One of my spinning buddies who I ride with indoors during the winter has been bugging me to pick up a copy of the book “Younger Next Year”, written by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, MD. I finally got around to it last week. Wow. What a great book!

The book is based upon the author’s belief that we can live healthy lives well into our eighties. They tell us that it is insane that our society has created a mindset that it is ok to settle down and wait out a long and painful existence after we retire. In fact, the author’s tell us that once we retire, we start our second job in life, which is to work at becoming healthy and to remain healthy until the end of our lives.

The book extols the virtues of regular “strenuous” exercise six days per week, eating less, and eating more sensible natural foods. The book also talks about the importance of being committed to something…anything. In other words, their message is to stay fit, both physically and mentally.

What the author’s say about water

Drink more water!

They tell us

One of the gadgets that goes to hell in the Next Third is the little thing that tells you you’re thirsty. You don’t feel thirsty, even though your body is crying out for water, which means old boys can have serious dehydration problems for no good reason.

The book also tells us

“we only have five quarts of blood in our system” which isn’t much when you consider that it has to “bring in the food. Take out the garbage. Carry all these amazingly sophisticated message and chemicals.”

The authors tell us that

“dehydration prevents blood from flowing smoothly. Your blood gets thick. It gets gummy and sludgey. Things start to go wrong in the outer provinces of your body, like your kidneys. And in the capital, too … your brain”.

The authors also tell us that your hunger may often be a “false signal” for thirst. They advise us to drink water instead of snacking and you will be surprised how often your hunger will go away. Now where have we heard that before

As a person who is 54 years old and has been retired for 17 month now, I can tell you that the book Younger Next Year hits really close to home. I believe very strongly in the message that the authors are sharing. Fortunately for me, I love to exercise and I have committed to eating a more natural diet (or should I say my wife has committed me to eating a more natural diet). I have also made made a big commitment to this blog if you haven’t noticed.

If you are in your fifties, or even your forties and you want to get a head start, pick up the book….it is well worth the read.

PS: There are two separate copies, one for men and another for women.

The opinions in this article are those of the author and are meant to give you a kick in the butt if you are sitting back watching life go by.

Related posts:

1. How Much do You Spend on Drinking Fluids Each Year?
2. An alkaline diet is great… but is it enough?

I have been retired for a little over a year now. I always wondered what it would be like to be retired as retirement was for old people. Thirteen months into the “next” stage of my life finds me busy and exploring things that I never had time for in the past. The days of trying to “win” at everything have been replaced by much more interesting challenges.

Marriage:

After all these years, I find myself listening to my wife… I mean really listening. She is truly an awesome person. I always knew it, but I never took the time to fully explore or appreciate the many layers. I’m amazed that she has had the patience to deal with only having part of me for all those years. We men are not dumb, but it seems that most of us, myself included, never give ourselves the opportunity to look at things from a more gentle and loving perspective. I hope I can impart this new found wisdom to my sons.

Family:

I have dedicated almost my entire adult life to work and to my family. My two sons are both away at college now and are well on their way to creating their own lives. They have always been my best friends and I miss them. They are good people and I’m so proud of them.

The sacrifices that we as parents make for our children are impossible for our kids to understand until they are faced with being parents themselves. My step daughter has just become a new mother and I can see the love in her eyes for her new child. It gives me confidence that the world is in good hands despite all the chaos that surrounds us each day in the news.

Friends:

I have used the excuse of dedicating all my time to work and family for many years as the reason why I have let my friendships slip. In hindsight, it seems that I just couldn’t be bothered to make the effort. The oversight has definitely been my loss.

The timing of my retirement and my boys going off to college left a big void in my life. At first, I filled the void with my passion for spreading the word about the benefits of healthy water on this blog. As time progressed, I focused on my diet (with the not-so-gentle assistance of my wife) and on exercise. The changes have left me feeling the best that I have felt in many years. The news gets better… I have had the incredibly good fortune of meeting new friends through my workouts at the gym. Allowing myself to reach out to others has brought the rewards of friendship that I had thought were lost forever. The simple act of reaching out, which seemed impossible in the past, was so easy.

Business Associates:

Despite being retired, I find myself involved in all types of relationships that tie into business. The fact that I research and write about water means that I’m in contact with all kinds of business people in the industry. When it comes to the water industry, it seems that there are two distinct groups of people. One group is in the business for the money and there is nothing wrong with that as everyone has to provide for their families. The other group, the ones that I find myself drawn to, consist of people that find their ultimate reward is in helping others through educating them about all of the benefits of drinking good water. These people find themselves enjoying life more than ever as they are receiving the gift of giving, which is truly the greatest gift of all.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realize that I really don’t know much at all. The good news is that the journey just seems to be getting better and better.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author are are definitely not meant as advice to anyone.

