Seoul Ranks Ninth Among Fortune 500 Cities
Seoul Ranks Ninth Among Fortune 500 Cities
Seoul is home to nine global companies that have made on the list of Fortune's Global 500 this year. The city also ranked ninth in terms of total annual revenue made by the companies based here, which was about US$345 billion. Among the nine companies are Samsung Electronics, LG and Hyundai Motor. Tokyo topped the list as the world's wealthiest corporate base, followed by Paris and London.
10 Habits of Highly Successful Dieters
The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Dieters
How to Make Losing Weight in the New Year Work How to Fight Flab Around the Middle Drastic Ways to Reduce Flab Diet experts and successful dieters agree that good habits are key to losing weight sustainably, focusing on less fattening food and certain exercises.
Here are 10 habits that can help you shed extra flab in the fattening holiday season ahead.
1. Sufficient sleep. Studies reveal that when we don’t get enough sleep, our bodies tend to take in more calories than usual. We keep eating not because we’re hungry but because of the stress from insufficient sleep.
2. Eat a lot of onions with meat. A special substance in onions helps your body break down fat, and they are more effective eaten raw rather than cooked.
3. Keep your heels off the floor while you wash the dishes. It may not seem like much in the way of exercise, but it is very effective. Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart and raise your heels off the floor. Maintain the position for 10 to 20 minutes. Make it a habit and you’ll have thinner ankles and a more toned bottom.
4. At night, eat fruit like bananas and watermelon. Many people believe all fruits are non-fattening and it is therefore fine to eat them late in the evening. But smart dieters check the calorie count before crunching into their late-night snack. Bananas and watermelon are great: they are low in calories and stimulate the digestive tract.
5. Massage your abdomen during your evening bath or shower. Massages help your internal organs work properly and get rid of constipation and excess fat.
6. Stand on tiptoe on the subway for beautiful calves. On your way home from work on the subway or bus, slightly lift one foot up and stand on tiptoe on the other foot. This, too, makes for a more shapely leg. Get off a stop earlier and walk home at a brisk pace: there is no better exercise for burning fat.
7. Always ask for an extra glass of water when you have a drink. Alcoholic beverages should be taboo to dieters, as both spirits and beer are high in calories. If you have to have a drink, drink a lot of water in between. Water dissolves alcohol and makes you feel full so it can help you drink less.
8. Drink green tea instead of water when you’re thirsty. No more need to be said about the effect of green tea. Green tea dissolves fat and slows down aging. Have a cup every day and get healthier and younger skin.
9. Do not watch TV lying down. Lying in front of the TV with the remote in your hand after dinner is the easiest way to gain weight. Sit keeping your back straight and do some stretching instead.
10. Look at yourself in a full-length mirror as much as possible. Check out how you look with your own eyes, especially before and after dinner. It helps you stay focused on your diet and motivates you to get in good shape.
How to Fight Flab Around the Middle
How to Fight Flab Around the Middle
How to Make Losing Weight in the New Year Work The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Dieters Drastic Ways to Reduce Flab Some look forward to the summer, while others dread a time when the clothes become more revealing of the body within. Yet if it is flab you are concerned about, getting rid of it is easier than you may think. A sprinkling of discipline, a dash of stealth, and soon no skirt can be too short for you and no t-shirt too figure-hugging.
Intestinal fat is relatively easy to burn. If you increase the daily basic amount your metabolism needs and become a little more active, it won’t add to your girth. If your level of activity declines, however, fat easily accumulates around the middle, so the most important rule is to keep it up. There is no need for a special workout program; just walking some 30 minutes a day will do.
Lack of activity, in any case, makes intestinal fat accumulate even if other parts of the body stay slim: the symptoms are that you feel constantly tired and a great lassitude overcomes you at the thought of lifting the remote control. Now that is dangerous, because excess intestinal fat is linked to a variety of disease.
Some people do sit-ups till they are blue in the face to get rid of belly-flab, but that may be no use. The subcutaneous fat sits above the muscles, so while there may be a well-toned six-pack waiting to get out, it remains concealed under the upholstery. Much better advice is changing your diet a little and doing some aerobic exercises.
On the subject of eating: if you do it fast, slow down. The faster you eat, the more you will want before you realize you are full. Nor does it help if you eat a big meal and then skip the next. Your sly body just takes in more food faster, and this eating habit is even more likely to turn calories straight into fat than eating regularly.
