How To Play Offense With Life
August 29, 2008
I will not lie to you. I’ve been back from staycation since last week. I was going to continue staycationing but to be honest;
I needed a vacation from my staycation.
Exactly one week ago, four days before the first day of school, (Coaches worldwide, are you listening?) my son returned from his World Series run. Yes Folks, his baseball season did persevere until four days before school started.
Max had a baseball experience that every American boy dreams of-
To go to the World Series as a 13 year old.
It’s what God had in mind when, on the seventh day,
He said, Let there be kids who love baseball.
My son patiently sat the bench for all four games, except, EXCEPT, for the very last game, when Coach put him in at the top of the seventh inning, with our team one run down and needing a guy on first base.
Max delivered.
Granted it wasn’t enough to win the game but more than enough to light up his (and my) whole summer.
Then just like that, the game was over.
Out of our lives the World Series went
Like a candle that had been snuffed out.
Poof it was over.
Some kids came home morose because they didn’t capture the title.
Not Max.
He was satisfied to have gone to the baseball mountaintop and peer across it’s vast baseball landscape. Not to mention he didn’t have to eat my cooking the entire time.
He now had what they call perspective.
This also meant that when he got home
My cooking wasn’t THAT bad.
He’d been a bench warmer just long enough to truly appreciate how wonderful it is to get in the game.
He returned just in time to attend the final day of a three week soccer conditioning camp,
which was the minimum amount of exercise needed to hobble him with DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) for the next day’s soccer tryouts, from which he got cut (from being out of soccer shape, I assume) and then was reinstated (when the soccer coach found out what the Babe Ruth World Series is. I forgive him though. Last year someone had to tell me what the World Cup was.)
Needless to say, I need a vacation from our staycation.
But while staycationing, I’ve been thinking of Max’s experiences: sitting the bench, and then getting his big moment at bat. Next, being cut from the soccer team, then reinstated.
Tough times followed by reward; a reward that might not have carried such sweetness were it not preceded by the struggle.
It reminds me of the many friends and neighbors I have that are experiencing similar contrast in their financial situation. There’s nothing like not having enough money to make you appreciate getting a raise.
And all you have to do is tear your Achilles tendon or get a bad CAT scan to make you realize how unimportant money is and how far up the scale good health is compared to wealth.
Which leads me to my next thought
Which is
That exercise has many inherent struggles but the sweetness of it’s rewards are much more than appreciating a time a bat or making a soccer team. As a matter of fact, the more out of shape you are, the greater the benefits of exercise!
If you stay fit, you will live longer. And you will live younger, for longer.
(Were you wondering if I’d get to my point some time today?)
Physical fitness is the single most critical step we can take to slow and possibly reverse the ravage of time. There is a huge connection between our behavior and our health,
or rather between what you know you should do and what you actually DO.
Jane Brody wrote in this week’s New York Times called “You Name It and Exercise Helps”
She quotes Frank Hu, epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. He says, “The single thing that comes close to a magic bullet, in terms of its strong and universal benefits, is exercise,”
Think about exercise like brushing your teeth
or here’s a good one-
think about exercise like picking up dog poop in your yard.
It just has to be done
Or else you’ll end up cleaning up a bigger mess later on.
No drama.
No loud “EEEWWWS!!”
Just git on yer shoes and do it.
Or if that was too odiferous of a metaphor, those of you who prefer a more sophisticated metaphor
Think about working out like
financial planning .
Approach exercise with the same discipline of saving for your retirement. You might have to say no occasionally to some goody to which you’d like to say yes.
You may have to make some sacrifices, time-wise or comfort-wise, but doing this is smart and judicious.
And just like a financial investment, exercise investment will allow you to enjoy your other investments later on.
Have I made my point clear?
Everyone needs to sweat.
If you don’t like to work out, maybe you can think of some other things you DO like, and figure out a way to do your preferred hobbies while exercising.
If you like reading , bring your book with you to read on the Stairmaster or stationary bike.
Listen to your favorite songs on your ipod while you jog.
Instead of meeting your friend for coffee, save the four bucks and go for a walk. Hey! You just saved four bucks!
Do you belong to a Book Club? Take them on the road for a walking book club!
So get (or stay) physically fit. This ensures that you will never have to say, “If only I’d taken better care of myself.”
Al Bundy Syndrome & Living In The Past
August 16, 2008
I just got back from taking my peeps to Canyon Ranch, which is the best place on this earth, where every single moment of every day was fresh and heaped with promise. “I can be a better me!” is the best way I can describe how this spa makes me feel.
