Jillian Michaels might be stalking me.

Fitness personality Jillian Michaels is extremely concerned about my workout pants.  And according to an article in "Racked" she "knows I am paying too much" for them.  You can imagine my surprise.  Before today I did not realize Jillian even knew I existed, and to discover she is taking an active interest in my wardrobe actually concerns me.  How did Jillian come by this information?  How are my pants any of her business?  Does this meet the legal definition for stalking?

This does bring up an interesting point about workout attire, though.  There are clearly two competing views about workout attire:

View 1: Workout clothing is something guaranteed to get sweaty and dirty because I... workout in it.  There is almost no scenario where my workout shirts will not have large circles of sweat in the armpit region.  Even on a light day there will be the tell-tale "Triangle of Perspiration" on the back of my shorts.  I therefore, knowing I will sweat, wear primarily old t-shirts and shorts I find on the sale rack at a major retailer.  I wear this clothing almost exclusively to the gym, while riding a bicycle or while running around the neighborhood.  I am sweaty and gross.  If I get close enough to another human for them to notice my wardrobe they are almost always distracted by the "odor of success" emanating from every pore of my body.  They are not evaluating my clothing choices they distancing themselves from me as quickly as possible!  I feel View 1 has a certain amount of logic.

View2: Workout clothing is something for which I pay obscene amounts of money and wear everywhere except the gym so people can see how firm my butt looks while I shop for Hamburger Helper.  An alarming number of people have started to adopting View 2.  I will be at Safeway trying to determine if produce is organic or inorganic when a seemingly normal, slightly overweight lady in her 50's will walk by wearing black skin-tight stretchy pants, a tank top and her hair tied up in a "pony."  She appears as though at any moment she will grab a bag of bulk rice and perform 3 sets of 12 power cleans.  She appears this way until you realize she spent approximately 4 hours perfecting her make-up application.  Not only did she not just come from a workout, there is absolutely no danger she will workout in the near future.  I fail to see any logic with this view.

Here is where view two backfires. If you are prone to spontaneously performing acts of exercise and fitness throughout the day regardless of how appropriate the setting, your body should reflect this habit.  You should have rock-hard abs, definition in every part of your arms, 4 obvious muscles making up your quadriceps, and calves for which Marilyn Monroe would kill her neighbor.  Unfortunately this only occurs when you actually workout all the time, not just because you wear workout clothing all the time.  You instead tend to be betrayed by irregular shapes in your lower extremities, semi-tubular arms and a soft, protective coating around your abs.

So how, exactly, do we stop this?  I say we start a movement!  We ask all retailers, restaurants, or other places of public gathering to implement the "Fitness Alarm!"  At regular intervals the "Fitness Alarm" would sound.  Trained "Fitness Officials" would lunge out of the shadows and compel anyone wearing fitness attire to perform an actual act of fitness!  People would be standing in the baked goods isle, wearing their spandex, when the alarm sounds!  From out of nowhere large, stern officials insist people begin "FIFTEEN BURPIES!"  Startled "View Twoers" would immediately launch into fits of exercise.  The rest of us, of course, will enjoy a hardy laugh and take all the good donuts.

So Jillian, if you are listening (and somehow I suspect you are) we need your help.  We need your pseudo-celebrity status to get alarms set up everywhere.  We need you to get the word out for our movement.  We need you to focus on something other than my pants!  For more great ideas for spontaneous and other fitness tips visit www.canyonptandf.com today!

From Football Player to Football (Soccer) Coach, Naturally.

Good news!  I am officially an assistant high school soccer coach!  Well good news until you find out the sum total of my soccer knowledge can fit into a crayon box.  And I do not mean the awesome 128 color box coveted by 2nd graders worldwide.  No, I mean the free kind you get at a mid-level family restaurant as part of the child distraction package.  Here is what I know about soccer:

• Kick the ball in to the other team's goal.
• Keep the other team from putting the ball in your goal.
• You do not want to be offsides but no-one actually knows what that means.
• The referee randomly blows the whistle, holds up his hand, and gives the ball to the player with the best hairstyle, causing the opposing coach to shout "Sir!  Sir!  What was the call Sir!" no less than 15 times.
• The clock runs the wrong way.

