The last of the “Desperate Diets” and the wrap up to the series…

The Push Your Luck Diet

What is a good example of this diet? The Cheat Your Way Thin diet, The Volumetrics Diet

Why do we think we do this? We have great metabolisms and we’ve always been athletic/thin/in shape so why not eat right most of the time but then enjoy ourselves with structure the other times.

Why do we really do this? On the surface: Pride.  Arrogance.  Again, we think we’re better than everyone else.  We can eat half of the universe and “get away” with it.  We do this alcohol, as well.  Not cool.  Deep down: cry for help.

My life changed December 23, 1997.  Ten days after diagnosis, my 64 year old mom—who did not look a day over 50—died of pancreatic cancer.  At the time I was 7 months pregnant with my first child, newly married and dealing with death on that level for the first time.  I did not do a good job.  In fact, I did not do anything.  I cried some and dealt with it on the surface a bit but for all intents and purposes, it was like it never happened.  I had an active “bubbas” in my belly that needed my attention; we needed to find a home for our new family; and quite honestly, I did not have the emotional capacity back then to take the situation on the way that it truly deserved.  There was too much pain: she was my world and now what?  There was too much anger: she would never meet my children but she knew my sisters’ kids, what kind of crap was that?  There were too many questions: what the heck am I doing having a baby and which end of them is up, again?  I would love to tell you something dramatic happened and I had this major breakdown but nothing did.  Nothing.  Two weeks after she was gone, life resumed.  I had to get the illegal squatter out of my body, we had to buy a home and I needed to go back to work/normal/life.  And so it was.

A little over a year ago I put out via email the tale of my body; what I did to myself after competing and how it forever changed the way I looked and dieted.  I tell the story, whenever I tell it (which is rare on a large scale level but frequent on a one to one basis), always starting from December 2004 because that is when the actual weight gain began.  What I conveniently neglect to mention is what precipitated that weight gain.  I would love for you to think that I was this healthy trainer, working a bajillion hours, who had a ton of clients, running a training department, juggling a household of toddlers and being wife of the month and actually I was…except I was not healthy and I definitely was not wife of the month.  What I was was “pushing my luck”.

We have blessings and curses that come with our physiques.  Blessings would include looking great, being in good health on the macro side of health (diabetes, blood pressure), having energy and the ability to physically live life to the fullest.  At times, though, I wonder if the curses of this lifestyle sometimes outweigh the blessings because we rarely talk about our emotional state when our body fat is low, how it feeds our ability to strive for perfection or how we can hide some major junk going down with us behind a great looking body.  I have said this before and I say it with full love, the only difference sometimes between a lean woman and a heavy woman is that the heavy woman’s body makes her more honest.  She cannot hide that she has an issue with food…but the lean woman can.  So there I was, leaner than lean and striving like a mofo.  I dealt with my mom’s death ever so slowly by becoming the top trainer in my club at the time, the nutrition guru, the playdate mom, the barely functioning wife and the iciest heart moving in a warm body.  The crash was inevitable but the pace was excruciatingly slow.

I had my second child in 2000 and kept about 8-10 extra pounds of pregnancy weight on already petite body until a client asked me to get her ready for stage.  I had never heard of competing, knew nothing of the sport but thought that I cannot get someone ready for something I, myself, have never done.  In the summer of 2002, I started “getting ready for show”.  I had ZERO issues with food or body image at that time and had a “great, little athletic body”.  My getting ready for stage was all about learning how to coach on the back-end; it was never about me being ‘competitor of the week’ (this is important to know because it is how I ended up being far more of a jackass than any of you could ever claim to be).  I lifted hard for the first 4 months and in January 2003, I started dieting.  It took me 8 weeks to lose 23 pounds and I swear I did not have that much to lose.  I was lean…and I stayed that way for a long, long time.

At first I realized that if I stepped on the scale in the morning and then in the night and it read the same thing, that the next morning I would lose a pound.  Then I realized I could eat a cheat meal and the sodium may mess with me but within 3 days, it would be back to normal.  Then I realized that if I ate a whole pizza by myself, nothing happened.  Yeah I would be bloated for a day or two, but then I would have the tightest lines, my abs formed a 16 pack and I would be a veiny mess.  Not bad, I thought.

I stepped off stage for the last time October 2003, the lightest I had ever been post college and I then entered into a very dark 365 days of pushing my luck:  My job became more demanding.  My feelings that I stuffed so deep into my socks that I wore one shoe size bigger because of it started to leak out all over the place.  Staying lean started to take a toll on my cycle, my mind and eventually my marriage because there was cardio to be done and lifting had to happen because I needed to “pay penance” for all the tomfoolery that I was doing.  And boy was I doing some tomfoolery.  At no point did I think that what I was doing would have a lasting effect on my body.  By the time 2004 came around, I was an Equal junky (18 to 30 packs/day—remember, it wasn’t “bad” for you back then and most of it was in my 4-6 medium size Dunkin’D’s teas that I had daily because I never ate), in full panic attacks, training 40-50 FLOOR hours per week on top of hours of cardio, a full blown egomaniac (let’s just own it now) and crying for help louder than any woman I know.  I would eat all kinds of crap, “work it off” and start all over again once I got the scale back to normal.  The crazier life got, the more I ate dysfunctionally always careful not to mess with the number on the scale.  I went through all the stages of pseudo dieting, fake show dates, “major events” that I needed to ‘lose 5 pounds for’ and then thought that what I needed was “a structured plan”.  I need to be “on an official diet”.  If I just had structure then I will follow it and I will stop all this nonsense.  Wrong.  It made me more manic.  And it made me push the limits even more because at this point I was infallible…invincible…a math whiz with the scale…champion of carb games…master trainer…and a Holy. Hot. Mess.

