Plexus: HELL, YEAH it works! See for yourself!

3 weeks on Plexus, and here are my results (black dress photo above) so far! I am actually beginning to see my waist again AND my cheekbones! YAY!  SO happy, because it's TOTALLY without dieting! Hubs Dan is thrilled, because he sees- and can feel!- "me" again- and he knows I've tried Everything, and how frustrating it's been! Plexus isn't some "overnight miracle"; you really do have to stick with it! But if you are serious about losing weight, give yourself a month at least to try it!  It's easy to do, I feel good, and I am DEFINITELY sticking with it! If you'd like to join me, and my friends, check out my Plexus website http://elkhorninn.myplexusproducts.com , and if you have any questions, email me at elisse@elkhorninnwv.com, or call me at 304-862-2031, and I will help you get started! I have tried EVERYTHING under the sun to lose weight, and this is actually working- and with NO DIETING!  YAY!

Me, "before"- UGH!!!

Plexus: Taking control of my weight- finally! BLACK FRIDAY DEAL TODAY!

A dear FEMA co-worker and friend for many years, Tom B., has had great- and fast- success with weight reduction (he's lost 15 lbs. and one belt notch in only a month!) & getting healthier using Plexus nutritional supplements (see his story below), so after careful consideration last night I decided to try them myself! I decided to do this NOW- & not wait any longer- because: 1) I am Truly sick and tired of being overweight, and having nothing work to help me permanently lose the 40lbs. I packed on, and 2) there is a "Black Friday Special" good through TONIGHT (Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014) that I wanted to take advantage of! I would LOVE to get my cheekbones back, as well as get back into my size 6s! If you are interested, click on my link below: http://elkhorninn.myplexusproducts.com where you can sign up, and read about and order products.
I consulted with both Tom, and his mentor, Billie, and decided to start my regimen with 4 products that work together: Plexus Slim, Pro Bio 5, Bio Cleanse, and the X Factor Vitamin. I am then going to add Block. I also got the Fast Relief Cream for Dan to try when his back pain kicks up. NOTE: There is ALSO a coupon code: THANKS2014 for an extra 10% off!   Feel free to ask me any questions you like, & if I don't know the answer I'll ask Tom & Billie and get right back to you! My email is elisse @ elkhorninnwv.com (remove the spaces- I'd put in a hot link, but then the spammers will get it, too!)

Tom B's Plexus success: "I started the Plexus Products on Oct 22nd, after much deliberation and skepticism.  I began as an "Ambassador", mainly because I wanted to get my products at a discount! After 5 days, I noticed a very positive change: I was eating much less and getting satisfied much faster- and this was a very good thing! My cravings for sweets began to lessen, too. And now, after only a little of over one month, I have lost 15 pounds and my energy level has gone up drastically! My blood sugar level is also getting back to normal; most of the time my readings are now below 100. I don't have a serious blood sugar level issue, but I am taking both Glipizide and Metformin, and I'm hoping I can get off the Rx medications. I'm pretty sure that my regular check-up in December will find my A1C levels within normal range. I credit Plexus Slim and Accelerator for all of this! This week I added Bio Cleanse and Pro Bio 5 to my regimen. My wife and daughter are now starting the program to lose weight, as well."

There is a great deal of good information on the Plexus website, including product ingredients and testimonials. Because I'm allergic now to so many medications, and I have to depend almost 100% on natural and herbal supplements to literally save my life, I was impressed by the natural ingredients in Plexus products, including Aloe Vera, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Chlorogenic Acid, pro-biotics, vitamins, and enzymes. Many of the Plexus products were specifically designed for people with diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other serious illnesses. I am simply 40 lbs. overweight, but at 4'10" tall, being 150 lbs. makes me clinically obese, and I've been warned by doctors that if I don 't lose 40 lbs. Now I will be at a serious risk for developing diabetes. I was 110 lbs.- the right weight for my height- all my adult life- with no dieting- until I turned 48, when it seemed like my metabolism simply Stopped. I packed on 15 lbs. inside a week, grew right out of my clothes, and in the last several years my weight has ballooned up to 150 lbs. I had lots of tests done to see if there was some issue with my thyroid, adrenal system, or hormones, but everything came back "normal". Diet, exercise, supplements- nothing has worked to get the weight off and keep it off. I always wore a size 6- now I'm a size 12 with two chins and no cheekbones! And I had truly and basically given up hope... until Tom shared his recent success with me.
My intention is to do what Tom did: start my Plexus regimen as soon as it arrives, and post in about a month- hopefully reporting success! I hope you'll join me- it would be fun to share success stories and help keep each other motivated!
For more information, see my Plexus Website:  http://elkhorninn.myplexusproducts.com/ and feel free to contact me for more info!

 And remember: #ShopSmall - and not just on #SmallBusinessSaturday ! 

