Stay Sexy

Stay Sexy ~ The Best Little….

October 19, 2014 by Adriana Kraft 1 Comment

Once it was the best little whorehouse in Texas—but now it’s in Nye County, Nevada, where we live, and it’s called the Chicken Ranch. So when friends invited us to Octoberfest at the Chicken Ranch, we decided we shouldn’t pass it up.

Loved it! Like no party I’d ever been to. Football was the theme, and guests were encouraged to wear team jerseys, so of course I hauled out my 2010 Championship T-shirt for the Green Bay Packers. Sad to say, not one of the ladies was a Packer fan – Steelers, Cowboys, Raiders, Broncos, even Seahawks. And I’ll have to admit their jerseys looked a little different than mine…

Drinks, finger foods, like any other cocktail party, with a little something extra. There was a “football” game where one player, blindfolded, had to carry a nerf football through the opposing team and endure a variety of tackles in order to reach the goal line. I won – and so did everyone who played, and I don’t think anyone minded the up close and personal tackles.

My favorite was the musical chairs lapdance. I’ll confess a lapdance has been on my bucket list for a while, so now I can check that off, very happily. Twelve of us, all genders, sat on chairs in a circle, and the ladies danced for us, then moved on to the next guest when someone yelled “switch.” Definitely entertaining.

Both of us also enjoyed a chance to talk with some of the ladies who work there. They’re normal people, making a good living. Some are saving up for hopes and dreams such as graduate school or starting a business. All are glad to be doing work they love in an environment that’s friendly, fully legal, and above all, safe.

I think that’s part of what made this such a fun, special event: a chance to be engaged in risqué, sexy behaviors with a group of like-minded adults, in a safe and legal setting where consent is at the top of the list and is honored.

Just like in the Dolly Parton movie, the brothels in Pahrump pride themselves in giving back to the community. They are often major donors to local charities, and they frequently host events open to the public, like Octoberfest. Next? A Halloween party at Sherri’s Ranch. I have my costume all planned.

Stay Sexy ~ Make Time for Wonder

December 22, 2013 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

Imagine this: After years of intense scientific training, you are part of a carefully selected team sent on earth’s first mission to the moon, to map it, photograph it, and observe as much about it as you can. On your fourth orbit, as you are photographing and describing a large crater, your orbiter begins a scheduled roll, and suddenly this is the view outside your window:

Source: Wikimedia

Forty Five years ago on Christmas Eve day, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders accidentally became the first humans to witness earthrise as their lunar orbiter slowly turned towards the moon’s horizon. Abandoning the protocol of “scheduled” photographs, they scrambled to find color film in time to record the sight that so moved them, and the rest is history.

This year, NASA has given us the gift of re-experiencing this moment in a stunning seven minute video available at this LINK.

How to Stay Sexy? Take time out from the pressure and hectic schedule of the holiday season, and let yourself taste this moment of wonder. You’ll be glad you did.

I’ll leave you with a favorite Einstein quotation:

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

Have fun, and Stay Sexy!

Stay Sexy ~ It’s Hard Work

August 18, 2013 by Adriana Kraft 3 Comments

I have a vivid memory of our now-grown son running up to me after his first day of kindergarten, beaming as he shared his important news: “Guess what, Mom? Hard work pays off!”

Here’s a fact baby boomers need to know if you want to stay sexy through these next decades: It takes a lot of work. Couch potatoes aren’t sexy, pretty much, and the time-worn phrase use it or lose it applies, too.

So here we go – what does the hard work consist of, and how do we keep it going?

1) Move your body

The direct payoff of aerobic exercise and strength training for our sex lives is well documented. We’ll look better, feel better, have more muscle tone, develop more stamina, have better orgasms…the list goes on. If you’re not used to moving, you can start small – and it never pays to set expectations too high, in the beginning. That’s a set-up for failure and disappointment. Find something that works for you (we like Xbox 360 Kinect Dance Central and Extreme Makeover, as well as dance classes), something you like, something you can see yourself maintaining over the long haul, and above all, just start. Any day you do something is a day you’re not a couch potato. At our house? Forty minutes a day, almost every day. Hard work.

