Let’s stay healthily alive
Wealthy Africans and African Americans are over-weight on the average. This is especially true of the nouveau riche among them who believe that the one way to enjoy their new found wealth is to eat, drink and be merry. They want to catch up on the long years of lack and scrappy feeding, but soon realize how badly their health condition has deteriorated because of over weight.
Usually you notice them by the big pot bellies they are carrying around. For the women they load their fat around their hips and backsides which often may be mistaken for pregnancy, but for men, no explanation is good enough. Some jocularly refer to it as the “evidence of good living” while those who are laden with the burden, know better.
Stomach fat is perhaps the most difficult kind of fat to deal with. They soon realize that it is unhealthy, and would give an arm and a leg, to get rid of it.
You can test yourself right away, by measuring with a tailor’s tape, your height and your waist. If the measurement of your waist line is more than half your height, then you are overweight and need to do something about it fast. There are proven ways of burning fat and feeding the muscles and you must fall in line if you want to enjoy your wealth for longer periods on this earth.
Most times this realization comes as a result of a near total breakdown of their body system manifesting in one of several serious illnesses arising from fat gain such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
A close friend of mine recently died from complications bordering on excessive weight gain, but of course, his close relations blamed his death on witchcraft machinations of some kindred enemy against whom they have a land dispute. But I know what killed him. He slumped and died at his work place. He died of heart failure caused by hypertension and complications associated with diabetes. These days it is common to hear about people dropping death suddenly even without the popular “after a brief illness”.
To See the Fastest Way to Lower Your Blood Pressure Naturally: Click Here!
Some of these complications can “silently” lead to damage to the heart, kidney and blood vessels and may occur if conditions remain unchecked, increasing the risk for stroke (brain damage), heart attack, kidney or heart (cardiac) failure, hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis), eye damage, or even death. We are all afraid to die regardless of the quality of the life we live, aren’t we?
In West Africa, no one performs autopsy on dead bodies unless a strong allegation of homicide is being investigated by the police. So, it is our culture to bury our dead with the causes of those deaths. We so respect the human corpse that we think it is sacrilegious to probe for the cause of their demise.
In the olden days, our fore fathers opened the stomachs of dead people whom they suspected to have died from bad diseases, to cut out the diseased organs so that the “incarnates” of such deceased persons, will not be born with those same ailments. For whatever it was worth, there may have been some benefits from that practice other than what they contemplated.
But nowadays, even though we know better, we still inordinately revere dead bodies. And prefer to endanger the living by shunning the prescriptions of modern medical science to do a post-mortem.
The meat of this article is a declaration that since people are dying daily from the effects of over indulgence and we still don’t care to track the causes, then lets take some basic precautions. My recommendation is that you watch what you eat, seek medical attention when you don’t feel normal and start an exercise program that will make you sweat for at least 15 minutes per day. Hopefully my next article will address the issue of healthy diet for us West Africans and African Americans.
For those who are diagnosed already of one of these medical conditions, one way out you must quickly consider and adopt is, an intensive weight loss program such as this one
Click Here to View the Best Fat Burning Product Yet!
It is well. Stay healthy until I come your way again soon.
Tobechi.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Let’s stay healthily alive
Wealthy West Africans are over-weight on average. This is especially true with the nouveau riche among them who believe that the one way to enjoy their new found wealth is to eat, drink and be merry. They want to catch up on the long years of lack and scrappy feeding, but soon realize how badly their health condition has deteriorated because of over weight.
Usually you notice them by the big pot bellies they are carrying around. For the women they load their fat around their hips and backside which are often mistaken for pregnancy but for men, no explanation is good enough. Some jocularly refer to it as the “evidence of good living” while those who are laden with the burden, know better. Stomach fat is perhaps the most difficult kind of fat to deal with. They soon realize that it is unhealthy, and would give an arm and a leg, to get rid of it.
You can test yourself right away by measuring with a tailor’s tape your height and your waist. If your waist line is more than half your height, then you are overweight and need to do something about it fast. There are proven ways of burning fat and feeding the muscles and you must fall in line if you want to enjoy your wealth for longer periods on this earth.
Most times this realization comes as a result of a near total breakdown of their body system manifesting in one of several serious illnesses arising from fat gain such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
A close friend of mine recently died from complications bordering on excessive weight gain, but of course, his close relations blamed his death on witchcraft machinations of some kindred enemy against whom they have a land dispute. But I know what killed him. He died of heart failure caused by hypertension and complications associated with diabetes. These days it is common to hear about people dropping death suddenly even without the popular “after a brief illness”.
