Hurricane Andrew's Costly Insurance Legacy ? CBS Miami

MIAMI (CBS4) ? Hurricane Andrew was a nightmare for anyone who went through it.

It was a life-changing event that?s not easily forgotten as we mark the 20th anniversary of the day it roared ashore.

South Miami Heights Homeowner Larry Jones remembers.

?We was praying, we was actually praying more so for us, our neighbors, our relatives because we never faced a storm like Hurricane Andrew before,? said Jones.

Falls resident Bobbi Stanley never imaged her neighborhood would be hit so hard.

?You could not recognize the neighborhood. It was just mind boggling. I started to cry, it was horrible, it was really horrible,? said Stanley.

Charles Danger, Miami-Dade?s Director of Building and Neighborhood Compliance Department, said he never imaged the destruction would be so widespread.

?It was like an atomic bomb went off up there. It was an amazing sight from the point of view of complete devastation,? said Danger.

Twenty years later, the bitter legacy of the killer storm still affects us all. More than 28-thousand local homes destroyed, another 107-thousand damaged. As many as 160,000 South Dade residents suddenly found themselves homeless.

Why were so many homes literally blown apart, what went wrong?

Hurricane Andrew brutally exposed a failed system: bad designs, shoddy construction and poor oversight by local inspectors. It was a recipe for disaster.

?We did not build things the way they were supposed to be built according to the code we had. That we were very relaxed in the construction techniques, very relaxed on the inspection techniques, so it was a complete failure, you may say, on the process of construction from the point of designing all the way to the point of inspecting,? said Danger.

With some $26 billion dollars in damage, Hurricane Andrew remains one of the costliest natural disasters in U-S history and we?re still paying the price today in the form of higher homeowners? insurance.

?Twenty years later you?re definitely feeling the effects, definitely. Because we have not been able to fix the problem,? said South Florida insurance industry expert Dulce Suarez-Resnick.

How bad have insurance rates climbed the past 20 years?

The average Miami-Dade homeowner?s policy cost $568 back in 1992. Today, it?s skyrocketed to $3184.

Broward was even less back then at $500, but it now averages $2804.

Stanley remembers the killer storm like it was yesterday. Her insurance bill 20 years ago was $751 dollars. Today, it?s more than $10,000 and she says it?s hurting her family?s financial bottom line.

?It?s outrageous, I don?t know how people can afford it. I mean it?s really, really unbelievable.
I love my house, I always wanted to stay in my house and just recently I said to my husband ?Maybe it?s time that we don?t have a house because it?s just getting prohibitive?,? said Stanley.

When asked if she felt she was being literally being priced out of her home, it didn?t take long for an answer.

?Yes, absolutely and so are a lot of other people. Like so many other south Dade residents who lost their homes, when I rebuilt, I wanted to make sure the roof would stay-on the next time I got hit by a bad storm,? said Stanley. ?I paid extra for storm shutters and other improvements to make my home more storm proof.?

Larry Jones did too.

?We never experienced a Hurricane Andrew and since that time we wanted to make sure if there was another Hurricane Andrew, we?d be able to weather the storm a lot safer,? said Jones.

For a while, Larry?s extra work to improve his home?s construction paid off. He was able to cut his insurance bills by about 30 percent through the state?s windstorm mitigation program which offered discounts for storm shutters and roof improvements.

But following complaints from the industry and heavy lobbying in the Florida legislature, those discounts for older homes, like thousands of Hurricane Andrew re-builds, were basically thrown out.

Larry Jones is not happy about how it?s affected his growing insurance bills.

?Twenty years later you can forget about it, you know what I mean? They came back in and did re-inspections on a home for mitigation just so they can say we?re going to increase your home?s premiums. This really isn?t fair and they?ve made millions and billions of dollars throughout the course of the year.

Industry insiders say fixing the state?s insurance problem requires luring more companies to insure homes here which would increase competition and lower rates.

It also requires a way to lower the cost of the companies? so-called re-insurance expenses, so they can find cheaper ways of underwriting homeowners? policies. There have been discussions of creating a national catastrophe fund to provide affordable coverage for disasters like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. But state and federal lawmakers remain unable or unwilling to approve any possible fixes.

Suarez-Resnick said state lawmakers have done little to try and solve the problem.

