May 2012 – Betsy Schow

Chubby Wubby

I’m a wee bit concerned. My 5 year old is running around calling her sister chubby wubby. In a very cute and nice way of course. But still, I worry. Where is this coming from? TV? Or worse, my own preoccupation with fat?

I’m hoping it’s not the latter. I have tried hard not to bemoan my own “chubby wubby” rolls in the company of small kids. But this plays to my bigger fear, of having weight obsessed kids. It made my life miserable from about 12 yr old on. I don’t want that for my children. I want fit, healthy, happy kidlets- no matter the size or shape

I was about to sit down and have the chat about fat with the 5 yr old when I heard it. The gummy bear song on her iPod. The lyrics of which are “chubby wubby funny looking gummy bear”. Aha! The culprit was found

In an effort to avoid giving the kids my issues, I very nearly introduced it to her unnecessarily. Apparently one can be a bit too over vigilant. In the future I will just try to be easy breezy about it as I can.

Portion Control Made Easy

Once again, it is time for me to stand up and own my problems. I have an issue with portion control. A portion to me is whatever the heck is on my plate. I still have it drilled into me from when I was a kid and my mom would say, “Eat it all, there are starving kids in China.” Even if I’m not really hungry, I will keep picking at what’s left on the plate.

My solution? Only put on the plate what I can eat. At home, I’ll premake meals in individual portion sizes in disposable tupperwares. That way I can just grab one, reheat it, then eat the whole thing. And then I know I didn’t eat too much. If I’m eating out, I’ll get a to go box at the same time my food comes. Then I look at the plate and figure out what my portion should truly be. Then dump the rest in the doggy bag. Voila, I can now eat everything on my plate.

What about treats? Because no matter what diet you are on, everyone needs treats. Whenever I open a box or bag of cookies, I will go through and separate them into individual ziploc baggies with two cookies each. That usually equals 150 calories. Perfect for what I have allocated in my budget for treats that day. So now when I want something, I just grab a baggie and I don’t have to worry about my will power and looking down and finding half the box of vanilla wafers gone.

Give premeasuring a try. It’s alittle time consuming and OCD but well worth the effort.

Fitness Tip: Go outside

Hopefully it’s starting to get warm wherever you are. Unless you’re my friend Bindi from Australia. In which case you should pull out the ski poles.

For everybody else, it’s time to start skipping the gym and start skipping outside. Switch up your normal workouts with frisbee and touch football

Once you remember to put on the sunscreen, the sun can be beneficial Not only does tan fat look better than white fish skin, but people have been using light therapy to treat mood disorders for years.

So shake off the last bits of the summer blues. Be like Sheryl Crow. Go soak up the sun.

Long Run: Blessed taper

Right now is my favorite part of marathon training, the taper. About three weeks before the marathon, you do your longest run of the training. Then for the next three weeks, you taper down the miles until the week of the marathon, you are only running 2 miles at a time. After last Sunday’s 20 miler, I was thrilled that today was only 12. I know only 12 sounds a little nutty, but after you’ve already hit the much higher and harder numbers, 12 is a godsend.

The idea behind taper is that high intensity long lasting cardio is hell on you muscles and bones. Duh. So after you peak, you need those three weeks to repair the damage you’ve done by working it so hard. Makes me wonder, if this is built in, how crazy are all of us to do this knowing we are causing damage in the first place. Just a thought.

But that’s why I like the taper. It’s a rest, but it’s also actively recovering, healing, licking my wounds.I think I need to introduce the taper in the rest of my life. I think I’ve mentioned that I’m going back to college to finish up my degree in English. I wonder how they would feel about a taper. Amp up in homework until about three weeks before the final, then give little or no homework, allowing your brain to stop frying from all the cramming. I think it’s brilliant.

I need to figure out how to work this in with my family. “I’m sorry, I can’t take anymore together time. I’m maxed out and I need to taper.”

There is a sad part to the taper though. The less calories I burn, the less calories I can consume. I can’t get away with that extra brownie anymore.

Oh well, can’t have it all.

Yoga Pose: Chaturanga

It’s a fun word to say, but a pain in the butt to do. Part of the sun salutation, in power yoga, between nearly every pose you go through a vinyasa and do plank/chaturanga/updog/downdog. Great core and arm workout, but your arms will be shaking by the end.

Here is what chaturanga looks like.

