As a result, the United States enjoyed the greatest and longest period of sustained affluence and prosperity of any country in the world. An entire generation, now in politics, grew up believing that prosperity was inevitable and that each person was entitled to enjoy a wonderful life without hard work or sacrifice.

Napoleon Hill once wrote, “Never attempt to violate natural laws and win.”

What he meant was that there are certain laws in nature, like gravity, that you cannot violate for any time without paying the consequences.

There is the story of the man who decides to commit suicide by jumping off a 30 story building. As he plummets toward the ground, someone leans out from a 15th story window and shouts, “How’s it going?” The falling man shouts back, “So far, so good!”

Our problems with oil and energy are self-inflicted. We are the only country in the world with enormous oil and gas reserves that has made it illegal for our companies to extract these resources and make them available to the American people.

For some bizarre reason, the politicians in Washington became convinced that we could enjoy endless affluence without paying for it. We could have energy sufficiency, if not energy independence, without ever having to drill for oil in our own country.

Today, we send $700 billion dollars per year overseas to pay for imported oil. We are bankrupting ourselves under a debt load that will crush this country in the coming years if we do not reverse course immediately.

The fact is that oil and gas power 86% of our energy needs in the U.S., and this will not change very much over the next hundred years. We have no choice but to drill and extract all the oil and gas, plus shale oil and coal that we possibly can, to stop shipping hundreds of billions of dollars overseas into the hands of people who are not necessarily our friends.

All the hysteria over global warming does not change the fact that average global temperatures stopped rising in 1998 and have stabilized since then. We are having some of the coldest winters on record. The hottest years recorded in the United States are 1934 and 1935, when temperatures were hotter than they are today, and there were no excessive carbon dioxide emissions taking place, especially since we were in the middle of the Great Depression.

In previous eras, carbon dioxide emissions were ten times and twenty times greater over the earth than they are today. During those times, the excess carbon dioxide was absorbed by plant life, causing most of the world to be covered by dense tropical forests. Today, increased carbon dioxide levels actually lead to more luxurious and abundant crops and food stocks to feed a hungry world.

Environmentalism today has become the ultimate religion for atheists. People who do not believe in God instead believe in the environment, and with an almost hysterical faithfulness that shuts out all facts, information and contrary opinions.

The environmentalists are what Eric Hoffer called, “the true believers.” They are so passionately extreme about their viewpoint that mankind is the source of all evil on the earth, that they are willing to engage in any behaviors, including violence, burning and destruction, to support those beliefs.

The fact is that there is only one way for Americans to enjoy a sustained, high quality of life, that is affordable to all, and that is by drilling oil and gas, mining coal, and developing the oil shale in western United States that contains as much as 1.7 trillion barrels of oil.

Politicians in Washington are the only politicians in the world who are convinced that we can maintain our standard of living by making it illegal to drill more energy supplies, and bankrupting our country by sending $700 billion dollars a year overseas to oil exporters.

But, as Herbert Stein said, “What cannot go on, won’t.”

Sooner or later, the American public will awake. As Ayn Rand wrote in her Theory of Objectivism, “Reality is.” Two and two is four. What goes up must come down. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. We must aggressively drill for and extract more oil, natural gas, coal and shale if we are to provide for our energy needs, for ourselves and our families, before the nation goes bankrupt.

Keep on thinking!

It was an astute observation. There is within almost every person, the “urge to power.”

It is amazing how many people have an intense desire to enforce their will on other people. The newspapers are full of commentators recommending that people be “forced” to pay higher taxes, drive slower, use public transportation, and in general, support whatever the writer thinks is good for them, whether they like it or not.

By the same token, we could say that, “All people would be thieves, if they could.” Almost everyone has a deep down desire to get something for nothing, something that they have not earned and to which they are not entitled.

No where is this more obvious than in the area of money. Today, we are going through a series of wrenching financial scandals and turbulence triggered by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. Why did this happen?

The answer is simple. Somehow, for some reason, a mass national hysteria took place and thousands, if not millions of people began to think it was possible to get “free money” that they had not earned and did not deserve.

Like an epidemic, this “free money” craze has swept across the country. People bought homes they could not afford, and borrowed money against their homes they could never pay back. Instead of behaving responsibly, as many people did, too many homebuyers became “home flippers.”

Herbert Stein, the economist, once wrote that, “What cannot go on, won’t.”

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “America will be a great land until the people become convinced that everyone can become rich at the expense of everyone else.”

Do you remember the old Smith Barney television commercial, where the actor looked into the camera and said, “We make money the old fashioned way; we earn it.”

There is only one way to become financially successful, and that is to “add value” wherever you are. It is to earn it in some way.

You have to put in more than you take out. You have to contribute greater value than you receive in compensation. You have to continually upgrade your skills and abilities so that you can serve your customers and employers at ever higher levels, making yourself ever more valuable to them.

The only way to become rich is to “spend less than you earn.”

In my recent book Flight Plan, I wrote that it is not possible to become financially successful by thinking happy thoughts, visualizing and attracting wealth into your life.

