THIS WILL BE YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION!!

It has become the annual tug of war; every new year, the wise men and women arrive  on the public stage  to state their various 'best ways' to fitness and health, which, always follow on from the annual  population gorge to distraction, primarily in the name of of a religious festival. Having permitted, even encouraged huge amounts of gluttony, it behoves the sages to ply their various wisdoms by laying on the biggest guilt trip about your likely increase in weight. To tussle with it will be your New year's resolution. 

It is, of course, all in aid of our health and well-being, not to mention the great commercial rewards that are to be gained by getting a section of a worried population to take out gym subscriptions to work off the effects of their joyous merrymaking.  And if a gym subscription appeals, if you really want one and can afford it, wait!  Do not sign up in the first two months of the year, deals and conditions are likely to be much more attractive and in your favour if you wait.

Have you considered a slimming club, meetings, or  online?  They will lighten your load, without a doubt, by relieving your purse of more than its loose change. While you can be educated to 'healthy eating' by these clubs - no bad thing- you have to remember that they work on the principal of failure.  Not their failure, your failure; your failure to reach yours or their weight goals; your failure to maintain the goals you have reached. 

There are a number of free or low cost options to get to optimal health  For cardio-vascular health, go for walks, nothing too taxing, but make it regular and extend the amount of walking over time. The walks will also use up calories.  Do not use it as an excuse for replenishing them! At home, vacuuming and other energy-consuming housework is good for men too; it might be an occasional alternative to being rained off.  

Consumption of food. You will know the answer to this...eat less. There are ways of doing it, piles of glossy books tell you so.  There are currently, the motor-biking Hairy Chefs who were grossly obese, and who zoom around the country to proselytize a range of 'healthy' meals with which they renewed their previously strained constitutions; they can tell the men a thing or two. Men like to deal with their consumption issues in a different way to women. So, why did a friend give his slim active wife the Bikers' diet book for Christmas...she reckons it's grounds for divorce!

Another interesting eating habit - it has 
always been known but seems to have become one of the modern unknowns- is to have a couple of fast days a week.  Ladies and gentlemen, it does not mean starving yourself in the true definition of fasting.  These days should be two very light eating days. Start with a light breakfast; drink plenty of water, black tea, herbal teas, or black coffee,  then finish off your day with a light evening meal. You should have eaten half the required normal stated calorie intake for each of those days. You'll have to check the gender specific figures to operate to, for yourselves 

There are people who will require different approaches and who have different needs, which are not helped by promoting celebrations that have become commercially centred on the over-indulgence of food and drink. 

HACKED AND HACKED OFF.

Recently,  two companies that have widespread businesses, which hold enormous databases of customer information, managed by third parties,  have had their information databases  compromised, dare I say it, by hackers.  The emails informing customers of this uncomfortable truth, though not the same, do have much the same terms of conciliation and flavour of apology.  It might be difficult to vary too much, a straightforward every day style of vocabulary in a potentially worrying message.    In both cases, access was, we are informed,  solely to email addresses.  

The first company carefully stated that payment and financial information had not been accessed or compromised in any way.  There is no suggestion that there was anything more than an uncovering of email addresses with the latest problem. We may, the advisory email warns, receive unwanted emails.

The first company that sent notification to its customers about the  breach of confidentiality, approximately a month ago, followed up with a reassuring email, assuring customers that there really was tight security with financial information and that it was held in a separate and different database storage facility.  

The newest advice, so far, is only about access to email addresses.  Both organisations named their database management company.  Does naming the 'culprit' make it easier, I wonder, for the contractor to appear to be less responsible?

There are other questions worth raising. The suggestion is that our financial data is more secure.  If that is so, why is it so?  If a particularly high, or, more secure level of  security is installed in one area of commerce, why is it deemed less necessary to offer the same level of security for customer personal contact data, which,  should be of equal importance?