This Time I Mean It

Of Dietary Supplements and Flying Unicorns

Scott "Q" Marcus — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:35:45 +0000

Why is the diet industry replete with so many phony claims?

Recently, I was exposed to yet another “miracle diet product” that got my hackles up — and rest assured you don’t want to be around when I have elevated hackles.

The radio ad began something like:

“We are looking for a select few people in this listening area that want to be involved in a new weight loss study who want to lose no more than two pounds a day.”

Firstly, announcements referencing “this listening area,” are not from “this listening area;” they’re part of a national or regional campaign pretending to sound local. Should they be homegrown, they would say something such as, “We need people in Northern California…” Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with national advertising; however, the fact that it’s disingenuous raises the first in a series of red flags.

Speaking of such, let’s wave some more.

Indeed, there are countless people “in this listening area” who would easily want to shed the required poundage at approximately two pounds every 24 hours. It ain’t gonna happen. Granted, they reference “no more” than two pounds a day. I mean, who would be upset if all they shed was a pound a half a day?

In one month, I have the perfect body. How cool is that?

An important admonition: One cannot lose weight — and sustain it (and that’s essential) — that rapidly without sacrificing one’s health. Therefore, the set up is not only promoting unrealistic and unhealthy expectations, but it’s setting up “participants” to feel like failures should they lose the more realistic one to two pounds per week.

Being your dedicated diet detective, I ventured to the website to suss out the details. What I discovered was that we could purchase a new miracle supplement “electromagnetically encoded to copy the effects of homeopathic formulas.” To get the aforementioned results, one consumed a few drops regularly and followed a “VCLD” (very low calorie diet) of approximately 500 calories per day.

Let’s put that in perspective.

An average 45-year old, 5’ 4” woman, weighing about 140 to 150 pounds, and not excessively active; needs about 1,800 daily calories to maintain her weight. Anything less causes weight loss. Should she drop to 1300, she’d shed about a pound a week.

Therefore, based entirely on math, if one only consumes 500 calories a day – with or without supplements — she’s got no choice but to get thinner. The question is, “At what price?” After all, if you lose your weight and damage your health, was it worth it? Personally, I’d rather be pudgy and relatively healthy than “at my correct weight” while on the verge of keeling over.

To sum it up, at the bottom of the site, in a minute, faint, grey font, almost blending in to the page, is this text:

“…(Product) has not been demonstrated to be effective adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. There is no substantial evidence that it increases weight loss beyond that resulting from caloric restriction, that it causes a more attractive or ‘normal’ distribution of fat, or that it decreases the hunger and discomfort associated with calorie-restricted diets …”

‘Nuff said.

I’d like to flap my arms and fly. I’d also love a pet unicorn. The likelihood of those is equal to me losing a whole lot of weight without changing how I eat, move, and think. And, at least I don’t have to spend $10.25 in shipping to be disappointed.

To hear the audio podcast of this column – and some of the background in writing it – follow this link.

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Audio: Of Diet Supplements and Flying Unicorns

Scott "Q" Marcus — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:16:18 +0000

This is the podcast from year 7, episode 11.

It’s 7:05 in length. It’s about the number of fake “dietary aids” available.

You can download it by clicking here.

You can read the column here.

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Happy Heart Month! Take Care of Your Heart

Scott "Q" Marcus — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:02:41 +0000

by special guest author Eliz Greene. (Note: Join Eliz as our special guest on Feb 22, 2012 at 10AM in a live interview. There is no charge and you can find out more here.)

Each February EmbraceYourHeart.com focuses on Women’s Heart Health – to build awareness, improve treatment, and end research disparities.

Over the past ten years, we’ve done a pretty good job! Most women recognize heart disease as the number one killer of women of all ages.

Are you putting your heart as your #1 priority?

To celebrate Heart Month 2012 – here are 12 ways you can Embrace Your Heart. Share them with a woman you love and ask her to take care of #1 (her heart)!

