There’s Power in the Pom of Your Hand

No, that’s not a typo above. It’s a pun, and admittedly a rather bad one. But I have to get my readers’ attention somehow.

The “Pom” I was referring to isn’t a cheerleader’s pom, either. (Is there such a thing as a “pom,” by the way? I’ve never seen those articles referred to in the singular form. Former cheerleaders, help me out.) Nope, I was actually referring to the homely looking edible that I like to think of as the piñata of fruits, since you have to give it a good whack to get to the treasures inside: the pomegranate.

Several years back, I had something like pity for the pomegranate. It seemed to be a rather neglected fruit, at least in this country. (Never mind that I hadn’t eaten one myself for a considerable time.) And so it was with delighted enthusiasm that I embraced its healthful properties when I was working for a beverage company and looking for a new product idea for my department’s annual innovation fair.

My own introduction to the pomegranate was with some mild bewilderment over exactly how to eat one. I don’t recall now if someone told me or I simply figured it out after slicing one open, but it was an enjoyable experience – crunching on tart-sweet seeds encased in juice-filled sacs that looked like little rubies. My only regret was that there wasn’t much payoff for the work involved. (It’s not for nothing that one wit has referred to the pomegranate as “the perfect diet food.”)

Neither do I recall exactly what gave me the idea to feature the pomegranate in my beverage theme much later, but as far as innovation went, I was pretty sure no one else in my group was going to be using it. After all, while the “piñata fruit” was popular in the Middle East, its juice sold by sidewalk vendors, I didn’t see much evidence that it had caught on in America. I briefly allowed myself grandiose visions of changing that with a couple of beverages I named “Pom-Pow,” for straight pomegranate juice, and “Peach-Pom,” or something of that nature, for a juice flavored with just a bit of peach nectar. (Okay, readers, these were working titles.)

My attempts didn’t set the health beverage world, or even my department, on fire, but I learned enough to gain a new respect for this culinary rough diamond. First, I was intrigued to learn that Iranians believe the pomegranate was the fruit that Eve fed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, rather than the traditional apple, although personally, I had a bit of trouble picturing that, since she would have needed something to cut it open with. On the other hand, the Good Book says that the pair tended the Garden, so they must have possessed some kind of tools. Well, as I’ve said before, this is not a religion blog and I’m no Biblical scholar, so you’ll have to consult your local theologian on that one. Other cultures have their own pomegranate traditions: the Chinese, for example, eat a sugared version of the seeds on a couple’s wedding day, to bless the newlyweds, while Greeks break open the fruit at weddings as a symbol of fertility.

Today we know that what a BBC News article described as “the fruity panacea” is loaded with vitamins A, C, E and iron, and that its antioxidant properties outweigh even red wine and green tea. (Antioxidants are naturally occurring substances in plants which protect our bodies from free radicals, or “bad chemicals” in our blood.) When I was putting together marketing concepts for my own beverage ideas, I was particularly fascinated to discover that scientists in the U.K. were looking into using a pomegranate-derived substance in the development of an AIDS vaccine, although I don’t know now what became of that study. But our ancestors didn’t need fancy studies or modern laboratories to figure out that the pomegranate, in spite of its slightly inaccessible nature, was a health “super food.” For many years healers in the Middle East, Iran and India have used all parts of the fruit to cure conditions ranging from conjunctivitis to hemorrhoids. It is even said that a paste of the leaves, massaged into the scalp, can apparently reverse baldness. Now that’s not something I’ve ever had a problem with, but take note, Hair Club for Men customers! What really tickled me was culinary historian Margaret Shaida’s statement that when she lived in Iran, she was given a bowl of pomegranates to help her recover from “Tehran Tummy” – a condition I’d never heard of before, but which I strongly suspect bears a resemblance to “Montezuma’s Revenge.”

About a year ago, I was in the bagged salad aisle of my local grocery store when I happened upon a product called “Pom Wonderful.” Holy cow, I thought – someone stole my idea! No, not really. But I was intrigued to find the line of both “straight” and flavored pomegranate-based beverages available in both juices and tea, in an American grocery store. Somebody had finally caught on, I thought.

That somebody was a California-headquartered company called POM Wonderful LLC. According to noted nutritionist Andrew Weil (www.drweil.com), the company pays researchers to study the health benefits of pomegranate juice, gives doctors information on studies, and, naturally, sells pomegranate products. And some of those products sound pretty cool – like the Pomegranate Lychee Green Tea or the Pomegranate Peach Passion White Tea. (Hmmm...were some of this company’s researchers at that innovation fair I mentioned earlier?) If juice is more in your line, you can try flavor combinations of pomegranate with blueberry, cherry, mango and tangerine. For more information, just click on over to www.pomwonderful.com, or check out the produce aisle of your grocery store. Tell ’em Treader Lucie sent you.

The homely pomegranate is indeed a culinary asset, and America is indeed “catching on.” According to a company that tracks new products, 215 new foods and beverages containing pomegranate were introduced to the U.S. market this year, while as many as 258 pomegranate products were added in 2005. So check it out. Not only will you be doing something good for your health while you eat one, but you can impress your friends and family with your knowledge of its benefits and colorful history. Who knows – maybe you’ll spark a local trend.

* * * * *

Of course I couldn’t talk about pomegranates without giving you at least one recipe including same. Enjoy! (Disclaimer: I haven’t actually tried it myself yet – I was too busy writing this entry.) This recipe originally appeared in Sunset magazine.

Fresh Pomegranate Chutney

1/2 cup red currant jelly

1/3 cup finely chopped green onions, including tops

1 cup pomegranate seeds (from a 1-pound pomegranate; see note below)

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon minced fresh jalapeno chili

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Put currant jelly in a 2-cup glass measure. Heat in a microwave oven at full power (100%) until softened, about 20 seconds.

Stir in green onions, pomegranate seeds, ginger, chili, coriander, and lemon juice; add salt and pepper to taste. Let stand about 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: about 1-1/4 cups

Note: Remove pomegranate seeds up to one day ahead; chill seeds airtight.

* * * * *

Let me know how you enjoy those edible little rubies. And until we meet again - Keep on Treading!

The Era of Our Discontent, Part II: When Knowledge is a Double-Edged Sword

“…For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need." – The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-12.


I have to admit that every time I heard or read the above verse, I secretly thought – even if I never would have dared to admit it out loud – that Paul was, in essence, wimping out. After all, if you’re content in any situation, why would you ever reach for something more? It seemed a stagnant way of living.

Last week, however, when I was thinking about contentment and the seeming lack of it in our society, it finally dawned on me that not only was such a thought disrespectful to a great man, but I was most likely misunderstanding what he’d written all those centuries ago. I believe now that what Paul meant by contentment was not satisfaction, as I’d always interpreted the word, but peace of mind.

And what circumstances did he have to challenge his peace of mind! The above verse, after all, was written while he was jailed under appalling conditions. Just thinking about it makes me feel a bit guilty about that box of tooth-whitening strips in my bureau drawer – which box was purchased, of course, in a moment marked by lack of contentment.

Thinking about Paul brought to mind yet another of his sayings that always gave me a twinge:

“In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.”

Well! I used to say to myself. Paul was a man, and a single one, at that. He didn’t know how women think, or how most of them instinctively long to be found attractive by the opposite sex.

Yet light seemed to dawn again as this verse came back to me. What I had once simplistically viewed as a condemnation of female adornment now sounded more like an instruction to put our priorities in order…that beauty of character should be our primary concern.

I don’t know if my interpretation is correct, and this is not a religious blog. But for a moment it intrigued me to think of what the apostle might say if confronted with today’s mania for plastic surgery, natural “enhancement” products, and the like. And amusingly, what set off my remembering the verse that has probably caused countless women to secretly cringe was reading about hair: specifically, that of singer Beyoncé Knowles.

What does Beyoncé have to do with St. Paul? Not a thing, really. But there I was, fresh off TV programs about plastic surgery and male enhancement products the night before, just powered on to my PC and connected to the Internet, when I was confronted with the following advisories from AOL:

“Copy Kate Hudson’s Look for Less!” “Get Beyoncé’s Skin and Hair Secrets!”

Since I probably weigh about 100 pounds more than Kate Hudson, I didn’t think there was any hope of my looking like her no matter what I wore. As for Ms. Knowles, we are of different races and she is 21 years my junior. Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist a peek at her “secrets.” I suppose I was inwardly hoping that she might have some previously unheard of weapon that would aid my own occasionally troublesome complexion.

The “secrets” turned out to be a slideshow of different hairstyles the singer has worn during the past eight years. I had expected some advice on how she kept her locks healthy and shining. Instead, I learned from her hairstylist that she “likes the feeling of it being big, long and free-flowing,” while her makeup artist informed the reader that the singer has two sides, one of which is “the natural side, which is about her being real and not wearing much makeup. Then there’s her adventurous side, where I can put strong green shadows on her eyes and fuchsia or orange on her lips.”

Honey, I thought, if you put those colors on me, I’d look like a clown, not Beyoncé! And I suspect the same would be true of many a gal.

