The Baby Daddy Workout [Giveaway!]

Sometimes when a man and a woman love each other, they make a baby. (I know you were confused - you're welcome.) In this whole scheme, women get all the glory. After all, we're the incubators. But you know who gets lost in all of the gestating, birthing, bleeding and nursing? Men, with their pittance of bodily fluids, that's who. And until a man learns how to lactate on demand, it's probably going to stay that way.

But while a man can't birth his own little bean - a fact I don't think they are at all sorry about - that doesn't mean that sympathy pregnancy weight isn't real. Like a pregnant friend on Facebook recently wrote, "I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink. My husband asked me where I was going. Then he asked me to bring him a cheese stick while I was up."

It just isn't fair that while there are a plethora of workouts to whip new moms back into prebaby shape, there isn't much for new dads. And frankly, if we have to suffer with this nonsense I don't see why the men should get a pass. Chris Illuminati, author of A**holeology and so hilarious he puts ab rollers out of business, is going to be a new dad soon and asked me to fix this problem. Of course I was willing to oblige.

Charlotte's Baby Daddy Workout*

1. The Pick-Up-The-Baby Squat. Being unable to hold himself up, your little bean will lay around just like, yes, a sack of beans. But a sack of beans that gets heavier every single day. To prepare for this, do goblet squats. First pick a weight resembling your baby (in weight, not looks - if you have a baby that looks like a dumbbell you have bigger problems than stomach flab.) Then double it. Triple it if you're not a wuss. You never know for sure if you might be having twins or triplets until the last bit of placenta comes out! Squat down, pick up weight gently off the floor and then clutching it to your chest as if it is your fragile new PlayStation, slooowwwly stand up. Squat back down, returning weight to floor. That's one rep. Repeat 12-15 times, for 3 sets. Be sure to keep your weight in your heels and BOTH hands on the baby/weight. To add difficulty (and up your wife's blood pressure) hold weight over your head for the duration of the squat. Hint: Most newborns are 5-8 pounds

2. The non-dominant arm curl. Are you right handed? Then prepare to have your left bicep bulk out like the Incredible Hulk in the episode where he candy stripes at the hospital nursery (they did that one, right?) because you will constantly be holding your mini-me in your left arm so that you can get stuff done - like surf the 'net, yo - with your right arm. To prevent looking as lopsided as an Iranian election, start doing bicep curls now. But ONLY on your non-dominant arm. Pick a weight as heavy as you can manage for 8-12 reps, 3 sets. To make it as realistic as possible, hold a carton of eggs in your other arm at the same time. If you end up with quiche, Epic Fail.

3. The colic lunge. New babies cry. Some of them cry a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Thankfully you can make lemonade out of your little lemon. Not only can you get quads of steel doing this move but you'll earn extra bonus points with the wifey (not redeemable until 6 weeks post partum) for letting her get some sleep. First, plant your feet just wider than hip width apart in a sumo squat. Then holding your swaddled (the swaddle is key!) dumbbell/baby very tightly, lunge vigorously from side to side. This is not the time to be namby-pamby. When I say vigorously, I mean there is no such thing as too much motion to your baby. (Not to be confused with shaking your baby. For the love of John Edwards, never ever shake a baby.) Repeat for hours, any time any where. Ignore the evil looks from people who think you shouldn't be taking your newborn to the movies, much less lunging like a maniac in the aisle. You may be a parent but you're still a person and are therefore allowed by law to leave your house.

4. The chest press to throw up. Babies are masters of physics. They come out of the womb knowing that what goes up must come down and therefore anytime you hoist your little petard above your head, vomit is going to come raining down. Into your open mouth if you're really lucky. To prepare yourself for this eventuality, lay on your back holding a dumbbell in each hand. Press straight up. At the top of the movement have someone jump on your stomach and then drop a couple spoonfuls of cottage cheese on your face. Surprise is the key to honing your reflexes along with toning your pectorals. Repeat 8-12 reps for 3 sets.

5. Running away from your responsibilities cardio. At some point after your wee one is born, it will hit you how much work, time, money and sleep you are losing in this deal. You will want to pull a John Edwards. Unfortunately the law does not look kindly upon refusing to care for your spermies that have made it out into the wild. Neither does your wife. So the next best thing to running away is to simply run. If you want to be a hero, put the baby in a jogging stroller and take him or her with you. Just make sure your music isn't turned up so loud you can't hear him or her cry. Start with 30 minutes a day 4 days a week, working up to daily sweat fests by the time the kid is old enough to make you have to stop and hold him over the biffy seat in the park for 20 minutes before he decides he's too cold to poop (hey it's a great move for your shoulders!).

Just remember new daddies - just because she calls you "baby" doesn't mean you need to act like one! For more general hilarity and info. on fitness for new dads check out my interview with Chris Illuminati over on his site today! Leave a comment here and tell him your best fitness advice for new parents to win a copy of his new book!

*No this is not February's Great Fitness Experiment. I needed a little more time to get that one all put together for you guys so you'll find out all about it tomorrow!

Forget Crunches If You Want Six Pack Abs

That can't be right can it?
Surely if you do nothing else but do ab crunches all day long you'll end up with a stomach like a washboard?

Er, well no, that's not strictly true...

In fact, not only is it possible to get flatten stomach fast without a single crunch, it's also possible that relying on relentless crunching is moving you away from your desired flat stomach!

Ok, before I get carted off by the men in white coats, let me explain. Come to think of it, even if you *did* call the men in white coats, it would be *me* they would agree with!

It's all to do with the physiology, the construction of the body around the abdomen. A six pack is a display of defined abdominal muscles. Crunching is a superb way of strengthening and building these muscles, but it's vital to bear in mind, that if you currently don't have that six pack, your ab muscles will most likely be covered with a layer of fat. It doesn't have to be a rippling spare tire, Homer Simpson style, but there will be a layer of fat covering those muscles.

If you simply concentrate on building the abs, but do nothing about the fat, then as your abs develop, not only will they not be visible, but they will actually be pushing the layer of fat outwards! This is the last thing you want!

