I think this guy is on to something: he just condensed the whole eat-exercise cycle down to one picture-perfect moment of glory! 

You need to eat to live. You also need to exercise to live. But do you eat and exercise to live or do you live to eat and exercise? Silly question but it’s a fine line, easily crossed, from the former to the latter. Especially for those of us compulsive types who tend to think that if some is good then more must always be better. You don’t have to have read this blog for very long to know that I have struggled for years with finding this balance. And while I’m light years better than I used to be, I still have a long ways to go. Which is why this e-mail brought tears to my eyes.

Today in installment two of Help a Reader Out Week, we have a heartbreaking question about breaking the vicious run-eat-run cycle. The reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, writes,

“hey…you probably won’t read this but if you have time i hope you can help me. i run a lot. people think that i must love running because i run all the time but i hate running. hate hate hate. basically i run because i eat too much (well i think i eat too much) and at least this way i can eat dessert. i just have to run it off later. but sometimes i have to run in the dark or twice a day though and i know that’s not good. how do i quit eating-running-eating-running-eating…you know? p.s. i love your blog!”

Dear Anon,

First, thank you! And second, boy howdy do I know where you are coming from. I too used to be stuck in the same cycle of eating, feeling guilty about eating and then exercising to relieve the guilt (and the calories). Sometimes I’d even up the ante and run a little extra so I’d have permission to eat something “bad” later on. Eventually it got really confusing though, trying to remember if I was running to atone for a dietary sin or running in anticipation of one so I just figured I’d run as much as possible (and then some) to cover all my caloric bases. Oh and I’d better throw in some weights too because I don’t want to lose muscle! And yoga, everyone says yoga is good for you! And kickboxing, because it’s fun!

And that, friends, is the short version of how I ran myself into amenorrhea, hypothyroidism, gaining 10 pounds and insanity. Oh and I also ran myself right into eating disorder treatment. Don’t be me, sweetie.

Here’s how not to be me (or how to break the eat-run-repeat cycle of living):

1. Stop weighing yourself. You didn’t mention a scale but I’d bet the $200 I didn’t get not passing go that you are weighing yourself once a day, minimum. Those numbers are a) crazy and b) will make you crazy. Your weight can fluctuate by pounds in a single day and exercising to keep the scale happy is a losing proposition. There isn’t any easy way to do this one except to just do it.

2. Realize that you do not need permission to eat. You don’t have to earn your calories. You’re a beautiful person worthy of eating just by virtue of existing. Even if you do nothing but sit on your butt, you have earned the right to eat and to eat food that is enjoyable.

3. Eating is not good or bad. It’s a survival skill. Despite what all those yogurt commercials say, you are not a sinner for eating a piece of raspberry cheesecake. Nor are you a saint for eating a salad.

4. Eating can make your body feel good or bad and it’s that sensation you need to learn to listen to. Intuitive Eating (Geneen Roth style) was a life-saver for me but there are lots of ways to do this.

5. Exercise is not punishment. You should find a way to move your body that you enjoy. While no exercise is 100% fun 100% of the time, I’m convinced everyone can find a way to be active that is challenging, fulfilling and mostly fun. If you hate running, please don’t run! (And to my readers who love running – you keep on running, I don’t mean you!) Dance, hike, bike or join a synchronized swim team (and then tell me how they get all that makeup to stay on in the pool!) but find something you love.

I have done all 5 of these things myself – sometimes multiple times (yay for slow learners!) – and I can tell you that you absolutely can escape the vicious cycle that you are in. It will mean tolerating a certain amount of pain and anxiety as you adjust to this new way of thinking but you can do it and it’s worth doing. You don’t realize how captive you are until you are finally free! Trust me. It’s more beautiful on this side of things than I ever could have imagined. Oh, and because I know you are thinking it, I did not gain a bunch of weight when I quit over-exercising. Indeed, I lost five pounds (of the 10 I gained) and have maintained this weight within a pound for a year and a half now. Even after having a baby!

But don’t just take my word for it. Check out this sweet comment that Dusker recently left on my post about my Rachel Cosgrove Experiment. (In case you forgot, it entailed dropping 90% of my cardio, all of my running and focusing on lifting heavy. It worked wonders for me! And I only ended up working out 30-45 minutes a day.)

She writes,

“Charlotte,
I would like to thank you for all these experiments and especially for your “oversharing”–which has helped me more than you can know. I am just finishing Month 1 of the Rachel Cosgrove plan and you are the reason I decided to give it a try. I was deathly afraid–and I mean terrified–of dropping steady state cardio. If I ran less than 6 miles I thought it was a lame workout and I’d run AND do a cardio class on most days. After reading your blog I thought, well, I’m sort of crazy about exercise but I’m not as crazy as HER (no offense), and if she did it then it’s worth a try. So thanks! I am a convert! Dropping steady state cardio did not result in a 10lb. weight gain–actually, I haven’t weighed myself (so who knows) but my clothes fit so much better that I don’t care. Major difference in butt and thighs even after just Phase 1. I do the weight plan 3 days a week and do Tabata sprints on two of the off days and I still do my kickbox/bootcamp class 2x week on off days as well.

I also swtiched my eating up to incorporate some of Mark Sisson’s ideas, but I would say my plan is basically, “eat more of what Mark Sisson says to eat but don’t forbid my favorites”. I still eat Gummy Bears once a week. So far this has been very satisfying and seems sustainable–unlike my previous plan of starve for 2 months, look great for 2 weeks and then slowily gain the weight back over the next 2 months and . . . repeat cycle. . .. all the while increasing the amount of cardio I was doing and the time I spent at the gym which means less time with my kids.

