Do you really have to exercise? Of course not.

I’m pretty sure that, if I didn’t exercise, I would go crazy. Cos when you’re working out hard, you simply don’t have the capacity to churn stuff over in your head.  Yes, I do a lot of exercise already but I’d love to do more. Why?  Because it not only cuts out the mental crap but it makes me feel good, really good. I love the way muscles appear out of fat; and I love the sheer endorphin high I get when I'm in the 'zone'.  I can be feeling as miserable as sin, as low as low can go and getting up and going out to exercise can feel like the last thing I want to do. But it's much easier just to slump on the sofa, right? Or stick your paw in the cookie jar to blunt your feelings. So really, I push myself out there because I know damn well that exercise will sort me out - for a little while at least. :-)

And there's a good reason why.  We weren't meant to be couch potatoes.  We weren’t designed to sit for ten hours a day behind a computer screen and then slump for the evening in front of a television.   Our bodies were designed to move, to work, to be fit and active.  In the past most of us would have relied on the earth for our livelihood and our daily bread - days would have been spent in the open, working physically very hard.   Nowadays our daily bread tends to come from the supermarket (and is full of crap but let's not go there for the moment) and so we need to find other, more artificial ways, to keep active and fit. 

kettlebells really tone muscle

Do you really have to exercise? Of course not.  You don't have to do anything. But if you want to live longer and in better health, it's not a bad idea to give it a whirl. Exercising regularly allegedly reduces your risk of early death by a pretty impressive seventy per cent.   It keeps your lungs and heart working at optimum levels and prevents the dangers of heart disease.  Stress levels drop when you exercise and your mood naturally elevates.  Regular exercise can even help you sleep and perk up your sex life.  

On a more prosaic note it can control your blood pressure and boost your immune system.  Some physiologists even reckon it can increase your creativity.  On the other hand, if you don't exercise you will be putting yourself in danger of heart and artery disease; your muscles and bones could develop problems; you could find yourself prone to gastrointestinal problems and you will be more likely to suffer nervous or emotional upsets and illnesses. 

But - and it's a big but - it has to be enjoyable.  Enjoyable exercise sound like an oxymoron?  Nah. It doesn't have to be. The good news is that you don't have to live down the gym or run for hours every day. But it’s worth doing some form of exercise regularly.

weights do NOT bulk you out. 

The main problem is that people take up forms of exercise they don't enjoy, they aren't naturally good at or that they feel they should do and so they get bored, disillusioned and give up.  The key to making exercise work for you is to find something you actually enjoy - not what you feel you should do but what you would really like to do.  

So you don't have to race out and buy on-line skates when you have absolutely no sense of balance and are terrified of speed.  And you don't have to do Zumba because all your friends do or play squash because your husband wants some practice.  People fork out a small fortune on gym memberships only to find they hate pumping iron and they loathe spinning.  Before you join a club test it out for a while - any club worth its salt will offer trial memberships for a month or so. 

Throughout my book The Natural Year I give ideas on how to incorporate exercise into your life and suggestions on different things to try.  But for now, just try something...anything.

 

Take a look at your local sports centre – where I used to live the local one offered  everything from trampolining to five-a-side football, from ballroom dancing to table tennis (and it was only a small rural centre).  Think about the sports you enjoyed in school - are there any you'd like to take up again?  Netball can be good fun, or volleyball or softball - if you like team games.  Or get back into badminton or squash or tennis.  Many adults take up gymnastics or ballet again and love it without the peer pressure of youth - or learn something new like (ye gods) golf.   The key issue is fun.  You don't have to be brilliant or the best - you just need to do it and enjoy it.  A friend of mine has taken up belly-dancing and adores it.  She reckons she's the worst belly-dancer ever but doesn't give a toss. And if one thing doesn't work out, try something else. Sometimes you have to ferret around a bit to find what works for you. You might have the right sport but the wrong class, the wrong teacher - it's a real case of horses for courses. Just don't give up, okay? 

Physically unable to exercise? Try qigong (chi kung) – you can even do it sitting in a chair – and it still gives great results.  Broke?  Walking, running, wild swimming don’t cost a penny. 

