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Introduction

It is becoming very challenging to put the phone down. Not only are most people working in front of a screen all day, but most do it at home too. Several people go home after work and sit in front of the TV and browse their phone.

We live a digitalized life. Over 80% of the population owns a mobile device, and 57% of them have more than one type of device. Our digital world is a simple escape of our reality, and it comes at a cost. The impact on our brain, body, and behavior can be very significant in one’s life and ruin relationships with people we love. Not only are our electronic devices connected to the internet, but it is also in our car, the fridge, our watch, our games, and even our home. This omnipresence of technology begs the question, how can we free ourselves from an addiction to the digital world?

Here’s a short survey that will give you an idea of your relationship with technology. While this is not a scientific survey, it gives you an idea of your relationship with the digital world.

YES NO I DON’T KNOW
Do you sleep with your phone next to your bed?
Do you look at social media an hour or less before bed?
Is it hard for you to sit in silence (ex: on your commute or in a car)?
Do you eat most of your meals in front of a screen?
Do you use your phone as an alarm?
Do you check social media while you are at work?
Do you usually check your phone as soon as there is a notification?
Do you turn on the TV when you come home from work?
Do you have a smartwatch?
Would you say that your daily screen time is more than 5 hours a day?
Is looking at your phone an automatic behavior that you don’t always do consciously?
Do you have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep?
Do you struggle with weight?
Do you have difficulty with your attention or concentration?
Do you check your phone or browse social media when you drive?
Do you sometimes feel like your phone vibrate, and yet there are no notifications?
Do you feel anxious if you forget your phone or don’t have access to it for a while?
Does it irritate you when people tell you that you are not listening or paying attention to them while they speak to you?
Would you consider your electronic devices as your most valuable belongings, something you could not live without?
TOTALS
YES NO I DON’T KNOW
Now calculate the totals, what do you notice?

Mostly NO: Great, that means that you have found a spot in your life where you use devices and, they don’t use you and admittedly don’t govern your life.

Mostly YES: This is a sign that this guide is for you. Your life seems to be influenced a lot by your screen time; you might be losing a lot of time and energy on devices that don’t fulfill you. Besides, if you said “yes” to almost all the questions, you are likely an artist at escaping reality. It might be time for you to take control of your life. It won’t be easy to unplug, but with determination and patience, you will get there!

Mostly I DON’T KNOW: This is not necessarily a good thing. You might be in denial and unable to be aware of your behavior. This guide will help you be more conscious of your habits and how you can live a more fulfilling life.

Whether you want to completely break up with social media or develop a healthier relationship with technology, the following five steps are here to help you positively change your behaviors.

Step 1: Identifying a Motivation

When we want to make a change in our life, we need to identify a reason to help us sustain the change. The best reasons are the ones that are close to our hearts as opposed to imposed by others. You can identify your motivations by finding answers to the following question:

Why do I want to disconnect from the digital world? What are the benefits to disconnect from the digital world? Write down all the reasons that come to mind.

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Introduction

For anyone trying to lose weight, the word "carbs" is akin to blasphemy. Carb is the age-old enemy. Carbs are the evil nemesis of WeightWatchers everywhere. Carbs mean calories and weight loss requires cutting calories.

It has been the traditional belief that foods packed with carbs will cause you to pack on the pounds. Even healthy carbs like starchy vegetables and whole grains are high in carbs, so many classic diets restrict them as well. The result is that we have become to believe that carbs are bad for us. Not only do they hinder weight loss, but they are downright unhealthy.

Well, science has recently turned that belief upside down by telling us that carbs may be your best ally in the battle to lose weight. Leveraging carbs to help us lose weight is called carb cycling. it is a method whereby eating carbs can lead to weight loss rather than weight gain!

Carb cycling is done through a weekly eating plan with a few basic rules to stick to. Other than that, you have a full run of what you eat. Your meal plans can consist of all your favorite healthy foods, including carbs. You even have cheat days to indulge in your less healthy favorite foods to satisfy your cravings!

Why Is The 7-Day Plan Different?

Many of us struggle with our weight and strive to be fit and healthy. We've all experimented with different diets and eating regimens. We’ve tried diets that promised amazing weight loss, in X number of days. We've tried diets that promised we'd never feel hungry or sluggish. We’ve tried diets that you could eat everything and lose weight – only to find that "everything" meant in half spoonfuls.

We have been let down repeatedly. We either fall off the wagon and binge like crazy or get too discouraged to continue. Most, if not all traditional diets simply do not work for us.

What makes the carb cycling plan different? First, it makes a lot of sense because it addresses our metabolism rather than our stomach. After all, it’s our metabolism that burns calories and melts off those pounds.

Secondly, although it has been recently hailed as a breakthrough in the field of healthy eating and weight loss, it has been popular among athletes for decades, especially those doing high resistance training. Many of them rely on carb cycling to build lean muscle and boost their energy levels.

Thirdly, a carb recycling plan is not as restrictive as other diets. It's therefore easy to follow.

Fourthly, the plan is used only to achieve shorter-term weight-loss goals, after which you must stop. However, you can use elements of it to develop lifelong healthy eating habits to stay fit and healthy for the rest of your life.

This is a very simple guide for the layman who wants to try the 7-day carb cycling plan. We will not go into the deeper technicalities of how carb recycling works, the different hormones it triggers nor discuss complex measurements. It will explain how and why carb cycling works, and what you need to do to put together your 7-day carb cycling plan. The results will speak for themselves.