It took your example of taking this leap to give me the courage to try it and I am fairly certain that it was probably harder for you to take this leap than most people. So thanks again.”

If anonymous made me cry a little out of sadness then Dusker made me weep a little from joy! I love it when people find a healthy way to eat and workout that works for their body. Also, Dusker, I’m totally not offended – I wear my crazy on my sleeve and will totally own being nuttier than most squirrels. And I love gummy bears almost as much as I love jelly beans!

So now I ask you guys – what advice do you have for anonymous? Anyone else get stuck in the run, eat, repeat cycle?

*I am aware that there is a running blog with a name similar to this but this post in no way references that blog. I’ve never read it and this is not a commentary on it. Side note: I think there should be a random blog name generator that spits out three fitness related words in an eat-pray-love effect. It’s like Mad Lib for health bloggers!

Why did the Tupperware Fairy never become A Thing? Come on, she’s awesome! And – zing! – just found my next Halloween costume. They should have given her a Tupperware Tiara though.

I could pretend that I got really backed up on my e-mail because I’m just that popular or I could ‘fess up to getting addicted to my new trivia/crossword puzzle book (nerdgasm!). (I should also note it’s hard to reply to e-mails when I’ve got a Jelly Bean permanently attached to my hip. While adorable*, she does make typing difficult.) So I’m dedicating this week to answering all the awesome, interesting, hilarious and sometimes downright weird questions that have been piling up in my inbox. I’ll do my best to give my uneducated answer but what I’m really hoping is that all you smart people will help these readers out as well in the comments!

Reader Gina wants to know all about meal timing and workouts. Is it important? Do I do it? Should she do it? What do I eat before a workout? (Forgive me for paraphrasing.)

True story: I used to be a Tupperware lady. No, not the kind that stand in the mall and sell brown and orange plastic pitchers that I swear are the exact same ones I grew up with as a tot in the 80′s. Rather I was the kind of Tupperware lady who toted little plastic tubs full of carefully portioned chicken breast, brown rice and spinach every where I went. Because I was that neurotic about my meal timing. One of the first fitness books I read had a lengthy explanation about how I should never go more than three hours without eating and gave special instructions for meals that were right before a workout or right after one. Protein, carbohydrates and fats had to be perfectly balanced or I’d enter a catabolic state where my muscles would eat themselves and I’d ruin all my hard work in the gym. (And also become a self-sustaining zombie which now that I think about it might be kind of genius.)

It made me nuts. And I’m nuts to begin with so that’s saying a lot.

So then I quit doing all of that. And I still have muscles. That’s my short answer.

Here’s my slightly longer opinion:

There are two groups of people who have a good reason to worry about meal timing and macronutrient ratios in relation to their workouts:

1. People who are training for a specific event like Michael Phelps for the Olympics (anyone else super excited for the summer Olympics in London this year??) or a bodybuilder during competition season.

2. People who are working out hard for longer than 60-90 minutes at a time.

These folks are pushing their bodies really hard and often at a very high level so small tweaks in their nutrition could make a big difference in their chosen sport. And especially for people like triathletes who are working out hard for hours at a time, meal timing is a critical health matter.

So where does that leave the rest of us non-Phelpsian folks? The scientific literature does show some advantage in certain aspects of meal timing . For example, Rachel Cosgrove recommends chugging a protein shake within 15 minutes of finishing a weight-lifting workout because studies have shown that it helps build muscle and increase recovery.  But for me it all comes down to how I feel. In my totally unscientific experiment of one – will the anecdote party please report to the front desk, your flight is about to take off!  - the differences in my muscles and how I look and perform are negligible.

But how I eat does make a difference in how I feel during my workout. When we were doing the Rachel Cosgrove Great Fitness Experiment I liked having the protein shakes because I felt like it stabilized my blood sugar and I didn’t get shaky after a workout. I kept up taking them until I got too lazy to wash out my blender every day.

On the other hand, there’s the breakfast debate. Many people will tell you to eat a hearty breakfast before you hit the gym. But there’s also a lot of research about fasted-state cardio (i.e. doing cardio on a stomach that’s been empty overnight) and while some studies do show a slight increase in fat burning, the most recent research seems to show that any effect on body composition is slight. Since I couldn’t find a clear conclusion in the research I just go with how I feel. And how I feel working out after a big breakfast is like puking. So since I do my workouts in the morning I eat something small like a piece of fruit or on some days, nothing at all. (Don’t fret – I still love my big breakfasts! I just either eat them very early if wake up on time or I eat it after I finish my workout.)

To make matters even more confusing, how I feel often changes from one day to the next (or, to be more precise, from one time of the month to the next, blargh) and so what I do is not always consistent. If I’m hungry, I’ll eat. If I’m not, I don’t. What I’m trying to do here is give you permission to just do what feels good to you. Unless you have a specific reason to worry about fine-tuning your body then in my experience this type of thing can take up too much mental space for the sake of very small outward gains.

Now, I turn it over to you guys! Help Gina out – Am I being too cavalier to not worry about meal timing? What strategy have you found works best for you? What’s your favorite summer Olympic event?

*Totally random aside: Jelly Bean has started talking in sentences and it never fails to crack me up. She calls her boots “boops” and  she says “bipped” for zipped when she wants her coat zipped up. So now before we can leave the house she demands – in her most serious face – “Mommy! I need booped and bipped!!” The first time she said it I laughed until I cried. Obviously my kid is the cutest kid ever. Or I’m easily entertained. Or both.

They forgot “Relocated by toddler to inside piano bench.”  

