Life is Healthy

A reader asks for advice about getting rid of sagging skin around her stomach. She says;

I am a 42 year old female who had a heart attack at 39 because of my weight and family history. Since the heart attack, I have lost a tremendous amount of weight which has caused a lot of sagging skin in the stomach area. I am not a viable candidate for cosmetic surgery because of the CHF. However, I am becoming increasingly upset about my appearance. I don't know what to do about the sagging stomach. It's bad enough being sick, but to look terrible as well is painful. If you have any suggestions, please send them to me. Thanking you in advance!

Can anyone who's lost a lot of weight provide some comments here?

The photo above is of the extreme girdle; the Brazilian Waist Cinchers.

WOW...my girl just told me that her friend is at Laguardia and all of the airport workers are dressed in costumes - clowns, geishas and sexy cops...
Apparently, all of the baggage handlers are dressed as sheiks. WOW!

Dr. Flum specializes in surgical management of gastrointestinal disorders and surgical treatment of morbid obesity.

What is his advice for people who want to lose weight? He says if most people changed two things in their lives they would lose weight.

One is to avoid fast-food, the other is to walk on a regular basis (do 10,000 steps per day).

He says "One of every five Americans eats at least one meal per day in the car. Most of those meals come from fast-food franchises. There are fast-food meals with 1,400 calories (way more than half of a healthy amount for the day) and up to 800 of those calories come from unhealthy fats. If you can make one change in the way you eat, I would recommend not eating fast food or treating it as the very occasional splurge."

See more of Dr. David Flum's discussion about BMI, pear-shaped and apple-shaped bodies here.

"I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic." ~ Spike Lee

(Wow, don't we all...?)

यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यंते रमंते तत्र देवताः।

यत्र तास्तु न पूज्यंते तत्र सर्वाफलक्रियाः॥

English translation of Sanskrit quote:

Where women are worshipped, goddesses dwell.
Where they are not worshipped, all actions are fruitless.

Well this is the penultimate program before I finish for the year, which makes me even sadder.

This was an awesome program with everyone giving as much as they could. I met some wonderful people and yet again formed connections, this is the beauty of these programs you meet wonderful people who otherwise your life's may never come into direct contact and through the program you learn and them their lives and what motivates them. I am so pleased that I have this position and opportunity to meet these kinds of people and it shows me humans are great - you can escape the horrors and disasters in the world and for one week at least just so the greatness in life and human beings.

I met a couple who were/are amazing, they were full of life and up for anything thrown at them - great personalities and energies. Sadly not only was Chet good at everything he was good looking too, come on give me a break! lol! When his partner Michelle turned up a in a slinky black dress - OMG!!! (she's the kind of girl that would make a paperbag look hot!)

We had a lot of laughs and I got to work with Eva who I hope I see more of in the future - which ever path you choose, all the best ;)

I also managed to do 48 dances in just over 6 minutes - nearly hit my 50 target!! Well I need my rest long emotional weeks.

As usual photos of the week are HERE

My video on bottled water.



Want to help save the planet? Stop drinking bottled water.

October is right-hand ring month, so here are 10 reasons to adore and adorn yourself!

1. You have better taste than your man anyway!
2. Our right hands are usually stronger than our left, so it can support the extra weight.
3. Diamonds match EVERYTHING!
4. Do you really need another handbag?
5. As you sign checks, business contracts, and property titles, you can relish each victory with rock on your right hand.
6. It's fun to anticipate receiving the perfect engagement ring, you need to shine in the meantime.
7. You can always join in the conversation when your engaged/married girlfriends start chatting about their bling!
8. It will give your man an idea of your taste (and your ring size).
9. It’s a great way to begin your collection of family heirlooms – you can always pass it down to your daughter.
10. Diamonds’ are a girls best friend – do you really need another reason?
    

Here's a great list of some of the top Health and Wellness sites. It includes the ten best sites for each of the categories of weight loss blogs, diet blogs, walking and other exercises, as well as a few other key health categories.

The list was put together by people at the Nursing Online Education Database. Enjoy and happy reading!

Last night we pushed a small-but-crazy-useful new feature for all Blogger blogs: subscribing to comments via email. This makes it a lot easier to stay in the conversational loop after you’ve commented on a post somewhere. For example, you could follow along with these discussions from some recent Blogs of Note:

• Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century: An Astute Mustache Observation
• The Joy of Sox: WS 1: Red Sox 13, Rockies 1
• Wildfires 2007: All homes saved on Santa Ysabel reservation
  

Actress Mila Jojovich has gained seventy five pounds so far in her pregnancy. This photo was taken about three or four weeks before her due date.

Most doctors tell women that the ideal weight gain for women of normal weight during pregnancy is between 25 and 35 pounds. But Milla was probably underweight at the beginning and her body may have needed to gain more than the recommended amount.

