Getting the Pretty Back

by Molly Ringwald

  My main motivator is to enable myself to enjoy life—eating what I want, drinking when I like, and preserving the status quo. I am not in the market to sculpt my body into some kind of armor, seeing how muscled and mannish I can become. I just want everything to basically stay in the vicinity of where it already is. Working out is a constant battle with gravity, and even though we know who wins eventually, it’s still a battle that must be fought.

  And if I stop being superficial for a moment (See? Fitness always brings out the superficial in me), there are other far more important reasons to get on a workout regimen and stay on one.

  MOOD: Have you ever noticed how great you feel when you are steadily working out? As counterintuitive as it seems, regular exercise helps promote a higher energy level. There are days when I literally have to drag myself to the gym. I feel that I haven’t got an ounce of energy to spare and all I can think about is how long I have to commit to working out before I can go home and crawl into bed. Then, miraculously, by the end of the hour I allotted myself, I find that I have twice the energy I came in with. This has happened more times than I can count, too often to be considered mere flukes.

  Additionally, there is the overall mood enhancement that comes from seeing changes in your body after working out steadily for at least a month. You stand straighter. You look taller. Things don’t poke out quite as much where they’re not supposed to. It is a definite confidence booster and a great enhancement to your amorous life. Think about it: who wants to take off their clothes and bare their soul (let alone their backside) when they feel out of shape? Certainly not I.

  FIGHTING OSTEOPOROSIS: Most of us think about osteoporosis in terms of our grandmothers or mothers. But the fact is that osteoporosis is highly preventable with exercise early in life. What we do in our twenties really does affect us in our forties and beyond. Steady exercise is the best way to build bone density, which can save you from falling down and breaking your bones later in life. And “later in life” comes much earlier than you think…

  STRENGTH: Most everything we do in life is a little easier if we have strength. The best shape that I have ever been in was when I decided to singlehandedly install a roof garden in my fifth-floor walk-up in Manhattan (six floors, if you count the roof). Carrying fifty-pound bags of soil up six flights does incredible things to your shoulders. This I would consider the best type of exercise, since it is sneaky exercise—meaning that you are getting fit without knowing it. My first priority was creating a beautiful garden, and everything else was just an added bonus.

  There is a good feeling that comes with being strong. I don’t mean a weird he-man, bodybuilding kind of strength (which doesn’t seem like real strength to me at all, but rather a bizarre sort of body dysmorphia), but strength that allows me to accomplish things on my own without asking for help from anyone. And staying in shape allows me the kind of stamina that I need to chase my children around.

  There are myriad other reasons to stay fit. (Look, I’m writing this as much for me as for you.) The question is, what to do? How to accomplish it? The way I see it, there are two different paths. The first, the most obvious, is the gym. You scope out all the nearby offerings—and the nearer the better, because as anyone who has ever belonged to a gym knows, if it takes more than ten minutes to get there, you might as well join a gym in Buenos Aires for all the time you’re going to be spending there. Then once you find the place that has the right ratio of amenity to price for you—the swimming pool, the fresh towels, the cute guys (hey, whatever it takes!)—you sign up, work out for three weeks…and never go back.

  YOGA VERSUS PILATES

  For a lot of people, yoga and Pilates seem interchangeable. I have to admit that for a while I was in that camp. My friend Brandi teaches both yoga and Pilates, so I asked her professional opinion about the differences between the two, in order to help people decide what’s right for them.

  YOGA

  COST (GROUP LESSON): $10 TO $20

  COST ( PRIVATE LESSON): $50 TO $100

  CONVENIENCE: Once you learn sun salutation and a few other poses, you can easily practice yoga at home. (But you’ll miss the bare-chested yogis doing warrior pose.)

  BENEFITS: Amazing flexibility, tone (without bulking up), proportional strength, and increased balance. In addition, there is a spiritual component to yoga that doesn’t exist in Pilates. Yoga without meditation is considered a shadow exercise, purely physical. The poses are intended to prepare the mind (and soul) for meditation. Whether you have spiritual leanings or not, odds are you’ll feel more relaxed and de-stressed after your practice.