?Twenty years later our premiums are high, 20 years later the state program has less coverage for more premiums and 20 years later we still have a band-aid, there?s no solution as of yet,? said Suarez-Resnick.

Today the state?s biggest insurer, Citizens Property Insurance, is asking to boost rates by another 10 percent for next year?s policies. The head of ?Citizens? recently told CBS4 chief consumer reporter Al Sunshine that he?d like to see a full 30 percent price hike. For the victims of Hurricane Andrew, it?s a bitter reminder 20 years later; the big storm is still haunting them.

?Our elected officials give them all the breaks. You?ve got board members of these insurance companies living very luxurious, there?s nothing wrong with living very luxurious,? said Jones. ?But when it?s on the back of the people that?s an issue. And this is what?s taking place in the State of Florida, it?s on the backs of the people and that?s sad.?

?I don?t see them addressing the issues at all as far as stabilizing it. All I see is them approving more and more increases for the insurance companies,? said Stanley who added that the insurance companies interests are being served at the expense of the consumer.

While homeowners struggle to find affordable insurance two decades after Andrew, industry profits continue to soar. Combined income for private property insurers like State Farm, Allstate and Travelers was about $3.2 billion dollars just for their 2nd quarter profits.

Citizens Insurance is now sitting on more than $6 billion dollars in reserves and continues asking for higher rates.

Source: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/08/24/hurricane-andrews-costly-insurance-legacy/

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Flake seen as heavy favorite in Arizona primary (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/243198759?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Microsoft Xbox users can track election closely

Microsoft Corp. said users of its Xbox system can track the 2012 elections more closely with the introduction of its new "Election 2012 on Xbox Live" system.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said the election-tracking system will include news about candidates from NBCNews.com and Face the Facts USA. Users can register to vote using Rock the Vote, and they can participate in live daily polling from YouGov. Microsoft said the first wave of election content on Xbox will begin on Aug. 27.

"We want to provide our passionate Xbox Live community with a great way to experience the election process with TV that makes them participants ? and not just viewers," said Marc Whitten, corporate vice president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft, in a statement.

Follow Your Favorites with My News

My News is a way to create a customized news feed based on companies and industries that matter to you.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_13/~3/_PE1WZChNBM/microsoft-xbox-users-can-track.html

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One More Chris Farrell Review | Internet Marketing Blog

Why are there tons of Chris Farrell reviews on the Internet?

?

Basically, Chris Farrell has is what newcomers to website building and online business have been looking. Chris is an honest and straightforward guy who came from where you and I did and has an sincere desire to help people succeed online.

?

Here?s what Chris Farrell will offer you if you?re new to internet marketing:

Take you from day one as if you are a true beginner and show you step-by-step how and why each part of the business is done.

Tell you the truth about what it takes to succeed online, which is HUGE.

Teach you HOW to execute each step along the way, like how to purchase a domain name, how to set up your web hosting account? and how to actually build your landing page.

Other steps include: How to load your website to your hosting account.

How to set up your auto-responder account.

How to drive traffic to your website from Article Marketing, to Forums, to Facebook and Social Media, to YouTube videos and more. Traffic is the name of the game and it?s all there for you.

How to compose and set up your auto-responder sequence.

Chris also provides Free Web Hosting and lots of other stuff as well covering all aspects of online business and set up with the beginner in mind in regard to the teaching method employed.

?

And there are a few Discussion Forums covering all aspects of online business and website design. Chris? Forums are filled with folks from all experience levels. The fellowship and camaraderie are great resources to have when dealing with the ups and downs of your initial venture into online business.

?

If you run into a challenge and need help, you can always find the answer to it in the Forums. Chris has put together an excellent team of highly skilled Moderators who are always available for problem solving and education.

?

Chris really has put together in one place everything you need to create your online business; and he?s oriented the whole thing around people who are completely new to it all. He understands where the newbie is coming from, because it wasn?t all that long ago that he was just where we are now.

Source: http://inboxmoneyin.com/blog/what-another-chris-farrell-review-give-me-a-break/

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Natalie Wood Death Certificate Officially Changed to Include "Undetermined Factors"

Natalie Wood's death certificate has been changed to reflect some of the uncertainties and lingering questions surrounding the actress' drowning.

The document was amended earlier this month and shifts her death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors."

