The Real Reason You Exercise: To Get a Man

Tagline: "It's all about men."

This is exactly the type of idiotic advertising that companies do just to get a rise out of people so we'll all post it on our blogs and natter about it and give them lots of viral publicity and attention.

Sadly, I am unable to resist the bait and so I'm giving it to them. ("That's what SHE said!" ba-dum-bum.)

Men's Health magazine has launched a new advertising initiative ostensibly targeted at men but really aimed at getting the women folk up in arms. Probably because we're so cute when we make that little scrunchy mad face!

The basic gist - as you can plainly see; it's so unsubtle that I'm probably lowering your IQ by explaining it to you - is pictures depicting women exercising all alone, covered in sweat and exhausted. Why, you ask, is this poor woman blowing off a fun night with the girls to ride the one stationary bike in the deserted gym that isn't facing the beautiful scenic view? You see, it's because she wants a man. And as we all know (or at least so the magazines keep telling us), a man will only love us (subtext: will want to give us a good tumble on his high heat cycle *wink wink nod nod*) if we are svelte. Nay, not just svelte but skinny.

I mean, Lindsay Lohan's got nothing on this bony chick:

And this poor woman? Begging to have somebody jump out of the woods holding a chainsaw. Do women not watch horror movies? And why has nobody told us about reflective gear? And pepper spray??

The truly crappy thing about these ads are that they're partly true. As much as it pains me to write this, a primary motivating factor in getting women to exercise is their looks. You can enthuse about heart health and longevity and increased intelligence all you want and we'll all nod and agree. And then we'll jump on the elliptical and whine about how we're "working off dinner" last night or "running off the thigh jiggle". It's a sad state of affairs but it's true. And to any woman who denies being at least partially motivated to work out by her looks, I would ask "What if exercise gave you all the health benefits - but made you fatter. Would you still do it?" Of course not. It's why you see Katherine Heigl running on the treadmill for an hour and then lighting up a cigarette in the parking lot.

But there is one little nuance that the marketers forgot (perhaps intentionally?). Women don't get thin for men. We get thin for other women. We know that men like a few lady lumps. And yet we pursue perfect thinness. Not because it makes us more sexually desirable - often it has the opposite effect - but because it makes us the Alpha Female. We're competitive like that. Sigh. Stupid Men's Health.

I've created a poll. The optimist in me wants you all to prove me wrong. But the cynic in me just wants you to be honest. We can't change what we don't acknowledge. (Holy 900-pages-of-advertising-in-Vogue crap, did I just quote Dr. Phil on here??) Anyhow, those of you reading this post in a reader won't be able to see the poll unless you click thru, which you know you want to because any poll I create at midnight is guaranteed to be awesomely awful!

Can You Spot-Reduce Your Thighs

Leave it to an incorporeal computer to give me a reality check about my body. Somewhere Isaac Asimov is smiling. But just as the Internet giveth, so does the Internet taketh away... and now I'm just confused.

Every woman has a body part that she just doesn't like much. (Strike that - while most women do, I imagine there are some who love every inch of themselves and more power to them!) Oh sure we'll gripe about there-ain't-no-love-in-these handles (so says TurboJennie) or our Oprah-waves-goodbye upper arms (so says Oprah) but there is usually one extra special body part that we focus most of our attentions on. For me, that part is my thighs.

I've had a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with those womanly fatty bits pretty much ever since I came to associate "womanly" with "fatty bits" - so you know, like 5 years old. My "athletic" thighs are the reason I go through denim hell trying to find jeans that fit. Every single pair I own is too big in the waist and too tight on the thighs. Why oh why have shoulder pads, leggings, dingy flannels and for the love of unholy fashion banana clips come back into style but not my precious 90's sk8r grrrl wide-legged jeans? Clearly the pants aren't the problem, it's got to be my legs! (Now be a good little consumer and write that 100 times on the chalkboard before you leave adolescence.)

