Category: Health Cures

How to remove a tick

My son Alex is a bonafide tick magnet — not a chick magnet, but a tick one; which at 17 years old is strangely not as cool.

I’ve never seen anything like it. This kid excretes some sort of tick pheromone, a disco ball for parasites, because not only when we go into the woods does he come out with new colonies of ticks that are settling in and designing the city center, but even if he walks across a lawn or the grassy part of a parking lot he often gets a few hitchhikers — and this is where the outlying ticks are, the ones that have been banned from the forests and when they see Alex coming they sing songs and hold each other as they wait for their salvation to arrive.

In fact, when Alex, our dog Riley, and myself are in the woods, Alex will come out with ticks. When it’s just Riley and myself, Riley will. So according to this highly scientific evidence, if given the chance. ticks prefer to risk the larger target of Alex — even though their chance of success is far less — then shoot for the shorter and easier one of Riley the dog.

It’s very weird.

WHAT IS A TICK?

So, a tick is a type of mite that falls in the external parasites category. They attach to animals —mammals and birds but will also go after reptiles and amphibians as well — and live off the blood. They burrow their mouths under the skin and start drinking.

Now the challenge with ticks is unlike mosquitos, who take a big drink and leave, ticks are in for the long hall. Once they have found The Promised Land they have their mail forwarded and take up residency. And the longer they are there, the fatter they get off the hosts stolen blood and the harder they are to get rid of.

The most common ticks in North America are the deer ticks and the dog tick — which look very much alike

Besides being unwanted, ugly, a thief, and just plain gross, the other concern with ticks is that some carry disease. These include Colorado Tick Fever, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and of course, Lyme Disease. But if you’ve come out of the woods with a few ticks don’t automatically think you’ve been exposed. Even though only a few types of ticks are capable of spreading the diseases it also depends upon the geographic location, the season of the year, the type of tick and how long it was attached.

In fact, even if a tick that carries a disease has attached to you and even fed, the chance of infecting are still very low. For example, the deer tick that transmits Lyme Disease must feed for more than 36 hours before it can pass on the disease and most ticks are found within a few hours.

But if you are an overly cautions individual and want to make sure that no disease was transmitted from a tick bite, can you get a blood test to determine this? No. Even if you were infected signs in your blood will not show up for two to six weeks later. But, as long as you catch that tick before it’s been on you for three days, the odds are very high that no disease has been passed.

TICK REPELLENT

So a good offense is a strong defense. True. And the best defense against ticks are through your clothing. Commercial bug spray that you apply to your skin tries to be everything to everyone and also wears off. The best tick defense is to use a Permethrin based products that you apply to your clothes. Permethrin is a synthetic chemical found in insect repellent and there are many tick repellents made with Permethrin but the best one I’ve seen is made by a company called Sawyer that has a Duranon Permethrin spray for the deep woods. This stuff is amazing and I’ve been in the woods and watched ticks crawl on my clothes and die before they got to me.

HOW TO REMOVE A TICK

First, what not to do.

When I was a kid there were dozens of folk-treatments that were used to remove ticks — many of which, we know now, not to do. The most common is to irritate the tick into removing itself and you do this by lighting a match, blowing it out and holding the hot match head behind the tick. Or putting fingernail polish. kerosene, Vaseline or dish soap on the end of the tick. The idea is that the tick will pull out of the skin to get away from the heat or the chemical burn.

Don’t do this.

Yes, it’s possible that the tick might actually pull out of the skin. Maybe. But in panic the tick is more likely to inject its bodily fluids before escaping — fluids that would include any disease it might be carrying. And that would be a bad thing.

The best way to get rid of a tick is the tride-and-true, tweezer method — this is why it’s great to carry a small first aid kit or 48 hour kit on you in the woods — an easy one can be made from an Altoids tin and kept in your pocket.

The tweezer method:

1. With a pair of tweezers, as close your skin and its mouth as you can.

2. Pull slowly back using steady and even pressure — don’t twist. And don’t squeeze the body as this can send the body fluids into the skin.

3. If the whole tick came out, great. If not, leave the part that is still in the skin alone. If you try to go after that part you could irritate the skin even more and possibly cause an infection. Your body will eventually reject it.

4. Clean and treat the area.

August 3, 2016
How to Get Rid of a Skin Tag

You know those protruding little bits of skin that form from time to time on your body, especially on places where your skin rubs together? Yeah, those are called skin tags — and they suck.

Unpleasant to look at — and ranging from slightly irritating, to flat out painful — these little buggers are technically known as acrochorda and they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Millions of Americans develop skin tags every year and they are especially prevalent in middle aged and overweight individuals. And while they don’t post any real health threat, they are aesthetically unpleasant and can be difficult to get rid of without the aid of a doctor.

