Man when it’s early in the morning and you’ve been up late and you’re tired, it’s so hard to drag your butt to a workout isn’t it?  I have a major Olympics hangover from staying up late and watching and it’s raining, and cold, and, and, and…

And what?  No matter how hard it is for me to get up and get exercising, I ALWAYS feel better after I do.  Sometimes the hardest steps in my dance class are the ones the get me in the door.  So, I’m getting up and I’m going.  So THERE!

So get up my little darlings and move your feet.  You’ll feel better (I promise).

By the way, if you want to see more adorable kitteh pictures, come see me on icanhascheezburger.com.  My name is Phat Cat.

Love,
The Fat Chick

Yup, don’t mess with California, we’ve got a freakin’ giant laser here people.  The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will focus 192 laser beams on a hydrogen pellet the size of a bead, heating it to incredible temperatures in an attempt to recreate the power of the sun.  The lab is seen as an important step on the way to developing cold fusion.  And this thing is HUGE.  The core is housed in a laboratory that covers the area of 10 football fields and is 10 stories high.  The targeting chamber alone measures over 10 meters in diameter and is pictured above being lowered into place by one of the largest cranes in the world.

Targeting Chamber Stats
Diameter: 10 Meters
Weight: 264,000 lbs.

Conclusion, a Giant Laser Weighs more than Me!

Let’s make no mistake here.  I certainly weigh more than any one of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.  But the whole squad? 
Weight one Cheerleader: 95-105 lbs.
Number of Cheerleaders in Squad 36-38
Weight of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: 3420–3990 lbs.
Conclusion: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Weigh More than Me!

Yesterday, I was blessed to have a few friends calling me seeking encouragement.  There have been many times in my life that I might have seen these calls as a bother or an intrusion.  But now I understand that these calls are a blessing.  Because few things in life are as encouraging as an opportunity to encourage another person.  I always walk away from these experiences feeling energized and ready to take on the world.  After all, somebody thinks maybe I know something about something.  That’s kind of cool.  And when I help other people, I sometimes realize I am a little more of an expert than I thought.

Of course, there’s a big difference between encouragement and advice.  Lord knows, I’ve offered plenty of unsolicited advice in my life and have paid a heavy price.  But when I can remember (which ‘aint often, God bless me) I try to offer encouragement instead of advice.  I have such great encouragers in my life to observe and learn from.  There’s Kimmy and Alison and Kate and Brian and Mary Ann and too many others to name.  When I watch them I see.  They do not say, “well you can do it, if you do it like I did it”.  Nope.  Uh uh.  They say, “well OF COURSE you can do it, because you’re awesome.”

When I get this kind of encouragement, I feel ten feet tall.  But when I give this kind of encouragement, I also feel ten feet tall.  And while I can’t control when I get encouraged, I can control when I encourage other people.  This means I can potentially feel ten feet tall, all the time.

So I’m encouraging you to go out there and encourage somebody else.  Of COURSE you can do it.  Because you’re awesome!

Love,
The Fat Chick

The giant maoi are statues found on Easter Island. The statues are thought to be generalized depictions of various important tribal chiefs. So far 887 maoi have been located on the island. Believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD 1400 and 1600, 288 of the statues are located in “display areas”, 397 of the statues are still in the quarries where they were made and the rest are along the way or “in transit” on the island. Here come the stats:

Height: 13 feet high

Weight: Approximately 14 tons

Conclusion: The Maoi of Easter Island weigh more than me.

Sometimes I have problems with exercise procrastination. I admit it. But my little chickadees that’s nothing compared to my problems with procrastinating on my writing projects. No matter how well prepared I am. No matter how much research I’ve done. When I face that blank screen in the morning I freak the f#$% out! I think I’m a pretty good writer. I don’t hate it once I start. But you just couldn’t believe the number of things I can find to do before I get started. I think I’m the world champion Sudoku player and I have amassed ridiculously huge virtual fortunes playing online Texas Hold ‘Em. You can always tell when a writing deadline is looming because my house is totally clean, my spices are alphabetized in the drawer, and my socks are sorted by color, type and condition. My husband calls these my L.O.S.T. days—an acronym which stands for Lots Of Silly Things. He knows if he comes home and the baseboards are scrubbed and I’m serving an eight-course meal complete with molded sugar desserts and life-sized ice sculptures that there’s a good chance I’ve had a L.O.S.T. day.   And today started out as one of those days.  I finished all the laundry.  I organized the sock drawer.  I cleaned the gunk in the grout lines on the kitchen counter.  Yup, definitely and decidedly L.O.S.T.

