We all know that TWD (Texting While Driving) is very dangerous because of the attention required to devote to your little tiny keyboard to try to impart the right thoughts to your recipient. Well, here’s how you can keep your eyes on the road while sending a “text message.”

I don’t really think of it as a video so much as a recorded text message. You’ll use your video, but you won’t need to worry about your hair, make up or smile factor while delivering your message because you won’t be showing yourself in the ‘video’.

When it’s safe, simply open up your iMessage icon from your phone and address the text message just as you usually would.

You’ll notice that there’s a little camera right next to your iMessage entry screen. When you press that, you’ll get another screen.

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.Select the TAKE PHOTO OR VIDEO option.

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Slide your selector in the lower right corner from CAMERA to VIDEO if it’s not already there and press record.

Just point your camera at the seat or some other innocuous part of your car being careful not to…. well, let’s just not video various anatomy parts or your pile of discarded Snickers wrappers on the passenger seat.

Press the RECORD button in the center, speak your message and then press the RECORD button again to stop the recording.

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In the lower right corner you’ll see USE.  Press that and you will go back to your iMessage entry screen with the video in place within your message.

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PRESS SEND!

And that’s all there is to it.

Of course, if you’re NOT driving and you want to include your handsome or beautiful profile in the video, just select the REVERSE CAMERA option and you’ll see yourself in the screen.  Press record and you can make faces, smile, cry, or whatever you want to do and your recipient will get to not only hear you but to see you in all your splendiferous glory!

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Please Be Responsible

Remember to be responsible and safe using your phone whenever you’re in your car. I always make it a point to pull over and stop in a safe place if I’m doing anything more than simply answering a call.

IT’S JUST NOT WORTH PUTTING YOUR SAFETY OR THE SAFETY OF OTHERS AT RISK !!!

Where Does It All Go?

Let’s follow a typical meal through your digestive tract and circulatory system.

When you eat your food, digestion begins immediately as you chew and add salivary digestive enzymes.  This is followed by a host of other enzymes that further breakdown your food in your stomach.  When your food is sufficiently digested to a substance called chyme, its pushed through your pyloric valve from your stomach into your duodenum which is the upper portion of your small intestine.  It’s here that nutrients begin to be absorbed through the wall of your small intestine, into your bloodstream via your portal vein.  This is the major vein that leads to your liver where the contents of your blood gets “evaluated” by your liver.

It’s important to know the end results of your digestive process.  Proteins break down to amino acids, fats break down to various fatty acids, and carbohydrates break down fairly rapidly (compared to proteins and fats) to glucose.  YES… Your loaf of “healthy” whole wheat bread is, in it’s digested form, a loaf of sugar!

On the way to the liver, this nutrient-rich blood takes a pass through your pancreas where resides the Islets of Langerhans.  These are the magic little nodules scattered throughout your pancreas like little islands that produce insulin.  Depending on the content of the nutrients, your pancreas will dispense various amounts of insulin.  Proteins get a very small amount, fats don’t even get a second glance from the Islets, and carbohydrates that have now assumed their basic form of glucose gets not only noticed, but sets off the station RED ALERT mechanism.  The pancreas takes one look at the results of a high-carbohydrate meal and says, “We need to get busy and dispatch this toxic parade of glucose molecules.  YES… your body looks at glucose as a toxic invader that can cause heart attacks, coronary artery disease, blindness, stroke and limb amputation.

(So why would you want to eat foods, high on the Glycemic Index. that cause a superfluous flush of this toxic material into your body? Just sayin’… )

From the pancreas your blood goes to your liver where the work really begins.  The liver “reads” the parade of material but primarily makes it’s “decisions” based on the amount of insulin that has been dispensed by your pancreas.  If there’s a high concentration of insulin, the liver says, “We have to use or store all this ‘energy’ like RIGHT NOW,” and it goes right to work to do just that.

Your Liver – The Gatekeeper

It will allow a small amount of the glucose to pass right through without as much as an I.D. check for use by some of your muscle cells for immediate energy production. Also your brain and other parts of your nervous system depend on glucose (or ketones) as their primary source of energy.  Some of the glucose will be converted to glycogen which is the temporary (and quickly released) storage form of glucose.  Some of this glycogen will be stored in limited amounts right in your liver and some of it will be sent on to your skeletal muscles for storage there for use in case you have to flee from a saber-tooth tiger or defend yourself from a mugger in New York’s south side.  When you’ve consumed a high carbohydrate meal there will be LOTS of glucose left over that can’t be immediately used or fit into the limited storage bins for glycogen.

