(Free things are worth what you pay for them.)

Another good backyard landscaping idea is to use hardscape. This is the use of things like rocks, fences and walls. These can make your yard look very interesting during all of the seasons. You can have climbing plants on it in the summer & spring and trees around it that will look great in winter.

Want to quickly shed those oodles of pounds? It’s really easy to bid those unwanted pounds of flesh adieu with simple diet tips. You just need to pay heed to whatever you are eating and make sue you are just having tasty, healthy and fresh fruit and vegetables for snacks as well. Have plenty of fruits and our taste buds will bless you for that.

You don’t need to make sacrifices! Just follow a few easy guidelines and you’ll shed first 10 pounds easily, last 10 pounds or just boost up your weight loss program when it statters and stops.This is one of the most flexible and well balanced plans that can be used every time.

Make a note of all that you have and include the drinks as well. Calories estimation is not required. Just jot down what you ate and the approximate quantity of the food. You will discover that it is the awareness of the food we eat that actually helps in planning healthy snacks and wholesome meals.

Your fat intake needs to be halved, be it added fats or in pure form. This means you need to use half the butter or spread instead of what you had been using earlier on your toast, bread, potatoes and muffins. You also need to half the regular amount of mayonnaise or any other sauce used as a topping on salads; and half the usual amount of oil on the fry pan, always.

Limit all the treats that contain sugar to just about thrice a week. This also includes ice creams, chocolates, cakes, pastries, desserts, cookies etc.

Proteins are essential, but make sure you are having low fat proteins for most of your meals: fish, chicken, beans, low fat yoghurt and cottage cheese. Indulge in eggs, red meat and nuts once in a while.

You must plan one lunch and one dinner without cheese or meat every week. Try to include lots of whole grains, beans and veggies to reduce fat and increase fiber.

Fat contents in dairy products need to be reduced. If you drink whole milk, reduce fat up to 2% and from that to 1%. Choose low fat cheese and yoghurt. While buying yoghurt, check the sugar content of the product.

You must also have two servings of fresh fruits regularly.

Water is a better choice of drinks than sodas, milk drinks, juices or alcohol. Diet soda must be avoided- the sweetness of sodas encourage crave for sugar.

You must have two servings of fresh veggies for lunch and dinner. If you feel hungry, have more.

Eat leisurely. The body registers slowly when you are full and it’s even easy to eat in excess if you have been racing through the meals.

Grated carrot can be a great snack. You will discover that grated carrot is more filling then a real whole carrot. It’s weird but true.

Use lots of whole grains wherever you possibly can. The fiber is very filling and also helps in digestion.

Choose such food that can be chewed. This increases the fiber intake and the process of chewing makes one feel satisfied as well, which means eat more fruits instead of fruit juices. If you cook soup, make sure the soup is chunky.

Plan all your snacks and meals much ahead of time. You must plan your grocery shopping as well- make a list of all the essentials and go by it. If you tend to take hold of a food item at the very strike of hunger, you might end up eating high calories.

While eating, put the TV off. Its applicable incase of snacks and meals as well. Studies have revealed that we tend to eat bigger portions while watching the TV, perhaps because we are least bothered about what we are actually eating. While eating, eat only if you want to rapidly lose weight.

Mark DeRosa

Most of us living a busy lifestyle prefer to have food delivered right to our doorstep. However, have you ever had diet food delivered to you in no time? Bistro MD is not just your ordinary food delivery service.

This service makes it a point that your gourmet meals are delivered right to your doorstep but with a different twist. These meals are consulted by dieticians and are targeted to let you shed a considerable amount of weight, keeping you healthy and fit.

Dr. Caroline Cederquist developed Bistro MD using her knowledge regarding weight management. Having served as an expert in the field for more than 10 years, Dr. Cederquist has developed diet programs which are suited to your needs.

These diet programs are applied to the meals which are offered in Bistro MD. With a proper combination of the foods that you have to eat, Dr. Cederquist’s diet food creation serves quality gourmet foods without letting you put on extra pounds while you munch on that slab of meat you’ve been craving about.

Bistro MD ensures that you and your family would have a satisfying meal without worrying about the pounds you could have when eating too much. By just choosing one of the meal plans offered by the service, you do not have to worry about the calories that you take in.

Bistro MD is especially suitable for working professionals who wants to lose weight and do not have time to cook their own meals.

