This Week's Book

Hi there. Sorry i haven't written in a while because i've been busy with all kinds of work and projects. As i love reading and accumulating new information daily, I got engaged in all kinds of stuff and started searching the internet, documenting myself about certain topics I'm studying about. I love "knowing". No, i will not spend my whole day(or life for that matter) reading and studying various topics, but as a good friend of mine said, time management is everything. If i have a free window, when i can relax, i don't just sit and waist my time, i manage it. How do i do that? I read, from daily news to health, fashion, art, anything that will keep me interested and of course is worth reading. I always carry a book with me, especially social psychology ones. During the day i catch up on whatever i can, and before going to bed i allocate myself two hours of art study.
Now then, enough about myself. I want to delight you, my readers, with new an interesting info and not write about myself, because one's main interest is his own self. As hard as we can admit it, everything revolves around one's self. To give you a clear perspective about what society is and how we can - pay attention, WE - can become better people, how everyone judges us and why, sometimes, things don't work out as we would want them to, i recommend you a GOLDEN BOOK. It's called: How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.
No, it's not a guide how to fool someone in order to get what you want. It's a book that emphasizes the role of respect, truth and how we can surpass life's challenges. It's a book that changed the life of many people in its 70 years. The author starts his book by saying:"If you can't see any change in yourself after reading the first chapter, don't bother reading any further". Indeed, the book captivates you, from its first chapter. I have read it many times(7 i think). It has been given to me by my father when i was 14. Even then i loved it. I keep a notebook with quotes from it which i read weekly. So readers, i apologize again for my late post and hope this amazing book will open many doors for you, in the relationships with your family, friends, work colleagues and daily abouts. Cheers!

--Take a look at it and its reviews on Amazon--

Fat is good. What kind?

Ok kids, I’ll take you today through a biology lesson. All we hear about these days is how bad fat is, how we should stick to low fat or nonfat diets or how fat and obesity cause cancer. Actually fat plays a crucial role in your body. If you want to lose weight and have abs, read carefully the following paragraphs. There are three types of fat in this world: trans fat, saturated fat and unsaturated fat.

TRANS FAT: This is one of the fats you should really stay away from. I MEAN REALLY AVOID. This is the type of fat that is man made, not found in nature. It was invented around 1970. Scientists added hydrogen to regular oil and saw that its peak point (the point that it starts to smoke) is way higher than in regular oil. Fast foods and restaurants alike loved it. It was cheap and you could buy large quantities of it at a very low price. We all know that fat melts when heated. Well if you put a block of hydrogenated fat at room temperature, it’s rock solid. There is a strong fight going on at the moment between large companies and the health boards worldwide. Companies refuse to write on their products' labels, the quantity of trans fat they contain, knowing that people may not wish to buy them anymore. Which products have trans fatty acids? Well, nowadays most of them do, it’s really hard to avoid them, put we can manage our intake by checking the label. Here’s a general rule. On you label you might see, carbs, protein and fat. At the fat column, you will see saturated fat. Subtract the saturated amount (grams or whatever unit) of fat from the total amount of fat. Thus you’ll end up with the quantity of trans fat that is not listed. Most of the products that have it are sweets, cakes, chocolate, fast foods of any kind, merely everything you crave for. Even some cans of vegetables or even fish, have it. Even your “crispy cereals”(if you have natural muesli, oats, barley, unsweetened, unflavored, then you’re safe). Trans fats are the no.1 cause of obesity (and one of the most cancer causing ones). They won’t do you any good so please avoid them.

SATURATED FAT: Although this is considered a “bad” fat, it’s found in most of the animal products: meat, eggs, milk etc. This is not as harmful as trans fat as it can be found in nature and the body’s ability to deal with it is pretty good. You should keep the intake pretty low though. Try eating lean meats (lean beef, chicken breast, lean turkey) and low fat or nonfat dairy products, as some tend to have a lot of this kind of fat.

MONOUNSATURATED AND POLYUNSATURATED FATS: These are the champions of health. They promote good blood circulation, prevent cloths and inflammations. They also keep your heart, liver and digestive system healthy. They cut your bad cholesterol (which you get from trans and saturated fat) and boost your good cholesterol. Foods? Olive oil, nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, flax seeds etc), fish and some fruit. Good fats are omega-3 and omega-6 fats. Omega 3 keeps your brain cells healthy, repairs injuries, makes your blood thinner preventing cloths, makes your skin look better and much more.

This omega-3 fat has been considered a lifesaver by a lot of scientists. Nowadays most medics recommend getting up to 3-4g of this fat daily, either through supplements or through food (though it is recommended through food). Omega 3 is mainly found in salmon, tuna, shrimp and some other fish, walnuts and flax seeds. If salmon is too expensive for you, get walnuts. You should get 1-2 handfuls a day to reach your body’s requirement. Toss all kinds of nuts and seeds (unroasted, unsalted) in your morning cereal or on a mid day salad. They can be easily integrated in your meals. Don’t fry the fish in deep oil. Roast it to keep its nutritional value. I remember how skeptical I was when I first read about “good” fat. Now a proudly own a 6 pack and eat about 30% of fat in my daily intake. Knowing what foods to eat and in what quantities makes the difference in your health. Well, hope this helped and got you started reading more from books or online resources. For more on this topic, checkout the World’s Healthiest Foods Website.

