Hello.

I have just started my blog on this site. I have a site on blogger.com called “Hey, I’m Just Trying To Make a Living.”

I began blogging on that site several months ago and decided to try to mirror at this site. However, for some reason those blogs aren’t coming here.

If you are interested in ways to prevent FORCLOSURE or a discussion on WEIGHT LOSS. There are blogs on those sites which are referenced to some expert assistance.

I will try to figure out the problem porting to this site so that information, ideas, thoughts, suggestions I encounter or have can seamlessly come here.

We live but to learn and serve others, God and family first.

Best of the New Year to you and yours.

The Bear (#1)

10 Changes To Your Diet That Will Instantly Make it 90% Better
By: Jayson Hunter RD, CSCS
www.mealplans101.com

Most individuals do not eat like they are supposed to. Out of those individuals 95% of them don’t realize that by making 10 simple changes to their eating lifestyle they can improve their diet by 90% along with improving their health and overall well-being.

Apply these changes to your diet today and you too will be experiencing an increased benefit to your health, probable weight loss, a leaner body, and likely improvements to your blood profile. This all equals a longer healthier life.

Now let’s get started so you can benefit from these 10 simple changes that everyone can make immediately.

1. Hydration: Is there a difference
Consume Green Tea or Water instead of calorie filled drinks such as soft drinks. Green Tea has many health benefits and is a powerful antioxidant. You should be drinking 1ml of non-caffeinated fluid for every calorie that you consume. This works out between (8-12) 8oz glasses of Green Tea or Water a day.

2. Benefits of Fiber
Recommend consuming 25-35 grams of fiber per day. Since the average diet contains only 14 grams we could all use more fiber. Fiber will help satisfy hunger pangs as well as control insulin and blood sugar levels which tend to promote fat storage when they are elevated. By simply eating at least 1 serving of fruit and vegetables at every meal should get you to the goal of 25-35 grams of fiber per day.

3. The Importance of Protein
Eat lean protein sources which include; lean beef, chicken breasts, turkey breasts, salmon, low-fat cottage cheese and other low-fat dairy products, and whey protein powders, at every meal. This will also help control insulin levels and satisfy hunger pangs which tend to promote fat storage. You will find yourself naturally eating less food throughout the day if you eat some type of lean protein at every meal.

4. Frequent Meals: Why?
Eat 4-6 small meals day a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. Eating frequently will help regulate and boost your metabolism to burn more calories. By also including your protein and vegetables at these meals you will tend to eat less overall thereby reducing your calorie intake.

5. What are Whole Foods?
Consume whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar such as lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish, and whey protein), fruits & vegetables (oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, peppers, asparagus, carrots, nuts (almonds, cashews, & walnuts), and whole grains.
Try to minimize processed foods that come in a box or a bag. Instead choose whole grain choices such as whole wheat foods, oatmeals, and vegetables.

6. Healthy Fats: Yes, there are healthy fats
Consume adequate amounts of healthy fat foods such as olive oil, walnuts, almonds, or other Omega-3 products. Healthy fats are great antioxidants as well as help with brain function and many other essentials processes that take place in the body on a daily basis. Essential Fatty acids also help prevent certain diseases.

7. Superfoods
Include what I call “Superfoods” into your meal plan on a daily basis. These include but not entirely lean meat, salmon, low fat plain yogurt, tomatoes, spinach, mixed berries, whole oats, mixed nuts, olive oil, flax seeds(or flax meal), green tea, and various beans. These are just some of the “Superfoods” you should be incorporating into your daily meal plans.

8. Fat
Keep total fat intake under 30% for the day. This can be accomplished by not adding too many extra fats such as butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to completely eliminate these items, but do not eat them as a regular food item every day.

9. Food Log: Yes, this is the most important step
Record what you eat and drink. You will be amazed at what you consume and not even realize you did it until you right it down and reflect back on the day. Keeping a food log is critical to your success because if modifications need to be made you need something to be able to evaluate and analyze. If changes aren’t happening like you had hoped the answer can usually be found in your food and or exercise journal.

