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My family will tell you in a loud voice that I used to be a salt-aholic. 

I would grab for the saltshaker without even tasting my food. Not a good habit. Most are in agreement that your daily intake of salt should be kept to a minimum—in fact, our daily intake should be only a teaspoon.  This includes all the salt that is hidden in most processed foods.

Since starting my new way of eating, I have cut back and frankly have put my saltshaker on vacation for the last several weeks. I use a lower sodium hot sauce if I feel the need to flavor my food.

I haven’

I hate to disappoint you but this column has little to do with sex, contains no lies.  And so I guess that leaves videotapes as the topic of the day.

Since I have already established that I hate going to the gym, I have found the best way to get my fanny moving is to pop a videotape or DVD into my TV. 

I am a sucker for those late night infomercials and I have quite the collection of items that have promised to make me look like Christy Brinkley in a matter of weeks. In the past, I thought that just buying a workout tape was all the effort that I needed to make me look fit and healthy. Wrong.

Several years ago, I knew that if I was going to reach my goal of losing a great deal of weight that I needed to set up my own home gym.

I took the extra space in my basement and started added workout tools. I put a TV and boom box down there so that I wouldn’t get bored. I can’t make any excuses about why I can’t get to the gym, mine is only down a flight of stairs. It isn’t anything fancy but it’s worked for me.

Here are few of the readily available tools in my underground gym.

Who isn’t watching their pennies these days?

My job is to keep up on the news and, to top it all off, I work as a designer for the business section of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.  I call it the department of doom and gloom.

The only good news in the business world is that because the economy is so bad we won’t be lacking for stories any time soon. 

Several years ago, Joy Bauer started a segment for the TODAY show called “The Joy Fit Club.”  Membership into her club was limited to those people who had lost more than 100 pounds. Currently, there are over 100 members of in Joy’s club and our hope is to encourage others to follow in our footsteps and become healthier by reducing our weight.

Another member of this elite club is my friend Jon Staton of Michigan.

The hour is early—well, at least it is for me.  The neighborhood birds are squawking louder than what I can sleep through. (Don’t those feathery creatures know that it isn’t even 5 a.m.?)

As I toss and turn trying to figure out a way to muffle the birds’ constant chirping, I can’t help but think of everything that is on my plate for the day: the balancing act that is my life.

I sit here typing before the sun comes up, running through my to-do list.  What needs to be done today?  At work?  At home?  And then,

Summer time in the Midwest

I live in Cleveland.  And summer, my favorite season lasts only a few short months.  All I can do is think about how I am going to fit in all the warm weather things I love to do in such a short period of time; walking, farmers markets and of course my first love, swimming.

I moved back to my beloved Ohio nearly 15 years ago after a long stint in South Florida. I think I moved back just to be near the fresh tasty riches that come from the fertile fields of my homeland.  Buying produce right out the hands of the farmers that grew the treas

I was tired of looking the way I did. I was carrying 340 pounds on my 5’2” frame. 

According to the body mass index, I would have to grow three-feet to justify all the extra weight I was hauling around.

I wanted to be “normal-sized” for the first time in my life. 

One of the first things I learned is that the average person