An Early Christmas Present from the Two Buff Chicks

Becky and I have a whole bunch of holiday related workouts.  Yesterday we did one of our all-time favorites.  We do it every year around Christmas.  We thought you might like to try it today or tomorrow.  Then you can feel strong and good about yourself even if you are a complete slug on Christmas Day.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• You should try to be as festive as possible during this workout.  Wear antlers, wear red and green clothing, wear bells, sing Christmas carols.  Be as obnoxiously festive as you can.
• There isn't a lot of leg work in this workout.  If you want to work your legs, change some of the exercises or add to them.  We were plenty tired without working our legs.
• We have been doing this workout for several years.  Each year it takes a little longer to wear us out.  But if this is your first year and you want to take it easy, do just some of the exercises.  Or if you're a maniac, do the whole thing twice.  Whatever works for you is what we want you to do.
• Singing the song as you work out can be quite annoying to the people around you.  Don't ask us how we know that.

 The Twelve Days of Christmas Workout

Directions:  For the first round, perform the first day exercise (5 push-ups).  For the second round, perform the second day exercise AND the first day exercise (5 stability ball crunches and 5 push-ups).  Continue in this manner until in the last round, you will perform all twelve exercises.  If you're good at math you will have quickly calculated that you will have done 60 push-ups by the end of this workout.

On the first day of Christmas we did 5 push-ups
On the second day of Christmas we did 5 stability ball crunches
On the third day of Christmas we did 5 bicep curls
On the fourth day of Christmas we did 5 triceps extensions
On the fifth day of Christmas we did 5 overhead press
On the sixth day of Christmas we did 10 jumping jacks
On the seventh day of Christmas we did 5 stability ball crunches
On the eighth day of Christmas we did 10 upright row
On the ninth day of Christmas we did 10 incline press
On the tenth day of Christmas we did 12 bent over lat raises
On the eleventh day of Christmas we did 12 triceps kickbacks
On the twelfth day of Christmas we did 15 assisted pull-ups

Just our little gift to you!  Have fun!

Penance

Here is my post-vacation confession:  I did not do one single solitary lick of exercise during my entire week in South Carolina.  I thought about it.  I thought about it a lot.  While my husband was out for his 4 or 5 mile runs, I thought about it.  On the days it warmed up and the wind stopped blowing, I thought about it.  I even thought about my usual morning crunches and push-ups.  But thinking never once led to doing.  I did not even go for a walk. 

Food-wise I did okay.  I tried to be sure to get my water, eat my fruits and veggies, and stop when I was full.  There was one particularly ugly incident involving a box of Cheez-Its that I found in my mother-in-law's kitchen, but other than that things seem to have stayed in balance.

So now it's back to the land of the ice and snow.  I have been exercising hard and faithfully since my return and continuing to try to make good choices when I eat.  As a result, I'm a little sore and a little hungry.  But that's okay.  Sometimes you need a little break and then you go back to your regular habits and life moves on.

And in the meantime, on days when I leave the gym and my fingers get so cold that I have to run the heat on full blast all the way home in order to warm up, I can always come home and look at this picture:

Or this one:

Yes, that's a dolphin.  He was totally awesome!  Even better than a box of Cheez-Its!

Zzzzzzzz

You know how they always have those lists of things you need to do to be healthy?  Well, I can make myself exercise.  I can make myself eat properly.  I can make myself take a multivitamin.  I can make myself floss.  But how the heck do you make yourself get a good night's sleep?  Either you get one or you don't.  And they keep pointing out how that is one of the most important things you can do, which only adds to my stress level when I'm trying to sleep. 

I can fall asleep.  But if I wake up, I'm up.  Last night I woke up at 1:30 a.m. and I don't really think I ever fell fully back to sleep all night.  I tried really hard to make myself do it, but myself was having none of it.  I'm nice and sleepy now, though, thanks very much!  I'm a bad napper, though, so I will just try to tough it out until bedtime.

My son says if you wake up in the night you should get up and do something productive, because that quiets your mind and makes it possible for you to go back to sleep.  Usually it's too warm in the bed and too cold out of the bed for me to consider that, but I may get desperate and try it.  I could count sheep or better yet, count the days until Becky turns 50...oh, that wouldn't take very long so scratch that.

