See?? I told you it was a superpower!

Setting down my gym bag in preparation to “shake and shimmy, baby”, “get my strut on” and “shake what my mama [obviously forgot to] gave me” in Zumba the other day, I noticed one of the floor fans in the studio was turned in my direction. So I did what I usually do when that happens and bumped it with my foot, angling it away from me. No biggie.

But as I walked back to my place to ask Allison how she was going to shake her thang when we worked all our thangs to maximum soreness on the weight floor the previous day (wow, that came out sounding way worse than I intended), I felt it.

A breeze.

Looking back at the fan, I saw it was pointing directly at me again. The pretty Latina woman standing next to me (who, incidentally, is so amazing at Zumba that she makes me feel like a kindergartner doing the Maypole dance while holding scissors) smiled at me as her hair billowed in the artificial wind. 

I smiled back, trying not to grit my teeth and look like a psycho. Okay, I told myself. It’s okay. You can deal with this. It’s just a fan. Just ignore it. You’ve worked out with fans before. You can do this. Stop clenching your jaw! You look psycho! STOP LOOKING PSYCHO! No, no that smile makes it WORSE. You look like you want to eat her liver while dressed in a dinner jacket of her skin! Quick, do a handstand or pee your pants or something to distract everyone from what a nutjob you are!!

I tried to take my own advice but during the warm up all I could think about was that stupid fan. So as soon as the instructor gave us a water break, I went up to my bag and pretended to look for my water bottle (which is non-existent since I basically don’t drink water when I’m working out. I know I’m working on it!) and bumped the fan 20 degrees to the left again.

The woman was not fooled by my subterfuge. As soon as I stood up she gave me an angry face and made the universal hand sign for “Turn my wind machine back on before I lose my Beyonce and get all Brittney on your hiney!” (In case you’re curious, it looks very close to the hand sign for “stop asking me for marshmallows before dinner while I’m talking on the phone”.) I grudgingly turned the fan back towards her, and consequently me.

I made it through 30 seconds of cumbia-ing before giving up and forcing Allison to switch places with me by doing a do-si-do. (To Pitbull. It was every bit as awkward as it sounds.) But finally I was safe from the evil breeze! My skin and I could safely relax and I could merengue to my heart’s content. Which lasted about 20 seconds since I suck at the merengue. I thought all was well and good until I saw Zumba Beyonce glaring at me in the mirror. It occurred to me that she thought we were having a fight, an aerobic smackdown if you will. (Which in Zumba absolutely must manifest as the Sharks vs Jets scene out of West Side Story or there is nothing right in the world.) Sigh. How do I explain to her that I hadn’t tango-ed away from her because I was mad or angry or jealous or one of those ultra territorial aerobicizers?? The truth is, it had nothing to do with her: I moved because I cannot stand fans.

Fans are my kryptonite.

I hate the feel of wind on my skin. I hate a breeze in my face. I hate feeling air whipping through my hair. I get head to toe goosebumps no matter what the temperature. Outdoor wind is bad enough but fans are the worst. Because fans are incessant. Once one is aimed at you, it will not leave you alone until you are a bleary-eyed dried-out husk in Spandex (think Courtney Love at an ACE convention). And this is a huge issue for me because in fitness sweaty people are all about their ventilation systems. Myself, I’d rather be sweltering hot and pouring sweat than have to endure a “cooling” breeze. But I’m definitely the minority in this situation and because I know I’m the weirdo, I generally try and be as polite and low drama about it as I can muster.  Which is why during the next water break I marched myself over to Zumba Beyonce and apologized for messing with the fan and told her it was just one of my many charming quirks. She smiled and said it was no problem.

Except for me it still was. My real problem with fans – and with anything incessantly stimulating like background music at restaurants, blinking lights at amusement parks, my children’s chirpy voices or Amanda Bynes’ Twitter feed – is that I can’t tune it out. CAN’T. For whatever reason, I was born without whatever gene it is that makes it possible to listen to a conversation at a piano bar. I can’t not feel the breeze of the fan. I can’t not hear the droning whir. I can’t not see the spinning blades. I cannot tune it out. And it’s not just physical stuff. I’m overly sensitive to other people’s feelings, to my own moods, even to people on TV. (It’s why I can’t watch horror movies or do haunted houses – even though I know they’re fake, I have such a visceral reaction to other people’s suffering that I will feel sick about it for weeks after.) I have a very hard time tuning anything out, at least for very long.

It’s because I am, as they call us now, an HSP or “highly sensitive person.” I first discovered the term a couple of years ago when my sister sent me an article about it saying “huh, this sounds exactly like you!” From there I went on to read “The Highly Sensitive Person” by Dr. Elaine Aron which turned out to be a game changer for me. Up until that point I always knew I was weird but I never knew there was a name for my weird! For as long as I’ve been able to express it, I’ve been telling people that I feel like I’m walking around with my skin on the wrong way out. And now I know why. I also know that I’m not alone as Aron points out that about 1 in 20 people qualify as an HSP.

In her book, she offers a quiz (you know how I love me a good self quiz!) to see where on the scale of sensitivity you fall. When I took it, I scored on every item except one. (If you’re curious, it’s the one about being very sensitive to pain. Surprisingly I have a pretty high pain tolerance.) I was off the charts HSP. But the funny part was as I was reading through the questions I kept thinking “You mean other people don’t feel this way? How can they not be bothered by this stuff?!” I was worried that it was one of those “horoscope” quizzes that is so vague that it will end up being true for everyone. I remedied this by forcing every person I came into contact with that weekend to take the test. (I even followed my dad around his kitchen while he was doing the dishes, asking him the questions and jotting down the answers for him.) The results? While a couple people scored in the mid ranges, no one came even close to touching my score. My husband only checked 3 out of the 27 questions.

Scientific proof, folks: I am a freak.

At first I was depressed about this – I’m doomed to always hate surprise parties and wear sweatshirts in 70-degree weather! – but as I continued to read her book I began to feel strangely liberated. First, Aron points out that while being “overly sensitive” is generally perceived as a negative trait in our sensory overloaded society, it actually has a lot of benefits and good qualities too. She refers to it as her secret superpower. I’ve always wanted a superpower! Second, it became immediately apparent that this is so important for me to understand because I have two kids that are definitely HSPs. Son #2 and Jelly Bean, in case you are wondering.  (Sorry for the genetic payload kiddos! Just call me Enola Gay.)

I have spent a good portion of my life being told that I am “too sensitive”, feeling bad that things bother me so much, and trying super duper hard to compensate for my sensitivities and pretend I’m just like everyone else. And the effort of trying to look like a rational human being is, frankly, exhausting. Especially when I’m already super stressed out (like, oh, now). It also doesn’t work. People know I’m off. My friends can sense that I’m bugged about something. And all too often people assume the reason for my strangeness has something to do with them, that I don’t like them, which makes me sad. It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s that I don’t like me!

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to pretend to be okay when I’m not, trying to figure out why I’m upset when others aren’t. Consequently I’ve developed some pretty decent coping mechanisms. Yogic breathing has been a Godsend. Doing repetitive things like crossword puzzles, piano playing or crocheting helps a lot. Taking a daily break to my refuge. (My bedroom: it’s all white. Walls, comforter, pillows, curtains, everything. No pictures. No tchotchkes. No decorations. No music. No TV. No overhead lighting. Definitely no fans. I find it immensely soothing.) Those are the good things. I also have some strange coping tools, most notably that when I don’t know how I “should” be reacting to a situation I will look around the room and find someone “normal” and then copy their behavior. Yes, I know how creepy that sounds. It kind of works. (At least until they notice me aping them and I have to pretend I’m doing a Mime Experiment, JK y’all!) Then there are the bad things. Excessive exercise, my eating disorders, and my perfectionism are all, I believe, part of how I deal with feeling overwhelmed all the time. Must! Control! Everything!

