Salute Friend

Trying to fit all the planning and preparing and celebrating of the holiday season into an already busy schedule can bring a lot of stress to a time of year that’s supposed to be full of peace. These days, even Santa needs help making his list and checking it twice!

Fortunately, help is available. Virtual Assistants, or VA’s, offer a wide range of services designed to save you time and lighten your workload, which is more important than ever at this busy time of year. Here are a few ways a VA can help make your Christmas merry:

1. Research gifts online

2. Plan work for the new year

3. Online Christmas shopping

4. Send e-greetings to your contacts

5. Make holiday travel arrangements

6. Plan your Christmas event or party

7. Add special holiday content to your website

8. Send out announcements of your holiday promotions

9. Send out “handwritten” Christmas or New Year cards

10. Handle some of your office staff’s regular work so you can give them some time off

You can even give a gift certificate for VA services to someone you know - you’ll both save time!

Of course, Virtual Assistants can be an asset to your business any time of year!

Many entrepreneurs, especially those working from home, find that business ownership is not as rewarding as they expected, either personally or financially, because administrative tasks are keeping them from the work they are truly passionate about. By using a VA for your word processing, spreadsheets, database development, mailing list management, research, or other administrative tasks, you’ll have more time for the work that you enjoy and which increases your bottom line - and isn’t that why you started your own business in the first place?

–

Permission is granted to use this article, as long as the “About the Author” section including the link to http://www.organizedassistant.com remains intact. An email letting me know which article you have used and where would be appreciated.

About The Author

Janet Barclay, Organized Assistant, is a Professional Organizer, Virtual Assistant and Time Management Consultant. For more information visit http://www.organizedassistant.com.

info@organizedassistant.com

The dictionary defines power as “control and influence exercised over others”. With positions of management, and leadership, comes power and it seems to sit more comfortably with some than others. It is increasingly recognised that organisations need good leaders if they are to go forward successfully. Their people will feel motivated, empowered and want to contribute. Leaders who are not using their power positively and abusing will act in a way which will be coercive and, in extremes, could be bullying. This latter situation is one which appears to be on the increase and is creating further problems in the workplace such as stress. This article will look at what is “power” and how it can be used productively. We want to consider how leaders can become more confident in their positions and with their power and explore the benefits for all parties when they do.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton

There are two elements of power in an organisational context - “position power” and “personal power”. The leader has “position power” given from the organisation. This comes from the authority which the job role has to do things or make things happen. The “personal power” is about the degree of influence the individual has and is given by the followers. The two are interlinked to an extent. People will look to the leader’s “position power” and give them a degree of “personal power” based on how they perceive the leader might influence them. Equally, when organisations are looking to promote someone, the more aware ones will look to see how well individuals can seem to influence others around them - and give them some “position power”.

Problems arise when people are put into roles where they have considerable “position power” but feel out of their depth and under-confident. What starts to happen is that they feel a need to cover their discomfort and they begin to do this by abusing the power they hold. Over my years of working with organisations, I have heard and seen so many examples of poor or inappropriate behaviour from various levels of management and leadership. This is despite the amount of training which many of these people have participated in! I wonder how many times you have been on the receiving end of such behaviour? More to the point, how many of you have been guilty of using them? Sometimes, these abuses of power are obvious:

• shouting, screaming even, at staff;
• threats being used;
• unreasonable demands;
• intimidating body language;
• being a time-stealer to staff;
• setting unreasonable levels of expectation, etc.

The list can go on beyond this - and could expand to include some less obvious behaviours. Why is it that so many previously reasonable people can start to behave so unreasonably? Experience suggests that one factor is that they are often merely carrying on a trend from their bosses! If there are not good role models, it can be difficult to behave correctly. However, this is something of an excuse. What is really going to be achieved with abuse of power? The daily reports of problems with bullying in the workplace, increasing stress-related problems in the workplace are clear indicators of that this is an on-going issue.

The consequences for the organisation, and the leaders, can be significant. There are probably issues with productivity and effectiveness, absenteeism (or just presenteeism!), and possibly staff retention is also a problem? If these things are happening, there as a potential for a vicious spiral - the manager feels under more pressure and passes this on with even more inappropriate use of their “position power”.