“I will Sing! Dance! Floss! Travel!”
They use a magic ingredient in their food that makes you feel like you can have
or do
or be
anything you want.
Or it could be the abundance of flax seed.
either way,
Unlike most upscale spas, which typically make my B.O. smell worse,
my clothing look clownish
and my teeth more yellow,
Canyon Ranch has a convincing undercurrent of authenticity, so much so,
that almost ALL TWELVE
women in our group
Anyway,
the important part of the pilgrimage,
and it did feel like a pilgrimage,
a remembering OF who I am and why I was put here on the earth-
the important part was to get a fresh, new start,
to let go of who I thought I was yesterday
and to stop doing what I call
the Al Bundy thing-
living in the past.
When I go to Canyon Ranch,
I expect to have a few epiphanies.
Turning the microscope inward for a change
rather than focusing on the outward
(the wrinkles, the bunions, plantar warts, bifocals etc) always causes an opening through which new ways of thinking can occur.
Now don’t think I overdosed on St. John’s Wort
or took one too many Tribal Rhythms Dance classes but they have a magical Labyrinth.
A labyrinth is a path that is intricately and bewilderingly complex.
It’s shaped like a circle that reminds me of one of those kiddie puzzles
that come in a coloring book,
where you try to find your way out of the maze.
My friend Julie and I were chortling at the idea
of finding a meditative state
by walking round and round in a labyrinth
but at the very last hour of our trip,
we had our bags packed and we WERE BOTH
reluctant to get in the car for a three hour drive
as we were quite gassy from all the fiber-filled magic food.
we really needed to get outside.
So as we started our meditative walk through the labyrinth,
immediately,a radical sentence started to scroll in my mind.
It was “I had a very happy childhood”.
The sentence kept repeating, almost as often as my GI tract.
I am embarrassed to say that this idea had not occurred to me in a long time.
And my epiphany was that, yes, indeed
I’d had an idyllic upbringing,
born as a twin to a family named Love, into a hamlet of no more than 300 people,
all of whom knew and loved not just me but my whole family,
our dog Lassie,
our two birds and six (seven?) cats.
My Grandma Love lived next door baking bread and occasionally asserting herself too nosily into our life, or rather my mother’s life.
She was the non-funny version of the mother-in-law on “Everybody Loves Raymond”.
But other than that things were just perfect.
We didn’t have much money but that idea never occurred to me
as we always had everything we wanted.
And the reason I never look back and appreciate the sweetness of my childhood is because of the events that took place one unsuspecting day
when my sister and I were fifteen years old.
This one chunk of time seems like a giant winged thing that hovers in my memory.
Rosie O’Donnel says that every person has a story
that will break your heart.
This is ours.
My twin and I were offered a ride home from school with a friend who had just gotten her driver’s license.
Let’s see, it seemed like a no-brainer-
catch the late bus and be home in 75 minutes?
Or ride with her in her snazzy VW bug?
She was thrilled to be behind the wheel.
Well,
she took off like a bat out of hell
and in a moment that is burned forever more in slow motion on my brain,
she lost control of the car.
After rolling eight times,
we came to a stop in a ditch. The driver and myself stumbled away unhurt.
Pam was not so lucky.
Her back was broken and her spinal cord severed, among other injuries.
I’d like to say that she eventually was able to walk again.
But she never has.
Except in my head.
In my head she has.
That moment suddenly divided her life
and the entire Love family, for that matter, into
“before the accident” and “after”.
This year marked her 30th year anniversary in a wheelchair.
Does it help to know that she went on to college at Ohio State,
then competed her master’s degree in social work while living independently,
met the man of her dreams,
got married,
had a career and gave birth to two magnificent children who are now teens, the same age as my kids?
Well maybe not for us observers, but for her, that is the key part of this story.
Pam’s story is a reminder to me and to everyone.
To love what you’ve got.
To rejoice amidst all of life’s suffering.
No room for al Bundy in this family.
So now you know why I never looked upon my childhood as happy, because it was through the lens of this car accident that all my memories have been filtered through,
even though my childhood was a heaven on earth.
That one black minute in time changed how I perceive my whole upbringing.
And that one minute is also why I am who I am.
Pam is my idol, my reminder
that all we have is today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never arrive.
What we think about or dwell upon in our minds, whether it is agony or ecstasy,
fear or hope, has a direct correlation
with our human experience.
