Bringing the Cranky to Fitbloggin' 2014: The Good, The Bad, and the Weird

 photo: Carrie D Photography

By Crabby McSlacker

So I'm just back from the Fitbloggin' conference, a large annual gathering of fitness and weight-loss bloggers which was held in Savannah Georgia this year.

Being a cheap-ass tightwad thrifty sort of blogger, I've never sprung for a conference before, so this was my virgin experience. (It's not so much conference fees, which are very reasonable for all that you get, but it's the damned travel and hotel expenses I hate to cough up).

So, what did I learn? What was awesome? What was really surprising? And, this being Cranky Fitness, what kinda sucked?

And yep, as usual I couldn't seem to blog, post to facebook, or tweet more than a quick thank you or two while the event was happening... so the whole live-blogging thing didn't happen. But welcome to the Official Cranky Fitness Deadblog of Fitbloggin' 14!

Best Time of Day for Everything

By Crabby McSlacker

First off, I love the auto-fill suggestions search engines come up with, don't you? Because google thought I was wondering about "best time of day to do enema."

(And I'm afraid I didn't hit enter on that one, so I can't tell you when that is. My sincere apologies to any random enema googlers who found their way here).

But anyway, I kept seeing articles saying there's a "best" time to do stuff, so I thought I'd collect a few.  Just in case you were wondering when you should exercise, take your vitamins, think creatively, ask for a raise, shop for super-discounted peanut butter Oreo cookies when no one is there to see you fill your basket, rob a convenience store, or whatever the heck you're trying to plan and optimize.

There's some useful advice to be had, I guess.  My productivity, minimal as it is, has improved greatly since I discovered some tricks along these lines.

And yet... I also find some of these generalizations, particularly the circadian rhythm ones, pretty damn annoying.

Crabby McSlacker... annoyed about something? Shocking, I know!

Letting Go of Negative Thoughts and Feelings

image: someecards

By Crabby McSlacker

So does that cartoon seem sexist?  Yeah, well, it's an overgeneralization, but I gotta say I think we women tend to a bit more prone to hanging on to emotionally upsetting stuff than guys are, and mulling it over in our heads and perhaps making it bigger and uglier and more devastating than it needs to be.

As you may have guessed, this is a continuation of the “Catch and Release” post, in which I was talking about the benefits of tuning in more to your inner psychological world, “catching” and “releasing” dumb and counterproductive thoughts and emotions that can drag you down.

And actually, "releasing" or "letting go" is just one way of looking at it. You could use more active, confrontive terminology and be all kick-ass, and talk about fighting negative thoughts and feelings, or heck obliterating or pulverizing or exterminating them.

It's just that I started with the whole "catch and release" theme, and put up a bunch of fishing pictures... and beating the crap out of some poor fish you just caught seems kinda mean, doesn't it?

Another problem? I realized there are so many ways of working with negative thoughts and emotions, and I have so freakin’ many opinions and weird ideas, that I’m just going to start with one basic aspect of it and follow up with more later.

Because while it sucks to feel bad about stuff, there really are tons of helpful tools out there than can help.

Coming Attractions

This is just a quick  post,  because:

1. I don’t have internet other than my phone, because ours is broken and Comcast sucks. And I cannot simply blog on my phone until the repair dude comes, because I am old. This means I had to compose this offline and then run to the public library to find links and photos and put the post up. Which is not only a pain in the ass but could land me in jail because I didn't have time to only use kosher properly licensed photos or give proper credit. Plus:
2. I am way lazy.  We’ve already established that.

Basically, this is just to say there’s some Summer Stuff on the horizon  which I’m really looking forward to!  And it may impact the whens, whethers, what’s and whatevers of blogging.

So what’s on tap?

What Exercise Doesn't Suck as Much as You Think it Will?

By Crabby McSlacker

It may not come as a great shock to those of you who are regular readers, but...

I don't always enjoy my workouts. And I almost never look forward to them.

Yep, some days it's all about sighing and moaning and procrastinating and finally guilting or bribing myself into crossing exercise off the "to-do" list. Especially if strength training or high intensity intervals are involved.

But the totally moronic thing is: I often find myself feeling reluctant and whiny and foot-draggy about fitness activities that I almost always enjoy once I get off my ass and do them.

How screwed up is that?  Why can I not learn, after many repeated instances of non-suckitude, that just physical exertion is not always an odious chore?

Do any of you guys struggle with this?