If (like everyone) you are trying to save money in these tough economic times, your gym membership may be the first thing on the chopping block. In our previous article “Be your own personal trainer (and save money!)” we gave you everything you needed to cancel your gym membership but still lose weight and be healthy.
Recently, I decided that I would cancel my gym membership with Lifetime Fitness. Lifetime Fitness is a great place to work out, they have pretty much everything you could ever want in terms of equipment, classes, personal training, and even nutritional counseling, my decision to cancel my Lifetime Fitness Membership was purely economical.
I called Lifetime Fitness to cancel my membership and they instructed me that I would have to come into the club in order to cancel my membership or I could send them a certified letter. Knowing that most people don’t have time ( or don’t want to be ridiculed for not being as healthy as the ’sales guy’ is) to come to the gym just to cancel a membership Lifetime Fitness probably retains an additional 15% of its monthly accounts (and sending a certified letter is a pain, right?)
So I let the membership slide for two months, spending over $200 in the process (could’ve put this towards the precor treadmill I want!). One day, I was annoyed by the fact that the Lifetime Membership fee was the only thing on my credit card statement so I began doing some Google searches and low and behold I came across this wonderful service that lets you send certified letters right from their website.
Click2Mail.com is a service that lets you send physical mail right from your web browser, all sorts of different mail is able to be sent including certified letters. So I was actually able to send my certified notice of cancellation to Lifetime Fitness using Click2Mail It cost around $5, which for the amount of frustration it takes to get a parking space at my local Lifetime Fitness, was well worth it in my opinion.
Hopefully this will be useful for someone else looking to save a little time/money.
As the bottle indicates in highlighted print, anyone who is taking Alli should take a multi-vitamin. The reason is simple, many vitamins in food are delivered via fat. Because Alli prevents your body from digesting some of the fat you eat, you miss out on the vitamins and their associated benefits. I recently did some research to find the “best multi-vitamin” and I wanted to share the results for you.
Experts say that the $40 bottle of vitamins offer no greater benefits over the $10 bottle of vitamins and the highest rated vitamins I could find were (surprise) One-a-day multi-vitamins.
I have been taking All/Xenical for over three years, in that time I have learned the ins and outs of the drug. I’ve gone through my ‘heavy compliance’ phases, my ‘eat a whole bunch and then let the drug handle it phases (not recommended)’ and many more. One thing I think about Alli that I don’t think people understand is how much you can eat before you “set it off”.
Recently, I began following the “big breakfast diet” because it just makes sense to me. The diet consists of eating a big breakfast rich in protein and then (hopefully) that breakfast will keep you full until Lunch to prevent snacking. It is a ‘eat three times a day diet’ and it seems to be working pretty well for me so far. Although the breakfast I eat I don’t exactly consider “healthy” it is full of protein and everything my body needs to provide me with Energy.
The Breakfast Sandwich consists of:
Two eggs
1 strip of pre-cooked bacon
A slice of colby jack cheese
and two pieces of toast
Then I usually add a glass of juice or whatever to it. Even with that amount of fat (from the eggs, bacon, and cheese), Alli still doesn’t make me have ‘leakage’ related side effects, and believe me I know what that’s all about. When I was in a less healthy mental state I used to eat candy and then take a Xenical, pure horror would ensue.
The point I am trying to make here is that you have to work pretty hard (or at least I do) to get the ‘revenge of Alli’ and that the benefits surely outweigh the negatives.
Don’t forget, Alli is currently on sale at Amazon.com all through the month of January.
Larry King Live (CNN) (Watch it) was focused on The Biggest Loser and the obesity problem in America in general. The trainers (Jillian and Bob) and contestants from various seasons were guests and offered insight into their struggle to lose weight. The most interesting guest was the winner of season four whom seemed to re-gain most of the weight he had lost which only proves that being healthy is not a destination it is a life long process which you can constantly shift in and out of.
I think most people would like to believe that when people leave The Biggest Loser ranch they are ‘fixed’. What ever be it emotions, learned behavior, or addiction that caused them to become obese is simply gone forever but that is just not true. Contestants (like everyone else) go back to their lives without the constant nurturing and support and are bombarded with all of the old temptations, emotions and environments which prompted them to gain weight in the first place.
