Can help you enjoy life? after retirement, and eliminate some of the hassles.

Planning for retirement? Already retired? Or just thinking about it?

Today's retirement is very different than it was for earlier generations. For a growing number of seniors, retirement is a liberating experience filled with options never before available. Traditional retirement — a life of leisure in Florida, Arizona, Texas or another sunbelt state — is rapidly becoming an outdated concept.
Today's seniors are healthier and more active than those who came before us. In today's world, planning for retirement involves much more than just financial planning. Thoughtful planning of what you want to do with the rest of your life — whether it's starting your own business, part-time work, consulting, volunteering, mentoring, enjoying a variety of leisure activities, or a unique combination tailored to your needs — is the key to a happy and successful retirement.
Whatever your situation, Today's Seniors offers retirement planning tools, tips, news and advice about a wide range of topics written especially for seniors, including:
10 Insurance Policies Older American's Don't Need – Don't let your fears sell you insurance you don't need.
401k Retirement Plan – If you are still working, don't forget that you can earn free money for your retirement.
401k Contribution Limits – What are they this year? What are the "catch-up" limits for people age 50 and older?
Advance Directives and Living Trusts – What seniors can do now to prepare for their later years with greater peace of mind.
Bank Safety – Find out if your bank is healthy and safe ... or sick as a dog.
Beneficiaries – Are yours up-to-date? Or, will the wrong people inherit your money?
Credit Reports – Now, you can get a free copy once a year. But, why should retirees care?
Disabled Travel – As you've matured, your body may have given you obstacles to overcome, maybe a cane, a wheelchair or the fact that you aren't as nimble as you once were. But that doesn't mean you can't travel with the same sense of wanderlust you've always had.
Don't Retire, REWIRE! (2nd edition) – Especially for seniors, 5 steps to fulfilling work that fuels your passion, suits your personality or fills your pocket – whether you are already enjoying life after retirement, planning for retirement, or want a more enjoyable and fulfilling career. (We highly recommend this book.)
Find Unclaimed Money and Other Property – Is your money missing?
from A to Z – Resource Directory – More interesting and helpful Internet resources for seniors.
Glossary of Terms – Easy-to-understand definitions of the specialized terms related to retirement (including financial, insurance, legal and estate planning) and elder care.
Healthy Living – Helping seniors enjoy life after retirement.
High Rate Certificate of Deposit – New rate map. Find the highest CD interest rates in your neighborhood ... in your state ... or anywhere in the country.
Improve Your Quality of Life – products that eliminate some of life's frustrations – a TV volume regulator, TV Ears (a personal assisted hearing device), the Jitterbug cell phone (designed for seniors who want a hassle-free phone), and more.
Large Print Books – They can make reading enjoyable again. Here's a wide selection of novels, humor, non-fiction and bibles. Many also have an audio CD and/or audio cassette version.
Life Settlements – Another option that can help pay for your housing needs after retirement.
Medicare Benefits – FAQs, tips, and nasty surprises for retirees.
Medicare Prescription Drug Plans – What does Medicare's new benefit mean for seniors?
Men's Health – Improve your quality of life with impotence aids and male incontinence products.
Money – How much do you really need to enjoy life after retirement?
Patient Privacy – A frustrating 2-edged sword.
Pensions – Are any of your pensions missing? Many seniors can't find pensions owed to them from old employers that have gone out of business. Here's help.
Personal and Financial Organizers – Recommended by The Wall Street Journal for two consecutive years, these free personal and financial organizers are comprehensive, yet concise and easy-to-use – especially helpful for seniors and boomers.
Planning for Retirement – Your "to do" list for a smooth transition into retirement.
Prescription Drugs Interactions – Problems for senior citizens.
Replace Lost, Stolen or Damaged Documents.
Retirement Calculators – Will you outlive your income?

Senior Discounts – Includes money saving tips, strategies and special offers.
Social Security Benefits – When should you retire?– and more.
Symptoms – of major health conditions.
Working after Retirement – Whether it's a part-time job, volunteer work, or a second career, here's help to find work situations that are both financially and personally rewarding.
On the lighter side, we've assembled a collection of funny cartoon pictures, clean jokes, humorous stories, etc., in our Humor section.
We also let you know about the nasty little surprises – the Gotchas! – that companies, Medicare and government agencies often "forget" to tell you about. Most of the time, we give you straight, unbiased facts – we tell it like it is with no sugar coating. At other times, we offer our opinion. When we do, we tell you.
We hope your visit is rewarding. Send us an email to suggest other topics for us to consider, or to comment on the information we've included.

Down So extensive: The furtively Life Taught Herea.

Patrick Swayze, right, as a longtime F.B.I. agent and Travis Fimmel as his new partner in the new cable series “The Beast
Patrick Swayze’s performance as an ungoverned F.B.I. man in “The Beast,” a new crime drama beginning on Thursday on A&E, is impressive for its resistance to cliché and remarkable for the mere fact of its execution.

Not extended after the pilot was shot last year, Mr. Swayze was given a analysis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, but chose to stay with the project, in receipt of treatments throughout fabrication. During the filming of 12 subsequent episodes, as producers explained at the Television Critics Association press tour this week, the actor missed only a single day of work.

“One thing I’m not going to do is chase staying alive,” Mr. Swayze told Barbara Walters in an interview last week. “You spend so much time chasing staying animate, you won’t live.” (He was hospitalized on Friday for pneumonia.)

