The Health Blog by Ryan Healy

Blog Update

Yesterday, I posted for the first time in 3 months. Or at least it appears that way.

I've actually been posting a lot on the new Health Blog.

But I got to thinking... here I have this Typepad blog that's chock full of articles... and that's still receiving quite a bit of traffic from the search engines. What should I do with it?

So I posted a mirror article. It's on this blog and the new Health Blog. Then I checked my traffic stats.

Apparently, at least two people still subscribe to this blog via Bloglines. And I'm sure there are others.

On the new version of The Health Blog, you'll notice there are two other writers who sometimes post articles of their own. Their names are Sarah Parker and Jacqleene Meyers.

So what I plan to do is this.

From now on, I'll be posting my new blog posts in both places. On my Typepad blog and my Wordpress blog.

Sarah's and Jacqleene's posts will only be on the new Health Blog (unless they choose to make mirror posts of their own).

If you're reading this, and you would like to stay current on the latest posts at The Health Blog, I suggest you subscribe to our email feed.

Basically, enter your first name and email below and hit submit. Then, anytime we make three posts, you'll automatically receive an email with the titles and summaries of each post. If you want to read more, there's a link to the full article.

Pretty cool, huh?

If you're not tech savvy, it's a lot easier to use than a RSS feed reader.

Interested? Fill in your information here:

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Of course, I'll never rent, sell, or share your email information with anyone else. :-)

Riff on Booths

Stephanie and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on Sunday, September 11. We ate at one of our usual "special occasion" restaurants and got a couple hours away from the kids.

While we were there I was reminded of a particular aggravation I have with the restaurant biz. That is, the gap (or should I say "gulf") between the booth and the table is way too large. Just to get near my plate, I have to sit right up on the edge of the seat, which is not comfortable for a two-hour dinner. There's no back support, and all the pressure of sitting is directed right into the middle of the hamstring.

This is one reason why I prefer tables. I can move my chair as close or far away from the table as I desire.

FACT: Restaurants do not build booths just to annoy me. Rather, they build them to suit their best customers, which happen to be people who are grossly overweight.

I guess I can't blame restaurants for accomodating those who spend the most on dining out. It's just sad that America's obesity epedemic is so rampant that there's a subtle form of "reverse discrimination" against people of normal size and weight.

With education (through blogs like this) and commitment to health, maybe we can have a positive effect on our communities and help reverse the trend toward obesity. We'll know we're making progress when the table/booth gap begins to shrink.

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Sarah's Health Questions

I have a personal philosophy that asking questions is far better than providing answers. That's why I really enjoyed Sarah's health questions on her raw food blog. She asks a number of questions that automatically cause me to start pondering. These are questions that should be thought about, researched, and answered.

No way would I have time to research and answer them all, but maybe I could for some of them. And maybe Sarah will continue to write and provide some of the answers herself.

Let me note that I have a five-month-old son. Since my wife and I are currently debating about when to start him solids, some of the same questions Sarah poses have also been rolling around in my head. :-)

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I Need Your Help!

I just discovered there's a "Featured Weblogs" section on the home page of Typepad. And so I checked out some of the featured blogs. Then I got to thinking: "How does somebody get their blog featured on the Typepad home page?"

First, you gotta use Typepad. I do, so I'm good there.

Second, you have to fill out this form. I read it, and it looks like I can recommend my own blog. But I thought that would kind of defeat the whole purpose of being featured. Naturally, I believe my blog should be featured. But that doesn't really matter. The question is, do you think my blog should be featured?

If so, would you do me a favor and take two minutes to recommend my blog?

And, since I appreciate honest feedback, if you think my health blog should not be featured, please leave a comment and let me know why not. Thanks!

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A Personal Update

I normally avoid talking about myself because I like to keep my blog focused on health and nutrition... the two things you come to my blog to read about.

But late last night a reader (whose name I don't know) asked me about my job. So here's an update of sorts.

If you'll recall, I left my job with Sonlight Curriculum on April 19, 2005 to pursue an opportunity with two financial planners (Scott Kozak and Mark Barrand) and a mortgage broker (Bryon Swanson).

The way it was set up, I was to earn a commission based on how many people I was able to schedule for dinner seminars.

The guys said they were getting about 80 leads per month off a flyer they were distributing through a local newspaper. They also said they were getting about 50-60 of those leads to dinner seminars (about a 70% close rate) .

