Ben Stiller

I was recently inspired by Ben Stiller's arms in the movie, "Tropic Thunder" to up my weights at the gym. If you haven't seen it, it's a really fun movie and Ben Stiller is in great shape. In fact, even if you have seen it, watch it again! It never hurts to see a terrific movie, right?
Anyway, I've been doing weight-training workouts in a more fitness-oriented way (rather than traditional bodybuilding) for a while now and it's time for a few changes. What I've been doing is based on Giant Sets of six or more exercises that work the whole body, using light weights and high reps (20). It went something like this:

Do 20 reps of each exercise with no more than 30 seconds rest in between. Then
repeat the entire sequence 2 or 3 times:

Lateral pulldowns (for upper back)
Squats (legs and core)
Dumbbell chest press (chest, shoulders)
Lunges (legs)
Dumbbell shoulder press (shoulders)
Crunches (abs)
Bicep curl (biceps)
Dips (triceps, chests)

This is great for general fitness and cardio work. It also gets you out of the gym faster than a more traditional bodybuilding workout because you're jumping from one exercise to another that uses entirely different muscle groups. Your heart and lungs are going like crazy the whole time, but your muscles still get a chance to recover.
Great for getting leaner, but if you want to increase your muscle size and look like Ben Stiller, you'll want to do less repetitions with heavier weights.
So I've decided that for a while, I'm going to go a little heavier, but still keep my reps no less than 8 (I am a 51 year old lady, after all, and the days of lifting super heavy are soooo over), which means that my poundage can't be super high, just higher than it was when I was doing 20 repetitions of each exercise. I'm also going to bring back the "pyramid system" that I used in my bodybuilding days. Here is an example of how it works. You can do this with most exercises:

Set 1, use a weight that you can comfortably do 15 reps with.
Set 2, increase the weight and do 12 reps.
Set 3, increase again and do 10 reps.
Set 4, increase again and do 8.
Set 5, decrease back to the weight you used in Set 2 and do 15 reps.

And, voila! Your lats are all pumped up!

For now, I'm sticking with the Giant Set arrangement that works the whole body because it's just such a great time-saver. But if I really wanted to grow new muscle, I'd arrange it like this:

Day 1, pushing exercises (those that work chest, shoulders, and triceps)
Day 2, pulling exercises (those that work back and biceps)
Day 3, legs
Each day would also have 3 sets of ab work at the end of the other training.
Day 4, rest

Poor old bodybuilders! It's a rough game and people can take it too far. But it's good to use some of their exercise philosophy where it's helpful. The best thing is to mix it all up and not do the same routine year after year.

Food For a Cold Night

It's freezing cold here tonight (around 14 degrees Farenheit) and we didn't feel like going out for new ingredients to make dinner, so I decided we should have an adventure with whatever I could find in the kitchen. It was SOOOOOO good that I had to tell you guys about it! Here it is:

End of January Dinner

Heat in a skillet:
1 Tablespoon of olive oil

Saute in the oil:
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium sized onion, chopped

When the garlic and onions are soft and lightly colored, add:
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 15 oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 1 lb. bag of frozen chopped spinach (still frozen is fine)
1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in half
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup or so of water

Cover the skillet with a lid and cook about 10 minutes until the spinach is all thawed and the tomatoes have begun to cook down a little. If you need to add any water to keep it all moist, feel free to do so, but not so much that it turns to soup.

Add juice of 1 lemon, squeezed

In a small bowl, beat two eggs with a fork, then add slowly to the spinach/bean mixture, constantly stirring everything so that the eggs cook evenly into the mixture. It should only take a couple of minutes for the eggs to cook.

Serve over hot brown rice (preferably brown jasmine rice!) and top with
fresh avocado slices.

2010 Motivation

So here I am at that point in the middle of winter where my hibernation tendencies may have peaked and I'm realizing I need to freshen up my motivation engine. We always have a big crush of deadlines right at the end of the year, coinciding with the holidays, and it throws getting to the gym regularly a little out of whack.

Anyway, as I was ellipsing on the elliptical machine at the gym today, I was thinking about how the biggest hurdle to fitness is, in fact, motivation. Not just like a one time "shot-in-the-arm" motivation, but steady, consistent motivation. The truth is that ANY motivation will lose its effect after some time and needs to be recharged. I think the trick is to recognize that this WILL happen and plan for it.

Here are a few ideas that come to mind:
Subscribe to fitness magazines. My favorite is Men's Health, second favorite is Women's Health (both published by Rodale). The thing about subscribing rather than just picking the magazine up at the store is that it will appear in your mailbox at regular intervals. These two magazines always inspire me to try out a new workout routine or new exercise that I hadn't thought of before and I subscribe to both of them.

