Think hard - when was the last time you saw a high dive outside of the Olympics? Our local pool sure doesn't have one. Indeed, the last time I can remember seeing one was in my high school pool when I was on the diving team for about two seconds. (Although I stuck around long after I quit to help all the guys shave their legs before meets. What can I say? Swimmers are hot. Even freakishly hairless boy swimmers.) There's a reason we don't see many high diving boards anymore. Or any diving boards at all. Or merry-go-rounds. Or ten-foot-tall metal slides. Or see-saws. Or many of the playground favorites from our childhoods. It's because they're not safe.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old-timer who walked to school in paper bag shoes - uphill both ways! - and played hackey sack with a hairball for fun, I have to say: What is happening to children these days?

An uproar in New York about unsafe playgrounds brought out some intense emotions in parents and children alike. And what was the object of their protestation? Tetanus-laden uncovered screws? Uncoated swing chains that pinch little fingers? George Michael policing the restrooms? Nope. They were mad about the rubber surface that was installed to protect children against falls. See, when the weather gets hot, so does the rubber and apparently the kids felt like it was burning their feet.

I do have some sympathy for those New Yorkers. As a parent I completely understand the pain that ensues when children start whining. If mine keep it up long enough I swear my ears actually bleed. As a playground veteran I can vouch for the fact that children find any number of things outdoors whine-worthy. In addition to hot playground surfaces, there's hot playground equipment, hot picnic tables and hot (read: lukewarm) juice boxes. There's also cold swing seats, cold monkey bars and cold (read: lukewarm) bottles. You know what helps with all that? Earplugs. Oh, and shoes.

Are Safe Kids Fat Kids?
In a day where it is postulated that over 85% of the U.S. population will be overweight in 20 years, it seems like a lot of parents aren't getting the message about the importance of exercise. While the above example is a little extreme, many parents end up curtailing physical activities - especially the spontaneous outdoor kind that experts have long advocated as necessary for children's mental and physical health - because of safety concerns.

I have to admit I have done it. I won't let my six-year-old walk two blocks to his friend's house to play because I'm concerned about all the street crossing he'll have to do. I don't let any of my children play outside unattended because we don't have a fenced-in yard. So if I'm busy when they want to play outside, they don't get to go outside. If they want to practice riding their bikes? I drive them (!) to a local park because we have no sidewalks in our neighborhood. In fact, most parents I know make some marked concessions to safety that our parents didn't do when we were kids.

My mother accuses me of trying to wrap my kids in bubble wrap but I am a mother to three boys. And I say this with love but they're crazy. The two-year-old gets his kicks from scaling the bookshelves and then jumping off the top. The four-year-old literally thinks he can fly, as evidenced by his ability to jump down an entire flight of stairs without touching carpet until he lands in a heap at the bottom. We've already had multiple visits to the emergency room involving such innocuous objects as a banister, a bungee cord, and a fluffy red pom-pom. Can you imagine the carnage that would ensue with, say, a pellet gun? Or a roller-derby Barbie??

What Is A Parent To Do?
There has to be some middle ground between protesting that the ground is hot on a hot day - last time I checked suing the laws of physics isn't usually productive - and leaving your kids in the care of no one but your dog while you go out on the town (Hello Peter Pan!). Out here in the frozen wasteland, parents compromise by paying exorbitant fees to have their kids play hockey. I however have a problem with a sport that makes me pay out the ying so my kids can knock around the noggin I spent nine months gestating. (I didn't even eat soft cheese because it might be bad for them!) I suppose the biggest problem is what kids are doing instead of playing outside: generally something involving a screen.

Safety is a concern for adults wishing to play in the outdoors as well. Even with reflective gear, cell phones and pepper spray available, many women cite safety as a major reason they don't exercise outside. Not to mention that injuries and accidents can happen to the best of us. Aron Ralston, anyone? (Hint: he's the man who cut off his own arm with a pocket knife to save his life.)

Other than spending a lot of time wishing I lived in a place where I could chuck my kids out the front door after breakfast and tell them not to return until the dinner bell rings, what can I do? How do you guys balance the concerns of safety with the need for exercise? And, more importantly, how do you get your kids to stop with the whining??