  TIP: At the risk of sounding unenlightened, I do believe that great yoga clothes can enhance your practice. Granted, it won’t guarantee that you get your heels flat on the floor during downward dog, but you’ll feel better knowing that you look better. My favorites are Lululemon and Christy Turlington’s line Nuala.

  PILATES

  COST (GROUP LESSON): $25 TO $35

  COST (PRIVATE LESSON): $50 TO $100

  CONVENIENCE: Like yoga, once you learn a basic Pilates mat routine, you can practice at home (usually with a video, to keep your pace consistent). However, proper technique is crucial to making strides, and so periodically taking private or group lessons to maintain your form is essential.

  BENEFITS: With a huge focus on “core” muscles (abdominals, obliques, etc.), you’ll quickly notice greater strength around your midsection. This will improve posture and balance—as well as performance in most athletic activities. Since Pilates requires both control and precision, it’s ideal for perfectionists.

  TIP: Pilates can definitely get pricey, given that most people prefer private sessions. There is a clever little work-around, however. For an aspiring instructor to become certified, she or he must first teach two hundred to five hundred lessons. Track down someone who is trying to reach this goal! Odds are good you can wrangle some free or heavily discounted lessons. At least until they’re officially an instructor and no longer take your calls.

  Actually, that’s not what has to happen. The gym route can work, but in my experience, for it to work for any real period of time, you need a way to make it consistent. That could mean signing up for lessons with a personal trainer—a great solution, but it can get pricey; finding a gym buddy to motivate you and make sure you both don’t just stay home and watch American Idol instead; or simply developing a set routine that you absolutely don’t waver from. It should be as important as taking your children to school. Make it that important.

  Whatever you do, be consistent and set yourself goals that you can achieve within a reasonable amount of time. There’s nothing more discouraging than putting in serious time and effort, but failing to see the drastic results you expect. Make your goals realistic and attainable. It’s better to accomplish three little things over a span of three months, and keep going, than to chase one big thing for six months and give up. I once became obsessed with developing that little muscle line under the shoulders (it’s called the deltoid—the only muscle I can actually name). For six weeks I did lateral lifts and shoulder presses and all sorts of funky dumbbell exercises, and one day I looked in the mirror and there it was! The muscle—it popped! As excited as I was by the look of it, I was even more thrilled that I had stuck to it, that I had achieved my goal. I went home that afternoon and proceeded to parade around the house, flexing my muscles for my husband like a teenage boy. He wasn’t as impressed as I was, I could tell…but maybe he was just jealous.

  It also helps to remember where you came from. I’m guilty of this myself, especially when first going back to the gym after a long break (thank you, babies). We often forget just how far we’ve come. Rather than applauding our progress, we become focused on what we haven’t accomplished yet. We ignore, or underappreciate, how our body is changing, and only notice what we’re still dissatisfied with. Whether it’s taking pictures or recording measurements or paying attention to clothes that once bound you like a seventeenth-century
Han Chinese royal shoe and now you can breathe in, it helps to record your progress.

  A second way to get in shape is to fall in love. No, not with a person, but with an activity. Rock climbing, salsa dancing, karate (or any martial art, for that matter), tennis, cycling, yoga, these are all great candidates for getting into shape without making a big deal about it. When you try a new sport or activity, or take up an old favorite again, you’re practicing because you enjoy it—not because you want ripped abs. And as a consequence, you want to become better at it—to jump higher, to cycle faster, to dance more gracefully. Your motivation isn’t superficial aesthetics, it’s enjoyment. You want not only to experience it but also to make progress. Slowly, your body is transformed without your even noticing.