Start at plank, otherwise known as push-up position. With the hands directly below the shoulders, inhale then exhale- lowering yourself slowly while keeping the belly tight and the back and bum in line. Stop and hover just a few inches above the ground. This is chaturanga.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, that’s me. If I can do it, so can you.

Potpourri: Muscle loss

Here’s my current lament. Intense cardio for long periods of time,- ie marathon training- eats muscle. Your heart rate surpasses that fat burning zone and starts eating the carbs and protein, not the fat. So whenever I hit this stage in training, all the hard work I put into my triceps and thighs – totally gone.

So as soon as my training is over (two and a half weeks!) it’s back to the weight room to tone up. Just declaring my intention so you can hold me accountable.

But glean the bit of information from the top, it’s hard to tone up and build muscle if you do regular high intensity (2 hours) cardio a few times a week. By high intensity, I mean your heart rate stays at darn near max the whole time.

50 Shades of Ranting

One of these days I will do a little more research before I buy a book. In this case I didn’t. So today this post is a rant in the guise of a review for 50 Shades of Grey.

Some of you are probably like, I think I’ve heard that name before. Others are probably like, Oh… that book. Well, last week I was in the first group. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was going on, just that I’d heard it was being made into a movie and it was Twilight Fan fiction. So when I saw it on the table at Costco, I thought I would see what the buzz was about. There’s an innocuous looking gray tie on the front cover. Sheep’s clothing people.

The first 3 chapters were torture. Absolute torture. It was forced, stilted, and generally made me want to run back to Costco for a refund. Terrible writing, but I persevered because millions of fans can’t be wrong right? Well, I suppose that’s a matter of taste.

I was expecting vampires, I was not expecting straight up S and M. I skimmed through the parts that I wouldn’t show my momma. But still I was drawn in. Why? I have no clue. The writing was very basic, the character’s personalities were swiped wholesale from twilight, and there were no paranormal elements at all. Just fifty shades of screwed-up soap opera-ness. This absolutely shouldn’t have worked. She took the very worst parts of Twilight (whiny girl who think’s she ugly even though she’s hot, rich overprotective guy who thinks he unredeemable) and beat them like a dead werewolf. Yet, I kept turning the page because I still wanted to know if the power of love could transcend a messed up start.

Would I recommend this book or the series, heck no. If you choose to, be forewarned that it has mooey X rated parts. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I wanted to move past this and on to the rant. Content aside, this series has sold 10 million copies. My jaw is on the floor right now. It boggles the mind. It’s right up there with Jersey Shore being one of the most popular TV shows.

Part of me (the author part) is enraged that this… stuff… becomes bestseller material. I have friends whose work is clean, smart, and emotion evoking. Their writing craft makes this looks like a high school essay. So I’m indignant on their and quite frankly my behalf.

Other part of me, the non-judgemental part, says that this work clearly has value. Just like Twilight is not a masterpiece in the literary world, they both tapped a vein that resonated with the public. People love LOVE these books. Don’t ask me why, but they do. And isn’t that really what it’s about? Drawing people in with you story, making people care about what happens to your characters.

I think as an author, we can get especially snobby about good writing and using pretty words. Some literary writers look down on mass market paperback writers or romance writers, thinking their style is ordinary and unintelligent. Yet, this seems to be what the general non-english major public wants to read. To lose themselves in a story without be belabored by big words and artsy metaphors. Quick and light.

So can I really condemn this book and others like it as being subpar horrible pieces that should be burned? No, it may not be to my taste, but clearly others love it, so the authors must be doing something right.
And as much as I want to shake my head at it, E.L James is laughing all the way to the bank with her million dollar paychecks.

Dress for Success: Swimsuit hell

Having lost all this weight, I thought, hey, it’s swimsuit season. I need a cute bathing suit. And I got all excited. For once, I wouldn’t have to order out of the big girl’s catalog. I could actually find something in the store!! I was really excited to find a suit that would show off my new littler body. Silly me.

I have now determined, that swimsuit shopping is hell, no matter what your size. At the store, I immediately dismissed two categories of swimwear. The muumuu swimdress, masquerading as a bathing suit. And the bikini, because I may be smaller, but I’m still not delusional. That left me with one pieces and the tankini.

I tried the one piece first. Thought I could look all svelte and catwoman like. Not so much. I have a very long torso, so they all either crawled up the butt or the bust hit about the ribcage. I’ll even own up, that just for kicks, I tried on the one piece with the sides cut out. Even supermodels don’t look good in those bondage bandaid swimsuit wannabes.

