Limiting Beliefs & Self Sabotage
January 8, 2010
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Tiger Woods & Invictus
December 11, 2009
Did you hear that Tiger Woods is appearing today on the Oprah Show? He’s going to sit with Oprah, unveiling his broken tooth and facial lacerations as well as his shame, grief and remorse as he tells us EVERY detail of EVERY transgression, then, if all goes as planned, he’ll ask his wife, his family, his mistresses, his fans and all of us, of course, for forgiveness. THEN, Elin will be brought on from backstage and we get to listen as she cries, and perhaps briefly, hopefully (fingers crossed) rages at him and eventually agrees to, if not forgive him right on the spot, then to at least try. She’ll try. But don’t forget the 80 million.
Then maybe if we are lucky, he’ll jump on her couch as Oprah throws to the camera for a commercial break.
Actually this is not really happening, I was just teasing you. Please tell me you did not run to the TV just now. But you must admit, it does not seem like such a ridiculous next step.
Do you think we would all feel better for having every morbid detail? Hmm, for some reason I don’t think so.
One word comes to mind:
schadenfreude-[shahd-n-froi-duh] noun-
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.
According to Wikipedia, a New York Times article in 2002 cited a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, which it defined as “delighting in others’ misfortune.” Many such studies are based on social comparison theory, the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to ourselves. Other researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel schadenfreude than are people who have high self-esteem. If this is the case then we Americans must rank as some of the lowest esteemed people on the planet, because we sure are gleeful about Tiger’s whole mess.
We’ve all been whipped into a schadenfreudian frenzy as more and more girls tumble out of his one little fender-bender. Those of you who have never cheated and/or been cheated on by someone that you love and/or who loves you, feel free to throw the first dumbbell.
I have a better idea for all of us. Go get your kids right now and drive to the nearest theatre and watch the newly released movie “Invictus” with Morgan Freeman and the newly hunky Matt Damon
http://invictusmovie.warnerbros.com/
It’s the story of Nelson Mandela’s attempt to heal a country’s racial rift. Many critics have panned it but after two weeks of listening to the unraveling of Tiger Wood’s marriage and life, hearing about radical forgiveness is like balm to my golf club battered ears.
The film’s title is taken from a poem I’ve never heard before by William Ernest Henley, who was left disabled after about with tuberculosis of the bone. It goes like this:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Mandela used this poem as a source of inspiration and strength when he was at his darkest times in his 27 years of imprisonment.
It reminded me of the importance of developing discipline, discipline of the mind, whether it is in the gym, alone with the Doritos, at work or perhaps with a flirtatious co-worker behind the water cooler.
My husband’s advice to our kids about about athletics has always been that practice is discipline in motion. This is true for many things, especially exercise. By getting on that treadmill or strapping on those Easy Spirit walking shoes every day you build the character-strength of discipline. It takes mental fortitude to DO things we do NOT want to do, like exercising or flossing or carpooling and in the inverse way, (listen up,Tiger) it also takes strength to NOT do what we DO want to do, like when we need to STOP eating or STOP drinking or STOP ….doing what Tiger was doing.
So go see the movie and feel your heart open to the life-changing power of forgiveness. Remember the words of my minister Hillary Bercovici, “Forgiveness is not earned. Forgiveness is given.” and then make a vow to stop following the Woods family tragedy and leave them in privacy to find their way to some form of forgiveness.
Holiday Fitness You’ll Log
December 4, 2009
This is a hypothetical journal of what I hope and imagine YOU’LL
be doing this holiday season to stay on the Fitness Good Boys & Girls List.
Just for the record I will be checking it twice.
*YOU’LL decide now and make an inner pact with yourself to workout X number of days per week throughout the holiday season. Pick a number of workout days that are reasonable and stick with it. No matter how fat you feel or how hungover you are.
*YOU’LL put on your own life mask first in order to better rescue others. This means YOU’LL
LET IT GO
and take de-stress breaks when you feel holiday panic as in
“OMG!! I forgot to go online at 5:59am to get in a virtual line of 51,000 other (better) moms to enter the lottery to get one of the last twenty Tickle-Me-Elmo’s that I promised I’d get for little Suzy cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die!”
