How to feel good in a Fitflop when it looks like and Ugg but you know it's not an Ugg but no one else does

After seeing the release for Fitflop's winter styles all the way back in 2009, I had been contemplating taking up with a pair. But which ones? There's a new 'trainer' style due out this spring, but that's for another post (one in which I come to terms with wearing trainers in public. I can't (unless in full workout gear) because I feel like a schlep in trainers in public. Sorry, but they have their place... the gym). 

Sorry, what is a Fitflop, you ask? It's the brainchild of Marcia Kilgore, of Bliss fame (she's the founder). The shoes use Microwobbleboard™ technologyin the soles that help you to use muscles for a longer period while you walk, mimic barefoot walking and apparently relieve quite a bit of foot and leg pain.

The actual sandal Fitflop (the Walkstar) never appealed to me. I knew someone who wore them and they looked, well, chunky and therapeutic on her. Never stylish, although there are clearly women out there (like the ones with the fine pegs showing off the shoes the website) that can make them look downright glamorous.

The shorter versions of the Fitflop winter boot (Gogh et al) were out too because of the nasty winter weather. No sense in getting a boot and then finding out it's too short to wear in the cold.

So I settled on the mid-length Fitflop Mukluk. Lined with real shearling (the same cannot be said for many a look-a-like boot on the street, often made with acrylic and known to make feet stink) and a suede outer, they look remarkably like Uggs (and imitation Uggs), the footwear delight from down under that, like Marmite and Ricky Gervais, either you love or hate (or love to hate). I fall into the latter camp, hating them. Far too many a WAG and Chav have made it a wardrobe staple for me to want the same sort of social judgement heaped on me that's reserved for the those groups. And, unless you're whippet thin, like Kate Moss, you look more yeti than boho waif.

However, when the Fitflop Mukluk in black wasn't available in my size, I bit the bullet and ordered the tan pair. They showed up, I put them on and wore them to a dinner out with friends... and found myself making excuses for the Ugg-a-likes over appetizers, but by dessert I was growing to like them (a feeling enhanced by the muscles burning in my inner thighs after the 10-minute walk to the restaurant).

In future, I shall think of them as Smug Uggs - SMUGGs. They resemble the footwear of choice for the slobby celeb, but only on the surface and at a distance. Wear them and pat yourself on the back for getting some extra muscle toning and/or simply easier walking (one of the most common comments is the lack of foot and leg pain new owners feel after wearing them).   

I'll be wearing mine until mid-April, at least, when I'm hoping Fitflop come out with a slicker sandal. If they do, I'll be first in line...

After a few more weeks of wear and tear, we'll let you know if we see a difference in the appearance of our legs. Right now, we feel it and, frankly, they feel good to wear. My legs don't get nearly as achy after two hours of standing at the kitchen counter as they do without them...

To be continued... until next time, I'll be swaddled in Shearling.

In the meantime, let me know... do you wear clothing/shoes in public that maybe make you feel a touch ridiculous, but you solider on anyway because they're supposed to be good for you? Would you wear an Ugg-a-like boot in public? Do you think Fitflop technology works? Have you used it? What are your thoughts?

Another blow to the American waistline: 50oz Coca-Cola for lunch, anyone?

As I was reading Rachelblogs just a few minutes ago, I came across a short post on one of Coca-Cola's newest product roll-outs: the 90-calorie can. Yes, I realise there have been mini-cans before but they were of the short, beefy variety, as if someone just sliced off the top half of a regular can. These are distinctly different, in a good way.

However, the reason I bring up the new and well-designed (but of course... it's for a European audience) mini-Coca-Cola is because it is the antithesis to the new product they've just rolled out in the states, the cute Mini Copper to my country's hideous Hummer. Coca-Cola have launched a twin pack complete with two 50oz bottles (which you can hold like regular bottles) so you have 'ENOUGH FOR YOUR MEAL'. No, it's not a joke. I just fact checked that s**t with my own eyes, since the billboard for it is fifteen floors below me, right on my corner at Canal St and Lake St.

So, other countries get 90 calorie cans (and other perks like REAL sugar in Mexican Coca-Cola) that are beautiful enough to perhaps find a place in MoMA one day and I, in Chicago, get... 100oz of high fructose corn syrup that I can now conveniently drink straight from the bottle. Somehow, I'm not as excited by my offering. I quiver at the thought of the horrific people who participated in that US focus group.

How does this pertain to beauty? I would like to believe that's obvious... obvious in that you are at risk for type 2 diabetes and obesity and myriad PREVENTABLE conditions (which cost the unfathomably complicated healthcare system in the US so much. One LA Times blogger put annual health spending linked obesity at $147 billion) if you think throwing back 50 ounces of a soft drink at ONE MEAL is okay. Also, that Coca-Cola (as with so many other brands) have demonstrated they can make their products pretty, but they just chose not to for certain, ahem, markets.

Coca-Cola calls their cool new can 'a little happiness in a stylish new package is coming soon to your refrigerator. Coca-Cola today introduced a new 90-calorie sleek mini can to give consumers a better way to manage their calories.”

Is that what you can do with your new 50oz. bottle of diabetes juice? Manage your calories? Didn't think so. 

Update on 03.15.2010 by Jessica Teas (née Gearhart)

Since posting this, Coca-Cola have actually posted a billboard for the mini-Coca-Cola cans on my corner where the preposterous 'enough for your meal' billboard of the 50oz. 2-pack used to be... a case of having read this blog? I'm going to say probably not (because it is, after all, just a teeny blog) but it's a relief to see the new billboard.

