Ever noticed there aren’t a lot of wrinkled fat people walking around? Along with cleavage, being mostly wrinkle-free is one of the benefits of packing extra pounds.

Personally, that doesn’t stop me from obsessing over skin care. After trying everything under the sun to keep my pores clean and small, I’m looking into making the switch from harsh chemicals to natural skin care products, because I suspect those chemicals I’ve been using might actually be making the problem worse. Sure, they temporarily shrink my pores but they’re so harsh that I wind up having to use heavier moisturizers, which are notorious for clogging pores!

Opting for organic skin care products seems to make more sense. After all, natural skin care compounds like tortara tree essence are not only anti-bacterial but they’re potent anti-oxidants, too.

I’ve always admired those serene, slender women who gracefully saunter through life, their lean legs and contented faces carrying them through even the most turbulent of times.

Until recently, I’d assumed they probably had the same amount of stress as the rest of us, only they were self-disciplined enough to take out their frustrations at the gym instead of in front of the fridge.

Turns out, though, maybe they aren’t as stressed as the rest of us. Maybe that’s their secret to being slender: chilling out by mellow meditation, instead of cooling their heels with a vat of Chunky Monkey.

At the end of a two-year study, women who followed a programme of yoga and meditation had lost weight and kept it off, while those who focused purely on exercise and nutrition had not.

The ‘relaxed’ women were also generally happier and healthier at the end of the study.

Experts believe that reducing stress stops cravings for fatty foods and sweets.

The study suggests that dieting and exercise — although they do bring health improvements — may not actually be the key to weight loss.

All together now: Ommmmm. [Link]

As promised, I’m going to give away a one-month supply of Sensa, the amazing stuff that helped me lose 16 pounds in one month alone!

If you haven’t read my previous posts on this stuff, let me explain: Sensa is like no other diet I’ve ever been on. That’s because it isn’t a diet; it’s simply a box of flavor crystals that you sprinkle on your food. Based on the impact of tastants — substances which stimulate the taste buds and therefore enhance feelings of satiety — Sensa allows you to eat the food you already like. You simply feel full faster, and that translates into consuming less calories in the long run.

But, hey, I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. So, either order Sensa yourself (using ROCKETXL as the coupon code to receive 15% off your order and free ground shipping), or enter my contest.

It’s simple, really:

Write a post about this contest and link this entry. (Be sure to use the Trackback URI so I know you’re linking!) In your post, explain the reasons you want to lose weight, and why you think other diets and exercise programs have failed you so far. Finally, explain why a diet based on simply adding extra flavor to your food sounds appealing to you!

I’ll pick a random winner from the entries to receive the one-month supply of Sensa, which includes two boxes of the flavor crystals along with a DVD explaining how Sensa works.

The contest deadline is January 20, with the winner announced sometime that week.

Good luck!

Having spent a small fortune on various pieces of exercise equipment only to watch them gather dust, laundry and pet hair, I’ve decided I’m not spending a dime on that sort of stuff this year. Not one dime. Instead, I’m hopping on the “re-purpose, recycle, re-use” band wagon by turning household junk into exercise equipment. Sure, it makes my exercise area look a little junky, but so do the piles of potato chip wrappers that sat on my treadmill over the holidays.

Some of the stuff I’m using:

• Old water bottles – Although I stopped buying bottled water, I hadn’t yet taken the empties down to the recycling center. Last week I grabbed a pair and filled them with rice for instant 2 lb. hand weights which comfortably fit my hand.
• A hard-sided suitcase – After reading that I can burn close to 500 calories while watching TV by doing step exercises, I decided to try working step exercise in throughout my workday, too. So I grabbed my old Samsonite suitcase — which is currently filled with books — and have been using it as an exercise step in my office. (Of course, this won’t work if you’ve got soft-sided stuff like Swiss Army luggage).
• My son’s beach ball – Five minutes squeezing this thing between my knees while working at my desk gives a major inner thigh workout!
• My cat – As anyone owned by cats knows, they want to be in the middle of whatever you’re doing. After nearly hurting myself hurdling over my cat repeatedly, I decided to work with this habit of his, particularly when I’m doing more challenging yoga poses. Just knowing that I’m likely to squash my furry best friend, who loves to lay on the floor beneath me while I do the bridge pose, gives me a serious incentive not to wimp out.

Did you resolve to lose weight this year? Then you’ll want to be sure to visit this blog over the weekend, when I’ll be launching a contest with a prize that can help you reach your weight loss goal: a one-month supply of Sensa, the stuff I can’t stop raving about.

Don’t want to wait? Then order yours today and use coupon code ROCKETXL to receive 15% off your order (no minimum) along with free ground shipping!

I stopped using my upstairs office over the holidays, in part because it was needed as a spare room when we had house guests. While they were in town I kept my laptop on the kitchen table, the place where I most often worked for the past four years until getting my own home office last fall.

Once our house guests left, well, it just seemed convenient to keep my laptop in the kitchen while my husband and son were both home all day over the winter break. I also gained 6 pounds over the holidays, and I am absolutely convinced these two things are related.

Now, to be honest, I’d managed to unexpectedly drop 7 pounds in mid-December in part because I was unbelievably sick. So gaining back 6 of those pounds while disappointing, still means that I ended last month with a net weight loss. For that I have to once again give the credit to Sensa, which is by far the easiest diet I’ve been on.

But a lot of the reason for the gain is obvious: stationed in the kitchen, snacking was all too easy and the fridge was all too close. When I’m in my office on the top floor of the house, it’s just the opposite.

