End of the 2013 Slim and Sassy Contest (Before and After)

So it's all over now -- all that's left is for the formerly fat lady to sing! I just submitted my final report to doTERRA, with pictures of me in a swimsuit (which is how I started). I don't think I ever properly displayed the before images, but now seems like a good time to do so. If you prefer not to see full body photos of me in a swimsuit, avert your eyes now! Otherwise, here's how the makeover went:

I'm going to assume that everyone can figure out that the left column is from before (January 17, 2013) while the right column is the after photos (May 15, 2013), so that means I took full advantage of the four months of contest time from the initial entries until the final deadline. However, I can't say I actually did a lot of extra exercising in the past two weeks -- my weight has basically remained steady at around 190 pounds since the start of May (with the usual fluctuations of up to five or six pounds over the course of a day). There wasn't really a place to say a lot of this stuff on the Slim and Sassy forms, so I'm going to point out a few other pieces of information.

First, the before and after pictures may look exaggerated, but they're pretty close to how I normally look other than the lack of a smile on the before pictures. I'm not flexing in any of the after photos either -- though I did try doing that and I found the result just looked a bit silly. If you look at my swim trunks, something else you might not notice is just how tight they are in the before pictures -- I had to really put in some effort to squeeze my big old butt into my swimming suit! Right now, it's the other side of the spectrum: my swim trunks are almost too loose; I'd be somewhat concerned about what would happen if I dove off a high dive into a swimming pool.

Now, if you don't mind me getting on my soap box for a minute, let me just say this: losing weight really isn't that hard to figure out. It's basically calories in has to be less than calories out, and ideally you get there with good, healthy calories and you get the calorie deficit by increasing the amount of exercise rather than through starvation. There are really four things I think you need to work on to lose weight successfully. In order of importance, they are:

1) Goals. Give yourself something realistic to shoot for, both short, medium, and long term. If you weigh 400 pounds, don't set a goal to get to 200 pounds in four months! Instead, figure out what you should be able to do in a week, a month, three months, six months, and one year. If you don't hit some of those goals (especially the short-term goals), you will of necessity have to change your long-term goals over time, but don't freak out about one or two bumps along the way, and don't be afraid to reward yourself on occasion.

2) Nutrition. Yup, this is the second most important thing. I've heard it said that the battle of the bulge is often waged in the gym but last in the kitchen, and it's true. If you eat low quality, processed foods all the time, you're simply not going to reach your potential. Natural, healthy foods on the other hand will help tremendously! I've talked about raw milk, organic foods, etc. and considering how much I really didn't work out compared to what I had hoped to accomplish, I can state unequivocally that good, healthy foods are awesome. On the other hand, again, don't be afraid to reward yourself (or just have a "cheat meal" every now and then -- maybe one meal every other day can be less than perfect without killing your progress. Also: if you're going to feel guilty about something you eat, then don't do it! Only have a cheat meal if you can do so "guilt free".

3) Exercise. We could really break this into two areas: cardiovascular exercise and strength training. Optimal results require both, but I have to be frank: I'm not all that great at strength training. I find it rather boring and I'd much rather go for a jog or a bike ride if I can manage it. Even so, don't neglect a few simple strength training exercises, like push-ups, crunches, squats, and calf raises. My wife makes fun of me, but every night while I brush my teeth (with the help of my Sonicare toothbrush's 30 second timer), I alternate between calf raises on my right and left legs every 30 seconds for three minutes. Sure, I could just stand there brushing my teeth, but why not multitask a bit? At the start of this journey, I was running a 5K in about 30 minutes, biking for 25 miles at 16 MPH and feeling pretty beat, and I topped out at 25 push-ups and 45 sit-ups. Now, I can do a 5K in roughly 25 minutes, I have been on several 50+ mile bike rides and averaged over 18 MPH on the last one, I did 50 push-ups in a row last night, and I've done 100 crunches (sit-ups) in a row. And if you think I've been working really hard, the truth is I probably managed just two or three real work outs each week.

4) I didn't really do this all that well, but having a good support group (e.g. friends to go exercise with) is super beneficial for a lot of folks. I do better at this with biking, but it can be a double-edged sword: finding someone who can go ride for a couple hours can be challenging at times, and then you usually have a situation where one rider is faster than the other. If you can find a group of riders who are all at a similar level, though, and then work on drafting technique, you can make some awesome speeds for longer rides. The same thing applies (in a different way) with lifting weights, running, swimming, or any other form of exercise.

