Skwigg Blog

TRX Sale

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:23:41 -0600

The TRX Suspension Trainer is on sale for the next 5 days. If you were hoping Santa would bring you one, now would be a good time to hit Santa up.

You Asked

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:32:32 -0600

No, it's not another gremlin. I turned myself into a bug-eyed bobblehead by attempting to photograph my whole body while holding an iPhone at arm's length. It went all kinds of wrong. My arm is not bigger than my thigh and my eyes are not the size of dinner plates. It made me laugh though.

I haven't been taking any photos because 1) busy and 2) I think I look exactly the same except smaller and whiter. Three years after skin cancer and a sunless tanner allergy, I'm so pale I would probably glitter like a Cullen in full sunlight. That blinding belly glare is not exactly conducive to showing off muscle definition in a fitness blog.

E asked if I lost muscle. I don't know. From my experience with injury and atrophy, the fastest way to lose muscle is not to use it at all. I've never stopped using mine so it tends to stick around. I'm definitely not as big as when I was eating like a football player, lifting heavy six days a week, and taking creatine. To some degree, you look like what you do. If I look a little more Pilates and a little less bodybuilder, that's ok with me.

Z asked for a detailed workout schedule. There is no detailed workout schedule. :-) I'm totally making it up as I go. I steal great ideas from various trainers and programs, but right now I'm winging it with whatever I feel like and have time for. I walk miles a day with the dog. I did a TRX workout a few days ago that was just pistol squats, atomic push-ups and inverted rows. I got a huge kick out of watching TV on the elliptical trainer. I did a whole machine weight circuit at the gym last week. I run sprints with Ripley barking, nipping and herding me along. I swing, clean, press, squat and lunge with my kettlebells. I do the killer Pilates core routines I learned when I was going to the studio. I love Valslide reverse lunges. If I only have time for one lower body exercise, that's the one.

Now there are obvious pitfalls to using a fitness mishmash approach. The biggest one is that you're always going to do what you most enjoy, not necessarily what you most need. If you're looking to make dramatic changes, it's MUCH better to follow a carefully structured program than to go with some homemade thing that humors all your weaknesses. Still, humoring beats quitting! It's dumb to say, well I can't follow a specific program right now so I'm not going to exercise.

I really do eat whatever I want. I've been enjoying a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast every morning. I try to eat other things but I always end up grabbing the Cheerios box and twirling happily toward my Spiderman bowl. I like to fill it a little too full so that when I add almond milk, it makes a Cheerios mountain. I'm sure the novelty will wear off at some point and I'll go back to grown-up fitness food. I still catch a green smoothie midmorning. I like sandwiches. I like salads. I like veggie omelets, family dinners and Chinese take-out. I like those giant greasy Angus burgers from McDonald's. They totally nailed the fat on sugar on salt on fat engineered food-addiction thing with that monstrosity. I drool just typing about it.

Anyway, mostly healthy. Mostly plants. No food off limits. Tight portion control. I don't think it's anything too secrety. I'm smaller because I eat less than when I was bigger.

Gremlin Test

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:17:13 -0600

My last couple of blog entries disappeared and then randomly reappeared hours or days later. I'm posting the gremlin to see what happens. Will he vanish? Will he multiply? Will he run amok? I don't know. Let's find out...

Holiday Fitness, Haagen Dazs and “Hungry”

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:02:47 -0600

I've been to the gym twice this week. How odd. I wasn't really missing my gym membership but I got a 2-week guest pass and decided to investigate. Things have changed. Elliptical machines have cable television now! I watched an episode of MTV's True Life "I'm on Steroids" while pedaling to nowhere. I haven't checked out any classes yet but I laughed to the point of crying face-pain at the thought of ME going to Zumba. It might be worth doing just for the hilarity factor.

