99 thoughts on losing 100 pounds

July 11, 2010 · Filed Under Health · Comments Off 

I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. I lost even more a couple of years ago, then gained some of it back when we had our first child. It’s not just women who gain weight during pregnancy!

But I have still managed to keep most of it off, and I have learned a lot about weight loss along the way. The Atkins book is where it all started for me. The following list is in no particular order. It’s simply 101 observations I had from losing 100 pounds. I am not a doctor or a nutritionist so take all of this with a grain of salt and discuss any weight loss plans with a professional.

  1. You will never lose weight because someone tells you to. Don’t even bother trying to motivate yourself to lose weight because so-and-so told you that you should. If you do, it won’t work. This may sound trite, but you have to want to do it for yourself. Then, and only then, you’ll succeed.

  2. Everyone has advice on weight loss. Mention you’re trying to lose weight and every single person will have their own 2 cents. Be patient – in most cases people are either looking to help you or help themselves through reinforcement.

  3. Calories, carbs, fat grams and other measures of food content are not as important as the quality and quantity of food that you eat. Each diet has some truth to it, but the secret to weight loss is simple: eat less, exercise more.
  4. Each measure of food content has some benefit, though, and each has some problems. Try not to eliminate anything completely, but a general tip is that your diet probably contains an excessive amount of carbohydrates. Look at that first.
  5. Get help. Research before you dive in. Do not start a diet before talking to a doctor or reading a book. You may be knowledgeable, but there can be weird interactions you’re not familiar with (for example, a low-carb diet gave me some really significant, er, constipation).
  6. If your dietary needs are expensive – for example, if you find that what you buy on a diet costs more than the junk food you were eating – ignore it! You cannot – I repeat, cannot – spend too much money on your health. All the money in the world is useless if you are dead.
  7. Soda has a lot of calories. Diet soda has a lot of sodium. Quitting both of them makes you shed a couple of pounds in days. Do it now. There is no reason for soda in your life as a regular drink. None. Seltzer is just as good, if not better.
  8. If you MUST drink soda, drink regular soda, not diet soda. One regular soda will at least satisfy you and fill you up for a while. Diet sodas just bloat you and fill you with sodium, not to mention aspartame.
  9. It is very difficult to cut high fructose corn syrup out of your diet, but you should. Bread should not normally need sweetener as the #2 ingredient, should it? Read labels.
  10. Once you quit eating junk food, some of it starts to taste pretty awful. Twinkies have a strange metallic taste. Have you looked at the ingredients in the food you eat?
  11. My personal opinion is that even low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrasweet are a bad idea for dieters. Eating something sweet fired off weird hunger impulses in my brain, so I found it was easiest to just avoid every single type of sweets other than chewing gum altogether.
  12. Chewing gum, however, serves a lot of purposes when dieting. It keeps your mouth busy, it satisfies cravings for sweets and if you’re a typical dieter it hides the nasty halitosis (bad breath) that dieting causes.
  13. Ricola is an excellent herbal-flavored substitute for chewing gum. If you haven’t ever tried it, give it a try.
  14. If you have an organic foodstore near you, try some organic foods. I never would have looked twice at edmame/tofu mixes but I decided to try one at a local health foods store. It was amazingly good. Today I would rather eat that than potato chips. I wish I had some right now, in fact.
  15. On the other hand, there are some good diet aids that are non-natural, non-organic but still worth looking into. If you love sweet drinks, try Crystal Light, for example. Tea would be better but not everyone can “get into” tea.
  16. Farmer’s markets vegetables will show you why you don’t like vegetables. Once you’ve eaten never-refrigerated straight-from-the-farm tomatoes you’ll realize that the little flavorless round red balls in the supermarket are not really tomatoes. Farmer’s market veggies are a great way to fill up and learn to love veggies all over again.
  17. Almost any roasted vegetable can be made tasty with the right oils, herbs and spices.
  18. Spice has minimal calories, and so do herbs.
  19. Put enough cayenne pepper on anything and it will slow down your eating. It may even kick your metabolism up (albeit a very, very small amount).
  20. Coffee and tea without milk and sugar will taste just as good once you get used to them. Try a little less added stuff every day. Black coffee has 0 calories.
  21. Fried foods are always bad for a dieter. Always. Without exception.
