Every Gym’s Nightmare

And all your men’s magazine pals.

I would like to thank you for your wonderful work and all you do for women’s self esteem.

As a woman, this is what I get look at everyday.

Somewhere along the way, magazines geared towards women decided this is what we should look like.

I’m buying clothes. I want a picture that is going to show me what I will look like in this little underwear. Not something that will show me what i would look like in it if I weighed less, was a few inches taller, had the littlest legs in the world, no ass, and just for good measure: perfect hair.

But then I remember you, beloved flesh peddlers. I remember that your magazines are geared towards what men want. Men do not want bones. Men don’t want women that push away half eaten salads. Men like curves. Men like real women.

And boobies. Can’t forget the boobies.

I remember that Kim Kardashian’s Playboy spread was one of the most talked about in recent history. Why?

That’s why.

This is the body that men can’t stop talking about.

Kim Kardashian gives me hope. Her giant ass that makes men melt, and leaves dropped jaws in it’s wake, is my inspiration. If she can become famous for a huge butt, (and sex tape, but we’ll gloss over that) then perhaps I can rock some shorts without spending hours positioning myself just so, in order for my thighs not to dimple.

Victoria’s Secret expects me to believe tankinis were made for this woman.

Phew, I almost wore this same outfit today. Glad I changed or that could have been embarrassing. Especially because they would have split because I HAVE AN ASS and don’t like it painted with tin foil.

You may objectify women, but at least you are straight forward.

The message I receive from your mag: Look at this body: its sexy. Muscles are good. Real women are good. Curves are good.

The message I receive from women’s mags: Look at these clothes. You will never look as good in these clothes as this model. But for $6,000, you can try.

We still have a long way to go, but you have come the closest to consistently celebrating a real woman’s body.

So, Penthouse and company, thank you for doing your part to remind us what is sexy: a healthy, feminine figure.

Which includes boobies. Can’t forget boobies.

Who knew it was so exhausting doing nothing all weekend?

I had a fantastic time this weekend. Aside from being eaten alive by bugs, Im delightfully sunburnt, nice and relaxed and ready for Monday.

Turns out a lot more people went camping with us than originally anticipated, and while I knew who all of them were, Jerome and I don’t often hang out with them (2 of them guys are in Jerome’s band and the rest were all friends/girlfriends of theirs.)

I took a ton of pictures but dont want to put up any of someone that would not want me to, so here’s a few of people I know won’t mind. Which is pretty much just me, Jerome, and the rest of TRIP LIKE ANIMALS, who I’m sure will appreciate the link I just put to their myspace.

Jerome and I in the van on the way

The view from the van

The camp site was gorgeous. It was in the middle of the desert on a lake, with no one else around.

Here’s our little make-shift kitchen, complete with bench fashioned out of beachwood. We actually all ate pretty healthy: of course there were burgers, chips and beer, but we also had a lot of fresh fruit, granola, bagels and fat free angel food cake.

Of course when you go camping with the band, you have to have a little music.

Mike and Joe Molner, guitar/vocals and drums, respectively, for Trip Like Animals.

I don’t know why I didnt get any pictures of Jerome playing with the band. He was probably off doing what he goes best: grillin’.

Here’s Jerome and I after a nightime swim

I brought running shoes, fully planning on taking a few runs on the mornings, but didn’t for two reasons. First one: too freakin’ hot. I woke up every morning drenched in sweat and praising the Gods of Wanapum Dam for giving us the one camp site with shade. It cut out a lot of the direct sun, but if you moved 3 feet outside of the camp, you were buzzard food. Second reason, and the one that makes me sound less whiney, is we did A LOT of work. The site was about a quarter mile away from the parking lot, and were unable to drive the van any further than the gate. We all made probably 4 trips unloading and 4 trips loading, back and forth, packed up the camels. We also went for quite a few walks, quite a few swims, one of the girls bought a little raft with paddles, so I spent many hours rowing around chasing after geese. I also volunteered to do a little wood gathering so be up and moving a little bit more. All in all, I ate pretty good and moved around a lot while have a ton of fun. See? Vacation doesn’t have to wreck your healthy lifestyle.