The more time you spend thinking about your mistakes or disappointments,
the more likely they are to happen.
The opposite is true as well.
Focus on your successes and dreams and watch them unfold.
How do we know what happens to us is good or bad? Maybe someone at Canyon Ranch knows,
but for the rest of us,
life,
as Madonna says,
is a mystery.
The trick that my sister has used to survive and to thrive is to never ask why and to never look back.
No al Bundy moments.
This is my labyrinth epiphany.
Have I mentioned lately that I adored my childhood?
Aging Stronger Through Better Breathing
August 16, 2008
A few weekends ago, while I was at the Ranch- (for those of you who were at the gym and missed my article, I traveled to Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Massachusetts with eleven other women, where we gave ourselves full permission to enjoy ourselves-
No one even accused us of being completely irresponsible for missing the Sunday soccer games
or ridiculed us for splurging on such a self-indulgent luxury.
At least not to our faces.) Anyway, at the RANCH (are you annoyed with me yet?)
I took a few revelatory workshops on Breathing.
I know the words “revelatory” and “breathing”
don’t usually appear in the same sentence but after all, what is the first thing people advise you to do
when you are freaking out? (“Take a breath.”)
How about during the extreme moments of childbirth? (“BREATHE!!!!!!”)
What is the recommendation for when you step up to a podium to deliver a speech? (breathe)
Or up to bat in the bottom of the ninth when the score is tied? (breathe)
Not to mention at the crest of a roller coaster (big breath)
or when you are trying to stop crying? ( this is the classic kiddie hiccuping breath-Often demonstrated in the grocery store by the kid who can’t have the candy.)
Then there is the “sigh” of relief when you get the call from the doctor that the test results are negative,
before which you were “holding your breath”.
Don’t forget the life-or-death CPR rescue breathing or the brown bag for hyperventilation breathing.
And of course,
the most annoying advice barked by your Kickbox Instructor,
“Don’t forget to breathe!!”
Do we all concur that Breathing is VITAL?
Now this BREATHING workshop was not an Extreme Sports Version of Breathing,
although that’s an interesting thought.
I figure that, either I am getting noticeably geriatric by getting all turned on about breathing techniques or
as I get more chronologically enriched,
’m just becoming more in awe of the ingenious biomechanics
of this machinery we call our body
. Here are some tidbits I learned in my Breathing class.
Take this simple test.
Right now, on a scale of one to ten, rate your own energy level.
Then rate your stress level.
We will get back to this.
Now take a peak at a clock with a second hand and count how many in-and-out breaths you take
in one minute.
Six breaths in one minute is ideal.
Seventeen breaths is three breaths away from hyperventilation.
When you are breathing over fifteen breaths per minute (which is typical when you are stressed or rushed)
your brain is getting forty percent less oxygen than it needs for every day bodily functions.
This affects your brain’s performance in things like test-taking and driving.
This oxygen deprivation is why kids who have studied for tests and know all the answers,
do poorly when they get into the classroom-
thanks to no oxygen to the brain.
Tell your kids to take six, 6 count breaths
before they start their test-
this should get them into a better college.
You’re welcome.
Also, we all know some people (moi)
who cannot sit still as well as others.
This is due to an unhealthy cerebral spinal fluid rhythm, caused by-
you guessed it-
poor (or shallow) breathing!
Did you know that there is a Pursed Lipped Breathing (PLB) Technique?
You put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and it stabilizes your core!
If your neck hurts when you do abdominal flexion (sit-ups), try this technique.
Your core will engage and take over for the muscles you are straining in your neck.
Who Knew?!
Your pop surprise bonus is that exercise helps you breathe better.
It increase oxygen, therefore blood flow
to the brain,
so you can think more clearly.
Many runners and cyclists tell me that they do their best thinking (brain-storming, if you will)
during their workouts.
I used to think that my showers,
post-exercise, felt better
because I was sweatier, a blonde idea, I know,
but now I think it feels better
because my body is more revitalized
from the vigorous breathing that exercise induces. Cool!
The way we can age stronger
is by reducing our stress levels.
We do this by breathing more slowly and deeper into the belly.
One minute of deep abdominal breathing
stops the production of adrenaline by the adrenals, two pea shaped glands that sit on top of the kidneys.