It is designed to help those who want to shed a few pounds and live a healthy lifestyle.

Ricky Lim

Most of us living a busy lifestyle prefer to have food delivered right to our doorstep. However, have you ever had diet food delivered to you in no time? Bistro MD is not just your ordinary food delivery service.

This service makes it a point that your gourmet meals are delivered right to your doorstep but with a different twist. These meals are consulted by dieticians and are targeted to let you shed a considerable amount of weight, keeping you healthy and fit.

Dr. Caroline Cederquist developed Bistro MD using her knowledge regarding weight management. Having served as an expert in the field for more than 10 years, Dr. Cederquist has developed diet programs which are suited to your needs.

These diet programs are applied to the meals which are offered in Bistro MD. With a proper combination of the foods that you have to eat, Dr. Cederquist’s diet food creation serves quality gourmet foods without letting you put on extra pounds while you munch on that slab of meat you’ve been craving about.

Bistro MD ensures that you and your family would have a satisfying meal without worrying about the pounds you could have when eating too much. By just choosing one of the meal plans offered by the service, you do not have to worry about the calories that you take in.

Bistro MD is especially suitable for working professionals who wants to lose weight and do not have time to cook their own meals.

It is designed to help those who want to shed a few pounds and live a healthy lifestyle.

Ricky Lim

Most of us living a busy lifestyle prefer to have food delivered right to our doorstep. However, have you ever had diet food delivered to you in no time? Bistro MD is not just your ordinary food delivery service.

This service makes it a point that your gourmet meals are delivered right to your doorstep but with a different twist. These meals are consulted by dieticians and are targeted to let you shed a considerable amount of weight, keeping you healthy and fit.

Dr. Caroline Cederquist developed Bistro MD using her knowledge regarding weight management. Having served as an expert in the field for more than 10 years, Dr. Cederquist has developed diet programs which are suited to your needs.

These diet programs are applied to the meals which are offered in Bistro MD. With a proper combination of the foods that you have to eat, Dr. Cederquist’s diet food creation serves quality gourmet foods without letting you put on extra pounds while you munch on that slab of meat you’ve been craving about.

Bistro MD ensures that you and your family would have a satisfying meal without worrying about the pounds you could have when eating too much. By just choosing one of the meal plans offered by the service, you do not have to worry about the calories that you take in.

Bistro MD is especially suitable for working professionals who wants to lose weight and do not have time to cook their own meals.

It is designed to help those who want to shed a few pounds and live a healthy lifestyle.

Ricky Lim

Lots of people are making fountains part of their outdoor décor. And why not? Fountains add a touch of class and when chosen carefully, really compliment your landscaping. The sound of the running water alone adds an extra dimension to your garden. Even if you don’t have a water pond in your backyard, you can still enjoy the beauty and tranquility of a fountain.

The most basic fountain that you can use without a pond is what I call the birdbath style. It looks just like a birdbath, but has a little fountain built into the center. The unit is completely self contained, and easy to set up. If you have a birdbath in your yard now, have a look at it. You might be able to add a small fountain to it. The bowl will act as the fountain’s reservoir. But be forewarned, the birds may not like visiting your birdbath anymore.

If you want to go all out, you’ll find bunches of larger freestanding fountains. If you’re looking for something that can be the focal point of your garden, these are the fountains to look at. They come in a couple of different flavors. Some are multi tired. You see these in a lot of city parks. Basically, they are a series of birdbath fountains placed on top of each other. The top bowl has a larger fountain pumping water into the air. The water collects in the top bowl until it spills onto the next. It does this through two or tree bowls until collecting in the reservoir. These are really nice fountains, but tend to be pretty big.

The waterfall is another type of large fountain for your backyard. Like the name implies, these fountains simulate a waterfall. Instead of shooting water into the air, water is allowed to gently fill the top “pond” until it spills over. On some the water is allowed to gently glide down a slope. On others it spills over like Niagara Falls. You can find these with multiple stages or a single stage.

If you want something larger than a birdbath fountain, but don’t want it to dominate your garden, a wall fountain may be for you. Have you seen the fountains in old European cities? The ones mounted on the walls. It’s usually a lion or angel with water flowing from its mouth into a basin. That’s a wall fountain. They can be placed against your home’s exterior wall or if you get creative and can secure it, against a trellis. These also come with their own little reservoir.

