This month of December we have been going to the city more often, sometimes every week. It gives me the chance to dine out all the time. It’s a good thing my kids have gadgets to keep them busy – my son has his PSP and my daughter uses my iPhone. Should I get the new ipod touch 8g for them now? I dont have anything to play with!
My favorite, their salad:
Redefining and maintaining muscle build becomes more difficult as you age. This is simply because the body loses its natural ability to restructure and repair itself as it matures and eventually senesces. It becomes even more apparent for us women especially after delivering babies, being confined to housework, and facing more stressful activities and conditions. However, there are several ways to maintain our muscle tone even when we’re already way past our prime. Here are some of them.
Regular cardiovascular exercise
Doing housework may be physically and mentally exhausting, but it does not make your circulation and metabolism any faster. Chores simply drain your energy but they don’t count as exercise. In order to keep your muscles fit, work them out every day with cardiovascular exercises like jogging or cycling. Jog with your kids or bike around the neighborhood.
Stick to protein-rich food
If you don’t get enough regular workouts, then compensate by changing your diet. Minimize your carbohydrate and switch to meat, fish, and protein shakes. This gives the body plenty of raw materials to build your muscles. And because you reduce the fats that eventually cover up the muscles, you make it easier for your body to show off your form.
Relax
Relax and de-stress. Mentally and emotionally taxing conditions as well as activities cause toxins in your body to increase, thereby affecting muscle tone, metabolism, and even overall general health. Go to a spa, a vacation, or a night out with the girls to relax and give your body time to recuperate.
It seems I would need the best thermogenic fat burners once the holiday season has ended. I have been eating sweets like there is no tomorrow. Everytime we have coffee, I order cake. Either Banoffee pie or chocolate molten cake. Both have chocolate fudge and caramel! The banoffee pie is a year-round sweet treat while the molten cake is a seasonal treat. Have the cake served warm on top of whipped cream and you can literally taste warm caramel and chocolate fudge – HEAVEN!
December has just started and this just means that the festivities are about to begin. I am sure most of you have been invited to parties and get-togethers. You might even be hosting one yourself. Hosting a party this season can mean a lost of pressure, but the key to having a memorable party is having good times with friends and most importantly, having good food. I prefer to do the cooking when I host at home, and one of my wishes this season is to finally have one of those kenmore gas grills I have been wanting forever. We do a lot of BBQ parties at home – this is one of the only cooking abilities I have, and having a Kenmore 4 Burner Gas Grill with Side Burner can make us cook more burgers and some more dishes on the side burner at a lesser time.
This product retails for $599 but you can get it at a discount for $470. Kenmore gas grills have always been considered one of the best, if not the best, gas grills in the world. It is a worthwhile investment.
The biggest culprit in an over-sized food budget can be attributed to habits that add money to the bottom line. Simply living in one of the most expensive neighborhoods, for instance, can leave you with grocery chains nearby that cater to wealthy people. However, travel a little further and you might find discount grocery stores that have better prices elsewhere. It’s not just where you live, however, that contributes to a larger food bill, just the act of walking in the wrong areas of the grocery store can keep your food bill high.
Eat Before You Shop
Don’t ever go to the grocery store when hungry to do your grocery shopping. When you walk in the door, you should have a grocery list in hand, and stick to the list. Grocery store layouts are set up to tempt you at every corner to buy things you don’t need or to buy too much. Stick to the outside aisles for the bare necessities and avoid the inner aisles where much of the convenience and packaged food, with high costs, reside.
Learn to Cook
Just learning a few good recipes that are inexpensive can help to reduce the need for convenience food. Making your own casseroles is not only healthier for you, but can also provide brown bag lunches for the following day. Learn how to re-use leftovers so that you can make more than one dish from an ingredient, like roasted chicken. The following day cut it up and make chicken salad sandwiches for lunch.
Schedule Trips
If you have a day when you plan on shopping, you can avoid additional trips to the convenience store or shopping center when you run out of milk. The minute you do make an extra trip, it costs more gas, and also will make you more susceptible to think of other things to buy while you’re there. If you’re not there, you can’t spend any extra money.
Health care is a struggle for most companies, but even more so for the food retail business that relies on employees to provide service to their customers. New rules scheduled to go into effect in 2014 are going to dramatically impact many food businesses, forcing some to look for small loan options to cover the increasing costs. Restaurant owners are convinced that the changes in health care reform may end up meaning a 30 percent increase in health care costs from opinions evaluated at restaurant conferences around the country. With the federal government demanding that businesses provide health care to a larger number of their workforce, businesses are scrambling to come up with a plan.
Opting Out
The government’s goal is to include more people in health care plans, and in order to enforce compliance have required businesses who don’t provide insurance to pay a $2,000 penalty for each uninsured worker. Many restaurant owners are looking at the penalty imposed and deciding that they may end up just paying it and foregoing the health care plans in 2014 as a way to manage health care costs. With uncertainty high on further business regulations and upcoming taxes, businesses, especially restaurant owners, are going to be conservative about their choices and try to limit their liabilities as much as possible by opting out and voluntarily paying the penalty.
Bad News for Workers
Obviously, this defeats the purpose of putting health care reform into action. It seems the incentives to provide a 50 percent tax credit for premiums that companies will be forced to pay is not enough to offset the liability of being forced to offer health care to all their workers. Another possibility that some experts predict may happen is that business owners simply choose to reduce their workforce rather than pay benefits or a penalty. For restaurant owners who rely heavily on their workforce, this is probably not a good option, but for other businesses it could lead to more layoffs and a rise in unemployment.