No related posts.

When I returned from the gym this morning, everyone in the family had finished eating breakfast. The good news is that my wife had apple pancakes waiting for me. Normally, I have a smoothie after my workouts consisting of two to three servings of fruit, protein powder, and pro-biotic yogurt, with a teaspoon of Salba, and a cup of alkaline water. The “sit down” breakfast made for a nice treat. Like so many things in life, a treat often comes with a hitch. Today, the hitch came in the form of a copy of an article written by Dr. Tim O’Shea 8 year ago that my wife expected me to read while filling up on carbs.

The article is outstanding and I recommend it to everyone. It may really open your eyes if you are amenable to having your eyes opened. You can link to the article here: http://dissidentvoice.org/Articles/O-Shea_Doors.htm.

O’Shea’s Article:

The basis of O’Shea’s article is that there is a sophisticated science behind creating public opinion. The people that create the opinions are professional Spin Doctors that we never hear about. These people are highly sought after by corporations or governments, because they quietly work in the background telling us all what we should think about any given subject. The premise is that if everybody believes something, and it is accepted as Conventional Wisdom, it is probably wrong.

O’Shea provides examples of accepted Convention Wisdom that has been bought and paid for. Examples include: pharmaceuticals restore health, vaccination brings immunity, the cure for cancer is just around the corner, when a child is sick it needs antibiotics immediately, when a child has a fever it needs Tylenol, hospitals are safe and clean, and America has the best health care in the world.

O’Shea explains how the Spin Doctor world got started by Edward Bernays, who took the ideas of his uncle (Sigmund Freud) and applied them to the science of mass persuasion. He explains how corporations such as drug companies, tobacco companies, oil companies, automobile companies, and chemical companies etc use the Spin Doctors to create a public perception of their products that suit the needs of the companies. He explains the techniques of the Spin Doctors, who use corporately backed third party recommendations from so called “independent organizations” to shape public opinion. A perfect example of this style of marketing has been used effectively by Tyent USA in the water ionizer industry when they created the so called “independent” ionizersreviewed.com website to promote Tyent water ionizers.

O’Shea explains that third party independent organization recommendations are a much more effective way to alter public opinion than direct marketing. The secret, according to O’Shea is that the public is never aware of what has taken place.

O’Shea leaves the reader with suggestions as to how to gain a more independent perspective on what you are being told by the different forms of media. The article is a great read.

What has this got to do with Water?

The Conventional Wisdom Behind Bottled Water

The hundreds of millions of people around the world have been conditioned by big business to believe that they should be drinking bottled water. I believe that bottled water is the biggest marketing scam in modern history. Most bottled water comes from a tap and has gone through a simple carbon filtration process. The filtration is a good thing, but you can obtain the same filtration or more likely much superior filtration in your own home for a fraction of the price. Paying $2 for a liter of water is absurd, but tens of hundreds of millions of people do it every year.

The bottled water industry has created a Conventional Wisdom among people that drinking bottled water is good. While drinking water is a good thing, drinking bottled water is a bad thing. Not only are you wasting money, but you are creating a huge amount of long lasting pollution (land fill) and wasting fossil fuels (shipping the water to you).

You can produce the same or better water for pennies a gallon and save the environment. If you don’t have a water filtration system in your home, you are part of the problem.

The Conventional Wisdom Behind Ionized Water:

The drug companies and the bottle water industry can’t have people buying clean ionized water because it would be bad for business. Enter the “quack watchers” and the professional pitchmen like Dr. Mercola.

The drug and bottled water companies can’t come out and tell the public directly that they should avoid clean ionized water, because the public would see through that. Instead, they use the “independent” third party recommendations. While I respect the work that Mercola does, his blatant commercialism is sickening. Mercola’s lack of research on the subject and his blind acceptance of the hydrogen stick promoter’s assumption that water ionizers can make you sick is a joke. The Conventional Wisdom about water ionizers has deprived many people of the benefits of ionized water.

The Conventional Wisdom of Electric Water Ionizers

I started a business selling electric water ionizers a few years ago and had a very successful run before I retired a year ago. I was a huge fan of the benefits of electric water ionizers… and I still am.

In the fall of 2010, antioxidant filters, a new technology for producing ionized water was introduced to the market. The new machines produce natural long lasting ionization by running water over magnesium to produce hydrogen ions. This represents a quantum change from electric water ionizers that produce short term ionization by virtue of creating hydroxyl ions via electrolysis.

The new antioxidant filters have an advantage over electric water ionizers in that they are first and foremost a good filter while water ionizers provide minimal filtration. Electric water ionizers have an advantage over antioxidant filters because they can produce acidic water which has a number of uses, and they can be more precisely adjusted to provide water with varying levels of pH. Both machines provide the same health benefits in terms of drinking water. As you can see, there are advantages to both machines. However, the major difference is price as they cost 1/5 to 1/10 the price of the electric water ionizers.