Personally I think he rocks the heck out of this pose. This is why #awesomesauce was invented.

I love me a good weight-loss story! I’m convinced they’re our modern version of the morality play, fairy tale and fable all in one (Greek Chorus at no extra charge!). But here’s the thing about me: being a recoverING eating disordered girl, reading weight-loss stories can be very triggering for me and so I generally avoid them. But this past week for Shape I got to do a different type of weight-loss story: it still has all the happily ever afters but these all include a “messy middle” – the part that many people don’t like to share. I found 8 extraordinary bloggers however that are amazing not for their weight loss but for all the life events they had to survive while trying to eat healthier and exercise.

Weight loss doesn’t happen in a vacuum unless you are on The Biggest Loser (or literally live in a vacuum but that would be weird… ah, I has a tired) and these 8 bloggers prove that life doesn’t stop just because you’re trying to overhaul it. One blogger lost her mother/best friend in a horrific accident. Another had to deal with past sexual violence. Another decided to get bariatric surgery and to actually be open about all of it. And one blogger ripped my heart out (in a good way) when he wrote about losing weight so he and his wife could conceive a baby – only to lose that baby halfway through the pregnancy. These are real people opening up their lives and showing what it’s like to lose weight when you don’t have a team of doctors, nutritionists and personal trainers. And they do it magnificently. The living, that is. Honestly by the end of their stories, I could care less about their weight loss. That is just one teeeeny little part of the big life they are living. As it should be. Check out their stories: Most Inspirational Weight-Loss Bloggers I promise it will be a highlight of your day!

How do you guys feel about weight-loss stories – love? hate? Love to hate?

And, in the world of other things I’ve written recently:

Fitness Stuff

Top 10 Health Blogs Written by Pros

Edible Cosmetics Redefine Inner Beauty

Zumba? Me? I’m an awful Dancer! (You have to read this one just to see the pic of my gorgeous friends Anna & Cassie!)

8 Benefits of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT me baby, one more time!)

Parenting Stuff

Why I Fired My Son’s Pediatrician (And How it Saved his Life) (This one still stops my heart)

Foreign Parents are Mean – And why I want to be mean too

New Research Says School Lunches Aren’t To Blame For Childhood Obesity – You Are.

Why Moms Can’t Get Sick (Seriously, we’re not allowed. It’s like a rule and everything.)

Gwyneth Paltrow Still Bathes With Her Elementary School-Aged Kids – Would You?

When Babies Get Messy: Which do you grab first – a towel or a camera?

The Moment I Realized I Never Gave My Mom Enough Credit

Top 10 Things My Kids Say That Make Me Feel Guilty

Great Mom Debate: Is it harder having 1 child or 9? This mom’s answer will surprise you.

Confession: I don’t know how to play with my kids

From now on I’m sticking to sugar as my pre-race pep. Jelly beans are happy pills indeed.

Bad news bodybuilders: dimethylamylamine (DMAA) may be responsible for the deaths of two soldiers, according to the U.S. Army. Eh, just another day and another story about a sports supplement gone wrong? Not for me. This story hit me hard. Probably because I have some DMAA in my cabinet as we speak.

You may not recognize DMAA by acronym alone but it’s also known as Asian geranium extract and it’s found in some of the most popular – and most effective – supplements on the market like J3cked (pronounced “jacked” in case you don’t want to look like an idiot in front of the GNC salesman like I did) and OxyElite Pro. I’ve taken both. While I hate J3cked and steer clear of it – it was part of the cocktail I took that, forgive me – jacked me up, and made me puke my way through a ten-mile race a year and a half ago – OxyElite Pro is a different story.

I don’t remember how I came by my first pill. Friends (and smart ones, even) of all fitness stripes – bodybuilders, racers, triathletes – swear by the stuff. Someone along the line gave me one and while it made me feel awful, it did really work for me. I had a ton of energy, I recovered faster, I could focus better and it didn’t give me that jagged high-then-crash that plain caffeine does. It also gave me heart palpitations, excessive sweating, hot flashes, whole body shakes and waves of nausea.

There’s a reason for all that: It’s an amphetamine derivative, deemed more potent than even ephedrine. You know what they make out of ephedrine? METH. You remember the scandal over ephedra/ma-huang killing people a decade ago? This stuff is five times more potent. In addition to being illegal in Canada and the European Union, “the World Anti-Doping Authority, the international body that regulates drug use by Olympic athletes, and several professional sports leagues have listed DMAA as a banned stimulant.” If I were an Olympic athlete I’d have been kicked out. Thank goodness I’m just a stupid suburban soccer mom! Phew, dodged that bullet!

While I liked the results, the side effects kept me from using it on a regular basis – I can’t even remember the last time I took one – but I kept the bottle around for those few occasions where I felt like I really needed the extra kick. Here’s the thing though: I didn’t know any of this when I bought it. I have more friends than I have fingers that use this stuff all the time and I’m pretty sure they don’t know either. How is it that I am allowed to walk into any GNC and buy amphetamines right off the shelf as a “sports supplement”? This blows my mind.

I remember the last time I bought a bottle of OxyElite Pro and the GNC guy commended me, telling me that in his opinion this was the best fat burner on the market. We went back and forth about the various uses for it and the side effects but never once did it come up that this wasn’t just some herbal caffeine-ish supp I was popping, like I thought. And USP Labs, the manufacturer, has all this research and science-y stuff on their site saying how safe and effective it is. Seriously how innocent does “geranium leaf” sound?

Yet the Army says in addition to “heart events”, it also has reports of liver and kidney failure, seizures, loss of consciousness and rapid heartbeat from DMAA toxicity.

