NewHip Tips

The Baseball Field- A Microcosm For Real Life

Penny — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:15:16 +0000

A coach once said to me that everything that happens on the baseball field is an example of issues we all have to deal with in real life. But I think Dave Barry’s baseball quote is more apt to our family’s relationship with baseball: “If a woman had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she’d choose to save the infant’s life, without even considering if there’s a man on base.” This pretty much sums up our family theme in the summer.

Baseball Rules. My daughter and I try to be suitably worshipful. After a decade of baseball summers, we know what to expect (and more importantly what NOT to expect) and we are usually happy to HAVE a staycation rather than TAKE a vacation.
And this year more than most, we couldn’t afford to fly a family of five anywhere anyway, although we did drive more than 600 miles (in a row-which equals 11 hours in an enclosed space with 5 teenagers) which reinforced what Nora Ephron says, “The empty nest is underrated.” But in spite of all the baseball and in spite of making blueberry pancakes every day and constantly hanging beach towels out to dry, we are having a fabulous summer. One thing that my husband and I remind each other when our house gets loud and messy is that since our kids are all in their last few years of high school, we both know the day will soon come where there’s too much silence and not enough mess and it’ll be me and him swishing we had a baseball game to go watch.

I try to keep my attitude about baseball, and life in general, really, as close to Stephen Still’s “Love the One You’re With” because if you can’t be on the beach you want, Honey, love the field you’re on.

Speaking of sports reminds me of exercise which reminds me of working out, so I have to ask- Are you? The heat is a bit of an inconvenience but I hope you are still getting your 30 minutes or so of some brisk movement. In weather like this I often recommend just incoporating small stints of power moves into your day. Just 20 push-ups (knee-length is fine) and 50 crunches has lots of value over time if you are consistent about doing them everyday.

Some of you have been in my kitchen and know that we have a pull up bar on the dining room doorway. My kids think it’s a utensil and are surprised when they go to friend’s houses and there’s no where to hang from while waiting for the cheese on the nachos to melt. And there’s nothing like a few pull-ups to make you change your mind about the second bowl of ice cream. Pull ups go with ice cream about as well as orange juice and toothpaste; or tuna and peppermint.
Plus it gives me something to do when I come into the kitchen and forget what I was going to do.

My pull up bar is a good friend. I had a big break through a few years ago when we hosted a 3 day training workshop at my gym for a strength training program called Body Pump. On Friday, when it started, I was still unable to make it through my pull-up attempt, same as the past five months. My motto of never, ever, ever give up was starting to get on my last nerve.

By Monday, I could do almost three full pull-ups. This conditioning program using a barbell and high reps is a great program for those of you who can’t find your way around the weight room and need the guidance of a group-led class. I’ve seen many women redefine their max after years of exercising by adding a new, hard challenge.

Anyway, I’m only midway through my stay-cation so if you don’t hear from me in August, you’ll know our son’s teams are still winning, but that I’ll be back soon with lots of annoying toning tips and fascinating fitness facts .
Stay toned and tuned.