As a kid, being an HSP was agony for me (oh the buzzing of the fluorescent lights!!) but thankfully as a grown-up I have a lot of control over my own environment which mitigates a lot of the discomfort. So once I identified my son as having a similar temperament, I set about teaching him all my “tricks” for appearing comfortable in a world that makes you feel anything but. I felt like a good mom. I felt like I could help him succeed in all the many ways I failed growing up. In fact, if he listened really well maybe I could teach him enough so that people would never know how sensitive he really is!

And that would be a shame, Aron says. She points out that always forcing yourself to change, to be something you’re not, takes a huge toll on you. (And she’s right, it does. Hello lifetime of self loathing!) She says, and I can’t even tell you how wonderful it felt to read this, that there isn’t anything inherently wrong with being super sensitive. In fact, there’s a lot right with it. You have to learn to fine tune it, not hide it. And while you can’t force the world to bend to your whims – nor should you, compromise is the WD-40 of life – you don’t need to be ashamed of having those whims. It made me realize that perhaps I shouldn’t be teaching my son how to “overcome” his sensitive nature but rather giving him a good example of how to embrace it.  How to laugh at himself. How to explain himself. How to take care of what he needs for himself, by himself.

I’m just not sure how to do that yet. So in the meantime I’m going to keep turning off fans. My apologies.

Any of you HSPs? Did you take the quiz? I’m super interested in what you guys score! Do you have a quirk that makes you feel like a freak a lot? How do you deal? Anyone else ever get into an “aerobics fight”??

So we bought a house! And I LOVE IT!! (Pics to come!) After an excruciating day of looking at dozens of progressively crappier houses (true story: one house said it “needed a little TLC” but when we got there the ceiling was caved in and there was a massive crack in the foundation… it didn’t need TLC, it needed demolition), I had a very Carly Rae Jeppson moment. As soon as I saw the last house I busted out with so I just met you, and this is crazy but here’s my number, I’ll buy you baby! My husband was a little alarmed at my immediate love for the house and insisted we think about it over night – which meant I woke up every hour terrified that someone else had swooped in at midnight and stolen “my house.” But all was fine in the morning and the house is now in the process of becoming ours (after the 30 years on our mortgage runs out, natch). With a huge sigh of relief, I took out my pen and marked “buy house” off my to-do list. Best moment of my day.

Unfortunately just as I was musing over my love for list making, I came across a Facebook post from a friend who was (justifiably) upset about something I’d done. Worst moment of my day. Call it the Amanda Bynes syndrome: Nothing like the glaring light of social media to make you see yourself differently! Especially at 11:30 at night. When I first saw my friend’s status update on Facebook, my heart froze in my chest. Immediately I knew it was about me and I knew it wasn’t good. Fear, anger, sadness, and defensiveness all shot through me like electricity as tears sprung to my eyes.

But as the feelings settled I was left with just one: disappointment, in myself. People say negative things about me on a fairly regular basis but most of the time I can dismiss them without too much pain by realizing that the person doesn’t really know me and their comments are more a function of who they are than who I am. Except in this case, my friend knew me very well. And she was right about me.  As much as I wanted to rage, “but that’s not me! I’m not like that!” the more I thought about it, the more I realized that not only was she right about me in this instance but it wasn’t the only time I’d done something like this. The worst part was that it had all kind of happened by accident – I’d become someone I didn’t like and I didn’t even see it happening until I’d hurt someone close to me.

Any realization that comes in the darkest hours of the night is tough but this one was particularly so. These past couple of weeks (er, months) have been really trying. When I look back at this time in my life – that is, if I haven’t blocked it out – I think I’ll be amazed at how I juggled a huge move, my job, my kids and a cat that farts gas so noxious she wilts foliage, without killing anyone or being committed. (We should have named her Agent Orange. Why did no one warn me about cats and their SBDs?!) But right now all I feel is tiiiired. My instinct in times like this is to hang on to everything like a pitbull, not allowing anything to drop and just telling myself I’m going to gut it out until every last thing on my to-do list is done. (Did I mention the moving truck is coming tomorrow? I have “pack whole house” on my to-do list for tomorrow. Sigh.)

Do you have a to-do list? A little about mine: it’s low-tech on a lined notepad with two columns. On the left hand side I write down everything that I need to do. On the right hand side I jot notes about things I don’t want to forget like blog post ideas, birthday present ideas, lessons I’m planning and little pictures and diagrams that help me clarify my thoughts. This notepad comes with me everywhere and I’ve very attached to it. I’m also kind of proud of it – every lifestyle guru says that is one of the primary tools of success and while I don’t follow much advice from gurus at least I’ve got this one down. Even writing something down on my list feels like a small accomplishment.

My dark-of-the-night epiphany after mulling over my friend’s Facebook post: I need a to-be list. There’s nothing wrong with having a to-do list – I’ve lost 10 IQ points with each baby so heaven knows my list is a necessity – but there’s also no point in having a to-do list if it isn’t leading you anywhere. Looking over my to-do list, I realized that while every single thing on there felt So! Important! to me, very few of them would have any impact on me in a year and even less so in five years. (Okay, except the whole moving business. That’s going to basically affect my kids for the rest of their born days. Not that I’m sitting up nights thinking about that. Yes I am.) And you know what wasn’t on my to-do list? Things like watching Jelly Bean try to eat a popsicle without ever touching the cold part or making a fort out of boxes with my boys or having a quiet moment with my husband. Sure I was adding and crossing off hundreds of tasks but what was I really doing other than running faster in my hamster wheel? As my friend had showed me, I was doing a lot but I wasn’t becoming much. Call it the Ernest Hemmingway syndrome: Nothing like the glaring light of pen and paper to make you see yourself differently.

So I sat down and wrote out a list of what I want to be, in no particular order. (I had to limit it to 10 because I’ll make lists all night if you let me.)

1. Kind & Compassionate

2. Honest

3. A loving wife

4. An attentive mother

5. A wise teacher and a wiser student

6. An inspiring writer

7. A daughter of God

8. Healthy

9. A genuine friend

10. In the Cirque du Soleil

Comparing my lists side by side I realized that almost nothing on the to-do list was getting me any closer to the items on my to-be list. Not only that but quite a few of my to-do’s were making me into someone I didn’t want to be. Let’s be honest (ha!) and look at my list. Other than #7, which is a gimme, I’m a long ways off from being who I want to be. As I sat mired in my own blindness (and distracted by a strange poop smell that turned out to be a two-day old yogurt cup that had gotten wedged behind the door – gah) I started to realize what is not on my to-be list: Skinny. Beautiful. Cut abs. Perfect thighs. And yet how much time do I devote to thinking about those things? Um, an embarrassing amount.

First task was to add a different #10, because let’s face face it, that ship has sailed. Because sewing vintage dresses, playing the piano, doing crossword puzzles, reading and cooking all make me happy (even if I’m bad at them, which I am), my new #10 is “well rounded.” I started looking down my to-do list and anything that didn’t get me closer to my to-be list got crossed off. I was surprised at how much got scratched out. (Although I later added “laundry” back on. Sigh.)