My bottle has 30 pills in it. I have 26 left. And since I only take one at a time (the recommended dosage is two in the morning, one in the afternoon but one alone made me feel so freaky I never dared take more) that means there were four occasions in the past year or so that I put my life – and my children’s mother’s life – on the line for the sake of some minor athletic enhancement.

I’m stupid. I’ll own it. I’m the one who bought the pills. But at the same time, I did my research. I read countless reviews online, peppered the salesman with questions and read everything that the manufacturer put out about it, including all the warnings, and I never got any sense of what this stuff really was. I actually thought I was doing the smart thing by going with something “natural” and avoiding all the crazy diet pills out there. Lesson learned: “natural” means nothing.

For their part, USP Labs released a statement saying that their product has been proven safe if taken correctly. And who knows how those soldiers were using it? My friends that use it seem less affected by it than I was. At least none of them have ever mentioned the shakiness or nausea like I had (although everyone seems to get the sweats).

Still, I’m angry. At them. At myself. At the salespeople. At the FDA that doesn’t monitor supplements. At the society that has programmed me to reject my unvarnished best. But mostly at myself.

The pills are in the trash now. I’m sticking with jelly beans from here on out. (Which, by the by, my most favoritest SweeTart jelly beans are now also being sold for Valentine’s day. Good news or bad news? Magic PMS ball says “yes.”)

So, anyone else used this stuff? What has your experience been? Am I being hysterical or does this scare the ever-loving crap out of you too? What are your “happy pills”?

courtesy of the awesome Natalie Dee

I had a panic attack last week. A full-fledged hyperventilating, heart pounding, must do deep yogic breathing to remedy it, panic attack. What brought this on? A death in the family? Another discipline note sent home from the school? Actual pictures of Demi Moore with a can of Redi-Whip up her nose?? Nope. A friend surprised me by taking my 3rd son (a.k.a. the one who has been insanely obnoxious ever since his sister has been born…2 years ago) for a playdate. Seeing as the eldest two were in school and Jelly Bean was napping, that left me with… no kids! For TWO HOURS.

My mind reeled at this unexpected gift. Do you know how much I can do in two hours without anyone clinging to my leg and peeing down my sock (true story)? This is when the panic set in. Do I write? Blog? Pay bills? Mop the floors? Read a book? What if I make the WRONG choice and WASTE this precious gift?! Oh the hysteria!

So I did what any rational person would do (that’s my new hobby: copying what rational people do in the hopes that someday I will become one) – I posted my quandary on Facebook. Immediately all of my friends replied: Take a nap!

I should have. I’m certainly sleep deprived enough to be able to lay down anywhere anytime and conk out. And yet, I was so worried about not making the most of my time, I cleaned instead. Like many of us, my to-do list is a mile long and I never seem to make much progress on it. So I went up to mop the entry way which thanks to the ridiculous layout of our house doubles as our mud room and therefore needs mopping a hundred times a day. But then I realized I had to sweep first. So I went to get the broom out of the kitchen. Only to get distracted by the breakfast dishes still in the sink. I started loading the dishwasher and then realized I needed to run to the basement to get more dish soap. If I’m going to the basement, I might as well take down a load of laundry! You can see where the two hours went. The worst part is that within an hour of all the kids coming home it was like I hadn’t cleaned at all so I could have saved myself the effort. (Cleaning with children = snow shoveling in a blizzard.)

Thankfully we had sushi for dinner (after all that cleaning I didn’t feel like cooking!) and thanks to the randomness of my mind I remembered The Okinawa Program - a book that I based a Great Fitness Experiment on several years ago. They have a whole chapter on a phenomenon they dubbed “time sickness.” Apparently in Okinawa, most people reject the Type A, overachiever, must-do-everything mentality. As the authors observe, there is a difference “between feeling in control of time of feeling controlled by it.” Oh, Sensei, is this girl ever controlled by time! (Which means that if I ever move to Japan I’ll either have to get a personality transplant or disappear into a poof of magic dust.)

Are You Sick Too?
They offer a handy quiz to discover if you too have Time Sickness. There are 30 statements that if you answer yes to 16 or more you have a “time sickness behavioral pattern.” Let’s just say I hit 16 points by statement number 10 (I gave myself double points for the ones I’m REALLY obnoxious at. Here’s a sample (because let’s be honest, who has time to answer 30 questions??):

1. There is rarely enough time in the day to do all the things that I have to. (My motto. This will someday be written on my tombstone.)

2. It’s irritating for me to sit in traffic. (Just yesterday I was fuming over the fact that instant teleportation a la Star Trek has not come to fruition yet. Journey shmourney – I’m all about the destination!)

3. I sometimes finish other people’s sentences for them. (The Gym Buddies admirably restrain themselves from smacking me as I do this more often than people crack jokes about Mariah Carey bringing her own “globes” to the Golden Globes.)

4. I spend more time and attention on my career than my family. (Mother guilt! My specialty!! And while I answered “no” to this one, it would be a “yes” if the little nippers weren’t so insistent. There will be no ignoring my children.)

5. I often feel I have too many things to do. (Have you met me??)

6. I have trouble concentrating on one thing at a time. (Hello – broom… kitchen… laundry… wait, where’s the baby?!)

7. Passengers in my car ask me to slow down. (You know you have a problem when your 5-year-old screams “Hills are scary, mommy! You go too fast!!”)

