Physical Funness for the Motion Starved

Fit more fun into your fitness while exploring the outdoors.

Category Archives: Stories


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Geezzz, it’s just not getting much better…

MedBerries

It started on Friday (the 13th), I was meant to fly to San Diego for a Celebration of Life “Party.” Being the Ding Bat, that ageing is turning me into; I drove myself to the wrong airport. After sustaining a panic attach while being informed of my mistake, I finally got myself to San Diego where I realized that I had forgotten to pack a single piece of underwear. Given that I had to wear a dress to the party, this new development tossed me into another frenzy. In the end, I managed to survive the weekend in spite of the fact that at the party a man I’ve known for years called me aside and said with immense enthusiasm… “So, tell me about your partner!” It seems that because I’ve never spoken of the men in my life to this character and the fact that I live in San Francisco, he assumed I must be gay. Normally I could care less but on this day it just added to my emotional exhaustion.

I’m home now and have learned (according to my horoscope in Sunday’s SF Chronicle), that if I can’t “partner up” now, with Mars and Venus in my one-on-one sector, then it’s never going to happen. That’s just f’ing great! I have today, Tuesday, May 17th 2011 to find the man of my dreams and “partner up,” if I don’t, it’ll be just my cat and me until the day I die.

At this point I’ve decided the only thing that’ll make me feel better is to make chocolate dipped strawberries. I want chocolate chip cookies, a three-cheese pizza and a case of wine but I figure I should maintain some control. Just in case “he” shows up.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries — Easy, take a strawberry and dip it into melted chocolate, let it sit on a wax paper lined plate or tray and put in the frig till the chocolate is set.  You can roll the dipped berry in coconut or other nuts before setting if you like but remember the calorie count.

One cup of sliced strawberries contains about 49 calories and 3 grams of fiber plus a lot of other wonderful nutrients. Chocolate covered strawberries contain about 30 calories each. Not as bad as a cookie for sure. In my book a good substitute for those days when having chocolate is simply a must.

That’s all I got for you, gota get busy and hunt a man down.

See ya tomorrow.


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The wild world of “outside”

Today I saw a photo of myself wearing stripes and decided that I should post about how stripes are never a good wardrobe choice for any person weighing over 100 lbs. Than, I had a glass of wine and changed my mind.

I workout outside. The workout classes I teach are also outside. I love to be “outside” and I workout outside because I have never found a gym that was as beautiful as any place I have ever been, outside.

With the outside venue one is privy to all sorts of attention. Often the attention comes from greasy alcohol soaked fellows that one usually chooses to ignore, but on occasion the attention comes from someone one might otherwise desire to entertain.

During tonight’s group workout I began to fantasize about ways to stop one or two of those desirable bodies and invite them to, share a push up or two.

I thought about setting a trap. You know, dig a hole and cover it with leaves. When your victim runs over it they fall into the pit. But that might piss a person off. Not a good way to start a relationship. Then I thought I’d pretend to fall and hurt myself (easy for me) and hope that my victim would take the bait. That might work but I hate appearing weak.

In a world where we’re all so absorbed in endless hours playing with our phones and on our computers we miss the fact that all those people we want so badly to meet, are running around in the same circles we are. The question is, how do we stop moving and start meeting. Believe it or not, people are actually nice if you’re nice to them (mostly)! There’s a world of lovely folks literally running right past us.

I write this post in an effort to remind those of you whom are looking for love, fun or trouble to think about getting back to basics and work the real world. The tangible world right in front of you. I ‘m outside a lot, I see a lot and I have the opportunity to meet a lot of folks when I am open to it. I see things that those of you on the inside miss.

My point — Take the blinders off, be open and send me your schemes for capture…


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I predict a long hot season…

Hey there... what's U're sign?

It’s May. Did you know that May is named after the Greek goddess Maia? Maia was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility. Makes sense, spring, growth, rebirth, everyone is sniffing around looking for love this time of year. It must be the savage beast in us.

I wasn’t going to bring this up, but it keeps coming up so I feel compelled. My friend Jacks and I joke about it, when spring is in the air the phone starts ringing.  Old lovers seem to creep out from under the woodwork. It happens every year like clockwork. Suitors that you parted ways with years and years prior seem to suddenly feel the need to check in, to see if you’ve come to your senses I guess. It’s nuts, sometimes it’s amusing and some times annoying. Every single spring we ask ourselves “WTF?”

While this spring is no different, I still don’t have a clear answer for this phenomena other than, by definition spring means healing, hope and growth, and as time continues to move on, there will always be another spring and another chance. I guess it’s just the nature of the beast.

Anyway, lots going on in May, many opportunities for fun, fitness and romance. Start taking your vitamins and stay hydrated. I predict a long hot season…

P.s. May is both Skin Cancer Awareness and Bike to Work Month. Bottom line, wear your sunscreen and ride your bike.


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My nose is F’ing huge!

I hope that nose came with the glasses!

Sorry Dad, I know I have your nose and that fact makes you’re remotely proud, but our noses are ginormous! When I was 8 it didn’t seem like a big deal but as I age — “It” keeps growing, and frankly it’s starting to freak me out!

Yep, it’s true, your nose and ears grow until you die, like your hair! The only thing that stops growing are your eyes. At this rate, in a few years my “beautiful eyes” will look like pimples next to my GINORMOUS nose!

Your nose grows a half a millimeter a year, there’s nothing you can do about it other than stop looking in the mirror. Sure, there is surgery and there are exercises to “shrink your nose” but this is where I draw the line. Sorry but I have my limits. Google it yourself if you want to do nose shrinking exercises or cut yourself.

I’m gonna work on…loving my…nose/self…?


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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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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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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.