Your liver will take all of this excess glucose and convert it to cholesterol. It will package that newly formed cholesterol with triglycerides into packages called VLDLs (Very Low Density Lipoproteins).  VLDL is one of the five major groups of lipoproteins (chylomicrons, VLDL, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), intermediate-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)) that enable fats and cholesterol to move within the water-based solution of the bloodstream.   Most of these VLDLs will become LDL cholesterol.
(Remember that our original ‘factory setting’ is be a fat burning machine and NOT to use carbohydrates (ie glucose) as our primary energy source)

With the recent research that has reversed the thinking that high serum (in the blood) cholesterol is related to dietary cholesterol, we can now see that excessive blood glucose and it’s necessary insulin response is the real source of high LDL cholesterol numbers.

So What’s The Big Deal?

Why, might you ask, does the liver feel so compelled to pull out all the stops and process this excess glucose into cholesterol? Why not just give it a pass and send it on to the bloodstream.  Well, the answer is simple and one that I’ve already hinted at for you.  Sugar is a more immediate and long-term toxin to your system than fat! Your liver is saving your life by detoxifying your sugar into cholesterol. And while we know that high levels of cholesterol has serious detrimental affects to our coronary system, in terms of your body’s economy of good and evil, it’s the lesser of two evils.

The simple truth is that it’s because of our high carbohydrate, low fat diets and food industry that we’re a nation of fat and high-cholesterol people.  Just like the Eskimos, if you ate a diet of 90% fat and very little carbohydrates, your blood cholesterol would likely go down because there would be little insulin present to alert and power your cholesterol-making machinery.

Contemplate a better eating plan today.  You don’t have to be a believer, but consider trying it for 30 days and see what happens and how you feel.  What do you have to lose?

Here…. I’ve even found a SHOPPING LIST for you so you won’t have to create this all by yourself!

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Obviously I’m not a doctor or trained nutritionist. Don’t make any diet changes without consulting your doctor or at least doing some of your own research.  Information for this article was gleaned from:

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health – William Davis, M.D.

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet – Robb Wolf

Living Low Carb: Controlled-Carbohydrate Eating for Long-Term Weight Loss – Jonny Bowden PhD CNS

MarksDailyApple.com

Wikipedia

How Did We Get Here?

In 1985 the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute through its National Cholesterol Education Program advised us to cut fat and cholesterol intake and replace the calories with “healthy whole grains.”  This advice and subsequent proliferation of wheat products in the American diet coincides precisely with the beginning of the explosion of obesity and diabetes as tracked by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  As Jim Rohn says when presented with startling facts worth a second or third look, “Isn’t that good information!”

One of the major contributions to this advice was a study done by Ancel Keys, “Coronary Heart Disease in Seven Countries”, Circulation 41, Suppl 1, (1970): 1-211.  Although he cited much data that supported the correlation between dietary cholesterol and heart disease, he also left out several countries that, for some unexplained reason, did not align with his presupposed conclusions.

The seven countries were admittedly selected by Keys. Such selection may be helpful to illustrate an idea at a preliminary stage, but a proof of causality demands random data. In more recent studies, including many more countries, the association was weak, absent, or inverse (52).  (Cited from http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth4.htm )

All of this has led us down the road to the current “conventional wisdom” on cholesterol and heart disease. It has two parts: first, that eating cholesterol in the diet raises cholesterol levels in the blood; and second, that high cholesterol levels in the blood cause heart disease.

You might be surprised to learn that neither of these statements is true. The first one is relatively easy to dispatch. In the Framingham Heart Study, which is the longest-running and perhaps most significant study on heart disease done to date, it was demonstrated that intake of cholesterol in the diet had absolutely no correlation with heart disease.

In fact, the “diet-heart hypothesis”, which is the scientific name for the idea that eating cholesterol causes heart disease, has even been discounted by the researchers who were responsible for its genesis. Ancel Keys, who in many ways can be considered the “father” of the cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis because of his study I previously cited, had this to say in 1997:

All of this high carb, low fat thinking has led us to be one of the most overweight and diseased countries on the planet.

