body – Betsy Schow

Fitness Tip: Don’t Overlook Yoga

In an effort to burn the most calories in our workouts, yoga and other stretching often gets overlooked. It’s true, that unless you do hot yoga, or power yoga, you won’t burn a lot of calories in an hour. But physical fitness needs to go beyond the calorie count. Yoga is great for body and mind. It improves flexibility and aids in injury prevention.

One thing I hear a lot of is, “I can’t do yoga. I’m just not very flexible.” Well, duh. That’s why you go to yoga. It’s not about putting your feet behind your ears. It’s about being in tune with your muscles and making progress. Egos get left at the door. I teach yoga and I can’t reach my toes in forward fold with a flat back. It’s all about the process.

So keep in mind that while yoga is low calorie burn, it creates those long and lean beautiful muscles we all want.

Full Body: Losing the Pooch

There are so many names for that area between the groin and the belly button. Pooch, Bunt, Kangaroo Pouch, etc. For women who have previously born a child, it can be puffy and one of the toughest areas to target.

But could the way you’re walking be preventing those lower abdominal muscles from strengthening — creating a nice vacation home for fat? Two common forms of posture for standing and walking, is hips tucked in or booty hanging out. That would be the first picture and the fourth picture.

When you walk and stand in the number one position, hips tucked in, your lower abdominal muscles engage and tone in a smaller straight alignment to the sacrum of the spine. Over time, these muscles will tone and squeeze out the fat between the layers of muscles.

Now go to the booty out picture in number 4. By sticking your butt out, you are not tightening you core muscles, you are actually puffing them out. The muscles can build and form in almost a convex curve as opposed to a straight tight fiber bundle. The fat then adheres and follows the shape — allowing for a more bulbous front then most of us would like.

So once again, the easiest way to a better shape over time… is posture. Tuck those hips in and soon you will continue to do so without effort. It’s not an overnight correction. It will take months. But walking with your butt hanging out is like undoing all those crunches and sit ups you do every day.

Muscle Bonus: If you want to tone that lower abdomen faster, here’s an exercise for you… heels to the heavens.

After this position, comes the crunch. Leaving the middle spine on the floor, bring the shoulders and chest up slightly and get your talbone up off the floor in short bursts. A modification for this would be leaving the shoulders back and arms on the ground and just raising the legs and the tailbone. Hence raising your heels to the heavens.

Full Body: Its not a Pageant

I’ve renamed Dress for Success to Full Body. So Wednesdays can be the post day for all things image and body related.

Today’s post is a little pet peeve of mine. I see it at the gym, on the road, even at the marathon. Beauty queen dropouts.

I get trying to look your best no matter where you are. But the starting line is not the place for full makeup and round brushing your bangs then shoving your cosmetics in a stuff sack to pick up at the finish. FYI chick in the plaid pink sports bra and skirt, when I passed you at mile 14, your mile high hair looked like a nest and your mascara was dripping and streaking right along with your fake tan.

If you do it right, working out is not pretty. It’s sweaty and full of grunts and the occasional curse. Its not a beauty pageant. There is no prize at the end if your hair is still schellacked on your head.

You don’t need to make yourself up like a doll to be pretty. Being healthy is beautiful. Red sweaty face and all.

Plus the makeup mingled sweat seeps into your pores and makes you breakout. Just saying.

Mirror Image

I decided to hijack my own blog. I’m taking over Dress for Success. Why? Because it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

Really though, its because sometimes I want to share more of me and less of the how to. Sometimes I just want to have an honest discussion about something. And today’s discussion would be what I see when I stand in front of the mirror.

I see lumps and bumps and flaps of skin. Sags here, old stretch marks there. I see flaws that can be tucked, squished, or camouflaged by a well made pair of jeans. I’m absolutely positive that if anyone saw me in the buff, they would run screaming.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I can say unequivocally that I have never once thought it was me. Not when I was fat, not now that I’m un-fat.

In the rational part of my head I know that I’m ok being exactly who I am. But the emotional part of my head feels differently. I’ve lost 75 pounds. My pant size has shrunk from 16/18 to 4/6. The evidence all points to the fact that I should be happy and ecstatic with how I look. And maybe half the time I am. But the other half, including in front of the mirror, I still wish I was different. There will always be something that can be smaller, tighter, and um… higher.

The problem is absolutely not with my body, it’s in my brain. And even though I have made great strides in my life, it takes a long time to overcome 30 years of bad self-imagery. I always had a number in my head. And if only I could reach that number on the scale, then I would be happy. Pretty.

In case you haven’t guessed, there is no magic number. How often have we heard celebrity stories of plastic surgery gone awry? They had something nipped or sculpted, hoping to feel better, but they are still the same person underneath. If we feel unworthy, it has a lot less to do with the outside, than what we are feeling on the inside. Even supermodels look in the mirror and cringe.

I don’t have the answer. I just wanted to share, because this is something that I still struggle with. And you know what, it’s ok to struggle. The word indicates a fight. I’m fighting to feel better about my body and myself as a person. It’s not a fight I’m going to win in the gym by toning up to 2% body fat. It will be a battle of wills to retrain the way I think about beauty and worth.

Today it starts with looking in the mirror and finding one thing I absolutely love. It’s my collarbone. I’m not going to let my eyes or thoughts wander any further down.

Baby steps. It’s a process.