My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper: A Guide to the Less Than Perfect Life (7 page)

And I’m no exception.

One morning I was minding my own business, answering my emails, and one of them said, “Sorry about the magazine.”
Magazine? What magazine?
This couldn’t be good. I emailed my friend back and learned that some checkout counter tabloid had done a story on the cellulite to be found in certain celebrity booties, and there was mine.(You would think that knowing strangers were out there evaluating my ass would be enough to up my desire to train to at least, say, seventy-thirty, but no.)

The worst thing was that someone had Photoshopped my backside to look fatter than it actually is. To retaliate, I took
a picture of myself in my underwear, posted it on my website, and blogged about it, saying here’s the unvarnished truth. At least let’s be honest.

I’ve tried to train myself not to let this type of thing get to me, and mostly I do a pretty good job. People are going to say what they’re going to say, and now that we have the Internet, they can say it at any hour of the day or night, and if you’re really in a self-sabotaging mood, you can check it out for yourself.

I ignore it all, for the most part, but for some reason this time it really got to me. I locked myself in the bathroom. Took the longest shower in human history. Why was this getting to me? I took a little inventory. I noticed that because I was extra busy I wasn’t getting the time I needed to work out. I had been on the road and was out of my routine. Had I been exercising, I wouldn’t have been so upset. So once again I was schooled: exercise is the secret to everything.

There is, however, a secret to the secret: figuring out your strengths and weaknesses and arranging your life to support the strengths and make it inconvenient for the weaknesses to prevail. The gold standard of examples: if you keep Pringles in the house you’ll inhale them, if you don’t, they’re out of sight out of mind.

The only thing that separates me from you is that I’m well
acquainted with my weaknesses, and rather than eradicate them, I simply try to deprive them of oxygen. I know what to do in order
not
to support them.

In 2003, after I had Reece, I immediately saw that I wouldn’t be able to hit the gym any old time I pleased. It was one of the first reality checks of motherhood. Suddenly, I was beholden to this tiny, helpless creature, and her needs didn’t adhere to a convenient workout schedule.

What to do? I knew my weakness—if left to my own devices I’d slack off and get my workouts in only half the time. But I also know I’m someone who, under the right circumstances, can kick her own ass harder than anyone else.

So, I created a home gym in Maui, where we were living at the time. It wasn’t fancy—I bought some weights, kettle bells, a physio ball, and a yoga mat—but creating that space was my commitment to myself. It meant that even if I had my kid sitting there in her baby seat, or even lying on the floor next me, cooing and amusing herself by waving her arms and legs in the air, I was going to be able to exercise. After the gym was equipped, I invited some people to come work out with me. At first, maybe three people showed up.

In April of that year, when we moved back to California, I was able to borrow the home gym of a friend. To make it even more fun to work out, and more likely that I wouldn’t skip a session, I put out the word that I was going to be doing some serious training on such and such a day, and about ten people showed up.

After a few months we were fifteen, and I had to start getting
organized. Every morning before meeting up with my workout buddies, I sat down and wrote out a circuit, a dozen or so moves that gave us a full-body workout.

October came, and we moved back to Hawaii, this time to Kaua’i. We rented a house in Princeville, on the north shore, not far from the St. Regis hotel. The guy who ran the gym there invited me to use their facility, but since none of my workout friends would be able to join me, I said thanks but no thanks, and found I could rent out a small room at the local community center. My friends would join me, but my class would also be open to the public. Word got out, as it tends to do on the sparsely populated north shore of Kaua’i. The class was free, but there was a prerequisite: you had to commit to working hard. The class grew; on some days there were about fifty people, almost always all women, with the occasional fearless guy who would show up to check it out.

Here’s the routine: Fifteen minutes before class I load up the bed of my pickup with all of my free weights, kettle bells, Versa bands, and sound system and drive the short distance to the community center where my women stand waiting to unload the equipment. Then we press ourselves into the small room, I demonstrate the moves du jour, separate my women into smaller training groups of three, crank up the music, and start working, hard. My circuit isn’t difficult, but it
is
demanding.

