This article is by Craig Ballantyne, an expert consultant for Men’s Health magazine.

Despite what you see on late night infomercials, there are only three ways to lose belly fat and strengthen your ab muscles, and none of them requires $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

First, you need a diet that allows you to burn the belly fat. Start by improving the quality of the food you eat. No more processed carbohydrates, no more sugar, no more deep-fried foods, no more fast food, and no more sodas or juices. Simply making these changes will help you lose stomach fat fast, and you’ll drop your body fat percentage in just days.

Here’s a little bit of advice you may be interested in if you produce any form of viral marketing publication. You know the sort of thing: ebooks, reports, courses, reviews, etc.

Never use any link inside the content that you can’t control or change later.

You should always use redirect links from your own domain when putting any kind of link inside your ebook or publication.

Most people will insert their affiliate link for an affiliate offer inside their ebook that they are hoping readers will click on and earn them some cash.

Big mistake!

They can easily become obsolete, unusable and therefore unprofitable.

Following on from my sunshine post yesterday it got me to thinking about why our use of this fantastic resource has been so painfully slow to develop. Or even, I might go so far as to say, pretty non-existent.

Sure, we have solar panels and solar powered electronics, even solar powered cars, but when you take a close look at the current technology available it all seems a bit, how can I put it?… Primitive!

Why is that, do you think?

Well, well, well! Yet another spectacular u-turn by the medical/scientific community. Yes folks, hang on to your hats, it now seems that they’ve finally come to realise that . . . drumroll . . . SUNSHINE IS GOOD FOR YOU!

Why the sudden change of heart?

What’s made them go from ‘cover up and stay out of the sun between the hours of 4am and 11pm’ to ‘get your kit off and enjoy a bit of sunbathing whenever you can’?

Ok, that’s not what they’re really saying but it does seem that the sun has been given a new lease of life.

It has been turned miraculously from big bad cancer-causing bringer-of-death to all-encompassing ailment-curing giver-of-life. Two very extreme extremes.

Another excellent article from Total Health Breakthroughs about the question marks hanging over certain foods previously hailed as ‘the healthy alternatives’. This one’s by Dr. Jonny Bowden, a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health:

Flush Out the Health Food Imposters.

The reputation of foods seems to go up and down as often as the stock market. Nutrition gurus have reversed themselves so many times it makes my head spin.

Take margarine. Everyone thought this was a healthy food when it first came out. But by now most people know that it is loaded with trans-fats and far worse for you than the butter it replaced.

Consider other foods we used to shun but now embrace as good for us: certain fats, coconut oil, whole eggs and even coffee come to mind. But what about foods everyone thinks of as healthy? Could some of these be health-food imposters?

I’ve been visiting the UK for a week or so and it’s been a while since I had a rant. I’ll soon put that to rights!

You can’t seem to go anywhere on the web these days without coming across some internet marketer or other telling you about the value of website visitors from the various social bookmarking sites.

Each of these so-called ‘gurus’ would have us believe this traffic is essential to our online survival.

I beg to differ.

Answer me a question:

When are the UK government and its money-grabbing police force finally going to admit that they have totally lost control of their town and city centres due to alcohol-fuelled disorder and violent crime? (I see however that revenues from speed cameras and parking fines are still coming in very nicely. Well done on that score!)

We are reliably informed by our lords and masters that this modern-day problem is due to the relatively recent (and catchily-titled) phenomenon of young people ‘binge-drinking’. And apparently it’s all the fault of the big, bad drinks industry for failing to act voluntarily to curb the problem of alcohol abuse.

Yes folks, if it wasn’t for

When you’re at work are you content to just to stand around waiting for orders? Do you get frustrated because the clock seems to have only moved ten minutes since the last time you looked at it over an hour ago?

It’s a fact of life that most people will adopt a follow-my-leader mentality. They’re not interested in their work or bettering their lives, they just want to do the minimum necessary in order to pick up their wages at the end of the month.

These are the followers. Why would you want to be one of them?

But you’re a leader, aren’t you?

You get frustrated because you see people milling around all day and nothing seems to get accomplished.

Remember that? It was a number one single by Bobby McFerrin back in September 1988 and also won ‘Best song of the Year’ at the 1989 Grammy awards.

Sung ‘a capella’ (no instruments), the song has a very catchy and simple message: Don’t worry about lifes ups and downs, just smile, be happy to everyone and life will sort itself out.

Happiness is found in everyone. Living a happy, resilient and optimistic life is a wonderful thing and can help you stay around longer. As a significant by-product it’s also good for your health.

Being happy actually protects you from the stresses of life,

Following on from my post a couple of weeks back about obesity I got this article today from an email newsletter I subscribe to and I thought I would share it with you.

It’s by Dr. Matthew Anderson who is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor (35 years) and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships.

Break Out of Your Fat-Box

Every fat person lives in something I like to call a fat-box. Sadly, most