But after I had a bit of a laugh at myself, I couldn’t help wondering if a number of young black women were viewing the same slideshow and trying to copy the singer’s look – only to discover that what worked on her didn’t necessarily work on them? That they were still themselves?

By an interesting coincidence, this same week I had been reading a book set in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. At one point, after pondering the seemingly endless choices for lightening my teeth, reducing my weight, vanishing my cellulite, fading my age spots, and so on, I found myself momentarily wishing that I had been raised Amish, where everyone dressed alike and wore their hair alike and didn’t diet or wear makeup or contact lenses or pluck their gray hairs or get braces…but still managed to date and get married.

Hold on. I might be more content, but I would look awful.

And speaking of the Plain folk…

Channel-flipping once more, I came across an interesting story about a Mennonite man who had raised some eyebrows in his community when he opted to have a “body lift.” In my view, he had a valid reason: he had lost about 100 pounds or so and been left with a good deal of sagging skin. Yet this was not his only plastic surgery procedure, and apparently some of his fellow Mennonites viewed his decisions as evidence of vanity.

That got me thinking about knowledge, and when “a little” becomes “dangerous.” It was good for this Mennonite man’s self-esteem to know that such a procedure as a body lift is available. But was it good for his relationship with a community that puts such emphasis on conformity and self-denial? And at an average cost of $13,000, was it good for his finances – especially when it was not his only cosmetic procedure?

The woman I talked about last week, who elected for cosmetic surgery of a sexual nature, agreed with her husband that it had improved their romantic life as well as her self-esteem. In her case a little prior knowledge was evidently a good thing. But what about the woman who cannot afford to have such a procedure done, or the man who buys a “male enhancement” product to find that it doesn’t deliver the desired results? What about the person who buys a tooth whitener that says it will lighten teeth “up to six shades” but feels they’ve only gone up four shades? I found myself wondering if we were heading slowly but steadily into an era of “sexual eugenics,” in which only the most taut/pearly-white/cellulite-free/surgically enhanced would be considered contestants in the romance race.

Perhaps you think I’m being overly dramatic. Frankly, I would not be sorry if that was the case. After all, whenever I look at the people around me, whether in my own family, among my friends, or at the local shopping mall, I see bodies ranging the gamut from obese to Paris Hilton-thin. I see crooked teeth and bald spots and age spots. And I’m encouraged to see how many of these average-looking folks are accompanied by a significant other, although they would seem to be the dream target of many marketers. But then I recall the article describing how some men find themselves concerned about their growing inability to relate to “real” women after a surfeit of airbrushed images, or the statistics about the rapid increase in cosmetic procedures among teenage girls. I remember a former coworker who, when describing a potential date, said nothing of his character but noted that his teeth were straight and white, and another coworker who could not have been more than a size six yet habitually wore a blue denim Oxford shirt over her clothing at work, because she felt she had “a multitude of sins to cover.” And I’m left with more questions than answers.

One possible answer came to me, however, in the form of a fantasy…a dream of a world free of advertising. Would we find our ideas of beauty, our desires and “needs,” changing if we were not surrounded by diets and creams and pills and strips? Of cars and houses with more gadgets? Unless we all join the Amish, I doubt we’ll ever know. But for a moment, folks, it was fun to picture.

In these last two entries I’ve focused on contentment based on physical appearance. Obviously there are other aspects to this issue, but the subject could fill a book. How about you? How does contentment play a role in your life? If you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear from you.

* * * * *

For the first time since I began writing this blog, I have no idea what I’ll be talking about next week. But whatever it is, I hope to see you there. So until we meet again...Keep on Treading!

The Era of Our Discontent, Part I: False Hope and Discontent

Last week I had planned to continue blogging on Claude Bristol’s “The Magic of Believing,” an important book which I think can be truly life-changing if read with care and applied to daily life. However, a chance encounter with a couple of television programs over the weekend pointed me in a different direction (sorry, Claude), so Chapter Three will have to wait a little while.

Years ago I heard someone who was laid up at home with an illness describe daytime television as “a vast wasteland.” Following surgery in September 2000, I was in full agreement. Following this past weekend, I would have to amend his statement to include some parts of “late night TV” in that description, not just for the cheesy sets, stilted dialogue and highly dubious claims (I could devote an entire entry to the latter alone), but for what’s being sold along with the featured products – false hope and discontent.

The evening was proceeding normally enough when, comfortably ensconced on the family room couch, I channel-flipped over to The Discovery Channel and lit on “Strictly Sex with Dr. Drew.” Dr. Drew is Drew Pinsky, a physician and addiction medicine specialist who teaches at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and hosts the nationally syndicated radio show “Loveline.” Having seen him on TV before and finding it interesting, I stopped clicking the remote to learn about people who undergo various surgeries in order to improve their romantic lives.

I expected to be surprised, startled, bewildered and occasionally downright amused at some of the stories I heard, and I wasn’t disappointed. But it wasn’t until after the show had ended that my mental wheels really began to churn.

This was because of one woman’s testimony, or, more specifically, one woman’s comment. In an attempt to keep this blog at least PG-rated, I’ll say only that the body part on which she had surgery is peculiar to the feminine anatomy and not one that is normally displayed except for under intimate circumstances. And if she wanted to “enhance” it in some form, that was strictly between her and her husband, or so it should have been, in my old-fashioned opinion. What struck me was not just the nature of the procedure – one that I’m guessing many women haven’t even heard of – but her reason for having it done, in spite of her husband’s persistent denials on the show that there were no sexual problems in the marriage: “I didn’t look like the women in magazines.”

Almost immediately I wondered, “What magazines?” The only ones in which I’m familiar with the applicable body part being shown are medical journals or hard-core pornography, and I strongly doubt, as a woman, that women in general are drawn to seeking out these types of images for comparison. That left the possibility that the husband had brought things into the home that were making his wife feel physically inferior. If so, that matter is also strictly between the two of them. In the meantime, while feeling like something of a voyeur, I was riveted much as people are by train wrecks. The show continued from a male point of view, with another guest admitting to his search for physical enhancement. Finally, Dr. Drew’s last guest appeared, a plastic surgeon named Jan Adams (male, in spite of the first name). I was astonished to hear of further procedures that are either being researched or currently used, in particular, one of which involved the injection of collagen into another region that is normally accessible only under the most intimate of circumstances, if it even exists (that being a controversial matter in itself). The program ended with Dr. Adams’ somewhat laughing assertion that, no matter what problem assailed us, "there would always be someone out there to work on it."

That statement stopped me in my tracks.

Fast forward a few minutes to another channel – and no, it wasn’t the Playboy channel – where a man and woman were co-hosting a program dedicated to the wonders of a “natural male enhancement” product. While admittedly feeling more voyeuristic than ever, I was amused by the fact that the body part which one would guess is said to benefit from this product was never actually named. After several instances of this, it finally dawned on me that this was a classic advertising trick designed to avoid lawsuits from something that likely doesn’t work, as if the small print advisories that “Results may vary,” etc., and the repeated use of can rather than will statements were not sufficient alerts. I didn’t stick around to hear all the testimonials, but went to bed, where I found myself unable to sleep, largely due to the avalanche of thoughts and memories that these programs had unleashed.

Perhaps you’re wondering what a person’s choice to have sexually-based surgery has to do with this blog’s overall theme of fitness. What it really has to do with is the concept of contentment, or the lack thereof – something that can certainly interfere with our mental, physical and financial fitness.

I should know. While it’s tempting to point a derisively amused finger at the television set during programs like the ones I’ve mentioned, I’ve plunked down my money on products that promised I could have abs so flat they were almost concave, or upper arms like Linda Hamilton’s in “The Terminator” – just like the models on the cover. And I’ve done it in spite of the “Results may vary” or “Results not typical” disclaimers, if I even spotted them.

Why? Because of two things: discontent, and hope. Discontent with the present, hope for the future. A nearly universal condition, I suspect – one that is essentially at the root of all advertising. Unfortunately, the discontentment didn’t vanish when a product made me jittery, or gave me an upset stomach, or when I discovered that the cover model on one product was a model indeed – of the fashion variety – leading me to suspect that she probably looked that good before she started the fitness program in question…the one I could barely perform.

But does that mean that discontentment is always a bad thing? Surely we should want to be our best, and if a product or products can help us achieve that goal, then is any financial cost too great?

That’s where it started to get interesting…and too involved to cover in just one entry. So I’ll be talking about contentment, or the lack of it, again next week – along with what conservative Mennonites who opt for plastic surgery despite the raised eyebrows of their congregation, and the “hair and makeup secrets” of Beyoncé Knowles, have to do with the subject. I don’t profess to have all the answers, or even very many of them, but I’ll have some thoughts, and I would love to hear yours as well.