The layer of fat is one of the hardest areas to get rid of, so you need to start an all-round fitness regime if you really want a six pack. Try to focus on a good cardio workout, some sort of aerobic type exercise that will get your blood pumping and keep it in your target heart rate zone for at least 30 minutes and do your cardio at least 5 days a week for best results. Brisk walking, jogging, swimming and TaeBo are all good examples of a cardio workout. Gradually, and this won't and cannot happen overnight, as the fat layer disappears, your ab muscles will become closer to the surface, and therefore more visible.

Take it from me, as someone who's done it, the ab muscles get plenty of workout in everyday life, so are often defined enough so that once the fat layer had gone, they give off that familiar six pack look.

So there you are, a simple explanation of biology has got rid of almost any need for those horrible crunches!
You may want to do them to buff up your abs once the can be seen, but blimey they are hard enough to do at any time let alone if the effort is just going to waste!

4 Simple Tweaks to Get Washboard Abs

Everybody wants to get flatten stomach fast. Some pay large sums of money hiring expensive trainers who share the same information that you can easily find for free on the internet. Although there are certain trainers who DO KNOW what it takes to get washboard abs, most of them are good for nothing.

There are several changes you can make to your daily routine in order to get rid of your belly fat, but I am going to show you 4 very basic and very simple tweaks that will accelerate your results by over 80%. Without further do, let's get in to the action take mode and get washboard abs in the fastest time possible:

Eat High Fiber Carbs

Abs are made in the kitchen. There is no doubt about this particular fact. No matter how many thousand crunches you do and how frequently you do it, everything fails if you eat wrong. In order to get washboard abs without screwing things up, you need to eat a lot of carbs that are loaded with high fiber like beans, legumes, peas, carrots, leaves etc...

Eat More Protein

Research proves it that your body burns a lot of calories just to digest the protein you intake. The more protein you eat, the more calories you burn. This is called increased thermic effect leading to increased metabolism. You really do not need to know what that means, but it is important that you eat 1g of protein per lean bodyweight every single day to keep your metabolism elevated at all times so that you can burn fat fast and get washboard abs in a very short period of time.

Eat Every 3 Hours.

As long as you are awake, you need to make sure you eat every 3 hours. Doing so will let your body know that you are not starving yourself. This will rid of your body of the fear of starvation mode (your body stores fat during starvation mode) and start using stores of fat for energy. Eating every 3 hours may sound difficult, but with the many protein shakes and meal replacement foods out there, life couldn't get full and simple.

Maintain or Build More Muscle.

Eating protein and high fiber carbs every 3 hours will help you maintain lean muscle but if you really want to get washboard abs, you need to get below 10% body fat. You cannot achieve this goal without exercise. In order to reach a very low level of body fat, you need to skip the single joint exercises and follow compound exercises that give the most BANG for your effort.

Performing muscle building compound exercises like Dead lifts, Squats, Bench Press, Chin ups, Pull ups etc... will turn your body in to a fat burning furnace for 24 to 48 hours, even while you sleep! By following the 4 simple tweaks mentioned above will give you an really powerful edge in your goal to get washboard quickly.

Putting the Person Back in Online Personal Training [Experiment Results]

In an effort to keep their large geriatric clientele happy, my YMCA has recently added a floor show for their morning entertainment. A show so gripping that it even tops Ellen. (Note: not really. Nobody can top Ellen. I just wanted to work that in here somehow to tell you to check out MizFit's hilarious quest to get herself on The Ellen Show. If this doesn't do the trick, I don't know what will!) In a word: It's us.

There are some Experiments we do that draw a lot of comments from the gray-haired peanut gallery and this month's Personal Training (with actual person this time!) Experiment was one of those. Lindsey of Lean Bodies Fitness had the Gym Buddies and I doing all kinds of crazy things so on Monday I had to giggle when I overheard the following:

"Have you seen those girls? They just run everywhere! Can't even walk to get someplace."

"I know! They're crazy." (Charlotte's note: always the mark of a good Experiment!)

"It's gross. I've never seen a girl sweat so much." (This last one was said right as I ran by and, honestly, they're right. I sweat like the Amazon pre-Al Gore.)

The Experiment
This month was the first month of real, intense exercise I've been able to do since 6 weeks before my baby was, born marking a full 12 weeks off - barring my one Turbo class when she was a month old - of hardcore exercise. What a way to get back in! I asked Lindsey for a kick-butt workout and she sure gave us one. We sweated huge disgusting puddles inspiring Gym Buddy Krista to comment, "The worst thing about this Experiment is all the extra laundry." I would disagree - I think the all the lat work was the worst part (Anyone else have a body part they just abhor working? Mine are my lats. I'll never work them of my own accord!) - but the laundry was a close second. It only took me one load of washing the baby's stuff with mine to realize that "swotch" (a.k.a. sweaty crotch) is not a smell you want on your infant's onesie.

What I Liked
In contrast to the last time we used an online personal trainer, this time there was an actual person - Lindsey - involved. This made a huge difference. Our weekly check-ins with her helped keep me motivated and engaged. It also helped me cheat less knowing I was going to be reporting my reps and weights to her. I discovered that having a real live person to listen to you is kind of like a poor-man's therapy and since my therapist is now M.I.A. I let out all my weight woes to Lindsey. Girl was a darn good sport, refusing to get sucked into my drama. I gotta say it's hard to work up a good hysteria when the listening party insists on being rational. Lindsey calmed my anxiety by pointing me to her progress pics and telling me that she couldn't lose all the weight either while she was breastfeeding.

I think that the best part of working with an online trainer would be the adaptability. Seeing as this Experiment was only one month we didn't really get to test out this aspect but assuming you stick with things longer than I do (Me? Flighty? Wait, what's that shiny object over there!) then she would change the program to suit your changing needs.

What I Didn't Like
The workouts were tough to the point of brutal (barftastic was thrown around a lot) which was awesome and entirely what we asked for but I would have liked them to be a little more fun. Lunges ad nauseum may be difficult but they got a bit monotonous.

The other downside to an online personal trainer is that, well, they're online. While the Gym Buddies do a pretty good job of both motivating me and keeping me honest, it would have been better for all of us had we had her standing over us and fixing our form, kicking our butts and keeping us from watching the latest Inside Edition (trust me, you do not need to know that Heidi Montag wants to trade in her DDDs for "H's - for Heidi!" You want your initials on your body? Get a tattoo!).

