My name is Victoria and I am a 43 year old Mom of two boys. My oldest is 13 and in the advanced 8th grade class and our youngest will be 12 in December and he is in special education 6th grade who has severe behavioral issues. I also have a husband that likes to complain and gripe all the time about everything. We have been married for 14 years and I am also having a hard time dealing with him.

I have heard a few people refer to gastric bypass as the easy way out (of diet and exercise). Maybe these people are the same ones who think a c-section is the 'easy way out' of child birth. I think I can safely sit here and say how untrue that is. Perhaps those people who have had weight loss surgery may want to do the same.

For the past few years there has been plenty of talk about women dressing in sexy lingerie and high heels, using a stripper's pole. All in the name of fitness!

Women of all ages, sizes and fitness levels are heading to home gyms or women-only fitness clubs and learning how to dance exotically in order to lose weight and gain cardio fitness. They don't all dress the part, but many do, and claim this kind of exercise helps them out in the bedroom too - getting them in the mood and helping them look better on top of it.

Children targets of $1.6 billion in food ads.

FTC advises that popular characters be tied to healthful products.

The commission studied spending directed at children ages 2-17. Spending on soda marketing came to $492 million, with the vast majority of that spending directed toward adolescents. For cereals, companies spent about $237 million, with the vast majority of that targeted to children under age 12.

We were out with friends recently who were talking about their company's health program that tests their employees’ health and fitness levels and charges their monthly health insurance contributions accordingly. This means the fitter you are, the less you pay every month. The couple work for the same company and the husband thinks the program is great – the wife does not. Both maintain a very healthy lifestyle, exercise regularly and eat well. He thinks some people need a big push to force them into living well and this is one way to do it.

This law is great - I think...

At least my first reaction was that it's great. But I don't eat out often - maybe once or twice a month. So can't I just eat what I want to eat and be left alone? Sure, but most people eat out several times a week and may be unintentionally clueless as to what they are putting in their bodies. And even if I only eat out once or twice a month, I suppose knowing the calorie or fat content won't do me any harm. Information certainly can't hurt us.

I will never forget the evening my husband and I were out to dinner and next to us was a couple we both decided were on their first date. Both of them would easily fit in the obese category. They started talking about working out and one said to the other that there really was no point because to get any benefits you had to work way too hard. Of course, my husband had to hold me down as I wanted to crawl over our table and set the story straight.

I know, I know... another big old warning about how we over-eat.

But since it's Monday, let's think back to how we ate this weekend. Because even if we do ok during the week, most of us are over-eating, Friday through Sunday. And those of us who indulge on weekends are gaining a full ten pounds annually.

In a perfect world, we'd all eat fresh fruit and veggies, low fat, high protein foods and fast foods would be non-existent.

But since we all live in the real world, fast food is a reality for nearly all of us.
Simply stated - Americans love fast food.

To answer the question of how much is too much, many nutritionists would say any amount is too much. Fast food is an overly processed collection of salty, saturated fats that offer little in terms of nutrition. And for the most part, the nutritionists are right.

Uh-oh - I guess Empowher might be attracting the wrong crowd!

File this under News of the Weird but a study has shown that most criminals are in great shape!