The document states that circumstances of how Wood ended up in the waters off Catalina Island in November 1981 are "not clearly established."

The changes occur nine months after sheriff's homicide investigators renewed their inquiry into Wood's death shortly before its 30th anniversary.

Chief of Detectives William McSweeney said the decision to amend the death certificate was made by the coroner's office. He wouldn't go into detail.

"I would just say undetermined is descriptive," he said.

McSweeney said detectives still have work to do on the case, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a major shift is coming or necessarily ever will.

"We don't close these cases," he said. "These cases have active periods and more passive periods. We're moving toward the end of an active period."

Conflicting versions of what happened to Wood that night have cast suspicion on her actor-husband Robert Wagner, but he is not a suspect.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/08/natalie-wood-death-certificate-officially-changed-to-include-und/

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War in Afghanistan Claims 2000th American Life ? NYTimes.com ...

In Toll of 2,000, New Portrait of Afghan War

By JAMES DAO and ANDREW W. LEHREN

His war was almost over. Or so Marina Buckley thought when her son Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley Jr. told her that he would be returning from southern Afghanistan to his Marine Corps base in Hawaii in late August, three months early.

Instead, Lance Corporal Buckley became the 1,990th American service member to die in the war when, on Aug. 10, he and two other Marines were shot inside their base in Helmand Province by a man who appears to have been a member of the Afghan forces they were training.

A week later, with the death of Specialist James A. Justice of the Army at a military hospital in Germany, the United States military reached 2,000 dead in the nearly 11-year-old conflict, based on an analysis by The New York Times of Department of Defense records. The calculation by The Times includes deaths not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan and other nations where American forces are directly involved in aiding the war.

Nearly nine years passed before American forces reached their first 1,000 dead in the war. The second 1,000 came just 27 months later, a testament to the intensity of fighting prompted by President Obama?s decision to send 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2010, a policy known as the surge.

In more ways than his family might have imagined, Lance Corporal Buckley, who had just turned 21 when he died, typified the troops in that second wave of 1,000. According to the Times analysis, three out of four were white, 9 out of 10 were enlisted service members, and one out of two died in either Kandahar Province or Helmand Province in Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan. Their average age was 26.

The dead were also disproportionately Marines like Lance Corporal Buckley. Though the Army over all has suffered more dead in the war, the Marine Corps, with fewer troops, has had a higher casualty rate: At the height of fighting in late 2010, 2 out of every 1,000 Marines in Afghanistan were dying, twice the rate of the Army. Marine units accounted for three of the five units hardest hit during the surge.

Suffering the most casualties was the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Twenty-five of its Marines died and more than 180 were wounded, many with multiple amputations, during a bloody seven-month deployment in Helmand that began in fall 2010.

The analysis also shows that Army casualties during the surge fell heaviest on two bases with frequently deployed units: Fort Campbell in Kentucky, home to the 101st Airborne Division, which recorded the most Army deaths in the surge, and Fort Drum in New York, home to the 10th Mountain Division.

The summer remained the peak season for fighting, with the single highest period for American deaths being July, August and September 2010, when at least 143 troops died. And as has been the case since at least 2008, improvised explosive devices, known as I.E.D.?s, remained a leading cause of death and injury, along with small-arms fire, the analysis showed.

But this year, a new threat emerged: attacks by Afghans dressed in the uniforms of Afghan security forces. In just the past two weeks, at least 9 Americans have been killed in such insider attacks, and for the year to date, at least 39 non-Afghan troops, most of them American, have been killed by men dressed as members of the Afghan security forces, the most since the war began.

Those insider attacks have increased concerns about NATO?s ability to turn security operations over to Afghan forces by 2014, the deadline set by President Obama for withdrawing the remaining American forces. For families, the deaths have raised hard questions about whether the Pentagon is doing enough to protect its troops from their own allies.

Though Afghanistan is now considered the nation?s longest war, at 128 months and counting, the number of dead is fewer than half the total in the Iraq war, where more than 4,480 died in eight years. More active-duty and reserve soldiers killed themselves last year, 278, than died in combat in Afghanistan, 247.

None of that brings solace to the families of the dead. For the Buckleys, of Oceanside, N.Y., their son?s death so near the end of his tour, so late in the long war and possibly at the hand of a purported ally, was uniquely anguishing.