Patriotic Picnic Plan to Prevent Pig-Outs

Penny — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:03:27 +0000

If I could wave my magic fitness wand and sprinkle my make-believe diet dust and change one of your behaviors this weekend, having you eat only when you are seated at a table would have far reaching benefits beyond the final firecracker. You see, having to sit down to eat puts an end to much of the mindless munching that makes picnics notorious for overeating.
This is because a circuit panel in your brain has buttons that stimulate “feel good” feelings and the more we push them (through eating fat, sugar and salt) the more we want to push them. I could go into more detail, but that pretty much sums it all up. When we push buttons in circuit panels, whether it is mental buttons or buttons on the breaker panel in your basement, it is always a good idea to be aware that you are actually pushing them. Can you remember the last time you blew a circuit in your house and how you reset it? Did you go down and start randomly pushing buttons? Probably not.
So sitting down, rather than standing next to the 9 layer dip is a good way to take more conscious control of what goes into your mouth and in the trickle-down theory, what ends up on your tush.
It is such a struggle already to control what we eat. It would be so easy to blame the food industry (or your mom for being such a great Italian cook maybe) because grocery stores, not to mention food manufacturers, do everything imaginable to make foods look, taste, smell and feel melt-in-your-mouth delicious. It occurred to me the other day that there is an inverse relationship between how good a food looks and tastes and how healthy it is for you. The worse it is for you, the harder stores, restaurants and food companies try to make it irresistible. So with such a sensory overload, how do we stop overeating?
We have to have a plan. In technical terms it is called a countermanding action. So especially for risky eating situations like 4th of July Picnics, parties, visiting your mother or being home alone with half of a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies, you have to plan in advance how you will deal with yourself so that you don’t wake up Monday morning with that familiar sense of self-loathing and bloat.
Start by standing away from the food table. Have a healthy snack before. Drink 2 glasses of water before you have anything else to drink. Sit sown to eat. Chew each bite 20 to 30 times. Do all the talking while everyone else eats. Throw out what is on your plate that you don’t want to eat immediately. Don’t drink more than 2 alcoholic drinks and know exactly what non-alcoholic drink you will switch to. Don’t just plan to do these things in your mind. Tell your spouse or whoever you are going to the picnic with your plan. Out loud. So they hear you. Ask them to kindly remind you of your goals.
These tips all bore me to tears from hearing myself say them over and over but there’s a reason I keep saying them over and over. They WORK. But you have to actually implement them. Imagine waking up Monday morning feeling like jumping on the scales and looking forward to seeing what you weigh. Now that’s a star spangled idea.

We Don’t Always Feel Like It

Penny — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:13:05 +0000

I often feel misunderstood. If I am ever out walking my dog, and I never walk him as much for my exercise as for the pitiful look that he gives me when he’s been imprisoned all day, friendly people that know me roll down their windows and yell things like “You GO Girl!” or “Faster!” or the memorable “Your dog’s in better shape than I am!”
I want to set something straight right now. I can’t remember the last time I woke up in the morning and was raring to get to exercise class. As I lie in bed, the Other Penny whispers something like, “Let’s just sleep a few more minutes, the kids don’t really need breakfast”, or “I’ll work out tomorrow or maybe later today, just not right now.”
What I’m saying is we don’t usually FEEL LIKE IT. Of course lots of us like exercise once we get about half way through and everyone loves a workout after it is completed, but very few souls are skipping around the spinning room with joy prior to class. Most people come dragging in to morning classes, mentally limping.
There are a few exceptions, like the same people that enjoy sleeping on the rock-hard ground in a sleeping bag in a tent during August with a dozen boy scouts or those rare folks that single handedly paint the trim on their entire house or maybe someone who’d been mistakenly placed on bed rest for six weeks. Yes, these folks might feel anticipatory about their workout, but for the general population, this is the fitness exception rather then the fitness rule.
And of course, those who, over the years, are faithful in their fitness, don’t mind doing the sweating, because they’ve started to reap the benefits of feeling and looking better. These people tend to not mind exercise at all, because they’ve integrated the connection between their fitness regime and good bodily results.
As Dr Phil says, “You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”
This means putting on your running shoes and grabbing your ipod, even as the voice in your head concocts various excuses and ideas to avoid sweating.
You have to approach your workout plans just like you deal with brushing your teeth. Do you ever skip brushing your teeth because you brushed them yesterday? Or do you tell yourself you can brush them tomorrow or that you know you SHOULD brush, but you just don’t want to do it right now? Or how about saying to heck with brushing all together because you haven’t done it in so long, why start now?
Think of exercise as your anatomical brushing!
One way to get yourself moving is by using what I call self coaching. You have to learn to respond to that voice in your head in the same way that I talk back to the Other Penny. When she suggests sleeping five minutes more, I tell her we can take a nap later (even though she never feels like it after she gets her body moving) When she wants to skip a day, I tell her she might not feel like it but do it anyway. When she says she’s tired, I respond by saying five minutes is better than no minutes and that the hardest part is getting started; then it gets easier.
I also think that every time we give in to these sabotaging thoughts, we strengthen our giving-in habits and conversely, every time we resist these thoughts and exercise anyway, we strengthen our Nike (Just Do It) habits.
Another big part of a consistent exercise routine is making exercise a priority. You have to put it on your calendar just like any other important appointment. You deserve to put yourself first.
Another self coaching sentence you can use is to tell your self that you can be loose with your fitness routine OR you can be fit, but you can’t be both.
Or how about this self coaching response: I may not care if I skip my workout now, but I will care a LOT when I get on the scale.
Tell yourself NO EXCUSES.
Another important part of this self coaching is to give your self credit when you DO do it in spite of not wanting to.
You deserve credit every time you exercise, every time you stick to your workout plan.
If I am honest, I’ll admit that I really didn’t feel like writing today. It’s sunny and warm and it’s the first Friday of summer -this is what the Other Penny is focusing on. But I told her I had no choice.It’s good to strengthen my blogging muscle
I guess I deserve some credit. And now my dog deserves a walk.