I expect to see the electric water ionizer companies get their Spin Doctors busy creating their version of Conventional Wisdom about ionized water. You can’t blame the electric water ionizer companies for wanting to protect the profits they make on their $2,000 to $4,000 machines.

As always, the opinions expressed in this article are those of the author

No related posts.

When I was younger, I thought I was invincible. Broken bones and sprains from extreme sports were badges of honor. Late nights and partying were signs of vitality and “rest is for old people”. Junk food? Bring it on….the more the better!

Well, as I’m about to turn 54 and we are expecting our first grandchild any day now, I have to admit that my days of perceived invincibility are over.

I grew up believing that the later years in a person’s life were the “golden years”. While the added years of experience create an interesting intellectual mosaic, I have news for any young people (my definition of young keeps changing as I get older btw) the “golden years” are more like the “rust years” when it comes to your physical condition. At least that is what I thought up until I started to listen to my body.

How does your body speak to you?

Your body tells you many things, but you have to pay attention to the signs. It would be great if we had a built in “mom” to always be there to look out for our well being, but we all grow up and get busy. Without “mom” around to remind us, many of us wake up in our forties and can’t figure out what happened to our invincibility.

The changes are barely perceptible at first. However, as time goes on in your busy life, you may find that you start to notice nagging pains that won’t go away, fatigue that seems to follow you everywhere, colds that seem to come more often and last longer. You find that you don’t “move” with the ease that once came so naturally. Perhaps you notice that fat begins to appear in the “trouble” spots and muscle tone begins to fade. The list goes on and on and I haven’t even gotten to the diseases that start to show up when the magnificent machine you call your body starts to break down from lack of attention and abuse. Geez… I think it’s time to go to the fridge and find some comfort food as this is depressing!

Your Body: The World’s Most Sophisticated Machine

Your body is a machine, make no mistake about it. I first began to think of my body as a machine after having a conversation with Malcolm Howard. Malcolm is an extraordinary human being. He is disciplined (trains many hours per week), he is an athlete (Olympic Gold Medal in rowing in Beijing), and he is smart (waiting to compete in the 2012 London Summer Olympics before attending medical school).

My conversation with Malcolm didn’t get into the bio-mechanics of his sport, but it did cover his efforts in terms of training and consumption. We tend to think about athletes in terms of their phyisical shape and hurculean efforts, but few of us consider that the fuel that they put into their bodies is as important as their training. World class athletes like Malcolm think of their bodies as finely tuned machines that need to be nourished and maintained. Their careers depend upon the performance of their machines. While Olympians and professional athletes make up a tiny percentage of the population, their lessons should be heeded by all of us.

Stay strong…stay healthy

I have written about this topic before, but it is worth repeating. Proper nutrition, hydration, exercise, and stress relief will change your life for the better. The aging process is inevitable, but there are things that you can do to improve the quality of your life and extend your life.

Nutrition: Eat more fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds (the alkaline foods). Eat less meat, dairy, carbs, processed foods, sugar, and flour. Your body needs nourishment and oxygen so that your cells can produce the energy it requires. Why not use the best nourishment for your body.

We are always surrounded by “diets” that tell us to avoid all kinds of things. The reality is that we should be focusing on what to put into our bodies insteady of what not to eat. It is virtually impossible to overeat the “right” things, but you can never seem to eat enough of the foods that make you feel sluggish or bloated. Listen to your body.

Hydration: We, as a society, are massively dehydrated, and it leads to premature aging and disease. Water acts as a carrier and transmitter in your body and its importance can’t be overestimated. You need to consume 2 1/2 liters (or quarts) per day to simply replace the daily loss of fluids. You also need to replace fluids list by exercise or hot weather. You typically ingest about 1/2 a liter of liquid from your food each day, so you need to drink up.

What you drink is important. Many of us poison our body each day with corn starch sugars in the form of sweetened drinks or sodas. Don’t keep sodas in your house and don’t let your kids drink them. Drinking a Coke should be considered a punishment, as opposed to a treat.

The only liquid your body requires is water. Make sure your water is clean by using filters, because the water that comes out of your tap or your bottled water in not clean. If you can afford it, drink alkaline ionized water, as it provides all the same electrolytic properties as alkaline food and it provides superior hydration due to the microclustering of cells.

When you are craving a snack in the evening, your body is more than likely telling you that you are thirsty. You have probably just eaten a couple of hours earlier, so your body isn’t hungry, but your body doesn’t know the difference between hunger and thirst. Drink a big glass of water when you are hungry and you will be surprised how often it will satisfy your hunger. Listen to your body.

