If you didn’t know, I love golf! There’s no room for my car in the garage; I always want the latest clubs but I still love ALL my stuff. If I had my way, I’d be on the golf course almost every possible day. But there’s that money thing; I would spend my last dime to golf so I have to get a darn paycheck. My job cannot even come close to stopping me from having golf in my life though: there’s ESPN, golf magazines, the internet, and best of all, my PlayStation.

Many of the golf games are truly entertaining. There is also quite a bit of skill involved, surprisingly so. I realize it’s not “golfing”, but the element of getting your ball down the fairway and into the hole is still there, right? It can still drive you crazy too. I have been known to slam the game controller a few times.

I have played a lot of electronic golf games, and I am convinced it has helped me with my “real” golf. It’s a lot like what the pros do. Tiger Woods still has a coach; did you know that? Tiger places a lot of importance in visualizing himself keeping those monster drives on the fairways and draining thirty-foot putts on a less than true green. So I do my Tiger thing too, sitting in front of my game console. I think about what club to use, I gauge the distances visually,… my chip shot drops so beautifully,…yes, I’m on the green,… (”A two-putt? No way, my friend.”),… careful,… the ball rolls in, and the Crowd. Goes. Wild. An underwear dance and cold drink to celebrate. I mean, that’s Golf!

In a crunch (it’s storming, the golf tournament is rained out, etc.), I head over to the local golf store and practice swings on their virtual course. Cool fun. There’s always lots of guys there, we shoot the breeze, compare courses, golf clubs, and yes, even electronic golf games. I don’t care what my friend says, there is no such thing as “too much golf”. ‘Nuff said.

Best,

K.Petit

http://www.squidoo.com/JPATT/
PATT is a non-profit, Parents And Teens Together. Check out this lens. The author lives in California and supports PATT from “the left coast”. Get more tips on staying fit at http://www.playourplanet.com/workoutroom.html This site has video games, music, musical instruments, sports gear, outdoor equipment, and some great links. Links to college newspapers nationwide on the way!
http://www.playourplanet.com

In this article I will discuss the primary factor that causes obesity. How the cycle of obesity starts, and what you can do to regain control of your health.
In order to understand obesity and what is probably the most important factor effecting obesity, you have to understand the mechanics of how the body functions when you put fuel into it .

You eat, Let’s say, a chicken sandwich on wheat bread with mayonaisse and a 20 oz. soft drink . The protein from the chicken is broken down into amino acids, the fat from the mayonaisse into fatty acids and the carbohydrates from the bread into simple sugars (glucose). So far so good, as long as you are not consuming more calories than your body needs you will not gain weight, but here comes the soft drink. A 20 oz. drink with 45 grams of sugar.
Your blood sugar level spikes rapidly, this causes your pancreac to respond by releasing an equal spike of insulin. Insulin forces glucose into the cells at an alarming rate, this in turn causes the release of Free radicals from the cells. The Free Radicals cause the capillaries of your muscle tissue to become inflamed. Your muscle tissue utilizes 80-90% of the calories that you consume but because the tissue is inflamed by the spike in blood sugar, your muscle has just lost most of its’ ability to process those calories.

Insulin also blocks fat from being released. Fat is nothing more than a ” Reserve Energy Storage Facility” This energy reserve will only be released if it is needed. As long as there is plenty of available energy in the form of incoming calories, that fat is going to stay right where it is. Insulin is only released when food energy is being processed, when the body senses the release of Insulin it knows that the fat reserves are not needed and blocks the release of energy from those fat stores. Now that the tracks on your glucose train have been switched from your muscle cells to your fat cells, these calories are now Uber-calories. They are going right to your Storage Facility.

The calories are now stored as fat because your muscle tissue has lost it’s ability to utilize them. After a short period of time, perhaps 30 minutes, your blood sugar level and Insulin level come crashing down as your body tries to balance things out. You are left with a feeling of not only being tired, but a feeling of being hungry again. This is that “carb craving”, you just have to eat something, usually another high glucose meal and the cycle starts all over again .

