Cycling

One of my favorite exercises is riding my bicycle. Not only is it a great cardio workout, but it works nearly every muscle in the body, including all of the leg muscles, your back, arms, shoulders and even abs. I enjoy cycling more than running or walking. I guess it's because I can cover more ground and view more scenary.

I recently stumbled onto a great bicycling site. Wekeepyoucycling.com is an online store where you can anything you want for your bicycle. Anything from Swiss Stop Performance Brake Pads to KEO Carbon Pedals, Wekeepyoucycling.com has it.

Believe me, living in Central Georgia, I know how hot it can get outside. I know how tempting it is to stay inside in the A.C. and watch TV; however, I usually find time to ride my bike at least three times a week. I've bought all kinds of cool stuff from wekeepyoucycling.com that makes my bike rides easier and more enjoyable. If you're a cycling fan, you should definitely visit this store.

Interesting Weekend...

So I hope all you Fathers had a wonderful Father's Day. I took mine out to eat yesterday, and we had a great time. I did have an interesting night last night. Along with everything else I do, I work with my local fire and rescue squad. Last night we got a call to stand by at the small local airport, which is not operational at night, for a possible emergency crash landing either at the airport or on the interstate. We stayed there about 30 minutes before we got word that the pilot was able to make it safely to the airport in a neighboring county. Fortunately, everything was ok. He was having engine failure and was very close to crashing. In my years of working rescue, that would've been a first. Thank God it was avoided.

Online Shopping

I do a lot of shopping online, especially for Christmas, birthdays, and other holidays. What I really like about online shopping is it takes a lot of the hassle out of shopping, and you can use coupon codes at a lot of online stores and get things cheaper than at a traditional bricks and mortar store. I just got my dad a book from Amazon for Father's Day. It literally took me twenty minutes to do all my shopping for this holiday. I know that may seem impersonal but I know what my dad likes and I just did a search for it in Amazon and picked up exactly what I wanted to get him. I used a coupon and got free shipping so it was just as if I had went to the store and got it (actually a little cheaper). I just didn't have to go through the trouble or use the gas to go get it. You can even use Amazon coupons at our Weight Master Amazon Store to buy all your weight loss products.

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Sweat the Weight Off

I bet I've lost five pounds in sweat in the past couple of days. No, I didn't go to a suana unless that's what you call central Georgia. I've been helping my dad tear down an old outbuilding he had in his backyard. It was over thirty years old and was about half rotted down. At least it was cooler this week. The heat index was only around 95 to 97 instead of the 105 to 107 it was last week. Still with 100% humidity you do a lot of sweating. It was good exercise and it made up for the lack of good eating and activities that I have left off due to being extremely busy at work. Anyway, my dad appreciated the help and that reminds me, Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there.

Pingo Calling Card

If you are like me you hate paying your local phone company for long distance access. They charge all these extra fees (toll accesses, service charges, FCC charges) and then the rate usually is not all the great either. So what I have been doing is using a cheap prepaid phone card for all my long distance calls. Basically, you buy a card at a store it has an access number that you call before you place your call. They usually have a set number of minutes, and when they are used up you throw it away and buy another card. These usually give you a better rate without a lot of the extra fees.

I have just come across a "virtual" calling card called Pingo. It is called virtual because it is not an actual card. You sign up on the internet and put a certain amount of money into your account. Pingo then gives you a toll-free access number and a PIN number to use to make calls. You don't have to keep going back to the store to buy more cards. You just login to your account and put more money in or use the Auto-Recharge feature to automatically put more money on your account when it gets so low. The only fee is a monthly maintenance fee of 98 cents.

Pingo phone cards are a service of iBasis, one of the largest carriers of international VoIP phone calls in the world. Some normal calling cards will not let you place calls to international phones but Pingo does and with great rates too. Most calls within the United States is 1.8 cents a minute and most international calls are around 3 cents depending on what country you call. Pingo's RateWatcher is always looking for ways to lower costs, comparing calling cards, and getting lower rates. You can receive up to four hours of international calls just for signing up. There is also a referral program where you can get $15 for each new customer you refer.

So if you are like me and are using calling cards anyway, you might want to look into signing up for Pingo for all your long distance calling.

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Music

How many of you guys listen to music while exercising? I think I'd be safe in saying that the majority of us do. It helps motivate me. I absolutely love music. If I had to choose a favorite type, I'm not sure that I could. I love some country and rock'n'roll. Actually, I'm a drummer and play in a local band sometimes on the weekend.

