Dear Diary, When a long time buddy and member decided to share the details of a list of benefits assoicated with Vitamin “D” in an email he sent me, I thought he was being his cute and talking about me. But, after reading his email, I quickly realized that he was talking about Vitamin D, not Vitamin Me <smile>. Anyway, Im all about passing on useful, healthy information so, here it goes.  Oh and by the way, don’t forget that a daily dose of me is good for you too. To illustrate that fact, I’ve added my own list of benefits! <smile/wink> ….Denise

Vitamin D (ie, our skin’s response to Sunshine) is a miracle drug:

1. lowers risk of many cancers
2. lowers depression
3. prevents osteoporosis
4. combats heart disease
5. protects against diabetes (and therefore kidney failure, vision loss, and even foot amputation)
6. prevents heart attack and stroke

My list of Vitamin “D” benefits (D being for Denise of course 😉

• lowers the risk of many cancers – especially prostate cancer, after all studies show that coming once a day keeps the prostate healthy.

• lowers depression – making you smile is my ultimate goal!

• prevents osteoporosis – no wasted boners around me, and thats a promise!

• combating heart disease – by getting your heart rate up at least once a day.

• protects against diabetes – I like to keep the sugar all natural so that diabetes is never an issue.

• And, finally, heart attacks are unacceptable but strokes, now thats a different story!

Every now and then I am amazed and saddened by the kind of negativity and anger I observe, sense, or come across in every day life. It always makes me wonder about where people have been and why they act the way they do. And in fact, I dont think a lot of people are actually even aware of what kind of energy they put off. Watching television last night I came across a show on wellness and longevity that got my attention and is something I want to share with you. One of the things mentioned on the show, was the power of positive thinking and how studies show that pessimists don’t live as long as optimists do. Not to get overly philosophical here, but, lets say that being optimistic or positive doesn’t necessarily increase the number of years in your life. Wouldn’t it still be fair to say that being positive and optimistic probably does improve the life in your years?  The best part of the message for me was the fact that people do have the power to change. Negative or Positive, we all get to choose what we put out, which also means we get to affect what we get back. Here’s to exercising all of your personal power, both physical and mental!  Have a great weekend. Denise

 Everybody loves the idea of having a flat stomach and maybe even a hint of some tight hard abs. The biggest compliment’s I’ve gotten have been from women who say they love the look of my obliques, so here is my recommended abdominal workout. Do this workout twice a week.
3-4 Sets of lying leg raises for 20-30 reps per set.
3-4 Sets of Crunches – 20-30 reps per set
3 Sets of Seated twists with your knees together for a total of 20-30 reps.

Dear Diary, It’s Monday again and although the weekend went by way to fast it did prove to be both productive, healthy and fun. A big chunk of the weekend was focused on house cleaning with lots of trips to the dumpster, recycling bin and storage. The goal was to work on down sizing, consolidating and learning to live healthier and Greener. For fun we went to the movies last night and saw the “Foot Fist Way”. A campy movie about a Tae Kwon Do instructor who struggles to keep his chi after his wife cheats on him. Check it out, this one get a kick up in my book <smile>.

Dear Friends: I’m playing and working in the desert this holiday weekend. The cool thing about being in a new place like Palm Springs, is that a new enviornment always excites the senses. First my lover and I memorialized our day with a 3 AM round of dirty talk (call us creative creatures at heart <smile>), followed by a yummy orgasm and a little more sleep. A delicious snooze followed by a morning walk surrounded by amazing desert plants and beautiful mountains gets the heart pumping in a different way and something I highly recommend as your very own personal fitness expert <wink/wink>. Even though I am always working, as I am now, it’s important to remember that recreational time is super important even for us AmBITCHious types. After all, if you break the word down, re-creation means to re-create, something we all need to remember to do. Happy Holidays!  xoxo Denise

Dear Friends, It’s been over a week since my last post and I want you to know that the reason for my disappearing act, was a crazy, mixed-up bag of events, mostly (although not entirely) out of my control. For starters, I was on a road trip for a very special, once in a lifetime event, filled with the loves of my life. That time also included a kick-ass mothers day celebration to honor the wonderful women in my world, and thats when it happened. My laptop computer, my mobil work force, crashed! Yep, it’s been ugly. Anyway, since Mothers Day I’ve been struggling through the process of dealing with frustrating non-stop tech support calls to HP. And, after endless hours of hold time with HP techies who couldnt find my tech support payment, my case # or the correct specs for my computer, I realized they were utterly useless. Lucky for me, I have some good friends (thank you Patrick, Yann and Frankie) and family (thank you Lucky), who have worked by my side to help me sort out my options.  Anyone who’s been through a harddrive crash knows that the biggest issue is data recovery (something Im working on now).  

So why do I say HP hell? Well let me just say this about my experience with Hewlett Packard on my HP Pavilion Laptop. Not only did HP blatantly lie to me about selling me a refurbashed laptop that they told me was new (thats a different story), my constant follow up attempts to get technical support to deal with a failed harddrive thats only 1 year old, proved to be a comedy of errors because of their total incompetence. Unfortunatley, for the momment I’m stuck with a laptop computer and a company that I don’t ever want to do business with again. Furthermore, what I am reporting about with respects to my personal experiances with Hewlett Packard over the course of the last year is just a tiny piece of what I have dealt with with them. Im honestly tired of wasting time thinking about them to say much more then this; Back up your data, ALL THE TIME. And dont buy an HP Laptop if you can help it.

  Fat and Muscle are two totally different things. One does not turn into the other and that old cliche is just an old wive’s tale. It always amazes me when people ask that question, but the truth is most people don’t understand the differences.

Let me give you this analogy. If you compared your muscle to a piece of lean steak you could then also compare the fat on your body to the white squishy stuff you cut off the steak. What happens as we age and in most cases become less active is that our muscles atrophy and shrink. With less activity and less muscle tissue our metabolism also drops, and we tend to grow a thicker layer of fat on our bodies, around our muscles and our organs. So you see, one doesn’t become the other. What usually happens is we just get fatter as we lose muscle through the normal process of aging. And, for that reason alone, working out with weights and staying active is great for all of us and it actually becomes even more important as we age. I like to say that working out is the closest thing to the fountain of youth we will ever have.

On the other two points I can’t really speak to much because I am not a doctor. I do believe though that with all of the medical and holistic progress we have made, I know that there are supplements that can help people deal with Arthritis so that they can lead healthy active lifestyles. Just one more reason why, it’s a great time to be alive. In closing, work out and stay active so that you can add life to your years and years to your life.

xoxo

Denise Masino

 Burn Fat by walking! You can eat the same things you always eat and still change your body if you walk at least 30 minutes a day. Now Im not talking about strolling in the park, Im talking about a fast pace walk that gets your heart going without making you feel like you’re going to keal over and die. If you can do 45 minutes a day its even better. Do that for me and watch your belly go away!

Welcome to my Fitness Tips section — it’s all about boosting your physical, mental and sexual health. Let me whip you into shape <wink>.  xoxo Denise