During the day, your sympathetic nerve is active, but at night, it’s your parasympathetic system’s turn. And when the latter is at work, your body just wants a break so it can store fat in peace. Don’t encourage it: a big meal at night gives it the excuse it needs to add inches to your waist, while the same amount eaten during the day will only do half the damage. Food before bedtime is the high road to obesity.
If you have a voracious appetite, it’s best to keep having your regular meals. Cutting down radically will only make you obsessed with food, and before you know it you’re at the ice cream tub at 4 a.m. It’s much better to reduce each meal one grain of rice at a time so your body won’t think of getting greedy.
Drastic Ways to Reduce Flab
How to Make Losing Weight in the New Year Work The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Dieters How to Fight Flab Around the Middle Flab around the belly, once created, may never go away. Working out and changing your diet can help, but they are difficult to maintain. The drastic alternatives are plastic surgery or other obesity treatments.
◆Liposuction
This technique produces the most visible effects as it suctions out deposits of fat in your body. It requires insertion of a narrow tube and is mostly suitable for women, whose flab is just beneath the skin, while men tend to carry fat deeper inside. The technique literally vacuums the fat layer from under the skin. After injecting hemostatic agents and local anesthesia into the fat layer, a narrow tube is inserted to suction it out.
This is how the original liposuction is performed, but the method can roughen the skin where fats were suctioned. This problem gave rise to ultrasound-assisted liposuction, which uses ultrasound to liquefy the fat before suction. Recently, another technique using lasers has been introduced. This technique projects laser beams onto the targeted area so that the fatty tissue lets out the fat inside. Some 1,500-3,000 cc of fat or up to 5,000 cc of fat are removed every time this technique is performed, which translates into mere 2-3 grams in total. This is intended to create a slimmer body silhouette, not to lose weight.
◆Hypotonic Pharmacologic Lipo-Dissolution
This technique works by injecting a 1-2 mm thick needle made of special fiber to project laser beams and melt fat. Surgeons move the needle around to project laser beams to all of the target area. Other medication to dissolve fat is administered in some cases. Dissolved fat is absorbed into the blood stream and the lymphatic duct. The fat-reducing effects are gradually visible a week after the operation, and a month later, you will find that you lost a noticeable amount of fat. This technique also prevents the skin at the operated area from sagging as the heat produced by laser beams helps collagen in your inner skin contract. The caveat is that does not remove huge amounts of fat. One of its advantages is that it can be performed with local anesthesia only.
◆Mesotherapy
Mesotherapy works by injecting a variety of drugs such as Aminophylline, an FDA-approved asthma medication, and saline into the fat layer around your belly to reduce fat. Those medications are known for their effects in burning or melting fat. Injections are required twice a week for eight weeks. Surgeons performing this technique say that mesotherapy is more effective in removing cellulite, causing the surface of the skin to dimple.
◆Medication
Growth hormone can work to remove flab. Taking low-dosage growth hormone for a long time can reduce or disperse flab around your belly. It contributes to reducing obesity systematically as it increases muscles. This is why the therapy is best suited for middle-aged men who want to make their body more masculine, rather than for women who want a slimmer look. The caveat is that controversy is still going on over the possible side effects of taking growth hormone for a long time.
Worried if Your Kids Are Yours?