11 Tips For Living a Shorter, Fatter Life

Penny — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:23:08 +0000

Give yourself 5 points for every yes answer and zero for every no answer.
1. When you regularly choose to skip your workout your chances of living a shorter, fatter life go up.
2. When you go to bed with a full belly, your chances of living a fatter life go up.
3. When you starve all day and eat a huge meal at night, your chances of living a shorter, fatter life go up.
4. When you drink three or more drinks a day, your chances of living a shorter and fatter life go up.
5. When you sleep less than 6 hours a night, your chances of living less long go up.
6. When you can’t see your toes because of your belly, your chances of living a shorter, fatter life go up.
7. When you skip breakfast everyday, your chances of living a shorter, fatter life go up.
8. When you are so stressed out that it keeps you awake at night, your chances of living a shorter life go up.
9. When you avoid stress reducing, mind-body techniques like yoga and tai chi or meditation, your chances of living a chaotic life go up.
10. When you never lift weights or do weight-bearing exercises like push-ups, your chances of living in a nursing home go up
11. When you eat lots of sugar, white breads and no fiber, your chances of living a fatter, shorter life go up.
Now add up your points and be honest with yourself.
55-40 Points-Congratulations! You will live the shortest, fattest life possible! Enjoy it while you can, It won’t be much longer.
39-25 Points- You’re doing okay with shortening your life span but if you just let yourself slip a bit more you should be dead before you know it, You’ve got several promising bad habits.
24-20 Points- You have your occasional slip-ups, but overall you are failing at dying early, keep trying though. All it takes is a little slacking and in a decade or two, you can undo all your success.
Under 19 Points- You’ve failed miserably at living the short, fat life. I hate to tell you that you’ll probably live a longer, slimmer life than most, but oh well, at least those smarties in the categories above won’t be around to witness it.

BBQ Rules For Men

Penny — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:21:40 +0000

BBQ RULES
We are about to enter the BBQ season. Therefore it is
important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime
outdoor cooking activity . When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the
following chain of events are put into motion:
Routine…
(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes
dessert.
(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along
with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man
who is lounging beside the grill – beer in hand.
(4) The woman remains outside the compulsory three meter exclusion zone
where the
exuberance of testosterone and other manly bonding activities
can take place without the interference of the woman.
Here comes the important part:
(5) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.
More routine…
(6) The woman goes inside to organise the plates and cutlery.
(7) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is looking great.
He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he flips
the meat
Important again:
(8) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.
More routine…
(9) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins,
sauces, and brings them to the table.
(10) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.
And most important of all:
(11) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(12) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed ‘ her night off ‘, and,
upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there’s just no
pleasing some women.

