There is already one sure sign a new Chick-fil-A is getting ready to open — hordes of people camping out looking to be one of 100 to get free Chick-fil-A for a year.
Ahead of Thursday’s 9 a.m. grand opening at 2349 Sun Vista Dr. in the Cypress Creek Town Center on S.R. 56, roughly 75 people are already in line for the First 100 celebration, in the hopes of grabbing one of the lucky vouchers for 52 weeks of free chicken meals. Those in line will be served meals and entertained by a DJ as the clock ticks down.
The line opened at 6 a.m. this morning.
The First 100 is a tradition over 12 years old, and has given away nearly $27 million in free food. Each of the 100 lucky participants (18 and over only) will get a digital card loaded with 52 meal credits for a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, medium waffle fries and medium drink.
The new Chick-fil-A will be Lutz’s first of the stand-alone variety, and the 28th store in the Tampa Bay area. Local franchise owner Britt Young is expected to add 100 jobs to the community.
If you are reading this, you very likely live in the correct zip code to be eligible to attend the event. But to be safe, the list is here. A valid ID is required, or some acceptable documentation verifying your residence.
Young is also encouraging customers to bring new and gently used books to benefit Lutz Elementary.
Dr. Areej Salem tackles difficult issues in her daily work at Zhoy Vitality Center, helping people with hormonal balances and issues related to their sexuality.
At Zhoy Vitality Center, you can expect a different sort of doctor-patient relationship and experience. Board-certifieD Obstetrician/Gynecologist (OB-GYN) Areej Salem, M.D., believes in a whole-body approach to rejuvenation and revitalization to help everyone look and feel their best. From incontinence and medical weight loss solutions to sexual dysfunctions and even vaginal rejuvenation, Dr. Salem provides not only a safe place to talk but an office that is on the forefront of technology and technique.
“Lots of patients are looking for alternative ways to treat the whole person,” says Dr. Salem. “Just because you don’t have a label put on you doesn’t mean you are healthy. I look at treating the whole person from the inside out.”
Located just off the Ancient Oaks Blvd. roundabout in the Seven Oaks Professional Park off S.R. 56, Zhoy Vitality Center (which draws its name from the first initials of Dr. Salem’s four children) has been in existence since 2012. From a young age, Dr. Salem says she has always been drawn to altruistic, healing paths.
“I always wanted to give back,” she says. “I love to listen to people and talk with and help them.”
Dr. Salem received her Medical Doctor (M.D.) degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 2002.
She also completed a residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Christiana Care Health System in Newark, NJ, in 2007, and went on to complete fellowships in Anti-Aging, Regenerative and Functional Medicine as well as Aesthetics with the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. She is Board-certified by the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the American Board of Integrative & Holistic Medicine.
At Zhoy Vitality Center, Dr. Salem offers patients a plethora of anti-aging and restorative options. Although the largest number of her patients are women between 40 and 60, she says she also sees men and both younger and older patients. Three major areas for which patients consult her are for antiaging hormone therapy, aesthetics and vaginal rejuvenation.
“It’s a unique practice,” says Dr. Salem. “There’s no one in the area who does what I do. I combine treatments and modalities to give maximal results, whether it’s for aesthetics or sexual health or satisfaction.”
Hormonal Therapies
Dr. Salem says that hormone replacement therapy for men and women is one of her most popular treatments. She explains that hormone production decreases as we age, resulting in a variety of possible problems: women get night sweats, mood swings, fatigue, weight gain, thinning hair and vaginal dryness. Hormonal reduction in men causes erectile dysfunction, loss of muscle bulk and loss of libido.
To combat these problems, one of Dr. Salem’s offerings is “pellet therapy,” where bio-identical hormones are inserted, often under the skin just above the buttocks, in order to dissolve over time and replicate the effects of the original hormones that the body used to make in large quantities before.
Dr. Salem acknowledges that “traditional doctors” sometimes have a bias against hormonal therapy, but as long as these treatments are conducted safely under her care, she says she is confident she can and will create the proper balance in her patients.
For most, a slim and fit body is harder to maintain as we age, but it’s also an area in which Dr. Salem can assist, with medical weight loss and nutrition plans that include specialized testing, pharmaceutical-grade supplements, nutrition counseling and nutritional detoxification. One specific plan she offers is called Metabolic Balance, which is a specialized meal plan based on lab work and a person’s history.
All of the patient’s lab results and medical history info are compiled and sent to the Metabolic Balance headquarters in Germany, from where a specific plan for nutrition is sent back for each patient to follow under Dr. Salem’s guidance. The aimed-for result is improved health; but Dr. Salem says, “the weight loss tends to be a happy side effect.”