* * * * *

Web Site of the Week. Last night I tried a crock pot recipe that I’d like to share with you, courtesy of Internet health guru Chet Day. For those of you who’ve never heard of Chet, he has a vastly informative home on the Web called “Chet Day’s Health and Beyond” at www.chetday.com. While you’re there you can check out his personal blog, his “Recommended Natural Health Tools,” health articles, skin care products, recipes, and weight loss tools. You can also sign up to receive his twice-weekly “Chet’s Crock” newsletters, each of which features a low-fat crock pot recipe, quotation, and health article. The following recipe came from a reader named Joan Elder.

Pineapple Salsa Chicken

3-6 skinless chicken breasts
One can of tidbit pineapple, drained
One can of black beans, undrained
One 32-ounce jar of mild to medium chunky style salsa

Place chicken breasts in the crock pot and add the rest of the ingredients. Cook on low for six to eight hours. Serve with warm tortillas and some rice.

Note: I used rice only, serving the mixture over it, but you can also pile it into a tortilla for a nice chicken burrito. Also, as the mixture turned out to be soupier than I had expected, I’d experiment with decreasing the amount of salsa, as well as increasing the amount of pineapple for flavor.

As always, if you find a web site you’d like to share or see featured here, please write and let me know.

Hope to see you again next week for "The Era of Our Discontent, Part 2: When Knowledge is a Double-Edged Sword." Until then...Keep on Treading!

Guilt – The Great Motivator

It has been said that fear is a great motivator. I submit to you that guilt is at least as effective.

I have been blogging for nearly four months now, and the theme of this blog was supposed to be personal transformation. Well, it still is. There was just one problem, one that has plagued me for most of my life: I was good at dispensing advice, I just wasn’t that good at following it.

Fortunately for all concerned, I was endowed at birth with that pesky little thing known as a conscience, and it had been giving me pricks for some time. Those pricks got a little sharper when an anonymous reader recently asked:

“How much have you lost so far? How are you really feeling since you started this journey? Healthier? Has your pant size gone down? Are you feeling firmer? How about your energy level? You've passed along lots of wise information but left out how Lucie is really doing. What's working for you and how? Tell us about your results.”

I was not completely satisfied with the quality of my answer, and I don’t imagine that Anonymous was either. In fact, looking back at the past few months, I was appalled at the extent to which I’d “backslidden,” as the Baptists would say. And it was so easy to do! Let me give you a few examples.

It’s time for lunch. Oops! Forgot those “Slim” and “Carb Right” supplements I was supposed to take 30 minutes ago. Never mind, I’ll get them in before dinner. Dinnertime arrives. Darn, forgot ‘em again. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

Evening walk time. Oops, looks like rain. Later, it’s still overcast but hasn’t rained a drop. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

Darn, it’s 4:00 p.m. and I just realized I forgot to read my daily Mem-Card (see blog entry of July 10, 2006) this morning. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

As the preacher likes to say: “Can I get a witness?”

Perhaps the sharpest thorn in my conscience, however, came after my recent job loss. I had once wished, half in jest, that I didn’t have to work so I could devote more time to all my motivational and health/fitness materials. Well, all of a sudden I had almost all the leisure time I could wish for. Then why were most of the aforesaid “helpers” collecting dust?

I can answer for the first couple of weeks. Not having taken a vacation in just over a year, I decided to take some much-needed time off for simply “vegging.” Week Three was scheduled for resuming a schedule.

Didn’t happen. Never mind, there’s always next week. Week Four was now scheduled for resuming a schedule.

Didn’t happen. Never mind, there’s always next week.

And that brings me to here and now and today. Thanks to the gentle prodding of Anonymous, Week Five became the week in which I am attempting to put myself back on track. After all, how can I tell other people about ways to improve their lives if I’m not really improving my own? That not only lets my readers down, but myself. So this morning it was back to…

Fifty morning and 50 evening repetitions of Matt Furey’s suggested mantra, “I can and will be what I choose to be,” as well as several morning rounds of “I feel lucky” in the mirror.

A meditation on Matt’s Mem-Card¹ for the day.

The resumption of daily vitamins² (even though they leave a somewhat fishy aftertaste in my throat), Carb Right², Slim², and a tablespoon of flax seed with at least one and preferably two meals per day.

Putting aside drinks such as non-diet lemonade and even my favorite hot tea for more water.

Setting aside hourly increments for writing and motivational reading.

The resumption of cold showers (I shudder at the thought, but I’m keeping it real, folks, and they really are invigorating – once you get past the initial bowling over).

And, of course, daily exercise!

I’m starting yet another new program this week (I see you out there, rolling your eyes) – “Eight Minutes in the Morning” by Jorge Cruise. By this time I shouldn’t need to tell you what attracted me to THAT product. (Hint: it’s in the title, and it sure isn’t “morning.” I hate mornings; they start too early in the day for me.) I’ll tell you more about it next week. I’ll also be returning to Claude Bristol’s “The Magic of Believing” very soon as well. Do yourself a favor, fellow treaders, and add this book to your library. It packs a lot of powerful information into a slim volume for a reasonable price and could very well change your life.

* * * * *

Do you like to eat out? I do, and not just because I don't really like cooking and don’t have to do the dishes afterwards. To me dining out is a special treat, a break from low-fat frozen dinners and pre-packaged salad mixes. Because of that, I admit that I don’t usually count calories or eschew dessert if I have room for it when visiting a restaurant. But many people who are carefully monitoring their calories, carbohydrates and sugars want to enjoy the dining out experience without sacrificing their hard work at other times, and if you’re one of them, I’ve got good news: there’s a Web site that can help you make informed choices. The National Restaurant Association has created http://www.healthydiningfinder.com/, which is collecting nutritional information on the four to ten healthiest dishes at restaurants in a community. Users can enter their town or zip code to search for eateries by food type or price range. The site’s formal launch, which will feature over 10,000 listings, is scheduled for January 2007, but check it out now for a preview.

* * * * *

That’s all for this week, folks. I’ll be back next week with an update on how my return to a more structured schedule is working, a look at “Eight Minutes in the Morning,” and a few more words about the magic of belief. Till then…Keep on Treading!

¹See www.mem-cards.com.
2 See www.amerisciences.com

Penny for Your Thoughts…

”Mind-Stuff Experiments.” That’s the title of Chapter Two of Claude Bristol’s “The Magic of Believing.” Mind-stuff, indeed! Couldn’t he have come up with a more technical term? I wondered with a smile.

Well, that really doesn’t matter. What does matter is the importance of thought. Centuries ago, Buddha said: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” Ponder that for a minute. What a responsibility it lays on us! Continues Bristol: “Your dominant thoughts determine your character, your career, your everyday life.” I ask you – and pardon the convoluted sound of this question – how many of us really think about what we THINK?

It’s not just our own thoughts that need to be guarded, but those of others, with respect to how they influence us. Bristol points out that “men of powerful dynamic thought have always swayed people by appealing to their minds – whether sometimes to lead them into freedom or into slavery.” (Adolf Hitler came immediately to my mind – how about yours?) Bristol continues by noting that we are bombarded daily by what we hear in conversation, on TV, on the radio and in movies, as well as what we read in books, newspapers and magazines, and, of course, on the Internet, which had not been invented in his day, but through the miracle of which you’re reading this blog. Some of these influences, he says, can lead us to better things, but too many are “upsetting or weakening.”

I have to agree, and I’m sure you can think of an example in your own life as well. Perhaps it’s watching too much hurricane coverage on TV, or reading about one too many murder cases in the newspaper. In particular, I recalled the words of Bethany Torode, a young and highly articulate Christian author, on the Boundless web site several years ago, when she was addressing responses to her recent article about why she and her husband had chosen not to own a TV:

"One of my friends who doesn’t own a TV commented that everyone she talked to on Sept. 11 who had watched the events on television was frightened, depressed, shaken and irrational. Those who hadn’t — who had simply heard about it from others — were much more calm, thoughtful, and sober."

Neither Bethany nor I advocate hiding our heads in the sand when it comes to being aware of current events, but her point, especially when taken in the larger context of the complete article (see http://www.boundless.org/2001/departments/your_turn/a0000624.html), should be clear. Sometimes we could use a fast from the media, or at least a diet!

Bristol then makes another provocative statement: that hard work alone will not bring success. Most Americans are familiar with the term “Puritan work ethic” (also known as the “Protestant work ethic”) that supposedly defines our cultural heritage. How many times have we said of someone, “He worked hard for what he got”? And certainly, in most cases “he” or “she” did. But, says Bristol, something else was required: “[C]reative thinking and firm belief in your ability to execute your ideas.” Successful people in history, he says, “have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were merely helpers to their brains.” (I love that image!)

As I read on, I began to hear echoes of previous blog entries on that precious commodity I continue to struggle with – desire. Bristol states, as have others, that our desire must be “all-obsessing,” that our energy must be concentrated and applied without letup, to achieve success – in whatever way we define that term. To achieve our objective, we must be willing to make it “the burning desire of [our] life.”