As Mrs. Buckley recounted things her son loved ? basketball, girls, movies, the beach ? bitterness choked her words.

?Our forces shouldn?t be there,? she said. ?It should be over. It?s done. No more.?

A Unit Hit Hard

The Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., was emblematic of the surge. Sent into Sangin, Afghanistan?s opium-producing heartland, in 2010, the battalion faced a formidable enemy expert in the use of I.E.D.?s., losing 25 Marines in a seven-month tour, the second most of any American unit in the entire war, a Times analysis shows.

Mark Moyar, an independent national security analyst who has studied the battalion?s operations, said that the British who had preceded the Marines in Sangin, a district in Helmand, focused on economic development and political outreach to undermine the insurgency. But the Taliban also operated with near impunity in parts of the district, he said.

The battalion took a different approach, pushing into Taliban-dominated villages. Fighting was intense, with civilians often getting caught in the middle, and casualties piled up fast.

On Oct. 8, barely two weeks after the battalion landed, it lost its first Marine, Lance Cpl. John T. Sparks. Five days later, four Marines of the battalion died when their armored truck was destroyed by a powerful bomb. Three more died the next day when they stepped on a mine during a foot patrol.

The rapid-fire deaths prompted calls in Washington for the battalion to pull back. But senior Marine commanders ? including the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jason Morris ? prevailed on Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates to leave them in place.

?Everyone was shocked, including me, that we lost that many guys that quickly,? Colonel Morris said. ?But honestly, me and most of my Marines would have rather come home in body bags than let the Taliban claim a victory.?

Deanna Giles, the mother of a squad leader from the battalion, remembers those days all too well. Amid the blur of casualty reports, Ms. Giles began watching for strange cars in her neighborhood in Kankakee, Ill., fearing the next one would bear horrible news.

Anxiously seeking information or solace, she took to Internet chat rooms, forming a powerful digital bond with other families from the battalion, whom she never met in person.

?You began to care about people in a way you could not have before the Internet age,? Ms. Giles said.

Her son, Sgt. Caleb Giles, came home alive. Patty Schumacher?s son, Lance Cpl. Victor A. Dew, did not.

Ms. Schumacher had begged her son to defer enlisting until the war ended. When he refused, she urged him to take a job with a presidential security detail. He again said no, determined to be an infantryman and to go to war.

?Boy, did my heart sink,? she recalled. ?But I was also proud of him for following his true desires. As a parent you just suck it up, hold your heart and take a deep breath and hope all goes well.?

In late August 2010, Lance Corporal Dew proposed to his girlfriend, then was deployed a month later. Within weeks of arriving in Helmand, he died with three other Marines in a powerful I.E.D. blast. At age 20, he became the 1,259th American to die in the war.

Inside his coffin, his fianc?e placed a photograph of herself, wearing her wedding gown.

Ms. Schumacher maintains a Facebook page to keep his memory fresh, and occasionally toasts him at dinner. She still cries, too, though the tears are hard to predict, prompted by stray images and fleeting sounds that remind her of him: a smile, a song, a joke.

?When do you get better? You don?t ever get better,? she said. ?You just get better in your grieving. There will always be something that triggers it. And then you are back on that emotional roller coaster.?

Attacks From Afghans

Staff Sgt. Scott E. Dickinson was coming home early. He was originally scheduled to remain in Helmand until November 2012, but the Pentagon was pulling Marines out of Afghanistan quickly, looking to get the surge forces out of the country by fall and shrink the American footprint to about 70,000 troops. He would be home in Hawaii within a week or two, he told his father early this month.

Not long after that conversation, his father, John Dickinson, saw an article about a soldier who had died just a week before he was to come home. ?I thought, ?He?s not safe until he sets foot in Hawaii,? ? recalled Mr. Dickinson, an architect in San Diego.

He was right. Sergeant Dickinson, 29, a supply specialist who had volunteered to help train Afghan forces, died with Lance Corporal Buckley on Aug. 10. They were among six Marines killed that day in two separate attacks by men who appeared to be Afghan security force members.

The Pentagon asserts that most of those attacks have been the result of personal grudges, disputing Taliban claims to have widely infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

But the attacks have also raised anew concerns about the integrity of the Afghan forces that NATO expects to secure the entire nation after NATO troops withdraw in 2014.