Notice I said — can be difficult to get rid of.

Because while finicky skin tags are annoying — they can be easily removed with some finesse and common sense. Now, you should always see a doctor when you find a skin growth that you are worried about — if benign skin tags have become routine for you, then you are probably an expert on one of them that look different from the others — but otherwise there are some relatively simple options to remove them on your own.

WHAT NOT TO DO

Rule number one: don’t force the skin tag off. Everyone knows someone who has cut the tags off with scissors, nail clippers, duct tape, or some other device. And we call these type of people — idiots, (by the way, I was one of them).

If you try to yank a skin tag off, the first two things to happen will be a lot of blood, followed by a lot of pain. And then you have to deal with all the fact that you are now highly susceptible to infections — eyelids are the worse. Furthermore, cutting a tag off, can creates a totally unnecessary hassle, as many of the most effective ways at removing these are pretty painless.

HOW TO REMOVE A SKIN TAG

The String Method

The string method is the most popular method of removing skin tags. Tools you will need are a thin piece of string — dental floss works well — that is long enough to wrap around the tag completely and snugly. You take the string and tie it around the skin tag in the morning and leave it on all day. The next day, remove the string and tie a new one on. Repeat this for about a week.

By cutting off blood flow to the tag, it will begin to atrophy and eventually will either fall off, or become so free of sensation that you can pull it off easily. The timing on this could take a little longer than a week sometimes, so don’t rush it. If you’re patient, this is an extremely effective and harmless way to remove the tags.

Now the down side to this is, that not all skin tags are created equal, and the string method won’t work on every single one of them. Some tags are too small or in such an inconvenient location that it’s difficult to get a string tied around them. Plus, if a tag is located somewhere that frequently comes into contact with skin, clothing, or experiences a lot of movement during the day, the string may fall off.

But even with those risks, the string method is very effective.

The Cotton Ball Method

Like every other part of your body, skin tags are prone to react when exposed to certain irritants. A number of liquid solutions have properties that cause skin tags to either shrink, fall off, or deflate. And while some of these solutions can take a while — some, up to a month — to completely remove the tag, they do work.

Apple cider vinegar is a popular choice for this method. While it won’t make you spell like Bleu de Chanel, it contains high levels of acid in it that kills skin, making it a perfect tool for removing skin tags. All you need to do is douse a cotton ball with a couple teaspoons of the stuff and apply the damp area to your skin tag.

Many dermatologists disagree over the amount of time you should expose your skin to apple cider vinegar. Some suggest applying it only for a couple of minutes each day, while others recommend bandaging the cotton ball to the exposed area and letting it sit overnight. And results very as well — the bandage method has been known to work in a few days, while just leaving it open may take a few weeks. Either way, be sure to wash the exposed area after removing the cotton ball—you don’t want the odor or sensation to linger.

A range of other solutions have antibacterial or antifungal properties that make them effective skin tag-slayers. Both lemon and lime juice are high in potent citric acid that decimates skin cells, while tea tree oil — an increasingly popular skin care remedy — has also received high-praise.

Try out these solutions (or even combining them) and see which ones work for you. And while everyone’s skin is different and your mileage may vary, chances are that some variation of the cotton ball method will work for you.

AND — unless you want a bunch of red swollen bumps to accompany your skin tags, you should make sure that you aren’t allergic to any solution you apply to your skin.

The “Freeze it Off” Method

Ever heard of cryotherapy? No, I’m not talking about freezing your body until a cure for skin tags has been discovered—I’m talking about freezing growths on your skin and killing the tissue beneath them, forcing them off your body.

Dermatologists commonly use cryotherapy to remove skin tags, sometimes using a freezing agent so potent that they can remove the tag in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, many cryotherapy tools can be purchased cheaply online or over the counter at your local pharmacy, meaning that you don’t have to see a doctor if you want to try this at home.

Most freezing treatments suggest applying the agent (usually some form of liquid nitrogen) for just a few seconds per day until the layer of skin under the tag is dead, eventually causing it to fall off in about two to three weeks.

You need to be extremely careful with freezing, because if you get this stuff in your eyes or you accidentally swallow some of it — it does happen — that could be bad. Read the safety instructions that come with the freezing agent you buy; if your skin tags are located somewhere that puts you at risk for bodily harm, don’t try this method.

The “Wait it Out” Method

If the skin tag is loosely connected to your body, there’s a good chance that it will fall off naturally or with minimal effort. Many skin tags meet their end in the shower after washing them out with soap, and others became so irritated because of their location—armpits or eyelids —that they just wear off.

If your tags are located somewhere you scratch a lot, the tag has a high risk of becoming accidentally rubbed or torn: eventually loosening the tag to the point where it comes off on its own. If you can stand the pain — and the blood — that accompanies this, it is a somewhat effortless way to remove it.