So What’s the Solution?

Low Carb dieting has been around for a long time.  The first bona fide low-carb book came out in 1864 because William Banting thought he was going deaf. Banting, a 66yo prosperous London banker was so overweight he couldn’t tie his own shoes.  His doctor, Dr. William Harvey, told him his deafness was not due to any anatomical hearing malady, but simply a result of his obesity: Fat was pressing on his inner ear.  He put Banting on a diet and in little less than a year, Banting has lost almost 50 pounds and 12-1/2 inches from his waist.

While calorie measurement was unknown at that time, experts have reconstructed from his food diaries that he was put on a high calorie (2800/day), low carb diet. He did NOT eat milk, sugar, beer, potatoes or pastry and was limited to a single slice of bread a day. They identified flour and sugar as the main causes of his obesity.  It worked!  Banning kept the weight off and lived to a healthy and comfortable age of 81.

In 1906, Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with an isolated group of native Eskimos called the Copper Inuit in the Arctic for eleven years. He observed that their diets consisted of almost exclusively meat, fat and water. In spite of this seemingly unhealthy diet that was in opposition to conventional wisdom of the time, they were thin, healthy, active and lived long and happy lives.

Scientific studies of Greenland Eskimos by Drs. Hans Bang and Jorn Dyerberg from Denmark showed us that despite containing a diet of more than 60 percent animal food, not one death from heart disease — or even a single heart attack occurred in 2,600 Eskimos from 1968 to 1978.  This death rate from heart disease is one of the lowest ever reported in medical literature.

A high carbohydrate diet produces great fluctuations in blood glucose levels. These spikes in blood glucose is when the body dumps insulin into your system to mitigate the effects of the toxic glucose . You will subsequently store fat and generate excessive cholesterol in the form of VLDLs (Very Low Density Lipoproteins, which is the precursor form of LDL cholesterol (the “bad kind”)

Manage your blood glucose by consuming only carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables.  Eliminate wheat from your diet and any other processed food that adds chemicals and calls it “food”.   You’ll feel better, your blood chemistry will dramatically improve and you’ll be adding YEARS of health and vitality to your life.

Try it for 30 days.  If you don’t like the result, go back to eating what you’ve been eating.  What do you have to lose?

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Obviously I’m not a doctor or trained nutritionist. Don’t make any diet changes without consulting your doctor or at least doing some of your own research.  Information for this article was gleaned from:

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet

Living Low Carb: Controlled-Carbohydrate Eating for Long-Term Weight Loss

MarksDailyApple.com

Wikipedia

I’ve got a special announcement today. Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, has a brand new book out called The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation

It’s a practical, action-oriented guide for how to eat, exercise and live Primally – a step-by-step, “cut to the chase” resource to make a smooth and quick transition into a Primal lifestyle. In it he tells you exactly what to do every day for 21 days to take control of your health for the rest of your life. Mark explains what this new book is all about, what’s in it and who it’s for here. The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation

Mark is looking to score this book on the New York Times best-seller list to gain exposure for the Primal Blueprint message, so he’s put together a loaded special offer. Basically, you order 1 or more copies between October 18 and 24, email your receipt to a special email address and Mark kicks you back a bunch of freebies. It’s a win-win. You get a great book for less than 15 bucks, and a bunch of free gifts, and you and Mark both get to help take the Primal movement mainstream. Check out the details of Mark’s special offer below and pick up a copy of the book today. The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation

What Do I Win for Helping Put This Book on the NYT Best-Seller List?

Order 1 Copy and You Get:

1. Access to the exclusive, password-protected ebook – “Primal Living in the REAL World”: In this 130-page eBook, hundreds of Primal enthusiasts share their challenges, solutions and practical tips for how they get – and stay – Primal. It’s like having the advice of 300 coaches. In it you’ll read hundreds of answers to these and numerous other questions: What is the first thing a person should do to kick start their Primal life? What do you think is the most important thing one should understand as they attempt to go Primal? What was the biggest hurdle you experienced when going Primal and how did you overcome it? And of course, the most important one, What do you usually eat for breakfast?