Some of my women show up three days a week, week in, week out. Sometimes someone comes up to me after class and wants to pay me, or otherwise do something lavish to
show her gratitude. I tell her, she’s already doing it, by inspiring me with her commitment. There’s nothing that I need that I don’t already have, except people to inspire me. When my women show up day in, day out, with their great attitudes and great energy, they don’t realize that that’s their gift to me.

Showing up three times a week, being committed, is the most I can do for them, and I’m lucky to have the opportunity to do it. In a superficial way, I’m not getting anything in return. I’m not getting paid, nor am I getting PR.

What I
am
getting is a chance to practice the Code of Laird. In Malibu, during the summer, his off-season, Laird devotes a lot of time to his workout group, which consists of ten dudes who train six days a week; three days a week they circuit train, and three days they work out in the pool. Laird is the leader, the innovator, the instigator.

In October, when we decamp for Kaua’i, he leaves those guys behind and rejoins the Hawaii crew. Not an hour after our plane has landed and we’ve dropped our suitcases in the house, he’s found Terry Chung, Kaua’i’s stand-up board manufacturing guru, and off they go, surfing and foiling and redesigning boards along with the rest of his surfing crew, and here, too, he’s the leader, the innovator, and the instigator.

His greatest gift is the ability to be present. When he’s in front of you, he’s in front of you. It’s ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning and you’re hanging out down at the barn with Laird and you express an interest in going down a waterfall: let’s go. Want to go over to Na’Pali? Want to go stand-up paddle? He’s there, he’s your man. The flip side of that is when he’s gone,
he’s gone. He’s not going to call to check in with you, but he doesn’t love you any less. You just have to wait for him to come back. And he will.

I try to live by the same code. When I’m training my women I’m there, one hundred percent. Even though five minutes after we’re done I have to race to take Brody here, or Reece there, or do a Skype meeting, I’m not there. I’m here.

One time I wasn’t feeling well and was thinking about calling off the training session and Laird laughed and said, “Oh no, the Rock’s going to cancel? The Rock always shows up.” The other day I had a volleyball game on the same day we were scheduled to train. I wound up arranging for the game to be played later. The Rock never cancels.

And there’s one other thing. One of the moves I’ve incorporated into my workout sessions? Handstands! You couldn’t pay me to do them back at Florida State, but at age thirty-seven I swallowed my fear and did one with my heels against the wall; now I do them every time I train. Well, most of the time. Say fifty-fifty.

Working out and getting and staying fit doesn’t have to be beastly or daunting. When I was a kid growing up in St. Thomas, people got exercise by swimming and walking and riding around on their bikes. Most people could probably have been more fit, but I’m sure their general level of fitness
overall was much higher than that of many contemporary folks who vow to themselves that tomorrow they’re going to start working out two hours a day while, at the same time, nourishing themselves with water and lettuce leaves, until they have quads of steel and glutes like Mario Lopez.

Of course, tomorrow never comes.

If you haven’t worked out for a while, it’s as easy as this: start walking. Can you walk at a good pace for twenty minutes? Add ten more. Maybe you work out two days a week for thirty minutes. Could you add a day? Could you go for forty minutes? The point is to do more, and to continue doing more, but not in a way that intimidates you.

The key is finding a way to introduce these new habits into your life with a sense of reality. It can’t be torture. It can’t be something that makes you utterly miserable. You can’t feel deprived and pissed off because of it. You can’t feel like “Oh my god, this is
one more thing
.” Aim for mild, aim for gradual. Aim for an activity that you might come close to enjoying.

It doesn’t matter if you’re doing eight reps with two-pound weights or if you danced around your living room while your kid is in the bouncy chair. All that matters is that you had a great time and challenged yourself a little.

Exercise physiologists have recently discovered that the person who exercises for thirty minutes with intent and focus
gains more from her session than the one who dials it in while texting or reading a magazine, or simply not paying attention.

When you work out, whether it’s two or three or four times a week, for fifteen minutes or for an hour, do it with purpose. Be there, just for that time, one hundred percent. I’ve probably spent years, all told, in the gym, and I see it all the time: people show up with their trainer and they’re jibber-jabbering, catching up on gossip and just not paying attention to what they’re doing. You can’t multitask when you’re training. You can’t be somewhere else in your head while your body is here working.