Obviously, this is not the fastest approach to removing tags, so if you’re looking for a quick fix, this isn’t the option for you. Just know that if you’re patient enough, you may not even have to go through the trouble of experimenting with DIY dermatology at all.

July 25, 2016
The Sitting Disease

In the late 1980’s there was an incredible innovation that came into the business mainstream — like a bull — and it was called voicemail and — it— changed — everything. I mean everything. Oh there had been some other recent technological advances before this; yeah, fax machines were pretty cool — you could send a document from New York to California in seconds, what’s not to love about that? But voicemail altered the very fabric of our everyday jobs. It changed how we moved around, how we reacted to new information. It meant freedom.

But in order to appreciate voicemail you need to understand what work-life was like before this amazing breakthrough.

For example, the challenge with being an outside salesperson back then was that it was very difficult to actually get outside. At all. You had a desk and you had customers — that called you at your desk. They called with issues, corrections, questions, change orders, to input new orders, expedite and sometimes just to talk. It was necessary to take these calls, to react to these needs, but it was also necessary to meet with customers as well as cultivate new business. But this meant leaving your desk. And your phone.

Now we had answering machines at this time — they had been around for ten years or so and yeah, that changed things a bit. They were these big clunky tape recorders that sat on a secretary’s desk and recorded any general phone messages that came in after hours. So even if you called in late — even at midnight — you could leave a message. But voicemail was so much better.

Because the thing with voicemail was that you didn’t have to be physically at the tape recorder to get your message. You could be — anywhere.

If a customer called the office and you weren’t there, or if they called your voicemail directly, they left a message. Then at any payphone, at any phone at all — anywhere in the world — you could call the voicemail number, push a code and get all your messages. You could be down the street or across the country and still get your messages.

Just — like — that!

And as if a lock had been picked, as if a door was swung open, we were no longer chained to our desks. We could be on the road all the time. If we had a phone nearby we could gather our messages and take care of them from anywhere.

We had become —- mobile.

And that was just the beginning. After that came mobile phones and emails and smart phones and Bluetooth and a bunch of other things that followed. All mobile. All giving us freedom. Freedom to move — in fact a new smart phone commercial shows a a surfer sending an email — inside of a wave.

And the mobile revolution had begun.

And now —. Thirty years into this mobile movement. After we are free to be as mobile as we want to — we are the most sedentary that we have ever been. Ever. In history.

Since the beginning of time, today, at this point in our history — Americans spend more of the day sitting then ever before. Ever.

Thirty years after all of this mobility started, we now sit for most of the day. Sometimes for fifteen hours a day.

In fact, we’re mobile, we’re on the go, but we’re still sitting. We sit in the car, we sit on the plane, we sit in the airport waiting to get on the plane. We sit in the waiting room, we sit at home and of course — we sit at work.

So why is this a big deal?

Well, we were not built to sit. We were built to move. And with sitting we increase our risk of heart disease to 65% — which means that we have just given away seven years of our life by sitting. Add to that the risks of certain types of cancer.

Immediately after you sit down, the electrical activity in your muscles slows down dramatically along with your ability to burn calories. If you sit for a full 24-hour period, you experience a 40 percent reduction in glucose uptake in insulin. All of which has caused many health experts to call sitting; the new smoking.

To break that down, The American Cancer Society recently published an article stating that men who sit 6 hours a day are 48% more likely to die before their standing counterparts and women that sit this long are 94% more likely to die.

http://www.juststand.org/tabid/674/language/en-us/default.aspx

The only good news about this is that the effects are reversible.

– Stand up once an hour.

– If your driving, pull over every hour or so and stretch for a few minutes

– Walk during breaks.

– Look into standing-desks and working more while standing.

– Walk a message to a co-worker instead of sending an email.

– Park as far away as possible and walk to where you’re going.

– Exercise three times a week.

And get moving.

July 22, 2016
Brain Health

For almost a century, the field of clinical psychiatry — the medical branch dedicated to the study and treatment of mental disorders — was the only branch that did not look at the actual organ it was treating.

This is true. For over a hundred years, a psychiatric assessment of a patient’s mental care would begin with a patient history and psychological assessment, and would end with therapeutic sessions — and of course, lots and lots of drugs.

Now, with cardiac treatment, the very first step for diagnosis has always been to have scans of the heart, valves and arties taken. Pulmonary care first begins with looking at the lungs, and if you broke a bone, the first step— the very first action taken — would be to have an x-ray shot of the injured bone.

But in the world of mental health it was always assumed that the mental illnesses had nothing to do with the vessel that illness was contained in. That struggles, disease and conditions of the brain —– had nothing to do with the brain itself. So it was simply ignored.