  22. If you only eat foods that you have to cook or prepare, it slows your eating speed down. Buy blocks of cheese and cut your own slices for a sandwich and you will see what I mean.
  23. The exception is raw vegetables. They are very filling, have minimal calories and plenty of other benefits (fiber, vitamins, antioxidants). You can eat as many carrots as you feel like and probably only take in minimal calories.
  24. Water has volume. Drinking water fills you up, at least temporarily – but the nice thing is you can keep drinking it non-stop. You can always add a lemon wedge if you want.
  25. Alcohol has calories. Lots. I like alcohol, too, but it’s 100% unneeded calories.
  26. Some alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, are a lot worse than others. A margarita or a whiskey sour has lots of sugar, calories and carbs – almost any mixed drink is a killer. A glass of wine has some calories and carbs but there are some possible health benefits, as with a glass of beer. And one of my all-time favorites has some calories but no carbs: a dirty martini, shaken, straight up, dry with an olive and a twist. Maybe it doesn’t have so many health benefits as wine or beer, but it’s a nice way to flag the day as “over” and the evening as “beginning.” Plus, it’s hard to chug a martini.
  27. A salad bar is an invitation to disaster. 2000 calories of vegetables are still 2000 calories.
  28. Salad dressing has a lot of calories. Huge amounts, in fact. I love ranch dressing, but I stick with oil and vinegar – lots of vinegar and a little bit of oil. If you eat a salad drowned in dressing you’re probably better off just having some chips.
  29. You hear this often: multiple small meals make you feel much less hungry (eating 6 times a day instead of 3 times per day). I found this generally doesn’t work if you have a 9-to-5 type of job. What you can do fairly easily is eat a hearty breakfast, a raw food snack mid-morning (i.e. fruits or veggies), a largely raw food lunch (i.e. no heavy carbs or meat), a moderate-carb midafternoon snack (shortly before heading home have an energy bar) and then eat what you want for dinner but don’t eat too late. Trying to eat 6 equally-portioned type “meals” was very annoying. Snacking smart made better sense.
  30. Eating carbs within 3 hours of your bedtime is a bad idea - you generally tend to be at your least active late in the evening, and those carbs will not be burned off.
  31. Eating carbs for breakfast is a bad idea. You will be hungry again in an hour. Eggs, cottage cheese, or turkey is better. Fruits are OK, even though they have carbs.
  32. Eating carbs for lunch will make you drowsy in the afternoon, so it is a bad idea.
  33. Carbs are generally a bad idea. Other than natural bread once in a while, maybe rice and some pasta, there’s not a whole lot to say for carbs unless you’re training for the Tour de France. Even then, keep in mind Lance Armstrong gets his carbs from pasta, not from chocolate.
  34. Have you ever actually measured out a single serving of cereal? What constitutes a serving seems like it would not be enough to feed a baby, let alone an adult. However, that should give you something to think about how adults eat.
  35. Your eyes are almost always bigger than your stomach. Eat half of your dinner, wait 5 minutes – sip on some tea or seltzer or water or whatever – then start eating again. Half the time you won’t want half the food.
  36. If you eat your meals with overweight people, you will eat more. Period.
  37. If you eat your meals with healthy fit people, you may eat less… and save money.
  38. A broad generalization: almost any single-person entrée in the United States is probably about 50% larger than necessary for a normal human meal…at least.
  39. Restaurants don’t care if you eat everything that you are served. Their goal is to fill you up on free breadsticks, extra soda and alcoholic beverages before your entrée comes so you’ll go home happy…and fat. They won’t be there holding your hand when you get that coronary bypass.
  40. Unlearning the “eat because it’s tasty, not because you’re hungry” lesson is hard, but you can do it. Kids do not eat when they are not hungry unless you teach them to.
  41. American corporations want you to be fat. Advertising companies, drug companies, food companies and even the self-help/diet industry need fat people. Healthy people don’t buy weight-loss pills, or new belts, or books on weight loss, or Doritos. This is the worst nightmare of half the corporations in America: a healthy, educated consumer who doesn’t watch TV.
  42. Being fat is not a human’s natural state. If you are overweight and lose weight, you will feel happier. Not just because you are thinner and look better and feel better, but you were intended by nature to be a runner/tree climber/gatherer/builder.
  43. Keeping snacks in the house is just plain dumb. It is bad enough to walk by 50 vending machines at work, but don’t keep snacks lying around at home.
  44. Canned soups are a disaster – salt, calories, preservatives, and not satisfying. No one loses weight eating canned soups.
