The Carb Lovers Diet
Pasta (bad).
Bread (off-limits). Potatoes (napalm
for my waistline). Pizza (not in
this lifetime). If this sounds a lot like the nagging voice inside
your head when you imagine your favorite foods, you’ve been doing yourself—and
your waistline—a huge disservice. That’s why you
must read the first-ever diet book
from Health, the leading
authority on healthy living: THE CARBLOVERS
DIET (Oxmoor House; August 2010; Hardcover; $24.95; ISBN
978-0-8487-3370-4).
For decades the diet industry has said that your favorite foods make you fat,
bloated, and sluggish. You followed their advice. Then you gained weight, felt
deprived—and blamed yourself. It’s not your fault. Millions of other people
jumped on the low-carb bandwagon too, and we
as a nation got FATTER than ever before!
This book reveals the hidden truth—well known to weight-loss scientists—that
eating carbs is the only proven way to get and stay thin. Moreover,
hundreds of new studies show that a breakthrough ingredient called Resistant
Starch, found exclusively in carb-filled foods, has the power to turn
off your appetite, turn
on your metabolism, and improve your
health and mood!
About
Health:
Health
(www.Health.com) is America’s most-trusted health-and-wellness magazine, giving
women credible, useful, and up-to-date information and inspiration on how to
live healthier, happier lives. Health
covers well-being, fitness, nutrition, and beauty with intelligence and
flair, showing that healthy living isn’t just important — it’s fun, too. The
magazine is published 10 times a year, reaching nearly 8 million readers with
each issue.
Spice Up Your Treadmill
Workout
By Minna
Lessig
Author of Tank Top Arms,
Bikini
Belly, Boy Shorts Bottom
Like many folks, I do my cardio on
a treadmill. But because the pounding of running makes my back hurt and tightens
my hips, I created this 30-minute treadmill routine. Now, I'm passing it on to
you. Some of the moves can be tricky at first, but that's a good thing,
especially if your current treadmill workout feels a bit stale. As you learn
this routine, feel free to walk, jog, or run instead of doing any of the
moves.
Minutes 1 to 5:
Warmup with Upper Body Moves
- Warmup. Holding
the rails or handles of your treadmill with both hands, round your upper back
for a few steps. Straighten up, then lift your chest toward the ceiling for a
few steps. Repeat 3 to 5 times.
- Single-Arm
Reaches. Keeping one hand on the rail or
bar, extend your other arm straight over your head as you walk. Lower it, then
repeat with your other arm. Try to reach higher with each rep. Do 10 to 20
alternating reaches.
- Bend Down
Low. Walk briskly for 10 to 20 steps.
Then bend your knees slightly and walk in this fashion at the same pace for 10
to 20 steps, keeping your upper body upright. Alternate between brisk walking
and bent-knee walking. Repeat 3 to 5 times.
Minutes 6 to
25: Speed Up and Change Up
- Minutes 6 to
8. Fitness walk: Increase your pace
to a level 4 or 5 RPE (see page 11 for the RPE scale). Walk briskly.
- Minutes 9 to
10. Step-step-sashay: Step forward
with your right foot, then your left foot. Then sashay: Step forward again with
your right foot and hop to bring your left foot to meet your right, landing
first on your left foot and then your right foot. Immediately step forward with
your left foot and hop to bring your right foot to meet your left, landing first
on your right foot, then your left foot. Continue to alternate sashays after
each two regular steps forward. Before you try sashays on the treadmill, be sure
you can do them on the floor or other nonmoving surface!
- Minutes 11 to
14. Step-togethers: Think of this
move as walking sideways in a straight line. Raise the incline to 3.0 (Novice)
-- 6.0 (Master). Novice: Reduce
the treadmill's speed to 1.8-2.0 mph. Skilled: Reduce the treadmill's speed to
2.0-2.5 mph. Master: Set the
speed as you see fit. Hold the rail or bar with your left hand and turn your
body to the right, so that your left shoulder is closest to the bar and your
body is a quarter turn to the right. Leading with your left foot, step to the
side and then bring your right foot to meet your left. Do step-togethers on one
side for minutes 11 and 12, walk forward briskly for a few seconds, then switch
to the other side for the remainder of minutes 13 and 14. Advanced exercisers
can try hopping together instead of stepping together.
- Minutes 15 to
18. Keep the treadmill set at a
3.0-6.0 incline. Side-squat walking: Facing a quarter turn to the right on the
treadmill, place your hands on your thighs, bend your knees, and lower yourself
into a step-together. Hold a half-squat position as you walk sideways with your
left foot leading. Do side-squat walking leading with the left foot for minutes
15 and 16, walk forward briskly for a few seconds, then switch to the other side
for the remainder of minutes 17 and 18.
- Minutes 19 to
21. Depending on your fitness level,
keep the incline up or reduce it. Walk briskly as you hold your arms straight
over your head. For less of a challenge, place your hands behind your head. This
less-difficult variation still forces your core to work harder and makes a nice
little abs workout.
- Minutes 22 to
24. Incline walking: In accordance
with your fitness level, walk, jog, or run on an incline of 3, 4, or 5 to work
your glutes and hamstrings.
- Minute
25. Novice: Lower the incline and perform one
last blast of fitness walking. Skilled
and Master: Keep an
incline, but reduce the treadmill's speed (to 1.8-2.5 mph for Novice and Skilled
levels and up to 3.0 mph for Master). Holding the bars or rails, carefully turn 180 degrees so that your
back is to the rail or bar and you are walking "backward." Hold on to the rail
or bars as you walk backward -- you'll feel a burn in the front of your thighs.
Carefully turn until you're facing forward.
Minutes 26 to
20: Cooldown
- Repeat the
Warmup. Reduce the treadmill's incline.
Slow your pace even more until you are walking very slowly. Shake one leg, step,
step, shake the other leg, step, step. Repeat until you've shaken each leg 10 to
20 times.
- Take Two Deep
Breaths. Extend both arms over your head on
the inhalation and lower them on the exhalation.
Reprinted from: Tank Top Arms, Bikini Belly, Boy Shorts Bottom:
Tighten and Tone Your Body in as Little as 10 Minutes a Day by Minna
Lessig © 2007 by Rodale Inc. (April 2007;$18.95US/$22.95CAN; 978-1-59486-562-6)
Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books
are sold or directly from the publisher by calling at (800)
848-4735.
Author
Minna Lessig is a sought-after personal
trainer and an internationally recognized fitness supermodel who has been
featured on the covers and inside such magazines as Muscle and Fitness, Fit, and Women's Fitness International. The star
and creator of numerous best-selling workout videos, she lives in Virginia
Beach.
For more
information, please visit www.minnalessig.com
Boosting
Metabolism
By Joy
Bauer, MS, RD, CDN with Carol Svec
Authors of
Joy Bauer's Food
Cures
Clients -- and just about everyone
I meet who learns I'm a nutritionist -- ask me this question all the time: How
can I boost my metabolism?