So I had an idea…

I “allowed” myself to gain weight.  Not a ton (about 10-15 pounds)…but just enough to get me back to a “normal weight” and stop playing the games because I was not enamored with being lean as much as I was with being able to control the outcome of what was going on with my body-hence my greatest folly.  This was my first official personal cry for help to myself.  I ignored it.  Six months later, the rest is history.

You ask me constantly ‘how are you in my head’, ‘how do you know what you know’, ‘it’s like you read minds’, ‘I can’t get away with anything’ and so on.  Well, now you know why.  You cannot bull crap a bull crapper.  Plain and simple.  I am cutting this short here for 2 reasons:  what happened next emotionally (most of you know what happened physically) is another series for another time and this post could get so long that it qualifies for a Pulitzer Prize in drama and that would completely miss the point of this post and this series.

My biggest wish is that you will look at what you do, why you do it and what is the emotion that drives it.  When you talk to me you have to know that I am listening for what you say, how you say it, what words you choose, what you are avoiding, what you are trying to convince me of, what you are trying to convince you of and so on.  You need to see that pride is just a defense and excessive drivenness just an excuse; the scale is pimp who plays us like a fiddle on a good day, emotionally abuses us on a bad one.  Every diet game we play is one step closer to melt down and I am telling you, nothing is worse than trying to come back from being so high and falling so low.  The diets that I picked were funny at first because that is stage one; stage two is believing your own hype; and stage three is beginning of Armageddon.

Talk to someone.  Whether it is a stranger in a subway (make sure he/she is clothed), your best friend, someone who does what I do or even me—it does not matter, just talk.  You do not need a couch to lie on, I never went to therapy.  You need a listening ear and someone who can point you to your craziness because then you can do something about it but it takes you owning it first.  My husband could not help me because he had *no idea*.  I never talked about my emotions, we were 2 ships passing in the night because we set up our schedule in such a way that one of us was always with the kids so when he came in, I went out, and I was not in a place to admit that this was bad.  Honestly, if my body did not give out, I am not sure what would have stopped the madness.  Scary.

I love you, ladies.  If I can keep any of you from walking in my shoes, then I have done my job.  The next series is cooking in my head now, not sure when I’ll spit it out.  Keep your eyes peeled for the emails.  Woop woop!

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Desperate

–having an urgent need, desire.  One of the worst feelings you can have when you are scale dependent is getting up one morning and the scale says something you are not mentally prepared for or seeing your life out of control with no way to slow it down.

The “I Am Carb Sensitive” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Any no starch diet such as Paleo, South Beach, competition diet, sugar busters

Why do we think we do this? We are sensitive to carbs, we were never meant to eat starches, sugar makes us crazy

Why do we really do it? We have an event and we need to drop 5 pounds fast, we’re suddenly up 5 pounds and we need to get rid of it fast or we have not eaten starches for so long (because we are still doing the celebrity diet) that now when we do have them we blow up like a puffer fish in within 10 min. of eating them so we’re now in a battle.

There are so many jacked mindsets within this diet that I almost did not know where to start.  From panic attacks to pure unadulterated weight gain mythology, we can really get ourselves worked up over something as simple as oatmeal and swear that we do so much better without it.  Only, we do not really live without starch/sugar.  Instead, we start this really bittersweet love affair with sweet potatoes, oatmeal and any other grain that sounds impressive to pronounce (quinoa, spelt, etc.) where we eat them once in a blue moon, shun them and then cry over them later on because we want to eat them but can’t.  Once that gets old, we decide to stop eating them for good and we can hang for a few weeks until we realize the scale is not magically moving just because we gave up starches (how dare it) so we start sneaking sugary type carbs all the while swearing that we cannot eat them.  Eventually we gain back what we initially lost just cutting out carbs and then we convince ourselves that we gained it back because we ate starch and not because the starch came in the form of cookies or ice cream.   Or better, yet, we really do lay off the starches because we really can’t take the way they make us feel but then we become a peanut butter pimp pushing it at every meal, occasion and event like a crackhead lost on a peanut farm.  It is crazy.  No matter what stage I catch you in on this diet, you are in full justification mode ready to go with every reason why you are the only one out there who really cannot eat starch and how bad it is for you and how such and such doesn’t eat them and they look great and… Hold on while I load up the next round of justification.

Here are some things that happen when doing this diet:

1) None of us really have a start date or an official goal of this diet.  We tend to waft in and out of it.  We wake up one Monday and just stop eating starches—again, because in our warped thinking the pounds should just fly off now—but we never *change* anything else about what we are doing.  We do not measure our portion sizes or increase our veggies now that we are missing those precious cals nor do we change our exercise regimen.  No…we sort of coast into this odd sort of hypnosis diet that causes us to start weighing ourselves frantically every day to see if something has changed—although nothing has really changed.

2) We are absolutely convinced it was starches that made us this way in the first place although almost all of us have had the fake sugar, fake salad dressing, protein powder laced with fake sugar, turkey bacon chemical phase that none of us really ever consider.  Nor do we realize that that could possibly have an impact on what we may be sensitive to diet wise because it is much easier for us to stop eating 100% whole grain oatmeal that has 5g of protein, 5g of fiber and fills us up like cement in a bucket than it is to figure out what is going on.  That takes time and there is no time.  “We *feel* fat.”

3) Honestly, when that feeling of “I need to drop 5 pounds” takes over, someone could tell us that our liver would fall out if we did not eat a starch and most of us would take the chance regardless.  NOTHING—and I mean NOTHING—can convince a woman to stop doing whatever folly she is doing when a) her pants suddenly do not fit, b) someone important made a snarky comment regarding her weight or c) she is going to a class reunion.  If any of these things are in place, there will be no starch eating til the drama passes!  This means that this diet, unlike all the others, cannot be stopped once it is started until we are finally convinced it will not work.  This is THE diet trump card of all trump cards.  If you pull this one out on me, I say “uncle” and move on my merry way.

