Wing Chun Fut Kung Fu: First Days

It was about a year ago that I started training in Wing Chun Fut kung fu. Previously I had no experience learning a martial art. There was one karate school that I went to, but the teacher who showed me around had a big ego. That left a bad taste in my mouth and I never went back.

When I first entered Master Lee's school, I was intimidated. I did not know what to expect and was worried there would be a bunch of guys with egos. Luckily, that was not the case. Everyone was very nice. I even made a friend with one of the older students, Charles. The environment was very conducive to learning because kept asking me if I needed help.

That was good because the first few weeks were rough. You're dipped right in the middle if everything, there's no easing into it. The first 20 minutes of class is cardio, and I remember fumbling around a lot and being frustrated at the awkward new motions I had to learn. Now it's all natural, but there was a lot of falling down in those first few weeks.

Remembering that time keeps me humble and reminds me that hard work pays off.

Physical Fitness: Lunchtime Workout

Nowadays it is difficult to find the time to workout. Work is increasingly demanding. For example, my job requires 50 hours a week from its employees. Then there's commute time and commitments to friends and family. Sheesh, do we have time for ourselves?

This is the challenge: we have to maximize the time we have. One aspect of your life you can take control of is your physical fitness. During my lunch break at work, I try to get in a 15 minute workout.

Here are some ideas of exercises you can do. If you can find an area that you feel comfortable lying on the floor, you can do crunches. I do 100 crunches on the ground. Then I do 100 leglifts. Finally, I stand up, put my hands over my head with my palms facing each other. I do side crunches in this position, with the top half of my body swaying side to side like a pendulum.

Next, here are come cardio ideas. If you can go outside, walking will help get your heart rate up. Another thing that I do is go up and down stairs. Luckily, we have 12 flights of stairs to traverse. Be careful not to put to much impact on your knees when going down the stairs.

Finally, you can also do push-ups while on break at work. I talk about push-ups in my blog here.

Remember to make time to take care of yourself because everything is dependent on your health.

Lesson of the Week: Adding Salt To Water To Make It Boil Faster

When I was young, I learned that before you boil water for cooking, you should add a pinch of salt. I always thought it was because it made water boil faster. Sadly, I found out today it has the opposite effect. Salt water boils slower than water without salt in it. Why is that?

Salt dissolves easily in water. After a few stirs, you have a salt water mixture. Since salt has a very high boiling point, water cannot boil while it's still mixed with salt. So, extra heat is needed to create the energy that separates salt from water. This need for extra heat causes the boiling point of the mixture to be higher than if it did not have salt mixed in. Raising the salt water to a higher temperature will of course take longer, so boiling salt water takes longer than regular water.

Also, the higher boiling point achieved by adding 60 grams of salt to water is less than a degree, so it won't help you very much cook at this new temperature.

Honestly, the only reason to add salt to water while cooking is to add flavor to the meal.

Spirituality: Luke Chapter 6 Verse 38

The more I read the Bible, the more I realized that it is full of real world advice about how to live your life. Here's an example that I received from my kung fu master, Master Lee. Luke 6:38 says,"Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full - pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back."

This verse is something I believe in. If you do a good deed, then you will be rewarded. One way of looking at this is the way social work operations work. Non-profit organizations that help people in the community give goods and services to people in need. In return, they are making the community they live in a better, safer place to live in.

Another way to look at this verse is like "paying it forward". If you do something good for someone, then when you are in need, someone will help you. There is not any logical reason why this is true, but in my experience, things tend to work out that way. It is kind of like Karma. If you encourage positive energy, then that energy is around you and good things happen. I follow this philosophy.

Finances: Buying A House

Buying a house is probably the biggest investment you'll ever make. Currently, the housing market is in a slump and the Fed has lowered interest rates to making lending easier. What does this mean to you? Buyer's market.

Right now, people will compromise a lot to try to sell their house. I found this the case when I bought my house. The seller was a company that was trying to flip the house. The longer they owned it, the less money they made. So the owners were eager to get the deal done. They paid for all the closing costs, payed for someone I chose to spray for termites, and knocked a thousand dollars off the price of the house. The deal was more than fair, but I'm sure I could have gotten more if I held out a little longer.

The key is to shop around. Find an area whose property values traditionally rise. The property values in the city that I chose rise an average of 7% a year. This is a good time to buy housing in traditionally expensive markets because there will be a lot of deals to be had. Also, avoid buying the most expensive house on the block. They don't gain in value as fast as the other houses on the block. You can find estimates on real estate prices on sites such as this one.

