Happy Birthday to Me! [Plus: MMA bodyweight workout is here!!]

Go Charlotte! It’s your birthday! We gonna party like it’s your birthday! …which means that Turbo Jennie did all my fave songs for my birthday turbokick workout AND all my friends wore tutus in my honor (okay so half of these are my tutus but they were all super good sports about wearing them!). Anyone else love to workout on their birthday?? Anyhow, I had a fabulous birthday -huge thank you to all of you who left me a birthday wish on my Facebook wall or e-mailed me, it made me feel so loved!! 34 is going to be a great year:)

Get in Fighting Form with this MMA Conditioning Workout developed and demonstrated by pro Kendra Ruff. Body weight exercises get a bad rap for not being intense or varied enough for a killer (ha!) workout but this one not only kicked my butt but at least half the moves I’d never seen before.

10 Seriously Fit Chicks of CrossFit. The 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games are coming up in July and there are some amazingly talented women competing. One of the does 80 pull ups!! Another can back squat 2.5 times her body weight! Whether you want some heavy-lifting inspiration or just want to see how strong women can be, you have to check these ladies out!

Correct These Common Exercise Mistakes: fix your form, fix your fitness! Corrective exercise expert Steve Toms (yes, my awesomesauce Lifetime Fitness trainer) shows you how to get better results and avoid injury.

Junk Food After Dark: Why It’s So Hard to Resist! “”There is a 1.7 percent overall decrease in healthiness of what’s eaten for every hour of the day that passes after breakfast,” says Aza Raskin, Massive Health founder. “That’s as true in Tokyo as it is in San Francisco as it is in São Paulo. It teaches us something fundamental about the way people make decisions about food—and decisions in general.”

“It’s There”: 15 Excuses Women Make For Not Eating Healthy (and what to tell yourself instead). I would never tell someone to skip delicious birthday cake if that’s what they really want to eat but sometimes why you do something is just as important as how.

If you’ve never worked out in a tutu, you’re missing out! It makes everything more fun!

AND! Today is the last day to enter my Under Armour giveaway! Go get you some sweet gear! Plus there’s still time to nominate your park for a makeover from Coca Cola!

Written with love by Charlotte Hilton Andersen for The Great Fitness Experiment (c) 2011. If you enjoyed this, please check out my new book The Great Fitness Experiment: One Year of Trying Everythingfor more of my crazy antics and uncomfortable over-shares!