The flip-side is to consider what can happen when the leader is able to use their power in a constructive manner. Why are they able to do this? Partly it is because they are comfortable with their “personal power” and adjust to the additional “position power”. Maybe they have the right role models, or suitable training. They do recognise that they can get more from their people by supporting and encouraging rather than coercing!

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
John Steinbeck

For me, this quotation says a great deal about the two types of leader - the abusers of power are frequently out of their depth in their role. They fear losing their position and the likely loss of face, status and money. They do not feel that they can ask for help or support to improve the way they operate. Possibly, they believe it will be seen as a sign of weakness and so they aim to compensate with what they think is a show of strength.

Leaders have a right to ask things of their followers. There are many different ways they can go about this and there is no, one right way. At times a leader may need to be more directive and authoritative - at others more inclusive and supportive. Whatever the situation, the leader still operates from “position power” - and the good one, remains aware of their own “personal power”.

When you are in a position of leadership, stop and think about how you behave with those you are leading. You will gain far more “personal power” by treating people with respect - and earn it in return. Accept that with your position comes responsibility. Regardless of how your bosses may treat you, or colleagues treat their people, it is no excuse for you to abuse your power. Remember, the most effective way to engage people and to get them to work with and for you is to treat them as they want to be treated!! Pay attention to your behaviours and notice if you have any tendencies to make unreasonable demands or revert to authority to get things done. How difficult is it to think about the other person first and then ask for what you want in the most appropriate way?

As a leader, you have a choice about whether you abuse or use the power you are given. Many who are abusing their power do not always realise that they are doing it, or why. The reason is usually that they are struggling in their role. If you find yourself slipping towards this, do something about it! Think about what is making you feel like this and identify what areas you want to improve or develop. Now go and find out how you can get the support or training you want and go and ask for it. Learn to be comfortable with your power, both “position” and “personal” and you will be pleasantly surprised what you can achieve as a leader!

Graham Yemm is a partner in Solutions 4 Training and has over 20 years experience working with organisations, internationally and in the UK to help them develop their leadership skills and behaviours. He can be reached through the website or +44 1483 480656.

Building a website can be overwhelming, here are some design tips to help keep you on the right path (or is that web?)

— Designing a Frames-based web site

Frames may make the job of maintaining a big web site easy, but search engines hate them. Most search engines cannot find their way through them and end up indexing only the home page. Lose your frames right away. You will start getting positive improvements the moment you redesign your site without frames.

— Having an all-Flash or graphic-only home page

This is another classic mistake. Many designers design web site home pages like brochures. A beautiful cover which has to be opened to read. But on the Internet every click takes away some prospects. Did they click your ENTER button or the Back button? Search engines need content to index. If you don’t have words on the home page and only a Flash movie or an animated graphic, how will the search engines know what you do?

— Not having a good title

A good title is critical for getting good search engine positions and the most vital thing — the click-through. With the title, you are always walking a tightrope. You need a title with your most important keyword near the beginning but it should still appeal to the human reading the results.

— Hosting your site with a FREE host

Don’t do it. It takes away all your credibility. Most of the search engines don’t even index web sites on free hosts. Even if they do, they rank them quite low.

— Stuffing lots of keywords in the keywords tag

Do you have a keywords tag that lists all the words related to your product in a big long series? This is a certain recipe to invite negative points. Put only the 2-3 most important keywords in there. Here’s a quick test - don’t put any term in the keyword tag if it doesn’t appear at least once in the body copy.

— Not having any outgoing links

Do you know why the Internet is called the Web? Because the web sites link to each other. If you only have incoming links and no outbound links, it’s not appreciated by the search engines as it violates the basic structure of the Web. Because some people try to conserve PageRank (a proprietary index used by Google to measure link popularity), they avoid having any outbound links. This is one big myth. You can get very good points if you have some outbound links with keyword-rich anchor text and preferably keyword-rich target URL also.

