The Great Fitness Experiment

We’re Moving! To Colorado! In Three Weeks! [Plus: The Color Run Trend - overblown hype or fun?]

May 5, 2013

Memorial Day weekend will find my family and I memorializing our time in Minnesota as we close this chapter of our lives and start the Colorado one. It’s exciting. It’s terrifying. The day I found out (Friday) I spent the entire afternoon laying in my bed weeping and watching a Call the Midwife marathon. (If you ever feel like your life is bad try watching a destitute British prostitute from the 1950′s have a baby with no meds, get sent to a convent and then have her baby taken away for adoption. Oh, and did I mention the girl is [...]

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The Pitfalls of the War on Breast Cancer [Does traditional screening more harm than good? And what does "awareness" even mean??]

May 2, 2013

Sitting alone on the exam table, in a paper gown and feeling naked in more ways than one, I stared down at the number on the card in my hand. It was for a geneticist so I could be tested for the BRCA gene, a known marker for breast cancer. “It’s time, Charlotte,” my doctor had said to me just moments earlier as she left the room. It was a scene I’ve repeated every year since, oh, hitting puberty but this time something was different. I’m still not sure what it was but instead of blowing off the doctor and [...]

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8 Tips for Cooking Meals for People With Different Food Preferences, Intolerances or Allergies [Plus: the best of the worst vintage Weight Watchers recipes!]

April 30, 2013

Nothing says SPECTACULAR! like a volcano of processed pork products! Picture a cozy scene, with mom and dad bracketing smiling children all seated neatly around the table, talking about our day and eating broccoli casserole with nary a complaint. Now smash that Rockwellian fantasy to bits because that is definitely not what happened at my house tonight. (Or really any other night). Tonight: My husband was out of town, two of my boys were seated on the floor in separate corners after brawling over an olive (“You’re going to act like animals? Then you can eat like animals.”), the third [...]

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Radio Station Asks Listeners to Vote on Whether Cheerleader is Too “Chunky” [From high street to street fashion: when is it appropriate to comment on a woman's body?]

April 29, 2013

This is my kind of street photography! “I’m 86 pounds! Does this look fat to you?” The petite blond hiked her shirt up so I could admire her visible ribs and taut tummy. “I mean, look at it! There’s not a speck of fat anywhere!” It was one of the few moments I have considered actually using any of my kickboxing skills on another human being. But then she added, “And they benched me! For three games! Until I lost two pounds!” And I’ll admit it, I felt kinda bad for her. The girl was a professional cheerleader and she [...]

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Do Alternative Therapies Really Work? Eastern Cures For Western Problems [And I'm sorry in advance for the picture.]

April 26, 2013

THIS. Just. I have no. Ah. Okay, what in the 7th circle of Dante’s nightmare IS THIS?! (Seriously, pause and take a guess – I’d LOVE to see in the comments how many of you got this right just from looking at the picture!) This picture? Is the back of a man who has just received a Gua Sha treatment, a type of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Those red lines, by the way, aren’t paint. They’re broken blood vessels and bruises from the “scraping” performed as part of the treatment. This noise? Is the sound of me screaming and doing a [...]

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The Great Rachel Cosgrove Fitness Experiment II [Yep, she's back with a brand new rap! And I Don't Quite Know What to Think]

April 25, 2013

My girl Rachel Cosgrove – author of The Female Body Breakthrough which was one of my top 3 favorite Great Fitness Experiments ever – is back with her hotly anticipated follow-up book. And because she was kind enough to send me a review copy the Gym Buddies and I have been testing it out. We’ve been lifting. We’ve been sweating. We’ve been foam rolling. (Lie: I still don’t feel anything when I foam roll. I try it half-heartedly about every third workout.) And it’s been… Okay, this is awkward. I don’t know how else to say this other than I’m kind of [...]

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Designer Poop: What’s the Deal With Prebiotics and Probiotics? [What they are, how to eat them and why you should]

April 23, 2013

Unicorns obviously have very healthy gut bacteria. Hospitals with their life, death, and strange-smell zeitgeist have been the setting for several major revelations in my life (not the least of which is that nutritionists consider Malt-o-Meal a “solid food” but Jell-O is a “liquid”) and this time it was no different. My 3rd son, just nine months old at the time, hung limply in my arms as nurses and doctors buzzed around us. There was no waiting for us in the the waiting room when I brought my baby in, nearly unconscious with a fever of 107. The triage nurse [...]

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Everything You (Never) Wanted to Know About Emotional Eating: What, How and Why You Should

April 23, 2013

Watermelon is my favorite food. I love it like a love song, baby. Several years ago a doctor friend asked me an interesting question. “What is emotional eating?” I raised an eyebrow and wondered what kind of cyborg has to ask that question. I mean, who hasn’t tasted the sweet, sweet love of a warm cinnamon bun with cream cheese frosting and toasted walnuts and felt the same thrill as the first time a boy ran his thumb over the back of your hand? (Just me?? Awkward.) But before I bit his head off it occurred to me that I [...]

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Dear Supplement Companies: Stop Trying to “Enhance” Me. [Plus: The New Dove Campaign - love it or hate it?]

April 21, 2013

Cannot even tell you how many times I’ve either given a baggie like this or gotten one. And it makes me giggle. Every. Time. (My fave was when Deb the Smoothie Girl sent me a whole package of baggies of different white powders! I can only imagine what FedEx thought. But I still love xantham gum to this day so thank you, Deb!) “Nope, never tried it. But I bet Charlotte has!” Turbo Jennie waved at me over her shoulder, still talking to the girl in the tank top about some supplement or another. “Tried what?” I asked, before realizing [...]