Results
Not that this is the best measure of a workout but I lost a total of 3.8 pounds. For all my whining and moaning it was almost a pound a week which is pretty darn decent all things considered. The real success however was in my muscles - I lost a full inch off each thigh (joy!), 3/4 inch off my hips and 1/4 inch off my waist. I gained 1/4 inch on my biceps and my chest - well that fluctuates hourly so we won't talk about that one. While I'm still not back to my old dumbbell weights, I definitely improved this month and built some muscle. It felt good to be back hefting some serious iron again. Gym Buddy Allison, whose baby is just 6 weeks older than Jelly Bean, was back to her old ways of wowing us with her amazing strength. Girl uses a 65-lb curl bar for her upright rows! The mamas are back in business!

Gym Buddy Krista lost 2 pounds this month and 1/2 inch each off her butt and thighs. She had this to say: "It was very tough, got me out of my comfort zone, forced me to push myself, was quite boring...would have like to have seen 2 weeks worth of different workouts to be repeated once, was lunge heavy...would've like to have seen some creativity in those and the squats."

Gym Buddy Megan lost 4 pounds and is down 1/2 inch on her butt, 3/4 inch on her waist and 1/2 inch on her arm. She agreed with Krista's assessment of the workout.

Conclusions
Online personal training is a great option for people who can't or don't want to use a live in-person trainer but still want someone to kick their butt (vicariously). They are a convenient and affordable option for people who are good at self-motivating and really just need someone to tell them what to do next. Like any trainer there are good ones and bad ones so take the time to check out their credentials and make sure they are a good fit for what your goals are. I really enjoyed my time with Lindsey and was impressed with her service - I'd certainly recommend her!

On another note, I came to some very interesting conclusions about my diet over the course of this Experiment that I'll share with you next week. And, February's Great Fitness Experiment coming at you on Monday! (Hint: It's one you guys have been asking me to do ever since I started this blog and it's going to be a killer! I'm SOOO excited!)

What about you guys? 30 of you won a free month of Lindsey's training with us - what did you think?? What body part do you guys hate to work out?

Does Breast Feeding Help You Lose Weight?

Salma Hayek has an amazing rack - and I'm not talking about her ability to fill a sweater, er, movie role. They're amazing because of their ability to feed a baby. It's the real secret in Victoria's Secret - breasts are not just fun bags. They also squirt milk. Which I suppose could also be considered fun in some circles. Hey, I don't know what you do with your Friday nights.

But why am I talking about breastfeeding here on a health and fitness blog? (Besides the fact that it's midnight and that always makes me random?) Because of the old adage that breastfeeding will help you lose weight.

Answering Other People's Mail: Round Two
Dear Healthlink,
I had a baby 4 months ago. I 'm breastfeeding, but I really need to lose weight. I need to return to work in about two months and if I don't lose the weight I won't have anything to wear and I can't afford to but a new wardrobe. What can I do?

Healthlink gives a mostly appropriate answer despite being interspersed with little gems like "reduce your intake of all fats" (do they not know what breast milk is made out of??) and "Limit intake of breads" (how about starting with the ice cream or double fudge brownies?) but ends with "women who breastfeed will actually lose weight faster than those who don't."

Lactating = Lean?
Super-skinny celebs like Naomi Watts and Heidi Klum swear that breastfeeding was their key to losing their baby weight in like 0.3 seconds. Salma Hayek begs to differ:

“Yes, and I’m still working on it. I gained a lot of weight, I had gestational diabetes. The pregnancy was really difficult for me. I thought, as soon as this baby is out, I’m just going to lose the weight super fast, because I’m going to breast feed, and everybody tells you that if you breastfeed it’s going to come out like this, it’s a lie! It’s not true.”

“Except for a couple of exceptions, the only reason people lose weight like that when they’re breastfeeding, it’s because they’re not eating and they’re breastfeeding, and this is not good for the baby. You know how they tell you it takes nine months to get it, nine months to lose it? There are shortcuts, but it’s not good for the baby. So I’m taking my time. I’ve lost a lot, most of the weight, and I’m very proud of it because it’s been really hard work studying what kind of food to eat that’s healthy for me, healthy for the baby. But I’m still losing even if it’s slow, and I’ve been working out… and the rest is going to go when it’s time to go.”

Lactating = Ravenous
Mad props to Salma for telling it like it is. The only weight I ever lost breastfeeding was the 8 ounces of milk the little sucker ingested. And that always came back. In fact, my body seems to like to keep about 10 extra pounds of reserve stores while I'm nursing.* Have I mentioned that I give birth to 10-pound babies? That double their weight before 6 months? Apparently my body likes to play it safe with the little butterballs. Or maybe I drank too much hormone-laced (cow) milk while pregnant. Anyhow.

This particular little gem always made me so mad. It's hard enough that people expect you to lose the baby weight the way Paris Hilton loses chihuahuas but it really drives the stake in when people expect it to be easy for you. I know that some women lose weight while breast feeding. I also know that some women have eyelashes that touch their brows without mascara and cellulite-impervious butts.

How about you? Did breast feeding help you lose weight? Or did it just help you lose your breasts when you finished? (Now there's a fun post for another day!) For those of you who don't produce a whole food group out of thin air, what are your feelings about breastfeeding in public? Be honest - does it make you uncomfortable?

*A fact it would be good for me to remember these days in all my freaking out about my Last Ten Pounds.

This post sound familiar? Today is Greatest Hits day here at GFE. This originally ran in March 2008.

The Haitian Earthquake, Kourtney Kardashian's Baby Weight and Me

The little Haitian boy who greeted rescuers [after being trapped for 8 days] with a beaming grin as they freed him from a huge pile of rubble said yesterday, "I smiled because I was free -- I smiled because I was alive." Source.

There was an earthquake in Minnesota this morning. It was pretty small - I don't think it even registered on the Richter scale - in fact, I think it was localized just around our house. I was upstairs giving Jelly Bean her bath, despite her protestations that she is saving all that curdled milk in her neck folds for later, when two of her older brothers decided to start World War III over a solitary piece of K'nex (sadly, I suppose wars have been started over lesser things). There was a huge bang, the house shook and immediately I decided we were having an earthquake, never mind that Minnesota is the least earthquake prone place on the planet. What, don't you all immediately assume a natural disaster is occurring when anything is amiss? No??