In the UK we are a nation of pet lovers and just as we take out insurance to cover our own health we should do everything we can to protect the health of our best friends. While we don't like to think of the worst happening our pets can get sick or have an accident and the vets bills can soon mount up which can cost a small fortune unless you have taken out pet health insurance.When taking out

The votes are in and counted in the great Should Toilet Paper Hang Against the Wall Or Away from It? debate. 141 of you voted, and I love the fact that there was not one single person who voted "Don't know". On other, less weighty issues of the day, such as who should be Prime Minister, whether we should pull out of Iraq, or if nuclear power could combat global warming, there is always a sizeable minority who have no opinion. Not about this though, and I am glad that I am asking the kind of big questions that people really want answered.

Unfortunately, your answers were mainly incorrect. 28 of you (20%) gave the right answer, but a whopping 113 of you (80%) didn't and thought that the toilet paper should hang away from the wall. James Surowiecki was wrong; there is no wisdom in crowds: 80% of you are idiots.

Come the revolution you will be first against the wall.

We carve pumpkins for Halloween each year and usually I throw away the pumpkin seeds. But this year I'm going to roast them in the oven. It's really easy, you just need some salt and butter. (See the recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds).

Pumpkin seeds have a lot of nutritional health benefits. A quarter of a cup of pumpkin seeds provides you with about 52% of the daily recommended amount of manganese. You may not have heard of manganese, but high-manganese foods will

* Help your body utilize several key nutrients such as biotin, thiamin, ascorbic acid, and choline
* Keep your bones strong and healthy
* Help your body synthesize fatty acids and cholestorol
* Maintain normal blood sugar levels
* Promote optimal function of your thyroid gland
* Maintain the health of your nerves
* Protect your cells from free-radical damage

That same quarter cup of pumpkin seeds also provides 46% of the daily recommended amount of magnesium, 40% of phosphoros, 28% iron and 16% protein. See all about the health benefits of pumpkin seeds here.

No, not the South of Africa or Australia, the Southwest United States. The country where we believe that waste is ok because water lasts forever...Until it's gone. Don't tell me climate change isn't part of this as well as WASTEFULNESS. Why is it humans simply cannot read the signs and always wait until it is too late? What is it in our natures that precludes us always living in denial? We cannot afford to do this any longer. IT IS HERE. And from the map here it looks as though 3/4 of the U.S. is in some form of drought. And we were warned. Tough choices, indeed.

Drought Brings South Tough Choices


By BRENDA GOODMAN
Published: October 16, 2007

ATLANTA, Oct. 15 — For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley asked residents Monday to stop using water for any purpose “not essential to public health and safety.” He warned that he would soon have to declare a state of emergency if voluntary efforts fell short.

“Now I don’t want to have to use these powers,” Mr. Easley told a meeting of mayors and other city officials. “As leaders of your communities, you know what works best at the local level. I am asking for your help.”

Officials in the central North Carolina town of Siler City estimate that without rain, they are 80 days from draining the Lower Rocky River Reservoir, which supplies water for the town’s 8,200 people.

In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city’s main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days.

The hard numbers have shocked the Southeast into action, even as many people wonder why things seem to have gotten so bad so quickly.

Last week, Mayor Charles L. Turner of Siler City declared a water shortage emergency and ordered each “household, business and industry” to reduce water use by 50 percent. Penalties for not complying range from stiff fines to the termination of water service.

“It’s really alarming,” said Janice Terry, co-owner of the Best Foods cafeteria in Siler City. To curtail water use, Best Foods has swapped its dishes for paper plates and foam cups.

Most controversially, it has stopped offering tap water to customers, making them buy 69-cent bottles of water instead. “We’ve had people walk out,” Ms. Terry said. “They get mad when they can’t get a free glass of water.”

For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed “the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,” a reference to that comedian’s repeated lament that he got “no respect.”

“People pay attention to hurricanes,” Mr. Stooksbury said. “They pay attention to tornadoes and earthquakes. But a drought will sneak up on you.”

snip

Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, at a news conference last week, begged people in her city to conserve water. “Please, please, please do not use water unnecessarily,” Ms. Franklin said. “This is not a test.”

Others wondered why the calls to conserve came so late.

“I think there’s been an ostrich-head-in-the-sand syndrome that has been growing,” said Mark Crisp, an Atlanta-based consultant with the engineering firm C. H. Guernsey. “Because we seem to have been very, very slow in our actions to deal with an impending crisis.”

snip

Within two weeks, Carol Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, is expected to send Gov. Sonny Perdue recommendations on tightening water restrictions, which may include mandatory cutbacks on commercial and industrial users.

If that happens, experts at the National Drought Mitigation Center said, it would be the first time a major metropolitan area in the United States had been forced to take such drastic action to save its water supply.

“The situation is very dire,” Mr. Hayes said.

Kent used to weigh over 400 pounds. He's lost 200 pounds by adhering to the Atkins diet. The weight loss was fast for him, though it was not easy initially to give up all his comfort foods such as pizza and a 4 liter per day Diet Mountain Dew habit.

He has maintained the weight loss for over two years now and is running his first marathon this week. Read his story and see him at his heaviest weight here.