Exercise: Exercise is a critical factor in staying limber and in feeling good about yourself. You don’t have to go overboard. In fact, going overboard can be worse than not exercising at all. A walk with a pet or a friend, or riding a bicycle, or working around the yard can be both physically and mentally stimulating. Getting outdoors to breathe fresh air and take in some sun will do your body and your mind a world of good. When you feel tired and sluggish, start moving and you will be surprised who much better you feel. Listen to your body.

Stress Relief Take a break. When you develop a headache, take a break. When you find yourself getting upset or angry, take a break. When it all seems to be too much, take a break. When you get cramps from tension, take a break. Listen to your body, because stress is a killer.

Summary

Try to think of your body as your personal machine instead of taking it for granted. Nourish it, hydrate it, exercise it, and relive it from stress. Your body is your most prized possession…treat it that way.

The opinions in this article are those of the author.

Related posts:

1. Lose weight by controlling the level of acid in your body!
2. Achieving a more alkaline body for better health!
3. Sports – Ray Giles – World Champion Profession Trainer, Coach & Conditioner – waterhealthcare.com.au

I’m sorry to interrupt my year end review with this important message: Dr. Mercola has devised another way to transfer money from your pocket into his.

Dr. Mercola has dropped the other shoe in his “easy three step program” to get the world to send him more money. Mercola is the ultimate salesman and he is about to begin harvesting the bounty from the seeds that he began planting in September.Mercola has a well polished and effective marketing ploy that he uses again and again. He uses his large staff to hunt for news or human interest topics that can somehow be tied into one of the products he sells. Mercola then tells his legion of supporters that the issue is important to your health. Then he tells us about all the treatments that don’t work. Finally, he tells us what does work and amazingly, it is one of his products. Voila…you have the secret of Dr. Mercola’s marketing genius that has made the man rich beyond imagination! Instead of developing a proper filter, Mercola decided to start a movement. With 1.5 million subscribers to his electronic newsletter and 20 million hits to his website each month, Mercola could end up playing a role. Ironic huh!

The following is a breakdown of D. Mercola’s well thought out plan to save the world from impure water, and to put a few more million dollars into his pocket.

Stage 1 – The Video – Create Fear About Alkaline Water and Water Ionizers

If you are going to introduce a new product, it is important to make sure that you trash the alternatives.

Anybody in the water ionizer industry and Mercola’s loyal army of followers are now well aware of Mercola’s infamous video that he made in September where he trashes the water ionizer industry. He and his Aquasana Vice President buddy Tomasz Houston created a 15 minutes video blabbing away on a topic that neither of them obviously knows anything about. What’s worse than not knowing what you are talking about is not taking the time to research a topic before you embarrass yourself in front of millions. Given that Mercola has a large research team at his disposal, it is obvious that the man chose not to do his research. Now, why would he do that? Do you think it might have had something to do with his plan to market his own competitive product?

Mercola’s hatchet job video portrayed the message that ionized water is a scam. What’s worse, Mercola inferred that the Multi Level Marketing people (the hard working and passionate Enagic distributors) are nothing more than snake oil salesmen. This coming from a man whose entire business life is focused on creating fear in the public, trashing the competition, and then suggesting that his products will save the day. What a despicable man. How does he look himself in the mirror at night.

Stage 2 – The Article – Creating Fear About Distilled Water and Reverse Osmosis Systems

Once Mercola had given the public time to digest his fear mongering about alkaline water, he struck his next blow with another article that was intended to take out other potential competitors. While Mercola had been a supporter of the purity of Distilled Water and Reverse Osmosis systems in the past, he suddenly changes directions in his December article. Not only does he recommend not using Distilled Water, he talks about how it can be dangerous. Notice a pattern here?

Then Mercola goes on to trash RO systems as being bad because they cause the water to be acidic. Wait a minute here. Didn’t Mercola just finish telling us with his video in September that alkaline water was bad? Well, if we are not supposed to be drinking acidic or alkaline water, then it sounds like he is telling us to drink tap water that needs to be filtered. Oh, I get it! How dumb does the man think we are?

Then he tells us that we should be drinking water with a pH of 6.5 to 7.5. Now unless Mercola has created a new way of measuring pH, anything under 7.0 is acidic and anything over 7.0 is alkaline. I sure hope Dr. Mercola has a solution for us.

Stage 3 – Mercola Saves the Day with his new Filters

Gee, it is not like we couldn’t see this one coming. Today, Dr. Mercola has announced that he is now offering his OWN filter system to remove impurities from your tap water. The man is a hero! But of course, the filters have been around forever and the people in the water industry have been using them for years. But now, you can get Dr. Mercola’s OWN filters. Thank God we have a man like Dr. Mercola to save us from the awful pharmas and the irresponsible governments and the profit mongering scam artists who sell water ionizers. The man makes me sick! If there were any justice in the world, the guy should have his medical license removed so that he can’t use it to propagate the incredible con job that he continues to work.