Worried if Your Kids Are Yours? Find Out in a Jiffy
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| One Korean provider of paternity DNA tests gets some 150 applications a month online for “free” testing kits from faceless customers. The kit includes four cotton buds. Customers who are suspicious of their baby’s paternity send the baby’s nails or other tissue as well as their own using the cotton buds and send them to the company, which resolves the suspicion within 12 hours of receiving it. In the case of corporate researcher Kim (39), the result was good news. On May 20, he had received a parcel at his office in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province containing the DNA test kit for his two-year old daughter, two days after he made the application. Kim had become suspicious of his wife and searched the Internet for DNA testing websites. He found the procedure surprisingly simple: request a test kit online or by phone, send it back by courier and get the results in your e-mail. Kim did, and a day later he was assured that his daughter was biologically related to him. Paternity DNA tests started in the U.S., and until recently a doubtful parent in Korea had to fork out W3-4 million (US$1=W948) for a complicated procedure. But now, applicants no longer have to drop into hospital to have their sample taken, and the cost is a mere one-sixth of what it used to be. Result are generally available within 24 hours, and those concerned about privacy can get their result online rather than in the post and from abroad if need be. DNA testing institutes do not need to be approved so long as they register with the related government agency. In short, anyone can set up a test lab. After laws on bioethics and biosafety took effect in January last year, some 100 such institutes registered with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and as of April this year there were 162 of them. One reason for the demand is that Korea’s sexual mores are loosening. Another is a love of convenience. But experts warn regulations are needed in some areas of paternity DNA testing. “Paternity DNA tests have become a part of everyday life in soap operas and other TV shows, and the procedure itself is as simple as home shopping, which prompts people to have one without thinking about it much,” says Cho Kyung-ae of the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations. “But the test can break up a family, regardless of its result, and people need to think very carefully before they have one.” Divorce proceedings related to paternity DNA tests, which were quite rare until three years ago, now number two or three a month. (englishnews@chosun.com ) |
How to become RICH with just Rs 100
How to become RICH with just Rs 100
P V Subramanyam, Moneycontrol.com |
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June 29, 2006 08:43 IST
If compound interest is so simple that it is taught in high school, how come it took Albert Einstein, arguably the greatest scientist in the world, to call it the 8th wonder of the world? Was it to remind us that we forgot about a magic theory? Really, understanding compound interest is very, very difficult. The human mind does not comprehend such growth so easily. We in our physical selves have a simpler type of growth. So we do not comprehend compounding of growth. A few old, really old stories might just help. Let us start with the famous story of the Persian emperor who was so enchanted with a new 'chess' game that he wanted to fulfill any wish the inventor of the game had. This inventor, a mathematician, decided to ask for one seed of grain on the first square of the chessboard doubling the amounts on each of the following squares. The emperor, at first happy about such modesty, was soon to discover that the total yield of his entire empire would not be sufficient to fulfill the 'modest' wish. The amount needed on the 64th square of the chessboard equals 440 times the yield of grain of the entire planet. Just try converting into money in any currency and you will realise the importance of compounding. A similar analogy is that one penny invested at the birth of Jesus Christ at 4% interest would have bought one ball of gold equal to the weight of the earth in the year 1750. In 1990, however, it would buy 8,190 such balls of gold. At 5 per cent, interest it would have bought one ball of gold by the year 1466. By 1990, it would buy 2,200 billion balls of gold equal to the weight of the earth! The example shows the enormous difference 1% makes. It also proves that the continual payment of interest and compound interest is arithmetically, as well as practically, impossible. Just see what a difference it would have made if your great grandfather had invested in a bank fixed deposit only Rs 100 say 150 years back. What it would have grown to? Here is a dream sheet. See for yourself. Imagine Rs 100 is invested and it grows at 10 per cent every year. Column 2 is what it will grow to if it was held for the number of years in column 1. So if your great grandfather invested Rs 100, 150 years ago, you would have inherited Rs 16 crore (Rs 160 million). No. of years it is invested for: | What it would grow to
in Rupees: | 1 | 110 | 5 | 161 | 10 | 259 | 15 | 418 | 25 | 1,083 | 50 | 11,739 | 100 | 1,378,061 | 150 | 161,771,784 | 200 | 18,990,527,646 | 300 | 261,701,099,618,845 | 400 | 3,606,401,402,752,540,000 | 500 | 49,698,419,673,124,400,000,000 |
So what is the learning from this sheet? Even a 1 per cent difference can make a mountain of a difference, but the greatest difference is made by the number of years the money remains untouched. That is the key. For those more mathematically inclined, I state below the formula: Vn = Vo * (1+r)^n 'n' in the compounding formula is the number of times the amount is compounded. But for practical purposes if you take that as the time for which you stay invested in an instrument, you would not be too wrong either. What it means is that: The amount of money that you require (Vn) is equal to the amount invested today (Vo) multiplied by [1+ interest rate (r)] raised to the number of times the amount is compounded (n). In this formula you as a client can control how much money you want at the end of the waiting period (Vn), how long the money can be invested (n), and how much money you can invest today Vo. Instead of worrying about 'r', just start investing. That is the key. Takeaways: - Start investing early.
- Do not touch the amount for a long time.
- Do not keep jumping from one investment instrument to another.
- Let the power of compounding work for you. It would have worked for your grand-dad, dad and you. If they knew it, great. If they did not, you can start the line. At least your grandchild will praise you for it.
- To see what it would have become over 500 years is fantasy. What it could have become over 150 is Ratan Tata.
- When you read about 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer,' it is not about socialism. It is about compounding.
The author is a chartered accountant and a financial domain trainer. He can be reached at pv.subramanyam@moneycontrol.com For more on financial planning, log on to click here. |
