Here are some things I need to confess. Thanksgiving week has been tough. Too much butter, tomato cream sauce, pumpkin pie, cookie dough, and cheese. I didn't take my own advice, didn't follow my own directions and sit here tonight feeling bloated and irritable. My guess is that many of you feel the same way.
These holidays are coming crashing down on me just as predicted, and it's time to stop them in their tracks. How did food become such an integral part of the holidays? I would like to propose some alternatives, like Frank Costanza's "Festivus", something for the rest of us. Something that doesn't leave us craving sugar and feeling bad about water retention.
Idea number one: We fast on the holidays. Think about it. We indulge plenty. Girls night out generally includes a big meal, dessert, cocktails. It could be once a month or more and usually is for no reason other than getting out of the house. Everytime I get my hair done, Becki and I go out with our stylist friend, Cassie, and indulge in food, drinks, or both. I'm already allowing food indulgences so maybe fasting for the holidays wouldn't be so out of the question. But I'm not sure my Grandma is going to be to happy when I show up and refuse to eat.
Idea number two: An ALL ASPARTAME HOLIDAY. Everything we eat must include this lovely calorie free chemical. Diet soda, light yogurt, sugar free candy, you get the idea. Sounds good, doesn't it? I'm not one of those people who is totally against the use of artificial sweeteners. But I do hate the aftertaste which is reason enough to forget this idea quickly.
Idea number three: Nudity. What if we were mandated to celebrate the holidays in the nude? If you knew that you had to celebrate in the nude, would you eat that third scoop of raw cookie dough? Would you cut your workouts short? Would you drink a pitcher of margaritas? I think not.
I guess we'll probably never go to these extremes. But we need to be smart while we prepare for these holidays. Consider indulging a little less on average days over the next month, knowing there will be a few days that indulging will be ok. Drink a diet soda instead of a regular one. And with each temptation, ask yourself this; Would I be eating this if I had to celebrate Christmas in the nude?
Thanksgiving week wasn't all bad. I did a 10K in decent time and celebrated by taking some quiet time alone on Clearwater Beach, which was a great reward. I managed to squeeze a few other workouts in and I didn't have dessert with every meal. Tonight is a night to recharge and come up with a plan for December, knowing that I want to be realistic without allowing for too much slack. I encourage you to do the same so you are prepared to take on the season.
Ready or not, here it comes!!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Hairy Situation
Just a few more days and I'm on the road, heading to see my family in Florida. This is my 7th year going to Florida for Thanksgiving and I've got to say, there is no better place to give thanks. I get to be with my family, stay in a gorgeous home for free, and I don't have to see any deer carcasses hanging from the rafters of our garage. I do just have one teeny problem with this trip. Florida vacations require the shaving of one's legs.
I know what you are thinking already. Shouldn't she be shaving her legs routinely? Isn't' it gross to let the hair just grow? Stop right there. Really? What is so gross about it? Sure, a woman's legs tend to be sexier with the hair removed and just the right amount of coconut lime lotion applied. Sure, it's the socially acceptable thing to do, in America. But think about it. What if NO ONE ever started shaving their legs? We could walk around with hairy legs and people would still find us sexy, that's what. No one ever would have known how we looked without the hair. I would like to find the first woman who ever turned a man's head with her shaven legs and strangle her.
Do you think the women who came over on the Mayflower had shaven legs? Doubtful. They may have had more important things to think about, like drinking water that wasn't contaminated or surviving a brutal winter. Maybe they were thinking about preparing that first perfect meal, just like in the story books. They were probably pissed off at their husbands for expecting them to make the meals all the time. I'm almost sure about that. No matter what, I would bet they had hairy legs.
So why do I have to shave my legs for Thanksgiving? Mostly because I feel pressured to conform. I'll be hanging out with my sister's cute, young, skinny, Florida girl, perfectly shaven teacher friends. We'll be sitting by the pool. In swimsuits. (Oh, sure, that means even more shaving will have to take place.)
What's the big deal about shaving your legs? I'll tell you what the big deal is, it sucks. It's a frickin waste of time. The hair NEVER stops growing. As I am shaving, it is already beginning to stick out of the tiny little hair follicles, laughing, daring me to run the razor over that same spot just one more time. The razor is never sharp enough, the legs never get smooth enough, and where the heck do all those little red bumps come from?
Needless to say, this Thanksgiving, I won't be thanking the person who decided women should shave their legs. Here's what I will be thankful for: my sister's healthy pregnancy, the fact that my dad doesn't have to work any more, my mother's genius, and my precious son. I'll be thankful that I am healthier than I was last Thanksgiving, and that all of my family is healthy too. I'll be thinking of all of you who are running a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, as I'll be doing my own in Clearwater. With shiny, smooth legs.
