The 7-minute workout

There's been a lot of press lately about a study from the American College of Sports Medicine that posits that we can give our bodies all that they need, exercise-wise, in a mere seven minutes. I'm skeptical. Which is why I'm compelled to give it a whirl for a month to see what all the fuss is about.

My friend Jess (she's the master of fun over at Madison-School Community Recreation) thinks that this workout has potential, but she says she needs proof. So she and I have recruited some guinea pigs to try it for a month to see if it has any impact on their fitness level. I encourage you to play along with us by doing this circuit twice (fine, it's a 14-minute workout, you're already sweaty so stop whining) every day that you don't already have a workout planned. So, if you're running three days a week, do the 14-minute workout on three other days, and take a day for rest. There's even an app to download that leads you through the workout, or you can use this nifty timer.

What have you got to lose?

'Unbearable Lightness'

I'm super excited about "Arrested Development" returning to the TV. While I could never choose a favorite character, I've always been quite taken with Lindsay Bluth, mainly because I think Portia de Rossi is hilarious and never had a chance to show off her ability on "Ally McBeal." Also, I got really creeped out by the rampant anorexia on that show. So I was really jazzed when my hold on de Rossi's memoir, "Unbearable Lightness," finally came up at the public library. I devoured her book this weekend, and I was so touched by de Rossi's honest retelling of her struggle with anorexia and bulimia. She got down to 82 pounds; she had osteoporosis; she showed signs of cirrhosis of the liver; her organs were on the verge of shutting down. She is truly lucky to be alive, and her story is an important cautionary tale about the devastating effects of eating disorders.

She's happy and healthy now, and some of her words really stuck with me:

If you can accept your natural body weight -- the weight that is easy for you to maintain, or your "set point" -- and not force it to beneath your body's natural, healthy weight, then you can live your life free of dieting, or restriction, or feeling guilty every time you eat a slice of your kid's birthday cake. But the key is to accept your body just as it is. Just as I have had to learn to accept that I have thighs that are a little bigger than I'd like, you may have to accept that your arms are naturally a little thicker or your hips are a little wider. In other words, accept yourself. Love your body the way it is and feel grateful toward it. Most important, in order to find real happiness, you must learn to love yourself for the totality of who you are and not just what you look like.

Wise words. To celebrate her journey, I submit this video of Lindsay Bluth (with an awesome assist from Gob) doing her chicken dance. Classic.

Put some Hustle in it

My MSCR Hip Hop Hustle class just blew me away this session. Check them out! It's a 2-minute, high-intensity routine, and these ladies NAILED IT. They had so much energy and completely cracked me up every week; they're sexy, they know it, they totally showed it. Boom!

Ostrich pillow

I absolutely adore napping. Like, it's probably my favorite thing in the world, after ... no. It's my favorite. Which is why I was thrilled to see that someone has dedicated their efforts to finding the perfect nap accessory.

http://www.ostrichpillow.com/

The Ostrich Pillow. Yes.

If you ever feel like buying your favorite yoga teacher a gift, this is perfect. Remember, we let go of judgment in our yoga practice, just like we let go of judgment when dealing with narcoleptic fitness instructors.

Eternal winter

As I looked at the forecast this morning, I saw that the temperatures for this weekend won't rise above 30 degrees. Okay, cruel world, I need something to save my sanity. Remembering last year's St. Patrick's Day weekend, with its temperatures in the upper 70s, is really not helping. So what's a girl to do when stuck inside on a miserably cold weekend in March? Dance!

I'm going to work up this routine for my next round of Hip Hop Hustle with MSCR, which starts on April 4. I trust that by then, we'll have shrugged off this winter malaise and the world will be ready for the sweet, sweet moves of my Hustlers. If you want in on the action, sign up online through MSCR.

Fattest guy in the room

I have this friend, see. His name is Kevin, and he's part-dad, part-robot, part-reallycoolguy. And he  decided to get healthy. I'm feeling really inspired by him, and I'm excited to walk with him on his journey. On his blog, he asked for some healthy recipes, and since I'm planning on trying a new one today, a coconut curry kale and sweet potato soup I read about in Yoga Journal, I thought I'd share it here and let all of you know how it turns out.

Also, I had to repost his Portlandia clip about pasta addicts because it's hilarious.

Obsession? Pain?

In a bid to understand why people love hot yoga, I picked up Benjamin Lorr's new book, "Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga." In the book, Lorr falls in love with Bikram Yoga because it helps him lose a bunch of weight and get into crazy good shape. So he quits his job and commits to spending nine weeks in a shabby  hotel so that he can train to be a Bikram teacher, spending $11,000 for the privilege. His journey is a definite must-read for yoga geeks like me, because he makes some excellent points about what it means to practice yoga. Watch Lorr talk about his journey here.

For one, he mentions that "to define yoga is to limit yoga." The physical extremes that he and his fellow yogis strive for actually look nothing like the yoga that most people experience in class; but knowing that the body can achieve such extremes does illustrate yoga's unlimited reach.

For me, I can't help but think about Brahmacharya. That's the yama, or yogic restraint, of nonexcess. To practice yoga to a point where an arm and shoulder become completely paralyzed, as in Lorr's case, is to ignore the concept of moderation that is so important for wellness. As Deborah Adele says in her excellent book "The Yamas & Niyamas,"

In yogic thought, there is a moment in time when we reach the perfect limit of what we are engaged in. It is this moment of "just enough" that we need to recognize.

Basically, Brahmacharya just reinforces the common sense approach of "moderation in all things." Maybe heating a room to 110+ degrees and backbending until you lose control of a limb isn't the best idea, but it's important to test your limits once in awhile in order to feel truly alive.