Workout Spotlight: TRX Suspension Training

Today's workout was great. I am taking a TRX Suspension Training class at my local YMCA on Friday mornings. The TRX is a strap system that allows you to use your own bodyweight as either resistance or assistance in lots of different exercises. The classes I've taken have focused mostly on strength, but the TRX website says they can also be used for speed and agility drills. I even remember seeing the TRX being used on "The Biggest Loser" a season or two ago.

What I like about the workouts is that you can adjust the difficulty of the exercise by changing your body position. Today we were doing back rows and I moved my feet closer in when I got tired to make things a little easier. If you're super-buff, of course, you can also adjust to make things more challenging.

You can get these things for home use, but at my gym they have them anchored to the studs in the wall or hanging from metal ceiling beams. I might be a little nervous about getting it properly situated to hold my weight if I was setting it up in my house. If it was not secured, you could fall flat on your face. It does look like it would easily attach to one of those big jungle gyms everyone else in the suburbs seems to have, but I didn't inherit one of those from my house's previous owners. Or, if you happen to have a tank lying around, you can use that as an anchor.

It's hard to do the TRX justice so I thought I'd share another video to help you get the idea. This trainer goes through enough different exercises to give you a sense of the possibilities.



If your gym offers these classes, give one a try. I'm really enjoying them, and they make you feel delightfully hardcore.

I'm such a cliché

My Weight Chart:


Up again. Crap. To make it worse, we had a super-perky substitute leader from another center. Even though I missed my regular meeting, I tried to choose a meeting with the same leader, but she was out. I hope she will be there Tuesday.

I knew that I had lost my focus last week, and that I had slacked off not only on the Good Health Guidelines but on journaling in general. So in one sense the weight gain is not surprising. It does seem like this is all more of a struggle than it should be.

I saw a new doctor yesterday for a new-patient consultation. I had not considered her as an option because I knew her personally from a fitness club, but I talked to her after my last experience and she thought it would be fine. I brought a copy of my bloodwork and she was concerned with some of the thyroid-related results. She ordered a second test and included some other measures of thyroid function. She suspects I might have borderline hypothyroidism. The symptoms she mentioned -- weight gain, fatigue, constipation -- seem like common enough things, but then I did some more reading and I have other suspicious symptoms: Vertigo, moodiness, dry eyes, sluggishness, tightness in the chest.

I am waiting a little anxiously for the test results. I got a book on thyroid conditions yesterday and it suggests that even with treatment, I'd need to do the same things I'm currently trying to do: Eat right, exercise, manage stress, take the appropriate supplements. If I do have a thyroid issue and it gets addressed, it could make this all a little less of a struggle.

Or, it could turn out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me and I just need to get motivated and work harder. That's OK. I don't want a chronic health condition.

I just want to know the truth, and what to do about it.

At the very least, I am happy to have a doctor who is smart, asks the right questions, and makes thoughtful choices. That's a big relief.

The Biggest Loser Week 11: Makeovers

For some reason, this week's episode was half an hour shorter than usual. The show felt a little skimpy -- we didn't get nearly enough Tim Gunn. Last time around, there was a real focus on the transformation, the process of selecting the clothes, the choices of hairstyle. This time, we got maybe a moment or two of conversation between Tim and each contestant. This time, instead of taking the contestants into a big department store, he took them each into a "boutique" he had created for each contestant inside a luxury hotel suite. We got to see him hold up a dress or a shoe or a jacket with each contestant and have a word or two, but that was about it.

The makeovers themselves were just okay. It seemed like the clothes chosen were much more understated than the usual TBL makeovers. I thought that Danny's powder-blue vest was the worst fashion choice. Actually, is a powder-blue vest ever a good fashion choice for a guy? The other guys wore much more slimming jackets. Rudy had to give up the beard, but he started growing it back immediately. Liz got sassy in an animal-print dress and a cute blonde hairdo. I thought Rebecca's haircut and black dress were a little severe, and the long bangs going straight into her eyes had to drive her crazy. Amanda didn't really look that much different than she did for the eliminations -- she got to keep her long blonde hair, and her outfit was pretty but fairly casual. None of these makeovers had the "Oh my God!" impact that I've seen on other seasons.