Are Mercola’s Filters Any Good?Yes and no.

Mercola’s filters remove THM’s and VOC’s, and HAA’s, plus chlorine, cysts, and lead. It is important to remove all those things from your water. However, Mercola’s filters don’t remove fluoride and chloramines, two of the most important contaminants put into our water supply by municipalities.

The use of fluoride in municipal water supplies is widespread despite the fact that it is very harmful to the human body. I guess it makes sense that Mercola has suddenly jumped on the “stop the use of fluoride” bandwagon. Where was Mercola when the people that really care about the health of others were writing about and lobbying for the elimination of fluoride. Oh I know, he hadn’t figured out the fact that the filter product that he would be schilling for would not remove fluoride.

The movement by municipalities to adding ammonia gas to chlorine to create chloramines is spreading rapidly across North America. The reason for the shift in strategy is that chloramines don’t form THM’s when it comes in contact with raw sewage while chlorine does. Since THM’s (Tri Halo Methane’s) are known to cause cancer, it makes sense to use chloramines. Municipalities that use chloramines don’t have to purchase and monitor expensive ozone systems to kill off the THM’s, and chloramines remain effective much longer than chlorine. Which direction do you think the cash strapped municipalities are going to gravitate towards? Oops….Mercola’s filters don’t remove chloramines. I wonder how the good doctor is going to spin that one.

I haven’t researched Mercola’s OLD “New” filters in detail yet, but I can assure you that they are no better to a lot of products that have been out on the market for awhile. They are also vastly inferior to any ion exchange system that uses catalytic carbon and KDF.

Mercola’s OLD filters are just another way for the marketing guru to transfer money from your pocket into his.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

Related posts:

1. Dr. Mercola: Sales Pitch Disguised as News
2. Dr. Mercola: Marketing Guru Embarasses Himself with Water Ionizer Story
3. Jon Barron Shreds Mercola Arguments About Water Ionizers

The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a class action suit in a California court Wednesday, claiming McDonald’s violates the state’s consumer protection laws by using toys to market Happy Meals to young children.

The basis of the lawsuit is that McDonald’s uses the toys to entice children to buy the meals. The group claims that McDonalds’ advertising is deceptive in that it offers healthy alternatives, but what it actually sells is something else. The group says:

“In other words, McDonald’s offerings consist mostly of fatty meat, fatty cheese, French fries, white flour, and sugar — a narrow combination of foods that promotes weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease — and may lead to a lifetime of poor diets”

McDonalds counters with “We are confident that parents understand and appreciate that Happy Meals are a fun treat, with quality, right-sized food choices for their children that can fit into a balanced diet.”

Now who are you going to believe? I have to admit that I have had more than my fair share of the “balanced diet” offered by McDonald’s, I can verify that the consumers advocacy group has it right. McDonalds is justified in saying that their meals can fit into a balanced diet because if you only eat at McDonalds once a year or even once a month, then you body can certainly process the junk. But how often to kids or teenagers eat at McDonald’s or the other fast food outlets?

The law suit is just a small step in the right direction. We need municipalities to ban fast food businesses from locating close to high schools. We need the fast food chains to provide warnings on their junk food in the same way that cigarette companies must post health risk warnings. How is it justified that smoking is bad and eating junk food isn’t bad? What we really need is our governments and schools to educate us about how critically important it it s to eat and drink alkaline foods and water.

You can read more about this topic at:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/15/news/companies/McDonalds_Happy_Meal_law_suit/index.htm?hpt=C2

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

Related posts:

1. Too Fat to Fight… One In Four are Too Fat to Enlist in the Military
2. The High Cost of Cheap Food

Maybe the solution to ending all wars is to promote obesity. All we have to do is encourage our children to continue to eat junk food and pretty soon, nobody would be able to meet the minimum threshold of 26% body fat to enlist in the military. Maybe wars could be waged by holding hamburger eating contests instead of using bombs and bullets.

Twenty six percent body fat does not exactly make a lean mean fighting machine by any stretch of the imagination. Athletes typically have a body fat composition of 6% to 13%. If you think that our soldiers look like the hard bodies you see stripped down to the waist in the movies, thing again.

According to an article that appeared on myfox.com on December 8, 2010, American soldiers are taking diet pills, laxatives, subjecting themselves to self imposed starvation or extreme diets, and even having liposuction performed to keep their jobs. The article informs us that more than 1/3 of uniformed men and women don’t meet the Army’s weight standards. While dismissal form the Army is the most severe penalty, failure to meet the standards will hold a person back from a promotion. You can see the article by linking to the website listed at the end of this article.