The Extreme Makeover Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Changing the way you eat from top to bottom (becoming a vegan, starting a raw food diet, looking for locusts), changing the way you workout (trying triathlons, trying Crossfit, trying MMA), changing where you workout (you’re outside, you’re in the air, you’re in the ocean), hiring a nutritionist/trainer/physical therapist/yoga specialist.

Why do we think we do this? We do this to get our mojo back, get back into it, get focused, find ourselves, start anew and so on.

Why do we really do this? All hell just broke loose in our lives and instead of dealing with that, we need a worthy, expensive distraction that will force us to focus only to realize $2000 later that we just needed to face the pink elephant in the room.

You will not find ANYONE who knows this one better than me, for real.  This is also called the “ostrich in the sand” diet or the “if I don’t acknowledge it, it can’t happen” diet.  If you ever find yourself in a place where life sucks this bad that you feel the only way to cope is overhaul your entire workout regimen, call someone—heck, call me—and fess up as to what is going down on your end.  I have seen so many diet and exercise nightmares unfold because of this when a simple phone call or 3 hour lunch with someone could truly set you on the right track.

There is a ginormous pressure on us to have it all together.  We may be the “athletic one” or the “hot body” or “the good mom” or whatever label you may feel others know you as *because* of your fitness level and dedication which makes us feel as if we always have to be that one that holds it together.  But that is a lie from the pit of hell, girls, and all it does is hold us in our own self contained prison.  Yes, someone is watching you, but they are not hoping you continue to hold it all together; they are hoping you will be human and let your hair down in front of them.

Here is one way how this diet comes about:

You are going along fine for a bit, life seems to be ok.  Your body is where we want it to be and you have a rhythm.  Then, bammo!  Something happens that may seem small at first but it upsets your sense of “control” and you begin to try to maintain that control through eating, working out, juggling life and so on.  Soon disordered eating rears its ugly head and you are not full out bingeing and purging but instead you are going good for 3 days, out of control for 4.  You have now done the Paying Penance Diet, the Hypnosis Diet, the “I am carb sensitive” Diet at least 3 times and you *feel* as if you are out of options.  You see the train coming and you cannot get off the track to save your life so the ‘light bulb’ goes off and you think, “I know what I need.”  Insert whatever new thing there is but this is not small–not a diet change—this is a life change.

There are so many other reasons why this happens:  drama at home with significant other, sudden increase in weight, increased job stress, financial crisis, sick loved one and so on.  You are trying to “make that thing go away” through your diet and exercise and it is not going to work.  The only exercise you are going to accomplish with this diet is an exercise in futility.  I understand how this happens because the fear of whatever you are facing is great—totally get it—but when it is all said and done, that thing you are facing is still going to be there only now you are X amount of dollars in the hole, doing a new radical workout you really are not in to and eating foods that you hate.  Call someone please.

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Yesterday was about the basics.  Today is about faking like you know what you’re doing on the track.  Ready?

BREAKING IT DOWN

We are currently on a state of the art track.  Well not physically, but I want you to envision it because it’s important for today’s post.  The track is made of that red, foamy rubber stuff that feels great on the feet; the middle of the track is covered in turf instead of grass and has the little black rubber beads in it, too; there are bleachers that are in good shape and are made specifically for running them because they are high, with evenly spaced stairs; and there is a bathroom within 5 min of walking to it (ESSENTIAL for a woman).

I am going to take yesterday’s basic workout and add a ton of fillers to it.  Depending on what I add, it will lean either more to the conditioning side (lots of plyos and rest) or more to the cardio side (not much rest but much less intensity).  I will color code this because the anal engineer in me says that that makes the most sense.  You don’t want to know what the lazy woman in me said.  I told her to shut up for your benefit.

Red = added to yesterday’s workout

DYNAMIC WARM UP

1. Performed in a straight line, over 15 feet or so.  Backslash BP means to return to start with a back pedal.
2. 8 “runs”—each way is 1 run—get faster with each run so that the last one is just short of a sprint
3. High knees/BP
4. Every 3^rd high knee/BP
5. Butt kickers/BP
6. Every 3^rd butt kicker/BP
7. Skip/BP/10 mtn climbers (from the down position, pop up into skip for height)
8. Skip for height/BP/10 mtn climbers (from the down position, pop up into skip for distance)
9. Skip for distance/BP/10 mtn climbers (from the down position, pop up into skips with a twist)
10. Skips with a twist
11. 5 push ups/Shuffle/5 push ups/shuffle (“pop up” from the push up like a burpee; do not get up slowly and shuffle)
12. 3 groiners for stretch/Carioka/3 groiners for stretch/Carioka
13. 5 gateswings/side run/5 gateswings/side run
14. 180’s
15. 360’s
16. Fast walking lunge
17. Lunge and rotate
18. Frankensteins
19. Prisoner walks
20. Round house shuffle
21. Monster walks

The purpose of this warm up is two-fold:  warm you up dynamically in a way that mimics the movements you are about to do and get you used to flowing from one move to the next.  For example, when you back pedal back it is very natural to go right down to the ground at the end of it.  This puts you in the position to do a mountain climber.  From the down position of a mtn climber, you are almost in the “start block position” and you go right into a skip.  This forces you to learn how to go from floor to fast, but we’re not doing in it into a run because we’re not Flo Jo so back it down.

WARM UP SPRINT—this doesn’t change

1. Start at the beginning of the straight away
2. Run at a fast, but easy, pace half of the distance of the straight away.
3. Walk back to start.
4. Do this 3 to 5 times depending on how long it takes you to loosen up and feel comfortable.

SPRINTS AND SUCH

Start in start block position, run faster speed than the first set of sprints for the entire length of the 100m strip.  Walk back.  Repeat 2 more times.

HERE ARE THE FILLERS

Conditioning:

Rest a full 3 min. from the sprints.  Really do this or you’ll be junk by the end of the second set of sprints.  Respect rest periods.

Head to the bleachers.  Run up/down the bleachers 2 times.  At the bottom do 10 squat jumps, 10 squat thrusts and 10 prone jacks.  Repeat 1 time.  Rest 3 full min.

