Nicole:
I appreciated your recent post, concerning your recent conversion to exercize videos, and your commitment to lose weight. I went through a strong lifestyle change -- a number of years ago -- involving increasing exercize, impoving my diet, and improving my spirituality. In my case, my problem involved stress and moderately high blood pressure. Although I did not have that much weight to lose -- I found that all three tools helped me lick the stress problems -- and my blood pressure is now normal.

I have started to blog, describing advanced -- or intermediate-advanced videos -- for average, non-athletic people out there (reviewing mostly Cathe videos, which are all advanced). I just reviewed, in my last blog, Cathe's "4 Day Split" -- and the kickbox segment is very good, but fairly aerobic and demanding. I think some of her videos (but not all) are doable by most everyday people.

At my church my pastor and I are mentoring a young man (34 years old) on income assistance. He is very overweight (5'10" and 340 lbs). We find he is a tough nut to crack, as far as starting a lifestyle change. I give him a weekly bag of fruits and vegatables -- but so far there has been no improvment. I offered him my heavier dumbell weights (I am not very strong, and foolishly bought heavier dumbells that I will never use), but he has refused them. Any help you could give me, in getting him started, would be appreciated.

Anyways, take care, and keep at it. It is worthwhile going through a lifestyle change to improve one's health. Please keep posting on Cathe's message board about your progress. You give many of us iinspiration.
-- David