KEEPING MOTIVATION HIGH

In order to keep exercising you have to keep your motivation high.

* Be realistic about your size shape and body shape.  Hordes of exercisers lose heart because however hard they work they don't end up looking like supermodels.  Dump unrealistic role models ‑ these people spend hours, and a small fortune in personal trainer bills, to look that way.  Plus your body type might be against you (I discuss this more in the book and will try to put up a blog post on it soon). 

* Start slowly.  You shouldn't try to change your exercise habits overnight or you will become demotivated because you don't see changes happening immediately.  Make gradual changes to your lifestyle and they will become a permanent way of life without any special effort.

* Break through the one week barrier.  Yup, just one week. Sports psychologists promise that if you can get past the first week, you've passed the period in which half the drop-outs occur. Needless to say, this means exercising more than once a week. :-)  If you manage to work out regularly for six months, you're likely to have created a longlasting habit.

* Try to get a friend involved.  Exercising with someone else is the supreme motivator.  Sportsmen and women have coaches, most super‑fit actresses and models have their own personal trainers and if you've got the funds, a personal trainer will undoubtedly get you moving. However a good mate will often do as well. It is much easier to stick to a regular exercise schedule if you know that someone else is waiting for you in the park, the gym or the pool. 

    Adapted from my book The Natural Year – a seasonal guideto holistic health and beauty, in which I talk about my belief that we can all live more balanced lives if we work with the forces of nature, rather than pitting ourselves against them.  Now updated and available for Kindle at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk  

Move it, shake it (more weight loss shenanigans)

www.wisewellwoman.com

There is a whole host more to talk about with regard to food/not food, drink/not drink but let’s leave that to one side for the moment.  There was also another big factor or six that kicked my issues with food right into touch but I don’t want to scare you off too soon.  So let’s stick to the tangible stuff for now.  Baby steps, eh?

Next step (ho ho)...  Exercise.

Truly our bodies are built to move. We weren’t designed to sit at desks all day; to slump on sofas. If you want to be fit and healthy, to be strong and slim, you don’t just need to look at what you put into your body but also how you use it; at calories out as well as calories in. 

*sigh* Maybe in my next life, eh?  :)

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with exercise all my life.  When I was at school I used to dread Wednesdays with every ounce of my eleven-year old being. Wednesday meant gym and gym meant ritual humiliation in front of thirty-odd classmates. Try as I might, I couldn’t do a handstand, let alone a cartwheel (though, weird thing, I can do them perfectly in my head).  The vault could have been a skyscraper. None of it helped, of course, by having to wear thick navy cotton knickers (oh guys, come on! How could you do that to teenage girls??) 

So, despite being a pretty good squash player and quite nifty on the netball court; despite cycling up killer hills and doing extreme outdoor challenges in the mountains, I dubbed myself a failure at sport. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one and that many of us cite school sport fear and loathing as part of the reason why we don't do any exercise at all.

BIG MISTAKE.

Seriously.  I said I wasn’t going to lecture and that I wasn’t going to tell you what to do but honestly, if you want to look and feel great, you simply gotta get moving. One way or another. I don’t care what you do – just do something!  C’mon, you don’t need me to tell you why. Exercise keeps our hearts and lungs working as they should and helps prevent cardio-vascular disease. Stress levels plummet after a good hard workout or game of sport (stress hormone levels are allowed to return to their resting levels and feelgood hormones are boosted).  Regular exercise helps control blood pressure; boosts our immune system; keeps a whole pile of diseases at arms’ length; soothes our sleep patterns and boosts our sex lives. Weight-bearing exercise can help stave off osteoporosis and so on and so forth.

And yes, if you’re using up calories with exercise it’s far easier to lose weight. 

If you Google my husband's name, this comes up!

Honestly, there really aren’t many good reasons or excuses for not exercising. A few health conditions make it difficult (and in some cases impossible) but generally a good fitness instructor can tailor a routine for pretty much anyone.  Some systems – like chi gung for example – can even be adapted for people who can’t get out of a chair. Can’t afford the gym or fitness classes? Walking, running, dancing, swimming in the wild, playing games with your children are all free. 