For a brief second, my mind raced trying to decide which child I would save first and if I would be able to find my cellphone in the rubble. Of course it wasn't an earthquake, just my spawn. (In relating the incident later to my husband I said, "I think they're evil." To which he replied, "No dear, just malevolent.") And then I paused and wondered if there was a mother in Haiti bathing her newborn when their earthquake hit. Five minutes prior I had been blissfully admiring my baby's dimpled bum and writing today's post in my head. (Have you seen what OK magazine did to Kourtney Kardashian?! They stuck her on the cover holding her brand-new son with the title "My diet secrets: lose 10 pounds in 10 days!" On wee problem: They photoshopped her head onto someone else's skinny body and claimed she'd lost all her baby weight. For the love of new moms everywhere Kourtney set the record straight on Twitter both showing what she really looks like now - glowing and beautiful but not flat-tummied - and saying she has not lost all her weight yet. This is what we've come to: celeb rags now making up stories out of whole cloth! Who does this story make feel good? Not the readers who all immediately feel bad about not losing 10 pounds in 10 days regardless of the occupancy status of their womb. Certainly not Kourtney. Oh yes, it would be the people getting rich off of our insecurities. There, now you got the abbreviated version!)

And then suddenly I was hugging a soaking Jelly Bean to my chest and saying a prayer for every mother in Haiti.

That feeling was still fresh in my heart when I got an e-mail from a longtime reader turned dear friend, Dr. Jon. You may remember him as the doctor who personally vetted Dara Torres during the Olympic doping scandals. Or perhaps as the only person I've ever known to eat fugu, the fish that has a one in one thousand chance of killing you. When he's not writing eloquent letters that I then selfishly purloin for use in my posts, he's volunteering as a doctor doing humanitarian aid work. He has saved lives in almost every hotspot around the globe so even though he was supposed to be on vacation, when I first heard of the Haitian earthquake I had a feeling he'd find his way there. Sure enough, yesterday this arrived in my inbox:

[...] When you are amputating a leg, deep in the rubble of a collapsed building, having crawled and wormed your way in, dragging your medical kit with you, and an aftershock comes, you can't help but duck in case the pile collapses - pretty pointless, but a normal reaction, I'm told - and traps you along with the casualty . It gnaws at you and saps energy and strength in a very different way to working in war zones, but the patient comes first and that's just how it is . I'll admit I'm very, very tired, but the job HAS to be done and we have the skill set to do it .

Kourtney Kardashian's head on another woman's body takes on a whole new meaning in this light doesn't it? I have no words. God bless you in your mission Dr. Jon. Stay safe out there, ok? And write me when you get home.

For those of us who aren't doctors, MSNBC has compiled a list of ways to help the earthquake victims and those providing on-the-ground support. And surprisingly donating money probably isn't the best way to help at this time.

May all of you hold your loved ones a little tighter! Or at the very least, hold your celebrities a little farther away.

The future of fitness is now! H.I.G.T

Laws of leanness, Richard Seymour's/Fit School:



Unless you’re involved in this business full-time, you tend to adopt certain exercises and do them over and over again, to the exclusion of all others. We tend to adopt the same habits in other aspects of our lives. We tend to eat at the same restaurants, frequent the same stores, and call the same girls at 2:00 in the morning after we’ve had a few too many drinks.

We are creatures of habit. In training, though, it’s imperative that we break out of these ruts. We have to try new movements or try different ways of doing the same old movements. Variety is not only the spice of life; it’s the main ingredient in losing fat & building the lean muscular body you want.


My clients my fighters and myself have one thing in common. Our conditioning can never be questioned! To achieve this I employ my H.I.G.T (high intensity group training) and the principles that make it effective three times per week. Full body fitness, heavy & intense....think you can hang?

* 3 sets per group, exercises performed back> to back>. 30 sec max rest between sets. Increase in weight for each exercise each set. Our goal is to recruit type two fibers. Rep range 4-12 on Training days #1 & #3. Rep range 4-8 on training day #2 (heavy weight & only two exercises performed in a group)

Group one: Focus muscle-chest, secondary-shoulders...

flat bench dumbell presses legs elevated off floor> seated front dumbell shoulder raises. standing dumbell side lateral raises> standing dumbell upright row.
*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

Group two: Primary muscle-shoulder, secondary-chest...

seated military dumbell press> incline bench press> 45lb plate shoulder shrugs> shoulder tri set superset ( grab ten lb plates hold one in each hand, seated one arm at a time perform 6 fast yet controlled front raises then side raises. repeat with left arm. Now perform six bent over lateral shoulder raises)
*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

Group three: Primary muscle-Biceps, secondary-triceps..phaseing out chest and shoulders

Standing barbell curl> tri cep kick back> incline finger tip push ups. ( when performing push ups mix up your hand & feet positions to hit the chest and shoulder muscle's at different angles, have a partner place a weight plate on your back for added intensity)*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

Group four: Primary muscle-triceps, secondary-biceps.....

Tricep cable press down> pull up> push up> weighted speed punches ( grab two five pound weights, hold one in each hand. Now take a fighters stance and throw left right punches fast for 30 seconds )*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

Group five: Primary muscle-quads, secondary-back...

barbell deep squats> pull ups> 45lb plate ulternet lunge.*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

Group six: Primary muscle-hamstrings, secondary-back....

Bent over barbell row> stiff legged dead lift> dumbbell or kettle ball one arm squat & press.*Now rest 30 seconds, increase weight repeat*

On training days #1 & #3 following this workout we complete abdominal work. Remember your abs have been worked in every exercise you just performed so they are fatigued. So we hit them briefly, but with intensity and from angles.

Get FIT! Get ABFITT!!

Get Shredded With These 7 Tips

1. You must consume six to seven meals per day.
2. Protein should be the foundation of your diet as the significance of protein to muscle during dieting cannot be overstated. A maximum of 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight is recommended.
3. Approximately one-sixth of your daily protein should be consumed during each meal.
4. Be consistent – meet your protein requirements every day!
5. Keep fat consumption relatively constant throughout your diet.
6. Try cycling your carbohydrate intake to keep your energy levels high and preserve muscle. Spend 2 to 3 days on each carbohydrate range before switching.