Twelve minutes of deep belly breathing will cause your body to start releasing those “feel-good” hormones- like endorphins and serOtonin,
two of the poster children of the hormonal world. ENDORPHINS GIVE YOU A BUZZ AND SEROTONIN REGULATES MOOD, EMOTION, SLEEP AND APPETITE (BUT THAT’s ALLLLLL IT DOES.)
When we are stressed, the hypocampus,
a gland in the brain, initiates a stress response
that triggers a tremendous deterioration
of the body.
Every bodily function works harder to do it’s job.
Not only does this drain your energy and make you feel more tired,
Just like someone digging a ditch with a shovelgets more tired than someone digging with a backhoe,but it also produces free radicals,
It also sends an alarm signal to the adrenal glands that react by releasing adrenaline.
Adrenaline races through our system triggering a release of Cortisol, which dips your blood sugar level, thereby triggering an “I need more energy!” response,
which makes you hungry for some wheat thins
or two bowls of Lucky Charms,
which makes you gain weight,
so your jeans don’t fit which pisses you off which makes you mean to your husband which ruins your marriage, causes divorce, financial ruin, contempt from your kids and in the trickle-down theory, ruins your entire life.
So I ask you. I beg you.
Breathe.
Deeper.
No One Ever Feels Like It
August 16, 2008
I often feel misunderstood. If I am ever out walking my dog, and I never walk him as much for my exercise as for the pitiful look that he gives me when he’s been imprisoned all day, friendly people that know me roll down their windows and yell things like “You GO Girl!” or “Faster!” or the memorable “Your dog’s in better shape than I am!”
I want to set something straight right now. I cannot remember the last time I woke up in the morning and was raring to get to exercise class. As I lie in bed, the Other Penny in my head says something like this, “Let’s just sleep a few more minutes, the kids don’t really need breakfast”, or “I’ll work out tomorrow or maybe later today, just not right now.”
Do you hear what I am saying? No one usually FEELS like it. Of course lots of us like exercise once we get about half way through and everyone loves a workout after it is completed, but very few souls are skipping around the spinning room with joy prior to class.
There are a few exceptions, like the same people that enjoy sleeping on the rock-hard ground in a sleeping bag in a tent during August with a dozen boy scouts or those rare folks that single handedly paint the trim on their entire house or maybe someone who’d been mistakenly placed on bed rest for six weeks. Yes, these folks might feel anticipatory about their workout, but for the general population, this is the fitness exception rather then the fitness rule.
And of course, those who, over the years, are faithful in their fitness, don’t mind doing the sweating, because they’ve started to reap the benefits of feeling and looking better. These people tend to not mind exercise at all, because they’ve integrated the connection between their fitness regime and good bodily results.
As Dr Phil says, “You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”
This means putting on your running shoes and grabbing your ipod, even as the voice in your head concocts various excuses and ideas to avoid sweating.
You have to approach your workout plans just like you deal with brushing your teeth. Do you ever skip brushing your teeth because you brushed them yesterday? Or do you tell yourself you can brush them tomorrow or that you know you SHOULD brush, but you just don’t want to do it right now? Or how about saying to heck with brushing all together because you haven’t done it in so long, why start now?
Think of exercise as your anatomical brushing!
One way to get yourself moving is by using what I call self talk. You have to learn to respond to that voice in your head in the same way that I talk back to the Other Penny. When she suggests sleeping five minutes more, I tell her we can take a nap later (even though she never feels like it after she gets her body moving!) When she wants to skip a day, I tell her she might not feel like it but do it anyway. When she says she’s tired, I respond by saying five minutes is better than no minutes and that the hardest part is getting started; then it gets easier.
I also think that every time we give in to these sabotaging thoughts, we strengthen our giving-in habits and conversely, every time we resist these thoughts and exercise anyway, we strengthen our Nike (Just Do It) habits.
Another big part of a consistent exercise routine is making exercise a priority. You have to put it on your calendar just like any other important appointment. You deserve to put yourself first.
Another self talk sentence you can use is to tell your self that you can be loose with your fitness routine OR you can be fit, but you can’t be both.
Or how about this self talk response: I may not care if I skip my workout now, but I will care a LOT when I get on the scale.
Tell yourself NO EXCUSES.
Another important part of this self talk is to give your self credit when you DO do it in spite of not wanting to.
You deserve credit every time you exercise, every time you stick to your workout plan.
If I am honest, I’ll admit that I really didn’t feel like writing today. It’s sunny and warm outside for the first time all week and it’s the Friday of Memorial Day weekend –this is what the Other Penny is focusing on. But I told her I had no choice; that people would be counting on me.