But anyhow, it’s up to you. All I can say is that it works for me. What I did in this past crazy year was to try out a whole bunch of stuff, to find out, for the first time, what I really enjoyed doing.  First stop was the gym.  We have a (tiny) gym here in Dulverton, literally two minutes from the house, yet I’d never been.  Why?  I dunno.  So I started getting my cardio fitness back on the bike, on the cross-trainer, the rower, the treadmill.  Got back to lifting weights.  It was tough at first but I took it slow, had a programme I followed, and gradually it got easier.  I'm lucky in that my mate Trisha works there and she loves nothing more than challenging us to do new stuff - like the form of extreme masochism that goes under the name of TRX and the frothy joy of super sets. Can I promise you something?  Gyms aren't scary. Really - not the good ones. And, as Frankie points out, you won't go bulky by using weights - it's a fallacy.

No! It won't! www.stumptuous.com - check it out

But I also love working out with other people, to music, so I added in some classes.  After a bit of trial and error (nope, I will never be a belly dancer and nope I still hate jazz so jazzercise is not an option; circuits are okay; Pilates so-so) I found the mix that worked for me. 

TRX - this is EVIL! But fun... :)

So now I do Zumba twice a week because it is, quite simply, the best fun ever. It’s a great all-body workout, sexy as hell, and it’s the one and only thing that has ever really sorted out for good and proper the back pain I used to get from spending most of  my day hunched over a desk.  Then I do Kettlercise twice a week too – usually outdoors by the river – because slinging a kettlebell is also great fun as well as a stunning workout and we have one helluva laugh.  Then, of course, I walk the SP and Exmoor isn’t exactly known for being flat so that’s a workout in itself.

Yes, I do a lot of exercise.  At least an hour a day; more if I can.  I’ll use any chance I can to get my body moving. On the rare occasions I cook or do housework, I shove on some dance music and fling myself around. On the rare occasions I watch TV I usually sit on the fitball and do a few weights while I’m there.  Or I get down on the carpet and plonk myself into Plank in front of the fire. J

Why? Because I enjoy it and I love how it makes me feel. I can get high as a kite on endorphins when I exercise. Crazy high. Better than any drink or drugs. Honesty also compels me to say I love how it makes me look.  Cutting calories in food will make you lose weight; it may make you slim. But exercise will make you toned.  And, by heck, do I love toned.  As I’ve said before, I don’t want a skinny body; I want a seriously strong, sensual body.  Working out has given me seriously toned muscles.  Go on, have a prod - my thighs are rock-hard!  Okay, so I’m not totally there yet – the washboard stomach is still more in my head than in my abs.  But one day…

What does my quasi-guru do? He's far more of a back to basics guy: he runs, swims and plays extreme Mario Kart with his son. Plus yoga (which is worth a whole post all to itself, so that is what it will get). Plus something else which we’ll talk about in more detail in a day or so... J 


btw, do read the comments - Frankie has added a lot of really useful links that you may like to follow...  Thanks, Frankie. xx

I am a Duck-Billed Platypus

So what did I do in Turkey, you ask (well, some of you ask).  This might surprise you (some of you) but mainly I swam. 

I’m not one of life’s natural swimmers; I’m one of life’s natural floaters. Okay, so that’s an unfortunate term but hey, there isn’t really an alternative. I like to float, shall we say?  I love water but tend to bob around on top of it, gently swayed this way and that as the current wishes.  Or slowly revolve in circles, like Eeyore.  I like the feeling of being supported by water.  I rather like the passivity of it too.  I’m generally a pretty active person so the whole surrendering aspect of floating has always struck me as quite balancing somehow. 

James, however, wasn’t impressed.  ‘You’re  just a rubbish swimmer,’ he said with that careless scorn of the young. Then, catching the look on my face. ‘Sorry, that sounded awful.’ Patting me in an almost avuncular fashion on the shoulder. ‘But you really should learn how to swim properly.’  In other words, not thrashing my head from side to side as I progress painfully through the water.  Then he threw down the challenge.

‘I’ll teach you if you like.’

Shit.  Trapped. I have promised myself I won’t let fear get in the way of stuff anymore. ‘Okaaaay.’

