In Approval

Glycemic index ranks different carbohydrate foods depending on their potential to raise blood glucose levels.

The ranking is on a scale from 0 to 100.Higher the Glycemic index, higher is the particular carbohydrates ability to effect a spike(rise) in blood glucose levels.

Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels, and have benefits for health.

Low GI diets have been shown to improve both glucose and lipid levels in people with diabetes (type 1 and type 2).

This is as far as it goes about the use of glycemic index for weight loss.

Popular diet books like the south beach diet are founded on the premise that the spike in blood glucose levels leads to more hunger and subsequent weight gain, whereas the foods with low GI have a tendency to delay the haunger or lower appetite, leading to weight loss, which is too simplistic, but ,not quite supported by scientific evidence.

Read this excerpt taken from WebMD:

Experts Take On the Glycemic Index

It sounds like a magic formula for dieters –but experts have long been saying there’s no such thing. “If you don’t have peaks and valleys in your glucose level then hunger should be kept at bay,” says Kathleen Zellman, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (ADA). “However, it’s not that simple. It’s also affected by meal size, whether there’s any fat in the meal, and overall health status.”

“Glycemic index looks at individual foods — not how that food might interact with another,” says Connie Diekman, RD, an ADA spokesperson in St. Louis, Missouri. “If you eat a high glycemic index food with a protein, for example, it might be absorbed more slowly. … That’s the hang-up with glycemic index. Very few people will sit down and eat one high glycemic index food and then another. It’s meals that we eat.”

Michael Jensen, MD, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., says it’s never been proven that high insulin levels — which result when a high glycemic index food is eaten — mean increased hunger. “When [you] work with patients who get real hungry between meals, you have to try a couple of different things. I’m not sure if it’s glycemic index, the bulk of food, the content of food that gives [the sense of fullness] … I also have them consider adding protein and modest amounts of fat to decrease overeating between meals.”

All the researchers are unanimous in that, it’s the fiber content of the diet that is more important for controlling diabetes and weight gain than the Glycemic Index.Read the exerpts of a new research document from WebMD,….

New research shows that when it comes to type 2 diabetes, not all carbohydrates are created equal. Tufts University researchers report that eating whole-grain foods, especially fiber-rich cereals, appears to improve insulin sensitivity and lower the risk of the metabolic syndrome.

Whole-grain foods have already been found to help protect against heart disease and certain cancers, and the newly published study is one of several that indicates there is a protective role for whole grains against a constellation of major risk factors that lead to metabolic syndrome — a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and the development of type 2 diabetes.

“Unless you’re a diabetic, glycemic index may not be all that important,” says Jack Alhadeff, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. , who adds that since most of us eat a variety of foods in a meal, the accuracy of the index can be questionable.

But what about the notion that glucose from high-index foods is more likely to be stored as fat?

“The scientific literature is very clear that eating carbohydrates that are embedded in plant cellulose — complex carbohydrates — is always better,” says Nagi Kumar, PhD, director of clinical nutrition at the Moffitt Cancer Center and professor of human nutrition at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “But the reasons it is better are not because it somehow lessens or alters fat storage.”

All this leads one to conclude that the importance of fiber is far more that Glycemic index for dieters. The weight loss programs like many low carb diets and the popular south beach diet are only trying to exploit the limited scientific data on Glycemic Index to sell their diet wares.

A diet rich in fibre has many advantages like:

Fiber can help you avoid overeating. It has been found that fiber can bind with cholesterol in the digestive tract, thus lowering blood cholesterol.

Another important point about fiber-rich foods is that they tend to be loaded with phytochemicals that appear to have anticancer functions,along with these benefits and its role in weight maintenance, fiber helps prevent the following:

Constipation Hemorrhoids Appendicitis Diverticulosis — an intestinal disease where pockets, which can become infected, develop in the intestinal lining.

A diet program which recommends fiber rich foods and is loaded with healthy and natural weight loss alternatives to the foods recommended by the fad diets is the only alternative to safe and sure weight loss.

You can get more cutting edge fat burning secrets in my Free 5day email ecourse by subscribing to my newsletter at: www.eweightlosstips.com

Rajesh Shetty
Expert in weight loss principles of Ayurveda Medical Science
and Author of the Best selling book,
“Proven weight loss secrets revealed”.

I enjoy cleavage as much or even more than the next guy. However, after reading my latest issue of Men’s Health magazine, I checked my Encarta dictionary and looked up the word “cleavage”.

There is business science in “them der hills”, namely the division or splitting of something, and last but not least, “the hollow visible between the breasts of a woman wearing a low cut garment”.

Suffice to say, I was very relieved that I had not been bastardizing the use of the word cleavage all these years. But it is never to late right?

Why mess up such a beautiful word as cleavage by coining a new term, “Corporate Cleavage”? Well, if I am not thinking about “my wife’s cleavage”, I am definitely always focused on business.

The two words together can describe a business or corporation in such an accurate way.

For the mean time think corporate exposure or effective marketing. A corporation these days doesn’t want to cross the line and expose too much, or too little, about their business or product.

