Priscilla, Queen of the Pretzels

I was hit and miss with our exercise DVD challenge last week. I slacked off on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday I did half of my NYC Ballet Workout DVD  (30 minutes) with my 9-year-old daughter, who giggled more than she exercised. Why did I only do half of the DVD? 'Cause it's hard, that's why. (I didn't say it was a good reason...)

On Saturday, I ventured yet again into the world of budget public television exercise programs. This time I joined Priscilla Patrick for some Hatha yoga. As I began the 15 minute program, I breathed a sigh (a deep, cleansing sigh) of relief when I saw that Priscilla was an older lady. "Oh good," I thought, "This is going to be mellow and easy--just what I need." 

Priscilla's lean, strong physique (which a much younger woman would be proud to have) should have been my first clue that she was not going to go easy on me. 

This was hard enough:

I'm flexible enough for this pose, but I have rather more belly fat than I've ever had before and this pose caused all kinds of pinchy belly fat pain, not to mention my diaphragm was squashed, thus making breathing an impossibility. Priscilla, bless her, seemed to have none of these problems. 

Things got a little more manageable for a few minutes, then for the grand finale, we did this:

(And by "we," I mean, Priscilla did this, and I watched.)

Priscilla is awesome. I bow (gingerly) to her elderly bendiness.

You Can Call Me Al

"What on earth does Al Gore have to do with weight loss?" I can hear the question ringing out from the, uh, what? 4 of you that read this? It's a question for the ages, really. Well, besides the Blessed Internet that dear Al invented for us, thereby enabling us to cram the blogospheres full-to-busting with the virtual sound of our own voices, I'll tell you what he has to do with this.

Waiting with bated breath, aren't you? I had a roommate in college with whom I had the long-running joke of spelling that "baited" breath and then we would talk about having worms in our mouths. It's truly a wonder we didn't go into comedy; we clearly had the chops for it.

But I digress.

I was thinking of ol' Al up there tonight while I was dvdin' it up at almost midnight tonight. Almost midnight because I put it off all day long, that's why. I thought about just skipping it, but I sorta have a streak going, and I didn't want to break that. Plus, I really do need the exercise. I thought about just counting the marathon mopping I did tonight--45 minutes, moving as fast as I could; that is how big my entirely-covered-in-wood-and/or-tile-floors-apartment is (not complaining about the size; complaining about the flooring choices)--and how I was breathing hard and dripping sweat during most of it. But I finally decided that tonight could just be an It's Better Than Nothing night, and I turned on the TV and popped in the DVD of choice, one of the shortest I own.

I promise I'm getting to my point.

I'm not promising that it's a very good point. It's after midnight here, what do you want?

I did the Winsor Pilates upper body workout that Holly told you about yesterday. Earlier today? These different time zones have me so messed up. Regardless (my dh and I like to say that "irregardless" to each other because we think it's funny, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making me really have to concentrate when I say it to anyone who's not my dh or maybe Holly so that they don't think I really say it like that), all I could hear during my entire workout was the way tiny little Marie Winsor says "albow albow albow." Now, I've done this workout before, and I've noticed the pronunciational (besides intentionally saying words wrong, I also enjoy making words up)(or making up words, if you're Holly's dad and/or concerned about split infinitives)(you may roll your eyes here, but you've never had your grammar corrected by him, so I'll thank you to keep your judgments to yourself)(unless you're Holly, in which case you've totally been corrected by him, so judge away, baby) oddity, but tonight that was all I heard, and by the end of the tape (I know it wasn't a tape, but that's what folks my age call it; we're old, out of it, and proud of it) I had Paul Simon's song--referenced in the title of this post--in my head. Please never make me diagram that sentence. Also, I used the word "Holly" close to 700 times in that paragraph.

Told you it wasn't a very good point.

But the moral of the story is clear: proper pronunciation is a virtue. Pass it on.

DVDVDVDVDVDVDDDDDDDD D D D d d d d

Wow. That was exhausting. Then again, I'm easily exhausted. I alternate housework with napping. Dishes, nap, fold laundry, nap, organize the rubber band drawer, nap. Etc.
So Sara...

Oh no! They're wearing ACID WASHED JEANS (I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance). Acid washed jeans are an abomination and if they reappear in the teen fashion vocabulary...bye bye all that is decent and good.

What was I talking about? DVDs. Exercise DVDs, to be precise, and Sara's evil plan to make me do things that are good for me. So maybe she's not quite up with the Donald Trump level of tyranny (yet), but she seems to be honing her skills. Lucky me!

Nigel Lythgoe just said, "You DO have the biggest bum in the competition." If I had a nickel for every time a reality TV judge has said that to me...
He was talking to a guy, thank goodness (I guess).

Back to the DVDs.

We were supposed to start our exercise-DVD-a-day-every-day-except-Sunday-until-the-end-of-August goal this past Saturday. Sara has been on target every day. I kind of managed to forget to start until Monday.