So there we were in the pool.  Early, before the Russians ploughed in to play extreme water polo or turning themselves into human pyramids (they liked this game and once got to three levels before collapsing and nearly concussing the newly-weds who were snogging in blissful unawareness nearby). 

‘First step is putting your head under the water,’ said James.

‘Aagh,’ said I. ‘That’s scary.’
He fixed me with a beady look and showed me what to do.  I gulped but obeyed and, hey, it was okay, it really was.  And after that it was all just so easy. Why on earth (or should that be 'in water'?) had I waited so long?  After he was satisfied I could do lengths of crawl and breast-stroke, he got me diving.  Not just off the edge (though that was fun) but sinking down to the bottom of the pool so we sat like a pair of Buddhas, grinning benignly at one another.

I was feeling pretty smug but he wasn’t finished with me. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Time for snorkelling.’ After a quick practice session in the pool, we were off to the sea and bobbing gently in the Aegean… Oh my! Oh wow! How amazing to reverse one’s world.  To look down instead of up.  To see the sea as part of it, inside it.  Who knew the fish came so close to shore?  And, just like that, I lost my fear of the sea and its creatures.  Ever since a cod sucked my toe in the US (it did, it really did), I’ve been scared stiff of swimming in the sea.  But when you can see everything…when you become part of a world, instead of alien, there’s nothing to fear.  Okay, smart-arses, the odd rogue shark, I suppose. 

‘Do I still swim like Asbo?’ I asked at the end of the week, by which time the boy was so brown I barely recognised him, while I had simply sprouted freckles on my freckles.  He screwed up his face in concentration. ‘No.’ 

I smiled.  ‘So, what am I?’ Thinking sleek sea-otter or whip-like piranha.

‘Umm, you’re more of a platypus.’

What??

‘No, no…’ he said with that soothing shoulder pat again.  ‘Don’t be offended. Duck-billed platypuses are excellent swimmers.’

‘They are?’  Mollified.   

‘They also emit a low growl when disturbed,’ he added, raising an eyebrow.  ‘And store fat reserves in their tails.’

Let it also be noted that they can also move extremely fast when provoked.    :)

Ras Mbisi - go for it!

Sometimes you have to let the winds of Fate blow you, like dandelion seeds.  Sometimes Fate gives you no choice – it knows where you’re going. I’m a great believer in trying to live lightly; trying to get with the Tao; practicing wu wei. My mother always said that if you push things too hard, you can force them to happen, but at a price.  You can exert your will but it may backfire.  It’s the difference between Magic and Mysticism (if you want to be esoteric about it).

But sometimes… Maybe.  If you know – if you really know – what you want (and that it is the right thing), then maybe you have to fight, to give it all you’ve got.  What do you think?  I do admire people who get this idea, this vision, and then just pursue it, hell for leather.  Like Michelle.  

I met Michelle on Twitter (yes, another one) – thanks to Sam Baker (who, incidentally, always goes for it 100% - check out her new book).  Anyhow, here’s an abbreviated version of Michelle’s story – of how she gave up life in cold boring Ramsgate and bought a beach in Tanzania!

It all started in 2005 on a cold winter’s day.  The rain was lashing down and Michelle was idly browsing the web while her two young daughters watched TV.  She stumbled upon a website called my-beach.com, listing beaches and properties for sale around Tanzania and within a few clicks, she had started hatching a plan.  By the time her husband Jon came home from work, the idea for Ras Mbisi, an eco-lodge on a stretch of pristine sand, had formed.

With a feeling of wild impetuousness, they booked a flight to Dar es Salaam and they found “their” beach.  ‘It was love at first sight,’ recalls Michelle.  ‘We just looked at each other and said, “God, it’s gorgeous.”  There was pure white sand – that actually squeaked when you walked on it.  Clear blue sea and no neighbours for miles either way.’  It may have been beautiful but there was no accommodation other than ‘a subsiding, bat, rat and hornet-infested pit’ of a house.  If they wanted to make a go of it, they would have to start from scratch.

They sold up their house and hawked nearly all their worldly belongings.  Money was going to be incredibly tight and so everything that wasn’t totally essential, had to go.  Jon even auctioned his vast LP collection on eBay. ‘The proceeds bought us a Land Rover,’ he says ruefully. 