— Insisting on session variables and cookies to show information

Session variables are used extensively by ecommerce-enabled sites. This is to trace the path used by the visitor. Shopping cart and various other applications also benefit by using session variables. However it should be possible to visit the various information related and sales pages without needing to have session variables. Since search engine spiders don’t index cookies, they can’t index your pages properly if the navigation requires cookies and session variables.

— Regularly submitting your site to the search engines

“We will submit your site to the top 250,000 search engines every month for only $29.95.” Who has not seen these ads or received Spam with similar messages? And which are those 250,000 search engines? There are only a handful of top search engines worth bothering about. For some sites if you resubmit while you are waiting to be indexed, you entry is pushed to the end of the queue. So you can resubmit regularly and never get indexed!

— Optimizing for more than 2 or 3 search terms

It is virtually impossible to optimize a page for more than 2-3 keywords without diluting everything. Don’t try to work on more than 3 phrases on one page. Split. Get similar phrases together and work on those in this page. Take 2 or 3 out of the other phrases and develop a new page with entirely new copy. Remember, you cannot just copy the same page and squeeze these new phrases in there. It will look very funny to the visitor.

Author: http://www.JamesBurchill.com - James is a freelance writer and consultant

Don’t be shy! Learn top no deposit casino games from home!

The nuisance involved in going to a betting room gives us plenty of reasons to avoid going there unless you absolutely must go. On a closer look all that traffic, the nuisance, and tasks at hand simply aren’t worth the incommodity only for that opportunity to place your wager at betting room, all the same, provided you are the sort of person who rather loves virtual gambling then opting for virtual card playing could be the more obvious solution. It’s not required to abandon your desk to have a go at online roulette or other games of choice for the simple reason that you can access it easily within your domestic surroundings if you possess a fully functional computer plus, obviously, a broadband internet connection. Though allowing for this, do yourself a favor and read on because there are a good number of instructions which you will positively want to know about online roulette or other games of choice, specifically if you happen to be a greenhorn regarding this realm. So, restrain that flap to view what comes next. Here is a plan that describes what to focus on when tracking down an honest and trust-worthy online roulette or other games of choice establishment.

The topmost thing which a discriminating Web gambler will take care to chase out is an online roulette or other games of choice establishment of the type capable of promoting high winning odds. Check out that the online roulette or other games of choice establishment has a tie-up with an honest and trust-worthy accounting firm in order to check the games’ pay-outs percentage regularly. This is extremely beneficial to confirm the cabbage you plan on anteing during your anticipated amusement will actually justify it all. Here’s a few select further guidelines about choosing your online blackjack establishment.

For some more advice, is obviously to test the odds at first with trivial sums in lieu of use up so much it will hurt immediately. Check, first of all, the integrity of this online blackjack setup rather than going for some grave hazard, specifically financial ones… My last most vital piece of advice about online card playing. It can only be this- never to ignore that betting should be about pleasurable recreation and not about making money. Betting in an online casino is definitely no chore, rather, it is a leisure pursuit which can help you feel exultant and life in general delectable. So, after having heeded the all these facts, set out to surrender to the attraction of online blackjack…

Home air purifiers are becoming an increasingly popular accessory in many modern homes, but unlike many of the knick-knacks or other haberdashery you might use to add personality to your home, an air purifier cleaner is something that can add something extra. Or rather, remove it. Whether you are an allergy or asthma sufferer, or just sensitive to the many pollutants that fill our modern atmosphere, a home air purifier can enrich your life by taking away those extra smells and particles from your home.

And there is a home air purifier to suit every household’s needs. Invented as early as the nineteenth century, clean air purifiers have a long development behind them, with input from some of the world’s leading scientists, many of whom were allergy or asthma sufferers themselves, thus realising all to well the importance of a good air purifier cleaner. Home air purifiers combine the best in modern science and technology to create a range of products that are enormously effective and that will blend into your home unobtrusively.

Home air purifiers are available in a range of designs and price brackets to suit every home and pocket, so whether you prefer cheap and cheerful, or have a little more money to invest, you will be able to find a clean air purifier that will help improve the quality of your life. Different brands and models employ different technologies to filter the air in your home so that it is most suitable for you. Whether you have an asthma or allergy sufferer in the family or simply want to provide a healthier environment for yourself and your children, the right type of home air purifier is out there for you.