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Shake, shake, shake your booty…

Pretty Petunia

I say this all the time and I can’t stress it enough. Change is good. Routines have their place but not as far as exercise is concerned and not if you care to be an interesting person. Obviously this is my opinion but think about it. Who are the most interesting, healthy people you know? They’re the ones who take chances and try different things every so often. Am I right?

I’m not saying you need to go bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and get yourself arrested but I am suggesting that if you want to stay both physically, and mentally intact you’ll need to take a leap and try something challenging once in a while. Repeating the same moves everyday will not help you reach your goals. Whatever they may be. Remember, mixing up your routine doesn’t just cure the boredom; it also benefits your body’s ability to lose weight. Having variety in your life and in your workout keeps your body working hard to keep up with the different stresses you put on it. When doing this your metabolism increases and you burn more calories.

For instance, my friend Petunia, or Tunie as I like to call her has signed herself up for a Hip Hop dance class. Tunie does not dance. I have never seen Tunie attempt to dance, but knowing her the way I do, I believe it when she say’s she cannot dance. Because of this fact, Tunie signed herself up for a dance class. Don’t think for a second this was easy for her, she pondered it for years until she finally took the first step. She even went as far as to keep this new adventure of hers a secret from her pals because she was so anxious about her lack of HipHopAbility. Now, weeks into this adventure Tunie has fessed up and she’s having a great time. She admits that she still cannot dance but she absolutely loves it and she’s feeling good about herself for taking the plunge. That’s the part I like. Tunie has always been an inspiration to many of us so I’m glad she’s getting something from what she gives.

It’s springtime. Out with the old and in with the new! We’ll talk more about Spring-cleaning later. For now, consider stirring things up a bit.  Be your own Superhero and inspire someone! You can do it! I know you can…

P.s. Need help coming up with ways to stir things up? Contact me; I’m full of ideas. For now, take inspiration from Petunia, do something that frightens you.


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Is it Friday yet?

Well…it’s certainly been a full week here at Motion Starved HQ.  First there was my post about crooked butt cracks, which sure got its fair share of attention, from folks all over the world too. Then, after writing about asparagus I decided to burn myself up a batch only to find that it was full of sand (you gotta rinse it!). Crunch, crunch, into the trash it went. Then I visited Dr. Barbara so she could snap my ankle back into place, as always she did a great job, thank you DB! After that however, I managed to shake something loose in my head causing a spell of the dizzies. It was like I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Dehydration, maybe, but not likely in this case. My educated guess based on unpleasant past experience says, some crystals shook loose in my inner ear. Silly things can really mess up a girl’s evening (and the next few). Are you wondering what I’m talking about?

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) — Basically, there are these little crystals that float around in the canals of your inner ear. Occasionally those little buggers get dislodged and strike against sensitive nerve endings within the inner ear, resulting in usually short, but severe, room-spinning vertigo (the “dizzies”) and in some cases nausea.

They say the thing to do is to figure out which side/ear is messed up and then avoid laying or tilting your head in that direction for a few weeks and the problem will go away on it’s own.  Silly as it sounds from my experience that’s all you can do. You’ll know which ear it is because when you tilt or turn your head in that direction you get very dizzy.

Anyway, don’t worry yourself, these things don’t usually happen unless you’ve had some sort of head trauma, hopefully none of you will need to deal with this. In my case I took a little fall on my bike a few years back traumatizing all sorts of body parts and sending me into a spin for months. I was walking around like a drunkard. Hella fun!

TGIF is all I have to say!  Go get you some love and some sun this weekend. Life is short, time to let the crazy out!

See you on Monday!

P.s. If you find yourself with a case of the “dizzies” you best visit the Dr. to decipher the cause, till you get there Dramamine or Bonine will help keep you upright.


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Is the Universe trying to tell me something?

Not again!

I did it again, sprained my ankle. The same one I messed up a few months ago. It sucks, I’m not a good sick person and I don’t deal well with immobility. I was running on the trail about 2 miles from my car and like the last time, my foot just turned under. Me, my favorite Lululemon togs and a sexy white tank top all became airborne just in time to for a slew of Trail Worker Dudes to witness the calamity. Landing, I slid along the path picking up leaves and sludge turning my white top into a camouflage print. Like I always do when I fall, I screamed. It’s a reflex I have no control over and it does well to magnify the peril. Once on the ground I looked up to see 3 very cute young guys standing about 20 feet away looking at me in shock. They just stood there looking at me with wide eyes. Maybe the scream frightened them? Nobody said a word, they just looked at me. Feeling a bit foolish I let them know that I was okay. ”No worries, I’m fine, this happens to me a lot.” Then one of them said, “Are you sure?” “Oh yea, I’m fine.” At that point they mounted their official vehicle and I was left to stumble back to my car some two miles.  As I dragged my rapidly swelling foot along the trail I began to speak out loud using words that might cause one to assume that I was deranged. Then the tears started to come. Poor me, I fell again! Life sucks, whatever will I do now? I might as well just lay down and die. Poor, poor me!

Everyone has had setbacks at one time or another. The only way to survive is to adapt. So I won’t be able to go for a walk on the beach tonight or run this weekend but I can certainly do plenty of other things.  I’m just going to have to look outside of my little box and find new and wonderful things to do.

It’s important to be adaptable and creative in all areas of life. If one thing doesn’t work then you have an opportunity to try something new.  Maybe my fall today was the Universe’s way of telling me to pay more attention to my bike or to work a little harder on my upper body. My arms are starting to look a little saggy…

I have to look at this as an opportunity and use it to my advantage. Something tells me that if I do this right I’ll be better for having had this little spill. After all, I’m a Scorpio, you can’t take us down, when we rise, we rise up even stronger.