But something interesting happened in the 1990’s when a few groundbreaking doctors first began to use SPECT (Single-photon emission computed tomography) scans of their patients brains, in their treatment. And when they did, they discovered some interesting patterns — especially where addictions are concerned.

For example, if you scan a person’s brain who is addicted to alcohol and compare that to a healthy person’s brain, you will see two completely different organs.

The healthy person’s scan will show activity in the various areas of the brain — the frontal lobe, the hypothalamus, the prefrontal cortex — all firing off as needed. There will be a dispersed activity in all these areas. All parts of the machine have a use and all of those parts are being utilized where needed.

But the alcoholic scan will show overactive areas in the what is referred to as the pleasure and reward bundle of the brain — the nucleus accumbens, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala — with other areas seeing very little use. In fact, an alcoholic’s brain will have this swiss-cheese-appearance with certain areas of the brain basically shutting down due to lack of use. And an alcoholic’s brain will actually be physically smaller than a healthy person’s brain. We see the exact same thing when we look at a brain scan of someone addicted to drugs.

Now this isn’t very surprising to us. We know that there are chemicals in alcohol and drugs that are extremely harmful. So a chemical attack of the brain can result negatively to someone who abuses drugs or alcohol. Yeah. That makes sense.

But here is where things get interesting.

If you now scan a person brain who is addicted to say, food for example — someone who is morbidly obese — or someone who is addicted to gambling, pornography, sex or shopping, you will see —- the exact same thing.

A person’s brain addicted to shopping — is almost identical to that of someone who is addicted to alcohol. The brain from an individual who is addicted to pornography — will look just like the brain of someone who is addicted to heroin.

What? How is that possible?

It’s simple.

The brain registers all pleasures in the same way — whether it’s booze or sex. Gambling or cocaine. Finishing an important project at work, or scraping enough change together for a fifth of bourbon. In the brain, pleasure has a simple and distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. That’s it. To the brain, all pleasures are the same.

All drugs of abuse — nicotine or chicken wings, crystal meth or Facebook — causes a particularly powerful surge of dopamine. And in our brain we then create a well-worn path to get to it.

And in addiction our view of the daily life becomes very simplified.

Stressed? No problem, grab the addiction.

Celebrating? No problem, grab the addiction.

Bored? No problem, grab the addiction.

Eventually the other areas of the brain — reason, patience, problem solving, planning, — aren’t needed as much. You have only a condition and response. This equals that —- with the ‘that’ being the addiction. The magic button that can be used at any time, all the time.

And eventually a very worn path is created between a very small part of our brain. And the other rooms just —well. Shut the lights off because there is no activity going on there.

Now, where it gets even more interesting is that the likelihood that the use of a drug or activity will become an addiction is directly linked to the speed and intensity of that dopamine release. So smoking or injecting a drug, produces a faster and stronger dopamine signal and is more likely to lead to drug use that taking as a liquid or pill.

But we live in a very fast paced society. A person who is addicted to shopping can get that dopamine rush as soon as they pull out the credit card out or even hit the shopping cart icon. And someone addicted to gambling doesn’t need to find a bookie or a casino any longer. You can gamble online from your phone. And food —? Twenty four hours a day we can get fast and hot food delivered, picked up or microwaved — in seconds. And that dopamine rush is triggered.

And this is not only for addictions that we consider ‘destructive’ but for all addictions. A person’s brain who ids addicted to marijuana will look like the one who is addicted to work. The individual, who has to get to the gym six times a week, will have a brain that looks like the person who is addicted to nicotine.

Do you know anyone who cannot hear that ping of a text message or the sound that an email has just been received, without checking their phone? That little sound can easily be hard wired to that dopamine trigger, and a path is formed.

So what does all of this mean?

Well, it means that when we get most of the joy, happiness, release, and pleasure from only a few areas, that there is not only a spiritual cost but a biological one. It means that that quick pleasures can be extremely costly — not just for what we are leaving out of our lives, but for the damage done to the organ that keeps us breathing and allows us to reason.

It means that old habits destroy, and new skills build.

It means that quick fixes are costly, and new experiences are constructive.

It means that the greatest joys are the ones we work at, and the ones we strive for.

January 18, 2016
Every man needs a garden
Remember when you were a kid and you took the tops of carrots and placed them in in a jar lid of water on the windowsill? Then every hour, all day long, you would run back to check; to see if the carrots had sprouted yet? Then, the next morning, as soon as you got up, you checked again? Then later that day too? Then —. Well then — it would always get a little boring. And by the end of that day you had forgotten it all?

Remember that?

