By: Co-Editor, RB:
Social media can be frivolous or deadly serious. I want to talk today about a wildly successful social media site that focuses on addiction and recovery.
AARP card carrying baby boomers Ken Pomerance and Ron Tannebaum, are the co-founders of InTheRooms.com, the number one social network for those in recovery from addiction. With 80,000 members in 50 countries, In The Rooms is making a difference in the lives of those struggling through various addictions – drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, and sex. In the US alone, there are over 25 million people battling addiction. The site provides a support community outside of the 12 step programs, and a place to go for help and answers. Just over a year old, the site is bringing movies to the community through their TV channel, authors for workshops and has partnerships with MusiCares and MDinfo.com.
Their meeting database currently consists of the most current Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Overeaters Anonymous (OA), and Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings. They provide a Wiki to allow for you to help manage the most accurate meeting database online to date. Members can make any revisions they like to any meeting and moderators will review and approve.
The InTheRooms A-List is a drug treatment directory with the primary purpose of finding help for the addict and alcoholic struggling within the grips of active addiction. The drug treatment directory is broken up into specialized treatment categories designed to help you find drug treatment for you, your friends, family, and loved ones.
There is a section for friends and family as well. Being a friend, family member, colleague, business associate or loved one of someone seeking recovery or in recovery can be exhausting and extremely difficult. In The Rooms strives to Help, Inform, Touch, Connect, and Heal (HITCH) all those whose lives have been touched by addiction.
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By: Co-Editor: RB:
Today I have a one-person entrepreneurial success story with which many of you are already familiar.
I am sure most of you out there have heard of and/or seen personal trainer Tony Little on television. Mr. Little is a certified personal trainer who goes by the moniker “America’s Personal Trainer”. He is known for his hyper-enthusiastic personality and long blond ponytail. Little’s infomercials have generated more than $4 billion in sales globally. Little averages about 6,000 hours a year on TV.
Little is not only a successful trainer, he is a dynamic salesman as evidenced by this appearance on the Home Shopping Network.
By: Co-Editor, RB:
As people use of the Internet becomes more sophisticate, one thing seems clear, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. People seem to respond better to video than almost any other tool on the Internet.
Another example of this would be VideoMD.com.
VideoMD.com is a video-sharing site for physicians and health practitioners to help them educate their patients better. The Miami based company also has a featured video library for general web searches for health information. Based in Miami, Florida, the site also allows patients/people to create communities in the video blogging section.
While there are other excellent comprehensive medical information sites such as WebMD.com or the Mayo Clinic website (http://www.mayoclinic.com/). The site is based on the premise that video is the best resource to help people understand medical issues.
The video content on the site comes from not just physicians but health care providers. For example, the video featured below is also on the Johnson and Johnson Health Channel on YouTube.com.
VideoMD was created by physicians, for physicians and their patients. As stated, the mission is to strengthen the relationship between doctors and their patients. Not only will patients be more satisfied by having their own doctor educate them about their ailment, physicians can better educate patients without adding more work to an already busy schedule. Whether a physician just wants to introduce patients to their practice or discuss the most complex procedures, VideoMD provides a forum which is tailored for each and every doctor and patient. VideoMD proves that with modern video capabilities on the Internet, combined with an array of search-able content features, video is the best resource to give patients information that they need in an easy and understandable format.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
A lot of you may have heard of the diet book Eat This, Not That. It is the wildly successful diet book from Men’s Health Editor-in-Chief David Zincenko and Men’s Health food and nutrition editor Matt Goulding.
The book does an excellent job exposing the obscene number of calories in certain foods, such as Outback’s Aussie cheese fries that weigh in at 2,900 calories, Chili’s Awesome Blossom at 2,710 calories , and Lonestar’s 20-ounce T-bone — an astonishing 1,540-calorie steak. And as a result, several restaurants have removed calorie-laded items from their menus.
However, most of us presumably do not walk around with a book under our arm that will let us know what is in the foods we eat. Now comes an iphone application developed by a San Franscisco entrepreneur that was designed to enhance not only healthy eating but food safety as well. Dwayne Ratleff, the sole proprietor of a house keeping business spent six months developing the recently launched iPhone app-Don’t Eat That.
The app is based on the premise that most consumers are not able to understand, let alone pronounce, many of the ingredients listed on food labels. Their food decisions are frequently based on convenience and taste, with few knowing the impact of what they are actually eating. The Don’t Eat That app was designed to enhance food safety with the touch of a finger. Read more
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Our reader base is legion with those who spend countless hours at their desks and at their computers. Hand stiffness, elbow pain, and wrist pain are the inevitable results of this sedentary lifestyle.
Clinically Fit, Inc., a Melville, New York based company, has created a device to deal with these problems and as well as other repetitive motion injuries such as arthritis, tendonitis, tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome.
After three years of research and development The Xtensor was released in June of 2007 and has changed the way people deal with common issues affecting the upper extremity.
Winner of the prestigious Medical Design Excellence Award, The Xtensor is the first product to correctly counteract the gripping actions our hands go through every day by strengthening the muscles that open the hands to improve core strength and stability in the wrists and elbows allowing users to better handle repetitive stress and improve dexterity in the fingers.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When Dan and Jean Ehrlich, global touring musicians, got sick of the convenience store snack foods full of artificial ingredients they ate while on the road, they knew there had to be a better alternative. Dan and Jean decided to take things into their own hands by starting Rock-n-Roll Gourmet, creating “natural snack foods with a rock-n-roll attitude.”