8. I would describe myself as goal-oriented. (I suppose that would be the nice way of saying it.)

9. People tell me I talk fast. (Again, have you met me?)

In addition to the above questions, I also ‘fessed up to being irritable, competitive, cynical, a workaholic, perfectionistic, controlling and a micro-manager (just ask my husband about when he loads the dishwasher and later catches me sneaking down in the middle of the night to fix it “the right way”). Frankly the only question out of the 30 I could outrightly say no to was the one that asked if I needed tobacco, alcohol or intoxicants to wind down. I don’t but I’ve often thought that was solely thanks to my religion. Not to mention I don’t really wind down. Like, ever.

Obviously this has got to change. I had an epiphany the other day: even if teleportation were invented, I’d still find a million other things to fill all my newly freed time.

The book does offer a few suggestions to reset your internal clock to Okinawan time:

- Meditate. I love this! I know it helps me. A lot. And yet when I get busy – which is all the time – it’s one of the first things to go.

- Breathing exercises. Again, one I already know and love. This is key to managing my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).

- Muscle relaxation exercises. Yoga saved my life!

- Hypnosis. Uhhh… no. I had a therapist once who tried to hypnotize me and finally decreed my un-hypnotizable. I’m too much of a control freak. Ah well.

- Healing touch. I love massages in theory. And yet I’ve had exactly one in my entire life and it was when my friend showed up at my door with her massage table and tried to get me to relax while our combined children ran shrieking in circles around us.

- Biofeedback. Never tried this but I know several of you (Hi Leslie!) have had good experiences with this.

- Regular exercise. Finally, one I can say HECK YES to!

- Eat right for your psychospiritual health.

- Maintain your “healing web” a.k.a. your support community: #1 key to longevity!

Other ideas also mentioned include learning to be optimistic, learning to manage hostility and anger, managing your time wisely, cultivating a healthy sense of humor and practicing conscious awareness.

It sounds like a lot but the more I think about it, the more I think these are just the kinds of changes I am looking for. Perhaps I can’t force myself to stop being neurotic about stupid things but maybe I can squeeze out the crazy by filling my life with positive things like this! Well, this and lots of seaweed. One step at a time, right?

Anyone else not know what to do with their free time? Any other time sickees out there? How do you manage it? And there is totally a “right” way and a “wrong” way to load the dishwasher, right??

Me: I saw you birthed. You were purple and covered in more goo than Slimer. 16-year-old Sister: Let’s never have this conversation again. Also, what’s a “Slimer”?? Me: I’m old. 

“TurboKick? P90X 2? Both?? What do you wanna do?!” I nearly hypervenilated with all the possibilities. Laura put on her brave face and answered, “Whatever you want to do, I’m up for it.” My sister Laura is my best friend. She is also a trouper. This past weekend she flew in from out of town so she and I could kidnap our baby sister to celebrate her 16th birthday. (Yes I have a 16-year-old sister and because I was 17 when she was born I got to be there to see her pop out. Which might have been awkward except that my mom is the same person who when she had her hysterectomy the following year saved her uterus in a jar and handed it to me “because I thought you might want to see where you came from.” Let me tell you, holding the uterus that expelled you in your hands is a singular experience. I have a marvelously open family.)

 Laura (on the left) is actually giving bunny ears to the random guy from the improv show we’d just seen but because of the camera angle it just looks like she’s busting a move on him…and I think he likes it. My baby sister is in the middle and that’s me doing my best hunchback impersonation on the end – ironic considering I wore my new boots with the 2 inch platform plus 5 inch heel! Of course this is the only pic we got of all three of us.

Uteruses in jars aside, Laura not only let me drag her through P90X2 (we did the Total Body Workout and were… not impressed. Again.) but she also let me Experiment all kinds of other things on her. She tried foam rolling wherein we discovered that my inability to feel it at all does not run in the family. She went and got adjusted/analyzed by Dr. Dan my chiropractor of psychic fame and got way more excitement than she bargained for. She even tried T-Tapp with me for kicks and giggles! (She had a really interesting experience with her first T-Tapp workout and has agreed to continue with it to give me more info.)

Here’s the catch: Laura is not a fitness nut like I am. Her type A tendencies tend towards being PTO president and Cub Scout leader – you know, things that actually better society. She likes to exercise (she’s been doing Rachel Cosgrove’s workout for several months now!) but she’s just not crazy about it like I am. So when she collapsed on my couch and sighed, “You know I thought I was in shape until I came here. I’m torched!” it was with an air of failure.

Except that she’d done anything but fail. Just trying all those new things is huge and of course she was exhausted! This idea of “being in shape” is such a relative term and one I’ve come to seriously dislike.

I love these girls!

“So if you’ve been doing all this fitness stuff for the past five years, then shouldn’t you be in perfect shape by now?” a cheeky friend recently asked me. If the universe was fair, then yes, by now I would be Gisele but while knowledge is cumulative (sometimes painfully so), exercise sure isn’t. One of the most common mistakes people make about me is to assume that because I try all these different workouts that I’m some kind of super athlete. The truth is that doing something for 30 days gives me just enough knowledge to be dangerous but not enough to save me from myself. Or to put it more succinctly: I’m good at everything, great at nothing. Which in my mind is a small price to pay for all the fun I get to have.

What it means in practice is that I get my butt handed to me on a regular basis. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sighed, just like Laura, “I thought I was in shape until…” Sometimes, like when I went to the CrossFit St. Paul gym, I expect to be killed. (And boy was I right on that one. We alternated thrusters and ring pull-ups until death seemed preferable.) But other times it surprises me, like how the Physique 57 Barre workout from last month’s experiment made my butt so sore I walked like a penguin with an egg between its feet for two solid weeks. Nothing like a surprise arse-kicking to make you humble!