2. Access to the exclusive, password-protected audio interview – “21-Day Total Body Transformation”: Download a 60 minute, free-wheeling Q&A podcast in which Mark discusses the 8 Key Concepts that everyone needs to know to go Primal. Among many other topics covered, Mark discusses why your body prefers burning fat over carbohydrates and how you can use this knowledge to become a fat-burning beast instead of a sugar burner. Also, listen to Mark riff on why grains are totally unnecessary and why 80 percent of your body composition is determined by how you eat.

3. $10 Gift Certificate to PrimalBlueprint.com: Spend it like cash and order whatever you want, perhaps a cookbook to go with the 21-Day Transformation book? This means for a net 5 bucks you can grab a copy of Mark’s new book today. (The coupon code is good for any single product at PrimalBlueprint.com and expires on 11/30/11.)

Order 3 (Or More) Copies and You Get:

1. All the aforementioned benefits – the $10 Gift Certificate, the exclusive eBook and podcast, plus…

2. Audio recording of the original Primal Blueprint (released in 2009) - Listen to The Primal Blueprint on your phone or MP3 player with this abridged, digital (MP3) audio book voiced by Mark Sisson. The audio book is four hours long, and covers all 10 of the Primal Blueprint Laws and then some. This is the book that started it all and retails for $26.99. Grab 3 or more copies of the the 21-Day Total Body Transformation and you’ll get it for free.

3. Plus an additional $10 Gift Certificate to PrimalBlueprint.com, bringing the total to $20. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity to try a PEK, Primal Fuel or Master Formula on for size!(The coupon code is good for any single product at PrimalBlueprint.com and expires on 11/30/11.)

Order 8 (Or More) Copies and Help Change The World!

Buy 8 or more books through mainstream channels and Mark will send you one book for every two books you buy! Buy eight and he’ll send you four more. Buy 80 and he’ll send you 40 for free – seriously…and he’ll autograph each one of these promo books! And, of course, you’ll get all the aforementioned freebies.

Do your holiday shopping early. One common frustration from Primal enthusiasts is how to get friends and loved ones on board. This book is the perfect calling card to introduce someone to the Primal Blueprint. Why not reduce the hassle of holiday shopping and give each of your deserving friends and loved ones the gift of life transformation?

100 copies – Personal Touch: A 30-minute private phone consultation wherein you and Mark discuss anything you want. (Well, almost anything.) Mark doesn’t one-on-one coaching anymore so this is a rare opportunity. Yes, you also get the 50 free signed books and all the aforementioned freebies!

1,000 copies – Executive Decision: Could you co-workers use some guidance and motivation to get in shape? Mark will fly out to your location, present his Primal Transformation seminar and spend the day helping get your co-workers/employees Primal!

How Do I Win?

1. Order your book(s) online or at your local bookstore before midnight Monday, Oct 24. Here are some online ordering options:

Amazon.com – The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation

2. Email your receipt to the appropriate email address:

• If you purchase 1-2 copies email your receipt to 1book@primalblueprint.com
• If you purchase 3-7 copies email your receipt to 3books@primalblueprint.com
• If you purchase 8 or more copies email the confirmation that your order has shipped to 8books@primalblueprint.com

To reiterate, for 8 or more books, please email Mark the confirmation that your order has shipped (not your initial email receipt) to the appropriate email address above. Also, please include your shipping address so Mark knows where to ship your free books. Please allow 30 days for processing and shipping of your free books. Mark’s going to have a lot of books to sign!

Low-techies can fax receipt copy to 310-317-4424.

3. You will receive your e-gift certificate, eBook download instructions, podcast download instructions, and all other freebies by reply email. (Please be patient. The Worker Bees will be reviewing receipts and sending you instructions on how to access all of your freebies within 24 hours.)

If you have any questions about ordering, or this promotion, please call 888-774-6259 (or 310-317-4414).

Fine Print:

• Books purchased in physical locations (e.g. a brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble) count, too. Just scan and email your receipt to the appropriate email address above, or fax it to 310-317-4424.
• The 8 book offer only applies to book orders placed in the United States. While international orders won’t impact the New York Times best-seller list Mark will extend the 1-2 and 3-7 book offers to anyone around the world.