I'm thankful for every single one of you who read this garbage each week and then tell me you "LIKE" it!! Now I've got to go, it's gonna take a while to get these legs ready for a trip to Florida.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I know what you are thinking already. Shouldn't she be shaving her legs routinely? Isn't' it gross to let the hair just grow? Stop right there. Really? What is so gross about it? Sure, a woman's legs tend to be sexier with the hair removed and just the right amount of coconut lime lotion applied. Sure, it's the socially acceptable thing to do, in America. But think about it. What if NO ONE ever started shaving their legs? We could walk around with hairy legs and people would still find us sexy, that's what. No one ever would have known how we looked without the hair. I would like to find the first woman who ever turned a man's head with her shaven legs and strangle her.
Do you think the women who came over on the Mayflower had shaven legs? Doubtful. They may have had more important things to think about, like drinking water that wasn't contaminated or surviving a brutal winter. Maybe they were thinking about preparing that first perfect meal, just like in the story books. They were probably pissed off at their husbands for expecting them to make the meals all the time. I'm almost sure about that. No matter what, I would bet they had hairy legs.
So why do I have to shave my legs for Thanksgiving? Mostly because I feel pressured to conform. I'll be hanging out with my sister's cute, young, skinny, Florida girl, perfectly shaven teacher friends. We'll be sitting by the pool. In swimsuits. (Oh, sure, that means even more shaving will have to take place.)
What's the big deal about shaving your legs? I'll tell you what the big deal is, it sucks. It's a frickin waste of time. The hair NEVER stops growing. As I am shaving, it is already beginning to stick out of the tiny little hair follicles, laughing, daring me to run the razor over that same spot just one more time. The razor is never sharp enough, the legs never get smooth enough, and where the heck do all those little red bumps come from?
Needless to say, this Thanksgiving, I won't be thanking the person who decided women should shave their legs. Here's what I will be thankful for: my sister's healthy pregnancy, the fact that my dad doesn't have to work any more, my mother's genius, and my precious son. I'll be thankful that I am healthier than I was last Thanksgiving, and that all of my family is healthy too. I'll be thinking of all of you who are running a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, as I'll be doing my own in Clearwater. With shiny, smooth legs.
I'm thankful for every single one of you who read this garbage each week and then tell me you "LIKE" it!! Now I've got to go, it's gonna take a while to get these legs ready for a trip to Florida.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
B M MyASS
An interesting week just passed me by. Everyone at work has been offered discounted health insurance premiums by agreeing to a HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT. This evil little test is bound to find something wrong with you, no matter how healthy you think you are. Do you wear your seat belt every time, do you smoke, what is your cholesterol number? And if you are perfect with those readings, how dare you lift heavy objects with your back instead of your legs????
Oh my, was this the talk of the office. We had to fast, God forbid. We had to give a blood sample; needles, yuck. Blood pressures were checked, questionnaires were completed, and the body fat electrodes spit out that gross number, glaring in our faces, letting us know exactly how much fat our poor bones are lugging around. But even that wasn't the worst of it.
Of course the scale made an appearance, that dreaded apparatus that reminds us why we hate to wash our jeans for fear of them feeling so tight again. The girl who assessed me might have weighed 110 pounds. So I convinced myself that at lunch hour, she would be outside chain smoking with a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew, calling her baby daddy and screaming at him for not coming home last night. Was that too harsh?
Once you have been weighed, your height and weight are put into an equation and the result is a very special number, the BMI. That acronym gets tossed around a lot but how many of you know what it means? It stands for Body Mass Index and it's a number that tells you whether your weight is healthy or whether you could drop dead tomorrow. A healthy BMI falls somewhere between 18 and 24.9. Mine was not in that range.
Below 18, you're bound to drop dead when your heart stops beating because you are no longer giving it enough fuel and you seem to disappear when people view you from a side profile. 25-30, where I am not-so-contently sitting, is the place for the pleasantly plump, the "overweight", the folks who are chubby but not about to drop dead. Over 30 gets dicey and, I guess, is cause for concern as you don't want the cardiac problems to come from clogged arteries.
I have one particular friend who spent her entire week mulling this over. I almost had to sedate her when I caught her sending me Facebook messages at 6 AM, questioning whether she was now just a "frumpy middle aged woman." It was time for us all to get a grip.
It's good to know your BMI and you can easily plug your height and weight into a BMI calculator on one of countless weight loss web sites. Once you know what that number is, you must be responsible with it. Use it as a guide. It cannot dictate your life. There are people walking around with BMI's of 23 who look great on the outside. I'm sure many of them are really healthy. But I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them smoke 2 packs a day. I'll take my BMI any day, which by the way, is hovering between 25 and 26. I'm working on it.