Metabolism is simply the total of
all body processes that burn calories -- your basal metabolic rate plus your
activity factor. When it comes to improving your metabolism, there's good news
and bad news.
First the bad news: Most of what
controls your metabolism isn't under your control. Some people are genetically
blessed with a high-burning metabolism. They didn't ask for it, they were born
with it. (So don't hate them for it, unless, of course, they rub it in!) On
average, men have a metabolism that is 10 to 15 percent higher than women's,
mainly because of their larger size and greater muscle mass. Whether you're a
man or a woman, your metabolism naturally decreases with age. Scientists have
estimated that metabolism slows about 5 percent per decade, beginning at age 40,
as we lose muscle mass and increase body fat. Hypothyroidism (under-active
thyroid) lowers metabolism and causes weight gain. Fortunately in this case, if
a blood test confirms there's a problem, your doctor will prescribe medication
that can boost it back up to baseline.
Now the good news: Your metabolism
doesn't have to remain stagnant or take a nosedive. You can burn more calories,
lose more weight, just by changing the way you think about eating and
moving.
Food Fixes for
Metabolism
Remember -- our basal metabolic
rate includes the energy we need for body processes, including digestion. About
10 percent of our calories are used to process the food we eat. As the calories
are burned, our bodies generate heat. This phenomenon, known as the thermic effect of food, is influenced by
how much, how often, and what we eat. In addition, food can directly affect
metabolism by altering the way the body functions (which changes the amount of
energy it needs). Here are my best recommendations for maximizing
metabolism:
- Eat at least
1,000 calories per day. Although it is generally true
that eating a low-calorie diet will help you take off weight, if you eat too few
calories, your metabolism will get slower and slower as it tries to conserve
energy. As your metabolism crashes, the weight you take off will most likely
creep back on over time. Plus, you'll be more likely to binge on junk food if
you reduce your calories by too much.
- Eat every four
to five hours. A regular meal schedule helps
keep your body working to digest and absorb foods. Between breakfast and bed,
aim to eat a meal or snack every four to five hours. And try to eat breakfast
within 90 minutes of rising. People who regularly eat a
healthy breakfast
are more likely to control their weight. If you wait to eat until you're really
ravenous, you're more likely to overeat later in the day. Also breakfast helps
fire up your metabolism after a full night on a slow simmer.
- Eat protein
with every meal. All foods contribute to the
thermic effect, which means that all foods -- carbohydrates, fats, and proteins
-- help to give metabolism a gentle nudge higher when we eat them. But protein
has the greatest thermic effect of all. In addition, protein can increase
metabolism by helping to maintain and build muscle mass.
Exercise Fixes
for Metabolism
A big percentage of your
maintenance calories -- the amount you burn in the course of a clay -- comes
from your activity level. If you go from having average activity levels to being
extremely active, you can double the amount of calories burned (that's activity
factor calories, not BMR calories). This is why any activity -- every extra step you take
-- can help boost your metabolism. Part of my recommendation is to move as much
as possible: climb the stairs instead of taking the escalator, park at the
opposite end of the mall and walk to your favorite store, garden instead of
watching TV . . . anything, as long as it is movement.
In addition, I strongly encourage
everyone to exercise regularly. The optimal weight-loss exercise program
consists of both aerobic exercise and strength training. Regular exercise can
increase your activity factor and your metabolism. As you get older and your
metabolism slows, you can rebalance your energy needs by increasing the duration
or intensity of your workouts.
- Aerobic
exercise. Aerobic exercises use energy and
increase many different metabolic processes (such as your heart rate), all of
which burn calories. All aerobic activities -- including running, brisk walking,
swimming, skating, skiing, and cycling -- increase metabolism while you're exercising, and also keep
your metabolism burning higher for hours afterward. I recommend doing some form
of aerobic activity four or five days per week, for at least 30 minutes per day.
- Strength
training. Exercises that work your muscles
without necessarily raising heart rate are considered strength training. These
include lifting weights, working with resistance bands, yoga, Pilates, circuit
training, and calisthenics (including push-ups, chin-ups, and abdominal
crunches). These activities directly increase your BMR by building muscle, so
you will burn more calories every minute of every day. I recommend doing some
form of strength training two or three days per week. Plan a strength training
regimen that's realistic for both your schedule and personality. For some people
that may mean 15 minutes of calisthenics in the privacy of your bedroom, and for
others it may involve a more elaborate weight-training regimen at the gym.
Reprinted from:
Joy
Bauer's Food Cures: Treat Common Health Concerns, Look Younger & Live
Longer by Joy Bauer, MS, RD, CDN with Carol Svec. Copyright © 2007 Joy
Bauer, MS, RD, CDN.
(Published by Rodale; April 2007;$18.95US/$22.95CAN;
978-1-59486-466-7) Permission granted by
Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly
from the publisher by calling at (800) 848-4735.
Author
Joy Bauer, MS, RD,
CDN, is the
nutrition expert for the Today
show and Yahoo.com, and monthly weight-loss
columnist for SELF magazine. She
has built one of the largest nutrition centers in the country, with offices in
Manhattan and Westchester County, New York. Her clientele includes high-profile
professionals, celebrities, Olympic gold medalists, and the New York City
Ballet. The author of several best-selling books, she lives in New
York.
For more
information, please visit www.joybauernutrition.com.
True Stories of False
Memories
By Carol Tavris and Elliot
Aronson, authors of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by
Me)
False memories allow us to forgive
ourselves and justify our mistakes, but sometimes at a high price: an inability
to take responsibility for our lives. An appreciation of the distortions of
memory, a realization that even deeply felt memories might be wrong, might
encourage people to hold their memories more lightly, to drop the certainty that
their memories are always accurate, and to let go of the appealing impulse to
use the past to justify problems of the present. If we are to be careful about
what we wish for because it might come true, we must also be careful which
memories we select to justify our lives, because then we will have to live by
them.
Certainly one of the most powerful
stories that many people wish to live by is the victim narrative. Nobody has
actually been abducted by aliens (though experiencers will argue fiercely with
us), but millions have survived cruelties as children: neglect, sexual abuse,
parental alcoholism, violence, abandonment, the horrors of war. Many people have
come forward to tell their stories: how they coped, how they endured, what they
learned, how they moved on. Stories of trauma and transcendence are inspiring
examples of an resilience.
