Fitness Trackers: Are they for you?

Because I write about exercise and fitness, I was invited to review the fitness website, SlimKicker (SK). SK is an online tool to track exercise and weight goals and get feedback from the online community.

Signing up was easy – I just had to create a user name, password, and enter my goals. I entered my perennial goal of 10 pound weight loss, and SK gave me a suggested daily calorie amount, broken down into grams of carbs, fats and protein, based on the data I entered for gender, height, age and activity level.  Later, I found how to calculate this number again, entered the same data, and got a slightly different number. Hmm.

Next, I started entering the food I had eaten that day -  a small bowl of Raisin Bran for starters. As soon as I recorded this, a pop-up message appeared: “Cereal does not have any protein. Maybe you should have eaten a three egg omelet with vegetables and feta cheese instead.” A three-egg omelet? Seemed like big breakfast for someone of my size, especially since SK told me I only get 1,266 calories for the day (or 1,279, depending on which day I calculated it.)  Protein is good, but I think I would start gaining weight if I ate this breakfast of champions every day. Discouraged, I didn’t bother to enter any other food that day, afraid that SK would start recommending a Big Mac or a large steak.

Next, I tried entering exercise. Since I had ridden my bike on the trainer for 30 minutes, I went to the cardio section. I searched on “bike.” None of the choices that came up were right – mountain bike, bike to work, etc. Next I tried “stationary bike,” and found one that fit. From there it was easy to enter the number of minutes from the drop down menu. Once you enter an activity, you can save it as a routine, so you can reuse the same entry on another day.

Then I tried entering “weight lifting” as an activity. I had hoped I could just enter “weight lifting, moderate, 40 minutes.” But SK wanted me to individually enter each weight lifting activity, such as bicep curls, how many reps and how many sets. This proved to be too cumbersome and I gave up on it in no time at all.

Finding my initial experience with SK less than stellar, I set is aside for a couple of months, then recently gave it another try. Best Husband has been participating in a similar program at his workplace wellness program, where participants log their exercise and steps, earn points, and can challenge each other in specific fitness goals. BH has been having a lot of fun with the challenges at work, so I decided to try the challenge section. I searched challenges that I could join, and found things like “give up soda for a week,” “no take out pizza for a week,” and “eat a salad a day.” I’m already doing those things, so I put out my own challenge to the members: Don’t eat cheese for 14 days.” So far, no joiners.

The part of SK that I liked the best is the “log your weight” section. Click the drop-down arrow for the date, then add your weight in digits in the box. SK then plots your weight on a large graph. The graph is big enough that a small change up or down looks huge. Of all the features of SK, this is the one I’m most likely to use, as I think it would be satisfying to see my weight progress down on that big graph. That is, if it ever does.

Who should use SlimKicker or other fitness tracking web sites? Anyone who enjoys participating in an online community with feedback and postings similar to Facebook. To get the best benefit from the online support, I suggest using the site with a buddy or group of friends with similar goals, and use the online challenges to help each other stay on track. Will I keep using SK? Probably not, although, I might keep using that big weight-tracker graph. Seeing that move down, down, down would be golden.

© Huffygirl 2013

Related post:

• My doctor’s office thinks I’m fat (huffygirl.wordpress.com)

• Finally, some help in my one-woman war against cheese (huffygirl.wordpress.com)

My husband is the most popular man on earth

I’m a  lucky dog; I’m married to the most popular man on earth. And how do I know he is? Because, everyone is after him right now. He gets fistfuls of personal mail daily. Multiple phone calls from strangers. People stopping by the house, leaving notes on the door that say “Sorry I missed you” and “I’ll be back soon.” So “why is everyone after your husband Huffygirl?” you might ask. Unfortunately, not because he is so good-looking, smart, or cool, although he is all of those things (well maybe not so much cool…). No, it’s because he is turning 65 soon.

Yes, hard for both of us to believe, but my husband is about to become eligible for Medicare. And every company that sells any kind of Medicare supplemental insurance wants him.  It’s a veritable dog fight to see who will get him first. Right now, he’s as popular as Jack Nicholson on Oscar night.

The mail started trickling in last fall, a good six months before he would be Medicare-eligible. Well-known insurance companies, plus ones we’ve never heard of. Yes, best husband, we want YOU, and here’s why. Then the phone calls started. Night after night. Thanks to that wonderful invention, Caller ID, we can avoid speaking to most of them, but that does not stop the ringing. His phone is ringing like the head cheerleader’s two weeks before prom night. Everyone wants a date with him.