The gym is empty this time of year. I think quite a few members wander off when the Halloween candy hits. They keep eating right through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then wake up January 1st thinking, "OMG, what have I done?!" Tom Venuto posted a great article last week about how reverse goal-setting and either/or thinking lead to holiday weight gain. If you feel like your fitness goals are slipping and you're thinking about chucking it until after the holidays, get over there and read it.

Life is still crazy busy. I haven't had time to photograph my lunch lately, and I haven't been very organized, but I haven't missed a workout. I've been mixing it up with my TRX, kettlebells, Valslides, sprints, dog walks and gym visits, plus some bonus kid chasing and playground climbing. The spazzy activity level has more than offset any ab damage from family dinners and kid food. (I have a new thing for Cheerios.) My weight is lower than it has been in ages. It bounces around 128-131. I had to buy smaller clothes. It's kind of weird how it happened. Let's recap: I relaxed my control freak food tracking. I ate what I liked instead of what I thought I should eat. I ate more plants and less protein. And I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner instead of perfectly balanced and timed mini-meals. Last time I was even close to this size, I'd been dieting my brains out for months and feeling very deprived - lots of Myoplex and plain chicken breast, no bread or sugar. :::cry::: I would never do that to myself again. I definitely prefer this freewheeling "watch your portions and move your ass" approach.

This week I tried Haagen Dazs Five ice cream in brown sugar flavor. It only has five ingredients and they're all identifiable. It was something like milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and brown sugar. It boggled my mind. I'm still a mostly healthy eater, but wow. I mean, WOW. That stuff is good!

I finished reading Hungry by Crystal Renn. I got a little glassy-eyed during her endless recounts of various photo shoots, but I loved her story - forgettable anorexic runway model decides to eat and becomes a superstar, landing Vogue covers as a size 12. It was an excellent reminder that we shine the brightest when we embrace who we are. Also, starving sucks. :-)

The Female Body Breakthrough

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0600

How would you describe a fit female? Maybe she's someone who looks great in everything she wears, has defined arms, a small waist, no jiggle, and lots of confidence. She definitely looks like she works out but she's not starved, cranky, or exhausted. Whatever she's doing, it agrees with her. If you see her at the gym or in front of you in the grocery store checkout line, you might say, "That is what I want to look like!"

Rachel Cosgrove's new book, The Female Body Breakthrough, is about achieving that "fit female" look in the speediest way possible. The workouts are cutting edge but the information is presented for a mainstream audience. It doesn't assume you're an already-lean, research-quoting, internet fitness forum junky. This is a book that you could hand to your aerobicizing, fat gram-counting, pink dumbbell-lifting, clueless sister-in-law and totally bring her up to speed on current methods - free weights, metabolic resistance training, total body workouts, healthy fat, nutrient timing, etc..

For trainers and advanced exercisers, the book includes a look inside the latest training methods at Rachel and Alwyn Cosgrove's gym, Results Fitness, a facility that's world-renowned for rapid fat loss. It includes 16 weeks of periodized routines and is divided into four phases. The format is reminiscent of Afterburn but there's something important missing - the treadmill. There is no traditional cardio at all, not even machine intervals. Holy snot!

The program follows the "hierarchy of fat loss" so that if your schedule only allows for two workouts per week, they'll be total body strength workouts because those give you the biggest fat-blasting, shape-changing bang. In later phases, and if your schedule allows, you'll add a third strength day. More time? You'll add metabolic resistance workouts (think jumping jacks, walking lunges, kettlebell swings, push-ups). More time? Fine, hop on a spin bike or lace up the running shoes, but only if it's something you enjoy. Traditional cardio is considered icing, not the cake.

It cracked me up that the periodized routines are actually "periodized," meaning you do the easiest, lowest-volume workouts during PMS week when you're more likely to feel run down and bleh, and you do the most mentally and physically demanding workouts later in the month when you're less likely to wimp out or have a psychotic episode. Very clever. I also appreciate that even though this book is for women and talks about hormones, thyroid, birth control pills, etc., it doesn't allow you to use them as an excuse. The answer is still to eat well, lift heavy, train hard, and get lean. There's no, "There-there, dear, learn to accept your menopot" advice.

