Samples
Here are three samples of my writing. These are real, live articles that you can see on EzineArticles.com where I am a Platinum Author. You can find other samples by going here.
Three Reasons Why Women Gain Weight After 40
You’re not imagining it, the slowly up-ticking numbers on the scale and the fact that your clothes are getting tighter. Yes, it is easier to gain weight and harder to lose it after 40, and here are three reasons why and what you can do to counter them.
Muscle Mass Loss
Starting at around age 40, we begin to lose muscle mass, between 6 to 8% per decade. This might not seem like a lot, but it usually translates to a slower metabolism, and if you continue to eat the same amount as you always have, you will gain weight, usually 8 to 10 pounds a year.
The good news is that you don’t have to lose muscle mass at all. Regular strength training can complete reverse a decade’s worth of muscle loss, boosting your metabolism back to what it was in your younger years.
Hormones
As women approach menopause, usually after age 35, estrogen production decreases, causing the body to want to pack on more fat to balance out the effect of less estrogen. Fat cells produce estrogen. As progesterone declines, this can cause more water retention, adding to any weight gain that is happening. Another hormone comes into play here and that is testosterone. Women’s ovaries produce low levels of testosterone, and this hormone powers the sex drive and regulates the maintenance and production of lean muscle mass, the fat burning engine of the body. As production of testosterone declines, muscle mass decreases, causing the basal metabolic rate to decline.
Again, hormonal weight gain does not absolutely have to happen and is not inevitable. The way to fight this is to realize what is happening inside your body and do things to counter-act this. Maintaining a good strength training routine now is crucial to fighting muscle mass loss and a decreased metabolism. You may also have to adjust your diet a little during the transition, eating perhaps a little less than you were before.
Stress
Stress can play a major role in weight gain as it increases the level of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol tells the body that it had better get ready for a period of no food, so at every meal it needs to concentrate on storing energy for later use. This means that it dedicates more of its time to converting calories into fat, regardless of the amount.
Counteracting stress is probably the hardest to manage. One great way to manage stress is to make sure that you take time out each day to do something that you enjoy, whether it is puttering around in the garden or reading a good book.
In conclusion, while it is a fact that weight management becomes tougher after age 40, we’re not doomed to be fat. There are ways to counteract the effects of age.
What Is Niche Marketing?
Niche marketing is an essential component to making money as an affiliate. It is simply finding products or services to sell in a certain area of interest and building your marketing efforts around that topic. Dogs, gardening, and working at home are examples of niches.
Niche marketing works because it revolves more around information rather than products and services. People love information and getting more information is why they search the internet. If you present someone with some valuable information in an area that they’re interested in, and you provide them with a product or service that provides a solution to a problem or a desire they have in that area, then you’re going to make money.
Broad vs Narrow Niches
Dogs is an example of a broad niche. Dog training is a more specific and narrow niche within the dog niche. The more specific your niche, the better chance you have to make money. However, if your niche is so specific, like dog leashes made of licorice, that only a few people are interested in it, then you aren’t likely to make money with that niche!
Finding A Good Niche
So how do you find a good niche? Well, your best bet is to pick an area that is of interest to you. Why? Because it will be easier for you to come up with content about something that you enjoy and already have some knowledge of. If you feel it is too broad, then think about how you can narrow it down. If you like to garden, maybe try vegetable gardening or flower gardening.
Another great way to find profitable niches is to do simple internet searches surrounding pretty much anything that interests you. Plop in a few keywords into Google and see what pops up. Looking at the paid listings along the side will give you an idea of what kind of products or services are related to your interests.
Once you’ve found your niche and some products or services within that niche, then you’ll need to create either a website or a blog about your niche. If you don’t have your own hosting, the easiest way to get going is to get a free blog from Blogger.com. Include your affiliate links in your posts or as advertisements.
Three Legitimate Ways to Make Extra Money Online
The bad economy is driving more and more people to finding alternative ways to make extra money. Too often, people fall for slick “get rich quick” schemes as their desperation rises. The three ideas below won’t get you rich quick, but they can definitely make you some extra cash.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a way for companies to farm out their advertising budget to a large pool of people so that the cost of the advertising is shared.
It works by assigning each participant, called an affiliate, a special link to the product sale page. The link contains an affiliate ID so that all sales that are made through that page will be tracked to the affiliate that made them. For every sale an affiliate makes, he is given a commission, typically anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of the sales price of the product or service.
While you don’t need your own website, having one does help, and having some knowledge of how to advertise online is necessary. Fortunately, there are many resources available online that can teach you everything you need to know, and learning the basics of it isn’t that hard.
eBay and Drop Shipping
You can sell items on eBay on a drop ship basis. When you sell drop shipped merchandise, you only pay for the merchandise once your buyer has paid you for it. Using a drop shipper, you don’t need to worry about inventory, storage, or shipping. Once your buyer has paid you, you simply transmit your customer’s shipping information to your drop shipper, pay for the merchandise, and your drop shipper does all the rest.
The downside to drop shipping is that your profit margin may be very low, and it might be difficult to make up the volume of sales needed to make a decent amount of money. You also have to have some knowledge of what is selling and the going rate to price your merchandise accordingly.
Incentive Marketing/Freebie Trading
This is the easiest way to extra money. Unlike the other two methods, you can really make money right out of the gate. It works like this: you sign up under someone through a special link they give you (sort of like an affiliate link) and you complete a few free or very low cost trial offers. You get paid by the person under whom you are signing up. You can get paid anywhere from $20 to $100 per site by doing this.
Whichever one of these ways to make extra money that you choose to try, remember to act on it. You can’t make money in your head.