All I wanted were legs that didn't touch anywhere between ankle and pelvis; is that too much to ask for? Yes, yes it is. Even at my skinniest-skinny (to quote the adorable Ginnifer Goodwin who also shares my thigh woes) my thighs were still best friends. And, as any reputable personal trainer will tell you, there is no such thing as spot reduction. Or - say it with me! - "everyone who chews gum would have the skinniest face ever!" Thank you endless stream of P.E. teachers and personal trainers for that witticism. Basically Suzanne Sommers was selling you snakeoil in the form of a spring-loaded contraption you pumped between your legs that was just this side of socially acceptable.

But conventional wisdom is wrong on this one, says Tim Ferriss, author of the hugely controversial and popular book The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. (You have an hour to kill? Go read the reviews on that sucker - your head will spin faster than Christina Aguilera in a shoe store.) For those of you uninitiated into the Ferriss-verse, he is known for being a human lab rat and trying out every body hack imaginable. Similar to yours truly in concept only - that man tries stuff so far on the other side of extreme that I wouldn't do even if you paid me in Lululemon outfits. I can't comment on the whole book - haven't read it yet although I plan on doing so - but he put up a "bonus" chapter on his blog about, oh yes, spot reducing the upper thighs on women. According to him it is possible. And for the low low price of $39.99.

Apparently I am not alone in my dilemma. Ferriss, to his credit, really does his homework and the whole science-y explanation is on his site. Here's the short version: he tried two creams containing compounds that theoretically had the chemical properties to alter fat storage under the skin. The prescription cream failed. But the other cream - a super gimmicky sounding CelluThin - actually did work. It reduced his body fat measurement on his treated thigh by 1 mm. I know 1 mm doesn't sound like much but he isn't measuring the circumference of his thigh with a tape measure but rather measuring his fat thickness and 1 mm is a big deal there. I almost bought the CelluThin on the spot.

But then something else caught my eye (ooh, shiny!) - a designer clothing site having a super clearance sale. (I know, I know we talked about this but I was just looking I SWEAR. I did not buy a thing. Just drooled on my keyboard.) This site, weirdly, was called MyShape. I say "weirdly" because fashion is never about my shape. Fashion could care less what shape I actually am. It's all about making me fit into their shape. But this site is based off the idea that women should by clothing according to their actual body shape. Forget "apples" and "pears" - this site offers 7 different types to choose from.

Being the Cosmo-esque quiz lover I am, I read through all the body types and picked the one I thought I was but when I tried to go further into the store, it stopped me. They wanted measurements. And not just your bust-waist-hip that we've all got memorized but about 20 different measurements including everything from the breadth of your shoulders (another problem spot for me, holla for the pull-ups!) to the height of your knee above the floor. Curiouser than Alice in CotureLand, I pulled out my trusty tape measure and went to work.

15 minutes and a ton of numbers entered later, I closed my eyes and clicked submit. (Not really. Not even I'm good enough to web surf blind.) It gave me an "S" shape. (Another bonus: their shapes are just named by letter with no judgement word attached to it like "athletic" or "curvy" or "boyish.") Turns out an S shape is "evenly proportioned." Excuse me? My thighs aren't transplants from Godzilla?

As kooky as it sounds it made me realize that maybe I don't want skinnier thighs. What if I got my dream of an inch off each thigh - would my shoulders look freakishly large then? Would my hips look weird? What if the problem isn't my body not fitting the clothes, like I'd assumed for so many years, but rather the clothes not fitting my body? I'm just going to come out and say it - for the first time I can remember - I like myself the way I am, thighs touching and everything. You can keep your cream.

Have any of you ever tried a spot-reduction technique or cream? Did it work for you? Do you remember a moment where you learned to like yourself? What sparked the change in you? Or are you still looking for it? Opinions on Tim Ferriss or The 4-Hour Body??

What is Your Most Important Fitness Tool

I salute the master of the no-slip hair clip! Do you think that wire leads to a battery pack?

What is the one thing you absolutely cannot workout without? Working out as long as I have and in as many different situations as I have (and losing as many brain cells as I have), I have forgotten pretty much every conceivable item. Yes that includes underwear. But I have learned that almost always there is a way to work around what you're lacking.

No sports bra? Your regular one or even your cami with the built-in shelf bra (which honestly is only a "bra" for 12-year old girls and is a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen for the rest of us) will do in a pinch.

