by Gloria Prince

Now is the perfect time to rethink your skin care regimen.  Winter is hard on the skin.  Outdoor cold and dryness, as well as indoor artificial heat, take their toll on the skin by taking moisture away from the skin.  Hydration in excessive amounts makes up for the loss by environmental causes.  Excessive is the key word here.  Drinking water is not the best water replacement tactic, although it helps.  The   skin is the last body organ to benefit from drinking water.

Hydration can come in the form of hydrating mists and water based products.  Your skin has to have a perfect balance of water and oil to be in perfect balance and have that natural occurring glow.

Another very important issue is using an SPF, even in winter!  Daily use will help to control damage and prevent further damage that the sun’s rays do to our skin.  Another important aspect is reapplication. That is what SPF is all about.  Usually foundation and moisturizers have SPF in them.  Basically a 25 – 30 SPF is recommended.  Mineral make up is an excellent sun block.  There is a difference in sunscreens and sun blocks.  Sunscreens take the sun and disperse it after it has penetrated the skin.  Sun blocks diffuse the suns rays and do not allow them to touch the skin.  All skin types and colors need protection.  Skin cancer is not skin color specific.

Be sure to know your skin care products and have a skin care regimen that you can stick to.  These two steps in themselves will make a lot of difference in your skin’s health and appearance, especially during this season of cold.

Gloria Prince is the Esthetics Instructor for the Cosmetology Department at North Central Texas College in Gainesville.

by Dacia J. Coffey

Medical Weight Management has a message they want you to know: Obesity is not a social issue. It’s not a discipline issue. It is a disease entity which forces your body’s systems out of balance. It is nearly impossible to lose weight permanently without help.

In two years, over 4,000 clients can testify Medical Weight Management can help. Utilizing HCG as a powerful tool to quickly lose the weight, Medical Weight Management then provides a lifetime of support, education and tools to remain lean and healthy. Their team of professionals is passionate about fighting obesity one client at a time.

It is time to lead the life you always dreamed.

REVITALIZE YOUR HEALTH

HCG has been used around the world for over 50 years with amazing results. Boasting a positive side effect profile, HCG has helped clients lose weight quickly and easily. Post-treatment, many clients say their health issues have improved and they have a desire to eat healthier: blood pressure goes down, blood sugar levels go down, sleep apnea is eased or resolved, medications are reduced and even the psychological patterns of overeating and depression have disappeared. “Our clients report that their ability to read fullness and their level of happiness is improved,” explained Donna Beyer, RN, co-founder. “I feel blessed to be a part of Medical Weight Management. It is truly powerful to witness people feeling confident and turning their health around.”

Besides being a strong advocate for those battling weight issues, she can testify through her personal experience. Coming from a family riddled with obesity and the related co-morbidities such as diabetes, she had already undergone two open heart surgeries by the age of 50. A true metabolic syndrome case of weight gain, it affected her career as a nurse and her entire life, but finding the HCG diet changed all of that. “I lost 56 pounds in 78 days and have effortlessly kept it off for two years,” said Donna.

BEGINNING A CYCLE OF WELLNESS

“What sets us apart is our educational and preventative focus,” explained Lisa Kirk, D.O. and medical director of Medical Weight Management. When discussing how clients lose weight, she is clearly passionate about the new health profiles clients report maintaining. “We want people involved in how to live and maintain a healthy lifestyle once the weight is gone.” This enthusiasm for wellness translates into a lifelong resource and maintenance program that targets the many areas of a person’s life that can sabotage a healthy lifestyle. Medical Weight Management believes people are spiritual beings in physiological bodies, electrically stimulated and emotionally controlled, and thus the program has components to address each of these systems.

Clients learn how to eat differently, make good choices and indulge without sabotaging success. They report being able to stay within a few pounds of their goal weight and wanting to eat healthy.  Karen Burkhart, patient of Medical Weight Management from Fort Worth, said, “I battled with hypoglycemia. Every time I tried to lose weight, I would have a terrible time with my blood sugar levels dropping. When I learned about the HCG program – I gave it a shot. This time around, I had no trouble with my sugar levels fluctuating. I lost 35 pounds and 40 ½ inches! My energy level is up, my knees aren’t bothering me and I’m now wearing the same size I did back in my 20s!”