Then later, about two weeks, you’d finally think about those carrots and you would run to the windowsill to find one of two things?
1. Either the carrot tops had completely dried out from neglect and stood there mocking you? Or —
2. Your mother had watered them, which meant that you had bright green sprouts of success projecting from the top?
And when that happened, you —. Well, you felt like a —. Well, like a guy who could get carrot tops to grow on a windowsill. Which, at six years old, is about as big a deal as it gets.

And that — my friends — was your very first garden.

And for some of us, that was our last one too.

There are many reasons to have a garden — and when I say garden I mean everything from a few tomato plants to an acre of produce. A garden is just something you grow on your own.

Reasons to have a garden
1. No matter where you live, you can have a garden. If you are in the middle of Manhattan or the backwoods of Tennessee, you can grow stuff. On a windowsill, a roof top, the sunny part of an alley or in the many community gardens that are set up. There is no place, no living arrangement, where you can’t grow a few things.
2. There is little skill involved. Yeah, I know, you don’t have a green thumb. And yes there is an art to gardening. But the basics are incredibly simple. You put seeds in the ground. You water them. They grow.
3. Cost savings. Just a few tomatoes or squash from the small patch of dirt by the garage saves you money that you would have to pay out. And that’s not even adding in the value of canning or freezing for the winter.
4. Pride. Yeah, it sounds hokey but there is pride involved. When you take a few zucchini to a neighbor or a basket of tomatoes into work, there is enormous pride in that. A sense of accomplishment.
5. Health. Whatever you grow in your garden you know how it was grown. You know what pesticides you put on and how much. There are no secrets. And you have the advantage of taking the food at its most peak time and going from garden to table.
April 19, 2015
Depression in men
A radical statistical shift is when a significant number of people within a group suddenly change in action — it’s the unexpected, quick right turn of statistics. It’s when, without communicating and completely independent of the group, individuals act in a common but unpredicted manner that isn’t orchestrated or even acknowledged and the group shifts. So, instead of deciding between a Ford or Chevy, for example, millions sell their cars and start riding bicycles; or a neighborhood that is prime and expanding, suddenly sees a mass exodus of people selling and moving to live off the grid. It’s the place on the graph when the spike moves sideways.

It’s the didn’t see that coming, moment.

One of these radical statistic shifts have occurred with men over the last ten years that wasn’t expected and is more than a little shocking.

For the first time in American history, the largest group of people most likely to commit suicide are — middle aged men.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, middle-aged men — those between the ages of 45 to 64 — have the highest rate of suicide; a rate that has been rising since 1999.

Which means that for the first time ever, the once vulnerable teenager — insecure, sullen, angry and fearful — is half as likely to kill themselves as their own fathers are.

Why is this?

Well, one major driver seems to be that men emotionally suffer alone — especially when it comes to sensitive areas such as stress, relationships and financial issues; common categories involved in suicide among men. Men ignore it and suck it up. We plow through crisis rather than dealing with the causes. We fight instead of discuss and — and here is the big one — we don’t know how to, or even want to, cope with the possibility that we may be — depressed. We see depression as something that’s for the weak and an area to simply ignore and work through. Men can view depression as being ungrateful — as a slap in the face to our family, friends and work — since what do we have to be depressed about? As well as see it as a state that only occurs to frail people, ungrateful people. Not to us.

Now, does being depressed mean that we are likely to commit suicide?

Absolutely not. It’s the smallest percentage of depressed men that go on to commit suicide. The very smallest. But — here’s the important part — all men that commit suicide are depressed.

So what does that mean?

Well, it means that as tough as it sounds, we men need to acknowledge and face the fact that we are very likely to get depressed, return to it and possibly may be depressed right now.

SINGS OF DEPRESSION IN MEN
- Unexpected anger and anxiety
- Loss of interest in once pleasurable activities — work, family, friend
- Change in libido.
- Not being able to sleep or wanting to sleep all the time.
- Feeling very tired
- Difficulty in concentrating or remember details
- Overeating, or not wanting to eat at all
- Escapist or risky behavior; driving recklessly, compulsive gambling, abuse of drugs or alcohol, or an emersion in pornography.
- Aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems
Yup. So according to the math, there is a 73% chance that you have been, will be or currently are, depressed. And the first step — that absolute silver bullet — is to acknowledge it. To recognize it.

Being depressed as a man does not make you weak. It doesn’t make you vulnerable. It doesn’t mean you’re broken and it doesn’t even mean that it’s a permanent state.

It makes you human.

And being human males, there are certain ways — methods that are effective for us — to work through the depression.