No heart rate monitor? Take your pulse the old fashioned way on your neck. (Just don't press so hard you pass out.)

No shoes? My friend Leah once famously did a TurboKick class in her socks rather than miss her workout. My husband has run a mile in his work shoes. And just last month I lifted weights in my snow boots due to my keys making an impromptu trip to work with my husband.

No deodorant? Make some by making a paste with your spit and some diaper rash cream. Yeah, I actually tried that once. I can't say that it didn't work though - my armpits definitely didn't smell like sweat! Not that Desitin is preferrable to b.o.

But there is one thing I simply cannot exercise without: a hair tie. I can't stand having hair on my neck and in my face. I'll use bobby pins, head bands and flower clips as well but always in conjunction with a rubber band. Gym Buddy Krista once asked me if I was into Kabbalah because she thought the red ponytail holder that I always wore on my left wrist was a red Kabbalah string. Being as attached to hair ties as I am, I've tried them all and they've all been okay but then the other day Gym Buddy Allison showed up with these:

These do not fall out or slip at all! You know those cute ponytails where you pouf it up a little bit at the crown but they never stay without booby-trapping them with 100 bobby pins because the hair band doesn't hold tight enough? My poufy pony lasted all day today! (I cannot believe I just wrote that.) No bobbies, no slipping!

They may look like the jelly bracelets of your youth but these Scuni "evolution" bands are actually the cutest tightest don't-get-stretched-outiest hair ties you have ever used! And they come in clear in case you don't like looking as Rainbow Brite as I do! I can't believe I'm this excited about a rubber band but there you go. It's the little things in life.

What's the one thing you can't workout without? Have you ever done a crazy "fix" because you forgot something important? How do you keep your hair out of your face?

The Exercise Widow(er) Phenomenon [Coming to a marriage near you?]

Do you or someone you love suffer from the following symptoms?

- Attending only parties that serve salted nut rolls and Powerade.

- Picking up 8 pairs of different (but still look pretty much the same) running shoes every evening.

- Waking up alone to an empty bed and a note that says "8 miler, lake route, love you." Every morning.

- Is flying solo every Saturday morning and much of the weekends.

- Has to wash a separate load of laundry made up of just sweaty workout clothes every few days.

- Has a separate budget category for exercise gear, race fees, special food and stock shares in Gu.

If so, you may have Exercise Widow(er) Syndrome. Other symptoms may include dry mouth (from never being able to find a clean water bottle), headache (from waiting at a freezing finish line for 2 hours), and fatigue (from being a single parent during race season). Please talk to your doctor immediately. While there currently is no cure for EWS, it can be managed with drugs (anti-depressants for you, valium for them). Even if you are not having an active outbreak, EWS can still be contagious.

While I've written quite a bit about what it's like to be an exercise addict, I must admit I haven't given much thought to what it's like to be married to one. (Dear husband, I'm sorry.) That is until Reader Laura of Absolut(ly) Fit tipped me off to an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "A Workout Ate My Marriage." I was giggling my way through it until about halfway down I realized my husband could have written it. Suddenly it got a lot less funny.

While addictions causing strain in marriages isn't new - the damage that workaholics, shopaholics, gambleaholics (yes I made that word up) and of course alcoholics do to family relationships is well documented - the healthy living twist is relatively new. As anyone who has ever trained for a triathlon or marathon or other competition knows, it is really time consuming. Especially with endurance sports, a large part of training is just putting in the hours. And unless you have a spouse or partner who is training with you most of those hours will be spent by yourself or with a training group, taking you away from home and family. (Dear husband, I'm really sorry.)

The Journal explains, "With exercise intruding ever-more frequently on intimacy, counselors are proposing a new wedding vow: For fitter or for fatter. 'Exercise is getting more and more couples into my office,' says Karen Gail Lewis, a Cincinnati marriage and family therapist."

Exercise is an admirable pursuit and I think most people truly want their loved one to be healthy and happy. In fact, I've read (way too many) letters to advice columnists asking how to get less-healthy spouses to get bit by the health bug. The real issue here, I think, is not the exercise per se but the inequality extreme amounts of exercise introduces into the relationship.