Now, with his birthday looming closer (April 2nd, in case you’d like to send him a card) they’ve stepped up their game. Insurance agents are starting to appear uninvited at our door. They leave perky hang tags on the doorknob with hand-written notes: “Best husband, sooooo sorry I missed you. I’ll talk to you soon about your Medicare options. Can’t wait! XOXOXO” Apparently they think that just because my husband is turning 65 soon, he’s sitting at home during the day with his cane, just waiting for them to drop by.

As April 2 looms closer, I expect they will step up their game. I’m hoping for swag – not coupons for Metamucil, diabetes supplies from Wilford Brimley, or $50 off a Hoveround. No, I’m hoping for serious swag. Restaurant dinners, weekend getaways, wine of the month, vacation trips. Sure, I know there are plenty of 65-year-olds out there to fight over, but hey, mine is special. With all the biking and running we do, Best Husband should be one of the least expensive 65-year-olds out there to insure. Perhaps, they’ll even start paying HIM. After all, he IS the most popular man on earth. At least for now anyway.

Huffygirl with THE most popular man on earth.

© Huffygirl 2013

Run Camp

It’s that time of year when nearly 1,000 people converge on my gym, filling the hallways, classrooms and restrooms, to spend the next few weeks honing their running skills, or for most, starting a brand new running career. They are young, old, fat, thin, male, female. Most are sporting a brand new kit of running gear from head to toe: bright neon jackets with Icebreaker wool shirts and gators sticking out at the neck; Lycra tights that still have their out of the box sheen, and pristine running shoes, with laces still lily-white and toes unstained by mud or rain. They’re loud, laughing, excited; their nervousness is palpable. They cling to their friends and offer disclaimers to the run leaders signing them in. They clutch up in the hallways and block the entrance to the gym, where I must pass through their gauntlet to get to Saturday morning spin class. They sit in the walkways, feet splayed out in fresh new SmartWool socks, begging to trip me, as I make my way past to spend the first part of my Saturday in a dark room on a bike that goes nowhere.

Last year, I hated them. I endured Saturday after Saturday wrestling my way through the rabid run campers to get to spin class. I resented them more each week. Not only were they clogging up the gym, blocking the way and taking our parking spaces, their fresh-faced enthusiasm at fever pitch, but they were running and I was not. Between years of arthritis, a bad ankle and an old hamstring tear, I didn’t think I could ever run again. Biking was going to have to be enough for me. But I watched them week after week: overweight, out of shape people caught up in the flurry with their running peers. I watched them struggle through the snow as they left the building for group runs, their spanking new shoes getting wet and dirty while they straggled along at the back of their group, some not even making it to the street before they tuckered out and walked. And, they inspired me.

So, as everyone knows who’s been reading this blog for a while, I had my own run camp. It lacked the benefit of group camaraderie, lectures from trainers and inspirational talks. But I started training and ended up a runner. Not a fast runner, not a long distance runner, but enough of a runner to satisfy that longing.

So this year, I empathize with them. They are new runners, entering into the unknown, exposing their novice skills to hundreds of others, in the quest to run a 5K, a half, or maybe even a marathon. They’re trying something new where they might fail, might get hurt, or worse, quit before they find out what they could become. Now, when I put up with the inconvenience of hundreds of runners clogging up my gym for a few weeks, it’s okay, because, now I’m one of them.

© Huffygirl 2013

Photos courtesy of http://www.mlive.com

Related posts:

• Camp
• Born to run or not
• Run diary, part I
• Run diary, part II

How to poison your family and make it look like an accident

It’s almost Thanksgiving again, and time for the age-old debate of stuffing versus dressing. I originally posted about this  conundrum on November 25, 2010, and thought it worth repeating just in time for this Thanksgiving. After all, it’s not every day you get an opportunity to poison your relatives with a delightful holiday dish!