Here are a few.
1. Exercise. Exercise is the absolutely best self-treatment for depression. Physical activity releases endorphins in the brain and elevates mood — even a 20 minute walk each day can have amazing results in how clear you think and how you deal with stress.
2. Unplug. In our stressful lives, it’s important to build in time to turn off the cell phone and computer and give yourself permission to leave the cyber web for a while. Go for a walk, a bike ride or go read a book — without being able to be contacted by text, email or voice. Step out and go black for a while. Or a weekend. Disconnect.
3. Identify sources of stress. This is a big one in men because we see this as a weakness but by classifying what we see as stressful, we can create ways to act differently. To build in methods to counter it. If we know the Tuesday meeting is stressful, we can schedule our workout right before it, or if that confrontation with the neighbor is going to get heated we can go watch a comedy before and just laugh for an hour.
4. Accept help when it’s offered. Whether it’s having someone else read through your presentation or getting a neighbor to help you stack wood, asking for help is difficult for men. But it does not mean your weak and it does not mean you’ve failed if you need help to accomplish something. It shows wisdom in asking for and accepting help.
5. Say no. This is huge with men. Not only do we want to do everything, we want to do it all well and we want there to be no limit. But we also need to find what works for us. Over committing is the fastest way to tap into your energy reserves and sabotage other areas of your life. It’s not weak, uncaring or wrong — to say, no. It’s healthy and wise.
6. Talk. Find someone — a member of your family, a friend, co-worker, professional, it doesn’t matter — and begin to unload. Talk about what’s going on; what’s your feeling and frustrated with. It’s very common that when you begin to actually put into words how you feel, the bubble weakens. But here is the trick. For many of us that finally unload on thoughts and feelings that we’ve kept bottled up we often feel angry afterwards. Agree that when we talk we are not going to regret the talking.
January 10, 2015
The weight goal secret

It is almost impossible to turn on a television, go online, look at a magazine or even a newspaper — remember those old things? — without seeing some advertisement, article or new miracle pill for — what? Of course. How to put on pounds. How to get big. How to be fat and how to remain overweight.

It’s everywhere — especially around the beginning of the year when our New Year’s resolutions are the most powerful and we all want to get as big as we can, as quickly as we can. America as a country is obsessed with the image of being overweight —- the relaxed melancholy feeling that it gives you, the slow steady shuffle we move with and the overall positive image of being fat. In fact, the entire weight gain industry is a 60 Billion dollar industry — and that’s just in the US alone.

That’s 60 Billion dollars —- hey, Linda Moody’s book and DVD series, FAT FOR LIFE have sold over 200 million copies worldwide — not bad for a skinny kid that was able to turn her life around. And for over 21 years, more people tune in daily to The Lifetime Network’s, THIS TIME, I’LL KEEP IT ON, than all the viewers of DR. OZ, ELLEN and THE VIEW — combined.

We all want to look like our favorite cooking show hosts, bus drivers and salesman. We all want to get those admiring gazes that come when we accidentally complain about having no clothes that fit. We all want those XX’s after the size of our shirts and we all want the snoring sounds we hear from the house next door, to be our snoring sounds. Of course we do.

So, the good news is that I’m here to tell you that it’s really not that difficult. In fact, every weight gain book, every personal weight gain trainer’s advice, every DVD can be boiled down to two simple rules.

The core of every weight gain strategy is simply this:

1. Eat more.

2. Move less.

That’s it. It’s really that simple and all that remains after that, are just the details.

Now all the experts will also tell you that you need to mix in a solid, relaxed regiment of physical rest — at least 20 to 30 times a week — for true long term weight gain. This is true. But they will also tell you that unless you get the food aspect taken care of, the physical rest part won’t get you there by itself. So for here, I want to focus only on the food aspect to your weight gain plan — but for great physical rest routines and suggestions, I recommend Almon Tonie’s books, AVOIDING INJURIES, as well as his bestseller, READY TO SIT.

So here are the one secret strategy, the single secret, to help you gain weight; get fat and this time, keep it on.

Ready? Here it is.

Food is love.

That’s it. With our incredibly busy lives it’s so very easy to forget what food is. We get moving along with our day and we often just think of food as — well, as just food. Nothing more. We see it as no more than fuel for our bodies. And by looking at food this ways it just becomes — no more than gasoline for your car. That’s it.

And this is so, so untrue.

Food is a reward. Food is a treat, food is medication and of course, food is love. It’s how we show the people around us that we care about them. It’s how we give back to co-workers. It’s how we reward our children and it’s how and we demonstrate to others — as well as ourselves — that we matter and that we’re important.

How many times have you been so busy that you forgot to eat? How does that make you feel when food just becomes nothing but fuel? Nothing else. What holes are left in your day?

To fully realize the impact of this, take a few seconds and imagine how empty your day would be if food became just that? Just fuel. What would you fill that time with? — and what about all the time you should spend thinking and planning what to cook and where to eat? What would now take its place? How would you spend time with the people you care about if it wasn’t around food?

The answer is, you couldn’t. There is no other way.

