Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

Over the weekend I tried a new exercise for the first time: the burpee.

Basically, you start standing, squat down, kick your legs out behind you, do a push-up, come up to squatting, and jump as high as you can.

First off, how did this exercise get such a weird name? From the Wikipedia article:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the exercise was named in the 1930s for American psychologist Royal H. Burpee, who developed the Burpee test. Consisting of a series of the exercises performed in rapid succession, the test was meant to measure agility and coordination. It is not clear whether the exercise itself was invented by Burpee, or if his test merely popularized it.

The burpee seems to be a big part of Cross Fit, while Cross Fitters often seem to eat paleo, which I’m trying to do (at least paleo-ish). Hence, that brings me to the burpee and other intense exercises that take up less time than my usual one-hour cardio or yoga schtick (neither of which I felt like doing yesterday).

This site offers a few good examples of burpee routines (I think it’s funny that the first “You Might Like” article is “How to Get Pecs” – no thanks!).  I tried a variation: 10 sets of 10 burpees in a row.  I did a couple of sets of very easy burpees (no jumping or push-up).  Piece of cake, I thought.  I started incorporating push-ups, which were hard as fuck, especially since I did yoga yesterday with a generous number of chaturangas.  I found them so difficult, I could barely do a full push-up, to tell the truth.

For the rest of my sets, I alternated between very easy burpees and push-up ones (still no jumping in consideration of neighbors), resting for about ten or 20 seconds in between, depending on how tired I was, because after a while, I started to get really tired.  And incredibly sweaty.  My heart was pumping like I had been sprinting.  By the end of maybe a 15 minute routine, I was dripping in sweat and totally out of breath.

Either I’m not as in good shape as I thought I was, or the burpee is indeed the kick-ass exercise that Cross Fitters and paleos claim it is.

The next day I was totally feeling it.  My inner thighs were killing me, and I was sore under and in front of my arms, as well as the muscles in my lower back.  And my thighs felt strong and beefy.

I know I’ll be doing them again in the very near future.  If I can, that is.

For months now, I’ve been on a quest for a pair of jeans that fit.

Back when I was skinny, almost any jeans would do. My favorites were from a store that shall go nameless due to the enormous amount of spam I get. Let’s just say, “Fall into the. . .” Get it? Good. Anyway, I had a couple of different sizes, a smaller one for my thin days and a bigger one for my regular days. For several years, the smaller size fit, then not, so the bigger size did fine for a very long time.

How long? Seven years. Is that even long for jean-years? Well, it was long enough for the seat and knees to get pretty thin, but I figured as long as there were no holes, I could keep wearing them.

Then three things happened within just a couple of weeks: 1) I somehow got a hole in the butt, 2) I fell in my giant rain boots and ripped a small hole in the knee, and 3) MB thought it would be hilarious to put his finger in the butt hole (OF MY JEANS, dirty thinkers) and tug. The next thing we knew –

RIIIIIIIIP!

That was it, my security blanket destroyed.

“I didn’t know it would rip so easily!” MB claimed.

“I have no jeans to wear now!” I cried. This wasn’t entirely true. I did have two other pairs, one that’s slightly too big, and another that’s slightly too small. The ripped jeans were the ones that were just right.

Or at least I thought so. True, they were not very flattering. While the legs were fine, the waist, hips, and butt were a little big, and made me look bigger. But they were super comfortable, so who cared?

I returned to the store where I got the jeans, but of course they don’t make them anymore. I tried a million pairs, in various sizes and styles. Low waist, modern boot, straight leg, blah blah. The only ones I didn’t try were the skinny jeans (which of course dominate every store now) because the one time I did, I couldn’t even get one leg in, let alone two. My size varied so much from pants to pants: good in the legs, too big in the waist; good in the waist, too tight in the legs; too long, even in petite.

At home stuffed in a drawer were a pair I bought when I first moved to SF. They fit and felt comfortable – stretchy material helps – but when I got the home, I didn’t like how they looked. Too hippy. I kept meaning to return them, but more than a year later, I still hadn’t.

After my recent shopping debacle, I decided to try them again. And I was surprised to see they actually looked better. I’ve lost a wee bit of weight trying to lower my cholesterol, so my hips are less bulbous. And they were even more comfy than I remembered.

On a day I worked from home, I decided to test them out. I wore them in public and no one pointed and gagged. Then I wore them to work. Even sitting they fit well (though after lunch they did jam into my belly a little), and they were easy to tuck into my rain boots.

Yesterday, taking advantage of the nice weather, MB and I hit another jeans store. This was extra challenging because the sizes were European. Am I 27, 28, 29? Turns out, at least in some jeans, I’m a 28 X 30, which depending on who you ask is a 6 or an 8. But whatevs. After trying on a million pants, I found some that actually fit!

“After all those jeans,” MB said, “you found one.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s a good day.”

Now that I have jeans that look good, I feel more incentive to keep them that way. In other words, to lose just a few more pounds. I won’t go crazy with dieting, but will try to keep up healthy eating with fewer splurges and more exercise. While I’ve been very good about yoga, lately I’ve been awful about getting in enough cardio.

By the way, MB ripped a pair of his own jeans too. Like mine, it started with a tiny hole in the butt area, and then he tore it open on purpose. However, his search should be far easier than mine was.

Yoga before cardio, that is.

I admire people who get really sweaty during yoga.  My brother says his mat is slippery by the end of his workout.  There’s a guy in my class who’s positively dripping mid-way through and has to towel off several times. And he’s not one of those hard-bodied experts. He’s just above average, like me.

I usually do cardio before going to yoga class.  A three- or four-mile run, or 40 minutes on the elliptical.  As a result, I’m already pretty sweaty by the time I get to class, and because I usually perspire for quite a while after a workout, I do so during yoga as well. So I never know if it’s the yoga or the post-workout ooze-fest.