They left the UK on a rainy August afternoon in 2006 and arrived in Tanzania to bright morning sunshine. ‘We just ran to the sea and plunged in,’ says Michelle.  ‘The girls were so excited – it was a huge adventure.’  But reality quickly kicked in.  The house on the beach was uninhabitable and for three months the Vickers had to rent a run-down cottage 18 kilometres away down a pot-holed road while they rebuilt it. 

They dug their own bore hole (and learned how to use the various pumps required), constructed a solar system and built a biomass gasifier (running on waste) to power the Lodge as there is no mains power in this part of the island.  They employed over forty local people to build the lodge (which is all made from sustainable cocowood from the plantations that back onto the beach).  Most of them were then retrained as cooks, waiters and gardeners for the Lodge.  Digging and planting a large vegetable garden was a must as part of Michelle’s dream was to provide the most delicious, fresh, seasonal food possible.  Everything had to be local and eco-friendly – even the soap is made locally from virgin coconut oil.

To cut a very long story very short, Jon and Michelle finally saw their vision become reality: nine open-tented thatched bandas (simple yet sophisticated rooms with balconies and ensuite bathrooms) sitting just metres from the beach, looking out over the aquamarine water.  They are cleverly planned to benefit from the cooling sea breeze as does the restaurant and raised sundowner bar which overlooks both the beach and the swimming pool. 

Food is cooked simply using a combination of traditional Swahili recipes with Middle Eastern and Asian flavours (reflecting the old trade routes).  The menu changes daily, depending on what the local fishermen catch or what Michelle and Jon have found at market.  Vegetables often come from their own garden and your breakfast egg will have been laid by one of the Vickers’ own pampered hens. Fresh fruit literally falls from the trees and, given the Lodge backs onto a coconut plantation, it’s small surprise that the exotic nut features heavily.

When guests aren’t eating, they can be as active or leisurely as they desire.  You could swim with the Whale sharks or watch the Humpbacks make their way past during their biannual migration.  Or visit one of the uninhabited offshore islands for a fish barbecue and snorkel one of the many reefs. 

Michelle’s next project is to add a small spa offering a simple menu of massages and scrubs, based around the local coconut oil.  No overegged ‘rituals’ or gimmicks – just good bodywork to relax guests into ‘swahili time’.  There are still so many things I want to do but it all takes time,’ says Michelle.  ‘We’ve learnt to walk; running comes next.’

Fancy a serious chillout break? It's actually damn good value: check it out.   www.mafiaislandtz.com  Or read the blog (with delicious recipes and more pics). I tell you, I am SO going there when funds allow. 

NOTE TO EDITORS: This is a much abbreviated version of a longer lifestyle feature I wrote.  If any mags or papers fancy the whole thing (2K words), let me know.

The feral children of summer

It’s reached that horrible tipping point in the holidays when children are turning feral. Well, at least mine is. The summer is stretching out for too long… There is grumbling and whining and whinging and where once he would eat most things, now anything other than chips or pizza is met with a moue of distaste or out and out retching. Any suggestion of drawing a picture or playing guitar or, heaven forfend, playing in his room is met with total horror. If there are no friends on offer to play with, James would quite happily spend chunks of his life shunting between TV, PC, Gameboy and PS2, eyes glazed, thumbs frantically beating out some arcane beat. He needs entertaining. The dread word 'bored' rears its ugly head at all available opportunities.

When did it change? When did children stop being self-sufficient and suddenly need shepherding every step of the way. When did they stop knowing instinctively how to amuse themselves and instead need lessons in play?
I suppose if I’m fair, he doesn’t have good examples in front of him – Adrian and I spend large chunks of the day glued to the computer screen. But it distresses me, this cyber-childhood. I can’t help but think back to when I was eight (oh gawd, says Adrian, here we go again – living in a cardboard box, on tuppen’th a week). But really I didn’t have much in the way of toys yet I don’t ever remember being bored. I would head off on my trusty old bicycle, sandwiches stowed in the basket, and spend the day with a friend or two, poking around in the woods, or fishing for tiddlers, or borrowing ‘Sandy’ the most disreputable mutt in the neighbourhood, which for some odd reason made him infinitely desirable. Mandy Cotton and I would fight for the honour of holding his lead as he made his royal progression, cocking his leg at regular intervals and hopping on three legs for long periods (why?).