Obesity is out of control in America and now Type 2 diabetes, the next step in the demise of a human body as a result of excessive acidosis, is at epidemic levels. So, what are we doing about it?

Michelle Obama has adopted a healthy diet cause and her “Let’s Move” effort is important and worthwhile. According to Mrs. Obama’s site:

* Obesity rates among children have tripled in the last three decades, and one in three children are obese.

* One-third of all children born after 2000 will suffer from diabetes.

* Children are less active today than at any other time in American history, spending 7.5 hours a day watching TV, playing video games or simply involved in efforts that don’t require movement.

* Obesity is contributing to the vast increase in hypertension among Americans.

Big ups for Mrs. Obama and her efforts.

But then we have Sarah Palin who is promoting junk food as part of her… oh hell, I can’t imagine what makes the woman say and do half the things she does. And then there’s Rush Limbaugh… no, I’m not going there! While democracy is built on our freedoms, it is obvious that our citizens need better dietary mentors than McDonald’s and Coca Cola.

The stimulus for writing this article came from an article appearing on the home page of CNN on December 6, 2010. The article titled “Why Obesity is a National Security Threat” was written by David Frum. Please take a couple of minutes to read this article which you can link to here:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/06/frum.obesity.military/index.html?hpt=C1

Here is the link to the article titled that I referred to earlier called “US Soldiers Turn To Diet Pills, Liposuction To Meet Weight Standards” that was written on December 8, 2010 and appeared as a commentary on the myfoxdc.com website:
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/health/us-soldiers-turn-to-diet-pills-liposuction-to-meet-weight-standards-ncxdc-120810

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

Related posts:

1. Weight Loss: The Natural Way

I received a call the other day from an angry water ionizer dealer who had been victimized again for the second time by a credit card scam operation out of Montreal, Quebec. I asked if they took all of the necessary precautions required by the credit card companies. I was informed that they had done everything according to proper procedure but it didn’t make any difference.

After receiving the call, I started calling around to various dealers and was shocked to find out that many had been burned by the same operation in Quebec. I spoke to dealers from Canada, the USA, and even as far away as Australia who had been burned by fraudulent credit card orders from Quebec. I asked if this was a common occurrence and if it happened in other places as well. It turns out it is not common at all and it had only happened in Quebec for most of the dealers.

A number of dealers mentioned that they avoided taking credit card orders from any foreign countries, while others mentioned to stay away from orders from Africa and Asia. However, nobody ever suspected they would be ripped off by Canadians. Everybody knows that Canadians are among the nicest and most polite people in the world… well, most Canadians. I got out of the business before the crooks in Quebec started ripping off dealers, or maybe I was just lucky.

Before my fellow countrymen from Quebec start screaming at me about being treated unfairly, they should know that this article has been written to protect the hard working people in the water ionizer industry, not to pick on anyone. Crooks are crooks, no matter where they are from.

The Credit Card Companies Won’t Help You

The credit card companies always support the position of the credit card holder if the holder signs a sworn statement that they have not ordered or received the merchandise. The amount of the purchase will automatically deducted from the vendor’s account as soon as the sworn statement is received from the customer. You don’t receive a call to find out your side of the story. The dealer finds out about the scam when they see money has disappeared from their bank account or when they receive a notice from their bank.

When a dealer finds out about the scam, they have to prove to the credit card company that the unit was delivered to the credit card holder, and that is not an easy thing to do if the crooks are smart, and they are smart. When I called a credit card company “loss” representative to find out how the system works when there has been a fraud committed, I was told that the merchant should hire a detective to find proof of the crime. Geez… I bet you didn’t realize the system worked this way, because I sure wasn’t aware it was this one sided when I was in business. In hindsight, I don’t know if I would have ever started doing business with credit card companies. The bottom line is that if a scam artist wants to steal from you, you are at their mercy unless you force yourself to abide by rules that your customers won’t be happy about.

Steps to Protect Yourself…well sort of protect yourself:

1) You must make sure the unit is being shipped to the same address as the address of the credit card holder. Crooks will call you and give you a different address to ship to. This means that you need to call the credit card company to verify the address for every order to make sure that the address can be confirmed. The credit card company will not give you an address, but they can confirm that the address you give them matches the address on the credit card. If the address doesn’t match, call your customer and have them call their credit card company to add the shipping address to their credit card information. If you don’t do this, you are out of luck if the crooks have targeted you, because the credit card companies will not support you without a matching address.

2) Never have the unit dropped off at an address without a signature. Always have your customer sign for the parcel before it is turned over to them. If possible, have the deliver company check photo identification and record the information from the customer’s driver’s license. Unfortunately most delivery companies don’t offer the photo identification service, and the crooks know it.

