You won’t see him on NBC’s The Biggest Loser but Chip Arledge (alias The Fat Man), the DJ at 100.3 The Point, has a weight loss story to put any of those losers to shame.
Arledge has lost more than 170 pounds in the last year and, no, it wasn’t done through surgery.
He simply decided to stop eating and drinking so much, and to exercise more.
Here are the facts:
1) He weighed nearly 400 pounds when he started his lifestyle change. He was in his early fifties and he was worried about his health.
2) He cut his calorie consumption down to 500-700 a day. That amounts to oh…about three carrots, two crackers, a thin slice of turkey and two glasses of water a day, give or take.
3) He started moving, first from his chair to his sofa, then from his kitchen to his car, then 25 steps of walking, then a little bit of jogging, then finally some actual running. Now he’s up to 20 miles a week. He runs a mile in just over seven minutes.
4) Most amazing, he’s done it all without one of those famous diet plans or an exercise regimen from a celebrity coach. He just decided to do it by himself. Sheer willpower.
He still calls himself the Fat Man, by the way. Maybe it’s ironic or maybe it’s just a needed reminder of what he used to be.
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It might be time to cancel the funeral service for book stores.
Last year, the word was, book stores and books (those things with paper) were dead or dying. Ebooks, experiencing enormous growth, were destined
to wipe out regular books and close down bricks-and-mortar stores.
Not so fast. The latest figures show ebook growth flattened out tremendously last year, up only five percent over 2012.
And Marquette’s treasured Snowbound Books? It’s doing just fine. Owner Dana Schultz, who took over in April, says revenue held steady in 2013.
So is it just the stubborn old farts who are still buying paper books? No, Schultz says, it’s everybody who feels a closer connection to the actual printed page than the digital page. The real book fosters an intimacy between reader and book.
It sounds kinda touchy-feely, but there may be something to it.
As for the book stores themselves, yeah, Borders is dead and Barnes and Noble may be dying, but Snowbound is alive and well. Schultz’s customers, local and tourists, tell her they love the “smell” of the store. You can’t say that about your Kindle or iPad.
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Don’t look for balloons and brass bands when Sol Azteca opens tomorrow (Saturday, December 28th) morning.
In fact, don’t even look for a sign outside. That still hasn’t arrived.
But Aurora Cardosa, the manager of the new Mexican restaurant located downtown just above L’Attitude, says they’ll simply turn on the Open sign at 11 am and wait for people to arrive.
Talk about a soft open.
Cardosa says their menus finally arrived, most of their staff is working, and they’re finally ready to serve.
Liquor license? No, that’s still being worked on but Cardosa says her aim is to make Sol Azteca a great family restaurant where the focus is on the food, not the alcohol.
One more thing: they’re still looking for a few hires. If you need a job and you like the aroma of Mexican cuisine, you need to get down there. Pronto. Wait, is “pronto” Italian? Whatever. You get the idea.
You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com