YOU’LL
LET IT GO.
*YOU’LL start every party with the latest bar drink called a “Mistletoe”- it’s seltzer w/a splash of cranberry juice plus lime. I made this up but if you ask the bartender for it and then splain to him what is in it we could have a drink movement started (an un-drink movement rather) then you can move on to wine, then alternate mistletoe, wine, mistletoe…do I really need to splain why?
*YOU’LL control excess calorie consumption of low NCR (Nutrient to Calorie Ratio) foods by using the delay technique. Use this for the really yummy things. Don’t say “No, I am not allowed to have that delicious yet forbidden delicacy that is only offered to me once every 365 days.” That’s just plain sad at Christmas. Say (to both yourself and your host) “I’ll have some a little later.” This is known as the Hoffinator Delay Technique.
Then see if, five minutes later, the urge has passed.
In 94 times out of 100, you don’t even remember what you passed up.
*YOU’LL get eight hours of sleep. Preferably nine.
*YOU’LL make sure your camera is charged, repaired and in your purse so that YOU’LL remember that wonderful moments sometimes happen in the church parking lot on Christmas Eve and
*YOU’LL also let someone take a picture for you so that you can jump in the shot and actually be IN some of the pictures from 2009.
*YOU’LL laugh really hard at least once a day. Tickling may be required to make this happen.
*YOU’LL focus on something joyful every day,
like your dog
or your botox
or by watching Forrest Gump
or A Christmas Story since it is on 23 hours out of every day in mid-December. It is continuously broadcast for a very good reason. The movie is true (My brothers and sisters and I actually lived a similar movie in Ohio)
and it is funny.
YOU’LL watch it and smile.
And there you have my
Holiday Fitness You’ll Log.
Use it to fill your home (and your gym) with joy,
your heart with love,
and your life with laughter.
Merry Fitness.
One Important Reason To Have A Happy Holiday
December 4, 2009
Last year at this time, I felt the press of all the undone holiday chores I was procrastinating about and grimacing at the annoying expediency of every holiday greeting card that appeared in my mailbox. This year, on the other hand, sitting by my fireplace with exactly three weeks left before Christmas, I’m well on my way to checking things off my list and enjoying every moment of it. Hand addressing my envelopes? I just might! If I can find my mailing lists on my computer, that is. I may even bake (gasp) holiday cookies. I even had an insane moment a few days ago when I considered participating in a cookie exchange. Of course, no one invites me to exchange cookies anymore because I stink at baking. And if you still don’t believe that I am filled with the holiday spirit here’s what my house looks like.
The inside is even better. Think Griswold’s with a hillbilly twist. What’s wrong with me, you ask? It’s actually what is right with me. It started when I got a call from my sister earlier this week. There was a silence on her end of the line and then she was crying. There’d been a horrible car accident in their town and two wonderful teenage school mates of her children had been killed. It’s every parent’s nightmare. I have been alternating between weeping for these people I don’t even know and being angry about the devastating injustice of it. But after I started to comprehend a thimbleful of the enormity and immediacy of their loss (which I can’t really. Not ever everever. One instant they’re walking in the back door and tracking mud through the kitchen and the next instant—-gone? Gimme my mud back. I’ll take all the mud in the world,please.Make that double mud.)
Then, with my new eyes, I looked down at myself standing in this healthy body, and at these three ornery, yet splendid teenagers of mine, who don’t always brush their teeth or hang up their towels for the thousandth time. And I looked through my new eyes at my rascal of a husband, who even peering over his reading glasses, still floats my boat after 22 years. And I felt with my new sense of touch, the World’s Greatest Dog dozing with his head on my foot under the desk. I guess you could say I got woke up! It was just the smack in the face that I needed to cure my Bah-Humbug-itis. Suddenly it occurred to me what a miracle it is that none of us are gone- We get to be here another day! Another Christmas! Another opportunity to be alive! Not like last year when I was just chronically in need of a nap and asking my husband, “Do we get our son the XBox 360 OR do we send him to college?” This year I welcome the overwhelm. Bring on the chaos and financial strain, if only for the aliveness that it sparks in me.