I’ll answer all your guys’ questions and comments tomorrow, I’m pretty beat right now. But I will say that you all FAIL because no one left me any exercises jokes. I also have to catch up on my Porkchop cuddles.

Night!

I spent about 10 minutes wondering if it should “I wish i were Edward Norton” or “was”. I settled on was. let me know if i am wrong.

Anyhoo, this happened last night, but i wanted to save it cause its such a good story and deserves a post all by its lonesome. Feel free to come back and read it a few more times while i am gone camping until Sunday. Go ahead, seethe with jealousy, Chandra everyone.

So I was at the gym last night, in the free weight room with the fellas. There is a weird territorial vibe back there. You have to be really careful before you touch or move or use anything because you never know who may be “using it.” Its like being in a new school and you accidentally sit down at the popular kid’s table. (I, of course, don’t know what thats like, but im sure you guys can relate.)

I don’t have much trouble with this, for I am a little girl, and can play dumb/be cute/act coy/cry, and not get torn a new one. A man last night was not so lucky.

See, men like to max themselves out. They will pile on about 100 pounds too much, pump out 3 reps, scream as their tendons rip, and then walk around, all pissed like, for about 38.5 minutes until they are ready to do it again. usually they put a towel on the bench, or leave their water bottle, or something along those lines to mark their territory. Not this time.

I was watching this one guy, cause honeslty, he looked like Rainier Wolfcastle from the Simpsons.

I later learned her had a Russian accent which makes him a million times cooler.

So, Rainier walks up to a rack, piles a lot more weight on a bar and steps back to prepare to lift this massive load. Out of nowhere, this skinny/buff (think skinny fat, but the opposite) guy comes rushing over, takes one of the 35 pound weight plates off the bar Wolfie was about to use and hurls it across the room screaming about how that was his and he wasn’t done. I didn’t understand a lot of what he said because im pretty sure his mouth was full of ‘roids, but obviously he was pretty pissed. The weight room was immediately silent.

Now Wolfie was literally about twice this guy’s size, and could snap him in half with one hand if he so desired. We all waited to see Wolfie’s move.

I, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this, wanted Wolfie to scarecrow his ass with the barbell.

What did Wolfie do? He politely answered, “Sorry, dude, I didnt know it was yours,” in his thick Russian accent, and walked away.

Wolfie is a man of restraint, which I respect. I am not that reserved, and even though I had nothing to do with it, wished I could turn into The Hulk at that very moment and Hulk Slam* String Bean’s ass.

I was slightly disappointed in Wolfie, until he walked back, picked up the plate Stringie hurled, took off the other plate that was still on the bar, and said, “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” and walked away again.

If there was ever a time for a slow clap to being, that would have been it. Except, it was real life, so it didn’t.

Wolfie never disappoints. He is calm, cool and collected, which makes him uncomprable in The Badass Department. We could all learn a little from Wolfie. Mainly, Russians ain’t nothin’ to mess with.

* Hulk Slamming is the invention of my wonderful friend, Stephanie. Its a verb that means to pick anything up and slam it to the ground in a fit of rage, demolishing it; usually reserved as a threat for her boyfriend when he does not do what he is asked. Which is often.

Well, I’m out like trout for the weekend. Don’t think you don’t have homework. I would like each of you to leave me a fitness joke, as well as check out everyone else’s blogs that comment on my site.

Now, I’m trusting you alone for the weekend, so play nice. And if you burn the house down, just make sure you aren’t here when I get back

KrisT asked a question about how to know what her heart rate should be when working out. let me explain:
Warning: This might get wordy and boring, so if you don’t care skip down to the other, possibly less boring stuff

To figure out your target heart rate, you must figure out your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate is the highest heart rate you can safely achieve. 220-your age is your maximum heart rate. Your Max heart rate is 100% of your working capacity. To get a good cardio workout you want to work in about 65%-80% of your maximum heart rate, this is your target heart rate.