It is precisely because these
accounts are so emotionally powerful that thousands of people have been drawn to
construct "me, too" versions of them. A few have claimed to be Holocaust
survivors; thousands have claimed to be survivors of alien abduction; and tens
of thousands have claimed to be survivors of incest and other sexual traumas
that allegedly were repressed from memory until they entered therapy in
adulthood. Why would people claim to remember that they had suffered harrowing
experiences if they hadn't, especially when that belief causes rifts with
families or friends? By distorting their memories, these people can "get what
they want by revising what they had," and what they want is to turn their
present lives, no matter how bleak or mundane, into a dazzling victory over
adversity. Memories of abuse also help them resolve the dissonance between "I am
a smart, capable person" and "My life sure is a mess right now" with an
explanation that makes them feel good and removes responsibility: "It's not my
fault my life is a mess. Look at the horrible things they did to me." Ellen Bass
and Laura Davis made this reasoning explicit in The Courage to Heal. They tell readers who
have no memory of childhood sexual abuse that "when you first remember your
abuse or acknowledge its effects, you may feel tremendous relief. Finally there
is a reason for your problems. There is someone, and something, to
blame."
It is no wonder, then, that most of
the people who have created false memories of early suffering, like those who
believe they were abducted by aliens, go to great lengths to justify and
preserve their new explanations. Consider the story of a young woman named Holly
Ramona, who, after a year in college, went into therapy for treatment of
depression and bulimia. The therapist told her that these common problems were
usually symptoms of child sexual abuse, which Holly denied had ever happened to
her. Yet over time, at the urging of the therapist and then at the hands of a
psychiatrist who administered sodium amytal (popularly and mistakenly called
"truth serum"), Holly came to remember that between the ages of five and sixteen
she had been repeatedly raped by her father, who even forced her to have sex
with the family dog. Holly's outraged father sued both therapists for
malpractice, for "implanting or reinforcing false memories that [he] had
molested her as a child." The jury agreed, exonerating the father and finding
the therapists guilty.
This ruling put Holly in a state of
dissonance that she could resolve in one of two ways: She could accept the
verdict, realize that her memories were false, beg her father's forgiveness, and
attempt to reconcile the family that had been torn apart over her accusations.
Or she could reject the verdict as a travesty of justice, become more convinced
than ever that her father had abused her, and renew her commitment to
recovered-memory therapy. By far, the latter was the easier choice because of
her need to justify the harm she had caused father and the rest of her family.
To change her mind now would have been like turning a steamship around in a
narrow river -- not much room to maneuver and hazards in every direction; much
easier to stay the course. Indeed, Holly Ramona not only vehemently rejected the
verdict; she bolstered that decision by going to graduate school to become a
psychotherapist. The last we heard, she was encouraging some of her own clients
to recover memories of their childhood sexual abuse.
Yet every once in a while someone
steps forward to speak up for truth, even when the truth gets in the way of a
good, self-justifying story. It's not easy, because it means taking a fresh,
skeptical look at the comforting memory we have lived by, scrutinizing it from
every angle for its plausibility, and, no matter how great the ensuing
dissonance, letting go of it. For her entire adult life, for example, writer
Mary Karr had harbored the memory of how, as an innocent teenager, she had been
abandoned by her father. That memory allowed her to feel like a heroic survivor
of her father's neglect. But when she sat down to write her memoirs, she faced
the realization that the story could not have been true.
Copyright © 2007 by Carol Tavris
and Elliot Aronson from Mistakes
Were Made (But Not by Me); Published by Harcourt, Inc. May 2007;
$25.00US; 978-0-15-101098-1
Author
Carol Tavris is a social psychologist,
lecturer, and writer whose books include Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written
on psychological topics for the Los Angeles
Times, the New York
Times, Scientific
American, and many other publications. She is a Fellow of the
American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological
Science, and a member of the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public
Interest. She lives in Los Angeles.
Elliot
Aronson is one of the most distinguished
social psychologists in the world. His books include The Social Animal and The Jigsaw Classroom. Chosen by his peers
as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, he
was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the only
psychologist to have won all three of the American Psychological Association's
top awards -- for writing, teaching, and research. He lives in Santa Cruz,
California.
The following
is an excerpt from the book On Becoming Fearless
by Arianna
Huffington
Published by Little, Brown and
Company; April 2007;$12.99US/$16.50CAN; 978-0-316-16682-9
Copyright © 2007
Arianna Huffington
On Becoming a
Fearless Mother
Motherhood brings out reserves of
courage we never knew we had. Huffington Post commenter Deborah Daniels Wood
writes: "Being a mom is probably the one thing that will make most women
fearless. We would gladly step in front of a speeding train, a bullet, a raging
mad dog, whatever it was that was threatening our children."
That's how I got through
Isabella's eating issues. What helped me at the time, and has always helped me
in dealing with my fears, is that I have to be fearless for them, because there
is nothing that strikes fear in a child's heart faster than a fearful parent.
Knowing that you have to at least appear fearless for your children -- to convey
the assurance that everything is going to be all right -- can have the effect of
actually making you fearless.
Huffington Post reader Lia Hadley
sent me an e-mail about a trip she took to London with her then nine-year-old
daughter: "When we arrived at the airport, it was late in the evening, and we
had to take a long train ride into the center of the city. As we were waiting
for the train (with not another child in sight), my daughter began to cry
because it was all so strange, there were so many people, and it was dark and
way past her bedtime. Trying to show her that she didn't have to worry because,
hey, she was with her mom and a world traveler to boot, we had a discussion,
which at least calmed her to the point that she stopped crying. By the end of
the journey (five days later), she had had such a good time that she said she
wanted to move to London when she grew up."
Some time later, Lia asked her
daughter what had changed the London adventure from being scary to being fun. "I
think," she said, "it was because I realized that despite the fact that you got
lost all the time, we always managed to get to where we wanted to go. You would
ask all sorts of strangers for directions, and the people were so friendly and
so helpful, and we had such interesting conversations, that I realized being
lost can be a lot of fun."
When I look back at my own
childhood, my mother looms large as a teacher of fearlessness. Some of the ways
she taught fearlessness to my sister and me were more eccentric than
others.
One night when my sister and I
were in our teens, we were on our way to see Chekhov's Three Sisters. We walked out of the house,
closing the door behind us. My mother immediately realized that she'd forgotten
her purse inside -- the purse containing not only the tickets to the show and
her money but the key to the house. Any normal person would probably have
rearranged the night's priorities, canceling the theater and getting a locksmith
to open the door.
Not my mother. She didn't blink an
eye. She went to the superintendent's apartment, knocked on the door, and asked
him for some cash. We all climbed into a taxi, and when we arrived at the
theater, she went up to the box office and explained what had
happened.
They had us wait until everyone
had been seated, and then they gave us three empty seats. My sister, Agapi, and
I kept asking how we were going to get back into the house, to which my mother
would say, "Don't think about it, just enjoy the play [which we did, by the
way], and it will all work out."
It so happened that our apartment
in Athens was on the third floor, opposite the fire station. My mother had a
plan. When we got home, she went over to the firehouse and, in her charming way,
asked the firemen if they could please bring a ladder over to a window of our
apartment. Which they did. In short order, the window was open and we were in
the house. Of course, my mother then served them soup, and we all had a great
time!