Me, in 2008, when, at 125 lbs., I thought I was fat...

And me now, at 150 lbs... :-(

Empowered...

Nothing quite so empowers one as hitting a fairly small target at a decent distance with a 20 gauge shotgun. :-)
The other night, whilst I was Facebooking & Twittering away at the computer, adding such pithy 140-character-or-less bon mots as "Train Tweets: The Pocahontas RR is chugging past the http://www.elkhorninnwv.com! #railfans #trains" to the tweeting universe (and patently oblivious to the rest of it), Dan went out back and shotgunned a copperhead snake that was freaking out the dogs.
Totally immersed in the computer, I heard not the dogs freaking out, nor the Boom of the shotgun- Nada. This was Not a good thing. Plus, I later wondered, what if I had? This was not the first time we'd had the dogs freaked out by a snake, but it Was the first time the dogs were freaked out by a Poisonous snake, and the possibility of it happening again at some point is a good one, so Boo-Boo better better be able to Deal, as they say...
And so yesterday I went out back w/Dan & "Li'l Betsy", our antique gift shotgun from NY friends who inherited it, and picked out a couple of targets in the creek (the shadow in front of a piece of drift wood, a sunlit spot on the water) and successfully blasted 'em. Boom! Reload! Boom! Reload! Boom! Reload! Woo-hoo! It is SO nice to be able to step out back of one's home and blast away at things in the peaceful quiet of one's own backyard, with no neighbors to p-o...
Li'l Betsy has a bit of a kick to her, but today my shoulder is neither black nor blue, and I now feel Quite empowered & Much more capable- of taking out a poisonous snake, among other things! :-D

We've had a number of guests at the Inn over the last few weeks, including many Railfans, which has been a lot of fun. Our littlest railfan guest this week (age 6) was enchanted with the inn & all the trains, especially as the Pocahontas' RR engineer's "tooted" him on the RR horn! We've had several guests book the Inn's "Ultimate Railfan" package, too, which includes two nights at the Inn, a Chef Dan Dinner at the Inn, and a signed copy of one of James Porterfield's books- either "From the Dining Car" or "Dining by Rail" www.jamesdporterfield.com. The best news this week is that we've just learned the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre is featured in the October issue of TRAINS Magazine, as well as in the Sept. issue of the WV State Journal! TRAINS Magazine www.trains.com is an especially big deal for us, as railfan guests truly are the backbone of our business; Trains and Railfan & Railroad www.railfan.com are THE magazines most of our guests read, and for the Elkhorn Inn to have been featured now in both publications is a great thing for us and McDowell County.

We have several upcoming festivals in our area, too, so we've been getting ready for our guests who'll be coming to enjoy them:

Sat. Sept 5th (Labor Day Weekend) there's an "ATV pig roast" and live band up on the mountain, and Dan & I are planning to ride our ATV's up and enjoy that- hopefully with our guests! Sat. Oct. 3 is the October Sky - Rocket Boys Festival in Coalwood with Homer Hickam & the Rocket Boys of book & movie fame, and

Sat. Oct 10 is Oktoberfest in Bramwell, with live music and a microbrewery beer sampling... and the "leaf-peeping" should be Gorgeous all the way through Halloween!

Dan & I Finally got to do a bit of ATVing this week, riding all over the mountain for 6 hours, nice-and-easy, and found a "secret" valley where we had a fun picnic. It was a Gorgeous day, mostly sunny and in the 70s, and everything is still that wonderful deep, summer green... I will NOT LET SUMMER GO! I do not want to hear ONE thing about fall, sweaters, leaf-peeping, holiday gifts, "rich & hearty warming stews", or ANYTHING that even IMPLIES that summer is over! We get 8 $%&*!!$! months of winter here every year and I want to drag summer out as long as I possibly can! We harvested a whole Mess of oregano last week and made several quarts of REALLY good oregano pesto, and we've been harvesting tomatoes, as well, and so cooking up lots of tomato-basil sauce. Like the wild-blackberry sauces & salsas we make, I like to freeze them so we can have a "taste of summer" when we badly need it in the winter! Chef Dan treated me this week to a couple of glorious "foodie" meals: seared sushi tuna one night, accompanied by a truly fine saki our friend Cindy gave us, and the next night tiny scallops sauteed in garlic and oil with almonds over pasta with a Maycas del Limari 2006 Chardonnay from http://www.wine.com/ that Dan got from the "puppies" on DogFather's Day! As you can see, it is almost Impossible to diet in this house, but I have managed, over the last 6 months, to actually lose some weight- the proof was getting boots zipped all the way up that wouldn't even Begin to close back in May... The only "trick" I can attribute this to was writing down Everything I put in my mouth (and its calorie count) for over a month, which made me Think about what I was consuming- and cut it down. And I Do try to drink 5 cups of green tea a day, as this truly does help me lose weight more rapidly...