The nutrition is a typical clean-eating, higher-protein, whole food approach. I've become an intuitive eater but I realize that you can't start there. It takes a strong foundation of healthy habits to achieve a fit physique. If you go "intuitive" before the basics are in place, your intuition will tell you to eat cookies, lots of ‘em. The Female Body Breakthrough creates a good nutrition base without crossing the line into food scale and spreadsheet territory. I was thrilled to see that Rachel shares my "if it's working, don't mess with it" philosophy. So, if you make a few basic changes and get results, there's no reason to start any kind of calorie-counting, zig-zagging, carb-cycling, fruit-restricting madness. Those options are explained and available to you if you stall or if you're taking your physique to a really high level, but they're not applied to everybody.

The book touches on Rachel Cosgrove's own struggle with disordered eating and the rebound weight gain that occurred after competing in fitness. It's filled with photos and stories from real women who have overcome obstacles and achieved their fitness goals. There are some models and athletes but there are also a whole lot of regular women who have made dramatic improvements. I find the real world photos more inspiring than the starved, dehydrated, spray-tanned, pro photos that you see in transformation contests and supplement ads. You know that the bronze woman with the gaunt face and striated abs looked that way for about an hour, then she drank some water and ate a banana and gained eight pounds. That doesn't inspire me anymore. I'd rather see someone achieve a real world fit chick physique and stay that way. That's inspiring!

The Female Body Breakthrough will appeal to frustrated dieters, exhausted cardio fiends, trainers who work with female clients, and advanced exercisers looking for a new Cosgrove workout. Haters of e-books will be happy to learn this is a book-book. It's only $14.95 and available in bookstores. If you order it from Amazon today (Thursday November, 12th), you'll also score bonus goodies like a motivational poster and coaching opportunities with Rachel. Here's the scoop on that.

I use an affiliate link when discussing this product. I will receive a portion of the sale if you buy it. See my Disclosure Statement.

SPIbelt

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:10:45 -0600

While I've been busy with family stuff, my stack of fitness products to review has been piling up on me. I received this doodad in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It's a "small personal item belt" (SPIbelt, get it?) for exercisers. You wear it around your waist and it has a little pouch for your keys, money and phone. I was very excited about this thingy because I could never figure out how to carry my stuff while wearing, say, running tights and a cute tank top or thermal shirt. No pocketses!

As a result of the storage dilemma, my outdoor workout-wear tends to include a lot of cargo shorts and ugly capri pants with big pockets. How else am I supposed to carry my phone, keys, dog treats, ID and cash? With a SPIbelt, I can wear something a little more fashionable and still have a place for my stuff.

At first, I was shocked at how tiny the pouch seems. It looks like you could put a stick of gum in it and not much else. The good news is it stretches a whole lot. I was able to carry my chunky iPhone in its big honkin' tire tread case and my giant jingling key ring complete with the dog bone keychain and the flying saucer flashlight. It was snug, but it fit. I put the keys behind the phone and the phone facing the zipper. That way when I got a text, I was able to unzip it, peek at the message, and continue on without removing anything from the pouch.

I wish it were a little bigger. The pouch was too snug to add the dog accessories, but it's just right for a phone, keys and ID. Fully loaded with heavy stuff, it bounces a bit as you run but nothing too annoying. I'm sure I could minimize the wobble by tightening it up some more. After testing it on a run, later that day I found myself putting it on again to take the grandkid to the petting zoo. I wanted my money, Chapstick, phone and keys but I didn't want goats rummaging through my purse. This was a good solution.

The SPIbelt is $19.95 and it would be a great gift for fitness geeks. It has kind of a Batman, superspy, gadgety feel to it. It's a good place to put your MP3 player or your micro death ray. At no point did I feel like I was wearing a dorky fanny pack.

I have no affiliation with this product. I like it but I don't make any money if you buy it. See my Disclosure Statement.

