Strip to Your Sportsbra!

Today I had my second Bikram yoga class and it was much better than yesterday. I made it through the first half without having to lie down...hooray! My class has a cornucopia of body types in various stages of undress. Right before the session began, I decided to take off my shirt and wear only my sportsbra (which I never do...ever). I think it made a big difference. There is a giant mirror in front of us so we can see the alignment of our bodies, or lack thereof. It was so hot in there and I was sweating so much that I didn't give a rat's ass if my tummy poked out during triangle pose. I felt like I was in a boot camp for body acceptance.

What do you all like to wear when you exercise? Do you bare more if you work out solo or if you're in a group?

Comic by Natalie Dee

Fat, Hot, and Sweaty

I love to try new ways of exercising. So far, I've walked, jogged, yoga-ed, pilates-ed, hiked, kayaked, weight lifted, danced and aerobicized. The wedding planning was pretty stressful and I've been wanting to sweat it out more than ever. I tried jogging around my 'hood for the last month and enjoyed the sweat, but got bored. Nothing reduces my anxiety more than a good, exercise induced sweat.

Well, today I think I found the ultimate sweaty exercise...Bikram Yoga! For those of you who don't know, Bikram is a hatha (physical) yoga that is performed in a 105 degree room with 50% humidity. The temperature is so high because it helps your muscles loosen and get a deeper stretch. It is a series of 26 postures, performed twice. The class lasts about 90 minutes long. If you think you would have to lie down, you're right! In fact, the instructor encourages participants to lay down if they begin to feel overexerted. The catch is you have to lay down in the hot room because going in and out of the room is not good for your muscles.

So, today I lied down... a lot. I listened to my body and when I felt ready to get up, I would try the next pose. I was worried I would be embarrassed to lie down, but nobody gave me a second glance. The instructor encourages us to tune others out and focus on ourselves. I'm going again tomorrow morning and will let you know how it went. Hopefully, 90 minutes a day of body awareness will spill into other parts of my day.

P.S. As avid readers of this blog know, I got married last weekend. It was a beautiful ceremony and I wore the dress I mentioned earlier. I accessorized with strappy champagne colored sandals and an opera length pearl necklace tripled up around my neck. I don't have pics yet, but when I do I'll post some! Thanks so much for your patience during the last month when my posting was non-existent.

Pink Gets Intervention From Concerned Friends

Pink, Alecia Moore, lovingly refers to her obliques as "tranny abs" in a recent edition of Allure magazine. There is a one page layout consisting of "10 Lessons" we can learn from Pink on how to be as fit as her. I'm not sure why this article hasn't gotten more publicity because it contains some alarming quotes from Pink. Allure sets up the "10 Lessons" by stating that Pink "jogs for an hour and does another hour of yoga each day."

Lesson #1: A Little Obsession Doesn't Hurt
"I'm very dedicated to staying in shape when I'm on tour. In fact, last year my crew staged an intervention to try to get me to stop going to the gym so much." It's possible she is being sarcastic, but the context this quote is presented in the article implies that she is serious. The title of Lesson #1 plays into the idea that it is normal and healthy to be obsessed with how you look. It may be prevalent, but that doesn't make it healthy. Allure should know better, especially since they talk about Hilary Duff's diet obsession in the same issue.

Lesson #6: Accept Your Personal Quirks
"It would be nice to stretch myself a few inches...I wish I looked more feminine...I wish my legs weren't so muscular...there's nothing more beautiful than that feminine, curvy shape with the pouch in the middle. But that's not how I am." Actually Pink, that is how you are. Or at least how you would be if you didn't exercise so much you had a fitness intervention. Why does Allure think it is okay to call this lesson "Accept Your Personal Quirks" when the quotes following it are anything but? Allure should have called this lesson, 'Pick Apart Your Body'.

Lesson #7: Make (and Break) Your Own Rules
"Mostly I eat lots of greens, tofu, and fish...I allow myself one piece of cheese with one cracker a day...You do have to cheat now and then." I hardly call that cheating. Even the use of the word cheating indicates that she is constantly restricting food. Once again, Allure tries to make Pink seem healthy by saying she is not super anal about following rules. But, she is.

This article is just another example of magazines playing to our insecurities. Buyer beware.

Fit and Fat

I don't know if any of you remember the book "Fit or Fat", but it was written by the guy who invented the body fat test that involved dunking you in a large vat of water. When I was in middle school I read the book cover to cover three times. I also weighed 130 lbs. and was 5'8". Before I read this book I thought I was humongous and had already started scrutinizing everything that was going into my mouth. This book alone was not to blame because it was one of many diet books I read at the time.