By this time I found myself mentally saying to the long-deceased author, “Amen! Preach it, brother!” But I wasn’t saying it with the enthusiasm of a congregation answering back to the minister. Rather, it was with a sense of chagrin as I recognized myself in these words:

“Most people have a general desire to succeed, but beyond that, everything is indefinite. They merely go along from day to day, figuring that if they have a job today, they will have it tomorrow – and that somehow, they will be looked after in their old age. They are like corks floating aimlessly on the water, drawn this way and that by various currents, either washing up on shore or becoming water-logged and eventually sinking.”

Ee-yowww. Amen, brother, indeed! That one hit a little too close to home.

But let’s get back to the power of thought. For centuries, some have claimed that humans can actually shape events and control matter through their minds alone. Many flatly deny such a possibility; others, me included, are skeptical but still open-minded. After all, as Bristol points out, if radio waves can pass through such solid objects as wood and steel, why can’t thought waves, “if tuned to even higher oscillations,” affect the molecules of solid objects?

Okay, Claude, I thought, you’ve got my attention. I won’t deny the possibility – especially when he goes on to cite various experiments that bear him out, which I won’t go into here in the interest of space. What really struck me was his personal theory – “that [thoughts] create only according to their pitch, intensity, emotional quality, depth of feeling, or vibratory plane. In other words, thoughts have a creative or controlling force in the exact ratio of their constancy, intensity, and power – comparable to the wavelength and wattage of a broadcasting station.”

Wow! If true, doesn’t that give you a sense of power? As well as responsibility?

I again had a recollection, as I read those words. I can’t recall the source now, but the speaker or author claimed to have had a vision of prayer requests on their ascent to heaven. Intriguingly, those petitions accompanied by a strong faith “shot straight up” to the throne of God, while those sent with less belief were weak and wobbly and took longer to reach their destination. Bristol, who does not appear to have been a religious man, seems to echo this when he says, “After studying the so-called mystic teachings, the various mental sciences, and the regular church teachings, I am convinced that they all work in varying degrees, but only to the extent that their followers believe. So it is with prayer, whether it be part of a church service or the purely spontaneous and personal supplication of the individual.”

* * * * *

Where does that leave us? We now have some sense of the sheer power of thoughts – not just our own, but those of others. We’ve been told how important an asset belief is to those thoughts. So now it’s time…to believe.

What do you need to believe for? More money, a better body, better health? As I mentioned briefly last week, my most immediate need is for a new job. And I know now that I have to guard my negative thoughts regarding past “failures” more closely than ever – as the old Johnny Mercer tune says, I have to “Accentuate the positive.” That means focusing on my strengths rather than my weaknesses (although those must never be ignored), and taking time to visualize – with faith! – positive outcomes to my search, rather than letting myself get bogged down by financial fears or wondering if I’ll experience another layoff. So that’s what I’ll be focusing on this week. And I’ll keep you posted as to the results!

* * * * *

Readers Write! I’ve had two interesting responses to last week's post from Anonymous treaders this week. Anonymous #1 writes:

“…[R]eceiving will be undermined by self-destructive sabotaging somewhere soon after if we don't really deep down believe with all our being that we deserve to receive--to be loved--to be healthy and thin--to be all we were born to be.”

Can’t argue with that, A. Believe and receive! He or she goes on to ask:

“How much have you lost so far? How are you really feeling since you started this journey? Healthier? Has your pant size gone down? Are you feeling firmer? How about your energy level? You've passed along lots of wise information but left out how Lucie is really doing. What's working for you and how? Tell us about your results."

You asked for it, you got it, A. The truth is that while Big Bertha (see post of May 29, 2006) seems slightly less poofy since I left my job and consequently (if surprisingly) am eating a little less, especially of fast food, and while my jeans were a little less hard to fasten this week, I haven’t started a new exercise program since I finished The Shaolin Workout described in three recent posts. Sometimes I walk in the evening, sometimes I don’t. Some days I’m good about drinking a lot of water, sometimes I prefer tea or diet Coke. My energy level still varies from day to day, largely depending on my mood, which, of course, largely depends on my thoughts! But this week I’m going back to basics with one of my previously listed “Tools of the Trade” – Alan Gordon’s “Get Fit: Flexibility.” While I have great respect for the routines put out by such fitness gurus as Matt Furey and Ed Baran, both of whose products I own, the fact is that at the moment much of the exercises are too advanced for me, which leads naturally to frustration and discouragement. I’m hoping that Gordon’s book will help me develop some much-needed flexibility with its positions that look to be more my speed. I’ll let you know next week. I’m also studying Maxwell Maltz’s “Psycho-Cybernetics: Zero Resistance Living,” as well as, obviously, Claude Bristol’s “The Magic of Believing,” so while I may be hardly any less overweight, I am feeling mentally stronger! And increased mental strength will hopefully lead to increased physical strength down the road. Thanks for asking, A. – it helps me remember to stay accountable – and please keep reading and responding!

Anonymous #2 had this to say:

“I've been so on the edge of committing to really doing it [shedding weight] myself. I'm a well read person – lots of expert info stored in this noggin. Waiting for what? The right day? The right magic formula? I really think I just need to do it – not in my head but in a way that holds me accountable. I've always been very competitive, so is anyone out there up for the challenge? I weigh in at an all time high of 212 and a half pounds – there, I said it! Today is the day. I will check in regularly with my progress!”

A2, thank you for your thoughts and also for your courage in sharing something so personal…something I haven’t been able to bring myself to do yet after about three months of blogging! Please do keep us apprised of your progress so we can cheer you on. And it sounds like you’re throwing down a gauntlet. Does anyone out there want to pick it up?

* * * * *

I don’t have a decadent recipe to share with you this week, but a movie plug. Yesterday I went to see Oliver Stone’s new film, “World Trade Center,” and highly recommend it. While a couple of friends have told me they’re not sure they’re ready to relive that terrible event, and I’ll admit that there were a few moments at the beginning that had me cringing as well, I appreciated Stone’s subtlety in handling such a tender subject, and his lack of political axe-grinding in favor of focusing on individual stories. The acting is excellent and the overall effect deeply moving. Check it out – you won’t be sorry.

I’ll be back next week – hope you will too! In the meantime…Keep on Treading!

Professor Harold Hill Was on to Something

Last week I talked about how Professor Harold Hill, the fast-talking salesman of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man,” relied on something called “The Think System” to get the boys of River City, Iowa to produce the Minuet in G on their brand-new instruments…without the benefit of any prior musical training. But the Think System was only a Hollywood invention, of course. Or was it? For the sake of the movie, it was. Yet I think the River City Boys Band had a little extra magic going for them – something that Claude M. Bristol called “The Magic of Believing.”

You may recall how in a previous entry on the importance of desire in effecting change, I described that commodity as being the fuel that drives the car, so to speak. Well, if desire is the gas, then belief is the vehicle. One without the other doesn’t accomplish much. The importance of belief was something that kept cropping up in various motivational materials I acquired, so it was with interest and anticipation that I picked up “The Magic of Believing,” a bestselling classic originally published in 1948 that has never gone out of print, and which is subtitled “The Science of Setting Your Goal and Then Reaching It.”

Claude Myron Bristol (1891-1951) was a journalist and businessman who got his start as a police reporter. As he says in Chapter One, “police reporters are trained to get facts and take nothing for granted.” He was also born with a perhaps above-average capacity for curiosity, an “insatiable yearning to seek answers and explanations” that led him to read thousands of books on such subjects as modern psychology, metaphysics, ancient magic, voodoo, yoga, theosophy, Christian Science, and many others that dealt with what he calls “Mind Stuff” (yes, you read that correctly!). Some of these books were nonsense. Some were strange. Still others were profound. All had one common thread through their teachings, a thread that made them work for those who accepted and applied them. That thread was belief.

Bristol’s own experience with “the magic of believing” began in 1918, when he was a soldier in France. While the exact details of his experience are a bit sketchy, the outline goes like this: Frustrated by his lack of spending money, Bristol made up his mind that when he returned to civilian life, he would have a lot of it. His Army classification card listed him as a newspaper man, yet he found himself “pushing wheelbarrows and lugging heavy shells and other ammunition” until he was suddenly transferred to the First Army Headquarters and placed in charge of a daily progress bulletin. During the next months he “frequently thought about the commission to which I was entitled.” Then, again quite suddenly, he received orders transferring him to the Army newspaper, the staff of which he had long wished to join, although he had done nothing about that ambition. In August of 1919 he returned home, eager to begin building the fortune he’d envisioned. The morning after his arrival, he received a phone call from the president of a club in which he’d been active. This man instructed him to call another, “a prominent man in the investment banking business who had read about my return and had expressed a wish to see me before I returned to newspaper work.” Bristol made the call, and two days later began a lengthy career as an investment banker, which later led to the vice-presidency of a well-known Pacific Coast firm.

Now here, readers, I had to stop for a second. What’s going on, I thought? A man with no prior experience whatsoever gets called out of the blue to join an investment banking firm? Up till now, Bristol has never mentioned an interest in that field. Sounds like sheer beginner’s luck to me. I read on.

Bristol’s salary was apparently satisfactory at the start, but he realized that there were many opportunities to make money in his new field. Exactly how he was to make it was not then clear, but, he says, “During those years I had constantly before me a mental picture of wealth.”