I remember that night whenever I'm
faced with canceled flights, lost wallets, and plans gone awry. My mother was a
master at not ever panicking and trusting life to always give her solutions. She
preferred to live in the moment -- even if that moment was one in which she was
not in possession of the keys to her apartment -- with the assurance that it
would all work out. The ability to trust is an amazing quality, and it was deep
in her DNA. That trust and lack of fear paid her back well, keeping her open and
receptive to solutions.
For Diane von Furstenberg, the
most powerful lessons in fearlessness also came from her mother. Diane took the
fashion industry by storm in the seventies when she designed a little wrap dress
that launched a billion-dollar business. Thirty years and many ventures later,
she still credits her mother. "My mother," she told me, "always said that fear
is not an option. When I was eight years old she put me on a train from Brussels
to Paris on my own. I was very afraid, but I was also proud to arrive safely at
my destination. My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and when she was freed from
the concentration camp by the Russians in 1945, she weighed forty-nine pounds.
It took me a very long time to realize the enormity of what she had been through
and of my heritage -- and the way she had been able to turn such pain into
something positive. I grew up with a legacy that life is a miracle and that I'm
the daughter of a survivor, not a victim. So when I'm in pain or in fear, I look
through it for the light and the fearlessness."
When there are dead ends there are
also U-turns, and if we don't panic, bridges can appear -- we just need to trust
that there is a way. And there is always a way. That knowledge is a gift of
fearlessness we can model for our kids.
Not All Fears
are Created Equal
If courage is the knowledge of
what is not to be feared, there is nothing like becoming a mother to help us
prioritize and recognize how trivial many of our fears are compared to what
really matters.
Janet Grillo, a writer-producer
living in Los Angeles whose son has autism, told me: "The biggest fear a mother
has is that her child will become damaged. That the perfect wonder of her baby
will be undone somehow. That she will turn her head just at the moment he slips.
That the spill of scalding coffee, the outturned handle of a pot, the stray
pill, will find her child. I don't know if the vaccines I insisted upon, as a
responsible parent following responsible medical advice, caused him harm. Or if
the antibiotics prescribed to fight off strep did him in. Or if the toxins in
the air and water that pervade everything we eat and breathe crescendoed, after
generations, to a breaking point. Or if it was none of this, but maybe my son's
genetic destiny, a ticking clock that would strike when he turned two no matter
what I did or did not do. Or perhaps my fear itself called it forth, as some
sort of extraordinary response from an unkind God.
"What I do know is that when my
alert, engaged, charming, and vivacious son turned two, he began, hour by hour,
day by day, to drift away. As if by helium, he lifted away from us, from our
family, from our world, and inward toward a remote and private
place."
It was the hardest and most
frightening thing Janet and her husband, film director David O. Russell, had
ever faced. But, Janet told me, "Ultimately, faith and fear could not coexist.
One had to eventually prevail out of this eternal pull. I simply did not have
the luxury to feel fear. Fear had become, in the face of my child's immediate
need, an indulgence. He was here and autism was engulfing him, and I could
either reach beyond myself and into the fog that gripped him and pull him out or
I could continue fearing that I would lose him. Fear had to fall by the wayside.
And faith is what emerged in the tiny triumphs of his returned
gaze."
Children clearly help us tap into
this faith, the source of the life force that vaporizes fears. They help us see
the world in a more trusting way and discover a love we did not know was
possible.
Copyright ©
2007 Arianna Huffington
Author
Arianna Huffington has written eleven
widely praised books, appeared on numerous television and radio shows, and
founded the Huffington Post, an enormously successful online source of news and
opinion. In 2006 she was chosen as one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential
People in the World." She wrote this book for her two daughters, in the hope
that they will lead fearless lives.
The Sneaky Chef
Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals
By Missy Chase
Lapine
Published by Running Press
April 2007;$17.95US/$21.50CAN;
978-0-7624-3075-8
If you think
your kids will never eat anything healthy -- think again!
Learn how to make the meals your
children already love -- but with secret sneaky ingredients that pack a healthy
punch. Your kids will never suspect that there's blueberries pureed into their
brownies, cauliflower in their mac 'n' cheese, or sweet potatoes in their
lasagna -- but they'll love every bite! Here are simple, practical recipes and
techniques that will help every busy parent create healthy meals for the whole
family.
"Sneaky"
recipes include:
Masterful Mac 'n' Cheese · Power
Pizza · Incognito Burritos · Hi-Fi Fish Sticks
Guerilla Grilled Cheese ·
Brainy Brownies
5-minute quick fixes for Jello® and other kid-popular
mixes
And much more!
Author
Missy Chase Lapine is the former publisher
of Eating Well magazine and the
founder of the natural baby product line Baby Spa®. A mother of two daughters,
she started experimenting in both her professional and family kitchen to create
The Sneaky Chef recipes. She is
on the Culinary Arts faculty of The New School, in New York City, and also
offers Sneaky Chef workshops, cooking classes, and coaching to teach families
how to eat healthier. Lapine lives with her family in Westchester, New York.
For more
information, please visit www.thesneakychef.com
Edging Into
Exercise
By Martha
Beck, PhD
Author of
The Four Day
Win
One of my all-time favorite
clients was a professional baseball player I’ll call Dan, who was making the
transition from athletics to civilian life. Dan was an impressive specimen in
every way: smart, funny, energetic, and incredibly fit. At the time he consulted
me, I was doing a lot of my usual traveling and public speaking. Between my
erratic scheduling, sleep loss, lack of access to healthy food, and adrenal
burnout, I’d gained several pounds and fallen off all the various wagons of
healthy eating and exercise habits. I kept meaning to cut back on the flan and
get back to regular exercise, but I never seemed to find the time or energy.
Then one day, when we were talking about his baseball career, Dan tossed out an
offhand comment that would change my muscle tone forever.
“Ninety percent of being in
shape,” he said, “is getting to the gym.”
For me it was, as Oprah might say,
a lightbulb moment. Right then and there, I decided that I would re-establish a
pattern of going to the gym -- not doing anything at the gym, just getting there. So the next day, I dropped
off my kids at school and drove directly to the gym, where I parked my car,
listened to a song on my favorite radio station, started the car again, and went
home. The next day I did the same thing . . . and the next . . . and the
next.
By the 4th day, my new daymap
pattern came very easily -- my brain and body expected to drive to the gym after taking
the kids to school. Then I knew I could safely up the ante -- a little. For the next 4 days, after
arriving at the gym, I went in and pedaled a stationary bike for approximately 3
minutes, just long enough to listen to another favorite song on my MP3 player.
My next 4-day win consisted of increasing my pedaling sessions to 7 minutes (two
songs). When that felt habitual, I added one round of circuit training with
light weight to my cycling routine (I bought a few new tunes from the Internet
as a reward).
After the third 4-day win,
something rather dramatic happened. I’d been increasing my workout by tiny
increments, but suddenly, my body took over and decided it loved the gym. I no longer needed a reward
for showing up and exercising; in fact, I felt edgy and disappointed if I didn’t
get a chance to lift weights (please remember, I’d previously chosen this form
of exercise because I find it inherently enjoyable). Despite the chaos of my
schedule, my sometimes-crippling autoimmune disease, and my utter athletic
ineptitude, I’m now something of a gym rat.