  45. Putting pictures of fat people from magazines and supermodels or athletes or whatever on your mirror will keep you motivated. Not that we should aspire to that body shape, but the simple fact is that it will keep you motivated.
  46. If you are hungry in the evening before bed eat a slice of cheese. You will sleep better and not wake up ravenous.
  47. The first thing you should take into your body when you wake is water. Not spring water, not flavored water, but filtered water. Cold, and a lot of it. It will kill your appetite right off and wake you up. It will cleanse your system for the day.
  48. Natural colon cleansers may not help you lose weight, but they will make you less hungry. This is purely my opinion, but I think sometimes people eat to mask the lingering toxic effects of having too much gunk in their intestines.
  49. I’m sure you know the feeling – after eating a big pile of salty potato chips you need something sweet “just to mask the salty taste in your mouth.” Down that road madness lies! Never chase food with food. Chase food with water, and lots of it.
  50. Drinking cold water burns more calories than drinking lukewarm water (it lowers your body’s temperature slightly, so your body expends energy to warm it back up).
  51. However, you should learn to enjoy lukewarm water. If you can only drink ice-cold water, you will be restricting your options too much.
  52. You will miss some foods worse than others. When I was doing a low-carb diet, I dreamed of bread. Don’t give in. Saying “just one piece” is the equivalent of a junkie saying, “Just one hit.” Don’t do it.
  53. Butter and oil have a lot of calories but sometimes sneak into food, so keep an eye out.
  54. Dieting is lonely. Dieting around others who are not is torture. Tell your friends and family what you are doing, and do not let them push food on you.
  55. Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Using a suppressant to diet is like using speed to quit crack. You have to conquer this thing on your own.
  56. Drinking green tea and herbal teas is good for you, and it keeps you feeling full.
  57. You may hate cauliflower. Fine. You will hate dragging your overweight body up the road when you are 60 if you do not eat veggies instead of bonbons more, though.
  58. Small, nibbly foods are a bad idea even when they are healthy. Do not keep anything you can grab by the handful and eat lying around the house – even nuts, fruits and veggies if you like them enough to overeat.
  59. Meat should be viewed as a flavoring, not as a food. Never eat a piece of meat at any one meal bigger than your palm.
  60. There is no particular reason for you to eat beef, pork, lamb, etc. You could get all of the protein you need from poultry and seafood. If you like the taste of red meat, fine, but there is no need for you to eat it.
  61. If you go on a low-carb diet, you will get sick of meat. This is not entirely a bad thing.
  62. Don’t be too sure that being a vegetarian or vegan is a good way to lose weight, either. You can eat nothing but cheese pizza and French fries and call yourself a vegetarian – it’s the quality of the food you eat that’s more important than the label you apply to yourself.
  63. A small handful of nuts (almonds, for example) will keep you going for hours. At the same time, three handfuls of nuts are about 2000 calories.
  64. Milk does not work into any diet plan be it low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb. Avoid it. Soymilk is better for you.
  65. Fruit juice is almost universally too concentrated, even organic/natural fruit juices. Cut it down with water. I usually drink about a 25% juice/75% water mixture now. Straight fruit juice tastes like syrup to me.
  66. It is very, very easy to drink a lot of calories, particularly since most people don’t really think about calories in regards to drinks (except for soda, which you hear about in the media). Which has more calories, 8 ounces of milk or 8 ounces of V8? Beats me. Water has no calories, though.
  67. There is no greater feeling than suddenly discovering you can wear that pair of pants that did not fit you a couple of months ago.
  68. Needing to go buy a new belt because your old one is too big is a close second.
  69. Measure portions. You should never eat more at one sitting than fits on a plate. By plate, I mean a plate, not Thor’s shield.
  70. Getting “checked out” is a real mood-booster, even if you are in a relationship.
  71. Jogging helps you maintain weight loss and fitness. Lifting weights helps you lose weight. However, walking is the best exercise because you can so easily do it any time of the day without any special equipment.
  72. Being happy burns more calories than being depressed.
  73. Stairs are free workout machines. Elevators and escalators are rides.
  74. Jogging is easier when you have good shoes.
  75. Never go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. You will end up buying more than you need and probably at least one thing you should not eat.
