Can Yoga Reduce Belly Fat?

I look forward to answering your questions in this blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail your questions to tracy@wholelifeyoga.com.

I’ve found that as I age, my abdomen has gotten larger.  It sometimes gets in the way when I do yoga poses.  Any ideas on what to do about this, and can yoga help me reduce the size of my belly?
 
This question has a number of facets.

First, yoga and weight loss.

Studies have shown that yoga does indeed, help with weight loss.  But its effects can’t be explained via our Western models of exercise.  The actual calories expended during a yoga class are relatively minor compared to, say, exercise biking or jogging.  The yoga teachings say that certain poses have a “Langhana” or reducing effect.  Twists and forward bends are examples.  These would be the kinds of poses we would target for weight loss, not necessarily the ones that burn the most calories.  Likely these poses help improve digestion and reduce stagnation of food and other toxins in the body.  I believe, however, that yoga’s biggest weight loss impact comes from the mindfulness that it creates.  When we are in tune with our bodies and in harmony with our spirits, we tend to eat more appropriately.  For many this results in weight loss.  For me, it actually resulted in a weight gain to a more healthy weight.

Second, yoga and spot conditioning

Body shape is largely determined by fat storage patterns in the body.  This is often genetically determined.  Oh if only there were a magic exercise, any magic exercise, that would get rid of what my family calls the “Weber thighs.”  But even when I weighed less than 100 pounds, I STILL had them--thighs that were out of proportion to the rest of my body.

Men frequently store fat around the middle.  As women age, our fat storage tends to shift from our hips to our bellies, especially after menopause. Fat stores are best decreased via diet and aerobic exercise, but people rarely lose fat in only the target area, hence the crazy popularity of liposuction.  Instead, our goals should be to burn it from the entire body via a combination of right eating, aerobic exercise, and strengthening.

However, occasionally bellies seem larger because the internal organs sort of "pooch out."  In that case, strengthening the abdominal muscles may help support internal organs and decrease belly size.   Boat pose, yoga crunches, and the toe tapping pose pictured below are awesome for strengthening the “Girdling” muscles of the body.

Finally, adaptation of yoga for those with a rounder belly (for whatever reason!)

The key here is simply to make room for the breath.  Most yoga poses can be adapted to create that extra space you need.   Whenever you’re doing a pose that causes compression, such as a standing or kneeling forward bend, consider widening your legs or knees.   We often say that the feet should he hips bone distance apart, but really, that is the minimum.  They can always be wider if needed for comfort.  And when you’re in the pose, imagine that you are breathing into your back.  This will help you emphasize expanding the back of the rib cage, which will allow for a deeper breath.  Any time you become breathless or feel that the breath is strained, come out of the pose and go back into it when you’re ready.

But remember, it’s not about what you look like, in yoga or in life.  The primary goal of yoga, regardless of your body type, is to bring you greater health and balance.  The rest is just window dressing!

I hope that helps!

Namaste

Tracy Weber
Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out my author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available for preorder now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and other retailers! Available at bookstores nation wide January 8, 2014!

Cozying up to Killer Hobbies: Part Two

First, a note to all my friends…

My web site, http://www.kathrynlilley.com/, was “down” earlier this week, due to some strange gremlin that infected the cyber layer of the atmosphere. My poor beleaguered webmaster tried to explain the whole thing to me. But I hear technical jargon the way a dog hears reproachful instructions; it’s all “Blah, blah, blah.”

Anyway, if the web site is down when you try to navigate to it, keep trying. I believe the god of cyberspace has finally stopped throwing thunderbolts my way.

Feedback about Killer Hobbies

I got feedback from last week’s question about what people like/don’t like about cozy mysteries that are set around a hobby theme.

Boy, did I get feedback.

The good news

Huzzah! People love hobby-oriented mystery series! Judging from the emails and chat, they are wildly popular.