Whatever your preferred exercise,
you can increase your own activity to healthy levels by using a similar 4-day
win strategy. As your very first action on your 4-day win exercise program, I’d
like you to modify your daymap so that you show up in an appropriate place to
exercise, at approximately the same time, for 4 consecutive days. What exercise you choose to do is less important than
your arrival at the designated location.
Reprinted from: The Four Day
Win: End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace by Martha Beck, PhD.
Copyright © 2007 Martha Beck. (January 2007;$25.95US/$33.95CAN;
9781594866074) Permission granted by Rodale,
Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the
publisher by calling at (800) 848-4735.
Author
Martha Beck, PhD, is a Harvard-educated
life coach and monthly columnist for O, The
Oprah Magazine. She is the author of the bestsellers Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You
Were Meant to Live and the memoir Expecting Adam. She lives in Phoenix,
Arizona, with her family. Her hobbies include excessive viewing of the Discovery
Channel, occasional pondering, and naps.
She can be
contacted at www.MarthaBeck.com.
The following
is an excerpt from the book Cholesterol Down
by Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D.,
R.D., LDN
Published by Three Rivers Press; December
2006;$13.95US/$17.95CAN; 978-0-307-33911-9
Copyright © 2006 Janet Brill,
Ph.D.
The Whole-Grain Goodness of
Oatmeal
A patient once said to me, “My grandfather
ate oatmeal every morning of his life and he lived to be a hundred.” My response
was “Do what your grandfather did.”
Whole-grain oats are tasty and inexpensive,
and have a long history of health benefits. This simple grain has been shown to
lower cholesterol and blood pressure, normalize blood sugar, appease the
appetite, and ameliorate intestinal problems. Remember the oat bran craze of the
1980s? That phenomenon grew out of an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence
that began to build during the 1960s, linking oat consumption with dramatic
declines in blood cholesterol.
What
Makes a Grain Whole?
Whole grains are kernels of grain that are
consumed with all three naturally occurring components still intact: the outer
fiber-rich bran layer, the middle energy-packed endosperm, and the inner
nutrient-rich germ layer. The outer bran holds the mineral cache, with up to 80
percent of all the minerals found in the kernel concentrated in this coating.
The bran also contains fiber, protein, and some B vitamins. The endosperm is a
pocket of energy-yielding starch (complex carbohydrate), some protein, iron, and
a minuscule amount of B vitamins, all used to nourish the growing seedling. The
germ is packed with a gold mine of vitamins including vitamin E (wheat germ is
one of the richest sources of vitamin E), B vitamins (especially high in
folate), some trace minerals (iron, magnesium, selenium, and potassium), fiber,
and phytosterols (plant hormones that lower cholesterol).
Why whole
grains are best
When grains are milled or refined, they are
stripped of the outer bran and germ layers and thus lose many of the naturally
occurring vitamins and minerals, healthful fats, and phytonutrients. Processing
leaves behind only the starchy endosperm. In 1942 the U.S. government passed a
law requiring iron and B vitamin enrichment of processed grains to combat
vitamin deficiency as a result of eating refined products, devoid of their
natural lode of vitamins and minerals. This is why when you purchase a refined
grain product such as white bread or white rice (made solely from the endosperm
of grains), it will by law be “enriched,” meaning a few nutrients have been
added back -- often niacin, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, and folate.
Unfortunately, what are lost in the processing and not required to be replaced
are wholesome nutrients such as fiber, vitamin E, several B vitamins, potassium,
minerals such as manganese, magnesium, copper, and zinc, and various healthful
phytochemicals such as lignans, flavonoids, and saponins. Clearly, whole grains
are the far superior choice over refined grains for fiber, vitamins, minerals,
and other important nutrients.
Whole
Grains for Good Health
A diet rich in whole grains -- rather than
highly processed, refined grains -- has been linked with reduced risk of heart
disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain types of cancers, as well
as with lower blood pressure and improved bowel function.
The connection between whole grains and
heart health is where the science is particularly strong, with a huge body of
research backing the notion that diets high in whole grains reduce your risk for
heart disease. Data from the Iowa Women’s Health Study have provided sound
evidence that whole grains keep a woman’s cardiovascular system in good health,
even after menopause. Researchers took detailed dietary and health histories
from 34,492 postmenopausal women between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-nine
and followed them over a nine-year period. The women who consumed the most
servings of whole grains had more than a 30 percent decrease in risk of death
from heart disease than the women who ate less than one serving per
day.
Whole grains also stop inflammation of the
arteries, according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition. Inflammation is
related to plaque buildup, or atherosclerosis. C-reactive protein is a protein
circulating in the bloodstream that is used by doctors as a marker for
inflammation and a predictor of future cardiovascular disease (a value above 3
mg/L is considered indicative of high risk for heart disease). Analyses of
almost 4,000 American men and women showed that the higher the fiber intake
(whole grains are one of the best sources of dietary fiber), the lower the blood
concentration of C-reactive protein.
What’s good for the heart is also good for
the brain, according to a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School. As
part of the famed Nurses’ Health Study, 75,521 women nurses between the ages of
thirty-eight and sixty-three were followed for ten years, providing dietary and
health data at four separate intervals. The study found that nurses who ate two
to three servings of whole grains daily were 43 percent less likely to have an
ischemic stroke (blockage of the artery feeding the brain) than those women
eating less than one serving per day.
The benefits of whole grains are not just
for women -- eating whole grains helps men live longer and healthier lives, too.
Boston researchers examined associations between whole-grain cereal intake and
risk of death from all causes in data drawn from 86,190 U.S. male physicians
participating in the Physicians’ Health Study. Researchers followed the
physicians over a period averaging five and a half years. Higher whole-grain
cereal consumption compared to refined grains was found to significantly reduce
the risk of dying not only from heart disease but in fact from all
causes.
How much
whole-grain food should you eat?
The most recent U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) food guide pyramid (http://www.mypyramid.gov) recommends consuming three whole-grain servings daily. If you’re
like most Americans, though, your whole-grain intake is woefully short of this
goal. According to the USDA, on average we barely even get in one wholegrain
serving per day, with only roughly 7 percent of Americans eating three a day.
The reason, say some nutrition scientists, is that Americans have become lazy
about cooking and eating whole grains because they take longer to cook, chew,
and digest than refined grains. Perhaps it is also true that outside of your
grocery or health food store, whole grains are nearly impossible to find. When
is the last time you ordered quinoa at McDonald’s?
My advice is that you don’t follow the path
of the 46 percent of all adults who eat no whole grains at all. Instead, try to
get in at least three servings each day to increase your fiber and nutrient
intake and begin reaping the plethora of health benefits. Eating a morning bowl
of oatmeal is a great first step to get you a third of the way there.