The next day, instead of doing more work, I took my kids, bought two bouquets of flowers and went to apologize to my friends for what I’d done (#2 and #9). And then I took my kids to the Farmer’s Market (#4 and #8) where I had visions of letting them wallow in all the fresh organic produce I could buy until we got there and I realized we still live in Minnesota, not California and therefore the only things the farmers are currently selling are jerky, honey, homemade soap and bread priced at $6 a loaf. So we got a loaf of bread and had expensive toast for lunch, saying a prayer thanking God (#7) for Chilean grapes, Alaskan salmon and the biodiesel that’s keeping Minnesota farmers in business since nothing else grows here but corn and soybeans.

I make a lot of mistakes. A lot. But never say I don’t learn from them (#5)!

Any other list-makers out there? What’s on your “to-be list”? Anyone else ever bought a house after seeing it once??

*I know I didn’t come up with the concept of to-do versus to-be lists but heaven help me I can’t remember now where I got that from. If you know, feel free to link it in the comments!

Someone stole my book. Right off the dumbbell rack on the weight floor where I’d left it propped open with a 2-pounder. (Because what else do you do with a 2-lb dumbbell? Use it to crack pecans? Roll out dough? Do that weird forearm exercise where you curl it backwards??) In all my years of Experimenting, I’ve left a lot of things at the gym, ranging from small stuff like lip gloss and wet towels to bigger stuff like my phone. Oh, and one of my kids. (Twice. Yes, same kid. We’ve already started a fund for his therapy.) But this is the first time I’ve ever had the lost item not show up again.

Confession: I wasn’t really sad about it. Annoyed, yes. But I won’t miss Rachel’s Cosgrove’s Lose Two Dress Sizes in Two Months book. And I definitely won’t miss toting it around the weight floor. I have my reasons.

The Gym Buddies weren’t sad to see it go either. They liked it even less than I did.

The original plan was to do the whole 3-month program as written. But since I found out I was moving to Denver (next weekend, aagggh!) and I wanted to finish this Experiment with the Gym Buddies I decided to accelerate it just a bit. We ended up doing each phase for three weeks, except for the last phase which we only did for two. (Because somebody stole my book. I’m still boggled by this. Just… why?) So keep this in mind as you read my thoughts.

“Ugh, I don’t wanna do this!” “Don’t make me do this again!” “I can’t take it anymore!” were familiar refrains during both Rachel Cosgrove Experiments but the difference is that during our first go-round with her (The Female Body Breakthrough) it was usually because it hurt. There was some tough stuff in that book but while there was some whining (let’s be honest, there always is with us – we’re all moms of toddlers and clearly very susceptible to tiny-person peer pressure), we liked pushing ourselves through it anyhow. This time however, the whining was because we were bored. As in “please do not make me do another step-up because 4 sets of 15 reps on each leg means that I’ve climbed up the Eiffel tower, minus the view and bragging rights and HOLY CRAP WHY ARE WE STILL STEPPING MAKE IT END!!!”

Don’t get me wrong, step ups (holding weights at your sides and stepping up and down on a riser, step, weight bench or box) can be a powerful exercise. Indeed, in her first book – which I affectionately called my “build a butt” workout thanks to all the glute action – step ups were a mainstay. The difference in the new book is that instead of holding heavy weights and doing less reps, this time you’re holding light weights and doing lots of reps. Which brings up an interesting and long-standing controversy in the fitness world: which is the better way to weight train? And does it matter if your goal is to get stronger versus if your goal is to “get lean” or “tone up”?

I started out hating the weights. Cardio queen that I was, I had to be dragged by my friend Nasca onto the weight floor by my hair. Once there however, she converted me to the benefits of weight training and while I won’t say that I love it like I love cardio – no way are bicep curls more fun than Zumba! – I have learned to enjoy and appreciate the iron. Since Nasca was a bodybuilder, she never let me get away with light weights (I basically started with Bill Phillips’ venerable Body For Life program) but since then I’ve tried all kinds of variations on that theme, even going so far as to do Tracy Anderson’s (in)famous workout where you never lift anything heavier than 3-lbs. (Which, I was set to think was ridiculous but when you do 100 reps, even 3 pounds will make you want to chew your own shoulder off to make the pain stop.) But after years of vacillating  do you know who convinced me that heavy weights for women were best? Rachel Cosgrove. (Okay, and CrossFit. Let’s give credit where credit is due.) Her first book was all about teaching women to get strong and not fear “bulking out.”

So I was baffled when I got her new book only to discover the models using teeeeeny dumbbells in all the examples. I won’t tell you how many arguments we had on the weight floor over whether the models were doing shoulder presses with 2-lb ‘bells or 5-lb ‘bells. But they are models (and not even fitness models – just model-models) so maybe that was a good starter weight for them? I’m totally not judging anyone who starts out weight lifting with the smaller ‘bells; we all have to start somewhere! But this time there was no instruction from Rachel to lift heavy or even how to progress your weights. It was just the pictures. So the Gym Buddies and I stuck with the heaviest weight we could handle but because the sets/reps were so long, we naturally had to go lighter than before.

But just as I was setting my stun gun on Full Snark, I read this article in the New York Times about this very subject. And their answer surprised me:

If by “better,” you mean helps you gain muscle and strength without hurting yourself, then “the answer, to me, is pretty clear,” said Stuart Phillips, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “Lighter weights!”

In a 2012 study by Dr. Phillips and colleagues, published in PLoS ONE, college-aged young men were randomly assigned to a weight training program in which they repeatedly lifted either 30 percent of the maximum weight possible for them until their muscles were exhausted; or 80 percent of their maximum until, again, their arms or legs were noodle-y. Afterward, both groups developed cellular changes related to muscle growth, meaning either routine would add similar amounts of muscle.

But lifting the lighter weights, Dr. Phillips said, also builds muscular endurance, far more so than grunting through fewer repetitions with heavy weights, and results in less risk of muscular injury. As a bonus, completing more repetitions with lighter weights also results in “a greater amount of total work” per session, meaning more calories burned than fewer repetitions with heavier weights. [emphasis mine]

Are the fitness tides changing again? After the past 5 or so years where “lifting heavy” has gained such popularity, are we seeing a swing back to the tiny pink dumbbell phase? And which does the research support? I’m honestly not sure. At moments like this my gut says to just do whatever I enjoy best and to heck with dueling researchers. But I can’t get over the bolded statement above. It seems so counter-intuitive to me. Can that be true?

I have seen an increasing amount of people talking about the greater risk of injury for lifting heavy as compared to lifting lighter. And my experience has shown this to be true. (My hemorrhoids from my one-rep max experiment are high fiving each other as we speak.) I’ve also heard a lot of chatter of late about how the emphasis should not be on “getting as strong as possible” or “getting big” but rather to have lean, functional muscle. Lastly, I’ve always had my qualms about the “lifting heavy won’t make you bulk out” assertion. Sure lifting heavy won’t make us big like dudes but it can certainly make us bigger than we like. And the people who say otherwise are generally the same people who post things like “10 exercises for a bubble butt!” (I swear I didn’t make that up). So if you can bulk your butt out then why would it not work the same for your quads or shoulders?

Anyhow, I think Gym Buddy Megan summed it up best when she said Drop Two Sizes… is really a prequel and not a sequel to Rachel’s first book. And considering a lot of people were intimidated by The Female Body Breakthrough or found it too difficult then I can see how this book would have a place.

