Michael Cartwright, Forterus Health Care and Change Institute Announce the Second Annual Lifestyle Intervention …
Posted: February 29, 2012 at 4:34 pm
LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire -02/29/12)- Forterus Health Care, Inc. founder and personal transformation, behavioral health expert, Michael Cartwright announced today that the second annual Lifestyle Intervention Conference has officially opened online registration for 2012 and the response is staggering. Industry leaders now recognize the Lifestyle Intervention Conference as the most anticipated, respected and important gathering of wellness industry professionals for 2012.
The 2011 Lifestyle Intervention Conference redefined the way wellness industry professionals approach and discuss process addictions, and the 2012 conference is taking things to the next level. 2012's Lifestyle Intervention Conference is an outright intervention on America's seemingly insatiable appetite for more. Whether it's food, sex, gambling or smoking, America is in need of an intervention and Michael Cartwright has assembled the best team of experts in the world to lead the charge against America's obsession with overconsumption.
Along with several of the industry's most respected innovators and personalities, Michael Cartwright will be joined by some of the world's leading wellness experts like CRC Health Group's leading behavior modification expert, weight control pioneer and founder of Structure House, Dr. Gerard Musante. Also on-hand will be Robert Weiss (LCSW, CSAT-S), Director of Sexual Disorders Services for Elements Behavioral Health and Founding Director of The Sexual Recovery Institute; Tennie McCarty (LCDC, ADC III, CEDC, CAS), founder, and CEO of Shades of Hope, one of the world's most renowned all-addiction treatment centers, specializing in the intensive treatment of eating disorders; James T. Moorhead, Publisher of Renew Magazine and RenewEveryday.com; Joe Nadglowski, president of the Obesity Action Coalition and founder of Change Institute; and Co-Host of the event Brad Lamm. Mr. Lamm is also a respected author, educator, and regular on The Dr. Oz Show.
Michael Cartwright and Brad Lamm joined forces in 2011 to develop a new frontier for health, wellness and awareness. In less than a year, the Lifestyle Intervention Conference has become the premier event for the world's top health, wellness and addiction leaders. For 2012, Mr. Cartwright's company Forterus Health Care (parent company of FitRx, The Green House and A Better Tomorrow, a top addiction treatment provider) has once again gathered the best minds in the world and the Lifestyle Intervention Conference is poised to shift consciousness to yet another level. Created with the intention of building a network of resources within the community of providers who serve those struggling with obesity, food addiction and now including a focus on process addictions, The Lifestyle Intervention Conference continues to be the most critical, industry-changing event to impact the health, fitness and wellness communities in decades.
Conference Co-Host and Forterus Health Care founder Michael Cartwright said, "Process addictions are running rampant across the United States. Providers are contending with the most extreme addiction levels to date as mainstream America is literally being taken over by food, pornography, gambling, sex, video games and smoking. No longer is it only those struggling with drugs and alcohol who find themselves in need of an intervention or drastic treatment options; that is an unacceptable development that we intend to change." Mr. Cartwright added, "From policy reform and insurance hurdles to unified industry messaging, the Lifestyle Intervention Conference participants will institute change and shape the future of wellness."
The 2012 Lifestyle Intervention Conference unfolds at Las Vegas' Bellagio from October 1st-3rd and will offer extensive continuing education courses for Dietitians, Social Workers, Trainers, Psychologists and more. For more information visit http://www.lifestyleintervention.org or call 888.231.0911.
Health & Fitness Ice Cream Bar Called StrongBody™
Posted: at 4:34 pm
BOOOZAH LLC, [WWW.BOOOZAH.COM], in partnership with Royal Ice Cream [WWW.ROYALICECREAM.COM] is launching its Health & Fitness ice cream concept with the introduction of the StrongBody Bars.
Machester CT (PRWEB) February 29, 2012
We have been working on this new concept in ice cream for several years with Royal Ice Cream in Manchester CT, and we now believe we have the winning formula and fantastic product to bring to market said Karim Raad, #1 StrongBody Ambassador at BOOOZAH . ..from the beginning, we wanted to create an ice cream with more good calories than bad, we wanted it to help in the fight against the obesity epidemic in the US, and also cater to the Health and Fitness enthusiast. We did not want any sugar in our formula, and after several tries with different all natural sweeteners we settled on STEVIA. And to add a final touch, we enrobed the ice cream bar with 72% dark chocolate from Munsons Chocolate in Bolton CT, adding even more benefit to each bar. Continued Raad.