•Low-carbohydrate days = 0.5 – 1.0 grams per pound of bodyweight.
•Medium-carbohydrate days = 1.5 – 1.75 grams per pound of bodyweight.
•High-carbohydrate days = 2.5 – 3.5 grams per pound of bodyweight.
7. Carbohydrate consumption should taper off throughout the day. The last meal of the day should not contain any carbohydrates.

How many people blame their genetic pre-disposition on their slow metabolism?

Or, how many people say that their partner can take off weight easily when they work harder and still stay stagnant because of their metabolism? By having these foods in the right portions and at the right times of the day, you’ll be helping yourself in your own weight-loss, muscle-gain ventures.

1. Blueberries
2. Almonds
3. Whey Protein
4. Salmon
5. Psyllium Husk
6. Spinach
7. Turkey
8. Oatmeal
9. Water
10. Green Tea

Conclusion: Believe me; if you include any (preferably all) of these foods in your daily eating plan, your body will thank you with extra energy and longevity. There aren’t many foods out there that can help keep you fit AND healthy, but these 10 are a great start. Keep reading ABFITT, train using my H.I.G.T and most important, believe in yourself.

Total Ab Burnout in 6 Moves (or less!) [Mini-Experiment]

When FitJerk posted his "Jerkdominal Blast" on Twitter, I might have just smiled remembering that my abs are only 2 months post baby expelling and not exactly up to anything involving blasts - or jerks for that matter - except that he said the magic word. No, not "please." He said challenge. I cannot resist a challenge, a fault that has put me into more than one regrettable situation (cliff dancing anyone?). Thankfully many of you share the same flaw and quite a few of you jumped in too:

So this morning found two of my Gym Buddies - the long suffering Allison and Krista - and I ready to make our abs so sore we wouldn't dare find anything humorous for at least a week. After doing Lindsey's hour-long Killer Barf Circuits in just 45 minutes which is why we are so red-faced and smelly in the above pic (it's a scratch-n-sniff!), we got down to work.

Since FitJerk said these would make us weep, we snapped some pics to prove him wrong. And also, because who needs fitness models to properly demonstrate the moves when you have us to show you how to screw them up? Hence, The Gym Buddies present Total Ab Burnout in 6 (not) Easy Moves:

Krista demos the leg scissors. 20-30 reps, 2 second tempo. (Note: FitJerk said the real killer part about this ab workout is the tempo and he was right. Some of the moves, like this one, we managed to do just as he prescribed. Others though... well, you'll see what happened. )

Next up, Allison doing the decline crunches with weight plate. 15-20 reps, 211 tempo. (Up 1 second, hold 1 second, lower 2 seconds.) Notice Allison's perfect form holding the plate behind her head, instead of on her chest? Also notice her adorable grin? Yeah, both the form and the smile went out the window after the first rep. These suckers were the worst of the bunch - agony!

Krista's expression (and method of cheating by lifting up the plate during the crunch) is pretty indicative of what we really looked like. I believe her exact words were, "I feel like I'm having a baby!!!" (Bet you don't scream that one in your gym, FitJerk!)

The third move is the pulse up. 30 reps, 211 tempo. These weren't bad. P.S. Like all the crap in the background? We're messy worker outers, we are!


Move 4 is the power wheel roll out, 20 reps tempo 312. If there was ever a piece of gym equipment designed for hilarity, it is the power wheel. Somewhere there is a stat counter for how many times people fall on their faces using this thing.

Case in point. (Also, remember the time Gym Buddy Lisseth got this sucker stuck up her butt? Good times!)


Move 5 is the oblique V-snap, 15-20 reps 211 tempo. Ignore my bad form. I'm too busy posing for the camera. (What - don't you all do that when you work out?!)


Last move: V-ups! 15-25 reps, 211 tempo. If there was one thing I learned in gymnastics, it is how evil the V-up is. Thankfully, FitJerk's version is easier than the traditional V-up (you don't have to come up to a full balance on your tail bone!). Which isn't to say it was easy. It still sucked. (I would like to take a moment here to explain that we do not generally kit out in our weight gloves to do ab work. We just didn't have time to take them off between Lindsey's Killer Barf Circuits - now with less time and more puke! - and the abs because I only had an hour to workout this a.m. You may resume caring about other things now.)

The other great thing about FitJerk's ab workout is that it inspired him to make me his new muse (Okay so he may not have officially said that but I know he was thinking it.) as he was so impressed by what an awesome exercise community we all have here at The Great Fitness Experiment that he wrote a post about the importance of having workout buddies! Yeah, yeah he doesn't mention me by name but a good muse doesn't need to be directly invoked to inspire;) You're welcome FitJerk!

In the spirit of community (and also because kick boxing in hula gear is AWESOME and HILARIOUS), here are a few pics of Turbo Jennie's turbo crew after our Island Days workout:

Somewhere a ukulele is strumming!


We had 83 peeps kicking and punching in that little studio! Turbo Jennie said we set a Y record! (And yes, Becky there in the front did the whole class in a wet suit!)

And... one more from our Christmas photo shoot because we are adorable and I found it while I was cleaning off my camera's memory. That's Gym Buddies Lisseth, Megan, Allison, me, Turbo Jennie (kindly holding my leg up as I was too wiped to do it myself) and Krista.

So, how did the ab workout go for you guys? Will I be weeping tomorrow??

Celebrity Calves collection 9

Teja Lapanja calves

Group Calves Collection 2

Yanina Wickmayer`s calves

Do You Have "Time Sickness"?

courtesy of the awesome Natalie Dee

I had a panic attack on Friday. A full-fledged hyperventilating, heart pounding, must do deep yogic breathing to remedy it, panic attack. What brought this on? A death in the family? Another discipline note sent home from the school? Heidi Montag having another surgery (heaven help us all)?? Nope. A friend came over to pick up my 2nd son for a playdate and surprised me by also taking the 3rd one (a.k.a. the one who has been insanely obnoxious ever since his sister has been born). Seeing as the eldest was in school and Jelly Bean was napping, that left me with... no kids! For TWO HOURS.

My mind reeled at this unexpected gift. Do you know how much I can do in two hours without anyone clinging to my leg and peeing down my sock (true story)? This is when the panic set in. Do I write? Blog? Pay bills? Mop the floors? Read a book? What if I make the WRONG choice and WASTE this precious gift?! Oh the hysteria!