MY Conclusion

As a seasoned weight lifter, I found the workouts boring and not progressing enough. I also question her reverting to the high rep/low weight theory (but like I said, maybe there’s a good reason for that?) But if you are newer to fitness and intimidated by traditional weight workouts this could be a great start for you. Also, if you liked her first book and are looking for a few more “Rachel” moves to add to your repertoire this is great. And hey, just the fact that somebody stole my book says something, right?

What’s your opinion about high reps/low weight vs low reps/heavy weight?

P.S. Megan wanted me to tell you that she thinks she went up a pants size during this Experiment, mostly in her quads. Allison, Daria and I all saw no change at all.

I swear I have actually done this. Like in the last week.

Indecisive. If there was a word to sum up what I am these days that would be it. This is actually the fourth post I’ve started today, having abandoned all the others because… because. True story: At the grocery store yesterday the cashier asked me if I wanted paper or plastic – was there ever an easier question? – and I couldn’t answer him. I stumbled over it for a solid minute before finally exclaiming, “Whatever you think is best!” He was so surprised that he ended up bagging all my groceries twice – first in plastic and then in paper. Yep. I’ve officially become that lady. I think it’s because I’m so overwhelmed with Really Big decisions – I basically feel like I’m determining my children’s entire future in this moment and one wrong pick will condemn my kids to a lifetime of Maury-esque paternity tests, misspelled tattoos and flip flops as formal wear - that the smaller ones just fall off my map. (Overly dramatic, me? Never!)

Want to know my new party trick? Name any school in the Denver area and I can tell you what it’s ranked, its student-to-teacher ratio and whether or not they serve “Salisbury steak” on the menu (what is that anyhow? Chicken? Beef? Deep fried breading coated in breading?). Unfortunately all that information has pushed everything else useful out of my head. So when a friend asked me this morning, “How can I help?” I gave her a glassy stare and the same answer that I’ve been giving to all my many generous friends who’ve asked the same: “I have no idea.”

How do you ask for help when you don’t even know what it is you need?

Mikela answered, “Never mind. I’m bringing you dinner on Monday. It will be in a crockpot so you don’t have to cook. You are not allowed to say no. I will break your door down if you don’t answer.” (She was in “intelligence” in the military so I totally believe she’d do it!)

Cassie answered, “You’re not sleeping on the floor after your beds are packed. You’re sleeping at my house. We have beds and couches and everything.” She said this while going through my house like a tornado, picking up garbage, putting things in boxes and then organizing all the boxes.

Debbie answered, “We’re coming on Thursday to clean. Lots of us. So don’t stress about cleaning anything now.”

Allison answered, “I’m taking your kids and feeding them lunch. You go home and pack. Pick them up whenever you want. Or don’t. They can sleep over.”

Daria answered simply by showing up with two bags of soup and a loaf of fresh bread.

The Gym Buddies answered by buying me a family membership to the Denver zoo so I’d have something to do with my kids while we’re living out of a 600-sq ft hotel room this summer.

The Turbo girls answered by packing me a super-cute road-trip bag complete with snacks for the kids, new music to listen to, magazines, a sparkly headband, a netflix subscription, a book of pictures of all of us together (aww!) and two Minnesota team t-shirts so I won’t forget where I came from (even if I’ve already forgotten what teams play here, forgive me). Tucked in the front pockets were gift cards for gas and food.

All of this from a glassy-eyed “I don’t know”.

I will never understand why some people think it isn’t cool to be a “girl’s girl”. Women are amazing and their capacity to lift and heal and serve and love is unmatched. Looking back over my life women have helped me through every difficult transition I’ve ever had to make.

How do you survive the death of a loved one? Tarragon chicken, roasted potatoes, green beans almondine, three different kinds of pie – she didn’t say anything as she placed dish after dish of lavish food on the tables, which was for the best as even if she had asked what I wanted, I would not have been able to answer her. When we decided to have a funeral for a baby no one knew in a place where no one knew us – grief makes familiars of us all – we hadn’t exactly thought out the details. Just making the arrangements to transfer our daughter’s body from the hospital to the funeral parlor proved enormous – in a strange trick of fate the State sent us her death certificate months before we got her birth certificate and we were left explaining over and over again how someone who hadn’t been born had died. So the fact that all our families were going to need to be fed after the funeral? Too enormous to comprehend. But there was Mandy, hand on her own pregnant stomach, dishing out not just food but a funerary feast. She stepped so lightly that I couldn’t even remember the moment that she had stepped in and carried my pain in her hands, just as adeptly as she carried the platter of crudities. Women carry so much more than babies.

How do you talk about a nightmare? When I was called to testify against an abusive ex-boyfriend, the story I’d hid for so long pressed behind my lips and I could no more hold it back than hold back vomit, Erika listened. Her faith in my version of the events was a first. Because she believed me, I could start to believe myself. Then came Laura who let me call her every day, sometimes many times a day, to recount one more memory I’d pushed away. The memories felt endless, my need to purge insatiable and yet she never flinched from the torrent. For months she listened. And then came all the girls – some of you girls, even – to wrap me in the protection of their stories and their arms. Girls who called when they heard a news story about sexual assault, to see if I was okay. Girls who called to ask if they were going to be okay.  Girls who said they could talk about their stories because I could talk about mine. Women hear so much more than what is said. Women say so much more than what is spoken.

How do you say “I’m sad when I have every reason to be happy”? Weddings and baby showers. Births and deaths. Beauty and trauma. The large moments of our lives are emotionally etched into our being but what of all the myriad small moments? The day-to-day monotony, sometimes punctuated by a burst of rapid-fire baby giggles, sometimes overwhelmed by a string of gray days: Even though I am surrounded by tiny people – whom I deeply love – I have never known such loneliness as I have as a young mother. And just when I think I am about to go mad from the incessant irrational whining, Sam and Debbie show up at my door. They come bearing gourmet cheesecake (just because) to feed my stomach and stories to feed my soul. Women feed so much more than hunger.

How do you learn to accept your faults? “Charlotte, sit down. We’re done with our workout.” “Girl, get over yourself.” “You have gotten too thin.” And even a stage-whispered, “You have camel toe! Fix it!!” Over the years, Allison, Megan, Daria and Krista, always just a hysterical text message away, have done so much more than keeping me from dropping the weight bar on myself. They rein me in, they ground me, they correct me and through it all they still love me. I am stronger because they do not treat me like shattered glass. Women temper so much more than tantrums.

How do you comprehend the eternal? Three years old, her large brown doll eyes welled up. Three is too young to understand death much less such an untimely death. I was 20 when my baby sister died – an entire lifetime apart from three – and yet I could barely wrap my mind around the fact that a person who is here one moment can be so utterly gone the very next. I watched my next-youngest sister Kathryn climb up the stool to sit on the kitchen counter so she could be eye level with her sisters, aunts, friends, her grieving mother. Taking all of us adults in, she stared solemnly, already forgetting the sister she barely knew. But some things run deeper than mere memory.  Shared things like grief. Things like a tiny hand on my arm and then a tiny head on my shoulder as she sobbed. These were not crocodile nears nor were they shed out of fear or exhaustion or hunger, no she cried for one simple reason: the rest of us were crying and she cried with us, her heart-broken with ours. Even at three, women cry so much more than tears.

How do you squeeze a pressed ham through a tailpipe? Oh, excuse me. How do you bring a baby into this world while you feel like you’re on your way out of it? (That didn’t make it sound any more glamorous did it?) The answer is simple: You do it surrounded by women. The friends who sympathized with my pregnant fears. The nurses who cared for me. The doctors who delivered me (oh and the babies too). The mother who always came to help me. The doula who coached me through it. The friends who babysat me afterward when my post-partum anxiety nearly incapacitated me. The little girls who handed down their clothes and toys to my baby. The grandmothers – not even mine! – who stopped to tell me how beautiful my baby was. A woman’s embrace extends so much farther than the span of her arms. 