  76. Try not to watch too much TV. There are many ads for junk food and whether you pay attention or not there is a lot of unconscious programming going on there.
  77. Another good reason not to drink too much alcohol is that your judgment gets impaired. I am not talking about dancing on the table with a lampshade over your head – I am talking about standing next to the bar grabbing a handful of chex mix.
  78. You don’t wear out shoes as quickly if you weigh less.
  79. The first time you walk by a friend you have not seen in a while and they do not recognize you because you have lost so much weight is an amazingly positive experience.
  80. You can quit wearing black clothes all the time. Black is slimming, but being a healthy weight is slimming-er.
  81. There are some places on your body that will never lose their fat, and there is no point in expecting them too. Even when I lost 100 pounds, jogged 4 miles a day, and lifted weights 3 times a week, my final roll of flab on my gut never went away.
  82. People get angry if you tell them how you lost weight. This was an amazing thing to see in practice. Nobody wants to hear that you did it by watching your food intake and exercising. They want to hear that you wore a special belt or took a pill. Hearing they need to quit drinking Coke really fires some people up.
  83. Gaining weight is incredibly easy for most people, even with a very healthy diet. Once you have wrecked your metabolism by being overweight, it is even easier.
  84. If your knees, back, ankles, shoulders, neck or any other joints hurt and you are overweight, losing weight will very likely help them. My feet used to hurt a lot, and that pain abruptly disappeared when I lost weight.
  85. In the same way, gaining weight is – oddly – going to put more strain on your back and knees than being overweight but holding a steady weight.
  86. If someone takes a picture of you when you are at your peak weight, keep it. Treasure it. Frame it. Use it for motivation. I still have a photo of myself that looks like I ate a McDonald’s. Not a McDonald’s hamburger…an entire McDonald’s building.
  87. I will never forget that when I was over 300 pounds, people would cringe on airplanes when I sat in the seat next to them. The looks you get are awful. Maybe they aren’t fair, but they are there. Avoiding those looks is another benefit of losing weight.
  88. Airplane seats, bus seats, subway seats, even office chairs: for some reason the American seat-building industry thinks all Americans are svelte and trim. Chairs in America need to start being built to accommodate 300 pound people, but nobody wants to admit this fact.
  89. For years, I could not see my feet while standing up. That is a horrible thing to admit, and I’m ashamed to say it even today.
  90. I also couldn’t touch my toes, or tie my shoes without sitting down. Kneeling became very difficult.
  91. Remember that you have only one life to live. A helpful thing for me to remember sometimes is that your average person has around 29,000 days on this earth. I try to think whether I would trade 1 day for potato chips. Would I give up 1 week for a steak, one month for a lifetime of Coca Cola? It may not cost me that much, but I don’t think it’s worth the chance.
  92. If you are afraid that quitting smoking will make you eat more, you should be afraid. However, you should still quit. Using cigarettes as an appetite suppressant is like fumigating your house with poison to get rid of one mouse. Sure, it may work, but at what cost?
  93. Your skin tone will suffer from being overweight. If you are severely overweight, be prepared for wrinkles and sagging skin when you lose weight.
  94. Sex is better if you are fit… and you will probably get more of it, regardless of whether you are married or single.
  95. Diet pills are worthless. I tried one, green tea pills, and although it made me lose some additional weight it was mainly because they made me so dizzy and nauseous I didn’t feel like eating. I could accomplish the same thing by sniffing garbage.
  96. Television will make you hungry. You can’t imagine how many food-related advertisements there are on TV until you start trying to lose weight.
  97. Once you start to lose weight, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it ten years ago. However, once you’ve lost the weight you’ve meant to lose, you’ll forget that euphoric feeling and be tempted to eat a little bit of junk again. This is the hedonic treadmill in fine, fine form.
  98. Appetizers are almost always the worst, heaviest, most caloric foods on the menu. Stick to entrees.
  99. The failure rate for dieters is high. Even successful dieters – like me – often gain the weight back. I managed to lose 100 pounds, then gain some back, then lose some again. I’ve never come close to gaining the 100 pounds back, but I do put on 20, lose 20. You have to think of it as a battle. You are Custer, and food is the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes. Food will keep coming and coming and coming. You will lose if you stop fighting it even for a minute. I tell myself this every day: My will is stronger than my urges.