Wake Up! The majority of women don’t know their own personal risk of heart disease. Take the time of get your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar checked and have a conversation about your family history, weight, and lifestyle with a medical professional.
Know The Signs: Women’s symptoms of heart attack can be very subtle. Any unusual pain in your jaw, neck, shoulder, torso – really anywhere from the top of your head to your hips – can be a symptom of heart attack. Uncomfortable pressure, burning or squeezing in your chest, shortness of breath, dizziness, cold sweat, and nausea can all be symptoms as well. Play it safe – call 911 and get help right away.
Call A Friend: Stress increases your risk of heart disease – one easy way to reduce stress is to talk to a friend. Women who maintain positive relationships with other women reduce their risk by 30%! Girl talk is good for your heart!
Pet A Friend: Another great stress reducer is to pet a dog or cat. Yes, our furry friends are good for the heart too!
Indulge! Adult life can be so serious – take time to indulge in something you enjoy - especially if it makes you laugh! Don’t feel guilty about watching that crazy reality show – if it distracts you and allows you to relax, enjoy!
Power Nap: Most women do not get the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. A 20-minute nap can do wonders to reduce stress and refresh your body and mind.
Move Your Bootie! Sitting all day has negative health consequences – get up every hour or two and spend 3 to 5 minutes moving around. Take a quick walk, stretch, dance around – do something to get your blood pumping. You’ll return ready to retain more information and be more productive. More Move Your Bootie tips.
Drink Water: Perhaps the most overlooked quick health tip - drinking 60 to 80 ounces of water each day. You need water to maintain healthy blood pressure, regulate body temperature, and keep your body (especially your digestive system) working properly.
Learn CPR: It’s easy to learn – anyone can be a hero! Watch our CPR Video.
Have A Carrot: Most women don’t eat enough veggies and fruits. Keep baby carrots handy, pack an apple or orange for a snack, or enjoy a salad for lunch. All great ways to pack in more healthy nutrients. Get more nutrition tips here.
Don’t Smoke: Smoking puts heart disease into overdrive in women. Women who smoke get heart disease 12 to 15 years earlier than women who don’t.
Join the Fight!Become an advocate for Women and Heart Disease. Lend your voice to make a difference find out how here.

Happy Heart Month – make sure you take time to ask someone you love to take care of her heart!

About the author: Eliz Greene works busy people to improve heart health, so they can work well, feel better, and stress less. She is a heart attack survivor and the author of the Busy Woman’s Guide to a Healthy Heart as well as 3 other books on wellness. She writes one of the top 50 health and wellness blogs and is a sought-after heart health, stress management, & wellness speaker. If you are planning a women’s wellness program, workplace wellness program or programs for healthcare professionals check out EmbraceYourHeart.com to see if Eliz would be a good fit with your organization.

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Monday Motivational Memo: Overcoming Resistance to Change

Scott "Q" Marcus — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:29:08 +0000

Rarely – if at all – does anyone WANT to change.

The results of the change are what actually motivate us.

Keep your focus on those.

“Logically,” we usually know what to do to improve our health and our lives. We just don’t do it.

Why?

Usually, it’s because we’re focusing on the mental work it takes. That seems taxing and overwhelming and not worth the effort. Therefore, we quit.

The key is to focus on the benefits you will receive by doing the work. For example, don’t focus on how hard it is to stick to your diet; picture how you’ll feel in one hour when you’ve resisted the habit.

In effect, focus on where you will be from your efforts, not what it’s taking to achieve them.

Every Monday, a new motivational memo is posted. Subscribers to ThisTimeIMeanIt.com’s coaching service get this – and many more benefits – sent to them directly. If you’d like to know more, follow this link.

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Terrifying Video: El Camino del Rey Narrow Walkway

Scott "Q" Marcus — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:57:12 +0000

Sometimes, you have to face your fear to change.

This example however, is extreme. This 9 minute video will keep you on the edge of your seat.

According to Wikipedia: El Caminito del Rey (English: The King’s little pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in the province of Málaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to Camino del Rey (English: King’s pathway).

The walkway is one metre (3 feet and 3 inches) in width, and rises over 100 metres (350 feet) above the river below. Constructed of concrete resting on steel rails supported by stanchions at around 45 degrees into the rock face, it is currently in a highly deteriorated state and there are numerous sections where part or all of the concrete top has collapsed. The result is large open air gaps that are bridged only by narrow steel beams or other support fixtures. Very few of the original handrails exist but a safety-wire runs the length of the path. Several people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years and after two fatal accidents in 1999 and 2000 the local government closed both entrances, but not the gift shop.

Here’s the view from the ground:

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You’re Finished! Congratulations.

Craig Harrison — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:09:42 +0000

What have you finished today?

What will you finish this week? This month? This year?

What are you waiting for?

Look around your office. How many projects are on your desk at present? Which ones have taken up permanent occupancy? I consider my desk to be a high rent district. Squatters aren’t welcome. If it stays, it pays.

After coaching from colleague John Tenza I now awake each morning and ask myself: “What am I going to finish today?”

There’s great satisfaction in completing projects, of shipping orders, of finishing manuscripts and closing deals. Conversely there’s negative energy that surrounds projects with no end in sight, ones that just seem to hang on. Liberate yourself from these energy drainers. Commit to complete!

