Shape-ups for your shape

Ah, the dreaded afternoon slump. I feel like I may be in an Emerald nuts commercial. The question is what weird group of half-celebrities is going to harass me when I fall asleep? I find both the Robert Palmer girls and the Swiss Family Robinson commercials especially creepy, so I hope it is neither of them.

Instead of munching on nuts (I lost four pounds last week and I want to keep my progress going!) I thought I would blog for the third time today. What can I say? I am making up for lost time. I am probably also going to make some tea with a bit of honey because my throat is acting a bit wacky. I'll be right back, just going to pop off to put the kettle on.

Okay, I'm back with a cup of steeping tea and some interesting news to share. In this month's issue of Fitness magazine, there is an article about how beneficial following a workout plan that is designed for your body type can be. The article includes exercise plans for three different body types, generic enough that everyone should be able to find themselves in the mix. Here are your options:

1. Pear-shaped: most of your weight is carried below your waist and you could stand to develop a bit of muscle tone on your top half to balance your ample...er, womanly, hips and thighs.
   
2. Apple-shaped: you carry your weight around your mid-section and torso and tend to have thinner legs.
3. Chile pepper-shaped: you have narrow shape and could benefit from developing muscle tone all over your body. I think this one is the best because if you are chile pepper-shaped, you can wear the "I'm a pepper" shirt that Jeff Goldblum wears in The Life Aquatic. Not the exact same one, of course, although that would be sort of hot.

After quite a bit of soul-searching, I figured I probably fall into the category of pear-shaped, what with all that junk inside my trunk, and all that ass inside my jeans (I'm hoping that at least one person gets that reference). This whole concept has made me curious. On one hand, it could just be a way to get people to exercise, and feel like they are doing a bit more than just a random set of different things. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'm the sort of person who loves a concept like this and loves falling for it even if I know that it may not necessarily yield different results from those that I would get doing any weight training and aerobic exercise on a regular basis. In brief, I sort of love it and let myself fall for it when people say, "Oh, this particular workout will work well for you..." Yeah, I'm more likely to do it if I think it is slightly personalized. It just makes me feel good about myself for some reason.

So here's what I have decided. For the next 30 days, I am going to take on this "Love your shape" workout plan and see how it goes. The exercises are straightforward and not gimmicky, and require little equipment--just a set of weights and a stability ball. Plus, if it does what it says it should, in a month I will be the most toned pear on the block!