Begin another set of sprints again only this time, empty everything you have into the pavement.  You will only feel fast for the first one.  You will get progressively slower after that.  Rest fully now.  However long it takes to come down to normal breathing, take it.   You’ll notice this will get better every week.  Head to the turf.  This should be a football field marked off in 5 yards.  Find a vacant “10 yard space” for you to perform a 5/5/10/10.  You are going to perform an exercise for 5 yards Right, 5 yards L, 10 yards R, 10 yards left.

• Sprint/sprint/sprint/sprint
• Shuffle/shuffle/skip for height/skip for distance
• Bear crawl/bear crawl/carioca/carioca
• Sprint/BP/Sprint/BP

Rest 1 min.  Do this in sets of 4, do no more than 3 sets as a filler and use anything you want such as leap frogs, side runs and so on.  Get creative.  Rest fully again.  However long it takes.

Last set of 3.  Feel this one out.  If you feel good, do them full speed.  If you’re new to this, just “run fast” but don’t empty your tank into the track or you could get hurt.  Rest fully.  Head to bleachers.  This is a combo filler.  Run up the bleachers 1 time.  Come down, run to the turf.  Peform the following crank 1 time:

• 20 rapid fire squats
• 10 jump squats
• 10 squat thrusts
• 10 burpees

No rest AT ALL b/w exercises.

And then run 4—5/5/10/10’s.  Rest 2 min and repeat the entire sequence again.  If your bleachers are short, double the amount.  Time for cool down.

Cardio:

Rest a full 3 min. from the sprints.  Really do this or you’ll be junk by the end of the warm up.  Respect rest periods.

Run a 400.  Not all out as a sprint, but at a good pace.  Rest 3 full min and repeat one more time.  Rest 3 min.

Begin another set of sprints again only this time, empty everything you have into the pavement.  You will only feel fast for the first one.  You will get progressively slower after that.  Rest fully now.  However long it takes to come down to normal breathing, take it.   You’ll notice this will get better every week.  Run the bleachers 2 times, come down and run across the track (meaning across the turf) to the other side and back at 70% of max.  Repeat this for time (5 min), not reps.  Rest 3 min.

Last set of 3.  Feel this one out.  If you feel good, do them full speed.  If you’re new to this, just “run fast” but don’t empty your tank into the track or you could get hurt.  Rest 3 min.  Run the curve of the track, if they have bleachers on each side you’re going to loop the track by doing the bleachers on the straightaway, a good run on the curves.  Do this for 10 min. People will think you’re nuts—tell them you lost your wallet while running.

Same cool down as yesterday for both conditioning and cardio sections.  We’ll change that next time.

Do you have all that?   I know it’s a lot.  I’ll elaborate more when we head to the park tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

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Let’s jump (wow, unintended bad pun right there) right into this:

BEFORE YOU START

Sneakers: Running shoes.  Do not wear minimalist sneakers if you have never sprinted before, you will blow out your shins.  Bring those in slowly.  Sneakers are personal so no, I do not have a recommendation of a brand.

Time: NOT HIGH NOON.  I always see at least one crazy person on a track sprinting at high noon at least once a year.  And don’t ask why I’m there to see it–I’m nosy ok?  You feel better now?  If you go early morning, the grass will be wet.  Don’t walk through it, soak up your feet and then try to sprint with maximum traction.  Stay off the grass.  If you go later in the day, close to evening, the mosquitoes will make a meal of you so bring some OFF to show them who’s boss.  Track mosquitoes are a special gigantic breed that has been brought over from the Amazon.  Take heed.

Water: If it is hot, water may not be enough.  Nuuns are easy to bring with you in case you need them and are way better than any kind of Gatoraide product that’s going to kill your physique.

THE TRACK

Assuming this is a standard track, the straightaway is 100m; the curve is 100m.  Altogether the entire way around is 400m.  Don’t try to stay in your lane or get all technical, just get around the track.  Be mindful of other people and don’t hog up a whole area like we can in the gym because most tracks are for public use so they’ll be all types roaming around when you get there.

If it has bleachers, fabulous!  Make sure they are sturdy.  TEST THEM OUT before you barrel up them like Chariots of Fire on crack.  You’d be surprised at how many good looking but falling apart bleachers there are out there.

Dynamic warm ups are best done on the straightaway that is separated from the track.  Typically it’s about 8 to 15 feet that is set aside and leads right into the straight portion of the track.  Most people will not bother you if you use that as your warm up area.  Do not start your sprint from there, though, because it adds to the length of the 100m sprint.

WHAT YOU ARE WORKING

Overall: Conditioning.  We do not use these for anything other than to give you a nice tight body.  However, there is a nice side effect to sprinting which is your overall lung capacity.  If you are a runner, you’ll be able to run faster, longer after a few weeks of sprinting.  If you’re a gym rat, you’ll notice that your intense days of cardio in the gym are no longer intense and you’ll have to kick it up a notch.

Body:

• ‘Start block starts’ work the glutes, hamstrings and calves.
• The first ten steps work the quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves.
• Top speed running works the hamstrings.

I left out the hip flexors and other terminology like push/pull phase or return swing on purpose.  Unclog your mind of those things for now.  This is about appearance–not performance.

Mental stamina: There is something about sprinting that makes us feel fierce and productive.  Capitalize on this; don’t shy away.  Sweaty, smelly workouts that are directly correlated with a sense of being uniquely strong keep us focused on the task at hand, dieting, more than anything else we’ll do all week long.