Women get a lot of bad press – if you believe the media, we’re catty, gossipy, back-stabbing competitive bitches. The Real Housewives of Wherever is pretty much based on this premise. Sometimes in our pettier moments we may even believe it ourselves, fearing other women’s successes, glorying in their failures. And gossiping about all of it. But we forget: This sisterhood – this is what we lose when make it about comparing waistlines, jobs or children, when we reduce the complexity of our relationships to the span of our thighs or the label on our bag, when we compete for things we’ve already lost. These “mom-petitors”, “”skinny bitches”, “drama queens” and fashionista social climbers – these are not the women I know. In the end, women are so much more than we give ourselves credit for. We have the power to be angels.

I want to take this time to thank all the amazing, talented, big-hearted, beautiful inside-and-out women in my life – those I mentioned here and the many many more I didn’t have room to name. While it isn’t always rainbows and unicorns and PMS parties (and sometimes the bad is really bad), the good I have received from you far outweighs the negative. I’m writing this now partly as a thank you but more so to remind myself of how richly sisterhood has blessed my life. I don’t ever want to forget what was given me because I don’t ever want to miss the chance to do the same for another girl in need.

Not that I don’t love and adore the men in my life but so much of my life revolves around my sisters, those who share my DNA and those who don’t. I’m proud to call myself a “girl’s girl”.

Anyone else get paralyzed by indecision the more decisions they have to make?? Any of you have a story to share about a woman who has been important some way in your life? Do you consider yourself someone who gets along more easily with men or women? Or both, equally? Men, do you feel totally left out yet? (Don’t worry – when it gets close to Father’s Day, I’m going to write an Ode to the Gents;))

Hi! What did you have for dinner tonight? Was it good? I hope so! Because I had butt. Well, not literal butt – rump roast is actually pretty tasty – but my dinner tasted like the south end of a northbound horse. Or the scent of the newest celebrity “designed” perfume. Or anything coming out of AskMen.com. Pick your favorite garbage analogy. (Okay, so to prove my point I just went to AskMen and clicked on the #1 story for today. It’s called “Why Masculinity Can’t Be Bought” and it’s actually really interesting. So maybe it’s time I forgive them for their awful “Subtle Ways to Tell Her She’s Getting Fat” piece? Nah.) Anyhow, back to my disgusting dinner. Thanks to the combination of 98 degree weather and my new workout called Shoving Stuff in Boxes That I Forget to Label Thereby Making Future Unpacking Like The Funnest Game Ever, the only thing I had time for was a scoop of protein powder mixed with cold water. (Plus we’re cleaning out our cabinets and we’re down to our “weird” food. Anyone want three jars of clam juice??)

Now this is not your average slightly icky powder. This stuff is hands down the vilest concoction I have ever tasted. It’s made up mostly of hemp (which you would think would make you, like, kinda floaty happy but it totally doesn’t), pea and brown rice proteins. It was then flavored to taste like “berry” but only if you’re talking about the kind of berries that deer poop. The mixture even turns a hideous shade of gritty brown to keep the streak (hah!) going. I held my nose and chugged the whole 18 ounces in one fell swoop to overcome my gag reflex.

So why oh why would I be doing this to myself? Especially when I had tasty food available to me! Did I have to review it? Was it especially healthy? Did someone I love make it? No, not particularly and heck to the no. I drank it because I spent $75 on the stupid canister. And I cannot waste it, especially when I spent that much money on it. (Seriously who spends $75 on protein powder?!)

Sunk cost fallacy in living color, my friends.

For those of you who’ve blocked out your college finance classes (and I’m totally not judging you for that – Macroeconomics made me want to impale my eyes with a 3-D bar chart), the sunk cost fallacy refers to any situation where you have paid for something but then no longer want it yet refuse to give it up because, duh, you paid for it. Even if holding on to the thing is costing you more money (or in my case, intestinal distress). The typical example given is to imagine you purchase a non-refundable movie ticket but you get to the movie and it totally blows. Do you leave and lose the cost of the ticket? Or do you stay and lose the cost of your time (and in the case of Tommy Boy, your sanity)? When you ask people what others should do, they generally recommend cutting the losses and moving on to what you really want. But surprisingly, if you look at what people usually do themselves, they often stick with it like white on rice.

Economists offer a lot of theories as to why people waste their time and money like this. First, there’s the pride issue. Giving up the item would prove you made a mistake and people really don’t like to admit their mistakes. (Charlie Sheen, anyone?) Next, there’s the thrift issue. Okay, so maybe you hate the movie but perhaps you can fashion a zingy new purse out of all the candy wrappers on the floor? That would be totally worth it! And lastly, there’s the dumb issue. We keep thinking of the money we spent as “ours” even though we gave it away to someone else. “Can’t waste MY money!” “Going to get MY money’s worth!” “Going to gag MYSELF with MY vile protein powder that I bought with MY hard-earned dough!” (Mmm… dough.)

And nowhere do I see the sunk cost fallacy more than in the health and fitness world. Consider that treadmill-turned-coat rack in your basement. That BOSU leaning up against your wall. Those pricey pants you bought for the brand name and then realized they make you look like a menstrual explosion Superfund site. The 5-lb bag of chia seeds you bought but never use because there is just not enough floss in the world to make them worth it. Or, my personal fave, the gym membership that you never use, feel horribly guilty about and yet still keeping paying monthly fees on. And yet no matter how embarrassing, annoying or even expensive these things get, we keep chugging the proverbial swill. (In my case that would be literal.)

So how do we break the cycle? Researchers suggest:

1. Acknowledge the money is gone and it’s not coming back. It’s not your money any more. You set it free, it didn’t return, clearly it was never meant to be yours. Or whatever that saying is. Do whatever you need to do to come to terms with that. Grieve, have a farewell party, throw sticky darts at the screen whenever the infomercial comes on.

2. Look at all the ways it is costing you now. Not only did my protein powder cost me $75 but it cost me to store it in my cupboard for the past year (it’s a big container!), it cost me in mental pain every time I saw it sitting on my shelf mocking me, it cost me in gustatory dissatisfaction. And it cost me in tummy aches. Because I have one now.

3. Make a decision. It’s amazing how much we can cause to happen simply by not making a decision. Because choosing not to do something is still making a choice. Tonight I finally realized that there is no way I am moving that thing to Denver just so it can take up space in a new house. So I’ve decided I’m chucking it.

4. Figure out what you did wrong so you can avoid it in the future. Really this whole situation could have been avoided had I tasted the stuff first. Or read up some reviews on it. Or stood up to the high-pressure salesman who talked me into it.

But first I’m going to start by brushing my teeth. I’m still picking hemp turdlets out of my gums! And then I’d best start reconsidering my shoe collection… especially that gorgeous pair of silver heels that hurt so badly to walk in that I call them “my sitting shoes.” (But I got them on a killer sale!!)

Make me feel better: Have any of you bought something that was a mistake but couldn’t let go of it because you paid good money for it? Or is it easy for you to weigh the pros and cons and give it up? (And if so, teach me your ways!)

*Do I win for longest title ever???

Holy crap I love nerd humor!