More fundamentally, the continued deaths, occurring even as American forces are conducting fewer combat missions, have prompted service members and military families to wonder: has the decade-long American presence in Afghanistan made a difference?

Colonel Morris, the former commander for the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, has little doubt that it has. After months of fierce fighting, he saw clear changes when he left Sangin in early 2011. Those improvements remain, he asserts, with residents participating in elections and going to school with less fear of Taliban intimidation ? though such intimidation is far from gone.

?Every single Marine in my battalion could see the impact they had,? he said. ?It was a validation of everything they had sacrificed for.?

Despite his son?s death, Mr. Dickinson agrees. Marina Buckley is not so sure.

?He was the most lovable, caring human being,? she said of her son. ?He wore his heart on his sleeve. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.?

He had wanted to join the Marine Corps ever since 9/11, despite her many attempts to dissuade him. By the time he was in high school a Marine Corps flag hung in his bedroom and her efforts to get him to go to college ? Adelphi University accepted him his senior year ? had failed.

?I?d say, ?Why the Marines?? ? she said, and he would reply with a joke. ?I can pick up a lot of chicks with that uniform,? he would say.

But his ambition was serious: he wanted to serve, then become a Suffolk County police officer. He came to relish the brotherhood of the Marines and adored his first posting, in Hawaii. But deployment was different. The loneliness, the heat and the Meals Ready to Eat wore on him, Ms. Buckley said.

And he never felt secure living alongside Afghans, she said.

?If they want to kill themselves, let them,? she said of the Afghan people. ?But they are killing people who shouldn?t be killed, who have lives here, and family here, and brothers and sisters here.?

Eddie Goldberger contributed reporting, and Jack Begg, Alain Delaqu?ri?re and Jack Styczynski contributed research.

Source: http://www.asiaworks.com/news/2012/08/22/war-in-afghanistan-claims-2000th-american-life-nytimes-com/

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The Lazy Girl's Guide To Health and Fitness: You Are What You Eat ...

By Kate Richlin-Zack

Bad news for all you cheesy poofs lovers out there: your body composition is determined predominantly by your diet. In fact, about 80% of what you look like depends on what you eat while only 20% depends on working out. Kinda makes you wonder why we work out at all, but trust me, building lean muscle mass boosts your metabolism which means you get a little extra leeway with your food. Which is why you need to make sure you?re lifting a weight or two on a consistent basis. The upside to your diet having such a huge influence is that you actually have considerable control over what you look like? assuming you have willpower. But let?s be honest, that?s not always the case. Donuts actually speak to me. They?re especially convincing when the light is on at Krispy Kreme.

But if you want a rockin? bikini bod, you?ll have to watch your diet and ignore the donuts, at least most of the time. Eating healthy isn?t always fun and it can seem like an insurmountable task: counting calories, weighing food, all that broccoli. Ugh. So how can a Lazy Girl make healthy eating easier? Here are a few tips to help incorporate healthy food into your everyday life without making yourself miserable in the process.

Cook your own meals

I thought you said you weren?t going to make my life miserable?

Bear with me. I hate cooking. I?m terrible at it and despite numerous lessons, my attempts at a halfway edible meal are usually futile, but cooking your own meals is the only way to guarantee that you are eating healthy food. Even at the best restaurants, there?s no guarantee that your food will be free from extra sugar, saturated fats, and extraneous ingredients that will make your pants snug.

But cook it myself? That?s just ridiculous.

I hear you, but until we can afford to hire a personal chef (our day will come, I just know it!) we?re forced to be resourceful. The easiest and least disruptive way to incorporate cooking into your life is to get it all over with in one shot.

But spending hours on my feet slaving over a hot stove doesn?t sound like the kind of thing a lazy girl would do!

Let me put it to you this way: whether you cook or order take-out, you?re already spending around two and a half hours every week making or waiting for your food. Sounds crazy but here?s how I got to that number, Archimedes. Let?s say it takes an average or 30 minutes to prep and cook a simple meal. Since the days of delivery in ?30 minutes or less? are long gone, take-out also has a 30 minute delay. I?m going to assume you actually have a social life so you go out for dinner on average two nights per week leaving you to fend for yourself the remaining five. According my calculations, no matter what you do, your weekly dinner prep/acquisition time is 30 min x 5 = 2.5 hours. That?s just for dinner. We haven?t even touched breakfast or lunch and that doesn?t include the time it takes to have the I-don?t-know-what-do-YOU-want-for-dinner conversation with your spouse or roommates which can easily tack on an extra 15-20 minutes per meal.