Maybe the reason was that they didn't want dramatic clothes and hairstyles to distract from the speeches that each contestant had to give to a crowd of TV Guide readers? It was a decidedly un-glamorous venue. A couple of the speeches were really touching but the rest relied on tired weight-loss story boilerplate: "I was always on the sidelines, never on stage," "I'm ready to continue my journey." The biggest drama came from the contestants being reunited with family members right before the speech. I felt an axe in my heart when Danny's daughter said "I can't wait to start my journey," and for a moment was afraid that a spinoff, "The Littlest Loser" show would be born, where children of contestants shed their baby fat. No no no no no. Hopefully the contestants' kids won't become hyper-focused on weight in the aftermath of their parents' transformation.

When the contestants got back to the ranch, they had to do a zipline challenge, where they pulled themselves from one hilltop across a deep valley to a second hilltop, where larger-than-life pictures of the contestants at the start of the show waited for them. Liz freaked out and uttered some pretty funny, but terrified, primal screams, but she made it. Once the contestants all got across (Rudy won, with Amanda right behind), they each unrolled a picture of their made-over selves over their old pictures. Allan admitted later to Bob that he had purposely thrown this and the last challenge to keep contestants from focusing on him as a target for elimination.

Jillian's reaction to the whole makeover thing was mostly, "That's nice, now let's get to the gym," but she did pick up on a story from Rudy's speech about how his sister had gotten gravely ill when he was 12 and died a few years later. She grilled him about why he had never brought this story up before, and managed to find out that he was shuttled around to various family members while his sister was in the hospital. She pointed out that he lost his sister and felt abandoned by people he loved at the same time. This was about when he started gaining weight. Now, she continued, he can't let people get mad at him because it makes him feel too alone, so he hides his feelings from people and eats instead.

The truth of Jillian's analysis really came out at the elimination, which was between Rebecca and Liz. Rudy casts the deciding vote to eliminate Rebecca because of something she did five weeks earlier, and she is understandably hurt and confused that he had never mentioned this to her in all the time since the incident occurred, and only mentioned it as she was leaving.

I stuck around through some of Leno to see what Rebecca looks like now, but other than the opening monologue, the show was so incredibly stupid that we recorded it on the DVR and watched cooking shows until the show was over. Then we rolled back to Rebecca's interview. She was incredibly buff. Her hair looked much cuter than it had during the makeover, but I thought that her decision to wear a miniskirt was a bad one. She had the legs for it, but trying to sit on stage in a chair in a miniskirt with cameras rolling? Something a little longer would have been just as cute and a lot more appropriate. We did find out that I was right in my guess about a Biggest Loser romance between Rebecca and Daniel.

My money is on her for the At-Home Champion, unless Allan gets eliminated before the finale.

Taking a break

I have felt frazzled and completely stressed out for the last couple of days. I did two workouts (a morning run and an evening swim) on Sunday so I took Monday off, but when I thought about running today I just dreaded the whole idea. So I took today off as well. It worked -- I'm already looking forward to doing it tomorrow.

It's hard to know sometimes whether I really need a break or whether it's just laziness and inertia talking, but today I could tell I really needed the break. I've had an unfocused and frustrated last few days and I needed a breather to collect mysef.

I had to miss Weight Watchers today because of a work commitment, but I'm planning to get to a meeting on Thursday. I will have to wait until then to see whether I will pay for the weekend's indiscretions on the scale.

MAKEOVERS on "The Biggest Loser tonight." Can't wait.

Workout spotlight: Pilates and Pilates Reformer

I thought it might be interesting, now that my Good Health Guidelines series is finished, to spotlight some of the more interesting workouts I'm doing, in case anyone out there is looking for something new and fun to try.