Grandma Skwigg

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:49:55 -0600

Ok, so, a funny thing happened. I became a grandma, or I guess technically a step-grandma. The quickie version is that we've been happily reunited with my husband's daughter from a previous marriage. She has moved here with her 4 year old son to be near us... the (gulp!) grandparents. The last few weeks have been a topsy-turvy, happy, scary, comical whirlwind.

I've consumed more kid food than I have since I was a kid. Yesterday, I had a bowl of Frankenberry cereal and a box of Juicy-Juice for breakfast. I bounced all around the house screaming and waving my arms then I nearly lost consciousness from the sugar crash. Wow! I need to get everyone turned on to bananwiches and green smoothies! Organized workouts have been hit or miss lately but my overall activity level has been through the roof. Once things settle down slightly, I'm all over my new Action Hero Babe workouts.

If you want to make any grandma wisecracks or give me any advice about how to interact with a 4 year-old, I need all the suggestions and humor I can get. I think the main thing I have going for me is that I'm a big 4-year-old myself. He digs my Spiderman plates.

One other bit of exciting news, I finally ditched my ancient Windows desktop for a MacBook Pro. This blog entry is coming to you wirelessly from a recliner. Squeee!! I've been assimilated by Apple! It started with a series of iPods, then I fell goofy in love with my iPhone, now I'm fully Mac'd out.

Body by Eats

Sun, 8 Nov 2009 10:30:06 -0600

I have in my possession a review copy of Leigh Peele's Body by Eats. It is not what I thought it was. I don't know what I thought it was, maybe... a diet with math, or maybe just a cookbook. Instead, it has chapters like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Holy Sterile Cow which discuss the history of food and the latest research on topics like organics, vegetarianism and plastics. Then she gets into changing your eating habits, common myths, activity, meal timing, and NEAT. There are some formulas for fat loss, muscle gain, and maintenance. There's an activity quiz and a meal timing quiz (as in, how many meals per day you should eat). The quizzes entertained me. They have questions like - Are you hungry enough to eat:

a) a houseful of pies

b) just the house

If you're not into nutrition research or calorie calculations, you can jump right to the chapter - Look, I'm Just Here for the Food. It leads into a slew of tasty recipes. Each recipe has full nutrition stats for both weight and volume. So, if you're a numbers kook, you can either go with the measuring cups or the food scale version. If you don't care about numbers, you can just eat. The overall message of the book is to embrace food and to step away from fear, guilt, and nutrition dogma. Sure, you have to eat less (or move more) to lose weight, but being fit doesn't require eliminating favorite foods and living on flavorless goo.

The program comes with several additional cookbooks including Veggie/Vegan, Bulking, and Desserts. There is a membership site with discussion forums and there will be additional cookbooks and materials released each month.

I like the "embrace food" and the "death of clean eating" themes. I like that she puts "You can eat whatever you want!" in giant letters. You can eat GOOD food that you love and still achieve your fitness and physique goals. The recipes include things like chocolate chips and heavy cream. There's a bacon cheese chicken sandwich. That's obviously not in the Vegan book! But you get the idea, the recipes are for real meals, comfort foods, and family favorites, not bland diet food.

If you enjoy food, cooking, and recipes, Body by Eats will make you happy. If you're looking for a diet, you'll be like, huh??? Because this really kind of veers away from the calorie-counting and math wizardry in Leigh's past books. The nutrition stats are there if you need them, but the program is more about nom-nomming than numbers.

I use an affiliate link when discussing this product. I will receive a portion of the sale if you buy it. See my Disclosure Statement.

Action Hero Babe Review

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:53:54 -0600

My Action Hero Babe training program arrived yesterday. So many goodies! I tore into it like Wyle E. Coyote with a new Acme catalog. There are at least a dozen DVDs and CD-ROMs. I was perplexing about where to start but there is a Let's Get Started DVD that explains how the program works, what to expect and how to proceed. It's kind of like sitting down and having a consultation with Valerie Waters. Nice touch.

