Oink

- My wife’s Facebook status on Wednesday afternoon

I spent the majority of Thanksgiving Week running from the pigs.

They came for my younger daughter Saturday night, then for my wife on Monday night and finally for my older daughter on Wednesday night. No, I wasn’t being chased by the police. I haven’t called a cop a ‘pig’ since high school. OK, maybe since college, but I digress.

I was running from the swine flu. Wednesday night we had three girls down.  I was the last family member standing.  Our Thanksgiving plans to visit family had been laid to waste.  I scrambled last minute to find a Turkey and all the trimmings. All week I was thinking one thing – with the rest of the family out of commission, I could NOT get sick. My wife had been hit especially hard and was pretty much bedridden.  My older daughter (too young to take care of the household anyway) was just entering the worst of it. I had to make sure that the piggies couldn’t get me.

I firmly believe that breaking a major sweat goes a long way toward boosting your immune system. So starting last Monday, I ran.  Not away from my family – they needed me to take care of them. No, I ran away from the flu.  Every day, I ran. Whether it was my quick 5K sprint on Thanksgiving Day morning or my slower but longer 10 mile runs on the dreadmill - er treadmill - I was determined to break a major sweat every day.  I was going to make my body an inhospitable place for any little pigs who might want to take up residence.

I ran more miles this week than I have in any of the weeks in the past several months.

My legs…are…tired.

But you know what? It worked. At this point, as I write, the girls have all come out of the depths of swine and we are pretty much back to normal. Knock on wood, I am swine-free.

Is running the cure to the H1N1 virus? No, absolutely not. But I do think that it helped reduce the effects it had on my body. There is no way that I wasn’t exposed to it. I will admit now that I woke up both Wednesday and Thursday mornings with pounding headaches and I went to bed both of those nights with a very, very slight case of the sniffles, but it never got worse than that. The sniffles were gone each morning and the headaches went away with breakfast and coffee.

So if you feel a chill coming on or your nose is starting to drip, this is my prescription: Run once a day – either hard for 30 minutes or at an easier pace for 60 – 90 minutes. Either way, break a sweat – a real sweat.

You’ll thank yourself for it later.

This is the first draft of a song I wrote called “Work and Sweat.”  It is not mentioned in the lyrics, but it’s what I thought about after writing it.

“Work and Sweat”

(Verse 1)

Here I am where I started from

LIfe and Death

As the last stick hits the drum

when will we rest

I’ve tried my best

Is It time to break this cast

(Chorus 1)

All you’ve told me to do

right and wrong

yes and no

all that we’ve gone through

I’ve tried

Because families lied

(Verse 2)

Every spring I hop for the rain

But i’m greeted with pain every fall

you all try to stand tall

casting fake silhouettes

but we need to

rest and rake all the stakes

on this train

(Chorus 1)

(Verse 3)

I’ve been battered and beaten

torn and defeated

ripped of my right

to fight with all my might

with no end in sight

i’ll try to fly in the sky

to glorify every passerby

to try to satisfy the

need to succeed in the lead

(Chorus 2)

With every bead and good dead

i’ve done what’s right

won this fight

I know I’ve tried

because you lied

oh, you lied

the families lied

A Sweat Bee

This unfortunately named Sweat Bee is iridescent green and laden with bright yellow pollen. Insects are so fantastic in appearance that they could be alien life forms.

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go my feet and my legs and my running shoes

round and round and up and down and holy god, i’m sore.

i was a spinning virgin, but no more.

i effing love it.

verbal encouragement + cycling + loud music + sweating = my perfect workout

can’t wait for more.

Bikram yogis like to think of themselves as the workers, the pushers, the knee-lockers.  We are the ones who sweat and sweat and sweat.  We endure the heat, push our bodies to bend, and breathe in spite of our pounding hearts.  We are rarely (if ever) seen as “Spiritual Yogis” and rarely do we label ourselves as such.  Bikram himself says, “you are not ready for that kind of yoga.  First you must discipline the body and mind, only then can you reach the spirit.”