Yesterday's workout was Pilates Reformer, which uses a machine with springs and pulleys to provide resistance and assistance for doing various exercises. I found a good video on YouTube that helps illustrate how this works:



Pilates has an interesting history, and was designed as a physical therapy of sorts. I started with Reformer a little more than a year ago. Before I started doing Reformer, I had a lot of little aches and pains, most of which were running-related. I trained for my half marathon completely injury-free, and I know my posture has improved.

Most studios will want you to start with the mat exercises first. In the mat classes, you will learn the breathing techniques, the body alignment required to protect your spine, and learn exercises like The Hundred and Leg Circles that you also do on the reformer. Right now, I'm doing mat class once a week and Reformer once a week, because I think that the mat helps me get back to basics. Reformer allows you to use more strength to push the carriage around, while in mat it's all about alignment and focus.

My first experience with Pilates was at home with a video, "Pilates for Dummies." This was a great way to start because I already knew some of the basics before walking into a class. When I started with this back in 2000 or so, Pilates had a reputation of being for dancers, athletes, and other very fit people, at least at my gym, and I felt too intimidated to take a class until I had some experience first. I would still recommend this video to people who wanted to try out Pilates on their own before taking a class. All you need is a thick mat to cushion your back if your floor is not carpeted, or even a yoga mat.

I now take Pilates at a studio where people of all levels, mostly women, take classes, so it's a lot friendlier. There are a lot of things to focus on: Spine alignment, tightening my abs and pelvic floor, breathing, keeping my legs tight, foot position, etc., etc. Classes are small and the instructors have eyes like a hawk and make sure to let me know if I'm letting something slide, which felt frustrating at first but now just helps keep me focused.

At first I was tempted to skip things like Pilates and yoga because I thought they didn't help with weight loss, but I'm seeing some real results. I can see (faint) signs of a six pack under my remaining inch or so of belly fat, and having strong core muscles has helped me continue to run and swim without being sidelined by injuries. I can also feel that those strong abs and back muscles help me when I'm doing other activities, like raking my yard or carrying heavy objects. Plus, I think all the mind-body work has improved my coordination. I don't feel like such a klutz anymore.

I would really recommend finding a small studio for your first classes rather than trying it at a place like the YMCA or a college recreation center, because the instructors are more likely to have taken specialized training in Pilates techniques. You might feel silly Rolling Like a Ball, but everyone else there will be doing it too. Like me, you may find that it helps you build all-over strength and flexibility while also adding a little grace and ease to your movements.

Good Health Guideline: Whole Grains

Welcome to the final installment of my GHG series. I've enjoyed the discussion so far. I didn't purposely save whole grains for last, but it is one of the more vague of the WW guidlines: "Choose whole grains whenever possible." If you take this literally, it's almost always possible to choose whole grains. If you walk into a restaurant and notice they have no whole grains, you could leave.

In reality, I don't always choose whole grains, even when it's possible. The one-point difference between white pasta, which I love, and whole-wheat pasta, which I don't particularly enjoy, isn't enough to convince me to make the switch. I buy wholegrain breads most of the time, but every now and then I enjoy a slice of sourdough or Italian or even a bagel.

Besides, when I think whole grains, I don't think of things made with whole grain flour, I think of actual whole grains. The Kashi pilaf pictured above is one of the tastiest whole grain products I've found. There is a Mediterranean Pilaf recipe on the box that is fantastic, and I've made variations on that theme by changing up the vegetables or seasonings. You can also add fruit and cinnamon and have a great breakfast pilaf or even a dessert. Kashi makes a lot of great products, including 2-point granola bars that blow the WW snack bars out of the water and have a lot more wholesome-seeming ingredients. The crackers and cereals are great too.

I have not managed to make oatmeal in any way I like except in granola and cookies. There is something yucky about the flavor. I've tried steel-cut oats, rolled oats, old-fashioned oats, overnight oats... I've dosed them up with all kinds of things. I do, however, like Quaker's multigrain cereal, so it really must be something about cooked oats. I like raw oats in yogurt, just not cooked ones.

