Falling Off the (Exercise) Wagon

Even a billionaire like Oprah, who can afford personal trainers and chefs, has a difficult time staying on the diet and exercise wagon. (Read about Oprah's recent weight gain here.) It's even harder for moms-- especially if you don't have a lot of childcare help.

My biggest difficulty is finding time to exercise and prepare healthy meals. I am juggling work and volunteer commitments as well as taking care of my son (which is a full-time job in itself). When naptime comes, I have a long list of tasks to complete. And when baby goes to sleep at night, I still have more stuff to do. Exercise just doesn't make the to-do list on most days.

Even if I don't have the time to work out as much as I'd like, I do know that I've gotten lazy about making healthy food. With a little advanced preparation and the right recipes, it is almost as easy to eat healthy food as it is to go to the McDonald's drive-thru. (If there were healthy, low cost restaurants with drive-thrus, I would have NO problem losing the rest of the baby weight.)

Oprah is back on the Best Life Diet and committed to losing the weight in 2009. I'd tried the Best Life Diet back in 2006, and I managed to lose about 15 pounds in two months and to keep the weight off until I got pregnant. (I also used eDiets to track my eating and exercise habits.) Reading about Oprah inspired me to dig out my old copy of The Best Life Diet  book by Bob Greene.  I liked some of his yummy (and healthy) recipes as well as his gradual three phase plan.

There's a new revised version of The Best Life Diet out. I checked it out at a local bookstore. The main difference between the two versions is Bob Greene's insistence on plugging his website over and over again in the new book. I found that slightly annoying...but I would still recommend The Best Life Diet if you are looking for a responsible and healthy diet that changes how you live without resorting to "get thin quick" gimmicks that are unhealthy or dangerous.

Om! Baby: Yoga for Moms

Motherhood is often stressful. When you're busy caring for a new baby, exercise is probably the last thing on your mind.

Recovering your pre-baby body is tough if you aren't blessed with either a fast metabolism or the willpower to exercise. Personally...I've always hated exercise. While I enjoy hiking or a nice walk outdoors, the thought of strength training or running on a treadmill indoors bums me out. I've had numerous gym memberships in the past, but I couldn't motivate myself to keep going since I hate indoor exercise with a passion.

Taking long walks with baby is my favorite form of exercise, but walking alone isn't enough to get rid of the post-baby pooch or to restore tone. I had a c-section, and I needed a way to restore strength to my abs once I'd recovered. Doing crunches was both boring and torturous, but some friends had great success with yoga. So when I read that yoga is a great way to ease stress and even to treat postpartum depression, I decided to give it a try.

After getting the go-ahead from my doctor, I started yoga when my baby was a little over three months old.  I've been practicing yoga for almost 6 months. I do either a 60 or 75 stationary series at a local yoga studio as often as I can. It's a strenuous full body workout that even an exercise-phobe like me enjoys because of the stress relief and stretching. While I haven't met my fitness goals yet, that's mainly because I find it hard to squeeze exercise into my busy schedule. But finding something you like to do is at least half the battle.

If you want to start a post-partum yoga workout, here are my tips:

• Learn the poses properly:I own Wii fit (full review here) and tried yoga for the first time using the Wii fit yoga program. Ouch! I wasn't doing the poses properly, and I strained my back. I found a great Yoga studio near my house and enrolled it its month-long beginner program. I learned how to do the poses safely and properly over the course of eight classes (2x per week).  If you don't have the time or the budget to enroll in classes, try a DVD rated for beginners and ask a friend to spot you the first time to see if you are doing the poses properly.
• DVD Recommendation: If you're already in great shape, you might be able to do a regular beginner yoga DVD. But some beginning yoga DVDs do not included modifications of the poses for inflexible people, true exercise beginners, and people recovering from injury/surgery. As a result, you might strain yourself by pushing yourself fully into a pose without the proper positioning. A good yoga teacher will tell you that it is more important to do the pose properly with a stable footing rather than pushing yourself beyond your capabilities. Yoga For Inflexible People is a great DVD for true beginners since it shows various ways to modify the poses depending on your current fitness level.  Yoga Journal rated this DVD as one the Top Yoga DVDs ever produced.
• Class Alternatives for Intermediate-Level Yoga: If you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars a month on studio classes, you can join the Gaiam Yoga Club for only $5 a week and get access to fresh daily online yoga programs and classes. I wouldn't recommend this for true beginners, but it's a great program for people who know the poses.