'Tis the season to be gifting and as many of you know, health nuts can be difficult people to shop for. The usual standbys of holiday goodies don't work unless you know whether they fall into the Everything in Moderation camp or the Sugar is the White Satan camp, something that can be hard to sneak into everyday conversation. On first thought, workout clothing might be a good option until you realize the minefield that is buying someone else tight spandex. Next up: workout gear from their sport of choice. Except that unless you also love the same sport you will have no idea what to get them thereby making you prey to any passing salesman with an eye on a fat Christmas commission. And while there are a few items that are universal to every sport, nothing says "never look me in the eye again" like a fur lined jockstrap:

On the subject of gifts for fitness fanatics, Another Suburban Mom asks

"Could you please address good underwear to wear while exercising, as I find that my thong gives me a front wedgie during kickboxing. Also, what are good gifts for my aerobics instructors. I am thinking that a small loaf of my eggnog poundcake might be a faux pax."

Since the term "front wedgie" makes me giggle like a 12-year-old boy in the feminine hygiene aisle, I'll answer that one first: see above. Kidding! Others may disagree with me but I think thongs are the worst workout undies ever. Not only do they have the "front wedgie" (and back wedgie, duh) problem but they also give really weird lines under spandex if you have anything over 0.02% body fat. My solution for kickboxing is a nice tight (and opaque!) pair of capri workout pants. Preferably black so I don't get sweat stains that cause me to make up childish nicknames. For more on workout underwear, check out my Public Wedgie Picking post.

As to your second question, I am stumped. Although I am really impressed that you remembered to get your group fit instructors a present! (And also, please send me the recipe for eggnog poundcake. I have never heard of such a thing but now I must try it!)

VaMomof2 shares your frustration:

"I need Christmas ideas for my husband. Last year I bought him a TRX because I read about it here and he loves, loves, loves it. Anyone have any new ideas for great workout equipment or accessories for men?"

My first thought is P90X - it's pricey but men (and lots of women) really love it! Plus it would play so nicely with your TRX! But that's where my child-wearied brain poops out. So in order to save your loved ones from Just Another Gift Card, what are your best ideas for fit and healthy gifts? What do you guys give your group fit instructors/personal trainers/weight floor stalker? Any good gift ideas specifically for exercise equipment for men? What are your thoughts about thongs as workout attire?

Him: Do you have any idea how many calories are in that thing?!

Me: [out loud] Um...
Me: [silently] Yes you idiot. I know how many calories are in everything. I've internalized the nutritional information of so many things that it's practically written on my DNA. In fact, it's impossible for me to even be in the same room as a menu without my mental calculator going into overdrive.

Him: Please tell me you're not actually going to eat that.

Me: [out loud] Um...
Me: [silently] Despite knowing what a dietary disaster it is, I did indeed order this chocolate malt with the full intention of eating it.

Him: At least scrape the whipped cream off the top!

Me: [out loud] But I like whipped cream...
Me: [silently] I just finished a sweat-soaked 3.5 hour workout! And this is the first thing I've eaten all day! If you can't eat a milk shake after all that, when can you?

Him: Here, have a bite of my salmon and broccoli instead.

Me: [out loud] I'm not hungry any more.
Me: [B-movie horror scream]

Shape magazine this month has an interesting little factoid: women eat 486 less calories when they eat in the company of a man. Of course Shape has to make a dubious diet tip out of that: To keep a handle on those holiday calories, make sure you sit by men to eat! While that may be good dating advice, I'm not sure if it is good advice in general. Are they saying that to impress a man, one must suppress their natural appetite and eat like a bird? Or are they saying that being around other women makes us overeat? Either way, that is rather a lot of calories to be trimming off for the gents, ladies.