Most of what we think of as “emotional eating” is really just this vicious cycle.Normally when you want to lose weight you go on a diet, you restrict the amount of calories you take in, but the problem is that this cycle is never really broken. So you fight these cravings while trying to eat less food, it becomes a contest of Biology against Phsycology .The game then becomes, how long can you stand the torment before you eventually give up.
It takes 5 days of low glycemic meals to break this cycle. The first three days require some real determination to get through the withdrawal symptoms, by the fourth day youre’ feeling much better and on the fifth day the cravings are gone, you feel great, and you can learn to eat properly without the daily torment.
There are certainly other factors that effect obesity that I will discuss in future articles. It is my sincere hope that this article has shed some light for you on this problem of obesity. You can beat this, you can be free to eat normally, you can change your whole life , just never give up until you get where you want to be. It really is worth it. YOU are worth it.

Before beginning any diet or weight loss program always consult your physician.

To find out how to RESET your metabolism in 5 days and end the cycle of obesity you can go to http://ourdreams.usana.com/mystory_en.cfm

Jim Lange is a health and fitness enthusiast. This year he lost 72 lbs in 9 months by resetting his blood sugar levels and adopting a consistent exercise program. You can check out his blog at http://resetyourweight.blogspot.com/ to get more information, motivation, and tips on weight loss and fitness.

Ah yes, the good old speed limit. Our silent big brother. The 11th commandment of life. The one road rule hardly anyone short of student drivers seem to take seriously.

I should know. I was one of the lead foots. I attained almost 4 pages of traffic tickets, most of them speeding violations. My excuse was that I drove a sweet 1987 IROC Camaro with a 5.7 liter corvette engine/tranny package and a top speed of 150 mph!

Then one year I went too far and was called into the traffic licencing office and given a choice. Either go to traffic school or lose my licence for six months… then go to traffic school. Needless to say I made the obvious choice.

I drove 80 miles to the school on a beautiful Saturday that I could have been spending on the beach! Once I arrived , I joined about 15 others who were to suffer the same fate.

To make a long story short… ( or to save it for another article..lol), I put in my 6 hours of classroom study and 2 hours of driving practice. I must say I came out of the experience a changed driver. I learned I had developed A LOT of bad driving habits and was taught some valuable lessons. Especially when it comes to saving money while driving properly.

1/ By going the speed limit you actually get to your destination in the same amount of time or even faster.

Yep, I did’nt believe it either until I put it into practice. You see, most if not all city planners actually time the traffic lights. If you go the posted speed limit and start timing the intersections when they turn green. you will hit green lights at least 70-80% of the time. This will save you an immense amount of time.

2/ Driving the speed limit saves you money from speeding tickets.

My average was about $750 per year in traffic tickets. In the last 3 years…$0 or a savings of $2250!!

3/ Going the speed limit saves gas and oil money.

My mileage has gone up approximately 15-20%

4/ Driving the speed limit saves wear and tear on your brakes.

If your not constantly stopping for red lights, your saving your brakes in a huge way. I personally have not had to do a brake job in 3 years where I used to redo them every 2 years.

and #5/ The less gas and oil we burn, the less dependent we will be on foriegn oil.

Isn’t this reason enough!

For more automotive common sense. go to Cheap Rim Resources

Jimmy Graham is a reformed speedaholic and still an admitted custom car junkie.
You can find more of his downhome automotive wisdom at Cheap Rim Resources
http://www.shopfindadeal.com/cheap_rim/

Many people have the impression that all we need to be happy are the proper conditions for a decent life - most of which can be bought with money. However, the truth is quite the opposite, because depression doesn’t appear only in response to tragic events or horrible life conditions. This means that even if we lived in a perfect paradise, we still would have many depressed individuals in our society, although nothing really tragic had happened to them.

It happens because the human being is already crazy from birth. Only a very tiny part of his conscience is at all developed, with human characteristics. The rest is in a wild and archaic state.
So, we shouldn’t only blame the world for our depressed society. The world the human being makes provokes his depression, because the human being is naturally absurd. This world is the result of his insanity: he only cares for his own desires, he doesn’t respect nature and he doesn’t care about some factors that have an extreme impact on his own happiness.

However, terrible things happening far away from his own home still affect his life because they are happening in his environment, and are a threat against him too. Because he is absurd, though, he thinks he can live in a separate paradise, with everything to make him happy. Even in a place where so many people are suffering because they don’t have the proper conditions of life, they are amidst wars, they are being abused, they are starving… If he was balanced and sensitive he would care about other people’s suffering as he cares about what happens to his own kids.