Once you know what you're doing, you'll need some gear. Here are my recs:

• Yoga Mat (Basic): Hugger Mugger Tapas Nature Collection Yoga Mat (68-Inch, Sunset) This is a basic sticky mat (measures 1/8" x 24" x 68) for under $25.     

  Yoga Mat (Luxury):   Devi Yoga Mats are so beautiful that you'll feel inspired and motivated to work out. Devi, a luxury yoga brand, offers unique mat designs based on natural elements (earth, wind, fire, water) and the universe (Northern Lights, starscape). The mats measure 24" wide x 72" tall x 1/4" thick.  The extra thickness is great if you have sore joints or just want more cushioning. I own the "Wind" mat (pictured here). At $99.95, it's a splurge...but I've received many compliments on how pretty it is.  

Yoga Towel: You get really sweaty during a yoga practice. I used a Yogitoes Skidless Premium Mat-Size Yoga Towel($39). It absorbs sweat, keeps your mat clean and reduces slipping.

Cute Yoga Clothing (Luxury): This is a splurge and not a necessity, but I love the stylish designs by Beckons Organic. (Click here for full review.)

Deal of the Day: Free Online Diet Plans and Fitness Tips

I've written before about how much I liked eDiets (click here for a full review). But if you want to lose weight or just eat healthier and don't want to pay the monthly fee for eDiets, try www.sparkpeople.com.  

I recently joined SparkPeople. It's free because the people who started it were early eBay employees and made a bunch of money. SparkPeople offers many of the eDiet features I loved: nutrition tracker, fitness plans and an online community for motivation.

eDiets offers more personalized service (access to nutritionists and personal trainers is included in the monthly fee), but I'm so busy that I never had time to use those services anyhow. I consider it a good day if I remember to log in to track what I ate and to record my daily exercise.

SparkPeople also owns BabyFit, which provides free fitness and nutrition tips for pregnant women and new moms.

Since both SparkPeople and BabyFit are free, these sites are a great resource for people looking to get fit without spending a lot of money to join a gym or a weight loss program.

Winter Wonderland Readings

Here are two enchanting additions to your library for cozy winter readings by the fireside: Winter Trees and The Snow Queen.

Winter Trees, by Carole Gerber and Leslie Evans is a strikingly gorgeous look at the silhouettes of trees in the winter.

Graphic illustrations accented with mat silver accompany poetic descriptions of the trunks, branches, and leaves of winter trees. The jaunty rhyming text transforms the commonplace into the magical.

Read this future classic, suitable for preschoolers through elementary school, and then head outside on a crisp day on your own winter's stroll with your child.

A stunning new edition of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen combines a faithful and graceful translation with romantic and exquisite illustrations to create a treasure of a book for young school-aged children.

If you enjoyed Hans Christian Andersen tales as a child, you will delight in reading this fantastic story with your child.  The tale itself places the Snow Queen, rational, precise, and beautiful, but cold, in competition with Gerda, warm, sweet and innocent, for the heart of Kay, a daring and intelligent young boy.  It is Gerda's loyalty, faith and hope that steers her through a series of dangerous trials as she sets off to find Kay in the Snow Queen's icy palace.  Gerda's power "comes from her own heart, from her being a dear and innocent child."

Parents of Christian faith will especially appreciate the allegory but I believe that readers young and old will find truth and beauty in this tale of a young girl's adventure and the love that sees her safely through.

Two winter tales to add to your collection--Winter Trees, in which the natural world becomes an ethereal wonderland, and The Snow Queen, in which a child's love triumphs over awesome and terrible supernatural forces.

Study to Your Own Soundtrack: LeapFrog Crammer Study and Sound System Review

I think I juggle a lot as a mom, but being a kid is hard work too. Keeping up with homework and studying for tests while also participating in sports, activities or music lessons can be tough.

