It’s always been said “laughter is the best medicine” and it saves years off your life. It can also be one heck of a fabulous workout. At least that’s what business reporter Megan Graham and I try to convince ourselves as we struggle through awkward yoga moves, and nearly ignite a domino effect through the class, or sweat through the pain of Cardio Abs every week at the Kokomo YMCA.
We’re proud participants and the only team of two (shout out to Team Tribune) at Holiday Trimmings, a five-week weight loss challenge with... get ready... prizes every week at the Kokomo YMCA. That is, if you complete all the challenges, we haven’t just yet. Although we’re prize-less participants at the moment, we feel like we’ve found the real prize: the secret to fitness...laughter. Incidentally, so have a lot of people in the class. Sometimes the sound of giggling can blend with the booming bass designed to pump up your motivation before you have your toosh handed to you by YMCA’S resident Jillian Michaels double. Like any workout regime, it’s only successful if it fits your schedule, so we don’t always make it to class - then we get called out on Twitter by the YMCA, “We haven’t seen Team Tribune for awhile.” - so we take Team Tribune to the streets and pump the motivation for a power walk where we share the highlights of hilarity from our day. Once again, provoking major levels of laughter. We think we’re on to the next big workout craze, Laugh 4 Abs: Grab a friend, hit the gym and giggle.
The success of Laugh 4 Abs was reaffirmed during Thanksgiving. It’s a workout that will literally knock you to the floor and pray you won’t pee your pants. (How’s that for a marketing slogan?) It’s also a workout you can do at dinner, at the grocery or even while playing Scrabble.
The workout was tested and confirmed as my boyfriend’s mom absolutely lost her mind because “the Scrabble board is just weird and there’s no way anyone could play anything with the words on that thing.” [Editor’s note: Explicits were removed to protect innocent eyes.] As the sand of the game’s miniature hourglass leaked away, her remaining time to blame the board for her literary misfortune, her frustration and our laughter increased proportionally. Laugh 4 Abs elevated to a proven success when desperate times called for desperate measures for Mrs. Literary Misfortune.
Her solution? Make up words, and hope they exist in some form of the English language - her luck never panned out. But the laughter definitely did.
It’s a brave step, to “assume” a word exists while you’re playing Scrabble with two journalists but, “that dang [explicits altered] clock is always almost out of time” and the pressure provokes some ab-crunching laughter.
She took a sip of her drink and boldly laid down the letters to spell: “JUIOST.”
I nearly had my first injury in the -- at this point -- highly-conditioned Laugh 4 Abs, as I dropped from the chair to the floor holding my stomach as I worked out my abs. I was so dedicated to my workout I barely overheard her defending her “word.”
“It’s joist, or something, I don’t know what the word is. I just want this game to be over,” she said as her bravery transformed to disgust for the game that had wronged her before she joined in on the Laugh 4 Abs workout as we all laughed at her desperate attempt to seize a win.
It was a moment worthy of a workout.
Laugh 4 Abs is a simple and short workout without the requirement of machines or weights, it just takes a minute of your time to grab a friend or family member, experience a moment and live your life with a little or a lot of laughter (increased laughter improves results).
Megan Graham and Lindsay Eckert fully endorse this product. (Note: Megan Graham is a business reporter, she knows endorsement-worthy products).
[friday]
Lindsay's column: 11.30.12 >> Laugh 4 Abs: A workout for all
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Facebooks threads into more than I expected
“Lindsay, what’s on your mind?”
I immediately thought, “I’d have to be pretty self-centered to think my ‘Facebook friends’ would care about such an answer.” So, the section stayed blank on my profile for far longer than most. -
Kokomo Speedway
After 18 interviews, copious note-taking, endless discussions and picture browsing for a story about something bigger than its parts — i.e. Kokomo Speedway — is nearly finished. To be honest, I’d never been to Kokomo Speedway until last year. I grew up watching the Indy 500 and picking a name from a hat, but my racing knowledge ended there. But, when you fall in love with someone who fell in love with Kokomo Speedway — most likely when he was still in the womb as his mom watched his dad race — your knowledge increases, exponentially.