Complicating easy things is kinda my life’s work. I don’t want to brag or anything but I’m pretty much a genius at making things look hard. Whether it’s this whole motherhood thing – I’ve left a child at the gym so many times that it’s now standard operating procedure to do a headcount every time we go through a doorway – or exploding my bread maker this morning (an appliance that’s supposed to take the risk out of making bread? Pshaw!), I live for danger. But there comes a time when even I have to throw up my hands and say “Why are we making this so difficult?!”, especially when it comes to health and fitness.

1. Salad. Every healthy eater eats it. It’s basically the only dish that everyone from vegans to low-carbers to raw foodies to the most neolithic Paleo can eat without anyone calling the nutritional police. I can understand why – it’s delicious, nutritious and the perfect canvas for any ingredient you can think to throw on top of greens. (Ha ha – you thought I was going to end that phrase with “and tastes like chicken!” didn’t you?) The problem for me is when it’s lunchtime, I’m starving and while salad sounds good I just don’t feel like chopping a ton of veggies and adding olives, beets, grapefruit wedges, cheese crumbles, toasted (by me, of course) pine nuts, onions and the weed that I pick out of the cracks in my neighbor’s driveway (purslane, seriously try some) and then topping it with a freshly emulsified dressing of extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, a dash of tabasco, unicorn blood and 11 herbs and spices. Why does such a simple food have to be so much work?

Simplify: When I was in Germany one of the best meals I ever had was started with a salad of chopped butter lettuce topped with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. That’s it. I ate so much of it our host mother was forced to go back out to their garden plot and pick another bunch just for me. (It also helped that I hadn’t seen a fruit or vegetable in like three weeks and was super constipated. Seriously Germany what is up with the produce hating? You have eleventy different kinds of sausage but an apple not in the form of strudel is verboten? It’s bad enough you have different flushing mechanisms on every single toilet – the chain over the door was by far the most befuddling – but now you have to back me up too?)

These days I often make that “German salad” and I’m never sorry. I love a good 70-ingredient salad as much as the next health nut but there’s nothing wrong with just plopping some lettuce on your plate. Especially when you eat as much salad as I do. (“Salad” bowl? More like mixing bowl!) Bonus tip: Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly lazy I just buy one of those plastic clamshells of organic “herb blend” lettuce, top it with oil and vinegar, close the lid and shake, shake, shake Senora. Then I eat it straight out of the container. Fast food doesn’t get any faster than that!

2. Food labels. My frozen peas are “gluten free”. My dark chocolate is “bursting with antioxidants”. My eggs are “all natural”. (I used to buy the unnatural eggs but after I found a baby woodchuck in one I switched.) My totally-not-healthy-in-any-way licorice is “fat free”. My yogurt is “now with probiotics”. (Um, what were they using before? Camel urine?) And, my personal fave, my bananas are a “superfood”. Seriously marketers? Stop it. When my banana sprouts a cape and saves my toddler from a speeding train then you can slap a superfood sticker on it.

Simplify: Foods that come without labels – usually produce, bananas notwithstanding, and fresh meats and seafood – are generally the healthiest foods out there. As for foods with labels, I find it works much better if I ignore all the hype in big letters on the front and just look at the nutritional facts on the back. Twenty three grams of sugar in a yogurt cup? You can keep your probiotics, thanks. While I wish that food marketers would be more honest in their labeling – all my peas better be gluten free – that’s probably as likely to happen as the invention of lickable wallpaper so in the meantime I just take it all with an iodized grain of salt (“iodide is a necessary nutrient!”).

3. Weight lifting. I’m going to take some flack for this one but I’m going to say it anyways: weight lifting is just lifting heavy stuff. You do it every single day whether you intend to or not. Groceries? Kids? Drunk roommates in wobbly stilettos? All need carrying. I wince every time I hear a person (usually a woman but not always) say, “I can’t lift weights! I wouldn’t even know how to start, it’s all so complicated!” It’s not her/his fault. Between all the machines tattooed with diagrams that make Egyptian runes look like a preschool rebus and the beefed-up lifters talking “super sets” and “rear deltoids” and the signs warning you to not get injured (OH THE SIGNS OF IMPENDING DOOM), I can understand why people think they “can’t lift.”

Simplify: First, avoid the machines. Most gyms will steer newbies to those first (I’m guessing since they’re the most expensive equipment?) but not only are they hard to figure out and may possibly fold you like a burrito if you get in one wrong but they are also not the best for you as they hold your joints in unnatural positions and don’t allow your supporting muscles to kick in. Second, go for free weights (dumbbells and barbells) and/or anything “functional” in movement. What to do with them? Just lift them! Lift them in any way that feels natural to you. Try to use your upper and lower body. Copy someone else (it’s only creepy if you stand right behind them and sing along with their iPod). But don’t worry about it too much. Sets, reps, negatives, splits, the proper Latin terms for all the muscles – all these are great and if you decide you want a more precise workout then you’ll learn about them and implement them.

The important thing is to just get in there and try it. Another worry I hear a lot is “I don’t want to get hurt!” While you can injure yourself weight-lifting most new lifters don’t lift anything heavy enough to do serious damage. Third, listen to your body. Does your knee hurt every time you lunge? Find a way to lunge that doesn’t hurt or don’t lunge. There are plenty of other exercises for your legs. Fourth, try body weight exercises. These don’t use any “weights” except your own and they can be powerful resistance exercises. You can build amazing shoulders with different kinds of push-ups and you’ll never once have to worry about dropping a dumbbell on your head.

Do you have a health or fitness trend that you wish people would stop making so complicated? How do you like your salad? Do you like your weight routines simple or complicated?

“I hate to go and leave this pretty sight! Doot do do do doot do do do! (Which is beluga whale for ‘Run! The Nazis are coming.’)

What we talk about after our workout: Butt blisters. Creepy come-on lines. Potty training. The salt content of cruise-ship food. How to make your own tutu. If pink weight lifting gloves are cute or a cop out. And of course, the daily discussion of What’s For Dinner. (Grand prize goes to the lady who thought ahead enough to both buy the special ingredients and remember to put them in the crockpot that morning. The grand prize being, naturally, kids that whine about every bite. But hey she has the admiration and envy of all the other Gym Buddies!). The fetid stretching mats have been the site for many a strange, awkward and hilarious conversation amongst the Gym Buddies and I over the past six years. It’s one of the things I’ll miss most when I leave (in less than two weeks – not that I’m freaking out about that at all. Noooo.).

But the other day, it got serious. It was just Allison and I and it started because we were talking about the terrible pain of saying goodbye. I hate saying goodbye. I hate it more than I hate jumping pull ups. I hate it more than a long run with no music. I hate it more than I hate ceiling fans. Heck, I even hate it more than I hate swimming and you all know how much I hate being wet and cold! Saying goodbye is an inevitability that I honestly haven’t wanted to talk about much since we first found out (a week ago – not that I’m freaking out about that at all. Noooo.) that we are moving from Minnesota to Denver, Colorado. It hurts too much. And the best way to avoid that pain is to pretend that it isn’t happening. Every day as we leave the gym I say to my friends (for they have all become so much more than gym buddies), just like I always have, “I’ll see you later!” And I mean it.

But the other day, Allison called me on it. “When?” she asked curtly. I gave her a watery smile. “I’m sure I’ll see you again… sometime.” She raised an eyebrow, “Like…?” And then I said one of the dumbest things I’ve possibly ever said to her. And I have said A LOT of really dumb things to Allison. “Well, there’s always the next life!”

