the dog, riding a bike, taking the kids to the local free museum. Anything where you move, and preferably move the majority of the large muscles of your body.

If you want to actually improve your health, or to shape your body, you'll need more exercise. But for maintenance, that will do.


Yummy stuff
You will have noticed that I haven't discussed chocolate, iced pretzels, doughnuts, cake, or any other treat foods. Your body doesn't need them.
You do. Or at least, you might. Eat them, but eat only as much as you actually enjoy. Stop as soon as you realise you're eating it just because you paid for it. Better to waste the extra than to put it on your hips as fat.

Here's a rule of thumb: everything you eat must pay for itself, either in nutrition or enjoyment. Follow that rule, and you should be fine.

WARNING
If you are doing a lot of exercise, have a metabolic problem, or find that following these rules of thumb causes you to gain or lose weight, check with your doctor.
Heavy exercise changes the rules, and so do disorders such a diabetes and thyroid problems. Your family doctor will be able to help you find the rules of thumb appropriate to your own body and lifestyle.

On Weight Management

Healthy weight management is about controlling how much of the optional-extra body tissue you have. Your body is actually extremely malleable, and can produce extra tissue in many places - professional athletes sometimes have very large hearts or major arteries, and musicians who play wind instruments can have remarkable lungs.

However, there are three types of body tissue that ordinary people can relatively easily choose to control.

1. Muscle
   
2. Bone
   
3. Fat

As a general rule, if you need to gain weight, you should try to gain muscle and bone. If you need to lose weight, you should try to lose fat.
In an otherwise healthy body, gaining muscle and bone will also add enough supportive fat for the larger body (if it doesn't, see your doctor).
In a healthy body, significant loss of muscle or bone are signals of illness, starvation or inactivity, and generally indicates that you should see a doctor.

Muscle and Bone
Your body develops muscle by using it. As your body develops muscle, it also develops the supporting bone.

To develop muscle and bone, your body also requires building blocks, nutrients and energy - in other words, protein, vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates, fats and oils. The process of making muscle also requires plenty of water, so make sure you drink.

I never recommend intentionally losing muscle or bone. A healthy human body will regulate muscle and bone development based on how that body is used. If you think you need to lose muscle, bone or both, see your doctor.

Almost everything I have to say about developing muscle and bone is in my articles On Exercise and Nutrition and On Bodies.


Fat

WARNING
I am not a doctor. If you have a metabolic illness (an illness which affects how your body digests and uses energy), see your doctor and any specialists she refers you to. The information in this section of the post relies on rules of thumb which may or may not apply to you.

Energy digested > energy used = energy stored.
Energy used > energy digested = energy consumed.

That is the fundamental truth of managing your body fat. Nothing you can do changes that truth, the most you can do is tricks to modify what energy gets used or digested.

Your body stores extra energy as adipose tissue, more commonly known as fat. Fat has four purposes in the human body:

1. It stores energy.
2. It acts as 'packing peanuts' for many of your vital organs, cushioning them against damage and helping to hold them in place.
3. It insulates your vital organs against temperature variation.
4. It's a cushion. You have fat in places like the pads of your feet, the 'sitting' part of your buttocks, and your hands.
   

You must have the 'packing peanut', cushion and insulation fat - if you don't, you will get sick. Never try to lose weight so much that you lose that fat. If you have already lost this fat, see a doctor as soon as possible. The doctor will be able to help you regain it.

Estimating how much body fat you have is difficult. Wikipedia has an entry on body fat analysis. I also found a useful series at stumptuous.com on body fat.
(Note: the URLs at the base of the article are broken. Here are part 2, part 3 and part 4.)

Healthy fat management is about controlling how much of the energy-storing fat you have. You do this by manipulating two factors: what you use, and what you digest.

What you use
Muscle uses a lot of energy.

Muscle at rest uses some energy.
Muscle that has been used in the last day or two uses more energy.
Muscle that's active uses the most energy.

To use more energy, make and use muscle. It's as simple as that, and there are no shortcuts.

What you digest
There are few ways to manipulate your digestion that I consider to be smart and healthy: there are only two I'm comfortable with.
The first is painfully simple: only eat what you're willing to digest.
The second is a variation on the first, and uses the glycaemic index to manipulate the sugar-storage system of your body.

Here's an oversimplified version of how your body's sugar-storage system works:

• When you eat carbohydrates, your stomach and gut convert them to sugars and put it in your blood.
• When there is sugar in your blood, your pancreas puts out insulin based on the amount of sugar there is in your blood.
  