The ice cream not only tastes great, it is made from all natural ingredients, each serving contains 10 grams of Whey Protein Isolate and 3 grams of L-Glutamine, both are Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) known to help in muscle development and strengthening as well as weight control. In addition, STEVIA has Zero Calories and a Zero Glycemic Index, eliminating the spike and crash syndrome linked to high sugar contents.
.. We are very excited to bring the StrongBody Vanilla and Chocolate Bars to market; it is a guilt free ice cream product that tastes great and will appeal to everyone added Raad.
BOOOZAH is currently partnering with food brokers, as well as distributors to deliver its products, nationwide, not only to supermarkets and convenience stores, but also to health clubs, sports arenas, hospitals, schools and colleges. Inquiries are welcome by emailing BOOOZAH at Inquiries(at)StrongBodyBars(dot)com .
BOOOZAH LLC
Tel (978) 494-HLTH (4584)
Fax (877) 308-5112
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Health & Fitness Ice Cream Bar Called StrongBody™
Ready to Retire Yet? – Video
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Ready to Retire Yet? - Video
'Rebel Against Retirement,' 87-Year-Old Pastor Charges Baby Boomers
Posted: at 4:34 pm
CHICAGO, Feb. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Noted author and Christian leader Dr. George Sweeting, 87, has a piece of advice for the baby boomer generation: Don't punch out the day your AARP card arrives in the mail.
The octogenarian has teamed with his son, Dr. Donald W. Sweeting, himself a respected author and president of Reformed Theological Seminary, on How to Finish the Christian Life: Following Jesus in the Second Half (Moody), which calls for a radical break from "America's retirement dream."
"That dream is unsustainable," the authors explain, pointing to the recent volatility of the stock market, the decline of company pensions and the plummeting value of homes as a source of equity in the wake of the Great Recession.
"Further, we are living longer," they add. "Boomers born in 1955 are expected to live to 79, which means retirement may last for almost one-third of their lives ... this also means people may outlive their money."
Instead, the father-son team is challenging boomers to become "retirement rebels," people who have opted out of the retirement dream: "Think of Billy Graham, serving Christ into his 90s and even then saying he has still not preached his last sermon," the Sweetings say.
Many Christians have unconsciously adopted the retirement mindset -- of spending their days micromanaging retirement accounts, inspecting doctor bills, doing yard work and tinkering with the car. The Bible does not conceive of a retirement dream like this, the authors point out: "Second-halfers don't retire from serving the lord; they expire while serving the lord."
Deftly balancing homily and humor, the authors outline something more compelling than retirement, a Psalm 92 vision of not only being useful, but "flourishing" as we age. Topics include, "How To Stay Young on the Inside While Our Bodies Rebel," "The Best Funerals I Ever Attended," and "The Blessing of a Good Death."
The authors conclude: "When there is no vision of eternal life as we see in the Bible -- then this life is all there is. But we have heaven. Is that not a whole lot better than the retirement dream?"
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DR. GEORGE SWEETING is a former president and chancellor of the Moody Bible Institute. He has served as a pastor in several churches, including The Moody Church. The author of numerous books, he resides in Antioch, Illinois, where he continues his pastoral work.
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'Rebel Against Retirement,' 87-Year-Old Pastor Charges Baby Boomers
Retirement savings in Canada — by the numbers
Posted: at 4:34 pm
Saving for retirement is a lengthy process and often involves utilizing contributions to both a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) and a tax-free savings account (TFSA).
However, statistics show Canadians are saving less than four per cent of their disposable income and, despite the billions of dollars invested in RRSPs and TFSAs, have plenty of room to add more to their retirement nest eggs.
CBC News has compiled a number of important figures on retirement and financial planning in Canada. All figures are from Statistics Canada unless otherwise indicated.
5,956,010 number of Canadians who contributed to an RRSP in 2010.
26% percentage of eligible tax filers who contributed to an RRSP in 2010.
$33.9 billion total RRSP contributions in 2010 (up from $33 billion in 2009).
$717 billion total amount Canadians were entitled to contribute in 2010 (up from $671 billion in 2009).
$632.9 billion total unused RRSP contribution room.
21 million number of Canadians with unused RRSP contributions in 2010.
$2,790 median RRSP contribution in Canada in 2010 (up from $2,680 in 2009).
