25 + 2 = 27

Whoo-hoo! 2 more lbs. have gone to a better place, leaving me at a weight of 167 this sunny Saturday morning. I've had my walk, eaten my breakfast, and already been out to run some errands. A pot of coffee is on the stove and it's time to finish my special monthly cleaning of the kitchen. While the weekly cleaning only takes me a few hours, the monthly job takes the better part of a day. I try to break it up. Last night, I cleaned the refrigerator. I'm headed out to a matinee later on and then over to visit my nieces, but I'll try to finish the kitchen before the end of the day today.

I haven't really talked about it, but I do have a goal weight in mind. Maybe I'm afraid I'll jinx myself by putting it down in writing. There's a number with me all the time, though. For whatever reason, I've fixated on a goal of 117. This is probably going to sound woefully stereotypical, but that's what I weighed when I graduated from high school. Yes, I know, it's been 18 years. My body's been through war since then. And yet - 117 actually does feel attainable. Through most of my twenties, I maintained a weight somewhere between 120 and 125. I figure if I shoot for the moon, that'll give me a little space to gain back a few pounds while I'm trying to find just the right balance of things.

There! I've said it. No turning back now!!! In the meantime, I like to set smaller goals so I can get a taste of achievement now and then. I've been focused for awhile on 166 and am hoping to see it by next Friday.

It's been a couple months since I discussed the latest "limbering and stretching exercises" I've added to my routine. For those of you who are new to my blog, I began adding some vintage exercises to my fitness regimen late last spring. There are tons of these things written up by beauty and fitness experts in vintage magazines and newspapers. Here's a post from June where I did a round-up of the six exercises I'd been doing every morning. I've added nine more exercises to my daily routine since then. The first is one I do just after getting out of bed in the morning. I strap on those 1-lb. wrist weights to make my arms do some extra work - and away we go. I'm pretty clumsy when I first wake up, but usually feel more steady on my feet by the time I finish this stretch:

7. Rise up on the balls of your feet, bring your arms up overhead, stretching, stretching, stretching everything from toes up, keeping chest high, abdomen in. [20 reps]

The rest of these exercises are done in the evening. I generally tidy up my living room before exercising. If everything's back in its proper place, there's that much more room to move around! I wear the wrist weights for each of these exercises as well. The first is a 1940s twist on an old classic - touching your toes:

8. Take your old friend the floor-touching one, but we prefer the floor-touching one in which you turn on the waist and attempt to touch the floor back of your heels. [20 reps]

This next one is a great stretch for the hips. I've found that my legs need to be fully extended in order to get any real benefit out of this one, so make sure you've got plenty of room:

9. Lie on your back on the floor with your arms stretched wide at shoulders. Keep head and shoulders on the floor while you raise your right foot over and cross the left, aiming to reach with a long stretch a meeting between your right-foot toes and your left-hand fingers. Then reverse, bringing your left foot and right hand into contact. At first the meeting will be very, very formal, the pair not getting together at all. But that’s all right. You’re doing something fine for yourself, your waistline, hipline, thighs, lower back and, indeed, the upper torso comes in for benefit, too. [20 reps]

Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to No. 10. My inner thighs do all the work:

10. ...stand erect, steady yourself by holding to the back of a chair, swing the leg in wide circles. Lift the foot as high as you can. You will be aware of a strong muscle pull from knees to hips... [5 reps]

No time to hit the tennis court? This next exercise mimics the workout the arms get in a favorite women's sport of the era. I love how the person who wrote up this exercise uses a piece of cookware to enhance the movement. What reputable housewife couldn't lay her hands on a pie pan? It's truly an all-access kind of fitness. The housewife who came across this exercise on the woman's page of her newspaper didn't need a country club membership or a tennis racquet in order to get in shape. Nor do we really need gym memberships, treadmills, personal trainers - you name it - in order to do the same today:

11. Simply hold a pie pan or other round, shallow pan in your right hand high above your head and look toward the ceiling as if you were watching for a high ball to come across an imaginary net. As the imaginary ball comes closer, jump a foot off the floor and hit it with the pan, driving it back across the imaginary net to an imaginary opponent. Drop arm to side, count to four slowly, then raise arm, jump and strike at the ball again. Repeat 10 times.

