Saunas: To sweat or not to sweat? [My adventures in naked sitting]

Naked sitting does not, generally, sit well with me. This has ruled out quite a few potentially enjoyable activities for me: massages, bath houses, nude yoga, and partying with Prince Harry. Oh, and saunas. I’ve always hated saunas. If it wasn’t the fear of the super bacteria doing the fertility fox trot in what is …

T-Shirt Cutting Trend: Fun or Janet Jackson Waiting to Happen? [Plus: Giveaway winners!]

Pinterest in the wrong hands (i.e. mine) can be dangerous! After searching for new ways to cut up a workout tee, I came up with this Wolverine-meets-Blue-Man-Group idea! Cute and quirky? Or wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen?? All I did was take a blue Gap workout tee I found at a thrift store and cut …

Somewhere My Mother is Laughing Herself Sick: Payback is a Toddler

A trip. A fall. All for the love of a twisted, slippery, seasonally inappropriate jelly sandal. A tragedy of toddler proportions. This is how my day started. I carried Jelly Bean out to the car, sobbing into my hair about her “owie foot”, carried her into the house, carried her upstairs to get her beloved blanky, carried …

Gym Mysteries: The Curse of the Disappearing Workout Pants! [How do you cover your butt?]

These hot-off-the-screen-printer Nike X-Ray Leggings are so popular that they’re already sold out in every color and size. And yet… I don’t know that I love them. They feel a little naked to me. Like those weird jean skirts that have the undies painted on the outside. Also, knowing me, I’d be way too tempted …

8 Tips For Overcoming an Exercise Addiction [From a girl who’s living it]

My #1 motivation for getting better and staying better: These guys. Wanting to exercise all the time: Yeah, yeah, it’s the problem everyone wishes they had. But the compulsion that drives someone to be a gym rat is hardly enviable. First, just like eating disorders aren’t about the food, compulsive over-exercising isn’t about the fitness. …

Healthy Junk Food or Junky Health Food? How to Avoid The “Health Halo” Phenomenon

image credit I love Trader Joe’s. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a health food store but smaller, quirkier and way more affordable than Whole Foods.) Always have. The Hawaiian shirts, the quirky foods, the peppy staff and even that stupid bell – just walking in the store makes me smile. And when …

I Finally Did It! I Passed an Important Gym Milestone!!

I literally wore my weight-lifting gloves to shreds! I don’t know why exactly but I’m inordinately proud of this. For a girl who used to avoid the weight floor like celebrities spokespeople avoid straight answers, to lift so many weights that I wore my gloves out, well, is kinda awesome. One of the first investments …

Cat, Dog, Pot-Bellied Pig? We’re Getting a Pet and I Need Advice! [Save me from myself]

Maybe I’ll even get inducted into the club of people who make LOL cats! 200 goldfish in a man-made pond (out of a child’s plastic swimming pool, no less!) with a little footbridge over the top covered in twinkling lights: It was supposed to be the post-card pretty entrance for a local wedding reception but …

Adventures in Grocery Shopping: I am Kale Lady! [How do you eat your greens?]

Now this is a real kale lady. Thank heavens her grocery store carried more than four bunches or she’d be in a salad bikini… like all the rest of the PETA girls. Also? I find this guy strangely creepy. I hope she made him pick a piece from the bottom of her dress.  Gasp. “It’s …

Losing Weight For Someone Else? [Help a Reader Out]

There are a lot of bad reasons to lose weight. And there are a lot of good reasons to lose weight. Unfortunately the two categories aren’t as sharply delineated as we’d like them to be. In writing this post, I spent a good hour trying to come up with examples for each category and what …