2) Eat well

Yes, to stay sexy, we have to be careful about what we eat. Pay attention to what foods – and how much – you need for a healthy, balanced lifestyle, as opposed to a quick-fix diet. Because my husband is a cardiac patient, we’ve developed a repertoire of delicious, satisfying heart-healthy main meals from which we rarely stray. Whole grains instead of refined flours. Fruits for dessert instead rich baked goods. A baked apple, with cinnamon, four or five pecans, and just the tiniest touch of butter, instead of apple pie, and pour a little 1%, almond, or soy milk over it instead of ice cream or whipped cream. There are lots of resources out on the web (see item #4 below) to help with staying both delicious and healthy in our eating habits. Yes, this takes discipline.

3) Be sexual every day

With your partner, if you have one, but fly solo if you’re alone. Guys may adapt to this more easily than women, since guys typically have an average of eleven daily erections during waking hours. But many sources recommend an orgasm a day for overall health, and even short of orgasm, keeping that cock or pussy active and well-rehearsed will pay off in greater sexual stamina, increased ability to achieve and maintain arousal, increased comfort with penetration and overall ability to enjoy sex.

Kegels are a good place to start, for both men and women. Exercises that help sustain blood flow for the penis, and toys or play that keeps a vagina stretched and ready to receive are additional options.

And if you have a partner, sharing a little TLC, cock-training, cuddle time, adult film watching or reading out loud from your favorite erotic romance can keep those endorphins flowing and improve your overall connectedness and well being, even if it doesn’t always lead to intercourse or orgasm.

4) Exercise your Brain

We all know that the brain is the most important sex organ – to establish and maintain arousal as our bodies change, we’ll want to keep our brains as primed as possible! I’m not just talking crossword puzzles and Sudoku here (though I do lots of both). Keep learning things, keep finding new and stimulating topics that spark your interest. One of our favorite coffee hangouts has the motto “life is short – stay awake for it.” Works for us!

5) Learn how to talk to yourself

It’s all about motivation – we all have those days when we just don’t feel like putting in the hard work. It’s okay to skip a day once in a while, but it’s crucial to pick it back up once we’ve taken that break and keep it going. Learn what your prime motivating factors are and practice using them: what threat or reward is most likely to get you up off that couch and following your regimen again? I have several – here are a couple of them. It took me years to get rid of those love handles that used to hang over the waistband of my jeans, and I don’t want them back. Yes, that’s vanity – whatever works! I also have the specter of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease hanging over me on both sides of my gene pool, and there are certainly mornings where that fear alone drives me to get back at it. When the going gets tough, know what kind of pep talk to give yourself.

6) Build a support network and use it

Keeping up with all these practices is very hard work. Sometimes self-talk alone still isn’t enough to keep us going or to re-start the engines. We need buddies – cheerleaders, even, who can encourage us, teach us, and light the way. People in your support network don’t have to be privy to your deepest sexual secrets – they might not even know staying sexy is an important goal for you. But maintaining sexual health is so integrally connected to all other aspects of a healthy lifestyle that anything your friends can contribute to keeping you on track will spill over into the rest of it. Cheerleaders, workout buddies, mentors, fellow travelers – we all feel better and live better when we’re connected to others in these ways.

Share what you’re learning

For my husband and me, writing this column and writing our erotic romance novels have both contributed beyond measure to keeping us vibrant, healthy, excited and sexy. For one thing, hardly a day goes by that we’re not talking or learning about something sexual. What works for you? What have we left out that you would never do without? How do you re-boot yourself when it starts to feel too hard? We’d love to include reader comments and ideas in future columns, so drop us a comment or an email.

Have fun – and Stay Sexy!

Exersexology ~ Interview with Monique Hallowell

April 7, 2013 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

This sexy book was an accident! Fitness expert Monique Hallowell sent fitness professionals home with heart-rate/calorie monitors to study calorie burn during everyday activities – but they left them on while having sex, and her creative mind produced a sexy book out of the data!