Monday: I did Winsor Pilates Buns and Thighs workout. I whined and whimpered the whole time, but I worked all my buns and thighs. Mari Winsor, creator of the famous Winsor Pilates workout video empire is a wee bit scary and elvin (elfish?) and she says "albow" for "elbow." It kind of makes me cringe. Fortunately, there were no instances of the dreaded albow during the Buns and Thighs DVD.

Tuesday: I did this random low-budget stretching exercise program I TiVOed off a bottom-of-the-barrel PBS-that's-not-PBS channel. It's called Classical Stretch: the Esmonde Method. It's a series. A poorly produced series. However, the instructor seemed to know what she was doing. I was not aware before I started that this particular episode was designed for chronic back pain sufferers. I am not in the chronic back pain club (though I hear they throw great parties [just don't ask them to help you move]), but I joined in the fun anyway and got a decent stretch out of the 30 minutes.
My favorite part: the instructor stumbled a little and said, "Pardon me. I sprained my ankle last week--I was rushing to get an eclair off the buffet table and I tripped." No kidding!

Wednesday: Um. It's 12:18pm and I've been blogging for the past hour. I'm not going to do a DVD tonight. Yeah, yeah--boo and hiss all you want. I will accept your derision gracefully and possibly get my act together tomorrow.

So far this week, I've done a whole 50 minutes of formal exercise! That's 50 more minutes than I've done in the past...oh...2 months. No joke.
Hard to believe I was working out six times/week a few years ago.

Another Day, Another DVD

For some reason today, it was really hard to make myself exercise. Well, I guess that reason has something to do with the fact that exercise is hard, and I don't really like hard things. But other than that, I have no idea why it was hard. I frittered away my morning and the next thing I knew it was getting close to time for our family to go meet some friends at the pool. But I knew that if I didn't exercise before we went, it just wouldn't happen. So I found my shortest cardio workout and did that. I still had to send the fam on without me, but I joined them shortly thereafter. Honestly, it was this challenge that was the only thing that made me do it today. I can't exactly get all "Crazy King George" on Holly and then poop out on my end, now can I?

I saw a quotation today that I really like. "Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit." --Vince Lombardi

That has been my M.O. for a lot of things my entire life--do it until it gets "too hard" and then find a good enough reason to quit. This is especially true with exercise and diet plans. I'm not going to get all "This time is different" because I don't know if that's true. But I do feel good about where I am and how I'm doing. I need to put some more work into my food, but I'm feeling things coming together in my brain and in my life that gives me hope that I can make some positive change.

Of course, this also calls to mind another quotation I'm rather fond of. Of which I am rather fond, I mean. Never know where Holly's dad and his grammar lessons may be lurking. It can be found here.

The Things I Do

Behold the trials I endure in order to exercise:

You want a tyrant? Check out the giant toddler who thinks the TV is only for his personal use for viewing The Little Einsteins. (Though you should know that I'm only indulging him because we are still waiting for our household goods to get here, and the boy has little-to-no toys.) Yes, that is a toy cat in between his toes. He's a kooky tyrant.
These are what I have to use as handweights. They are also useful for hydrating post-workout (if I did it during then I'd throw off the balance, see).
So because the TV is dominated by children's programming, I have to drag this big ol' transformer (seriously, the things weighs probably 20 pounds) into my room so that I can plug in...
...the portable DVD player so that I can workout to a little Tamilee Webb in my bedroom. I did one session of I Want Those Arms and one of I Want Those Abs. I'm quite certain that things like lifting feathers or inhaling are going to be quite impossible tomorrow.
And this has nothing to do with anything; I just think it's cool. This is where I was tonight:
Yeah, that's the sunset on the Nile.

Tyrants all

There I was at 11:50pm tonight--tired, weary, sleepy and tuckered out (I have a thesaurus widget, do you?) when I realized I had to do an exercise DVD before I could go to bed. Why? Why would I do such a thing when I was so exhausted, drained and pooped? Because Sara MADE me. Sure, she's like a garillion miles and 9 or 10 time zones away, but she has powers. Scary, scary powers. I did three whole hours of yard work this morning (at one point sweat dripped off my nose--that's how fatigued, zonked and wasted I was). Surely, you think, that would be enough to satisfy Sara's sadistic whims...but no, it was not. 

So I did the stupid, moronic and doltish DVD--all 20 hideous, gruesome and repellant minutes of it. And now my legs hurt, ache and smart. I hope Sara is happy, gleeful and buoyant.

Next thing you know she'll be taxing my tea and hostily taking over my corporate empire. 

P.S. Photos (L to R): George III of England, Donald of Manhattan, Sara of the Fertile Delta

When Legs Attack

Pilates again today, but this time the lower body workout. So between that and yesterday's "running" (really, that's such an exaggeration; even calling it jogging would be kind), I'm likely not going to be able to walk very soon.

Note to self: stretch! My calves are not my friends today.