"Commitment to a demanding training schedule cuts to the heart of the issues couples often find themselves fighting about—who does chores, who gets time for themselves and who decides where and how the family has fun.

The threat can go beyond time issues. If one partner gets a new, buff appearance and a new circle of buff acquaintances, romantic possibilities can open up—and give the other spouse good reason to feel insecure about his or her own physique."

Okay so that last one really isn't a problem for me - no one hits on me, ever, and my husband is every bit as handsome as the day I married him - but the other issues strike very close to home.

I've talked both here on my blog and in my book about how at the height of my compulsive over-exercising I ran a marathon distance and then went straight to an hour-long kickboxing class (and then fainted and had a heart arrhythmia blah blah blah) but there is another part to the story, one I didn't really think about until today. The part where my husband watched the children while I ran for nearly 4 hours and worried because I was gone so long. The part where my husband wanted to go play Ultimate Frisbee (his passion) when I finally came home but was afraid to leave me because he knew I was going to go to the gym. The part where my husband took my shoes, my car keys and all the kids' car seats so I couldn't do further damage to myself. (For those of you who haven't read the book, I got the spare car seats out of the garage, found our spare key and grabbed my old shoes and went anyway.) The part where my husband finally stepped in and said, "This is enough. You're finished. You have to go back to therapy." That must have felt awful for him.

Dear husband, I am so so very sorry.

In the article, the main man profiled, an amateur triathlete named Jordan Waxman, admits after the reporter lists all the ways he's brushed off his family for his training, "It's selfish." He's exactly right. Reading the article through the first time I wanted to smack him for all the crap he's put his wife and kids through just so he can go ride his expensive tricked-out bike in a race he paid hundreds of dollars to enter and thousands of dollars to travel to just so he could cross an arbitrary finish line. But then I began remembering similar stunts of my own and while they never entailed flying to another state they do look pretty selfish in hindsight.

Mr. Waxman, however, remains unapologetic at the end. Even after an "intervention" staged by his wife and extended family begging him to exercise less he "stood his ground. In his view, his athletic ambition shouldn't have surprised his wife. It arose from the same qualities that drove him to obtain two law degrees, an MBA and his position at Merrill Lynch." His training paid off when he swam the English Channel.

While he says that he hopes his accomplishments will be "an inspiration" to his children, it feels hollow. Kids don't care if you swam the English Channel. Heck my kids don't even care if I accomplished brushing my teeth. (The other day my son said to me, "Mom your breath smells like pickles. I love pickles!" Oops.) But kids care a lot if you're there at dinner and in the audience at their choir performance and cheering at their soccer games and praying with them at bedtime.

The article then goes on to point out that this "Divorce by Triathlon" phenomenon is only problematic in some relationships. Some couples have a shared passion of exercise and they train and race and carbo-load together (the couple that gets runner's tummy together, stays together!). Other spouses are simply not bothered by their partner's extreme exercise, choosing to pursue interests of their own. It does seem to me that if you have children then that makes the situation a lot trickier. (More people = more needs to be met.) I think the fact that this article exists at all is evidence that this issue is becoming more and more a problem.

While I've done a lot of work trying to heal myself of this addiction and all of the crazy thought patterns surrounding it - work that is going quite well I think! - I don't think I've done nearly enough to repair the relationships that I damaged during that time. Fortunately my husband and I have an unspoken agreement: when he's down, I'm there for him and when I fall, he picks me up. In the past I've been able to be his strength when he had none left and I'm so grateful that he was brave enough to take away my shoes when that's what I needed most.

What do you think of Mr. Waxman's story - selfish or inspiring? What do you do if you and your partner have hugely different levels of interest in fitness? How do you balance exercise in your relationship?

How (Not) To Use a Sandbag [Gym Buddy Workout Videos!]

Daria and I model our sandbags. Hers is leaking black coal dust down her back and yet she's still smiling. What a trouper!