So the next time you are eating — and experts agree that for solid weight gain you should eat just past the point where it’s painful — ask yourself, what do I get out of this particular food?

If your answer is; nutrition, fuel, energy —- then you have a poor food image.

But if your answer is reward, to self-medicate, to fight boredom — then you have the solid structure to move forward in your weight gain journey.

And of course, don’t forget your quantities.

Every weight gain guru will tell you that it’s not just what you eat, but how much you eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all are all so sick of hearing this because we all know that we need to eat more. But it’s not always that easy.

Remember, the more you eat — the more you eat. As we exercise our stomachs, they stretch and are able to take in more food. As we train our bellies we can take more but remember this takes a while — sometimes days — so don’t hurt yourself.

So make today the day you begin this incredible quest.

And remember, I believe in you.

You can do this.

November 4, 2014
The Power of the Nap

There are some really cool jobs in the world.

For example, there is a guy whose job it is to keep the Stanley Cup until the next hockey season. That’s his job. He picks up the Stanley Cup after the championship game and takes it to his house in Toronto and keeps it safe until the next hockey season.

Then there’s the guy who flies all over the world testing waterslides. Then there is another guy whose job it is to stack all the gold at Fort Knox. Now add to this all the professional eaters, the guy who puts the dirt on the baseballs, and live mannequins — also known in the trades as human statues — and you have some pretty unique career paths.

But the one person, the very single person who had the very best — I mean, hands down, nothing even close — best job in the world, was Adam. You know, from the Bible.

It was Adam’s job to name all the animals in the world. All of them.

So Adam would get up in the morning — without pants, another bonus — and name all the animals.

“You get to be an ocelot,” and the ocelot moves on knowing he now has a name.

“You can be called platypus. And you can be a snorf-latt…no, a dog. Yeah, dog works better. You are a dog.”

Now after Adam, it becomes a little fuzzy on who picked up the naming stuff franchise. I mean, how did a canoe become a canoe and not an artichoke? Why do we say gesundheit instead of saying Maryland? And who came up with macaroni, cable, papaya, and sanctimonious?

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Not sure.

But the person who was responsible for the word nap — nailed it.

Nap. It even sounds like what it is — it only has three letters and you sound like you are going to fall asleep before the end of it.

Nap.

And although the product development team who came up with the name nap did very well, the marketing team —not so much.

Well, they did okay with the baby demographic and with older women, but they missed the true target audience — the sweet spot of nap marketing: working men.

Now, as men we do still nap. Yes, that’s true, and if you don’t believe me go to any shopping mall in the country in the middle of a work day. Then spot the car parked the very farthest away from everything and in that car you will find a sales guy napping. Then go to a park or scenic overlook and here you will see a few delivery trucks and repair vehicles, and inside of them will be technicians taking a ten-minute power nap.

So we are napping. We are just in the closet about it.

Because napping is for children and old ladies. Napping is for the lazy, the unfocused, the weak. And we are men. We are strong. And we don’t nap.

But by working in a nap you not only get more done, but actually are more creative, energetic, and healthier overall.

The Advantages of Napping

1. Acts As a Reset Button

Because that’s what a nap is. A daily reset button. If you can squeeze in a nap in the middle of the day it’s like starting over. You are now alert, energetic, sharp, and ready to hit it hard again. In fact, napping in the middle of the day is a great productivity trick, because now you are just as energetic and alert as you were in the first part of the day — so you get two mornings for the price of a morning and an afternoon.

2. Boosts Productivity

When you are tired you are working on energy reserves. You’re not doing your best work. And if you work around heavy equipment your chance of injury goes way up. Napping changes that and recharges those mental batteries. And the irony is that most men wont nap because “they have too much to do.” But studies have shown that men who nap accomplish more than men who don’t.

3. You’ll Eat Less

Talk to any physician that specializes in sleep disorders and they will tell you that the more sleep we get, the better we eat and the less we eat. Sleep deprived people are more restless and anxious. They snack and binge and eat far more than those who are well rested. People who sleep better are thinner and in better shape.

4. Acts as a Caffeine Replacement

A recent study has shown that a 20-minute nap is much more effective than a cup of coffee or even a session of exercise. That’s the irony — we can nap for energy.

5. Contributes to Mental Sharpness and Memory

Naps improve your working memory. When our mind is recharged we can focus better on complex tasks. We can also multitask and keep multiple mental balls in the air. Napping also improves our memory retention.

So come out of the closet and embrace the nap.

August 5, 2014
How to remove a splinter

There is a story in my family about my great, great, grandfather — or maybe he was a great, great, uncle. It doesn’t matter. So this grandfather — or uncle — got married and lived with his wife in a cabin on a small farm. This cabin had a rough wooden floor and if you had stocking feet — or worse yet, bare feet — you would end up with a foot full of splinters. Every stinking time.