The also-good news (but not for everyone)

Pity the poor hobby mystery-ist who commits any of the following sins:

· Overloads the book with hobby content, at the expense of a good story
· “Top loads” the book with too much information, like all-you-never-wanted-to-know about music boxes.
· Laces the tale with hobby jargon that the nonhobbyist can't understand,
· Bores the reader (this, I might add, is a global sin that is not unique to hobby-oriented mysteries).

Some quotes from the blog-o-sphere

A big THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to reply to my request for feedback! Here are some samples:

“I find that my reading needs are for de-stressing and relaxation, as well as pleasure. I (enjoy) well-written cozies. [I like…Linda O'Johnstons'-- she writes about a wide variety of animal pets [canines, felines, birds, ferrets, & iguana...so far],...want to read more of hers as well as a couple other authors' work I've been fortunate enough to read...]. I have a Monica Ferris book awaiting me. I look forward to another .”

“…I like Monica Ferris' and Maggie Sefton's books set in yarn/embroidery supplies shops, but it may be the manager aspects of running the shop is even more interesting than the craft.”

“…if I care about the protagonist, I enjoy reading about the things that are important in her (or his) life. I like Spenser's little descriptions of how he whips up a little omelet, for instance; and also enjoy Susan's questioning whether they can really mean you have to stir something "constantly" for THAT LONG. They don't intrude, but that's how people's lives really are in my universe. We eat, we work, we crochet, we solve mysteries. Except for the solving mysteries part, in my case.”

“…it is the story I tend to remember rather than the crafting, so for the sake of anybody who is not au fait with the hobby, it is best to keep the parts dealing with it to the minimum. Also, it is a good idea if the subject is presented as if to beginners for the same reason!”

Next week: Blast-off for DYING TO BE THIN!

So, the official launch for DYING TO BE THIN is Tuesday, October second! Starting Tuesday, you should be able to find it at a bookseller near you (or, as always, you can order it online at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, http://www.walmart.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, and other online booksellers.)

DYING TO BE THIN tells the story of Kate Gallagher, a spunky, slightly chunky TV news producer-turned-sleuth.Kate’s often been told that she has the “face” for TV—it’s her body she needs to work on. So when she gets dumped by her boyfriend and laid off from her TV producer’s job in the same week, she decides to trade in her Whoopie Pies for thinner thighs, and she heads down to Durham, North Carolina to enroll in an exclusive diet clinic (read: fat farm).

After just one day at the Hoffman Diet Clinic, Kate is about ready to sell her soul for a white mocha with a coffee cake chaser. She’s working free-lance on an Extreme Makeover story—starring herself—while enduring a diet of petrified fruit, tasteless gruel, sunrise walks, and loony-tunes neighbors.

But when the clinic’s head diet doctor turns up—dead—with a pair of fondue forks where his eyes should be, Kate totally loses her appetite. And now that the menu features murder, she realizes—she has a breaking story on her hands.

You can find out more about the series and read the first chapter of DYING TO BE THIN at my web site: http://www.kathrynlilley.com/

Okay, because I can’t wait, here’s a preview:

A Big Fat Mess

I began to wonder whether I’d made a colossal mistake by plunking down my severance pay a down payment for this program. What kind of looney tunes place is this?

“Is torture by food du jour included in our two K a week?” I whispered to Evelyn.

She shrugged. “He’s just showing us that we have to change our eating ways,” she said. “Dr. Hoffman says we fatties have to totally reprogram our brains.”

Reprogram sounded like a cult term. Hopefully they didn’t serve Diet Kool-Aid in the dining room. Cult or no, I was stuck with this place now. Durham’s Channel Twelve was expecting me to produce my weight loss series here. Maybe I could turn the whole assignment into an expose. That’d be a much more interesting story than watching my thighs disappear…

Breaking News!