I guess I deserve some credit. And my dog deserves a walk.
How To Live A Happy Life For Dummies
August 16, 2008
Every day I talk to at least one person that I cannot help at all.
Many times, fitness issues,
whether it’s an injury or an illness or
a genetic predisposition are just like speed bumps.
They make you slow down and pay attention.
Usually injuries get better or go away altogether.
But sometimes, these issues offer no easy resolution.
I feel bad throwing my hands in the air
and saying I have no clue,
but it happens.
In the end we are all responsible
for finding our own way and often
it feels like groping around in a dark closet
for something you know is there,
if only you could just SEE.
For example, I faced a situation of immobility and pain with my hip dysplasia.
I had a few options.
Continue to suffer and leave the only job I’ve ever adored.
Or have it surgically repaired and resume my now more joyous (due to freedom from pain) life.
The only catch being that I hope to live several more decades and hip replacements only tend to last a bit less than 2 decades.
So now, I could be spending my time worrying about what I will do at sixty,
when my titanium joint wears out. Or I can focus on the pleasure that I now have on a daily basis,
waking up to the lovely, humming silence of
NO PAIN.
(I’ve also asked my surgeon, whom I idolize, to delay retirement until I get any re-replacement parts installed.)
My main point is that no one could resolve my health issue but ME.
I had to make some hard decisions and live with whatever consequences resulted.
So I say that to people when they ask for my advise. “What sounds right and true for YOU?’
It’s not always easy to get an answer but you have to dig around, inside and out.
Other health situations are less clear cut.
If you read this past week about Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor diagnosis, you see he has no easy resolution ahead.
My husband experienced a similar diagnosis six years ago (this week in fact) and after reading the exhaustive amount of information about Ted’s glioma, I remembered a similar time in our lives where we looked grimly at statistics and mortality predictions.
And the most inspiring aspect of Larry’s situation (and I’m guessing Ted will be just as inspirational in his reaction to his health crisis) is that Larry has been using the knowledge of his own mortality as a gift.
He took that catastrophic diagnosis to gain perspective that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Although he has always been in great shape, he immediately started taking better care of himself.
He cut out the beer and got more sleep and ate better.
How many people hear the tick-tock of the clock?
Or do we just plod along day after day, moaning about minutiae?
Not Larry. He takes no day for granted.
Often he is late for things because he was rolling around on the floor with our dog.
Before nine in the morning, he has laughed harder than most people do all day long.
He strikes up conversations with four year olds on a regular basis and looks at me when I talk, which is saying A LOT.
He apologizes, which is something that used to be hard for him.
And he never passes up a chance to kiss my friends (I think this is good.)
Plus we take even better preventative care of his prostate.
More importantly, his world shifted into high definition.
He has always been a enthusiastic about life but somehow, living with his own mortality cranked the volume way up.
Is it a gift?
No serious health diagnosis is ever a blessing. But if we can all wake up to the fact that we WILL die someday and it COULD be tomorrow,
then we might start living each day,
each hour,
each moment
as they come to us, in their sparkling uniqueness.
In Buddhism, they speak of the Noble Truths.
The First Noble Truth is that there is suffering in the world. (That we know)
The second Noble Truth is cessation from suffering, meaning
There’s Hope!
So the idea of suffering is not necessarily what the situation is that you find yourself in,
but more importantly, how you relate to it.
Meaning
Life can be fabulous,
and you can still be miserable.
And on the flip side,
Life can suck and
you can still be happy.
which way do you choose?
I can help you with getting on track .
Think about where you want to be by july 4th
and we can do it together
email me at fitcouples@yahoo.com for more information on how to get started today!
Join me for 30 days of mind/body/spirit coaching!
Give me one month and I will help you develop skills to make the fitness changes you’ve always dreamed of!
starting Sunday june 1- through june 30,2008,
you will receive daily tips,plans and advice
based on your particular goals.
via the internet, I will give you a step by step fitness
plan designed specifically for you.
I will also hold you accountable for achieving these goals.
Don’t wait until summer! Start this week!
Peak Moments & The Spaces In Between
August 16, 2008
My husband’s producer, Marian, is getting married this weekend. I am just tickled pink to be invited to a wedding. If I were ten years younger,I’d be at the salon right now getting my extensions.
Weddings, if you ask me, are one of the biggie moments, a mountain top, if you will, of life moments.
