All hail the mighty bowler!

If you’re a bowler, you know how problematic shoes that have lost their ability to slide can be. It can run the gamut from slightly embarrassing (when the toe of your left shoe sticks to the floor and you end up hopping on one foot with your arms flailing at your sides as you attempt to keep your balance), to completely mortifying (when you fly halfway down the alley and land on all fours – in front of your husband’s co-workers, no less).

Now I’m not the world’s best bowler and I’ve never taken it all that seriously. And I certainly don’t concern myself too very much with the “fashion” of bowling. Which explains my 15-year-old bowling shoes. Do you think that could have something to do with why they don’t slide anymore?

In addition to those raggedy-ass shoes, I shamelessly tote around a bowling bag that the good people at Brunswick stopped manufacturing in 1967. Do I need to mention it was a hand-me-down?

Everyone – and I mean everyone – carries a bag like this:

And I sashay in with this:

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate. But just a little.

I finally decided that the sticky shoes had to go, so Mr. Jelly Belly and I headed out to Dick’s Sporting Goods for a new pair. He oh-so-tactfully asked if I might like to get a new bag while we were there. After about one second of thought, I agreed.

The new bag looks like this, only it’s a nice, girly light pink instead of blue:

Quite the improvement, right?

The new shoes were also beautiful (in my non-fashion-conscious opinion) and look similar to this:


And when they engrave the words “Slide Right” right there on the bottom of the shoe, you just know they’re going to slide, well….right. Right?

So off we went to the bowling alley, my confidence level all increased by my new shoes and an of-this-decade bag. And wearing my lucky Hard Rock (Orlando) t-shirt, circa 1998. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

And all of this just to announce:

I slid my way right into a 209!

In one single game! Wow, was I ever impressed with my 139-average self.

Watch for me on the Women’s Pro Bowling Tour…

Crunch THIS!

Over the weekend, Mr. Jelly Belly and I were having a discussion on abs and whether crunches were the most effective way to develop a six-pack.

We were discussing this as we were eating foot-long Coney dogs at A&W. (It’s okay – we were on vacation.)

Anyway, he took exception to my comment that he would never have a six-pack because of his diet. As you may recall, he dislikes most vegetables and the only whole grain he will eat is brown rice. He lives for sugar and other simple carbs. Dorito’s anyone?

Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s rectum if he has a six-pack or not, but that seems to be really important to him. Probably to most men.

I had read once that abs were made in the kitchen. This means unless your diet is almost 100% “clean”, you can do crunches and squats until the proverbial cow comes home and you will never rock that six-pack.

Do you think this guy eats a Nutri-Grain bar and a Slim-Fast every day for breakfast and chomps on Cherry Twizzlers in the evening while watching Sports Center?

I think not.

I hate doing crunches – so I justify not doing them by proclaiming them totally unnecessary. Have you heard the expression, “Work smarter, not harder”? I really think this is true when it comes to fitness.

When my diet was clean and I worked out (only) three days a week, I can guarantee you there was no jelly in this belly. And I felt great.

I am not a bodybuilder. Nor do I have any aspirations in that direction. So why should I kill myself doing endless crunches and hours of cardio every week when I can get visible results by just tweaking my diet, spending 30 minutes or so strength training three times a week and hitting the freakin’ treadmill for as long as I can stand it (30 minutes tops) every day?

Giving up junk food is not easy. Saying “no” to sugar and white flour is even more difficult. I know this. But when you can totally feel the difference within just a couple of days, it starts getting easier and easier. Before long you realize you wouldn’t eat a donut if someone paid you to do it; it makes you feel that bad.

Mr. Jelly Belly doesn’t think he can do this. I think he can.

I think I can get him interested in a lower-carb lifestyle. Unlike me, he has amazing willpower, so I know if I find the right recipes and plan every bite he puts in his mouth for a week or two, he will see such a big difference in how he looks and, more importantly, how he feels, that he will get right on board.

He can be a tough nut to crack, but I know I can entice him with my wily ways. And bacon. Lots of bacon.

Soon, we will look like this:

Or something close to it.

Prepare to be ashamed of yourself

If you’ve been thinking you’re just getting too old to ever gain the strength you would like to have and to show off the physique you’ve always dreamed of, think again.