Come back soon as I’ll be taking on the subject of protein and carbohydrates, trying to dismount some myths. I’ll be posting smoothie recepies and juicy, tasteful, healthy meals to help you get going on a healthy lifestyle and beautiful abs. As a side note: Try reading the book I recommended.

Have yourself a great day!

This week's book

Ok readers this is my book recommendation for this week. It's packed with all you need, to look and feel better. Abs, lean muscle, healthy eating, it's all present in this New York Times BestSeller. You may be saying right now: Damn, another model recommending yet another diet book. It's not a book that restricts you from eating, it's a book that tells you to eat 6 times a day, only good food, healthy foods with rich nutritional value. I'm not saying only broccoli and yogurt, i mean stakes, powerful smoothies, healthy, juicy fruit salads, nuts, almonds, walnuts, peanut butter etc. These Power Foods, combined in certain quantities and distributed throughout your entire day, can make you shed those pounds in just six weeks. It's written by the editor-in-chief of Men's Health Magazine. It's an amazing book for models, businessmen, mothers, fathers, people that are undergoing treatments and so on. The food combinations are amazingly tasty and packed with nutrients and vitamins to keep you both energetic and healthy. I STRONGLY recommend it. The difference between this book and other diet books, is that this one tells you what to eat, not what not to and it's not a short-term eating plan. It's a life long eating plan. Fantastic book, very well written, structured and packed with extremely useful information. Get your hands on it now!!! --- Check it out, read the hundreds of reviews and even browse a few pages on Amazon.com. Have a great day!

MacBook Unboxing

Hello readers. As I promised in the previous post, I am unveiling to you my new 13.3” White Macbook. It’s the Santa Rosa 3 Edition, which means it has 144mb of video memory(instead of 64mb like in previous models), 1gb of ram and an Intel 2 Core Duo Processor. I am very excited I got one at last. I invested pretty much in my PC desktop computer and I was a total fool. Apple does things so much better. The look, the finish the Mac OS interface, everything looks and behaves wonderfully. It comes preinstalled with Leopard, iLife ’08 and iWork ‘08(trial).

As a new Mac user here are my thoughts. If you are willing to buy a mac, don’t go launch yourself in a spending frenzy. Opt for a middle-class, middle-specs one(if you are a proffesional video editor you probably should go for top of the line products). The main inconvenience I have is RAM, HDD space and something I never thought about. My wrist hurts if I type a lot. The bottom edge of the macbook is kind of “sharp” and disturbing sometimes. That’s about it. The rest is all good. It works like a charm. Display is crystal clear. Sound? Good, basic daily usage sound. If you want a party, forget it, get external speakers people! A side note: it does get hot sometimes, but these latest editions don’t fry eggs like some previous ones did.

My desktop is an Intel 2,6GHz E6600 Core Duo with 4GB of ram, an Nvidia 8800GT and a 7200 rpm 320 GB HDD. Why did I say this? Well, my macbook boots faster and can handle with just 1GB, a large number of applications and still run smooth like butter. Windows PCs just can’t do that, with all their RAM and power and tweaking. Apple computers manage RAM differently. What can I say, thank you Steve Jobs.

CAUTION for Apple laptop buyers. Do not buy laptops or configure with RAM from Apple. 4GB of RAM can get you spending a whopping 1000$. Instead get one with 512mb or 1gb and take the exact specs(frequency and all) and buy 1 or 2 pieces of 2gb from Kingston or Kingmax or any other manufacturer, for almost 100$. Save 900$. I really don’t know why RAM from Apple is so expensive but anyway, seriously think what I’m saying. You’ll have the same speeds, same performance as you would with their pieces of hardware. I currently have 1gb and want to upgrade to 4gb. Installing the RAM yourself is an easy process which I’ll be recording soon and posting, for all you viewers who want more from their macbook. If you’re a regular user(movies, music, documents, internet, 1gb is more than enough). About warranty, well, good news. HDD replacement and RAM upgrade will not void your warranty. Fantastic!

As I said, I am a passionate photographer, and using photoshop with really large files can take up a lot of RAM so the more the better. Also I recently started learning about video formats and all kinds of video-related info and I want to buy final cut express HD 4. I love imovie, don’t get me wrong, I just want to widen my tools palette and give my movies somewhat of a pop. That’s about all for today viewers.  In my future tech posts, I’ll show you how to change your RAM and later on, after I get really acquainted with my macbook I’ll post an in depth review. Bye for now!

 

Hello readers

  Hello and welcome to my blog. Been willing to join the community for some time. Let me introduce myself.

         My name is Dumitriu Alexandru. I’m a male model from Bucharest, Romania. I’m 19 years old. I’m also a passionate photographer and fitness trainer. I have beem living a healthy lifestyle for as long as I know. I love reading great motivational, fitness&workout, health, art and psychological books. I’ll recommend some of the best in the posts to come. Love every aspect of technology and the effort to make universal communication easy(I am now a proud owner of a new 13.3” Macbook which I’ll be unveiling, reviewing for you in my future posts). I’ll also upload some of my photographic work in such a matter that it won’t clutter the interface.

         As a fitness trainer there’s nothing more satisfying to me than to see the smile on the customer’s face when thanking me for a new lifestyle and body. I love helping people and sharing information.

          I intend to make the most out of my blog, keeping this online journal updated with my travels, the modeling industry, healthy living, books and tech news.