Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

Stay Sexy ~ Stay Healthy

A Sexy Workout Fave

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Here’s one for all you baby boomers out there. I was thrilled in 2012 to shed those final few pounds and reach the weight I enjoyed in my twenties, pre-pregnancy. Did I mention said son is now over thirty? So it’s been a while, and as any baby boomer will tell you, it’s not arranged in quite the same way, even though I’ve never not worked out. I have wonderfully strong abs, snazzy legs – and love handles at my waist, in spite of everything.

But I found the perfect move to whip them into shape, courtesy of Beyonce and Women’s Health Magazine: Side planks with knee tuck twist. Caveat – I am not a trainer, so if you want to do this move, go to the Workout Link and do exactly as they say! Essentially, the move is a side plank, upper arm bent at the elbow with hand on head, in which the lower leg comes forward in a knee tuck while the torso and upper arm bend so the elbow reaches toward the moving knee. Got that? Look it up :)! According to the instructions I read, Beyonce does ten reps on each side, three sets.

I lay on the floor on my side as instructed, bent my lower arm at the elbow and placed that forearm on the floor, raised my torso until my weight was only supported by my forearm and my feet – and promptly rolled forward, falling out of the plank. This, in spite of years of regular cardio workouts and occasional yoga. Definitely some muscles in need of a new workout!

So the first hurdle was strength and balance. Needless to say, once I got the balance thing figured out, adding the knee tuck (never mind the torso bend!) immediately rolled me forward flat on the floor again. Or sometimes, backwards. Three sets of ten reps? Not gonna happen.

Start small is my main motto – and truly, that is what I did. My first day, just getting one rep accomplished on each side was a major miracle. I wisely skipped the next day. Day three – still just one on each side. Day five I was finally able to bump it up to two. And so it went, a little more each day, until I could crank out a full ten reps on each side without falling out of the plank.

Am I there yet? Way improved – and in any case, it’s a process. But when I put on my low-rise jeans, that irritating roll of flab over the belt is missing, so I’m happy, and that’s motivation to keep at it.

One more thing: Did you notice my main motivation for adding this routine to my workout was vanity? Guess what – it doesn’t matter what it takes to get you started on something that’s good for you. Turns out this routine has fabulous payoff in the bedroom! It works your obliques and strengthens your core, so you’ll experience improved stamina, not to mention better Kegel squeeze power. And yes, my husband noticed – he loves it. Try it out – your sex life will be glad you did.

What’s your favorite workout move? We’d love to hear about it.

Have fun – and Stay Sexy!

Stay Sexy: The sexiest thing you can ever do…

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…is get your heart rate up there!

Okay, so you already know being sexy probably has to involve our hearts – we want to be sexy with the person we give our heart to, right? And after all, this week is Valentine’s Day, so talking about our hearts is a natural.

But here’s the thing: elevating our heart rate into that aerobic target zone, even a little bit, does something magical for both our bodies and our brains. Turns out it helps us be both more desirable and more interested in being sexy!

Body-wise, it helps us burn fat (and, if you saw our Stay Sexy column last week, you know having sex burns as many calories as lots of other forms of exercise). Plus, there’s more, according to the Mayo Clinic. It makes our metabolism more efficient. It’ll improve our stamina, in case we’re aiming for a marathon session. It reduces pain – maybe that’s why my migraine episodes decreased as my workouts increased. I’ll take it! It revs up our immune system, reducing our likelihood of getting sick. And, naturally, it’s good for our hearts. It strengthens the heart muscles and helps clear out our arteries by boosting our HDL cholesterol (the good kind).

Did that list sound sexy? Not so much, by itself – but even just sticking with what it does for the body, I’ll look better, feel better and live longer, and that’s sexy.

The brain magic is even more impressive – and less well known. According to Dr. John Ratey, in Spark, spending time in our target heart rate zone decreases depression, reduces anxiety, relieves stress, decreases dementia in later life, and even increases our brain capacity. Personally, I think that’s very sexy – I’ll be happier, more relaxed, smarter, and possibly even more inventive!

I hope this list of benefits has piqued your curiosity – I’d love to answer questions about how all this works (see, I told you it makes us smarter 🙂 ). Stay tuned – in future Stay Sexy columns, we’ll be sharing more personally about the impact this information has had for both my husband and myself.

In the meantime – Happy Valentine’s Day, have fun, and stay sexy!

Stay Sexy!

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Announcing our launch of a new weekly column, Stay Sexy, where we’ll bring you everything we’ve learned about staying sexy and healthy.

Stay Sexy!

What comes to your mind when you see those words? For me, it’s about staying vibrant, healthy, excited about my partner, open to new experiences, creating variety…and, oh yeah, writing the erotic romance for two, three, or more that hubs and I so enjoy.

It’s hard for me to separate what we do from who we are. We invest a great amount of time and energy in staying active and healthy. Our activities feed our writing, and our writing definitely feeds our activities!

By now you readers know he and I are both baby boomers, that special group of folks born between 1946 and 1964. I’m not saying exactly when, but we’re not the youngest members of the cohort. If you’re younger than us boomers, you may not have run into many of the health challenges we face as we age – but, the more you stay fit and sexy in your youth, the fewer preventable problems you will face. It goes without saying, the better your sex life will be in your fifties and sixties!