Reverse, holding pan in left hand and make believe that you are a left-handed tennis player. Incidentally, since jumping up and down is a simple exercise which reduces the thighs and hips, an imaginary tennis game a day may serve a double purpose.

Here's the exercise I mentioned in my post on swimming the other day. It's another all-access kind of exercise for the housewife who didn't have access to a pool. I don't have a "single bed" handy myself, so I do this exercise one arm at a time, turning on my bed halfway through so that the arm doing the work is hanging off the edge:

12. The breast stroke exercise is also recommended. Lie across a single bed so that arms and legs are not supported by the bed. Keeping head up with neck straight, stretch arms forward with palms facing each other. Now fling arms wide apart, turning palms in the opposite direction. Do this slowly and deliberately. Repeat 20 times.

You know, it's not always easy to understand exactly what you're supposed to do when reading an exercise. And No. 13 is still a complete mystery to me. When I kneel with my arms stretched overhead and try to bend in this way - it just doesn't work! If I just sort of sit on my knees I can kind of bend from side to side and feel a good stretch in the muscles wrapping around my waist, but I'm not sure if this is really what the author of the exercise intended either. Any ideas?

13. Get on your knees, keeping your back straight and arms stretched overhead. Bend your body sharply to the right side, and lower the hips as far as possible toward the floor. Then raise your body up straight, bend to the left side, and lower hips. Repeat 4 times; rest. 8 to 12 times altogether.

Another twist on an old standard:

14. Stand with arms out to the sides, and kick your right leg across your body, trying to touch the left hand. Feel that stretch? Return leg to position, and kick the left leg. Do 12 times, alternating legs.

This one's a puzzler, too. I get it, but I'm not sure exactly what it's designed to do. Roll off the fat, I guess!

15. Now get down on the floor, flat on your back, with legs straight and arms out to the sides. Keep shoulders flat on the floor. Pull both knees up to your chest and roll them over to left side, then to right. Swing from side to side 6 times; rest. 12 to 18 times altogether.

Some of these vintage exercises may seem a bit strange to me at first, but I eventually find a zone with each of 'em where I can feel the muscles doing some work. I definitely feel much more flexible now than I did a few months ago. If I find myself squatting or bending or stretching to do something at work or at home - movements that might once have made me feel achy or creaky - now I can kind of feel my strength. Do you know what I mean? I guess I'd say that I'm much more conscious of the way I move now. If I'm doing something repetitive, like scrubbing the walls of the shower surround, I'm thinking of the way my arms are moving. If I'm talking on the phone, I'll find myself absentmindedly doing leg lifts.

What's also interesting to me is how these exercises from the 1940s aren't really concerned with some of the body parts that modern exercises focus on. The tush, for instance. And the abs. A co-worker and I were talking the other day about great exercises to tone up the tush, and I realized that not a one of these exercises has really dealt with that area! The first leg lift I do in the morning is great for my abs, but most of the exercises focusing on the midriff seem to deal with muscles wrapping around the waist instead of that abdominal wall in front. I guess it wasn't considered very feminine in that day and age to aspire to a firm tush and powerful abs! There are tons of exercises dealing with the waistline, hips, bust, legs, and arms. The experts writing them up often talk about how important this or that exercise might be to fitting into the slim new fashions of the season:

The summer silhouette, highlighted in all collections of clothes for fall and winter, call for a streamlined figure. Lumps on the thighs, thickness around the waistline and bulges on the hips will be something to worry about once you get out of full, exaggeratedly flaring skirts into the new, straighter one. (August 1940)

The idea is to help get thighs and hips snugly into the trumpet silhouette this fall. (September 1940)

I'll have to keep an eye on this. Goodness knows my waist and hips will benefit from some streamlining - and my legs are getting lots of work with my walks - but I may have to add some modern exercises to the mix at some point to address some of these other areas.