Instead, you must decide how you are going to “deserve” the wealth that you desire. What value are you going to offer to others that they will reward by voluntarily choosing to pay you for your products and services? How are you going to improve or enrich the lives of others in some way? If you want to prosper financially, you must find ways to help others to prosper, in advance.

Some years ago, a book was written entitled, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” This book documented the financial crazes that take place periodically, in different places in the world, starting with the “tulip craze” in Amsterdam in the 1600’s.

People became convinced that tulip bulbs would go up in value endlessly. Speculators were paying the equivalent of thousands, and tens of thousands of dollars for a single tulip bulb, convinced that there was a “greater fool” who would come along and buy it for an even higher price.

But as Herbert Stein said, “What cannot go on, won’t.” Eventually, the tulip craze collapsed, bankrupting thousands of individuals and causing the collapse of the Dutch economy.

In the last few years, we have had the “buy’em and flip’em” craze. Now it is over, like a massive drinking binge, and the hangover is extremely painful.

Just as it took about three years of craze to drive home prices up 50% and 100%, it will take about three years of collapse before home prices, like a water level, return to normal.

Just like a hangover, there will be enormous pain and suffering. But this is inevitable. What goes up must come down. And often it must come down a long way before it stabilizes.

For the rest of your life, refuse to think or act like a thief. A thief is someone who attempts to take something that does not belong to him, or her. Whenever you attempt to get money that you do not deserve, you are thinking like a thief. And the end is near.

Keep on thinking!

My clothes were too tight and then didn’t fit at all. This year, I developed a formula that I have used to get my weight under control for the first time in a decade. I have dropped from 196 lbs to 179 lbs. I feel terrific and get compliments from strangers about how trim I look. I now fit all of the suits and clothes that had been gathering dust in my closet.

The turning point for me was at Christmas, when I realized that I would have to change my lifestyle dramatically if I was ever going to get back to my ideal weight. Here is what I learned and practiced.

First of all, I realized that we all get into certain habits and rituals of diet, exercise and lifestyle, and then it becomes very hard to change, to get out of this “comfort zone.” But to get your weight and level of fitness back to where you want it, you are going to have to make some sacrifices.

Make a Decision
The biggest weight gainer of all is dinner time. It had become a ritual for me to come home, or go out, and have dinner between 7:00pm and 8:00pm with my wife, or with friends. We would share a bottle of wine, if not a little more, and generally eat more than could ever be justified for survival.

Then I read the works of Adele Davis, the nutritionist, who was famous for saying, “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

To lose weight, the goal is to consume 80% of your calories before 2:00pm in the afternoon, in breakfast and lunch, and finish the day with something light and nutritious. If you just discipline yourself to eat lightly in the evening, you will start to lose weight almost immediately.

Salads at Six
A major turning point for Barbara and I was when we began to have “salads at six.”

This is an incredible weight loss technique! Instead of drinking wine and eating a large dinner, we instead have salad for dinner together as often as possible, Monday through Friday, at 6:00pm or thereabouts.

To break the natural tendency to come home at night and have a glass of wine, or some other drink, immediately drink a large glass of fruit juice, preferably cranberry or apple juice. This “sugar jolt” immediately cancels your desire for an alcoholic beverage, satisfies your appetite, and prepares you for your “salad at six.”

With your salads at dinner, add protein of some kind – chicken, fish or even slices of the steak you bring home from the restaurant. You can’t gain weight on salads. Without protein, you will be hungry in a couple of hours.

One of the things that Barbara and I have done is to have “salad at six” and then go out to a movie, thereby breaking the habit of having wine with dinner. Often, we go for a one hour walk around the neighborhood. Once you have broken this “dinner with wine” ritual a few times, it becomes easier and easier.

When you do this, you will feel lighter and brighter, have more energy, sleep well, and actually notice the difference in your weight within a few days, or less.

Eliminate the Three White Poisons
First, eliminate white sugar of all kinds, including soft drinks, desserts, candies, chocolate, and anything whatsoever that has sugar in it, for any reason. The elimination of sugar by itself will cause immediate weight loss.

Second, eliminate salt. Refuse to put it on any foods. Most foods, especially snack foods, canned foods, and processed foods, have so much salt that you need nothing additional in your diet. When you consume salt, your body retains water to hold the salt in suspension, causing you to bloat.

Third, eliminate white flour products of all kinds. Stop eating bread, pasta, rice, rolls, and even potatoes. The consumption of flour-based products is a major reason for overweight.

Your Exercise Regimen
Aerobic exercise has been the key to weight loss for me. I have always been physically active, but over the years, I had gradually cut back, putting on a pound a year over time.

Now, I get up at 6:00 AM, four or five days each week, and immediately exercise vigorously for 60-75 minutes. My favorites are the Lifecycle (reclining style), swimming, cross country ski machine, treadmill, or the elliptical machine. My goal is 200 to 300 minutes per week.

When you get up and exercise for sixty minutes first thing, your body burns calories all day long. The exercise energizes you and makes you brighter and more alert all day. When you start the day with exercise, it is easier to develop and maintain the habit of regular exercise.