Just as the best time to make a sales call is right after you’ve just made a sale, so too will you feel fantastic about existing projects when you complete one of them today.

Become a Master of Time and Space

According to Tenza, a multidimensional sales trainer, “clutter is a killer. When you put things in their rightful place, toss or give away items, you clear your mind as well as your desk and office.” The key is to get into action. You must decide to do it!

Completions Not Just for Quarterbacks and Receivers

Strive for completions. Coach Tenza knows: “completions give you freedom from that gnawing stress that something needs to be done. Each time you complete an existing project you create new space and new energy for yourself.” John and I concur: your brain and body will thank you or the successes you will realize through completions.

On Becoming A Terminator

Here are some tips to complete more projects.

Calendar time for projects and their completion.
Go public with dates for completion of milestones.
Defer gratification; link your own rewards to completion dates.
Stagger projects to make regular progress on short, medium and long-term projects weekly.
When you get stuck, get help; ask for second opinions, reviews or assistance to avoid losing momentum.
Track your progress with flow or pert charts, calendars or other schemes that allow you to visualize your success.
For difficult tasks within projects, break them down further into more manageable parts.
When feeling stuck, change your body chemistry. Exercise and you will energize yourself and have renewed vigor for completing projects.

There are many ways to reach the “end” zone — incremental progress or leaps and bounds. Look anew at your desk, your to-do list and your yearly goals and build your completions.

Congratulations…you’ve finished this article. What else will you finish today?

About the Author: San Francisco Bay Area-based Professional speaker Craig Harrison’s Expressions of Excellence!™ provides sales and service solutions through speaking. For information on keynotes, training, coaching, curriculum for licensing and more, call (510) 547-0664, visit www.ExpressionsOfExcellence.com or E-mail Craig@ExpressionsOfExcellence.com for inquiries.

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Where are my Crayons?

Scott "Q" Marcus — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:50:55 +0000

I was “row monitor” in second grade; sitting in the last seat making sure the students in my row behaved. On this day, all was quiet; no one messed with the law when Scott was around. My enforcement duties complete, I was able to turn my attention to the current “quiet time,” period that daily session where we did whatever we wanted, just so it was without sound. Priority one was schoolwork; so I pulled out my assignment list; decorated with pencil-drawn army men and a poorly drawn reproduction of Mighty Mouse. Nothing was pending so I re-filed it, still seeking something to occupy my time.

When our assignments were up to speed, we were allowed to retrieve our coloring books and engage our more artistic personae. Eagerly, I flipped pages, seeking the perfect image on which I could express by imaginative abilities. Alas, I had used all 64 colors on every image; every page had been filled; nothing remained

Sadly, I folded my hands on my desk, looked up at the ticking clock and waited. I had nothing to do, probably the last time in my life that has ever happened.

Fast-forward 50 years…

Time is greased in adult life and we must be hyper-efficient. To that end, while in the shower, I shave with one hand and fill a mug with hot water with the other, allowing for me instant coffee when I step out of the stall. Trying to trim a few more seconds, my electric toothbrush is held in place by my tightened lips as it grinds against my teeth. This “no hands” approach permits me to fasten my tie with my one hand and use the other to fire up my computer so it can sync with my smart phone and send email auto-replies to those who contacted me overnight. A simple auto-log-on program loads my important files, updates my database, and prints my to do list while I use the restroom, allowing me to scrape together a few more ticks of the clock, which I use to brush my hair while doing my business and checking the newspaper.

Really? Is this what life is all about? What happened to me?

Realizing the imbalance, I actually bought an app that shuts off my computer for five minutes every hour, reminding me to take a break. As embarrassing as it is to admit, when the screen starts dimming, I hysterically holler at the monitor, “No! Not now! Please… give me five more minutes!” Fingers become a blurred tornado of typing, attempting to cram in a few more keystrokes before being sentenced to real life. I respond to these forced breaks as if the Grim Reaper was at my door, not as a reminder that there’s more to me than how much is on my hard drive.

If time is the oven in which we all cook, I am using a microwave.

Today’s multi-task-too-much-to-do-and-no-time-to-do-it pace in which we boil has us off balance and unhappy. Like Alice in the looking glass, we run to stay still.

This prompts a question: What really matters?

Seriously, will a conversation with a friend or a stroll down the street really produce a productivity catastrophe? Taking the longer view, in the end, will it matter how many reports we wrote or if our house was Martha Stewart clean?

In flashes of sanity, I realize — and I know you do too — that the most essential moments are slower-paced, and with those we most cherish. Yet, like the remainder of our lives, they too are whooshing by too quickly and without pause.