Lately, all I’ve been to are funerals. The only peak moment that I’ve been able to enjoy by proxy is that one of my friend’s daughter had a baby recently (how young does that make me?) but that is the only peak moment I’ve been able to mooch in on.
Life is loaded with peak moments when you are in your twenties, even trickling into your thirties; You graduate, get a job, get married, buy a house , get a dog, have kids.
It’s just one fireworks display after another: Just one toast after another. Clink, clink.
Then there’s the long stretch of space before any more peaks. And that’s not even counting the valleys.
Marian has been preparing for this big wedding day for months. She, I know, has been working out like a fiend since she got engaged. She is extremely motivated and it makes me wish that I, in my workout world , could find a way to motivate people the way she has motivated herself with this upcoming date on the calendar.
It is a big moment for her and her whole family and she is going to be ready. She’s probably had no more than a few carrot sticks and a Pria bar all week.
So the best advice I can give any of my readers who find themselves in the plain vanilla space between life’s chocolate/vanilla swirl with rainbow sprinkles
Moments
is
to aim for a goal.
Goals, if they are very specific and achievable, can be very motivational and they get us out of the loop in our heads that make it hard to get started TODAY.
Let’s not forget exciting. If your goal can be, in any way,exciting, that counts as an extra topping for sure.
Your goal could be lofty, like 72 year old New York Times Health Reporter Jane Brody, who, this year, took her two artificial knees and hiked in Tasmania, then walked all over Sydney and finally biked 35 miles a day on a cycling tour of Vietnam.
Or it could be a practical goal, like aiming to jog the entire way around the block without stopping to rest. Or fitting into your wedding dress. Or giving up wine for a month: not very exciting, I realize, but it might be just what you need to do to fit into your wedding dress, and THAT part would be exciting!
Pick a 5K race this summer that you could train for. Determine to return to a class reunion in good shape.
I bet when it was time for Marian to get her workout in these past few months, she wasn’t so tempted to skip it. She just did it.
If she got stuck or needed some advice she found someone who could help her. Occassionally, I’d get an email from her asking, “What kinds of core work should I be doing?” or “How can I tone my arms to get more definition?”
She kept herself motivated, not just through excitement about her wedding day, but also by mixing up her workout and trying new challenges. This gave her satisfying results.
Put an event or an occasion on the calendar. Be sure it’s realistic but make it challenging. Tell some people who loves you what your new goal is and ask them to lovingly support you; or to join you!
Then you have to break it down into measurable portions so that you know what you have to do each day to stay on target. Write each day’s efforts on a chart on the fridge. Check , check, check it off so you can see your progress.
Your goal doesn’t have to be a peak occasion. When you become chronologically enriched, you have to find ways to bring satisfaction and excitement to the spaces between the big moments, right?
So swim the river, loop the neighborhood, bike the state, quit smoking, make the big changes that you’ve been meaning to for years.
In the back of your mind, do you have a nagging improvement that you could make to improve how you feel about yourself? Do it now! Especially if it is the type of healthy change that can add years to your life.
Don’t wait, especially if you don’t plan on getting married (again) anytime soon.
So listen to NIKE.
Just DO IT.
Keep Exercising, Even In The Heat
August 16, 2008
Yes, I know it was hot this week.
Yes, the temperature was scorching
and the humidity was up there.
I know the news was filled with stories of people dying in the heat.
What the newspeople, who’d like you to stay seated directly in front of the TV in your living room,
do not tell you is that the majority of people who have heat stroke or heat related illnesses are almost always elderly, infirm or people without access to A/C or an open window.
In my dozen years of exercising in and throughout heat waves,
I have only seen one woman overcome by heat.
She’d been at a wedding in the heat the day before so she started her day dehydrated.
She hadn’t had breakfast, she was hung over, sleep deprived (my kind of girl right there)
and she thought she’d go for a four mile run prior to aerobics class to “clear her head” (read-get rid of her hangover.)
The aerobics room A/C unit had frozen over and the room was warm. She was the gym equivalent of a perfect storm.
And I also remember once in high school
wearing a twenty pound band uniform and standing at attention with my trumpet in 95 degree heat
at a Memorial Day Ceremony,
where I got dizzy and fell over, nearly cracking my fur-covered helmet on a veteran’s grave stone.
These are both exceptions to the rule and both easily avoided by drinking tons of water
and listening to your body, as opposed to your band director.
News reporters make a living keeping us in a state of emergency preparedness;
Over-preparedness, if you ask me. They make it sound like you should stop all activity or else you will be heat-struck.