This morning as I was practicing my yoga, on a holiday, sweating and bending, struggling through my little pains and my big pains – I thought about this.  How can this not be spiritual?  There is no other single activity I have devoted more of my time to on this earth than Bikram Yoga.  I have practiced longer than I have been married or been a mother.  Perhaps the only other activity that would come close is my own personal spiritual observances:  prayer, reading, meditating.  But in the recent months and years, as my life has shifted over to what it is now, the Spiritual Karen and the Yogini Karen are becoming harder to distinguish between daily.

I recently passed my one year anniversary of teaching.  When I asked the boss lady how many classes I had taught in my first year she gave me a number that stunned me.  425.  Four hundred and twenty five classes since I returned from Teacher Training.  That’s a lot of hours of teaching.  And not teaching alone, but in addition, I practiced another 242 classes in that year.  That’s a lot of time, or dare I say, devotion?? Funny enough, that’s just at one thousand hours in the hot room in a single year, forty one solid days.

So, is it devotion?  Is all this time a spiritual thing?  Or, am I just addicted?  To be fair, it could be both.  I have benefited more from this practice health-wise than any other thing I’ve done.  It’s helped me in immeasurable ways to be stronger, healthier, happier and more positive.  But it has also served to center me, give me courage, teach me about my limits and help me through incredible emotional battles.  There are days when I need to be on the mat, simply because it is my sanity.  I crave it, I need it, I have to have it.

I do believe you can find spirituality through the physical practice of yoga.  I believe one can find God in the struggle of the hot room just as easily as they can find God in a temple or on top of a mountain.  Our bodies are not only connected to our spirits, but they are infused with our spirit.  Move your body and the heart moves, the spirit wakes up and the search begins.  The courage it takes to hold on in a posture can connect you deeply to the courage required to deal with the junk that plagues our lives.

What I am left with are three basic things.  Practice.  Discipline.  Commitment.  If you break them down individually, they are all virtuous qualities.  But ultimately one leads to the other, which leads to the third.  Without the practice, the discipline fades, without the commitment, the discipline is empty.  And on it goes.  It becomes a circle.

I have learned a few Yoga Mudras, different devotional chants.  I even have a tattoo of the Om symbol on my wrist.  I believe in the power of the spiritual devotion required to maintain a demanding physical yoga practice.  I believe that God can be found in the hot little orange room, and that ultimately the spirit can be fed through the intense refinement of Bikram Yoga.  I believe that sweating can be as purifying as praying (at times) and that each has a distinct place.  I also believe that everyone must find their way to their own “mat” in life.  Spirituality is deeply personal, as it should be.

I truly believe that this yoga practice really is spiritual.  The ninety minutes, while purely physical effort to the naked eye, is as spiritual for me as anything can be.  Many come to the hot room to heal their knees, fix their sore backs or lose a little weight.  Many also come with depression, anger and hurts from their lives, just as I did.  And they come to find that it is the process of healing their knees, fixing their backs and trimming their waistlines that brings them out of the haze of their personal pain.

There are no clear defining lines in any form of yoga that tell us where the physical ends and the spiritual begins.  Maybe that’s the beauty of it.  All I really know for sure is that journey is worth it.

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Ok, so I posted yesterday that I was going to post some songs to incorporate into your workout play-lists  and here it is. I tried to incorporate a great deal of songs you will know and songs you won’t know, as well as stuff to make you sweat off that college 15 you’ve still failed to get off. Most of the songs listed are ones that I use in my cycling workout play-list. Just pick and choose which ones best suit your taste!

1. “Monster” – Lady Gaga
2. “Guilty Pleasure” – Cobra Starship
3. “Tik Tok” – Ke$ha
4. “Right Hand Hi” – Kid Sister
5. “My Delerium” – Ladyhawke
6. “Dog Days” – Florence and the Machine
7. “Gold Gun Girls” – Metric
8. “We Are Golden” – MIKA
9. “The Girl And The Robot” – Roksopp ft Roby
10. “Might Like You Better” – Amanda Blank
11. “3″ – Brittney Spears
12. “Halo And Walking On Sunshine” – Glee (Cast Version)
13. “Brick By Boring Brick” – Paramore
14. “Did It Again (Benny Banassi Remix) – Shakira
15. “Racing Lights” – Stars of Track and Field

Below I’ve posted some of the songs to save you you the trouble of looking for them to listen to.