He would also understand that he can’t always be laughing. Nothing is easy, and many times he has to suffer so that he may save somebody, solve some problem, or avoid provocatory problems… There are many things in daily life that demand from him the acceptance of sadness and suffering.
However, the human being not only has a wrong conception of reality that causes him depression, and he is not only a victim of the absurd world he constructed - he also has innate psychological problems that impede his reaching psychical health and living happily. The mistakes he makes by following the inherited behaviour patterns of his psychological type push him around craziness’s labyrinth.

There are two positions from which the human being sees reality: the introverted and extroverted types, which are polar opposites. A person can only be considered completely balanced and psychically healthy once they’ve developed both positions and attitudes. If he has a penchant for one or the other, he is already unbalanced.

He has four psychological functions (thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuitions) through which he understands his world and his own personal desires. However, only one of them is well developed, one is only half developed and the other two functions are not working, as if they were dead. They are in an archaic, childish condition.

What happens because of this? He makes mistakes because he is either extroverted and doesn’t pay attention to his own opinion about reality and how it affects him; or he is introverted, disconnected with objective reality and the material world.

Then he makes more mistakes because he lives based only in his thoughts, without feelings and sensations, and only a bit of intuition to help with decisions. Or, his life is based on his feelings and constant desire for pleasure, without having any serious and objective thoughts in his mind and without understanding the existence of factors that cannot be justified by logic.

So, he is pre-condemned to feel depressed some day. Someday he’ll have to face the consequences of the mistakes he made because he didn’t examine reality and his own psychical structure completely. He only saw a part of reality, according to what his personality type let him examine. Or, he didn’t understand what was happening inside himself and he didn’t care to learn about it, because his psychological type despises the subjective judgment of reality.
Despite their disuse, the functions he didn’t develop are not really dead. They are alive, only submerged. Some day, according to what will happen with him, they will come to the consciousness’s surface, changing his behaviour drastically. When the archaic and childish content of his psychical sphere invades his consciousness, he starts losing control of his behaviour and doing strange and crazy things.

In the end, he can only feel desperate and depressed seeing how many mistakes he made, and especially, how all these mistakes ruined his life.
If these mistakes are too serious and he can’t correct them, he cannot forgive himself. This leads to more severe mental illness and deeper depression, far beyond neurosis, that cannot be ever cured.

The solution for our depressed society and each depressed individual has to be psychotherapy, without a doubt!
When everybody is sensitive and sensible, we won’t be as absurd as we are now… the world will change, for sure. Eventually, through learning, working and understanding, everybody will find their own happiness.

During my studies, I came across Carl Jung’s method of deciphering dreams, which helped me and urged me to continue his research into the unknown regions of our psychical sphere. I set my poetry aside and began to compile my findings. I sought to prove that Jung had discovered the proper method of interpretation of dreams. This exercise actually taught me many things, and I continued to pursue Jung’s research into the analysis of dreams. Learn more at http://www.booksirecommend.com/

Thus, it is a lot easier to obtain a secured loan after bankruptcy than an unsecured loan. Actually, only low amount unsecured loans can be obtained after a bankruptcy process for many years. High amount unsecured loans are out of reach for those who have gone through bankruptcy unless at least 5 years have passed since bankruptcy was dismissed.

The Implications of Collateral

Collateral acts as a guarantee of repayment of the loan borrowed. The amount of money lent is equal or lower than the value of the property used as collateral and thus, in the event of default, the lender is legally entitled to request the sell of the property in order to collect his money. This procedure is fast and has little hassles, thus, providing the lender with an important assurance of his investment.

This implies that the risk that lending to someone who has gone through a bankruptcy process is greatly reduced once the borrower offers a property as collateral. Also, it is possible for someone else (relative, friend) to offer one of his possessions as collateral if you are not a homeowner. Nevertheless, the risks that this implies need to be considered as the property can get lost to the lender if both the borrower and the collateral’s proprietor fail to repay the loan.

