Birthdays and Water

Birthdays come once a year for each of us. Mine came and went and was a non-event. Last year I promised to have a party every year - that was after 2 good friends had died and I thought I should celebrate each birthday. Good idea - but bad timing :D

I have the good fortune of being an Aquarius - but in North America - in the places I have lived - that is more generally cold/rain/snow or yuk weather for parties.

And this year, like every 4 years, it is right after Inauguration Day. For the last few Inaugurations, that did not matter, but this one did - and I helped organize an Inauguration Watch breakfast on the 20th and went to a big bash that night.

But the final reasons for not having a party, not counting that I was already partied out - were 1] I had an all day meeting on my birthday so having a party the night before or night of was not a good idea BUT the real kicker ? 2] when I tried figuring out how to cook and clean with no running water in the kitchen!

Amazing how spoiled we have become. There are people without running water in the house and I complain about lack of same in the kitchen...It's made me think about getting more involved with organizations that work around the word to help others get clean running water.

Water is so necessary for our health and so easy to come by [except in my kitchen :D] that we who are so lucky to live with running water ought to help those who live without. It would make the world a better place for all of us.

On February 12th the world-wide Twitter community is hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water http://twestival.com/

So go Twitter , meet great people and do good....

Losing Fat in 2009

Months after starting on the product I use, I am again losing inches. My body is odd - it does things in bunches and then plateaus... So I lost inches at first, then plateaued, and now again lost inches.

I do not weigh myself that regularly or measure the inches but for Inaugural evening here I tried putting on a few dresses I had not worn in a while because they had made me "look fat" [you all know that feeling :D] - but on Tuesday evening they hung on me like the old potato sacks ! Ouch I had nothing fancy to wear to a "ball" - but this being Portland, a pair of semi-dressy pants and a jacket passes as "dressed-up" even among the evening gowns... [I hear opera goers can range from gowns to cut offs or tattered jeans.

And I had fun telling everyone why I was not more decked out - while eating the yummy desserts they served ..... mmmm....caramel and chocolate fondues :D

I do not want to do too many of my own heavy hitting ads here so if you do want more info on the fat loss product you can email me lynn_dorman at yahoo dot com or call me at 503.477.5550.

The company is embarking on its own Economic Stimulus Plan. Yes - even in these dire economic times, we call still all make money if we work together...so if the thought of fat loss and/or making money appeals to you - please get in touch with me...I don't do hype..

Tainted Weight Loss Pills - Consumer Alert

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has updated an alert on tainted weight loss pills.

An FDA analysis found that the undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients in some of these products include sibutramine (a controlled substance), rimonabant (a drug not approved for marketing in the United States), phenytoin (an anti-seizure medication), phenolphthalein (a solution used in chemical experiments and a suspected cancer causing agent) and bumetanide (a diuretic). Some of the amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredients far exceeded the FDA-recommended levels, putting consumers' health at risk...

The health risks posed by these products can be serious; for example, sibutramine, which was found in many of the products, can cause high blood pressure, seizures, tachycardia (rapid heart beat), palpitations, heart attack or stroke. This drug can also interact with other medications that patients may be taking and increase their risk of adverse drug events. The safety of sibutramine has also not been established in pregnant and lactating women, or in children younger than 16 years of age.

FDA page here:http://cli.gs/LbXPUa

I write much about our obesity problem but I also let you know about the safe products I take. Please be most careful if you are buying something - read the label...my label has no words on it that sound like chemicals - mine sound like foods - because they are!

Make a healthy choice..

Tomorrow

No matter where you live, your age, your political persuasion or who you voted for - tomorrow is a world changing Inauguration..

I used to live in Washington, D.C. and it's nice to see it shine in anticipation of tomorrow's major changing event...It's also nice to see ow the rest of the world is also anticipating the political shine of Washington, D.C. to come back.

As a community organizer Obama "gets it." He has dealt with elderly, poor, young and middle aged people and understands what is needed for and from all of us.

