Maybe it’s just human nature to want maximum results with minimal effort, but what I usually tell people is the more succinct, “I’m lazy.”

There is a part of me that doesn’t actually want to work out at all. However, if you are a regular exerciser (I don’t know many of those) and you worry about motivation, I highly recommend injuring your lower back/hip so you can’t work out for a while. You will come to wistfully remember just two weeks ago when you were not completely batshit insane and could run without a care in the world.

I digress. I meant to say that I don’t want to spend 600 thousand hours in the gym doing some crazy ass rubber band workout like Gwyneth or any other underweight blonde. I don’t have that kind of time. So I have been taught a few strategies for getting the most out of my workouts. One is to do exercises that incorporate multiple muscle groups at once. (This is all that free weight and functional fitness gospel stuff, though you shouldn’t look to me for any preaching, I’m too self-absorbed to be converting anyone.)

And another strategy is to find ways to push myself — to pick up big weights. Biggest I can find. If I choose the gigantic dumbbell or barbell or whatever, then I know I will probably be exerting myself, rather than kicking back and dinking out my reps. But there is a problem here, and so I have to raise my hand and say,

“My name is Sherika and I am a the ninja in the corner doing curls with the 20 pound weights.”

(Psst! Now you all say, “Hi Sherika!”)

What I mean is that I can get so caught up in using the gigantic-est weight I can lift that I sometimes mess up in other areas. Generally this is a disease that afflicts a lot of guys, and women tend to not use enough weight to get strength training results. But obviously there can be gender crossover, because I have this problem too.

What’s wrong with being a Sherika-ninja? Well, a couple things. For one, if you have an injury—like say, a back injury—and you decide to use the heaviest weight in the gym just because you are really broken in the head, you can end up with a messed up back to match.

But probably more relevant, there are times when a big weight means you also sacrifice other things, like form, and integrity. I get this when I watch someone crank out 72 pull ups, but they never fully extend their arms.

Truth is that you can make yourself work hard with less weight if you remain conscious of form (keep abs tight or back straight or whatever) and make sure you get full extensions and so on. You can also increase things like the speed of your reps to make everything a wee bit harder. So why wouldn’t I do that instead, and spare my body the possible injury? So glad you asked. Because 1) it takes more work mentally to practice full range of motion executed well, and 2) it’s way less showy than the big bulge of the heavier weight.

But the first step is admitting you have a problem, and so there, I said it. Now that I’ve been out of the game for a while, I want to stage my comeback by keeping the weight lighter but finding ways to kick my own ass with better, prettier reps. Wish me luck on that and hide the big dumbbells too, just to help me out.

I apologize, but today’s post is just for me to read. I’ll have something for you in a few days most likely, but today I need to talk to my own bad self. Sorry about that, but you really need to leave now.

Scoot.

Depart!

Sherika.

Sherika. Shrek. Shrek.

You had your fun and then some, but now’s the time for you to stop acting like you don’t know any better and start bringing the intensity to this journey again. It’s time to stop not working out, finding “more” important things to do (that’s not really important at all)!

Here are some inconvenient truth’s that you seem to have forgotten, my friend…

Sherika, making time for exercise is the most important thing you can do, especially when every single person in your family has dropped dead from heart disease. Exercise helps your crazy neurotic brain settle down and helps you sleep. It’s a well known fact: exercise makes me nicer. I better get to it before Jay leaves and takes the lazy cats.

Folks don’t eat enough vegetables, and I think I figured out the reason why: most of them are just so poorly named that them hardly come off as appetizing. Who wants to eat something called “parsnips” or “turnips”? These items, like a lot of their veggie companions, need a branding makeover. Over at sherikahenry.com, there’s nothing I believe in more than a strong brand.

Do your part in helping people eat more fresh veggies by immediately adopting all these new names. The sooner they catch on, the sooner everyone can start benefiting from eating better and living healthier.

Asparagus sounds too much like “ass”. New name: Tender Yum-Yum Sticks.

Artichoke? Please! Nobody wants to eat something that has “choke” in its name. New name: Sugar-coated Funplant.

Mustard Greens?  Huh? This is one that I don’t get at all. They’re not yellow. They don’t taste like mustard. It just doesn’t make any sense. Besides, not everybody likes mustard. New name: Ketchup Greens.

Brussell Sprouts? No. Baby Boom-Boom Cabbages? Oh hell yeah!

Eggplant? Ridiculous. In Europe, they refer to it as “aubergine,” but that sounds like a new line of fragrance or some sort of skin rash ointment. New name: Tastyglobe.