Order Your Copy of The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation Today!

The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation

Wheat

Yes that common, everyday thing you have in your breadbox. Doesn’t matter if it’s white, whole wheat, multi-grain or sour dough it’s still wheat.  Why does wheat tend to help you gain weight?  Well the answer lies in the chemistry of the wheat itself and it’s reaction with your digestive system.  But first let’s look at the documented problem of obesity and diabetes in our country.

The Low Fat, Healthy Whole Grains Craze

The problem began in the eighties when it was discovered that when processed white flour products were replaced with whole grain flour products, there was a reduction in colon cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. That is indeed true and indisputable. The problem is that the assumption was made that if a little is good for you then a lot must be very good for you.  It follows the same reasoning as “low tar cigarettes” — If smoking low tar is better for you than smoking regular cigarettes, then smoking a lot of low-tar cigarettes must be very good for you.  What followed was a 30-year experiment that has taken our “eat-healthy-whole-grains” nation to one of the fattest nations in the world.

The USDA and other “official” opinion makers say that more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese because we’re inactive and gluttonous. We sit on our fat little behinds watching too much reality TV, spend too much time online, and don’t exercise. We drink too much sugary soda and eat too much fast and junk foods.

Do you know anyone who follows these “official guidelines” to eat low fat foods and more “healthy whole grains” and just can’t seem to maintain a healthy weight? Many people follow these guidelines to eat six to eleven servings of grain per day of which four or more should be whole grain. The American Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetes Association preach these guidelines. If many Americans follow these guidelines then why are we the most obese nation on the planet?

(SIDE NOTE: Could it have anything to do with the high profitability of wheat products.  Can you really make money by turning 10-cents worth of wheat into a $4.95 loaf of bread. You bet you can! Do you think there’s any influence levied by the wheat industry upon these “expert” organizations in the form of funding for studies that continue to support the notion the whole grains are “healthy”. Follow the money…)

This same advice from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute through its National Cholesterol Education Program in 1985 coincides precisely with the start of the sharp statistical upward climb in body weight for U.S. men and women.  Ironically, that’s the exact year that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began tracking body weight statistics, tidily documenting the explosion in obesity and diabetes that began that very year.

It’s nearly impossible to deny the fact that our nation started to get fat when we shifted from our traditional diets to low-fat and high carbohydrate diets in the mid 80’s. Take a look at any group pictures of people in the U.S. in the 40’s and 50’s when we all ate bacon and eggs, steak and a little Wonder Bread compared to group pictures today where two out of every three people are either overweight or obese.

The Physical Composition of Wheat

Modern wheat — also known as Triticum aestivum, is made up of 70% carbohydrates, 10-15% protein and indigestible fiber, and the remaining portion is fat: phospholipies and PUFA’s (Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids)

Wheat starches or complex carbohydrates are the darlings of dieticians and the USDA.  They tell you to eat plenty of “whole grains” meaning to get your fill of complex carbs.  Complex simply means that these carbohydrates are chains of varying lengths of glucose. The complex carbohydrates of wheat are made up of about 75% amylopectin (a chain of branching glucose units) and about 25% of a liner-chain carbohydrate called amylose. And here’s where it starts to get interesting!

As you probably well know, your digestion starts in your mouth when you break up your food by chewing and add saliva to the mix. Both amylopectin and amylose are digested by the salivary and stomach enzyme amylase. Meaning that the digestion of carbohydrates begins the second they enter your mouth.  Amylopectin is digested very efficiently by amylase but amylose not so much.  Some amylose will actually reach your small intestine in an undigested form.

THE KEY TO THIS WHOLE DISCUSSION

Amylopectin is rapidly broken down to it’s basic component which is glucose – What we generally call sugar. It’s broken down to glucose because that’s the only form that our body can use for energy.  We can’t use carbohydrates until they are digested down to simple glucose molecules.  Yes… your whole wheat bread is basically a loaf of sugar!

Furthermore, the amylopectin in wheat is the most easily digested form of amylopectin available.  While amylopectin is available in other foods, the variety found in wheat, Amylopectin-A, is the most easily digestible by the human body. Amylopectin-C is found in legumes and is the least digestible form.  That’s why we get the little jingle, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit….”  Well, you know the rest!

