Success Stories

The only people I know who have gone a serious diet and lost weight AND have kept it off are my former secretary, Cindy, and a former client, John. I have seen pictures of Cindy when she was heavy and it’s hard to believe she is the same person. she looks great now and does not make a big deal about eating food. She is just quietly careful about what she eats and how much of it she allows herself to eat. We talked about it once and she told me that she used Weight Watchers to lose the weight after her third baby was born and she’s kept the weight off for over 5 years. That’s a pretty good testimonial for Weight Watchers.

John was middle aged and letting the weight creep up on him, 10-15 pounds per years. I’ve known him for at least 10-11 years, and up until recently you just thought of him as “could stand to lose a few pounds,” but not really considered him “fat.” But when you think about it, 10 pounds each year for 10 years and all of a sudden you are looking at 100 pounds.

So when I ran across him last week at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, I was shocked to see that he has shed almost all those pounds. It was a remarkable transformation and I’m sorry if it was ride, but I had to comment on it to him. He was so proud of his new look and didn’t appear offended at all. When prodded, he admitted he had been on the South Beach Diet for about 8 months and he looks marvelous.

John had chest pains one night and his wife rushed him to the hospital, fearing a heart attack. But thankfully it turned out to be severe indigestion. It was his wake up call,and he found his diet online by looking for great tasting heart healthy foods and discovered that the South Beach diet met his needs and matched his lifestyle. I think that’s was the secret to a successful diet must be: meet your needs and match your lifestyle.

Camping or Not?

We’ve been making an annual camping trip to Jackson Hole every since my junior year of college. We always go over Labor Day Weekend and we rent the same cabin and hire the same fishing guide every year.

But some of the guys are saying that they can’t get there this year. The price of gas, the mortgage crisis, the plant closings - all the bad economy things that have been going on these past 5-6 months are catching us all short on money.

I know I’ve had to cut back on spending and try to find ways to make my money go farther. I’ve never been a big fan of coupons, but now if I can save a decent amount of money it’s really worth it to look for coupons and deals on the things you plan to buy and save the money with very little effort. Got a honey-do list? Check for deals at Home Depot before tackling those jobs around the house. Saving money takes a little of the sting out of spending your premium weekend days on chores.

One of the best coupon websites is always putting deals on their page for the top stores. I just saved some cool cash on a pair of Nike’s from Footlocker. I wanted to get some new cargo pants and shorts for the camping trip and found some good deals at L L Bean.

The very best store with online catalog shopping for camping, hunting and fishing gear had some great deals at Cabelas. I was just about to get some new fishing gear when my buddy Jasper called to say he wasn’t going to make it. Now Jasper I can understand - he’s going back to school to finish up some classes and actually graduate this year. So you KNOW his budget is tight plus he goes back to class next week, so Labor Day doesn’t even work into a good schedule for him to take the days off. But the rest of the guys had better not let me down. This is a tradition - it must be honored!

Oh Say Can You See?

Last time I needed contact lenses I went to the optometrist that has a little office next to Sam’s Club and got an exam for $70 and hand carried the contacts prescription to the Optical department at Sam’s. That was the first rude surprise. They don’t stock the lenses and would have to order them for me. It took about a week to get in and then I had to drive down to the Sam’s Club for a second trip to pick them up.

So I used them up and went down to Sam’s Club to get a refill on the contacts, figuring it would take another week to order the refill and I could deal with that. But no. Come to find out the prescription for contact lenses only last for 6 months and my prescription had expired. so now I need another exam for $70 before I can order the lenses and then I wait a week for them to come in and then I make another trip. You know what? There’s got to be a better way.

So I went online and checked around for contact lenses and I most definitely found a better way. I can get the prescription for my contacts from any optometrist here, and then order my acuvue oasys contacts online. These are the lenses that don’t let your eyes get dry, even when you work outside or on the computer for long stretches. Not only do they have the acuvue’s in stock, but they ship them right away and they are delivered right to my front door. And here’s the kicker. They are cheaper than buying them here and they get here faster - overnight if I needed them!

Peace of Mind

Yesterday was really nice. My birthday was fun and well celebrated by everyone at work and at home. It’s cool being the center of attraction for at least one day each year, isn’t it?

So today it’s back to reality and actually I’m shifting the focus away from me and onto my family. Trying to be very practical here, who knows how many more birthdays I’ll be able to celebrate? I mean, I’ve already lived more years than my father lived. Cancer took him from us and that threat is always on my mind. My father passed away too young, but he had written a will and made good arrangements to take care of his family with term life insurance and other solid estate plans.

Probably one of the most important types of insurance that he had was mortgage life insurance . With that big expensive house, there’s no way my mom could have kept up the house payments and maintenance on just her own income. By having the mortgage protection he made sure that mom and us kids had a roof over our heads because the mortgage was paid off in full when he passed away. I know he had peace of mind and my mom needed that help.

The other important insurance was the term life because there was enough money to pay the funeral expenses plus all the household expenses for more than a year after he passed. That gave mom enough time to take care of everything and then find a good job to go back to work full time when she was ready rather than desperately taking something at the worst possible time just to pay the bills.

Having seen this first hand has made me keenly aware of my own responsibilities to my family and I have done the same type of estate planning. Let’s hope it’s not needed for a long time yet, but if something does happen I know that my family has been provided for.

Green Moth

There is a commercial on TV for Lunesta, which is a sleep aid. The commercial shows a woman who is a teacher who has a good night’s sleep, thanks to Lunesta, and wakes up so energetic that he gathers a bunch of junk and odds and ends and takes a big box of the junk to her class, where they all make musical instruments from it.

So throughout this commercial, there’s a magical little green moth that flies around and lands on her shoulder while she’s peacefully sleeping. I don’t really know what the green moth has to do with getting a good night’s sleep.

Honestly, I don’t know the technical difference between a moth and a butterfly. I suppose I used to know the difference - perhaps from biology class in high school. But I can’t recall much of the biology class - I hated it.

So when I found this on the door jamb, I was reminded of the commercial and all these biology questions have come flooding back. It stayed there all day, but sometime during the night it flew away. I suppose it landed on some blonde girl’s shoulder . . .