Okra? That’s an easy fix. New name: Fried Okra.

Bell Peppers put people off because they expect them to make a ringing sound when you shake them. The best thing to do would be to add a ringing sound chip but easiest thing would be to change name. New name: Clapperless Bell Peppers.

Celery. Just the sound of that word makes me grimace. But I could munch on it if it had an enticing handle. New name: Savory Crunchsticks.

Squash. Is this a joke name? Did people used to just squash these plants for fun before realizing that you could actually eat them? New name: Lovemunchkins.

Chard. Now that’s just harsh as names go. It needs something softer, more gentle, more inviting. New name: Miracle Goodness Greens.

Kohlrabi. I’m sorry, but if I’m naming a vegetable, I try to keep from making it sound like a race of alien villains from Star Trek. New name: Chocólate (the “ó” makes it different than regular “chocolate”).

Rootabaga. – Actually, this is a perfectly named vegetable.

Radicchio – I’ve never liked this one. It sounds like you’re nose will grow an inch if you eat it. New name: Mmmm Mmmm Stuff.

Spinach. Despite Popeye the Sailor Man’s efforts to make it popular, this leafy green vegetable has never gotten its due. There’s only one person who can change that. New name: Sh*tach.

Divided or united, these cupcakes didn’t stand a chance. I devoured it in 5 seconds.

My first thought about Health Care Reform was: I will refuse to comply. I’ve read the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and nowhere in that document do I find that the federal government has the power to force me to purchase for-profit insurance products from private companies.

Then I thought about my own private insurance, an exorbitant premium that basically seems to multiply itself every year. Services cut in half and copays doubled.

How is that legal? Obviously, change was desperately needed.

No doubt Obama needed to step in, but how about an in between reform? I’m barely college educated and is therefore, ahem, no scholar, but I find it highly offensive that my own government would threaten me with a financial penalty if I refuse to pay money to such a racket. It’s much like being forced to pay a “protection fee” to the mob.

But, enough of my rant. I read this article in the NYTimes and wanted to share.

From NYTIMES — By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D.

“I’m tired of paying for everyone else’s stupidity,” is a comment I read on the Internet last week after the health care bill was passed. It summed up the views of many Americans worried about shelling out higher premiums and taxes to cover the uninsured. Why should we pick up the tab when so much disease in our country stems from unhealthy behavior like smoking and overeating?

In fact, the majority of Americans say it is fair to ask people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay more for health insurance. We believe in the concept of personal responsibility. You hear it in doctors’ lounges and in coffee shops, among the white collar and blue collar alike. Even President Obama has said, “We’ve got to have the American people doing something about their own care.”

But personal responsibility is a complex notion, especially when it comes to health. Individual choices always take place within a broader, messy context. When people advocate the need for personal accountability, they presuppose more control over health and sickness than really exists.

Unhealthy habits are one factor in disease, but so are social status, income, family dynamics, education and genetics. Patient noncompliance with medical recommendations undoubtedly contributes to poor health, but it is as much a function of poor communication, medication costs and side effects, cultural barriers and inadequate resources as it is of willful disregard of a doctor’s advice.

A few years ago surgeons in Melbourne, Australia, were refusing to provide heart and lung surgeries to smokers, even those who needed the operations to stay alive. “Why should taxpayers pay for it?” said one surgeon quoted in media reports at the time. “It is consuming resources for someone who is contributing to their own demise.”

Though some were outraged by this stance — the Australian Medical Association called it “unconscionable” to ration services based on personal habits — many doctors agreed with it. Like the majority of Americans, they saw nothing wrong with patients paying for the consequences of their actions.

The problem is that punitive measures to force healthy behavior do not usually work. In 2006, West Virginia started rewarding Medicaid patients who signed a pledge to enroll in a wellness plan and to follow their doctors’ orders with special benefits, including unlimited prescription-drug coverage, programs to help them quit smoking and nutrition counseling. Those who did not sign up were enrolled in a more restrictive plan that, among other things, limited drug coverage to only four prescriptions a month.

The program, by many accounts, is failing. As of August 2009, only 15 percent of 160,000 eligible patients had signed up. Patients with limited transportation options were having a hard time committing to regular office visits. And experts say there is no evidence that restricting benefits for noncompliant patients has promoted healthy behaviors.

As a cardiology fellow, I once took care of a young man with severe congestive heart failure. We were supposed to start him on a blood thinner early in his hospitalization, but it got overlooked. Fed up with the delays in getting his blood sufficiently thinned, he left the hospital against medical advice. He said he had to go home to care for his toddler.

