Special Report

Sugar should be treated like an illicit drug, a kind of legal form of heroin, a dark force to be avoided, and a substance whose use leads to physical ruin.

“My God! It’s everywhere!” I almost blurted out while scanning the food section in a supermarket in an attempt to find at least one product which didn’t have sugar in it.

If you thought that sugar is mostly in candies and desserts, you are too naive. Tomato sauce, yogurt, dry fruits, corn flakes, and bread – sugar is added in all of these. I realized that it’s difficult to find any processed food item which doesn’t contain sugar.

I suspect that even the shampoos and the soaps have sugar in it. You know, just in case it goes in your mouth while bathing, they don’t want to miss that one chance to feed you sugar.

And do you know the biggest disguise used by processed food industry to hide sugar is the term – low fat. Products labelled “low-fat” could still contain, and usually do contain, a lot of sugar. And remember, it’s not just fat that makes your fat. Sugar is the biggest culprit in making obesity an epidemic.

Am I complaining too much? Let me change the mood for a bit. Time for some fun trivia.

Did you know that until few hundred year ago, sugar used to be a very expensive item? In fact, it was considered a fine spice and was only available to rich. But from about the year 1500, technological improvements turned sugar into a much cheaper bulk commodity.

Ironically, sugar was imported by Greeks and Romans for its medicinal properties. When it was scarce and expensive, it was a fine spice. Now when it is abundant and cheap, it has turned into a fine poison.

Sugar is slower to impact our health (as we don’t die from an overdose right away), and it’s that slow destructive process that is the most dangerous. Unfortunately, most people don’t know the damage until it has already been done (diabetes for example).
[Read more…] about Life 2.0: Sugar – The Sweet Killer

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing to do is wake up. Why not wake up early and realize your dreams earlier.

When I was a kid my father used to tell me – “Early bird gets the worm.

I am no bird and I don’t like worms,” I would tell him and never really took his advice seriously.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, was my mother’s version of motivating me to get up early in the morning. Although the quote originally came from Benjamin Franklin, I was least bothered about who said it. Getting up early was nothing less than a torture and was never in my top ten priorities for most of my childhood and teenage years.

In fact, for the first 25 years of my life, I never really understood the importance of being an early riser. But slowly as I was exposed to the writings and works of great leaders, creative artists, thinkers, authors and business leaders I started observing the pattern. Most of these people were early risers. They used each morning to write, read, ponder, and plan for their day.

Ernest Hemingway felt he did his best writing in the morning. He wrote, “There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.” He’d get started at 6 A.M. and write non-stop until noon.

Benjamin Franklin would wake every day at 5 A.M. and would use the time to wash, dress, and plan his day’s work. He has in fact written a whole book on the benefits of rising early.

[Read more…] about Life 2.0: Join the 5 A.M. Club