There you have it. Fountains for your yard, even if you don’t have a pond. Of course, if you have a pond, you’ll have lots of other choices. But for those of us who don’t want to dig a pond or don’t have a large enough backyard, these free standing fountains are a great alternative. And you’ll be able to enjoy the beauty and tranquility a fountain offers for years to come.

Copyright 2006 Marge Snow

Marge Snow
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/enjoy-your-own-fountain-50347.html

Many Dieters have noticed a “free day” trend on popular Weight Loss Plans. Just follow a healthy meal plan for six days, then use your seventh day as a vacation or reward. Do you like chocolate? Or deep dish pizza? On that seventh day you can forget your healthy meal plan and binge to your heart’s content.

The reasoning behind this trend is to ward off starvation signals the body may get from being on a restrictive diet. If a dieter gives themselves permission to cheat once a week, they’re more likely to keep up a healthy meal plan over the long run; as oppose to quitting all together. What dieters don’t realize is a free day often sabotages all of their progress made during the week! Successful dieting is really just simple math and that glorious “free day” often throws the equation out of whack.

First lets examine that simple math:

1. First you must find out how many calories you need per day, then setup a healthy meal plan to meet that number. The best way to calculate how many calories you need, according to some diets, is to use this formula: add your resting metabolic rate (RMR) + your physical activity rate for daily caloric needs. To calculate your Resting Metabolic rate (RMR): multiply your desired weight in pounds by 8 and then add 200. If you are a female whose goal weight is 140 Ibs, the equation should appear like this. 140X8=1120 + 200=1320. This is the amount of calories you can eat without doing anything and not gain weight. This is a estimate and not an exact number. Caloric requirements can vary depending on your height, sex and other factors.

2. The next step is subtracting enough excess calories from your diet to equal the desired amount of pounds you would like to lose. For example if 3500 calories equal a pound and you’d like to loose 1 pound per week; you must either decease the food in your healthy meal plan by 500 calories (3500/7 days) or burn if off through exercise. Since a diet of 820 calories (1320-500) is way too restrictive, burning off the calories through exercise is a more practical route.

Now that you have a rough estimate of your caloric requirements and a healthy meal plan set, throw in that glorious “free day” to reward your hard work! What would a free day look like to you? For most people given free reign to binge, it would look something like the following…. Breakfast? Bring on the buttermilk pancakes with syrup and butter! Sides? Can’t have pancakes without bacon and eggs. Don’t forget a tall glass of fattening milk.

Lunch? Let’s head out to McDonald’s for a Big Mac, super sized fries and drink. What the heck order an apple pie, they usually have a special, two for $1. Dinner? Order your favorite pizza! Throw in a side of Spaghetti and pitcher of Soda to make a family meal! Keep in mind we haven’t added snacks between meals! Looking at the given scenario, it’s easy to see how a hypothetical “free day” can easily total up to 4000 calories or more!

Let’s pretend the woman in our earlier example added this free day to her healthy meal plan! She wanted to shed 3500 calories per week, however the excess calories from her free day (4000-820=3180) cancels out almost 95% of all her hard work! Instead of losing a pound a week, she’d lose only 320 calories; which equals a pound every 11 weeks!

Some Weight Loss experts believe dieters are better off without adding a “free day” to their healthy meal plan. If you are craving foods that are not in your diet, just have a small portion and offset the excess calories with extra exercise. The magic word to staying on any diet is balance and moderation.

Lisa Wonsey

When it comes to landscaping you have a very wide choice of materials to get inspiration from. From tools to plants, choosing the right piece for your plot will get you the results you want.

What You Will Need For Landscaping

With a little bit of creative flair and a few pieces of equipment you can improve your garden dramatically. It becomes even easier as the weather gets better as most stores tend to stock an even larger range of tools and materials to help you make your landscaping project become reality.

The Right Tool For The Right Job
When it comes to gardening, you need not spend a lot of money but it will help you getting the job done more efficiently if you have access to a few basic tools. Take a stroll around your local garden or home equipment store for the few key items that will make your life easier when landscaping: a good shovel, a rake, a spade and a wheelbarrow will be very handy to move materials around the garden.