Sunday, September 30, 2007 West Hollywood Book Festival. Look for Kathryn at the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles booth, 2:00 to 3:00.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Tuesday, approximately 8.45 AM PDTAM 1290 KZSB S anta Barbara

Wednesday, October 3, 2007 AdviceRadio.com Writers, Authors, n' More with Megan Willingham, 5 PM PDT

And now let's go—live!—to a Zombie Gerbil from Outer Space

So I'm looking over my upcoming book tour schedule for DYING TO BE THIN, which launches on October second. The tour includes several highlights that I’m especially thrilled about, including some media appearances (for updates, see my web site.)

Among other places, I’ll be appearing on a morning television show.

That interview will be the first time I’ve set foot inside a TV studio in more than twenty years. And for me, it may prove to be a bittersweet moment.

First, a bit of background:

Twenty-plus years ago, I graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. During my stint at the J School, I concentrated in broadcasting. My dream was to become a television reporter, and perhaps eventually an anchor.
But my academic advisor soon informed me, in no uncertain terms, that to have a career on camera, I’d have to lose weight.

I’d have to lose a lot of weight. At two-hundred-plus pounds, I needed to lose approximately one-half of myself.

This was a tall order, especially in the days before laparoscopic surgery and stomach rings.

To remediate my excess adipose situation, after graduation I packed up my TR6 and sallied south to Durham, North Carolina, the self-proclaimed “Diet Capital of the World.” There, I enrolled in a residential diet clinic (read: fat farm). Nine hungry months later, I left Durham, tipping the scales at 114 pounds. (At five foot five, I figured even TV news would be satisfied with that three-digit number.) Armed with a new designer wardrobe, I soon landed a reporting internship, and later a full-time job, at a station in South Carolina.

But I quickly discovered that the reality of TV news reporting was far different than I’d imagined. The job involved crazy hours (no problem for me), and tons of stress (some problem for me). To my dismay, I also discovered that I suffered from a bit of camera shyness.

Doing live shots was especially challenging. When you do a live shot, you stand there in front of the camera, holding a microphone, addressing hundreds of thousands of people—without a script. To make things worse, you also have a disembodied voice (the studio producer) yakking at you through an earpiece.

Accomplished professionals in TV-News land, like Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric, make live television look easy.

Trust me, it’s not.

There’s a scene in DYING TO BE THIN that addresses the peculiar challenges of live shots:

In this scene, my protagonist, Kate Gallagher, has just finished her first live shot. It’s gone well, and she’s been congratulated by the cameraman:

“Thanks, Reggie,” I said, removing my earpiece. I was riding a huge surge of relief, a high, really, that my maiden live shot had gone so smoothly. I’ve seen first-time live shots go horribly wrong—the reporters get spacey, or they forget what they’re supposed to say entirely and freeze up in front of the camera the way a hairy-footed gerbil gets hypnotized by a cobra.”

True confession time—that was my first live shot I was describing in the book. I was about as polished as a zombie gerbil from outer space.

I eventually recovered from that rough start, and improved. But along the way, I learned that television news wasn’t the right career for me. Nowadays, I’m much happier being ensconced behind the word processor, spinning out stories that turn out just the way I want them to.

To paraphrase Dirty Harry, “A woman’s got to know her limitations.”

But I’m thrilled to get the chance to go back on television as a guest. A studio guest doesn’t have all the pressure of dealing with where the cameras are, or how many seconds are left before the break, or a producer who’s talking through her earpiece.

Guests can just relax, smile, and be themselves.

Ahh…sounds like the perfect assignment for me.

Getting the lard out

This week brought about a sea change in my approach to personal fitness.

Prompted by last week’s faux health scare, I’ve done a lot of soul searching. The upshot is that I’ve taken charge—really taken charge, this time—of my fitness goals. And I’m not just talking about losing weight—I’m talking cardiovascular health, muscular flexibility, and any other health index that I can impact favorably with diet and exercise.

To brainstorm a plan of action, last Friday I met with my family doctor. After taking my vital readings, he fixed me with his best Stern Doctor’s-eye, then socked it to me with some strict lifestyle prescriptions.