THE WORKOUT

A true track workout should not take more than 15 min.  We use them for conditioning only.  When used as cardio, lots of fillers are put in to add to the length of the workout and all fillers MUST BE less intense than the sprint portion of the workout or you will fry yourself.  Adding too much stuff into the workout is a great way to get injured but this happens because we feel like we can conquer the world once we start releasing speed.  Get your head together, girl.  You’re coming back next week.  No need to shove it all in at one time.  Here are the components:

• Dynamic Warmup
• Warm up sprints
• Full out sprinting
• Add ins, fillers and rest periods
• Cool down

I will break all of these down for you tomorrow.  I’ll give you things to think about, how to do them, where you get yourself into trouble and how to keep it fresh.  Today, though, I’m just going to give you a sample workout to sink your teeth into so you have an idea of what I’m going to walk you through tomorrow and because I promised that I would.  I don’t want you to think I’m holding out.

You can google any of these exercises if you don’t know what they are:

DYNAMIC WARM UP

Performed in a straight line, over 15 feet or so.  Backslash BP means to return to start with a back pedal.

1. 8 “runs”—each way is 1 run
2. High knees/BP
3. Butt kickers/BP
4. Skip/BP
5. Skip for height/BP
6. Skip for distance/BP
7. Shuffle/shuffle
8. Carioka/Carioka
9. 180’s
10. 360’s
11. Frankensteins
12. Prisoner walks
13. Round house shuffle
14. Monster walks

WARM UP SPRINT

Start at the beginning of the straight away

Run at a fast, but easy, pace half of the distance of the straight away.

Walk back to start.

Do this 3 to 5 times depending on how long it takes you to loosen up and feel comfortable.

SPRINTS

Start in start block position, run faster speed than before the entire length of the 100m strip.  Walk back.  Repeat 2 more times.  Take a walk around the track or put a filler here.  I’ll explain tomorrow what fillers are.

Begin another set of sprints again only this time, empty everything you have into the pavement.  You will only feel fast for the first one.  You will get progressively slower after that.  Walk around again or add another filler.

Last set of 3.  Feel this one out.  If you feel good, do them full speed.  If you’re new to this, just “run fast” but don’t empty your tank into the track or you could get hurt.  Walk around the track or last filler.

You’re done.  This is as basic as it gets.  It’s time to cool down.

COOL DOWN

1. Prisoner walks
2. Thinker
3. Lunge and rotate
4. Over the fence, under the fence
5. Hip hip

Tomorrow we’ll do a “fancy” track workout with plyos and cranks before we move onto the park and the beach.  Sound good?  Woop woop!!

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There are two types of track workouts:  one for your performance where you worry about getting faster, better, stronger by manipulating rest periods, work load and intensity; and one for your physique where you work out so hard that the only thing you can imagine happening the next day is that your rear end and quads turn into cement thereby satisfying your desire to have unnaturally hard glutes and thighs.  But most of us have zero idea of how to differentiate between the two so we create these great track workouts and then worry about details that do not matter to us physique athletes and neglect those that do.   I will give you some much needed information on form, what part of your legs you’re working on doing what and workload so you can stop blindly following the workouts in magazines and start creating your own that are tailored to your physique rather than your performance.  I’m going to put up 3 sprint workouts for you to play around with and then use as a model for whenever you want to punish work on your back side.  They will be as follows:  1) traditional track workout, 2) I-don’t-have-a-track-near-me workout (i.e. park/street) and 3) beach workout.

Right now, I think it’s essential to get some of your questions out of the way before we start.

Why do I give a flying rat’s behind about a track workout in the first place?

Because you like a nice butt and legs and who better to model than “those who could hold a new born baby with their butt cheeks”.  Out of all professional athletes, no backside consistently compares to those of sprinters.  They’re super human almost.

Why can’t I just go run some sprints and be done with it?

Because you’re a type A psycho and you and I both know that if you are left to your own devices, you’ll do this 3X’s a week, add some plyos, run some bleachers, run to the track and back, lift before hand, do yoga after…really, right now?  Once you “just go run some sprints” you’ll think that wasn’t enough and you can add a little more to the workout…

Is there a limit to how many times a week I can do this?

Yes, one.  I know you can do more than that.  I know your girlfriend runs track and she does 2 to 3 days per week.  I know you’ve been doing it more than that for years.  Yes, I know you want to speed this process up and that you have a goal and that you’ve been this weight for so long and {big gasp as I take a loud breath}…

You know I always say this:  you cannot burn the candle on both ends.  Concentrate on food or concentrate on workout.  But do not try to diet and beat yourself to a pulp because the only thing you will lose is ground.

Does this count as cardio?

Nope.  Now how do you like dem apples?  This is too anaerobic to count as cardio but I will tell you how you can make it cardio if you like.

I can’t run fast.  I’m not built to sprint.

Do you have a butt?  Right…get on the track.  Here’s the deal:  you are not a sprinter.  You never have been and you never will be.  And even if you were, you aren’t one now.  I’m sure your mechanics are frightening—don’t worry about it.  For what we want out of this, you’re fabulous at it.  What matters is you give the pavement everything you have once you are warmed up.  Nothing else matters.  I will give you tips on how to survive this and then soon learn how to master it so you really do feel like you are doing some work.

I look stupid and uncoordinated doing this.

Really?  To who?  The 75 year old man walking the track?  Girl, get over yourself.  The majority of people out there only care about their workout and the way they look.  They did not drive there so they could spend 30 min. ogling over you.  Now when we get to the beach workout, that’s a different story.

I thought you said you were going to do outdoor workouts–not track workouts.

This is outdoors, what’s wrong with you?  Unless you have some super long basement I’m not tuned into.   Day 2 and 3 are less about sprinting and are more about getting outside to the park or beach and working out.  Jeez Louise.  (Anybody else like that argument I just had with myself?

I’m afraid I’m going to get hurt.

Now this is a legitimate concern and there is always a level of risk you take on when you do anything high intensity or full out.  Take it slow in the beginning.  Remember, you’re not a sprinter so leave your ego in the car.  We get ourselves in trouble when we think we don’t have to warm up or pay attention to the fact that we’re not under 18 anymore.