Take your time in choosing your house because it is a long term investment.

Nutrition: Guacamole

If you're a fan of Mexican food, then there's a good chance you enjoy guacamole. Guacamole is made from avocados. Avocados grow on tall trees called Persea Americana, and in the United States, they grown in California and Florida. Personally, I love guacamole, but it was one of the first things are started taking off my list of acceptable foods. I knew it was high in fat and I figured it was just another junk food to avoid.

Boy, was I wrong. Avacados have great health benefits. One benefit of avocados is they are rich in potassium. Potassium helps to regulate blood pressure. Another nutrient avocados provide is folate, which helps fight heart disease.

One drawback to eating avocados is that they are high in fat. However, there's good news: it's the right kind of fat. Oleic acid is a monosaturated fat in avocados that helps lower bad cholesterol, LDL, and promote good cholesterol, HDL.

Be sure to check the ingredients of the guacamole before you buy it to make sure there's nothing unhealthy added to it, but guacolmole in moderation can be beneficial to your diet. The moral of the story is that sometimes things that taste good can be good for you too!

Programming: GUI

This is the most dreaded part of an application. Anyone can make a commandline application, but there comes a time when that doesn't cut it anymore. No one is buying games that are completely made up of ASCII characters anymore. This is why GUI's are important.

A GUI is a graphical user interface, and this is the view the user has of the program. This allows user to interact with programs in an easy to understand way. Windows XP is an example of a GUI because it hides commands such as cut and paste which you can perform by dragging an item instead of running typing the copy and delete command. In the beginning, there were no GUI's and everyone had to communicate with applications by typing computer commands. Thankfully, technology has progressed.

Some suggestions for making a GUI for your application. The number one rule is make sure the application is fully separated from the GUI. This means that the internal logic of your program should not have anything dependent on the view you choose. This allows you to easily redo the GUI or make alternate views available to the user like many games provide. Another suggestion is to have other people try your application with the GUI. Many times what we think is user friendly really is way off. This will help give some perspective on you creation. Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help. Programmers are normally not artists. It may be helpful to ask for help from graphic arists. Images can make dramatic improvements with the feel of an application.

Wing Chun Fut Kung Fu: Consistency

Expectations. The higher you go in rank, the more things are expected of you. One thing that is expected at all levels of students is crunches. My master expects us to do crunches every day and the amount required increases as you change belt levels. A beginner is expected to do 100 crunches a day. Each time you achieve a higher rank, your crunch requirement goes up by 100.

Why do we do this. First, the abdominal section is the only muscle group that you can work every day. More importantly however, doing crunches every day demonstrates consistency. In the martial arts, there is no greater skill than consistency.

The idea is that being consistent with doing your crunches can help you see that you can be regimented if you put your mind to it. Then you can use this ability in other parts of your life. One example is that you can make up a schedule for youself in which you consistently practice your skills. Another example of consistency is performing daily tasks. Since becoming consistent with my crunches, I have set aside Sunday evenings to make my lunch for the week and every night I floss and brush my teeth before going to bed. This is a big accopmlishment for someone who hated dentists and all things related to them.

So being consistent can make your life easier to manage.

Physical Fitness: Sets And Reps

If you want to promote muscle growth, you have to isolate the muscle group you are wokring on. So, My routine breaks my exercses into muscle groups. After you finish working on a muscle group, take about at least a ten minute break if you plan on working on another muscle group. This time allows the blood to flow to the area you were working on and begin rebuilding muscle tissue.

Workout plans boil down to sets and reps. Reps are the number of repetitions in a row you do for a particular exercise. For example, I do 100 crunches in a row, that would be 100 reps. A set is how many times I do a set number of reps. I need to get 600 crunches done in a day, so I do 6 sets of 100 crunches, or in other words, I do 100 crunches 6 times.


There are many theories on sets and reps. There's the pyramid theory, which has you do 5 sets. Increase weight or reps gradually each set, and the third set is the maximum you can do. Then you lower the weight or reps for the last two sets. Some people do 5 sets, always increasing the weight or reps. Some people keep it constant weight but vary the reps.