Today we’re thrilled to welcome Monique Hollowell, author of Exersexology, for an up close interview. We met Monique at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas in January and got excited about the erotic possibilities of her concept, so we bought the book, loved it, and invited her to tell us more:

Adriana: Welcome, Monique! For openers, could you briefly describe the concept of your book, Exersexology?

Monique: Absolutely! Exersexology is an A-Z Guide to calorie burning sex. The book is filled with over 200 sexual positions which are arranged in twenty-six sexisodes (position chapters). Each sexisode ranges between 4-21 positions. The sexisodes are very user friendly and are formatted in a circle from start to finish. Once the circle is complete, the approximate calories are burned. The book caters to all populations with sexisodes ranging from low intensity to high intensity sexual position combinations (45-303 calories).

Adriana: I’m familiar with how this all got started, but could you let our readers in on the story of what inspired you to develop Exersexology?

Monique: Actually Exersexology came about by accident. I was conducting a general calorie burn study with fitness professionals. The information I was collecting was actual calorie burn while exercising, gardening, house chores etc., but to my surprise the participants were leaving the calorie counting devices on all night including the times they were having sex! This spread like wild fire and I began getting more data on sex calorie-burning than the other activites. Years passed and I hosted an internet radio show on fitness and sex, and thirty minutes after the show aired we had thousands of podcast downloads, it was our #1 rated show. At that time, I know there was a huge curiosity, so I did research, conducted my own case study and created Exersexology – The study of calorie burn during sex.

Adriana: I love that it was accidental! Still, it’s quite a leap from “let’s look at how many calories we burn having sex” to creating the fabulous cycles of “sexisodes,” as you call them, and pulling together the marvelous illustrations of each of the twenty-six cycles. Can you let us go behind the scenes? How did you create the book?

Monique: Wow, believe me it was so fun, but it was a lot of work! The concept began early 2011 and the book was launched January 2013. So it took two years to create the sexisodes, conduct the case study, gather the data, and publish the book. I first came up with the A-Z concept because it’s simple and familiar to everyone. Next, I started creatively writing and giving each sexisode a chapter name from the alphabet (for example, I is Infinity) with a small description. Then, the sexual combinations were based on the theme of the alphabet letter. The positions are all live pictures, which were then recreated by a graphic artist into silhouettes. After couples were chosen and the data was collected from the participants (utilizing heart rate monitors while performing the sexisodes), the book was then pieced together detail by detail to create the final project.

Adriana: One of the things we noticed is that the book doesn’t report how long couples spent going through the various sexisodes. Is that data still available to you? Do you have a sense for whether some sexisodes burn more calories per minute than others?

Monique: Yes, the time was not added because the duration was different for each couple, but yes I still collected the data on time. The significant data was the average calorie burn each person had after completing the circle. The foundation of the data was based on research indicating that thirty minutes of sex burns from seventy five to one hundred fifty kcals.

So, for example letter S Straight Shooter is only 5 positions which will last you about 15-18 minutes, thus the calorie burn being lower at Approx. 54 calories. Whereas a sexisode such as B Bootcamp is filled with 15 challenging positions ( which require greater transition time), gives an approximate burn of 303 kcals and takes 45min-1 hour. From my data, the average position takes anywhere from twenty seconds to two minutes to complete, i.e, getting into the position, performing the position and transitioning out of the position.

Adriana: 🙂 Of course some couples might choose to linger more than two minutes performing a position…As you know, we always try to ensure that whatever we share with readers includes accurate data, and we get concerned when we see others reporting misinformation. That’s what led us to take on the sex doesn’t really burn very many calories news item a couple months ago. Have you run into this? If so, how do you typically respond?

Monique: Fortunately, I have not run into doubters. It’s simple – people can put on their own heart rate/calorie monitor have sex for 30 minutes and get the facts immediately. First, when the information stated above was reported it was reported in combination with effective ways to lose weight for obesity etc. As a fitness professional for over thirteen years, sex is not the first thing I would recommend to burn the most calories and lose weight. Sex is an addition to what you’re currently doing. Next, the study that reported sex hardly burns any calories was done in the 1980’s with ten men in their mid thirties. For whatever reason, their sex episodes only lasted six minutes, and the average calorie burn was 21 calories. The standard data on all exercise is usually noted in thirty minute intervals. Therefore, from the study mentioned above, if the men would have lasted thirty minutes, they would have burned 105 calories.