The
Cholesterol-Lowering Power of Oats
Scientists have long recognized that oats
lower cholesterol, especially “bad” LDL cholesterol, and have proven it in at
least fifty studies in humans over forty years of research. Furthermore, oats
reduce LDL cholesterol without a concurrent reduction in the level of “good” HDL
cholesterol -- and may even raise HDL. Some time ago, researchers at the
University of California, Davis, performed a study in which 84 grams (roughly 3
ounces) of oat bran (the most soluble fiber-rich portion of oats) were added to
the subjects’ usual low-fat diet. LDL cholesterol fell an amazing 17 percent in
just six weeks.
Why should you choose oatmeal over a refined
wheat cereal such as Special K for breakfast? Researchers at Colorado State
University showed that eating oats can change the characteristics of LDL
particles to a more desirable fatter and fluffier shape. Thirty six subjects
were given either an oat cereal or a wheat cereal for twelve weeks. Not only did
the amount of dangerous small, dense LDL particles drop considerably in the
oat-eating group, but members also showed beneficially altered LDL particle
size. This change protects you against heart disease because the smaller or
denser LDL particles are more susceptible to oxidation, have less of an affinity
for the liver LDL receptors (recall that the receptors are the only way out of
the bloodstream for LDL), remain in the bloodstream longer than larger LDL
particles, and can slip into the arterial wall easier.
Copyright © 2006 Janet Brill,
PH.D.
Author
Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D.,
R.D., LDN, is a registered and licensed dietitian/nutritionist,
exercise physiologist, and certified wellness coach. She has been published in
the International Journal of
Obesity and the International
Journal of Sport Nutrition, as well as in the popular
press.
Send Love Letters To Your
Kids
By Bernie
Siegel, MD
Author of
Love, Magic &
Mudpies
Smile at your
children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will
help you to grow up in greater love for each other.
--Mother
Teresa
It's not enough
to love your kids. You have to tell them that you love them. They need
your love poem tattooed on their hearts so they can take it with them wherever
they go. The famous poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, "I love you not for
what you are but for what I am when I am with you." That's the essence of a
family. Let your children know that their mere presence makes your life better
every day and that they don't have to do anything other than be themselves to
make the world a better place. That is what makes your life and theirs
meaningful. Don't just say it; write it down for them. Words seem to carry more
weight when they are on paper. Write love letters to your kids, send cards, and
leave notes for them around the house.
Today, while
searching through some desk drawers, I found a passage from a poem called "I'm
So Proud of You," by Ruthann Tholen, that we sent to our children on Valentine's
Day 1993. "When I held you as a child it was like taking up in my arms all of my
hopes for the future," the poem begins. "I wondered then what you would become,
and you haven't let me down.
"My child, you
are a person to be proud of. You are sensitive, but strong, with the courage to
follow your own path, to know and do what is right for you. The love between us
needs few words, but is the foundation for all we give by being there, by
sharing time and effort, by our talks, and by our caring. I'm proud when you
accomplish things, but even prouder of the way you live. Whether you win or
lose, you do it with dignity and integrity and humanity, and I respect that.
From your own efforts, there has grown a deep goodness in you. I can wish
nothing more than that your life will hold a future of
happiness."
We signed each
note, "I love you, and I'm very glad you are my child."
I can assure
you that poem is going out again. I know our children will be pleased to
remember when they first received it, and that it will encourage them and
underscore how much they are loved as they face their own challenges with their
families.
While you're
spreading love around, be sure to tell all of your family members, your
neighbors, and your kids' teachers how highly you think of your children and how
much you love them. Why? Because the word will get back to your kids, and they
will know you weren't saying it to them just to make them feel better. If you
are telling it to everyone, they'll believe that you must really mean it. And
they will be right.
How to Make the
Magic: Get a book of poetry and and some
meaningful poems to read or send to your children. Share them with all of your
kids, whether they're still sitting in high chairs or facing them, feeding kids
of their own. If you're having trouble with one, give him or her a poem anyway.
Do it today. Then go through your calendar and make a note to give them another
one on each and every holiday. After all, no matter what conflicts arise, they
will always be your children, and you still have the right to love them, and
they deserve to be loved.
Reprinted from:
Love, Magic & Mudpies: Raising Your Kids
to Feel Loved, Be Kind, and Make a Difference by Bernie Siegel, MD ©
2006 Bernie Siegel, MD. (November 2006; $17.95US/$21.95CAN; 1-59486-554-X)
Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books
are sold or directly from the publisher by calling at (800)
848-4735.
Author
Bernie S. Siegel, MD, was born in Brooklyn,
New York. For many, Bernie needs no introduction. In 1978, he began talking
about patient empowerment and the choice to live fully and die in peace. In
1986, his first book, Love, Medicine &
Miracles was published; the book became a worldwide bestseller and
redirected his entire life. Bernie and his wife, Bobbie, have five children and
eight grandchildren. In times past, their home outside of New Haven,
Connecticut, with its many children, pets, and interests, has resembled a cross
between a family art gallery, museum, zoo, and automobile repair shop. It still
resembles these things, although the children are trying to improve its
appearance in order to avoid embarrassment.
For more
information, please visit www.berniesiegelmd.com.
Keeping your
Post-holiday Spirits Up and your Weight Down
By Judith J. Wurtman, PhD, and Nina Frusztajer Marquis,
MD
Authors of The
Serotonin Power Diet
To recoup from the holidays, what
you need most cannot be found at any post-holiday sale. Although you might get
some great deals on some fantastic stuff, serotonin will leave you, and your
credit card account, in better shape.
Serotonin is a brain chemical with
two important functions. First, it balances your mood. This is why so many
antidepressants, like Prozac, and other mood stabilizers have their effect via
serotonin. The other important function of serotonin is to shut off your
appetite. It is appetite, not hunger, that leads you to eat when you’re bored,
stressed, or tempted by delicious foods around you. Appetite-induced overeating,
not hunger, can add extra pounds and make it difficult to lose weight. And if
you feel a post-holiday let-down, you’re exhausted, or you’re feeling a bit down
because of the dark days of winter, you’re even more likely to overeat to soothe
your emotions, your mood, or both. Under these circumstances, few people opt for
steamed vegetables and broiled fish as they eat to comfort themselves. You’ve
been there before and most likely you’ve chosen high fat sweet or salty foods
like ice cream, potato chips, cookies, buttery mashed potatoes, pasta alfredo,
or donuts. Eat more than a few nibbles of these foods and before you know it
your weight is out of control. The good news is that certain foods can cut your
appetite and make you feel good because of their effect on serotonin production.
The key is to eat the right foods at the right times in the right amounts to
make the serotonin you need.
