Onward and Sideways

I lost my Dad last week. He was a gem on so many levels. He had lots of great sayings. One of my favorites was “Onward and Sideways”. What does it mean? It’s a play on the phrase “Onward and Upward”. The Original Meaning: When things go badly, just pick yourself up and march straight ahead. My Dad was a clever guy and he realized that life rarely works out in such a simple manner. Instead, he knew that when you get knocked down, you DO get back up. But often you wobble to the left and wobble to the right before getting on track. And therein lies the “sideways” component.

Long before he was gravely ill, I wanted to use that phrase as the title for a blog post about obliques (your 'side-waist')... GET IT!?! ‘Sideways’…obliques? Ha! When I realized that our time together was limited, I decided to ask him about his saying. Somehow I thought that he must have heard it somewhere and ‘borrowed it’ for all these years. Alas, no. He made it up. All by himself. Which made it even more special. And even more important for me to use as a title.

So without further ado, I give you one of my favorite exercises for obliques with one of my favorite corresponding blog post titles. I call the exercise the “Side Bendy Thingy” but there probably is a real name for it. You can use a TRX system (what, you don’t have one lying around?), a high pulley machine at the gym set on a very high weight, or a scarf over the door. Please tell me that you have a scarf to offer up for the greater good of your mid-section.

First, I’ll share the video of me doing this move many months back. If I’m not mistaken, I sent this over to my dear buddy Janetha Bean over at Meals and Moves for a guest post, so apologies if you’ve seen it before:

.

Ironically I spotted a Personal Trainer at the gym training his client with the EXACT same exercise, so I asked him if I could take a photo of him demonstrating it. He was a good sport! He is using a TRX system.

Nice Trainer at the Gym “Before”

.

Nice Trainer at the Gym “After”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here I am using the cables from a Universal Machine- I’ve set it on a very high weight so that the weight stack stays put as I exert my full body-weight on it.

The basic idea of the Side Bendy Thingy Exercise: Hold onto something stable and high above your head, and stick your hip wayyyy out to the side until you feel a nice pull in your obliques. Then use all of your might to pull that bootay back to the center line. There. You’ve done one rep. Now do 20. Then switch sides. Repeat 2-3 times more each side. And tell me you’re not sore the next day.

.

Check out my heart rate: 131. People, I’m not doing cardio- this is strength training. Can I hear a woot or two?

So that is my PSA for the day. I hope that you will try this exercise and let me know if you like it. I love it and it gets my muscles sore nearly every time.

Meanwhile, just remember the following thought about if you have a bad day, or you fall off your healthy eating plan, or you miss a workout: No one expects you to pop back up and be perfect right away. Just being human gives you the right to proceed “onward and sideways” just a little bit. You might stumble. You might waver. That’s ok. At least that was my Dad’s theory. And he was a pretty smart guy. Actually, he was a very smart guy.

Edited to Add: I FORGOT TO ASK YOU A QUESTION!!!

Q: What's your favorite 'saying'?

Bragging Rights

Now I get to shamelessly plug my Dad’s professional writing accomplishments. Up there somewhere in the heavens he will turn a bright shade of red, put his hands in his pockets, shuffle one foot, and mumble “awww shucks.”

• Here is a write-up in The Variety .
• Here is his obituary in the paper he read every.single.day: The Los Angeles Times
• Here is his IMDB page.
• Here is a Tweet from Alyssa Milano:

.

You will no doubt remember this classic Marty-photo from my last post:

For those of you who are extremely astute…yes, Derek’s creative team photoshopped Dad's fave libation into what was an empty glass: Jack Daniels on the rocks, easy on the ice.

We decided that this was the perfect photo to have at his funeral on an easel. When they went to Kinko’s to pick up the photo, the Kinko’s employee asked if this was a new Ad Campaign for an alcoholic beverage…Think: The Most Interesting Man in the World:

Tee hee...that made me giggle. I like this particular ad because it has a grammatical reference...perfect for a successful career writer. Personally, I think that Dad was far more refined than our rugged friend in the videos, but then again I am biased.

It also made me think of the Bill Murray character in one of my favorite movies ever, Lost In Translation: Have a look:

I found this great photo here. Personally, I think Dad’s cuter, but once again, I’m definitely not impartial.

We set up a Tribute Website to honor Dad. If you feel so inclined, you are very welcome to come and visit the site here. There are lots of family photos and a memory book to sign.