SO:
220- AGE = MAX. HEART RATE
MAX HEART RATE X .65 TO .8 = TARGET HEART RATE

And there ya go!

I went grocery shopping today at BigLots, ie. my paradise.

I found this beauty for $3.00

Yes, its dark chocolate flavored, and yes, its delicious

I got home from the gym and found a free sample in the mail of more chocolatey goodness.

Im gunna have it after dinner tonight, but I dont even have to try it to tell you its good. And only 150 calories.

I’m going camping this weekend! i didnt think it was going to happen cause i told the boy to plan it, so, of course, i just found out we are leaving on Friday. im taking the day off work, we are driving up with his bandmates, and one of them’s girlfriend and won’t be back until Sunday. No worries, ill post tomorrow and then you’ll have to hear all about it when I get back. Cause you are my captive audience. Suckers.

I have the greatest boss in the world. He doesn’t even know I have this blog and I’m still saying that, so you know its true. He knows how stressed I’ve been lately with everything, so he sent me home today around 11:00 am to have a day by myself. The only hitch was i had to promise to proofread our new fitness consultant training manual (its as interesting as it sounds.)

So i did a little grocery shopping, went home, put on a swimmie, and sat on the deck with my lunch to get to work.

I had a relatively-boring turkey sandwhich on whole wheat with baby spinach, avacado, and mustard, some green grapes and a classy glass of water. I hate wine, so it was the only glass I had clean.

It was really hot out, and while I was worried about my allergies, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a tan. Porkchop got hot and dug a little hole to lay in to cool himself off.

yes, thats his very own baby pool. He and the neighbor dog, Berger, play in it constantly. Its upside down because one of them pooped in it.

I did tons of cleaning, and am now going to take a nap. Im pretty sure I burnt I earlier, so im going to wait till after dinner to take the pooch on a nice long walk.

So far, I’m sniffle free.

First off, I would like everyone to give a warm welcome to BlogHer, at the right of the site. They have a lot of great material and sites, so please check out the links and discover some great new blogs.

Secondly, I recieved an email from Erin that seems to echo the mind frame a lot of over-exercisers/excessive-dieters/disordered eaters seem to have.

Hi Kelly,
Well, I’m 5′6 and was about 125-130 throughout high school. I know I was never overweight but I was on my way to college and was fearing the “freshman 15″ so I decided to get my act together over the summer focus on my diet and exercise. I got down to 115 before I went away to college and I just finished my freshman year at 113. I am a bit underweight now and obviously my doctors had concerns that I lost a significant amount of weight in a rather short time. I never had an eating disorder but I will admit that I and became too obsessed with my weight. Now, I am fully focussed on eating and being healthy and I am reading blogs like Kath’s to help me plan full balanced meals and snacks.
Anyways, I still exercise but I know I don’t want to loose anymore weight and I probably could stand to gain a few more pounds. So when I exercise I have been doing strength training (hour weights class 3 days a week) but also cardio thrown in with the strength training and 2 days of cardio alone (hour kickboxing class one day and 30 min run one day). I want to tone and fill out my small frame so should I still continue to do cardio? Should I be focusing on running and burning calories as well as weights and strength training or focus more on strength training? Thanks a million!
erin

Well, to answer your question, cardio of course burns calories, so you want to scale it back. The minimum recommendation for cardiovascular exercise for health gains is 30 minutes a day, most days of the week. So stick with that and you will be fine. Eat balanced throughout the day, continue to work out, and your body will even itself out. You will want to talk to your doctors about this, though, and see what they recommend because that quick of weightloss can cause health problems, and you want to make sure you are healthy before you continue to exercise. This is a little off topic, but it blows my mind that your doctor(s) have expressed they are worried about your weightloss, but have offered you no plan on how to get back to a healthy weight. my doctors are the same way…its like pulling teeth to get any information out of them.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to highlight this email was because of one very specific sentence: Should I be focusing on running and burning calories as well as weights and strength training or focus more on strength training?

