No more large meals, you exercise daily but still can’t lose weight. Your efforts are not rewarded and you can’t see what you’re doing wrong? Sounds like a desperate situation but there are other things you should consider before blaming the fate.

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Not enough sleep. You feel tied, angry and don’t have enough energy? When you don’t sleep enough body functions change and fats are being assimilated easier. More to it, when we’re tired we can’t fight stress and we could be tempted to go for a snack in the middle of the night, which could lead to a chain reaction system. Try to sleep the right way.

According to the SAMHSA (United States Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration) in 2006, 23.6 million people aged 12 or older required treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol problem.

Of those that received help treatment broke down as follows: abuse treatment was received by 2.5 million people followed by 1.23 million people treated for addiction to marijuana, cocaine addiction patients fell just under the 1 million mark and pain relievers, stimulants, heroin and hallucinogens were each responsible for about 500,000 addiction treatments.

I’m not talking about pros that train to win gold medals and such. I’m talking about regular people like you and me that lose interest in going to the gym once or twice a week. Reasons like “I’ve just came from work, I’m too tired” shouldn’t be accepted therefore I have (only) four easy ways to go train.

A competition

Find a competition you can attend. For example if you like playing tennis, find a veterans championship. If it’s outside of town and you have to pay for transportation and accommodation it would be even better, you’re even more motivated. If you’re motivated you’ll remember to practice and you’ll do it better.

These days, everyone is talking about going green or saving the environment. If you feel this is the right thing and want to fight global warming but you don’t know where to start, this article is probably a good starter.These are just simple steps that may not significantly shrink the big hole in the ozone layer but will make you feel good to know you’re taking steps for a better environment and a better you.

photo by aaardvaark

1. Forget paper towels.

They are always easy to get and seem hygienic to use. Right, but what about all those trees they need to put down to make the paper towels? If you care about them, you may want to consider cloth towels that you can later put in your washing machine and use them again the next day.

No matter if you’re changing your job or just because you need something new in your life, moving to a new city could be fun at first and a nightmare after. From things you’ll have to eat, to finding a place to live or to making new friends the road may be sprinkled with lots of problems.

New York City - Times Square (by FraukeFoto)

For many people, living in a new city is a big challenge and if you break through, you’ll eventually have to make friends. If finding out things like crime rate, school systems, medical care, taxes, cell phone coverage or bars and restaurants to spend your time, is just as easy as searching on Google, making new friends is not very easy.

A divorce is not an easy thing for a married couple so I guess you don’t need me to tell you that it could be devastating for the kids. But it happens. You need to get on to your life and the only solution is the legal break up. A very big problem is how should the children be told, when and more importantly what to tell them.

I’ve had a lot of friends that had to suffer because their parents divorced and I think there are ways to prepare your kids to face the feelings avalanche they’re about to experience. Here are a few tips I could think of.

When to bring up the divorce with your kids

Don’t lie to your kids, this time it’s not going to work. Most of the times children can see and can feel the communication difficulties between the parents and usually anticipate what is about to happen so if the two of you fight try not to mention “divorce” every time you raise your voice.

It happens sometimes to remember a meeting just when you are already late for it or go to the supermarket and forget what you were supposed to buy. These are just a few reasons for people to wish for a very good memory and there is a saying an elephant never forgets.

But what if we can be just like the elephant. What if we can improve our memory skills and memorize all the important things we used to forget, wouldn’t that be a big victory? There are certain memory stimulating games and all sorts of techniques that should help someone improve their memory.

picture by Shutterscript

There are two different approaches to help your memory. Internal techniques that involve association, visualization and observation and external techniques that include written instructions, organizing, environmental factors or sound triggers.

Here are a few ways to improve memory, that helped me and you may benefit from.

1. Keep an active brain. This is probably the best advice I can give you. Your brain is not a muscle so exercising inside your head is needed to keep it “growing” and to create new nerve connections.
   

In modern cultures, sitting or remaining inactive most of the day without any or little exercise is called a sedentary lifestyle. The main concerns of being inactive go beyond the common depression or the mental problems and will influence your life forever because it could lead to obesity, type II diabetes, heart problems, different cancer types or even hemorrhoids.

But these are not the only concerns one should have when having a sedentary lifestyle, because the lack of exercise cause muscle atrophy and weakening that could lead to possible injuries. Daily exercise will reduce the chances for colon cancer by 60 percent and heart disease by 50 percent, scientists say.

The same scientists, say that modern people don’t care about walking or jogging anymore. It’s mainly true. I remember myself a few years ago. I was working late and I was getting home very tired, or at least that’s how I felt. A 30 minutes walk was a no-no. I was wrong. First time I tried it, I went for a 30 minutes run in the park and I noticed not only that I had more energy but more important I wasn’t as tired as I thought.

Different kinds of headaches arise from different situations and are caused by different stimuli. I know how uncomfortable and how debilitating they can be.

Getting rid of a headache is sometimes as simple as taking a breather. If not, a cup of coffee or a quick nap might do the trick.

This is why I have put together a list of things that help prevent or get rid of both chronic and temporary headaches.

1. Stress headaches. I know I get these a lot. Chances are you might not even notice this type of headache creeping up on you as you are busy worrying about everything under the sun. If you get stress headaches often the first thing to do is to pinpoint the stressors that trigger the headaches. This will allow you to avoid, or brace yourself better, for the future annoying headaches that feel like they will never leave. Sometimes simply identifying triggers can help alleviate the symptom as the symptom is usually there to tell you something is wrong.

Buying a house/condo/place to live is perhaps one of the biggest things you will ever do in your life. There are a few dozen things you must consider before signing the contract, from the neighborhood to the structure of the place.

The following tips and considerations are only a few of the most important things to think about. They should always be in your mind from the beginning of the process to the end.

1. Consider your finances

So this probably warrants a “duh” but believe me, I have seen people who buy something outside of their price range thinking they will get that raise next year or they will make it somehow.

Chances are if you can’t afford it now you won’t afford it in the future. Think cutting back on luxury items will help you afford the new place? Try cutting back for a few months to prove to yourself that you can and to see if you really will have enough money.