The LeapFrog® Crammer is a great electronic study aide for kids (8-14) that combines electronic flash cards and quizzes with a digital music player. LeapFrog sent Mamanista one to test. I tried it out before giving it to a 5th grader to "review." Both of us give it a thumbs up.

I wish I'd had the Crammer when I first started studying foreign languages. One of the best ways to learn new words is by making flash cards. Flash cards are a great study tool, but they have their downsides. Sometimes I would run out of index cards in the middle of making flashcards or drop a massive and unwieldy pile of flashcards on the bus. Besides....traditional flash cards waste a lot of paper, so they aren't very "green."

The Crammer simplifies the process of creating flashcards. You can create your own test questions and flash cards on your computer, organize them into sets, and load them onto the Crammer with the included USB cable. My product tester found it easy to create and load the flashcards.

The Crammer makes it easy to study on the go while riding the bus to school or driving around with mom to your piano lessons. And to help kids concentrate better while they study on a noisy bus or at school, there's even a digital music player. The player is fairly basic. So if your child has been begging for an iPod, the Crammer probably won't satisfy them. But my tester enjoyed listening to tunes while studying, and I didn't hear any complaints about the quality of the music. I tried the music player too, and I thought it worked well enough given the price of the Crammer (under $50).  

Kids in grades three through eight can download math, social studies, and science quizzes online for free at the LeapFrog Study Edge site. You can check out a demo of the site's features at www.leapfrog.com/gaming/crammer.  

While I still prefer the process of making custom flash cards and study questions since kids learn by creating/inputting the questions, my 5th grade tester really liked the downloadable quizzes. And her 4th grade sister begged to borrow the Crammer since she wanted to play "games" too. I was amused to hear anyone referring to math and social studies quizzes as games...but it is a great endorsement of the product since learning should be fun.

A few caveats:
-Similar to an iPod or an expensive cellphone, the Crammer won't stand up to heavy abuse. So I wouldn't buy it if you don't think your child is mature enough to use electronics responsibily. And you might want to buy a case for the Crammer to protect it in case of a drop.
-I wish there were a better backlight on the device. My tester was able to see fine, but I would have preferred a brighter screen.

Despite these two minor criticisms, I would still highly recommend the LeapFrog® Crammer to parents looking for a homework helper or electronic study aide.

Want It:
The LeapFrog® Crammer is available for $39.97 with free shipping at Amazon. I've also seen it in stores at Toys R Us, Target, Walmart and more at various prices- sometimes higher, sometimes lower than Amazon.

Spend Your Remaining FSA Funds Before Midnight Tonight!

Setting up a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) is a great way to save money on your doctor's co-pays, health-care deductibles, prescription drugs, and more. But if you have any money left in your account at the end of the year, you'll lose it.

You might not know that you can use your FSA funds on home health-care and baby care products like band-aids, aspirin, Desitin, Vaseline and more. Drugstore.com even has a special FSA store listing all the items that qualify.

Check out the FSA store and spend your FSA Dollars before the end of the year. Best of all, you can get free shipping on non-prescription orders of $49 or more.

Mamanista Book Roundup: New Children’s Science Books

Science books don't have to be boring or bland. These great new children's books make our universe exciting and get kids excited about science. Here are some of my favorite new science books for children:

Cosmic! 

Starting with its glowing meteor shower cover, this is one of the most spectacular pop-up books I've ever seen. It grabbed me from the very first page where a loud "BOOOM!" and huge pop-up of the Big Bang got me thinking about the birth of the cosmos.

Easy-to-understand descriptions and gorgeous interactive imagery (pop-ups, pullouts, flaps and more) teach readers about energy waves, the Hubble space telescope, the scale of the universe, our solar system, star births, star types, star deaths, the sun, types of galaxies, black holes, space exploration and much more. Intricate pop-ups of the moon landing and of our solar system will please even the pickiest adults while delighting children.  

One Million Things: A Visual Encyclopedia 

This is probably one of the things that marks me as a nerd, but I used to love reading encyclopedias (especially picture encyclopedias) when I was a kid. One Million Things is full of really gorgeous photography that excites and educates. Although it's a lot fun to just flip open and read at random, One Million Things is amazingly well-organized too.