It was bad enough when gyms stuck TVs on the ceiling in front of the treadmills (a lot of gyms now have Cardio Cinemas, basically movie theaters where the seats have been replaced by Stairmasters and other machines) and made sure there was a fat collection of recent magazines by the ellipticals. Now we’ve got our phones, which can and do provide an endless opportunity for distraction.

They’ve not only become our electronic security blankets, they also allow our bodies to be in one place, while our heads are somewhere else. I’m here with you, but I’m also texting. We tend to work less hard when we’re watching a movie; we also tend to be less aware of our posture and body alignment, which can lead to injury.

Oh, I know. Some days it’s murder to get yourself to exercise, and if you didn’t have the promise of a movie or a mystery to occupy yourself while on the treadmill, you’d skip it altogether. And pretty much all trainers agree that anything that
will get you to commit to a regular exercise program is better than nothing.

They’re one hundred percent correct.

Whatever gets you through your workout is all right.

But I’m an optimist. I believe that if you pay attention to your body during exercise, you’ll wind up enjoying yourself. When you exercise, for that relatively short amount of time, put the phone in your gym bag. Unless you’re expecting a significant communication regarding a loved one or a big work-related thing, you don’t need it. And never hire a trainer who allows you to keep your phone nearby or to chitchat.

When I work out, I work hard, and I work the people I’m training hard. I consider this to be part of my work life, even though I’m not getting paid for it. I show up and I’m on time and I do my job. I’m a little tough on them. I yell at them for talking. We’re not here to gossip. We’re here to work, and maybe to have a laugh or two. We do intense intervals of squats with weights in each hand, stationary lunges, jumping jacks, pushups. But we also take breaks. Twenty seconds of brute hard work, five seconds of uninterrupted rest. Anyone can commit one hundred percent to an exercise for twenty seconds, knowing that the rest break is coming, literally, in a matter of seconds.

Bottom line: your workout regime shouldn’t be overwhelming, but you must also accept the fact that it’s not like getting a massage. It is a form of work. When you go to the DMV you don’t think “this is going to be awesome!” But you go because the outcome—tooling around in your car (legally)—is important, and even necessary.

Let’s consider, for a moment, a hamburger. In order to be hot and in shape and all of that, you don’t have to give up the things you love. But if you’re having a burger for lunch, can you eat half and wrap up the rest to take home?

Here’s a trick: once you’ve ordered it, ask the server to take the other half away and put it in a to-go bag. (Seriously. Get rid of the half you’re saving immediately. Don’t let the mofo sit there tormenting you.) Savor what you’re eating for lunch. Take a bite and actually taste it. Eat it slowly and eat it without a smidge of guilt.

And when you go for your walk, feel your feet, your legs, and hips. Feel your butt. I don’t care if you’re a hundred pounds overweight. Start getting connected to your body. Fitness isn’t about being in perfect shape and a size six.

When I train, it’s not with the goal of showing the world I have killer abs after having had two babies, or to look good in some dress I’m going to have to wear to the next social event. I train to feel connected to my body, to feel my muscles work, my joints move in their sockets, my breath travel through my lungs.

At least once a week after a training session a woman will come up to me and tell me that after the workout she feels more stable, more balanced, and more confident. This is why exercise is the secret to everything; it’s the secret to making you feel connected to the way your body moves in space throughout the day.

One fortyish woman I work out with is in good shape and comes to class regularly. Still she’s beginning to develop that curvature of the upper spine you see in older women—dowager’s hump, as it’s charmingly called. One day after class I pulled her aside and told her that her exercise routine was all well and good, but her homework every day was be aware of her body outside of class. That she needs to consciously remember to use the muscles in her upper back to pull her shoulders back, and to make sure her head was balanced over her neck, and not jutting forward. I could see that she felt a little frustrated by my suggestion. I told her about my lousy knees and how pretty much every day I’m managing knee pain. As we get older, we’ve all got our crosses to bear. My goal is not to be a muscle meathead, but to experience vitality, enjoyment, and longevity.