They simply want to get just enough exposure, to get enough interest to keep the shareholders happy.

Are you noticing the similarities?

“So where does the division or splitting of something come in to play?”

Great question, glad you asked. I will assume that there are two parts to every business. There will always be a product or service that is accompanied by a sales and marketing strategy.

I believe the division between product and sales is very important. The closer together these two parts of a business or corporation can theoretically come together, the better the results. The farther the divide or split between service and marketing, failure becomes eminent.

“Corporate Cleavage” exists in every business today. Expose too much and you may damage your business to the point of no return.

Then there are those that believe too much exposure or bad press…sorry Janet Jackson, is never a bad thing.

Also ensure there isn’t a great divide between the product or service you are selling, and the sales and marketing strategy you use. Listen to the Beatles song “Come Together” for additional advice.

Either way, ensure your business is mindful of the low cut garments it wears.

by Lee Raito, CFP, FMA

Co-Author of Business Sexcess

Business and financial expert Lee Raito is a Certified Financial Planner and Financial Management Advisor. Lee has teamed up with Internet marketing expert Sam Heyer to provide you with information that will take your business success to a place it has definetly never been before. Their controversial book, Business Sexcess, is the much talked about book that will transform how you look at business. For a free Chapter please visit http://www.BusinessSexcess.com/free

I think that one of the most exciting times in a little girl’s life is her first visit to a jewelry store. Then again, I think that a lot of women never grow out of that feeling of excitement either! There is something magical about looking at all of the sparkling pieces glittering in the jewelry store window, even if you cannot afford to buy everything that you see.

My youngest daughter’s face lit up when she saw all of the lovely children’s items when I first took her to a jewelry store. When we went inside she felt like a princess being able to try on all of the bracelets and necklaces with cute designs and the jewelry store workers seemed to enjoy the experience of watching her almost as much. When we left the jewelry store with her new bracelet safely wrapped up she was clinging onto the bag as if it was the most precious thing in the world. She still has that bracelet even now, although it has long since gotten too small for her to wear, and it reminds me of that first trip we took to the jewelry store together.

Of course, a jewelry store can also be an extremely romantic place. Sound strange? Well, think about it. How many couples go to a jewelry store together to pick out their wedding rings? I know how electrifying it felt when my fianc? and I went to choose our wedding rings and finally found a jewelry store that had the perfect ones in their window. When we went inside we both had a feeling that this was going to symbolize the start of our new life together and the jewelry store played an important part in that.

I guess it doesn’t matter what you buy in a jewelry store they always seem to have an air of something special about them. It might be the fact that there are a lot of expensive items around and everything is shimmering with that newly-cleaned look that only jewelry store workers seem to be able to achieve!

Sometimes it is easy to feel a little underdressed, especially when you enter some of the more exclusive types of jewelry store that you have to ring a bell to be let into but I love them all the same. I must admit that I am not a big jewelry wearer but I do like to have a couple of nice pieces for special occasions and often take a look around the local jewelry store when I need cheering up. It might sound silly but maybe you should try it too – all that brightness around me certainly seems to rub off and raise my spirits.

Find more information and tips about jewelry by visiting www.jewelry-guru.com

Every person who has ever done the Sudoku puzzle over time has at some point become frustrated. You get to a situation where you just can’t see any headway. There seems to be no clues as where to go next. And I know from personal experience that staring blankly at the puzzle waiting for a solution to hit you between the eyes just never happens. There are two keys to getting past the frustration.

The first key is to understand the thinking of the Sudoku creator or puzzle writer (or what ever you want to call him). He wants you to get frustrated. That is his goal. Depending on what level of Sudoku you are attacking he will use a different number and variety of tricks and roadblocks to make it difficult to find the final solution. When your level of frustration rises, so does his level of satisfaction. Conversely when you get to a roadblock or dead-end and you know that this is part of his plan, then it is easier to stay calm and find the solution.

The second key is to have a plan of attack or strategy for these roadblocks. Just knowing that they are there is fine but not finding a solution can be very frustrating in itself. So having an orderly strategy you can use to find a way past the roadblock is imperative. If you remember the Rubik’s cube, it was very frustrating to solve. But once you could solve one face then the other five faces could be solved by repeated using just four sequences of moves. The difficult part was finding those moves but once found and remembered then the cube could be easily and repeated solved. For solving Sudoku, I personally use the dot-dish-dash technique. It is a combination of three overlaying marking strategies that enable anyone to solve any level Sudoku they wish to tackle. I am sure there are people of high enough IQ that they can solve the hardest Sudoku in their head without any markings on the page at all. I am, unfortunately, blessed with only an average IQ and therefore use the marking to help me to a solution. The dot-dish-dash markings are relatively unobtrusive, easy to implement and interpret.

Now when I get to a roadblock I see it as the challenge of me against the puzzle maker. And with a good strategy its not whether I can break down the strategy of the puzzle maker but how fast and cleanly I can do it?

Kevin Meates maintians the site http://www.sudoku-strategy.com