To achieve a decent level of fitness (not to mention to achieve a minimal level of eye-candy appeal), he told me that I must do the following:

• Rid my larder of any foods that contain hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and anything containing enriched (nouns). Those ingredients, it turns out, are serial killers of cardiovascular health.
  
  Okay, I thought. Granted. Except—do you know how hard that is? Practically everything in my cupboards contains those ingredients. Especially my beloved, convenient meals-in-a-box. You know, the ones where you just add chicken or beef, stir in a cup of water, and—voila! Dinner for four.
  
  Turns out those box-meal babies are loaded with artery-clogging hydrogenated oils. Without those culinary fallbacks, I might—gasp—actually have to cook! How can I be expected to cook on deadline?
  


• Walk thirty minutes a day. Every day, up and down steep hills, or their equivalent on a treadmill.
  
  I really hate this one. ‘Nuff said.
  


• Work out with weight resistance.
  
  I dusted off the free weights that have been rusting under my bed, and started alternating upper body and lower body workout days, using Body for Life by Bill Phillips as a guideline. There hasn’t been a dramatic transformation yet, but it does seem slightly easier to carry a 10-pound bag of kitty litter in from the car.
  


• Take up a stress-relieving pastime, like Yoga.
  
  Here’s the scoop on me and Yoga—whenever I pretzel my limbs into an Awkward Chair Pose, I have to combat an overwhelming urge to burst into giggles. All right, then—sheesh—maybe I’ll try Tai Chi. But wait—some Falun Gong practitioners hang out on the beach where I walk every morning. Maybe I can join forces with them, and become a fellow Enemy Number One of the Chinese Communist Party. At the very least, becoming a political cause célèbre would keep me from dissolving into a gigglefest every time I do my Uranus poses, or whatever-the-heck they call them.
  

High points of the week

After just a week on my new regimen, I’ve noticed some encouraging results:

• I feel a surge of new energy.


• My system has become more regular (I’ll spare you anything further on that).


• I feet…lighter. Substantially lighter, even though I lost only a pound.


• I feel less stress.


• My blood pressure has gone down.


• I feel more present in my body (don’t ask me what the heck that means. But it feels good).

Low point of the week

On Sunday around noon, I was overwhelmed by a sudden, sharp craving for a hot dog. I piled into my TR6 and drove up and down PCH until I found a place called Waldo’s Woofers, whereupon I downed Waldo’s Barkin’ Dog Special, a twelve-inch hot dog laden with chili, onion, and mustard. It was as if my system was experiencing nitrate withdrawal, and demanded a fix.

I sincerely regret that.

Guilty pleasure of the week

Am I the last person on the planet to discover Bravo’s TV series called Work Out, starring Jackie Warner? She’s a personal trainer who runs a gym called Skylab in Beverly Hills. Skylab is a fitness camp where you can immerse yourself in a regimen of fitness and nutrition. If only I were within reasonable driving distance of that gym, I would sign up!

Their web site is:
http://www.bravotv.com/Work_Out/index.shtml

Go forth this week, and get fit!

A heartfelt weigh-in

Normally, I’m the kind of gal who takes a light-hearted approach to diet and exercise.

For example, in The Fat City Mysteries, one of my characters likes to brag about how she trades in her Weight Watcher points for Frequent Fryer Miles at In-N-Out.

But earlier this week, I received a sobering reality check. As we used to say in the evangelical south, I had a real “Come to Jesus” meeting.

This particular meet up with Himself began with an impromptu visit to an urgent care clinic. It ended with my staring at an echocardiogram image, wondering if the beating muscle inside my chest was about to flame out.

I started out that particular morning feeling not so great. Then it dawned on me—I’d been feeling not-so-great for more than a week.

It’s probably just stress, I thought, this sense of being run down, accompanied by shortness of breath and a little pressure in the chest area. But just to be sure, I traipsed down to an urgent care facility. Heck, I thought, I might even be able to get a little something to take the edge off, like a prescription for beta-blockers.