What changes can we who are older expect? For starters - some respect. We won't be seen as a group feeding at the public trough of social security; we will be seen as caring people who have a lot of wisdom to share; a lot of organizational know-how; a willingness to work/help and a lot of experience to pass along - after all most readers here are older than Barack Obama :D

So here's to a brighter future for the world!

Hormone Replacement Therapy: Does it Shrink Your Brain?

In short the answer is: if you are older it quite probably does shrinks the frontal lobes.

About those frontal lobes from Wikipedia:

The executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events.

The frontal lobes also play an important part in retaining longer term memories which are not task-based. These are often memories associated with emotions derived from input from the brain's limbic system. The frontal lobe modifies those emotions to generally fit socially acceptable norms.

And from the study:

The National Institutes of Health study looked at women from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, which is a subset of the largest study of hormone replacement therapy. The study found that, overall, women taking the hormones had smaller frontal brain lobes than women who did not follow the treatment.

"Older women who took these [hormones] ... they had greater brain atrophy in these brain regions that are critical for the maintenance of memories," said Susan Resnick, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging, Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, and the study's primary author.

Full article

It may be that HRT accelerates what brain decline had already started and clearly more research is needed - BUT - this study, added to other not-so-good-stuff about the effects of HRT would make me think hard and long about HRT as an option.

I like using all of my frontal lobes and want them to stay as they are - [or even grow if that's possible]

Obesity: The Latest Statistics [hint - they are bad]

This information is from 2005-2006. It takes a while to gather and analyze info so we can probably safely assume it's worse now in 2009!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of obese American adults outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight, according to the latest statistics from the federal government.

Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are "extremely" obese.

"More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report.

And:

In May, the CDC reported that 32 percent of U.S. children fit the definition of being overweight, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese.

Complete article

Please, for your own health sake, and that of your loved ones, if you are overweight or obese...do something about it NOW!

I market a product that works!
Go here and order it: http://cli.gs/LLTEV6/lynndorman

Browse all products and look for Optimal Weight and Fitness...then OsoLean[TM]

[Save money on your purchase by becoming a member or an associate]

Still Figuring Out What is and What is NOT Age Related

The last few weeks have been stressful. Major bad weather in the form of snow followed by a day where we got over 3.5 inches of rain! My friends back East have emailed and called as Portland OR has made the news back there. I assured them that as long as the Columbia River does not breach the levee - I am safe. But I do mention the stress levels.

Then late yesterday afternoon as I walked my dog, I saw snow sticking to his fur! I won't repeat here what I said :D. The snow kept coming and coming and sticking. I was ready to pack up and leave - me the New Englander...

It stopped snowing at some point during the night and the temperatures rose - but this morning I was still in a state of some sort of stress wondering what the weather would throw at me next and decided my stress was age related - that I am just getting too old to keep dealing with too much snow, too much rain and too much mud.

Then late this afternoon I ran into some neighbors - "What did you think when it snowed last night?" I said my comment was not fit for polite company and they laughed. "Ditto" they agreed. Then they added that this been a stressful period for them...Hmm.. Not much later I ran into another neighbor who said much the same things..

My poor brain had to reassess the age factor as all those people are at least 20 years younger than I am. It was an awakening that even I, who teaches and writes about aging, fell into an easy thought pattern that my stress level in dealing with this weather was age related. It was not...Not if people much younger than I were experiencing the same emotions and using the same foul language!

We live in a society where we read and hear so much about the perils of aging and we live with so many age related biases that we often forget to do our own reality checking.

So - for 2009 I now resolve to put "it's aged related" way way back in the schema that my mind wanders to when thinking about my own thoughts and feelings.

Just because we are older does not mean that everything we do or feel is related to a number!

Osteoporosis medication warning and a happy 2009

Hope everyone here has a super duper life - in 2009 and beyond.

Hate starting the year with a warning - but as many readers are women who might be taking pills for osteoporosis you need to read this because esophageal cancer has been linked to osteoporosis drugs.

Please check into safer solutions for maintaining bone density...