My aim is to finish this series this week; I really do not want to drag it on.  Can you believe it’s already mid July?!  So far for New England this has been a wonderful summer.  I have zero complaints so I want to get this out to you ladies while we have the nice weather.  Check in tomorrow for the first workout.  Woop woop!!

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We’ve had four posts in the Summer Time series and instead of reviewing them for you and dragging this out with a 1200 word post (which by the way I try so hard not to go on that long), I’m going to give you the goods like I promised in bullet form:

Perfection Vs Excellence

Your weight, your shape, your progress and so on are based on a COLLECTION of what you do in the week, NOT on a single workout or cardio session.  If you get into that mindset of thinking you gained or lost weight based on a meal/cheat or cardio session, you will go bonkers trying to lose weight.  You actually lose/gain weight over several days.  It can be over a few days or as much as 8 or 9 days but not over 1 meal or missed cardio session.

SUMMER GUIDELINES

• You can faithfully miss 1 cardio session/week and it will not do a thing to you short term.
• Trust me when I say this, ease up on your schedule.  It will begin to feel like a grind if you give up too many fun things to make sure you make the gym.  Schedule in one fun thing per week.
• If you relax on the workout, make sure that you are not relaxing too much on the food.  It’s either or—not both.  See alcohol for what I mean by this.

Tomfoolery Vs Jackassery

When it comes to alcohol, it is not what you mix it with that is the problem nor is it the kind you choose.  So please do not bother wasting your time getting vodka over gin because of the calories or light beer vs full flavor, etc.  The problem with alcohol IS the alcohol.  Your body cannot process it and it bogs your liver down.  Instead of burning fat, it’s trying to get the toxins out.  That’s wasted time.  I say this all the time, “You do not gain weight drinking alcohol, you just don’t lose.”  If you’re losing a ½ pound to a pound a week—there’s your plateau.

SUMMER GUIDELINES

• I do not recommend you drinking every week.  Choose your battles.  Alongside killing progress, alcohol also kills definition.  So if you have great ab lines right now and you want to drink every week, kiss them good bye.
• Still losing weight = no alcohol
• Still losing weight but patient about it = 1 drink night per month
• Want to maintain = 2 drink nights per month divvied out as 1 night every other week
• Want to gain a few pounds = after about 6-8 weeks of drinking every week, that’ll happen.
• ALCOHOL IS NOT A CHEAT MEAL.  EVER.  EVER EVER.  If you are going to drink, drink.  But don’t try to lighten up the day to do so b/c it doesn’t matter.
• If you go out to eat and want to drink, no starch with the meal, drink AFTER you eat.  You’ll be less likely to order something stupid like fried avocado.

Working Out Vs Burning Out

I wish I could tell you how long I have been doing this and I always hear, “I love to do XYZ.  I will never stop loving it.”  That’s crap.  That goes for food, workouts and all forms of cardio except running (they are a special breed).   All work and no play made Jack a dull boy but it made Jill one crabby chic!  Get out of the gym and do something different.  Unless you live in Arizona where it has been over 107 degrees for like 2 months straight—at that point, just keep keepin’ on.

SUMMER GUIDELINES

• Get in at least 2 lifts in per week.
• Go to full bodies and drop the splits if you know you’ll be missing a lot of days.  You will not mess up your progress!
• Don’t fear change.  You didn’t get that body in one workout, you won’t lose it in one either but with that being said, do not cut your current schedule by more than 50% overall.
• Boot camp is not cardio–it’s more like what I call ‘conditioning’.  Good for maintenance, not always for loss; but more importantly you shouldn’t be doing it 5 days per week.  Limit how many times per week you do plyos or high impact.
• Yoga, pilates and any mind body classes are good for maintenance, but not for progress.  So if you are where you want to be, put them in!  This goes for any other kind of class that may involve outdoors or change of pace.

Perspective Vs Introspective

I love being a woman and I love serving women.  Never a dull work week. Nuff said.

SUMMER GUIDELINES

• Realize that we all have at least one friend that we wish would accidently wake up one day with an extra 15 pounds on her, covered in acne with out of control facial hair.  It never happens, but we can fantasize.
• If someone is bragging hardcore, they are massively insecure.  Give her love instead of dirty looks—something’s up.
• Know you bring something of value to the group.  There is something about you that none of them have and they want it.  It’s the law of womanhood.  Recognize what it is and secretly smile about it.
• YOU CAN CHANGE THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE NIGHT!  If it becomes a catty, nasty night you can change it.  You do not have to chime in and if you are really good, you can make them feel bad for being that way without being all “holier-than-thou” about it.

If I missed something specific you wanted to know, ask me below.  Next series is on outdoor workouts.  Let’s put some legs to these guidelines!  Woop woop!

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My, my the months are flying by.  It seems like eons ago when you cleaned up your diet and really put your mind to getting in shape for the summer.  All those hours in the gym and kitchen have done your body some good in that you look great—probably the best you have in a long time—but you feel like crap and your absolutely petrified about stopping what you’re doing because you do not want to go backwards again.  This is the second time on the weight loss roller coaster and not only is it getting harder, but it’s truly getting old.  Peace seems to be fleeting and there has to be someone who can honestly make this happen on a daily basis.  You’re starting to think that you’ll never achieve maintenance, that it’s all a big lie and somehow you’ll be a prisoner forever of this body you once wanted.

I am so tired of the gym.  It’s gorgeous outside.  I want to try the new bootcamp class at my gym, I heard it’s hard, but I can’t do that, lift and do my cardio.  I’m not giving up my lift, I don’t know if it’s “cardio” enough to replace my cardio.  I also want to try the outdoor standing pilates class.  Ugh!

Burning out makes you:

Irrational. Many of us think what got us here was whatever the last thing we were doing.  We cannot for the life of us see the sum total of all that we do and because of that, we are held hostage by the thought that  “I did A + B and got C” and if I don’t do it in that order and in that particular way, I’ll lose all my hard work.  If you stay at this pace and mindset, though, you’ll implode.