Raising the barre with The Dailey Method: The cure for one reformed exercise addict

Exercise in the morning before you drink you're coffee. You'll feel better for it. I swear.

What brings on this burst of earnest fitness fever? Many things, culminating in a nagging internal voice and that slow, steady secretary spread creeping across my backside. Of late, the voice has become a cacophony of shouts and I've decided not to capitulate to an office chair-shaped ass. Really, there is something I can do about it. How did I let it get to this -- voices in my head and a square bum?

Let me give you a bit of background... growing up I was an athlete. Training for several hours a day in a variety of sports until field hockey took hold, waking me up at 6am for 3-mile rollerblades to 4-hour practices. High school glory followed (yes, we were glorious. The record speaks for itself and false modesty would be just as ugly here)... state champs and all that. Lean, mean hockey machines, we were. Thus followed what we had been primed for -- university-level hockey (after a summer as a lifeguard, natch), a huge disappointment for me.

At uni, we were met by M, head raisin (and coach at times), what she most resembled, standing at 5-foot nothing, sun parched and withered to a soft, wrinkly finish from lack of food (the fate of life-long anorexia + binge exercise)) and sunscreen. She had a strange way about her. Mentally, she was your twisted drill sergeant, toying with your mind as if it were a mouse caught between her feline paws; escape was futile. Physically, the team was a bit, well, paunchy and indolent. 5 minutes of jogging pre-practice did not a workout make. Where were the hours spent sprinting? The drills? The not standing around like toddlers in centerfield staring at the clouds? Gone, it was, with the high school glory. I began exercising -- aerobics, running, sprinting, lifting, swimming... whatever -- on my own time, becoming a certified personal trainer for a giggle (no way I was doing that professionally, what with my student debt load. I chose journalism instead. Joke's on me). I digress, but it is purposeful: to show just how much of an exercise rat I had been MY ENTIRE LIFE, to my core... up to moving to London in 2004, when I promptly sat down and haven't risen since.

In an instant, the thing that had defined me throughout my life had disappeared as quickly as my toned abs did. Bam! A few good odd jobs (in front of a computer) were followed by a stint in a dysfunctional work relationship (sat in front of a laptop) for a slatternly, self-styled web guru. Whoosh! Fast forward two years and still glued to that 15-inch screen in the start-up era.

Guess where I am right now? Ja, ja. Same place.

Exercise and I have an intimate, entangled history, even though I've been skillfully and successfully giving it the cold shoulder for years, giving my laptop undivided attention instead. Sure, there were and are micro fits and starts of fitness in my life. I did climb Kilimanjaro (although that was a one off)... usually, it's 30 minutes on the recumbent bicycle checking my emails or a set of sit-ups while watching House once every few weeks. Or, if I'm feeling particularly sporty, a rogue and breathless dash to a Pilates studio, arriving 5 minutes after the start of class. None of it habit-forming, like a good addictive substance is meant to be.

The short of my almost phobia for fitness it is that I was burnt out, plain and simple, after so many years of forcing it upon myself. I still cringe at the thought of going for a jog and think I'll go crazy 3 minutes into the weights. The sheer inanity of such repetitious behaviour just terrorises me. I cannot glance in the direction of a treadmill anymore without narrowed eyes.

However, thought of re-entering the world of the non-flabulous has again crossed my mind.

How many women out there must workout every day, loathing every single minute of it but doing it out of obligation or fear of what will happen if they, god forbid, don't!? I did it for years and the backlash was an all-out boycott of the thing I used to do daily, without fail... the single thing that defined me, the thing I was best at.

What could bring on such a stirring after so many years of vehement abstinence? No doubt the years off the wagon helped. Looking back, it was the sort of thing someone like me had to do cold turkey. My relationship with sports and exercise was simply all-encompassing and, frankly, it was always going to be a messy breakup. There was no asking exercise to be friends, happily if somewhat cautiously co-existing in the same realm. No trial separation. I fled and didn't call, didn't leave a note, hoping it would just forget me... Several years later after my first trip to The Dailey Method studio in Chicago's Bucktown and I think we can find a friendly middle ground on which to co-exist, this time without the guilt and self-flagellation.

The Dailey Method is one of those barre classes that's become popular in America and probably at places like Pineapple Studios in Covent Garden, London. It's a hybrid of ballet, Pilates and yoga. After meeting with the Chicago branch owner today, getting a feel for the place and watching a class, I know it's exactly the sort of gentle yet heart-pumping, mind-engaging, muscle-quivering exercise I'm ready to do. It's a different kettle of fish from the sprinting, kicking, punching, passing of yore. Going back to that's just not an option; I'm truly burnt out on it forever. But starting this review with The Dailey Method, I've come to realise that I'm not burnt out on exercise all together -- it's just certain forms of exercise my body will resist with all its force forever more. Thank god we figured that out now and not 40 pounds and many inches down the road!

And with that, I start my month-long trial of The Dailey Method. Two days a week, for an hour each day, I'll make my way to the studio to pulse, plié and pump my way back into an exercise habit. It takes approximately 21 days to form a habit, so I should be good to go -- steady with resolve -- after 30.

The Dailey Method, 1714 North Damen Avenue, Second Floor, Chicago, IL 60622 (773.904.8913).

Watch this space for the rest of the review series for The Dailey Method. PS: They're also opening a small spa. More news on that soon!