Loan Types Available

Financing after bankruptcy can be associated to different loan types. However, the main loans that can provide funds after bankruptcy are those associated with real estate forms of collateral. Home loans, home equity loans and refinance home loans are the loans that can provide finance articles funding after bankruptcy with the best terms and the higher approval rate.

Home loans or mortgage loans use a property free of debt to secure a loan. It’s rare for someone who has gone through a bankruptcy to posses an asset free from debts and liabilities. But this sometimes happens when someone inherits after a bankruptcy or when the property is donated. In any case, the other forms of financing are more common.

Home equity loans use the remaining value of the property that is affected with a mortgage loan to secure an additional loan with similarly advantageous loan terms as mortgage loans. Equity is the difference between the property’s market value and the amount of debt that the property already secures. Thus, the amount of money you can obtain is limited to that difference of value.

Finally, it is possible to refinance a home loan and obtain extra funds by taking advantage of the available equity on the property. These loans are known as cash-out refinance home loans and can provide a fair amount of money, just like home equity loans with the difference that you’ll end up with a single monthly payment instead of two.

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Jessica Peterson writes finance articles for Yourloanservices.com where she shares her knowledge about how to get money for a starting-up business, consolidating any kind of debt, repairing a home even with a bad credit history and more.

Here is a traditional southern pie that has long been ignored. But no more. Green Tomato Pie is making its comeback!

The tomatoes for this pie should be truly green. You might find them at the grocers, but chances are you’ll have to grow your own or go to the farmer. I think that the difficulty of finding the green tomatoes is the reason that this recipe has been ignored for so long. Hopefully you have a pick your own fruit farm nearby. Be sure to tell the farmer that you want green tomatoes before you begin picking, he may direct you to a different area. While you’re there get a few extra for Fried Green Tomatoes as well.

The flavor of green tomatoes is very tart. The sugar counteracts the tartness for a truly tasty pie filling.

Green Tomato Pie

4 c. green tomatoes, thinly sliced

1 1/4 c. sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

4 or 5 tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

2 tbsp. vinegar

dough for 1 double pie crust,(top and bottom) unbaked

1/2 c. raisins

2 tbsp. butter in small pieces

2 tsp. lemon extract

Additional sugar and cinnamon

1.        Mix the sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour together. Set aside.

2.        Add the vinegar to the thinly sliced tomatoes and combine with the dry ingredients, stir well to blend. 

3.        Add the remaining ingredients except for the butter.

4.        Put into the unbaked crust, dot with the butter pieces and put the top crust on. 

5.        Seal the edges and cut slits in the top crust.  

6.        Sprinkle with additional sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 425 degree for 60 minutes or until the tomatoes are done. 

Are you interested in more old southern dessert recipes? Sign up for our newsletter at Southern Sweet and Desserts and get traditional southern recipes delivered to your email regularly.

Diane has just finished a free cookbook of her favorite southern recipes. Download Easy Southern Favorites today. These recipes are guaranteed to have them begging for more. Best of all, its free!

Diane Watkins is a traditional southern style cook. She enjoys cooking, teaching, and writing about good food and family. For more information on southern cooking and recipes visit her website at Easy Southern Cooking

You invest a lot of time and money into the steaks for a special occasion and when dinner time comes, they are tough. What happened? How can you cook steaks as tender as your favorite restaurant?

The first step to cooking a good steak is to choose the right grade of steak. Here are the grades for beef used in the United States.

USDA Prime - The top quality beef is graded USDA Prime and commands top prices. USDA Prime grade meats are sold to the restaurant industry and specialty markets and are not as likely to be found at your local grocery chain.

USDA Choice - The next grade of beef is USDA Choice. USDA Choice is tender, flavorful and only slightly lower in quality than USDA Prime. The meat is well marbled with fat and will be tender and juicy when properly prepared. USDA Choice makes up about 70% of all graded beef and is readily available in your supermarket.

USDA Good - USDA Good graded beef is an acceptable grade of beef that has only minimal marbling of fat. It is leaner, and will not be as tender as USDA Prime or Choice.

Next, look at the color and texture of the meat. A good steak should be firm to the touch, moist, and bright in color. It should be well marbled with thin streaks of white fat throughout and a thin crust of steak on the outside. In our fat conscious society, we tend to look for lean cuts of meat, but the thin streaks of white fat marbled throughout the meat are the key to a tender juicy steak.