The Secret To Better Test-Taking & Other Answers To Life

Penny — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:18:30 +0000

Take this simple test.
Right now, on a scale of one to ten, rate your own energy level. Then rate your stress level. We will get back to this. Now take a peak at a clock with a second hand and count how many in-and-out breaths you take in one minute. Six breaths in one minute is ideal. Seventeen breaths is three breaths away from hyperventilation.
When you are breathing over fifteen breaths per minute (which is typical when you are stressed or rushed)
your brain is getting forty percent less oxygen than it needs for every day bodily functions. This affects your brain’s performance in things like test-taking and driving.
This oxygen deprivation is why kids who have studied for tests and know all the answers, do poorly when they get into the classroom-thanks to no oxygen to the brain.
Tell your kids to take six, 6 count breaths before they start their test- this should get them into a better college. You’re welcome. Also, we all know some people (moi) who cannot sit still as well as others.
This is due to an unhealthy cerebral spinal fluid rhythm, caused by-you guessed it-poor (or shallow) breathing! Did you know that there is a Pursed Lipped Breathing (PLB) Technique? You put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and it stabilizes your core! If your neck hurts when you do abdominal flexion (sit-ups), try this technique. Your core will engage and take over for the muscles you are straining in your neck. Who Knew? Your pop surprise bonus is that exercise helps you breathe better. It increase oxygen, therefore blood flow
to the brain, so you can think more clearly. Many runners and cyclists tell me that they do their best thinking (brain-storming, if you will) during their workouts. I used to think that my showers, post-exercise, felt better because I was sweatier, a blonde idea, I know, but now I think it feels better because my body is more revitalized from the vigorous breathing that exercise induces. Cool!

The way we can age stronger is by reducing our stress levels. We do this by breathing more slowly and deeper into the belly. One minute of deep abdominal breathing stops the production of adrenaline by the adrenals, two pea shaped glands that sit on top of the kidneys. Twelve minutes of deep belly breathing will cause your body to start releasing those “feel-good” hormones- like endorphins and serotonin, two of the poster children of the hormonal world. ENDORPHINS GIVE YOU A BUZZ AND SEROTONIN REGULATES MOOD, EMOTION, SLEEP AND APPETITE When we are stressed, the hypocampus, a gland in the brain, initiates a stress response that triggers a tremendous deterioration of the body. Every bodily function works harder to do it’s job. Not only does this drain your energy and make you feel more tired,
Just like someone digging a ditch with a shovelgets more tired than someone digging with a backhoe,but it also produces free radicals,
It also sends an alarm signal to the adrenal glands that react by releasing adrenaline.
Adrenaline races through our system triggering a release of Cortisol, which dips your blood sugar level, thereby triggering an “I need more energy!” response, which makes you hungry for some wheat thins or two bowls of Lucky Charms, which makes you gain weight, so your jeans don’t fit which pisses you off which makes you mean to your husband which ruins your marriage, causes divorce, financial ruin, contempt from your kids and in the trickle-down theory, ruins your entire life.
So I ask you. Breathe.
Deeper

Shame Based Thinking

Penny — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:30:42 +0000

First I offered you the idea of Shame Based Dieting, in which you post every bite of food that you eat on Facebook or Twitter for all to see in the hopes of pre-humiliating yourself into avoiding forbidden foods. Next I invented Shame Based Drinking which is based on the same premise only involving your alcohol consumption which will never work because I now know from conversations with my alcoholically-oriented Facebook friends that no one EVER admits to how much they actually drink and even if they did want to admit it, they could possibly be arrested and certainly have their children taken away from them for the things they consistently do while drinking(like driving) which are illegal in this country. One possibility is to offer Rat Out Your Friends Shame Based Drinking. I’ve noticed that although you may be reluctant to shame yourself by telling on yourself, your friends are not at all reluctant to tell those same shameful stories (only they can tell it better. If you don’t believe me, here’s what I mean- this is what your friends do when you are at your most shameful. They take your picture and post it on Facebook. If you ask this girl later what happened she’d say what a nice picnic it was.)You may think you are keeping your drinking private but you can be sure that your drinking buddies are emailing me and telling me stories about YOU!
This might be a bit off topic but since I haven’t exercised in three weeks and talking about workouts almost feels impossible for me and since all I’ve been doing in lieu of sweating is THINKING and since it’s a new week and I’ve done all this thinking and thinking rhymes with drinking I now offer you something that I don’t recommend at all but that I’m really good at: Shame Based Thinking.
Unlike Shame Based Drinking or Dieting, Shame Based Thinking only keeps you stuck. Women are really good at it. Men don’t do it at all, they just occasionally feel guilty which is not to be confused with shame. In my Workout World, Guilt is not as bad as Shame. Guilt is about what I did. Shame is about WHO I AM and that’s worse.
For example, last weekend, my mind was dominated with Shame Based Thinking over something that now sounds silly but at the time mortified me. Our son’s baseball game was rain delayed so we had about an hour to kill and we ended up with several other fellow baseball parents that we knew only slightly. We all went to a nearby Pizza joint. I enjoy this type of spontaneous gathering and immediately forced everyone to play my game Guess the Celebrity where I tape a piece of paper (or lick a napkin in this case) to your forehead and you have to guess with yes/no questions who it is. As the mini-wine bottles flowed (I told you it was a joint. I was just glad they even carried wine) I also continued to party-on by first wolfing my salad then mooching some pizza, then stealing my husband’s crusts (one of the main reasons I love him is that he leaves the bones for me) and dipping them in my left-over Ranch dressing-YUM! Only to be told when we got in the car that the guy sitting beside me owns several of New York City’s premiere 5 star restaurants (they might not technically be 5 stars but for the purpose of my story they might as well be because in my book 3 stars actually IS 5 stars.)