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Stuffing Versus Dressing

In the states it’s almost time for Thanksgiving, an annual holiday where everyone eats too much turkey and pie, and watches the Lions lose again. For the Thanksgiving cook, the meal preparation always brings up the age-old debate – stuffing vs dressing. They both start out the same – dried bread cubes, seasonings, sometimes broth, margarine or butter, and water, made into a conglomeration that is either stuffed inside the turkey (stuffing) or baked separately in a dish (dressing). Everyone has their own opinion on which is best, and families line up fiercely divided each year on which way this delectable Thanksgiving carbohydrate should be served. Accompanying this debate of which way is tastier is the issue (some myth, some fact) over which way is healthier or safer. Who knew that dried bread cubes could raise such ire among otherwise friendly people?

In my family growing up, we always had dressing. I’m not sure why, but I think it was in part due to the fact that: it was easier. The dressing could be made while the turkey was cooking instead of earlier in the day when the turkey was ready to go into the oven. It was quicker. Stuffed turkey is supposed to take longer to cook than unstuffed (although in my own cooking experience I have never found this to be true.) It was safer. My family and others believed that the stuffing could become contaminated with bacteria from absorbing the meat juices and turn an otherwise delightful day into a merry trip to the emergency room.

Then I met my future husband whose family was all stuffing, all the way, and why would anyone consider doing it differently? What could be better than bread cubes infused with savory turkey juices and the two pounds of butter that Buttterball and others inject into their turkeys before sending them off to the store?

So what’s a girl to do? I have to admit I found both ways tasty, although sometimes the stuffing did not look quite as appetizing as the dressing, depending upon what colors it turned from the meat juices it absorbed during cooking. Eventually when I took over hosting the Thanksgiving meal, my compromise was to make stuffing and dressing. The amount of stuffing that would fit inside the turkey was not enough to serve everyone at the table anyway, so I would serve a dish of each, or sometimes mix them together, which I guess gives you something which is neither stuffing nor dressing, but there is not really any good combination word you can make from combining stuffing and dressing.

This compromise did not come without a cost, however. Members of the dressing contingent would make sly comments like “Make sure you’ve cooked that stuffing to 160 degrees so we don’t all get food poisoning, ha ha,” while members of the stuffing contingent would say “Who would want to eat that dressing? It always turns out so dry.”

And when it comes right down to it, where did the whole stuffing/dressing custom come from anyway? Imagine the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving. They’ve had a horrible year. First, all that travel and they couldn’t even earn any points from it. Then, having to build a settlement, squabble with the Native Americans, endure hardship, disease, cold and hunger. Finally, the ones who survived prepared what was probably a somewhat meager feast in celebration. There was no Kroger stores in Plymouth, so they had to hunt down their turkey, then pluck it, cut off the inedible parts, and remove the disgusting innards. After going through all that, and wrestling the turkey into a heavy cast iron roaster, you’d think that the Pilgrim cooks would have had enough of turkey prep for one day. But some creative person, staring into the empty cavity of the just gutted turkey said “hey, wouldn’t it be a great idea to cut up bread into cubes, add water, lard and spices and stuff this sucker?” And the rest as we say, is history.

Whether you eat stuffing or dressing, may you all have a happy and grateful Thanksgiving!

© Huffygirl 2012

(Dedicated to Aaron and Chris, my stuffing-loving relatives who will be eating someone else’s stuffing this year. Miss you!)

Born to run or not: 5K update

Mission accomplished. Here’s my son Mike and I prior to my injury-free 5 K race. Mike did great – we started together and seconds later I never saw him again. I kept my usual slow pace and managed to complete and remain injury free. But I’m dialing it down for now – no more 5K’s for a while. I’ll stick to my two miles two or three times a week, and behave. Maybe we are born to run, but at least for me, only in short, slow distances.

Kudos to blogger buddy Martin at Thoughts from Finchley who recently dusted off his old cycling jersey and got out on his brand new bike. I expect to see him passing me by any time now.

Meanwhile, cold weather is moving in here, making it almost impossible for a sissy like me to get outside and run or bike. For the next few months I’ll probably be mostly stuck in the gym, getting all tangled up on the treadmill, or slogging through yet another spin class. What do you do to stay active now that the weather is turning colder?

© Huffygirl 2012

Related posts:

• Christopher McDougall and me: Born to run or not? (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
• Le Tour de Finchley (2e0mca.wordpress.com)
• The color of running (huffygirl.wordpress.com)

Global bacon shortage has consumers scrambling

English: Uncooked pork belly bacon strips displayed behind glass in Gorman’s Butcher Shop in Pine Island, Minnesota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A global bacon shortage has egg and bacon loving consumers fearing the loss of this tasty breakfast meat. This past summer’s drought has cut the pork out of the pork industry. Hog producers have decreased the size of their herds, to save money on feed costs, after unusual heat and drought  caused a piggish raise in feed prices. Consumers, not wanting to miss out on this tasty breakfast meat, have bought up current supplies of bacon, contributing to the shortage.