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Earth Day: Experience it every day
“No litterers allowed,” stated the sign I drew up with peace signs and flowers with extra power that adorned my bedroom door as a kid. Growing up, I was a litter patrol lady. Toss a banana out the window? You were going to face the wrath of a 6-year-old. Leave a soda can at the park? Oh my, a mistake you don’t want to make. My cousins would purposely provoke such opportunities for nothing more than to get the entertaining spiel of keeping the Earth safe from a 6-year-old. I encouraged institutionalizing recycling in our household and double-checked trash cans to make sure recycling objects didn’t make their way into the wrong places.
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The Waving Girl
She was born on land, but her soul was given life from her love of the sea and the lives it carried. Her journey started simply and ended sentimentally. During the in-between, she was the symbol of home to the hearts of maritime travelers: At night, she was the illumination of guidance. At morn, she was the breeze the sea gently exhaled. For 44 years, she was ingrained with the Savannah River’s sand — just as she was ingrained in the minds who witnessed her waving handkerchief interrupt a sun ray’s storyline. S
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Never too late for April Fool’s Day
This will be my last column for the [friday] section, as Kokomantis has been promoted from corner-side spectator to Lifestyle Editor ... Just kidding, late April Fool’s Day joke! I look forward to writing my column every week just like I look forward to my favorite “holiday” every year. For 364 days, I plan pranks of all varieties for my beloved day that’s dedicated to flipping my family and friends out.
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The Egg Battle of 1990
Easter may be a time of sugary sweet Peeps and darting for hard-boiled eggs dressed in their Easter Sunday best. For me, it’s been about that and getting back to my roots. Growing up, my family and I nestled into my Pap’s motor home and headed for the mountains of West Virginia – our annual Easter Sunday home for my entire childhood.
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Bracket Madness
As a Hoosier, it’s hard to believe Wednesday night marked my first bracket-building experience. Despite my love for sports, I never got into brackets. I’m a one-team-at-a-time gal so in the fall it’s the Colts; in the winter it’s the Hoosiers; and in the spring and summer I go to baseball games for the people watching and soft pretzels. So, I never learned the pros and cons of other teams and what makes them worthy of winning in a bracket.
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Reality is only as deep as our passions
When I was in seventh grade the “Real World” was a reality show I was forbidden to watch. The behaviors flaunted were borderline unfit for TV, let alone a 12-year-old’s eyes. However, that’s what older cousins were for, I suppose, because my remote somehow found its way to MTV a time or two and lessons in how to not live your life ensued. But, today Howard County 7th graders are getting a multifaceted look into life in the “Real World” — and not the kind that encompasses Jell-O wrestling and TV-censored bleeps interrupting 80 percent of a sentence.
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You belong among the wildflowers
It’s the kind of lyrics that wreck your heart and warm your heart all at the same time. The melody happily whistles well wishes while the fingertips of yearning for yesteryear slip over each note. It’s the kind of song that sounds like the simplicity of childhood and feels like the rare chance of finding and living a childhood-type happiness — even if the years between now and the date on your birth certificate say you’re an adult.
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Save IU School of Journalism
As the doors swing to a close, the pens held at the hands of journalists aren’t writing, the recorders aren’t rolling and the cameras aren’t capturing. The envelope of Indiana University School of Journalism’s future is unfolding, but the details are sealed tightly by Lauren Robel, Indiana University Provost, who recommended the school merge with Indiana University’s College of Arts and Sciences (COAS) last week — expelling the journalistic institution from its Ernie Pyle Hall home and potentially downgrading the nationally-ranked school to a program within the bigger-is-better school of thought.
- More [friday] Headlines
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Company Promises to Make All Snail Mail Digital
Analyst: Tumblr Fills Void in Yahoo's Offerings
Commuters Face Delays After Conn. Train Accident
Raw: Swarm of Tornadoes Slams Plains
Raw: Fierce Bombing in Qusair, Syria
RAW: TV Staff Take Cover From Tornado
Raw: Accused US Spy Reportedly Leaves Russia
AP CEO: Records Seizure 'Unconstitutional'
Fatal Hot Air Balloon Accident in Turkey
Tornadoes, Storms Strike Midwest
'Babyland': Camp Lejeune's Toxic Legacy?
Raw: Heavy Tornado Damage in Shawnee, Okla
NTSB Begins Investigation Into Conn. Train Crash
Could Tobacco Be the Next Biofuel?
