New Year, New You?

So I’ve been trying to follow along with my friend SP’s blog Be Well in 12. Basically she’s doing a fitness (or wellness) goal each month for the whole year. For January she challenged everyone to work out 30 minutes a day for 30 days. Yikes! I read that – laughed and then happily ate a left-over Christmas cookie. 30 minutes a day – who was she kidding – I don’t have 30 minutes each day. I have things to do….

Then I thought about it and was like really what do I have to do that I can’t sacrifice almost an hour (total time to get ready, get to the gym and work-out) a day to working out. I do work out on a fairly regular basis. Regular being as I see fit throughout the year but anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour each time. At my best I go five times a week. At my worse I’m struggling to go five times a month. So for January I’ve made it to the gym almost every day (missed three so far including today) but I do plan to lift some weights today (and I did a work-out DVD last night) and on the first I ran in the yard with C. So basically I worked out everyday.

I think its an awesome challenge though. How many times have we done exactly what I did – laughed at the people proclaiming we need to get regular exercise. Yeah…yeah… I’ll get to it, we think. But the thing is what we do to our body affects us down the road and I don’t want to be 65 and over-weight with a list of health problems.

I consider myself someone that is relatively healthy. I don’t drink a lot, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. I exercise. I try to eat right. I don’t drink soda. I don’t eat a lot of junk (i.e. chips, ice cream, sweets, empty calories). But I don’t diet and I’m not a fanatic about my exercising. I blame this solely on the fact I’m naturally on the thin side. Sure I want to look like Britney Spears circa 2000 with chiseled abs and defined legs and arms but I’m realistic enough to know she has a trainer and a chef that whips her into performance ready shape. Besides if I was going for a stretch but still being realistic I’d rather be like Jennifer Aniston – healthy, toned but not scary fitness buff. Besides which I read once she was 5’4 and 115 pounds so I think that’s doable for me with a little persistence.

The thing is though I truly believe everybody’s body has a happy weight. Crystal Renn talked about it in Hungry. Basically with a little effort this is the weight your body comfortably settles at. This is true for me. I may fluctuate five pounds but ever since puberty I’ve weighed pretty much the same thing. This is regardless of exercise (I don’t say diet since I don’t diet per say – eating healthy but eating what you want is not dieting to me). I'm not using myself as a basis - if I look at family and friend I know some people that fluctuate more but most are pretty much around the same weight constantly. This is both depressing and uplifting for me - uplifting in I don't have to do much work and I'll pretty much weigh what I do now - depressing in that I need to get my ass on the treadmill if I ever want to be 115 (treadmill + starvation = 115 in my mind at this point).

Anyway… back to exercising. So I’m trying to follow SP’s blog. I’m going to try working out more and maybe just maybe I’ll wake up one day looking like Jennifer or Britney but I doubt it.

On the health note though, I was reading a back issue of Prevention (January 2009) and they had a good hint for calorie intake... Because if you’re like me I can never figure out exactly how many I should have - it's always more of a fluid number cheese fries today salad tomorrow. Anyway, they said take your goal weight and multiple it by 10. That number is how many calories you should consume to get to that weight (or maintain your current weight). So for example if you were Jennifer you would take 115 x 10 and you would need 1150 calories a day. I asked my husband who was a fitness major in college and he agreed it sounded about right. This however crushes my dream of having a "realistic" Jennifer body as 1150 calories probably does not include wine and the occasional splurge.

P.S. I did buy a bunch of work out DVDs that I will be reviewing shortly because I can never find good ones that I'm not bored out of my mind in five minutes and thinking if it counts as exercise if I put on work-out clothes and walked downstairs.

Book Review: Hungry Crystal Renn with Marjorie Ingall

So did I mention I like fashion? I'm not one of those people that knows the name of every model but I can recognize the same model pretty easily and know a lot of the Victoria Secret model names (but I know they aren't exactly runway). Glamour magazine has been doing a lot recently (or at least I've noticed recently) about loving your body and accepting all shapes and sizes... anyway, I'm pretty sure that's where I first started to recognize Crystal Renn. Renn has appeared in Lane Byrant ads and is the girl in the breast cancer research ads (she's got red fabric draped around her and it's mainly a shot of her back). I found out she had written a book and decided to check it out.

First off, I thought this was going to be more of an autobiography and it starts that way before detouring off into a tangent about ideal body weights and fashion portraying all shapes and sizes. It starts to read like a research paper with all the quotes about how overweight might not be that unhealthy and everybody has an ideal weight. I'm not saying she's wrong. I know for myself my body no matter the amount of dieting or exercise hovers around the same point - give or take five pounds. I'm just saying that maybe this was part of another book. I get that weight plays a huge part in her life - she started as an anorexic straight size model and is now considered a plus size model - but at the same time I felt like it went on and on and could easily have been summarized into a few key points.

The funny thing is looking at pictures of Renn as a straight size model she looks downright sickly (bones jutting out, eyes that aren't focused) and as a plus sized model she doesn't look that big. I would say she's curvy but not fat.

The book is interesting. Renn is hungry for food and a career. She wants to prove that a plus size model can do everything a straight size model can do. It's an inside look at how hard she worked to drop weight - joining two gyms, working out until she's so sick she can't even walk home - and then gain back her self-esteem (and the weight).

I personally didn't come away with any new information on modeling and high fashion. I think everyone can pretty much guess its a cutthroat business with girls that are 6 feet tall expected to weigh 90 lbs. That designers want girls that are stick straight so the clothes just hang. I do think there might be a shift coming - Glamour has certainly been using more "real" women - although I'm pretty sure the short girl is still probably 5'6. Like anything, fashion is cylindrical so I'm sure at some point it will change to celebrate a curvier figure.

Good for Renn for championing healthy eating habits. I think all women should realize their bodies will probably never look like a supermodel or a celebrity. Those women are paid to look amazing and have a lot of help pulling it off (not to mention there is such a thing as Photoshop). I admire her for trying to break through and show women that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.

Overall three out of five stars.