Although, at least for Americans, there may be a silver lining to the bacon crisis, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius notes. “With two-thirds of Americans tipping the scales at overweight or obese, cutting bacon out of the American diet may just be a lifesaver,” says Sebelius. “Bacon, while adding flavor to our food, adds very little nutritive value, and is about 50% fat. If we cut bacon out of the American diet, over time we could have a lasting impact on our American girth.” Sebelius suggests that a Burger King bacon double cheeseburger might be just as tasty sans bacon, and would save consumers about 100 calories per portion.

While this baconpocalypse may benefit waistlines of hefty bacon consumers, farmers have a different take. With fewer piggies  coming to market and more staying home, farmers may suffer economic losses that may be difficult to recoup. Plus, farmers fear that once Americans stop bringing home the bacon, they may lose their taste for this porky product, and not resume bacon consumption once the shortage ends.

Twitter was abuzz this week with news of the global bacon crisis, although Kevin Bacon, the unofficial spokesperson for the pork industry, remained silent about the crisis.

© Huffygirl 2012

Related articles

• If the bacon apocalypse comes … five bacon-centric products we’d miss (guardian.co.uk)

When potato chips were health food

Step back in time to when a modest complex was considered a luxury resort, and potato chips were health food. In 1951 the Nicolay Dancy Company produced the New Era Potato Chips, touted as  a newer and healthier version of the potato chip. Nicolay Dancy, headquartered in good old Detroit, Michigan, was not only a purveyor of healthy snack chips, but also the proud owner  of a luxury resort in Harbor Springs, Michigan, built in 1962 as a retreat center for New Era employees.  Considered opulent  for its time, the resort boasted two large field-stone fireplaces in the  gathering rooms, a complex of plush hotel rooms, which surrounded  a  courtyard recreation area, complete with  a heated pool and playground. All of this rested on a scenic bluff  overlooking Lake Michigan. Apparently no expense was spared. Rooms included the latest in modern decor, including a 1962 attempt at reinventing the toilet, genuine ceramic tile in classic 60′s yellow, and real knotty pine paneling. When the company was bought out by Frito Lay in 1982, the retreat center eventually became a locally run hotel, which remains mostly unencumbered by modernization, or as the owners prefer to call it, carefully preserved with the lodge aura intended by the builders.

At the time that Nicolay Dancy produced the New Era Potato Chip, there was fierce demand and competition among chip makers to produce this tasty,salty delight. New Era’s tactic was to promote the chip as a healthy food on the alkaline side, although I have no idea why alkalinity was thought to equal healthful. New Era backed up this claim with “science says so.” Otherwise-sensible consumers believed it to be true.  Straight from the can, because potato chips didn’t always come in crinkly bags, here’s the scientific claim:

Chemical analysis have proven New Era Potato Chips to be a highly concentrated, energy-producing food, 95% digestible, and of greater alkalinity than even fresh, raw potatoes. Feast without fear!

At the time, the FDA did not wield as much oversight of the food industry as it does today, so apparently New Era could get away with their healthy claims. So what was the secret to New Era’s healthfulness as an energy-producing food? The secret is revealed, right on the front of the can: “…processed in hydrogenated vegetable shortening.” Hydrogenated? Didn’t we just ban that a couple of years ago, because hydrogenated oil contains trans fats?

But never mind that. Back then people didn’t care so much about  cholesterol.  Folks were free to enjoy their healthy potato chips in peace. Consumers trusted the food industry, and New Era chips, with its depiction of slim, active women on the can, were tasty and popular, and thought to be good for you too. And why not? Wouldn’t it be great if today we too could just chill and eat our potato chips, as if they too were scientifically proven to be healthy?

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© Huffygirl 2012

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Christopher McDougall and me: Born to run, or not?

Weeks after my reintroduction to running my first 5K in 30 some years, I’m getting ready to go out for a little run again. First  I tape up my recalcitrantly inflamed ankle. Next, Ace wrap my torn, aching hamstring. Then the usual stuff:  shorts, shirt, heart rate monitor, cell phone, and I’m ready to go. Turns out that running has only gotten harder, not easier, as my physical therapist and sports medicine doc can attest. So why do I still do it? I admit that most days I’m mystified myself.