Constantly. Mental picture. Those words stood out to me as if highlighted. They sounded familiar. I read on.

Bristol describes how many people doodle while they’re distracted or talking on the telephone. I certainly do – primarily faces, though I have no idea why. Bristol’s doodling took the form of dollar signs, on every piece of paper that crossed his desk. “I want my readers to remember this detail,” he says, “because it suggests the mechanics to be used in applying this magic which I’ll explain in detail later.” (Hint: it’s not in Chapter One.)

Bristol next describes his unusual-sounding luck while en route to Asia on the Empress of Japan. In his previous travels he’d developed a fondness for Trappist cheese, made by the Trappist monks of Quebec. Failing to find it on the ship’s menu, he made a laughing complaint to the chief steward, who told him that there was none aboard. That didn’t stop Bristol from thinking about it, and increasingly wanting it. One night, after a ship’s party, he returned to his cabin after midnight and found a table with the largest cheese he’d ever seen on it. You guessed it – Trappist cheese! When Bristol again questioned the chief steward, he was told that since he’d seemed so set on having some, the steward had searched all the ship’s stores until a cheese turned up in the emergency storeroom in the bottom of the hold.

But the author’s seagoing luck wasn’t confined to a certain brand of cheese. On a second, homeward-bound voyage, he often thought about how nice it would be to receive the “VIP” attention he’d experienced on the Empress. As he started up the gangplank of the second ship, he said to himself, “They treated you as a king on the Empress of Japan. The least you can do here is to sit at the captain’s table. Sure, you’ll sit at the captain’s table.” You can guess what happened next! Later, Bristol got a letter from the captain to substantiate his story, which he included in his lectures. The captain said that as Bristol came aboard, “something” told him to seat Bristol at his table. He could not give any further explanation.

Not surprisingly, Bristol notes that many who heard this story declared it to be coincidence. He is positive that it was not. “It’s the belief or the basic confidence within you that brings outward material results,” he says.

Chapter One cites other instances of belief bringing results, ranging from the curing of warts to the doubling, trebling and even quadrupling of personal income. In one particularly notable instance, Bristol describes how his firm was “going on the rocks” during the Depression, “not because of the threatening outside happenings and events, but because of the mental attitude of our employees. We were all succumbing to mass-fear thoughts….With our own thoughts of ruin, we were attracting the disaster to ourselves.”

What did Bristol do? As he says, to save his firm and begin fighting the Depression itself, “all I needed to do was reverse the thinking of every person connected with our organization.” ALL, indeed! Yet apparently he was successful, because, according to the man who wrote the introduction for Bristol’s first book, this insight was followed by “the most remarkable transformation of individuals and organization as well.”

No doubt you’re wondering, “Well, what’s the secret? How did he do it?” Patience, readers! I’ve only just finished Chapter One!

Actually, that’s not quite true. I had made it about halfway through the book on my first reading a few months ago, but the going isn’t light, and the material should definitely be studied more than once for full absorption. However, in my own case, I had a particular motivation for restarting the book: a couple of weeks ago, I once again (involuntarily) joined the ranks of the unemployed. In the weeks ahead, as I consider studying a new career path, and in the meantime finding a new job that will pay for my training in that path, should I choose to pursue it, I’m going to have a far greater need for the power that comes with believing than I did before.

How about you, readers? Is there a need or lack in your own life for which you need the power of belief? Have you ever read, or are you currently reading, “The Magic of Believing”? If so, how have you applied it and what have you learned? I would love to hear about your experiences.

* * * * *

There’s no “magic” involved in the recipe I’m featuring this week as a thank you to my readers for hanging out with me these past few months…just a whole lot of good taste and decadent calories. (Disclaimer: I refuse to be held responsible for any extra exercise that may be necessitated by your indulgence in it.) This simple peanut butter pie – and I can personally testify as to its deliciousness – came to me courtesy of a former coworker. You can, of course, make it a little less decadent by using low-fat versions of the ingredients.

Treader Lucie’s “Thanks for Reading!” Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

Mix together one cup of Cool Whip, one cup of peanut butter, one cup of powdered sugar, and one block of softened cream cheese. Place in eight-inch graham cracker piecrust shell and chill for several hours. Eat and enjoy!

* * * * *

I’ll be continuing with Claude Bristol’s “The Magic of Believing” next week. Hope to see you then! In the meantime, as always…Keep on Treading!

Training the Way of the Warrior, Part III: Does It Really Work?


In the interest of not boring my readers, I’m condensing the last two parts of Sifu Shi Yan Ming’s “The Shaolin Workout” into this final part III of my analysis. As you’ll recall, Sifu’s routine encompasses only 28 days, but it's not as simple as it at first appears. In parts three and four, the kicks and crouches and one-legged stands increase. He even adds a few hops. I followed along as best I could, but didn’t really meet my Waterloo until I came to the Crossed Seated Stance. One look at the illustration was as much as I needed, but my conscience wouldn’t let me describe it here without at least trying it. If you’d like to give it a shot yourself, here are the slightly paraphrased instructions:

“Stand straight and relaxed, feet planted firmly, slightly farther apart than shoulder width. Turn your body to the left, pivoting on both feet, without lifting your feet or taking a step. When you’ve turned 180°, so that you’re now facing the opposite direction of where you started, go down slowly into a cross-legged crouch. Go down gently until you’re sitting on the ground, with your legs crossed, the left leg over the right thigh. Be mindful of keeping your body fully extended, back straight, head and chin up.”

I can crouch, but I can’t get myself down to the floor in this position without landing on Big Beatrice in a most un-Shaolin-like heap. (Stop laughing out there! I see you!) But wait – it gets worse! Sifu actually expects me to rise back to my original position!

“To return to your original standing position, simply ‘unwind’ yourself. As you begin to rise from the ground, turn your body to the right, pivoting on both feet. Keep turning and pivoting until you’re standing in your original position. Remember not to lift your feet or take a step. Just pivot in one spot.”

Don’t lift your feet? Don’t take a step? I have four words for you, Sifu: Bring on the crane.

"The Shaolin Workout" comes to a close soon after, with a photo of Sifu blowing a kiss to his readers. It’s a sweet gesture, but I’m feeling less than appreciative at the moment. However, that’s not his fault.

* * * * *

You’ve heard my thoughts on Sifu’s routine – what do others have to say? Amazon.com reviewers gave it an average of four out of five stars. Here’s a pro and con sampling of their comments.

“As a how-to, it’s limited because all martial arts and especially the more subtle ones have to be shown and taught in person….Some of the daily meditations are a little over the top, but the enthusiasm is catchy….Why does a stay-at-home mom need to learn Kung-Fu? Why not? Part of transforming your body and soul is just being open-minded. We all need to do things for ourselves occasionally, even if it is a simple stretch….It’s the only workout I’ve ever really enjoyed that didn’t involve a competitive sport….After just a few days I could feel myself standing taller and walking with better posture….No normal person would actually do this workout on their own for very long; it is just too strenuous to endure without encouragement from an instructor….To perform the techniques as he [Sifu] does takes relentless hours of practice, so the 28-days mantra is deceptive at best….There is ample reason to read this book even if you do not train physically because the life philosophy applies to all.”

And that brings me to the next part of "The Shaolin Workout" that I wanted to spotlight – the daily meditations. These bear repeated study even if you've ceased to do the workout. One of my favorites was “Dripping water bores a hole in the rock.” The persistence of dripping water is indeed what many of us need to achieve mastery over Sifu’s routine or whatever workout we choose, especially when we start from Ground Zero, as I did (see blog entry of May 22, 2006). As Sifu says (and how contrary this is to the typical American way of life!): “Your improvement may be so gradual that you don’t even notice, but don’t give up. Be as patient as the rain and the ice.”

Another one I particularly liked was “Beautiful birds always land on the top of the tree. Brilliant people always express their ideas up higher.” Sifu asks if we’ve ever seen a lazy bird. The answer is no, because there is no such thing. Birds are constantly active, constantly expressing their lives in their songs, their bright feathers (think of the peacock), and their soaring flight overhead. Sifu advises his readers to watch the birds arching and zipping across the sky – and then observe where they land – at the top of the tree. “In your life, you should be reaching for the top as well,” he says. “Don’t be like water running downhill.”

Is "The Shaolin Workout" a worthy purchase? I would say that really depends on the individual’s goals and interest in the martial arts. While I didn’t personally find the movements enjoyable, I rarely rank any exercise in that category, so don’t give that too much importance. On a scale of one to ten I would rate the overall sweat factor as about a seven, if you do the entire routine at once. The real benefit that I took away from the book is, as I have previously mentioned, an increased appreciation of the beauty and grace that comes from a fit and flexible body, as well as a renewed appreciation of the body itself. In attempting even the “for me impossible” moves, I learned to really listen to my muscles (and not just their shrieks of protest!). The photography is excellent and the layout well-executed. So if I’ve piqued your interest, crouch, leap and kick your way over to http://www.amazon.com/ or your local bookstore, and check it out for yourself. And if you decide to embark on your own course of warrior training, write me and let me know how it works for you!

