There is another good thing about spring and summer that doesn’t just include the fact that you can walk around in minimal clothing and feel a lot more free, taking dips in pools and the lake and going and getting an ice cream cone without freezing your tookus off.

I love jogging outside. In fact, I’m writing this in the “afterglow” of an outdoor jog. It’s the end of March, and it’s gorgeous here in Northeastern Ohio. It’s actually quite unseasonal to be honest, and everyone is really soaking up the rays and taking advantage of it. Every single house I jogged by had their garage doors open, or they were sitting out on their decks or out on the front porch, just inhaling the fresh spring air and enjoying being uncooped from the house.

You know that as time goes on, we think of more and more ways to work our bodies out into peak fitness and performance. That’s the cool thing about time progression, at least as it applies to our bodies and the technologies, diet and health innovations, and new exercise techniques and equipment.  One example of what is sort of an exercise fad right now (which I also happen to love by the way), is plyometrics.

This is where you make short, explosive moves that are high impact, but they also give results fast, and get your heart rate up very fast, so they are often included in these newer short but very intense and very effective workouts you see on DVD.

For those of us with desk jobs, just getting out of our chairs to mosey around the office every once in a while can be quite a challenge.  I know for me, at my office, I can’t stand to sit still for more than a full hour. Many times I get up before the hour is up, just to stretch my legs and move around, to get my circulation going and wake the hell up half the time!

I really can’t wait until the weather starts to be consistently warm and balmy. Not just because everyone seems to be in a generally more jolly mood, but because I can get outdoors more. Stretch my legs.  Sew my wild oats, if you will. I think we all have that instinct in us, to get out there and smell the fresh air, to be able to move about freely and to wander amongst the green grass, the trees, the blue sky, and to have less clothes on, which is so freeing. This fact in itself isn’t given enough credit, people don’t like to be all bundled up all day every day, it’s just so restrictive!

So, I was on the elliptical machine that we have at our gym where I work the other day, and I discovered that there was a new way I could position my feet and legs on the machine so that I could really target one of my consistent problem areas – my saddle bags on the sides of my thighs. They are definitely partially genetic, because even when I lose a boatload of weight and am at my leanest, I still have those two stubborn, albeit smaller, pouches on the sides of my thighs, just clinging to them like some sort of extra appendage.

Too many people, when they really want to fast track their fitness or weightloss goals, will jump on the treadmill, put it on it’s highest incline and speed, and run until they fell like they’re going to pass out. I’ve been guilty of this myself. And guess what? I’ve also learned that you cannot do this, or else you burn out almost instantly. It’s kind of like your body just says no, it can’t do it, and it can’t just be thrown right into something that is totally rigorous and trying on the body.

Yep, that’s right, not only can you exercise your body to shape it, tone it, and whip it into the exact shape you want it in most cases, but you can also perform facial exercises that will help keep your face, your cheeks, your chin, your jawline, and underneath your chin where your neck is where the infamous “double chin” phenomenon occurs.

I hate to harp so much on my newfound interest and joy in a sport that I used to do as a child with my grandfather and my little sister and my mom so often – ice skating. I know that there’s a lot of hype built around the sport now too because of the winter Olympic games and the still highly spectated sport of figure skating – which I still enjoy watching on tv immensely, I suppose it’s somewhat like a trip down memory lane for me to my younger days.

I live in Ohio. And, to top it off, I live near the greater Cleveland Akron area of Ohio. You know, that area that just got voted the top “most miserable city” to live in by some magazine or other? Yeah, aren’t we so proud! One of the reasons Cleveland was voted the top most miserable US city to live in is because of our long, cold, snowy winters, among other things like taxes and appearance.

With all the excitement over the Olympics, and American’s continued interest in figure skating, but not as much as it used to be sadly before the scandals of unfair scoring came into view, there is a lot of attention on the sport of figure skating. Ice skating has always been a fun sport to engage in for me. Ever since I was a little girl, my grandpa, who was an avid ice skater (he passed away several years ago now), used to take me and my little sister ice skating all of the time.