One of my favorite bands of all time is The Police. Have you guys seen heard the new police cd. It has some of their biggest hits on it. I guess one of my favorite of their hits is Roxanne. One of the reasons, probably, is that I love playing it. Their music is very unique. They are one of those bands that, as soon as you hear one of their songs begin, you know it's The Police. Their energy and styles have inspired and influenced bands so much. I know some of their music and energy has influenced the small, no-name band I'm in. If you haven't already, you really need to pick up the new police cd. I believe that, even if you're not a huge Police fan, or a fan of that type music, you'll still enjoy this cd. I can't think of a bad song on the whole cd. It's just an all around great project, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Win a New York fly-away to see The Police live.

Fun way to exercise...

As you all know, one of the keys to exercising do something you enjoy. For me, I've gotten in to tennis. I'm lucky to have a court right across the street from me. Every chance I get, I practice my serves. Unfortunately it hasn't helped much. Tennis is alot more tiring than it looks. After a while, my right arm basically feels like rubber; however, I enjoy it, and it makes exercising enjoyable. That's what everyone should do; find something enjoyable so you won't dread exercising.

MedicScan

Some of you may have noticed that when you go to the doctor now they may scan your driver's license or health insurance cards into the computer. This blew me away the first time it happened. If you want more details about one of the programs that allows them to do this check out Medicscan. MediScan is pretty straight forward and easy to use. You just insert the card into the scanner, and it automatically scans both sides of the card simultaneously into the computer. The image can then be stored on the computer or on the local area network for later use. This type of technology should greatly improve the medical industry. It should use less paperwork, increase productivity, and cut down on human error. I can see where in the future there won't even be any paper files. It will all be done on computer. So if you want to see more details about how this technology works check out Medicscan.

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Stressed Out

Well, I hate to sound like I'm whining to you guys, but I'm a little stressed out. As you might remember from one my previous posts, one of our employees left us for another job last Friday. Well, another employee has now given her resignation. That cuts our office staff in half. It is the busy time of the month on top of all that. We all know what stress does to one's eating habits. I've caught myself snacking when I'm not even really hungry. I've got to do better. I'm going to start trying breathing exercises and just take it one day at a time. Please keep me in mind and I hope things start looking up here at work.

Whogets.com - Online Game Show

There is a new online game show called whogets.com. It is free to play with nothing to buy or spam to receive. All you have to do is sign up. Here's how it works. After signing up there are many contests you can choose from. Each contest has two rounds. In the first the prize is displayed and you choose whether or not you want to enter to win the prize. At the end of this round seven contestants are randomly chosen to go the next round. In this round those seven contestants write a brief explanation as to why they want or need the prize. Then all other members vote on who they think should win. The contestant with the most votes wins the prize. You might want to go join whogets.com. It's free and there is a good chance of winning something.

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Meade mySky

If you are like me, you don't know the difference between Orion's Belt and the Big Dipper but you enjoy looking up into the night sky. Well, there is this cool new gadget called the meade my sky. The mySky is a hand-held device that helps you to identify celestial objects. It is easy to use. All you do is turn it on, point it at what you want identified, and pull the trigger. It then tells you what you are looking at on a full-color LCD screen. If you have a Meade computerized telescope the mySky can actually control it. You just point and shoot and the telescope moves to the target you choose. The meade my sky uses GPS and other technologies to identify over 30,000 objects in the sky and can give you a tour of the best objects in your sky based on your date, time, and location. It's amazing what they are coming up with. It is really pretty cool so you might want to check out the meade my sky.

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Ate Too Much

Today, we had a going away party for one of our employees who is changing jobs. We ordered out for pizza, and I ate entirely too much. I probably had twice my daily caloric intake in one meal. It will be ok though. I'll hit the gym this weekend, and I've got plenty of yard work to do. I'll have to eat healthy over the weekend to make up for it.

Consumer Reports Diet Ratings

The June 2007 issue of Consumer Reports has a really great article that rates several of the latest diet books and plans. The article summizes that the basic rule of weight loss (take in fewer calories than you burn) has not changed but the techniques to achieve this put forth by the different plans and books do differ.