And yet, I have to wonder if this is true. In the above example I gave in to the guilt fest and ended up eating only three measly bites leaving the waiter and the rest of our party to wonder why on earth I would pay for a five-dollar dessert only to watch it turn into a science project on the various states of matter. But aside from that one instance (and yes even I find my passivity galling), in my experience it is much harder to eat around girls. Most men don't seem to give the first thought to what's on my plate and some even seem to applaud a girl who will really eat. Girls, on the other hand, can be awfully judge-y. Even if they're not appraising your value based on your cream puffs (ahem), most of them are watching what they eat and therefore resent your brazen enjoyment of the dessert buffet. Of course if you don't eat then it sparks a whole other kind of discussion in the ladies room. And that's not even talking about the girls who will actively sabotage you with food.

Granted, these conclusions are based on stereotypes but while there are men who would make me curtail my eating in their presence (see above), I am more likely to be conscious and therefore limit what I eat in front of women. All of which makes me intently curious as to how it is for you.

Given my love for asking strangers intrusive personal questions and my love for online polls, the following should not surprise you:

(If you get this post through e-mail or a feed reader, please click through to see the poll.)

Once upon a time I could do a push up. Many, even! But then I got pregnant and had a baby and the phrase "shredded, ripped abs" took on a whole new meaning. You never know how much you use your core muscles until you no longer have any. I discovered this the other day when I talked my dubious husband into walking the track with the wee Jelly Bean so I could do half a Turbokick class. Maybe it was too early to go back to high-impact activities but I'm not going to lie to you, it was like fitness crack and I'll do it again the second I get another chance. I felt awesome.

Until we got to the ab portion at the end, that is. I wasn't expecting to be able to do the situps yet but when the teacher threw in a few planks and push ups I figured as I had kept up with my arm and shoulder strength, I should be fine.

Oh.
Ouch.
Owowowowowowoww.
Fall.
Faint.

Superheroes have nothing on my abs - not only are my abs invisible but they are apparently immaterial as well. Most people think of push ups as a shoulder/chest exercise but I'm here to tell you that your core also plays a big role. Thankfully at that point my baby had woken up and I fled the studio to nurse her and my broken bellybutton in shame. After that I resolved to work - slowly - on my push ups at home.

Despite being one of the best and most basic body weight exercises you can do, push ups often get overlooked unless you are selling funny handles that aren't attached to anything. Part of that I think is being nose to the ground puts you on eye level with all the nastiness on the gym floor - go to muscle failure and you're flossing your teeth with a hairball of suspicious origin. Not to mention their unfortunate rep as the punishment exercise, as in "drop and give me 20!" But the real reason I think push ups are so often relegated to workout filler is that they're boring.

Okay, they're boring and they hurt a lot.

One way to pimp your push ups that has been popular of late is to do the 100 push up challenge. Our own Sagan, Merry, Quix, and many others of you in blogland are alumni of this program. But I needed to smart smaller so when I came across an upper body workout from Pop Pilates I figured it would be a good warm up. Plus it was free and only ten minutes. How hard could it be?

Warm up, my pajama clad booty! It kicked my butt.

Between grunts of pain and unauthorized time outs, I gained a grudging respect for the power of Pilates. I always knew it was great for core strength but who knew it could be a whole body workout? (Okay, Alyssa knows, I'm sure.) There were three different kinds of push ups including a variety with your hands pointing in that I had never seen before. Those are some killer push ups. Seriously, you have to try it.

So today I'm challenging you: bored with normal push ups? Looking for a way to fit exercise into your day today? See if you can do this whole workout without pausing or taking any breaks. (I couldn't!) If you're already Tarzan chestacular then try doing the workout on your toes. It's only ten minutes!



Still too easy? You'll love this one:

Did you make it all the way through? How do you feel about push ups - love 'em or hate 'em? What is your favorite variety of push up? What's the nastiest thing you've seen on your gym floor?