There are 8 sections: Nature, the Human Body, Science and Technology, Space, The Earth, People and Places, History, and Arts & Culture. This book would make a great addition to your home library and will be indispensible when your elementary school student or middle schooler works on projects and science homework.

Earth Matters: An Encyclopedia of Ecology 

Earth Matters introduces children to ecology and environmentalism with beautiful photography and compelling copy. As you read the book, you'll embark on a visual exploration of different habitats (polar, desert, temperate forests, tropical forests, grasslands, mountains, oceans, freshwater), learn about the plants and animals that live in them, and how climate change threatens each habitat. There are even some practical suggestions on how kids can make a difference. Another cool feature: Earth Matters is a "green" book. It's made of recycled paper and printed with vegetable inks- not petroleum products.

Sisters and Brothers: Sibling Relationships in the Animal World

We all know how baby humans interact with their siblings, but your kids might be interested to learn about sibling relationships in the animal kingdom too. Hyena cubs often fight to the death, but cheetah brothers help each other hunt. A fun picture book to read with kids- especially if you have any problems with sibling rivalry.

Animal Tracks and Signs: Track Over 400 Animals From Big Cats to Backyard Birds

This is a fun book to buy a budding zoologist or an enthusiastic Boy Scout or Girl Scout who loves camping. Life-size illustrations of footprints (and even droppings!) as well as detailed explanations give kids the tools to understand and interpret animal tracks. 

The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope

Hands-on experimentation makes science exciting. This book teaches kids everything they need to know about making their own slides and using their microscopes. If you're looking for a good first microscope for kids, you might want to try the My First Lab Duo-Scope Microscope ($64.95). You can use this microscope to view both translucent slides with the light from below or solid objects with a second light shining down from above.  Long-lasting LEDs provide the light.

The Art of Choosing Joy

I rarely have time for it, but I really enjoy scrapbooking. A few years ago at a party, I met Kolette Hall. Kolette's a designer, teacher, self-made businesswoman, and professional scrapbooker...so, of course, I thought she was cool. But what impressed me most was her amazing spirit.

Kolette's husband, Jason, is a quadriplegic. He broke his neck when he was 15 years old. They met in college and married in 1992. Five years later he was in a life-threatening car accident which left him in the hospital for 13 months and then a series of hospital stays and about 20 surgeries over the next six years.

Given all of these difficulties, you might think that Kolette and her husband would be bitter or unhappy. But they were two of the sweetest people I've ever met. I lost touch with them, but I didn't ever forget them.

I recently came across Kolette's blog, where she describes her philosophy on life:

...in spite of our circumstances, I have found that life can be good; that I have the choice - to choose how I feel about my life and my situation. I get to choose my joy. In spite of the adversity and hardship that comes from being the caregiver of someone dealing with intense health issues, I have decided that I wouldn’t go back and change the challenge of dealing with Jason’s car accident.

I am a different person now than I was then. I am stronger and more independent. I am more tolerant, more understanding and slower to judge. I am better than I was before and I do not want to change the person I have become because of our challenges.

Kolette and Jason rose above adversity. Jason went on to be the student body president of his class at BYU and a successful businessman. Kolette started her own business and became a successful designer. And the two of them are expecting their first baby in 2009!

So why am I telling you all this? Well...the holiday season has me feeling introspective. As I reflect back on the past year, I feel so much gratitude for all of the blessings in my life. The biggest blessing: the birth of a healthy baby boy in April 2008. 

Rather than vowing off junk food yet again, I'm going to set a New Year's Resolution that I actually intend/want to keep beyond the third week of January. In 2009, I'm going to focus more on appreciating all the blessings in my life even when they include bad hair days, blow-out diapers and other annoyances.

And if I need more inspiration to be happy and grateful, I'm going to get it-- while scrapbooking!-- by participating in an online class at Big Picture Scrapbooking taught by Kolette. Here's the description for A Life Well Crafted:

Anna Quindlen wrote, "It's easier to write a resume than craft a spirit." Crafting anything worthwhile takes time, thought, and sustained energy. We want you to take the first step toward crafting your spirit with Kolette Hall in 2009! She will help you find the strength to take risks and create a better life!

