My daughter survived her visit to the doctor today – even though she had serious doubts.  She had to get shots today to bring her up to date with her immunizations and they also tested her iron level.  It was a total of 4 sticks and 1 prick to get it all done and it covered 8 different diseases.  Now she doesn’t HAVE to have any shots until she’s 11 (or unless we lie and say we’ve got religious objections but now that this is on the internet I just burned that bridge).  Of course we might want to get her a flu shot here or there.  But we can say goodbye to Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertusis, Polio, Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps and Rubella.

Wait, I forgot about her Hep A shot – she got that one too.

Is there such a thing as a best diet pill?  Some will say there is and then they will give you a list of 10 different kinds that they swear by.  Some will say they like to mix them together to get better results.  I say that if you aren’t being monitored by a doctor, you could be playing with fire by mixing things that haven’t been thoroughly researched.

If you are at the point in you weight loss journey that you feel like taking a pill may help you out, you talk to your doctor.  You look for information from independent sources that backs up the claims of whatever diet pill you are thinking of taking.  And I’m not talking about a post on a website – I mean some kind of research or study that says this won’t make things worse.

Then you go from there.

Every advertisement I’ve seen for diet pills says that theirs are the top weight loss pills.  Thing is, we’re adults and we know from our math class and the logic we learned there that not ALL pills can be at the top or they would also all be at the bottom and the middle to boot.

We also know from math class and the probability we learned there that this claim probably isn’t true.

So we, as the aforementioned adults we are, have to do research and find out the truth before we use our bodies as test tubes for whatever chemical cobination comes our way labeled as a weight loss miracle.

Getting in shape and then staying in shape can actually cost you more than being out of shape.  So is it worth it?  Not if saving money is your plan.  On the other hand, if staying alive sounds like a cool deal to you, then you’ll need to ignore the fact that life can cost money and just bite the bullet.

You need to buy food that is good for you.  Turns out my favorite healthy food is an artichoke.  Have you seen the cost of a decent artichoke lately?  My second favorite is peas – fresh peas.  These can’t even be found in my part of the state and then only sporadically elsewhere.  So I have to settle for things like lettuce and carrots.

Then there’s the cost of exercise.  Maybe it’s a gym membership so you don’t have to buy all kinds of equipment.  Or maybe you don’t want the transit time to detract from the exercise time so you decide to exercise at home.  Although you may only need to buy a couple bar bells or a kettlebell and a step to get you started, you may soo find yourself investing in an inground pool so you can avoid high impact exercise on your aching, aging knees.

Whatever it is, make sure you’re able to fit it into your budget because the healthier you are, the longer you’re going to live and the more money you’ll need in your pension to live off of in retirement.

With my new found determination to lose a couple pounds (or at least get back to where I was at the beginning of summer) I’ve whipped out the old Dance Dance Revolution pad and put it into workout mode.  Sure I may pine for the days when I had ellipticals to use in the apartment complex’s mini gym or the one I actually owned but gave away.  Then I remind myself that I whacked a kid in the chin with the thing and I think my soft and squishy dance pad may be slower but at least a little safer around the kids.