As the technician hooked me up to an EKG machine, I could tell by the doctor’s expression that he was already warming up his lecture to “relax, get more regular exercise, and lay off the recreational beverages, young lady.”

But minutes later, he came hard-charging back into the patient room, brandishing my EKG read-out.

“Abnormal,” was the verdict. This might mean, he explained, that I’d had a heart attack in the past. Or it might mean that I could have a heart attack in the future. Or it might mean…gulp…that I was having a heart attack—right then. Or, it might mean nothing at all.

“In an abundance of caution, I’ve written a prescription for nitroglycerin and booked an immediate appointment with a cardiologist," the doctor said. "Take the nitroglycerin if the symptoms get worse before you get there.”

That got my attention. Nitroglycerin is the pharmaceutical equivalent of TNT. It’s what they use to depth charge your ticker back into keeping time. The other striking words were “abundance of caution.” Abundance, my ass. That’s what NASA says when they send their astronauts out on a risky spacewalk to make sure the shuttle won’t burn into a cinder upon reentry.

Next thing I knew, I was at the cardiologist’s office, getting bumped ahead of all the seventy-and-eighty-year olds who were waiting for their pacemaker appointments.

After doing a stress cardiogram, I lay on the technician’s table, watching the images of my heart beating on the screen. The pictures looked like an entry into Jupiter’s atmosphere in a Stanley Kubrick film. All misty, swirling grays, illuminated by electric storms of neon red and blue. It was an amazing display. It was my heart.

That’s the thing that keeps me going, was all I could think.

In reply, my heart beat back, And what have you done for me lately?

The answer was, not much.

Eventually, the cardiologist came back with a new verdict: everything was normal. I was perfectly okay, and could go home. I didn’t even get any beta-blockers out of the ordeal.

But this week’s false alarm has really changed my attitude about heart health.

As I’m probably the last person on earth to discover, heart disease is the Number One killer of women in the United States. Number One! More women die of heart disease than the next six causes combined. And, as I learned from Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Oz: one out of every two women will die from cardiovascular disease (which impacts your body beyond just the heart).

Yet, we women don’t seem to have the same level of awareness about our hearts and cardiovascular disease that we do about, say, breast cancer.

I, for one, am getting religion on this subject. I have resolved not to take matters of the heart lightly anymore.

There’s a free program sponsored by the American Heart Association, targeted at raising women’s physical activity and levels of heart health:

http://www.choosetomove.org/index.html

For ongoing updates about women and heart disease, see The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease:

http://www.womenheart.org/

And if you haven’t seen the Oprah Winfrey shows about heart health, take a look at her web site, which contains some awesome information and advice:

http://www.oprah.com/

I’m not forgetting the men: you count, too!

So I’m interested to know, what do you do on a daily basis to improve the health of your heart?

Signing off now, to take a brisk, aerobic walk!

She ain’t heavy—she’s Venus, dammit!

Recently, one of my beta readers demanded to know how my book’s protagonist, Kate Gallagher, can attract men so easily, even though she is—to quote Beta—“stout.”

As described in the books, Kate is five foot five and a hundred and fifty-five pounds. Is she trying to lose weight? Yes. Is she unattractive? Not in the least. In fact, she’s a traditional Irish beauty, with wavy auburn hair, sculptured cheekbones, and an hourglass figure.

But Beta kept complaining about how “portly” she is. He had trouble believing that she could attract a high-powered boyfriend.

After several go-rounds, I finally told Beta—who is an older gentleman—that it is quite possible for someone of Kate’s height and weight to attract a desirable partner. “I speak from personal experience,” I told him.

“But you’re thin,” he said to me. “That doesn’t count.”

I stared at him, then burst into laughter. “I’m the same height as Kate, and I weigh more than she does,” I said.

Beta was genuinely shocked. “I had no idea,” he whispered, as if I’d just revealed that I was harboring the Ebola virus.