But wait! People go home from the ranch and continue to lose weight right? Yes, but as Bob and Jillian pointed out, they are still in constant contact with them even after they leave the ranch. This poses the question then, can obesity ever really be “cured”? If the most popular trainers in the world still have to prod people after they leave the ranch, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Perhaps instead of treating the physical state of obesity which is caused by eating too much and exercising too little, Perhaps we should treat the reason people are eating too much and exercising too little in the first place. I would venture to say that at the core of 90% of most obese individuals there lies emotional problems which can be traced directly to their eating behaviors.
Telling someone who could already have emotional problems that they eat too much and are lazy doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. Maybe more research needs to be done in the psychology of obesity rather than the pharmacology. I am glad that Larry King decided to have the Biggest Loser winner who gained his weight back on. It shows both obese people and non-obese people alike that there is no quick route to becoming healthy and like with any virus one must be mindful that they still have the disease even if they aren’t showing symptoms at that moment.
Personally, I think The Biggest Loser does a lot to show people what is possible, but it gives people an unrealistic idea of what it is like once the cameras are off and Jillian and Bob aren’t there to scream at you anymore.
While I was unimpressed with the first episode of True Beauty, I found myself tremendously bored last night and it appeared to be the only thing on. The second episode, which seemed to center around how much everyone hates Chelsea, offered no real twists and turns and only proved to be mildly entertaining.
The show opens with reactions to Chelsea being sent to the “hall of beauty”, everyone seems hopeful that she will not return, and when she does people are as snarky as ever to her. “Drama” ensues when Julia (who will probably win) claims that Chelsea has stolen a pair of her Citizen jeans. The confrontation was pretty uneventful with Chelsea eventually giving up the jeans at the end.
The ‘challenge’ this week was to make the contestants buy an outfit, but the amazing twist was that they only had $100 for three peoples’ outfits, then the two people with the weakest outfit would be sent to the “hall of beauty” for possible elimination. Most of the people simply sweet-talked shop owners for the clothes they needed. C.J. and Ashley (and Chelsea but she didn’t participate) scammed hapless folks out of their clothes claiming it was for charity.
There was a ‘set-up’ challenge with an actor collecting money for children’s cancer research. Most of the contestants did end up donating. In the end, C.J. and Ashley were both sent to the “hall of beauty” and Ashley ended up going home. Controversy in sued when Ashley was sent home because she helped Chelsea put her outfit together. Everyone forgets that Ashley scammed people out of clothes by claiming it was for charity, and didn’t help the “bike messenger” up after his nasty spill during the “last straw” challenge.
Rife with petty confrontations, shallow people, and amusingly awful judges this episode didn’t really prove to be any more interesting than the last, but with the current “break” that most shows have taken I suppose it is better (slightly) than watching paint dry.
Calories, fat, and cost aside I have been drinking Starbucks for years. One of my favorite things about Starbucks has been the ability to customize your creation to (try) to make something which is both delicious and not completely disastrous to your health. My drink of choice has always been a non-fat vanilla latte. I find I really don’t miss the fat in the milk at all, and it ‘gets the job done’ on a cold Ohio morning. Recently I went to my local Starbucks and noticed new menu items called Skinny drinks. Here is the skinny on skinny.
A skinny drink, which comes in Skinny Latte, Skinny Caramel Latte, Skinny Hazelnut Latte, Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte, and Skinny Vanilla Latte are the same as the original flavors except for two major differences. First, the skinny lattes incorporate non-fat milk into the beverage, and second the skinny lattes use sugar-free flavored syrup instead of the regular sugared kind. So basically a skinny vanilla latte is the same as ordering a non-fat, sugar-free, vanilla latte (But with fewer words).
At 130 calories and 0g of fat for a 16oz skinny latte, this seems like a no-brainer compared to 250 calories and 6g of fat for the ‘non-skinny version’. Still, keep in mind that 130 calories is quite a bit for a beverage so moderation (like with anything) is king here. All in all I honestly can’t tell the difference in taste between the skinny vanilla latte, and the regular vanilla latte and to me that is the sweetest part of all.