BMO Retirement Tip of the Day: Get Personal-Online Retirement Savings Calculators Do Not Tell the Whole Story
Posted: at 4:34 pm
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -02/29/12)- As the February 29th deadline approaches to make a contribution to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and as part of its ongoing commitment to improving financial literacy, BMO Financial Group will be providing daily retirement tips during the month of February from BMO Retirement Institute Head Tina Di Vito's new book 52 Ways To Wreck Your Retirement...And How To Rescue It.
Tip Number 52:
Online calculators do not tell you the whole story
There are a variety of online financial calculators available today that can be useful tools to get a quick idea of whether or not you are on the right track to your retirement savings goal. Many of them provide you with a snapshot of how much your savings will grow over a number of years, and how much you should be saving to retire at your preferred time.
Calculators are simple projections based on a series of pre-set inputs and assumptions. They can give you misleading answers if you over- or under-estimate your investment returns over time.
What calculators do not offer you is personal advice. They cannot advise on whether your investments are appropriate for you, whether you have an effective estate plan, or who will care for you if you become disabled.
If you would like a realistic, personalized retirement plan that takes into account both your financial and personal goals, then consider hiring a professional financial advisor.
For more information on retirement: http://www.bmo.com/retirement.
Get the latest BMO press releases via Twitter by following @BMOmedia.
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BMO Retirement Tip of the Day: Get Personal-Online Retirement Savings Calculators Do Not Tell the Whole Story
Bond investing for retirement
Posted: at 4:34 pm
If you're investing for retirement that is still more than 20 years away and you do not have inclination to sell when stocks take a dive, is there any advantage to owning bonds at all? Or are bonds only for scaredy cats who will sell their stocks during a market plunge? -- Tom McCarthy, Wilmington, Delaware
It's easy for long-term investors like you to think bonds are nothing more than a drag on returns and undeserving of a place in your portfolio.
After all, if you check out "Ibbotson Associates' Classic Yearbook," a compendium of stock, bond and Treasury bill returns since 1926, you'll find that stocks have not only outperformed bonds over the past 86 years -- earning an annualized return of 9.8% vs. 5.4% -- they've also beaten bonds much more often than not over rolling periods of five, 10 and 20 or more years within that span.
But I wouldn't say that there's no advantage to owning bonds. Nor would I recommend that an investor, even one in it for the long term, invest only in stocks. While history shows what happened before, it doesn't predict how things will play out in the future.
True, stocks have beaten the pants off bonds in the past. And I fully expect stocks to continue to do so over long periods in the future. But I'm not convinced enough to make an all-or-nothing bet on stocks. When dealing with uncertainty (and your retirement money), it's prudent to hedge your bets.
There's another compelling reason for long-term investors to own bonds. As impressive as stocks' gains have been, they've come with quite a bit of drama.
From March 2000 to October 2002, the Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped almost 50%. It no sooner recovered when it fell again, this time by nearly 60% from October 2007 to March 2009. Over the 10-year stretch from 1999 through the end of 2008, stocks posted a negative 1.4% annualized return.
I mention these figures for two reasons. One is to prevent you from committing what Stanford professor Sam Savage calls the "flaw of averages" or the fallacy of using single numbers to represent uncertain outcomes. By focusing on stocks' long-term annualized gains, you may overlook how far they have fallen and how long they've remained depressed en route to those gains.
The other reason is that even though you think you're in for the long-haul now -- when the Dow has been on a roll -- it's been my experience that most investors feel differently when things fall apart.
People get very upset when they see the value of their retirement savings drop by half -- or more, as investors in the technology-heavy Nasdaq stock index discovered when it plummeted almost 75% from the beginning of 2000 through mid-2002. (To this day, Nasdaq is still 35% or so below its peak nearly 10 years ago.)
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Bond investing for retirement
In Retirement Planning, Knowledge Trumps Confidence
Posted: at 4:34 pm
In my industry, we do a lot of measuring.
Of course, that's a good thing because we need to know whether the retirement planning industry is helping investors move toward their retirement goals. That being said, some measurements are more valuable than others.
[See top-ranked ETFs by category ranked by U.S. News Best ETFs.]
For example, take surveys that ask employers whether they feel their employees are prepared for retirement. I'd prefer to know how plan participants are doing--to know whether retirement investors are on track to meet retirement goals.
Likewise, there are participant surveys that measure investors' confidence in retirement readiness. How confident are you that you'll have the retirement you envision? I'd rather know how close you are, numerically, to your retirement goals. There are countless examples of people throughout history who've felt confident only to return poor results.