So before you select the air purifier cleaner most suitable for your needs, be sure to do a little research into the different types of technology used - different types of home air purifiers remove different types of offensive and unhealthy particles or smells. Everyone is different, so be sure to choose the clean air purifier that makes the environment in your home just right for you.

Home Air Purifiers do an essential job.

For a website totally devoted to Air Purifiers visit Peter’s Website Air Purifiers Explained and find out about Air Purifiers as well as The Best Air Purifiers and more, including Electronic Air Purifiers, Hepa Air Purifiers, Ozone Air Purifiers, Room Air Purifiers and Whole House Air Purifiers.

QUESTION: I’d like to sell a few hundred antique books left to me by my late Aunt. They were printed in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s and later. Since my aunt was an English teacher, many of the books are famous or classic works. I was considering selling them to a local book dealer, who gave me this advice:

“As any book dealer will tell you, the Internet has changed bookselling dramatically. Average priced books have dropped in price by a third to 75 percent in the past year. The best thing for you would be to … organize the books by condition. Tell us about the best first. We should be able to tell you very quickly which are or are not worth anything.”

What do you think of this evaluation?

ANSWER: What this book dealer is saying is fairly reasonable — from his perspective. But of course he wants to get books for resale at the lowest price possible. I wouldn’t say it sounds unethical at all, he’s just trying to maximize his profit, which is what everyone in business wants to do.

But he wants you to do some of the work yourself — organizing by condition, subject matter, and so forth. For a bit more trouble, you can sell them yourself on Amazon Marketplace, make lots more money, and perhaps have some fun in the bargain.

The Internet has cut out the middleman (in this case the brick-and-mortar used bookstore) and has enabled sellers of books to realize the market price of their goods.

One area where I would disagree with your book dealer friend is his assertion that prices have dropped by “a third to 75 percent in the past year.” Certainly, that can be true for current books where supply has overloaded demand (because a book has recently sold well, but is no longer being marketed — or the book has been “remaindered” and the publisher dumped all their copies into the used market).

But most older scarce books are becoming scarcer online and prices are escalating. In particular, you’re talking about the “high spots” of literature, which is exactly what book collectors are looking for these days.

Why are prices for highly collectible books going up? My guess is that used bookselling through popular venues such as Amazon has introduced many new people to book collecting. And since there is a finite supply of collectible books, their supply is rapidly being depleted as more people get into collecting, and the price of the remaining books is going up as they become even more scarce.

See a real-time list of the most highly sought after used and collectible books.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

Steve Weber is author of “The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site” (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com

The biggest problem we face in America today is not terrorism - it is obesity. This is according to Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in America. And it seems much of this problem is happening in a slow and creeping way, through gradual young and middle-aged adult weight gain, over very long periods of time.

On the average, a typical American adult gains at least two pounds per year over his or her lifetime. That probably means that approximately 100 extra calories are being consumed each day, according to Dr. James Hill of the University of Colorado’s nutrition center. If you simply burn off those 100 extra calories, or don’t consume them to begin with, you will then not gain that yearly extra weight.

Dr. Gerberding says that fixing the problem will involve changing most Americans’ daily social norms. This will have to start in our early childhood, she says. People will have to begin performing more physical activity and eating less every day. And Dr. Hill has examined government figures showing that about 40 million adults are currently obese. He has also noted that Americans are steadily gaining more weight than usual in recent years. But what can be done about this socially and personally significant health problem?

“The future is not hopeful unless we act now,” Dr. Hill says. He estimates that if current trends continue, the obesity rate for American adults in 2008 will be 39%, which compares unfavorably with 31% in the year 2000. Middle age shows a great increase in the amount of weight gained. There is a doubling of body fat in this time period in both men and women living in the developed countries. Such weight gain is strongly associated with increased morbidity and mortality. But there is ample evidence to conclude that moderate physical activity combined with a steady and healthy diet slows down or stops middle-aged adult weight gain.