Ruh-Roh. Oh Lord, I’d picked on him the worst: forcing him to hurry up and order (by elbowing him) so we could play Celebrity (he was pretty good by the way) If you don’t believe me, this is his restaurant. And this one.
And this one. I was so embarrassed I spent the rest of the weekend shamefully worrying about him thinking what a hillbilly I am, which is really what I am but I didn’t want him to know it. You know?

My husband, on the other hand, said “Don’t worry about it- He doesn’t care.” And I know it never crossed his mind again. Nor did it probably cross the Celebrity Restauranteer’s mind either, I’m guessing. (Hoping.)
So anyway, I’d really like to stop my Shame Based Thinking. It’s time that we all stop feeling bad about who we are (especially us women). And I was hoping that by telling you all about it I might feel less ashamed but really I don’t. But I did have fun. And that counts for something I guess. Even if it wasn’t a 5 (or a 3) star meal.

Shame Based Drinking

Penny — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:05:33 +0000

Yestereday I wrote an article about a new dieting fad called Shame Based Dieting which is all the rage on Facebook and Twitter. Bottom line: You just post every bite of food you eat and hopefully, that will be humiliating enough to help you resist eating it in the first place. I personally like this idea.

I think a bit of accountability along with some good ol’ negative reinforcement goes a long way and is sometimes just enough shame-filled to keep you on your diet. The weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers is a very important (shame-based, I might add) method that many people report as a key in their weight-loss success. The fear of getting on that scale with the lady with the clipboard standing nearby keeps them accountable.

So it occurred to me ( in my typical “taking it down a notch” style) that it might work equally shamefully in a few other areas of our lives. One that spontaneously occurred to me was Shame Based Drinking.

Raise your hand if you like to drink.

How about if you like to drink more than drinking likes you.

Or how about if drinking sometimes reduces your willpower so that you eat more than you planned.

Does your drinking sometimes create problems in your relationship?

I bet some of you are drunk right now! (or maybe I sound drunk right now)

One of my all time favorite back against the alcoholic wall questions is: Have you ever woken up and vowed to stop drinking…. and then couldn’t?

My favorite quote from one of the funnest lady’s in our gym is “I don’t have a drinking problem, I have a quitting problem.” Which I think sums up many people’s relationship with alcohol as we age. It sneaks up on us, our tolerance for alcohol goes up, our hangovers get worse. But do we stop? Heck, No!

SO what I propose is Shame Based Drinking. Start posting on Facebook exactly how much you drink, if possible, while you are drinking it. Be honest. Be blunt. And why stop there. Let’s describe the hang-over, say on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being you did not drink at all and 10 being that you puked. No, 9 is you puked, 10 is you ended up in the ER. 8 is the bed-spins, slurred speech and black outs. 7 is a horrible headache that four aspirin won’t dent. 6 is same as 7 but you are able to make it to the gym. 5 is disruptive sleep and it only hurts if you move your eyeballs. 4 is an intolerance of your children (or any children but especially your own)and overall grouchiness. 3 is one drink too many. 2 is not shame-filled enough to even post.

We could even take it a step further (as I like to do in my Workout World) and buy ourselves one of those CVS over-the-counter breath-alizers and get down to some actual statistics. I think it’d be extremely and effectively shameful to post “I had a blood alcohol level of .16 and still drove the kids carpool home last night” or how about this ” I’m a pilot and I’m heading out for my next flight and uh-oh! My Blood Alcohol Level from last night is still twice the legal limit!”