Thank you all for such lovely and sweet sentiments throughout this journey. All of you de-lurkers and regulars alike have brightened my days with your messages to me and my family. I am grateful to have wonderful readers like you.

I am sure that over the course of the next days, weeks, months and years, we will be raising a glass to toast my wonderful Dad, Marty. Whether it’s a Stoli Martini very dry, straight up with an olive; a Jack Daniels on the rocks, easy on the ice; or a diet coke, we will do our part to continue to say ‘Cheers’, ‘L’Chaim’ and ‘Amor, Salud, & Pesetas – y tiempo para gustarlo’.

Peace Out

Just peace, heavenly peace.

Marty Cohan:

7/4/32-5/19/10

Hero(es)

Guess what! I’m a hero! Naw, not really, But one person (Hi Jenn!) actually thinks I am a hero… enough to feature me in her way-cool blog, Girl Heroes. Awww shucks.

If you’d like to check out my interview (and photos of myself that I’m too embarrassed to post on my own blog), please go to Girl Heroes. If you have not yet poked around this blog, you must do so! Jenn has an amazing story about battling depression, finding true love, losing 60 pounds, winning a figure competition, being a Mom and a becoming a certified Kettlebell instructor with the HKC. But that is just the tip of the iceberg of Jenn’s story. In fact, she has been blogging quietly for over two years! She has a fun writing style and wonderful content. Run, don’t walk to check out her blog!

Over the course of the last few months, Jenn has also become a friend. She even came to visit me and my Dad when he was released from the hospital a couple of weeks ago. This was a visit that he (and I) enjoyed tremendously.

Speaking of heroes, my Dad’s condition worsened and he is now on his 5th day of hospice care at home. I cannot tell you what an amazingly wonderful service hospice has been. Dad is comfortable and without pain. Our whole family is with him and he knows that he is loved beyond words. Thank you all who have reached out to me and my family. It means more than you can know.

The Classic PB&J Smoothie

Hello there! Are you sitting down? Good, because it’s recipe time! Yes, a recipe!
I realized something when Girl Hero Jenn sent me some interview questions yesterday and asked for a link to my fave smoothie: I DID NOT have a link! Gasp! (hangs head in shame)
I have been wanting to clean up my blog and make it more user-friendly for months now. In fact, I’ve wanted to start a recipe page, training page, etc…but it’s just not in the cards right now. Meanwhile, I figured I could get a leg up on it by at least getting my signature smoothie up on the blog with its own post for goodness sake!
Jenn also hooked me up with a super fun app that takes photos that resemble old-school polaroids (LOVE LOVE LOVE!) I figured that since this is a recipe for my old-school classic PB&J, I’d enlist the help of my Hipstamatic app for full effect… Weeeee! Little things make me happy. Here’s the Hipstamatic link!
Here is the recipe: The Classic PB&J Smoothie:

• 1 scoop Low Carb Protein of your choice
• 1/2 c frozen rhubarb
• 4 medium frozen strawberries
• 1/4 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/4 cup frozen raspberries
• 1 Tablespoon Peanut butter
• 1 oz Torani Sugar Free Peanut Butter Syrup (optional)
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 3/4 tsp guar gum
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2-2.5 cups water
• 1.5- 2 cups ice
• Edited to Add: You can also add various real or fake sweeteners and FrankenPowders such as Crystal Light in Raspberry Ice flavor, or sprinkle a half T of Sugar Free Fat Free Jello Pudding Powder in Vanilla (improves fluffiness and flavor). I do this on the regular and it works for me.
  

.
Here’s the finished product in the blender:

.
Here’s the bounty- I was taking the photo with my phone so I couldn’t use it for size comparison. I had to use postcards for that purpose…does anyone remember postcards?