So I tried the tankini. The first store I went to, sold them in sets. Unfortunately my top half is a size larger than my bottom half. So either my bottoms fell off or gave me plumbers butt. Or my top was squeezing all the left over fat up and out. Then I discovered the separates. Praise be to whoever thought that one up. So I finally found a cute little boy short for the bottom. But what to do for the top? Halter. Racerback. Midriff baring (uh no), Deep V, (again, no) padding (yes please. Because the first place I lost my weight was off the rack). Too many combinations and none of them looked right. None of them made me look like the girl on Maxim magazine.

She didn’t have a droopy butt, or an extra flap skin under the arms. I decided, Screw this, I should wear a wetsuit. Then all my little extra bits would be tucked in.

Cue the super skinny girl in the dressing room next to me. Size 0, and moaning about all the exact same things. Her thighs looked flabby. The suit cut across her butt in the wrong place. She had a little bit of a belly. (not that I saw)

Point is, unless you have makeup artists and somebody that can airbrush your photos later, swimsuit shopping is hell. For everyone.

Snack Smart: Fattening vegetables

I have a friend, who will remain nameless, that loves to snack on baby carrots. I swear, her skin could turn orange. And not just from fake bake tanning. Anyway, she is not losing any weight and couldn’t figure out why. After spending one weekend over at her place, I knew why.

She’s attempting to have about 50% of her daily food as vegetables. A great goal. One problem, she soaks them in butter, cheese, and ranch dressing. Sadly, you do have to keep track of the crap you put on veggies to make them taste good. You think Oh, it’s just a little bit of dipping sauce, it can’t be too bad. I measured out her ranch dressing she used on those baby carrots. She added 250 calories to her low cal snack. No wonder she wasn’t losing.

If you gotta have that dipping sauce, make sure you go low fat and use sparingly.

And for the record, apples are a great healthy snack. Apples with a tub of caramel dip… not so much.

Long Run and Fitness Tip: Cheerleaders

This weekend I did my longest run before the marathon in 3 weeks. 20 freaking miles. I ran around my neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure if I’d been smart I could have run to the ice cream shop and back. Anyway, afterwards I had the energy of a slug so the weekend post never happened. So here’s the weekend post with the fitness tip folded in. Like a candy with a gooey center.

I’ve decided that the biggest run before a marathon is just bad juju. Last year it was just after my longest run that I injured my hamstring, making my first marathon a speed walkathon. Two weeks ago I had a great 19 mile run. I wasn’t tired or sore or anything. I could’ve run the marathon that day for sure. This 20 miles kicked my butt. It wasn’t the extra mile that pushed me over, I hit the wall all the way back at mile 5.

It started in the ball of my foot then shot up the shin, through the knee and then up the hamstring finally zapping my lower back. My right leg was stiff and tight and begging to be amputated. So choices. Run through it or go home. I’m too darn stubborn to go home, so I ran through it. Then next 10 miles sucked. Really bad. I wasn’t in extreme pain, maybe a 5 on the pain scale. I had to pull through all my bags of tricks to get through it. Music, singing, visualizing the finish line, self talk… everything. I finally went with “This sucks” over and over to the beat of my feet. Then changed it to “Just one more lap until Chrisy comes”. Yep, I had reinforcements coming.

The last five miles of my long runs, my friend Chrisy Ross joins me. If I could just make it long enough for her to come, then I knew she’d drag my butt those last five miles. Sure enough, rounding the park I saw my salvation. I nearly started crying. My knee by this point felt completely rusted over. She started running in step with me encouraging me, “You’re running strong. Good girl.” I stood a little taller, my stride a little more confident.

For the next fifty minutes or so we kept the pace and she kept my mind off how much I wanted to be home, in bed, with the biggest bag of ice I could find. The last five miles ended up just as easy as the first five. My knee still killed me by the end, but I had made it. And I’m not sure I would have without my friend being my cheerleader.

Everybody needs a cheerleader in life. They don’t need to have pom poms or wear a short skirt, but they do need to push you back onto the field even when your down by five goals. When you have a workout buddy, you seem to stand a little taller, push a little harder, and stay a little longer. I’m not sure if it’s the mechanics of healthy competition, or pride, or the warm fuzzy feeling of encouragement- but I always do better with a friend at my side.

So that’s the fitness tip, get a cheerleader. Somebody that holds you accountable for your progress and pushes you to go even though you feel like giving up.