Lose Weight With Morning Exercise

September 1, 2010 – 7:55 am

There’s no getting around it: To lose weight and keep it off, you need to exercise. But some days that hardly seems possible. Our days are overbooked already! Yet experts agree – exercise must become part of your overall daily lifestyle. And starting the morning with exercise is the best habit of all.

“The key is getting exercise whenever you can – whether it’s morning, afternoon, or evening,” says Cedric X. Bryant, PhD, chief exercise physiologist of the American Council on Exercise. “Your goal is to move your body as much as possible.”

But by starting your morning with physical activity, you set the day’s pace, Bryant says. “Morning exercisers tend to stick with their exercise habit,” he says.

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Tags: Exercise, Lose Weight

Afghan Sentenced to Prison for Committing Fraud Against USAID

August 31, 2010 – 2:58 am

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAugust 31, 2010 Press Office: 202-712-4320Public Information: 202-712-4810www.usaid.gov

Washington, DC - Ahman Samim Sediqi of Kabul, Afghanistan, was tried and sentenced in a local Afghan court on forgery and embezzlement charges stemming from his work on a development project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced USAID Office of Inspector General spokeswoman Dona M. Dinkler.

A three-judge panel found Sediqi guilty of embezzling nearly $193,000 while working as a finance coordinator on a $229 million local governance program financed by USAID and implemented by an American contractor.

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Tags: Usaid

Best Morning Yoga Stretching Poses – Surya Namaskar

August 31, 2010 – 1:03 am

Morning is undoubtedly one the best times to practice yoga and the perfect morning yoga set is Surya Namaskar or Sun Salutation, as it incorporates some excellent poses to help stretch the entire body.  Surya Namaskar should probably have been the very first article on this blog, instead of now four years later, but hey, better late than never .

Surya Namaskar is a set where you flow from one yoga posture to another.  This style is called Vinyasa or Flow Yoga and it is a wonderful way to practice yoga.  Flowing gracefully from pose to pose, when done with full awareness and attention, allows you to extract the calming and harmonizing aspects of yoga, in addition to it’s well known physical benefits.

As mentioned above, the poses which are incorporated into Surya Namaskar really stretch the whole body and they are also individually some of the best poses from Hatha Yoga.  Surya means Sun and Namaskar means Salutations, and this set done in the refreshing early morning hours when the Sun is just rising, is a great way to salute the new day and a great way to prepare the body for it.

Below you will find all the details needed to practice this wonderful sequence, which will become Chapter 22 in our ongoing Free Online Yoga Sets E-book.  As with all yoga practice please follow the guidelines from the following 2 articles: 10 Important Guidelines for Kundalini Yoga Practice and Essential Beginner’s Guide to Yoga Practice.  Finally, I will be putting together a new class for daily yoga practice, using Surya Namaskar, so be on the lookout for that on our free online yoga classes page.

Illustration of Surya Namaskar

Best Morning Yoga Poses for Stretching:

A. How to

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Tags: Morning Yoga, Namaskar, Surya Namaskar

Shah, Sadoshima Meet on U.S.-Japanese Development Aims

August 28, 2010 – 3:47 pm

Pakistan, Afghanistan Assistance and Millennium Development Goals on the Agenda

Washington, DC - Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, today conferred with Shiro Sadoshima, the Director-General of the International Cooperation Bureau in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on matters of mutual interest such as flood relief for Pakistan, assistance for Afghanistan, the Millennium Development Goals and other areas of overlap in development efforts worldwide.

Shah and Sadoshima met for the first time at USAID headquarters in Washington.

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Tags: Shah, Shah Sadoshima