HEALTH & BEAUTY
She stoops to Conquer
I
n the last issue i channelled a fifteenth century German philosopher in my examination of friendships; this time I have turned to a French military theorist, Ferdinand
Foch, for my inspiration on succeeding. This column is getting very high brow indeed – pun intended… By the way, health and beauty is not the vacuous self-centred high maintenance platform some think it is. Having a beautiful mind and a healthy heart are the very pinnacle of the state of being we are trying to achieve. The rest of it is just set dressing and we can pick and choose the bits we whole-heartedly sign up for or reject as nonsense. monsieur Foch’s bon mots are; ‘the will to conquer is
the first condition of victory’. If you really want to succeed you have to really want
to. I know that sounds like I am assuming you are not getting the concept but how many of us don’t achieve what we set out to? There are no half measures on the road to success. How many times have you started a new regime and fallen at the first hurdle? a new diet is scuppered by an invitation to supper where you eat and drink to be polite (!) and never quite make it back to the track. On receiving an invitation to a fabulous social
as you did not put in the hard work or have the steely determination that any significant change requires. You have to want it and want it badly. The times when that is easy and the times when that is hard have no truck with rhyme or reason. Basically the ‘want it switch’ has to be flipped for any chance of victory. super human strength comes to Mothers as they lift the car that has pinned their child to the ground so use that as your touch stone in this exercise. Regularity seems to be one of the keys to success.
Keeping
event in four months time, do you decide then and there to drop ten pounds in order to cause jaws to drop as you enter the room? It’s a sad fact that even that carrot cannot be relied on to whip us into shape and we enter dressed in black, head to toe, trying to blend into the walls. It’s even sadder if you base your happiness and social standing on what you weigh. We all know its nonsense but fall prey to it anyway due to endless images of skinny celebrities. Damn you ‘Hello’ magazine! Other stumbling blocks can get in the way. A vow to walk a mile a day before breakfast takes a back seat when you trip over the cat and hurt your toe. Body brushing or regular exfoliation are abandoned after three days of vigorous over doing it and you ‘over peel’ to the point where it hurts! It may seem you didn’t really want to make that change
exercise bits and bobs around the house works for me.
Start out slowly and don’t make grandiose plans and pledges. You have to win the individual battles to win the war. Five minutes a day of anything is achievable. Very soon the five minutes will seem easy and you can add another minute or two every week until you reach a point where you will see results whether its in weight loss (or gain!), clearer skin, better circulation and so on. choose things that fit in with your daily commitments. Actually attending an exercise class of any kind requires not just the hour the class lasts, but the journey to and fro, the placement of the children/dogs during this time, the cost, the distance from your home and a positive plethora of other criteria which would bring a government ministry to his knees and not in a way that a Pilates instructor would applaud.
Supplement your sporadic attendance at classes by
buying a few exercise bands, some light hand weights and an exercise DVD that you can pop on at a time that suits you. Those that are based on ballet barre classes are great for strengthening and toning, which result in long lean muscles and do not need a large floor area or special equipment to get going. Keeping exercise bits and bobs around the house works
for me. I have a stretchy band next to the kettle and do arm exercises while the kettle boils and my fondness for tea means I have no excuse not to repeat these at least twice a day. In fact, some days I fail even to do that but keep that under your hat please…
Plies (knee bends to those civilians not talented enough to be in the corps de ballet), squats and leg lifts can be
Illustrations by Lisa Wyman
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132