I enjoy a lot of other whole grains: Barley, quinoa, brown rice, etc. The only thing that keeps me from having them more often is the cooking time. I had a rice cooker but it never did a very good job of cooking rice and grains evenly. Maybe I need to try another model. I do have some recipes for cooking whole grains in the slow-cooker, so I should probably dust those off, especially now that the weather is getting colder and I'm starting to feel the call of comfort foods. A warm bowl of grains can be just as comforting as macaroni and cheese (ok, almost as comforting, anyway), I just don't always think of them first.

Any favorites you'd like to share?

Good Health Guideline: Multivitamin

After reading nic's post about the vitamins she takes, I thought I'd go ahead and cover this Good Health Guideline.

Weight Watchers recommends that all members take a multivitamin containing no more than 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals. Presumably, this is because dieters may miss certain nutrients because they are cutting back on their food intake.

No specific brand is recommended, though the One-A-Day Weight Smart vitamin used to be advertised in Weight Watchers Magazine and ads in program materials. (Weight Watchers' members seem to be a huge market force, and I wouldn't be surprised if the organization made more from ads in program materials like the Complete Food Guide and the coupon books they hand out in meetings than from membership dues.) It looks like that vitamin is now called Women's Active Metabolism, and the metabolism activators are both variants on caffeine. If you take your multivitamin while you are drinking your morning coffee, you're probably getting about the same effect. I tend to be a little skeptical of anything that claims to affect weight loss or metabolism, because there are so many scammers out there. (I am, in fact, concerned that this post will attract spam comments from snake oil salespeople.)

I take Country Life's Maxine for Women, which Jillian Michaels recommended on her much-missed podcast. I take the version with iron because I have had troubles with anemia in the past. Weight Watchers' guidelines would make this vitamin a no-no because it contains more than 100% of the RDA of certain nutrients. I also take 2 capsules of fish oil, a flaxseed oil capsule (it helps my eczema, read about it on the internets), and some extra selenium and vitamin D. I used to also take a glucosamine supplement because everyone said it would help save my knees, but to be honest, I quit taking it weeks ago and have noticed no difference at all. I started taking some of the extra supplements after reading When Your Body Gets the Blues and started taking the fish oil after hearing about the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids.

I am assuming that this guideline is all about nutrition and less about supporting weight loss, but the Body Blues research suggested that there could be some weight-loss benefit from supplementation, light, and exercise, as well as a mood-lifting effect.

There is still some controversy over whether vitamins provide real health benefits. I think that most vitamin consumers, like me, think that because vitamins may help and probably won't hurt, that we are safer taking them than not. It's really anyone's guess whether we're helping ourselves or just wasting the money we spend on supplements. I feel better when I'm taking my vitamins regularly, but I also tend to take them at times when I'm really focusing on other healthy habits, like exercise and diet.

Do you take any supplements? Do you notice any difference from when you weren't taking them?

The Biggest Loser Week 10: Two For the Road

This week the contestants learned that not just one person was going to be eliminated, but two. In addition to the Yellow Line, there was now a Red Line -- the person who lost the lowest percentage of weight this week had to leave immediately. The contestants above the Red Line but below the Yellow Line would be eligible for the usual elimination by vote.

This impending carnage -- one quarter of the remaining 8 contestants leaving, including the novelty of a no-excuses cut -- left everyone shell-shocked, but they immediately were thrown into a "pop challenge" where contestants competed for a one-pound advantage at the weigh-in by leaping up to pull tennis balls off three strips of Velcro, one at a time, and running to drop them into a bucket. I thought Allen would win easily, and he did win, but with Rebecca just three steps behind him.

Jillian panicked at the idea of Shay being sent home with 200 pounds yet to lose, and seemingly decided the best way to save her was to pump up the volume on the workouts -- more screaming, more sweating, more yelling. I couldn't help but be impressed by how incredibly fit Shay is, even at 300+ pounds. None of the other contestants were off the hook either, and the trainers used the drama to motivate the contestants, with plenty of yelling and screaming to go around. No one was spared, even the normally tough-as-nails Rebecca. Everyone had a chance to cry.