The whole discussion got me wondering—is this gentleman just exceptionally uninformed about what women-of-a-certain weight actually look like, or is there something else going on?

As a society, perhaps we’re simply not used to seeing average-weight women—women who are not obese, but who are definitely not thin—presented as sexual beings.

In films, literature and the media, there don’t seem to be very many examples to choose from.

One heavy woman character (if you can call her “heavy”) who was also sexual, was Bridget Jones. She was wildly popular—especially with women readers.

Back when the movie came out, I recall attending a screening in Hollywood. When Renee Zellweger, who played Bridget Jones, first appeared onscreen, there was a audible gasp from the audience. The Hollywood wives and moguls recoiled as they got their first glimpse of the actress, who’d gained weight for the role.

Like my gentleman reader, they were shocked. And disgusted.

That gasp notwithstanding, I think that there are many heavier women out there who are gorgeous, and who know it. They have no problem attracting men. But they don’t see themselves accurately reflected in popular media. And they’d like to.

Hmmm….do I hear “target audience”?

Obesity's Typhoid Mary

Recently, researchers came out with a study that indicated that obesity is a socially communicable disease.

When a newly obese person gains seventeen pounds, according to this study, the studied-person’s friend gains five pounds.

Humph. That study is really annoying.

Allow me to present a counter-argument for the defense.

The information that I will share with you now should put this study’s results to rest, forevermore. (Admittedly, this data is based on my own anecdotal evidence. So, empiricists, I ain’t talkin’ to you, you got that?)

From time to time over the course of my life, I have been overweight. You could even say that I’ve been significantly overweight during certain periods. Like, during the 1980’s. And the 1990’s. And portions of the new millennium.

(Because I have a creative bone in my body, I’ve been able to make lemonade out of this lemon in life. For example, my experiences led me to create the Fat City Mysteries and DYING TO BE THIN, which debuts on October 2nd, 2007.)

But, have I been a Typhoid Mary of Obesity, in terms of my impact within my circle of friends?

No.

My best friends date back to my college years. As a group, they would be rated as “normal weight to thin,” according to the Ediets rating system. A couple of them might even be considered to be verging on the anorexic (especially those friends who reside on the West Side of New York).

My knowing these fine ladies hasn’t added an ounce to their thighs, nor has it reduced the readout of my weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers. There is no discernible “friend effect.” I wish, wish, wish there were. If you could get thinner by hanging out with skinny people, I’d be dogging every social X-ray on the planet, vying to become their new best friend. You say you’re an addict? No problem. Homeless? Nada problemo. If you’re thin, you’re in.

To be fair, I have to admit that my very best friend in the world does have a slight weight problem. More than slight, actually. She’s morbidly obese. But am I to blame for her not losing weight? Or vice versa? I think not.

On the other hand, when we’re at dinner and talking about clothes shopping, I do reassure myself that as long as I can shop at Banana Republic, and not at Lane Bryant, I must be okay. Maybe that self-reassurance does allow me to carry the odd pound or two in excess of what I’d feel comfortable with if my dining-mate shopped at the 3-5-9 store.

Bottom line is, when you’re dining with your best bud at Hamburger Hamlet and you’re eying the Brownie Mountain on the dessert menu, you just don’t want to think about it, yanno?

So maybe that study was right, after all.

But still, it's really annoying.

Beach bunnies and other biohazards

Too many Bods Beautiful can be hazardous to your health—to your body image health, that is.

One of the mixed blessings of living in my Southern California beach city is that nearly everyone looks like they jumped off the cover of Shape Magazine or Men’s Fitness. Along the shore where I take my morning constitutional, perfect physiques are everywhere. Playing volleyball in bikinis, running in cropped tees and short shorts, flexing biceps—I mean, they’re everywhere.

And that can be a real downer for an Average Jane like me. Because instead of a six-pack, I have a party pack.