Young adults are also at a high risk for weight gain. In America, for adults ages 25-74, the major weight gain was shown to be highest between ages 25-34. This was found by recent US government studies. And in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study, even though trends were constant across ten years of follow-up studies, aging related weight gain was largest in the early to mid-20s than it was for older age groups.

It may not be wisest to wait until middle age, even though that may be when obesity actually becomes a more significant health threat, to lose weight. Irreversible health damage from weight being above optimal levels may occur prior to the beginning of a health related diet and exercise program. But modest weight loss can reduce cardiovascular risk factors, and in high-risk individuals, it also prevent the development of diabetes and hypertension.

The American College of Preventative Medicine endorses the guidelines of the National Institutes of Health when it comes to advising obese and overweight patients on how to go about both losing excess weight and keeping it off. They encourage moderate physical activity for 30 to 45 minutes for at least 3 to 5 days per week for clinically obese or overweight persons, whenever such a program is not contraindicated by any current health problems. They also advise counseling regarding an energy-reduced or low-calorie diet of 800 to 1500 calories per day for an obese or overweight male or female adult until optimal weight is attained. Then it is suggested that such persons remain on a healthy, normal diet that is not higher in calories than the amount they burn each day.

It is felt by many experts that simply avoiding excess weight gain during the early adult years may be important regarding preventing adverse health reactions and establishing an early foundation for the maintenance of lifelong healthy habits in adulthood. It is also felt that interventions such as simple changes in diet and the maintenance of a regular exercise program will help parents establish lifelong role models for their children. This would greatly help to prevent America’s steady increase in obesity over the past decade, and its accompanying morbidity and mortality over the next several generations of Americans.

Information in this article was obtained from the four sources listed below:

The “Weight Control and Obesity” page at http://www.annecollins.com/weight_health/weight-control-obesity.h tm ;

The Nutrition.org page at http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/132/12/3824S ;

The “Weight management counseling of overweight adults” page at http://www.guideline.gov/summary/summary.aspx?ss=15&doc_id=3154&n br=2380 ; The “NHLBI Working Group Report Preventing Weight Gain in Young Adults” page at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/meetings/workshops/wgt-gain.htm

Network Marketing is a vibrant industry offering employment to over 43 million people worldwide with a turnover exceeding $ 75 billion in worldwide sales of products and services as per the figures of the World Federation of Direct Sales Association (WFDSA) a body regulating the conduct of business on ethical lines and all members are bound by this code of conduct.

Worldwide the Direct selling industry is gaining ground as it helps to eliminate multi layered distribution network and costly advertising. The profits thus generated help in reducing the cost of the product and help Direct Selling agents to make money for themselves and the organization they create.

Paul Zane Pilsner a renowned economist and author of New York Times Best sellers such as ‘Unlimited Wealth’ and ‘The Next Trillion Dollar’ describes Network Marketing as Intellectual Distribution educating consumers about products and services that will improve their lives, products, and services that they didn’t already know existed.

The Network Marketing requires one important criteria-that is to be a product user oneself and then promote the products based on ones own benefits and convictions, unlike conventional marketing where many of the products are never used by a person promoting them.

The Network Marketing is currently a subject of much debate due to some unscrupulous companies exploiting the lack of awareness of Networking Marketing or MLM as it is commonly called. WFDSA has put out detailed guidelines for the network marketing companies on ethical conduct of business. All DSAs that are members of the WFDSA pledge to abide by the World Codes of Conduct as a minimum standard of ethical behavior

They are strictly prohibited from forming pyramid schemes which pull in money from unwary consumers on tall promises of big money and benefit few people, schemes which do not have quality product or services meeting with local laws and paying money for recruitments.

WFDSA also has very detailed guidelines for choosing the right opportunity, the questions to be asked before choosing an opportunity and verifying the antecedents of the company that one wishes to join. There are legal counsels worldwide with whom complaints can be lodged in the event of any malpractices or complaints about the companies. But for all these safeguards to work one must join business opportunities offered by companies which are members of the WFDSA. There are country chapters or associations which are in turn members of WFDSA subscribing to the Better Business Practices. The addresses may be had at the WFDSA website.