Nothing Tastes Good Enough To Make Feeling Too Full Feel Good
November 27, 2009
Post-Dinner Recap-How do you all feel today? Remember last week when Kate Moss was quoted as saying that her life’s motto was “Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels”? She came under a ton (!!) of scrutiny. This wafer–thin model, being a (former?) anorexic, inflamed the media who expressed concern that she was either condoning anorexia and/or unduly influencing young girls to restrict their eating. I kept my big mouth shut last week, but every Facebook status update I’ve read today has been the written equivalent of holding their belly, proclaiming “I’ll never be hungry again!” or “I can’t believe I ate so much food!” etc. Everyone I’ve encountered today is overfull and bloated. So I thought it might be good timing to say that, I also, was too full last night. I’m here to proclaim first-hand that nothing feels worse than being too full. Within five minutes after arriving home last night after a wonderful 17 course meal at our friends’ house, I simultaneously climbed the stairs while surreptitiously whipping my pantyhose off so fast it made my dog’s head spin. I slipped into my drawstring sweats with such a gratifying sigh that my husband peeked his head into the bedroom to be see who was in there with me (it was just me and the confused dog, who is always hopeful that inexplicable, sudden movements might mean a walk for him.) By 8:30pm me and my also-too-full husband settled into bed like sedated grizzlies, ready to hibernate until our digestion was complete or spring thaw, whichever came first. It was a classic Thanksgiving and very similar to the past 25 Thanksgivings we’ve spent together. Did we enjoy every minute of it? Definitely. Should we do it more than once a year? Probably not. And the million-dollar question-Does thin feel better than food tastes? I say YES that thin USUALLY feels better than MOST foods taste. Anyone who has struggled with obesity and then been thin WILL tell you that thin feels better and that most decadent foods are not worth the effort it takes to burn off the caloire equivalent. Maybe Kate Moss is not the one to deliver this message since she may look or actually be too thin. But since the majority of Americans are struggling with the opposite of anorexia and much of the latest scientific research DOES in fact support restricted calorie programs, not just for weight control but because it is proving to be associated with longevity, we all might accept that feeling less full feels better than most food tastes. As well a possibly help us live longer AND healthier lives.At least until we get hungry again, maybe sometime tomorrow.
Why I Love Thanksgiving
November 25, 2009
Chatting on the phone with one of my BFF’s yesterday, she, in passing, pushed one of my buttons. Maybe she was practicing for pressing her own mother’s buttons. Maybe she thought I was missing my mom and thought she’d push my button on behalf of my mom. She was explaining that she was in the midst of making her Grandma’s baked apple recipe and she that she had to bake her famous pumpkin muffins for her brother, and as she listed her wonderful traditions surrounding this holiday dinner she slipped this little bomb into the conversation, she said “Unlike you, I don’t hate Thanksgiving…” “________________ whaaa?” I said. This reminded me of yesterday’s New York Times article by Tara Parker Pope who wrote about Food, Kin and Tension at Thanksgiving.
Anyway I wanted to make sure that no one else confuses my calorie lectures and my accountability talks (about how 5 minutes of eating can cost you 5 hours of exercise) with a dislike for the holiday itself. I happen to love Thanksgiving so much that I went to Costco last night with all of the second-to-the-last-minute people and then again today to get one more $5.99 gigantic pumpkin pie with all of the official last minute peeps. Being at Costco the day before Thanksgiving is the November equivalent to being an elf at the North Pole on Christmas Eve. I didn’t mind it one bit, it made me feel anticipatory, and all warm and fuzzy inside (as long as my checkout line moved faster than all the other lines, which I surreptitiously monitored for the line contest in my mind. Once a competitor, always a competitor). Stuck in the traffic on the way to and from Costco, I enjoyed seeing all the families packed up in the cars traveling at a snail’s pace alongside my car. And even though I didn’t envy their long road trip I wished I could zap our family back to Ohio for the weekend. If we drove, it’d mean 8.5 hours in the car with three teenagers and a tailgating hubby which does not compute in my dinner vs. road trip calculation. But being a news reporter, my husband always works when a holiday falls on a weekday so he’s always worked Thanksgiving as long as we’ve been married. I do miss seeing my family and the subsequent dinner but luckily we have longtime friends (who are excellent cooks, I’m no dummy) who always have mercy on us and adopt us for dinner. So yes, you all have my permission to have the most delicious meal-to-top-all-meals tomorrow. Savor every bite and even help yourself to seconds. I will be doing the very same thing.