  A close friend of mine, Sara, started training in tae kwon do when she was in her midtwenties. She grew to love it, reveling in the sensations of speed and power. I watched in amazement as, month by month, Sara’s body transformed. She grew visibly stronger and more sinewy, she was vibrant, even her walk was different. I was about to sign up myself, I was so impressed by her results, when she abruptly informed me that she had dropped out and moved on to another less “full contact” sport. Apparently, being sinewy wasn’t enough of a trade-off to getting kicked in the face. Hard. My husband, a third-degree black belt in tae kwon do, swears that it was an anomaly and to this day tries to get Sara to restart her training. He reminds her that she almost got her red belt. I remind her how amazing she looks in her wedding pictures. She takes the compliment but says she’s sticking with Pilates, thank you very much.

  A third, and somewhat unconventional, way to get in shape is through work. When I was starring in Cabaret on Broadway, I was dancing and performing eight times a week. Let me tell you, stomping around in the Weimar Republic while belting out “Mein Herr” is a great way to keep it off. Every night after the show, I felt both invigorated and exhausted. After the show, I ate like an Olympic champ—pretty much anything that didn’t eat me first. And during the day, to ensure that I didn’t injure myself while performing, I took up Pilates. The show was hard on my body; on top of the demanding singing and dance routines, I was running up and down circular staircases and changing out of costumes at breakneck speeds. And my dressing room was inexplicably located on the fifth floor, which didn’t make things any easier. I used to bring my Pomeranian into work, and racing into the dressing room midperformance, out of breath, I’d spot her, happily asleep on the couch, and hate her just a little bit.

  While getting in shape is a wonderful, inspiring, and at times life-changing thing to do, I feel that I need to address the fact that it can be taken too far. The point should always be to do something good for your body—to make your body the best and strongest that it can be. Not to exercise or diet yourself into starvation. It isn’t news that there is a horribly unhealthy and ultimately unattainable body image that is plastered over every magazine. We all buy these magazines and read the articles about how we are supposed to feel good about ourselves, and at the same time we are treated to photos of a barely postpubescent model in a bikini that would be better suited to dental flossing. The double message is always there, and it can wreak havoc on the psyche. Even the healthiest of us are affected, regardless of our looks, professions, or ages. I was absolutely horrified when my five-year-old daughter asked her father and me, in all sincerity, if she was fat. (For the record, she isn’t. In fact, I wish that I could keep a few more pounds on her, which isn’t very easy, considering that I gave birth to the pickiest eater on the planet.) I calmly asked her where she got the idea into her head. Was it someone from school? Did she hear it on television? She shrugged and said “ballet.” I cringed. My plan had always been to get her involved in ballet early, and then move her on to something else before all the crazy body-image stuff happens in the teen years. The last thing I want is to subject my own daughter to the kinds of life-threatening insecurities that so many dancers I have known have struggled with.

  “It’s just my tummy,” Mathilda explained. “It sticks out.”

  “But, honey! It’s supposed to stick out at your age. It’s the way girl bodies are built! You would be unhealthy if it didn’t!”

  That night I started looking into tap lessons.

  And as horrible as the models in the magazines can make us feel, there are the poor models themselves. One of my good friends was a former model as a teenager. She left school at sixteen and moved to Japan for work. Within the year she was hooked on diet pills (speed) and laxatives. She told me about all the times she would diet herself into a frenzy, only to have her booking agent take a Sharpie to one of her pictures and begin coloring in the outside of her already tiny thighs, telling her that she had to get rid of at least five pounds. And no matter how many five pounds she lost, there was always more to lose. It didn’t take long for her to become anorexic. She flew back home to her parents in Ohio weighing eighty-eight pounds at five feet eight inches tall, and spent the next two years trying to learn how to eat again. Thankfully, Brandi is one of the lucky ones. She is now a successful fitness instructor, our children are best friends, and she is one of the healthiest and most beautiful women I know. When people ask us if we plan to get our children involved in modeling or acting, we both have the same shared sense of horror. Yeah, and why don’t we just feed them to the lions while we’re at it?