I’ve suffered with this particular form of procrastination all my life and I can only come to one conclusion. This type of procrastination is about fear—mostly fear of failure. Because, somehow I believe in my head that I can’t fail with stuff I haven’t started yet. From a logical standpoint this is completely ridiculous. In truth, the only way to guarantee failure is to never start or never try. But as logical as that whole have to begin to win idea is, I find myself in loops of painful procrastination.  Thankfully, today I got out of the loop after about 2 hours–which for me, is pretty good.  I ate some breakfast, I squared my shoulders, I went to my computer and I got on with it.  And I got a few creative things done.  Not everything I needed to, but some things.  It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it!

So how about you sweetheart?  What are you avoiding?  Are you L.O.S.T?  If so, get a snack, put on your grown-up pants and go create something!

Love,
The Fat Chick

Okay, since I was talking about motivation (and the carrot and the stick) in my Fat Chick Sings Blog, I thought I’d research the world’s largest carrot.  Unfortunately the world’s largest real carrot weighs only about 8 pounds.  And while 8 pounds is REALLY big for a carrot, it decidedly weighs less than me.  However, in my research I came across this giant carrot sculpture in Ohakune, NZ.  It recently celebrated it’s 20th anniversary in the town.  The carrot although controversial when installed (some of the townspeople felt it was too, um, phallic) is now beloved by the town which now hosts an annual carrot festival.  Precise weight statistics are not available, but this thing is over 30 feet tall!  So I did some research regarding the weight of resin fiberglass sculptures based on square footage and thickness and blah, blah, blah. and after detailed calculations I came up with, um LOTS!  It’s just a guess, but I’m going with it.

Stats:
Height over 10 meters (30 ft.)
Weight over 1500 lbs.
Conclusion: the Ohakune Carrot weighs more than me.

Today I got a request from a reporter to send my tips on how I stay motivated to exercise.  For example, do I put my exercise clothes out the night before (I do) or buy enough sports bras so I have enough to last from wash to wash (I do that too).  But as I thought about it, I realized that the most important thing I have ever done to motivate myself to stick with exercise, is to divorce exercise from the expectation of weight loss, and learn to exercise in a way that lets me enjoy consistent success.

When I was younger, I engaged in a lot of intense exercise hoping to become thin.  I tried lots of things from Karate to working with a personal trainer to belly dancing all trying to lose weight.  I’d go out too hard, exercise too much too fast, not lose any weight, get hurt and give up on the whole thing.  This pattern repeated over and over.

But about ten years ago, I decided to exercise just for the sake of exercise.  And I decided to concentrate on doing only what my body really felt ready to do.  Then once I succeeded at that level, I bumped things up a little bit and exercised a little bit harder the next week.  That’s it.  That’s my magic formula.

But here’s what’s important about that magic formula.  It allowed me to succeed every week.  Since I didn’t make an unrealistic expectation of weight loss a part of the formula, that didn’t cause disappointment.  And since I worked out at a level that was appropriate for me, I could do it every week and not get hurt.  Heck, I even started to enjoy it.

And nothing breeds success like success.  Since I was feeling good about my workouts, I couldn’t wait to do them the next week.  And since I had figured out how to win, I couldn’t wait to help other people “win” too.  That’s why I became a teacher.  Now exercise is something I truly love.  I can’t wait to put on some fun and interesting music, gather my posse together and shake my groove thing.

It’s not rocket science.  But it got me through 5Ks, 10Ks, sprint triathlons, half marathons and even one marathon.  It just works!

Hope you’ll think about giving this magic formula a try!  And if you do, let me know how it’s going!

Love,
The Fat Chick

Recently I went to a social gathering (a real one with drinks and stuff, not a virtual one) and I spoke with an editor friend of mine.  He was complaining of back pain after long editing sessions.  I looked at him knowingly and said, “Oh yes.  I understand.  You have Glued Butt Disease.” 

Naturally he looked at me funny and asked if I was okay to drive myself home.  But after I assured him that I had only had one glass of wine, I defined “Glued Butt Disease”.  “This malady,” I explained, “comes as a result of spending a whole day or sometimes even a day and a night with your butt glued to the chair.  It’s common among editors, writers and eleven year old WOW players.”

I assured him that I have often suffered from this malady and have experienced serious back and neck pain as a result.  I also assured him that there is a cure.

“Well the cure is to just get up, about once an hour and walk around a little bit.” I said.  “But the trick is to remember to do it.  I set the timer I use when I bake cookies.  I have been conditioned over the years to perform a full, salivating, pavlovian leap every time that beeper goes off.  Definitely gets me out of the chair.  I set the timer again for five minutes and I walk around, stretch or get down and boogie until the timer goes off again.  Of course every time I get up, I’m hungry for cookies, but that’s a different problem all together.”

Do you have Glued Butt Disease?  Then my friend, peel your behind up off your aeron chair and walk around a little.  Take in the sunshine.  Watch the snow fall.  As I’ve been saying, all endeavors begin with a few small steps.  So even if it’s just to stretch, walk around your office,  or boogie until your coworkers start flipping through the mental health section of the company medical plan, just get up and get going!

Love,
The Fat Chick