Yesterday I left the house late and so went straight to yoga instead of running beforehand.  I thought it would a good experiment to see just how intense the class is by measuring my no-cardio sweat level.

The experiment went well.  Because my muscles weren’t already fatigued, I was able to push myself a lot more.  By 20 minutes into the class, I was schvitzing.  By the time we did Half Moon Pose, sweat was dripping off my nose onto the floor (I can’t turn my gaze up yet). Afterward, my legs were like Jell-O, but I still had energy to run.  Three miles, woohoo!

Today I’m sore all over – my shoulders, parts of my back, my butt, and my quads.  Hurts so good.

I will have to try the yoga then cardio thing again.

MB and I saw Black Swan the other night.  We both enjoyed it, aside from some motion sickness-inducing camera movements.

I’ve taken exactly one month of ballet and tap, when I was four.  I quit so fast because I found ballet boring – why weren’t we DANCING? why were we just lined up in a row with our arms out? – and I’d always freak out because my mother would disappear.  I don’t know where she’d go. Grocery shopping maybe, or maybe she’d just go sit in the car. Wherever she went, she wasn’t with me to help me tie my shoes (once I up and asked some random dad, conscious of the fact that I was breaking out of my shyness and that my own parent wasn’t around) or to peek in at me with the other parents as we shuffle-ball-stepped.

Once (or was it every time?) I started to cry and the teacher asked, “What’s wrong, cupcake?”  I knew what a cupcake was, but had never been called such before, and stopped crying for a moment to think about that.

At home my mother would make me practice.  She’d put me in the laundry room where I could tap away without her worrying about my scratching the floor.  But of course I wouldn’t practice.  I’d pretend I was Dorothy and that my tap shoes were ruby slippers.

After I quit, I saved my dancing for my room.  Dancing segued to lip synching, and soon I was pretending I was Olivia Newton-John, then a made-up celebrity triple-threat – actress, singer, and dancer.  I had a litany of made-up movie star names (and I cringe with embarrassment as I type this): Tiffany Volvina, Jazz Silver Rain, Jordan Dane.  I wore my socks out doing pirouettes.

In junior high, I had one friend who was a ballerina.  While most of us were struggling with our weight, Elise stayed skinny by dancing three to four hours every day.  I remember her feet were misshapen from dancing en pointe, and her spine curvy.  Every time we got checked for scoliosis, they always thought she had it.  When she ran in gym class, she looked like a goony bird, lumbering before take-off, but then she’d  jete, and we’d all stare, amazed.

She’d talk about how she’d lose so much weight, preparing for their yearly performance of The Nutcracker, and how during rehearsals, they’d all dress and undress, girls and boys, in front of each other.

I used to wish my parents had made me stay in ballet so that I could be like Elise: lithe, long-legged, tall, and not shy at all.

Part of me still wants that ballet dancer’s body, wiry and strong.  To wake up first thing in the morning like Natalie Portman’s character and crack all my bones.

But I know that unless I’m dancing eight hours a day, I’ll never look like that.  But at least I’ll be inspired to keep working out regularly, to maybe run a bit more and continue doing yoga twice a week.

And I can always pretend I’m a dancer when I crack my toes.

Earlier this morning, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor about my high-ish bad cholesterol.

In case you didn’t already know, I’ve been on a mission for the past few months to lower my LDL. While my New York doctor didn’t see too much of a problem since my good-bad cholesterol ratio was okay, my SF doctor was more concerned and even mentioned meds if my LDL didn’t go down.

Although I’ve been very good about my diet changes, I was still paranoid that my LDL wouldn’t have gone down enough or, God forbid, at all.  Well, I found out the numbers this morning.  Drumroll please. . .

Not only did my bad cholesterol go down, it went down a shit ton: from 137 to 88! The optimal level is apparently under 100. Under 130 I think is okay. My total cholesterol went down from 214 to 157, almost 60 points. Optimal is under 200.

My doctor was so shocked, he jokingly checked to see if they were indeed my records, and asked, “Are you sure I didn’t prescribe you anything?”

I was disappointed my good cholesterol was lower, but he said as long it was over 50, that was good.

I guess my diet changes worked!  The oatmeal for breakfast every day, the salmon and rice for lunch, fish or chicken for dinner.  Lots of veggies all around.  I’ve always only had skim or low or nonfat yogurt so that was no problem.  Also, I cut out burgers, sausage, bacon, baked goods, bad chips, deep fried foods, mayo, ice cream, creamy mochas, fatty instant noodles, and some cheese.

Recently I’ve worked cheese back in.  I can’t resist the (very) occasional  slice of pizza, or these amazing sandwiches from this deli nearby.  As for ice cream cravings, I opt for Skinny Cow, which is actually pretty good!  Still, I shouldn’t be having it every day.

I lost five pounds pretty quickly, but haven’t lost anything more.  I’ve been sort of lazy lately about my workouts, and I want to get back up to working out at least four times a week because in addition to toning up and increasing my HDL, hopefully it will bring down my borderline borderline high blood pressure too.

Yup, it can’t be all good.  There’s a chance I might have borderline borderline hypertension.  So not actual borderline hypertension but not far from it either.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m always a little tense at the doctor’s, or if I really do need to cut back on sodium.  It is true that I’ve been eating lots of Japanese food, which is both tasty and low fat but quite high in sodium.

So I’ll try to cut my salt intake a little and exercise more.  I also want to get a blood pressure measuring machine and monitor myself regularly.  See if my relaxed blood pressure is actually lower.

Another thing to obsess about it just when my cholesterol is under control.