If you spend those two and half hours on one day preparing and cooking all of your meals for the week, when you come home from a long day at work, you don?t have to think about dinner. It?s already waiting for you. If you?re as lazy as I am, save yourself the 30 seconds and don?t bother heating it up. Just eat it cold. And if you eat standing up over the sink, it doesn?t count. (OK, that part isn?t really true but I like to believe it is).

Things like skinless, boneless chicken breasts can be seasoned and thrown in the oven in under thirty minutes and while that?s cooking you can quickly slice and stir-fry some veggies. If you have a big enough pan and a big enough wok, you can spend 30 minutes cooking 5 days worth of meals that can easily be portioned out into plastic containers.

One pot meals

The quintessential Lazy Girl meal! Throw all the ingredients into a slow cooker and go on with your life while everything cooks. It really doesn?t get more hands off. There are all kinds of recipes available online (I freakin? love the internet) for healthy stews, soups, and chili that you can throw together when you roll out of bed on Sunday morning. Spend the day watching movies in your pajamas and by the time dinner rolls around, voila, it?s ready! Mmmm dinner rolls. Pass the butter.

Portion control

You mean I have to control myself? That requires effort!

The word ?control? makes this sound awful, doesn?t it? There?s nothing worse than having to count every last calorie or measure portions. Who?s got time for that? You certainly don?t. And most people don?t have/want a food scale. An easy way to estimate one serving of protein is the palm of your hand. Not your entire hand. Just your palm. And filling half of your plate with veggies can help you control your portions of other food groups. If half your plate is loaded with salad and you?ve got a palm-sized grilled chicken breast, there simply isn?t much room left for the truffle mac and cheese, now is there?

If you?re going out to eat, keep in mind that restaurant portions could probably feed a small country. It?s ok to be THAT person who asks for a to-go box before you dig in. Eat half and take the other half home. You might feel silly but you?ll have the last laugh when you?re running around confidently in your hot pants instead of your fat pants ? and we all have fat pants.

Keep healthy snacks on hand at all times

I?m hungry ALL. THE. TIME. I can eat Hungry Man portions at the drop of a hat; there?s a reason I used to be over 200 pounds. Snacks are a great way to keep your metabolism up and stave off hunger between meals. The problem is healthy snacks are difficult to find most of the time. Vending machines and convenience stores rarely offer options like fresh fruit or unsalted nuts. Most of the time you?re choices include bear claws, honey roasted peanuts, and gum from the late ?90s. All full of empty calories and absurdly overpriced. Two PopTarts for $1.50? Only if I?m desperate and PMS-ing.

To avoid emptying your pockets and padding your waistline, keep healthy snacks on hand at all times. I keep a stash of unsalted, roasted almonds in my car. I know I?m going to get hungry wherever I go and usually I have to drive there so this is a great solution for me. Roasted nuts like almonds, pecans, and walnuts make great snacks. As long as they?re kept in well-sealed containers, they have a pretty long shelf life. Those little Ziploc snack baggies are also great because you can portion out individual servings so you don?t sit there mindlessly munching from the vat.

Apples and pears are also terrific snacks. They don?t spoil as quickly as some other fruits ? who the heck wants to go to the grocery store every couple of days just to buy fresh produce? Not me. And they?re low on the glycemic index.

Say what?

Translation: they won?t cause massive spikes in your blood sugar and leave you jonesing for carbs 20 minutes later after you wake up from your sugar coma.

So there you have it, folks. A few suggestions to help make healthy eating a little easier until we can afford a personal chef. A girl can dream, can?t she?

?The Lazy Girl?s Guide to Health and Fitness? is a column on Kate-book.com running every Tuesday at 10:30am. It is written by the irrepressible Kate Richlin-Zack, a former plus-sized model turned fitness enthusiast who lost 50 lbs in the process. She loves food and views exercise as a necessary evil in her quest for looking good and feeling confident in hot pants. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Source: http://kate-book.com/the-lazy-girls-guide-to-health-and-fitness-you-are-what-you-eat/

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