There is nothing more shocking to me than sitting with a group of beautiful, thin models and then realizing they have a worse body image than me, an overweight chick! They are so body obessed I can't really express it!! This is not the gals that stretch their hands to grab a tiny bit of stomach fat and sigh that they are so fat so that they can get attention from us fat chicks telling them that they are NOT fat. These are gals that are truly FREAKED about their bodies......
I don't know if what I am about to share exists everywhere, but my family back east always shake their heads when we talk about this stuff.....I thought that I would share some of these with you all! Remember CA is the 8th largest economy in the world...and people will spend money here!
Billy Blanks Tae Bo studio is right up the street from my house. The studio is all glass, so you can watch all of the people working out. There isn't a person in there that isn't in perfect shape, and it is kind of funny that in the winter time, the big windows get all fogged up.
We have pilates, gyrotonics, kickboxing, boxing, and a myriad of cardio options.....There are people the come to your house and take you for walks, come and stretch you. There are people that you can pay 50.00 a week that will hold you accountable to your food plan. I am not commenting on whether or not these things are good or not, just that they exist (and they are working because people are getting results).
You can order meals that are delivered to your house, from two meals a day to three meals and a snack for a fee of about 250 a week. You can also hire a personal chef for $50 a day (my friend cooks for celebs here, and I do share some of her food ideas that have been altered for lo carb plan)
They also do something here called Bikram's Yoga. It is yoga in a room that is heated up to I think 95 or 100 degrees. I want to try it, but I am not in good enough shape, and I am worried about the smell...My friend that goes every week has no sense of smell, so it doesn't bother her. I really like the idea of the heat and the stretching, but if it stinks like BO I won't dig it!
We have the "stairs" -that's a set of stairs in Santa Monica that peopel like Arnold Schwarzzenger runs with, there are pilates studios now rivaling gas stations. Magic Johnson has his own 24 hour Fitness Studios...and there is a gym that costs 2000 to join and 150 a month, it has valet parking, private trainers and its own store!! It is beautiful....you would think it was a hotel.
There are places you can go that they will plug in electrodes to you and work your muscles (this is real, they use these things on patients with comas to keep the muscles from atrophy). Then there is the Krav Maga studios (the National training center is here) Krav Maga is what J. Lo did in that stupid movie last year "Enough"
It does make things interesting out here in the exercise front, how maybe the heat was broken in a studio and someone develops a "new fangled" yoga --the guys making tons of money right now..."training" other instuctors--just turn the damn heat up!!
I myself are leaning in the curves direction right now.....it all doesn't matter all we need to do is MOVE
Happy Exercising and hope that I made you chuckle!
-rb