To See the Fastest Way to Lower Your Blood Pressure Naturally: Click Here!
Some of these complications can “silently” lead to damage to the heart, kidney and blood vessels and may occur if conditions remain unchecked, increasing the risk for stroke (brain damage), heart attack, kidney or heart (cardiac) failure, hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis), eye damage, or even death. We are all afraid to die regardless of the quality of the life we live, aren’t we?
In West Africa, no one performs autopsy on a dead bodies unless a strong allegation of homicide is being investigated by the police. So, it is our culture to bury our dead with the causes of those deaths. We so respect the human corpse that we think it is sacrilegious to probe for the cause of their demise.
In the olden days, our fore fathers opened the stomachs of dead people whom they suspected to have died from bad diseases, to cut out the diseased organs so that the “incarnates” of such deceased persons, will not be born with those same ailments. For whatever it was worth, there may have been some benefits from that practice other than what they contemplated.
But nowadays, even though we know better, we still inordinately revere dead bodies. And prefer to endanger the living by shunning the prescriptions of modern medical science to do a post-mortem.
The meat of this article is a declaration that since people are dying daily from the effects of over indulgence and we still don’t care to track the causes, then lets take some basic precautions. So my recommendation is that you watch what you eat, seek medical attention when you don’t feel normal and start an exercise program that will make you sweat for at least 15 minutes per day. Hopefully my next article will address the issue of healthy diet for us West Africans.
For those who are diagnosed already of one of these medical conditions, one way out you must quickly consider and adopt is, an intensive weight loss program such as this one
Click Here to View the Best Fat Burning Product Yet!
It is swell. Stay healthy until I come your way again soon.
Tobechi
Usually you notice them by the big pot bellies they are carrying around. For the women they load their fat around their hips and backside which are often mistaken for pregnancy but for men, no explanation is good enough. Some jocularly refer to it as the “evidence of good living” while those who are laden with the burden, know better. Stomach fat is perhaps the most difficult kind of fat to deal with. They soon realize that it is unhealthy, and would give an arm and a leg, to get rid of it.
You can test yourself right away by measuring with a tailor’s tape your height and your waist. If your waist line is more than half your height, then you are overweight and need to do something about it fast. There are proven ways of burning fat and feeding the muscles and you must fall in line if you want to enjoy your wealth for longer periods on this earth.
Most times this realization comes as a result of a near total breakdown of their body system manifesting in one of several serious illnesses arising from fat gain such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
A close friend of mine recently died from complications bordering on excessive weight gain, but of course, his close relations blamed his death on witchcraft machinations of some kindred enemy against whom they have a land dispute. But I know what killed him. He died of heart failure caused by hypertension and complications associated with diabetes. These days it is common to hear about people dropping death suddenly even without the popular “after a brief illness”.
To See the Fastest Way to Lower Your Blood Pressure Naturally: Click Here!
Some of these complications can “silently” lead to damage to the heart, kidney and blood vessels and may occur if conditions remain unchecked, increasing the risk for stroke (brain damage), heart attack, kidney or heart (cardiac) failure, hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis), eye damage, or even death. We are all afraid to die regardless of the quality of the life we live, aren’t we?
In West Africa, no one performs autopsy on a dead bodies unless a strong allegation of homicide is being investigated by the police. So, it is our culture to bury our dead with the causes of those deaths. We so respect the human corpse that we think it is sacrilegious to probe for the cause of their demise.
In the olden days, our fore fathers opened the stomachs of dead people whom they suspected to have died from bad diseases, to cut out the diseased organs so that the “incarnates” of such deceased persons, will not be born with those same ailments. For whatever it was worth, there may have been some benefits from that practice other than what they contemplated.
But nowadays, even though we know better, we still inordinately revere dead bodies. And prefer to endanger the living by shunning the prescriptions of modern medical science to do a post-mortem.
The meat of this article is a declaration that since people are dying daily from the effects of over indulgence and we still don’t care to track the causes, then lets take some basic precautions. So my recommendation is that you watch what you eat, seek medical attention when you don’t feel normal and start an exercise program that will make you sweat for at least 15 minutes per day. Hopefully my next article will address the issue of healthy diet for us West Africans.
For those who are diagnosed already of one of these medical conditions, one way out you must quickly consider and adopt is, an intensive weight loss program such as this one
Click Here to View the Best Fat Burning Product Yet!