Ever had your butt handed to you by a piece of fitness equipment? Well I sure did. Our very first day of the Sandbag Experiment ended with sandbag: 20, Charlotte: 0. One of the first moves we attempted is a clean and press. I've been doing those for years with the bar so I figured it wouldn't be too bad with the sandbag. I was so so wrong. The shifting of the weight really threw me off (literally). Lest you think I'm good at everything I try, behold the blooper reel:

Gym Buddy Allison comes in at the end to show me how it's really done and of course manages to not only do them perfectly but also makes them look like a piece of cake! That bag may look small but it's 50 freaking pounds. I still haven't managed a decent clean and press.

Here are the Gym Buddies demonstrating a few other moves that are particularly challenging with a sandbag:

Making Your Own Sandbag

While I got my nifty sandbag (best part: all the handles!) from Ultimate Sandbags, we need more than one bag between all the Gym Buddies. So today Allison and I both attempted to make our own. I took an old school backpack and filled it with 30 pounds of wheat poured into smaller sacks and sealed off. Any of you who are Mormon will immediately understand why I happened to have 30 pounds of wheat lying around my house but for the rest of you, you can fill it with whatever you have handy: kitty litter (unused!), rice, beans, a wiggly toddler, gravel... very small rocks. Allison made hers by filling a duffle bag with an old leaky sandbag the Y happened to have and wrapping it in a garbage bag. Two free sandbags, 10 minutes! Now you have no excuse for not doing this Experiment with us!

Extra Credit: The Crazy TRX Move You Must Try!

This is what we do to bad Gym Buddies - we hang them up in a TRX and leave them. Just kidding! Megan's demo'ing a crazy move I found on the TRX website. You know you want to try it!

Have you ever had your butt kicked by a piece of fitness equipment? Have you tried a fun or crazy move that we should try? Have you made a piece of equipment yourself?

Failed Experiment: Community Supported Agriculture

Pop quiz: what do stinging nettles, horseradish whips and burdock clubs all have in common? They may all sound like instruments of torture but actually they are foods my CSA (community supported agriculture) farm considers edible. I, on the other hand, consider them... instruments of torture.

Did you even know that you can eat stinging nettles? Indeed, the noxious weed that you spent most of girl scout camp trying to avoid, is considered a delicacy by some people. The only problem is, well, the stinging part. According to the directions that came in the handy-dandy CSA member newsletter, if you rinse the greens three times, then boil them, and then saute them, you are good to go. That seemed like a lot of work to get my green quotient in but, hey, I'm an adventurous eater so why not? Oh, and by the way, you are supposed to wear gloves while handling the vicious little suckers.

Apparently three times was not enough rinsing. The greens bit back. Hard. Evolutionary advantage: plants, 1; me, 0.

At first blush, CSAs seem like a great opportunity. You pay a certain amount of money - often called a membership fee - to a local farmer at the beginning of the season and in return you get weekly baskets of local, organic, picked-that-day produce awesomeness. If you are lucky, it will even wind up being cheaper that buying your produce at your nearby Demon Superstore that imports all your produce and then wraps them un-environmentally friendly plastic bags (obnoxious teenage bag boys come free of charge). For many people, it works out exactly as advertised. In fact, CSAs have become a popular cost-cutting measure advocated by every magazine from Money to Baby Talk.

My first clue that I wasn't going to get my happily ever after should have been that I live in Minnesota. CSA farms are local and therefore provide only what grows locally. Do you know what grows in Minnesota? Six months out of the year when temps are below zero the answer is a big fat nothing. Snow cones, anyone? The other six months of the year are divided between blistering heat, wicked humidity and thunderstorms the like of which I have never before seen. (Side note: one thunderstorm we had a year ago actually caused my friend who moved here from Texas to hide behind her couch. You know it's a heck of a thunderstorm when a Texan thinks a dumpster just got dropped on her house.) So basically we get some good apples (if the hail doesn't get them first), corn (that they sell for everything but eating), and the rest is only stuff that grows under the ground and therefore is safe from the ravages of nature that we live in.

Every month we live here, my husband and I gain respect for Ma, Pa and besmocked Laura and Mary in their drafty, tiny, Little House in the Big Woods.