Stay with me in this line of reasoning: If people actually posted these facts, I think they might be forced to face the reality that a bad future may be awaiting, whether it’s their friends who shame them into their sober senses or the authorities, without actually having to go through the bad reality of a car crash or accident.

I mean would you rather be humiliated ……or kill an innocent passer-by?

Now this line of thinking led me to my next fantasy which was, how perfectly shame based would it be if we all had an automatic Blood Alcohol Level display on our forehead (or on our ankle, like Lindsay Lohan) and everyone we encountered would notice how drunk we were just like they’d notice how yellow our teeth seem.

I think I am on to something,

People. Let me know if you’re in.

Shame Based Dieting

Penny — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:49:53 +0000

Ready for the latest diet fad hitting the internet? It’s Shame Based Dieting. It utilizes Twitter or Facebook as a tool to keep dieters on their nutritional track by using online food journaling that the whole world wide web can see.

How does it work? . Dieters simply create a Facebook page or a Twitter account and post everything they eat, think about eating, fantasize about eating, or accidently eat. The dieter then rounds up a bunch of fans or followers to hold herself accountable(or himself, but between you and me, this sounds like a total girl thing).

The premise is that the dieter would feel so much shame if they had to tell their Facebook friends that they just ate a Whopper, so they resist the temptation to avoid the public shame.

This seems like a good idea right? Firstly, it’s free and secondly, I think that’s part of the magic of Weight Watchers and their weekly weigh-in. There is value in knowing that you are accountable to someone other than your own private self. The catch? You have to be HONEST. And it’s my belief that the first time you are NOT honest and “fudge” about what you ate, it’s over.

Here’s how you do it: The most effective way to try Shame Based Dieting is to create a Friend List (with only my name on it if you want!), then when you make a post,and before you send it, click on the little lock symbol, click on edit and click on the Shame Friend List that you’ve set up with the names of those Friends you want to Shame you, I mean be accountable to. Of course, you could also send your status updates out to ALL your friends, but if you are like me and have some Friends that would LOVE to see you fat, then perhaps a more selective list would be better. Then again, perhaps the shame of those schaedenfreudian people seeing your slip-ups might be just the level of shame needed to motivate you to keep you on your diet!

I’d be happy to be anyone’s Shame Based Facebook Friend if it helped them get to goal.

Where I’ve Been-Remixed

Penny — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:16:15 +0000

“The governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail.”-quote from Governor Mark Sanford’s office, June 22

“The Group Exercise Director is kicking off her World Fitness Tour.”-quote from Penny Hoff’s Sportsplex cubicle, May 22

I suppose you’ve all been wondering where I’ve been these last several days. I’ve got to say it wasn’t until I just got home yesterday that I realized that my gym members and yoga students had been left scrambling to locate my whereabouts. Ok. I’ll tell you the honest truth. I really did want and intend to launch my World Fitness Tour. I’ve never been on one and actually am not even sure specifically what a World Fitness Tour would entail, but I sure did like the sound of it. As a matter of fact when I first knew I’d be going away, I might have actually used the term “World Fitness Tour” to explain my absence. Then it dawned on me that this excuse might be a bit of an axagerattion and perhaps unfair to those few friends of mine who still love me. Next I considered just vanishing which is probably more believable as something I would do but equally and for opposite reasons, also equally impossible for me to do. I’ve never been a disappear-er. I’m too loud. I’m too indiscreet or as my Pops used to refer to it so eloquently “You talk enough to make up for all the rest of us Loves put together.” Unlike my baby brother Darrin, who we forgot at a truck stop near Yellowstone National Park when he was three and wasn’t missed by the other eight of us in the Country Squire until five hours later when we got near Beartooth. Now, Darrin, he could vanish. Me? Not a chance. But I was feeling reluctant to admit the actual reason why I’d be gone for a while. So I talked to my close friend Viola who had an optional idea. She volunteered to help me out and honest to God it was HER idea to allow me to use her as my foil, sort of like a body double, you know, the way Madonna and Princess Di used to send the paparazzi off on a goose chase so they could escape in peace. So yes, although Viola was not exactly innocent, she really did have my best interests at heart and she was there with me throughout the whole ordeal. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