Sure, if you're BMI is over 30, you should be considering a plan of action for reducing it. Setting a goal is a good place to start, but by all means, make that goal realistic. Someone whose BMI is 38 should not be striving for an 18. Strive for what will make you healthy and feel better and the BMI will follow.
My guess is we'll all be doing this again next year. Anything to pay less for health insurance. Yes, of course I hope my BMI is lower. For the record, I hope my friend's is lower too because I can't take another week of her being that preoccupied! (Love ya Tam) I'm still eating pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. WITH whipped cream. And no BMI test would stop me from doing that!
Oh my, was this the talk of the office. We had to fast, God forbid. We had to give a blood sample; needles, yuck. Blood pressures were checked, questionnaires were completed, and the body fat electrodes spit out that gross number, glaring in our faces, letting us know exactly how much fat our poor bones are lugging around. But even that wasn't the worst of it.
Of course the scale made an appearance, that dreaded apparatus that reminds us why we hate to wash our jeans for fear of them feeling so tight again. The girl who assessed me might have weighed 110 pounds. So I convinced myself that at lunch hour, she would be outside chain smoking with a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew, calling her baby daddy and screaming at him for not coming home last night. Was that too harsh?
Once you have been weighed, your height and weight are put into an equation and the result is a very special number, the BMI. That acronym gets tossed around a lot but how many of you know what it means? It stands for Body Mass Index and it's a number that tells you whether your weight is healthy or whether you could drop dead tomorrow. A healthy BMI falls somewhere between 18 and 24.9. Mine was not in that range.
Below 18, you're bound to drop dead when your heart stops beating because you are no longer giving it enough fuel and you seem to disappear when people view you from a side profile. 25-30, where I am not-so-contently sitting, is the place for the pleasantly plump, the "overweight", the folks who are chubby but not about to drop dead. Over 30 gets dicey and, I guess, is cause for concern as you don't want the cardiac problems to come from clogged arteries.
I have one particular friend who spent her entire week mulling this over. I almost had to sedate her when I caught her sending me Facebook messages at 6 AM, questioning whether she was now just a "frumpy middle aged woman." It was time for us all to get a grip.
It's good to know your BMI and you can easily plug your height and weight into a BMI calculator on one of countless weight loss web sites. Once you know what that number is, you must be responsible with it. Use it as a guide. It cannot dictate your life. There are people walking around with BMI's of 23 who look great on the outside. I'm sure many of them are really healthy. But I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them smoke 2 packs a day. I'll take my BMI any day, which by the way, is hovering between 25 and 26. I'm working on it.
Sure, if you're BMI is over 30, you should be considering a plan of action for reducing it. Setting a goal is a good place to start, but by all means, make that goal realistic. Someone whose BMI is 38 should not be striving for an 18. Strive for what will make you healthy and feel better and the BMI will follow.
My guess is we'll all be doing this again next year. Anything to pay less for health insurance. Yes, of course I hope my BMI is lower. For the record, I hope my friend's is lower too because I can't take another week of her being that preoccupied! (Love ya Tam) I'm still eating pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. WITH whipped cream. And no BMI test would stop me from doing that!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Eating, Drinking, Smoking Your Stress Away?
How many of you don't have stress? C'mon, I'm not seeing any hands. . . . so everyone gets stressed from time to time, right? But how do you deal with it? Or maybe I should ask, do you deal with it? Many times we don't. We just push on, keep our lives going, make sure the kids are happy, make sure dinner is on the table. This isn't exactly healthy, but oh, it gets worse. Besides just ignoring it, our other awesome way to deal with stress is this beautiful thing called self destruction. Some smoke cigarettes, use drugs, drink excessively. I'm not telling you to stop these things, well maybe the cigarettes and heroin, just think about how you use them.
Here's a great example. This week, two of my clients were found dead in their apartments in totally separate incidents. Talk about stress. In my business, sad but true, the immediate thought is "was it a suicide?" and "should I have been doing something different to prevent this from happening?" To top it off, our dog is not well and money is always an issue. My immediate response to all of this was a plan to drive directly to Culver's and eat a turtle sundae.
WOW! NOW THAT WOULD REALLY HAVE HELPED!! Consider this scenario. I am totally upset, driving home. Here is the conversation in my head:
Good: "Don't do it, you'll regret it."
Evil: "Just eat it. It's just one sundae."
Good: "You'll hate yourself."
Evil: "You already hate yourself, who cares?"
Good: "You're better than this."
Evil: "You SUCK"
My goodness, I can see this decision to eat a turtle sundae is helping my stress so much already!
The moral of the story is that even though self defeating behaviors can bring a sense of short term relief, they usually lend themselves to even more stress down the road. Had I eaten the turtle sundae, I would have absolutely loved every bite and may have considered licking the little plastic container clean. The turtle sundae high would have lasted for a half hour, maximum. And then guess what? That little good vs. evil conversation would turn into a screaming match of "I TOLD YOU SO" vs. "SHUT THE F*&% UP".
