WEIGHT LOSS: Tips to help shed those unwanted flabby bits

I used to have the special ability to eat whatever I pleased and never put on weight. This was before I hit twenty five. I am no longer the envy of the heftier members of my family and I've had to start following a few weight loss tips to stay in shape.

With winter having waned, you are so often left with the results of overindulging in the warm, delicious winter dishes which tend to settle around the middle body area, increasing your girth and refusing to budge. All of this is exasperated through lack of exercise. The gradual expansion of weight in this manner can eventually lead to all kinds of of negative, unhealthy conditions. Proper weight loss will help prevent these.

Research shows that decreasing your body fat percentage by 5-10 percent reduces your risk of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other lifestyle related diseases. Follow these simple weight loss hints and tips below to help reduce your weight and improve overall well-being.

14 weight loss tips:

• Exercise while watching television.
• Use a smaller plate when dishing up your food.
• Make sure ½ of your plate is full of raw or cooked vegetables.
• Drink a glass of water before your meal to help fill up the stomach.
• Reduce/eliminate alcohol intake as this can contribute to weight gain.
• Eat 80%of your total energy intake during the day and the other 20% at night.
• Cut back on your carbohydrates at night eg: pasta, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes etc.

Be careful of snacking, especially at restaurants or coffee shops. Milkshakes and carrot cake with cream, for example, contain approximately 4500 KJ. For the average woman, this amount of energy virtually covers her total energy intake for the day.

• Exercise: starting with a short walk then gradually increasing the walk to 30 minutes a day is a good start.
• Eat at the table rather than in front of the television. When your brain is preoccupied with visual stimuli other than your food, this can affect the digestive process.
• Wait twenty minutes before you go for a second helping. It takes at least twenty minutes for the brain to register you are satisfied.
• If you are still hungry after a meal, head for the salads which contain little or no dressing.
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day. Sometimes we are thirsty and not hungry.
• Feed the body with nutrient rich foods (vegetables, fruits, whole-grains, avocados, nuts) rather than nutrient diluted foods (refined foods, biscuits, breads, sweets, chocolates etc.)

And remember, “optimum nutrition = optimum weight” !

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WEBSITE BUILDING: Free website design tools and resources

MANY people maintain the belief that nothing is free in today’s world. While this may be true in the physical world, there is plenty of free stuff on the web (if you know where to look). This is particularly true with regard to creating and developing your very own website.

Several web developers simply coin it by creating sites for individuals who don’t know any better. Granted there are several brilliant website designers who deserve to be paid well for their expertise. However, there are others who will charge a hand and a foot to create something that you could quite easily create yourself for free.

Blogging is the most free form of beginning a journey in website design and development. One is able to choose a ready-made design from a large library of templates, publish posts to your heart’s content and make use of a variety of free-to-use tools. Taking things to the next level, however, is a different story and often involves having to spend something.

There are several website builders that label themselves as “free” yet there is always a catch. Basically the beginning stages are free, but the hidden agenda becomes apparent once you become excited about website building and want to take things a little further.

Nevertheless, I have come across two website-building sites that I would like to share with anyone interested in self-taught web design. After all, teaching oneself a new skill, whatever that may be, should always result in the warm and fuzzy feelings of self-satisfaction.

Doodlekit - free, online website builder

DOODLEKIT
Doodlekit is a fully hosted free website builder and content management system that claims to be the quickest and most advanced website tool available. That is a mighty claim which is surely shared with several other website builders.

However, I would agree that Doodlekit is at least easy to use. First-timers may not be able to design a website “within minutes” yet can at least doodle with designing for as long as they please without any charge.

What’s also great is that the site doesn’t require the installation of any software – all aspects of it are done online via the Doodlekit website.

There are some great-looking examples of what some users have created using Doodlekit, such as www.ama-dojo.com

350 pages - the quick & easy website builder

350 PAGES
350 pages markets itself as the "quick and easy website builder" that is “fun and flexible”. They’re also convinced that us 'ordinary' folk can produce a professional-looking website in minutes, if not "seconds!".

The site does have some great features though, despite being a little over-appealing (a typical tactic used to rope one in). It is a bit more professional than Doodlekit in the sense that it allows one to fully customise each heading, button bar, logo, divider, image and photo gallery, and even goes as far as allowing the customisation of fonts, styles and colours. Such stylistic changes are often deep in the realm of professional web design.

"If you want to build a web page, but are perhaps clueless when it comes to web design, you might benefit from paying a visit to 350 pages" – 350 pages user

What’s also great about both these design tools/websites above is they don’t require you to do any coding whatsoever. Specifically with 350 pages, layout is as simple as dragging and dropping content using your mouse.

It may be a sad reality for web developers who slogged away for years learning HTML, but a warm welcome to those who don’t know an “<a href>” from an “<align-left>” code.

A particularly pleasant feature of 350 pages is that it offers a library of video tutorials to get you started. The only catch (as the title suggests) is that you can only design up to 350 pages for free before having to pay anything.

Yet this isn’t really a catch, because if you get as far as 350 pages you should have built up enough confidence and web design skills to take things into your own hands. I wish you many hours of happy doodling.

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INTERNET: The Simple Life (online)

TECHNOLOGY is often blamed for complicating our lives instead of simplifying them. But there are ways to harness the power of technology to achieve your dream of an ordered, less chaotic life. Natalie Thayer, GM of MWEB, offers some advice on how to get the balance right:

• Go grocery shopping online
  Instead of wandering the supermarket aisles, have food, wine and other household goods delivered to your doorstep. Many retailers including Woolworths and Pick ‘n Pay, have online shopping facilities which can save you money, petrol and travel time.
  
• Make phone calls over the Internet
  Internet phone services, like MTalk Webcall, allow you to make national, international and cell phone calls very cheaply – and sometimes for free. An ideal alternative to a traditional landline, Webcall is easy to use and you only need a broadband Internet connection.

Transfer money, pay bills and bank online
If you haven’t already, set yourself up with Internet banking. You can move money from one account to another, do direct deposits and pay your accounts online so you don’t have to go into a store or stand in bank queues longer than the Nile to settle your accounts.

• Use the Internet for school projects and homework
  Instead of a shelf full of outdated encyclopaedias, get your kids to use the Internet for school project research and even exam revision. It will save you money and trips to the library. A useful site for students is sparknotes.com

Upgrade your Internet connection
If you are still using a painfully slow dial-up connection, save yourself time and frustration by upgrading to a broadband connection like ADSL. Faster connection speeds and a fixed monthly fee will let you rediscover the joys of the Internet. You’ll also avoid tying up your phone line for hours at a time.

“The Internet is not only a source of information but also a great way to get your daily tasks done, saving you time and petrol money. The careful use of technology can help simplify life - you just need to choose the technology you really need to achieve your goals.”
— Natalie Thayer, GM of MWEB

— issued on behalf of MWEB

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