You may have seen serotonin or one
of it’s building blocks such as 5-HTP or tryptophan sold as supplements at a
health food store, but don’t waste your money buying them. They will do nothing
to get more serotonin into the brain. The only way to give your brain more
serotonin is to eat sweet and starchy carbohydrates. (Of note is that the sugar
in fruit, fructose, will NOT increase serotonin in your
brain).
This is great news for anyone who
wrongly believes that they should avoid carbohydrates because they’re either bad
for you or they’ll make you gain weight. Eating carbohydrates sets off a series
of biochemical reactions that allows the brain to make serotonin. The
carbohydrates need to be fat free or low fat because fat slows the process of
making serotonin. And too much dietary fat can make you feel sluggish. Also, in
order for the brain to make serotonin, you must eat carbohydrates without
protein. While protein is an important component of a healthy diet, it
interferes with the brain’s ability to make serotonin.
What you need to do is simple: eat
carbohydrates when serotonin levels are naturally lower and when you’re more
susceptible to overeating. For nearly everyone, it is late afternoon and
evening. That’s when we crave carbohydrates anyway and explains the long lines
at Starbuck’s in the afternoons. Our clients are thrilled to learn they can have
pretzels or fat free cookies as an afternoon snack and then dine on low fat
carbohydrate dishes like pasta marinara sprinkled with parmesan cheese or a
large bowl of butternut squash soup with crusty bread followed by fat free hot
chocolate and vanilla wafers. This afternoon and evening comfort food soothes
the appetite and makes you feel good when otherwise you would suffer from
cravings and a bad mood.
Make sure you have protein and, if
you choose, fruit, in the early parts of the day. Then, when you need a
serotonin boost, for example late in the afternoon, in the evening, or during
periods of stress, eat fat free or low fat carbohydrates.
Before dinner, have a handful of
pretzels or crackers. This will take the edge off your appetite. You’ve probably
done something similar in a restaurant when the bread basket came. You munched
on a few pieces and by the time your appetizer and entrée were served you
weren’t nearly as hungry as when you placed your order. Next time, order two
appetizers or just an entrée and eat some bread while you’re waiting to be
served. At home, try a starchy meal like polenta with sautéed mushrooms and a
dollop of sour cream for dinner to boost your evening serotonin. Or, if others
at home want some meat, chicken, or fish for dinner, have a bite or two then
save the rest of your portion for lunch the next day. Opt for lots of vegetables
for good nutrients and wholesome starches like brown rice, sweet potatoes, and
whole wheat bread or pasta.
Feeling calm and getting control
of your eating will allow you to move beyond the holiday season with your own
spirits restored and your weight in check. Serotonin is the gift that keeps on
giving all year long.
Copyright © 2006
Judith J. Wurtman, PhD, and Nina Frusztajer Marquis, MD
Author
Judith J. Wurtman, PhD, has been recognized
worldwide for decades of pioneering research into the relationship of food,
mood, brain, and appetite. Dr. Wurtman received her PhD in cell biology from MIT
and took additional training as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in nutrition/obesity.
The author of five books for the general public, she has written more than 40
peer-reviewed articles for professional publications.
Nina Frusztajer
Marquis, MD, received her master's degree in
nutrition from Columbia University and her medical degree from George Washington
University. Her articles on weight, stress, and lifestyle have appeared
in numerous publications. With Judith Wurtman, she founded the Adara Weight Loss
Centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives, and in Boston, where Dr.
Wurtman resides.
They are the authors of The Serotonin Power Diet: Use Your Brain’s Natural
Chemistry to Cut Cravings, Curb Emotional Overeating, and Lose
Weight. Published by Rodale. January 2007; $24.95US/$31.00CAN;
1-59486-346-6.
For more
information, please visit www.serotoninpowerdiet.com
Chapter
17
The Five
Wealth Factors
There are five Wealth Factors that
cumulatively determine your real financial wealth. Let’s walk through each of
these five Wealth Factors in turn and see how you can use this understanding to
speed you on your way to becoming a Maui Millionaire.
Wealth Factor
One: Cash Flow
Cash flow is the money that flows
to you. This could be a paycheck, an owner’s draw, a check at the closing when
you sell a property, or a quarterly distribution from a passive partnership. The
distinguishing feature to this form of wealth is that it is liquid money -- cash
-- that comes to you.
There are three main types of cash
flow that we’re interested in at the moment:
1.
Earned
income, also known as active cash
flow.
2.
Passive
cash flow.
3.
Passive
residual cash flow.
Earned
Income:
Earned income is active cash flow
that you work for day after day. Most people’s main source of wealth comes from
earned income, whether this be wages or salary they earn from working a job or
net profit they generate from running a business. Please understand one very
important fact. You will almost never become wealthy from earned income alone.
Why not? Because the way our culture works is that the more you work and earn in
the form of earned income, the harder it is for you to become financially free
just from this source of income alone.
Earned income is like sugar. It
gives you a jolt of energy but leaves you feeling empty and tired. Earned income
comes in and out of your life so quickly that it often makes it harder to become wealthy. We know this is
counterintuitive, but still we've observed this in the lives of many of the
people who've come to us for coaching to become wealthy.
Here is the sad cycle we’ve
observed build up and repeat in so many people’s lives. They focus on getting
the right job or profession so that they can earn a good salary (earned income.)
As they start to earn more they begin to spend more. In fact, not only do they
spend on those nice little extras like a trip here or a meal out there, but they
also spend on things that create a higher fixed cost of living. They buy a
bigger house; they make payments on two or three nicer cars; they send their
kids to expensive private schools. These are the things that have payments due
month after month, year after year. Once they acquire these things it is very
difficult to ever stop paying for them. The higher their cost of living goes up,
especially their fixed cost of living, the more they feel trapped in the rat
race of working to support their lifestyle. They are forced to work long hours
just to keep from falling too far behind.
We want you to imagine that earned
income is like sugar. It tastes sweet but burns fast. It doesn’t last. And in
its wake it leaves you craving more. To get your next sugar fix, you’re forced
to go back to a job you don’t love, to spend 8 to 12 hours with people you may
not enjoy, come home tired and stressed, so that the next morning you can wake
up and repeat the process.
Most people are addicted to sugar
and living their life on a treadmill chasing after their next month's sugar.
And, if you can imagine its
possible, things are actually even worse for those people who live off the sugar
of earned income. It is the heaviest taxed form of income! This means that for
every dollar you earn of earned income you are paying from 15 to 50 percent more
tax than if it was another form of income. This means you have to work even
harder just to keep from flying off the back end of the treadmill. Is it any
wonder so many people feel that the harder they work the further and further
they are falling behind?
Think about the average high
earner for a moment. They may earn $200,000 to $500,000 or more in income, but
they end up paying 45 to 55 percent or more of this in taxes at the state and
federal level. They tend to spend more than they earn supporting a lifestyle
that has little or no enduring value, but has high fixed costs to maintain. They
spend on things like big houses and fancy cars and impressive vacations. They
live a life of instant gratification (also know as a fast high) where they live
in a peer group of other spenders (also known as environmental pressure to use)
where day by day they have to work harder and harder to maintain the lifestyle
they no longer feel they have the time or energy to enjoy. Welcome to the rat
race!
