Physical Funness for the Motion Starved

Fit more fun into your fitness while exploring the outdoors.

Author Archives: Kelley


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What motivates you?

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject of motivation lately. Mostly what I’ve found is that people are motivated by the desire to impress. We do silly things like go on starvation diets so we can fit into dresses and look good for our lovers. The desire to impress doesn’t stop at fitness or physical appearance. We’re motivated to work hard so we can keep our boss’s happy, make money and pay for things that will make others think we’re cool. Essentially we’re motivated by the need to “win” approval.

While the above seems a bit shallow to me, I am no different. I tell myself that I don’t care what others think, but I do. Life would be so much easier if I could ignore the need to be better than I am and just lay around all day drinking wine and eating cheese. Who cares if I get so big that the fire department would have to cut me out of my house when I die? There are so many interesting things I could do with my day if I didn’t have slave to impress “The Jones’s.”

It must have started earlier, but the first substantial effort I remember making to impress started with riding my bike. It started on a dare; my friend Michelle dared me to ride a century bike ride with her. I did it but not because I wanted to but because I didn’t want her to get the better of me. I wanted to “keep up.” Then came bike racing, if you think I ever wanted to race my bike you’re insane. Racing hurts like hell both emotionally and physically. But I started racing and continued to race for years because I wanted to impress and then I couldn’t stop because I’d then let the hordes of people down that I had worked so hard to impress. The circle is viscous and exhausting.

Anyway, the question posed is what motivates you? Right or wrong we all have our motives and hopefully they keep us from becoming big fat lazy, boring people. Over the years I’ve relaxed my desire to impress, in fact I often take the completely opposite route just to test people, or maybe it’s to shock them into being impressed? I’m not sure. The bottom line is, figure out what motivates you to take action and work it.

Motivate yourself and impress someone.


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May is on the way

Physical Funness at it’s best!

Friday was Earth Day, this week is National Dance Week and next month is both Ride your Bike to Work Month and Presidential Fitness Month. Yikes! So much pressure to go green and get fit.

The beauty is, with all that’s going on, getting fit is just a matter of joining in on the fun. It’s a no brainer.

This Sunday marks the beginning of May.  With that, I propose a little challenge. I challenge you to try one new fitness related activity each week for the entire month. That’s 4 weeks so you have to try 4 things that are completely new to you. Anyone who completes 4 new challenges during these 4 weeks will receive a Motion Starved T-shirt.

Challenges may consist of organized events or your own personal adventures. Just remember that this challenge is set up to motivate you to try new things that will advance your fitness and or well-being.   If you’re interested in joining the May Fitness Challenge “comment” on this post or email me directly.  If you take this challenge you will be encouraged to share your stories with the rest of us (or at least with me).

Here are a few ideas to get you started. I’ll have other suggestions as the month goes on.

Big Wheel Race — Sorry, you missed this as it happened last Sunday but I attached the video as inspiration and an example of how exercise can be fun.

National Dance Week — There are over 400 free dance related events and classes offered in The Bay Area alone.

Bike to Work Month — In SF check out the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for all sorts of bike related events to make you a stronger and smarter rider.

Loads of free classes of every kind imaginable — Sports Basement.

Green Volunteering Guide — Get a workout while cleaning up Ocean Beach or helping to plant trees with Friends of The Urban Forrest.  All excellent workouts as well as earth friendly missions.

Last but not least — Don’t forget this Saturday I’ll be offering a group hike in The Headlands followed by a little core work and some stretching. Or, you can join one of my Tuesday & Thursday evening’s classes. Click on “Schedule” for details.

Take advantage of this little push and get moving. Let me know what you come up with.


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Green goodness

Kelley's Rescued Favas

Fava beans are yummy. Ever have any? Problem is they’re a pain to prepare.

Traditionally, before you can eat a fava you have to shuck the green goodness from the pod, blanch them in boiling water and then shock ‘em in an ice bath.  After that you strip the tough outer skin off the bean, reducing it to the size of flat a kidney bean. I’ve always found this to be way too much work for a few beans.  You’d have to shuck for hours to get enough beans to feed more than a couple of people.

In Sunday’s Chronicle Food section there was an article about roasting fava beans. The article stated, that by roasting the beans you’re able to cut way down on the prep time. This sounded like a dream come true to me so off I ran to the farmers market where I filled my bag with favas.

Basically roasting a fava bean is just like roasting any other bean. You toss the clean beans (whole bean/pod) in olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them in the oven at 450 degrees until tender.  According to the article you can eat the entire fava like you would a green bean, or you can treat them like you would edamame and shuck the bean from the pod post roast.