Get those four things more or less in place, and you'll lose weight. It's that simple! In practice, of course, balancing the needs of your family, work, exercise, nutrition, hobbies, and other activities (e.g. service) makes it very difficult to do everything you want every day. Flip back to January and look at my daily schedule, and I'll be frank: I failed horribly at that whole thing 90% of the time! It was simply too ambitious. But I cut down some areas and still kept working at it, and while I didn't shed pounds every week, I did slowly but surely get where I wanted to go. It's the Slight Edge at work: simple daily disciplines applied over time. The more you do them, the easier they become, and the better you do them the better the results. I'm still working at that second part!

Anyway, I'm excited with the progress I've made since the start of the year, and I'm not finished yet! Oh, I don't really need to lose a lot of weight at this point, but I'm still going to bike in the Seattle to Portland ride come July 13 -- 204 miles in the saddle, all in one day! That's a major challenge, and I'm more than a little intimidated, but I'm going to work on getting more rides in now that the weather is getting nice, and by the end of May I plan on riding my first century (100 miles in a day). I can't wait! Here's one last shot of me with my bike after the 55 miler last Saturday.

—== The Skeptical Homeopath ==—
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The Rule of Three (Presentation Techniques)

We're continuing with the lessons from Steve Jobs and his presentation styles, beginning with the story of the presentation of the iPhone. "Apple today is introducing three revolutionary products." The first was like a widescreen iPod with touch controls, the second was a revolutionary mobile phone, and the third was a breakthrough Internet communication device. He repeats this several times, then says, "Are you getting it? These are three new products, they're one new product...the iPhone." Something like that, anyway.

The key is this grouping of three -- Jobs uses three a lot, but he's not the only one. Comedians know three is funnier than two, writers know that three is more dramatic than four, three is more persuasive than five. Plays have three acts, Goldilocks encountered three bears, there were three Stooges and three Musketeers. The Declaration of Independence has three as well: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The rule of three is something used by great presenters, writers, etc. and in the case of Jobs, he's using a verbal roadmap and then guiding the audience past the markers.

This is what we want to do with essential oils when we present. So the essential oil presentation goes like this:

There are three cool things about essential oils. They're safer, they're more effective, and they're cheaper the over the counter prescription medications. So let's talk about this.

The first cool thing about essential oils is that they're safer than regular medications. Essential oils are amazing -- they're 50 to 75 times more powerful than herbs! A single drop of peppermint is equivalent to 28 cups of peppermint tea! And they're certified pure therapeutic grade -- there's nothing added or taken away, and you don't get the side effects you get with over the counter drugs. What's more, you can't mix two oils and have a bad reaction! That is the first cool thing about essential oils: they're safer.

The second cool thing about essential oils is that they're more effective than OTC prescription drugs. When we are sick and we get a prescription, the doctor might give us an antibiotic to help with a bacterial infection. But there are potential side effects -- they can be addictive, have harmful side effects, and what's more, if you have a viral infection there's not much prescription meds can do for you. Essential oils on the other hand not only help with bacterial infections, they've been proven to penetrate cell walls and help combat viruses. That is the second cool thing about essential oils.

The third cool thing about essential oils is that they're cheaper the regular medications. When your child gets sick with an ear ache, you end up going to the doctor and get a prescription that you then take for a week. Even then, it might not cure the ear infection, so you get a second prescription! And those antibiotics aren't just killing the bacteria in the infection -- they're killing all the good bacteria in your gut as well. Well, a single drop of Melaleuca can cure an ear infection in one night! A bottle of Melaleuca costs $19 and gives you $250 drops, so $0.08 per drop, and you can get rid of an ear ache! Compare that to visiting a doctor, paying for your copay ($25-$30 usually), then your prescription ($5-$10), and waiting a week. That's the third cool thing about essential oils.

Another great tool is to have little headlines that you can inject into your presentation. Steve Jobs when he introduced the iPod talked about how you could have 1000 songs in your pocket. You can do something similar with oils. "This key-chain with eight essential oils provides over 1000 different remedies!" [Side note: I need to get me a key-chain!]

Finally, Steve Jobs likes to dress up numbers to give them meaning. When we talk about $4.5 trillion spent on health care globally each year, that doesn't really mean much to most people. So we need to give it context. If we took that same money and put it into education in the US, one half of all Americans could attend a private university every single year! That would totally revolutionize our educational system. [Ed: I'm not so sure about this; I think free education for everyone is leading to an assembly line approach that is failing to teach a lot of important lessons to our kids. I'd even go so far as to say right now we have a problem with people being over-educated; they're book smart but lack wisdom. But I digress....] If we put that $4.5 trillion into our road systems, we could pave a road around the world 1037 times every year! [Ed: How long would it take before we covered the whole earth with asphalt and concrete?] So the question is, with that $4.5 trillion spent each year on health care, are we getting any healthier?