With everyone in a panic, the logical thing to do was to take the contestants to the circus for the stupidest challenge yet, jumping from mini trampolines through hoops onto big pads -- each hoop represented a player. Immunity was at stake, and it was another challenge that encouraged players to gang up on each other and eliminate the biggest threats first. Each player's name was on a hoop, and players got a point whenever someone jumped through their hoop. 100 points meant you were eliminated from the game. This was basically a variant of the baseball challenge from Week 7.

We start to see that there is a big split between the 4 players in their 20s and the four "older" players, most of whom look like they are in their 30s. Shay and Rudy have a misunderstanding -- he says he will wait to go after her until "the end," which she thinks means that he won't give her points until everyone else is out. Since Rudy is part of the "old" group and Shay is part of the young group, Rudy started putting points on her board when it was down to three players: Shay, Rudy, and Danny. Shay screams at him the entire time about having no integrity and being cruel and picking on her. It was ridiculous. Even though I thought he meant the same thing that she did, it made more sense for Rudy to be loyal to fellow old guy Danny after watching Shay and her friends systematically eliminate every player over 30. Rudy won immunity, and Shay threw him hurt and angry looks for the rest of the episode.

At this point you start to realize that Shay truly believes that she deserves a free pass from all the other players because of her extreme size and her horrific childhood. Shay might have been a victim when she was a child, but as I watched her abuse the other players if they didn't give her the special treatment she felt she was entitled to, I started to have less and less sympathy for her. She is an adult now, and she needs to start acting like one. Abby had a horrific tragedy and was more than willing to let the players send her home when she came up for elimination, she didn't play for sympathy. On one hand, I agreed with Shay and Jillian that she really needed the safety of the Ranch more than the other players, especially because we know that at home she has three jobs and a husband and two stepchildren to distract her from her own goals. On the other hand, we've seen contestants from past seasons who lost well on the ranch go home and regain their weight if they aren't able to transfer what they've learned to their normal lives, and we've seen contestants who got sent home do very well there. Bob and Jillian are the last people who should be promoting the idea that you can't succeed unless you are on the show. There are many people watching at home who need to believe that they can be very successful on their own and fit fitness into a busy life.

The weigh-in was dramatic. Shay was one of the first weighed in, and Allison happens to mention that Shay is only 17 pounds away from the 100-pounds-lost milestone. Shay laughs it off, figuring that is impossible. If she did hit the 100 pound mark, though, we find out that she would break the record for fastest woman to 100 pounds. Of course, because the contestants are really weighed in the morning and the scale we see them on is just a prop, Allison knew that Shay was going to break that record. The order of the weigh-in is carefully chosen for the most drama. When we see Shay lose 17 pounds, we know that she will be safe. But then, we see contestant after contestant have their best-ever week, and Shay creeps closer and closer to that Yellow Line, along with fellow Team Young member Amanda. Daniel weighs in last and has another disappointing week, slipping him under Shay as the Red Line elimination. To confirm my suspicions from last week, Rebecca runs up in tears and hugs him.

As Amanda and Shay are making their case for who should stay, I am sure that it will be Amanda who is leaving. She is looking great and seems to be one of the most level-headed contestants on the show. As I said to my husband as we were watching, "She probably has about 30 pounds to lose. She could do that with Weight Watchers, she doesn't need to be there." Amanda makes her tearful case sure that she is heading home, but to everyone's surprise, Shay is sent home. The final vote for Shay comes from Rudy, who might have voted differently if Shay had taken his "betrayal" during the silly hoop challenge in stride, but she says she has no regrets. Somehow I missed the "where is she now" video for Shay at the end of the show, but I found it online -- she has 6 trainers now who are helping her at home, and she looks noticeably thinner even though she still has a lot of weight to lose. Daniel also is still doing OK on his own and has "a girlfriend he hopes to introduce to America at the finale." Hmm, wonder who that is?

Next week, MAKEOVERS with Tim Gunn for Alan, Rudy, Amanda, Rebecca, Danny, and Liz. At this point I'm not sure which I'm more excited to see go: Rebecca's weird comb-over birds' nest, Liz's scraggly gray hair, or Rudy's beard.