My theory is that hiding inside with your head in the fridge will only make you less adaptable to our ever-warming planet.
Think about this:
If we sleep at night in a climate-controlled 68 degrees,
then go to work in an equally comfy office or home, then hop in our vacuum-sealed car with the A/C on max,
then we will “devolve” so to speak,
in our ability to handle hot weather.
We will sweat more readily, even when we are not working hard
and who needs pit stains on your cocktail dress?
I know if I ever wore one, I sure wouldn’t.
We will become more dependent on controlling our indoor climate.
This is a scary thought considering the crazy weather trends that we’ve witnessed in the past few years.
Take our canine friends, for example.
Dogs have devolved. When I was a kid, our dog,
Lassie, never came inside the house,
unless it was a wild romp when she got loose on an afternoon when Mom was at the beauty shop
but never, even on the most frigid Ohio blizzard nights,
did Lassie ever leave her dog house to come inside.
(For you young ones,
a dog house was a small building like a house, only dogsized, that had a chain in the dirt outside, where dogs used to live. Comfortably.
Nowadays, dogs could not survive outside in the wintry months.
They have become soft in their domestication. Their ability to tolerate extreme cold has been bred out of them. Ask your vet.
The same deconditioning to the heat will -
or already is- happening to us if we are not exposed to it.
We need to be able to tolerate extreme heat conditions even more as Global Warming continues to worsen.
In my spinning classes,
I can tell exactly who lives in central air conditioning and who relies mostly on open windows and night breezes.
Those people complaining most vociferously about the heat are the ones living in A/C.
Those who do not have it, are not as flushed or overwhelmed. They are not as bothered by fluctuations in temperature one way or the other.
They are survivors; surviving the heat is a head start on not becoming extinct.
What to do? For starters, don’t give up your workout.
Exercise
(at lower or slower intensities, of course. My news reporter husband insisted that I put include that)
Exercise helps your body become better at cooling itself off so that, even at rest, your body stays at it’s preset 98.6 degrees without as much effort.
This means you don’t pit out your clothes before you’ve finished getting dressed. I hate that.
Another benefit is that you don’t have to work out as hard or as long when it’s hot. As a matter of fact, you probably won’t feel like working at a high intensity. That’s fine.
Also, drink TWICE as much water as usual, especially right before exercise.
If you are hydrated, you should have to pee every hour during the day( and it shouldn’t be dark yellow-I’m sorry to sound so unclassy by mentioning it, but aim for light yellow or clear.)
Three liters a day BEFORE you do any exercise
so six liters would not be ridiculous on a hot day if you are exercising.
So. Bottoms up!
Also, turn your home thermostat up to 75 degrees rather than 68. Roll down your car windows anytime it is bearable
Or whenever your hairdo will allow it.
Both of these adjustments will save fuel and energy as well so it’s a double coupon.
So drink up, work out, and stay cool.
No matter what those news people say.
Stress Can Make You Fat
August 16, 2008
Have you heard of the fight or flight response?
Back in the dinosaur days when a brontosaurus chased you, your body responded by releasing hormones, like cortisol. that helped you run faster to ensure your survival.
Today, when stuck in a traffic jam, behind on the mortgage or on a grounded American Airlines flight, your body still responds in basically the same way,
by dilating your blood vessels,
accelerating your heart rate and shifting blood from your digestive track to your muscles.
(and if you’ve ever tried to exercise after a big meal you know that your belly will hurt, since digestion requires blood.but that’s another rant)
Also your liver hurries to make extra fuel in the form of sugar from stored glycogen,
so you have enough energy to fight like a caveman.
And though you didn’t even use this sugar supply,
it causes a dip in your blood sugar level and makes you, the caveman ,
very hungry.
Which makes you go look in the fridge and grab the fastest, biggest snack possible and eat it like your barbarian ancestors,
as soon as you get home. Which makes you fat.
And I mean fatter than you would be if you were relaxed. Like no caveman ever dreamed of being.
And if you are chronically stressed, your body, in it’s ingeniously idiotic prehistoric way, will pack away
as much fat as possible and you will gain weight.
What to do?
RELAX.
MEDITATE.
BREATHE.
Do 6 rounds of 6 count breaths in and out.This slow breathing actually will drop your blood pressure by twenty points, both systolic and diastolic.
Teach it to your kids before they get up to bat in baseball or have a big test.
What’s that you say?
You CAN’T?