Of course, there’s always the calorie bill to be settled come morning. “Oh Weigh-ter! Check Please!”
What Happens On Thanksgiving Does Not Stay On Thanksgiving
November 20, 2009
I hate to be a nag. But weeks like this get me overly revved up. I feel like it’s early enough in the holiday season that none of us have fallen off the fitness wagon YET. There is still HOPE.
And if somehow, someway we can figure out how to manage ourselves and our eating and exercise,
then there’s hope that we won’t end up another five ell-bees (lbs equal pounds) heavier come January.
If it were just five lbs it wouldn’t be a big deal but if the same thing happened last year then it will most likely happen again NEXT year and your metabolism is doing it’s aging/slow down/I used to be able to cut back but now the weight doesn’t budge thing.
If we can manage to not let ourselves off the hook yet again, then keeping that extra weight off will be much easier and let’s face it, more realistic than trying to lose it.
Like I often say, five minutes of eating can often (and at Thanksgiving I should say always) take five hours of exercise to burn off and no pumpkin pie ever tasted good enough to be worth jogging 20 miles (pecan pie, maybe).
And further more, no one ever wakes up the next morning regretting not having eaten more. Can you imagine? “Dammit. I don’t feel bloated enough and not a whiff of gas. I didn’t get second helpings of stuffing and I should’ve tried ALL of the pies. My rings still fit and what’s up with the scales? I still weigh the same? Next year I’m gonna eat MORE.”
Can we break the cycle?
Can we eat on smaller plates?
Start with the green beans and skip the sweet potato pie?
Do we really need a roll just because they’re warm?
Can we leave the serving dishes in the kitchen and use smaller serving spoons? Can we nicely say no thank you and not worry about offending the family food-pusher(every family has one- “Come on! Just one bite! You have to try this, I made it just for you!”)
Only consider this idea if you can close your eyes right now and think back to last year and tell me honestly that you were at no point nauseous or needing to unbutton your pants.
But if you do recollect some overeating last year, consider the strain this places on your body. Like I said last week,overeating produces free radicals and free radicals contribute to aging faster. This may sound okay if you’re stuck with the in-laws all weekend but you’ll still feel worse come Monday morning.
At our health club we offer a two hour cycling class Thanksgiving morning that will burn 1200 or so calories. Considering that the average Thanksgiving meal contains 4600 calories, this will put a small dent in the calorie bank and help us maintain rather than gain. We also offer great classes the day after, which beats the heck out of going to the mall.
Consider doing the same. Or you could take it one jog further and starting now, eliminate just 100 calories per day- that only means skipping your cappuccino, so that you have another 700 calories in the fitness bank. Take an extra long walk every day this week. I know that many towns offer Turkey Trot races, go online and register right now!
Stay on track so that your holiday season gets started with a bang and not with bloat
Belly Fat-Muffin Tops and Meno-pooch
November 13, 2009
Belly fat comes in two radically different forms. One is slightly annoying and fairly harmless. It is the layer of fat directly under the skin. It’s called subcutaneous fat. Think of it as a layer of fat between the surface of the skin and on top of the belly organs. It’s also known as muffin top, love handles or jelly belly. The villainous other type of fat is called visceral abdominal fat, VAT for short. It’s associated with cancer and heart disease and a slew of other miserable age-related diseases. This layer of fat is beneath the organs and is what gives one that very rotund look of a potbelly. If you have ever heard of people with an apple shape, that’s a VAT belly. These VAT people are more prone to disease because of the nature of serious problems associated with visceral fat.