I always do 4 sets. My first set starts at a manageable weight and I increase it for the next two sets. The final set is either my max or I go back down to the weight I used for the second set. The important thing is to find the best combination that works for your body. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Lesson of the Week: How to Learn Chess

When I was growing up, I used to watch "Family Ties", the network sitcom that launched Michael J. Fox. He played the main character, a young man who was extremely smart and confident. On the show, one of his hobbies was to play chess. Chess seemed like a game that only intelligent people played, so I wanted to learn it. My father bought a chess board and let my sister and I play each other. It actually didn't seem that hard to learn, and before I knew it, I was captain of my high school chess team.

The biggest mistake people make about chess is that it is an IQ test. Chess has this mystique that the best players are geniuses and losing a match means your opponent is smarter. That is not true. Everyone starts out bad. It's the nature of the game. It takes a lot of thinking moves ahead and paying attention to the current state of the board. There is a lot going on with every move, but experience makes this multitasking easier.

Nowadays you can play online versions of chess against other people. That's probably the easiest way to learn to play. Yahoo Games has a online chess game that has a "how to play" section. You can get the basic rules there and play people at your level. Other sites, such as MSN, have similar versions of chess online for free.

That's a good start, but you will still be a novice. If you want to be skilled at chess, then you must study just like anyone else. There are many books on chess openings and defenses. My favorite opening is the Ruy Lopez and my favorite defense is the Caro Cann. There are many to choose from, find one that suits you and make it your own.

Experts in chess get that way by studying the past games of grand champions. So anyone can be a great chess player, you just have to work at it, just like anything else.

Spirituality: Psalms Book 1 Chapter 105

In this Psalm, the importance of worshipping the Lord is proclaimed. Not only should we praise God, but also we should "Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him." This verse tells us that seeking out the Lord will lead us to him and his strength. As a benefit, the Lord will share his strength with us. That is why it is important to seek him out continually. We can call on his strength when we need to.

In verse 5, it goes on to say,"Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given". What I take from this verse is that if you follow the rules he has given, then you are more to experience his wonders and miracles.

Also, this Psalm talks about God's relationship with his chosen people. It says of the chosen ones, "they were few in number, a tiny group of strangers in Canaan. They wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. Yet he did not let anyone oppress them." This shows that God will protect those who follow him and who try to follow the rules he has laid out for us. We are like the chosen ones. When we are born we are small and helpless. God watches over us and nurtures us as we grow older. If we continue to walk along God's path, then he will protect us from harm until we reach the promised land. I like that.

Finances: What Fed Rate Drop Means To You

The housing market has been bad over the last year. People trying to sell houses are having a tough time unloading their property. Also, financial lenders, such as banks, have taken on too many risky loans, resulting in increasing debts by these lenders. Even landlords are having difficulties finding tenants for their properties.

The housing market is an indicator of the US economy, and because of this, plays an important role in the economy. This is why the Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate, an overnight lending rate banks charge each other and that helps to determine the rates for many types of consumer loans, by half a point to 4.75%. This is great news for people who want to borrow money and financial lending institutions because the rate at which they can borrow money is lower.

What does this mean for you? If you have a loan with a high interest rate, now is the time to look into restructuring your loan. The most obvious example is a home loan. Your mortgage company or another financial institution may be able to offer you a better deal paying less interest on your payments. Less interest mean smaller payments and more money in your pocket! Don't stop there though. Now is the time borrow money if you need it for project to invest in your future, like business loans or home improvement loans. Invest wisely, because you will still need to pay back your loan.

Nutrition: Health Benefits of Raisins

Much of the time when someone tells you to eat healthy, you think of bland foods that make eating a chore. Well, there are lots of foods that taste great and are good for you. One such food is the raisin.

Raisins are dried grapes and are naturally sweet. This sweetness comes from fructose and glucose, which are forms of sugar that are less likely to cause cavities. In fact, raisins have a phytonutrient called oleanolic acid that kills cavity-causing bacteria.

Raisins also promotes healthy bones in women because it contains the trace mineral boron. Boron helps to convert estrogen and vitamin D to their active forms, which helps protect bones.

Another advantage of raisins is that they are a source of antioxidants, although not as good as grapes.

Finally, raisins help to fight macular degeneration. There have been studies that show raisins help vision loss as people age.

I add raisins to my oatmeal. It's an easy way to stay healthy!

Programming: Debugging

We have all been through it. You come across a problem and have know idea where to start looking for the source of the problem. That's an average day in a programmer's life. We deal with bugs. In the coding world, bugs are the colorful name given to problems that occur within code.

The tricky thing in programming is that much of the time bugs are well hidden. The first way to catch bugs is with a compiler. If your code does not compile, the compiler usually does a good job of giving you line numbers where the problem might be and a description of the error. If this is the worst of your troubles, be thankful.