For all the above reasons, tomorrow we’re launching a weekly feature on our blog aimed at sharing tips we’ve learned along the way for keeping vibrant, healthy, excited and sexy across the life cycle. We’re calling it Stay Sexy, and we’ll be running it every Sunday.

We’ll continue to scour the web for new information, tips and resources and bring you the best ones that catch our eye. Sometimes we’ll simply share something that happened to us and what we’ve learned from it. And we’ll be reaching into the romance writers’ community, featuring interviews with some of your favorite authors who are also on the road to fitness and health.

It’s all about one of our tag lines, Hot Sex at Any (Legal) Age. We love to write it, we love to read it, and we hope to embody it. We’re excited to be sharing that journey in this new way with you, our readers.

Be sure to check us out tomorrow, February 3, when we get behind the so-called myth: does sex burn a lot of calories or not?

Stay sexy!

Nina Hartley Changed My Life #AVN Expo

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Wow. We did it – hubs and I, who co-write Erotic Romance for Two, Three, or More, sprang for the cost of the tickets and went to yesterday’s Adult Entertainment Expo, part of the AVN Awards celebration this week in Las Vegas.

If there was one person I wanted to meet (and never dreamed I could), it was Nina Hartley. We started watching her videos more years ago than probably she or we would like to confess, though it’s clear we do share baby boomer status with her.

As fans of our Swinging Games series can probably guess, we accessed adult videos (and yes, they were video cassettes) to spice up our own sex life, a daunting challenge with young kids still in the house and the inevitable effects of aging starting to settle in.

We were in the right place at the right time. Nina’s part of a new lifestyle website (more on that in an upcoming blog) – we had no clue, but were just browsing booths and saw her pic. I asked the staff person if she would be there – YES! In ten minutes! You can believe we waited for her – and I was first in line.

What I said:

“Nina, you changed my life.”

What we talked about:

I was astounded. After I told her how much we’ve loved her films, she started talking about how our bodies change as we age, and how important it is to believe in ourselves inside, remember what it felt like to be twenty nine, and enjoy our bodies as much now as we did then. More, in fact – she shared that, and I totally agree. I am having more fun in my body than when I was twenty nine, for certain!

What I wish I’d said:

That she was at the center of a profound series of changes in my life, and I am grateful beyond words. Of the videos we started watching, hers were the most engaging – it’s no surprise I like a storyline, which so many of hers deliver, and I loved watching her body and her sensuality. Naked Hollywood was my favorite series, and we bought them all.

We definitely benefitted from a jump-start to our libidos. That led us, somewhat later, to try our hand at writing the kinds of stories we liked to watch – so Nina, if you’re reading this, I don’t think we’d be a published erotic romance author, if it wasn’t for your adult films.

Good luck at tonight’s Awards Ceremony!!

Sex Positivity, continued.

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Every morning I troll my FaceBook “Likes” looking for posts to share with readers. Hubs and I write erotic romance together because we love it, we love great sex, and we want to be part of helping our readers not only find hot spicy reads, but expecially find joy and pleasure in their sexuality.

Two posts crossed my path this morning and they kind of go together. The first is from Life On The Swingset – a real-life swinger who is blogging about his journey in the lifestyle. He came out about his poly lifestyle to a friend, and it cost him the friendship. Here’s the blog LINK. Go like his Facebook Page, if you’re looking for a window into the poly lifestyle.

The very next post in my feed was from The Pleasure Coach (another page I highly recommend you “like”) – it was the graphic below:

So I always reach back to the Sex Positivity credo (with a shout-out to sex blogger Charlie Glickman) when I run into these things: There are only three criteria for judging any sexual act.

  1. that it takes place among consenting adults
  2. that it brings pleasure to the participants
  3. that it brings no harm to anyone involved.

That’s it. Period. No judgment, no censure, no shame in someone else’s choices, as long as it meets these criteria.

So that’s my hope, on this mid-January day in 2013.

Go have some intensely erotic, normal fun!

It’s a Tough Job…

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But somebody’s got to do it!

“Research,” I mean. No, not that kind, though hubs and I enjoy our share of that, too.

I’m talking about combing the web every morning for the latest tips, guides, and resources to spice up your sex life. Of course, we hope you include sharing sizzling scenes from our erotic romances – that’s why we write them, after all.

When we find something we like, we share it on our Facebook PAGE – hop over there and “like” us to feed our finds into your Facebook newstream.

Already we love how this is enriching our own life. I’m an early riser, so most mornings by the time I take my husband his first cup of coffee, my brain is buzzing with sexy ideas I’ve found and I’m ready to plot new scenes and stories (or activities :)). We’re sure finding more ideas than we’ll be able to try out in one lifetime – but we’ll bring you the best of them, and sometimes also blog about them.

One of our faves is the Good Vibrations online magazine, The Buzz, at http://goodvibesblog.com. This morning, they had some great tips for staying present during sex – you know, not leaving our bodies or making the holiday to-do list or fostering anxious thoughts that take us away from the pleasure of the moment.

It’s a fabulous article packed with good advice. My personal favorite (and one I practice regularly) is #3: “Third, before sex, spend 30 minutes to an hour doing whatever makes you feel hot.” This can be a marvelous prelude to set the mood and ramp up the eroticism. It can be whatever works for you – perhaps a soothing bubble bath, your favorite adult videos, a massage with scented oils, or reading a spicy erotic scene, alone or together.

Here’s the link – enjoy!

http://goodvibesblog.com/staying-present-during-sex/