Adriana: I love that you said sex is an addition to what you’re currently doing :). It wouldn’t be the main tactic for losing weight or getting your heart-rate up, but it’s great to know it makes such a positive contribution to those goals!

When you created the book, how were you hoping it might be used? Who do you hope purchases the book, and what are you hoping they do with it?

Monique: The case study participants in the book were couples between the ages of 35-65, but it’s not limited to those demographics. The book is truly for everyone. The book should be used as an extra tool in your sex tool box. Sex should not be so serious, Exersexology should open up great erotic conversation, provide some creativity to do different things and most important laugh a lot and have fun!

Adriana: That’s exactly why we got so excited about it when we saw your display at the Adult Entertainment Expo. As you know, we’re authors of erotic romance, and we write our weekly Stay Sexy column focused on staying vibrant, healthy, excited and sexy across the life cycle. So we’re especially excited about the erotic pleasure couples might enjoy just from leafing through these pages and trying out the cycles of positions, whether or not they record their calories. Have you received any feedback of this nature from your participating couples?

Monique: I ask for data all the time ( which can be posted on my my blog at www.exersexology.com), but many of us are so secretive about our sex life! I have not received a lot of calorie burning data, but I’ve received very positive feedback of how fun the book has been and how it’s added more creativity to sex lives.

Adriana: As we described in our blog post Shaping up with Sex, we had a fun time with the Quintet sexisode. Are your participants reporting any favorites? May I ask if you have a personal favorite?

Monique: Earth, Joule, Lava and Quintet have been the participants favorites. I am a deep emotional lover so I enjoy forward facing positions (My zodiac sign is Cancer, of course). My personal favorites are Earth and Yin N Yang, but as a fitness professional I often enjoy Crosswalk and Voltage. During the case study, Straight Shooter was the most repeated sexisode, which I believe was because all the positions are the most common (missionary, doggy style etc). Gravity was noted to be the most difficult (this includes upside down positions) and Infinity was the most pleasurable and longest duration (takes about 90 minutes).

Adriana: Ah, a fellow Cancer – no wonder you created the book! From your website and your publicist’s newsletters, it looks like the book is creating quite a stir. What are some of the highlights you’ve experienced as you market the book?

Monique: At the Adult Entertainment Expo we sold out of all our books! I had the exciting opportunity to go down to LA and speak on Playboy radio w/ Tiffany Granath, and I’ve had three TV appearances in addition to many inquiries about translating the book in different languages.

Adriana: Do you plan a follow-up book, or any revisions? Are you still interested in collecting data from couples who try out the sexisodes? And, if so, where would an interested couple go to report their data?

Monique: Yes, I feel like the sky is the limit with Exersexology. I do plan on writing a follow-up book, possibly a How-to manual, but nothing immediately since the book just launched. Yes, I am still collecting data and if you have any please go to www.exersexology.com and click on My Blog.

Adriana: And of course we’d like to know, what is next for you? Where do you see this going?

Monique: I’m so excited about this project. It’s not just a book to me. I’m hoping this starts a new wave of abundant possibilities and research in regards to fitness and sex! I’ve been approached to do many articles and more TV, possibly a fun video series! The sky’s the limit.

Adriana: Lots of great opportunities! It’s been such a pleasure having you with us today – thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.

About Monique

Monique Hollowell has more than 13 years fitness industry experience. She is the author of Bellie Fit Basics and Exersexology. Monique is an internet radio show host, national presenter and CEO of Lafemme Mobile Gym. She has been featured in multiple radio shows, news segments and national publications such as Ebony and Happen Magazine.

Where to find Monique:

Website www.exersexology.com
Twitter @moniquesfit
Facebook Facebook.com/AtoZexercise
Fitness www.lafemmemobilegym.com

Where to find Exersexology