Twittering Counts as Exercise, right?

I got up this morning and got dressed to go to the gym.

But am I at the gym?

Nope.  I’m Twittering and emailing, and blogging, and reading some of the blogs that I like.

But I am wearing exercise clothing — which must count for something. (Doesn’t intent burn calories?)  I am moving my fingers at astonishing speeds. (Thank you Mr. Henry, my tenth grade typing teacher.) I must be losing weight, just by using Twitter.

Let me count the ways:

1. The outfit. (LuLu Lemon, I love you for making my butt look small.)

2. The finger speed (see above)

3. Twittering is like having a big long disjointed conversation with a whole lot of people you don’t really know.  It can be exhausting. Exhaustion means you’re burning calories, right?

4. When I Twitter, I think about all of the other things I should be doing.  I imagine myself exercising instead, for example. Imagination is SO SO powerful.  Aren’t we always telling out kids that?  Something that powerful MUST count as exercise. I mean, really.

5. Also, When I Tweet (oh, I SO know the lingo, don’t I?) I occasionally get up from my desk, walk to the kitchen, open up the pantry door, and grab a snack. And if that doesn’t burn calories, well, what does?

So for all you Tweets (Tweople?) out there who think that sitting at a desk, typing on your laptop, and chatting with your virtual friends all day might not be the best choice for your (literal) bottom line….take heart! You’re Twittercizing! Feel the burn.

Weight Watchers Weigh In Update #2

OK, OK, so I’ve been on the diet for four weeks and this is only the second time I’ve updated.

I’ll give you the scoop:

Week One: Followed the points TO THE LETTER (number?) No cheats.  No counting the exercise points.

Down 1.4

Week Two: Same as week one.  Only used a few of my discretionary points

No loss/No gain

Week Three: Total disregard for the entire thing

Down 1

Week Four: Paid attention: sort of.   Went out to one big restaurant (read: buttery) meal. Never wrote down anything

Down 1

SO – it doesn’t seem to matter what I do.  If I follow the diet, I lose a pound.  If I don’t, I lose a pound. Maybe it’s kinda like wearing exercise clothes all day:  you might not have made it to the gym, but don’t you still get credit for looking like you did?

I don’t get it.  But I don’t care: Down 3.4 in four weeks.  Not exactly stellar, but I’ll take it.

Weight Watchers Weigh In Update #1

Weight Watchers.

The two most terrifying words in the English language.  (Though I suppose that “Compassionate Conservative” and “Hairy Back” might be contenders.)

And yet here I am, once again, doing the WW.  Counting the points, weighing the portions,trying to decide if a deck of cards (the proper size of a serving a meat) is the same size as the giant hunk of leg-o-lamb I’ve just plunked on my plate. (that would be NO.)

Full disclosure:  a publicist from WW gave me three months of Weight Watchers for free.  I figured that if I can’t follow the program and lose the weight when I don’t even have to pay for it….Well, then I might as well  just accept that “trying on bathing suits” will forever remain the four scariest words in the English language.

Today was my second weigh-in.  Week two.  Week one, I lost 1.4 pounds.  Not bad.  Not great, but not bad.  So week two, I decided to be extra careful: I weighed everything.  I wrote everything down.  And you know what?  I stayed the same.  EXACTLY the same.

It’s better than a gain, I know.  But still.  And this was a week where I skied, worked out with a trainer, took yoga, took a dance class, took a ballroom dancing lesson AND dieted. What else am I supposed to do?  Cut off my left arm from the elbow down and use it to beat the pounds off of me?

It was also a week where I went out to breakfast with a friend.  Here’s what I had: one poached egg (2 points) and one piece of dry whole wheat toast (2 points).  Here’s what she had: a three egg (one yolk only) mozzarella and tomato omelette , french fries, and two pieces of whole wheat toast slattered in butter.

Now, here’s what she looks like: five foot four, one hundred and ten pounds, size four or six.

And here’s what I look like: five foot seven, NOWHERE NEAR one hundred and ten, or even one hundred and twenty, and lets face it, it’s been 20 years since I’ve seen 130 pounds.  Size eight or ten.

Sometimes, life just isn’t fair, is it?

Straight after my weigh-in, I went to Loehmann’s to  – TRY ON BATHING SUITS.  I figured, hey, I’m already depressed about my body, why not go all out and make myself downright dismal???

I had already been to the world famous Town Shop last week, trying on Karla Coletto suits, and that hadn’t gone well.  I have sung the praises of her bathing suits before, but this time around.  Well, let’s just say it didn’t go as well.  The bathing suits are still beautiful.  Still fabulously designed.  I will admit, I look better in a Karla Coletto bathing suit than I have a right to. BUT (and it’s a big but – not to be confused with my big butt), this year, the suits were see-through.  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intentional – but they were showing a whole lot more than I feel comfortable showing.  (Or that you’d feel comfortable seeing, believe me.) For $200 and up, I expect a fabric that at least doesn’t show my (theoretical) tan lines through my suit. Or, let’s be frank, the depth of my bikini wax. So no Karla Coletto for me this year.  I’m looking on the bright side: this way, I won’t be tempted to spend $200 plus on a bathing suit!

