June 28, 2012

The Monster in the Basement


Recently a creature has been frequenting our basement and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

It's loud and annoying and a little bit scary. It grunts and gasps and barks and yelps. It thuds and slams and even shrieks.

The beast cackles and guffaws and makes sudden explosive "HA!" and "YEAH!" sounds. Worst of all, it sings off-key, loudly and nonsensically, because it has on headphones and can't hear itself and also can't remember lyrics so it makes shit up. The creature also sometimes takes off its shirt when it gets hot and prances around in indecently in just a bra. Well, two bras, actually, because it doesn't like to bounce.

Yep, as you may have guessed by now, the monster in the basement is... me.

June 25, 2012

Teva Fuse-Ion Shoes, Lark Winner and More About Stuff!


The summer Product Parade continues here at Cranky Fitness, but fear not, Product-Averse People, it's also the debut of the Cranky Enlightenment blog, at which there is an actual post today!

Yep, as you may have guessed, Crabby got greedy again. She's been snapping up review opportunities right and left and up and down and sideways, even if some of the products aren't reader giveaways. After playing around with her new toys, it belatedly occurred to the covetous crustacean that she might need to eventually cough up some feedback. She hopes that sponsors never, ever stop sending free stuff!

So today, it's a review of Teva Fuse-Ion Shoes, pictured above.

But all this me leads to a question: For those of you who like giveaways or will tolerate reviews, what sort of stuff appeals to YOU? Do you like electronic gadgets? DVD workouts? Yoga mats? Powder Designed to Remedy Buttock Odor Reminiscent of Monkeys? (Note: you may need to check out the Cranky Fitness Facebook page from last week to discover what that was all about.)

Anyway, stay tuned to find out who won the Lark Sleep-Measuring Doohickey, or check out the Teva shoes, or weigh in on preferred giveaway contests. Then if you got a minute, go visit the new blog!

June 19, 2012

Can't Sleep? High Tech to the Rescue! (Review and Giveaway)

Whatever it takes.

Anyone ever have trouble sleeping? Show of hands?

Oh goodness, that's quite a few of you!

Well let's see what we've got here.  Hmm, a review of Sheex Performance Bedding, and a reader giveaway of the LARK sleep sensor and docking station.

Plus the usual irrelevant prattle that Crabby Slacker is famous for would be famous for, if she were famous.

June 17, 2012

Let's Break The Blog!




The blog is currently under construction, so please avert your eyes. It could get way ugly up in here.

Thanks and have a great weekend! Or a great week, depending on how badly I break it.

Photo: akeg

June 13, 2012

Booty Camp DVD Winner, Giveaway Angst, & Mega-Thanks


So a winner of the Booty Camp DVD program has been chosen, hooray!

But honestly, the selection process was painful. A number of you were so helpful, amusing, compelling and awesome in meeting the suggested entry requirements that I felt even more crappy than usual facing the reality that only one winner could be selected.



Having the random number generator be part of the process helped, but it only did some of the narrowing. The whole thing is making me think twice about having a non-random aspect to giveaways in the future.

June 11, 2012

Maxing Out: Too Much Running, Vitamin D, and Calcium?


Is it possible to get too much Vitamin D? Will you live longer if you don't run too fast or too far? And should you stop taking those calcium supplements your doctor has been hounding you about for decades?

Yep, as is often the case, new studies are coming out just to f--ck with your head suggesting that conventional wisdom about exercise and nutrition may be more complicated than previously thought.

June 07, 2012

Sunscreen: Why Must You Suck So?

Well, some people like it.

So summer has begun, and as is traditional this time of year, medical experts put on their stern frowny faces and shake their fingers and very solemnly warn us: Wear Sunscreen! And don't forget to use buckets and buckets of it and reapply every ten minutes! If you don't you'll get cancer and die!

And the beauty experts chime in too: Wear sunscreen because even worse than dying of skin cancer, if you're a woman: you'll end up with a wrinkly face and no one will find you attractive anymore! You'll look OLD, the worst sin you can think of!

While at the same time, scary research studies circulate and advocacy groups tell us: Wait a minute, watch out! The weird chemicals they put in sunscreen makes carcinogenic and it will mess with your endocrine system and who knows what might happen if you give it a few years?


Oops.

Instead, they say, you should try some Natural Alternative that may not work very well and will turn you all chalky white and freakish-looking five minutes after you apply it.  That's been my experience so far.  But no worries, you probably won't be able to find any of our recommended brands in the grocery store anyway!

Sigh.

A few helpful links? And lots more gripes? Sure, why not!

June 04, 2012

Booty Camp Giveaway (11 DVD's!) And Sneaky Life Coaching Promotion

So when I discovered that the Booty Camp Fitness Ultimate Home Edition 2 program was available for a Cranky Fitness giveaway, I was psyched for three reasons:

1. An at-home DVD boot camp seemed like a nifty idea and this set looked quite promising;

2. The company is based in Canada and I love all things Canadian and it means our friends up north are finally eligible to win something too, hooray!

And finally:

3. I've been on the lookout for a good giveaway to use for my own nefarious self-promotional purposes, because I'm greedy resourceful like that.


So, what's the deal with the DVD giveaway, and how much Life Coachy Crap do you have to listen to in order to find out how to win? 

OK, first things first:

What's cool about the Booty Camp Fitness Home Edition?


It comes with Eleven, Count 'em, Eleven DVD's, for a variety of workouts!