The most tender and juicy steaks come from the sirloin, the short loin, and the rib. These steaks include the sirloin steaks, porterhouse steaks, t-bone steaks, rib steaks, delmonico steaks, and the filet mignons. Steaks containing bone will weigh more than those without, but the bone adds flavor to the steak.

Aging is a desirable process that intensifies the flavors and makes the meat more tender. Aged steaks are more expensive and usually only found in high end supermarkets and specialty markets. An aged steak is recognizable by its darker color.

The first step to a tender juicy steak is choosing the right cut of meat. I hope that these tips will help you next time you decide to invest in a nice steak. Choose the best cut of meat available and look for the thin marbling of fat that indicates a tender steak. If you cannot find or afford the better cuts, then investigate marinating the meat to increase tenderness.

Are you interested in more information on cooking meat and seafood? Sign up for our newsletter at Southern Meats and Seafoods and get quick and healthy recipes and tips delivered to your email regularly.

Diane has just finished a free cookbook of her favorite southern recipes. Download Easy Southern Favorites today. These recipes are guaranteed to have them begging for more. Best of all, its free!

Diane Watkins is a traditional southern style cook. She enjoys cooking, teaching, and writing about good food and family. For more information on southern cooking and recipes visit her website at Easy Southern Cooking

Fresh start loans can provide funding with few requirements for approval and very affordable repayment programs so as to let the borrowers recover from a difficult financial situation while at the same time improving their credit score and history as the monthly installments of the loan get recorded into their credit report.

Fresh Start Loans’ Requirements
These loans do not carry harsh requirements for approval. Even those with bad credit, no credit at all or a past bankruptcy on their credit history can apply for these loans. Fresh start loans come in different forms. There are secured and unsecured fresh start loans that can provide different terms to suit the needs of diverse applicants.

There are credit requirements and income requirements for approval but they are very basic since these loans are meant for people with bad credit or credit difficulties and the loan terms can be tailored to suit the needs of those with financial difficulties. The income requirements are not too harsh and the loan installments can be lowered by extending the repayment program so as to suit any budget.

Uses and Credit Recovery
These loans have many uses. You can use a fresh start loan to eliminate outstanding debt, consolidate part or all of it, start a new business project, pay for extraordinary expenses that have ruined your finances and thus recover your available income, etc. Anything that will help you get back on track can be faced with the funds from a fresh start loan.

Moreover, the monthly payments of your fresh start loan will get recorded into your credit report and thus, will improve your credit score and history. With time, you’ll obtain a good credit score again and you will be able to obtain financing from traditional sources too and with more advantageous terms.

Where To Find Them
These loans cannot be found everywhere. There are almost no traditional financial institutions offering loans that resemble this loan type. Instead, non traditional lenders are offering these loans as they are used to dealing with high risk applicants as opposed to banks and traditional financial institutions that prefer to deal with less risky loan products.

Thus, in order to find a lender, you can do a quick search on the net and you’ll find different alternative lenders offering fresh start loans. You can contact them and request loan quotes to see what they can offer you and after comparing their offers, you can decide which one is best for you.

Applying online is secure, however, make sure you check everything twice before signing anything or agreeing on any deal. You can never be too cautious and if you have your doubts, don’t be afraid to request the aid of a professional financial assistant that will be able to guide you through the whole process.

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Jessica Peterson writes finance articles for Yourloanservices.com where she shares her knowledge about how to get money for a starting-up business, consolidating any kind of debt, repairing a home even with a bad credit history and more.

Why would a “distributor” begin their career with a network marketing company and expect the grand goal of their discount being the profit they will make? If you work for a traditional corporation, do you view the discount they offer on their products to their employees as part of their income? “Most distributors view what they can earn as a vitamin discount, not as a path to profits.” -Fred Cooper Executive VP, USANA. Do you agree with the above quote off of one of Kim Klaver’s blogs?

Walmart, JCPenny, Target and almost every large company in the world gives employee discounts. They are a benefit, but certainly cannot be viewed as compensation. While Joe has three kids and uses his company discount frequently, maybe Mary is high school student and rarely uses hers. It can’t be included in the compensation fairly.

