20/20 Lifestyle is about to begin!

So, it's official. Back in December I went to an informational session at the ProClub in Redmond, WA. The large software company, based in Redmond, that I work for offers free health club memberships to employees. Being out of shape and over weight, I decided this was a great benefit for me. While at the gym, I heard about a program called 20/20 Lifestyles. It is a weight loss and nutrition program offered through the gym. The 20/20 Lifestyle program takes a wholistic approach to weight loss. It is not just about eating less or exercising. It's about changing your behavior by learning more about how the foods you eat affect your body and why you gain weight.

I went to an informational seminar in December. It was free and I figured, heck - what do I have to lose. It was only a few hours and then I could smuggly walk out knowing that I knew as much as the people giving the seminar. After all, I am sure I had heard it all before.

I found myself interested in the program and even more importantly interested in their success rate. Here are a few success metrics:

* 73% of diabetics normalize their blood sugar on the program
* 79% of participants normalize their blood pressure
* 61% normalize their cholesterol

And the most important fact was the high success rate of people who had been through the program and kept the weight off. I don't want to misquote anyone, but I believe they said on most other programs there is about a 4% success rate of keeping off the weight. On 20/20 Lifestyles program it was more like 43% of people kept it off (approx % since I don't have it written down).

The program consistent of education, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle coaching, and medical supervision. The program runs from 12 to 20 weeks, with additional time spent on a Phase II.

Given my size and shape, to be discussed in a later post, I needed the 20 week program. I met with my DR, got signed up for the program and am getting ready to start.

Went in for the initial fitness assessment tonight. Steve, the guy giving the assessment was nice and kept things light. It is not fun seeing where you are on paper, and if I had let it I could have fallen into a serious depression. Instead, I am taking this as the first step in climbing the mountain. Only one way to go from here!

I will go into more details on the next post, but the next step is to meet with the physician on Wednesday. Say a prayer and send good wishes!

MSFT in the news..

So, woke up this morning to big company headlines. Microsoft made an offer to Yahoo for $44.6bn, that billion with a "B". Opinions are flying and everyone seems to think it would be a great move for our company. Being on the online search advertising team I know it would have a major impact on our group, but not sure how. Too early to speculate but should be interesting to watch.

Here are a couple of links to stories.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22947626

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/technology/microsoft_yahoo/index.htm?cnn=yes