Anyway, here's wishing you a good night's sleep and wishing myself one as well.

Winter in the South

As I mentioned yesterday, it's cold in South Carolina.  Those of you in Minnesota might not have much sympathy, but the locals here keep telling us it never gets this cold in December, so we're feeling a little chilled.  Yesterday the wind was blowing so hard you could have surfed on the whitecaps in the sound.  Not the ocean, the sound.  And you ain't seen nothin' until you've seen hunks of Spanish Moss rolling across parking lots like tumbleweeds.

But the trade off?  Here is how they decorate the harbor for Christmas.  It is so pretty and really gets you in the spirit.  (It also helps that the forecast for later this week is 60's and sunny).

People have the masts of their boats lit up with Christmas lights and the reflection off the water is just beautiful.

By the way, today's fitness effort was to look up the local YMCA on Google and try to find it.  We ended up in the middle of a fancy-schmancy subdivision where the nice lady in the guard shack told us we weren't the first ones to have been misdirected.  She thought she knew where it was but when we went where she sent us, there was nothing that resembled the YMCA except a basketball goal in an empty parking lot.  With Spanish Moss rolling by like tumbleweeds.

Vacation Fitness

My husband and I took off for the coast of South Carolina this week, leaving our son at home to have fun with final exams and midwestern blizzards.  But even in South Carolina, it's not very tempting to go outside and exercise.  The wind is blowing fairly hard and the temperature is in the 30's.  Even though the sun is shining and it looks pretty outside, I really have been having trouble making myself get out into it for anything other than shopping or going out to dinner.

This morning my husband got up, ate breakfast and said he was going to go for a run.  Instead he sat down on the couch and watched a little t. v.  Then he had lunch and a nap.  I took his picture while he was napping but he refused to let me put it on the blog.  I don't know why; his mouth was closed and he wasn't drooling or anything.  But I'm trying to be a nice wife so I won't put it on.

To be fair, and to keep from making him sound like as much of a slug as I am today, he is out at this moment running.  While I, on the other hand, am sitting at the computer desk, feeling regretful about all - no, make that some - of the calories I've taken in, but not bad enough to get up and do anything about it.  Some days you've got it, some days you don't.  Today I don't and I'm not even feeling particularly guilty about it.   Maybe I can do like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex & the City and use shopping for my cardio today.

Mmm, Good!

There's a great website out there that I wanted to pass on to you in case you haven't heard of it.  It's  called hungrygirl.com and there are all kinds of good recipes that are healthy and really fill you up.  She takes regular recipes and makes them better for you, then shows you the comparison between her way and the usual way.  Hungry Girl also checks out restaurant food to let you know some good choices when you go out to eat (and terrifies you with stats on some of them as well).  Tonight we are having her butternut squash fries; we've made them many times and they are delish!  You can also sign up to get daily emails with new tips and recipes. 

Danger, Will Robinson!

If you get that reference, you must be in my age group.  I used to love that show!  Even though it was a little sad if you thought about the long-term prospects for Will and Penny.  I mean, who were they going to marry?

But anyway, back to the point.  One thing I have learned about myself over the years is that I have a period of time every afternoon in which I need the robot from Lost in Space to come along and remind me I'm in danger.  The time between when I get home and when we eat dinner is the time when I sometimes think I'm going to starve.  If I don't quickly find something healthy to snack on, it can get pretty ugly.  Lately I've been slipping a bit, so it seems like a good time to think about healthy snacks that can get you through that long period between lunch and dinner.

Here are some of the things I like to keep on hand for my danger times:

• a hard boiled egg
• a tablespoon of hummus or low-fat ranch dressing or peanut butter with veggie sticks or whole grain crackers
• a wedge of Laughing Cow light swiss cheese with fat-free pretzels or whole grain crackers
• a cup of vegetable soup
• a small bowl of cereal with skim milk
• a piece of fruit with a tablespoon of peanut butter
• a big green salad
• a glass of skim milk and a couple of graham crackers

Measure everything out before you eat it so you don't continue to graze after you have had enough to satisfy you.  And remember to drink a big glass of water!  This should help keep danger at bay and keep you on track until dinner.