Category — Mind

photo by specialkrb

Thanks for all of your great comments on yesterday’s funny gym post. I’m thankful I don’t go to the same gym as some of you. Scary things happen.

In other news, I had all intentions of planning out my meals for the week and sticking to the list strictly—like my life depended on it. But you know what? When you’re only a mildly good cook (or a mildly sucky one, depending on how you look at things) you can’t count on not screwing things up. Like the night I burnt the roasting eggplant. Or when The Man and I got home at 8 p.m. one night and just felt like a bowl of cereal.

I’m telling you this because despite my planning and my lack of follow through, we’ve actually used up all of our groceries without throwing away some vegetables that had started to decompose in the far reaches of our fridge. Sounds like no big deal, right? Well, maybe for you. But for The Man and I things seem to spoil in warp speed. (OK, we might settle for cereal too many nights a week. I swear that will change as soon as I quit my job and become a professional socialite. I’m right on that…)

Though we didn’t fail at our stick-to-the-grocery-list plan this time, we didn’t 100 percent succeed either. But here’s the best part: We’re going to try again and again and again until we get it right. Don’t you love how life is like that? You don’t get thrown out for messing up or being lackluster. And as The Man told me a few nights ago: The world isn’t going to end if the eggplant burns. (Though I did spend a good deal of time arguing that it might.)

Here’s where I turn this food-related post into a life lesson (marvel at my cleverness): If you fall flat on your butt and fail, so what? Pick yourself up, throw out the blackened eggplant dust yourself off, and give it another go.

I’m logging off wonderful blog readers (did I ever tell you how super you are?). The Man has some work to do and since we’re one computer short—no, it didn’t die. It’s just in the hospital getting some diagnostics done—he gets dibs on it.

What’s your burnt eggplant moment? And, no, it doesn’t have to be related to food. I have many failures in other areas of my life. But we don’t have to talk about that here. Cough, knees. Cough, cough.

photo by steve & jenna copley

The gym’s a silly place if you really pay attention. Because Wednesday is nothing more than a reminder there are still two more days to the workweek, I thought some musings might make for an entertaining break:

1. Old women have confidence, but sometimes that’s not a good thing. Eighty-year-old fake-n-baked woman at my gym with strange stomach wrinkles who wears a white sports bra and old spandex, I’m looking at you.

2. Leg presses tone your butt. Just when you think you’ve pumped your quads into submission you feel a deep ache in the butt. Yup, the exercise works that bigtime.

3. If you plan on doing reverse crunches, yoga, or other twisty poses, loose shorts aren’t the best idea. Thirtysomething woman who wears short shorts (and, thankfully, underwear) to contort, I’m talking to you.

4. Vitamins, protein shakes, workout clothes, and water double in price when they enter a gym.

5. 7 pm is the worst time to hit the gym if you plan to use cardio equipment, free weights, weight machines, Bosu balls, exercise balls, the exercise mat…

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photo by garry
This has nothing to do with my weekend. Unfortunately.

Hooray for Friday. (Do I say that every week? It’s because I really mean it.) Hope you’ve all had a great week so far. The Man and I are in a money-saving mood so tonight we’re making a home-cooked dinner instead of going out to eat. When you can’t really do much physically, eating out is about the only way to get out of the house. I know, thrilling.

I don’t know about you, but this weekend’s shaping up to be ho-hum. I’m going to do a little writing, probably clean, and most definitely organize. And if I don’t go to the gym both days, I’m blogging my address and asking anyone within a 50 mile radius to come over and beat me up. (All right, so I’m being a little dramatic.)

Most weekends I have big dreams but rarely get everything done I need to. (See last weekend’s failed gym attempts.) So here you go—my list of dreams and the unfortunate reality:

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photo from cute overload
This makes me happy. Very happy.

By now you know that eating healthy foods—think whole grains, fruits, and veggies—exercising, and not smoking can keep your ticker tocking. Well, scientists say there’s another way you can lower your chances of getting heart disease: Be happy.

In a 10-year study of 1,739 men and women, researchers learned that happier folks were less likely to develop heart disease. They measured participants’ joy on a five-point scale and learned that for every point that measured happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, or contentment the risk of heart disease dropped by 22 percent. So unhappy people had a 22 percent higher risk of heart disease or chest pain than people who were somewhat happy. And those so-so people had a 22 percent higher risk for heart disease than moderately happy people.

The researchers say there are a few reasons people who wear rose-colored glasses may avoid heart problems. They may sleep more, have heart-healthy behaviors, have less stress or better handle stress, or they might just be physiologically different than their glum peers.

According to the researchers, people can significantly reduce their risk for heart disease if they do things that make them happy. So that’s the catch. See, making ourselves happier is easier said than done, isn’t it? I mean, when I’m down in the dumps, the last thing I want to do is purposefully make myself happier. (Yeah, that sounds depressing.)

So in case you’re feeling down but fear its ill effects on your heart, I’ve created a list of things that make me happy. You’ll probably have your own happy triggers (list ’em in the comments), but these always cheer me up…

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photo by jessi.bryan
Overeat? Who, me??

I have a lot of bad habits. I eat dessert every day. I sometimes skip workouts. And I always sleep too late. You know what? I’ll probably do some of those bad habits this weekend. I’ll sleep till 10 and wake with a headache. I’ll O.D. on brownies or cookies or Hershey’s kisses with the paper flag still attached because I’ve scarffed them down so fast. OK, maybe that last one was a lie or long stretch of my imagination.