It is swell. Stay healthy until I come your way again soon.
Tobechi
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The future could be brighter if we make small adjustments
Hello Folks,
Much water has passed under the bridge since my last post. I shall remain focused and only address my niche area here and hopefully comment on other issues in the appropriate forums. The road to my church I spoke about in my last post has surprisingly been fixed…not the usual patch-up work but a thorough rehab. I watched the procedure, and I am perfectly convinced that it will stand many rainy seasons in the future (I mean the fixed sections). Vehicles now speed past the once impassable road like a highway.
The problem with the Nigerian system, in my assessment, is that the fiscal year is skewed in such a way that it runs from January to December. A new budget is usually passed to take effect from the 1st of January and terminate by 30th December of every year. This means that a fair amount of the dry season is used to jaw-jaw about a new budget in which period outdoor projects should intensively be going on.
If we take into consideration the geography, indeed the best model for a fiscal year should be one that starts on the 1st of July and ends on the 30th of June of every year. This way we would use much of the rainy season to plan, present, defend, debate and then pass the Appropriation Bills as they are properly called.
Implementation of this financial plan would then commence in July and in about 2 months all pre-contract procedures will have been completed and outdoor projects may kick-off as the dry season sets in. Invariably this would allow project implementation to utilize the full span of the dry weather period instead of the current situation whereby outdoor projects hardly use up to 3 months dry period every year.
The country is tinkering with its 31 year old constitution handed down to the polity by past military dictators as we speak, and they will do well to incorporate this change into it. Outdoor project implementation will benefit immensely from this proposed regime and then the much talked about infrastructure gap will be filled. The current practice whereby legislators receive budget proposals in December, after which they proceed on Christmas and New Year break, and return to pass the Bills anytime deep into the 1st quarter of the New Year, is a terrible waste of scarce dry weather.
This is the main reason why projects awarded to contractors which usually would last for 10 to 12 months construction time, end up hanging for more than 6 years, and most of them abandoned due to the fact that much dilapidation had already occurred to erode the integrity of the earlier milestones achieved. Will the politicians see this anomaly? Let’s hope they read published materials such as this.
Much water has passed under the bridge since my last post. I shall remain focused and only address my niche area here and hopefully comment on other issues in the appropriate forums. The road to my church I spoke about in my last post has surprisingly been fixed…not the usual patch-up work but a thorough rehab. I watched the procedure, and I am perfectly convinced that it will stand many rainy seasons in the future (I mean the fixed sections). Vehicles now speed past the once impassable road like a highway.
The problem with the Nigerian system, in my assessment, is that the fiscal year is skewed in such a way that it runs from January to December. A new budget is usually passed to take effect from the 1st of January and terminate by 30th December of every year. This means that a fair amount of the dry season is used to jaw-jaw about a new budget in which period outdoor projects should intensively be going on.
If we take into consideration the geography, indeed the best model for a fiscal year should be one that starts on the 1st of July and ends on the 30th of June of every year. This way we would use much of the rainy season to plan, present, defend, debate and then pass the Appropriation Bills as they are properly called.
Implementation of this financial plan would then commence in July and in about 2 months all pre-contract procedures will have been completed and outdoor projects may kick-off as the dry season sets in. Invariably this would allow project implementation to utilize the full span of the dry weather period instead of the current situation whereby outdoor projects hardly use up to 3 months dry period every year.
The country is tinkering with its 31 year old constitution handed down to the polity by past military dictators as we speak, and they will do well to incorporate this change into it. Outdoor project implementation will benefit immensely from this proposed regime and then the much talked about infrastructure gap will be filled. The current practice whereby legislators receive budget proposals in December, after which they proceed on Christmas and New Year break, and return to pass the Bills anytime deep into the 1st quarter of the New Year, is a terrible waste of scarce dry weather.
This is the main reason why projects awarded to contractors which usually would last for 10 to 12 months construction time, end up hanging for more than 6 years, and most of them abandoned due to the fact that much dilapidation had already occurred to erode the integrity of the earlier milestones achieved. Will the politicians see this anomaly? Let’s hope they read published materials such as this.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Roads and Vehicles in Southern Nigeria
Presently the access road to one of the meeting houses of my church where I have been visiting for sometime now, is undergoing rehabilitation – no, patch up work - after a downtime of over four months. The road developed three large gullies which scared off all manner of vehicles during this period. This place is Owerri, Nigeria.