They based my compensation on getting 30 "buying units" to dinner seminars every month. I thought this would be pretty easy to do given their past results. I'd only have to close 38% of the leads to "make it."

Well, it didn't pan out quite like I expected.

First, the paper they were advertising with went belly up. Advertising ceased for about four weeks. When they resumed advertising, it pulled dismal results. Since I quit my job, I think they've pulled in maybe 15 new leads.

I can't fill dinner seminars without new leads coming in! (Like that's a surprise...)

Anyway, I've got bills to pay and a family to support. So I started thinking about what I could do... besides going back to another job.

Since I've got over three years of copywriting experience and I love to write, I decided to leverage that skill. So exactly two weeks ago today, I decided to launch my freelance copywriting career.

Guess what?

In two weeks, I've landed three clients and four copywriting jobs.

I'm not totally out of the woods yet, but it looks like I may have good success as a freelance copywriter. And I gotta tell you... I love this freelance thing! Flexible schedule, get paid to write, work anywhere I want to, etc. It's wonderful.

So that's the update. I've gone from Sonlight to sales calls to freelance copywriting the last two months. It's been one of the most exciting/stressful/rewarding experiences of my working career.

If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them.

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It's My Birthday

It's my birthday today. It's also one of the rare times it falls on Mother's Day. So Stephanie and I celebrated my birthday last night.

The restaurant we had planned to go to was "Closed for Renovations," even though it didn't look like they were renovating anything. And so we went down the street to a similar restaurant.

We enjoyed our time. My parents were watching my daughter, so we only had to take care of Owen, my seven-week-old son. Ahhh.... It's always nice to have a break from keeping up with a toddler.

Toward the end of the meal, Stephanie asked our waiter if they did anything special for birthdays. He said, "Yes," and disappeared. A few minutes later he arrived at our table with this huge brownie sundae. No candles, no singing.

I was suspicious because restaurants don't normally give away such a large dessert. And sure enough, there on the receipt was a line item for the brownie sundae: $4.75.

And then, all of a sudden, I remembered how the same thing happened to us on my last birthday at a different restaurant. I'd forgotten about it, but that restaurant had simply brought out a dessert and charged us for it, too. No candles, no singing.

Three observations:

1. The waiter (restaurant?) should have been up front with us. "No, we don't do anything special for birthdays, but you can buy a dessert to celebrate."

2. If Stephanie and I had known they didn't offer a free dessert for birthdays, we probably wouldn't have ordered any dessert. We certainly wouldn't have ordered one as large as the brownie sundae!

3. If the waiter had told us the truth, and if we had wanted to buy a dessert, then we would have at least gotten to choose which dessert we wanted. In this case, the decision was made for us, which I didn't particularly appreciate.

I didn't let the dessert thing affect our evening. My wife and I still enjoyed just being together and having some time to ourselves.

I relate the experience here so you're forewarned of this new "guerrilla tactic" to sell more desserts. Just make sure you know the policy before you ask the question, "Do you do anything special for birthdays here?"

AM2 Gold Alliance

I just applied for membership in the AM2 Gold Alliance. It's Armand Morin's and Alex Mandossian's exclusive coaching program.

Hang with me for a moment and I hope to show you why it's relevant to what's going on in my life, even though it may be far afield from the health articles I normally write.

On Wednesday of last week I put in my two weeks' notice with the company I work for. I had no idea I was going to do this. Here's how it happened...

Last June, I began working with a guy named Scott Kozak. He's been in the financial industry for over 20 years. I decided I wanted to do what he's doing, so I set out to get my Series 6 license.

I achieved that goal on January 22 of this year. And so I've been meeting with Scott (and his partner Mark Barrand) for brief training meetings to bring me up to speed. And I've been working to bring in some clients.

Last Monday morning, one week ago, I went in for what I thought was another quick training session. It turned out Scott and Mark were making me a job offer.

I had recently rewritten one of their marketing pieces in my spare time, so I assume they were impressed... because they asked me to take over all their marketing and lead follow-up responsibilities. The "job" is 100% commission, no health insurance, no vacation, etc.

How could I pass up such a great opportunity? :-)

I accepted on Wednesday and have been pressing forward since then.

But my plan is to do more than just work for Scott and Mark. I've been working for over a year to establish myself online. And I'm already making about $200-$300 a month from my online marketing efforts.

But I want to do more. And I want to do it better. I figure I'll still have time in the mornings (between 5 AM and 7 AM), when I'm not working for Scott and Mark, to get plenty of work done.