Even if you perform both of the above tasks, you are at risk. The crooks are smart. They will have somebody else sign for the parcel with the credit card holder’s name and then the credit card holder will claim that the signature is not their signature. You will never know whether the person that provided the credit card is part of the scam or not. You can be sure that whoever is part of the scam will deny any involvement either way.

The Only Way To Fully Protect Yourself:

If you accept a credit card, make sure you swipe the card and get a signature, and confirm the identity of the customer by having them provide photo identification such as a driver’s license.

If you take telephone orders, you need to follow steps 1) and 2) above, which will go a long way towards protecting you, but even then, you are still at risk to sophisticated criminals. The only way to completely protect yourself is to have your customer send you a wire transfer before you ship the goods.

If you receive an order from another country or specifically from Quebec, get the customer to wire you the money directly. The cost to the customer should be about $30 and they won’t like the inconvenience, but if you explain the situation politely and offer to rebate them the $30 fee, they should understand if they are honest customers. You can even offer your customer $50 off the sale price in order to compensate them for the inconvenience. The good news is that a $50 price discount will likely be offset by the savings in credit card charges.

Once the wire transfer is complete, you are guaranteed to get your money because the funds are already in your account with no recourse from a bank or credit card company.

I hate to bring up ugly stuff, but ugly stuff happens. If you are a dealer, protect yourself because this problem is only going to get worse. The reason that it will get worse is because nobody has any interest in protecting you as a merchant. The banks don’t care. The credit card companies don’t care. The police don’t care.

If you are a customer, please be patient with the dealers as they don’t know who you are. If the situation disturbs you, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if you would ship thousands of dollars of goods to a far away place when you know that you are at risk and are basically only protected by the good word of a customer that you don’t even know.

If you are from Quebec and are angry at me for mentioning your wonderful province in a negative light, I can live with that. If nobody is cheating, then there is no problem.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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1. Leukemia – Quebec
2. Good News for Enagic/Kangen Dealers
3. Cancer (Liver) Quebec

Tom Blackwell of the National Post wrote a great article last week about a very important subject.  In a world where economies have been bruised and beaten, we can ill afford to fund upward spiraling health care costs.

Not only are we getting “sicker” as a society because of what we eat and drink and breathe, the cost of managing the sickness continues to escalate as our doctors order more and more tests and prescribe more and more medications.

If you have a couple of minutes, the following article is a worthwhile read:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Primary+care+doctors+over+prescribe+test+report/3583242/story.html

Mr. Blackwell notes that a new federal-provincial report offers the following warning: ”Swayed by pharmaceutical sales reps and less than fully versed on new technology, family doctors may be prescribing drugs improperly and ordering too many expensive diagnostic tests”.

A new Health Council of Canada report titled Decisions Decisions indicates that ” Governments must give such primary-care physicians the tools to make better decisions if they want to corral spiraling health-care costs”.  The report points out that ”Our research points to inappropriate prescribing of drugs and over-use of diagnostic imaging. If there is no change in how family physicians are supported in their role as gatekeeper, we can expect a surge in health service use.”

Nobody denies that our health care systems need to be revamped, or the cost will be crushing as our population continues to get older.  I would suggest that while our governments are looking at ways to stem costs, that  they rethink the way that we look at health care in the first place.  Surely it is more cost effective to prevent disease in the first place than to try and repair damaged bodies.  For a good analogy, just think about why you put oil in your car before you run it.

For starters, lets encourage our politicians and policy makers to focus on health instead of sickness.  We need to address the health issue before we get sick.  How do we do that?  Education!   Who should provide the education?  It sure isn’t doctors, because they don’t study how to help you be healthy.  So, that leaves it up to our governments.  In order to make a quantum change in thinking, there has to be a will to make the change.

It is a travesty that the pharmaceutical companies have such incredible power when it comes to policy making, because the pharmaceutical companies doesn’t want the public to be healthy.  As much as that statement sounds ridiculous, it is true.  What would happen to pharmaceutical profits if  people started focusing on being healthy?  You know the answer as well as I do.  Profits would tumble and the pharmas would be screaming their heads off.  We would hear the cries of “we need the funds to provide research so that we can find new treatments and cures.

Despite all the wonderful advancements made in medicine in recent decades, are people actually more or less healthy than in the past?  Childhood obesity is out of control.  Diabetes is at epidemic levels.  Cancer diagnoses are growing every year at unprecedented levels.  The incidence of ADD and OCD and numerous other disorders in children that we never heard of when we were kids is playing havoc with families.  And what are we  doing about it?  More drugs and tests of course.