I didn’t mean it to be glib – my faith in the existence of a great After has been one of the most powerful driving forces in my life (in fact, the LDS “Mormon” concept of what happens after we die may be the thing I love the very most about my religion, it is so perfectly hopeful) – but it came across that way. This may make you think I’m as annoying as a TV with only one channel showing The Real Housewives 24/7 but here it is: Sadness makes me philosophical. Not because it gives me answers. Because it gives me perspective. And when you’re hurting perspective is really the only thing that helps at all. (Well, that and chocolate.)

Allison looked hurt. “What- in heaven?? I hate that answer. It doesn’t make any sense. Are you just saying we should kill ourselves now? Because if Heaven’s so great then why doesn’t every just kill themselves to get there?”

See? Serious.

It’s because, I think, that then we’d short circuit the process designed to make heaven. Not that we make our own heaven, per se, but that what we learn over our lives increases our capacity to experience and appreciate the heaven created for us. Heaven isn’t a prize handed out like a trophy to the person that has endured the most, rather our sufferings only enlarge us if we allow them to change us. And they change us by hollowing us out, creating a space wherein to hold the blessings. Pain gives us context and without context joy is meaningless. You can’t truly appreciate “having” until you know the heartbreak of “losing”. Yes, I know I should have gone into country music songwriting. Missed that boat along with the one for becoming a professional fake mustache maker. (Seriously, I’m gooood at fake ‘staches. It’s a gift I discovered after trying out for the high school musical and failing so miserably that the only thing the director could think to offer me was Makeup Artist in Charge of Fake Facial Hair for Boys Not Pubescent Enough to Grow Their Own. I was in the program and everything! Plus it was the closest I got to the really popular boys’ lips during my entire academic tenure.)

But see? There I am avoiding it again. I’d rather talk about my hellacious high school experience than talk about saying goodbye. I hate saying goodbye.

Yet it’s often the things we don’t want to do the most that we need to do the most. (Like swimming, maybe?) I have to say good-bye to all the wonderful people I’ve met here. People who have loved me through mental illness, through pregnancy, through euphoria, through pride, through pain, through the breadth and depth of the human condition. These friends have been my rock. And proving, again, that they know what I need even when I don’t, they ripped the band-aid off for me: On Saturday Turbo Jennie coordinated a surprise last Turbokick/farewell party for me. To force me to face my fears. To give me a chance to say good-bye. To let myself cry.

And cry I did! (Go big or go home, I always say!) No cute, tear-stained cheeks for this girl – it was full-blown Boy George mascara tears and sobbing. I started crying when I got to the gym and saw everyone (even old friends that have long since stopped coming to my Y) dressed up in tutus, in my honor. I cried when I saw they’d written “We’ll miss you tutu much!” in marker on the studio mirrors. I cried listening to each carefully picked track, realizing how well Jennie had to have known me to have picked all my faves. I cried watching Allison next to me, the girl who has been next to me for every Great Fitness Experiment for almost 7 years, and realizing that soon I would be standing alone. Again. I cried when they played Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” at the end because they know it’s my favorite (don’t judge!) even though everyone else haaates Josh Groban. (True story: when it started playing with its characteristic bagpipes, Ted yelled out “Are we at a farewell party for Charlotte or an Irish funeral at sea?!”) I cried when I saw the cake that said “Happy Trails!” as if I were a pioneer setting off on the Oregon Trail (only to die of cholera in Colorado – I hated that game!). I cried so hard I was nauseous and then couldn’t even eat the cake.

All that heaviness that’s been on my heart the past week, finally let out.

Then, doing my best to further unnerve my already tweaked children, I cried all the way home, cried through my shower and cried until I had to take out my contacts because my eyes were getting so swollen I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find them. At last I laid down – next to Jelly Bean to help soothe her to sleep. I don’t usually do this but little sister knows that things are messed up right now and she’s taken to crapping her pants five times a day in response. (Fun Kid Fact #49: Kids under stress will revert in whatever developmental milestone they’ve been working on. Yay for reverse potty training!) Trying to comfort her that she was safe and that I was here, I put my hand gently on her back. As I did I felt all the hands of all the people who have loved me resting gently on mine. The weight was reassuringly heavy.

Everyone will leave you eventually. Whether through death or circumstance, it is an inevitable fact of life. But where some may see this pain as reason to never open themselves up to love again, I see it as all the more reason to love people while you still have them. It doesn’t take away the pain but it does give me perspective. Will I get new Gym Buddies? No. These friends are special and irreplaceable. But I will meet new friends and I will love them. I hope they will love me too. Because, as Jelly Bean drifted off to sleep, secure in the now, I realized that I could only cry so much because I love so much. It is a gift.

I still don’t like saying good-bye. I’m still really bad at it. And I’m still going to say “I’ll see you later!” and mean it beyond the meta. (I’ll come back to visit!) But at least now I remember that there is just as much love and hope in good bye as there is pain and sadness. (Plus I also remembered that I’m not dying. And neither are they. So, you know, there’s that.)

How are you at saying good-bye? Have any tips for me? How do you cope with sadness – do you get philosophical too or turn to some other outlet? Lastly, what do you talk about after your workout??

Admit it, you’ve ridden the Pinterest roller coaster: It starts with the high of finding the perfect little black dress, quickly followed by the decision to find the perfect workout to make you look hot in said dress, then comes the mania of looking through 11,230 fitness pinboards, followed by the low of desperation when you realize that you’ll never look like the girls in the thinspiration – quick cut away to check out something sparkly and or delicious, whoa squirrel! – then resignation as you look for a different perfect LBD. By the time your ride has ended, hours have passed in a blur and while you’ve pinned enough projects to make your own cable channel, in reality you’ve done nothing but check your cabinet to see if a jar of saffron has magically appeared in it so you can make that paella recipe all your friends pinned. (And if you’re me, you’ll just substitute a bunch of random ingredients for the ones you don’t have until your paella turns into banana bread. With chorizo.)

A recent Today survey found that 42% of women experience “Pinterest stress” also known as that nagging feeling that everyone else is prettier, smarter, funnier and craftier than you – and they’re all having a party without you. And hey, I’ve been there. But life’s too short to spend it weeping over a cake that looks more like poo than Pooh Bear. Instead, I have a list of my personal faves when it comes to the weird, funny and nonsensical pins. Your only project here is to laugh. A lot. (Happy Friday!)

Oh the bloating! If only it were as simple as the arrival of the crimson crusaders! But my stomach can go from flat to 4-months pregnant over the course of a day. Now if only I could make monkey bread out of those biscuits we’d be set.

SO much happening in this abtastic “fitspiration” photo. I’m not sure if she’s checking out her own abs and got stymied by all the boobs in the way or just so drunk that she forgot how to button her own pants. Either way I’d need to sit down too. Her life is tough.

Um, have these people ever seen a new baby? Nobody wants to look like that. Not even babies. Does yoga have a Cone Head pose?

Some say that if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. I say if you want to be happy then watch pretty birds drinking nectar. Thankfully with this Hummingbird helmet you can safely accomplish both! Happiness: Done!

It’s funny ’cause I usually say the opposite. “Oh yeah Gym Buddies, I’m not crying, it’s just all the sweat running down my face!” See also: “I didn’t pee my pants, it’s just a lot of crotch sweat!” and “My bellybutton’s not leaking, it’s just stomach sweat!” I mean of all the things you could be doing in a gym, sweating is the least embarrassing, frankly. Sweat-T

You know what Dog’s Butter is? It’s not butter made out of pureed dogs. sicko. It’s peanut butter for dogs. But when you read the ingredient list, it’s actually the exact same as human peanut butter. Except way more expensive. And I love how they even kept the jar the same so you can still laugh when Fido gets his head stuck in it!