As I schlep and sweat along in my Chico’s Size 2 tracksuit (A Chico’s Size 2 is not like a Real Size 2, by the way. It’s more like a Real Size 12...plus), I try to cheer myself on for doing the exercise, for losing the half-pound that I somehow sandblasted off this week.

But that’s kind of like trying to celebrate having climbed Mount Porcupine when you’re surrounded by the team that just scaled Mount Everest.

I know I’m not the only person whose sense of body self suffers by unrealistic comparisons. Because even if you don’t live by the beach, you’re still exposed to airbrushed images in magazines. And those images have a measurable impact (negative, natch) on body image.

According to studies, the average woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. I don’t have to tell you who winds up on the magazine covers. And even those models get airbrushed and touched up to a fare-thee-well.

So if you’re benchmarking your body image against those ideals, fuggedaboutit.

At the moment, I’m just trying to focus on small, attainable goals. Like getting from Chico’s Size 2 to Chico’s Size 1. Or excavating a long-missing muscle that’s been buried somewhere underneath the party pack.

Meanwhile, I’ll try not to let the Bods Beautiful get me down. After all, women like me still have Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.” Those babies got back.

At last, an advertising image I can identify with. And cling to.

Gone walkabout: observing urban wildlife

One of the delights of my new walking regimen is that I get to observe the local wildlife.

Before I started taking the morning walks, I had no idea that my city even had wildlife, except for seagulls and car alarm birds. (Car alarm birds are actually mockingbirds, I think. They’re dead-on mimics of our neighbors’ rude auto alarms: whoop-whoop-whoop, enh-enh-enh. You get the idea.).

In our congested city-by-the sea, the McMansions and aging beach cottages are packed in cheek-to-jowl, fringed by decorative strips. In an environment like that, where could wildlife breed, or even hang out?

The little critters breed and hang out anywhere and everywhere, I’ve now learned.

I first sighted some real urban fauna in a cluster of palm trees near City Hall. As I passed by, I heard a flock of noisy birds squawking in the fronds. I mean, these birds were really noisy. And they were green.

To me, they looked like parrots.

“Parrots?” My husband said, when I returned home, breathless with excitement at having discovered an exotic species so close to home. “No,” he said, sighing with the air of a world-weary ornithologist. “They must be pigeons.”

“But they’re green.”

“They must be green…pigeons.”

It took several more sightings for me to convince myself (and him) that the birds were, indeed, parrots. I’ve read stories about the famous parrots of San Francisco. Turns out, my little city has tons of them.

Then, I inhaled evidence of a less favored fauna--Pepe Le Pew.

One morning, as I set off on my pre-dawn walk, I caught a glimpse of him, trundling along. It was Pepe.

“I saw a skunk this morning,” I informed my husband. “So that’s what the smell in the morning is, the one we thought was a gas leak.”

“It must have been a cat,” he rejoined. “Can’t be skunks around here.”

“What kind of cat smells like that?” I asked.

“Smelly cat?”

“It had a stripe down its back.”

“Tabby cat wearing vertical stripes?”

Since Pepe, my walkabouts have confirmed that our neighborhood teems with wildlife—everything from possum to an incredible variety of brightly colored birds. I’m especially aware of the birds around this time of year. Our house is the only one in the immediate area that has real trees. Our trees become an annual nursery ward for hatchlings. And from just a few neighborhoods away come rumors of deer and coyote sightings.

My newfound appreciation of urban wildlife aside, I wouldn’t relish running into a coyote during my morning walks.

My lust for safari adventure has its limits.

-- Kathryn Lilley

Sand walking: a killer workout

Oh. My. God.

I discovered sand walking this week. Talk about a killer workout.

Before sand walking, I was doing brisk-but-not-brutal walks along the boardwalk by the Pacific Ocean, five mornings a week.

I usually set off on my walk around six a.m. This is a time of day when only die-hard joggers, dog walkers and the occasional urban wastrel can be found along the beaches of my Southern California city.

