Extreme Hoarders: I NEED that Magazine Edition

If you're anything like me, you read a magazine and say, "Oh, that's a good idea. I want to try/buy/see that. Let me hold onto this magazine." Four years of Oxygen subscriptions later, I could barely find shelf space for them and that wasn't even counting the copies I kept at my parents' house. Or my copies of Runners World. As you can tell, I had a problem.

Instead of keeping the whole magazine like some kind of gym reference library, I went through each magazine and cut out only the pages I wanted to keep.

The smaller green binder is for recipes. The larger blue binder is for exercises.

I bought this nifty gadget to easily cut articles at Staples. I think it's for cutting coupons. The little blade is retractable and it's easy to handle. And as with scissors, I still can't cut in a straight line.

Strategic Planning

This weekend I made it back to my parents' house. The lack of electricity deterred me from returning sooner but finally their reenactment of Little House on the Prairie ended (really LIPA, nine days without electricity?) and I was able to come get my winter coat. If I thought I had in bad in Manhattan without a winter coat, my parents had it so much worse without heat.

My parents' house.

Their driveway.

I like to go home for many reasons. I like my parents. They are interesting people and they feed me. It is also less expensive to purchase household items and groceries on Long Island. It's extremely inexpensive if your parents frequently purchase those things for you and then slip you extra cash. When I go home I avoid binge drinking, I eat real food, I go to the gym, and I avoid spending money. Going home is great. And my cats are there.

And there's enough room to make a laundry color wheel in my parents' laundry room.

On Saturday I slept in and then ran errands. The cable and internet is still down at my parents' so I felt motivated to get things done. And I was trying to keep my mind off smoking. Today is DAY SEVEN. I headed to the Roslyn Equinox for a solo workout around 6 PM. When I work out by myself, I prefer to go during less packed hours so I can choose my equipment freely and not fight for space.

I did 20 minutes on the CrossRamp. I know I've written about this machine before, but I just love it more than any other cardio machine. It's like an elliptical but better.

Because it's totally normal to photograph yourself like this.

I'll be honest - I'm a little self-conscious of my flabby arms right now, but I hate wearing sleeves to the gym. This photo captured how unshapely they've gotten. I do feel stronger from the yoga though. My embarrassment motivated me to do an arm workout:

Chest press with 15 lbs weights (15 reps)

Shoulder press with 15 lbs weights (15 reps)

Skull crusher with one 15 lbs weight (10 reps, rest between 5)

Tricep kickbacks with 7.5 lbs weights (15)

2 sets

I had perused the August 2012 issue of Oxygen and found the workout below earlier in the day. It seemed like a challenging quick workout I could do on my own and it said it was Army-inspired, which I found fitting for Veteran's Day weekend. It kicked my ass.

20 crunches

20 prisoner squats

20 staggered-hand push-ups (left hand forward)

20 sit-ups

20 prisoner lunges

20 staggered-hand push-ups (right hand forward)
30-60 second plank

I did forty prisoner lunges so I'd have twenty for each leg and a 60 second plank. And then I prayed for mercy. Those staggered-hand push-ups are so freaking hard! I've decided that I will do this workout on cardio days at least once a week. I am going to be able to do one set no problem by New Years.

Today I went to Raj Shtrom's vinyasa flow yoga class at the Equinox in Great Neck. They've redone the bathrooms and showers since the last time I was there and it looks lovely.

Raj's class beats me normally, but after lifting last night, my arms could barely support my weight. I am the lamest yoga practicer in the world, but I am going to stick with it. I want to make sure that I am in shape and that my strength is balanced. I feel like I started back at round zero and that I shouldn't make the same mistakes I've made in the past as I return to working out and better eating.

My gym requires valet parking on Sundays.

I'm proud of myself for not smoking cigarettes for an entire week, but I'm a little worried about keeping it up when I go out. I went out for drinks three times last week and didn't have a cigarette (although I did go to a cigar bar one night.) However, I do get text messages like this one:

Do I need to give up benders? Does this mean I'm growing up? Can I have a six-pack if I give up beer?