Amylopectin-B is found in potatoes and bananas and is more digestible than Amylopectin-C, but still is resistant to the process.  Amylopecin-A is by far, the most easily and readily digested form of carbohydrate and it therefore rapidly becomes a cascade of sugar rushing from your digestive system into your blood stream where it triggers the dissemination of insulin.

Eating two slices of whole grain bread is little different (and often worse) from the standpoint of a glucose rush and subsequent insulin stampede than drinking a sugary soda or eating a Snickers Bar!

This will begin a complicated process of depositing fat to your existing fat reserves.  That process is discussed more completely in a previous post,  The Science of Insulin – What Sugar and Carbohydrates do to Your Body.

So the next time your reach for that sandwich, cracker, bagel, pretzel, tortilla, piece of toast or a donut, just picture it as a heaping bowl of sugar rather than the so called healthy complex carbohydrate that the American Dietetic Association wants you to think it is.  I call this: FOOD for thought.

Obviously I’m not a doctor or trained nutritionist. Don’t make any diet changes without consulting your doctor or at least doing some of your own research.  Information for this article was gleaned from:

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet

MarksDailyApple.com

Wikipedia

Adelle Davis said, “You are what you eat.”

Truer words were never spoken. What you eat will comprise 80% of how you look, feel, and age. Exercise, genes, good or bad luck will take care of the remaining 20%.

INSULIN

Where does it come from? & What does it do?

Today I want to talk to you about insulin and exactly what it does to and for your body and your overall health. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas. More specifically, it is produced in specialized little nodes within the pancreas called The Islets of Langerhans. Insulin production is stimulated by the presence of glucose in your blood. Insulin is assigned as the escort for all those sugar molecules to usher them to the places in your body that need them for energy. Insulin has a priority system as to where to take your fuel.

Once insulin has ushered fuel to your most vital organs such as your brain, the first priority is directly to your muscles. This will only be accomplished when your muscles are in ‘work mode’ and requiring immediate fuel.  When you exercise, there’s a small amount of energy stored in your muscles in the form of glycogen to be used for a short period of time.  When the glycogen is exhausted, the insulin will bond to the glucose in your blood stream to provide additional fuel to your muscles.

The second priority, once immediate needs are met is to create more glycogen which is the short-term energy source we just talked about. The insulin will return the glucose  to the liver where it will be converted to glycogen and returned to the blood stream where it will once again either be used immediately if you’re “working” or it will be deposited in your muscles in small amounts to be used whenever there’s a short term requirement for energy. Once those storage units are filled, the insulin will usher any remaining glucose to your long-term storage facility – Also known as fat cells.

Insulin Management

You can see that insulin is the GATEKEEPER! The ONLY way your food is ultimately converted to fat is via the hormone insulin. To say it another way: Without insulin, you simply cannot store fat. You can control the amount of insulin your system produces by controlling the amount of glucose entering your blood stream.  When you control the amount of insulin you produce by controlling the amount of glucose in your blood stream, you can dramatically affect the amount of glycogen that is deposited to your fat cells.  Let me say that again….

When you control the amount of insulin you produce by controlling the amount of glucose in your blood stream, you can dramatically affect the amount of glycogen that is deposited to your fat cells.

“So how do I control the amount of glucose in my blood stream?” you might ask.  It’s simple. Really!

You control the amount of glucose in your blood stream by eating foods with a low Glycemic Index. Simply stated, the Glycemic Index (GI) of a food measures it’s ability to cause a short-term (a couple hours) increase in the amount of glucose in your blood stream.  Pure sucrose has an index of 100 and is the basis for the scale. Everything else is measured in comparison to sucrose.  Here’s a couple of examples:

• Corn Syrup (found in MANY processed food and drinks) – 115 (yes… GI higher than drinking pure sucrose!)
• Baguette – 95
• Corn Starch – 85
• Corn Flakes – 81
• Rice Krispies – 82
• Spaghetti (white) – 81
• Rice Cakes – 77
• Whole Wheat Bread – 72
• Bagel – 72
• Oatmeal – 58
• Snickers Bar – 55
• Brown Rice – 55
• Corn Chips – 53
• Black Beans – 30
• Cashews – 22
• Artichoke, Asparagus, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumber, Eggplant, Green Beans, Lettuce (all), Peppers (all varieties), Snow Peas, Spinach, Summer Squash, Tomatoes, Zucchini – 15
• Carrot – 3
• Salmon – 0 (yes, zero)
• Avocados – 0 (again)
• Chicken, Turkey, fish, other lean meats – difficult to measure because of zero to low carbohydrate content. Generally has very little effect on blood glucose rendering a GI of essentially zero
• Eggs – 0 (yep, zero again)