But the one thing that CSAs don't often advertise is that they're like the mafia. Once you're in, you're in for life. Or until you sell your share to someone else. And so my husband and I decided to stick it out for the year. This is what we learned:

1. There are 27 different varieties of turnips: black, gold, pea-sized, big-as-your-head and even candy cane striped. We also learned that we don't like turnips. Turnips bought in the store are crunchy and mildly sweet. Turnips grown in Minnesota have serious heat. They're like a very spicy radish except you have to chew it longer thereby prolonging the pain. If I was any less of a mother, I'd post video of my son trying to amputate his tongue with his fingers after accidentally eating one. Poor baby made his father feed him for the next 3 weeks, refusing to take anything from my hand.

2. Root vegetables will rule the earth. People talk about cockroaches being the only living thing to survive a nuclear holocaust but my money is on celeriac, burdock, parsnips, rutabagas, beets and of course turnips. I tried putting them in soups and stews, hotdishes (that's Minnesotan for casserole) and salads. I tried roasting, stir frying, pickling and blanching. No matter what I did they all tasted vaguely like crunchy dirt. Although I did discover the one week we had beets with every meal that even though it looks like you have just pooped out a mass of bloody red entrails, it is actually just beetjuice-tinted excrement. Phew! My favorite of these roots though were the horseradish whips. You know what horseradish tastes like right? Well that sinus-cleanser comes from a root. Don't let them fool you - there is no method of cooking on the planet that makes raw horseradish tolerable in anything more than minuscule amounts.

The bonus is that these starchy veggies last forever. I finally gave up trying to use them all (seriously, in one week we got three celeriacs the size of footballs!) and just kept adding them to a box in my basement. I now have 50 pounds of roots that show no signs of decomposition despite some of them being several months old. Will we ever eat them? Only if there is a nuclear holocaust.

3. CSAs operate on weird schedules. I had to drive 20 minutes to my pick-up site which was only open between 1 and 5 in the afternoon on Thursdays. For anyone who holds down a normal job, this obviously falls during working hours (and doesn't even include lunch time!). For moms like me this interferes with the one absolutely sacred time in my schedule: nap time. The only people that might have found this convenient would be retired folk or frat boys with no afternoon classes.

4. The weather is king. Part of the risk you assume when you sign up for a CSA is that not only do you share the bounty of the farmer, you also share their loss when weather destroys crops. We found this out the hard way only a month into our season when severe thunderstorms damaged half of their crops beyond repair.

While we got to try a whole lot of things I've never eaten before - and seriously I thought I'd tried everything - not much of it was worth eating. The produce that my family really enjoys eating like peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad, melons and fruit just don't grow here. There were a few things I really enjoyed. The spinach was divine. The apples were perfect. The carrots were heavenly. But I ended up spending just as much money at the store buying "normal" things like lettuce. Even the things we thought we would love, like watermelon, ended up being a disappointment. (Our one and only watermelon we got last summer was the size of a softball and was white through and through. Not a single edible bite! Ditto for the muskmelon.) It ended up being a colossal waste of money and a such a source of frustration that it has ended up being a punchline in our house. If you can't cry, then you might as well laugh!

My advice to anyone considering a CSA is to check out where you live first. Californians and Hawaiians are A-OK, lucky stiffs. My sister in Colorado and brother in Utah have had good experiences with their CSAs. And I've heard the south is so fertile that vegetables do everything but jump in your kitchen window. But if your state borders Canada or ends in "Dakota" you might want to consider there is a reason 90% of your food is imported.

Second, look at what you really like to eat. If those things aren't included on your CSA list then you probably will end up buying them at the store anyhow thereby negating your monetary savings.

Third, get recommendations from other locals regarding which farms are the best. Local Harvest is a great website to start from as it lists all the farms in your vicinity with their contact and CSA information but nothing beats the opinion of your neighbors.

Some people love their CSA like family. Me? I didn't. We'll stick to the farmer's market, thanks.

Any of you use a CSA? What has your experience been? What is the weirdest fruit or vegetable you've ever eaten?

PS> While I like to knock Minnesota's weather, I do love living here! There are many many great things about this place (like being named #3 healthiest city in the US! woot, woot!!) but nothing I love more than the people. They are kind and helpful and generous and make wonderful friends and I only hold them a little responsible for the weather.)