Good luck, and never give up!

Other reading:


Tags: , , , , , , , ,

What Makes a Parent Rich?

May 23, 2010 · Filed Under Family · 1 Comment 

My ‘poor’ mom believed that by working and giving me things she was doing the best she could for me, even though it meant I was raised largely by daycare and babysitters first, then after-school programs later. She loved me as deeply as any mother loves her child, but she made her career a priority, spending 50+ hours a week away from me. She did this thinking that was the best way to provide for her family.

My ‘rich’ mom stayed at home with me, participated in my life and gave me the best care she was able. My rich mom couldn’t always buy me things. Other kids had DVDs and Wiis and iPods. We had board games and the radio. My rich mom was just as smart and educated as any working mother, but she made her children a priority, knowing that nothing else would matter more than them in the end. She did this thinking that was the best way to provide for her family.

Robert Kiyosaki, in his famous (infamous?) book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, laid out the idea of having had “two fathers” who taught him different lessons about life. One (his biological father) taught him that hard work, a good job and lots of education were the keys to success. The other (his best friend’s father) taught him that hard work, investing your money in assets and frugal living were critical. The former, the “poor dad”, was wrong, and the latter, the “rich dad”, was right – according to Kiyosaki. Interestingly enough, Kiyosaki focuses solely on the money lessons of his fathers. So let’s be sexist for a minute and say that the father represents the “outside” world – money, work, achievement. Let’s imagine that we could frame the same rich vs. poor argument for moms – but in terms of the family and its emotional life.

Quick disclaimer: in this article I use the term ‘mom,’ but it’s not meant to be sexist. The ‘mom’ below could just as easily be the man in the family, and I always want to point this out. I plan to be a stay-at-home dad sometime in the next ten years, once we are financially independent. So substitute “parent” for mom and you’ll get the idea. Rich parent, poor parent just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Rich Mom, Poor Mom

The rich dad taught Kiyosaki that frugal living was key. The rich mom agrees with this thinking. Making sacrifices so she can stay home is at the core of the rich mom’s philosophy. Her “investment” of time in her children now will pay off later. The poor dad thought that you made money to spend money on liabilities, like cars and expensive gadgets and money-sucking homes. The poor mom thinks that her children need more money – more than they need her.