The second stage of bugs occur during runtime. These are a lot more tricky to find. Sometimes the messages are easy to find, as with the compiler messages, but other times they are not. Runtime errors often are dependent on the programmer to deal with. Once the programming is running, data is being manipulated all over the place, so it is imperative that the programmer thinks about hot spots where errors may occur and catch errors using code and generate appropriate error messages. The more errors you catch, the easier this phase of debugging will go. Many issues arise when programmers assume a variable will always have a value, but in actuality has a time when it is null.

Also, many IDE's, applications designed for writing code such as Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio, have built in debuggers. Debuggers allow the code to run, but also lets the programmer interact with the code while the application is running. For example, you can set break points in code where the application will stop and wait for the programmer to do something. Debuggers are power tools to let you see where the problem is occurring.

Finally, logic errors are the toughest to find. These bugs occur after you think you're done, but now your code is behaving strangely under certain circumstances. These are the hardest to catch because they can take a lot of testing to find. Debuggers are key to solving these issues.

In all cases, persistence pays off!

Wing Chun Fut Kung Fu: Power of Positive Thinking

I make a lot of mistakes. While training Wing Chun Fut, the only way you get hit is when you make a mistake. If you perform your moves properly, you should not be hit in any fight.

Surprisingly, that's a lot of pressure. This means that you have ultimate control of your destiny. There's no one else to blame your outcome on because it doesn't matter who you fight or how long they have been training. Like my master says,"You can never lose a fight if you don't get hit.

So, correcting your mistakes becomes the most important task in your training. Students with a positive attitude do better and advance faster in kung fu. Why is that? It's because thinking negatively puts up imaginary barriers to your goals. For example, the goal of our school is that students can block all physical attacks by green belt level. Some people might say you can't get into a fight and expect to not get hit. We do. If you don't believe that it is possible you will be discouraged easily by challenges. Positive people know that hard times are a part of learning and will work as hard in the tough times as they do during the easy times.

Therefore, keep a positive attitude goes a long way.

Physical Fitness: Workout Plan

Everyone has their own physical fitness goals. Once you've determined your goal, it is tim eto formulate a plan. The plan is where you decide how you will achieve your goal.

My goal is to be as fit as I can be in all areas of my body. To that end, I have an exercise routine that focuses on muscle groups. I devote a day of exercise each to back, shoulders, legs, chest, and arms. Sounds like a lot, right? It is. Currently, I have no ability to devote that kind of time to working out. However, I have found that isolating the muscle groups in this way really develops all areas of the body. When I was exercising on this routine regularly, I was in the best shape I've ever been in.

To get around this, I put some groups together. So, I'd have a three day rotation: back and legs, chest and shoulders, and arms. Arms is made up of bicep and tricep exercises, so I try to keep that separate.

This my plan. If your goal is the same as mine, I hope this helps. The best thing to do is think about what you want to accomplish and write up an exercise plan that attacks that goal.

Lesson of the Week: Mohs Scale of Hardness

Everyone knows that diamonds can cut glass. However, do you know why? Diamonds are the hardest mineral according to Mohs scale of hardness. Mohs scale of hardness is a list, devised in 1812 by German scientist Frederich Mohs, of ten minerals in order of hardness. The higher the number, the harder the mineral. Diamonds are the highest at 10, but glass has a hardness of about 6. Since diamonds are harder than glass, diamonds can do damage to glass. The list is:
1 Talc
2 Gypsum
3 Calcite
4 Fluorite
5 Apatite
6 Orthoclase
7 Quartz
8 Topaz
9 Corundum
10 Diamond

Our fingernails are about 2.5. Geologist use this concept in the field to get a general idea of the minerals within rock layers they encounter. Of course, geologists will also take samples back to test in a lab. The differences in hardness are not uniform, but these minerals were chosen because they were widely available at the time.

Spirituality: Mark Chapter 12 Verses 1-12

The Book of Mark is in the New Testament. In this section, Jesus tells the parable of the evil farmers. A man plants a vineyard and rents it out to tenant farmes. The owner moves away to a different country. However, when the owner sends a servant to collect rent, the tenants kill the servant. The owner sends servant after servant, but to no avail. Finally, he sends his son to collect thinking they would never disrespect his son. Instead they kill his son, thinking that they might inherit his land. Jesus says the owner "will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others".