A visit to the cinema was An Event. We would queue for hours and The 101 Dalmations still makes me wince as I remember queuing three times and not getting in. One screen cinemas eh?
Swimming was special. We’d queue again, listening with eager anticipation to the wall of sound within. Waiting for our half-hour in the hot sticky little pool that was probably more wee than water. There was barely room to move, let alone swim…and every five minutes numbers would be yelled out and one batch of children would reluctantly clamber out while a fresh batch would sidle their way in.
Then again I could spend hours sitting up in an apple tree just thinking or reading. Or I’d devise secret societies and enrol my friends, giving them badges and certificates and making them undergo endurance trials and other tests of proficiency, loyalty and girl power. I was always trying to make money and would come up with a project for each summer. One year it was an art gallery – and parents, friends and relations would have little choice but to purchase one of my ‘works of art’. The next it was a craft fair (match boxes painted and decorated with shells and sequins; knitted pot holders; felt egg cosies; dried flower bookmarks). I tried a museum which really was totally lame. Most successful (and certainly most lucrative) was the haunted house tour in which I would vanish at one point to flush the lav, racing down to ask if they’d heard the ghost knocking in the pipework. Like all good entrepreneurs I had the marketing down to an art – not only where they charged to enter but I also fleeced them for ‘badges’, ‘postcards’ and instructions on how to remove ghosts (which involved, if I recall, liberal amounts of lemon juice and a lot of shouting).

James however knows all about bored. We haul him off on walks but he gets grumpy after a mile. I suggested hut building in the spinney but he wanted me to make the hut for him (which surely defeats the object?). He’ll play football and cricket endlessly but needs another child to play with (whereas I can clearly remember spending literally hours throwing a ball against a wall – to the point where the woman who lived next-door finally complained that the repetitious noise was bringing on her migraines).

Am I being unfair? Maybe I was just a more introverted child, happy to be left alone with my imagination? My imagination conjured up an entire stable yard of horses and ponies in my suburban garden. There were the thoroughbreds Atlendor and Aragorn (guess my childhood reading); the naughty Dartmoors Whisky, Rum and Brandy; and my favourite Arab mare Misty plus others whose names and manes I have forgotten in the mists of time. Their stable was the shed and I would set up jumps on the lawn (broom handles and rakes on buckets) and, slapping my bottom with a crop, jump perfect clear rounds to the applause of the ecstatic crowd. When it rained I would sit on a special chair, over which I put a particularly fluffy bathroom mat and pretend I was riding, hour after hour, lost in the hills and moorland of my mind. Or, when my mother finally confiscated the mat (she ‘needed’ it for the bathroom) I’d sit and watch rain drops dribbling down the window, laying bets with myself as to which would win. But if I suggested this kind of pastime to James he’d think I’d gone totally mad. I don’t know, maybe it’s a girl thing.

It doesn’t help that children can no longer run free. Adrian and I endlessly wonder if we’re cotton-wooling James. Other children of his age seem to run free around town – but I fear that James is still not street-wise enough. Then, inevitably, there’s the horrible fear of What Might Happen. It’s a small town, he would be in screaming distance of at least four people he knows at any time but still……. At what age do you let children enjoy the freedom we took for granted?

So then you have to wonder, are we creating these stay-at-home cyber-children? We dislike the electronic babysitters but – in our hearts – maybe we feel they are safer than allowing children to be children. I read back this blog and hate the sound of my own voice….so righteous, so nagging, so ‘in the good old days’ pious. I guess all children are different. It would be a boring world if we turned out children who were perfect mini-me’s. I love it that James doesn’t support Arsenal, like his father. That he doesn’t ‘do’ spooky, unlike his supernaturally-obsessed mother. He’s his own boy and that is great. But…oh but….I do wish that just once in a while I would see him, silent in a tree, gazing off into the mid-distance, off with the fairies…..