10. Food Labels
Review food labels. Avoid foods packed with excess sugar, calories, or foods that contain any trans-fats. You should be looking for more natural foods and not overly-processed foods. Ingredients to look for and avoid or minimize if they are one of the top ingredients listed in the ingredients list: Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated or Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil.

If you see these ingredients listed at the top then that means the product is made up of that ingredient as it’s largest source.

Now I don’t expect you to make every change in one day. What I do expect is that if you are serious about living a better life and a healthier life then you need to make these changes over the next 4 weeks. The best way to accomplish this task is to map out your plan. Create meal plans and have a plan of attack in place in regards to what you are eating and when.

You will start to see just how easy it is to live a healthier life and achieve the goals that you desire.

About the Author:

Jayson Hunter, RD, CSCS, is a registered dietitian and fitness professional with more than 10 years of experience. He has worked with 1000’s of individuals in achieving their ideal body and has been published in numerous magazines. He is also co-creator of Meal Plans 101 nutrition software. For more information on how you can utilize Jayson’s expertise go to www.mealplans101.com

Today my wife and I waded our way through some of the Lynnhaven Mall parking traffic to get to the book store. It was as exciting in the parking lot as in the store.

We are both handicapped and was going down the 1-way parking lot and about to pull into the end handicapped spot when all of a sudden a new model Honda pulled into the spot at an angle pointing right at me. She whipped into the spot going the wrong way and was at a 60-degree angle to the parking lot stripe. She can right at my driver’s side door as I was turning in to the spot.

I stopped and looked at her, as if to say “Well, move out of the way so a handicapped person can park in the spot. She was about 20 and had an older woman with her, both of Pacific island descent. Suddenly she whips out her mirror handicapped placard and puts it on her mirror. I just mutter an appropriate b—h, and drive on and around again. Merry Christmas.

I hate traffic at this time of year because the Christmas spirit is only a little worse than at Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. People are so short tempered and take stupid chances during this time. Alcohol and drugs don’t improve their manners or driving acumen.

Well, when we get some money together, we will venture forth again. It will be a lean Christmas at our house. Apparently this will be a tough one for lots of people, given the foreclosures and stock market as indicators.

The FED did lower the prime rate again and increased the money supply. The business community, represented by the stock market, didn’t think it was enough. Well it would be enough if more money was spread down the corporate chain to those who actually produce the wealth. The top people, especially those in Big Board corporations and Health Care institutions and insurance companies should be heavily chastised. It appears that 20% of these corporations are getting 60-80% of the bonuses and salaries. The inequity between the top and bottom of the corporate ladder will undo this Republic, I am afraid.

As the distance gets bigger between the “haves” and “have nots”, the country is set for more social strife and crime. Television does a great job of selling the public on what the “good life” is and how “common” it is. Most people watching these commercials and some shows know very well their lives don’t look like that and their homes are like that (if they have them). By creating this illusion about society it creates unreasonable expectations. These expectations keep young people from taking whatever job is available, even at minimum wage. They say, “I ain’t going to work for minimum wage, they owe me more than that” (or I am worth more than that or some variation thereof). With no job their only recourse to money is stealing it from someone or place which has money. Their only way to that fine car is stealing it from someone who has it. This enmity will hurt all of us and is preventable by more fair wage distribution and bonuses, a higher quality of education for ALL young people grades K through 12, no matter where they live or anything else.

When are we going to wake up and take care of our present and our future. This country is about PEOPLE, free to make life choices, equal opportunities, equal education. We are headed for another 60s economic and racial upheaval without major social changes starting with Congress and each Statehouse.