The workouts combine circuit training, cardio, core strengthening, body sculpting and yoga, and "provides daily motivation for all fitness levels."  Programs include:

  • Recruit Camp – A full-body introductory beginner workout (38 minutes);
  • Basic Training – Intermediate level program (40 minutes)
  • Ab-salute Core Vol.2 – Abs/Core (20 minutes)
  • Booty Express – For squeezing in a quick workout (20 minutes)
  • Bounce ‘n’ Burn – Jump rope for a total body blast (21 minutes)
  • Burn that Booty – Targeted moves for glutes and  posterior (20 minutes)
  • Tank Top Toner – Upper body program. (31 minutes)
  • Dynamic Cardio Conditioning – Explosive interval cardio (35 minutes)
  • MMA (Major Metabolic Accelerator) – Kickboxing workout (55 minutes)
  • Sun Rise Sun Stretch – To loosen and relax (32 minutes)
  • Special Ops – Highly demanding workout designed to push |limits (42 minutes)

Plus, it also comes with...

Bonus Stuff!
These include a Lifestyle Guide; a healthy e-cookbook, a jump rope, and a workout calendar.

What's Not to Like, Eh?

And did I mention this a Canadian program? In my experience, Canadians are really nice and polite and easygoing and far less obnoxious than most of us Americans. 

But apparently they're also really tough!



But wait, the DVD's were filmed in Puerto Rico... So if you add the Canadian boot camp and the Puerto Rican setting and divide by two I believe you end up somewhere like Indiana? Do they even have poutine in Indiana?

Gee I wonder why they didn't film it in Canada?


Oh, um, okay.

(Gosh I bet the booty camp folks are really glad they picked this blog to host a giveaway right about now!)

How to Win the Bootcamp Program:

This is going to be another combo of Random versus Non-Random winner selection.  So you can enter just by leaving a comment below.

Or you can increase your chances by using one or more of the methods listed below. And if you do, please alert me in the comments so you get full credit!

1.  Enlighten or amuse me with your comment;
2.  Tweet about this giveaway and link here;
3.  Link to this giveaway from Facebook;
4.  Use some other newfangled social networky thing to direct people here;
5.  Be a longtime Cranky Fitness commenter or a Canadian;
6.  Email me at CrabbyMcSlacker @ gmail dot com and allow me to collect your email address for a future newsletter thingy, should I ever get off my butt and put one together.  (In the unlikely event this actually happens you'll be able to unsubscribe immediately if it turns out to be crappy).
7.  Help me with some info!  I'm going to be redesigning my coaching website and would love to know what you'd be intrigued or repelled by if you were remotely considering Life or Wellness coaching.  Concepts that resonate? Buzzwords that make you want to Barf? All good!

But again, a simple comment can be enough to win. You'll just have a better chance if you do more.  I'll pick a pool of finalists using the random number generator, then will select the winner from that group by looking at the above factors. 

Winner will be announced in a week or so; if the winner doesn't check back and respond by the deadline mentioned in the winner announcement, a new drawing will be held.



And About That Life Coaching--yep, it's time for a message from our sponsor.  Which is, um, ... Me.

Here's the deal: Summer is generally a slow time for life coaches, and I'm still building my practice.  I've been totally impressed and excited by working with clients who've come from Cranky Fitness--not surprisingly, this crowd seems to be curious, determined, smart, resourceful, and charmingly honest about the personal and life challenges they're facing.  It's been a huge relief to discover (a) Life Coaching actually seems to help people feel better about life and start taking concrete steps to move forward; and (b) that I love doing it!

But I've been fairly sucky at the marketing aspects, which I plan to work on.  Meantime:

Time For a Summer Sale!

Could you benefit from having a safe, fun, confidential and empowering place to explore ways you could move closer to the life you really want, rather than the one you may be stuck in?  You may have a goal that's easy to define  (I wanna get my butt off the couch and run a 10K!) or one that's complicated and fraught (I hate my job but have no idea WTF else I might want to do with my life!

You may have noticed that there are plenty of self-help books out there, but it's hard to keep motivation and momentum going with a book that doesn't give a crap how you're doing or what might be getting in your way.  And professional help, whether it be therapist, consultant, counselor, or coach, is pretty damn expensive...and there a lot of weirdos out there to be wary of.

If any of this is true, and you can whip up some motivation to get going within the next few of weeks, you may want to take advantage of the summer slowdown.  Instead of my normal Life Coaching rates for the next couple weeks I'm offering a discount.

Quick Mover Incentives: For the first three clients who get all signed up and pay, the rate for a package of five 45-minute sessions is $95 ($19 per session);

For anyone else signs up and pays by July 4th (think of it as your personal Declaration of Independence from Inertia) it's five sessions for $145. ($29 per session).


And, should you decide to you continue beyond 5 sessions, prices will not increase dramatically but will slowly move up.

To find out more about my qualifications, background, coaching philosophy etc, please visit my Not Yet Redesigned Life and Wellness Coaching website. I'm also happy to answer questions you may have via phone or email, or even offer a free 30 minute try-it-out call.

Advanced Travel Warning:  I will be house-swapping in Scotland for a good part of August (yippee!); clients who do not have Skype accounts may need to switch to email for a couple sessions or take a break depending on whether I can get reasonable phone service there.

So that's it for the commercial!


If you are a Canadian or U.S. resident, be sure to leave a comment to be eligible for the Booty Camp giveaway (sorry, Rest of the World), and good luck!

Canada Photos swiped from here; I'll be happy to credit to more original source if anyone knows of one.