Another little known fact is that fat in the abdominal area functions differently than elsewhere in the body. It has a greater access to blood supply as well as more receptors for cortisol, a major stress hormone. Cortisol is a fight or flight hormone. But I call it the Fat Belly hormone. It’s levels rise and fall throughout the day but when you are stressed out, like when you are running late and stuck driving behind the drop-off bus,your cortisol level remains elevated. When you have consistently high levels of this hormone in your blood stream, more fat is deposited in the abdominal area because there are more cortisol receptors in your abdominal wall than anywhere else in the body. So stress can indeed make you fat!
Another switch that is triggered when we are under stress is the there is a higher Ph level in the bloodstream. This acidic level leaches calcium from our bones. So stress reducing activities, like meditation can help prevent osteoporosis. Who knew that lying silently on the floor could make your bones stronger- and thinner.
If we can reduce our stress levels, we can maintain a more alkaline level in our blood stream, which also helps protect our bones.
So reduce your stress by adding meditation or tai chi. It will help your metabolism work better so that your bones can remain strong so that if you fall, nothing will break. It will also reduce the fat-belly hormone so that you get a VAT. And as we head into the holiday season in this economic situation, it’s a profound practice- being able to calm your self down in the middle of craziness.
Bubbles or Pancakes-Which Butt Are You?
November 13, 2009
Last week my rant was about the two different types of belly fat. This week my rant is on the behind, the junk in the trunk, the caboose, patootie, booty, arse, badonkadonk, whatever you want to call it, you all know what I mean. I divide the world (of behinds) into three distinct categories: the first group has not enough butt, sometimes known as flat butts or what I like to call party platter butts. These are the people you see on America’s Funniest Videos in the pants-falling-down category (one of my favorites, much more enjoyable than the old folks-falling-down category). A little known side benefit of having some junk in your trunk is that it keeps your pants from falling down. Paula Dean is an excellent example. She is by no definition thin, but(t) her butt could be a sewer cap and when she wears spanks she is especially susceptible to losing her pants. (See video)The second group has too much butt and this is where the majority of adult women “end” up. They never lose their drawers. Ever. Instead, their struggle is to get their pants ON. The third group is bum-indifferent (about their own, that is).They never look back there and this lucky group has no opinion whatsoever about their own tush. Many men are categorized here. If you fall into this category you can skip the rest of this rant and go sit on yours.
Unlike belly fat which, if you have the bad kind, can be lethal, fanny bulge is just annoying and unhealthy in a more vague and overall unhealthy way. This is due to the anatomical fact that no vital organs are stored in our hiney, although I have known some men who’ve made me wonder if this is true for all humans.
If you don’t like what you’ve got back there, here’s what you can do:
If your rump is flat:
• Lunges and squats with heavy weights can give the appearance of lift and separation if you have good form. Lift a challengingly heavy weight for your size and work through your heels. By that, I mean keep your weight out of your toes, because you don’t want to work the front of your leg.
• Remember the Jane Fonda bridge? You lie on your back, feet under knees and pulse the hips up like 10,000 times. This will directly work the glutes. You can also hold hand weights on your pelvis as you lift or alternate legs for added challenge.
• Do stair climbing, either on a machine or preferably on real stairs. The major mover in your body when you climb is the glutes.
• If you really yearn for a bubble butt and don’t want to work for it (and it is hard work) you can purchase a handy little undergarment called Bubbles Bodywear,
which adds some silicone to it’s padded panty. Bubbles Bodywear are the Ebony to Spank’s Ivory. Uniquely similar in opposite, yet equally important ways. It may sound ridiculous but if those of us with a tummy bulge can spend $40 on Spanks then $30 for a bubble butt sounds like a reasonable investment to those who’d rather have something to show on their party platter.
Moving on to those of you with bigger bottoms than you’d like, here’s what you have to pick from:
• Do tons of cardio, preferably running or if not running, jogging. Nothing will change your rear-end size like high-impact cardio. Don’t bike a ton of biking or do heavy-weighted squats/lunges. If you do indoor cycling classes, keep your toes angled up and your heels in a dropped position.
• Do LSD workouts. This stands for Long, Slow Distance. Try for a 60 minute walk, vigorous golfing or tennis. Any length of time over 45 minutes will be burning fat stores and if your fat is in your behind then 30 minute workouts aren’t gonna cut it. This is hard to do if you hate exercise so find a buddy to walk with. It’ll help pass the time.