People that over exercise, or are extreme in their diets or exercise, all have the same focus: calories out. That’s not what cardio is for. If you ask someone that is in a good, balanced place with their exercise why they do cardio, you are way more likely to get a response of:

“I exercise to relieve stress.”
“I exercise to feel better about myself.”
“I exercise because it gives me more energy.”
“I exercise because it makes my bones stronger.”
“I exercise because it feels good to be taking care of myself.”
“I exercise to stay healthy.”

If you use exercise as a punishment, you aren’t going to enjoy it, but more importantly, you are putting yourself down everytime you start a workout. “I have to do this much cardio, because I ate this today.” Sound familiar? You are exercising because you failed, not because you want to. The feeling of failure is the worst there is, and when you continue to link exercise to failure, you are going to end up using it against yourself.

Exercise should make you feel good, not guilty. Focus on the positive, and focus on the real reason we exercise: to take care of ourselves. If you are reinforcing the idea that you aren’t good enough, or that you aren;t measuring up some how, it kind of negates the purpose, don’t you think?

We lose, America. We are no longer the fattest nation in the world anymore.

We must now hand over our title, along with our sash (and sash expander) to Australia.

Congrats, Aussies. I always thought you were all bronze hardbodies, that roller blade or surf to work. Where you make a living surfing and rollerblading.

Chin up, America. Just because someone is fatter than you doesn’t mean you are any less fat.

Who wants a The Burger? My treat.

Im still alive, I swear. Sorry I have been MIA, but thank you so much for all your support and well wishes for me and my mother. Shes been sick for a long time now, so its not too much of a shock she’s back in the hospital, but each time she goes in, its just as hard. Hopefully, we can get everything taken care of this time, and she wont have to go back.

In addition, my allergies are going insane and I’ve been really sick. I had to go to work on Saturday, which was my own dumb fault cause i double booked some people, and the second i walked in my boss gasps,” Oh my God, you aren’t getting pink eye are you?” Nope, just rubbed it too hard.

needless to say, between feeling like my head might explode and ooze pollen everywhere and driving an hour round trip to see my mom everyday, workouts have suffered. Saturday I worked out at work, which i have never done before, because I hadnt in the past three days. Today, Im still feeling awful, so I may skip it again. I’ve been known to work out at midnight just because i wanted to, so if my body isnt feeling up to it, im not going to make it.

But no matter what, atleast i don’t have to wear a harness

I hope everyone is having a great weekend, and again, thanks for all your kind words. Things should be back to normal now, and I’ll be commenting and posting up a storm. Off to catch up on your guys’ sites now. Happy Sunday!

Hey Kelly!

I was wondering if you have any tips on how to make plank more challenging. I can hold a full one (meaning with my arms straight for 60 sec.), so I am looking for something to make it more difficult. I own a stability ball, a step, but not a bosu. Would bosu be the best? Please bear in mind I am not very coordinated. I once tried a pushup with my feet on the stability ball and belly flopped! Katie

Oh, Katie, I would have paid money to see that.

You can make anything more challenging without equipment, so for today’s purposes, you do not need anything.

Planks work the core, which helps balance and coordination, so you are in luck, my rug burn-faced friend. In order to make planks more challenging, you need to make balance harder to achieve.

I consider a plank to be on your forearms, thusly:

I know a lot of people consider a plank to be up on your hands in pushup position. i dont really think its right or wrong, but just so you know, thats my idea of a plank.

ANYWHOOZLE

To test you balance a bit more, you gotta start removing limbs. From the ground, not your body. So start out slow and remove one hand, and try and get your balance back. Then the other hand (put the first hand down, of course, or you’ll end up looking like Katie.) Then one foot, then the other foot. Increase the time you hold your limbs off the ground as you go.