The title, "Fit or Fat", illustrates a misconception held by many people, including good old Uncle Sam. The phrase fit or fat implies that one is either fit or fat, but not both. This could not be further from the truth. Fat is a very subjective word. In fact, it is so subjective that the government has come up with a BMI chart to dictate whether we are fat or not.

The folks from Eat A Cheeseburger wrote an excellent article explaining BMI. Some of the pitfalls of BMI include a lack of correlation between body fat percentage and BMI number. For example, Serena Williams would probably have an extremely high BMI because she has so much muscle density. However, if an insurance company saw her BMI, they might deem her "at risk" and her premiums could go through the roof. If Serena wasn't so famous and had a zillion people telling her how great she was, maybe she would see her BMI number and feel she had a weight problem. I don't know anyone who has looked at the BMI chart and felt good about themselves after.

Fostering the belief that one is either fit or fat may also discourage fat people from exercising. We've already determined fat is a subjective word, so this could mean someone who is 5 lbs. "overweight" or 50 lbs. "overweight". Exercise is meant to be fun, not something you do because you feel bad about yourself. I love to exercise because I'm always doing something different. There is so much confusing info about how long and how often you should exercise. Don't do too much aerobic. Don't do too much muscle building. Yoga is enough. Yoga is not enough. Blah blah blah. I say, do what you want. Be fit and fat (whatever fat means, anyway).

Nigella Lawson Goes On A Diet?

Thankfully, the picture on the right is the old one. Reports have surfaced that Lawson recently hired a personal trainer, according to the Daily Mail. This has created a bit of backlash for the epitome of size acceptance. Comments posted on blogs by angry readers who think that Lawson is a hypocrite make me cringe.

I think it's great that she is taking an interest in physical fitness. I believe not dieting is healthy and physical fitness is healthy. Maybe she is getting a trainer to be healthier, or maybe it's because of outside pressure to slim down. I hope it's the former, but most of all I hope she is still not dieting.

Did She Really Get Over Her Eating Disorder?

Over the past few years, more and more celebrities are coming forward with their eating disorders. In general, the media applaud these women for their heroic efforts in conquering their demons. It is great that this causes more people to focus on the topic of eating disorder, but it has a dark side as well.

For instance, Jessica Alba revealed she had an eating disorder in the September 2001 issue of Glamour magazine. She believed her eating disorder was caused by the intense training regime she followed in 1999 to prepare for the Fox series Dark Angel.

"I got obsessed with it," Alba admits. She goes on to say, "A lot of girls have eating disorders, and I did too. I got too thin...now I'm concentrating on being normal."

Let's talk about that last word "normal". She insinuates that her eating disorder is far behind her, yet in the same article she says she won't do a nude scene because she is insecure; she is 5' 7" and a size 4; and "I bicycle, work out on an elliptical machine and walk uphill at a hard heart rate of almost 180 for an hour every day. I do some boxing and kicking, too, but since I work for 14 hours, I can't do much more."

Ummm...I'm pretty sure that you don't need to do anymore. It is clear that Alba still suffers from body image issues. And she is still very thin. She says she comes from a family of overweight people, so how is she staying so thin?

It is common for celebrities to say they had an eating disorder, which makes us think that the way they look now is healthy and normal. This is simply not the case. Just like Alcoholics, people diagnosed with eating disorders are always "in recovery". Traces of disordered eating habits and exercise routines may remain for a very long time after the first stage of their initial treatment is over. It is dangerous for celebrities to promote themselves as healthy, normal eaters and as role models for eating disorder recovery when in fact they are not.

25 Minutes to Look Like Katherine Heigl

I read that Katherine Heigl (of 27 Dresses and Knocked Up fame) followed a workout regime that was 25-50 minutes long. Her trainer was (don't know if he still is) Harley Pasternak. He's the Canadian that wrote 5 Factor Fitness. He has a newer book, which I didn't like as much because it required more equipment.

I am able to follow the plan he laid out in 5 Factor Fitness with a set of 5, 8, and 10 lb. weights. Each day you do one leg, one arm, and one ab exercise which lasts 15 minutes. Then I walk for about 25 minutes. If you're the type of person who gets bored easily, this routine might not be for you. However, I like the repetition of it because I don't have to think.

Typical Workout for Heigl:
• 5 minutes of jump-roping, jogging, or stair-climbing for a cardio warm-up.
A circuit of 4 sets each of the following:
• 25 dumbbell flies
• 25 lunges
• 25 low-body crunches
Followed by:
• 5-25 minutes of cardio running, elliptical training, stair-climbing or biking, with the last five minutes working as a cool-down period.

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