My review — Well, I did exactly as the recipe directed. I roasted the beans for 25 minutes, which turned out to be a bit too long.  A little disappointed but still excited I bit into one of the favas as if it were a green bean. Uck! I found the fibrous shell to be stringy and mushy so I scraped the notion of eating the pod/bean combo and took matters into my own hands.  I stripped beans from their mushy pods, tossed them on a plate, drizzled them with a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of pecorino cheese. Saved! They were pretty good. Not as good as the blanched ones that take forever to prepare, but good. Certainly worth a try.  I’ll prepare favas this way again for certain.  The roasting method would be especially good if you wanted to mush the beans up with some garlic and spread the mixture on crostini with a little dusting of cheese.  When in doubt, add bread and cheese, you can’t go wrong.

P.s. According to the National Nutrient Database, one cup of cooked fava beans contain about 187 calories, 13g protein and 9g of fiber and are an excellent source of iron, among other things.  Pretty good for a little bean.


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Your bike helmet is not a yarmulke!

Mr. Bunny, your helmet's too small!

Last night when I was driving through town, I spied a woman with two extremely young children caged on the back of her bicycle.  I say, “caged” because they were snuggly secured in two homemade box like contraptions that completely covered the tikes from the shoulders down. All you could see where little 3 or 4 year old heads and their erect little shoes sticking from the boxes. The boxes looked like those things magicians use to make it appear as though they cut people in half.  While I was remotely impressed with the architecture of the Kid Cages, I was quite shocked to see that both children were wearing their helmets on the backs of their heads as though they were yarmulke.

For some reason proper bike helmet fit escapes many people. I especially love the dummies that ride around with the chin strap unlatched. While I notice all kinds of foolish people, I found it incredibly odd that this women would go so far as to build special boxes for her offspring yet she failed to master the most obvious safety utensil. Proper helmet fit.

With that, allow me share a tidbit of advise on the proper way to don a bike helmet.

Buy a helmet that fits your head — The same goes for your child, buy one that fits now, don’t buy one for them to “grow into!”

All helmets sold in the US have been CPSC approved so theoretically they ‘re safe — The expensive ones are usually just lighter, more aerodynamic or have better ventilation. Buy what you can afford as long as it fits!

A helmet should — Sit snuggly and level on your head, 1 or 2 finger widths above the eyebrow. Never tilted back like a bonnet or yarmulke!

A helmet should not — Rock or move from side to side, at all.

The chin strap – Should be buckled and allow for only one or two fingers of space between your skin and the strap.

Color – Bright colors are better to see you with. You might think black looks cool but it’s hot and dark and it won’t make you ride any faster so best to pick another color.

Lastly – If you crack your bike helmet, even a little bit, it’s trashed. Whether it be from your kid tossing it across the room, or the action of you detaching from your bike, the rule is; if it’s cracked, it’s done. The helmet goes in the trash and you go shopping.  I know they’re expensive but so is brain surgery.

End of story.

Happy Easter! See you Monday, until then do what I say.


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Make our Mother proud!

Earth Day

We all know that every day is Earth Day, correct? However, this week brings the official “day,” which is tomorrow, Friday, April 22. With Earth Day comes, plenty of special events and ways to celebrate and encourage cleaner, greener and more sustainable lives.

If you don’t know what, or why Earth Day is, you’ll simply need to move planets. I hear Virgin Airways is working on offering flights to Mars, I goad you to check that out.

While the official day to celebrate Earth Day is Friday, special events will be going on all weekend long. I urge you to participate, or at the very least make an effort to show our Mother Earth a little extra love on her special day.

Here are my top three suggestions for how to spend your Earth Weekend.

Clean out your closets and recycle the clothes you never wear — Crossroads Trading Company the buy-sell-trade retailer is running a special Earth Day promotion: they’ll give you a 20th anniversary tote bag when you sell $100 or more in clothing between Friday and Sunday. They’ll also donate five cents to the Environmental Defense Fund every time a customer says “no” to using a plastic bag with his or her purchase.

Plant a garden  — You can plant lettuce in a pot and put it in the window if you don’t have a space outside. Herbs in the kitchen window make you look like you know your shit around the stove and don’t forget the nutritional gains from using herbs in your cooking.  How about a potted dwarf lemon tree on the front stoop?  Nothing says I’m well-heeled like citrus right at the front door.