The poor dad believes that education is a requirement. The poor mom thinks that the school system is the most important part of a child’s development. She chooses to overlook the fact that schools are only responsible for teaching subjects. American schools long ago learned that values, character, financial intelligence, morals and even physical fitness were toxic areas that caused lawsuits. Teachers are too overwhelmed by bureaucracy and huge class sizes to spend time with individual students. The rich mom knows that the schools are an important part of a child’s development, but having a good character starts with lessons at home… and a good character will take the child farther than 8th-grade botany.

The rich dad believed in investing money in assets and letting those assets earn money for you. The poor dad believed you should work to enrich your employers and hope they would provide for you when you could no longer work for them. The poor mom hopes that others will raise her family (the husband and children!) while she works. She hopes that after she’s worked through her children’s formative years that they’ll come out OK. The rich mom knows that there is only one sure way to do a job right – to do it yourself. The rich mom knows that when she is 90 years old, struggling with health and money issues, that her children will come to her aid, but that company she gave 75% of her waking hours to will have long forgotten she existed.

I think in Kiyosaki’s book, one of the best lessons is his concept of the true definition of an asset. An asset makes money for its owner. A liability loses money for its owner. A house is, by that definition, not an asset if you live there. Everyone needs a place to live, for sure, but it IS costing you money. An asset is a house you rent to someone else at a profit.

In the same way, the rich mom understands that children are an asset, not a liability. If you think of what having children will mean in terms of loss (losing free time, losing independence, losing a career, losing your own youth) then they will be liabilities to you and you’ll be a poor mom. If you think having children will be a GAIN (the joy of watching them grow and learn, adventures that give you a chance at a second childhood, the knowledge of leaving the world a better place with these new people in it) then you will be a rich mom. With the rich dad and the poor dad, there is no physical or mental or any other sort of difference between the two men. They make choices. In the same way, every parent – male or female – has the ability to be a rich mom or a poor mom.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How Does My Credit Score Affect Me?

May 19, 2010 · Filed Under Money · 1 Comment 

Your credit score is an important number in your life.  Your credit score can determine what kind of mortgage you can get, what type of credit you’re allowed to apply for and these days might even affect your ability to get a job.  There are many misconceptions about credit scores:  here are a few.

Things You Expect that Don’t Happen

When I get married, we get a joint credit score: Not so.  Each person has their own credit score ’til death do you part. However, when you open accounts jointly, that information will be reflected on each of your credit reports, for better or for worse.

My job/income impacts my credit score: Sorry, but making six figures, winning the lottery, or inheriting a fortune will not give you a good credit score.  Your net worth and income are not factored into your score.

Paying off credit card debt will boost my credit score 50 points: Depending on how much credit card debt you had, you may see some increase. However, credit card utilization is an important component of your credit score and those with the highest credit scores have about 10% utilization.

Being an authorized user on a credit card will impact my credit score: Co-signing for a credit score can have an effect on your credit score, but unfortunately just being an authorized user won’t change your credit score one point.

I only have one credit score: There are several different credit score providers and each credit bureau provides their own credit score.  However,  these companies all use the same criteria to judge your credit worthiness and the scores basically fall within the same range of each other (good, ok, or poor).

Checking my credit score will lower my credit score: False. When you check your credit score at sites such as Credit Karma, it’s a soft pull so it won’t lower your credit score at all.  Only hard inquiries by lenders impact your credit.

Things You Don’t Expect that Do Happen

If you don’t use your credit cards, your credit score won’t change: In order to have a good credit score, you must have credit available to you and use it responsibly. If you don’t have or use credit, you may have no credit history at all and if you do, your credit score won’t be as good as someone who consistently demonstrates responsible use of credit over time.

Credit bureaus don’t make mistakes: Nearly eight in 10 credit reports contain a serious error or some sort of mistake, according to a survey by the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. Because many errors can negatively impact your credit score, it’s important to check your credit report regularly and dispute any inaccuracies you find.