Direct selling provides important benefits to individuals who desire an opportunity to earn an income and build a business of their own especially in the current scenario of rampant unemployment; to consumers who enjoy an alternative to shopping in crowded market, difficulties of traveling in congested roads and parking places or the like; and to the consumer products market. It offers an alternative to traditional employment for those who desire a flexible income earning opportunity to supplement their household income, or whose responsibilities or circumstances do not allow for regular part-time or full time employment. In many cases, direct selling opportunities develop into a fulfilling career for those who achieve success and choose to pursue their independent direct selling business on a full time basis.

As in every business this industry is also beset with unscrupulous elements trying to cash in on the new opportunities. The people buying products should thoroughly verify and ask for proof of compliance with local laws, company background, and exhaustive testimonials on product usage claims before buying these products. The quickest way to assess the company is the length of time they have been in business. Any company with over a decade in the business is certain to have met all requirements as otherwise they may not have survived for so long.

Similarly people wishing to join the business opportunity must make sure that the entry into the business is inexpensive and any investments should only be on products and the quantity of stocking should be purely on what you can sell within a reasonable period of time say a 15 day inventory. Stocking should not be done on the basis of income claims or lure of higher positions. It is very important not to be swayed with huge income claims. Please remember that all business can be developed only on principles of hard work ethics, and bringing value to the customers and income can be generated only with good products and not on mere recruitments.

Detailed Guidelines of WFDSA can be read in the respective websites.

R.G. Srinivasan is a Managerial professional, Writer and Author. You can view his home-business resources blog at http://www.home-businessresources.blogspot.com for online marketing tips, resources,links and business opportunities.

A loan is basically a product and like all products, its sales pitches can be exaggerated. The end result is that you end up with a loan that may not suit your needs at all. When shopping around for the best mortgage rate that is most suitable for you, one needs to be highly discerning with exactly what is being offered.

Short-Term Adjustable Rate
Many consumers make the common mistake of choosing a one-year adjustable rate mortgage due to the deceptively low rate being advertised. Deceptive, because, in the very next year, the rate shoots up.

It is most important that you keep in mind that it is not in the best interests of lenders to offer you a loan with the lowest possible interest rate. Typically they would prefer you to opt for the highest rate you could possibly afford. Doing so will ensure that in addition to their regular commission, mostly one percent of the loan amount, an overage of an extra one or two percent is earned for selling you a loan priced higher than the most favorable deal for you. To avoid this situation, insist on the daily rate card from your loan officer that lists the lowest rates of all his products.

Regulation Offers Some Protection
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Respa) lays down that lenders must give an accurate estimate of closing costs at the time of submitting your application. Extra charges are in violation of the law. Nevertheless many banks often try to slip them in. Insist on a detailed list of closing costs. If you find any suspicious or unnecessary charges, you have the right to ask your loan officer for an explanation.

While it may be advisable to seek recommendations for mortgage lenders, you need to be careful if the advice comes from a real estate agent. With estate agents, it is more likely that instead of referring you to the best deal possible, they send you to the lenders who pay them a commission for doing so.

Mortgage brokers will often mislead you with pre approvals. They lead you to believe that a pre approval practically guarantees you the mortgage. However, at the actual time of getting approved for a mortgage, these pre-approvals are of no value and may as well be wastebasket approvals.

The Government has made efforts to ensure protection for the consumers with government mandated disclosure forms. However the miniscule type combined with complex financial figures can be difficult to read or comprehend easily. Even worse, it can be use to conceal the truth just as it can reveal it. Overall, make sure that when you are selecting your quotes, you keep in mind that opting for what appears to be the cheapest quote initially, or depending completely on the recommendations of the lender are not good strategies with seeking out the right mortgage for you.

Paul Lerner enjoys writing about a variety of mortgage topics, including advice on home mortgage quotes. See www.freemortgagequoteguide.com/articles/mortgage-rate-quote.php for more information.

A group of researchers from 5 major medical centers found
that eating a specific diet rich in nutrient-dense fruits
and vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy can be a
powerful tool in lowering blood pressure.