  More than just about anything I want my daughters to grow up with healthy body images. I want them to be strong, so they can defend themselves on the playground. I want them to be fast, so they can outrun the boys. I want them to be fit, so they’ll be around long after I am gone. I wish the same for all of us and our daughters. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

  UNCONVENTIONAL WAYS TO STAY FIT

  Every fitness magazine in the world will tell you to do things like “Take the stairs instead of the elevator” or “While waiting for the bus, do calf raises.” Yeah, we know. But taking the stairs every day and freaking out fellow bus passengers gets old fast. So for those of you looking for some creative ways to stay fit, I asked my friend and personal trainer Steve Lake to estimate just how many calories can be burned by doing the following activities.*

  VIGOROUS AIR GUITAR

  More calories are burned standing, obviously, and the heavier/faster the metal the better—average of 132 calories/hour, sitting; 197 calories/hour when standing.

  BENCH-PRESS YOUR BABY

  You’ll burn about 197 calories an hour doing this and develop some nice pectorals. Lying on your back, hand on each side of the baby body, press up and down—repeat 12 times. Rest and repeat for 3 sets. Make sure to make the baby giggle. Also make sure not to drop the baby. Um, that’s even more important.

  REARRANGING THE FURNITURE

  Depending on how aggressive you get about this, or how indecisive you are, you can actually burn off quite a bit. Provides a bare minimum of 165 calories/hour and the benefit of some strength training on top of all this—if you happen to favor Indonesian hardwoods.

  Additionally, here is a breakdown of some everyday activities that you’ll probably be doing anyway. These aren’t excuses to not hit the gym, but it’s nice to know that while you’re multitasking your life away, at least you’re burning off that tiramisu.

  Dancing and singing to a Broadway musical album: 197 calories an hour (just singing by itself comes in at about 132 calories an hour)

  Digging in the garden: 329 calories an hour

  Pushing your baby (or someone else’s) in a stroller: 164 calories an hour

  Baking: 164 calories an hour

  Loading and unloading the car: 197 calories an hour

  Chasing your kids around: 350 calories an hour

  Putting up a Christmas tree: 151 calories an hour

  Sweeping: 165 calories an hour

  Doing laundry/making the beds: 140 calories an hour of continuous folding and putting away

  Vacuuming: 165 calories an hour

  Kissing: 70 calories an hour (I hope
this is an everyday activity. If it isn’t, make it so…)

  Playing piano: 181 calories an hour

  Roller-skating: 460 calories an hour

  Reunion with family (sitting and talking—but not fighting): 99 calories an hour. Since the likelihood of any family reunion not involving fighting is astronomically slim, you should probably tack on an additional 15 calories for the family squabbles.

  Chapter Eight

  OH, MAMA!

  WE HAD JUST MOVED INTO OUR NEW HOUSE. I was in the kitchen, trying to find a place for the contents of the multitude of boxes I had needlessly shipped from New York. (Toothbrushes? Dishwashing detergent? Really?) My husband was writing on the porch, enjoying the California sunshine, while our daughter played in the garden. Suddenly I heard a gaggle of unfamiliar little voices that sounded as if they were just outside.

  “Poop face! Butt head!”

  And then my daughter’s.

  “Hi. My name is Mathilda. Would you like to meet my cat?”

  “You are a penis, Vagina Head!” the voices replied, screeching in unison, followed by great howls of laughter.

  “My cat’s name is Pink Heart. You can pet her if you want,” Mathilda offered, seemingly undaunted.

  The insults continued. I put my boxes down and came outside to find five kids ranging from age three to six standing on the other side of our wooden fence calling my daughter every body part and function their little minds could make up. It was a dizzyingly assorted array of anatomical combinations. Interestingly, “penis” seemed to be the most regular standby, while “vagina,” though more rare, seemed to carry much more weight, garnering the greatest admiration from the crowd (as measured in eruptive titters). I briefly wondered about the sociological implication of this but figured it probably just came down to the most number of syllables.