I heard Lou Dobbs on CSPAN being interviewed at Princeton last week. I have always listened to him on CNN with the economic and stock market news and he never pulled his punches. He is now looking at America on many levels and his take on Education and the need for a National Curriculum and Congress being bought and paid for by Corporate America are on target. Listen to him. He is an Independent voice and can lamblast both the Republicans and Democrats.

Take care of yourself and tell those around you that you love them. You never know when will be the last time you will see them.

God Bless you and Merry Christmas.
Bear

Holy Cow, Summer suddenly ended and Winter came to town.

It dropped 30 degrees in one day. We went from open windows, short sleeved shirts and shorts, to winter coats and gloves in one day.

I still haven’t located my Winter clothes so I have to wear double shirts and a sweat shirt. Even the nights require socks.

So the weather made Christmas and the end of football season seem correct. It just wouldn’t be right to have 70 degree days and think Christmas here.

Hope you are avoiding the traffic and crazy shoppers. It is always amazing to me that the “Christmas spirit” only extends to buying things and not to how we treat everyone around us, whether we know them or not!

Well, just be careful out there. Life is sometimes tough, but it would be tougher without you. Best wishes for the Christmas season and it’s reason.
Bear

Just got home from a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner with family and friends. We had a wonderful time with them.

The Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions game was very exciting. I was hoping for a closer match but Detroit was just unable to get its offense on track. The gained tremendous yardage and then couldn’t pull the trigger on getting across the goal line. I really felt sorry for the quarterback. He did all he could to pull them through, but got sacked many times. Brett was awesome, as usual. Its good for us old timers to see a quarterback with some gray hair do so well with and against the youngsters.

Tomorrow is another Big Shopping Day. It is amazing how much the entire economy is hanging on the overall receipts of just one day. Watch how the stock market responds. It will be a bellweather of the rest of the year.

Bye for now.
The Bear

Hey. We are only 10 inches below normal in rainfall, but today we are getting rain. The best part is that the leaves are changing color and the grass is going dormant…won’t need to mow it right away.

My wife and I got our monthly disability checks so, wow, pay the bills, pay the rent, buy some groceries…just like millions of other Americans. You know it is amazing how many of us are actually two paychecks away from being homeless.

The stock market is adding to the gloom of the weather here as we try to get UP for Thanksgiving and the Christmas shopping season. I watched Sylvia Browne on Montel yesterday. She said we were going to get slammed by the weather for the rest of the year.

Let’s see what other things can pound on my Positive outlook: poverty, weather, economic blues, Iraq & Afganastan, our sons and daughters in the line of danger, political campaigns, worsening problems with health care and social security, China trying to kill our children and getting paid to do it…thats enought of that.

I control my attitude and outlook and refuse to give into those other things. Sure they are bad, sure they need to be addressed, but they are not going to rule my life or run my attitude.

Well, this was quite an emotional burst, but I feel better. You might also if you don’t take on these burdens. Let them roll off your back and make changes in your life, as I am trying to do, in order to be in a position to help just one other person each day. Over the next ten years, that amounts to over 3,000 people, What if everyone did that???

I hope you don’t have a ticket to ride the Dow Jones Roller Coaster. The latest twists and curves could cause you to lose more than your lunch. We’ll talk economics and medical care at another time

Today let’s talk about foreclosure.

As a professional educator, I decided to do some internet research and get verifiable and reliable information to present the facts and try to offer some hope to those now where we were in January 2003.

Why is it happening?

Bank greed; cover their credit card profits. Washington Mutual, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. spent $25 million in 2004 and 2005 to lobby for laws which included changes in bankruptcy laws to protect credit card profits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington group that tracks political donations.

The banks are paying for that decision by changes in their other Big business – home mortgages.. The surge in foreclosures has cut the value of securities backed by mortgages and led to more than $40 billion of writedowns for U.S. financial institutions. It also reached to the top echelons of the financial services industry.

Some of their problems have to do with ethics – get people into loans for which they can’t afford or have interest escallation clauses.

