[partially misleading title] No I’m not here to sell ANYTHING – just wanted to use the “1 weird trick” title at least once this year. I did in fact lose 70lbs this yr. I did not go to the gym once, I didn’t make any drastic changes… I’m actually surprised with my own results.
Back Story:
So I have always been a big guy… Not the biggest in the family by any means (Here’s my cousin Ryan) but big none the less. My mid-30’s are over and I’m coming up on 40 faster than I’d like to admit! I’d been hovering around 265lbs for the last 5(ish) years. Then the holidays roll around, Halloween (3 kids showed up – Mel bought 8 bags of candy) – Thanksgiving feast that lasts 4-7 days immediately followed by pre-cooking / prepping for Christmas and New Years. Let’s just say I love cooking, and I love eating! In all the cooking and eating I managed to get in for a check up and was kinda embarrassed by what the Dr. told me. “David if you don’t start eating better, excising, and lose some weight soon… You’re going to become a diabetic.” I knew in the back of my head he was right. Was still hard to hear though.
Happy New Year:
New Years Resolutions have always seemed like a cop-out to me. If these are things you want to do in your life… why do you have to wait for the calendar to reset? But here I was beginning of the new yr and I decided I’d do what I could to get down to my target weight of 220lbs (Dr. Recommended for me) My start weight 285lbs (ugh that hurts to say). Anywho… Here it is the middle of our crazy holiday seasons and my biggest problem is that NONE of my suits fit, and only my warm ups (stretchy waist band Adidas) fit me now.
The 1 weird trick:
Look I want to preface this with – I’M NOT A DR – I’M NOT SELLING ANYTHING! Here’s a weird story though. Beginning of the yr one of our clients (ex-writer for Alex Jones’ InfoWars) comes to us with a ‘breaking story’ that Fukushima reactor 3 was spewing toxic crap everywhere! Now I have worn a tin-foil hat in the past, and truly believe that if you get all of your news from FOX or CNN – You’re being mislead. So what do we do? Bury our heads in the sand? Give up? No… there has to be something that can help protect us…. Enter Lugol’s solution. about $17 for a 2 month supply or about 1 Starbucks per month.
The Iodine in Lugol’s 2% solution smells horrible… but I started taking it 60 drops the first day (morning 20 / lunch 20 / dinner 20) then dropped down to 10 drops every morning except Sundays. The idea is that it would fill up my thyroid gland and none of that nasty Fukushima crap could get in there and cause problems… Smart right? I thought so. Even if it was just a placebo effect that I created myself, there is research that says the brain and more importantly positive mental attitude can have serious changes.
So if you’re reading this for weight loss, you’re probably wondering where / what comes next? What do you do? Nothing. I noticed on the 3rd day that I’ve drank almost 2 Liters of water. What the hell? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had the Dr. recommended 8 glasses of water per day. Now – you should also know that Fat Cells leave the body through Urine. If you drink lots of water = lots of bathroom breaks. At the time of this posting I drink 2-3 liters of water per day and weigh 215lbs! Draw your own conclusions… Mine are this. I’m dead sexy again and prepared for the zombie Apocalypse / fallout! That’s what I call a win/win!
Weird Post Dave…
Yeah I know it’s not the norm. It’s one of the biggest things that’s happened to me in the past decade, it’s helped tremendously, I have energy, feel better, look better, and have a better life in general. If you have Amazon Prime it’ll cost you 8-10$ to try it. Hopefully it helps you, If not, please send hate mail to myexwife@yahoo.com 😉
Bringing it back around to marketing…
We all work hard to sell blue widgets for our clients. I see marketing everywhere I look and just wanted to share the above story and wrap it into another story. When looking for that ‘Magic Bullet’ that will make you lose weight, make you irresistible to the opposite sex, etc… Keep this in mind. Getting off of your ass and going to the Gym (doing anything really, biking, jogging, etc) is what really makes the changes – not the supplements. As we see online shoppers become smarter / savvy to marketing ploys we, as marketers, have to readjust and find new ways to skin the proverbial cat. This year we’ve had great successes for our clients. The secret sauce? HARD WORK! We get off our asses and do the work. Sometimes, it really is that simple.
What’s working now?
- Content Marketing (quality content, not sales copy)!
- On-Site (very simple and really shouldn’t be mentioned as it should be a ‘given’).
- PPC / DFO (Assisted Conversions for the WIN! And optimize your Data Feed).
- Social Semantic Web (RDFa, Schema, Mircoformats, and Microdata)
- Social Media
- Being clever marketers.
The above is the ‘secret sauce’ – “But Dave… that’s not a secret!” – I know. It’s not sexy or easy… it’s getting off of your ass and doing the work. For those of you that keep up to date with Google’s ever changing landscape this shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you. Stop searching for the ‘magic bullet’ (fiverr backlink packages – 10k shitty back links to your site for $5? really?) If it was that simple – everyone would be on the first page of Google. Do yourself a favor over the holiday season – take a walk in your customers shoes, then see how well you’d grade yourself…. and be honest.
- How easy is our site to navigate?
- How appealing are our CTA’s?
- How many clicks from blue-widget to checkout? (think 1 click checkout on Amazon – this works, copy their success) We have come across sites with 80%+ cart abandonment rates… only to discover that it takes 32 clicks to check out! And that’s NOT an exaggeration!
- How is the company perceived in social? (Twitter / FB / G+ / LinkedIn / Reddit)
- What kind of reviews do we have? (Do whatever you must, except for buying fake ones, to get GREAT Reviews)
- Is our site responsive? (for the love all things geek – we’re moving to mobile, be there or be square )
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, take some time to reflect on your online presence, and be sure to swing by GeeksRoundTable.com and ask us anything… We’ll answer on one of our weekly podcasts!
p.s. I said I didn’t do anything to lose the weight (I did, I followed through with taking the drops & drinking water). Now that I’ve lost 70lbs I can put exercise on my to-do list in 2015 without blowing out my knees on a jog!