As readers of this blog know, for the past several weeks I was like, you know, Totally Obsessed with the http://www.purplelabnyc.com/ "Huge Lips Skinny Hips" contest on http://www.brickfish.com/, and whined, wheedled, plead, & otherwise drove all my friends nuts begging them (you) to vote for my entry. Well, the contest ended the other day, and as I have not yet received The Phone Call, I gather I didn't win the fabulous fashionista trip to NYC... Such is life! It was fun, and actually quite a learning experience, vis a vis the promotional usages of "Social Networking" and "Social Marketing" to create "buzz"... I now have another 5 entries on Brickfish (!), and I will add links to my entries on this blog, but I will not (for the moment, anyway) drive y'all crazy with them...

As I write this, Lucky Kitty- the most appropriately named kitten in the world- is asleep on top of my computer printer. Lucky has become, obviously, a House Cat, with all that this implies: he now has a litter box, a cat collar with a tiny bell (that's still too large, & which he pulls off), and store-bought kitten food, it's spoiled rotten already, & is about to get a Scratching Post with the $10 gift certificate to Petco that The Sweeps Queen won on www.GoPetFriendly.com (a great site about traveling with ones pets), before he even Thinks about damaging any furniture. Lucky has spent his first week @the Elkhorn Inn tweaking the Tiger- literally.

One Incredibly Self-Assured Kitten from the minute he strode into the bldg. like he owned it, L has taken to perching on the the back of my office chair & whacking at Tiger-the-Pit-Bull's nose with his paw, while T attempts to lick it like a Mommy Cat! Watching the two big dogs play with the tiny kitten and chase each other around (practically bouncing off the walls of my office...) is pretty funny and incredibly sweet... At night Tiger, Lady, & Lucky all curl up in the big dog box, and T even lets kitten drink from his water dish! They are now a Complete Animal Family: Mommy Lab, Daddy Pittie, & Baby Kittie! And that is IT! The Elkhorn Inn Animal Farm is CLOSED! Note to all strays: It's over! Finito! We're officially Full! Chiuso! No room at the Inn! Go away!

Thoughts On Spring... dieting, turning 50, & Luis M.

Our group of ATVing guests left the Inn this morning for home, happy w/their 2 days of riding, several armed with hand-made WV coal tchochkas for their wives :-) The daffodils & magnolia are in bloom, as are our 3 fruit trees, & Dan even set up my giant, new 7' tall inflatable birthday cake outside! I would like to be bubbling over with happiness- and should be, truly: happy guests, more bookings, gift shop sales, two great reviews on http://www.tripadvisor.com/ and http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/, and a gorgeous page on http://www.wanderingeducators.com/... But a young friend of ours is apparently dying & I'm broken-hearted.

Luis M., a FEMA co-worker and friend who is in his 40s, is in the hospital in Puerto Rico, apparently dying from prostate cancer. I say "apparently" because I cannot bear to say otherwise; I HAVE to hold out hope for an "extreme miracle", the "Hail Mary Pass" in the big football game of life, as it were.

Not having medical insurance, Luis kept working & put off going to the doctor until it was too late, and now his friends around the country are emailing each other news from our colleagues visiting him in the hospital in Puerto Rico telling us of his sickness during what seem to be the final days of his life. I have been posting "status updates" on my http://www.facebook.com/ page asking my 156 facebook friends to please send him their prayers, hope, love, good karma, healing wishes... because I don't know what else to do. I want to cry, but I can't even do that... But I also can't sleep. For Luis to needlessly die young from an illness that could have been successfully treated had he been able to afford to see a doctor, makes this all so incredibly tragic that I've been walking around pretty much in a haze now for days, & he hasn't left my thoughts for months.

Luis was (is? It is hideous to be talking about him in the past tense when his is alive!), bubbly, funny, smart, talented, good-looking, and full of life and laughter. He was, like me, a FEMA Community Relations Field Specialist and a Reports Tech. The picture I have in my head of him is all of us dancing and laughing one evening during a FEMA training @EMI in Maryland a few years ago... and how he howled and teased me mercilessly for slipping & falling on my way up to the stage to join the gang in singing "We Are Family"... When I heard how ill he was, I sent him an "Easy" button from Staples to cheer him up, hoping & praying that somehow he would get the life-saving treatment he needed...

But he didn't- or whatever he did get didn't work- and he was "sent home to die" several times, each time winding up back in the hospital, where he is again, apparently now being given nothing but pain medication to ease his suffering.