I double-dogg-dare you to consume all 50 oz of this. You’ll be lying on the floor crying uncle, promise. This is 310 calories’ worth. That’s a ridiculous amount of volume for very few calories: This is why I live the Smoothie Lifestyle. Period.
.
This is me in my PJs playing with my new iPhone App:

On a personal note: Thanks heaps for your continued well-wishes to our family. Things are calm at the moment and Dad is enjoying being home. He deals with pain and weakness; and his appetite sucks. Thank goodness for modern pharmaceutical cocktails although I think he’d prefer a martini or a Jack Daniels on the rocks if they had the same effect. The good news is that he’s lucid, sharp (hello truth serum! What? Me? Bossy when I'm stressed?!!) and having a nice time with visitors who come and shoot the breeze. Even Girl Hero Jenn came for a visit- it was so nice. :-)
Q: What’s your favorite smoothie in the whole entire world? Provide links if you have them :-)

Good, Bad & Funny Photos round III: Sparty (via Carolyn), Lara, Tenaya & Susan

Hello readers. First, I wanted to thank everyone for all the well-wishes to my Dad, and your support for me and my family. I can’t even begin to tell you what it means to us. It’s a wild ride to be sure…just when it seems that things are going south in a crazy bad way, he ‘pulls a minor Marty’ and feels better. It’s day by day. We are having some laughs and good times. Last night, some JD on the rocks, Lakers and a room full of family & friends helped make life a whole lot more fun.

I promise that I WILL get back to posts about recipes, smoothies & training like a maniac. On that note, I decided that I was tired of smoothies (yes, I know….ME!!) and decided to resurrect one of my favorite breakfast recipes: Protein Pimped Oat Bran (I used Oatmeal yesterday, not oat bran). Later I ate the leftovers cold with Greek Yogurt, walnuts and Sugarfree syrup- nommmmmm. All I’m saying is that if you have not yet made this recipe, RUN, don’t walk to your kitchen and do it now. It’s filling and oh-so-good for you! Pimp it out with fun things and tell me all about it in the comments! :-)

Moving on…I thought that everyone could use a few laughs, so here is the next installment of my pre-written Good Bad & Funny Photo series…enjoy! :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to Part III of the Good, Bad and Funny Photo series. Hopefully you are getting a few guffaws while finding some new friends in the blog-world. If you missed it, here is Part I and Part II.

As per usual, I will start the post with an embarrassing photo of myself.

Well, the following photo SHOULD be embarrassing to me. Sadly, it is not. In fact I feel that it’s some of my finest “work” to date. Work? ‘Work, as what?’, I’m asking myself. As a professional photo-spoiler perhaps? Sure, why not. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. And obviously, I am extremely gifted…

One of my proudest moments

.

Fast-forward a mere few decades while my poor husband tried to take a photo of a beautiful bay on the north shore of Hawaii…

The only difference? A few years and a Tylie Malibu handbag.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carolyn & Sparty:

My name is Sparty and I was adopted from a kill shelter when I was really tiny, by my food blog reader mom (Carolyn)... I had to live in the garage for a week, getting well, because I brought so many of my own gross infesting "critters" with me, and I had a botched neuter surgery (at 6 weeks! wrong) that made me really messy too... but mom saw my internal beauty, even though I was a mess .. kinda like when you look at some of the foods she eats... So bad looking but you know it's good...I now weigh over 11 lbs at 10 months and my hobbies are carrying around screw on bottle caps, stalking mom, and sitting on my haunches... I lay in Moms in box when she is on the computer so I know all the famous food bloggers she reads.. and their cats...

(Note from Deb: this kitty is such a treasure, that Mom Caroline had a really, really hard time finding a ‘bad’ photo of him. This is to be contrasted to some other naughty felines I know. Ahem.)

Good:

.

Bad:

Sparty, stealing the dog’s bone. Bad, Sparty, Bad!

Funny:

(Note from Deb: Just yesterday Mom Carolyn reported that Sparty did his usual ‘sit up and beg’ trick above, but then actually raised up onto his hind feet. So he basically stood there like a human. Sadly, camera was nowhere to hand.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lara:

Blogs: ThinspiredBlog and The Dining Detective

Hello, smoothie lovers! I am Lara and I blog over at Thinspired, where I share my successes and struggles in weight maintenance and healthy living. I love dining out, cooking in, or basically eating in any location. Deb's blog is one of my favorites!

Good:

Christmas Day. Ok, so maybe this isn’t how I typically look. But ever since this photo was taken, I have considered wearing a tiara daily.

.

Bad:

One margarita is clearly one margarita too many. Hello, Monkey Face! (And bad lighting!)

.

Funny:

When I posted this photo on my blog, I got the funniest comments to explain my expression. The best one: “CORN, WHY are you so DELICIOUS?? You DELICIOUS CORN, you!”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tenaya: (aka Bekah’s Mom!)

This is me in a nutshell:

I lift weights and do cardio at the gym 3X a week. My husband and I are out of the gym in 1 1/2 hours or less. On the other days I usually walk or ride a bike for 20 - 30 minutes.