Everyone has bad habits. In fact, every time a new study is published, we learn about bad habits we never knew we had. Canned goods have BPA—so if you eat ’em, add that to the list. I could go on. Sure, I feel guilty 80 percent of the time because I feel like I’m not doing enough—I’m not eating healthy enough; I’m not exercising long enough or hard enough or often enough.

Despite my faults, I do have a few a few good habits I’d like to pass along. I’m going to give you the five healthy habits that make the biggest difference in my life. I won’t talk about the whole eat healthy and exercise … yada, yada, yada. Pretend those take precedence, then move on. Thanks.

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photo by dmitry_morozov

Let’s discuss support. No, I’m not talking about the kind that comes from a sports bra; that’s an important yet completely irrelevant topic right now.

What I want to chat about is the support you get from your spouse. University of Iowa researchers recently published results of a couple studies on how partners support one another in tough times. They found that both partners are happier if wives ask for support when they need it and if husbands receive the right type of support.

Let me start by saying that although the researchers looked at married folks, I think the results are applicable to unmarried couples as well. The first trial gave five surveys to more than 100 couples during the first five years of marriage. At the end of the study, the researchers learned that getting more support than you need causes more marital problems than not being there for your spouse.

To be honest, that doesn’t really make sense to me. But Lawrence and colleagues suggest that women can make up for a good-for-nothin’ man lack of spousal support by leaning on friends and family. And maybe swigging a martini or two. Just a guess. But the study says there’s no way to make up for too much support. (However, the authors didn’t note where in the world one finds a man who provides too much support. Perhaps that’s for a follow-up investigation.)

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photo by hexodus…
Oh Mike Seaver…

I was a tween back in the wholesome ’80s. In those days, we got our morals from Dr. Cliff Huxtable, not Gossip Girl. And in those days, I loved the show Growing Pains. I always wanted to be Tracey Gold. I don’t think it had much to do with her character, the chubby overachiever Carol, though we do share the same Type A personality. Nope, it was because Tracey Gold had the same first name as me. (It’s rare I come across another Tracey, you know.) Not only that, but she spelled it with an e, not the wrong way: Tracy. Oh, and did I mention her last name started with a G? Just like my maiden name? So cool.

That pretty much sums up how kids pick their role models. There’s no science behind it. There’s no listening to a mother say so-and-so is a nice girl or a good, fine woman. Nope, it’s completely random, kind of like everything else a kid does. (As in: Why does a kid decide she suddenly hates red foods? There is no reason. She’s a kid. It probably sounded cool that day.)

photo by calmdownlove

The reason I’m thinking about Tracey Gold isn’t because she’s still my role model (hello, she was sloppy seconds once Kelly Kapowski came along). It’s because I was reading a post about today’s children and role models over at Psych Central. The author started worrying about the state of role models today: Miley Cyrus with shorts up to there. Pink prancing around practically naked. Lady Gaga being Lady Gaga. And Tiger Woods being … oh you know. I’m glad I’m not a parent. I think I’d go mad. And buy a lot of Selena Gomez stuff.

The article made me think…

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photo by food thinkers
Pumpkin seeds are high in magnesium

My mother is notorious for saying half sentences.

“Oh, I meant to ask you about that thing. The one that, um … um…”

Or: “I forgot to tell you! Oh, wait, my phone’s ringing. Hang on.” Yup, Mom, what did you want to tell me? “Hmm…I don’t know. Must not have been too important.”

I’m used to these half thoughts. So I was very excited to read about a supplement that boosts brain power.

You listening, Mom?

Anyhow, what was I talking about? Oh, right, how I loved Lost last night. And how I’m addicted to it all over again.

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photo by mochida1970
At least somebody enjoys the snow

This weekend, what with the impending snow storm, I gave up any ides of checking off items on my to-do list. Down in Virginia, even flurries are cause for alarm.

Being from Massachusetts, I always thought the mid-Atlantic’s fear of snow was silly until we were dumped on during the holidays. Too few plows cleared the pile of snow. No one seemed to understand the importance of sand and salt. And don’t get me started on how long it took the main roads to be drivable again.

Anyhow, all of that made me realize driving around Saturday during a snowstorm just wasn’t going to happen. We’ll have to wait yet another day to stock up on groceries. (Yep, I’m going on three weeks. It’s amazing what’s left to eat at my house.) Because I was snowed in, and because this week was more or less hellish, I decided to have a Me Time kind of weekend.

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photo by greekadman

Strangers are underrated. Hear me out.

Sure, they drive slow when you’re late for work, cut to the front of a long line when you’ve been waiting for 20 minutes, and forget to say thanks when you hold the door for them. (You know who you are.) But sometimes they surprise you.

The other day at the gym, I decided to try a new exercise I saw on ESPN.

(If you know me, you probably think I’m joking right now. I spend most of my time begging The Man to switch it to any other channel. But it was on, and the station was running some footage of an athlete—see, I don’t even know what sport he plays!—doing physical therapy for a knee injury. So I rewound it and watched him do the move again. So there you have it. Me + ESPN.)

Anyhow, the other day I wanted to try the move. It’s a modified version of the assisted squat I do with an exercise ball. Usually I just sandwich the ball between my back and a wall then use a single leg to squat down. ESPN squats (I just coined that. Watch for the trademark) use a resistance band looped like a figure eight around the calves for extra resistance. The normal one-legged squats were getting a bit too easy for me anyhow, so I thought it was a good time to switch things up.

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