The healthy goal is to flatten your blood glucose highs and lows. The best way to achieve that with diet alone is to build your daily intake of food around foods with a low GI — Lean meats, vegetables, some fruits, & nuts.  If you really want to do your body a favor, consider seriously minimizing or even eliminating wheat, beans and all processed foods (cookies, crackers, breads, pretzels, rice cakes, canned soups, SpaghettiOs, etc.) Wheat has more sugar in the form of complex carbohydrates than a Snickers Bar. A good rule thumb is that if the can or jar lists more than 5 ingredients or has words you can’t pronounce or don’t know what they are, then put it back on the shelf. Read your labels and if you see corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, etc. — well, you’ll know what to do.

Stick to the perimeter of the store (lean meats, vegetables and some fruits) and you’ll do better.  Don’t venture into the middle aisles unless you need Kitty Litter!

Obviously I’m not a doctor or trained nutritionist. Don’t make any diet changes without consulting your doctor or at least doing some of your own research.  Information for this article was gleaned from:

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet

MarksDailyApple.com

Wikipedia

This is the beginning of a three-part article that will walk you through the philosophy and basic strategies of Working By Referral (WBR).

Here in Part 1, we’ll talk about why we MUST Work By Referral. Things have changed and the traditional methods of lead and customer acquisition just don’t work any longer

In Part 2, we’ll talk about why you CAN Work By Referral – Why EVERYBODY can work by referral. You can because you have a wealth of opportunity before even walking out your door. TRUE! And you don’t have to be an outgoing, Type-A social networker either.

Finally, in Part 3, we’ll go over the three basic strategies in the HOW of Working By Referral and give you some easy first steps to take.

I can sum up the foundation of Working By Referral in one key word: GENEROSITY

Generosity with your time, your resources, your relationships, your business “secrets.” This should become more clear, so let’s press on.

Part 1. Take your time and please don’t skip ahead… ————————————————————-

Why we MUST work by referral — Because traditional methods of lead and customer acquisition simply don’t work like they used to.

Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years, haven’t they? Life moves at a faster pace. All those “labor-saving devices” like cell phones, the Internet, voice mail, answering machines and computers haven’t really moved us very far ahead. But they sure have changed things.

MAIL

Remember when the mail used to be looked at with anticipation? We ran to the mail box as soon as the mail truck left or even met him before he even got to the mailbox. Now the mail is viewed with suspicion. Ever received a piece of junk mail disguised to look like a check? You see what I mean. That’s why now we stand over the trash can to sort through our mail.

The best case we can hope for is less than a 1% response rate to our direct mail. And even then the quality of the leads is very second rate.

PHONE

Remember how we used to just love the telephone? Because we didn’t have email, text messaging and chat rooms on the Internet, the phone was our only way to stay in touch. Now it seems cumbersome and time-consuming.

I remember when answering machines first came out and we all rushed to get one so that we wouldn’t miss any calls. Now we use them to SCREEN our calls so we only answer for people we want to talk to.

I can’t remember the last time I cold called, but I bet that I’d see less than 5 in 100 where I wouldn’t have to first get past the screening of the answering machine. Certainly NOT my idea of a good time.

DOOR TO DOOR

Unless it’s one of my neighbors or someone I’m expecting (or a Girl Scout offering those MARVELOUS Girl Scout Cookies), it’s just plain weird when someone comes to my door. Like most of us, I have the peep-hole to see who it is and make the WILL I ANSWER THE DOOR DECISION based on what I see. Usually I don’t.

NEWSPAPER AND OTHER PRINT ADS

We live in an age of information overload. Between all the books we can read, the Internet sites and the newspapers and magazines we can read, a person could go crazy just trying to keep up. Aside from the dramatically declining subscription rates to newspapers and magazines with the advent of everything alternatively available online, print ads are SO EXPENSIVE. Kind of like putting all of your money on number 7 and letting them spin the wheel.

