Best Diet Plan Ever!

My friend, Kyle, sent this video to me. I hope none of you take offense at it. I thought it was hysterical. As a personal trainer, we come up with all kinds of ways for people to lose weight but really, it's very very simple. It all always boils down to this:

Back to school...almost 4 weeks ago!

OK, OK, OK, I know it's been four weeks since I've blogged. It's not that I've forgotten...life is just so darn busy! Right? You know how I feel...busy busy busy. SO...

The kids started back to school on Sept. 3rd...after Labor Day. The big deal this time is that Sam started middle school. Freaked me out. Completely. I almost totally lost it. Well, not quite, but almost. Here he is on the first day of school as I was dropping him off. Just one hour before my nervous breakdown. I don't know why he's squinting like that. Did he know I was going to lose it? More about that later...




Here's Caleb starting his first day of 4th grade. Boy, was he ever so excited to have me take his picture. Can you tell? Can you feel his enthusiasm? And don't think for a second he let me give him a kiss or hug. After I snapped his picture he gave me a quick wave as he turned around and mumbled, "C'ya later".
"What?!" I called after him, "No kiss or hug good-bye?!"
As he quickly scrambled away, he glanced back with a look of horror and his eyes rolling at the same time. You know that look. Picture eyes rolling into the back of his head with a horrified expression at the same time. Yeah, that's all I got for hours of painfully induced non-epidural labor.



Here's Peter. Such a cutie on his first day of 1st grade. He's the only one who let me kiss and hug him good-bye so he gets to be called a cutie in this post. Notice his shirt says: Help Wanted, do my homework. 'Cause you know, first graders have SO much homework. And it's all so hard. All that calculus and statistics and what-not.
The good news is that all 3 kids are in school all day now! Yea! Woo hoo! The day I've been waiting for for so many years!
But where the heck does the time go? I swear, after I teach a class or two, or three, I have time to run home, take a shower, eat lunch, check my email and then it's time to go pick up the kids! Where's the justice? But enough about me...on to my nervous breakdown. Oh yeah, that's about me, too.


So the traffic in and out of the middle school (which is also connected to the high school) is completely insane. It's backed up forEVER in both directions. There is NO way to get Sam dropped off and then get the other 2 to their school on time. SO. Other parents told me about a back entrance where you drive around the back of the school and drop off at a dead end street. They said there's a little wooded path that leads right to the back entrance of the middle school. Cool. I'm all for it. Or so I thought.

I easily found the dead end street and the wooded path. I couldn't quite see the school through the woods but I was sure it was there. I take Sam's picture, wish him well, and off he goes through the forest. I drive away with the other 2 kids and think all is well. THEN...my mind started racing. What if I dropped him off at the wrong place? What if he got lost in the woods? What if some high school kids are smoking dope in the woods and offer him some? Or worse, what if they steal his milk money?

I told myself that these were all completely irrational thoughts and that Sam was probably sitting in his homeroom just fine. I took Caleb and Peter to their school and did the whole picture thing while telling myself that Sam was just fine. He was fine. I'm sure he's just fine, right? I relayed my worries to one or two other moms at the elementary school who, of course, reassured me that he was probably just fine.

Well, I lasted exactly one hour and then I couldn't take it anymore. I knew I was going to worry myself sick all day until I knew Sam was safely in school. With his milk money.
So I called the school. I didn't want to, but I had to. I just had to. I navigated through the automated answering options to get the secretary. Our conversation went like this:
Sec.: "Middle school office..."

Me: "Hi, I'm really sorry to bother you. I'm sure you're very busy today...and I'm really embarrassed to be calling you...but I'm a first time middle school parent and I'm freaking out because I let my son walk alone a little ways to school today and now I'm worrying about whether or not he got there OK..."

Sec.: she chuckles politely and makes reassuring sounds...

Me: "So...if he wasn't there, you guys would like call me or something, right? I mean, you take attendance and all, right?"

Sec.: "Certainly, we take attendance right away and if a child is absent we always call the middle school parents first."

Me: "Oh, OK. So, he's probably there and he's probably just fine...right?"

Sec.: "Oh I'm sure he's just fine. Not to worry."

pause...
pause...
pause...

Me.: "Yeah, I know I just worry too much. He's probably totally fine. Right? He's fine, don'tcha think? There's no reason to worry...he's probably fine. Right?"

pause...
longer pause...

Sec.:in a sweet but slightly exasperated tone "Why don't you give me his name and homeroom teacher's name and I will check on it. If there is a problem I will call you."

Me: in a much relieved tone "Oh, gee, that would be SO great! Thank you so much!"

I never got a call so I assumed that all was well. Whether or not she really checked on him...well, we'll never know. I never told Sam any of this...he knows I already worry too much. If I told him this story he wouldn't be surprised at all but I don't want him to know, yet.
A week or so later I was talking to another middle school parent who said that her son was a minute or two late to homeroom and was marked as absent. The office did call home to alert the parents...2 1/2 hrs. LATER! Geez, that's a long time! This kid's mom was like, "WHAT?! My kid isn't there?! I dropped him off over 2 hours ago?" So then they had to go find him and make sure he was indeed in school. Talk about a heart attack. She worries too much, though. She should definitely see a therapist about that...
FYI, I walked the wooded path myself to see how it was. It's like maybe 30 yards long and there were lots of kids walking through it. After the first day/nervous breakdown, I would make Sam call me after he walked through and reached the school. Now I'm feeling OK with the whole thing and don't make him call me anymore. Whew! Baby steps. (For me).