• If you’ve been in a cave and haven’t heard, there’s no such thing as spot reduction. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOT REDUCTION. There. Is.No. Such. Thing. As. Spot. Reduction. I hate to sound like a broken record but if your rump is too big, you just have to lose weight. In general, the densest weight stores are around the hips so if you drop the extra pounds, chances are it will go from your trunk. That’s the best I can tell you. I’m sorry.
• Wear black and avoid horizontal stripes around the midsection.
And finally, if you can’t be with the butt you love, Honey love the butt you’re with. Love the butt you’re with.
Inspiration, Sister-Style
October 16, 2009
An important part of my workday at the gym is listening to people do the pre-workout grumble. By people I mean me, my fellow teachers and even my boss, not to mention everyone walking into class. Grumbling is a natural response to strapping on the Velcro Easy Strides, getting in the car, driving to the club one more friggin day and getting that workout behind you. We all do it. I bet even Richard Simmons grumbles. A big part of leading a healthy lifestyle is realizing that we don’t always FEEL LIKE IT and even if we grumble as we get ourselves started, we still need to do it. Like Dr Phil says, you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. Besides, grumblitis recedes by the time you get into your heart-rate zone.
But this also means that a big part of my day is spent trying to motivate and inspire people, as well as my boss, my fellow teachers and myself.
Some days it only takes a new playlist on my ipod to inspire me. Other days I may require the chiseled Latino nightclub DJ slash Kickboxing instructor’s class for inspiration. But on those days when my grumbling turns into catastrophizing, I rely on a deeper, more intrinsic inspiration. My inspiration is a real person. It’s a person I’ve known since before I was born and was, in fact, born with.
My inspiration is my Twin Sister. And before you start surmising that Twin Sister is some buff gym bunny with biceps like guns, let me tell you that Twin Sister has not ran, or walked, for that matter, in over thirty years. 
I’ll spare you the gory details but our whole family suffered a shocking change when, as high school sophomores, we caught a ride home from school one afternoon with a newly-licensed friend who thought it was fun to fly down our country roads at 60 mph in our twisty, hilly hometown road. After going airborne and rolling the car eight times, myself and stupid driver were unhurt. Twin Sister’s back was broken and her spinal cord was severed. Let me just say Twin Sister had to do a whole lifetime of growing up all before the age of sixteen.
This story so far might not be inspiring. Tragedies happen all the time. And sometimes these stories just turn out plain sad. But what Twin Sister has taught me is that it’s how you respond to tragedies that can inspire. Inspiration is what comes by watching, over these years, and now these decades how Twin Sister has not just survived, she has thrived. She went on to Ohio State University and then on to Graduate school, met and married a hunky, body-builder bouncer slash engineer who is right up there with the Latino nightclub DJ slash Kickboxing instructor. Twin Sister gave birth to my beautiful niece and nephew, who are now sixteen and eighteen years old. Twin Sister works in the ER of a hospital and swims to keep fit.
Twin Sister has shown me that strong doesn’t always means you can lift more and that good health comes in all different shapes and sizes, not just size 2. She’s taught me that patience, and by patience, I mean needing ten minutes to get into the car (which I jump in and out of twenty times a day) and sometimes waiting at the foot of the stadium while everyone else scrambles up the bleachers at her son’s football games- that kind of patience truly is a virtue.
Every day, every single day, I am inspired and humbled by what she has done with her life in the face of her devastating injury and that she keeps going, amazingly, in spite of the redirection her life took so many years ago.
So the next time you find yourself grumbling about how you don’t want to exercise, take a moment to imagine my inspirational Twin Sister. If she can get out of bed and create this amazing life, home and family then I think the rest of us can use the image of her as an inspiration to work a bit harder to get whatever it is we’d like in life, even if it makes us grumble as we get started.
This Monday is our birthday,so Happy Birthday, Twin Sister. Thanks for the inspiration. And from everyone else, for my birthday, you can all drop and gimme twenty push-ups.
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