Join a gym where there are lots of people exercising. Or do your walking or jogging in a place where other people are doing the same. Being around people who are active always makes me want to get up and exercise. In fact, as I was ellipsing on the elliptical machine today, I purposely chose a machine that faced the people who were lifting weights so that I would be eager to attack the dumbbells once I'd finished.
Of course, it is possible to keep yourself motivated without an external push. When I first started lifting weights (1984), I trained at home by myself. In fact, I entered the first three bodybuilding contests I was in after only training at home. I won one of those contests (Cleveland Novice) and did pretty well in the other two, but once I joined a gym, I could see how much more I could put into my workouts. I learned so much from the other lifters and always felt happy to be there.

Join a gym that you pay for. Someone once told me that Sigmund Freud said that paying for psychotherapy was a vital element in the success of the treatment. I don't know if he really said that, but it does make sense. We tend to want to get our money's worth when we've actually paid for something, so we'll be more likely to use the gym we join (hopefully!). Along that same line of thinking would be:

Sign up for classes that you pay for. They're regularly scheduled, social, AND you've paid for them! Perfect!

More ideas later.

Posture Lesson From Miss Chicken Goode

I'm not sure where she picked up the name, but she's been one of our regular models for about the last 15 years or so. She's made of plastic and lives in our basement, and because I'm working on a painting of her at the moment, she was in my mind today when I was warming up on the treadmill at the gym. I realized that her great posture is the result of the hook attached to the top of her head. While I was walking, I started imagining being suspended the way she is with her bones all loose and dangly like a set of windchimes and immediately I felt my posture improve. My shoulders became more relaxed (I hadn't realized they were tight!) and I just moved with more ease. I found that it worked best if the hook I was imagining was located a little towards the back of the crown of my head rather than the front (notice where the hook is located in the photo above), with my chin in a neutral position--not lifted or pushed down too far. This had the effect of elongating and relaxing the back of my neck. So give it a try and see if it doesn't make you feel lighter on your feet with less back and neck strain at the end of the day!

I've Got A Cold

I have now officially joined the zillions of people out there who have a cold and it suuuucks! So what to do now? A few things that come to mind are:

Stay warm! Wear a warm hat when you go outside, wear warm socks, etc.
Drink tons of tea. I make a spicy tea (recipe below) with cinnamon and ginger.
Rest and sleep as much as you can, but, unless you have a fever, it's good to get a little exercise like walking to stimulate your immune system.
Eat more cooked vegetables and whole grains, less heavy protein and fat.
Avoid dairy products and sugar.

That said, I also favor the idea of calling it an official vacation and babying the heck out of yourself. I know it goes against the "no dairy" rule stated above, but when I was a kid, my Mom would give me soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and I would curl up in bed with a pile of comic books. Wow, that really sounds pretty nice about now. Boris said his mother would give him angel hair pasta with mashed potatoes on it. That sounds freakin' amazing. If any of you have any great comfort food ideas for a cold, I'd love to hear about it!

Spicy Tea

1 quart water
1 inch peeled and sliced ginger
2 cinnamon sticks
sprinkle black pepper
2 tea bags (I like Tulsi tea for this, but you can use any kind of tea you like--green, black, white, oolong, rooibos, anything).

Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper. Cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the tea bags. Let steep for about 5 minutes. Pour and drink it up!

Architect Warrior

Here's a little kick-ass baditude to inspire you with today. I just came back from Texas where I was hanging out with my father, Milton Bell, who has been a huge source of strength and inspiration for me. He just turned 80 this year and he still kicks butt wherever he goes.

This drawing that I did when I was in school back in 1977 (yes! The Year Of Star Wars!) is not a drawing of Robert Sapolsky, but of a friend of mind named James Kenney. But I thought that James looks kind of like Sapolsky, so here it is!

Lately while painting in our studio, Boris and I have been listening to lectures on youtube by Robert Sapolsky. Not only does he present information that is 500% fascinating, but he's just such a great speaker. So entertaining and fun to listen to! Anyway, one of the things he talked about was that the act of anticipating getting something you want is going to give you a higher endorphin blast than actually getting the thing. The reason I'm bringing this up is that it explains so many things--he used the example of gambling addiction or compulsive shopping, for instance. I could never understand how these things work as an actual addiction (although the fact that they do is obviously true!), but Sapolsky explains that the feeling of knowing you might get the reward you seek is like a powerful shot of an addictive drug.

Boris and I have always had a related experience with our painting. When working on a painting, we actually often enjoy the act of climbing towards the goal of doing the painting even more than when we finally finish it. The moment the goal has been realized, the feeling changes into a good kind of satisfaction, but it doesn't have that intense excitement that climbing does. I had always thought that this was because when the painting is still being formed, it contains all kinds of unknown possibilities and then, when it's finished, it's kind of nailed down into one spot. I do think that's part of the difference in feelings, but also knowing a change of chemistry is taking place, and not a letdown, makes you accept that it's just the way the system works. So then you can start getting excited about the next goal and the next one after that! I love it! Keep painting!