Selecting Materials
There are plenty of materials available to help you achieve the look you’re after, whether you’re going for a complete makeover of just giving your backyard a good spring clean. You can find all manners of stones, gravel or mulch to add texture or connect areas in need of a helping hand.

One of the obvious materials to consider as part of your landscaping project is plants: whether potted or planted in full ground, used as a colored accent or vibrant feature in its own right there are plenty of options. Plants can be a great source of inspiration and if you’re a bit short on creative landscaping ideas they may be all you need to create a fresh look in your garden. Just remember to make your life easier for the rest of the season by using landscaping fabric or thick plastic when planting a new flowerbed as this will help keep weeds at bay.

Making The Most Of Walls And Borders
You can either spruce up existing retaining walls and borders or build new ones using a variety of stones or bricks. Your local store or building merchant will usually carry a good selection so you should be able to find something that matches your taste and your budget.

Keeping Things Looking Good In The Long Run
Once your masterpiece is done you need to make sure that you are adequately equipped to keep it looking neat and tidy. You will probably have to invest in a lawnmower to keep the grass trimmed, and a pair of hedge clippers to keep your shrubs looking their best year-round.

Don’t Forget Watering
Lastly you will most likely need to invest in a watering device of sorts to keep your plants watered: this may be a watering can if you only need to take care of a few potted plants, or you may have to get a garden hose to take care of a bigger plot.

Mr.Andrew Caxton
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/what-equipment-do-you-need-to-maintain-your-landscape-135334.html

Back when we were twelve, it was easy for you to tell when we’d crossed the line from finding girls repulsive – mainly because our reaction to the strange stirrings we were feeling down below was to tease you and pull your hair. And while you may still make us go stiff at the most inconvenient of times, more likely nowadays it’s with fright.

But fortunately for you women, it’s a lot easier to read our body language than it is for you to read maps. There are always tell-tale signs. And if you suspect that we may be interested in you, don’t always leave the first move to us boys. If you do, you might be waiting a long, long time…

The guy in the bar
Let’s face it, when we’re out on the town, we eye up any girl who walks past, so how do you tell if that sexy faraway look in our eyes is because we’re lusting after you, or just due to the fact that we’ve put away one pint too many and can’t focus on anything? Well, once you’ve ascertained that we’re looking, which will be easy because we’ll be making such a bad job of not looking, the trick here is to watch where we’re looking. Whenever we think we can get away with it, our eyes will be roaming all over the various (obvious) parts of your anatomy, but if we’re really interested in you, the area of flesh that we really want to see bare is the ring finger on your left hand. Then, if you do manage to engage us in conversation, we’ll ask you questions about yourself, and actually listen to the answers. If we offer to buy you a drink, chances are we’re being more than just polite. If we let you buy us one back, even more so. And when we need to go to the loo, if we apologise for it, then nip back with such indecent haste you’re nervous about touching our hands, you might want to think about booking the church.

At the gym
Ever wondered why us guys always work out in front of the mirrors? Well, it’s not so we can keep an eye on our form. A classic hunting ground for the male of the species, the gym is a tricky one to read, as more so than in the bar, given your lack of clothing we absolutely don’t want you to catch us staring and think we’re a perv. Instead, demonstrating twisted bloke logic, we’ll position ourselves so we can keep tabs on your reflection, thinking this doesn’t therefore count as gawping. And it’s likely that we’ll try and mirror your behaviour, too – watch to see if we cut short our session on the treadmill just as you finish your run, then hang around to see where you go next. We might take the machine next to you, even when there are plenty of others free, or if there’s a bank of three stretch mats/bikes/steppers, we’ll get there first, occupying the middle one just to ensure you have to take the one next to us. And the proof of the pudding? If, despite our workout programme finishing, we don’t until yours does. It took my mate Mike hours of Stairmaster stalking before he finally managed to ask gym-babe Julia out. But not only did he gain a girlfriend – he lost half a stone in the process.