Working out makes you:

Confident. You realize that it wasn’t one specific thing that you have done to get here and it won’t be one specific thing that keeps you here either.  You’ll keep a close watch on how your clothes are fitting, but this is summer and you need a break from the indoors.

You begin to write out your current schedule so you can see where you can cut corners but you’re not getting anywhere.  On the one hand, you need a break.  Being inside, lifting weights, the boring cardio all bother you and you know that you can change it up a little but you’re not sure how much.  On the other hand, changing it right now sends your mind into a tail spin:  What do I keep in?  What do I get rid of?  What matters?  The more you read, the less you know and the more adamant you become that you are not doing this all over again.

Burning out makes you:

Aggravated and confused. Because you are operating out of fear, you are not making sound decisions which in turn make you feel trapped and resentful.   Ultimately, you realize that you are not going to blow up overnight but you can’t seem to shake that nagging feeling that you are making a big mistake.  This sends you on an internet/FB frenzy of seeing what other people are doing for the summer.  However, this only makes you more manic and you’re about to ‘not work out altogether’ out of pure stress.  Yes, not smart and worse than if you just went to boot camp but emotions are incredibly powerful as you are now finding out and they don’t always help us in our time of need.

Working out makes you:

Satisfied and lucid. After writing out your schedule you decide to keep 2 days/week as a lift, 3 days of boot camp and cardio on an ‘as needed’ basis.  You’ll try out the pilates first to see if it’s challenging and if it is, you may try to fit it in.  But you already know that you’ll be going away a lot on the weekends so you’ll be making lots of adjustments all summer long.  This will not be the only time you do this, this summer.

One of the biggest mistakes that we make in fitness is basing what we do off of what someone else is doing rather than basing it off of what we need.  Instead of learning what our bodies really respond to and what truly makes us tick, we blindly follow behind those we admire and stalk on the internet, not realizing that 50% of what they post is fiction and the other 50% they are not telling you because it’s a “secret”.  There are reasons you do not trust letting go of the reigns and they’re more than just worrying about the outcome:

• Not understanding what “worked” in the first place
• Putting too much value on your appearance
• Wanting to follow random people’s programs because it’s easier and heck, they look great so why not
• Wanting, needing and relying on structure but then resenting the restriction of the rigid structure

If you allow these things to continue to control you, you will struggle FOREVER every time summer, the holidays and wedding season comes around and you WILL burnout.  I know I said it before but it bears repeating because I’m not stirring this up without follow thru:  I promise I will give you some firm guidelines at the end of this series.  In the mean time, though, learn your body!  I can guarantee you that it requires much less upkeep than you think and that most of you are just continuously beating it into submission until it no longer wants to listen to you.  And that’s not good.  Woop woop!

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I go to the gym Monday through Friday right after I drop my kids off at school.  (For those of you who are wondering, I finally started coming to a stop for my kids to get out of the car.  No more pushing them out as I drive by.   It’s been working well for us.  Thanks for your concern.;)  It’s a basic gym, nothing extraordinary about it and I go at that odd time of the morning where it’s the end of the early morning rush but before the mommy time starts so it’s never crowded.  Every day that I am at the gym there is a woman on the Arc Trainer—her special Arc Trainer—covered in about 2 gallons of sweat and I used to always think, ‘Work it girl!’ when I saw her doing cardio.  Then one day I got on next to her and she was covered in sweat while the display of her machine said 7 minutes.  I immediately thought, “Holy crap.  What setting could you possibly have that on if you are that sweaty after 7 minutes?!  I need to get a hook up from sister-girl on how to juice the Arc Trainer for everything it has.”  Then I got on again about a week or two later when her display read about 50 min or so (I know I wrote about this before on some post but I can’t find it right now) and while I was doing my cardio it looped at 60 min and started counting from 1 again.  What the…?  What is THAT about?  Who in this day and age has that much time to do that much cardio all week long?  Holy ticking time, Batman!

So today I just happen to be there before she was and she came in and put her stuff on the machine before going to the lockers to put her stuff away.  What she used to “hold her spot” was 7 pieces of gum neatly lined up on the machine—meanwhile she was chewing away on some already before setting up shop.  Holy intestinal fortitude!  I got the runs just knowing she was going to chew all that in that short of time.  Well short time for 7 pieces of gum, long time for useless cardio.  Thankfully I was done 5 minutes after she came back so I had enough time to stock up on Cank-Aid and warm salty water.  This brings me to some more of the basics…

I am going to start running, I need to lose some weight.

Good luck with that.  Using running to lose weight is like using a spoon to empty bathwater out of your tub; you will eventually get it done.  If you insist on running as a form of weight loss, do it the right way by incorporating speed drills and sprints into your runs and you’ll really achieve what you’re hoping for.

Can I do the weight lifting class at my gym instead of lifting?  It’s so boring and I hate it.

You mean the class that does more reps in one hour than I would ever do in one week?  I would say no simply because you cannot lift heavy enough.  And I can’t say this enough:  group fitness has its place in life but not as a primary if your desire is to look good naked.

What do you think about…{insert diet concept/book/workout technique/DVD/latest fad here}?

Who cares?  You know you don’t.  I could tell you that it causes a new arm to grow out of your neck and if you are hell bent on it enough, you’ll bring an extra sleeve for your shirt just in case.  Seriously.  And honestly, if it is going to energize you, challenge you, inspire you and so on and it is safe, I say go for it.  I hope that most of us have been around long enough to know that change matters more than the actual diet or workout itself.  Not to mention, are you new to dieting or not?  If you are new, you’ll lose weight running to the shower in the morning.  If you’re a veteran, you could scale Mount Kilimanjaro eating only a bean and a half of pear and maybe, just maybe, you’ll lose a half pound by the end of the week.

I started doing bootcamp 5 days a week.  Is that ok?

Only if they mix it up.  If you are doing 5 days of jumping/plyometrics, that is not ok.  And if it is really a glorified run club, see #1.