Behind-The-Scenes Look at Live TV

Or, My Zumba Appearance on Good Day New York and How Anything Can Go Wrong on Live TV.

OK, OK, so it wasn't that bad. Probably the hardest part was being up 'til 12:30am (had to get my bag ready; had to wash my hair; had to take 3 different outfits with me "just in case") and then getting up at 4:30am to make myself TV-ready and catch the bus at 5:30am.
I took the subway from the bus station to the upper east side. By then it was starting rush hour and the subway was getting full. I squeezed into the subway train and actually saw a sliver of open seating in between two men. I plunked myself down and squeezed my tush in between them. Despite being crowded and packed in like cattle, I noticed it was strangely quiet. Almost eerie. I guess that's normal? Everyone was quietly staring at their shoes or into blank space for the whole ride. I actually cracked myself up by just imagining myself (after squeezing into my seat) turning to the men beside me and saying loudly, "HI! My name is Shelley! What's your name?" That would've startled the heck out of them and everyone else! I didn't do it for two reasons.
1) I couldn't have done it with a straight face...or maybe even without bursting into fits of hysterical laughter (I was experiencing some nervousness due to the t.v. appearance)...and...
2) Someone would have reported me. Reported me to whom, you ask? I dunno, but to someone. There's those signs all over the subway that say "If you see a suspicious package or activity on the platform or train, do not keep it to yourself. Tell a Police Officer or an MTA employee. Remain alert and have a safe day." I'm sure someone would've reported that as suspicious behavior and I would've been cuffed and taken into custody. Then I would've missed the t.v. appearance. So, I kept my funny little joke to myself and just quietly chuckled under my breath. And stared at my shoes.

I arrive at the Fox 5 Studio and meet up with the other instructors. Most of them I know well but one or two were new to me. We go up to the Green Room where there are some super skinny (and I mean skinnnnnnnny) models and a couple of guys with guitars. We review the steps with the music that the Zumba office gave us and the Fox 5 people to make sure we're all in sync with each other, etc. In the meantime, a woman comes into the green room and starts gushing all over one of the guys with the guitars. She's saying what a huge fan she is and how she has all his tapes (she's actually waving tapes in front of his face) and gets his autograph and picture. We all start looking at each other like, who the heck IS that guy, and maybe we should be gushing and getting our picture taken, too?!? We eventually figure out that it's Richard Marx (blast from the 80's) and we do take a picture with him. He was really nice. And he's cut his hair since then...


When it's our turn, they take us into the studio and hook microphones up to 2 of the guys. Meanwhile, I watch Mike Woods do the weather in front of a giant green screen and gloat to myself for just a minute since I know half the women in NY and NJ watch Fox 5 news just because they have a crush on this weatherman. I'll admit he is a handsome man, and very very tall. We all get into our places; I pick the middle, ignorantly thinking I would be seen better if I was in the center. Unfortunately, it just meant I was standing directly behind the anchorwoman and you couldn't see me well at all. We watch the pre-taped segment (which was great!) and then they cut live and turn the cameras onto us. The anchorwoman says she's ready to see some steps. This is the cue for the Zumba music to start and for us to start a salsa step. But the music doesn't start so the anchorwoman tries to stall for a moment. The music STILL doesn't start. The other anchorwoman tries to stall for a moment. The music STILL doesn't start. It felt like an eternity.

Eduardo (our fearless leader) starts the step anyway and we all try to follow with no music. They finally did start playing some kind of music but I have no idea what it was. It wasn't our Zumba music and it wasn't salsa and it didn't really have a beat or anything. I think it might've been elevator music. It was very faint and far-away sounding. In fact, when it first started, I honestly thought it was someone's cellphone ringing! We all just kept trying to follow Eduardo and kept smiling and tried to not feel like complete idiots. At one point I completely stopped (while everyone else kept going) because I couldn't hear any music over the loud-mouth anchorwoman and they were yelling at her to wrap it up. Ugh! I jump back in and keep smiling.
The worst part is they kept toting the phrase "you can burn 1,000 calories/hr" with Zumba. The average is 600-800 calories/hr but someone somewhere once said 1,000 calories so they focused on that. And then at the end, the two anchor people behind the desk skeptically wondered out loud, "Burn 1,000 calories an hour doing THAT?!" I can't blame them. If all they had to go on was watching us shuffle our feet side to side with no music? I'd wonder if I could burn 10 calories an hour doing that! Ugh.

Oh well, hopefully it will not deter anyone from taking a class. Afterwards, Eduardo and I grabbed our bags and practically ran screaming from the building. (Strangely there were no paparrazi or fans waiting for us outside the studio). Poor Eduardo felt the same as I did, perhaps worse since he was leading. I thought he did a tremendous job given the difficult circumstances. Luckily we rode the subway together for awhile until he got off at his stop and I continued to Soho to do some shopping. That way I only had to stare at my shoes for part of the ride. ;-)

Here's the link to the Fox 5 show, in case you missed it.