Get outside — In every city there a hordes of planned activities to help you celebrate. My preference is the Earth Stroll along Crissy Field in San Francisco but there are many other options. In The Bay Area visit earthdaysf.com for a list of events. Where ever you live get out and get green!

Happy Earth Day. Make our Mother proud!


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Fish Face Pose?


A long time ago I read that if you chew gum your face won’t get saggy, so I started chewing gum. I’m not sure if it worked, but my face isn’t really saggy (or is it?).

Now there’s something called Facial Yoga, ever heard of it? The idea is the same as the gum chewing; apparently exercising the facial muscles will sculpt and lift your face keeping it looking younger. Maybe it’s not the answer to going under the knife (if you’re into that) but we know that working the other muscles in your bodies keeps us looking fit and younger so why not the face? Hence my gum chewing.

Aside from toning the facial muscles and reducing sagging, these exercises promise to smooth away lines, and deliver a more glowing, youthful complexion. Sound too good to be true? There’s only one way to find out.

From what I’ve read it’s best to do your face yoga routine in the evenings after you’ve washed and moisturized your face. There’s no specific routine, just do the exercises for 10 minutes each evening.

If you have even a remote interest in face yoga watch the video. It’s short and funny, you get to watch the lady do the exercises and make fish faces,  also the interviewer is kinda snarky.

Give it a try and report back. I’d like to know how you did.


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You don’t have to be Kenyan to run

Run like the wind!

A fellow named Geoffrey Mutai won the 115th Boston Marathon yesterday.  Yep, Geoffrey is from Kenya.  Apparently a Kenyan has won the famous race for five out of the last six years. Geoff’s time, 2 hours 3 minutes 2 seconds, was the fastest marathon run by nearly a minute, and it smashed the course record, set last year, by nearly three minutes. Very impressive! I’m guessing he didn’t run with those tea-leaves in his hair.  The wind resistance would have slowed him down quite a bit. Anyway…well done and congratulations to you sir!

As of yesterday, Dean Karnazes has run his way from Los Angeles to Ohio. He has run across 10 states in 53 days. Dean’s on a mission to “Inspire a Nation.”  Maybe you’ve heard of Dean, he’s pretty well-known in the running world, he’s an ultra marathoner, author and speaker who lives here in The Bay Area. Apparently he’s pretty funny too. By the way, Dean is not from Kenya.

Anyway, Dean is running 3,000 miles from Los Angeles to NYC hoping to bring attention to childhood obesity. From what I can tell he’s doing pretty well.  As I said, yesterday Dean arrived in Ohio. According to his website, he’s running about 40-50 miles per day at an average pace of 11.5. Not bad considering the distance.  If you want to follow Dean’s progress, or spy on him to see what he’s eating, you keep track of him on his site.

My point — Check these guys out, they’re inspirational and deserve some recognition. The next time you go for a run, or in some cases a “trundle,” imagine you’re Kenyan, you just might run a little faster…


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The yoke of the matter

Photo via, Lam-B on Flickr

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

I forgot that Easter was coming till I saw the food section of the SF Chronicle on Sunday. It didn’t mention Easter but it spoke of eggs, that’s what clued me in. For me Easter is about eating chocolate, decorating and then eating hardboiled eggs. Who has time for church with all the eating that needs to be done on Easter (blame it on my upbringing if that offends you)?

Anyway… I’ve always had a hard time with eggs. My grandmother once asked me if I liked eggs and I replied, “yea, when they’re in a cake.” More recently I’ve managed to grow a marginal fondness for eggs although I can never seem to figure out how to cook them correctly.  With that I decided to look into the matter.

Stuff I learned about eggs and chickens today.

Who knew? — Each breed of chicken has a specific earlobe color, which predicts the color of the eggshell.  Really? That’s just weird!

Dark is better — The color of the yoke is determined by what the chicken eats. Yoke color can range from light yellow to dark yellow/orange. The darker the yoke, the more nutrients in the chickens diet.

Green? — Ever notice a green or ashy ring around the yoke of a hardboiled egg? The ring forms when you overheat the egg.

Yuck, blood in the yoke — Many people believe that a blood speck in an egg means that it’s fertile. This however is not the case. A deficiency in the chickens diet can cause small blood spots in the yoke, which are unsightly but safe to eat. You can remove the speck using the tip of a knife.

Rotten egg  — Rotten eggs smell like sulfur. If it smells rotten it is rotten.  Also, rotten eggs will float when placed in pot of water, fresh eggs will sink and stay on the bottom.