REMARKABLE CARE, TOTAL PASSION

But helping people shake off the shackles obesity enforces is more than general human kindness for Medical Weight Management—it’s personal. Dr. Kirk is a graduate of Lewisville High School and is thrilled to be helping people in her hometown.

“Donna and I have the same vision for helping people face obesity. Other physicians and specialists are now hearing about results from our clients and even referring patients to us,” she added.

Donna explains that losing weight can be similar to fighting any addiction—with one exception. Typically, a person tries to distance themselves from the object of their addiction, but when it is food you have to take the dragon out of its cage at least three times a day. “We know how hard weight loss is and it truly matters to us that our patients receive all of the support they need,” said Donna.

Medical Weight Management wants to help you change your body, change your health and change your mind about weight loss. It is time to change your life. Call today 866-979-4091. Visit www.HCGteam.com to view the incredible transformations.

HCG is a medical treatment for weight loss and should be used only under the supervision of a medical professional.

Mardi Gras Festival
On February 13th, Denton Rotary will be hosting there Fourth annual Mardi Gras Festival from 6-10 pm at the Denton Civic Center.  The event will have Cajun food, jugglers, dancers, games, silent auction, prizes, and more!  Tickets are $35 at the door which includes game tickets and food/beverage tickets. The proceeds will benefit local charities, Interfaith Ministries and Salvation Army. For more information, go to www.mardigrasdentonrotary.com

If You LOVE Chocolate
The Denton Chocolate Festival, supporting CASA of Denton County will be held February 7th, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.  Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

Woman to Woman Pregnancy Resource Center
“We endeavor to empower women to make wise life choices through education and truth.”  All services are confidential and offered at no charge.  Services provided:  general information regarding pregnancy & reproductive health; on-site nurse for medical questions on health, reproduction, and pregnancy;  peer counseling;  pregnancy testing;  STD referral classes and classes on childbirth.

www.adoptaussoldier.org
To honor active US military personnel, Adopt A U.S. Soldier is a volunteer-based organization that connects supportive Americans with deployed soldiers and offers a channel by which to communicate  encouragement and express gratitude to the brave men and women serving our nation.

Sign up to “adopt” a soldier, and you will receive the mail and email addresses for a soldier.  These soldiers are looking for notes and/or letters, and a bit of encouragement from home.   Many have very little family and some have none, so they are not as fortunate to receive news and well wishes, as do other soldiers with family back home. Please visit the site, and adopt a soldier – they appreciate and love the letters more than we will ever know.

by Rev. Dr. Christy Thomas, Pastor, First UMC in Krum
www.thekrumchurch.com

We who live in the United States, a relatively young country, and especially we who live in Texas, a relatively young state, have somewhat of a unique perspective on the New Year that may not be shared with parts of the world with longer histories.

Besides being a fairly young area, we also do not have much continuity with the past where building structures are concerned. For example, most older buildings are torn down when they become inconvenient or dated, rather than preserved.

In addition, reality TV with the multiple extreme make-over themes also perpetuate the suggestion of discontinuity with the past.  We can watch a messy family home turned into a place of neatness and order in just a few hours, or a body loss weight and become toned in just a few weeks, or a structure razed to the ground and re-built in seven days.

While those shows are fun to watch, I often wonder about the aftermath.  What happens later to the world’s messiest family when their mess has been sorted out or to someone who has quickly and with powerful and externally enforced discipline loses a lot of weight?  I’m betting past habits quickly re-appear.

Why?  Because changing the outward circumstances, while often helpful, hardly ever produces lasting internal change.  That kind of change takes a great deal of soul work and the practice of certain disciplines.

The way we were before informs the way we are now.  They cannot be disconnected, no matter how much we try to do so.

Yet often people live from the idea that they can disconnect from their pasts when they make New Years Resolutions.  We pretend our prior lives can disappear or that we can ignore the poor decisions we may have made or that we did not eat or drink all the things we should not have eaten or drunk.  Indeed we can pretend, but it won’t work.  We are those things, those successes and mistakes, those experiences, that food and drink.  All of this has been integrated into our souls and bodies.

So if we can’t escape our pasts, what other options do we have?  How about transforming our pasts?  One way of transformation is the act of thoughtful, honest, intentional forgiveness.  The Bible says that God’s mercies are new every morning. New mercies, sent our way each time we need them.