ANYWAY – so there I was in Loehmann’s, and  as I entered the (communal) dressing room, I see my naturally (and preternaturally) thin friend, J.  (And as you read, remember, she’s a FRIEND) She takes one look at my armful of bathing suits (size 8’s, I might add – it’s not like I was kidding myself) and says “Are you going to fit into those?”

Youch.

I suppose the proper response would have been: “Are you going incredibly mean, incredibly unfeeling, or just a bitch?”  Or maybe “Are you going to go through puberty ever?  And get breasts?”  But no, all I said was:  “Well, I’m on Weight Watchers.”

All I can say is, it better work.

So check in every Wednesday for a Weight Watchers update. I let you know if I’m up or down, and I’ll tell you what’s working and what’s not.  Hey, maybe it’ll keep me honest, and finally, finally, get me to lose those ten pounds I’ve been struggling with for the past twenty years!

If you have any great Weight Watchers knowledge to impart – well, let me know.  Evidently, I need all the help I can get.

Wii Have Found a Game Wii Can Play!

You know the kid who was always picked last for teams in gym class?  Or at least last of the not-totally-loser kids?  Did you ever wonder what happened to that kid?

Did she grow up to be a world-class athlete?  Did she channel her athletic frustrations into intellectual pursuits and become a famous professor, writer, world leader or software developer?  Or, did she never manage to get over  the frustration of being a bad athlete and turn into a serial killer, a sadistic torturer of small animals, the kind of woman who insists on asking every man she dates “Do I look like I’ve gained a few?  No really.  Do I?” 

I’ll tell you what happened to her.  She became the kind of person who still sucks at sports.  Even the electronic ones.  She understands the angst of the woman told by her Wii Fit that she’s fat.  She knows the pain of missing out on perhaps the biggest electronic fad of our time, The Wii, simply because she still, to this day, cannot hit even a virtual ball.

She is me.  I am she.  Let the gods of hand-eye coordination spite me down and make me do pushups while I’m there.

Nia for Me-a

In my never-ending quest for a flab free existence without ever giving up a single food I like, I take Nia.

This, from the official Nia website, is what it is:

Nia is a body-mind-spirit fitness and lifestyle practice. Through expressive movement—The Body’s Way—Nia empowers people to achieve physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Life lived in a body the Nia way is life lived in relationship to the sacred geometry of life.

I have no idea what that means.  All I know is, Nia is fun.  Now let’s be honest: running on a treadmill is not fun.  Lifting weights is not fun.  Riding a stationary bike, doing squats, suffering through crunches, not fun, not fun, not fun.

Nia is dance you don’t need to be all that coordinated to do.  There are no “routines” to learn.  Just steps to follow.  My class (that I’ve been taking for several years) has women of a wide range of sizes and ages. (And yes, I am always trying to figure out where I am on the age/size continuum.) In it, I feel – ready for it? — graceful and lithe.  Lithe — now there’s a word not too many people would use to describe me.  But notice I didn’t say I LOOK graceful and lithe.  For all I know I look like a big gallumphing oaf — the point is, I feel good about it — so I do it.

The thing about Nia is – you get tired, you sweat (depends on your teacher, btw.  I don’t want anyone all mad at me because they end up with some mellow instructor.  Every class is different.  We have the immensely sweaty class.) but you never feel as if you’re “EXERCISING.”  I can do a whole class and not realize until I can barely sit down the next day that I did about 100 squats/plies the day before in class.  And there ain’t nothing like not being able to sit down and get back up again to let you know you’ve worked out. (Either that, or you’ve just gotten too fat to make your way out of a chair.)

So there it is – my pitch for Nia.  With nary a self-deprecating comment in sight.  See? Nia is empowering me already.

Why I’m Not Watching the Olympics Anymore

I’m tired. It’s been a long day. So I’m just giving you this link to my post on another site about Olympics fatigue.

Read it and see if you agree.

http://svmomblog.typepad.com/nyc_moms/2008/08/why-im-not-watc.html

Wii Are not a very Good Athlete

I

Although I have been opposed to video games for years, I now own a Wii.

I own this Wii because some publicist obviously mistook me for someone with a wide audience and sent me one. He also sent me a Wii Fit. (Which I blogged about Here)

The Wii Fit is an amazing toy/exercise tool. It weighs you, calculates your body mass index, and then tests your reflexes and balance to determine your Wii Fit age, which it then uses to select exercises for you.

Well.

According to the Wii Fit, I am 48 years old. According to the Wii Fit, I am on the cusp of 50, I am headed for menopause, about to get some serious crows feet, about to droop so badly that my current body will seem taut in comparison.

According to the Wii Fit, my body is five years older than I am.

Back Attack

Last Fall I had the most excruciating experience ever: a herniated disk.

You might wonder where I plan on finding the humor in that. What might I find funny about being in so much pain that I would given my left…well, I’m a lefty, so maybe my right arm to make it stop? What laughs could I possibly get out of being a 42 year old woman with the aches and pains of a 90 year-old, out of shape, overweight, former hormone taking power lifter?