What I do know, is football.  American football.  The kind with predetermined commercial breaks.  And I also know these two sports have almost NOTHING in common.  But it would appear I am not the first person to actually make the transition from football to... football.  There are apparently so many people making the switch, in fact, the good folks at NBC Sports have crafted an instructional video to make the move as easy as possible.  Many of you have seen this video so you know I am not making it up.  For those of you who have not, here is the actual link:

Transition from football to football

A great example where the video clarified a finer point of the sport:  I was extremely confused when people kept yelling "Good Tackle!" during practice.  Now I know a player is not allowed (unfortunately)  to violently throw another player to the ground during a soccer game.  But CLEARLY something or someone was being tackled.  Imagine my surprise when, while watching the video, I found out a tackle is simply kicking the ball away from another player.  So the next day at practice I asked one of my players, "Wait, so a tackle is stealing the ball?"

Rolling his eyes, "Yes Coach"

"Why don't they call it a steal!?  Or a Turnover?"

"I don't know coach."

This is typically how our conversations go during practice.  I ask a seemingly intelligent question, "Who determines when and where the goalie can use his hands?" and any number of players roll their eyes and answer,

"I don't know coach."

So if you want to have a hardy laugh at my expense and see a very talented and hard working group of young men I encourage you to come out and support the Longmont High School Boys Soccer Program.  The schedule is at www.trojanathletics.org.  And please check out www.canyonptandf.com because I put a bunch of really cool photos up on our "Member Stories" page.  Go Trojans!

It's Easy to Lose Weight Doncha Know?

Finally!  From the nutrition experts who bring you large meatballs, lingonberries, open-faced hard boiled egg sandwiches covered with, you betcha, cod roe caviar from a TUBE and crowd favorite Lutefisk, let me present the NORDIC DIET!

That's right, Scandinavia is no longer just a place from which impossible to assemble mid-range furniture comes.  According to an article written by Gina Flaxman in the world renowned publication news.com.au, it is also home to a revolutionary new diet guaranteed to help you lose weight, have more energy and start speaking with a hilarious accent.  I, know what you are thinking.  You are thinking, "Tom, to whom do I send large wads of cash so I start eating like our insanely fit neighbors to the north?"

The answer is, "No one!"  Because I plan share the secrets of the Nordic Diet right here on the internet.    Soon you too can have that "Just sat in a fishing boat all day" physique.  So grab something to write with and prepare yourself for the revolution:

Eat Less Red Meat and More Fish.  Let's be honest.  I have never heard anyone outside the Red Meat industry actually endorse eating red meat.  In fact, most publications would have us believe that if our options were direct exposure to nuclear fallout or eat a hamburger once a month, it would be infinitely better for us to glow in the dark.

Eat Whole Grains.  No longer should you eat partial grains.  If you are not sure which foods contain whole or partial grains here is an easy test: Is my food soft AND delicious, then it is made up of partial grains.  If it appears as though it would be soft and delicious but is actually neither, it is probably a whole grain.  Example: A donut is both soft and delicious.  It is a partial grain.  A Twinkie is a partial grain.  By contrast a Rice Cake is neither soft, nor delicious.  Whole grain.

Snack on Red and Purple Berries.  This actually surprised me.  I always thought the healthy food test was "If my dog won't eat it when it falls on the floor, it must healthy."  I have dropped blueberries, blackberries, and all sorts of other berries on the floor and Matilda usually reacts as though I am trying to poison her, regardless of the color.  For the record I am not familiar with the purple berry family but I doubt Matilda would touch them.

Eat more root veggies.  I can see no argument against this.  It is similar to saying when driving a car, pay attention to traffic, or if mowing the lawn do not put your hand under the lawn mower and if you are going to taunt a lion you are a moron.  I feel like this did not need its own line item but okay got it, vegitable are good.

And finally, use oils low in saturated fat: This can be a very confusing subject.  In the 80's, it was determined by "top men" fat of any kind was bad.  So along came catchy alternatives such as "I cannot believe it is not butter until I taste it and realize is the same favor as paper glue."  Then at some point someone decided butter substitute was BAD so back to butter because it was less bad.  Then out with the butter again in favor of vegetable oils.  Wait!  Are you cooking those at too high a temperature?  That is BAD!  Then the butter tried to sneak back on the scene but was overwhelmed by specialty oils formerly believed to be good only for slathering on your body in th NO!  Don't do that!  You might get skin cancer!

There you have it!  Why did we not think of this North America?!  This is THE latest formula for getting fit.  Until next week when we will have the South Central African diet, the Iowa Pork diet and my personal favorite the Lunar Orbit Diet.  Or if you are not willing to wait that long check out www.canyonptandf.com and talk to our Registered Dietitian Katie Kissane and get ahead of the game!