Anyway, back to my story. So my only option as I saw it, was to tell the actual truth, as much as it pained me to do so and also because two of my dearest friends and my older sister threatened to come to my house and throttle me if I didn’t stop lyin’ and fess up to reality. So (sigh) Here it is: Four weeks ago, I reached my arm over head in Warrior pose and a disc in my back sprung a huge leak. And in much the same way that it would never in a gazillion years occur to me that a volcano in Iceland could affect air travelers in Europe getting back to school and work here in Connecticut, it was as incomprehensible to me that a volcano in my spinal column would blow and subsequently push hot lava against what was apparently a main nerve in my leg. I now apologize to all back- hurt-er-ers . All of you who’ve been forced (by me) to listen to my rants about bodily issues have heard their fair share about tight asses (as in hips) but I must now confess that I have sinned against all people who complained to me about disc problems before. I did not hear you. Not the way I hear you all now anyway. Prior to this, I’d never had more than a few days of back pain in my whole fitness life. At first I though my pain was my hip so I went to my hip doctor and he noticed that I had no reflexes on my left leg. He pointed at the door and said get yourself over to MRI and proceed pronto to Dr S. Then it took me 4 days of being on hold for 5 hours each day to get an appointment with Dr. S.So when I finally met the King of (Back) Pain face-to-face he explained my volcano options (none of which are ever great, mind you. Much like an oil spill, with an extruded disc ,the damage is done . The next question was: which way do you prefer to clean this mess up. And yes just like Obama, I will say that this too, was all my fault in a subtle yet profound way neither Obama nor I can fathom, and I possibly could’ve delayed it by not reaching my arm up a few weeks ago, but probably, for both the President and myself, things were out of whack way before things spilled over. So when I found out Dr. S was booked until late July but lucky for me had a last minute cancellation this week I hated to be rude and say no thank you. I think my actual words were “In four days? Okay, if you can’t do it any sooner.”

So the next part is kind of blurry but luckily I had my camera with me. The only guy who was too fast for my lens was Dr S himself.

Dr Andrew Sama

He was in & out like lightening.He did that Super-Hero Arrival phenomena, where after waiting ions for his arrival, you finally doze off, then SHAZAM! He’s standing at the foot of your bed, shaking your toes and smiling. Time then gets soupy as he speaks in that doctors-only speed which is both incredibly fast/slow as well as incomprehensively melodic and fulsome in it’s amount of content delivered per second..then BAM!! he’s gone. Not just walking down the hallway as his footsteps fade in the corridor. I mean GONE, as in poof. Into thin air. All’s I know is that I was left there smiling, like a stoned Grandma. I like to imagine that he had several disc volcanoes waiting down in the O.R.

I don't remember this guy. My nurse. I think. He looks nice.

I do remember this big guy. From PT. Made me git up & do stairs.

Like I always say, breathing is very important.

Wednesday 1:00pm-The best veggie burger I ever tasted.

Wednesday 1:02pm

High point of my day.This & The Cooking Channel.I now know what Ganache is.

and eventually I ended up here in my bed with it all behind me before I could say microdiscectomy.

Anyhoo, Again, I apologize for any miscomunication because maybe you thought I meant I was on my World Fitness Tour when I thought you knew I meant I was having back surgery. It really was an honest mistake. Although the WFT reactions were oh so much more enjoyable than the OMG-YHBS reactions.

What’s next? Well, I’m thrilled to report all leg pain had vanished by the time I woke up in the recovery room. Viola’s feeling better every day too.Now I’ve got some incision pain and two weeks of no BLT (Bending, Lifting, Twisting. Aren’t those HSS booklets clever?) And worse than that, how the heck am I supposed to wash my hair if I can’t bend over and I can’t get my back wet. Readers, please advise. Then if I can get my hair washed, I suppose I’ll make a gradual return to my Workout World, Like I always do. Alas without any tour at all. Unless you count the CVS Pharmacy Tour.

I know you are thinking that this story is just plain nuts. You are not wrong. But I hope you aren’t thinking what Pops has always said to me which is that Exercise is Just Plain Dangerous.