We (the husband and I) eat a non-combining diet. We eat every 2 1/2 hours starting with 2 eggs and toast (or oatmeal) in the morning, a protein shake, 6-8 oz. of chicken on a huge salad, fruit, and another 6 oz snack with veggie sticks. Last meal of the day would be 5:00 PM. If we eat dinner together we usually eat around 7:00 PM. Since my personal chef moved out, we rarely eat dinner at home anymore. ;)

I love Arizona Diamondbacks Baseball, hiking, and going to movies.

.

Good:

Hiking With Bekah

.

Bad:

(Deb here: is this really a bad photo? Tenaya looks great- check out those cut arms!)

.

Funny:

I had the original picture taken at D-land on my senior trip in high school, and Bekah did the same thing when she went on her senior trip. Her idea to get the picture taken. Love her!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susan:

Blog: The Great Balancing Act

Hey smoothie fans! My name is Susan and I blog at a little place called The Great Balancing Act. My blog is all about striving for the healthiest life possible, but with a realistic approach. We can't be perfect all the time! I recently gave up a semi-career to be a personal trainer, writer and who-knows-what-else, tipping the scales in either direction as I navigate this crazy adventure that is life :)

Moments after finishing my first triathlon. Maybe not the prettiest picture of me, but I love it because my expression is of PURE JOY. Joy to have accomplished such a big goal of mine, and joy to have survived the damn thing.

.

I may be smiling in the "bad" pic, but it's of me with a pack of cigarettes. Smoking is bad, durr. I did it for six years and haven't touched the stuff in over four. Ironically, I think this picture is of me with my last ever pack of cigarettes, I quit days afterward.

.

Funny:

And I don't know about you, but I think I am rocking that men's sweater vest in the "funny" pic. Although "embarrassing" may be the more appropriate term

.

And I am still trying to figure out what one calls a smoothie stache on the forehead

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: Do you ever consume food or drink straight from the blender/bottle/milk carton/keg/jar/can/bag?

Cheers.

Dear Readers:  I wish that there was an easy way to say this.  Or some way to sugar-coat this news.  There is not.  The good news is that my Dad is currently comfortable and in good spirits.  The bad news is that the outlook is…well…bad.  He has fought a really hard fight with cancer.

On Monday, we will bring him home where he can live his last weeks/months in comfort.  Eventually we will be enlisting hospice care.  

This is not going to be a ‘tribute’ post because we aren’t there yet.  Meanwhile, there are laughs, hugs & tears…sometimes all at once.

I knew that my Dad had already outlasted the statistics for his disease(s), but I did not realize by how long.  Two years ago, his diagnosis changed from Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) to Large B Cell Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (Richter’s transformation).  I was told that the outlook was “extremely grim”.  This information was given to me by his then-oncologist who also happened to be a personal friend of my Dad’s since High School. 

It’s actually so long ago that I’m having trouble remembering if I might have failed to pass along the “extremely grim” part of the message to everyone.  I most definitely did not pass it on to Dad.  I have always encouraged extremely judicious Googling regarding health issues as there is so much mis-information on the internet.  Yet, I have a feeling Dad Googled anyway, and he knew it would be no walk in the park.

True enough, it was no walk in the park.  But between the rough times, there were many, many good times.

Two days ago, his high school buddy/oncologist popped by the hospital for a visit.  He came out with a bit of a shocker:  He admitted that when he said “extremely grim” two years ago, what he really meant was “Your Dad has about two months to live”  Two. Months.  Can I just tell you how glad I am that I was blissfully unaware of the two-month detail?

So here we are, two years later.  25 months to be exact.  Dad has done a tremendous amount of quality living in that time.   Book club.  Theater.  Concerts (from Dudamel to Coldplay),  Movies.  Lunches.  Dinners.  Wine-tastings, Political Lectures, trips up & down the California Coast, Trips to Palm Springs, Trips to Florida, Trips to the UK and Italy, Transatlantic Crossings, hikes, stair workouts, hauling my Kettle Bells to my car, and more that my fried brain can’t recall right now.  Naturally, there have been countless laughs, hugs and “I Love You’s.”  

Lara has coined a couple of great phrases about my Dad.  The other day she told me that “he has more lives than a cat.”  And hopefully, he can “pull another Marty.” 
I say “cheers” to Pulling another Marty.