Step one was to load up the materials CD-ROM, print the forms, workout schedules, and recipes, and stick them in the cool red and black binder. Organizational geek-o-rama!

Next, I watched the Basic Training DVD which covers proper form and modifications for the exercises. Now, as somebody who is used to puzzling over vague e-book exercise instructions, it was very nice to see a trainer demonstrate all the moves. Some of them are basic - squats, deadlifts - and some are totally unique and painful - belly robbers, upside down snow angels. It was great to see exactly how to perform the few I was unsure about.

I'd been fiddling with the materials for an hour at that point but I couldn't resist trying a workout. I started with Build Phase 1. I was a little apprehensive about it because I *hate* workout DVDs. I was expecting to kind of groan and eye-roll my way through corny music, forced dialogue, and cheeseball special effects. It is NOT like that! Whew! It's like if you went over to Val's house and worked out with her. There was no dancy, bouncy nonsense, no script, and no lame pep-talks. It was just Val doing the workout with you and offering some pointers. It was easy to imagine myself as a celebrity client getting one-on-one instruction. The video production was very nice, the mood was light and fun. I'm surprised at how much enjoyed it. I don't think I'll be retreating to the printed workout sheets.

The beginning of the DVD had an equipment list so I knew exactly what to line up. I really liked seeing tiny Val with her 35lb kettlebell. It's totally your call as to how much weight to use. She offers suggestions if you don't know where to start, but she's not making everyone use 5 pound weights or anything crazy. You can go as heavy as you like.

Action Hero Babe is an eight week program with two four-week phases. The DVDs are meant to be done three times a week on non-consecutive days. There's a Build workout, a Burn workout, and a Sculpt workout. They're all total body strength routines but with slightly different emphasis. The Build workout is heavy; the Burn workout is higher heart rate, etc.. On the days between strength workouts, you do cardio. There are a number of suggested interval workouts (a printout, not DVDs) but it's really your call as to what you do. If you'd rather catch a spin class or play tennis, you can. If you don't feel like a machine interval program, you can do an outdoor jog, take a dance class, run stadium stairs or whatever. I liked the flexibility of it.

The food is simple and clean, whole foods, no junk, but with an emphasis on easy meals, quick preparation and planning ahead. It's common sense nutrition but it's presented in a fun and motivating way. The Let's Get Cookin' DVD is like hanging out in the kitchen with Val, going over snack options, making green smoothies.

Valerie Waters is known for getting celebrity clients like Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel, Rachel Nichols and Cindy Crawford ready for movie roles, red carpet events and photo shoots in record time. The Action Hero Babe training program gives regular people access to those training methods. It makes you feel like you're one of Val's clients, training in her house, making stuff in her kitchen. It's more personal and more motivating than an e-book. The video production is high-quality but it's not annoyingly over-produced. It feels like you're there with her, not like you're trapped in a music video.

It did take a little longer than expected to arrive. I think they waaaay underestimated demand for the product. The materials are very nice (the black binder, the glossy dividers, the DVDs) but need to be packaged a little better for shipping. The binder was loose in a box and obviously moved around a lot during transit. When it arrived, a flyer had worked its way mostly out of the box, which wasn't taped all the way around. Some of the DVDs had shaken themselves out of their sleeves. Nothing was damaged but the box could sure use some shrink-wrap or an air pack or something to keep things from moving.

Anybody else tried it yet? Thoughts?

I use an affiliate link when discussing this product. I will receive a portion of the sale if you buy it. See my Disclosure Statement.

Breakfast Scramble and Tree People

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 11:13:20 -0600

Just a couple of pics. The first is a breakfast scramble I make with 2 omega eggs, onion, red bell pepper, Havarti cheese, and frozen spinach (my new favorite convenience food). Next, I've found further evidence of tiny tree people living in my neighborhood. It's starting to freak me out.