Do you consider an up-front MLM Company discount as part of your salary? When a company gives a very reachable upfront discount on their products, they are taking the first step of setting the business builder up for long-term failure in my opinion.

Do network-marketing distributors expect a product discount? Of course we expect the discount because that is how most MLM Companies operate. What is the problem?

The business model drives the behavior in the field. The plan many companies have in place for retail customers turned distributor in name only to receive 20%, 30% or 40% hurts the people who really want to make $10,000 per month and build a business for their children. The retail customer benefits, and the company definitely benefits with this option. The retail customer sells to others at their cost, but how do the business builder, especially the part-timer benefit? It is great for the customer, but it creates a saturated market of people buying wholesale for themselves and their friends and family causing the person who tries to make a profit appear greedy.

The network-marketing company needs to have a plan for people only wanting to be a retail customer and then a plan for building a business. The network-marketing company has 60% profit built in even if they are giving a 40% discount to a distributor.

In Advocare International’s case, once you reach your sponsors same 40% discount level; the network-marketing company then pays the personal sponsor about 3%. That is a 37% cut in pay from the retail price and the network-marketing company is still making 57%. The network-marketing sponsor has to go recruit more customers to replace that income. If the new 40% off distributor is not a business builder and only purchases $200 per month for personal use and some family and friends use. The sponsor only makes about $6 per month on that person now. The winner….. Advocare International and many other network-marketing companies!

It is next to impossible for most network-marketing distributors to sell their product at a 40% profit to their family and friends. Most people will sell the product at their cost. Can you sell your Mother something for $10 when you paid $6? The network marketing industry must change and there are leaders working hard to recreate this industry and present it as the wonderful opportunity that it is.

Brenda Bunney is married with two children. She is a successful network marketer who believes anyone can be successful with the proper tools and mentoring. She enjoys helping others empower themselves with the network marketing skills they need to build a successful business.

http://MLMSuccessBunney.com

http://BrendaBunneyMLM.com

brendabunney@yahoo.com

Being pregnant can be the most exciting time of your life, but it can be the most stressful also. You are at the mercy of out of control hormones and you worry about the pregnancy, the childbirth, the health of your baby and everything else that comes your way.

When you are pregnant you need to take good care of yourself and your unborn baby. This includes trying to reduce the stress in your life. But how do you reduce stress? This article will give you a few good tips on reducing stress while you are pregnant.

The first thing you should do is to take a long look at your life. How many activities are you involved in? How many hours a week do you work? What are you expected to do around the home?

If you have a full schedule that has you running every minute of the day, you need to slow down a little. Figure out which activities you can drop and try to cut back at work if possible. Learn to say no. Stop feeling like you have to say yes to every request that someone makes of you. The most important thing right now is to take care of yourself and your baby.

If you are the type of person who must feel in control at all times, get ready to give up some control. When you are pregnant you have to realize that things may happen that are not in your control. Morning sickness may be severe. You may have a high risk pregnancy that requires bed-rest. Learn to expect the unexpected while pregnant. It will be good practice for when the baby comes.

Don’t listen to the horror stories that other people feel obligated to tell you now that you are pregnant. Every woman has their own pregnancy story and she tends to embellish it with each telling. If you take every story to heart and worry about it happening to you, your stress level will go through the roof, which can be very bad for you and the baby. Only listen to the advice of your health care provider.

Now is a good time to learn relaxation techniques and meditation. A light exercise program under the supervision of your doctor can help with stress also. Make sure you give yourself permission to relax. Read a book, go to a movie, take a nap when you feel tired. You have a tiny life depending on you, so pamper yourself a little.

Give up on being a perfectionist. Do your best but don’t let feelings of guilt overcome you for not being perfect. Your house should be clean but it doesn’t have to be spotless. You don’t have to cook a gourmet meal every night. Give yourself a break.

Being pregnant will be an experience you will never forget. For some women it will happen only once. Reduce the stress in your life, slow down and enjoy being pregnant!

You’re pregnant? Congratulations! By the way, you can get a FREE Pregnancy Tracking Chart as well as much more information on all types of pregnancy issues and the answers to the Top 10 Most Common Pregnancy Questions at http://www.Surviving-Pregnancy.InfoFromA-z.com.