INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Don't give up the fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, fish, and avocados after your baby is born. The period after you give birth is an important window for making sure your skin continues to get the vitamins it needs to renew itself and recover from stretching.  Don't go on a crash diet to lose weight after pregnancy. Lose it gradually, just as you gained it gradually, so your skin has time to tighten itself. Continue hydrating yourself with plenty of water to help your skin retain elasticity. Now that the baby has been born, you are no longer limited to exercises that are safe to do during pregnancy. Exercise four or five times a week, focusing in the following areas:  Strength training. Building strong muscles helps your skin tighten up. Try weightlifting, and work with a trainer to figure out what exercises are right for you. Cardio workouts. Swimming, running, and biking keep your circulation healthy and help your skin bounce back into shape. If you do end up with a few stretch marks - which can happen even if you take preventative measures - treat them while they're still new. Apply a stretch mark salve containing glycolic acid to your abdomen, sides, and wherever red streaks have appeared.  Prescription creams containing retinoids, which should not be ingested while you are pregnant or nursing, have also been shown to help with stretch marks.  Using glycolic acid and retinoids at the same time may produce better results than using the products on their own.  If these products just aren't making the marks go away, laser treatments for stretch mark removal are an effective choice.

SUMMARY: Continue eating foods that nourish your skin. Ramp up the exercise. Treat stretch marks.


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Make sure your bowl is glass or microwave-safe plastic before proceeding. Don't reheat more than you are going to use, as the more times you reheat it, the less appetizing your macaroni and cheese will become. Pasta continues to absorb moisture after it is cooked, which means that the longer your macaroni and cheese sits, the dryer it will become. The secret to maintaining or reviving the original texture is to add a bit of milk when you reheat it.  The amount needed will depend on your macaroni and cheese.  Start by stirring in 1 tablespoon of milk per cup of macaroni and cheese.  The milk will not fully incorporate until the macaroni is heated, so don't worry if it looks a bit wet at first. You may also substitute half and half or cream for a richer texture and flavor. Leave one corner slightly open to release steam. If you do not feel comfortable using plastic wrap in the microwave, you can also put an inverted plate over the dish, but be sure to use an oven mitt when removing it, as the plate can become hot.  It will also release hot steam that can burn you. This will reduce the likelihood that the cheese will break down and separate, resulting in oily macaroni and cheese.  Set the timer for 1 minute for a single serving, or 90 seconds for a larger portion.  When the timer goes off, stir the macaroni and cheese.  Then continue to heat it in 30-60 second intervals until it reaches the desired temperature. If your microwave does not have a turning carousel, heat your macaroni and cheese in 45 second intervals, and turn the bowl in between. Even the most carefully reheated macaroni and cheese can lose a bit of flavor.  To perk yours up, try sprinkling on some parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, a bit of butter, or some garlic salt.  For a bit more adventure, you might try adding ketchup, a dash of cayenne pepper, or even hot sauce.  Bon appétit!

SUMMARY: Put the desired amount of macaroni and cheese in a microwave safe bowl. Add some milk. Cover the macaroni and cheese with plastic wrap. Heat the macaroni and cheese slowly on medium (50%) power. Add toppings, if desired, and enjoy!


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: To get your brain on track to come up with an idea, you need to surround it with a lot of relevant information. What this means will depend upon what type of idea you are trying to come up with.  If you are trying to come up with a theory, do a lot of relevant research. You should do studies that problematize your existing ideas. If you have gotten yourself to the point where you have so much information that you think that you know less about the subject than you did before, your brain will struggle to reconcile the facts with your theories even when you feel that you have turned it off.  If you are working on fiction, read a lot of other authors who are trying to do similar things. Read books that familiarize you with the setting of the place you are writing about. Read literary theory to give you some perspective on how to write. Read philosophy to get ideas you might want to tackle in your fiction.  If you are an artist, spend some time reviewing the works of other artists in similar fields. Interacting with people outside of your normal social group will expose you to new ideas and perspectives. This is pivotal to developing “psychological distance,” which is one of the most important prerequisites to creativity. Psychological distance is when you begin to look at things from a perspective other than that which you are accustomed to. Once you begin putting yourself in the shoes of a different person, it is easier to approach your problems in a way you haven’t thought of before. Traveling is also a good way to create “psychological distance.” Exposing yourself to new sights and sounds will cause you to think of things from a new perspective. Sometimes you can save yourself a plane ticket and use your imagination to turn the familiar into the unfamiliar.  Even imagining yourself in a new place can make you approach things from a new, more creative perspective. Similarly, people have been shown to be more creative when they imagine the problem they are dealing with to be happening in the distant future. Alternatively, practice mindfulness to begin looking at your own world in a new way. Focus on something specific in your environment and try to experience it in its entirety. Notice things that would pass you by in your ever day life.  One useful example of mindfulness is to pay close attention to crowded social environment. Go on a walk in an urban area or wait around in a crowded park. Look at how people interact with one another. Pay attention to their idiosyncrasies and imagine what is happening in their head. This will put you in another person’s shoes. Allow your ideas to flow freely. You can focus on the topic that you are working on, but allow yourself to venture elsewhere if that is necessary to keep things flowing. Doing journal entries every day can be a good way to get you started writing. Even if the focus is on personal matters, you might wander into your creative work from a new perspective. When no ideas are forthcoming, it can be easy to get discouraged and procrastinate. However, you typically won’t experience an epiphany until you’ve really struggled to work through your problems. Make self-imposed deadlines and force yourself to live up to them. If what you produce by the deadline isn’t spectacular, at least you know what hasn’t worked and how to improve in the future. The demands of a rigorous, structured brainstorming session can force you to create more than you would otherwise. Set a time limit and goals that you aren't sure that you can meet. If you fail, you will still produce more than you would have if you hadn't challenged yourself.  For example, give yourself 30 minutes to come up with 30 ideas. Just write as quickly as possible. Give yourself 30 minutes to write two pages of material. Alternatively, give yourself an hour to sketch out a drawing. It's unlikely that you'll come out with a great final product, but this sort of challenge can force you to come up with new ideas. The better part of the creative process will always be excluding the things that don’t matter. Knowing what doesn’t matter at the beginning can be difficult, but you should start writing down some ideas, even if they don’t seem well founded at first. Begin structuring the important information in your head and weed out what doesn’t seem to fit.

SUMMARY:
Immerse yourself in the subject. Get to know new and different people. Go someplace new. Get a pen and write. Keep a schedule. Perform structured brainstorming sessions. Learn what to forget.