* * * * *

Reader Joyce – who, by the way, has a wonderfully informative and beautifully photographed blog of her and her husband’s new “work camping” life in Rockport, Maine over at www.joyceandwiley.blogspot.com – alerted me to another interesting blog titled “The Fanatic Cook,” written by a female nutritionist. FC (I don’t know her real name) features detailed research, excellent illustrations, and recipes. For her analysis of the alleged benefits of bottled water, book and article recommendations, or just a mouth-watering recipe for lemon chiffon pie, “get thee on over” (as the inimitable Matt Furey would say) to http://www.fanaticcook.blogspot.com/. This is one website definitely worth checking out. Thanks for the tip, Joyce! And speaking of tips…if you find a blog of note related in some way to the theme of this one, please write and let me know. I’ll be pleased to feature it in an upcoming entry.

* * * * *

Have you ever seen Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man”? If so, you’ll likely remember that Professor Harold Hill, the suave, fast-talking traveling salesman of the production’s title, relied on something called “The Think System” to get his ragtag boys’ band to produce the “Minuet in G.” No practice was involved – in fact, the boys weren’t even allowed to attempt a note on their shiny new instruments! No, Professor Hill insisted they do nothing more than think the piece. Of course, Harold Hill was a charlatan who planned on being well out of town before his “Think System” could be exposed for the fraud it was…but this was Hollywood, not reality, and at the show’s finale, the River City Boys Band, with no prior musical ability or rehearsal, managed to stammer out a highly unprofessional, yet recognizable, “Minuet in G.” Was it just the magic of Hollywood at work? Or was there another type of magic involved – the magic of belief? Didn’t the boys have to believe they could play the minuet in the first place? I think they did. And not long ago I found myself wondering if Meredith Willson hadn’t read an intriguing book by Claude M. Bristol titled “The Magic of Believing” when he dreamed up that fictional boy’s band. For a look at that magic, stop by here again next week for “Professor Harold Hill Was On to Something.”

Until then...Keep on Treading!

Training the Way of the Warrior, Part II: "How the Heck Does He Do That?"

Last week I described how I was attracted to a new book called "The Shaolin Workout: 28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior's Way." You may recall how I didn't find most of the first part too challenging. Well, I can safely say that those days were over when it came to Part Two!

Sifu ("Master" or "Teacher") and I began with a hip stretch that, in its complete phase, made me feel something like a human pretzel. Suffice it to say that I felt "stretched" indeed. Then it was on to the Pu Bu Stretch, a continuation of the former excercise. A continuation, that is, if you can even remotely get into the position that Sifu's illustrations demonstrate! I made it, oh, roughly a third of the way. How long did it take this man to achieve such flexibility?

Next was the Hip Rotation. This one made me giggle just looking at the illlustrations. Attempting it, I felt like a hula dancer! But where things really got interesting was when I moved to the Knee Rotation. Frankly, I'm darned if I can figure out the purpose of this one. Nor was I too good at performing it. You try it: Stand straight and relaxed, legs closed, feet together and pointed forward. Then reach down, grab your knees, which you should relax and bend, and, keeping your legs together and feet on the ground, rotate your knees in a circle. It's not as simple as it may sound. With all due respect to Sifu, I feel pretty silly!

I'll pass over the next two stretches, as they are impossible for me to fully achieve at this point, except to say that by the time Sifu instructed me to (from a lotus position, no less) lean my upper body in one direction and "Kiss your knee and toes while you're there, to show them your appreciation," I was not only thinking, "Appreciation for WHAT?" but was strongly tempted to retort, "Kiss THIS, Sifu!" I resisted the temptation, as that really would have been rude and unappreciative.

Next we came to the Pushing Palm Strike and Fist Punch. Now those feel like kung fu moves! I can do these. Only problem is, I have a bit of a problem getting the right-left rhythm down. Oh, I know the difference between the two. It's just that, as I've said before, I'm not the most coordinated person in the world. Definitely need some practice there.

The Bow Stance was another balance challenge for balance-challenged me. I'm okay with the Gong Bu strike pose, but getting one leg up and bent makes me wobble. Sorry, Sifu!

Of course, this is nothing compared to the Front Slap Kick. After kicking your right leg "straight up in front of you," you are to "reach for enlightenment with the top of your head." Loosely translated, that means "attempt to touch the top of your head with your foot." Sifu, needless to say, has this mastered. I, on the other hand, can't even get one leg out in a straight line with my hip. I'm not sure that any amount of practice is going to make that perfect, either!

The Horse Stance involves "two side fist punches executed simulataneously." As I punch my fists out, I am to move my head so that my arms and head finish the move at the same time. After all, I need to see whom I'm punching. That makes sense, but I'm not sure I could knock out Ronald McDonald. The Horse Stance (and what in the world, by the way, does this move have to do with a horse?) is continued in a squatting position. Okay, Sifu, I have to ask: are you trying to hit your opponent in the chest instead of the jaw with this one, or deck a very short person?

I know it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm really not. It's just that when I attempt these moves for the first time, it's hard not to laugh at the picture I must be creating. The truth is that the further I go with Sifu's workout, the more respect I have for his strength and flexibility. And needless to say, the man doesn't appear to have an ounce of superfluous fat on his body. I wonder if that's a prerequisite to mastering this routine.

* * * * *

Two parts to go! Are you still with me? If so, stick around for next week's look at "Warrior Transformation," in which I'll describe my efforts to perform such moves as a "front slap kick with arm rotation" and "front flex kick." I'll also take a closer look at the daily meditations that accompany the physical routines, as these are full of wisdom and I will probably be coming back to some of them in future entries.

But right now...I'm stretched and kicked out. Time to do a routine I can perform with relative ease and confidence - my evening walk!

Till we meet again, Keep on Treading!

Training the Way of the Warrior, Part I: "Funny, I Don’t FEEL Like a Warrior…”

It has been said that Americans are enamored of the quick fix, and I, for one, am no exception. Whether it’s “Thin Thighs in Thirty Days,” “Sixty-Second Abs,” or “Eight Minutes in the Morning,” I’ve probably plunked down my money for it at some point.

That’s how I came to purchase “The Shaolin Workout” a couple of months ago when I was spending a quiet Sunday afternoon at Borders Bookstore. I was browsing idly through the newly published section when a highly intense stare from a bald Asian man known as Sifu (“Master”) Shi Yan Ming caught my eye. (“Shi” is pronounced to rhyme with “Sir,” by the way.) The book advertised itself as “28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior’s Way.” Twenty-eight days! Less than a full month! I could manage that. Nevertheless, I was skeptical. I put the book down, wandered the store some more, considered the matter, picked the book back up for another examination, meandered through the store still further, and finally grabbed the book a third time (hoping in the back of my mind that no one was watching this performance). I found a quiet spot in a corner where I could peruse the volume in detail to see if it looked like it would really deliver. It was, after all, $29.95. Not a bad price for total transformation, but that was also a lot to promise. (I’m not sure if it occurred to me then to wonder just how a soul is transformed by a physical workout.) I finally decided that it was worth the $30 price tag, and took it home that day.

Sifu Ming is, according to the book’s opening chapter, a 34th-generation warrior monk from China. I don’t know exactly what a “warrior monk” is (readers, can you help me out?), but the accompanying photos clearly indicate that this man is on a par with martial arts action star Jet Li when it comes to flying leaps and twisting the body into seemingly unachievable angles. He has been featured many times on national and international TV and in countless newspapers and magazines. His book is “yet another way to introduce people to the life transformation they may achieve through kung fu training.” While I didn’t have much (if any) hope that I could ever emulate some of his poses, I was willing to give the exercises, which were grouped into daily routines, a try. I also liked the look of the daily philosophical meditations. Here’s a breakdown of how things went in Part I.

Session 1 – Wrist and Ankle Rotations. I still don’t know if I’m doing the wrist part correctly. The written description seems to indicate one thing, and the photos another. And what is the purpose of it? At least the ankle rotation is easy to figure out – until you start doing it in conjunction with the wrist rotation. If you’re a fairly well-coordinated person, you’ll have no difficulty with this. If you’re somewhat uncoordinated, like me, it will prove a slight challenge at first - something like rubbing the top of your head and patting your stomach at the same time.

Session 2 – Neck and Eyes. The neck stretches cause a slight cracking. Not too much of a surprise. I roll my head to the left and right, forward and back. Not bad. But it’s the eye focus exercise that really puzzles me. This consists of snapping one’s head rapidly to the left, and then to the right, ten times in each direction. Sifu instructs his students to “see as far as Iceland and its polar bears in one direction, and as far as Miami and its dolphins in the other,” and to “fully extend your sight.” Frankly, I cannot figure out how to “extend my sight” to save my life, and all I can see are my bedroom walls.

Session 3 – Shoulders, Arms and Chest. I’m not sure I’m “windmilling” correctly – my arms seem to fly out more to the sides than in back of me, á la Sifu, but I keep at it regardless. Practice makes…well, if not perfect, at least better.