If we are, as Christopher McDougall posits, born to run, why is it so hard, or nearly impossible, for most of us? I’m two years late to the party, reading McDougall’s 2010 tome, Born to Run, long after everyone else has already tried and given up on barefoot running and buying Chia pets to make their own chia seed elixir. Yet, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon, convinced that somewhere in this book is the answer to how a middle-aged women with a non-athletic body can somehow be transformed into a modicum of runner. My goal to run two miles twice a week, and a few 5k’s a summer, so far has been mostly insurmountable, and getting farther away each day, as every run I take I swear will be my last.

So I’m trying it again.  Like McDougall, I’ve been to my family doctor, who gently suggested that walking might be a better option, ahem, at my age. I’ve been to the sports medicine doc who told me that as long as I’m unable to hop on my bad ankle, I’ll have no success running on it. My bike guru who had gently discouraged me, now says “I’m surprised you’ve lasted THIS long.” The only bright spot is at  physical therapy, where, I’ve  actually garnered some understanding of my aspirations, and surprisingly, some improvement, including now being able to hop on each foot.

I could try gait analysis, but I’m afraid I’ll end up being the five-foot two version of McDougall’s running monster, as McDougall recounts here, which had me chortling uncontrollably when I first read it:

“Dr. Davis put me on the treadmill…and had me walk, trot and haul ass.. Then I sat in horror as she played back the video. …The guy on the screen was Frankenstein’s monster trying to tango.. I was bobbing around so much, my head was disappearing from the top of the frame. My arms were slashing back and forth like an ump calling  a player safe at the plate, while my size 13s clumped down so heavily it sounded like the video had a bongo back beat…my right foot twisted out, my left knee dipped in, and my back bucked and spasmed so badly that it looked as if someone ought to jam a wallet between my teeth and call for help. How was I even moving forward with all that up-down, side-to-side, fish-on a hook flopping going on?”

McDougall’s quest to run without injury brought him to explore the ways of the Tarahumara, a  tribe of super runners, and the Leadville Trail 100 ultra-marathoners, all of whom run amazing distances year after year, without harm. If those folks can run like that, shouldn’t McDougall and I be able to run our paltry little distances injury free? Unless McDougall’s writings are sheer hyperbole, perhaps I’ll find the answer by the time I finish the book.

Have you read McDougall’s book? What physical achievements have you accomplished, despite the odds tilted against your success?

© Huffygirl 2012

Related articles

• Run Diary, part I (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
• Run Diary, part II (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
• Things I have learned from running (losingit.wordpress.com)
• Born to Run: a Book to Love (uncoolrunning.com)

My doctor’s office STILL thinks I’m fat, and a troublemaker too

Well, it happened again. Unfortunately, I had to go back there. To the medical office that thinks I’m fat. In case you haven’t heard this story before, the skinny, er fatty is this: the new medical group I’ve been going to has decided that my BMI (ratio of height to weight) qualifies me as overweight, causing them to give me a weight-loss handout (aka fat handout) every time I leave their office.

Against my better judgement, I went back there for a follow-up visit, but this time, determined that I wasn’t going home with the fat handout again. My strategy: if I don’t step on the scale, they won’t record my weight, and won’t be able to give me the fat handout. I went in resolved to avoid the scale at all costs.

“Put down your things and step on the scale,” the medical assistant, whom I’ll call Ethel, says after calling me back into the office. “No, I don’t want to be weighed today,” I answered calmly. I was totally unprepared for the ensuing backlash. “You have to be weighed,” replied Ethel, her voice going up a few decibels. “Um, no I don’t and I don’t care to be weighed today,” I answered, pretty calmly I thought. “But you have to be weighed, it’s our policy,” Ethel replied, putting the same emphasis on the word policy as if she were saying mandate, decree, or law. “Well, no I don’t have to be weighed. I have the right to decline,” I answer back. I’m getting a little worried now about the backlash I’m getting, but I can’t back down now.

Ethel is positively sputtering now. Her voice has gone up well above inside voice level, and I’m a little surprised that she’s carrying on this way in what should be a professional setting. “Well, I’m going to have to get the manager,” she finally sputters back, several times, I might add. She’s positively frantic by now. Apparently, this hasn’t happened before.

