magazines

Did Plus-Size Paean Crystal Renn Really Betray Us By Losing Weight?

March 4, 2012

Disclaimer: This post may possibly be triggering for those struggling with eating disorders. They are not discussed in any detail but you know what you need – please take gentle care of yourself. Crystal Renn in her plus-size heyday Model Crystal Renn made huge waves (no pun intended) several years ago when she went from a mildly successful straight-size model to a voluptuous, internationally acclaimed plus-size model. Proud of her curves, she even wrote a best-selling book, Hungry: A Young Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves, detailing her anorexic past and how she broke free from the [...]

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20 Hip Hop Inspired Moves to Get Your Sweat and Your Swagger On! (Plus: Bloopers!)

August 26, 2011

The Gym Buddies and I are the lead story on Shape.com right now with our 20 Hip Hop Inspired Moves slideshow! Unfortunately I don’t have any bloopers from this shoot but it could be said that all the pics were hilarious, as you can see from this one of Allison that we really used in the slideshow! First: she’s demonstrating a move affectionately known as The Stripper Squat. Second: Thanks to a well-placed rust stain it looks like she’s peeing in an alley. With her pants still on. Third: Oh, those glasses! File this “snake lunge” under moves that you really [...]

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The No-Laps Pool Workout [Plus more workout tips, parenting articles and photoshoot outtakes!]

June 9, 2011

Some of you saw this pic when I Facebook/Tweeted it and were wondering what the Gym Buddies and I were doing at the bottom of the pool (and some of you also wondered how I have lived this long and not learned how to be underwater without plugging my nose – in my defense, in all the other pics I’m NOT plugging my nose but they turned out blurry so you’ll just have to take my word for it.) and now I can finally tell you about our Shape Magazine swimsuit photo shoot! (Never thought I’d be typing those words! [...]

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25 Deceptively Simple Exercises [We made the front page of Shape.com!]

May 13, 2011

Why yes that is Gym Buddy Allison’s adorable grin gracing the front page of Shape.com! One-legged squats. Push-ups. Plank. Burpees. We’ve all seen them done so many times that, admit it, sometimes we write them off as too easy or boring. But in an article I wrote for Shape, I discovered that while these humble exercises may be simple they sure aren’t easy! Check out the Gym Buddies and I on the homepage of Shape.com and read up on all the exercises we think are harder than they look. (And of course, us being us, we got kinda silly during [...]

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Do You Workout With Your Significant Other?

May 8, 2011

Yeah, you totally wouldn’t want to do this move with your girlfriend. Especially if she’s the shirtless one. Starting out with the line, “I’ll admit that there may be some good reasons to bring along your significant other when you hit the gym, like providing her with the opportunity to do something about the hail damage on her a**” makes it clear from the get-go that writer James Fell is doing his best to provoke us women-folk into harpy shrieks and mascara-stained histrionics over his article “Don’t Bring Her to the Gym” for Askmen.com. But even though he does his [...]

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Barefoot Walking: Fun Fitness Trend or Scientific Practical Joke? [Giveaway!]

April 14, 2011

Now, if I’d only had these babies… Like many of my ideas gone awry, it seemed like a good plan at the time. First, it involved walking on a beautiful day and that alone can mitigate many a bad consequence. Second, walking is a time honored bipedal tradition – and one I’m learning to embrace more fully as a legitimate fitness method (Charlotte to Brain: “It is TOO a workout! Shut UP!!”). And lastly, many fitness experts backed up by current research extol the salutary effects of walking. You know I’m a sucker for anything involving research and experts. Besides, [...]

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The Controversial Carbohydrate [Paralysis by Analysis]

April 4, 2011

Two questions: Why would anyone ever buy a flesh-colored bikini? With suits in every imaginable color and pattern, who looks at this and thinks “You know what’s hot? Beige.” Also, what on earth is that lamb thingy on the table? Loaf of lamb? Bread ferret? Lawn art?? The fat-free 90′s loved it. Atkins banned it. Vegetarianism brought it back. Paleo demonized it. Drs. Oz and Weill deify it. The Bible calls it “the staff of life.” Taubes proved you can live without it. Whatever else it may be, it is the most consumed macronutrient in most of our diets. And [...]

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The Worst Exercise Move Ever, Male Edition [Plus: workout challenge!]

March 16, 2011

Remember when we made fun of a certain ladymag for suggesting we should tie our ankles to the cable machine and spread our legs wide open as if the gym were our gynecologist? They promised it would work our inner thighs. And I promised to never molest a weight bench. In public. Needless to say the Gym Buddies and I have never done that move. But! Lest you think that humiliating cable machine moves (What is it with the cable machine? Do workout gurus have some kind of bondage fetish?) are only for women, Reader Andrea sent me this picture [...]

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Ashton Kutcher’s Apocalypse Workout [Ab-tastic Anarchy!]

February 22, 2011

Item the first: Ashton Kutcher has amazing muscles, as evidenced by his latest spread in Men’s Fitness. (I’ll wait while you ogle.) Item the second: Ashton Kutcher has amazing muscles because he is a paranoid crazy… who makes a little too much sense to be entirely written off as a paranoid crazy. Oddly neither of these facts are what initially drew me to his interview. It was his workout of choice – Krav Maga – that had me salivating over the mag. Muscles and mental health issues take a distant second to killing people in my world apparently. Touted as [...]

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Do Boobs Make the Fit Woman? [The Controversy Over Breast Implants in Fitness Models]

January 27, 2011

Image from Natalie Dee “Knockers!” “Jugs!” “Fun bags!” “Sweater puppies!” Sitting in the darkened audience at the talent show my friend put on as a fundraiser for breast cancer research, I listened as all my friends called out their favorite euphemisms for boobs. I wanted to contribute – what’s more fun than sitting in a big room talking girlie bits with all your best girls? (And no men, we weren’t wearing panties and having pillow fights.) – but the pressure mounted as all the good ones were getting taken. Looking down for inspiration, it came to me: “Rocks in socks!” [...]

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