Shakira ft. Kid Cudi – “Did It Again (Benny Banassi Remix)”

Ladyhawke – “My Delirium”

Royksopp ft. Robyn – “The Girl And The Robot”

Florence and the Machine – “Dog Days Are Over”

Glee – “Halo and Walking On Sunshine Mash Up”

While I’m sitting by the sides in gymnastics because my foot is sore. I decided I should post a pic of sweaty kids.

Cave Chow went very recently to a modern, decked-out, very typical “gym” in North East Ohio in search of a treadmill to pound out some miles on (it was lung-constricting cold outside, that is the only reason why).  This particular fitness center seemed to cater more to the older population, illustrated by 1.  Lots of older people   2.  Doing way more talking than working out  3.  Feeble attempts or efforts when they were doing something  4.  A staff of trainers with very few of them actually in shape   5.   No less than 12 chiropractic and massage tables with the appropriate practitioners hovering around, and 6.  Enough group fitness classes to make your head spin.

Let’s put this in perspective to gyms in Southern California, where Cave Chow hangs out most of the time.

1.  Much less equipment focused – i.e.  open spaces, kettle bells, pull up bars, etc. are quite the norm

2.  People who call themselves trainers actually look the part

3.  Massages, etc. are considered a luxury

4.  People work more and talk less

Keep in mind, the above is not optimal, but it is noticeably better than NE Ohio.  Cave Chow has also done quite a bit of training in Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, London, and we’ve noticed some disturbing trends as we’ve gone from one gym to the other – mainly, few people sweating (rough measurement of effort), few people stretching (rough measurement of body knowledge), dependence on trainers (too lazy to work on your own), and faith in traditional doctors and painless approach to healing injuries (unfortunately a sad product of today’s subliminal submission and acceptance of advertising and “new discoveries”).

Old or young, in shape or not, there are some core principles that should apply for everyone who “works-out”.

• Warm up and Stretch.  As any athlete knows, a warm up and stretch is essential to performance during the workout.  What you may not be knowing is that without stretching (which you can’t do till you are warm), you have a VERY high likelihood of eventual injury
• Work Hard.  Thus the “work” in “work-out”.  If you aren’t sweating, you should get a poor grade for effort.  Stop measuring your calories or your little diet plans and progress charts and start working hard
• Breathe.  How many people breath properly during a workout with weights?  Very few.  Become conscious of your breathing habits, endurance workout or not – they will help you perform and benefit your health
• Hydrate.  While crucial, it’s the most hilarious thing to see people with water-bottle belts and fancy drink mixtures that aren’t even sweating.  Remember – hydrate during a workout to REPLENISH fluids lost – which requires sweat in the first place.
• Mind the Core.  Old or young, get familiar with your core (one of the few times we approve of a personal training session), strengthen it, and apply it throughout your training.  Save your back and make yourself stronger.
• Make your Own Way – If you’re not motivated enough to workout on your own, you are probably a lost cause long-term and could save some money by not hiring a babysitter (i.e. trainer) to help you workout and set goals for you.  Grab a knowledgable friend instead – half the time they will know more anyway.
• Avoid pills and supplements.  Come-on, people!!  Do you really think that taking weight loss, extra energy, or performance pills are actually going to help you?  That sucking down creatine or gobbling protein is a good long-term plan?  They don’t, and it’s not.
• Physical Therapists vs. Doctors.  When it comes to overcoming injuries, go the physical therapist route first.  Avoid doctors (even specialists), chiropractors, and anybody else preaching a painless or surgical approach to healing.  They will cost you more and many times, give you a crutch for the rest of your life.  There are some very good PT’s out there who can teach your body how to heal itself, the natural way.  Use this route whenever possible.

Lastly, wake up America!!  You don’t need flat screens or cool work-out clothes to get in shape.