2009 is the year for the ultimate craft project: you. As requested, Big Picture Scrapbooking is giving you Kolette Hall for an entire year. A Life Well Crafted offers you 12 months of new topics, fresh projects, and live chats. Plus, Kolette's husband Jason completes the team as the Halls motivate and inspire us to live the very best life possible. Each week will offer something new to enrich your life, inspire creativity, and share your love of scrapbooking with those around you.

You can try out the class too for $18 a month or for $170 for the whole year.

Get Organized in 2009!

Now that all your presents are unwrapped, give yourself a big present: get organized in 2009!

Keep Track of Your To-Do List:I'm a busy mama, and I keep track of all my appointments, playdates, volunteer commitments and work projects using the 2009 BusyBodyBook Personal & Family Organizer. As a type-A person who actually enjoys organizing things, I've tried lots of calendars and planners over the years.

I first discovered the BusyBodyBook in 2007. Its 5 column grid design has made it my favorite. Plus, you can tell it was designed by a mom since Saturday and Sunday have as much planning space as Monday-Friday because moms work a 7-day week! (Read our full review here.)

Get a Family Calendar: I can't live without my BusyBodyBook planner, but it's still necessary to post a family wall calendar in a prominent location in your kitchen, family room or office. That way Dad, the kids and even your babysitter know what's going on. 

The 2009 BusyBodyBook Wall Calendar has 7-columns, so there's space for even larger families to track everyone's commitments separately.  I use the handy pocket on the back cover to store party invites, flyers and theater tickets.

Best Online Calendars: Google Calendar & Famundo
Google offers a free, shareable calendar, which makes it easy to keep track of appointments, birthdays, and all those pesky tasks on your to-do list. You can send invites to your family & friends, "share" your calendar with your family, and even set up nifty email reminders. You can even "search" your calendar, which is handy if you forget when you last saw the dentist or something like that.

I'm also a fan of Famundo, which is another free online calendar.  Famundo was designed specifically for families, and it incorporates to-do lists, shopping lists, and more. I prefer the Google calendar since it is so convenient for Gmail users, but I like the Famundo display better than the Google calendar display since Famundo lets you see your calendar, to do list, documents, messages and more in a single glance.

I've only used the free Famundo version. But if you want to sync Famundo with your Outlook calendar, you'll need to pay $99 to upgrade to Famundo Plus.

Organization Help:If you're feeling overwhelmed with clutter, tasks, householding cleaning...and life in general, Organize Now!: A Week By Week Guide To Simplify Your Space And Your Life is a must read.

 The very idea of cleaning and organizing seems intimidating to most people. But if you take it step-by-step, organization becomes easy and simple. In fact, the hardest part of organization is getting started. Once you get moving, doing the organizing is actually easy. For example, I organized more than 30 years of family photos for my parents in just one weekend a few years ago. 

Jennifer Berry's book is genius. She gives fast, simple and straightforward guidelines that will help you stay organized for the rest of your life. Each week she sets a series of small goals for you to complete and even includes a handy checklist.

She's broken the book down into seven categories: Organize Yourself, Organize Your Papers, Organize Your Things, Organize Your High-Traffic Areas, Organize Your Personal Spaces, Organize Your Storage Areas and Organize Your Special Events. Many of the weekly tasks are simple enough to accomplish during naptime, but some may require an entire afternoon. For example, one week's task might be "Organize Your Medicine Cabinet" (super fast!) while another week's task might be the more time-consuming "Organize Your Child's Memorabilia."

Do just one task a week, and you'll be completely organized and unburdened by clutter at this time next year.  Jennifer Berry even inspires you to tackle bigger projects like organizing your photos or your child's memorabilia. She provides practical tips to help your break these projects into doable pieces.

Want It:

2009 BusyBodyBook Personal & Family Organizer is $17.95 at Amazon. 

2009 BusyBodyBook Wall Calendar is $14.95 at Amazon. 

Organize Now!: A Week By Week Guide To Simplify Your Space And Your Life is $10.19 at Amazon.

Get free organization tips online from BusyBodyBook creator Joan Golder at busybodybookblog.typepad.com and from Organize Now author Jennifer Berry at