I’ve long been one to shy away from food manufacturer’s attempts to take something that I remember as being awesome and making it healthy (which probably explains my expansive waistline). Recently Healthy Choice has been advertising a new product known as Fresh Mixers, this is the tale of my experience with the Ziti and Meat Sauce variety.
Health experts have long held a theory that the ritual of eating is almost as important as what you eat when it comes to controlling weight. A healthy eating ritual, for example would consist of preparing a meal, sitting down at the table to eat, and then going on to the next part of your day. In America many times our eating ritual is similar to: Grab fast food, eat it while [watching tv/surfing the web/working] etc, Healthy Choice’s new Fresh Mixer puts the cooking back into corporate lunch, or even a quick dinner.
The idea is simple you cook the pasta yourself, strain the pasta yourself, apply the sauce yourself and (hopefully) eat it, yourself. Compared to other Healthy Choice products which include “put tray in microwave for 2 minutes” this makes you feel like a real chef. The packaging is unique and includes everything (except for water) you need to cook your meal including a strainer, a bowl for the pasta, a bowl for the sauce and very easy instructions.
Preparing the meal is trivial, you simply remove the label on the straining lid, remove the lid, add water, put the lid back on and microwave for 3 minutes. Then you microwave the sauce for 30 seconds and combine the two in the bowl. No Muss, No Fuss.
For being a pre-packaged product I must say that the taste and texture of both the sauce and the pasta impressed me very much. The pasta was not watery and the meat sauce had (surprise) actual meat in it. The meat sauce also didn’t taste like watered down Ragu like so many other quick heat and eat meals provide. At 7 ounces coming in at just 340 calories and 6 grams of fat, this is a great lunch or main entree for any healthy dinner.
All in all the product is easy to cook, healthy, filling, and hard to resist. I would highly recommend the Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Ziti & Meat Sauce. The best news is that it doesn’t set off the Alli atom-bomb.
Note: Most supermarkets only carry single containers of this, you can use the link below to order a 6 pack from Amazon for a little more than $20
Amazon sent me a notice today that some of their most popular Heart Rate Monitors are on sale for up to 30% off. This is a great time to get this required piece of equipment for anyone trying to lose weight or just get a little more healthy.
ABC’s show True Beauty poses the question: Can someone who is [supposedly] beautiful on the outside, be beautiful on the inside as well? Normally I wouldn’t watch something as completely silly as this but on a Monday night at 10PM what else are you going to do? The premise of the show is simple, take about a dozen people (who think they’re hot) and put them into ridiculous situations which would anger anyone, and see if they get angry. The idea is, if someone isn’t courteous, polite, patient, or intelligent enough, they aren’t a “True Beauty” but is that true?
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, just because a woman has a perfectly symmetrical face (or lack thereof, depending on the circumstances) doesn’t mean that they are any more or less beautiful than the next woman. The folks from True Beauty were treated to a day at a SPA (which was basically a plastic surgeon’s office) where he claimed that he could scientifically assign them a beauty score between 1 – 100. The beauty score routine was basically a ploy to make the contestants feel bad about themselves so America could get a kick out of it. You know, bring them down a notch.
Before I go any further I would like to indicate that I personally believe the “doctor” that was on the show is a complete wack-job and that his scientific method is no more than his own opinion. The other problems I have with this show is, are they trying to say people who don’t have perfect bodies always have to be nice? and how exactly are they defining inner beauty? The three judges don’t look like they would know inner beauty if it came up and dropped a Xenical bomb in their laps.
A couple of scenes involving one of the male contestants “C.J.” seemed intent on trying to add a sense of realism to the surreal by having him expose (early on, no less) that he used to be the “fat kid”. “C.J.” also seems to have the biggest problem believing that the quack doctor can “scientifically” measure beauty but the “judges” were quick to silence one of the most interesting parts of the show.
The good news, friends is that 10 PM on a Monday night is just about the most buried time slot on TV, if ABC thought they had a hit on their hands True Beauty would’ve been ran at either 8 or 9 PM in the middle of the week. Also, don’t forget The Biggest Loser: Couples starts tonight on NBC.
is around $20 so that is around eight cents a day. The 
is the same price.