If a bill or debt isn’t generally reported to the credit bureaus, missing a payment won’t affect your credit score: Any time you pay a bill late or don’t pay at all, that activity can be reported to the credit bureaus. Different companies have different policies about reporting late payments, but never assume that just because you’ve never seen a particular bill listed on your credit report that it can’t negatively impact your credit score if you don’t pay it.

Your credit score only impacts your ability to get credit or a loan: False. Employers, insurance companies and rental or leasing agencies all check this number.  Your credit score can prevent you from getting a job or the apartment you want. In addition, people with bad credit scores pay more for insurance premiums than those with good credit scores.

Having a variety of debt impacts your credit score: This one is true.  Auto loans, credit cards, mortgages, and student loans all impact your credit score.  In fact, the more variety of debt, the more responsible you appear to lenders (so long as you’re responsible with this debt).

Tags: , , , , , , ,

4 Important Lighting Tips for a Functional and Cozy Bedroom

May 13, 2010 · Filed Under Home · 1 Comment 

To achieve a functional and cozy bedroom, proper use of lighting is essential. Simply follow these tips: combine general lighting and task lighting; emphasize the attractive spots in your room; get to know the different lighting types; and, ensure a correct placement of tasks lighting.

Your bedroom should have ample light source coupled with the right choice of lighting. Your choice of bedroom lighting depends greatly on your needs and regular activities. Proper lighting provides a great place for relaxation and rest. Here are some tips on lighting to give you a comfortable bedroom:

Combine general lighting and task lighting

Your bedroom lighting should be able to provide enough light source for general activities and other specific tasks such as reading and doing some crafts such as sewing. Lights with dimmer controls are highly useful since they provide some variety in the amount of light they provide. Here are some ways of combining the use of lighting in your bedroom:

  • a bedside fixture such as a swing-arm lamp can be used to brighten your bedtime tasks. If you wish to illuminate your room with too bright lights, you can add some soft light sources like candles or a fireplace maybe.
  • if you want your bed to be the focus of your room, you can use a recessed lighting near or over the head portion of the bed to create some dramatic effect.
  • if you are an active individual and would want your room to be flooded with bright yet warm lights, you can use a combination of overhead and uplight fixtures.

Emphasize the attractive spots in your room

To emphasize the beautiful decors and attractive art works on your walls, you can use some lights to specifically highlight them. Moreover, make sure that your dresser should not have distracting shadows around it. You can do this by using some side lights or a head light.

Get to know the different lighting types

Basically, there are four types of lighting. They are as follows:

  • ambient lighting – this light is the most practical type of lighting that imitates a natural light. This lighting envelopes the whole room space uniformly. Its light comes from an overhead and central fixture.
  • task lighting – this is intended to brighten a particular task or area. Generally, it should have the capacity to provide sufficient lighting that focuses on one spot only.
  • accent lighting – is also called point-source lighting. Its purpose is to provide strong light to a particular focal point. This lighting is utilized in illuminating a vase or a wall art in your room.
  • kinetic lighting – this is a type of light that is designed to be in motion such as flickering and dancing. This is intended to create some dramatic effects. You can have mirror balls, candlelights, and lava lamps.

Ensure a correct placement of tasks lighting

Proper placement of your tasks lighting should be carefully considered. You should be mindful that every specific task light has its equivalent placement measurement which you should follow.

  • your dressing table should have two lights that are 36 inches away from each other. And, the height of the lights from the base of the table should be about 15 inches.
  • if your dressing table reaches your waist, make sure that your lighting’s height is about 22 inches from the top of the dresser.
  • if you go for some lamps for bedside reading, just see to it that the bottom part of your light is about 20 inches above the level of the bed.
  • a desk lamp should be 15 inches from the desk surface regardless of whether it is mounted on a wall or not.