Jesus often used stories to subtlely say things he could not directly say publicly. In this instance, Jesus was alluding to the religious leader as bad farmers on God's land. They reknownce the prophets God send to them and treat his son, Jesus, unkind. He predicts their downfall at the hands of the lord so that the faithful shall inherit the church.

In life for us, this helps us to remember that you reap what you sow. Bad people get what they deserve, and it is not for us to judge. God will ultimately determine the fate of those who do us wrong.

Finances: How Stocks Work

Ok, what are stocks? Well, coompanies normally start off being privately owned. However, if the company needs money to grow, one option they can choose to do is sell a part of thier company to the public. This is what it means when it is said that a company is "going public". When the public buys parts of the company, they are buying stocks. So stocks represents part ownership in a company.

The price of a stock represents the perceived value of the company. The more good news about a company, the higher the stock price rises. Some stock prices pay dividends. Dividends are a share of the profit of the company given as cash to the stock holder. Dividends are great for stocks that don't rise very much.

When you buy stock, you buy shares. The stock price is the value of one share of the company, hence the word shares. For example, if the stock price for a company is $10, then 10 shares would cost you 10 x $10 = $100. Now if the stock price went up a dollar while you have it, then your shares are worth 10 x $11 = $110. You've made $10! How about that?

That is the basic idea of how the stock market works. As you can see a change in price can mean big gains or big losses. Do your research on companies before investing in them.

Nutrition: Cinammon

Cinnamon is not only tasty, but studies show that it is surprisingly good for you. Cinnamon is rich in manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium. These nutrients help fight colon cancer. The fiber and calcium combine to help bind bile salt to make them easier to clean out of the body, thereby cleaning out the colon. That's a lot nutrients packed in a spice. Cinnamon has a great ability to preserve foods, which people would use keep their food fresh in the days before refrigerators. It can do this because cinnamon slows the growth of bacteria.

Cinnamon can also help people with type 2 diabetes. Cinnamon both stimulates insulin receptors and impedes enzymes that inactivate them, thus enhancing the body's ability to metabolize glucose. This helps people with diabetes regulate their blood sugar. Along with this benefit, cinnamon works as an anti-clotting agent. It counteracts inflammatory fatty acids that contribute to clotting.

There's also been a study that showed that cinnamon can help stimulate brain functions such as memory. However, this has not gone through thorough testing.

Add 2 teaspoons a day to your favorite food. I add it to my oatmeal.

Programming: Microsoft COM

When you code, you realize that some code languages are better suited for certain tasks than others. So it can be helpful to use different programming languages for a project. The problem is languages don't natively work together.

This is where COM comes into play. COM stands for Component Object Model. This is the Microsfot standard that can be used to help languages communicate to each other. The problem with languages is that there aren't any standard data types among languages. So, COM defines a set list of data types that can be used. It's up to the individual languages to use the data and translate it into that langauge's version of the variable.

Another important part of COM is that it requires all COM interactions to happen within an interface. This way, all COM methods are predefined and data can be transferred to the modules in different languages uniformly. Now you know what to expect when you call the a COM method, like making a contract between languages.

COM was used in the nineties a lot and is still prevalent today. More newly technologies are using .NET to accomplish the same thing.

Wing Chun Fut Kung Fu: Controlling Your Emotions

You learn a lot about yourself when you spar. One important thing I've learned is how hard it is to avoid overreacting to challenges. Things like this come out for everyone to see when you spar. When I first started out, I got hit a lot. I was just learning how to defend myself, so I wasn't concerned about it.

Now, I've progressed to yellow belt, so my master expects me to stop all hand attacks. This adds a new type of pressure and makes getting hit a bigger deal. At first I got down on myself when I was getting hit because I made a blocking mistake. This is not good because it may lead to getting upset with the person you are sparring with for getting in on you. That's the last thing that you should do because that leads to sparring turning into competition rather than a learning experience, and you discourage the person you are fighting if you don't acknowledge their attacks. You can't improve with that kind of attitude.

I learned that if I accept my flaws, I can more quickly fix the problems. I ask questions a lot about how to defend attacks I get hit with. I also ask people who get in on me to throw the same attacks again so I can see what I'm doing wrong. I'm a perfectionist, so this has been an internal struggle, but I'm getting there!

Physical Fitness: Lifting Weights

Cardio is an important aspect for losing wieght. However, if you are serious about losing weight, weight lifting must be added to your routine.