After you have mastered that, you can try lifting one arm, opposite foot. This one can be pretty tricky so it may take a while to be able to hold it.

For a little upper body work, and increased core activation, you can do travelling planks. Travelling planks are where you go from plank position, up to pushup position and back down again, over and over.

So start in plank

Push up with one arm, and then the other to push up position.

Then lower down back onto one forearm, and then the other.

Do this a few times, and then switch to starting with the other hand. Make sure your hips and shoulders rock as little as possible.

You can also do side planks:

you can do these on your forearm or you hand- up on your hand is more challenging.

When planking (new verb) you always want to make sure your hips are even (not bent or sagging) you core is tight, and your belly button is pulled in.

Oh, and Im sure Katie is a gorgeous, rug burned free girl. Those stability balls can be ruthless, though. one time I was trying to balance on my knees on one (good core and quad exercise) and i fell on my face, too. And got a rug burn.

***My mom is in the hospital right now, so I might be in and out for a while. I will still post and answer questions regularly, but I’m probably not going to have too much time to comment on your guys’ sites. Hopefully, it it will only be for a few more days.***

My posture sucks. Ill admit it. As Im sitting here, my shoulders are almost touching the keyboard. And I’ll bet you are all Hunchy McHunchersons right now as well. And I bet all of you just sat up a little straighter as you read that.

While for some, poor posture is do to excessive weightlifting without stretching the chest because “stretching is girl stuff” (if you are muscle bound and have this problem, stretch your chest for goodness sake.)

yuck.

For most of us, it is due to The Computer Age.

As we spend more and more time in front of the computer, the muscles that hold us upright get weaker and weaker, making that Quasimoto spine curvature a permanent look.

While you can’t really help how much time you spend in front of the computer or at your desk, you can counteract the slump by strengthening the muscles that will pop you up right.

Its all about imbalance.

The Primary muscles that affect your posture are:

The Core
Your core are the muscles that surround your spine, supporting and protecting it. It is not just your abs, but your lower back muscles as well. A lot of people think Core=Abs, which leads to unequal core strength. Only working the abs while neglecting the rest of your core will lead to an imbalance. If your abs are strong and tight, and the lower back muscles are not strong enough to balance them out, you will tend to lean forward. To strengthen all the way around try Supermans, Back Extensions, or Planks(this guy’s hips are a little hip, you want them level with your body) and Side Planks.

Core imbalance can also cause a lot of lower back injuries, or just plain soreness. Keep everything balanced and even to avoid unneccessary injury.

The Upper Back
Just like the core, if one area is tight and the other is weak, the body will shift in favor of the strong, tighter area. The chest tends to be stronger, and thus tighter, than the upper back, so we tend to get the sunken chest, slumped shoulders thing goin’ on. To build the upper back and pop those shoulders back, try Rows, Lat Pull Downs, and Reverse Flyes( you can also do these laying on a stability ball).

The Hip Flexors
This ones kind of suprising. “What could my hips have to do with my posture?” you may be asking. Well, stop interupting me and Ill tell you.

Your hips flexors connect your quad area to your lower ab area. The hip flexors are notorious for being tight. Think about it. How often do you flex your hips? (think bringing your knees to your chest or kicking straight out in front of you) Every time you take a step, right? so they are quite strong. Now how often do you extend them? (think kicking backwards, leg straight, or lunging, back leg straight) Hardly ever, right? When the hip flexors are tight, they are shortened. This pulls the whole torso forward, all the way up to your shoulders. Nuts, right? To fix the hip flexor problem, you really just need to stretch them, which you can do, one at a time, but getting into lunge postion, but tilting your hips backwards to get a little extra pull.

To keep your body upright and standing tall, stay consistant with your strength training. Think of your body as being segmented into opposites (chest and back, quads and hammies, abs and lower back), and training them both equally.

And I bet during the course of reading this you went right back to slouching again. I did.