It is cool to see people in their “stages of readiness”.   When we first start out we just want to lose some weight.  But then we lose a few pounds and realize we look the same as before, just smaller.  Then we go to a beach and put on a bathing suit and realize we’re so crinkly that we look like we wrapped ourselves in cellophane before we left the house.  That sets us on a mission to be smaller and tighter.  The rest is history but it’s wild to watch it go down in slow motion.  This wraps up all the questions asked to me in April.  May is proving to be a slow month which is nice because I need to regenerate in my hole office after all that.  Woop woop!

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 For Butters Or For Worse [10:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I am a nudge.  I won’t deny it.  Many of you who know me are thinking the same thing right now.  Actually, you’re thinking:  “I love you, girl, but you annoy me.  You always say the thing I want to hear least that day (always said with pure love).”  That I do.  So why should today be any different?  I figure, as long as I am fulfilling your need (i.e. supplying you with butt changing info), then it’s okay for me to fulfill my needs (i.e. get you to see how destructive chasing a body part can be).

I always say I love what I do but today I want to be more specific:  I love you.  No, seriously, I do.  I love you tremendously—even if I have never met you.  Why?  Because you are just like me and I love that.  Whatever you do now, I’ve done before and probably twenty times more than whatever you are doing now.  I love to talk to you.  I love to know what makes you tick. I love to hear about all of your successes.  And I love to see you happy.  NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING (in the context of my line of work) makes me more happy than to call a woman who is having a “ah-hah” moment.  It’s like music to my ears.  You can hear my smile over the phone.  It’s crazy.

But now think of the flip side of that.  When you’re unhappy, I’m concerned.  My heart aches because I remember what it was like to be in a not-so-good place and how isolating it can feel.  It’s not like we want to talk about it because we feel like people will think we’re crazy, whiny or the worst of them all—weak.  We don’t want to admit we have some faults or somehow can’t get it together so we just “keep on keepin’ on” hoping that no one notices we just ate an entire package of double stuff oreos in two days.  We’ll quickly regroup from that only to be the most rigid dieter this side of the buffet display and after a while it all gets so annoying doesn’t it?  Somewhere in all that lunacy, we find balance and we settle into a body that is good…decent…not bad–however you want to describe it, please do so.  It’s not like we’re super disgusted, it’s more like we’re just not satisfied.  This is where body part obsession takes root and becomes a bit alarming.

Our bodies can be nice to look at so it’s great to keep them well oiled and maintained but their primary purpose is to function for us not appear as trophies.  We have bums for a reason and it’s not to serve as a beacon of failure for our diets or our lives.  They are meant to hinge us at the hips, move us from side to side and help us get the heck out of Dodge when necessary.  They have a primary function in the body; not a secondary function like our tummies (yes, tummies are our core, but ideally our abs and back serve as our core/trunk and nutrition makes a great tummy—not crunches).   This is a huge thing to think about, seriously, because as you pound away at your booty you may be setting yourself up for some major surgery later on.

Although I love writing, I stress when I set out to write articles like this because on the screen they can read as preachy or judgmental.  I can tell you without a doubt that nothing like that is going through my head right now.  What’s running through my mind is what I was like when I wanted nicer shoulders and the only word that I can think of is “fixated”.  It was my main focus and I cared about nothing else besides my shoulders.   Fortunately, I was interrupted from destroying my neck/shoulder region (or unfortunately if you know why I was interrupted) because I really do think that if I continued on I would have had two grapefruits sitting at the top of my arms like a dot on an i.  Of course, reaching over my head or putting a shirt on wouldn’t be possible but dang it all, I’d’ve looked good! (I made that double contraction up. Work with it.

Function matters.  A lot.  I know we do not all have access to the top physical therapists out there (or have the awesome Heather on their staff) but it is worth it if you can at least once in your fitness career be evaluated for your weaknesses.  If you have tight hip flexors and weak glutes to begin with, when you go to do any of the exercises mentioned you run a high risk of not engaging your glutes properly thereby killing your progress.  You think that you aren’t doing enough so you keep doing more of the same and your weaknesses snowball from there.  If you train for function more than you train for form, you will be much better off.   The catch here is twofold:  1) to get over yourself enough to embrace a new way to train other than strict body part training and 2) to take the time off from hard training to do any necessary mobility work if need be.  How many of us really do anything preventative?

I know what you’re thinking.  “Then teach me to do it the right way, Jodi.  What am I missing?”  I can’t, it’s not my gig, but I know whose it is and I will give you that info at the end of this series.  I have a little more to talk about and I don’t want you to lose your focus by focusing on your bum which is the focus of this series.  You need to focus!  We haven’t even touched dieting, yet, and how you diet does make a difference in what your bum looks like.

Where does this leave you then?  What’s my point in drawing your attention to function and not form?  Balance.  Make sure that your program has balance.  Spread out the butt stuff throughout the week or do a good butt workout once, maybe twice in a week.  But do not go crazy and make every day a butt day by putting in something in every workout.  That’s not good.   Here are some guidelines for you:

1)      Limit the plyometric activity to no more than twice a week. This means sprints as well as pure plyos.  The pounding action of sprints and plyos take a toll on your spine and your feet.  Ease up, killah, before you look like your Aunt Ethel who is all of 4ft 3in by the time you’re done jumping.

2)      Have someone take a look at your program for obvious imbalances. You want to cover all planes of motion in a full body and have something with lateral movement if just a lower body.  Whether you do this in the warm up or in the program itself it doesn’t matter.  Just make sure your workout is not one big variation of the step up.

3)      Pay attention to injuries! So many times I talk to girls and they are working through some major junk like it’s nothing talking about, “I just need to look good for my…”  Listen, if you show up walking like Quasimodo, was it worth it to you?  Knock it off and see a physical therapist!

Nutrition is next.  Some radical supplementation talk for you butter butts and a few other things.  Hang tight.  Woop woop! )

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