Okay, that's wraps up this segment on presenting. I think we'll discuss the "three cool things about essential oils" more tomorrow, and you may have detected a hint of skepticism in some of my comments above. I definitely feel essential oils can be cheaper, safer, and more effective than prescription medication and OTC drugs, but that's not the same as saying they're always safer, more effective, and cheaper.

For me, four ibuprofen typically takes care of a headache, and I only get them maybe a couple times a month. A bottle of 1000 200mg tablets will run about $20, so that's 250 doses, which compares nicely with 250 drops of essential oils, right? The thing is, I've used Peppermint and PastTense for headaches as well, and it helps, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's more effective than ibuprofen for me. 30-60 minutes later, I'm often going back for a second dose of essential oils, or else I say, "screw it" and take some ibuprofen. And let's not even talk about some of the oils...but perhaps they really do help and are worth the $4 per day you can end up spending -- that's a topic for another time.

Interestingly, you'll notice we have three things to work on now for our presentations: draw a road map for your audience, provide them with headliners, and dress up the numbers. Coincidence? I think not!

—== The Skeptical Homeopath ==—
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Presentation Lessons with Steve Jobs

This week's doTERRA Mentor calls are all about doing a good presentation, and Alysse uses Steve Jobs as her major example of a man that knew how to do a great presentation. Much of this comes from the book Steve Jobs, but I think she also uses Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs as another source. The call starts with Alysse saying how this is her favorite week in the Daily Mentor calls, but I've listened to this week before and I'm on the other end of the spectrum: I really don't care for some of the content this week all that much. There are many reasons for that, one being that as a technology enthusiast I take exception with some of her statements.

For example, she makes a comment about how Jobs was so amazing at his presentation style that people would travel thousands of miles to hear him give a keynote speech. What got me was this: "I could understand people packing a room to hear someone speak about self-help or something, but Steve Jobs was talking about technology! These people were coming to hear him speak about something as dull as technology because his presentation style was so good!" Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what she says on today's call. So let me make a few observations.

First, technology is a huge part of our world right now. Steve Jobs has been at the forefront of many technology movements, and as one of the innovators why wouldn't people be interested in what he has to say about technology? What's more, Apple and Jobs created something of a cult following, and like most cults (including doTERRA and other MLMs), any meeting with one of the leaders is going to draw a big group of people. There's still more of course.

Apple has their World Wide Developers Conference every year, and they're full of press -- I personally attend a similar convention in Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show, every January. The people coming to those conventions are not just there for the keynote, and in fact many times the keynote is just one little thing to see. Jobs was bigger than most, but of the tens of thousands of people that went to CES this past January, I'm pretty sure only a handful "traveled thousands of miles to hear Qualcomm's CEO speak." They're there to see the technology, report on it, buyers want to find product, etc. Jobs had a few people go out of their way to see his keynotes, sure, but most were going for the whole convention, not just the keynote.

Finally, she tells the story of the Pepsi Co. CEO John Sculley that Jobs was working to recruit, and she says how when he joined Apple that marked the real beginning of Jobs' career. It's a good story: "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?" And that eventually helped get Sculley to come to Apple. But that's not the end of the story, of course. Remember how Steve Jobs eventually got ousted from Apple? Yeah, that was thanks to Sculley -- they basically were butting heads and Jobs wanted to get rid of Sculley, but he found out and instead got rid of Jobs (who was really making some mistakes with products at the time). So it's not all sunshine and roses.

Anyway, I love hearing about great new technological advancements and ideas, and I know a lot of people feel the same way. In fact, I'd suggest more people would be interested in a technology keynote than in an essential oils keynote. And that's all I wanted to say. :-) So let's get back to Jobs and his presentation style.

Jobs is certainly known for being charismatic, but he's also known for... well, let's just say exaggerating a bit during his presentations. He was also known for being highly egotistical, or as Atari's founder Nolan Bushnell puts it: "[Jobs] was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that." This is evident by one more thing that Alysse discusses in today's call: Jobs talks about having a "messianic sense of purpose." I don't know about the rest of you, but any time you compare your goals with the Messiah, I think you might be going a bit too far into the area of hubris. Just a bit.

Wrapping up, while I am not at all the greatest fan of Apple or Steve Jobs, both have some great things to teach us. I think the ego of Apple (and Jobs) got in the way of their success back in the 80s and 90s. They had a better product at one point, and they knew they had the better product...and so they overcharged for it. I often wonder what the world would be like right now if Apple instead of selling the original Macintosh for $2500 (Sculley bumped the price up from the planned $2000) had gone the other route and pushed it into the mainstream for $1500, or $1750. Because that's what Microsoft ended up doing, and while Apple is making a good comeback right now, they're still only 5-10% of the world's computer market.