Nigeria is quite easily the largest black nation on the globe. Indeed, studies show that about 1 in every 4 black persons on earth is a Nigerian. Before the bringing together in 1914 of the two major halves (North and South) which make up Nigeria as presently constituted, its colonial masters (The United Kingdom) reasoned and thoroughly believed that these two rather incongruous parts will symbiotically benefit one from the other and actualize development in the shortest possible period.
How? The South was to take advantage of the rich land resources in the North while the North was to take advantage of the rich mineral resources of the South. Surely good connecting roads would be key, to achieve this goal. The Southern parts of Nigeria are in the rain belt with records of rainfall on more days than not, in every year. The rains are generally not associated with violent storms, much thundering etc. but steady downpours with attendant sheet and gully erosion. The activities of these heavy rains are responsible for much environmental degradation; washing away of both paved and unpaved roads among others.
Road transportation is the major mode of moving human and material cargo from point to point in Nigeria and any disruption to this system impacts heavily on socio-economic wellbeing of the area. The major road arteries in the western, eastern and south-southern parts, which combine to make up Southern Nigeria as a whole, are washed away during every rainy season. Inter City roads which are generally the charge of the Abuja based Federal government but which serve the locally based states through which they run, are always the worst hit. Every year most interstate roads become impassable the first few months into the wet season which begins about March or April yearly and subsist until a couple of months into the dry season which commences about November.
Large potholes, some as big as small lakes prevent cars, trucks, buses and even SUVs from using the roads until they dry up. Government-paid contractors then move in to patch up some of the most visible potholes in order to make them tolerable enough for returning Christmas and New Year holiday tourists from the north, Lagos and abroad to use as they visit their ancestral homes. This circle then repeats itself the following year and every year thereafter, only with a slight variation – fresh potholes emerging to crowd out old ones.
But how will the objective of the colonial masters be realized under these conditions? Development follows a road. It is like a vehicle or literally speaking a stream of vehicles laden with human and material deliverables going to a designated destination.
Proper design and construction of public roads is the answer. Even though it is not cheap, coupled with the fact that resources are scarce and made more so after corrupt and greedy public servants have plundered the public purse, there could still be found, alternative, cheaper than the conventional and effective road design concepts.
The conventional approach to road construction in unstable soil formations relies on the placement of a thick layer lateritish base plus a sizable stone/cement base course, before the preferred wearing course finishing with well made drains on both sides. The number of layers in a road often depends on the intended use of the road, but generally roads have three distinct layers. From bottom to top, the layers are the roadbed, the base course, and the wearing course. The strength of the layers is critical to the longevity of any road and current advancement in road stability research has produced agents that bring about this result.
This design model is very expensive for a developing nation such as Nigeria. It then means that a cheaper but durable approach must be sort for and utilized. This technology does exist.
This technology places emphasis upon soil stabilization using organic or inorganic compounds to hold soil particles together when compacted, to form a dense permanent base. It will substantially decrease maintenance and the associated downtime and costs on treated roads. With some formulas, organic compounds act upon organic fines contained in the soil through a catalytic bonding process to produce a strong “cementation” action. The chemical compounds that are used for soil stabilization are many and care must be taken to select the appropriate and suitable brand to be used.
The cost differential when compared with the conventional method can be quite substantial. Some of these compounds have the capacity to hold soil particles so well that dust and flaking action are forestalled even when in use without asphalting or other kinds of surfacing. Some of these compounds when used on clay formations reduce plasticity and effectively solidify it into dense strata. Road construction programs in the swampy terrains of the Niger Delta Region will benefit immensely from this technology.
Nigerians love to own their own vehicles both for reasons of prestige, utility and business. In the absence of an effective and efficient public mass transit system, they strive to provide for themselves this service. Their preference circumstantially tends toward purchase of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) which ply those rough roads with less stress than the regular cars and buses. Most who cannot afford brand new cars and buses settle for fairly used ‘jeeps’ and trucks imported from Europe, Asia and the United States and fix them when they breakdown with imported used parts or thoroughly used and condemned ones. They want to explore the mainly uncharted country, emulate their counterparts in the developed West to tour with kith and kin the lush countryside and sub regional neighbors on smooth motorable roads even with those used vehicles.
The tourism potentials of this great nation will not be tapped and realized if roads remain impassable. The style of governance will change in the near future due to pressure on the ruling class from within and from without, and then things will be done more efficiently and proactively.