Now it’s your turn! Finish this sentence: “I thought I was in shape until…” You did 200 burpees? Tried MMA? Picked up the Men’s Shakeweight in Wal-Mart only to nearly club yourself with it and have to drop down to the stupid pink Women’s version?? (Ahem.) What surprise-kicked your butt? Anyone else have a really open family??

Gratuitous kid shot! We made crafts so I could pretend I’m one of those awesome moms who comes up with fun activities instead of giving them the Wii remote and telling them to go nuts (which is what usually happens). Also, please note that after this pic was snapped I “lost” all of Jelly Bean’s binkies and she hasn’t asked for them since. I fretted about it for weeks and it ended up being just that easy. Kids. 

Gossip, intrigue, power plays and morality plays: From the small stuff to the life-and-death stuff (sometimes literally), gyms are a microcosm of life. Add all the hormones, endorphins, sweat and fatigue from a good workout and you’ve got a recipe for the best reality show ever – seriously, why has no one ever done a gym reality show?! – or for some serious gym drama. Love it or hate it, the reality is that because we’re all flawed human beings, we’re all going to run into it sometimes. Some of us more than others. Ahem.

Over the years I’ve got more than a few e-mails from readers asking about whether or not the Gym Buddies and I ever have any drama and how I deal with it so it doesn’t ruin my workout (and life) mojo. The answer to the first question is easy: we’re a group of women who spend a lot of time with each other so of course drama ensues sometimes. Occasionally it’s among us, more often it’s part of the larger gym culture – but in either circumstance I’d be a jerk to write about it on here. I learned the hard way years ago that that is a line I do not cross. (And don’t go looking for that post, it was pulled and deleted the day after it went live and the crapstorm erupted.) The only people that intentionally get humiliated on this blog are me, myself and I. And the occasional Kardashian.

The answer to the second question is harder. If you attend a gym, are part of a running club or exercise anywhere other than alone in your basement, it’s going to happen. It’s a part of life, albeit one about as pleasant as the first poop after a day of eating beet salad. (If you’ve never seen beet poop, you’ve got to try it. It’s something everyone needs to experience at least once, just so they can say they did it. You know, like bungee jumping. Except gorier. And out your butt.)

So how do you deal? Here are a few things I’ve learned and I hope you’ll add many more in the comments!

Do: Apologize immediately and sincerely. Whether it’s from someone upset about a “stolen” spot or a more serious misunderstanding, when people’s feelings get hurt I’ve found the best thing to do is just to own your part in it. Admit that you made a mistake and apologize. If you can do anything to remedy the situation, do so. And then leave it alone. Drama goes to DRAMA when it keeps getting dredged back up.

Don’t: Gossip. Anyone who knows me knows this one is so hard for me. I love people! I love people’s stories! I want to be a part of all the stories! And I love hearing about their lives – especially the juicy parts! But there’s a fine line between caring about someone and wanting to help them and just spreading the muck around because it’s way more interesting than the 300 rounds of Elmo Uno that take up the rest of my day. How do you find that line? Ask yourself if you’d say it if that person were present. (Sadly for me, sometimes I forget to ask myself this until after I’ve said it. Doesn’t work so well that way.)

Do: Turn on the humor. A little laughter can go a long way, particularly if it’s at your own expense. People understand that everyone screws up, sometimes they just need to be reminded of that.

Don’t: Get it in writing. Sweaty back prints on the weight bench come and go but texts, emails, Facebook and nasty notes last forever. (The only exception to this is when you write ghost notes in the steam on the mirrors. That goes away but it also comes back when the mirror refogs. Use this to your advantage and start writing fortune-cookie messages!)

Do: Plug your earphones in and tune everyone else out. Gym drama (or sometimes “girl drama” although in my experience both genders are equally susceptible) is one of the reasons I hear most often for why people don’t like going to the gym. Some people circumvent the whole thing by getting in, doing their workout and getting out – no socializing allowed. To make this really effective, pop in your earbuds. While this works for some people, for many of us the social part is what makes the gym fun. But sometimes if you’re in the midst of some hardcore dramz the best thing to do is lay low and let it blow over. If you get to finally listen to that audio book you downloaded last year then so much the better!

Don’t: Quit your workouts. Sadly I’ve seen some people stop coming to the gym all together over some type of drama. Having done my fair share of bawling my eyes out in the Y parking lot, I know the temptation. But the one certainty of life is that it never stays the same and this too shall pass, probably faster than you think.

Do: Forgive. Whether you are the wronged party or the person who did the wrong-ing (that makes total sense, right?) or both, forgiving the other people and yourself is both healing and freeing. Try giving people the benefit of the doubt – even if you believe the best about someone and it turns out not to be true, they may be inspired by your faith in them to live up to your expectations the next time. Or they may think you’re a fool but better to be a happy fool than a sad cynic, right? It can be tough but carrying a grudge is heavy weight-lifting in a way that will definitely not improve your health!

So, I feel kinda weird giving advice like this – it makes me sound like I’m an expert in this and while I am a bona fide expert in sticking my foot in my mouth, I’m definitely not the authority on extricating it. Help me and your fellow readers out by sharing your stories and suggestions! Have you ever been caught up in some serious drama? How do you deal with it?

One day into our P90X2 Experiment and I am unimpressed. The reason: I have the stomach flu* and therefore permission to watch as much crap television as I want without feeling (too) guilty and instead of getting cozy with Project Runway All-stars (How much does this show suck without Tim Gunn and Heidi?!) I’m sitting here listening to Tony Horton and taking notes like a school girl in detention. Albeit a really pale, shivery school girl with a fever. (Although I’m not as bad off as Gym Buddy Allison who puked so much last night she fainted and had to go to the ER. Bad week for Gym Buddies: we be dropping like flies.)