The manager? Really? Let’s stop and look at this situation for a minute. The issue that has caused Ethel to go to red alert is that a patient has declined to be weighed. Does she get paid by how many people she weighs every day? Or does she get beaten or fired if she doesn’t weigh every patient? Now granted, there are a few groups who really should be weighed at their health care visits: children; anyone being seen for unexplained weight loss or illness; persons with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or kidney disease, pregnant women, and people who are ill. But I don’t fall into any of these groups. I was just there a few weeks earlier and was weighed then, so this really shouldn’t be an emergency now.

But, back to reality. Ethel is still sputtering about calling the manager and their policy. She’s positively shrieking now. I would expect the manager to be more upset about her unprofessional behavior than the cranky patient who declined to be weighed. So finally to stop the standoff,  I told her to ask the provider I was seeing, and if she insisted that I be weighed I would do it, but otherwise not. “Well, we’ll just see about that” Ethel answered as she shuttled me back to the exam room.

So back in the exam room, I talked to my provider and told the whole awful story. She’s good-natured and understanding, unlike the others in this office. “I’m just sick of getting the fat handout every time I come here,” I told her. “I’m really not overweight, it’s just that I’m too short. If you could make me a little taller, I’d stop getting the fat handout.  An inch should do it”

So, I finished up the visit and left, not sure if she was willing to go out on a limb to save me from the fat handout. Then, I looked at the papers they handed me at checkout. I know I was 5′ 2″ when I came into the office. But on the way out, I had turned into 5’7″.

© Huffygirl 2012

Related articles

• My doctor’s office thinks I’m fat (huffygirl.wordpress.com)

Save a life: Learn CPR

Today I’m taking a break from my usual satirical rants to talk about something serious.

This week I completed what was probably my 15th CPR certificate renewal class. For the last 3o-something years or so, I’ve taken BLS (basic life support) every two years, which includes CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). I have to take this class for my job, but I’d like to think that I would do it anyway.

I took my first CPR class in a Red Cross babysitting class in eighth grade. Back then, CPR was pretty new. There were a lot of rules of how to do it right and the class seemed pretty scary to a 12-year-old. We practiced on Resusi Annie, a life-sized model of a girl, who wore a blue track suit. The story was that Annie had died in a drowning accident, and her parents invented the CPR practice mannequin so people would know how to save drowning victims and prevent further tragedies. I never knew if this story was true, as we didn’t have Wikipedia back then.

Since then, CPR has come a long way. We now practice on mannequins that just have heads and chests – no arms or legs, no track suits. The CPR manual has gone from an inch-thick, technical manual, to 68 pages with color illustrations. The emphasis now is on doing CPR the best you can, and bringing an AED (automated external defibrillator) to the victim as soon as possible. We know now what we didn’t know 40-something years ago, that most cardiac arrest (unless caused by trauma) is caused by a bad heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation, aka v-fib. The AED works by stopping the heart with a shock. When the heart restarts, hopefully it will restart in a normal rhythm. CPR helps keep oxygen circulating in the victim’s body until this happens.

In 2001, AEDs were starting to appear in many public buildings, but were still pretty new. I was a senior in my bachelor of nursing program. My project adviser was a physician on campus who questioned the feasibility of  installing AEDs in campus buildings. She was concerned about safety, liability and cost. For my project, I did an extensive report on why it was a good idea to have AEDs in campus buildings, and explored cost, training, safety and liability issues. She liked my report so much that she asked me to present it to the campus safety committee. The committee took my recommendations and  installed AEDs in campus buildings. There they sat for years, ready to go, but as far as  I know, like most AEDs , were unused. About ten years later, the university president emeritus had a heart attack while speaking at a campus event. Bystanders performed CPR, used the AED and revived him. My mom called me later that day and said “You saved the university president!”

Now AEDs are in most public buildings in the USA, including stadiums, airports, offices, museums, and grocery stores. Have you noticed them? Most of the time they are in a wall case, with a red or green sign like the one above stating  “AED here.” When you remove the AED from the case, an alarm is activated which sends more help, so in no time at all you’ll have other people there to help you with CPR.

What would you do if someone collapsed  at home or in a public building? Would you know how to help?  Save a life – learn CPR.

(Community CPR classes are offered through the Red Cross, hospitals, schools and community centers.)

© Huffygirl 2012