March 2011

Is a Woman’s Body Always Open For Comment? [The Problem With Street Fashion Blogging]

March 31, 2011

photo from The Sartorialist Does this girl look fat to you? Would you describe her as “a bigger, curvier girl than most of the other bloggers who you see in the press”? This Italian small-time fashion blogger was photographed by big-time (perhaps the inventor the genre) street-fashion blogger The Sartorialist and in a post that is still causing ripples through the Internet, he praised her in a very back-handed way for knowing how to balance her “sturdy legs” with a “strong shoe.” Even after thousands of commenters called him out for his bizarre size comparison and even for remarking on [...]

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Bringing Gymnastics Back to the Gym

March 30, 2011

Note: For those of you who get this via e-mail or thru a reader, you will want to click through to my site – there are a lot of videos in this post. Trust me, you don’t want to miss these. Handstands: they are our new favorite exercise and the trick we are determined to master, thereby making the Gym Buddies and I the floor show at our gym. Allison and I did them for an hour and a half the other day. It was crazy fun! And we were crazy sore the next day! Where do handstands make you [...]

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7 Reasons Why Yoga is the Perfect At-Home Workout [Plus Hot Yoga Report!]

March 28, 2011

No, Richard, not football! Save the short shorts for HOT YOGA. You’d totally fit right in! Extreme heat. Tiny room. Lots of nearly-naked people packed in nose to tail (literally so in Down Dog). All the elements were there for a monumental embarrassing moment. Would I fart – after all “wind-removing pose” is one of the 26 postures used in Bikram yoga? Would I slip on all my sweat? Would I faint from the heat? Would I have a wardrobe malfunction from wearing tiny little shorts? Well at least it will make for good fodder for my next book. And [...]

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B Vitamins for Better Health or More Supplement Hype? [Getting Health Advice From the Costco Taste Test Guy]

March 28, 2011

Cartoon says: (man) “Gosh, Honey, you seem to thrive on cooking, cleaning and dusting and I’m all tuckered out by closing time. What’s the answer?” (woman) “Vitamins, Darling! I always get my vitamins!” Charlotte says: Gee willikers, I want some speed fortified with vitamins too! I was accosted at Costco. It all started on Saturday – I was trashed after doing Hot Yoga and TurboKick back-to-back (talk about the two sweatiest classes ever!) so I suggested to Gym Hubby that we take the kids to Costco for what I call “the walking lunch.” (Confession: I actually wanted to go to [...]

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Mini-Experiment: The SuperGirl Challenge! [Indecent acts with gym equipment]

March 25, 2011

Oh yeah, look at me get down with my bad self! I wore my fitmarker wristband to parent-teacher conferences AND the boy scouts pinewood derby tonight, oh yes I did! “This makes me feel just like I did during my c-section! The bright lights, everyone staring down at me, me not knowing what’s going on and pinned to a table…” And with this inauspicious statement from Gym Buddy Allison, thus began the SuperGirl Challenge Workout. We should not have been surprised, this is FitJerk who challenged us after all. First he boosted our booties. Then he annihilated our abs. And [...]

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How Do You Wash Your Gym Clothes?

March 24, 2011

It’s probably just laundry day. Or the Lady Gaga* tribute subway car. I’m gross. We’ve established that many, many, times on this blog. I didn’t start out this way – truly, ask the Gym Hubby how I used to have to make our bed every night before I could get in it – but having four destructo-maniacs running around my house means something has to give. Just to paint you a picture, Jelly Bean moved all the fruit and condiments in the refrigerator to the dishwasher, the four-year-old decided to go squirrel and hoard a 2-lb tub of nuts under [...]

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Organics: Do You Get What You Pay For?

March 23, 2011

My frugality and fitness fanaticism are not mutually exclusive – in fact once you get past your Lululemon loving, living healthier saves you money in a lot of ways – but the one big health tip that everyone from Dr. Oz to Oprah to Jillian Michaels to PETA to Mark Sisson agree on is the one I have the hardest time following because it’s the one that hits me hardest in my (super cute zebra patterned) wallet. Yep, it’s the great organic quandary. Jillian Michaels sums up this school of thought in her book Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet [...]

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Back to the Arms that Held Me

March 21, 2011

For the record I would still totally wear that outfit. Downy duck fluff burrowed into my neck, the soft sigh of newborn breath so slight that I keep one hand lightly on her back to assure it rises and falls in concordance with my own. My other arm cradles her tiny warm body in this bittersweet moment. She is not mine. Turbo Jennie’s infant daughter, she will not remember me. But then do any of us remember the arms that first held us? My mother carried me inside her. She was a teenage bride and then a teen mom before [...]

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Do Men and Women Really Exercise Differently? [Plus Puke-Free Race Report!]

March 21, 2011

“Girls rule, boys drool!” “Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider; boys go to Mars to get more candy bars!” And my favorite gender stereotype, brought home the other day by my 3rd grader: “Mom, did you know that when girls scream 3 times they can shatter glass? It’s because girls have high voices and boys have really low voices.” I hate to break it to him but at this stage his voice sounds exactly like the girls. And while neither of them can shatter glass I am pretty sure I’ve lost an eardrum or 5 thanks to all [...]

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New Research: The Afterburn Effect is Real! [Do you workout to eat or eat to workout?]

March 17, 2011

The fountain of youth. The holy grail. Amelia Earhart. The second gunman. My electric sandwich maker that disappeared from my apartment freshman year leaving nothing but a trail of crusty cheese in its wake. There have been many epic searches throughout history but none have been more enticing and enraging for fitness freaks than the search for the EPOC. Pause for the clouds to part and the angels to stop singing. Okay then. Excess post oxygen consumption, also known as the fabled afterburn effect, has long had exercisers chasing after its lure of calories burned in your sleep and metabolisms [...]

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