So I did what any rational person would do (that's my new hobby: copying what rational people do in the hopes that someday I will become one) - I posted my quandary on Facebook. Immediately all of my friends replied: Take a nap!

I should have. I'm certainly sleep deprived enough to be able to lay down anywhere anytime and conk out. And yet, I was so worried about not making the most of my time, I cleaned instead. Like many of us, my to-do list is a mile long and I never seem to make much progress on it. So I went up to mop the entry way which thanks to the ridiculous layout of our house doubles as our mud room and therefore needs mopping a hundred times a day. But then I realized I had to sweep first. So I went to get the broom out of the kitchen. Only to get distracted by the breakfast dishes still in the sink. I started loading the dishwasher and then realized I needed to run to the basement to get more dish soap. If I'm going to the basement, I might as well take down a load of laundry! You can see where the two hours went.

Later that evening, when I sat down to nurse Jelly Bean I picked up reading my new favorite book, The Okinawa Program (which will most likely be a Great Fitness Experiment in the next few months) and as luck would have it, opened right to the chapter on "Time Sickness." Apparently in Okinawa, most people reject the Type A, overachiever, must-do-everything mentality. As the authors observe, there is a difference "between feeling in control of time of feeling controlled by it." Oh, Sensei, is this girl ever controlled by time!

Are You Sick Too?
They offer a handy quiz to discover if you too have Time Sickness. There are 30 statements that if you answer yes to 16 or more you have a "time sickness behavioral pattern." Let's just say I hit 16 points by statement number 10 (I gave myself double points for the ones I'm REALLY obnoxious at. Here's a sample:

1. There is rarely enough time in the day to do all the things that I have to. (My motto. This will someday be written on my tombstone.)

2. It's irritating for me to sit in traffic. (Just yesterday I was fuming over the fact that instant teleportation a la Star Trek has not come to fruition yet. Journey shmourney - I'm all about the destination!)

3. I sometimes finish other people's sentences for them. (The Gym Buddies admirably restrain themselves from smacking me as I do this more often than people crack jokes about Mariah Carey bringing her own "globes" to the Golden Globes.)

4. I spend more time and attention on my career than my family. (Mother guilt! My specialty!! And while I answered "no" to this one, it would be a "yes" if the little nippers weren't so insistent. There will be no ignoring my children.)

5. I often feel I have too many things to do. (Have you met me??)

6. I have trouble concentrating on one thing at a time. (Hello - broom... kitchen... laundry... wait, where's the baby?!)

7. Passengers in my car ask me to slow down. (You know you have a problem when your 3-year-old screams "Hills are scary, mommy! You go too fast!!")

8. I would describe myself as goal-oriented. (I suppose that would be the nice way of saying it.)

9. People tell me I talk fast. (Again, have you met me?)

In addition to the above questions, I also 'fessed up to being irritable, competitive, cynical, a workaholic, perfectionistic, controlling and a micro-manager (just ask my husband about when he loads the dishwasher and later catches me sneaking down in the middle of the night to fix it "the right way"). Frankly the only question out of the 30 I could outrightly say no to was the one that asked if I needed tobacco, alcohol or intoxicants to wind down. I don't but I've often thought that was solely thanks to my religion. Not to mention I don't really wind down. Like, ever.

Obviously this has got to change. I had an epiphany the other day: even if teleportation were invented, I'd still find a million other things to fill all my newly freed time.

The authors offer a few suggestions to reset your internal clock to Okinawan time:
- Meditate. I love this! I know it helps me. A lot. And yet when I get busy - which is all the time - it's one of the first things to go.
- Breathing exercises. Again, one I already know and love. This is key to managing my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
- Muscle relaxation exercises. Yoga saved my life!
- Hypnosis. Uhhh... no. I had a therapist once who tried to hypnotize me and finally decreed my un-hypnotizable. I'm too much of a control freak. Ah well.
- Healing touch. I love massages in theory. And yet I've had exactly one in my entire life and it was when my friend showed up at my door with her massage table and tried to get me to relax while our combined children ran shrieking in circles around us.
- Biofeedback. Never tried this but I know several of you (Hi Leslie!) have had good experiences with this.
- Regular exercise. Finally, one I can say HECK YES to!
- Eat right for your psychospiritual health. If I could just figure out the exact perfect way to eat then I'd so be there! Oh, wait...
- Maintain your "healing web" a.k.a. your support community: #1 key to longevity!

Other ideas also mentioned include learning to be optimistic, learning to manage hostility and anger, managing your time wisely, cultivating a healthy sense of humor and practicing conscious awareness.

It sounds like a lot but the more I think about it, the more I think these are just the kinds of changes I am looking for. Perhaps I can't force myself to stop being neurotic about stupid things *cough*lasttenpounds*cough but maybe I can squeeze out the crazy by filling my life with positive things like this! Well, this and lots of seaweed. One step at a time, right?

Anyone else not know what to do with their free time? Is it just endemic to our Western culture? How do you declutter your life? Manage your time wisely?

Join me for a Mini Experiment? Plus: Spam Spam Everywhere and Contest Winner!]

Those of you watching me stumble around like a newborn colt on Twitter - yeah, I'm that bad - will already know about this but FitJerk threw down an ab-tastic challenge that I couldn't resist! He posted his most killer ab workout and the Gym Buddies and I are going to give it a whirl (after finishing Lindsey's workout of course!) on Monday. (Surprise, Gym Buddies!!) Anyone want to join in the pain fest? If you do it, make sure and send me an e-mail or tweet letting me know how it goes for you!

Bonus points to TechnicalParent Joshua who already did and is still sore!

Two short items of GFE business:

1) As you may have noticed, I have been picked up by a few spam bots resulting in about 20 spam comments a week - mostly on old posts. They're annoying and stupid. I wish they would leave me alone. But all of the ways to prevent the spam - captchas, filters and the like - usually make it harder for legit commenters. So I want to know if you are irritated enough by the spam that you think I should put the filters back on (and realize you'll have an extra step in posting a comment) or if you don't mind the spam. Personally, I don't mind manually deleting the comments as they pop up but that doesn't stop them from being sent out to people who subscribed to that comment thread. I've created a quickie poll - please take a second and tell me your preference* (click thru to my site to take the poll):

poll by twiigs.com

2) The winner of the Core Performance Women book is Erin S. Carter! E-mail me and I'll get you your book!

