FitnessFixation.com

I wrote half this post a couple days ago, and boy, was it pa-the-tic, so I didn’t publish it. Considering some of the things that do make it on, it’s pretty startling that occasionally things are too whiny for me, isn’t it? But this one was all waa-waa, it’s hopeless, I suck, yadda yadda, and I try not to do too much of that when I’m not even hormonal. Things got better because of the people I train, which is nice, so this has a happy enough ending for me to publish.

I was surprised by how despondent I got about something I know already, and have written about seven thousand bajiliion and twelve times. I was at the hair salon, and of course I read all the trashy magazines. Because summer is here, most of them had a spread with famous people in bathing suits. Best and worst bikini bodies and crap like that. Yeah, best bodies are almost uniformly people under the age of 30. And the worst bodies are probably people who once had best bodies, but are now over 30 and have cellulite or lower boobs than before.

The celebrities who lost weight generally shed a ton in a short amount of time, “regaining a post-partum figure” ten minutes after giving birth through daily, two-hour sessions with a trainer. And don’t forget the most important part! Following a diet that ranges from 1,000 (eeek!!) calories a day to 1,500 TOPS. Most probably fall down in the 1,200 range. Which is considered to be a starvation level diet. Good times. Read the rest of this entry »

Mr. Ball understands me in a way you never did, Frank.
The other day I was training Kim, and I made some aside about someone’s “booty call”. She looked at me expectantly. I was confused. “Oh,” she said. “I thought that was the name of an exercise you wanted me to do.” “It isn’t, but by god, it should be,” I replied. “Now that would be a fun post,” she said. “Exercise names.” See? I actually ghost-write for Kim.

Naming exercises is really the most fun part of making up new shit to do. I will confess to a certain lack of creativity at times—for example, I tend to call any combination of bouncy moves “jumpy jumpy” so it’s not like you could actually know what we were gonna do next if I said, “Okay, jumpy jumpy time.” (Speaking of, had the kid’s birthday at this inflatable bouncy house place, and I spent 2+ hours playing dodgeball with Elizabeth and racing children and my sister through the obstacle course. The verdict is that bouncy houses are a helluva workout, and I’m stunned no one has used them yet for some “latest craze” gym class with a fancy name and five PR selling points about the caloric burn and toning effects of leaping around a vinyl, air-inflated tent. Oh, and if you do that, I’m getting the trademark as we speak, be prepped to fork over cash.) Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a real crappity doo dah day that had in it one supremely sucky-ass run, interspersed with squats and push ups and other things that felt like pure misery. Call the kids, because Sally Cheerful the Clown is here! Oh god, is that a balloon animal she’s making? Right, well, today I’m treating my FF post the way I treat my exercise on certain days: Something is better than nothing. Even the worst run has a sense of accomplishment, while doing no run feels like, um, ca ca. Let’s see if it works for writing, it’s like I’m making you all do a sucky-ass run with me. Here’s five disadvantages of being physically active most of the time, even on crappity doo dah days, and five advantages too, because let’s open up that window and let a ray of sunshine blind us temporarily and give us a sunburn, shall we?

Disadvantages of being active: Read the rest of this entry »

There’s all kinds of gear and videos and crap out there so you can exercise while you sit at home, exercise with your baby, exercise while you do the dishes, exercise while you have a heart-to-heart with your teen about the dangers of heroin abuse, and so on. Some of it is fine, and some is probably total ca-ca. To be perfectly honest, I think the optimal set-up is to exercise while you, um, work out. I mean, I get that we have busy lives and multi-task the hell out of everything all the time, so god forbid you have a spare moment when you aren’t doing three things simultaneously, but I really think giving something your full attention is meaningful. And I think it generally means working out harder. Hmm, I’m turning into one of those crotchety soap-box people, aren’t I? Kids these days, with their texting and their applications and tweeting or tooting or what-have-you, it’s a mess! Why when I was a kid, we worked out with nothing! We were lucky if we had a Walkman to listen to! (Dude, remember those? I got one for Christmas one year and I loved it.)

This is starting to sound both pro and con for one of my cardinal rules of fitness: SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. Read the rest of this entry »

Training is serious business. When performing the highly technical bicep curl with five whole pounds, I always have a spotter to actually lift my arm for me.
I could tell you I feel all bad about not writing much lately, but I swore I’d never write that post because they are insanely boring to read, and nobody gives a shit, and it goes against the spirit of this post I am now writing. Which is anything but boring. Um, possibly. No promises, remember, lowered expectaaaations. Glad we have that deal.