Anyhow, it’s making me a wee bit resentful. The reason? P90X2 doesn’t come with an instruction booklet like the first P90X did. For people who do the program at home with constant access to a DVD player it’s no big deal but for those of us who need to use a gym for the equipment and childcare then it’s, dare I say it, nearly a deal breaker. Because this means I have to watch all FOURTEEN videos and write down every move, a description of how to do it because he makes up some weirdly awesome stuff, sets, reps and rest periods. Instead of the super-helpful booklet (it also had a place to write down your weights so you could track your progress), now I have a 20-page glossy book that the Gym Buddies and I have dubbed “Tony Porn” because it’s just page after page of pictures of his admittedly very impressive physique sprinkled with a few words.

But, aside from the pencil purgatory I’m in at the moment, P90X2 looks pretty awesome. It’s definitely not a repeat of the first version and just judging on this, I think I’m going to like #2 better than the first. Which is saying a lot since I was a huge fangirl the first time around. This time Tony is focusing more on the newest fitness research and streamlining the workouts which is a huge plus since one of the biggest complaints against the first version was how time consuming it was. He is also making it simpler to follow the plan. The kickboxing is totally gone but there’s several new workout formats built around active rest and recovery, presumably to circumvent the injuries for which P90X is also famous for.

Anyhow, despite all my whining, the workouts look solid and I’m really excited to get started on this one. We all really enjoyed the challenge of P90X and it looks like this one will live up to that legacy. There are three phases, just like the original (hence the “90″) but this time he recommends spending 3-6 weeks in each phase plus one week of recovery in the middle. We’ll be doing each phase for three weeks unless we get into it and realize we need more time and then we’ll take it.

There is a nutrition guide that comes with it which is much more comprehensive than the old one and even allows for several different tracks based on your goals and different meal preferences within those tracks – like say you’re a vegetarian who wants to get ripped, Tony has a whole food plan customized just for you. Since I am no longer doing food Experiments however, I’ll just be doing the workouts.

Barre Experiment Results

Honestly this workout was just “meh” for me. It was a good burn – anyone who thinks ballerinas are wimps needs to try this immediately – but the workouts were incredibly long. If I’m going to spend that much time, I’d expect to see some kind of difference in my body from it but I didn’t. All measurements stayed exactly the same. So given that end, I’d rather lift heavy for 30 minutes and reap all the metabolic benefits of that rather than burn out 100 reps with 5-lb ‘bells for an hour and a half.

That said, my ennui could be attributed to the fact we only did the workouts with videos – hah, you should have seen us all crowded around Allison’s tiny 7″ portable DVD player in the middle of the stretching area! – and books. Given what I’ve heard from some of you, taking it in a Barre studio is a totally different and much more fun experience.

And now I think I need to hurl again. Gah. Please forgive my whininess – it’s been A Day. I feel asleep on the floor only to wake up to Jelly Bean screeching “Mommy PWETTY!!!” as she decorated me with my new lipstick. After she’d used up most of the tube on herself.

Any of you trying P90X2 yet??

*AGAIN. I KNOW. I never get sick and now stomach flu twice this season!

A waitress friend of mine recently snapped a pic of an overweight patron’s meal. Why? So she could text it to several of her friends. Sure her customer’s meal was appalling – One of every appetizer? Yes, please – but even more so was the realization that now, more than ever, eating is a spectator sport. People feel they not only have a right to see what other people are eating but also to pass judgment on it. Even though we don’t.

I blame the media for this. Or at least for beginning the trend with shows like the Biggest Loser that have cameras recording participants’ every bite and advertising that relies on monitoring a person’s food intake to sell their product a la Jared the Subway Guy. We won’t even talk about the media hoopla surrounding Marie Osmond, Kirstie Alley, and the grand dame of weight loss struggles, Oprah. Jessica Alba can’t take a bite of food without a telephoto lens documenting it.

I know all this because every weight blip is broadcast to an eager audience, one I am apparently a part of despite the fact that I have never seen even one episode of The Biggest Loser (culturally irrelevant, that’s me!) and the last time I ate in a Subway was Homecoming dance my junior year of high school when I got food poisoning from old ham and spent the rest of the night upchucking in the E.R. Remember when Jared TSG showed up looking a bit meatier and immediately the Examiner exclaimed, “We’re sure Jared will lose the extra weight in no time. After all, his career as a Subway spokesperson depends on it.” highlighting the fact that we have entered the era where losing weight is an official career choice. And a lucrative one.

But if eating has become a sport, not eating (i.e. dieting or “making lifestyle changes”) has become the national pastime. Instead of Ladies Who Lunch, we have ladies who pick at their lunches and talk about how they really should have ordered the salad. I’ve often wondered if my inability to have a conversation with a new acquaintance without talk turning to weight loss, exercise or food stems from what I do for a living or because everyone just talks about it that much. Both?

The weird twist, however, is that while we feel (too?) comfortable commenting on a stranger’s weight whether it be on TV or texting their menu choices to friends, many of us don’t dare broach the subject with our friends. Perhaps we are afraid of offending people or losing a friendship but my personal theory is that people are already keenly aware of what they weigh and whether or not that is healthy for them and therefore do not need me to tell them about it.

And yet.