[See Using Brokerage Windows to Expand Your 401(k) diversification]
What can you do to move beyond confidence and into the realm of knowing you're on track?
Engage in your employer-sponsored retirement plan. Know how much you're contributing and how much your employer is contributing. Pay attention to your monthly statements, your annual investment returns, your plan investing options, and your plan's other benefits, like advice and tools.
Create a retirement savings goal based on your retirement plans and your investing profile. Map your entire retirement savings strategy. Include everything. Things to consider include:
--How much do you contribute to your employer-sponsored plan now? And how much do you plan to increase your contributions over time? Does your employer contribute to your plan now, and will that change in the future?
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In Retirement Planning, Knowledge Trumps Confidence
Dream high 2 – Ailee Nana JB and Siwoo’s performance [ep 10] – Video
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Dream high 2 - Ailee Nana JB and Siwoo's performance [ep 10] - Video
Prosper.com Brings Consistent, High-Yield 10.46% Returns to IRAs
Posted: at 4:33 pm
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire -02/29/12)- Prosper.com, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace for personal loans and investments, announced today that investors seeking consistent and predictable high-yield returns in their retirement accounts can now open a new or rollover IRA at Prosper.com and earn industry-leading 10.46%(1) tax deferred returns.
Traditional, Roth, SEP and 401(k) rollovers are eligible for investing in a Prosper IRA. The minimum investment requirement is $5,000. The federal deadline to fund a Prosper.com IRA is Tuesday, April 17, 2012.
"Unfortunately, retirement portfolios have been hit hard by the volatility of the markets and many investors don't have the luxury of time to make up for losses," said Joseph Toms, Chief Investment Officer of Prosper.com. "Investors eager to boost their retirement savings can now benefit from the consistent high-yield of our industry-leading returns with the tax advantages of an IRA. The Prosper IRA is also an ideal option for younger investors seeking longer term tax-deferred growth. It's a great time to open a Prosper IRA."
Along with best-in-class seasoned returns of 10.46%, the benefits of a Prosper IRA are:
For more information, Prosper.com is hosting a free webinar on Thursday, March 15 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. Prosper.com's Chief Investment Officer, Joseph Toms, and Mike Kurka, Institutional Sales Executive at Sterling Trust will lead the conversation: "Boost Your Retirement Savings: The Advantages of a Self-Directed IRA for Your Peer-to-Peer Lending Investment." Register here.
About Prosper Prosper Marketplace Inc., a peer-to-peer lending marketplace for personal loans and investments that brings together creditworthy borrowers with individual and institutional investors, allows people to invest in each other in a way that is financially and socially rewarding. Individual and institutional investors invest in minimum increments of $25 on loan listings they select. In addition to credit scores, ratings and histories, investors can consider borrowers' personal loan descriptions, endorsements from friends, and community affiliations. Prosper.com handles the servicing of the loan on behalf of the matched borrowers and investors. Prosper.com was co-founded by Chris Larsen, co-founder of E-LOAN. Prosper.com has raised $83.85 million in venture capital and is backed by financial and technology luminaries including, Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson; David Silverman of Crosslink Capital, Accel Partners; CompuCredit; Omidyar Network; Capital One Co-founder Nigel Morris of QED Investors; Court Coursey of TomorrowVentures; Larry Cheng of Volition Capital.
Notes offered by Prospectus.
1. Seasoned Return calculations represent historical performance data for the Borrower Payment Dependent Notes ("Notes") issued and sold by Prosper since July 15, 2009. To be included in the calculations, Notes must be associated with a borrower loan originated more than 10 months ago; this calculation uses loans originated through February 28, 2011. Our research shows that Prosper Note returns historically have shown increased stability after they've reached ten months of age. For that reason, we provide "Seasoned Returns," defined as the Return for Notes aged 10 months or more.
To calculate the Return, all payments received on borrower loans, net of principal repayment, credit losses, and servicing costs for such loans, are aggregated and then divided by the average daily amount of aggregate outstanding principal. To annualize this cumulative return, it is divided by the dollar-weighted average age of the loans in days and then multiplied by 365.
All calculations were made as of December 31, 2011. Returns have been audited by a 3rd party for all data through September 30, 2011. Seasoned Return is not necessarily indicative of the future performance on any Notes.
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Prosper.com Brings Consistent, High-Yield 10.46% Returns to IRAs