Another exercise session with Lucy Wyndham Read. She has dozens of exercise tapes on YouTube. The tapes range from 3 minutes up to at least 35 minutes, require no weights, and work every part of the body. You can tone, lose inches, pump up your metabolism, firm your breasts, slim your legs, melt the fat off your back, get rid of muffin tops, tighten your bat wings, drop a dress size, sculpt your tushy….. whatever you want.  

Wyndham Read is not the only one who can do all this; there are dozens of instructors with videos on YouTube, good videos that can give a person a thorough workout with or without weights. And all for free.

Many of the instructors work Tabata style:  high-intensity interval training that consists of 8 sets of fast-paced exercises with a ten-second rest between sets, or some variation of this. The name Tabata comes from Dr. Izumi Tabata, a physician and researcher, who around 1996 was hired by coach of the Japanese speed-skating team to examine their training program, which consisted of short, rapid bursts of efforts and short rest periods. Dr. Tabata analyzed the program and found it to be advantageous for both aerobic and anaerobic systems plus it took a lot less time than moderate anaerobic exercise. How could Americans not love it:  fast, effective, and scientifically developed?

In my own experience, it’s good to warm up before these exercises, but then, snip snap snout, —you’re sweating, toned, and you’ve done your heart a favor. 

Another top exercise is walking. Here, we’ve had a 100-meter limit, that just recently was lengthened to 500 meters. Either way, if you can get in the right frame of mind, you can take 100 meters in each of the 4 directions, and you’ve already done 400 meters, do that 4 X and it’s a little over a European mile. It’s a good way to know the neighborhood if you are a city dweller. If you live in the country you’re fortunate and can go as far in any direction you’d like. 

The walking and the Tabata make a perfect combination (with the walking first), and you may end up being in better shape after isolation is over, than you were when it started. 

For snacks, we’ve stocked up on rye and rick crackers, tangerines, strawberries, apples….and, maybe a few cantucci to have with tea.  Tea! It’s important to hydrate and I’m drinking lots of tea.  Here’s a recipe that I learned when I inadvertently ordered it at The Little Prince Bookstore on King George Street here in TLV:  

Pour boiling water over: honey to taste, 1 slice fresh ginger, 1cinnamon stick, fresh lemon juice, 1 tea bag green tea. Steep.

Another journey of the divided heart starts tonight when we leave Israel for the United States and head into yet another, stricter, quarantine. As my life here in Israel seems so normal to me now, I think when I return to the U.S. I will find a different country.