Nigeria is quite easily the largest black nation on the globe. Indeed, studies show that about 1 in every 4 black persons on earth is a Nigerian. Before the bringing together in 1914 of the two major halves (North and South) which make up Nigeria as presently constituted, its colonial masters (The United Kingdom) reasoned and thoroughly believed that these two rather incongruous parts will symbiotically benefit one from the other and actualize development in the shortest possible period.
How? The South was to take advantage of the rich land resources in the North while the North was to take advantage of the rich mineral resources of the South. Surely good connecting roads would be key, to achieve this goal. The Southern parts of Nigeria are in the rain belt with records of rainfall on more days than not, in every year. The rains are generally not associated with violent storms, much thundering etc. but steady downpours with attendant sheet and gully erosion. The activities of these heavy rains are responsible for much environmental degradation; washing away of both paved and unpaved roads among others.
Road transportation is the major mode of moving human and material cargo from point to point in Nigeria and any disruption to this system impacts heavily on socio-economic wellbeing of the area. The major road arteries in the western, eastern and south-southern parts, which combine to make up Southern Nigeria as a whole, are washed away during every rainy season. Inter City roads which are generally the charge of the Abuja based Federal government but which serve the locally based states through which they run, are always the worst hit. Every year most interstate roads become impassable the first few months into the wet season which begins about March or April yearly and subsist until a couple of months into the dry season which commences about November.
Large potholes, some as big as small lakes prevent cars, trucks, buses and even SUVs from using the roads until they dry up. Government-paid contractors then move in to patch up some of the most visible potholes in order to make them tolerable enough for returning Christmas and New Year holiday tourists from the north, Lagos and abroad to use as they visit their ancestral homes. This circle then repeats itself the following year and every year thereafter, only with a slight variation – fresh potholes emerging to crowd out old ones.
But how will the objective of the colonial masters be realized under these conditions? Development follows a road. It is like a vehicle or literally speaking a stream of vehicles laden with human and material deliverables going to a designated destination.
Proper design and construction of public roads is the answer. Even though it is not cheap, coupled with the fact that resources are scarce and made more so after corrupt and greedy public servants have plundered the public purse, there could still be found, alternative, cheaper than the conventional and effective road design concepts.
The conventional approach to road construction in unstable soil formations relies on the placement of a thick layer lateritish base plus a sizable stone/cement base course, before the preferred wearing course finishing with well made drains on both sides. The number of layers in a road often depends on the intended use of the road, but generally roads have three distinct layers. From bottom to top, the layers are the roadbed, the base course, and the wearing course. The strength of the layers is critical to the longevity of any road and current advancement in road stability research has produced agents that bring about this result.
This design model is very expensive for a developing nation such as Nigeria. It then means that a cheaper but durable approach must be sort for and utilized. This technology does exist.
This technology places emphasis upon soil stabilization using organic or inorganic compounds to hold soil particles together when compacted, to form a dense permanent base. It will substantially decrease maintenance and the associated downtime and costs on treated roads. With some formulas, organic compounds act upon organic fines contained in the soil through a catalytic bonding process to produce a strong “cementation” action. The chemical compounds that are used for soil stabilization are many and care must be taken to select the appropriate and suitable brand to be used.
The cost differential when compared with the conventional method can be quite substantial. Some of these compounds have the capacity to hold soil particles so well that dust and flaking action are forestalled even when in use without asphalting or other kinds of surfacing. Some of these compounds when used on clay formations reduce plasticity and effectively solidify it into dense strata. Road construction programs in the swampy terrains of the Niger Delta Region will benefit immensely from this technology.
Nigerians love to own their own vehicles both for reasons of prestige, utility and business. In the absence of an effective and efficient public mass transit system, they strive to provide for themselves this service. Their preference circumstantially tends toward purchase of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) which ply those rough roads with less stress than the regular cars and buses. Most who cannot afford brand new cars and buses settle for fairly used ‘jeeps’ and trucks imported from Europe, Asia and the United States and fix them when they breakdown with imported used parts or thoroughly used and condemned ones. They want to explore the mainly uncharted country, emulate their counterparts in the developed West to tour with kith and kin the lush countryside and sub regional neighbors on smooth motorable roads even with those used vehicles.
The tourism potentials of this great nation will not be tapped and realized if roads remain impassable. The style of governance will change in the near future due to pressure on the ruling class from within and from without, and then things will be done more efficiently and proactively.
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