Your neighbour
The days of us hoping you’ll pop round to borrow a cup of sugar are over, particularly because by the looks of you you’re a sweetener-only girl. So how do you tell when – to paraphrase a certain Aussie soap – good neighbours might become more than good friends? This can be a hard one to work out, as everyone’s generally neighbourly, and helping you to take out your bins doesn’t necessarily mean we want to take you out too. But if you see our curtains twitching every time you pass, don’t be fooled into thinking that we’re just doing our Neighbourhood Watch duty – there’s only one thing in the neighbourhood we want to keep our eye on, and that’s you. Here, the Rule of Coincidence applies – if you notice that we always seem to be leaving for work at the same time as you, or when you’re sunbathing in your back garden, we’re ‘coincidentally’ mowing the lawn. Similarly, when you’re outside washing your car, we pick that moment to wash ours, even though you’re sure you saw us do it yesterday. Remember – once is luck, but more than once is lust.

Your brother’s friend
Back when you were growing up, you were our mate’s little sister, so of course we didn’t fancy you. Instead we’d look after you, buying you drinks, and frightening off any spotty oik who’d dared to glance over in your general direction – behaviour that nowadays would have you convinced we were crazy about you. Now you’re older, we’re still not technically allowed to fancy you out of loyalty to your brother, so how do we show that we, in fact, do? Well, by ignoring you, of course. But although we might not even acknowledge you when you walk into the bar, we’ll surely be watching you out of the corner of our eye. The giveaway is when we do eventually deign to talk to you, we’ll know much more about you than we should, especially considering that we ‘ignore’ you most of the time. And when you crack a joke, we’ll be laughing the hardest, because it’s ’safe’ to laugh at something funny, and we’re desperate to make some sort of contact with you despite ourselves.

Your housemate
Housemates tend to see the worst of each other, particularly first thing in the morning; hungover, hair dishevelled, unshaven – and us guys don’t always look that great either. So watch for when we start taking an excessive interest in our personal hygiene – which for most blokes means having a regular nightly bath rather than a regular bath night. And if you get home and we’ve done the Hoovering, the washing up, or you find us doing the cleaning, chances are it’s because we want to do the dirty with you – my friend Nick swears that it was the sight of him in his Marigolds that finally convinced his flatmate Emma that he was interested in sharing more than the household chores. Of course, she may just have had a rubber fetish, but other tactics include ensuring the two of you are the last ones to go to bed then offering to make you a coffee, or suggesting that you give your night out with the girls a miss to watch some slushy DVD that we’ve rented ‘by mistake’. Subtle, we’re not.

Your mate’s ex
You’ve possibly always suspected we’ve fancied you, maybe from those odd glances held a little too long, or the good-natured insults. But we know there’s around a three-month cooling off-period (although if blokes made the rules up, it’d be about five minutes) during which we won’t dare make the move – perhaps out of loyalty to your mate, but more probably because we’re worried that she’s told you about the strange face we make during sex. So when we feel it’s safe, we might test the water by swapping insults for backhanded compliments – ‘You’re a lot more sensible than Jen ever was’, or ‘I wish she’d had your sense of humour’ etc. The clincher is when we try to demonstrate how caring and sensitive we are by calling you up to ask you how your mate’s doing since the split up – what we really mean is ‘do you think she’d mind if I asked you out?’.

Your friend
Sadly, the days of letting a girl know we liked them by chasing her around the playground are over – for most normal people, anyway. Instead, our mature, sophisticated approach will probably be to insult you, or even to try and chat up your friends, when really it’s you we want to ask out. You’ll notice a subtle change in the way we look at you – or rather, don’t look at you. And when you’re alone with us, if we constantly question you about your boyfriend, tell you what a jerk he is, and how you need to go out with someone who treats you like you deserve, you don’t have to guess who we’re referring to. But be careful – you’ve got to get this one right, as the last thing you want to do is ruin a beautiful friendship.

Your work colleague
A lot of people meet their new partner at work – it’s just a shame that many of them are still going out with their ‘old’ partner at the same time – and there’s nothing more embarrassing for a guy than becoming the subject of office gossip by asking out someone at work who’s already loved-up. We need to find out precisely what your current romantic status is before we do anything else, and the only ’safe’ way to do this is by (gulp) talking to you. So how do we engineer this? Well, by ‘accidentally’ bumping into you several times a day at the water cooler, or just happening to be walking past when you’re struggling with the jammed photocopier. Us blokes will plan our whole afternoon workload just so we can drop everything and pack up in five seconds flat when we see you making for the lift at the end of the day. And if we do get you chatting as we, ahem, go down together, watch to see if we’ve managed to ‘casually’ enquire about your evening/weekend plans (i.e. love life) before the lift doors have even shut.

Matt Dunn