Launched in June of 2009, its flagship brand, Hippie Chips, as well as other products, are already available in regional Whole Foods Markets and Safeway stores, natural food and convenience stores, and sold in public schools and college campuses.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet’s mission was to make a totally natural, low fat, and tastily addicting potato chip. They also wanted to create a fun rock and roll image through their colorful music themed packaging, which they also use to promote new bands and artists.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet’s mission was to make a totally natural, low fat, and tastily addicting potato chip. They also wanted to create a fun rock and roll image through their colorful music themed packaging, which they also use to promote new bands and artists.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet is now the featured snack at the Woodstock Museum.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
There has been the “Grapefruit Diet” , the Atkins Diet, the Popcorn Diet, the Caveman or Paleolithic Diet and the Cabbage Soup Diet.
Now comes (drum roll please) the Cookie Diet. The Cookie Diet is the currently the best selling weight loss product in the country. It’s the #1 selling product at GNC last month and the product is also sold in WalMart, Walgreens, Costco and Target.com.
Dr. Sanford Siegel, the founder of the diet, originally created the diet in 1975. However, it was only available to patients in his Miami medical practice and at other doctors’ practices that he supplied with cookies.
In 2006, Dr. Siegel created CookieDiet.com. He began selling his cookies at Walgreens and GNC, and opened his first Cookie Diet store in Beverly Hills, California, which is frequented by Hollywood trendsetters. According to a recent New York Times article, he expects 2009 revenues to be $18 million, up from $12 million in 2008, thanks in part to endorsements from celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson.
Only Dr. Siegal and his wife know the key ingredient in Dr. Siegal’s cookies —special amino acids, which supposedly curb appetite —.
“It’s the particular mixture of proteins that does the job,” Dr. Siegal told the NY Times. “All foods do not handle hunger the same way, and high protein foods curb hunger.” The cookies, he said, contain protein derived from meat, eggs, milk and other sources. They also contain microcrystalline cellulose — a plant fiber that acts as a bulking agent, emulsifier and thickener — and are sweetened with sugar.
According to Dr. Siegel, over 500,000 people have lost weight on the diet. A bad of cookies costs $64.99 for a bag of cookies which lasts over 1 week (recession friendly). Moreover, Dr. Siegel does not come off as a quack (like many diet gurus do), he comes across as very reasonable, learned, and caring.
The site and the web are filled with testimonials trumpeting the diet including a woman even lost 250 lbs and was featured on the cover of People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight.
I have always been skeptical of fad diets, but you can’t argue with the success many people are having with Dr. Siegel’s plan.
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Are you an Entrepreneur who has never taken a business class? Are you hoping to parley an idea based on your real world experience into a thriving business? Well, as I will discuss here, it can be done. If you are an Entrepreneur who is also a vegan, then you should really pay attention.
Only a few short years ago, Veronica Bosgraaf and her six year old daughter embarked on a journey in their kitchen in Holland, Michigan to create an all natural, healthy snack made with nothing but the best ingredients. Bosgraaf’s daughter Anna was six years old when she decided to become a vegetarian. In looking for healthy snacks, Bosgraaf discovered that conventional energy bars meet the vegetarian criteria but they usually included a lot of sugar and other additives.
The main goal when creating pure bar was that it had to be delicious and nutritious, and of course vegetarian. On that basis, “The Pure Bar” and ThePureBar.com were created.
The Pure Bar came to life through experimentation. The original version included almonds, dates, walnuts, and a couple of items not everyone has on kitchen shelves — brown rice protein and agave nectar. The positive responses of parents and pupils when she sent bars to school for class treats made Bosgraaf think about manufacturing them commercially.
The first product run launched in January 2006.
“I had a lot of doors slammed, because food manufacturers like to deal with companies, rather than a woman who thinks she has a good idea,” Bosgraaf said. She finally found one manufacturer willing to start off with smaller minimum runs — 50,000 items twice a month.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
I hate going to the doctor. I hate waiting in waiting rooms. I hate appointments and being kept waiting I hate everything about the experience. If there is a way I can handle my health without going to a doctor’s office, I am all for it. Since back pain (while sometimes painful and debilitating) is not life threatening finding self help treatments on the web is not as risky as trying to treat other health issues.
If you have back pain and have an aversion for running to the doctor all the time, the check out Irehab.com. Irehab.com, launched in April of this year and based in Kamuela, Hawaii, bills itself as the next generation of back pain treatment providing customized programs delivered immediately online for FREE.
Irehab.com was designed by licensed physical therapists. The idea is that you tell them about your back pain and doctors will match exercises to heal and treat it. Patients can get free advice on how to treat specific complaints. By answering a few questions and looking at several 3D animations, users should be able to diagnose themselves.
There are many health related websites on the Internet today that offer information about back pain and musculoskeletal pain treatment in general, such as Webmd.com, and Healthination.com. The information contained in these sites is textbook orientated and does not provide individual solutions or video presentations or those solutions. Irehab.com wants to stand out by offering specific and customized solutions for back pain.
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By: The Editor
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic, barbers, cosmetologists, and other personal appearance workers held approximately 825,000 jobs in 2006. Of these, barbers and cosmetologists held 677,000 jobs, manicurists and pedicurists 78,000, skin care specialists 38,000, and shampooers 29,000. Theatrical and performance makeup artists held 2,100 jobs. Most of these workers are employed in beauty salons or barber shops, but they also are found in nail salons, day and resort spas, and nursing and other residential care homes.
One of the biggest obstances for these workers is managing their time and appointments with customers. Based in Neveda, CK Systemz has developed a very interesting piece of software to help. CK Systemz has created the first ever patented automated email system called Client Keepers.
Client Keepers is an easy to use, one of a kind scheduling tool designed specifically for hair stylists, message therapists, cosmetologists, estheticians, beauticians, nail technicians, beauty students, and salon and spa owners alike.
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