Enough of these deep philosophical questions and on to the important things.

Today is Veteran's Day, one of the most important days of the years. I love veterans and have the utmost respect for servicemen and women. I especially love Marines. They're pretty sexy. Take the time today and tomorrow (and every day for that matter!) to thank the men and women who risk their lives to make sure that you and I are safe and free. Thank you veterans! God bless you!

Accountability

One way to stay committed to reaching a goal is to put it in writing. Another way to stay committed to reaching this goal is to tell other people. So I'm tell you all in writing: My goal is to make it on the pages of Oxygen magazine in its Fat Loss: Success Stories section.

Now I know that I'm not fat. I'm actually in pretty awesome shape, but I do have a pretty high body fat percentage and I'm not as muscular as I used to be. By eating clean and committing myself to a regular strength training routine, I think that I could be chosen to be in my favorite magazine. (After GQ that is. No really. My favorite magazine is directed towards men's fashions and picking up chicks. Yes, I know I'm not a guy, but it's my dream in life to be interviewed by that magazine for an article about why I am so awesome. This fantasy has gotten me through about maybe 97 miles of running over the years.)

The next time I decide to make a sopressata and prosciutto sandwich right before bedtime even though I'm stuffed, I will think about this goal and how I have publicly announced it. Hopefully it will help me say no to the sandwich, even though it was delicious and is still sitting in my stomach.

What goals have you set for yourself? What type of fitness goals do you want to reach? How do you hold yourself accountable?

Preparing for Hurricane Irene

Today I fully intended to camp out on my couch, and then I received a text message inviting me to workout and then eat lunch at Piping. Well who am I to say no to a sweat sesh and lunch with a good friend? So I changed out of my Hurricane Chic attire and got ready to get my gym on.

Since I had finished my eighteen mile long run a mere fourteen hours earlier, I couldn't spend the entire time on cardio machines. I went through my collection of Oxygen magazines and decided upon a workout from the February 2011 issue. Now the article said to choose one muscle group and do the three sets of each exercise. I was feeling creative so I decided to do one set of each exercise in each muscle group.

After fifteen minutes on the treadmill of sprints and speedwalking at different inclines, I was sweaty enough to start lifting. I proceeded to do the following with 10 lbs weights:

15 reps stability ball bench press

15 reps stability ball chest flye

15 reps standing dumbbell press

15 reps stability ball bent-over flye

15 reps (each arm) one-arm overhead triceps extension

15 reps stability ball lying dumbbell extension

20 reps dumbbell front squat

12 reps (each leg) dumbbell lunge

20 reps dumbbell stiff-legged deadlift

Then I switched to 15 lbs weights:

15 reps dumbbell deadlift

15 reps bent over two-arm row

Before switching back to 10 lbs for:

15 reps seated hammer curl

15 reps standing reverse curl

I also did ten side-plank push ups, 20 of those things when you sit on your butt and raise your legs and twist with a medicine ball (12 lbs ball, twisting to each side counts as 1), and some good, old-fashioned weighted crunches.

I moved onto the abductor/adductor machine. I can still put 200 lbs on it and easily perform the abduction exercises, i.e. the outsides of my thighs are monsters. However, I went from being able to do 200 lbs for adduction to a measily 125 lbs. What this means is that I can no longer fully support my own weight while having sex standing up. This is an issue.

I did about 5 minutes on the bike before succumbing to intense boredom. This is when I pulled my shock and awe move and performed burpee push-ups with a BOSU with a nice little lift in between each rep. This attracts attention. It's also a good workout. Then I did cardio lunges off the BOSU for 1 minute. I finished up my light workout rolling around on the foam roller praying for mercy. I hate that thing but I know it's good for me.

After a shower, I enjoyed a delicious curry chicken salad and a pretty good Bloody Mary. Now I'm back in my Hurricane Chic awaiting the Storm of the Century.

In case something happens to me during Hurricane Irene,
I want to be found wearing this.