That's why I've joined the AM2 Gold Alliance. I've been doing online marketing work for the past three years and have had the opportunity of using numerous resources and listening to scores of "marketing gurus." I believe Armand Morin and Alex Mandossian are two of the best.

If you have an interest in taking your online business to the next level, I think you could stand to profit greatly from at least reading what the AM2 Gold Alliance is all about. Who knows? If you decide to join, maybe you and I will end up meeting at an upcoming seminar or teleconference.

The Buzz About Blogs

If you're even remotely in touch with the mainstream media, you've probably heard the buzz about blogs... how they're shifting power from media giants to an army of individual publishers.

On the heels of this news, everyone seems to want to get a piece of the action. And I don't blame them: blogging is fun.

But just so you don't assume that writing a successful blog is easy, consider this. I started this health blog back in May of 2004. My last post marked the 100th article I've written since then (this one is the 101st).

I've built a small readership in that time, but it wasn't until after my 100th post that I received my very first Trackback, which means somebody took the time to reference something I've written and then pinged my site through a Trackback link.

Some bloggers have an easier go of it I suppose. One guy I know started his blog long after I did, and he had literally scores of Trackbacks and incoming links within the first couple months, probably because of his ties to academia (a lot of bloggers there). If you have connections like that, then getting noticed is easier.

I guess my point is this: despite the buzz about blogs, writing a successful blog takes a lot of time, energy, and enthusiasm. And patience. Sometimes, even, 100 articles' worth of patience.

The Curse of the Holiday Chocolate

I have a confession to make.

If you've been a reader for a few months, you'll remember how I read Sugar Blues and began to cut sugar and white flour out of my diet in early September. I had spectacular results and reported them here.

Well, Thanksgiving tripped me up a little bit. I had some pumpkin pie... let a few things slide. And now December is here.

My wife is big on tradition. And she happens to be six months pregnant right now. So I didn't have a chance in persuading her to leave the holiday chocolate at the grocery store.

Now it's on my kitchen counters, in easy-to-reach holiday tins and dishes.

I enjoy the holidays, of course. But the holiday chocolate is killing me right now. I love chocolate. It's so accessible right now that I'm like an AA member in a liquor store.

Which leads me to a couple of insights.

1. It's very hard to be consistently healthy if your spouse is not 100% on board. I might have had better luck convincing my wife to keep her hands off the chocolate... if she weren't pregnant. Never come between a pregnant woman and her chocolate.

2. Being healthy only most of the time (instead of all of the time) is probably the best policy. In the wise words of King Solomon, "Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time?" (For you Bible readers, that's Ecclesiastes 7:16-17.)

Moderation allows room for flexibility. I think that's what Solomon is talking about here. Elm trees often snap in storms; aspens do not.

Lest you worry that I've regained a lot of the weight I lost in the fall, I must tell you I weighed in at 174 yesterday. That's two pounds over my recent low of 172 and nine pounds below my high of 183.

After December, my goal is 168. Hopefully, the curse of the holiday chocolate will have worn off by then.

Blog Definition for Newbies

This morning's research revealed that exactly 2,253 people searched for "blog definition" in October 2004.

I thought, I have a blog. I bet a lot of people come to my blog without even knowing the definition of blog. I'll tell my readers the definition of blog.

Here's the short answer:
Blog = Web Log = Weblog = Blog

And the long answer...

It all started out as "web log," a term that's equivalent to "online journal" or "online diary." Web log was then shortened to weblog. And since that looks so similar to "we blog" (which we do, of course, but that's not what we're trying to communicate), the blogging community, by and large, has dropped "we," leaving only blog.

Today, there are all kinds of blogs: health blogs (like mine), political blogs, book blogs, sports blogs, marketing blogs, and on and on. Each of these blogs is maintained by one or more authors who post new articles on a regular basis.

A good blog will have about 2-3 new posts per week. If a blog has only one post a month or every two months, it's probably not worthy of being called a blog.

A number of companies now make it easy for the average, technically-disinclined person to start a blog. I, personally, use Typepad. I once tried Radio Userland, but didn't like it as much. And then there's Blogger, WordPress, and probably scores more.

Well, you came here for a simple definition of blog, but got a lot more than you bargained for.   :-)

If you're still new to the online community and would like to see what other confusing Internet terms mean, I suggest you check out Acronym Guide's list of Internet acronyms. It'll save you a lot of frustration.