The biggest factor that will drive Apples future success in my opinion: it's not PCs, but the iPhone and iPad devices. They've got a lot of stiff competition there, and their pricing is once again higher than the others. And it's not just on the hardware -- iOS is going up against Android, and where iOS is only for Apple's products, Google is licensing Android to anyone and everyone. Android also has more free apps available, and for a lot of people, free is better than $1 or $2. The Apple hardware and software may arguably be the best option, but the same was true of Macintosh systems back in 1984, and we all know how that turned out.

Okay, this is not a "homeopathic" or "essential oils" post, I know -- it's almost something that belongs on my Technology Blog, except this doesn't really tie in over there either. Tomorrow, maybe I'll write about something more directly related to the oils and doTERRA, but I had to get the above comments off my chest. As an interesting side note, doTERRA people in general seem to love Apple. Here are the current stats from this blog: Windows users are 48% of the readership, and Apple products (iPhone, iPad, and OS X) combined are 39%; Android makes up a relatively small 7%, with the remainder scattered among alternative OSes. By comparison, my other two blogs are 77% Windows (Slight Edge Diary) and 83% Windows (Tech Blog), which is more in line with what I would expect.

—== The Skeptical Homeopath ==—
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New Bottles and Caps for doTERRA

This is sort of random, but I wonder if anyone else noticed that doTERRA seems to be moving to a new bottle, stopper, and cap for their essential oils. Or maybe it's only certain oils? Anyway, I haven't heard anything else about this, but in our last order we definitely received some different bottles. We usually switch the caps between the same oil (e.g. so when we run out of Breathe, rather than putting a new Breathe sticker on the lid of the new bottle, we just transfer the cap from the old bottle), and it seems the threading size isn't the same. Not a big deal, and I have some thoughts on why they might be making the switch, but here are a few pictures just the same:

If you're not sure which is which, the old style bottle is on the left and the new style is on the right. A few things are immediately apparent with the change: the top of the bottle along with the cap are wider, and the new bottle is also slightly taller. There's a new stopper as well, with little grooves or whatever present. Despite the difference in size and shape, I would expect the amount of oil you get to be identical, which makes me ask: why even bother with the change? Is the new design just more aesthetically pleasing, or are there other reasons for the switch?

My bet is that at least part of the change is to improve the flow of oil out of the bottles. This is pure speculation right now, and it will take a bit of time before I have any real grasp on whether the new bottle is better, the same, or worse, but I think the change is for more than appearance. There have been quite a few occasions where I've had a bottle tipped sideways and normally the drops come out pretty slowly (and a few oils like Balance and Vetiver come out really slowly as they're thicker). Anyway, every now and again, and particularly when a bottle is getting low, instead of a drop or two ever second, I'll get a sudden stream and think, "Holy Niagara Falls, Batman! How much oil did I just pour out?"

Once the oil is out, you're not getting it back in, so you can imagine that with certain oils (e.g. Melissa, Helichrysum, or any of the other more expensive oils that can cost a dollar or more per drop) this would be a serious concern. I've personally had this happen with Frankincense, Slim & Sassy, Lemon, Lemongrass, Wild Orange, On Guard, Breathe, Lavender...really, almost any of the oils we use regularly. It makes me wince every time it happens, so here's to hoping that the new bottle design addresses this issue.

As an amusing anecdote, my mom actually gets a bit impatient with the oil bottles at times, waiting for the drops to come out. Apparently, she decided to remove the stopper to her Oregano bottle (which seems odd, as I've never had issues with Oregano -- Vetiver is the only one that really gets me impatient). As you would expect, not long after doing so she accidentally dropped the bottle (or knocked it over), spilling a significant amount of Oregano essential oil. She then tried to wipe it up, and not wanting the oil to go to waste, she wiped her hands on her body. Whoops! Anyway, remember that the stoppers are there for a reason! The only time I remove a stopper is when the bottle is basically empty and I want to get the last drop or two out.

Here's one final thought for the day: so far, I've only seen the new bottle/cap/stopper design on Lemongrass and Fennel (both from may April order). I have a much older bottle of Melaleuca that has the same rounded shape, but the stopper and lid are the same as the other squared-off bottles we've been receiving. Anyway, if this is indeed a new bottle roll-out or a trial, what better way to test it than by making Lemongrass 15ml bottles the Product of the Month? Which doTERRA has done for May. It's enough to make me wonder if they're still researching the change and this is a trial run, or if it's the way of the future. I guess we'll find out when our next order arrives.

Ultimately, I don't know that it will make that much of a difference, but as noted above it would be good to see if the "accidental stream" problem gets fixed with the changes. Maybe I just haven't been around long enough to notice a variety of bottle and cap designs? Let me know if you've seen the "new" rounded bottle with a wider cap and the ridged stopper before March/April 2013; I'm pretty sure this is the first of a new design, but I could be wrong.

—== The Skeptical Homeopath ==—
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