Cave Trainer

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gym suédoise : literally, “swedish gym”, a frightening addictive aerobics class

So if I were to tell you that you could whip out all of your worst dance moves, spandex, and guilty pleasure music- in public- all while getting a pretty darn good workout, would you be in?  Bienvenue à la gym suédoise – where all your Olivia Newton John, jazzercise, eighties fantasies come true.  Okay, maybe I’ve exaggerated the spandex/eighties ambiance- but still, if ever there were a place to don the leg warmers…

How did I find myself at gym suédoise?  Well, I was invitée of course.  Somewhere in between sipping on Serbian eau de vie and my performance of an impromptu jazz concert (for a bar plein des étrangers, who only moments before had been enjoying traditional Serbian folk music), my friends Jérémie and Julie m’ont persuadée to join them the following afternoon for a cours gratuit, and well, since I try to say oui to everything…(which is how I ended up in a the Serbian bar in the first place…)

So there we were, gym suédoise, about which I had only been told two things: (1) “ça, c’est un truc des filles” (that stuff is for girls) and (2) “l’instructeur a des fesses incroyables!” (the instructor has a great butt).  Needless to say, I was intrigued.  Ready to get my “bounce” on- because I don’t really think groove applies in this situation – I found myself running, kicking, lunging, and assuming a whole load of comprimising positions on the floor- one of which hysterically resembled a “grinding” yoga-like move I think I once saw in an N*SYNC music video…  In short, j’ai presque mort de rire- and haven’t had that much fun in a really long time.  My french friends are incredibly marrant, and good dancers- shimmying, shaking, and swaying all over the place- which, à propos, is their natural state- even when not at gym suédoise.  And of course, there was the obligatory old lady who was incredibly musclée – and makes you think that there might be something to this swedish jazzercise after all…

Oh, the fesses.  Well yes, by Parisian standards, I guess they were quite buff.  The instructor was carrément Swedish looking, very Ken-like (as in Barbie & Ken), although I assume that’s not a requirement for the job.  As one friend pointed out, il n’y a pas un poil sur son corps! (there isn’t a single hair on his body!) – which suggests that in addition to being incredibly blond and costaud, he probably has done his fair share of épilation.

Anyway- despite all the joking around- I have to say it was an incredibly good workout.  My friends said there are classes which are plus faciles, and that might be a waste of time- but if you go to the advanced class – you leave complètement trempé – and I’m fairly certain my épaules will feel it tomorrow, as even my most frequent jogging has really done nothing to makes my bras stronger.

But in terms of un truc des filles? -Leave your inhibitions at the door, mecs.  It clearly isn’t la musculation, but there were plenty of guys there.  And since when is it a problem to be surrounded by filles in spandex?

—vocabulaire—

Bienvenue à la gym suédoise > Welcome to the swedish gym

ambiance > ambiance

invité(e) > invited

eau de vie > a type of hard alcohol, spirits

plein des étrangers > full of strangers

m’ont persuadé(e) > persuaded me

cours gratuit > free course

oui > yes

j’ai presque mort de rire > I almost died laughing

marrant > funny

à propos > by the way

musclée > buff

carrément > totally, typically

costaud > buff/ripped

épilation > waxing

plus facile(s) > easier

complètement trempé > totally drenched

épaules > shoulders

bras > arms

un truc des filles > a thing for girls

mecs > guys

la musculation > weight lifting

filles > girls

There is an awesome movie from during the summer called The Proposal. In the middle of the movie, the Gammy is chanting in the forest and Margaret joins her. Margaret ends up singing some rap song and shaking her ass like crazy. It instantly became an inside joke between my friends and I after we watched it. I wanted to know what the song is, and I’m sure plent of others want to know. The song is Get Low by Lil’Jon and the Eastside Boyz. Lemme see you all get low. You scared!

To the window!

To the wall!

To the sweat drop down my balls!

Now all you b—–s crawl!

A pair of feet have more than 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than two pints of sweat a day!

Most of us have a friend or relative who has the capability to clear a room when they take off their shoes. And, even the nicest smelling person can do a great job of stinking up a pair of shoes just by running a few miles in them.

So why do your feet have a stronger odour than the rest of you?

The main thing that feeds foot smell is sweat. With more than 250,000 sweat glands each, your feet are among the most perspiring parts of your body. In one day, each foot can produce more than a pint of sweat! Sweat is basically just salt and water, so it doesn’t have a distinctive smell of its own. The smell is actually caused by the bacteria on our skin that eat the sweat and excrete waste that has a strong odour. It’s perfectly normal to have bacteria on your skin, and it doesn’t ordinarily produce a noticeable smell, but sweat attracts bacteria and gives them a whole lot to feed on.