The article reviews seven diet books. Since most of them are new and haven't been put to a clinical trial, the books were rated on an expert-panel questionnaire and analysis of nutritional quality. All the books offered healthful menus but differed in the restrictiveness of the diets and the quality of exercise and nutritional science information. The books reviewed in order of their overall score are The Best Life Diet; Eat, Drink, & Weigh Less; You On A Diet; The Abs Diet; The South Beach Diet; The Sonoma Diet; and Ultra-Metabolism. Please read the article or go to www.ConsumerReports.org to read the detailed analysis of the diet books.

The article also reviews eight diet plans. All the plans reviewed have been tested in clinical trials and published in scientific journals. However, they have generally produced less than 10% weight loss after a year and have had dropout rates of more than 20%. The diet plans were scored on adherence to nutritional guidelines and the results of published clinical studies. The plans reviewed in order of their overall score are Volumetrics, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, eDiets, The Zone Diet, Ornish Diet, and Atkins Diet. Please read the article or go to www.ConsumerReports.org to read the detailed analysis of the diet plans.

Finally, the article offers some general strategies that are fairly common to all successful diets: choose and limit your fats, eat healthfully but sparingly, cut out simple or refined carbs, and fill up on low-density foods. It also warns that there is no silver bullet to weight loss and quick fixes such as diet pills can actually do more harm than good.

This article is very well written and researched. I suggest everyone read it especially those of us who are trying to lose weight or are considering buying one of these diet books or starting one of the reviewed diet plans.

Sports

I'm a huge sports fan. I love baseball, I love watching basketball, and I could watch and play football all year. I Lebron and the Cavs made it to the NBA Finals, but did you guys notice the number of players and managers thrown out of games this weekend. I was insane. It must have been a full moon or something. First of all, Rasheed Wallace need to be beat with his daddy's belt, because he's nothing but a big baby. The Cub's manager was just acting out of frustration, and Joe Torre about the same. I guess it's a little suprising that my man Bobby Cox wasn't kicked out.

I didn't get in much of a workout this weekend, but I didn't play a couple of games of tennis. I was 1-1. I finally learned how to serve consistantly, hooray. I also danced, and I know you guys don't know or don't care, but that's not good. Have a wonderful Monday.

Rehab Referral Service

I think my boss has finally found a way to find the best drug treatment program for her family member with an addiction. She discovered 1800nodrugs.com, a free drug rehabilitation service. It is a service designed to help drug addicts, alcoholics, chronic relapse victims, and their families find an effective drug rehab and intervention for alcoholism and drug addiction of the highest quality at no cost. They are familiar with the thousands of centers and programs in the nation and can help addicts or family members find the one most appropriate for them. Their website also has a lot of good information about various addictions, ranging from alcoholism to prescription drug abuse to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroine. As you might remember from my previous posts, my boss and the rest of her family were having trouble agreeing on where to send their relative for treatment. She is hopeful that when they all sit down together and call 1-800-NO-DRUGS they will be able to agree on the best place for their loved one. I will try to keep you posted on their results and please continue to remember them in your prayers.
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Stop Your Addiction

My boss just found another drug rehab program she likes for her family member suffering from addiction. It is called the First Step 28 Day Drug Rehab program. It is an alternative to normal 12 step programs. The First Step Drug Rehab helps to achieve sobriety in 5 Stages: Detoxification and Withdrawal, Self Control and Communication Exercises, Sauna Cleansing Process, Study Improvement, and Drug Free Remedies for Discomforts. My boss seems to think that since her family member has already been through the normal 12 step program and slipped back into addiction that one of these all natural programs will help him change the way he feels and thinks about drugs and addiction. Like I mentioned in a previous post the only problem is the rest of the family wants to keep him in Georgia and this program is in Michigan. But please keep praying for this man.

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Drug Rehab

My boss has a family member that has a problem with drug addiction. He overdosed a few weeks ago and she had to leave work to check on him at the hospital. They had to pump his stomach among other things. Lately she has been looking for a drug treatment center to enroll him in. He has been to one before but he returned to his old problem. My boss was looking on the internet for information on different centers and come across the Stone Hawk website. She was very impressed. The center has one of the highest success rates, 76%, in the country. They use an all natural approach to treat addiction. The program uses vitamins, minerals, exercise, and education to detox and rehabilitate the patients. Stone Hawk is run by people that were once addicts themselves so they understand what the patients are going through. The only drawback for my boss is that the center is located in Michigan and her other family members want to keep him in Georgia. She is still trying to convince them to use Stone Hawk, but I just hope he gets the help that he needs wherever he goes. I'll be praying for him, and I hope you will too.

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