I don’t know what everybody else does, but I don’t read ads when I occasionally read a newspaper ora magazine. I don’t subscribe to any magazines and my wife likes to get the newspaper on Sunday for the coupons. She doesn’t read it either.

If you’re depending on print ads to generate enough business to pay the rent and feed the family, you’re going to end up homeless and hungry!

THE BIG WWW…(aka the Internet)

More of the same here with the information overload.

IN DAYS OF OLD WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD…

Remember the days of the Knights of the Round table, Sir Lancelot and King Arthur? They all lived in some kind of castle. And all the castles had a moat and a drawbridge. Visitors had to first be identified and then allowed access to the castle.

We’ve gone back to that.

We’ve built electronic moats around our lives to keep the unwanted people out.

In the days of old:

• They called up to the watchman; we call into the phone.
• They threw small stones over the wall to get their attention; we throw direct mail into their mailbox or email inbox hoping for a response
• They stood at the drawbridge door and banged on it until it was answered; we stand at their door and knock hoping for a friendly face on the other side.

OK… So now we know what DOESN’T work. But before we jump into what DOES work, let’s go to Part 2 and talk a little bit about the most important ingredient of Working By Referral – YOU. Anybody, especially you, has already IN PLACE a foundation of a fantastic referral system. I mean it’s at your fingertips and you can start enjoying the fruit of that foundation — TODAY.

See you in Part 2,

Most already know that the former Governor of California and his wife, Maria Shriver, have separated and are having serious problems.  These problems stem from the reports that Governor Schwarzenegger had a child out of wedlock with a woman who had been working for the family for many years.  All of this sounds to me like a very personal and private tragedy.  And it makes me wonder two things:

• What possesses “journalists” to delve into the very personal and private lives of people?
• Is it really any of my (or anybody else’s) business?

What’s become of us that the private lives of people who are “famous” are worthy of front-page news?  Do we have so little going on that’s important in our own lives and do we lack worthwhile endeavors that we have time to devote to finding, reporting and following the problems, failures, and pain of people who are simply trying to find happiness just as we are?

Seems to be that it’s all just for gossip and titillation of our tiny little minds anymore.

Personally I don’t really care to know the details of Arnold’s philandering or those kinds of details of anybody else’s life.

It’s really none of my business!  Period!

The relentless digging and exposing of the lives of everyone that had anything remotely to do with these sad events only brings more pain and ruin to the lives of these people.  I say leave them alone and let them go about the work of restoring their lives to some semblance of normal and happy.  Reporters have no business pressing and shattering people’s lives just for the sake of another headline.

Are they oblivious to the effect it has on the children?  Are they blind to the embarrassment and shame they are heaping into the lives of these people?  Many of them are just innocent bystanders — Collateral Damage!

People deserve their privacy… even Arnold.

Networking. it really isn’t part of your job, it’s more a lifestyle than anything else.

Trying to network during the day if you’re not a networker can be frustrating. It’s kind of like being an artist — Either you have a passion for it… or you don’t. If you don’t, you can draw or paint when you have time, but there’s nothing that drives you to it. Its just a chore; something you do because you seek something from it that’s not what you’re ultimately going to receive.

But NETWORKING can be learned. It can become part of you, your lifestyle, the essence of who you are.

We usually begin networking to get some more leads which, hopefully, leads to more business. If you get any good at it, you’ll write some business, but it’s still a daily task you have to complete unless you’re a networker AT HEART.

The secret, i think, to being a networker AT HEART is that you have to stop networking for money and start networking for the rich relationships that are such a natural byproduct of the art of networking. Yes, networking is more like art than anything else. It becomes such an integral part of your foundation that you couldn’t NOT do it.

Artists end up giving much more than the paintings or sculptures or photographs that they render. Ultimately, networking, like art, is about giving. Giving your time. Giving your passion. Giving more than you get.

Sure it’s a profitable venture from a monetary perspective. Sure its work. (at least it is at first) And even when you’re not a networker AT HEART it’s important to keep on going because anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first.

Keep at it… the rewards are rich, substantial and life-changing.