Session 4 – Waist and Stomach. Now, I think, we’re getting somewhere! These areas are, after all, my nemesis. The waist stretch is something I’ve done in Matt Furey’s “Magnificent Seven” workout. Matt calls it the “Tai Chi Waist Turner”; I call it “The Human Washing Machine.”

Session 5 – Legs. One look at the photos demonstrating the positions for this section and I know I’m about to be challenged. Suffice it to say that I can’t picture ever being able to touch my head to my toes. It’s all I can do to touch my fingers to my toes. Actually, I’m not entirely positive I can do THAT yet.

Session 6 – Upper Body and Lower Back. A few side bends here. Shades of Matt's Magnificent Seven again. No problem here. Then some forward stretches that make me feel as if I'm about to breast stroke across a pool, until I get to the rotation part, which makes me feel a lot like a human screwdriver. Next is another “impossible” move – getting my head on my crossed arms, which arms, by the way, are to rest flat on the floor. (See closing comment in Session 5 above.) This is followed by the ankle grip. How about we make that "the calf grip," Sifu?

Finally, review time! And then Part II, which I’ll cover next week.

* * * * *

With all due respect to the master, I am not feeling a bit transformed. What I AM feeling is middle-aged, overweight, inflexible, and, at times (when doing the wrist rotations, for example) rather silly. I also feel distinctly American. We in the West have such a different way of approaching fitness than those in the East. I’m used to thinking of working out as something that involves sweat, weights, machines, soreness, and a lot of grunting (at least from men in the gym). This seems too…easy. (That is, until I try those human pretzel positions.) But I am beginning to understand that part of Sifu’s process involves achieving a deeper awareness of my body. Normally I regard it as something unwieldy and unattractive and cumbersome – even an enemy of sorts. And I suspect that many Americans do the same. However, as I am trying to stretch just a tiny bit further (“Get those fingers to the ground, girl!”), I am beginning to sense muscles instead of merely rolls or cellulite, to feel my body instead of just lugging it around. I may not feel transformed – but then again, perhaps my viewpoint is becoming so, albeit quite gradually.

Sifu and I are from different hemispheres and different religions – different worlds altogether, but I think he has something to teach this middle-aged, out of shape American gal. So check back in next week for The Shaolin Workout, Part II.

“Desire Revisited”

I had some thought-provoking comments on my recent post titled “The Object of My Desire.” One of them, from an anonymous reader, particularly hit home:

"The magic key? Just do it. Whatever your desire, the leap from motivation to reality requires an act of will we as humans find so hard to put into gear."

I agree with Anonymous on this one. Desire, like the emotional side of love, can be a flickering flame simply because it is a feeling, and feelings are transient. When our longings for betterment are at a low ebb, sometimes that old Nike slogan (“Just do it”) is all that will keep us putting one walking-shoe-clad foot in front of the other. Anonymous said further:

"We create a voice in our heads called the coach—who tells us to stop whining and do it, do it, just do it."

Again, I agree. It sounds like A. has had some personal experience with this sort of thing, which I for one would enjoy hearing. It would be helpful if he or she responded further and tells exactly how this coach is created, as well.

"The day we finally decide we really want some action is when we have a plan, put it on paper, make everybody in the house sign it and put it on the fridge."

I found this especially interesting, as it reminded me of something that motivational author/speaker Tony Robbins included in his “The Body You Deserve” program. Tony challenges program users to complete a contract similar to the one described by Anonymous above, and to send it out to friends who can be trusted to hold one accountable. I’ll confess in the spirit of honesty in which this blog is written that I waffled a good bit over this one. I was willing to sign it at the time, or so I recall, but when it came to sending it out to friends…ah, that was another matter! In the end, I caved…to myself, not Tony. (And, obviously, I still do not have the "body that I deserve!")

Anonymous has further useful advice, such as giving ourselves a “free day” once a week, or, as some call it, a “cheat day.” As my mother commented years ago – although speaking in a much different context – you should always have something to look forward to. For some of us, knowing we have the freedom to indulge in a future “Big Mac Attack” or something similar is enough to keep us going even if we end up not indulging after all! And speaking of indulging…Joyce writes:

"For me, dieting success came only when I decided to allow myself at least a taste of whatever I really wanted, so long as I could first identify very specifically what it was I really wanted (usually chocolate). A couple of bites of really good chocolate when I'm craving it keeps me from eating bits of this and that in a search to satisfy an unidentified hunger."

Sound advice, I think, for the majority of people, although there may be some for whom this would only serve as a trigger.Thank you, Anonymous and Joyce, for the practicality of your responses. In closing, I only want to say that when I first read A.’s response, it occurred to me that perhaps the importance of desire was being downplayed too much. Matt Furey addressed this concept in his own blog last week when he talked about hunger, and not the physical kind. Matt describes the excitement of the Chinese people when it was announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympic Games, and why he believes they’ll take first place in gold medals two years from now:

"In one sense the Chinese have more reasons to win. They're hungrier. And youshould always be concerned about someone who is hungry. Theyfight harder than those who are well fed. And they fight longer."*

He continues with an obvious yet so often overlooked insight:

"America, sadly, has become a nation of people who are overfed – and this has led to a lack of desire or hunger for MORE. We've become too comfortable - and too much comfort is NOT a good thing as it interferes with expansion of your talents."*

Amen, brother. In the future I’ll be looking at this subject yet again, as I believe it is a vitally important one. While sheer will is sometimes a necessity, desire is the gas that fuels the car. As I review techniques on increasing desire, both in Matt’s programs and in others such as the great Maxwell Maltz’s “Psycho-Cybernetics,” I’ll be sharing them with you, so stay tuned.

* * * * *

A while back I introduced you to a young man named Sean Perkey, who has embarked on a remarkable quest to lose half his body weight. As it’s been several weeks since I checked in on him, I thought it was time to see what he’s been up to. His July 23 entry – “Mommy…I’m Scared of the Spandex Monster…” is alone worth the price of admission (which is actually free, by the way). Sean has faced his fear of the gym head-on, and his description of his experiences there are alternately hilarious and insightful. Actually, that could be said of all his posts. So click on over to http://www.watchmyloss.com/ and cheer this guy on. And while you’re there, why not make a donation, if even of a few bucks, to the American Diabetes Association. Sean – and many others – will thank you!

* * * * *

Before I get to this week’s “Tool of the Trade,” I want to thank reader "HaggardMom" for pointing out a caveat about flax seed, which was featured in my July 3rd post. She has read that whole seeds are hard to digest, so it's probably better to grind them up. I'll be sure to look into this, and I hope to hear from you again, HM!

This week the spotlight shines on yet another product of the inimitable Matt Furey. “Kick Ass – Take Names: Confessions of a Fitness and Fighting Guru” is the title of a collection of his blog entries, which address everything from the best time of day for training, to a cough remedy you’ll find right in your kitchen, to “Five Key Secrets to Superior Health,” all written in Matt’s customary shoot-from-the-hip style. Also included are demonstrations of various exercises and Matt’s letter to his young son, Frank, written just before the latter turned three years old, not to mention photos of Frank imitating his old man - at the ripe age of 18 months! You can get more information at www.mattfurey.com.

* * * * *

As I mentioned last week, I started doing a beginner Shaolin monk workout this month. While I haven’t yet finished the routine, I can honestly say it’s been an interesting – and sometimes downright humorous – experience. If you want to hear more, check back next week for “Funny…I Don’t Feel Like a Warrior.”Until then, keep on treading!

* http://www.mattfurey.com/mattfurey_uncensored/

“Shower-Shocking Your Way to Better Health, or – How to Decrease Water Consumption in One Easy Lesson”

Years ago a friend told me that she took such hot showers, she had to turn her air conditioner up to Warp Factor One to keep the bathroom wallpaper from peeling.

As the incomparable Paris Hilton would say, “That’s hot.”

I myself have always been partial to warm showers, at the least. That’s why I live in the 21st century, with indoor plumbing and hot water on the tap anytime I want it. It’s an entitlement of the age.

However, cold water baths and showers have had their share of advocates for centuries. The first exposure I had to the idea of their benefits came when I was reading a biography of Louisa May Alcott, whose father, Bronson, was a follower of the teachings of health reformer Sylvester Graham (inventor of the modern graham cracker). Graham advocated not only cold baths, but hard mattresses, vegetarianism, chastity (including among the married), open bedroom windows, loose clothing, and exercise. Well, I thought, those all sounded fairly sensible, with the exception of married chastity, but considering that in Graham’s time hot baths were managed by heating water over a fire, which was both time-consuming and inconvenient, perhaps his promotion of cold water dousing wasn’t so surprising.