So, Little Miss Blog Writer, what do you expect me to do with my stress? Thank you for asking. I happen to have a few suggestions. Start with giving yourself a little time. If your immediate response to stress is to drink a gallon of whiskey, give yourself a half an hour to set your stress aside. Then come back and think about the gallon of whiskey again. If you still really want it, maybe you should go to an AA meeting instead. All kidding aside, this is really about impulsivity, that immediate, poorly thought out reaction. Instead consider alternatives. You know what's coming next. This blog is about exercise isn't it?
So how did I handle the turtle sundae quandry? I basically just stopped in my tracks. I refused to allow the good vs. evil conversation to take place and I told myself that a turtle sundae, no matter how delicious, would only encourage me to feel fat and be very angry with myself later. So, I proceeded to drag my butt to the YMCA for spin class. After a full hour of that, I just wanted a hot shower and some rest. I had actually forgotten about the turtle sundae. And the stress and tension I had carried through the week had faded away, leaving me more equipped to face the rest of the week.
Next time you are stressed and find yourself grabbing the pack of cigarettes, corking the fourth bottle of wine, or sitting in a drive thru, stop and think. Will I feel good about this decision in an hour? Will it really help my stress? Consider replacing it with a brisk walk, raking leaves, or playing catch with your kids. The effect of this method of stress relief will be more long lasting and much more rewarding in the long run.
Finally, two things to take into consideration. First, the downtown Oshkosh YMCA offers spin classes at 5:30 on Thursday evenings that are taught by my friend Mike Magnuson. It's a killer workout and also pretty entertaining. Second, a turtle sundae at Culver's has 960 calories and a whopping 60 grams of fat. Do you know how glad I am that I didn't eat one?
Here's a great example. This week, two of my clients were found dead in their apartments in totally separate incidents. Talk about stress. In my business, sad but true, the immediate thought is "was it a suicide?" and "should I have been doing something different to prevent this from happening?" To top it off, our dog is not well and money is always an issue. My immediate response to all of this was a plan to drive directly to Culver's and eat a turtle sundae.
WOW! NOW THAT WOULD REALLY HAVE HELPED!! Consider this scenario. I am totally upset, driving home. Here is the conversation in my head:
Good: "Don't do it, you'll regret it."
Evil: "Just eat it. It's just one sundae."
Good: "You'll hate yourself."
Evil: "You already hate yourself, who cares?"
Good: "You're better than this."
Evil: "You SUCK"
My goodness, I can see this decision to eat a turtle sundae is helping my stress so much already!
The moral of the story is that even though self defeating behaviors can bring a sense of short term relief, they usually lend themselves to even more stress down the road. Had I eaten the turtle sundae, I would have absolutely loved every bite and may have considered licking the little plastic container clean. The turtle sundae high would have lasted for a half hour, maximum. And then guess what? That little good vs. evil conversation would turn into a screaming match of "I TOLD YOU SO" vs. "SHUT THE F*&% UP".
So, Little Miss Blog Writer, what do you expect me to do with my stress? Thank you for asking. I happen to have a few suggestions. Start with giving yourself a little time. If your immediate response to stress is to drink a gallon of whiskey, give yourself a half an hour to set your stress aside. Then come back and think about the gallon of whiskey again. If you still really want it, maybe you should go to an AA meeting instead. All kidding aside, this is really about impulsivity, that immediate, poorly thought out reaction. Instead consider alternatives. You know what's coming next. This blog is about exercise isn't it?
So how did I handle the turtle sundae quandry? I basically just stopped in my tracks. I refused to allow the good vs. evil conversation to take place and I told myself that a turtle sundae, no matter how delicious, would only encourage me to feel fat and be very angry with myself later. So, I proceeded to drag my butt to the YMCA for spin class. After a full hour of that, I just wanted a hot shower and some rest. I had actually forgotten about the turtle sundae. And the stress and tension I had carried through the week had faded away, leaving me more equipped to face the rest of the week.
Next time you are stressed and find yourself grabbing the pack of cigarettes, corking the fourth bottle of wine, or sitting in a drive thru, stop and think. Will I feel good about this decision in an hour? Will it really help my stress? Consider replacing it with a brisk walk, raking leaves, or playing catch with your kids. The effect of this method of stress relief will be more long lasting and much more rewarding in the long run.
Finally, two things to take into consideration. First, the downtown Oshkosh YMCA offers spin classes at 5:30 on Thursday evenings that are taught by my friend Mike Magnuson. It's a killer workout and also pretty entertaining. Second, a turtle sundae at Culver's has 960 calories and a whopping 60 grams of fat. Do you know how glad I am that I didn't eat one?
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