Garage sale finds enhance breast cancer awareness

Sat­ur­day morn­ing I wan­dered around Orrville look­ing for garage sale finds. This small town was ripe with one man’s trash equals another man’s treasure.

My goal was to go home with a portable crib and a stroller for my new granddaughter’s use when she vis­its my home. Luck­ily, I hit the jack­pot at the first group of houses that I visited.

The Methodist church across town was a draw for me even though I had already found what I was look­ing for early in the day. They had a grand sale where I scored quite a few children’s books and a portable radio. The baby doesn’t need the radio but I had to replace the one in my bath­room and the price was right.

While dri­ving around town and stop­ping every few feet I noticed a trend in the items that were for up for grabs. Many yards sported exer­cise equip­ment for sale. I rec­og­nized a $500 piece of equip­ment with a price tag of just $5.

This com­bi­na­tion cycle and arm stretcher looked brand new. The sign said that it had been used twice. I guess the sec­ond time was to just to prove to the owner that she didn’t want to use it any longer. The lady was so des­per­ate to get rid of it she couldn’t even give it away for a few dol­lars. I passed it up, too.

At other houses I saw DVD videos on calo­rie burn­ing activ­i­ties like kick box­ing, ket­tle­bells and Zumba for sale. Tread­mills and even a thigh­mas­ter were off to the clos­est bid­der. My eyes zeroed in on a VCR tape of Richard Simmon’s “Sweatin To the Oldies” with ladies and their bouf­fant hair­dos in sweat shirts and sweat pants jig­gling to the beat.

If I was look­ing for a new way to exer­cise, Orrville was the place to be on Sat­ur­day. Box­ing gloves and free weights were sit­ting in front yards for sale. Prices for jump ropes and span­dex were stretched to new lows, just wait­ing for a new owner.

Octo­ber is Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month. Pink is the color to sport, at least until it gets closer to Hal­loween. I did notice a few pink rib­bons in front yards and one of the garages sales was donat­ing their pro­ceeds to this wor­thy cause.

Stay­ing in shape with reg­u­lar exer­cise is one way to reduce the risk of all can­cers, espe­cially breast can­cer. Even those who have already have had to deal with breast can­cer can reduce the risk of recur­rence with reg­u­lar exercise.

Eat­ing at least five serv­ings of fruits and veg­eta­bles daily along with fewer high-fat meals can min­i­mize the inci­dence of breast can­cer. Includ­ing a 30-minute walk or increas­ing trips upstairs and down­stairs can cause this life-changing night­mare to pos­si­bly pass by a lifestyle.

The lady in Orrville who wanted to rid her­self of that con­trap­tion that caused sweat and mus­cle with exer­tion should have con­sid­ered a dif­fer­ent mar­ket­ing approach. For just $5 and 50 min­utes a day, the risk of breast can­cer could be greatly reduced. With a line like that, who could pass it up?

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor and a reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.