On the Help a Reader Out post "How to Choose the Right Fitness Shoe" there was much discussion in the comments about Turbo Jennie's recommendation to wear shoes with "closed shox" for high-impact activities that require a lot of lateral movement, like kickboxing. She e-mailed me to clarify that what she meant was to wear a cross trainer or studio shoe that has the shock absorbers enclosed in the heel rather than visible. Apparently these can be any brand that you like although Turbo Jennie recommends the new Under Armour ones, the Ryka cross trainers (she told me that since they only specialize in studio shoes, they make really good ones), or these Avia ones saying "PERFECT FOR LATERAL MOVEMENT!! Shox are in there, just can't see them!!":


In comparison, she sent this pic of shoes with open shox explaining, "NOT FOR TURBO,KICKBOXING, ETC. RUNNING OR WEIGHT LIFTING ONLY":

PS> I would have edited the ALL CAPS except that that is so Turbo Jennie's personality. This mad energy is why girlfriend's classes are always packed. If you ever visit Minnesota, you must come try one!

And we have a winner for the scale giveaway! The Random Number Generator hath spoken and today's lucky winner of an EatSmart digital food scale is... Erin who wrote: "I LOVE nibbling cheeks and ears!! My baby is four months old, and breastfeeding doesn't seem to be taking care of the weight as well as it did the first two times. I'm thinking portion control is to blame, so I'd love this scale.

I actually have a food scale but it is horrible. It is tiny, not digital, only weighs up to a pound, and is always tipping over. I definitely need an upgrade. I would probably also weigh random stuff, although not my baby because he clocked in at a whopping 16 lb 9 oz at his four month checkup - yay!"

E-mail me your info Erin and I'll hook you up with your scale!

PS> While I didn't intend yesterday's post about the Every Other Day Diet to turn into an everyone-love-on-Charlotte fest, I can't say I didn't enjoy it. So thank you all - I feel hugged by all of you! I really needed that:) And kudos to the two brave commenters who wrote about their positive experiences with the diet - and very respectfully I might add! I knew we could all get along! (Till the next time anyhow...)

Whether it was some quirk of the Google gods or my Internet karma coming back to smack me for writing about Will Ferrell, a post I wrote about trying (and failing) the Every Other Day Diet has come back to haunt me. Some people get ghosts in chains that inspire them to buy large turkeys for Christmas. I just get visited by the Ghost of Diets Past.

Back in September of '08, I confessed to my epic fail of diets. It was a program I'd read about in a magazine where you eat whatever you want one day and then severely restrict (300-400 calories) or fast the following day. The idea was that you'd only have to diet half of every month and yet you'd still lose weight. It's not faulty on principle. I do think it would work if only for the fact that anytime you slash and burn calories like that you will see some results. Unfortunately for me it was a one-way ticket to the blood sugar roller coaster ride from hell. One week found me weeping on the floor pleading mercy. You can read the past post if you want all the gory details. (Warning: there is a candy massacre.) So that was it for me.

At least I thought that was it. Until about two weeks ago when I started getting daily comments on that ancient post. Pretty much every single one of them was to tell me what an idiot I am - and those were just the nice ones. Normally I let those comments slide; it's the cost of blogging and I'm cool with people expressing differing opinions than mine. I prefer it if they remain civil but I understand people get worked up about certain things. And this diet is apparently one of those things. Want to really offend someone? Criticize their favorite diet. So in an effort to appease my Google SEO and to put some offended minds at ease, I'd like to clarify.

1. [correction: Jon Benson also wrote book called "Every Other Day Diet", not to be confused with Dr. John Daugirdas who wrote a book called "The Every Other Day Diet"] The books both seem to describe how to follow his diet. I have not read this book [either of them]. Ever. The plan I followed I found in a magazine although I'm guessing the mag was parsing his book. So when I criticized the EODD, I was criticizing the diet-one-day-feast-the-next principle, not Dr. Daugirdas' or Jon Benson's books.

2. It didn't work for me. Please note: for me. I didn't like it and I'm allowed to not like it. I'm glad that it worked for some of you because I'm all about finding what works for each individual person.

3. I'm not a professional diet guru or doctor or anything else. I'm one girl just sharing her experience so take it for what it is.