He came to the clinic a week later looking very embarrassed. He had left without prescriptions, so he had been taking no medications since he left, leaving him short of breath. To compound the problem, he had been eating cold cuts, cheap and readily available, which made his condition even worse. But the attending physician refused to give him prescriptions. She said that he had to go to a walk-in clinic. She said he had to learn personal responsibility.

Healthy living should be encouraged, but punishing patients who make poor health choices clearly oversimplifies a very complex issue. We should be focusing on public health campaigns: encouraging exercise, smoking cessation and so on. Of course, this will require a change in how we live, how we plan our communities.

“It’s the context of people’s lives that determines their health,” said a World Health Organization report on health disparities. “So blaming individuals for poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate.”

I must admit I often feel like my colleagues who grouse about spending all day treating patients who do not seem to care about their health and then demand a quick fix. I do not relish paying more taxes to treat patients who engage in unhealthy habits. But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send text messages when I drive.

The whole point of insurance is to reduce risk. When people inveigh against the lack of personal responsibility in health care, they are really demanding a different model, one based on actual risk, not just on spreading costs evenly through society. Sick people, they are really saying, should pay more. Which model we eventually adopt in this country will say a lot about the kind of society we want to live in.

Funny lady Chelsea Handler may love her cocktails, but that hasn’t stopped her from looking positively smashing on the April cover of Shape. The comedian, 35, is candid about her long road to a fit lifestyle (”I was born with a French fry in my mouth”), but says today she is healthier than ever. After years of yo-yo dieting and jumping from workout to workout, Chelsea shares that she’s finally found a fitness regimen that she can stick to. Here are the interview highlights:

Courtesy: Fit Sugar

During training sessions when clients would b*tch and moan with the, “I cant’s“, I would find myself yelling “You can, Just do it!”

Just Eat Smart was founded on one single answer I’d given to my friends and clients over the years when they would ask me what to eat to lose weight.  My answer has always been: Just Eat Smart. Instinctively, we know how to eat smart — I mean,  when does it seem like a smart idea to choose to eat a box of donuts for breakfast instead of scrambled eggs?

Let’s do some more comparisons, and the choice should be based on the smart answer, not the “I would kill for this right now” answer.

Apple vs. Cupcake
Whole-wheat vs. Wonder bread
Dark chocolate vs. Butterfinger

Over here at JES, I understand that the answer may not be that apparent sometimes.  That’s why I am giving away a copy of Eat This, Not That.  This handy little guide will help you make smart meal decisions along the way.

How do you win this giveaway?

Best email wins, and it helps to know I won’t be biased, even if you tell me I’m cute.

Entries ends midnight March 31st.

Our little Hello Kitty has grown up. Hello Kitty wine, produced by a major Italian vineyard, is hitting North American shelves as we purr with pleasure. And apparently, according to Larry Windsor, general manager of Hello Kitty Wines LLC in Newport Beach, CA., it’s flying off distributors’ showcases as fast as a cat chasing a bird up a tree.

The family-run Tenimenti Castelrotto or “Torti” vineyards, founded in 1910, produces the wine in the Lombardy region, which is known for the cultivation of the Pinot Noir grape.

They are producing four wines for Hello Kitty, including the Hello Kitty Sweet Pink, which is a sparkling demi-sec and not nearly as sweet as Hello Kitty herself. The Connoisseurs found it on the dry side, said it poured well and had a nice rose coloring. The 375 ml bottle has a heart-shaped neck and a gold heart label embedded within the glass. Most uncharitably, the Connoisseurs wrote: “Something about Hello Kitty just makes me think of the dump truck load of saccharine that it takes to give a lab rat cancer. The wine is actually quite pleasant, with hints of red fruits and a nice floral bouquet. It is not cloying at all, as some sweet sparklers can be.” I think The Connoisseurs need to use their indoor voices when it comes to Hello Kitty. Her fans have some mighty sharp claws.

All four wines, which include two stills and two spumantes, are made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes. The Brut Rose comes with a special Hello Kitty pendant sporting a ribbon in the colors of the Italian flag. Rounding out the collection — and what is Hello Kitty if not a collection? — also offers Angel White and Devil Red. The wines retail for about $30 a bottle; $20 for the sweet pink.

Windsor said the wine has been well-received by knowledegable wine drinkers and reviewers and he believes it will appeal to wine enthusiasts beyond the Hello Kitty brand’s fan base. In other words, it’s one cup of sweet milk regardless of the feline on the label.