Thomas Dinwiddie, an attorney for the Indiana Mortgage Bankers Association, testified about the rise of the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. By making loans available to less creditworthy borrowers, the subprime industry has led to record levels of homeownership. But the number of loan defaults has correspondingly increased.

So in the discussion over the problem, some are calling for Federal Bailouts of buyers, (some muttering about it being an unfair game and they were taken advantage of…..I could make the same argument every time I have come home from Las Vegas) covering the retirement funds who bought the loans from the banks (who sold them because they didn’t want to be the last one without a chair when the music stopped). Then the mutual funds, etc., etc. Thank the railroads and Chrysler for this thought. The airlines are standing with their hands out even now. Where do they think they are…France?

Who is hurting the worse?

Colorado. RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif., said that in the third quarter Colorado had one new foreclosure filing for every 127 households — 2.9 times the national average.

“After declining almost 13 percent between the first and second quarter of the year, foreclosure activity in the state was back up 24 percent from the second to the third quarter, with 14,374 properties entering some stage of foreclosures — the eighth highest foreclosure total in the nation.”

Some states have more foreclosures than Colorado, but also more households
.
Some local experts are skeptical of RealtyTrac’s numbers, but the company, which sells foreclosure data, says it is not trying to make Colorado’s foreclosure problem worse than it is.Home foreclosures in metropolitan Phoenix have soared more than 500 percent in 2007 as the slowdown in the housing market and rising interest rates leave more homeowners unable to pay their mortgages or sell them homes

Deleware is #1; a dubious honor. Delaware was not exempt from the wave of home foreclosures. Third quarter from California-based Realtytrac showed the First State reported one foreclosure for every 654 households.

That was well below the national average of 196, but reflected a 157 percent increase from the second quarter of this year. Nationwide the foreclosure rate was up 30 percent from the second quarter.

Nevada is a close second? Nevada continued to lead the nation by having one foreclosure for every 61 homes. Vermont ranked 50th, with one foreclosure for every 12,000 households.

Is Rent-To-Own A Possible Solution?

Here’s a Thought….Consider Rent-to-Own, whether the buyer or seller. This tool can be a true win-win for all of us on each side of the equation and doesn’t rely on any banker or real estate agent. Unfortunately, it does need an attorney.

My son sent me an interesting article regarding the Increase in the price of Rentals (homes, condos, apartments) after the first big wave of foreclosures. Economic logic suggested that since the banks and mortgage companies were aglut with houses they would drop the prices and the tiered housing structural costs would decline proportionately. They did not, they went up. Why?

Well it seems the enterprising landlords realized the former home owners had jobs and no where else to live so theirs was the stronger market position. They took advantage of the unfortunates and pushed to prices as far as they could go…probably equal to the inflated mortgage payment the dispossessed former home owners had just escaped. I quess the San Francisco Robber Barons of gold rush days are still with us.

Seattle Washington, however switches from own to rent. “A rise in foreclosures is never a good thing, but several major cities around the country would be happy to have Seattle’s foreclosure numbers,” said Serdar Bankaci, President/CEO of Default Research. “Seattle’s slow and steady foreclosure activity is because its housing market remains strong even today. The savvy investor knows that rental properties have become an excellent investment in King County.”

Driving Default Research clients to those properties are the company’s leads, which are the freshest available in the country. According to Bankaci, many of his clients are buying homes in the pre-foreclosure stage at far below market value, and turning the homes into rental properties.

And Now Your Federal Dollars At Work
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HUD has a thought:

If you are unable to make your mortgage payment:

1. Don’t ignore the problem.

The further behind you become, the harder it will be to reinstate your loan and the more likely that you will lose your house.

2. Contact your lender as soon as you realize that you have a problem.

Lenders do not want your house. They have options to help borrowers through difficult financial times.

3. Open and respond to all mail from your lender.

The first notices you receive will offer good information about foreclosure prevention options that can help you weather financial problems. Later mail may include important notice of pending legal action. Your failure to open the mail will not be an excuse in foreclosure court.