The other day I came home from the gym and noticed during my post-shower grooming ritual that mostly involves random tweezing and lotioning my brillo-bad kneecaps (they have actually ran my nylons – back in the days when I wore nylons. Which I don’t now, but I digress.) a realllly long, dark hair on my jawline. It was so bad I should have been getting better radio reception everywhere I went. It was clearly visible and so embarrassing. My first thought was: why didn’t the Gym Buddies tell me I was rocking a chin-stache??

My chin hair gave me an A-Ha moment (paging Oprah!): I wish my weight weren’t an issue at all – that nobody would notice it one way or the other – but since that is not the case (not for me, not for anyone) I would rather my friends talk to me about it than a stranger.

Which would you prefer – strangers commenting on your weight or a good friend? (Sadly, “nobody” is not an option.) Do you feel comfortable commenting on a strangers weight? Would you talk to a friend about hers or his? Is anyone else’s worst nightmare having a waitress text pics of your cheat meal to all her friends???

Disaster struck at the gym this morning. We were doing the P90X  fitness assessment to prepare for February’s Great P90X 2 Experiment (I know!! Squee!!!) that we start Wednesday. The test has you check your performance against the P90X standard in pull-ups, push-ups, in-and-outs (abs), vertical jump, biceps curl max, wall sit, flexibility and a high-intensity cardio interval to check how quickly your heart rate recovers, to see if you are fit enough to do the workout. Needless to say, the test to do the workout is a workout in and of itself. But us being us, we had to tack on a few things. We figured if we were testing stuff, might as well test everything!  Plus, I cannot even tell you how much I love a workout that makes me take a test first.

The plank and balancing on one leg with our eyes closed were both hard and hilarious but the problem came when we decided to time ourselves sprinting one lap around our indoor track (1/10th of a mile). Still bent over sucking wind from my sprint, I didn’t see it all happen but just as Gym Buddy Krista crossed the finish line, her ankle rolled and she went down, smacking into a nearby wall. She is a trouper and didn’t shed a tear but as of this evening, she reports it’s so swollen she can’t flex her foot and can barely walk on it. The worst part? She is leaving to go on a cruise in two days.

As Daria got her an ice pack, I did the next most helpful thing and told her stories about other gym injuries I’ve seen (I know, I’m a regular Florence Nightingale) and we had a good giggle remembering how the last time we took this fitness assessment Gym Buddy Allison smacked into a wall doing the vertical leap and got a huge scrape and bruise down her shin that lasted for weeks. (We were laughing about that not because we’re sadists but because we had to spend 15 minutes talking her into doing the jump – all you do is take one step and then jump, touching the wall as high as you can and yet she was terrified she was going to smack into the wall like a muggle at Platform 9 3/4. “There’s no way you’re going to hit the wall! You can’t, you don’t even get a running start!” we assured her. She hit the wall. Really hard. I laughed so hard I was crying. Okay now we really sound like sadists. ANYHOW.)

“It’s like the P90X test is cursed for us,” I joked. But when I got home I wasn’t laughing anymore. What had seemed like coincidence at first glance, ended up looking anything but. We’re all perfectionists and so for a test we were pushing ourselves as hard as possible. Too hard? I don’t know. I don’t think fitness tests are inherently bad but I also don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the times when Gym Buddies get injured are when we are really pushing ourselves – tests, one-rep maxes, online challenges, and race training have all side-lined us over the years.

I’m sure some of this is just par for the course. I don’t know any regular exerciser who doesn’t have a story or two like this. And yet when I came across Gina Kolata’s article in the New York Times “Personal Best: Workouts have their limits whether recognized or not” I saw a lot of myself in it. She writes:

“While public health officials bemoan the tendency of most people to do little exercise, if any, physiologists are fretting over the opposite trend: an increasing focus on extreme exercise among some recreational athletes. Weight lifting with no rest between sets and with no days off. Endurance training with no easy days or days off. Competitions that encourage excess. And there is no shortage of commercial fitness programs promising to push people beyond their limits.”

Um. I wouldn’t know anything about those… Oh wait, I wrote a book about pushing myself beyond my limits.

“People think a good workout is, ‘I am in a pile of sweat and puking,’ ” said William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut. But if that happens, he said, “it means you went much too quickly, and your body just can’t meet its demands.”

In the past I have definitely been guilty of that mentality but over the past couple of years – really since Jelly Bean has been born – I’ve gotten a lot better. I don’t do double workouts anymore. I take a rest day every week. Workouts stay under an hour, generally. (This was a hard one with the Barre Experiment – those suckers are long workouts!) But the piece I haven’t mastered yet is of course the most critical: learning to listen to my body. Kolata says, “There are no hard and fast rules, because individual athletes vary so much. A training program that one person thrives on will break another, equally talented athlete.” The best cues to rely on then are the ones that only you can recognize.

And I’m still bad at that. After we finished the fitness test this morning, we still had some time left so Daria and I ran interval repeats. Even though I was already pretty spent and they did not sound fun at all.

This is what I need to learn:

I don’t have to push myself to the limit in every workout.

I can skip a workout and be fine.

Just because someone else can do something and be fine doesn’t necessarily mean I can.

I do not always have to be training for something.

Everything is not a competition.

Writing these all out helps but I’d love some more advice. Obviously there are times when it’s great to push yourself – the amazing results you get from Tabata training* come from the amazing effort you have to put into it – but there are times when rest is equally as important.

What’s your training schedule like? Anyone else feel like they need to constantly be setting goals and meeting them to feel like their workouts are worthwhile? How does your body tell you when it’s time to rest? Also, any prayers for a speedy recovery for Krista will be much appreciated!

*Check out Athletic Ali’s incredible results from her 6-week Tabata experiment! Seriously amazing.