If I sound a little defensive and cranky, please forgive - I just spent an hour crawling through a McDonald's playland searching for my 3-year-old's shoes. Which we never found. And then he soaked his shirt at the water fountain and decided that naked is better than wet. No matter that it is December and there is snow. We went into McDonald's fully clothed and emerged wearing only socks - which I suppose is a good thing considering they won't let you in the Playland without them (the sign doesn't mention pants!) To top it off, the same child dumped out an 18-count carton of eggs on the floor and is now refusing to go to bed despite it being an hour and half past his bedtime. Oh, did I mention I have 4-week old infant? It's been a day. So please, enough with the crazy comments. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I LOVE other opinions. Please do share your experiences with me. But cut the profanity and name calling or I will delete it.

To my regular readers - you know I love you guys! To the visitors - I hope you stick around, whether or not we agree about this diet. (Also, can someone please tell me why this is suddenly so popular? Did this Jon Benson have an affair with Tiger Woods too?!)

So, if I haven't completely scared everyone out of commenting, here's a new thread. Lay it on me: What are your thoughts about the every other day diet (either concept or book)?

Encouragement is powerful. To be perfectly honest, I'm a people pleaser and have been willing to do pretty much anything to get praise since the second I slid out of the womb. (Doctor: "Baby Girl Hilton, APGAR at one minute - 10" Me: *squeeee*) However, I became acquainted with this fact in a gym setting about five years ago. My first foray into real adult fitness was right after the birth of my 3rd child and I was about as beginner as they come. I knew I liked yoga. I knew I didn't fit into my pants. And that was pretty much it.

Then Nasca took me under her wing. A yoga and kickboxing instructor, not to mention a veteran bodybuilder and fitness competitor, she had a personality part Earth Mama and part Warrior Woman. Contrary to how most bodybuilders operate, there was never any talk of fat or thin with Nasca. She simply thought everyone was gorgeous. Including me. But she did think I should be stronger. Not from a looks standpoint but rather a functional one. I remember going on a joint expedition to Costco - with Costco it's never just a shopping trip; even if you're just getting milk it feels like the modern equivalent of slaying a buffalo and tying it to the back of your pony - and watching her heft 50-pound pallets of flour.

"Come on, use those triceps!" she joked as I struggled to help her.

"What's a tricep?" I asked lamely. "I don't think I have one."

"Everyone has one," she giggled. "Two actually. It's this cool little cut on the back of your arm." She lifted her sleeve to show me a beautiful mark of muscular definition etched into her caramel skin. Then she lifted my sleeve. "See? Yours is right here."

"Where?" I could only see white mushiness.

"Hold your arm like this." She flexed. I imitated her. Still nothing. Concerned, she felt the back of my arm up and down as I tried flexing in several different directions. "Wow," she finally said. "You really don't have one!" And then with no judgement whatsoever she said, "We've got to start you lifting weights."

As anyone who has ever explained something they are very good at to someone who is very bad at it knows, educating newbies is not fun. But to watch Nasca teach me basic weight lifting skills you would have thought I was the most exciting thing to hit the gym floor since thong leotards. Nasca gave me a lot of good information over the next few months but the real thing that kept me coming back was her friendship. She was always encouraging, always positive and always cared about me. If I didn't show up to class one day, she missed me. It sounds like a small thing but it meant a lot to me.

Since then I've tried to be that person for others. I try to notice when there are new people in class or on the weight floor. I try to reach out to them - say hi, offer a friendly smile and a little encouragement. And most of the time I think it works. I've made some great friends that way and people usually at least smile back. Some even sit on my lap! But now that I've been 'round the proverbial track more than a few times, I find it is easy to forget how intimidating gyms can be to newcomers. There are all those crazy machines to figure out and gym etiquette to learn, not to mention all the spandex - if there was ever an intimidating fabric, that would be it!

We're coming up on the New Year, otherwise known as "Tourist Season" in the gym due to all the newly resolute folks who show up to crowd the classes and monopolize all the equipment only to disappear three or four weeks later. But instead of getting annoyed this year I'm making an early resolution to do my best to convince the "tourists" to stay a bit longer and soak up the local culture. Maybe they'll even teach me a few new gestures!

Who is your health hero? How did they inspire you to get fit? What do you do to reach out to the new people?

PS> Sorry for anyone who got the earlier, unedited, much more negative version of this post.