Of course we sweat all over. Our hands have a comparable number of sweat glands, for example, and most of the rest of our body is not particularly odiferous (the armpits, perhaps, being a notable exception). So what’s different about our feet? The answer is our socks and shoes. The sweat our feet produce can’t easily escape into the air like the sweat from our hands. It all collects on our skin and in our socks. The bacteria love this dark, damp feast and have a sort of feeding frenzy. When you take off your shoes, the smell that hits you is all the bacteria excretion that’s collected on your feet and in your socks and shoes.

The main reason some people’s feet (or more precisely, some people’s socks and shoes) smell worse than others is that some people sweat more than others. This is just one of the many variable physiological qualities of human beings. This is also why, sometimes your feet smell much worse than at other times, it all has to do with how much you sweat.

Tips to Reduce Foot Odour:

So, since foot odour is caused by bacteria digesting sweat, there are two main ways to reduce the stink.

You can:

Reducing the level of bacteria is really a matter of cleanliness. To control the bacteria population on you feet, you should:

To reduce the amount of sweat that collects in your shoes, you should:

If your foot odour is really bad and these solutions don’t help much, then you should probably see a doctor. There are a also number of prescription drugs that can treat serious foot odor, some by killing bacteria and some by reducing foot sweat.

But try the foot antiperspirant first.

So, here it is, November 22, and I’m JUST NOW getting around to looking at the photos I took at Warped Tour this summer.  I went to the Dallas show as I have for the last two years, which I love.  I’ve been to Warped in Pomona, Las Cruces, and San Antonio, and Dallas is by far my favorite venue.  I think it’s the giant covered stage that does it for me.  You’ve got a place to sit and relax in the shade at about 2 pm when you feel like you are going to pass out.  That’s Warped for you.

My favorite part of Warped Tour every year is that glorious moment when you decide you’re so hot you no longer care about how your hair or make-up looks, and you let the guys with the water hose spray you down.  It’s such a liberating feeling… one that I haven’t been able to partake in the last few years because I’ve had thousands of dollars worth of gear strapped on my back.  Oh, well.  Warped is always worth every drop of sweat shed.  Where else can you find thousands of kids who can decide for one day to get over their differences for the sake of the (very varied) music?  It’s special, you know?  So here are a few of my favorite shots from Warped Tour 2009… I already can’t wait for next year!

3oh!3

Alexisonfire

Chiodos

Hit the Lights

Typical.

Thrice

Thrice

Underoath

Underoath

Underoath

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My name is Laura.  This is my first blog ever. Perhaps no one will read it since there’s not much reason to at this point. I’m writing this as a commitment. This blog is going to be a promise…no, scratch that. I break promises, especially the ones I make to myself.  This blog is going to help keep my ass in check.  I figure if I publish it, for the world’s eyes to see then I can’t fail.  Well, I could fail but this is way more effort than I’ve ever put forth before.

What’s the goal?

The goal is to be healthy.  I am 28 years-old and I weigh 281.6 lbs as of 5 minutes ago.  Boy, that’s painful to say.  I’ve always been a big girl but I’ve used it as my protection.  No one can get too close.  While that may seem like a bit much of an introduction, it’s needed.  I’m not here to mince words or hold anything back.

How do I reach the goal?

I just got back from a 30 minute workout at the nearest gym.  I plan on going somewhere between 5-6 times a week, depending on my work schedule.  As for now, that’s it.  I plan on revamping my diet soon but too much, too soon will throw me out of whack completely and you may never hear from me again.  I’m pleased I even took the time to get a good pair of athletic shoes because it’s always a good excuse when you have bad feet.  In fact, everything can seem like a good excuse.  Not this time.  I’ll be huff’n and puff’n for the world to see.

I’m excited.  I’m ready to drop my protective covering.  It’s time.  This is going to be my weight-loss story.

I guess that’s it for now.  Please take heed, if you’re taking the time to read this, my writing skills could be better and I recognize that.