The right choice of lighting will definitely create a warm ambient feeling. Choosing to have custom lighting fixtures in your bedroom makes a  difference.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

9 Effective Tips to Save on Car Insurance for Teenagers

April 23, 2010 · Filed Under Family · Comments Off 

Car insurance for teenagers can cost as much as five times more than the rates for adults. This is because of the greater driving risk involved in teenagers evidenced by greater number of accidents and higher number of serious injuries and fatalities compared to adult drivers.

In order to lower actual rates and maximize your teen’s auto insurance coverage, you can give your teen a simpler or older car; let your teen keep a good driving record; let him keep a clean insurance record; enroll him to a driver safety education; get your teen a safer car; let him maintain good academic grades; keep the mileage low; keep the car safe; and apply for multiple policies with your insurance company. To help you save on auto insurance costs for your teenager, here are proven tips you can consider:

Give your teen a simpler or older car

A brand new sports car would make a very nice birthday gift for your beloved teen, but if you want to save to insurance costs, this would not be a smart move. Remember that one of the factors that make up an expensive car insurance would be a brand new car because of its high book value. A sports car would also be expensive to insure with its higher horsepower compared to a four-door sedan. With a stronger car, your teen would tend to drive faster, making it more prone to accidents and damages. If you are giving your teen an older car model, you can also save by dropping collision coverage.

Let your teen keep a good driving record

If this is not your first year in getting your teen a car insurance and he or she had a good driving record, you can ask for a discount from your insurance provider. Most auto insurance companies give discounts to drivers who have not been issued a ticket or those who have not been involved in any accident since they have been driving. Remind your teen that it always pays to be a good driver.

Let him keep a clean insurance record

Aside from having a good driving record, insurance costs may also be lowered if your teen keeps a clean insurance record. It is advisable for him to keep from claiming for very minor car damages from insurance companies in order to avail of discounts.

Enroll him to a driver safety education

Some states require teenagers to get driving lessons first before he gets a driver’s license. Aside from this condition, the cost of car insurance for teenagers may also be reduced if your teen had been enrolled to a driving course before driving his own car, most especially if he had good grades. The insurance company would most likely give discounts to responsible student drivers who have had lessons to safe driving than to those who have not.

Get your teen a safer car

Just like in applying auto insurance for adult-driven cars, discounts also apply to teenager-driven cars with safety features. Airbags, anti-lock brake systems, and alarm systems can help lower the insurance cost of your teen’s auto insurance as they reduce risk for injuries as well as theft and damages.

Let him maintain good academic grades

Yes, indeed. If your teen proves to have good grades in school, most especially if he is in the honor roll, you can avail of the good student discount. Most insurance companies offer this incentive to responsible students who are most likely more sensible and responsible too when it comes to driving.

Keep the mileage low

When you ask for auto insurance quotations, companies do ask for estimated mileage your teen has to travel from residence to destination, as well as estimated annual mileage. As much as possible, advice your teen to keep his mileage low and use the car only when needed. Do not encourage weekend road trips and the like. Higher mileage leads to higher risk of meeting accidents, thus resulting to higher insurance cost.

Keep the car safe

Another very important determining factor for insurance premium is the place where your teen brings and parks his car. Insurance companies will be asking where the car will usually be brought and parked. Is the school parking safe? Are the places he goes safe enough, too or are there many reported cases of car thefts and damages? If at home, does he park his car in a covered garage or just outside the apartment? Of course, the more risky the situation, the higher the insurance cost.

Apply for multiple policies with your insurance company

If your teen’s insurance provider with other concerns, such as life or home insurance, also covers car insurance and you get a policy from them, you may be given a discount on your auto insurance for your devotion to their company. Alternately, you can also apply for the whole family’s car insurance policies in one insurance company and be granted of discounts for each of your plan. Do not hesitate to ask your insurer about these discounts to save bucks.

Other discounts you may avail of with your teen’s car insurance include loyalty discount, if you have been with your insurance company for a certain number of years, as well as multiple car discount, when you enroll more than one car for your teen.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Next Page »

This blog uses the cross-linker plugin developed by Web-Developers.Net