*Anyone who leaves me a comment using the words "cialis" "pneis" or "weight loss tea" gets a group wedgie.

new post

Newsflash: 60% of People Have Mismatched Feet

I'm a freak. And I'm not talking about on the dance floor. Well except for Middle School. But nobody counts Middle School, right? No, I am a biological freak. Specifically, my left foot is a size 8.5 and my right is a 7.5. That's right - a whole size different. It's a miracle I can walk without toppling over (somebody start the telethon!).

I'm not alone in this. 60% of the population have mismatched tootsies with 80% of those people having a left appendage of unnatural length. So I'm going to assume that a lot of you are beautiful little freaks as well (and you know I mean that with love).

You would think that a little extra toe-age wouldn't be a problem - it's actually a bonus when I play the legless piano or shoot hoops with my feet - until you go shoe shopping. Just like every other girl, I'm willing to endure a certain amount of pain for cute shoes. But those cute shoes only have to last an evening (less if the restaurant has long tableclothes so I can kick them off under the table). Athletic shoes are an entirely different matter. A small pain when you put them on can sideline you by the end of your workout.

In the past, I have compromised by buying the mathematical average: a size 8. This leaves my left foot a titch scrunched and my right foot a smidge unsupported but overall it's liveable. I was okay with this.

Until this weekend. I took my son to the Mall of America for his 4th birthday - they have a whole amusement park in there! - and, being 4, he had to go potty righthisveryminute. We were in front of a shoe "wearhouse" so that's where we ducked in. The bathrooms were located twenty miles to the back of the store, which I sprinted carrying a 50-lb child (yes, he's big for his age), behind all the clearance racks. So while child number 2 took a leisurely number 2 - twenty minutes, people* - child number 1 and I tried on shoes.

It was then I had my epiphany. I found a whole shelf of clearanced athletic shoes so while child 1 experimented with blue, jeweled stilettos, ("I can't run fast in these, mommy" "Exactly right son, it's just one way society hobbles women.") I tried on mismatched shoes. And it was niiiiiice. My feet didn't even know what to think of their new found joy. They did cheerleader jumps all of their own accord. They tap danced and I don't even know how to tap. It was amazing.

Now before you get your e-mail all fired up, I know that there are places one can buy mismatched shoes - like the really upscale running stores. But I am nothing if not cheap (a fact that endeared me to many a college boyfriend). So cheap, in fact, that I wouldn't even buy two pairs of clearanced shoes to keep my feet jumping for joy. Well, that and they were New Balance. I hate New Balance.

But now that I've seen what life could be, well, I just can't stop thinking about foot bliss. What's a freak to do? Are you a biological freak of nature in some way too? One nostril twice as big as the other? A wingspan that is downright avian? A mole the exact shape of Chile?

*No, he didn't fall in the toilet. He was enraptured with the urinals. I finally had to send a store employee in after him. He thought the grimy "waterfalls" were better than the Diego Bus Ride that I paid $2.17 for him to ride. Kids.

Abs Workouts the Secret of Breathing

Lets learn how to breathe not only in abs workouts but all exercises. Breathing is an abs workout, and it’s must be right to get flatten stomach fast.

Place your hands around your ribs at the side or if you can your thumbs on either side of your spine at chest height with fingers spreading around to the front.

If you have a theraband wrap it flat around the bottom of your shoulder blades and hold it together with one hand in front.

Inhale through the nose slowly and feel the ribs expand sideways away from the spine. Try not to lift into the front of your chest or raise your shoulders.
All you want is the ribs expanding across the back and out sideways to get maximum air intake. This might be quite small at first if your rib muscles are not used to this. Does not matter. Keep at it. They will get stronger and after some time you will get flatten stomach fast.
Raising your shoulders cuts off your windpipe. So keep them down. Try to pull them down from under your armpits.

Do not use your lower abs to breathe in. The breath can not go there only into the lungs!!!!! That is not deep breathing. It is not the lower abs that help the diaphragm to come down. It is the pelvic muscles.
Deep breath is maximum expansion of ribs out!!! This also gives the spine a stretch.

Now you have held that breath all that time, the joys of reading an exercise, you can exhale through your mouth. Let it out. Let the ribs drop to the pelvis and NOW use those lower abs to help push the diaphragm back up and the air out. Pull them in. Go on.

YES. You did it.

Keep practicing til you can do it. You can practice this anywhere. The more you do it the stronger those rib muscles will get and those abs will start pulling in to as you use them to push the breath out. The first step to flat abs is to learn to flatten them rather than expand them out.

Did you know you can develop your outer abs two ways: outward or flattened? Which way do you want your abs? Pushing out or flat? Silly question. So easy answer. Do not expand them out when you breath in and flatten them across and up when you breathe out.

I have seen abs develop both ways and I know which I prefer to look at.

Good luck.

Rollerblades: A Good Workout?

Rollerblades, a good workout or a bad idea? We will look at both sides of this question. Sports equipment is important for a few reasons. In today's world, all we hear about in the news and read about in the papers is how more and more people need to lose weight. Doctors say any exercise that you enjoy or will stick with is a good exercise. But everyday, doctors treat patients who have been injured while roller blading. Is the health benefit worth the safety issues?

First let's look at the good aspects of using Rollerblades. There are many of these, and using Rollerblades does count as cardiovascular exercise as long as you are actually skating with them and not just standing in them. They give the muscles in your calves, thighs, abdominal muscles, and butt muscles. Rollerblades provide a great all over workout to help tone and tighten your body while boosting your circulation and metabolism. By using Rollerblades, you will be getting the exercise that we all so desperately need, but yet enjoying yourself so it will not feel like exercise. This means that you are more likely to stick with this exercise and stay healthier because of it. Rollerblades can be a very important piece of sports equipment to help in your exercise routine. This can be done by using Rollerblades alone, or with other sports equipment to round out your routine. There are even televised Roller Derby competitions where members of two competing teams race and they get flatten stomach fast.
There can be drawbacks to using Rollerblades, as with any sports equipment. There are the usual muscle problems when you first start any exercise that gives you a good workout. Muscle aches and pains, pulled muscles, overexertion from doing too much too soon, and these types of assorted minor injuries. If you are doing strenuous roller blading in a warm environment, like the summer heat, heat exhaustion or dehydration can occur if you do it for too long at one time. Make sure to drink lots of water while exercising. Another slight risk is serious injury if you fall. Anytime you are on wheels, balance comes into play and you could fall. A helmet and the proper pads can help minimize this risk and make this sport a lot safer. Anytime you participate in a sport, the appropriate sports equipment should be used for safety.