The woman in the picture is Morjorie Newlin, a woman who took up weight training in her 70’s all because she didn’t have the strength to lift the 50-pound bags of kitty litter she was buying for her cat.

In this picture she is 86 years old. Yes, that’s right, 86 years old. You’re looking more closely now, aren’t you? I know I did.

Although I figured out this story has been around for a couple of years, it’s new to me and I am in total awe – and amazed at what the human body is capable of when it’s not left to slowly rot away from disuse. I knew it was possible, but this one picture is worth a thousand words, no?

Sadly, Morjorie passed away in January of this year from leukemia, but not before she became a poster child for senior fitness.

You can read Morjorie’s full story, and the stories of other “old broads” here. And while you’re there, look around the site; there is a lot of fantastic information there.

I cannot think of even one excuse I can come up with that will hold water now.

My busy, busy life

A man was standing on a street corner, hitting himself on the head with a hammer. Another man walks by and asks him why he is doing that. The man replies, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”

That old chestnut pretty much sums up how I feel about exercise. For the most part, I enjoy exercise. Well, the part of it that feels so good when I'm done. I have lots and lots of excuses for why I can’t exercise on this day or that day.

These are some of the arguments I have with myself regarding my motivational problems:

WHINY ME: I cannot exercise at home when other people are home. I am just too self-conscious and don’t like to hear the occasional smart ass comment.

PRACTICAL ME: You are up a good 2.5 hours before everyone else. Longer on the weekend. Unless the kids are home, it’s just you and Mr. JB, and he likes to waste half his day by sleeping until 10:00.

WHINY ME: Sometimes after I exercise, I feel so exhausted I want to go back to bed and am afraid I will feel too bad to be able to go to work.

PRACTICAL ME: Even if you really were too exhausted and had to go back to bed, you would still have two hours to sleep before you actually HAD to be up for work. You could pass on the internet. (WHINY ME: Eek!)

WHINY ME: I am afraid I will be walking my steady 3.5 mph pace on the treadmill and have a heart attack. I will fall down and no one will find me until they wake up three hours later. By then the dogs will probably be chewing off parts of my ears.

PRACTICAL ME: Don’t be an ass.

WHINY ME: By the time I get home from work and make dinner, I am too tired too exercise.

PRACTICAL ME: You are not.

WHINY ME: I don’t know how to work all the remotes to operate the DVD player.

PRACTICAL ME: I kind of do. Don’t tell anyone.

So the question now is, how am I going to get it to feel so good when I’m done, if I can’t even find the time to get started?

If I were to take an honest look at how my waking hours are spent during a typical week day, I would have to report this:

4:00 am – 6:30 am – Internet time. Sit on my ass, drinking coffee, checking mail, reading blogs, playing games.

6:30 am – 8:00 am – Shower, hair, makeup, etc., dress, pack lunch, head out the door for work.

8:00 am – 6:00 pm – Drive to work, put in my eight hours [this involves a whole new subset of time wasting, but doesn’t affect my ability to exercise], drive home.

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Change clothes, make dinner, feed the dogs, throw a load of laundry in the washer, make coffee.

7:00 pm – 9:30 pm – Internet time. Sit on my ass, drinking coffee, checking mail, reading blogs, playing games.

9:30 pm – 10:30pm – Clean up dinner mess from kitchen, fold the laundry, read a chapter or two in current book, plead exhaustion from too much work; go to bed.

So you can see, that without cutting into my already too short sleep time, I just don’t have time to exercise. Every minute of my day is pretty full.

But I’m thinking I could find 30 minutes in that 6:00-7:00 pm time slot. It’s all about the priorities.

Don't eat less...strength train more

As much as I have always despised exercise in general, and cardio in particular, I was surprised to find that I absolutely love strength training. The results are pretty quickly visible and only a minimal weekly investment of time is required.

Although all women can benefit from strength training, many are afraid of it. They look at the bulked up men at the gym, grunting loudly as they lift ridiculously heavy weights, and are basically afraid of two things: That they will "bulk up" in an unattractive way; and, that lifting weights is too hard and/or too complicated.

Let me put your fears to rest. Most women are genetically incapable of bulking up. They do not have enough natural testosterone in their bodies to do so. As a woman, you can lift weights until the cows come home and you will never look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dress. In fact, the more muscle you have, the better your curves will look.

