Illustration by Anne Higgins/illoreps.com
Spring may herald warmer weather, longer days, and brighter colors, but not everything about the season is so all-out positive. Spring-cleaning is not our favorite chore, for instance, though the house is looking decidedly tattered after a long winter of muddy boots and sooty wood fires. Our bodies (well, my body) are in need of sprucing up too, following months of heavy meals and baggy woolens.
So why not kill two spring robins with one stone? That’s right: Exercise while we spring clean, and polish the house while we streamline our figures. Some ideas:
WINDOW-WASHING WAIST-WHITTLER: Cross arm in front of body while holding cloth soaked in window-cleaning fluid. Move arm up and overhead, in large arcing motion, across glass, while twisting torso but keeping hips stationary. Repeat with other arm.
COBWEB-CLEARING JUMPING JACKS: While holding a dust mop with the mop part pointing up in one hand, do jumping jacks while working your way around the perimeter of the room, brushing mop against the ceiling as you dislodge dust and cobwebs that have built up over the winter.
PANTRY-PURGING ARM-TONER: Remove entire contents of pantry, stopping to lift heavier cans and packages of dried goods overhead for eight reps before setting on counter. Swab shelves and discard all stale or expired foods. Clean and return food to pantry, repeating overhead lifts. Bonus toning move: Press full garbage bags overhead for eight reps before depositing in can.
FLOOR-POLISHING SQUAT THRUST: Roll up rugs and, with damp mop positioned on floor in front of you, execute squat thrusts—taking a large step, lowering your back knee slowly as far as you can before raising again, then taking another step—across the length of your room, then turning and squat-thrusting our way back. Repeat throughout your entire house.
ORGANIZATIONAL THIGH-SCULPTER: Get your house back in order and trim those thighs by organizing one item at a time. Lift receipt from kitchen desk, for instance, and walk up two flights to your office and file it. Take scarf from bedroom down to basement storage room. Carry swimsuits from basement to bedroom closets, individually if possible. The more stairs you have, the more effective this exercise will be. Warning: Getting organized could take you ’til September, but your thighs will look like Teri Hatcher’s.
UNDER-FURNITURE AB WORK: Warning: This move is extra challenging! Lie on your back, knees bent, beside your bed or other large piece of furniture, such as a dresser or sofa. Reach underneath the item of furniture and retrieve anything that may have fallen there throughout the winter: stray socks, empty candy wrappers, dust balls the size of a cat. Sit up, holding the object in front of you, and deposit somewhere beyond your feet. Slowly lower yourself to ground and repeat.
Spring into the New
Sip a new cocktail
Spring is the season of newness, especially vital when it comes to adding new things to your life. Why? Because novelty makes for happiness, say the experts. Novelty and challenge are central to satisfaction, according to Gregory Bern’s book Satisfaction: The Science of Finding New Fulfillment, and people who pursue new adventures feel a greater sense of well-being than those who stay with the same old same old.
You don’t need to move to Tahiti or take up skydiving to achieve the kind of novelty that can transform your life. Rather, switching up your habits in smaller ways can make for more important changes. Here, ideas for adding newness to your world this spring:
TRY A NEW DIET
The key to losing weight, especially if you’ve been on diets before, may be to try something new, believe some weight-loss experts. This spring brings a crop of new diet books that may help you slim down anew. One fresh idea: The Lemon Juice Diet, by Theresa Chung, which theorizes that adding lemons to your diet boosts your digestive system and helps you loose weight healthily. Another tack: The Cheater’s Diet by Marissa Lippert, which shows you how to eat your cake and lose weight, too. And who can resist The New ME Diet: Eat More, Work Out Less, and Actually Lose Weight While You Rest, by Jade Teta and Keoni Teta? That’s a new weight-loss idea any chronic dieter can get behind.
LEARN A NEW SEX TRICK
You don’t need to take up pole dancing or contort your body into bizarre positions to shake up your sex life. Rather, any element of newness can spark positive changes. Try switching sides of the bed, for instance, or lying cross-wise on the mattress. Move into a different room, or try doing it with your clothes on instead of off. A new perspective may, in the end, be as exciting as a new partner.
SIP A NEW COCKTAIL
With the holidays far behind, you may have fresh energy for entertaining. Break out the summer refreshments not with old-hat Cosmos or Margaritas but with a new drink: the Bramble. Mix 3 parts gin (so much newer than vodka), 2 parts fresh-squeezed lemon juice, one part maple syrup in a cocktail shaker over crushed ice. Shake and dump, ice and all, into a highball glass. Drizzle cassis or blackberry liqueur over the top of the drink, just enough to make it look pretty. Imbibe.
BUY A NEW BRA
Your girls deserve some perking up for springtime. One hot solution: a pretty, bare, highly-engineered bra from the Fantasie line, which lets full-breasted women—they go up to a GG cup—have bras as sexy as those made for our smaller sisters. Find it at fantasie.com.
PLANT A NEW FLOWER
Shake up your garden by introducing something new to your same old tulips and daffodils. Astrantia is one unusual-looking perennial that can be planted in early spring, likes light shade, is deer-resistant and easy to care for. Bat flower is another plant you can put in the ground early to add a strong shot of exoticism to a ho-hum garden: Think Morticia Addams, not Martha Stewart.