I am "muddling through" as they say, thanking G-d daily for the miracle of my life & going about the minutiae of day-to-day living- "putting a good face on it" as they say. From the emails I'm getting from my FEMA friends, they're apparently doing likewise... I'm striving to enjoy our guests & the antics of our 2 puppies, trying to focus on planning our summer garden & working on promotional writing projects for the Inn, and letting myself be distracted by Facebooking & Tweeting, and, of course, eBay- my "retail therapy" out here in the mountains... But my thoughts keep cycling back to death & dying, and the fears I have of both; & a lot of dwelling on the existence of G-d, & why humans have always needed to create religions, in great measure, I think, to convince ourselves that death is not The End & that there really Is "eternal life"... Yes, I need therapy! But not having a therapist out here In The Country (where every doctor's answer to almost everything is "take anti-depressant pills), I write; hence, this Blog...

Another issue factoring into my "mortality thoughts" is that my 50th birthday is coming up in a few days: 1 a.m. on April Fools Day. I always loved having that birthday as a child, first of all because no one could forget it, & second, because my mother always made it fun w/a gag gift of some sort. The party we are planning to celebrate it with friends isn't until July, so in theory I'll get to celebrate twice, which, again, should be making me happy: I'm alive & seem to be in good health, & I'm gonna be a half century old! :-P When I was turning 38 & depressed to be "pushing 40", (Oh, to be 38 again!), my mother told me it "was better than Not turning 40", which, of course, it was. This time she emailed me that "50 was good, 60 was good, 70 was good, & 80 was good" (she's 86); and so, please G-d, it shall be! But 50 happened so damn FAST!!! It truly feels like my 40th birthday party was about a year ago and I got out of the Army about 3 years ago... A lot of my friends are older than I, and think it's hilarious & ludicrous that I've gotten myself all worked up over turning 50, spring chicken that I am, but to me it feels so Odd to be- all of a sudden!- so damn Old... Yeah, "50 is the new 30", me & Madonna are both the same age as Barbie, etc., etc., but having not had kids I think I'm stuck in a kind of state of arrested development: I still feel- in my head at least- 19... No one's carded me of late (like they do my friend Cindy, the Ageless Beauty of NYC), but I don't think I look Too bad- just Fat. And so I have finally, really, started to diet- the first one I've had to do in decades. :-P

About 2 years ago my metabolism seemed to come to a grinding, screeching halt while I was working on a FEMA disaster operation in Kansas. I remember having to go to the Sallies to get new size 8 khaki slacks, after I'd "grown out of" all the size 4s and 6s that filled my suitcase. Having put on weight on FEMA ops before (the 3-meal-a-day-thing really packs the lbs. on me), only to have it come off w/in a few months of being home & "eating normally" (one meal & a lot of coffee, basically), I wasn't worried. But this time No dice. By the time we left on our honeymoon trip I was so fat I couldn't fit into any of the cute clothes I'd bought for it; I gained still more weight in Vietnam, to the point where I had 2 chins & had to have clothes Made for me there... And then last week I went to the doctor for a check-up & learned I'm almost 140 lbs., & nearly gagged. I am 4' 9 1/2" tall & should be 100 lbs. 110 is fine, even 114. But I have NO BUSINESS being Anywhere Near 140. Last year I tracked my food intake on www.Glamour.com, & discovered that I rarely go over 1000 calories/day- but that I was GAINING WEIGHT on 1000 calories/day! And so The Diet has begun: I'm on Day 4 & haven't cone over 650 calories/day- including my nightly 100 calorie 4 oz. glass of red wine! :-) I figure if I can keep this up for a month I should be back into my 4s & 6s before July4th... I found a sparkly little Bob Mackie spaghetti-strap mini number on eBay for a song- a veritable festival of sequins it is!- and assuming I can get it zipped & not look like a sausage in a casing, I intend to wear it- with suitably sparkly stilettos- on July 4th... I also have my Slendertone belt & a batch of new pads, & tonight I will start using that again. What I Should be doing, of course, is exercise, but I'm a sloth... & between mistressing the website & online gift shop, taking bookings, blogging, email, professional assignments, LinkedIn, eBay, facebook, & twitter, I'm almost literally chained to the computer! I'm Hoping once it warms up a bit more we'll be out there playing golf, ATVing, & gardening...

In looking for a way to 'treat myself' for my b'day (and focus on something really silly & thus distracting), I did a Lot of internet research & eBaying, & finally decided to get myself a few help-the-birthday-diet purchases: an order of my fave AminoGenesis anti-aging skin care products to both restock our Gift Shop & my vanity table, a pair of LG-XL (UGH!) ShapeFX Lytess leggings that promise to take off 2 inches if I wear them for 28 days straight, & a bottle of Ageless Fantasy, the perfume with clinical trials proving people think you're 8 years younger when you wear it. As expensive as it is (but I scored another eBay deal...), I want to test it; if it really Does work (I'll have to ask the check-out clerks in the Kimball WalMart how old they think I am...) I want to give samples of it to all my girlfriends in July! Does shopping ease depression? I don't know yet for certain, but I'm giving it the best shot I can...