Mercy, often known as forgiveness, forms the centerpiece of much spiritual thinking.  It is through the receiving of mercies, and then offering them to others, that we take our pasts, however rocky they may have been, and transform them into more merciful and more gracious presents.

In my own experience, the most difficult person to offer mercy to is myself.  But that very act of taking our histories and bathing them in the light of fresh mercies brings joyful hope and freedom.  Let us let 2010 be the year of the merciful, both for you and for others.  Here, and only here, is true freedom.

by Mark Sandel
msandel@twu.edu

On Dads and Their Daughters

She was born sixteen years ago, surrounded by love and family.  Hannah, my first born, looking so much like her father that a stranger in the nursery said, “Mister, it’s going to be hard for you to deny that one!”  She was a real Daddy’s girl from day one.

I remember the complete and total love I felt for her then, along with a healthy dose of fear and anxiety. Sixteen years passed quickly, and I still find myself filled with love, but also with more fear and anxiety about this young woman; then it was diapers and bottles, now it is independence, freedom, and (shudder) high school boys (I used to BE one).

When I feel most incompetent in my parenting, it is with my daughter. I sometimes bungle opportunities and lecture when I should listen. I suspect I am not alone, that other men sometimes feel the same inadequacies with their girls.

As a little girl she was extremely strong willed and I encouraged her to be so.  No modern father wants his daughter to grow up to be dependent on a man, to be unable to support herself, to be submissive. We want more: strong daughters, adult daughters that refuse to be controlled, daughters that can think for themselves.

Research has shown that good relationships with fathers help girls become successful in school and work, develop healthy relationships with other men, take on new challenges, have higher self esteem, and more independence. We fathers can and do impact our daughters in significant and positive ways.

In my experience, parenting a baby girl was lots easier than parenting a teenager. Sure, there were stinky diapers and burp rags, but those were trivial inconveniences compared to the delicate issues that young women present to their fathers.

I have learned that my daughter does not always share my sense of humor.  Like the baseball cap with the long gray ponytail attached that I wore to a school function: I have nothing against ponytails, but apparently Hannah does.  She was mortified and furious.  It was the same when I picked her up from a school dance wearing full cowboy regalia, including chaps. My joke—intended to solicit eye-rolling and a smile—brought tears and embarrassment instead.

As Hannah has grown towards adulthood, I find that I have to work harder at listening and finding things in common with her. I want her to trust men, but I don’t want her to trust men too much (surely a confusing position). I suspect I am not the only father in Denton County that struggles with how to be a positive force in his daughter’s life.

Resource: www.thedadman.com Joe Kelly is an author and expert on fathers and daughters.

Mark Sandel, LMSW, is an Associate Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Woman’s University.  He may be reached at msandel@twu.edu

by Mardi Allen, Life Coach
Mardi@CoachMardi.net
www.coachmardi.net

Be Part of the Solution

What are you doing to create your ideal life?  Are you taking responsibility for yourself, your health, your finances, your career, your marriage, your relationships, your habits, and your thinking?  Are you finding solutions for life’s challenges or are you blaming others and constantly complaining?

Complaining without searching for a solution is a waste of time and energy, and it is toxic.  It can hurt your career as it can lead to wasted time, loss of productivity, anxiety, and anger.  It can also play havoc in your personal relationships, as no one enjoys being around someone who complains all the time, except another chronic complainer.

It is not what happens to us in life but how we deal with it.  When confronted with dissatisfaction or a challenge, look for the solution and fix it rather than engage in mindless venting and complaining.  Take responsibility for what you want to create and make it happen.  When we complain or blame others, it takes us off the hook. Make the solution your responsibility and take action to fix the problem.

When I was in corporate America, I had an open door policy.  However, anytime an employee came with a challenge, complaint, or something they were dissatisfied with, they were to bring two solutions as well.  I got a lot of amazing ideas from people who were interested in fixing what was wrong instead of blaming others. This exercise works our personal lives as well.  It works in our marriages, families, and groups. Stop looking at the problem and ask yourself what you can do to solve it, then approach everyone involved with a couple of solutions.

Here are three ways to find a solution to any challenging situation.

1.  Change the situation. Brainstorm; come up with several possible solutions.

2.  Remove yourself from the situation.

3.  Accept the situation as it is. Stop complaining about it and move on emotionally.

Remember, if you are spending all of your time on the problem instead of the solution you will get more of the problem.  Focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want.