Besides improving the appearance of your body there are other benefits associated with regular strength training, including increased bone density (a lower risk of osteoporosis), increased strength, and an increase in your resting metabolism rate (allows your body to burn calories even when you aren’t exercising).

Women do not have to lift weights in any “special” way. There is no difference between strength training for women and strength training for men. It is done the same way and gives the same results in terms of strength development.

Adding strength training to your routine is not time consuming. It can be done in as little as 20 to 30 minutes per day, two to three days per week.

If you are the type of person who enjoys going to the gym (I most definitely am not), you can make use of the weight training machines, or preferably, the free weights. Free weights can also be used at home, as can resistance bands. There are also a large variety of strength training videos available for home use.

If you’re still not convinced, ponder this: Women who do not strength train lose about five pounds of muscle every decade of their adult life. This leads to a slower metabolism and a gradual increase in fat weight (about 15 pounds per decade).

So what are you waiting for?

An epiphany, of sorts

I was stopped at a traffic light the other day on my way home from work when an older man, I would guess in his late 70’s to early 80’s, went flying past my car. No, he wasn’t the victim of a traffic accident, he was WALKING – and at quite a determined little clip, too.

I looked at him (for the brief moment that I could before he totally blew by me) and was so impressed that this man who, at his age, could quite easily be sitting around feeling sorry for himself and whining about how it sucks to get old, was instead taking life by the horns and basically saying, “screw you, life…I refuse to go down without a fight”.

The ability to get from point A to point B on my own power is something I tend to take for granted. I think as we grow older and less active, we like to heave the big, resigned sigh and blame our creaking bones and decreasing mobility on the normal effects of aging. But is it?

Do we stop exercising because of age, or do we age because we stop exercising? (Wow, that sounded kind of Carrie Bradshaw-ish…please accept my apologies)

I have long ignored advice to practice daily exercise because exercise is not an activity I enjoy. Okay, I hate it. However, the sight of that one single man on the street that day did more to increase my resolve to exercise – and learn to like it - than all the books and articles in the world ever could. Because I realized it isn’t all about appearance.

Whenever I think I’ll put off exercise until a tomorrow that never comes, I’m going to think of that man and how he learned the value of exercise - a lesson that will allow him to LIVE the rest of his life, instead of just surviving it.

Seeing is believing, baby. Use it or lose it.

Taking the plunge

Yesterday I took the exercise plunge. I gave myself a warm-up by first removing assorted clothing and piles of books from the treadmill. With the warm-up thus completed, I got on. And it was good.

Then I turned it on.

For some reason, the last time I had been actively using the treadmill I thought it was a really swell idea to do “interval training”. For those of you not familiar with this concept, it involves walking at a nice steady pace for a few minutes and then being brought to the brink of myocardial infarction for the next few minutes when the treadmill automatically speeds up. I guess this is supposed to be good for your heart. [shrugs]

After a short pause while I worked diligently on not dying, I tried to reset it to a pace more in keeping with my physical capabilities. Being mechanically challenged, I got nowhere. And why the heck DO you need 15 different programs on a frigging treadmill anyway?

Where IS that damned manual?

Maybe tomorrow I’ll see if I can find it in the pile of books stacked up on the Bowflex.

The resources

My home is a veritable treasure trove of health and fitness resources. To wit,

5 Books on strength training
15 Healthy Cookbooks
9 Pilates DVD’s
7 Strength Training DVD’s
4 Aerobic-based DVD’s
2 Health and/or Fitness magazine subscriptions
A Bowflex machine
A Treadmill with all the bells and whistles
A stability ball
Ankle Weights
Aerobic steps
6 Sets of dumbbells in the 1-20 pound range
Select-Tech adjustable dumbbells
Piles and piles of relevant information printed from the internet

So with all of these tools available to me, the question becomes: Why don’t I have an ass you can bounce a quarter off of?

The answer, my friend, is because I am lazy and disorganized and have a short attention span.

I live for the planning; it’s the execution that’s my downfall.

Resolved: I will spend NO MORE THAN 2 HOURS going through my resources and developing an exercise plan for the coming month. I will not decide I need new cross-trainers or a cute exercise outfit first. I will not buy even one more book. And I will just. do. it.

Sigh.