Remember, active income is just
like sugar. It provides calories, but these are empty calories, that sustain
people but don't nourish them. And like sugar, active income burns fast and is
highly addictive. And as with any addictive substance, we start to build a
tolerance for it -- and continually spend more and more. Once the cycle can no
longer be maintained, when a person no longer has the active income to support a
lifestyle habit, there are massive withdrawal pains.
When you're living on the edge,
addicted to sugar, scared to get off the treadmill for fear it will all come
crashing down, you are caught in the rat race. If you're poor, then you struggle
to survive, to just get through the day. If you're middle income, then you
struggle to make ends meet each month. And if you're a high earner, you may the
king rat, but you have a hidden struggle to keep up appearances.
Understand this. If you must work to feed your lifestyle then you
are still in the rat race. There is a simple test to see where you currently
stand. If you stopped working for income, would you still have the passive,
residual cash flow to support your lifestyle? If the answer is no, then you are
running in the rat race.
There is nothing wrong with the
rat race. All Maui Millionaires started out there, but they all made a conscious
commitment to escape as quickly as possible. And you can do the same thing. So
what’s the way out of the rat race? To invest and grow the other four wealth
factors, and to cultivate healthier types of cash flow (aka passive cash flow
and passive residual cash flow.)
Maui Millionaires know how
important it is to use active income to invest in accumulating the assets that
generate the passive, residual income they need to support their lifestyle in a
healthy way.
Here’s the bottom line -- Maui
Millionaires know that earned income is only one of the five wealth factors, and
in fact it is the least important. We hope you find this encouraging if you are
on the front end of your wealth building.
Passive Cash
Flow
It’s time to talk about the next
type of cash flow -- passive cash flow. Passive cash flow is money that flows to
you without your having to actively work to get it. Now with any investment it
takes some time to set it up and to oversee it, so we have created the litmus
test for whether or not a specific stream of income is passive or active.
Passive cash flow is income that flows to you with your having to work less than
10 hours per month to maintain that income stream.
While that 10-hour limitation is
arbitrary (we could have chosen 12 hours or 8 hours) it has come out of our
personal experiences building wealth and coaching other people to build great
wealth.
Your goal is to generate enough
passive cash flow so that you never have to work again. When you reach this
place you now are financially free. Chances are you’ll still work, but you’ll do
this out of choice and freedom not out of constraint and desperation.
A Simple Story
That Explains the Fundamental Secret of the World’s Wealthiest
People
Most of you will remember the old
folk tale of the goose that laid the golden egg. It seems there was this farmer
who one morning made the incredible discovery that one of his geese had laid a
golden egg. He took in his precious discovery to show his wife who hovered over
him as they weighed their valuable egg. To the delight of both of them, the next
morning their amazing goose produced another golden egg.
Well, this grew to be a regular
occurrence, with the goose producing one single golden egg each morning. Finally
the farmer’s wife grew upset over waiting for that stingy goose to only give
them one egg each day. So she convinced her husband to butcher the goose and get
all the golden eggs in one fell swoop. And reaching for his ax, that is exactly
what the farmer did. Only to his and his wife’s dismay, they found that once the
deed was done that there were no more eggs inside the goose at all. We like to
think of this as a metaphor describing one of the key lessons for wealth
builders: If you are investing solely for capital gains, then you are investing
by fattening up and slaughtering your goose. This may work to eat well for one
fine meal, but to eat over the long term you would do better to gather the eggs
month after month, year after year.
So what is the difference between
investing for capital gains and investing for residual cash flow? Well, capital
gains comes when you sell an asset you own. And as you can figure out, once you
sell something you no longer are able to sell it again or use it to earn ongoing
income. Residual cash flow, on the other hand, are things like quarterly
disbursements of profits from a business partnership, or monthly cash flow from
an investment property. It is something you get again and again and again,
provided the goose (read asset) is properly fed and cared for. One way to see
your role in building wealth is that of a breeder and caretaker of golden geese.
Why It Isn't
Enough to Create Passive Income
The key point is that forced
appreciation takes time and energy to realize. It is the foundation of most
great fortunes. But it should not be the stopping point.
Passive,
Residual Cash Flow:
We’ve already talked about the
need to create passive cash flow if you want to be financially free, but now we
need to drill down even deeper. You can make passive cash flow in the form of a
lump sum payment you receive when you sell off an asset you own but didn’t take
more than 10 hours per month to oversee. But while this money may be passive, it
still is just a one time payment and not a secure income stream. Going back to
our folk tale, it's a slaughtered goose and not the daily golden eggs. No matter
how delicious that goose may be, it still won't feed you forever.
This is why Maui Millionaires know
that they need to create not just passive cash flow, but more importantly,
passive residual cash flow.
Passive, residual cash flow is money that flows to you each month or quarter,
year after year. It is out of passive, residual cash flow that true financial
freedom is built.
So which is better, capital gains
or residual cash flow? The answer is that you need both! Early on in your wealth
building you will be investing for what is called “forced appreciation.” This is
where you buy or build an asset and put in energy and work to vastly increase
the value of that asset. For example, you might buy a foreclosure house for a 40
percent discount in price, fix it up, then resell it for a large profit. The
house you paid $300,000 for was worth $500,000 when you sold it. This is an
example of forced appreciation. You forced the asset to be $200,000 more
valuable because you both fixed it up and you changed the circumstances of the
person owning it. Now that you have created this equity you might tap into it by
selling (capital gain) and buying an even bigger property.
Another example of forced
appreciation comes when you grow a business. In the early years you put in sweat
equity to grow the market and your business’s share of that market, knowing that
if you are successful, you will be rewarded hundreds of times over for your time
and effort. Many Maui Millionaires made their first fortune by starting and
building a successful business of their own. For example, Stephanie and Jack,
two Maui Millionaires from California, invested 17 years to build their thriving
manufacturing business. Today that business is worth well over $15 million.
Once you reach a certain point you
need to transition your wealth focus from forced appreciation to creating
passive, residual cash flow.
Copyright © 2007 David Finkel and
Diane Kennedy
Author
David Finkel is one of the nation's most
respected wealth masters. A former Olympic-level athlete, he is a self-made
multimillionaire and the cocreator of Maui Mastermind, the world's most
exclusive wealth retreat. He is also the bestselling author of five financial
books, including The Real Estate Fast
Track, from Wiley, and his how-to financial articles have appeared in
periodicals across the United States.
Diane
Kennedy, CPA, is a top financial author and
investing expert. She is the founder and owner of DKA, a leading tax strategy
and accounting firm. A past recipient of the prestigious Blue Chip Enterprise
Award, Kennedy is also the author of Loopholes of the Rich and coauthor of
The Insider's Guide to Real Estate Investing
Loopholes, both from Wiley.