Feeling good often starts from the outside, which is why Dr. Salem offers an array of aesthetic options. Stem cell “facelifts” involve harvesting your own stem cells and processing them onsite, and then injecting them back in the same day to return natural volume.
Other services include fillers such as Botox and Dysport; sclerotherapy to reduce or eliminate spider and varicose veins; AccelaFuze oxygen hydra-infused facials; DermaFrac microchanneling that inserts peptides between layers of skin for a “lift” without the downtime; Exilis skin tightening and body contouring, which involves heating and cooling body fat without burning your skin; laser peels and resurfacing; and BBL (broad band light) therapy for treating several problems including acne and hair reduction.
Other treatments include laser hair reduction, microlaser peels, ProFractional laser therapy to treat scars and visible signs of ageing, ThermiTight and ThermiSmooth treatments that use radiofrequencies to tighten and smooth your skin, and even ThermiDry treatments to reduce sweating.
Dr. Salem describes the Forever Young light treatment as the, “Ferrari of light treatments” in the way it can recapture youth in skin by boosting your body’s own collagen production. If you want a more all-encompassing treatment than choosing from a menu of individual options, Dr. Salem can design a Zhoy Ultimate Radiance package for you that is customized based on your needs and amount of downtime you’re willing to go through.
Looking your best is no superficial aim, Dr. Salem maintains. Rather, it is a way to have the person on the outside reflect how they feel inside, despite the ravages of age.
“We help you get the best effects of who you are on the inside,” she says. “When you feel like you look your best, your confidence shows in the way you walk, the way you interact with people. It affects your overall well-being and your self-esteem.”
Vaginal Rejuvenation
One aspect of women’s health that is often swept under the table is sexuality. Not only does Dr. Salem have the kind of personality and easygoing bedside manner that allow people to talk about their most intimate concerns without embarrassment, she also can offer her expertise in many different surgical and non-surgical ways to treat these issues. Sexual dysfunction is not often dealt with honestly in traditional practices, Dr. Salem says. Patients are either embarrassed to talk about issues with their doctors, or feel like their problems are “in their heads” and that they, “just need to get over it.”
“It’s a huge thing to have that void or deficiency in your intimate relationships,” says Dr. Salem. “So many women feel like they’re alone.”
She offers a treatment called ThermiVa that uses gentle radioactive frequency to tighten vaginal tissue non-surgically. ThermiVa can be done by itself or as part of a package called Intimate Radiance, which includes an O-shot, which delivers platelet-rich plasma from the patient’s own blood into the vaginal tissue to rejuvenate the area. If necessary, Dr. Salem also can perform surgical procedures to tighten muscles.
The office accepts some forms of medical insurance, but in-house financing also is available.
For more information about Dr. Salem and the Zhoy Vitality Center, or to see a comprehensive list of the procedures offered, visit ZhoyVitalityCenter.com. Zhoy Vitality Center is located at 2306 Ashley Oaks Cir., Suite 101. To make an appointment, call 994-0266.
Tampa Palms resident John Fisher brings his 50º Polar Pods trailers to outdoor events to help bring anyone’s core body temperature down fast.
Tampa Palms resident John Fisher wasn’t working on anything in particular when a good friend from St. Augustine called him for help.
Steve Parry, a lifeguard, had developed a concept borne from personal experience, after spending a night partying and then figuring out the next day at work that he had overdone it.
He started suffering from heat exhaustion, and as the day dragged on, he felt worse and worse. So, he wandered into a nearby restaurant, asked to sit in the cooler, and after a few minutes of being camped out on a pickle bucket, started to feel better.
“My head came out of my hands, and I was like ‘My God, what just happened, man?,’’’ Parry told Fisher.
What had happened was that Parry’s body core temperature had been rapidly brought down, and the life had returned to his body.
“I’d pay money for this,’’ Parry thought to himself.
That sparked an idea to create essentially a mobile cooler to help people suffering from heat exhaustion.
But, Parry couldn’t do it alone. Enter Fisher, who earned his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida in Orlando in 1982, and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE) degree from the University of South Florida in 1987, and had a little free time on his hands.
“I thought it sounded like a great idea, and I liked the challenge of it,’’ said Fisher.
Fisher has now helped create three Polar Pod mobile cooling/heat illness-prevention stations, with more on the horizon.
“It was a lot of trial and error,’’ says Fisher. “The technical part of building this is not easy. It’s a tricky little recipe.”
The Polar Pod is a 20-foot-long by 8-foot-wide ice cube on wheels. Patrons enter through thermally insulated and tempered glass doors, with seating on padded benches for up to 18. The inside temperature is 50 degrees, and for those cooling down, there is a 5-gallon water jug and a 46-inch HDTV to watch.