Taking Advantage of the Sun

 I had a whole Equinox evening planned, until I saw how nice it was outside when I got home from work. As much as I knew I shouldn't, I went running anyway. Just a five mile run along the river, but I'm sure I would've benefitted more from an evening of plyometrics.

It was a bit chilly, and very windy, but I found it refreshing. I just feel better when I see water, even if it is polluted and filled with dead bodies. The wind definitely slowed me down, and it occurred to me that I don't know what kind of weather conditions I will be running in this weekend. The weather report for DC says 53 degrees and sunny on Sunday, but that doesn't address wind speeds. I'm going to try not to become obsessed with this, although there's a strong chance that if you check my Google history, you'll find "DC wind patterns spring" searched at 3am tomorrow morning.

The skin from my blood blister fell off!
Cool/Gross!

The new Oxygen Magazine arrived in the mail. It has a Yoga Warrior Goddess routine that I tried at my apartment today. I am so awful about stretching after my runs, so at least this was something. I finally got to try out the yoga mat that's been sitting in my closet since last fall.

Gaining Confidence to Workout Alone and March's Ultimate Arms Workout

I rarely hit the gym floor by myself. Sure, I'll hop on a cardio machine if I have some extra time before a class, or I might use the adductor/abductor hip machines (205 lbs baby, booyah!), but I used to actually show up and lift. It occured to me recently that I don't even know where most of the equipment is located at the 85th & 3rd Equinox location and I used to be there all the time. I subscribe to Oxygen magazine, which is the great women's fitness magazine, that is full of workout advice and exercises. My goal is to be able to perform these workouts on my own when I can't or don't want to attend a class.

A lot of classes are full-body workouts. You can't and shouldn't do a full-body workout every single day. This leads to overtraining, injuries, and late-night binge-eating. I've decided to focus on spin and yoga classes, and then do no more than one full-body workout class a week. I am going to do my own lifting. I tried Oxygen's March triceps and biceps workout yesterday and my arms are feeling it! I used 12.5 lb weights, and skipped the stability ball preacher curl (just couldn't be bothered to run around 3 floors looking for a stability ball when I had a class starting in 10 minutes.)

Triceps Exercises (2 sets of each)
1. Body weight bench dip (12 reps)
2. Lying triceps extension (12 reps)
3. One-arm triceps kickback (12 reps on each side)

Biceps Exercises (2 sets of each)
1. Alternating biceps curl (15 reps each arm)
2. Hammer biceps curl (12 reps)
3. Dumbbell preacher curl on stability ball (skipped but I would've done 12 each)

I chose to superset the triceps/biceps exercises during the first set, going from one triceps move right into the biceps move before resting and moving on to the next exercises. Oxygen recommended this to save time and increase caloric burn.

1 Dumbbell + 7 Moves = Oxygen's Total-Body Workout

Oxygen Magazine's March issue has a great total-body workout on p. 39 that I tried today. All you need is one dumbbell to complete all 7 moves.

Exercises

1. Dumbbell wood chop (low to high)
- This move works your legs, core, shoulders, back and chest.

2. Squat (dumbbell held at chest height)
- This moves works your quads, glutes, calves, and hamstrings.

3. Biceps curl (one arm at a time)
- This moves works your biceps and forearms.

4. Triceps overhead extension
- This moves works your triceps and forearms.

5. Chest press (one arm at a time)
- This moves works your chest, shoulders, triceps, cores.

6. Crunch (weight held on chest)
- This moves works your abdominals.

7. Shoulder press (one arm at a time)
- This moves works your front delts and lateral delts.

I used a 12.5 lb dumbbell. The magazine says to do each exercise for 15 reps, then rest before repeating the seven moves. Let me know how you liked this routine if you try it. (Let's get some posting going. I feel unloved!)

Open Letter to the Editor

Dear Oxygen Magazine, 

          When I was all set on an evening of couch-sitting, bad eating, and nicotine product inhaling, your November issue arrived in my mailbox. There is no getting away from you, now is there? Thank you.         

             Sincerely, 

                    former binge-eating, gym-avoiding smoker

BUSTED.