Having to walk up and downstairs from my office to the kitchen definitely reduces the number of snacks I eat throughout the day, as I find myself weighing goodies with the time and effort it takes to get them. Even when I’m not raiding the fridge, I still have to run up- and downstairs to do laundry or answer the phone, even to go outside to the deck for a cigarette.

So as of today I’m back to working at the desk in my office. I’ve managed to do four loads of laundry. I’ve gone downstairs twice to eat meals: sliced fruit and scrambled egg whites for breakfast; a tossed green salad with fat-free dressing for lunch. Oh, and I’ve run down two other times for cigarettes. That makes for 8 round trips with a total of 8 trips with 13 steps each way, or 208 stairs altogether. No, that doesn’t sound like a lot but I guarantee you that my thighs feel the burn. Something else I guarantee: I ain’t leaving my desk until it’s time to go get my son from school!

Planning to veg in front of the tube during prime time? Spend the commercials stepping on and off a box and you’ll burn 500+ calories tonight!

That old saying “You can never be too rich or too thin” may be wrong after all. See, just as money doesn’t buy happiness, being thin doesn’t guarantee it, either. In fact, it appears that women are happiest with themselves and their lives when they’re size 14.

In a poll of 3,000 women, size 14s rated their general happiness higher than any other female shape, with a quarter saying they liked their appearance.

Almost half said they were completely happy with their career, while a third rated their love lives as the best possible.

Satisfaction levels for size 8s and size 16s were on par, while women size 6 were only slightly happier than women wearing a size 20. But unfortunately the survey doesn’t reveal the reasons why a size 14 woman would be happier than her more slender counterpart.

I can guess, though: size 14 women aren’t afraid of having a cookie or two; they’re simply smart enough not to eat the entire box.

I am, once again, sick. Actually, it’s pretty much the same sickness that’s been hanging around in my body since earlier this month, only now it’s complicated by additional tangent illnesses because I didn’t get to the doctor in time. Yes, that’s partially my fault: the first half of the month I was insanely busy with work, while the second half involved entertaining a string of house guests. Oh, and since my doctor was on vacation for a good chunk of that time, I’d hoped to avoid an office visit with her substitute altogether. No such luck.

Yesterday I finally broke down and went for a visit knowing full well what my diagnosis would be, as well as which prescriptions I’d need. One hour later I left with prescriptions for the exact meds I knew I’d be given. Naturally, I was charged $95 for the privilege of having my self-diagnosis confirmed.

To make matters worse, the doctor acknowledged that he was only giving me a one-week prescription and that I’d probably have to come back for yet another appointment to get it renewed since he was pretty certain it would take longer than 7 days of meds to knock this out of my system.

Not surprisingly, I’m a bit miffed. After all, if he knows it’s likely to take longer, why not just authorize a refill? Why make me find time in my schedule to come back to his office, where I’ll be charged for yet another visit and where, because doctor’s offices tend to be filled with sick people, I’m likely to pick up yet another bug that will have me back there yet again? Answer: built-in job security. For him. Got it.

What he doesn’t get, however, is that such practices only serve to make me an even bigger fan of using an online pharmacy. Not one of those fly-by-night places that spams me, mind you, but one with factory-fresh medications. As it is, my insurance company actually gives discounts for online pharmacy orders at certain locations and the savings on my co-pay are pretty significant. Plus there’s the convenience factor: my prescription arrives on my doorstep, usually the very next day, which means I don’t have to stand in line at the store waiting around while I feel absolutely awful. But, as I said, that discount only works at their recommended sites, which still don’t always offer the best savings.

While I’d never recommend that someone self-prescribe a medication they’ve never taken before, I don’t understand why a person shouldn’t be able to buy Xanax online from less-expensive yet reputable overseas sources, for instance — or medications to treat acne, impotence or to help with weight loss — if they’ve got a valid prescription.

Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of reality TV. Strike that: ordinarily I absolutely, wholly and truly despise reality TV.

Then along came Ruby, whose show on Style Network I stumbled across while doing some Nyquil-induced channel surfing last week. If you haven’t caught the show, it’s about a woman (named Ruby, not surprisingly) and her quest to slim down from almost 500 pounds.

Ordinarily, that number alone might make some folks tune into the show, some out of a morbid fascination as they wonder how she got to be that size (a question which Ruby, like every woman who gains a significant amount of weight, asks herself), and some in the hope of finding tips and tricks to their own weight loss (which is what first got me hooked).

After a couple of episodes, though, it’s pretty clear there aren’t any magic secrets behind Ruby’s persistent and impressive weight loss — she’s under 400 pounds in just a few months! It’s all about the same thing most of us overweight folks try to avoid: eating less and exercising more. Ruby has a personal trainer, a nutritionist, an obesity specialist and a psychiatrist working with her, and while it’s easy to think that losing weight must be more simple with such a team, the fact is that she encounters the same problems the rest of us do. After all, the experts can’t eat (or not eat) for her. That’s all on her, and she’s doing such an impressive job.

Within just a few episodes, I was hooked not just on the inspiration that Ruby provides but on Ruby herself. Between her Southern drawl and her sunny outlook, she’s the kind of woman that everyone wishes they knew. And she’s got true Southern grit. Then again, taking her weight loss journey public like this pretty much means she’d have to, ya know?

Thanks to Ruby, I’m exercising again… though it’s pretty light right now since I’m suffering from strep throat and other maladies. I’m TiVo’ing every Ruby episode that airs and watching it while walking slowly on my treadmill. Hey, I figure if Ruby can find the gumption to do it, then so can I!

Check your local listings to find the Style Network in your area. In the meantime, don’t miss Ruby’s blog!