Each morning, I set out from my house and head down the hill toward the sea. Ten minutes later I hit the Strand, a cement pathway that parallels the shore. I pump my arms, striding vigorously. I feel virtuous. My forward-canted pace is bouncy with the belief that today, I will wrestle my demons-of-the-flesh to earth. Today, I will take control of my body.

But no matter how hard I push my heel-toe cadence, rocking along to my Jenny Craig walking tapes, I can’t seem to boost my heart rate into the fat burning zone.

And I can’t lose weight.

I’ve read that this is because your body “adjusts” to a workout. (I say, if your body “adjusts” to a workout, why can’t it “adjust” to overeating, and not put on pounds?)

So I’ve been looking for a way to shake up my routine. And then, last week, I looked west toward the Pacific Ocean. And saw: The Sand.

I’ll just walk on the sand, I thought. Maybe that will be different. I stepped into the Sand Zone.

And yes, sand walking was different. Sand walking was so different that five minutes later, I was beet-faced and gasping for breath. After only five minutes, I had to retreat back to the Strand, sucking in air like a stressed-out puffer fish.

Understand that I’m not talking about walking on the wet, hard-packed sand by the water, where you can dangle your flip-flops from your pinkie finger while you stroll along the surf, looking sexy.

I’m talking the killer white, uneven, fluffy stuff. Try looking sexy walking across that.

I did a little research and discovered that when you walk on sand, your caloric output increases by as much as fifty percent.

And my scales have noticed the difference. I lost two pounds this week, without changing what I eat. Hallelujah!

Now, if only I could write sand walking into my second mystery, A KILLER WORKOUT, which is coming out in 2008. But that story is set in the Great Smoky Mountains, which are short on beaches.

However, they do have cliffs, where you have to really watch your step.

Mountain climbing as aerobic activity. Hmm…I’ll have to try that and report back.

Life in the Fat City

Today’s topic is my life-long hobby: diet and exercise.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the definition of the word “hobby” is “An activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure."

Okay, so dieting and exercise doesn’t really fall into that category. No one diets or exercises for pleasure, do they? (If you do, kudos to you, but you probably won’t relate to this rant. You might want to try Googling “Jack Lalanne” or “Bill Phillips” for like-minded souls).

So I’ll just seize on the part of the definition that defines a hobby as being “outside one’s regular occupation.”

My “regular occupation” is writing and editing. Roughly speaking, this means that I get up at four a.m., turn on the laptop, and make a pot of coffee. Then I stare, bleary-eyed, at the computer screen, until I have to take my daughter to school.

That done, I’m faced with a choice: to exercise, or not? To launch a day of healthy eating, or not?

Sounds simple, but in practice, it’s a daily struggle. And like the Roman Empire’s battle against the Visigoths, it’s a struggle that I am slowly, inexorably losing, with the occasional shocking setback.

I once knew a guy who had an awesome physique. He went to the gym—every day—after work. I remember him talking disdainfully about people who joined the gym on January first, only to disappear sometime during the month of February.

I heard his complaint with a hollow pang of recognition. He could have been describing me: I was a January Joiner, and a February Failure.

Along the way, however, there are victories. While I may not actually be using my gym membership or counting my Weight Watcher points (until next January, that is), I have now incorporated diet and exercise into a new mystery series, called—what else? —The Fat City Mysteries.

The Fat City Mysteries are set in Durham, North Carolina, the self-proclaimed “Diet Capital of the World.” They feature a spunky, slightly chunky TV journalist-turned-sleuth, Kate Gallagher. Like me, Kate is forever fighting the Battle of the Bulge. But unlike me, she chalks up more wins than losses. The first book, DYING TO BE THIN, comes out in October. The second, A KILLER WORKOUT, comes out next year.

I relate to Kate. I once had to lose 90 pounds to land a job on camera as a TV reporter. And even today, I avoid the street that goes past 31 Flavors.

That’s because, when you’re a perpetual dieter, it pays to know your limits.

-- Kathryn

www.kathrynlilley.com