Years later, I was exposed to the cold shower benefit theory again through Matt Furey, whom I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog (see http://www.mattfurey.com/). Matt promotes it as developing mental toughness, as well as increasing energy and warding off sickness. In fact, when he feels a cold or something similar coming on, he takes cold showers until he’s as right as rain again. If memory serves me correctly, Matt also suggested exercising outside, and then dousing afterwards. While I live in a hot climate and saw this method as working up a good sweat, so that the icy bath afterwards would come as more of a relief than torture, I decided against trying it in spite of the fact that my backyard has a high fence. Even if a neighbor didn’t see me, a family member might, and I would have the devil’s own time explaining how I came to be caught outside in what is politely referred to as “a state of nature” while standing under a garden hose.

The most interesting proponent of the cold water treatment that I’ve come across so far is http://www.earthclinic.com/. According to their “Remedies” section on the subject, cold showers are “excellent for clearing electrical static from your energy field that can accumulate from cell phones, airport and courthouse x-ray machines, and powerful electrical lights in museums and electronic stores.”

Wow. I haven’t the faintest idea how that works, but I hardly ever use my cell phone, haven’t been near an airport or a courthouse in years, and only visit a museum about once a year, if that much, and electronic stores even less, so I guess I don’t have too much to worry about. However, the user testimonials are quite interesting, so check them out when you have a minute or two.

Armed with centuries of advocacy, it was time to try it for myself. I had, after all, used several of Matt’s teachings – exercise routines, weekly fasts, and deep breathing exercises – but this was one I’d been putting off for several months out of sheer wimpiness. It was time to bite the bullet – or the “C” tap, if you will.

As I mentioned, I live in a hot climate. However, I also live in a house with air conditioning, so I prepared myself by opening my bedroom window wide and doing Matt’s Magnificent Seven routine (which I haven’t done for many weeks, to my shame) to work up a little sweat. Then I was ready for the icy fury.

And you know what? It wasn’t that bad! Of course, my shower doesn’t get icy even at its coldest, but it sure as heck wasn’t warm, either. Yes, it was a shock. Yes, I did invent a new song, one that went, “It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s so freaking, FREAKING COLD!” Yes, I used far less water than I'm accustomed to using. And while I can’t say that I felt much more mentally tough afterwards, I did have a sense of well-being. But what really surprised me was that, in spite of the shock, the entire experience was actually rather exhilarating…so much so that I repeated it this morning and plan to do so all this week. So much for torture!

How about you – are you willing to take the Cold Water Challenge? Or are you already a convert? Either way, write me and let me know how it works for you.

* * * * *

This week’s “Tool of the Trade” is the pedometer, that wonderfully handy little instrument that tells you how many miles you’ve walked. A while back I read that current wisdom recommends 10,000 steps (which amounts to approximately five miles) per day for health and weight loss. I don’t know about you, but even if I walked a couple of miles after work, it still wouldn’t amount to that many steps, as my job is largely a sedentary one. I’ve also learned that this figure, which was originally popularized in Japan, did not seem to come out of actual medical research. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that walking is good exercise, and to get an idea of how much I was doing on an average day, I wore my pedometer to work one day last week. I was rather disappointed to see that even with an evening walk (shorter than I usually take), I’d clocked only 1.108 miles and 3,902 steps, and worst of all, burned only 153.6 calories throughout the day!

Well, it was still enlightening. Wearing a pedometer makes me more conscious of taking steps, to reach that elusive goal, so I find myself walking a little more…and that’s a good thing. You can find a decent unit at many department stores, but the one I currently use, and like the best of other models I’ve used, is the SportBrain, which I purchased through ediets.com. This model touts itself as “the first and only to offer automated data upload for review and tracking of your progress.” I never actually uploaded my data, simply because I couldn’t figure out how to do so, but what was important to me was the fact that it records my steps and calories burned, as well as mileage. You can see a sample, and/or place an order, on www.bodytronics.com.

* * * * *

Next week I’ll be taking a moment to step back and look at some of the comments I’ve received from readers lately, on everything from flax seed to the importance of desire in effecting lasting change. I’ll also be checking in again with Sean Perkey, who’s on a quest to lose half his body weight and to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. Plus, this will give me an additional week to work towards completion of my beginner Shaolin monk workout, which I’ll be reporting on two weeks from today. So stay tuned, and keep those comments coming!

The Object of My Desire


“Out of need springs desire, and out of desire springs the energy and the will to win.” – Dennis Waitley, motivational author and speaker.


How does one keep desire alive? Couples ask it about romance; dieters, about their new eating habits. That may at first seem like a humorous comparison, and I won’t blame you if you laugh, but I’ve come to see that the desire to change one’s life for the better, in whatever form, is akin, in the beginning, to the spark between two people brought together by whatever mysterious mix of pheromones, similarities, physical attraction, etc. constitutes love or infatuation. Dieting women can be as infatuated by the image of a “perfect” female body as any man. And men, increasingly these days, lust for the perfect male body with sharply-defined muscles and “six-pack” abs. Yet a puzzle remains: If desire fuels the quest for a solution, and so many alleged solutions surround us, shouted from our computer screens to our televisions to our local store’s magazine racks, why are we, as a nation, still so overweight and so under-satisfied?

Clearly, desire must not be so simple a matter.

Now you’re probably thinking, “It isn’t just desire that’s necessary. It’s commitment.” And you’re right. But when our commitment waxes and wanes with our desire, is it simply because we’re lazy, or selfish, or immature?

When trying to answer this question in my own life – why, after so many starts, have I made so many detours, week after week, even with the accountability presented by this blog – I had to take a serious look at what was sabotaging my own aspirations. In the past I’ve been accused more than once of lacking the prized quality of persistence, and I’ve generally accepted that the reason for that is simply laziness and immaturity on my part. It is only in the past few years that I’ve come to recognize more clearly what I, and I believe many others, are up against, and that thing is fear.

In an insightful email I received this week from a friend who’s going through his own personal changes, in the area of spirituality, was this statement: “…as we are called to something new, we must turn away from something else; in other words, we have to give something up.” Many times I’ve neglected to adopt more healthful habits simply because I didn’t want to give up a certain amount of leisure time for exercise, or a food that I love. Almost everyone can relate to that. But how many of us don’t want to adopt healthier habits because of an unhealthy fear, that the good we obtain will be offset by discomfort?

Let me give you an example. Over the years I’ve run across more than one story of a woman who gained weight, even subconsciously, to deflect unwanted male attention. In some cases this was due to a history of sexual abuse; in others, simply a fear of not being able to adequately relate to the opposite sex or to deal with the inherent responsibilities of a romantic relationship. For the former women, a healthy and fit body represented a more sexual body, and sexuality raised an understandable alarm.

In my own life, as I began a study of wealth-building this month, and repeatedly came across the importance of “desire” in the attainment of such, I had to face my own curious fear – that if I succeeded in increasing my income to a level that would provide me with the security I want, I would have to deal with the complications of increased taxes, and I find such matters to be about as comprehensible as the algebra I flunked out of in high school! In another example, I had to admit that one of the things holding me back from working towards my desired weight was the likelihood that even if I reached it, at my age and with my history (both genetic and otherwise), my body would never resemble the models in those ubiquitous fitness ads. There is no cure for cellulite, no such thing as “spot reducing.” So why, went my almost subconscious reasoning, should I really try in the first place? It would only lead to eventual disillusionment.

And I feared that disillusionment.

These fears seem somewhat silly when held up to the spotlight of close scrutiny, yet I suspect that similar feelings lurk in hundreds of thousands the world over…and they’re like a dash of cold water to the hot flame of desire.

How about you? What desires do you have that may have been damped, and how did you fan them into life again – or did you? Since I’m not sure of the answers myself, I would be interested to hear your thoughts. Write me and I’ll include your responses in a future entry.

* * * * *

Let’s lighten things up now with the latest “Tool of the Trade.” This one comes to us courtesy of http://www.mem-cards.com/. “Mem-Cards” are, as you probably already guessed, memory cards, similar to children’s flash cards, that contain “impactful ideas and important insights from the world’s best personal and professional development books.” They’re currently available in seven different subjects: Business, Health & Fitness, Religion, Sales & Marketing, Self-Improvement, Spirituality, and Wealth-Building and come in convenient pocket-sized packs that are smaller than a deck of cards. I learned about them through Matt Furey, whom I’ve referenced in earlier entries, when he included two packs in one of his programs that I purchased. Each card in the pack I’m currently using contains an insightful quotation by sources ranging from Mark Twain to three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser. I like to read one before I even start getting ready for work in the morning, then tuck it into my bedroom mirror and meditate on it for that day. On the opposite sides of the cards are exercises from Matt’s various books, complete with a black and white photo of the exercise being performed. I haven’t been as faithful about memorizing the cards as I originally meant to be, but the quotes are so “bite-sized” that anyone should be able to commit a fair amount of them to memory over time, where they can serve as an instant inspiration whenever you need it. For ordering information or to see what various experts have said about these little gems, click on over to http://www.mem-cards.com/ and tell them Treader Lucie sent you.

* * * * *

Here in America, we like our hot showers, which, thanks to modern technology, we can enjoy almost any time. Yet health sages over the years have touted the benefits of cold water, and I’m not talking about the drinking kind, either. I’ll be taking a look at this next week in “Shower-Shocking Your Way to Better Health.”

See you then!