4. Know your mortgage rights.

Find your loan documents and read them so you know what your lender may do if you can’t make your payments. Learn about the foreclosure laws and timeframes in your state (as every state is different) by contacting the State Government Housing Office.

5. Understand foreclosure prevention options.

Valuable information about foreclosure prevention (also called loss mitigation) options can be found on the internet at www.fha.gov/foreclosure/index.cfm.

6. Contact a HUD-approved housing counselor.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds free or very low cost housing counseling nationwide. Housing counselors can help you understand the law and your options, organize your finances and represent you in negotiations with your lender if you need this assistance. Find a HUD-approved housing counselor near you or call (800) 569-4287 or TTY (800) 877-8339.

7. Prioritize your spending.

After healthcare, keeping your house should be your first priority. Review your finances and see where you can cut spending in order to make your mortgage payment. Look for optional expenses-cable TV, memberships, entertainment-that you can eliminate. Delay payments on credit cards and other “unsecured” debt until you have paid your mortgage.

8. Use your assets.

Do you have assets-a second car, jewelry, a whole life insurance policy-that you can sell for cash to help reinstate your loan? Can anyone in your household get an extra job to bring in additional income? Even if these efforts don’t significantly increase your available cash or your income, they demonstrate to your lender that you are willing to make sacrifices to keep your home.

9. Avoid foreclosure prevention companies.

You don’t need to pay fees for foreclosure prevention help-use that money to pay the mortgage instead. Many for-profit companies will contact you promising to negotiate with your lender. While these may be legitimate businesses, they will charge you a hefty fee (often two or three month’s mortgage payment) for information and services your lender or a HUD approved housing counselor will provide free if you contact them.

10. Don’t lose your house to foreclosure recovery scams!

If any firm claims they can stop your foreclosure immediately if you sign a document appointing them to act on your behalf, you may well be signing over the title to your property and becoming a renter in your own home! Never sign a legal document without reading and understanding all the terms and getting professional advice from an attorney, a trusted real estate professional, or a HUD approved housing counselor.
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My #11. Don’t leave your house until or unless evicted. If you abandon your house you lose ALL rights to keep it or settle your debt. Look for a “white knight” who will sign a legal contract with your lawyer’s blessing, to make your payments for you, provide or help you find adequate rental housing, cover all moving costs (packing, movers, first and last month rent and deposits)

Don’t give up hope!!! I found this book (wish I knew about it several years ago) which could break that stranglehold of credit card companies and banks.

Learn How A Small Band Of Empowered Home Owners Are Fighting Their Home Foreclosure And Winning Back The Keys To Their Castles…. For Good! Bring Your Foreclosure To A Grinding Halt In 9 Days Or
Less Or Your Money Back, Guaranteed! See previous blog or Click Here!

My wife and I lost our dream home of ten years to “almost foreclosure” in 2003. We lost both recent model cars, all savings, and had to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. This was eventually followed by Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2004 to cover more unpaid medical bills which now had attorneys’ fees and court costs.

You see I had resigned my teaching position and shortly thereafter became severely ill. Sentara Health Care System and their agents took all we had. But we are not alone either in losing our house or in amassing large medical bills, nor are the last to do so either.

Had I know about it, there is a book which could have helped us Then and can help thousands others NOW. “Bring Your Foreclosure To A Grinding Halt In 9 Days Or Less Or Your Money Back, Guaranteed!” is their promise

Learn How A Small Band Of Empowered Home Owners Are Fighting Their Home Foreclosure And Winning Back The Keys To Their Castles…. For Good! You can find the book at http://tinyurl.com/2kedmz OR go here for more details and testimonials. Click Here!

Be back soon. College professors love to talk (or hear themselves talk). I’m sorry about that. Hope I am still a teacher though. Lots of life’s lessons to share.

Regards
The Bear