After exercising, I usually have a cup of coffee and do some reading. The first food I eat is an apple, cut into four pieces and chewed slowly. When you wait thirty minutes after the apple for your protein breakfast, the apple quickly digests and then acts like a “roto-rooter” in your system 24 hours later.

Eat a Good Breakfast
For breakfast, I eat two scrambled eggs, covered with Mexican salsa heated in the microwave. This is sufficient to satisfy your appetite and give you sufficient fuel to run your system for 4-5 hours.

If you eat a handful of nuts on top of the eggs, you will not be hungry for 5-6 hours.

At lunch, eat only salads and protein. Eliminate breads, pastries, desserts and soft drinks of all kinds. I often buy a sandwich or a chicken burger and throw away the bread, just eating the protein. High quality protein takes 4-5 hours to digest slowly, giving you a continuous flow of energy without drowsiness.

When you go out for dinner, remember that your “apostate” turns off twenty minutes after you take the first bite. Because it is the evening, you don’t need very much to eat. Instead of a main course, preceded with salad and followed with dessert, have two appetizers. If you eat a salad appetizer and a protein appetizer, your appetite will be completely satisfied, you will feel lighter, sleep better, and lose weight.

One of the things I had to learn to do was to break the habit of eating large meals. Everything over and above what your body requires for healthy living is simply stored as fat.

Appetite Killers
Another thing that has helped me is Zone Bars. These are ideally balanced nutritional bars that you can buy by the box at your local store. A Zone Bar has a perfect balance of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. It is small, but it kills your appetite for 2-3 hours. It is the perfect “snack” to eat later in the day if you start to become hungry.

One of the keys to weight loss is to not allow yourself to be hungry. Once you get hungry, you lose all sense of portion in terms of what you eat. You can kill your hunger with Zone bars, or even by slowly chewing a handful of nuts.

Be Fully Rested
Sleep is very important. You need 7-8 hours of sleep each night for proper functioning. Too many people go to bed too late and get up too early. If they had eaten late, they don’t sleep well and don’t rest well.

A key to weight loss is for you to be fully rested as the result of going to bed at 10:00pm and getting eight hours of sleep each night. When you have had sufficient rest, you will not be as hungry, and you will be satisfied with smaller portions.

Lose 10 Pounds Quickly
There is a simple way to start strongly on your weight loss regimen. This method is based on the fact that your body accumulates as much as 5-10 pounds of undigested food in the 22 feet of your small intestine, plus your large intestine. Simply by flushing all of this excess food out of your system, you can drop five pounds quickly and off to a strong start.

The Cleansing Diet: Mix a level tablespoon of Sea Salt with a quart of warm water and drink it first thing in the morning. In almost exactly 60 minutes, your entire system will evacuate.

If you are really serious about starting strongly and losing weight safely, you can go on to what is called the “Lemonade Diet” for a week. Beyonce Knowles, the singer, recently lost twenty pounds in twenty days for her role in Dream Girls simply by using this diet.

The way it works is simple. To a ten ounce glass of warm water, you add two level tablespoons of pure maple syrup, two level tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a dash of cayenne pepper.

This miraculous combination provides you with all the vitamins and minerals you need, plus the sugar energy you require for efficient working, thinking and functioning (but not strenuous exercise).The cayenne pepper stimulates your digestive system to operate more efficiently.

You can drink as many glasses of this mix as you like during the day, each time you feel hungry for any reason.

On the first day, you will drink 6 or 7 glasses. On the second day of this diet, you will drink 4 or 5 glasses. On the third and fourth day of this diet you will be drinking about three glasses spread over the day.

Each evening, before you go to bed, you mix and drink a large cup of herbal laxative tea. This will cause your system to continue cleaning out as you sleep. You will lose one pound or more for every day that you follow this lemonade diet.

When you use the lemonade diet to give yourself a “fast start”, you will drop five to ten pounds in 24-48 hours. You will see and feel the difference. You will then be motivated to continue.

Take Food Supplements
In addition to your regular diet, you must take excellent vitamin and mineral supplements. The very best are Nutrilite from Amway/Quixtar. When you are taking sufficient nutrients, your appetite will decrease. You will feel completely satisfied with less food, but better quality food. You will lose weight.

The key to long-term weight loss is for you to follow the suggestions above and commit to losing one pound per week indefinitely.

Your goal is to establish a new “set point,” the weight to which your body naturally returns, like a gyroscope, over time. The only way that you can permanently reduce your weight by reducing this set point is by losing weight slowly and surely over an extended period of time, one pound per week.

Be Patient and Persistent
One last point: Be gentle and patient with yourself. It has taken many years to develop your rituals of eating and drinking. Like a drunk, you will “fall off the wagon” occasionally. You will eat and drink more than you intended.

But everyday is a new day. If you over-ate or over-drank last night, resolve to start again today by getting lots of sleep, exercising 60-75 minutes, eating an apple to start off the day, and then sticking to proteins and salads as much as you can.

The key to health and long life has always been the same, contained in five words, “Eat less and exercise more.”

If you do all the things that I am suggesting above, you will be astonished at the results.

Good luck!

Fit and Trim for Life