Now, the first few years on the farm were tough. Sometimes the two of them barely had enough to eat, but they worked through it and this grandfather — or uncle — and his wife, gave birth to their first child. Time went by and life did not become any easier, especially with another mouth to feed. Until one day, after a few additional years of struggle — as well as of a few more years of yanking splinters out of his feet — the grandfather-uncle had finally had enough. So he went to his wife and said, Maggie — I’m guessing at her name is Maggie because that sounds like the right kind of name. He said, Maggie, we’re not making a go of it here. So this is what I’m proposing. You go back to your people. I’ll go back to my people. We’ll leave this marriage and we’ll leave this farm the same way that we came into it. As separate people.

And Maggie — being a very wise women, said; Okay, fine. We’ll leave the marriage the same way we came into it. Which means that I came into it without a child. So you’ll be taking the boy with you.

Now, as kids, when we would hear this story, the first thing we noticed was that when the story ended, every time, all the adults laughed. Every one of them.

And we, the children of the family — possibly concerned with the knowledge of starving being only slightly worse than parenthood — never laughed. Ever.

But the even more disturbing part of the story was that my grandfather-or-uncle and his wife deciding to stay together because being a parent was only slightly better than a foot full of splinters. In fact, the two made the farm work and even remained married for over forty years and — here comes the good part —- they had nine more children.

All the adults always laugh at this part, too.

Us kids? Not so much.

But the mental image of this that has stayed with me all these years is the idea of a foot full of splinters.

Can you imagine a foot full of splinters? — actually, that sounds like a great country song — because the truth of it is that even a single splinter, just one, is bad. And if I woke up each morning with a foot – or possibly two feet — full of them, I would probably loose my mind too.

HOW TO REMOVE A SPLINTER.

The rule about removing splinters is simple. The bigger the splinter, the easier it is to remove. The smaller the splinter, the more it will want to hunker down and get cozy. So let’s focus on the small and nasty splinters here because the larger ones usually come out quickly or they get lazy and take care of themselves.

The aspect that has always made removing a splinter a largely male thing is that very often the splinter is in deep enough to need to force the splinter end through the skin — i.e. the needle method — or of clipping away parts of sensitive skin with nail clippers or small shears in order to get to it. This is the worse part, because you are often causing pain to someone who is in pain.

But if you do this right, you can do it almost painlessly.

Now, over the years I have seen many methods of removing splinters. I’ve seen people use duct tape, use glue, I had an aunt that was pretty good at removing them with an uncooked sliced potato. I’ve seen people soak bread overnight to draw the splinter out, use egg shells, place bacon fat over the splinter and even knew a little league coach of mine, who kept a cut piece of ladies stocking in the first aid kit. He would use the stocking to snag the end of the splinters we always received from the wooden bats, enough to pull the splinter out with tweezers.

And although I’ve seen most of these methods work, they have not always worked for me. So, for me, there are only two ways to remove a splinter. The dry method and the wet method.

DRY METHOD

1. Wash your hands, wash the area with the splinter as well as a pair of tweezers and a pin. Now, this is easy if you’re in your kitchen, but many times you get a splinter in the woods, on a camping trip or off of a canoe panel and don’t have that luxury. If you have a first aid kit use some peroxide or alcohol wet naps to clean the area of the splinter and tweezers. Or run the end of the tweezers and pin over a flame for to sterilize. If none of these options are available, get the splinter out and then clean when you can to avoid infection.

2. Feel for the end of the splinter. This is the key. A splinter can be removed easily if you can get to the end of it. If you can find the end, try and get the tweezers around it and gently pull out in the path it came in on.

3. Get to the end of the splinter. If the splinter is in too deep to get a pair of tweezers around it, then you have to either get the end up with a pin, or cut away the skin around to get to it. Not always as easy as it sounds but if the area is very sensitive you can numb with some ice or if you have any bee or wasp sting spray that works well. Enough ice and this will pretty painless. But the main thing is to focus and remove the splinter.

4. Clean the area again — or as soon as you can — to avoid infection.

WET METHOD

There are many wet methods of removing a splinter but the ones I have used on my kids involves a simple baking soda paste — I’ve used this to get bee stings out as well.

1. Mix baking soda and water together. You are looking for paste constancy.

2. Place the paste over the splinter and cover with a band aid, or with gauze and tape. Let the paste stay over the splinter for an hour or two.

3. Remove the gauze. More than half of the time, the splinter has been removed. For the other half you can try the dry method or ….

… or, you can do nothing.

Splinters will want to remove themselves naturally — through our movements and the movements of the skin they will eventually want to back out. It’s just a question of how bad the splinter is and how quickly we want them gone.

May 24, 2014