Well, I can’t find anything amusing about it. Not funny. There’s nothing like back pain to make you feel old. I went for a run (ok a jog. ok a plod) on Saturday, and now, I’m feeling about 192. My lower back has been invaded by pain-inducing aliens who are screaming “You’re too old to go jogging! You’re too old to go jogging! Have you seen your thighs? Give it up already!”

The worse thing is, nothing seems to help. I’ve tried acupuncture. I’d rather stick needles in my….oh, wait, that’s what they did and IT DID NOTHING. (In fairness to my practitioner, she did say before we began that she had her doubts.) I went to a chiropractor who wrapped me in ice packs while he administered tiny electric shocks. All I needed was Nurse Ratchett to complete the scene. I tried prescription strength pain killers. All they did was make me loopy AND in pain. I tried massage. (Nothing says relaxation like a Korean woman barking orders at you IN KOREAN while you are naked and in pain.) I tried ice and heat. Heat and ice. Hot showers, jacuzzis. Sitting for long periods. Walking through the pain. Ignoring the pain a la James Sarno. (it is NOT all in my head. It’s in my BACK)

The only thing that worked was three epidurals of steroids and lidacaine. Relief.

I don’t really want to do that again any time soon. Something tells me that making a habit of shooting up even mild doses of that stuff with any regularity might not be the best idea.

So I’m doing restorative yoga. Not the “look at how strong I am/how flexible I am/what an overachiever I am even when I’m engaged in a totally non-competitive physical activity” yoga so popular among the skeletal chic crowd. But Iyengar Yoga. All about form, all about breath, all about such teeny tiny details that we sometimes spend fifteen minutes on mountain pose. You know what mountain pose is? Standing up.

Oddly enough, it seems to help.

Hey, whatever it takes.

My XL Problem with Suburban Sprawl

Everyone is so concerned with Suburban Sprawl — the rape of the countryside, the never-ending expansion of the suburbs.

I’m concerned with my own suburban sprawl. The one I’m sitting on right now as I type this post.

See, I’m spending my summer in “the country,” as we city folk like to say, and instead of my usual 3.5-4 miles a day of walking just as a matter of course, I’d say I do about, oh, I don’t know, ten feet of walking. I’m exercising and all that. I’m trying to use my bike to run small errands. But it just isn’t the suburban/country way. This is a car society. And what with the GIANT SUV’s everyone drives around here (understandable, of course. I mean, Long Island is SO very mountainous, with ton of treacherous roads.) there isn’t much room for me on my foot-brakes-only circa 1972 cruiser. So I’m sitting a lot. In my car, at the computer. While waiting on line at Waldbaums. (Hey, once you’re a sitter, you’ll sit anywhere.)

Looking Good at Any Price

Have you ever noticed that the worse your body is, the more you have to spend on a bathing suit?

I’ve been to the Lands End site with all of it’s symbols about body type and claims of flattery. And I’ve always liked the suits. Not too flashy. Not too revealing. But in the end, not too exciting, either. They’re all fine in a “I’m a middle aged woman who drives a minivan, has a bad perm, and still uses cans of Cream of Mushroom soup to make a casserole” kind of way. But chic they’re not.

This year, I decided to actually go to a store and try on bathing suits. No easy task. Like most women over forty who’ve borne children, trying on bathing suits is as depressing as it gets. What I didn’t realize is how expensive it can get!

The average price of a bathing suit at my local (and totally fabulous) lingerie store, The Town Shop, is $150. Seriously. They have a few bathing suits under $100, but most fall into the $125-$225 range. Shocking. I must be naive, but I had no idea a little piece of Lycra could cost so much.

But I had decided that, like a good haircut, a good bathing suit can change everything. So I sucked it up (and sucked it in) and tried one on. I don’t know who this Karla Colletto is, but man, can she design a bathing suit. I’ve tried the Miracle Suit thing, and quite frankly, the only miracle is that they can get away with their copywrited claim that you’ll look ten pounds lighter in ten seconds. They’re relatively flattering, but they ain’t no Karla Colletto. In her suits I looked – are you ready for this? — GOOD! Do you understand the magnitude of that? I LOOKED GOOD IN A BATHING SUIT. Talk about shocking.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the cut, maybe it’s the fabric. But I don’t care what it is. It was worth the staggeringly high –wait for it…$225 — price tag.

I decided to see if my “the worse you look the more you have to spend” theory applied to exercise clothing as well. Usually, I head to Filenes or Target and buy my exercise clothing there. After all, why spend big bucks on something you’re just going to sweat up anyway?

How wrong I was. I have only one thing to say to you: Lululemon. These pants are amazing. Their seam runs down the back of the leg, instead of the sides, making your legs look longer. The waist band hits at exactly the right spot to avoid side-bulge, and minimize butt bulge.

In my Lululemon signature pants I really do look ten pounds lighter. Unfortunately, they also left my wallet nearly $100 lighter. A small price to pay for a small butt.

So alas, it’s true. The worse you look, the more you pay. But the bright side is, if you’re willing to spend the big bucks, you can look like a million bucks. Or, OK, $100,000 bucks. But that’s rich enough for me.