So, if you are considering giving the carb cycling plan a try, this book will help you get started.

Here, I must insert the traditional disclaimer. If you suffer from any chronic illness or are taking any sort of medication, do consult your doctor before embarking on this plan.

Chapter 1 - How Carb Cycling Works

Remember how those old railway trains used to run? Workers had to stand in front of a huge coal furnace, shoveling in huge quantities of coal. If the furnace was regularly fueled, the train would keep running at full speed. If the coal input slowed down, the train would lose speed. If the furnace was not regularly fed with coal, the train would come to a standstill.

Our body's metabolism is very similar to this process. Carbs are the main food group that "fuels" our metabolism so that it burns calories and gives us energy. Carbs are also very filling. Therefore, diets that cut out or strictly limit carb intake make us feel tired and sluggish. They also make us irritable, hungry and more likely to binge.

With the 7-day carb cycling plan, a person consumes carbs to boost metabolism. The plan causes the body to use crab-rich foods to function at the optimal peak, burning fat and building muscle. The result is weight loss with less flab. It's that simple! This is what makes carb cycling unique and revolutionary.

But there's a catch. This doesn't mean going overboard with the carbs and eat tons of them day in, day out. The catch is that you follow a 7-day plan where you eat more carbs on certain days and less or no carbs on other days. This allows your body to optimally "cycle" your carb intake so that you lose weight and build muscle mass.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS NETWORKING

In business, great networking is the key to generating exposure and sales. Even if your only practice with networking is trying to get a job, you will have the basics you need to understand the dynamics. All networking consists of generating contacts and then personalizing those contacts in a way that benefits both parties. In a job interview, you are contacting an employer, discussing the needs of the company, exposing your skills and potential ways you can benefit them, and then they pay to hire you, if it's a match. If you have ever gotten a job, you have done some form of networking.

It is obvious, however, that the amount of time it takes to get one job is exhaustive. Add to that the immense competition these days for fewer and fewer jobs, and you know that networking the old-fashioned way is going to put you at a disadvantage. It steals too much time and may or may not generate the results you need. That's why more and more people are hopping on the Internet to learn how to network online. The power of connecting with other people, whether they are in your city or not, is vastly improved on the World Wide Web, rather than relying on face-to-face encounters. Some of the same strategies apply, but here now, you have an opportunity to vastly increase 1) the number of contacts you can make in a set amount of time, and 2) the odds that you have what they need. Tie those two opportunities to a product or service, and you are in business online.

In this short report, you are going to learn how to make those contacts and create those opportunities so that they have the most impact. Let's be clear: Anyone can get on the Internet and start contacting people. How many of them get responses? How many of them have a plan for capitalizing on those interactions? How many of them know what tools and avenues they can take to explode their online exposure? What mistakes are they making that you can avoid by reading this report? That's the type of information that you will find here.

If you have been in the job market in a tight economy, you know that just sending out resumes is not the way to get someone to write you back. You have to know how to locate people interested in who you are and then have what they want in order to get a response. The Internet can facilitate these interactions, but it can also make it easier to ignore your queries, especially if they have a spammy feel to them. No one likes to be marketed in an impersonal and commercial fashion. In fact, most people are so jaded to these attempts that they quickly delete or report them as spam. That's why the very first thing you need to understand when connecting with people online is that the quality of your interaction necessitates you starting off on the right foot.

WHAT TYPES OF CONNECTIONS ARE YOU GENERATING?

The last thing anyone wants is to be caught at a party with that tedious bore who spends all his/her time talking about himself/herself and never letting you get a word in edgewise. This same offensive behavior repeats itself over and over in online marketing in some attempt to convince others that they should buy some product, when marketers still haven't even determined what their audience wants most from them. If they just took the time to find out why people are connecting, they'd have a much easier time converting the contact into a personal connection that generates a loyal follower and not just a one-time buyer.

TWO WAYS TO MAKE A CONNECTION

A connection can either be forced or it can be attracted. One way is not better than another online and you may find yourself implementing both strategies at one time or another. A forced connection is one where you are active in going to places to network, such as online forums and groups, and actively engaging participants there in order to meet more people.

The other way of attracting connections is through strategies like Search Engine Optimization and through good content. You put out something of great value, and of course, those people who find it through links you place strategically around the Web will be attracted to your offers.

In one scenario, you are going to the people; in another, they are coming back to you. In a forced connection, you will know why people are congregating to a certain spot and what they want to talk about the most. There are specific demographics to websites that you can easily find out, either through observation or through analysis with tools like www.quantcast.com.

On the other hand, when you attract people from various social networking sites, it may come as a surprise, but they may be attracted for reasons you may have never even considered. That's the hidden gold and your future path to riches. Once you find out why people are naturally attracted to you and your site, that's your niche. At first, yes, you start with a forced niche – preferably one that is largely profitable – but then you have to make it uniquely yours. How will you do that? By understanding how you generated the natural connections that flocked to your site without much effort on your part. They saw something important in you, even if you don't see it yourself. After that, it's a question of listening to what they want to talk about most and learning how to put out products and services that will help them the most.

PRACTICE THE ART OF LISTENING

The first words from an online connection should never be about sales. The potential for a long-term connection is immediately destroyed if you try to market to a person before you've even learned what he/she wants. It destroys trust and it turns people off immediately. This approach works for television commercials where your audience is a passive blob on a couch; it is a death sentence online where people are participating actively, especially on social networking sites. Take the time to listen to what people are discussing and get to know the contact before trying to actively market to him/her.