Hey, there’s unrelated personal trainer picture mocking though. That’s something, right? Send me anything you want me to make fun of, I LOVE these.

Anyway, lately I have not felt like working out.

Let’s clarify this: I rarely feel like working out. Chances are I’m always too tired or sore or would rather be sitting on my porch or napping or staring at the wall. Very occasionally I’ll have a bona fide janky itch to sprint or do some metabolic workout, but odds are not good this will be the case when I leave my house for a run. It only gets better mid-to-late workout, or right after I’m totally done. So part of exercise for me is doing it when I don’t feel like it, which again, is almost always. Read the rest of this entry »

Tasty.
First of all, I’d like to congratulate ThatKim, who was this week’s winner in our secret contest, “Who can correctly guess a big contributing factor in Kelly’s malaise?” Hormones, people, they do mess with you. Of course that’s never all that’s up, but it is like throwing gasoline on top of whatever small tire fire might be smoldering in my own private hell. The day after I posted I was filled with rage towards very single person on the planet for doing something irritating like saying hello in a bad tone of voice or blinking in a way that could only be a sign that they hated me. I literally had to get out of conversations with other human beings quickly because even the people I care the most about seemed deliberately annoying to me. Naturally I hated myself most of all. Ah, good times.

Anyhow, the next day, after getting literally teary when one class showed remarkable proficiency at the deadlift (”Sniff, they’re just doing so well, it’s inspirational”) I had some better perspective. Thanks extra especially to some real sweethearts who told me nice things or were generally tolerant and sympathetic and not offended by my rageful glances in their directions. And I had better workouts than the one where I cried because I’m such a fitness loser. My mom even sent me this email regarding my last post (quoting in entirety here): “You are so NOT a loser (per FF). Love you lots. Mom.” Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, the stick people always kick you when you are down.
I wasn’t going to write anything for FF today, mostly because I’m tired and I feel thbbthhh. Make that physically, somewhat icky and emotionally, extremely bleugh. The result of the physically icky (i.e. I might be sick, but will not admit that because it bothers me) is that I haven’t really worked out for a few days. I did attempt to run today, hoping it would perk me up, and it DID NOT DO THAT AT ALL. This, as you might imagine, does not help the old emotional bit, which was dipping downward in its own lovely way without even the lack of exercise to propel it along. Perhaps you are now speculating that I am a fairly moody and rather emotional individual, and that I must be a real joy to interact with on a daily basis because of it, and you might just be right about that. But I do try and make this relate-able to the more stable among you out there (i.e. all of you) so I will capture the feeling I’m experiencing for you and imagine you can relate.

Discouragement. Read the rest of this entry »

I guess I should wish all the moms out there a belated Happy Mother’s Day. My kid made me a card, and a cupcake bracelet out of construction paper, which is damn cute. I spent the day with her and with my own very photogenic mom, who I trained for a second. I decided I wanted to get a photo of Mom pressing a barbell over her head, but I thought it might be a little scary for her, so I loaded up a bar and then used my best calm trainer voice so she wouldn’t get nervous. “Here’s what you do mom,” I said. “Just hold the bar like this and then press…”

Then I whacked myself in the chin with the bar. I have managed to injure myself idiotically with almost all the equipment we have at the gym, but I believe that was the first time I have almost decapitated myself with a barbell at the beginning of a press. I also bit off the sides of my tongue in the process. I was determined not to show how painful it was because I still wanted my mom to be confident doing it, so I smiled heartily and swallowed the blood. My mother gave me a highly suspicious look. Read the rest of this entry »

I read this thing by Jillian Michaels a while back about writing down your weight-loss goals. Well, actually I read it as “fitness goals” because I am sort of bored with focusing on weight loss, and that in itself is a funny thing which I will get to in a minute when I’m good and ready. Anyhow, I resist things like writing down goals because it feels so motivational speaker affirm-y to me, like I’m some 80’s go-getter in a power suit trying to scrabble my way up the corporate ladder, or a New-Age-y lady in flowing pants determined to find my myself via a spirit animal or some shit. (By the way, my spirit animal today is a manatee, thanks to too much fucking cake. All hail the sea cow!) Anyhow, writing down goals might be a very sensible thing to do, as it makes what you want more concrete in your mind and gives you some direction and all that.

So I was thinking about when I started running regularly, and at that time, if I had written down my fitness goals, my list would probably have looked like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Dude, you remember that video? “Girls on Film”? Duran Duran, it was so new wave not-quite-porno-enough!

Yeah. Oh, I was on film the other day too. For this BlogHer series called “The Juice”. It is neither new wave or porno. And yet, somehow, I am in it.

Read the rest of this entry »