• Insulin does many things, but the relevant one is that it tells your body to store any extra sugar in your blood as fat.

If you eat carbohydrates that your stomach and gut convert to sugar quickly, they put it in your blood quickly. There's lots of extra sugar floating around that your body doesn't need right at that moment, so your body stores it as fat.

If you eat the same energy load in carbohydrates that are digested slowly, the pancreas puts out insulin more slowly. This gives your muscles more time to grab the sugar to use while you walk back to the office (or whatever you do), and the sugar never gets converted to fat.
If you're trying to put on weight, use the glycaemic index to find slow-digested carbohydrates anyway. Putting on muscle improves your whole-body health and metabolism, in ways which are too complex for me to explain here (ask your doctor). Your muscles need this sugar to develop.

The glycaemic index is a number that tells you how quickly the average human body digests any given foodstuff.

For more information about the glycaemic index, contact any reputable diabetes association or website, or check the GI homepage.

Diabetes is, in part, a disease of the insulin system. The glycaemic index is especially helpful for diabetics, but is useful to everyone.

There are other ways to control what you digest, such as using tablets which prevent you from digesting fats and oils. Fats and oils are necessary in themselves, and many contain useful vitamins, minerals and other essential elements. I don't like the idea of preventing the body from digesting them, but I admit that I may be biased. If you want to manipulate your digestion, talk to your doctor.

In summary

• Gain muscle and bone.
• Manage your fat stores.
• Energy in > energy out = more fat.
• Energy out > energy in = less fat.
• More exercise = more muscle.

On Bodies

There's been one time in my life when a strange man's thigh was pressed against mine, and I didn't mind. He was a weight-lifter from New Zealand, as was his buddy, and the two of them and I were all assigned seats in the same row in a plane from LA to Auckland.

We were all big people, a bigness of muscle and bone, not fat. Our shoulders were pressed against each other, our thighs touched, and we had no choice. The stewardess who was checking on us promised to move me once we'd taken off. A fifteen hour flight is no place for a trio of big people to be jammed together in small seats.

Our culture expects and values thin builds: the plane seats, for example, relied on thin builds. Our bodies, however, range from the naturally thin to the naturally big.

We can't shape our bodies very much. Our basic shape is genetic - we are born to be a certain build. But we can modify which variant of that build we will become. A person born with a narrow bone structure can choose to develop a wiry strength, a dancer's grace, or a marathon runner's speed. They can also choose to aim for the thin beauty of a modern model, or of the older models of earlier eras. Another alternative is to do nothing with the body shape, and let it fall where it may. Or even to try to eat their way to curves the body is designed not to have.

Builds of the other extreme - the large builds like me or those weightlifters - have similar choices. Our strength will never be wiry, but we can develop our native strength. We can be just as graceful as the thinner dancers, but we won't be chosen for the ballet. (Arabic and Indian dance both value the larger bodied grace, however.) We're unlikely to be as fast as our thinner relatives, but we can develop what speed we have.

Larger builds can never attain the thin beauty of the modern model, the best we can hope for is a starving ugliness. Instead, we should hope to attain the beauty of Venus, as painted by Rubens or Boticelli. (Men of this build can seek sportsmen, actors or models of similar build to emulate.) Unfortunately, many of us give up on our bodies, having accurately determined that we can never resemble Kate Moss. Some of us are so naturally large we will never even resemble Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield.

There is, however, no need for the very large, the very small, or the in between to despair. Within the limitations of build, our bodies are very malleable. They'll do whatever they're asked to do, if they're asked long enough to develop the resources.

In other words: if you want the body of a dancer, dance. If you want the body of a runner, run. Your body will shape itself according to what you do with it, and to its basic build. If you have a sedentary job and sedentary hobbies, your body won't look like an athlete's. With active hobbies (or work), it will.

Choose an active hobby or sport (or several) that interests you. Study the bone structures of the professional, and active amateurs in the sport. Look at the ratio of shoulder width to height, and hip width to height, and compare theirs to yours. Look for the variation (or variations) of the sport that has several people with similar bone structures to yours: that's the form of the sport that your body is designed for, and you can realistically aspire to have your body look like theirs.
You can do sports that aren't populated by those of your build: there are heavy-set marathon runners, and lightly-built power-lifters. Just be aware that your body is (most likely) not designed for that sort of sport, and you will have more difficulty than those whose bodies are suited to it. Do it for fun, and for health, not to be spectacularly good at it nor to look like those who are, and you'll be fine.