Shipwrecked & Comatose

Athleisure is the new business casual.  Your gym clothes aren't merely what you wear to the gym.  You now wear them out shopping (and I don't just mean a quick trip to the grocery store).  You wear them out to dinner.  You may even wear them to work.  A typical athleisure outfit isn't the pair of leggings and the oversized souvenir t-shirt I wore to the gym this morning.  In fact, an athleisure outfit may never see the inside of a gym.  On a typical morning I  roll out of bed and stumble into some sweatpants and steel-cage sports bra.  That's not athleisure.  Let's imagine for a moment that I took the athleisure route when I got dressed this morning.  There would be no random pulling of tops and pants from a drawer in the dark.  I would carefully put together today's exercise-inspired outfit ahead of time.  I will pull a pair of leggings over my legs from a massive collection of colors and prints   I put on a m...

"That is the stupidest question you have ever asked on your blog, Rachel," you tell me.   One can’t divorce without marrying. The world is filled with moralistic doomsayers who swear the divorce rate is skyrocketing and no one stays married anymore.   This isn’t the reality.   The US divorce rate has remained relatively stable for decades.   Still, it is quite depressing to think nearly fifty percent of marriages in the US will end in divorce.   Americans are often surprised to find the US divorce rate is declining, but it it is only declining because many couples are abandoning marriage as divorce seems somewhat inevitable and not worth the risk.     While many of us fear marriage, there are still many of us who want to be married and want it badly.   As I grow older and see more of my married friends divorcing, I start to question why marriage is so important.   Divorce, it seems to me, can be a result of wanting marriage too...

I took my vacation this summer at the annual Chincoteague Pony Swim.  I have written about the swim many times, so I probably don't need to say how much time is spent waiting on a boat for several hours for the ponies to cross.  It's usually the same group of people who go on our boat, but we had some newcomers this year. It was an active and cheerful older couple who were kind, funny, and polite, but whom I heard whisper to each other about how sad there were so many out of shape people on the scene.  I made an offhand remark about fitness at one point and the husband said to me, "You look very strong and athletic."  That remark made my day.  These past few months are starting to show.  I don't look out of shape. Or do I? I am still my own worst critic.  I still hate the way I look.  When I see myself in the mirror I can't take my eyes off the spare tire that sits above my hips and is starting to succumb to gravity.  I compare it to wear...

I am fortunate enough to be taking a brief European vacation this summer.  (I don't want you to think I'm a dumb American who thinks Europe is a country, so I had better specify now I'm going to the Czech Republic.)  As I make sure my seat assignments are correct for the flight, check out guidebooks for sights I want to see and restaurants where I want to eat, and make packlists of the best clothes to wear, I also find myself falling into the abyss of travel etiquette websites. I like to explore the websites that help me navigate the quirky customs of the country I'm visiting so I make no major faux pas.  Unfortunately it's also easy to find myself checking out the dozens of sites out there enumerating everything wrong with American tourists.  There are sites explaining how not to look like an American tourist (although it doesn't matter because other sites tell you Europeans can practically smell an American tourist no matter how hard she tries to blend in). ...

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I wanted to do a quick check in since I finished my first phase of The Modern Women's Guide to Strength Training and I'm about to go on a (swimsuit) vacation.  I enjoyed the program so far.  In the past phase there were two strength workouts per week.  Normally I might alternate them to make it three strength sessions in a week, but I decided to experiment and leave it at two (if I did that, the phase would conveniently end right before going to Chincoteague).  I simply added another cardio session or sometimes backed off and did a yoga session.  One time I pulled out my old Piyo DVDs.  My cardio consisted of long walks, medium intensity sessions on the bike or elliptical, and an occasional Zumba program on the Kinect. Gallbraith suggests adding intervals to the end of strength sessions to accelerate fat loss.  Her idea of intervals isn't just getting on a machine and riding faster and slower.  She has users doing some intense but bizarre comb...

I finished The New Rules of Lifting for Women.  As planned I skipped Stage 6.  I was considering going back to it, but I tried one hanging exercise and the pain took over my entire elbow.  I knew I wasn't ready for that yet. The good news is I am back to my pre-surgery strength.  I can do just as many pushups as I did prior to the health issues.  I can deadlift and squat the same amount of weight.  I may not have quite the amount of endurance I had when I was deeply involved with Lean Eating, but I'm getting there. More good news is I am noticing some of my clothes are looser.  I still can't wear some of my skirts or shorts from last year, but some of my tops are looser.  I may have to give some of them away before the summer is over because they have become too big to stay on my torso properly.  The dress Kevin bought me in Hawaii fit fine when we bought it back in February, but now it gaps and saps and shows my bra when I sit.  It ...