Month: July 2017

The Emmy nominations were announced Thursday, July 13,

Let’s take a look at the the top categories:

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”), Anthony Hopkins (“Westworld”), Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”), Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”), Liev Schreiber (“Ray Donovan”), Kevin Spacey (“House of Cards”), Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”)

2: Actors in this category with multiple nominations this year (Rhys and Schrieber)

5: Previous Emmy wins to date across all categories

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Viola Davis (“How to Get Away with Murder”), Claire Foy (“The Crown”), Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), Keri Russell (“The Americans”), Evan Rachel Wood (“Westworld”), Robin Wright (“House of Cards”)

22: Number of Emmys nominations across all categories among the group to date

1: Previous Emmy win (Viola Davis)

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson (“Black-ish”), Aziz Ansari (“Master of None”), Zach Galifianakis (“Baskets”), Donald Glover (“Atlanta”), William H. Macy (“Shameless”), Jeffrey Tambor (“Transparent”)

2: Number of actors in category who haven’t won an Emmy yet. Glover has never been nominated.

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”), Tracee Ellis-Ross (“black-ish”), Jane Fonda (“Grace and Frankie”), Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”), Allison Janney (“Mom”), Ellie Kemper (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep”)

24: Emmy nominations for one actress to date across all categories (Tomlin…Louis-Dreyfus has 23.)

Best Drama Series

“Better Call Saul” (AMC), “The Crown” (Netflix), “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu), “House of Cards” (Netflix), “Stranger Things” (Netflix), “This Is Us” (NBC), “Westworld” (HBO)

5: New shows nominated this year. “House of Cards” and “Better Call Saul” have previous nominations.

Best Comedy Series

“Atlanta” (FX), “Black-ish” (ABC), “Master of None” (Netflix), “Modern Family” (ABC), “Silicon Valley” (HBO), “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (Netflix), “Veep” (HBO)

22: Previous wins across all categories for “Modern Family”

1: New show in the nominations (“Atlanta”)

3 thoughts on the nominations:

-As much as Mandy Moore’s character isn’t my favorite on “This Is Us,” I was surprised she wasn’t nominated. And you know Milo and Sterling will split the votes in that category.

-How is “Modern Family” still getting nominated? It still has good episodes, but overall it’s gone downhill. Also there are seven shows up for best comedy, which seems to be way too many.

-There are always snubs, but “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” has popped up on some snub lists. Frankly, the show wasn’t good. The acting wasn’t at its peak and some of the writing was so fluff. It was entered in the limited series category, which seemed like a good choice given its revival run, but I’m OK with it not being nominated.

The 69th Emmys will air on Sunday, Sept. 17, on CBS.

Raise your hand if you hate working out.

Now raise your hand if you love watching TV.

Of course, I can’t actually see you, but I’m guessing many people would raise their hand on both accounts. I know I would.

Yes, working out is good for you, but I don’t get a runner’s high. I don’t even get a runner’s medium. I just know to stay in shape and to lose weight, I need to exercise.

But I also have little to no motivation, and no one to work out with. But last summer I discovered a “Bachelorette” workout, and I was in.

No, I don’t love the show, but it can be addicting to watch people try to fall in love…knowing they’ll probably break up within a year of the finale.

When I first tried the “Bachelorette” workout, it was tough. I was not prepared to do 100+ squats, 10 for every rose given out (it was early in the season). But by the end of the two hours, I was sweating…without feeling frustrated.

I did something I love (watch TV for an extended period of time) while doing something I need to do (exercise). And it worked.

After one or two weeks of this, I got two friends to join in with me. We’d meet after I got off work, set the workout list by the TV, and made sure to hold each other accountable for doing the exercises (and also questioned whether something counted or not…I mentioned it was tough, right?).

It was quite effective. One of the girls had no problems fitting into her wedding dress, and I lost some weight and gained some muscle. All around a win-win.

I started looking up other TV workouts, as I call them. BuzzFeed has a huge list, but I alter them to fit what I need or add to them for a more intense workout.

Alternatively, most shows (or even movies) have a drinking game associated with it. I altered a “Friday Night Lights” drinking game into a workout for watching the show. (Crunches for every time you saw a jersey did wonders for my abs.)

I will say the most effective TV workouts are for reality competition shows, like “Bachelorette,” “Dancing with the Stars,” or “Project Runway.” There’s more regularity to these shows because of their format, so you’ll get a more well-rounded workout.

On the flip side, you can always add to the workouts. I altered one for “Gilmore Girls,” and well effective some episodes, I wasn’t doing many exercises for other episodes. But my aforementioned group of friends has done one for “Drop Dead Diva,” and we’ve added a couple extra exercises as we’ve progressed in the show.

They say it’s not good to watch TV for hours on end. But if you workout for at least part of it, you’ve earned some quality couch potato time. At least in my book.