It’s time to take a breath; slow down a little. Turn boil to simmer and break out the coloring books.

To listen to the podcast and the background of this column, follow this link.

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Audio: Where Are The Crayons Podcast

Scott "Q" Marcus — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:32:18 +0000

This is year 7, column #10.

The name of the column is called “Where are the Crayons?” and it’s all about taking time to slow down and pay attention to what’s really important. It’s 6:50

You can download the podcast by clicking on this link.

To read the column, follow this link.

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Overcoming the Negative

Allison Dean — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:05:49 +0000

It’s impossible to go through life without experiencing negativity.

A cheating spouse, a horrible boss, a conniving friend or family member; the list is endless, and we’ve all had at least one negative experience in our lives. It’s important, however, that we overcome those negative people and experiences so that we can learn, move on, and live.

Here’s how I overcame a negative personal experience.

I dated someone for nearly seven years and was expecting for us to grow old together, happily-bickering into our late years. I was sorely mistaken, so mistaken in fact that I was caught off guard when he broke up with me… over a social network. I later found out that he had been cheating on me for quite some time.

My initial reaction to the break-up was to harp on the fact that not only had he broken up with me, someone he claimed to love, in such an insensitive, cruel way, but on top of everything he had been so conniving as to be unfaithful. I just couldn’t let it go; it consumed me and was all I could think about. I was stuck. I couldn’t begin moving on because I wasn’t allowing myself; I was just so concentrated on being outraged with the way he had treated me and our relationship. Now, nearly a year after this experience, I have a completely different perspective. Like that Cardigans song, “You live, you learn,” and here is what I learned one needs to do to overcome a negative experience:

Analyze Your Situation

My mistake in overcoming my negative experience was harping on what this man had done to me. What we need to do when something negative happens to us, is understand that:

It happened.
Someone else perpetrated the negative action brought against us.
We cannot control what that person decided to do.

“My ex-boyfriend broke up with me on Facebook and he cheated on me. He violated my trust and discounted what we had. He did it to me; I did not do it to him. I could not control what he did to me.” This is what I needed to understand from the beginning instead of spending months harboring outrage at how he had treated me. I needed to understand that it happened and that it wasn’t my fault; and I needed to understand that I couldn’t have stopped it from happening.

Write Down What You Learned

I realized months after the fact that there were signs that things weren’t as good as I made myself believe they were. Looking back, there’s a lot that I’ve taken from that relationship, both during and after the fact. After I’d accepted that what happened to me wasn’t my fault, I randomly sat down one day and wrote down the mistakes I made and what I could do to prevent myself from making them again. It was therapeutic and made me feel in control and empowered.

Understand That In Learning, the Experience Was Positive

Something else I came to realize was that the experience, despite being painful, was actually positive. Coming out of it, I had actually won. Not only was I not in a deceitful, selfish relationship anymore, but I had been given the chance to find something real that would make me happy. In understanding what I had learned, I came to understand that I was happy that the experience happened.

Let It Go

This is something I’m admittedly still working on, but only in the sense that something will remind me of the experience and I feel my heart rate increase in a split second of anger. It’s not that I still harp on what happened to me, but sometimes before I get my head on straight, I get pulled back in to the irrational, negative thinking that emotions can initiate. And I think that the constant struggle of emotions with logic is a quality that makes us human; we can’t quash it, we can only accept and work with it.

Today what I take from my experience is that I know what to look for in relationships, and not necessarily just romantic ones; after all, relationships are what make up life. And I recognize that, over time, in the battle over logic and emotions for that particular negative experience, logic will win and I will harbor nothing but positive feelings about it. Because in order to truly overcome something negative, we have to fully let the negative we’ve experienced go and take only from it the positive.

About the Author: Allison Dean is a writer bringing to us how we can overcome negative experiences. Allison also writes about medical malpractice attorneys.

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Analyzing My Actions for True Results

Scott "Q" Marcus — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:13:47 +0000

Anti-Perfectionism Affirmation

Analyzing my Actions

Our thoughts lead to our actions. Our actions become our lives.

If something in your life is consistently NOT the way you expect it or want it to be, it’s time to take a look at the actions in your life. However, it’s important to do so without “beating yourself up.” Accept that the old action was simply the best way you knew how to do something – until now. Now that you know more, you will choose to do something different.

Reward yourself for what you tried – and then let it go (without blame)

Today, I will evaluate the results of my behaviors with appreciation for the intention and honesty in the results.

Note: this one in a series of “Striving for Imprefection” Affirmations aimed at helping get past the scourge of perfectionism that holds us back. You can find all affirmations here.