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Q: Dear Fun and Fit: Kymberly and Alexandra: I live in Kuwait where exercising outdoors is practically impossible and I struggle to use my indoor treadmil, WII Fit and eliptical exerciser on a regular basis. It’s boring. If I lose weight (probably 20 – 30 lbs is required), will my boobs be flat bags of skin clinging to my ribcage?? I would rather be plump with nice skin tone than skinny with saggy skin!
Stacey, Kuwait
Kymberly: Oh, Stacey, I could kiss your plump and nicely toned cheek for giving us a saggy boobs question for our first blog!Think of all the hits we’ll get when people type in the key word “boobs.” Yes, We will become the porn fitness leaders of the internet world instead of the highly respected pros we thought we once were. Alexandra, you had better handle this one as you are the one with the smaller (secret code for “deflated”) boobs. That’s what you get for losing all that weight yourself, Miss “I am now so trim and everyone thinks I am your younger sister, not twin.”
Alexandra: If your boobs (let’s call them “plumpers”) are saggy and clinging to your ribcage, who cares about your skin? You’ve got bigger problems. And how much of that extra 20-30 pounds can you realistically blame on the saggers? I’d go for 10 pounds. So you only have another 10-20 to go! You are part way to your goal already. Do you like push-ups? Sure, you do. Every woman I’ve ever met loves them (Ahahaaaaaaa). But if you can get some muscle tone going under all that sag, you’ll look perky and youthful.
But what if you don’t like push ups?. Here’s what you do – lie on your back on a mat or bench or even your bed (if it’s an extra-firm mattress). Do you have some weights? You are not off the hook if you don’t. Just grab a few bags of beans or cans of sauce from your cabinet – they can be your weights. I’ll let Kymberly describe your chest press form while I go check the mirror to assess my perky youthful qualities!
Kymberly: Good try foisting the chest press description on me. I want to emphasize the push-up option. Alexandra is so right that the secret to retaining firm frontage while working on weight loss (a separate question addressed in future blogs) is to build up the musculature underneath. Push-ups are free, available everywhere, easy to pack, and the perfect option for lift and anti-sag. As your pec (chest) muscles strengthen underneath the breast tissue, you will have the internal support to get the look and lift you want. Push-ups also strengthen the mid and upper back muscles, which will assist in holding you erect. Another KEY component to keeping the girls (also now known as your “plumpers”) up while bringing the weight down is posture. Standing tall, proud, and extended instead of rounded or even slightly hunched is like losing five pounds visually in a nano-second. Now when we recommend push-ups, we suggest you start with your hands and knees on the floor and aim for ten push-ups, three to five times a week for a couple of weeks. From there, strive to whip out (no, not the plumpers, you rascal) fifteen push-ups. Once you are comfortable with fifteen knee push-ups, try five on your hands and toes and ten more on your hands and knees. The goal is to work up to about twenty toe push-ups every other day. Give yourself two months or so to get to that goal. Not only will you see a positive difference in your cleavage, but also you will be on your way to weight loss and some pretty nice arms and posture. Locked and loaded!
Alexandra: What? Is that a math problem? If 5 push-ups are travelling toward 10 trains, at what speed will you crash on the carpet? Get a good bra and take a nap. Nah, get to work. Put a nice bowl of water on the floor and take a slurp each time you drop down on the push-ups. Not only will you know you dropped far enough down, but all that liquid will help your skin get ever so plumpy!
I am really trying to get into better shape. But all my joints ache. The worst are my knees. I work out on an elyptical trainer for 25 minutes and a spinning machine for 20 minutes and do 10 minutes of stretching to start each work out. I do this M/W/F. The other four days I deal with the pain. I am a 61-year-old male and I am trying to lose 25lbs. It is not fun and I am really hating the pain. What do I do?
Dear Frank: Thank you for the true confessions and great question. Alexandra and I look forward to addressing your dilemma in an upcoming post. Meantime, relax, put up your feet, swig down some serious iced water and check our blog on a M/T/W/TH/F/S/Su schedule. Save the pain for the other days until you read all about it. -Kymberly
Love your style! You’ve reminded me that I need to do some chest presses and pushups today.
Is there really a dfference in results between knee and toe pushups?
Hey thanks, We found our style on sale and had to get it! As for push-ups, the knee vs toe results question is pretty much the equivalent of whether to pick up 20 punds or 40 for those chest presses you are moved to do. If your strength level is at the 20 pound mark, then you get results with that because you can actually execute. The goal is to reach fatigue in about 15-25 repetitions. Someone with strong chest muscles, let’s say myself for example, needs to do toe push-ups to fatigue and progress. Someone weaker and not mom’s favorite, Alexandra for instance, would be better off with knee push ups. We’d get the same results – exhaustion and the admiration of onlookers. – Kymberly
Love your site!!
I once had children who had a weird sense of humor- disguised as advice-which you two remind me about/. My question; At my advance age, how do I cope with the problem of overweight and very bad knees. I might say that my knees are so bad because of all the time I have spent on them avoiding really hard work. Your suggestions, please???
good job!
Thank you “anonymous.” Does this mean you are out on parole and can’t reveal a name? Or are you super duper deluxe fit and you need to watch out for the paparazzi? So many questions…. We appreciate you reading and commenting!
You two are a hoot! The blog is hysterical. You didn’t even need to label your blogs “K” and “A”…I knew who was who just by reading them. Soon, your readers will too!
Well thank you kindly Aprile ma’am! Great to hear that our unique voices come through and gave you a fun laugh for the day. Now don’t tell anybody how you tell us apart! I can hear it now: “who is fun and who is fit?” It’s embarrassing to reveal that one of us (ok, ….me) is both. Keep up the idea fit-ness!
You make a fitness website fun! Wow, didn’t know that could be done. Looking forward to connecting more on fp2p. I’ll be checking back in with you two.
Thanks Mickey! We are hoping to bust a move that fitness can and needs to be fun. Or at least talking and reading about it can be……
Never thought reading about boobs and saggy boobs could be so much fun.
Great blog post. Glad fp2p got us together.
Too kind Gwen. We personally found the part about the perky boobs much more uplifting. Thank you for checking out our blog!
“Firm frontage” and pushups sipping method? hehe. I opted for double bonus points long ago. Push up bra AND the push ups. KA-BOOM!