How to boil an egg — This is where things get confusing, and frankly incredibly annoying. Apparently everybody has a different idea of how to boil an egg.  The Chronicle listed 4 different methods, all just slightly different.  Honestly!

The tips that seem to be somewhat consistent are, place the eggs (room temp eggs best) in a pot of enough cold water to cover them 1-2 inches. Bring to a vigorous bubble, but not rolling boil. Remove from heat, cover and let sit. The “sit” time is confusing, I’ve read, 8 – 15 minutes (maybe it depends on how “hard” you want your egg to be boiled?).  Then place eggs in an ice bath for easy pealing.

The count — One large chicken egg contains about 70 calories and 6 grams of protein. One large Reese’s peanut butter egg contains 180 calories, 4 grams of protein and is 53% fat. Yikes! Better stick with the chicken eggs.

I hope you learned something. I did but I’m still a little confused.


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No motion starvation allowed

What’s up for the weekend? I hope you will all be doing a little moving around. No motion starvation allowed.

On Saturday I’ll be participating in the first WTF Cycling team ride of the season. WTF is a bike team started by me and my best bike pals. The majority of us are retired bike racers that just can’t get the bike out of our blood so we formed a team. What does WTF mean? I think you can figure it out. If you’d like more info on WTF Cycling or would like to join us for a ride sometime, feel free to “like” us on Facebook so you can stay appraised of our goings on.

No matter what you get up to this weekend have a wonderful time of it. If you need a suggestion, how about a Scavenger Hunt?  I’m sending all my clients away for the weekend with this assignment and I expect full reports from them on Monday. Join in on the fun if you dare!

Here’s how it works — Go for a run, walk or combination of the two for one hour. As you travel along, hunt for the items listed below. Keep track of what you find and let me know how you did. I suggest you place this list in your phone so you have it handy. Check off the items on the list or better yet, snap a photo of your findings. I’d love to see what you come up with.

Be sure to warm up with some Jumping Jacks and a few stretches before you start to run, and stretch well post workout. Have fun and watch your step!

The List

Beware of Dog Sign

House with Green Door

A Bird House

Garden Gnome

Take Out Menu

A Swing

Graffiti

Someone 85 years or older

Water Bottle

Cardboard Box

Glass Bottle

Paper Bag

An Acorn

Feather

Nail

Fruit Pit

Pink Stone

Mushroom

Berry

Shell

Your Hunt Reports are due to me by Monday.  May the force be with you!

See you next week…


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Hot slithery love

Photo by bejdigudi-zlati

Snake Love

Earlier this week I was trundling along the path that parallels Baker Beach and runs along the road traveling from the beach up to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was late morning and there was lots of warm sunshine beaming down.  As I moved up the path I began to see fat, appetizer-sized lizards running all over the place. From the path to the road and to the brush again.  Dozens of them. Frankly I can’t remember the last time I saw a lizard that big outside of the zoo and so many of them at once.  They startled me at first and then I started to worry that I’d smush one or worse, smush one and slide on it twisting my ankle again (I can hear the lectures now).

Then, just about the time I was cresting the hill and getting over my fear of a lizard slip and slide I spied a garden snake quickly slithering off the path to get out of my clumsy way.  Ack! I hate snakes, talk about jacking your heart rate up! Thankfully the poor thing saw me coming and ran off as I screamed.  That was the second time this month I’ve come across a snake on the trail.  My friend Dora was with me the first time, that time when I saw the snake I jumped behind her as I screamed.  Guess that wasn’t very nice, using Dora as a shield.

Anyway, in the newspaper this past Sunday I read an article titled “Looks like year of the snake, again.”  The first line in the article is, “Sex can be dangerous, even with the softest of hearts.” That’s what got me reading.

The gist is, with all the rain this past winter there are hordes of little animals running around out there. Something about high soil moisture gives rise to high reproductive success for everything from mice up to rabbits. With that, there’s lots of good stuff to eat for snakes especially rattlesnakes. Plenty of food and the effects of the warm spring days trigger chemicals in the brain that say, get busy making babies.  In this case baby snakes. Apparently the slithery links like to love eachother right out in the open while soaking up the warmth of the heated ground. According to the article, not even an earthquake could distract a snake while absorbed in “relations.” Point is, they won’t see you coming so you gotta keep an eye out for them. Riding your bike over, or stepping on a rattlesnake is gonna send you to the hospital. But you know that.

I’m not too worried about this rattlesnake business. I like seeing the animals. Not the snakes so much but the rest of them. Just keep your eyes open.

Consider yourself briefed.