Each Polar Pod runs on a 208VAC/10kW generator, and costs about $20 worth of diesel fuel per day to keep the temperature optimal.
“This whole thing is engineered to do one thing – bring the body’s core temperature down as quickly as possible,’’ Fisher says.
Heat exhaustion occurs after you have been exposed to high temperatures, often enhanced by dehydration. It can lead to dizziness, headaches, vomiting and fainting.
The best treatment is drinking fluids and cooling down, and it only takes a few minutes in the Polar Pod to get your body temperature back into a safe range.
Of the three Polar Pods already built, one already has been sold to a fire department. Fisher can’t say which one, except that it’s in a major city, because the fire department hasn’t officially rolled it out yet. The fire department will use the Polar Pod as a fire rehabilitation vehicle.
Perfect For Outdoor Events
Fisher also extolls the Polar Pod’s effectiveness at festivals and concerts. While showing off the pod at its storage unit on Nebraska Ave., he stops and runs to his pick-up truck to grab a copy of a newspaper.
In it, he has circled an article about two deaths and almost 60 hospitalizations at the recent Sunset Music Festival held at Raymond James Stadium, where roughly 30,000 music fans were crammed together on a scalding hot May day.
While Fisher — who has tried to get his Polar Pods into the event for two years — notes that while the deaths could be the result of drug use, he says festivals where large crowds gather in Florida’s stifling climate often lead to heat exhaustion and tents and misting fans alone lose their effectiveness.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of the reason,’’ he says.
Some promoters have rented the Polar Pod for their events, paying $650-$750 for a full day. Fisher said he has set up Polar Pods at events like the Big Guava Music Festival at the Florida State Fairgrounds last year, as well as at the 97X (WSUN-FM) Backyard BBQ at Vinoy Park last month.
Fisher says the Polar Pod can also can be a lot of fun. He encourages revelers, most of whom are just trying to catch a little cold air, to keep the party going once they enter. “We’ll even put some Jimmy Buffet on the TV,’’ Fisher chuckles.
Most recently, the Polar Pods were used at the Country 500 Music Fest in Daytona Beach, where promoters charged $10 for a wristband for unlimited use of the Polar Pod. Fisher says the lines stayed long all day.
“That was a huuuuge event,’’ Fisher said. “We had both of the Polar Pods there and the lines were nonstop.”
Fisher, who has taught electrical engineering classes at USF, says he has met with the USF College of Public Health and the USF College of Medicine for advice on how to effectively treat heat exhaustion through quickly lowering the core body temperature. He also set up a pod at USF football practices last spring, squeezing the team’s entire offensive line inside to test its effectiveness.
“Generally, on really hot days, people are grateful that we are there,’’ Fisher says.
Fisher, who also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from USF in 2000, adds that he and Parry are still developing a business plan for their Polar Pods. They would like to see more fire departments get interested, and they continue to see a market for events like marathons, triathlons, festivals and concerts.
“We see people dragging when they walk inside, and just come alive in the Polar Pod,’’ Fisher says. “You just don’t get it until you step inside. And, when people do, they’ll tell us, ‘Oh my God, you guys are geniuses.’”
For more information about Polar Pods, visit ThePolarPod.com, or call 995-1350 or (904) 962-1793. Or, email info@thepolarpod.com.
Thursday night at the offices of the Neighborhood News, the first episode of WCNT-tv was shown to a select crowd of more than 100 at the launch party. Now it’s your turn.
The new YouTube-based video news show is a partnership between Full Throttle Intermedia and the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News, and also is the exclusive webcast partner of the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce. The program will come to you from the Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel Studio, and will be released bi-monthly, featuring local news, businesses and restaurants.
Thursday night at the offices of the Neighborhood News, the first episode of WCNT-tv was shown to a select crowd of more than 100 at the launch party. Now it’s your turn.
The new YouTube-based video news show is a partnership between Full Throttle Intermedia and the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News, and also is the exclusive webcast partner of the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce. The program will come to you from the Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel Studio, and will be released bi-monthly, featuring local news, businesses and restaurants.
There is already one sure sign a new Chick-fil-A is getting ready to open — hordes of people camping out looking to be one of 100 to get free Chick-fil-A for a year.
The First 100 is a tradition over 12 years old, and has given away nearly $27 million in free food. Each of the 100 lucky participants (18 and over only) will get a digital card loaded with 52 meal credits for a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, medium waffle fries and medium drink.
But, Parry couldn’t do it alone. Enter Fisher, who earned his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida in Orlando in 1982, and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE) degree from the University of South Florida in 1987, and had a little free time on his hands.
In it, he has circled an article about two deaths and almost 60 hospitalizations at the recent Sunset Music Festival held at Raymond James Stadium, where roughly 30,000 music fans were crammed together on a scalding hot May day.