Changing a Negative Self Image [Aplogies All Around]

It is not often I feel genuinely sorry for celebrities and yet - have you seen the video of Giuliana Rancic pestering women on the red carpet at the Golden Globes about their diet secrets?! Jezebel provides a helpful mash-up:

Click thru to see the vid - it doesn't allow for embedding. Sorry!

It's a veritable body-image gauntlet. How is it that the most important question a reporter can think of to ask an actress is what her diet and exercise routine really REALLY is? Especially when said reporter is so waifish herself. Just watching it was like being sandblasted with body snark, jealousy, insecurity and shallowness. I can't imagine what it must have felt like in person. Made me love Christina Hendricks though with her, "Maybe you should eat more food and lay off the booze" admonition!

Actually, watching this vid made me think of how things have been around here at GFE lately: a hail storm of body image woes. A sweet reader recently e-mailed me saying, "I wish you wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Because when you're hard on yourself, it makes me hard on myself." Unless it's from joy, I don't often cry reading your e-mails (usually I snort liquids and make embarrassing noises trying to stifle my laughter) but this time I did.

I forget sometimes that I walk a fine line here by sharing all my deep-seated crazy - and there's been a serious uptick in insanity since the Jelly Bean has been born, I'm not going to lie to you - and holding all of you hostage on the crazy train with me. You should know that for every weight-loss thought that I write, I think 100 (1,000?) in my head. It's an illness, this self hatred.

The scale, the calories, the inches, the percentages: for years these numbers ruled my life and I don't want to go back there. Truly, I don't. But you should also know that every recent resurgence of my disordered eating has been after the birth of one of my children. Hormones, sleep deprivation and baby weight combine into this trifecta of evil that makes me so very hard on myself. Plus this time around my therapist, whom I loved dearly, is now working for the prison system and alas I am not a criminal.

And so I blog about all this trying to keep it transparent, thinking that if I'm accountable to all of you then perhaps I can avoid repeating past mistakes. But I forget that some of you are fragile too. And some of you are just sick of hearing about this. In retrospect, I don't know that it is helping me much to indulge in the negative self talk. Making excuses for my bad behavior just allows me to wallow in it instead of making the necessary changes.

I asked my sister today if it is possible to change one's entire personality. To let go of my Type A insanity and embrace a more mellow me. She said she believed I could with a lot of work. I hope so. I'm going to try. I'm not exactly sure how to go about it yet but I hope to be gentle in the process.

My sincerest apologies to those of you I have made sad, mad, crazy or just otherwise irritated. I'm going to cut the negative self talk in the future. I won't be perfect but I'm going to try. I love you guys too much not to. Hopefully I'll learn to love myself that much as well.

Thanks for your patience with me. We're all in this together, right? Where do you draw the line between a healthy dialogue and pointless obsessing? Anyone else want to smack Guiliana??

The Abs Diet For Women

What woman doesn’t want a washboard stomach?
Men’s Health Editor David Zinczenko is the founder of the ground-breaking weight-loss program, The Diet to get sflatten stomach fast. Now, he’s following up with the Abs Diet for Women, a plan specifically targeted to the female population desperate to tone their tummies.
From celebrities like Nelly Furtado to the average Jane who just wants to shed those post-pregnancy pounds, the Abs Diet for Women is for every woman. Unlike the original Abs Diet, the Abs Diet for Women gives guidelines for calorie counting, following a vegetarian lifestyle and coping with hormonal problems that complicate weight loss.
Of course, the main focus of the program is to tighten that tummy. Basically, you want to strengthen your entire core - focusing on the upper section of abs, the lower section, the obliques (sides), the deep supportive muscle (the transverse abdominis), and the lower back.
Ab work is done just two or three times a week with a few exercises at a time - enough to strengthen your core, without doing so much that you're going to look like a bodybuilder. That way, the goal is a flat, toned stomach.
In the Abs Diet, the primary component is the eating principles -- specifically, making sure that the individual eats often enough to keep her metabolism revved and making sure she eats the right fat-burning and good-for-you Abs Diet Powerfoods that will help keep her satisfied all day long.
All of the Abs Diet Powerfoods are crucial. They are easy to remember, because of the ABS DIET POWER acronym:

A Almonds and nuts
B Beans
S Spinach and green vegetables
D Dairy, low-fat
I Instant oatmeal
E Eggs
T Turkey and lean meats
P Peanut butter, all-natural
O Olive oil
W Whole grains
E Extra protein (whey)
R Raspberries and other berries
Center your meals around those Powerfoods and you'll fuel your body with the necessary nutrients-protein, good carbs, good fat, fiber. Pay special attention to protein because it helps build that meal muscle that will help burn fat faster and get flatten stomach fast.
The magic bullet is the exercise plan - a circuit of exercises that both gets your hear rate up and also adds lean, toned muscle, which in itself will increase the rate in which you burn fat. A total body workout, the Abs Diet for Women targets the legs, upper body, abs and offers a high-intensity interval session to boost metabolic rate.
Below is an example of one of the short workouts featured in the Abs Diet for Women.
Abs: Do each exercise right after another. Then repeat.
Crunch
Bent-Leg Knee Raise
Oblique V-Up
Bridge
Back Extension
Circuit: Do one exercise right after another with no more than 30 seconds of rest in between. Do 10-12 reps, and repeat the circuit. Do two or three total circuits.
Squat
Bench Press
Pulldown
Military Press
Upright Row
Triceps Extension
Leg Extension
Biceps Curl
Leg Curl

It's not unusual to have women to lose 15 pounds (some up to 20 or more) in six weeks. But perhaps, even more important, is the change in shape. A woman can certainly lose inches from her waist, and she can change her shape and tone with our circuit training that targets both the upper and lower body.