I’m  not a conspiracy theorist, but it is hard to ignore what is going on when it comes to our health.  The government allows the sale of tobacco because of the huge tax implications despite the common knowledge of the harmful effects of smoking.   While our governments make token attempts to warn smokers of their stupidity, nobody is telling the fast food companies to shut down.  While we no longer have the “Marlboro Man” in our faces, we still have fast food companies and soda companies filling our airwaves with enticing advertisements full of happy, healthy people.  Well, the models in the advertisements are happy and healthy, but the customers that buy the crap become overweight and get sick and depressed.  Our governments know this junk is bad for us, but the commercials are more prevalent than ever.

 The buildup of acid in our bodies that is directly related to garbage food is responsible for many of health care problems.  We could virtually eliminate acid reflux, osteo arthritis, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes by simply changing our diets and drinking alkaline water or other alkaline beverages.  In fact, getting our bodies into an alkaline state would help eliminate cancer, as cancer can’t survive in an alkaline body.

The solution to dramatically reducing our health care costs is simple. Educate our children about the importance of eating well. In the meantime, you have the solution in your own hands and you can share it with the people that are important in your life. While you are at it, perhaps we could pass on the soda and fries and replace them with a healthy salad and a glass of alkaline water.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and quoted sources.

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The story and video from Dr. Mercola last Friday could have been a huge blow to the water ionizer industry in North America. Fortunately, we, and by that I mean everyone in the water ionizer industry, jumped all over the story and Dr. Mercola ended up looking like a greedy marketing guy that didn’t bother to do his homework.

The “shot” taken by Dr. Mercola wasn’t the first, and it definitely won’t be the last. We have witnessed the dubious, but successful, website efforts of the infamous Stephen Lower in the past.  Stephen Lower is an ex-chemist who created the website that claims ionized water is ”snake oil”. A number of people, including myself (see  http://www.waterfyi.com/alkaline-water/exposing-the-quack-behind-the-alkaline-water-quackwatchers) have written articles that clearly illustrate that the quack watcher is indeed the quack.  I have documented proof that the man has admitted that he believes the water probably works, but he won’t admit it on his website.  The fact that Stephen Lower is referenced as a source on Wikipedia under the topic of water ionizers is an abomination.  If anyone here knows how to edit material on Wikipedia, please feel free to right the wrong. 

The point of bringing up Mercola and Lower, is that anyone with a Dr. designation (as in Medical for Mercola and Chemist for Lower) can and do say whatever they want without any evidence. Both of the gentlemen in question have admitted that they have never tried the water, or tested the water, or made the effort to contact people who have benefited from the water.

I don’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars and ten or more years of my life to dedicate to get water ionizers approved by the FDA.  Even if I had the money and the time, I doubt that water ionizers would ever be approved because the pharmaceutical companies would never allow it to happen.  When I started drinking ionized water, I was taking Arthrotec for my arthritis, Pantoloc for my acid reflux, Polinex R for my ragweed allergy, and my physician wanted me to start on a Lipidor prescription to control my cholesterol. I have been drinking the water for over two years without taking any drugs, and all of the health issues have disappeared. Imagine the degree of  financial devastation that would be inflicted upon the pharmas if people actually started getting healthy.

Can We Make a Difference?

Somebody or something needs to stand up for the water ionizer industry and spread the story. As a retired person who is passionate about the benefits of ionized water, I volunteer for the job. Unfortunately, I’m only one man, who doesn’t get paid for his efforts. I can’t begin to compete with the pharmas, or even the research team of someone like Dr. Mercola. While this site now receives over 100 hits per day, Mercola’s site receives 20 million hits per month.  I have a long long long way to go.

Here is how you can help

1) If you are a water ionizer dealer, please share your stories with us.  You don’t have to worry about competitive issues because I’m not in business. I will be happy to post your name and website as a reference as a thank you for your contribution. You won’t have to worry about the authorities contacting you, because this site will be responsible for the testimonial as I will write the story.  I will need to verify that accuracy of your story of course so that readers can rely upon the truthfulness of the story.

2) If you are a water ionizer dealer, please add a link to this site on your website so that your potential customers can read about water and water ionizers from an unbiased source.  People will appreciate your desire to provide information for them without you having to spend the huge amount of time that I have spent on this blog.

3) If you are a person that drinks ionized water and want to share your story so that others can learn from your experience, I would love to hear from you.  I can’t offer any financial incentive, but I can offer my sincere thanks for helping with the cause. 

I’m doing my best, but I can only do so much on my own. While waiting for the numerous scientific studies to be completed in America to prove the value of the water, we can be compiling a mountain of evidence from true stories that can be verified. If the evidence is created through altruistic means as opposed to having a financial agenda, we can make a real difference.  I can tell you first hand, that it is incredibly rewarding to receive the phone calls and emails from people telling me that the water has helped saved a loved one’s life or made their life better by reducing or eliminating a physical problem. 

Come and play with me….the sandbox is big enough for all of us.

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