Weight lifting, or resistance training, has many benefits. First, building muscle helps to prevent serious injuries. The stronger your muscles become, the more protected you are from bone and joint injuries. Muscles wrap themselves around your bones and help give them stability in movement.

Another benefit of resistance training is that it is a great fat burner. When you do cardio, your metabolism only burns fat for a few hours after you've done your exercise. In contrast, weight lifting burns body fat for 24 hours after completing your exercises. As a result, doing cardio and weight lifting in an execise routine will give great results quicker than just doing one or another.

Lesson of the Week: Learning Chinese

When you go to high school or college, most likely there is a foreign language requirement. It's easy to take Spanish or French because these languages are Romance languages just like English. You can get a good grade and learn a little about a culture that has a lot of similarities to America.

What if you decided to try something totally different from English? I studied Mandarin for two years. Mandarin is a dialect in China. There are about seven main dialects in China. The official national language of China is Mandarin, which is why most American schools teach it.

One cool thing is that Chinese languages are written in picture symbols, called hanzi. It is difficult to remember how to write the characters because some words have complicated designs. The characters used to be more pictoral, but China adopted a simplified version of the characters to make writing easier.

Another unique aspect of Chinese languages is that words have tones. A word can be said with different intonations and mean very different things. In Mandarin, there are four tones and it was difficult to get them right when pronouncing words.

I learned a lot about Chinese culture from studying Mandarin. I think branching out to vastly different languages is what the foreign language requirement is all about.

Spirituality: Ezekiel Chapter 26 Verses 1-6

In this passage, God speaks to Ezekiel to send a message to the city of Tyre. Jerusalem had fallen, and Tyre was excited. Ezekiel says,"Tyre has rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem, saying,'Ha! She who was the gateway to the rich trade routes to the east has been broken, and I am the heir!'"

When good things happen to you, it's ok to be happy for yourself. However, there is no honor in revelling in another's failure. It's easy kick someone when they are down because they don't resist. This is what Tyre is doing. They are rejoicing in Jerusalem's pain. That is not wise. To be wrapped up in caring about beating someone so much that you actually enjoy their misfortune is not of goodness. We should strive to be better than that, no matter what has been done to us.

As a result of their attitude, Ezekiel says Tyre will be punished. "Tyre will become the prey of many nations, and its mainland villages will be destroyed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord." When someone else's misery makes you happy, you will soon find your own misery.

Finances: Input Vs. Output

Ok, time for another issue on controlling your finances. We've all been in a situation where you've lost track of your spending. You look up, and your bank account doesn't look as healthy as it once was. What do you do?

This is the time to figure out what is going wrong with your spending habits. We need to keep track of the money we take in and the money we spend. For most of us, the money we take in is the easy part because that doesn't change much. Since most bills seem to be issued in a monthly cycle, figure out how much money you receive in a 4 week or monthly period. For me, that would mean I would add two paychecks together because I get paid bi-weekly.

The next step is to determine where your money is going. Write out all your expenses that are required in a month, such as rent/mortgage, food, gas, etc. This will be your baseline, so you know how what you must pay matches up with your income. If your income does not cover these bills, then you really need to rethink how necessary the items you are buying are. For example, maybe your groceries are more expensive than necessary.

The final step is to figure out what else you spend in a month. These are things that are easiest to control, like going out to eat every day or buying clothes once a week. If this is your concern, be thankful because this is fixable. Writing down the money you spend in a month helps you to visually picture where the problem is occurring and attack problem areas.

Nutrition: Grapefruits

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted the last couple of days, nut I decided to take the weekend off to celebrate labor day. Of course, today is labor day and I guess I shouldn't be posting today for that reason, but here I go.

Grapefruits are a wonderful fruit! First, grapefruitd are rich in vitamin C. You can get 78% of your daily vitamin C requirement from one serving of grapefruits. Also, Grapefruits contain a lot of fiber. A half of a grapefruit yields 6 grams of fiber. However, to get this benefit, you have to eat the connecting segments in the grapefruit as well as the pulp. That's not too bad!

Another cool benefit of grapefruits is grapefruit juice helps to detoxify the body. Grapefruit juice does this by incerasing the production of liver enzymes that destroy toxins. Also, grapefruit juice helps these enzymes find toxins, making them more active.

There are also studies that show grapefruit juice helps to fight colon, breast, lung cancer. Also, a study in British Journal of Nutrition showed that grapefruit juice can help prevent kidney stones as well.

So add a glass of grapefruit juice or a grapefruit to your diet!