On “The Beast” Mr. Swayze is stonewalled from making analogous displays of honesty. As Charles Barker, he plays an undercover agent who has used up so much emotional capital down deep in the foxhole that there is nothing left to nourish him when he burrows back up. Barred from feeling too much, he is made to speak from a Top 20 list of police show aphorisms: “Yeah, there’s a line. So we recognize where to cross.”

“The Beast” is set in a Chicago where spring seems to come only every leap year, and Barker’s piece of the city compounds that broad, bleak vision. He lives in a dark, foul apartment that begs for a psychiatric appraisal of its occupant: it’s a place in which to curl up with a bottle of Lexapro.

But Barker doesn’t even stock the proper antidepressants. When his rookie partner, Ellis Dove — named as if we’d miss his brooding innocence — shows up for one of Barker’s coarsened, avuncular cop lessons, Barker offers Dove a beer but can deliver only a glass of milk.

Dove learns after the fact that he has been assigned to glean what he can about Barker’s rogue habits. The agency’s Internal Affairs Department has begun an investigation, but Dove is reluctant to believe that Barker’s approach to law enforcement strays much beyond a game of hopscotch around paperwork and rote procedure. Dove, as he tells a date, watched his father walk out when he was a small child, and in his mind it wasn’t soon enough. Barker won’t show him when to deploy a nine iron, but he fits a certain variant of the paternal bill.

It is a problem for “The Beast” that we are just as prone to trust Barker’s decency as his partner is. The moral and psychological ambiguity doesn’t appear to be there: however Barker might have sideswiped orthodoxy in the past, we get the sense that he was probably justified in breaking the rules he did. By the end of the first hour of “The Shield,” we knew that Vic Mackey was the kind of cop who didn’t stop at taking short cuts; he killed whoever got in his way. After the first two episodes of “The Beast,” we see that Barker is made of the stern stuff it takes to weasel around some security clearances.

Mr. Swayze, though, is another story. He takes hold of the role with the assurance of someone who has little time or tolerance for nonsense. He works to keep things in a low register, refusing to ride and screech and jump curbs presumably the way the writers have intended.

It is unfortunate for Travis Fimmel, who plays Dove, that his co-star maintains such formidable composure. Mr. Fimmel is all loose ends; he can’t seem to find the character. I’ve had old socks with a firmer grip than the hold Mr. Fimmel, who is Australian, has on his Midwestern accent. He gives the impression of having watched Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Departed,” tried on a flak jacket and turned up for filming. Mr. Swayze has a great deal to teach him indeed.

Subway guy' offers vigorous lifestyle guidelines to students at Owl Creek

Fayetteville school officials enlisted the help of a national celebrity to teach students about leading healthy lifestyles.

Jared Fogle, known across the nation as "the Subway guy," visited Owl Creek School in Fayetteville Tuesday morning and encouraged students to eat healthy and be active.

"I used to weigh over 425 pounds," Fogle, 31, said.

He now weighs about 195 pounds and stands 6 feet 2 inches tall. He brings an old pair of 60-inch pants to his appearances to show what kind of clothes he used to wear.

Fogle's lecture is just one of the Fayetteville School District's healthy lifestyle initiatives aimed at helping children make smart choices early in their lives.

The district has a committee called the Coordinated School Health Initiative that oversees programs which promote healthy living among students. The committee is made up of school employees and volunteers.

Some of the schools' efforts include listing health tips in the school newsletter and "Nutrition Nuggets," a flyer that includes information about nutrition, committee member Carol Stone said.

Lisa Jenkins, director of school food service, said the district has made a conscientious effort to offer more fruits and vegetables in recent years and cook lowfat meats when that option is available.

The department tries to purchase local fruits and vegetables from the Fayetteville Farmers' Market when the food is in season.

The schools also adhere to state guidelines on portion sizes with its menu items.

The school district emphasizes staff fitness by providing an in-house fitness center that its employees can join. The center is located on the north side of the Fayetteville High School campus in the old Boys & Girls Club building.

Stone said to her knowledge, Fayetteville is the only district in Arkansas that offers such a fitness program.

During his presentation, Fogle told students he was a business management and marketing major at Indi- ana University in Bloomington, Ind., 11 years ago when he began to lose weight. Living next door to a Subway restaurant, he adopted a diet that consisted of eating low-fat sub sandwiches from Subway twice a day.

He made other changes to live a healthier lifestyle, such as walking 30 minutes a day. He eventually lost 245 pounds, he said.

"It clicked. It started to work," Fogle said. "I lost 94 pounds over (the first) three months."

Fogle suggested students drink more water, eat more fruits and vegetables and cut down on foods and condiments high in fat, such as mayonnaise.

He said learning to enjoy things in moderation will make a huge difference to one's life.

Fogle said many of the bad habits and bad decisions that contributed to his weight gain began in elementary school.

"Before I knew it, my weight started going up and up," Fogle said.

Fogle said he was an active and average-sized child until around the third and fourth grades, when he began devoting too much time to watching TV and playing video games. This happened in conjunction with developing a love of junk food.

"I know what it's like to be tempted to play video games too long," he said.

He eventually got to where he couldn't even fit into his school desk, he added.

Fogle said he travels more than 200 days a year doing speaking engagements like his appearance at Owl Creek School.

more....
Fitness & Fat-Loss Tips for a Vigorous Lifestyle
Smart weight loss should always encompass a balanced dieting scheme in union with a
relatively intensive and scientifically designed fitness workout program.

The levels of intensity during exercising may vary among individuals and are directly
correlated on an individualistic basis.

The more advanced the trainee, the greater should be the effort with weight training
in order to stimulate one's system to ultimately achieve progressively greater benefits in terms of fat-loss and muscular development.