Ok. How about trying to add more activities in your life that you ADORE.
They don’t have to be a full day of beauty at a high end spa.
For me I know that my stress levels have been lower (and I’ve probably been storing less fat,too)
since I’ve got my new hip and am pain free and therefore less stress-out all the time.
But over all,
in the trickle-down theory, Everyone in my family has benefited from my new favorite show.
when thinking about what makes me feel good,
It also occurred to me that I enjoy coveting nearly every other house in our neighborhood and I actually spend a sizeable chunk of time pretending I live in them.
This makes my heart sing.
Although, every one of my friends know that , in one week,
I would have even the biggest mansion filled with tacky knick knacks and unmatched furniture and broken things on the front porch in no time at all.
It ‘s not the living in them I want.
It’s the pretend life that I imagine that makes me smile.
Go ahead and laugh, Scrooges.
So ask yourself:
what is a mood-altering activity for you?
Petting the cat?
Spitting watermelon seeds? Joining a go-cart racing club? Jumping on a trampoline with your dog?
Did you know dogs love trampolines?
Find something and do it everyday. It’s called putting yourself in a really good space,
finding your bliss or
getting your groove on.
But the trick is not needing, or even wanting, your groove-getter to be something MAJOR.
Do not make the mistake of waiting for joint replacement surgery,fancy possessions or expensive trips to make you feel good.
Find it in the spaces BETWEEN the peak moments.
Before you know it, the pounds will be melting away.
Or else you will FEEL so good, you’ll be too happy to notice how you LOOK.
Imagine THAT
Hip Rants
August 4, 2008
“If a woman had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she’d choose to save the infant’s life, without even considering if there’s a man on base.”
I start with this quote from Dave Barry because it pretty much sums up our family theme this summer.
Baseball rules. My daughter and I try to be suitably worshipful of the team that keeps winning . and winning. And winning. But it is fascinating to watch as our vacation morphs into a stay-cation.
Not that we could afford to fly a family of five anywhere anyway, or even drive more than two tankfuls away either. Not that I’d even consider piling three teenagers into the back seat of any vehicle, regardless of it’s size and drive beyond the city limits , even if it were for free.
And as Nora Ephron says, the empty nest is underrated. But in spite of all the baseball and in spite of making blueberry pancakes every day and constantly hanging beach towels out to dry, we are having a fabulous summer.
I try to keep my attitude about baseball, and life in general, really, as close to Stephen Still’s “Love the One You’re With” because if you can’t be on the beach you want, Honey, love the field you’re on.
My newsletters have been written entirely in my mind each week and since I didn’t mentally back up my files, I can’t remember what I wrote in my head.
But I called a pancake moratorium this morning so I could check in and be sure you are all still exercising and eating right.
My July Fitness Challenge participants are shedding pounds like a second skin. In three weeks all of them lost at least ten pounds and one lost 12. I request that the media respect their privacy and that of their families as they continue to rock on towards their goals.
Speaking of working out, many of you who have been in my kitchen and are my witness that yes, we have a pull up bar on the dining room doorway. My kids think it’s a utensil and are surprised when they go to friend’s houses and there’s no where to hang from while waiting for the cheese on the nachos to melt. And there’s nothing like a few pull-ups to make you change your mind about the second bowl of ice cream. Pull ups go with ice cream about as well as orange juice and toothpaste; or tuna and peppermint.
Plus it gives me something to do when I come into the kitchen and forget what I was going to do.
My pull up bar is my new best friend. I had a big break through this past weekend. We hosted a 3 day training workshop for a strength training program called Body Pump. On Friday, when it started, I was still unable to make it through my pull-up attempt, same as the past five months. My motto of never, ever, ever give up was starting to get on my last nerve.
By Monday, I could do almost three full pull-ups. This conditioning program using a barbell and high reps is the most amazing program I’ve seen in an exercise studio in decades. To think that I thought I was working to my max all these years and after 3 days, I had redefined it all.
We are launching this innovative class at my gym this September but even if you are not in the Stamford area, check it out on YouTube. It is pretty revolutionary.
Anyway, I’m only midway through my stay-cation so if you don’t hear from me in August, you’ll know our son’s team is still winning, but that I’ll be back soon with lots of annoying toning tips and fascinating fitness facts .
Here’s one to leave you with. I heard (The Artist Formerly Known As) Prince just had his hip replaced in February. Yes, he and I have yet one more thing in common.
Stay toned and tuned.