The DASH DIET( Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) was
found in 1996 to lower blood pressure about the same as a
blood pressure medication would, and since that time has
quickly become one of the most often prescribed diets in
clinical practice today.

The DASH Diet is recommended by the American Heart
Association, in the USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines for
Americans, and is featured in the US High Blood Pressure
Guidelines.

The DASH DIET Study 459 people were chosen to participate in the DASH DIET Study. They were randomly assigned to one of three different types:

The “typical American diet”

A diet with more fruits and vegetables, but otherwise
similar to the typical American diet

The “DASH diet” - rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat
dairy products; moderate in fish, poultry, and nuts; and
reduced in red meat, sweets, and sugar-sweetened drinks.

To assure they weren’t doing anything else that might lower
their blood pressure, participants were asked not to make
any major changes in the physical activity levels during the
study.

Participants were weighed frequently to make sure their
weight stayed constant; if someone gained or lost weight,
they were given a bit less or more food to eat to get their
weight back to what it was.

Salt/sodium intake was the same in all three diets -
slightly lower than the U.S. average, but still higher than
what most guidelines recommended.

The Results

Those who ate the typical American diet did not
see a change in their blood pressure.

Those on the fruit and vegetable diet experienced a
significant lowering of their systolic blood pressure - The
upper number, which is a measurement of blood pressure in
the arteries when the heart contracts to pump out blood -
but little change in their diastolic pressure.

But the men and women who ate the DASH DIET for eight weeks experienced a significant drop in both their systolic and
diastolic blood pressure readings. Changes occurred within a
week of starting the DASH diet, stabilized within two weeks,
and stayed lowered for the remainder of the eight weeks.

On average, blood pressure fell 5.5 mmHg (systolic) and 3.0
mmHg (diastolic) among all participants (including both
those with normal blood pressure and those with
hypertension).

In participants with high blood pressure, blood pressure
dropped an average of 11.4 mmHg (systolic) and 5.5 mmHg
(diastolic).

These improvements in blood pressure are about the same as
what can be achieved with a single antihypertensive
medication.

There were positive health outcomes of the DASH diet beyond
lowering high blood pressure.

Most importantly, perhaps, the DASH diet lowered the study
participants’cholesterol levels.

When blood cholesterol is high, cholesterol and other fatty
substances collect on the walls of your blood vessels and in
time restrict or block the flow of blood to your heart.

High cholesterol, which is generally caused by a diet high
in saturated fats, is a major risk factor for heart disease.

The DASH diet is low in total and saturated fat.

People who ate the diet during the study, dropped their
cholesterol 14 points. The “bad” cholesterol (LDL) fell 11
points. The level of good cholesterol (HDL) also fell by 3.7
points (this type of drop in HDL is seen when people reduce
their overall fat intake). Combining all the effects
(changes in blood pressure, LDL, and HDL), there was an
important improvement in overall cardiac risk with the DASH
DIET.

A later study was done at the Boston University Medical
Center, which offered the DASH Diet in an online form to
employees of a large US company.

Over 4,000 people enrolled in the DASH DIET program.

They received weekly email reminders to log in to the site
for information on topics such as weight loss, exercise,
reading food labels, grocery shopping and more.

They also were encouraged to track the changes they made to their diet, exercise, weight and blood pressure online.

After one year in the DASH DIET program, study participants
had lost weight and lowered their blood pressure
significantly.

They started eating more fruits and vegetables and moved
from higher fat dairy products to lower fat versions.

After the success of the DASH DIET program, the researchers
decided to offer the program to the general population
online at DASH DIET

The reason the researchers think that the DASH DIET is
perfect for all Americans is that it doesn’t take a whole
lot of learning.

It deals with real foods that are easily found in every
grocery store across America, and allows dieters to choose
how they plan to meet their food servings goals with foods
that they enjoy.

Tom Moore, MD is the founder of the Dash For Health
program and the author of the best-selling book: THE DASH DIET FOR
HYPERTENSION. Find out how you too can lose weight painlessly by claiming your free DASH eating profile at:
DASH DIET