The Hydration Bra: for those of you who thought the CamelBak made you look too much like an actual camel. Plus, how many times have you wished you could wear your water-push-up bra to the gym? Now you have a legit reason! Just don’t put milk in that thing.

True story: when I was a kid I used to eat lip balm. Sure it was waxy but it tasted vaguely like… whatever, and that was good enough for this sweet tooth. But now they have Chapstick Cake Batter?! I got super excited until I remembered I’m a grown up and can eat actual cake batter if I want it. Remember kids, if it’s “calorie free” it’s not a treat, it’s just a tease!

Boobs. Yes, please.

I so wish I’d thought of this Tampon finger puppet and caption first but how could I mess with perfection: ”Crazy Aunt Flow sure was crafty, but her gifts always came with a string attached.” Also: don’t trust her when she offers to “pull some strings” to get you a new job.

His eyes, they see into your soul! Plus this Meat baby is every low-carb’ers dream! Or nightmare. Whatev. (You may have seen this pic before but now, thanks to Pinterest, you have the actual recipe! You’re welcome!)

Team pie? Team cake? Who cares with this “Cherpumple” pie cake made up of cherry pie in chocolate cake, pumpkin pie in spice cake and apple pie in vanilla cake – all topped with frosting and sprinkles! This is why the Internet was invented, folks.

Actually, I think weak knees might be kind of a problem. Take off those fish nets and get your man into the gym stat to work on some squats and lunges! Because remember ladies: We workout to look hot, he works out to get strong (and look at us).

Aggh! This. Just. No words. Baby arms coat rack

And lastly, I’ll send you off with The Cookie Dough Wars as presented to you by Pinterest. The funny part is the conversation underneath the picture because, be honest, this is exactly how 90% of food conversations go down on Facebook/Pinterest. My favorite part is where crap starts to get personal! “@marlee YOLO. False. You live every day. You only die once.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now, back to discussing whether or not raw flour has e-coli in it…

Aaaand because I know someone will ask for the recipe: Here you go.

Anyone else a Pinterest addict? Have a fun, funny or just interesting pin to share with me? Which one on my list do you love (or love to hate)??

This “super slimmer” face mask from japan claims to burn calories (from your face?!) while you sleep. That is, if you can sleep in something that looks like the brainchild of Hannibal Lecter and a Mary Kay salesman.

I was reminded of this the other day as the Gym Buddies and I were sweating away on the elliptical machines (not our go-to workout but they’re easy to talk on so sometimes we end up there) and one of those ubiquitous exercise program infomercials came on. While we were giggling about watching people on TV exercise while actually exercising, large letters flashed up on the screen. “BURN up to 1,000 CALORIES AN HOUR!” flashed over all those heaving chests – the “up to” in conveniently small type of course.

This infomercial – may Billy Mays rest in peace – is not unique. All fitness programs, televised and otherwise, seem to make some kind of caloric promise. Not to mention the charts in every fitness mag and diet book showing you how many calories everything from Zumba to sex burns. But how accurate are these claims? And does it even matter how many calories your workout burns?

Q: Can You Really Burn 1,000 Calories An Hour?

Anecdotal evidence first: According to my overly generous heart rate monitor of which I was once so attached to that I would turn around and go home to get the chest strap if I accidentally forgot it despite the fact that being small chested meant that it looked as if I had a 3rd nipple, I have burned over 1,000 calories in a single workout. The scene was “Holiday Turbokick” a special brand of torture that Turbo Jennie likes to put us through on occasions like the day before Easter, where we do 8 “turbos” (a high-intensity interval lasting between 30 seconds and 2 minutes) interspersed with 4 finales or some such craziness. By the end I am turbo-ing in a puddle of my own filth and can wring out my top like a Shamwow. It’s enough to make a girl puke up her turkey before she even eats it, is what I’m saying. But by the time we hit cool down, I had indeed burned just over 1,000 calories.

So it would seem possible – although unlikely (who wants to work out so hard you vomit every day?) – to attain that magic number. Except for two problems. 1) My heart rate monitor wasn’t terribly accurate. While I trusted its ability to read my actual beats per minute, its calorie burn function was apparently calculated based off a 6’6″ male Russian ice swimmer. To prove this, I switched heart rate monitors with Gym Buddy Allison, who wears a different brand, and racked up 200-400 less calories per hour than my watch gave me.

2) Even the venerable Polar or Garmin can’t really tell you your caloric burn as metabolism is so individual as to render any mathematical formula at least slightly inaccurate. The research in this area is more prolific than one might think. Companies that make a living off of guaranteeing a good workout have invested a lot of energy into trying to figure out what number of calories people can expect to expend using their machines or programs. What they have discovered however is that while they can predict how many calories an individual, say Michael Phelps, is burning, those results are very difficult to generalize. In addition to individual metabolisms there are simply too many other variables. Therefore, the honest companies will give you a range of calories. The disingenuous ones will use that sneaky little phrase “up to” and then give you a Michael Phelpsian number just to make you feel good.

3) Don’t even get me started on how inaccurate the calorie-burn calculators on the cardio machines are.

Q: Does it Matter How Many Calories You Burn?

Every fitness expert will tell you that weight loss, gain or maintenance comes down to simple math. It’s all about the calories you take in through food in relation to those you expend through daily life and exercise. This over simplified heuristic often leads people to think things like, “If the treadmill says I burned 250 calories, then that means I can eat a 200 calorie muffin and still come out losing!” This, in turn, has made calorie burn the gold standard in assessing a fitness program’s worth.

But dig a little deeper and you will realize that not only is calorie burn not the best indicator of a workout’s power, it actually distracts you from other benefits of exercise. For instance, weight lifting typically doesn’t burn comparatively as many calories as cardio for the same amount of time and yet it has many advantages like increased strength, muscle mass and overall functionality. Similarly, HIIT (high intensity interval training) burns a smaller amount of calories during the actual workout but causes a much greater spike in HGH (human growth hormone) than twice the amount of traditional medium-intensity cardio. Lastly, cardio exercise is good for many things besides just burning off last night’s dessert – like increasing your oxygen utilization, building endurance and even improving your mood.

Q: Is It Even A Good Thing To Burn 1,000 Calories An Hour?

Confession: Back in our heart-rate monitor days, Gym Buddy Allison and I were so fixated on burning a certain number of calories per workout that if we hadn’t met our quota, we’d literally do jumping jacks in place while waiting to pick up our kids until our monitors showed the “magic” number. Ignoring for a moment how dumb we looked doing that (and the fact that I was a chronic over-exerciser and very sick at that point), one must ask if it is even a worthwhile fitness goal to strive to burn a particular high number of calories. To get that kind of calorie burn, we would have to push very hard in a high intensity type of cardio. Much has been said – and ignored – about the dangers of too much aerobic exercise in the highest heart rate zones. It elevates the stress hormone cortisol, causes systemic inflammation, necesitates longer recovery and increases your risk of injury, just to give you the short version.

In addition, an often overlooked fact by dieters and diet purveyors alike is that the more you exercise, the hungrier you get. From my personal experience the more calories I burn, the more my body wants to replace them – and fast. What’s the quickest source of glycogen for our depleted muscular system? Sugar. I have found that after a long training run, it’s almost impossible for me to stay away from the Swedish Fish and other simple carbs for the rest of the day. However, when I strength train and/or keep my training volume low my sugar cravings diminish significantly (unless I’m PMSing but that’s a different story entirely). Research backs me up by showing that dieters who create a calorie deficit purely from exercise don’t lose weight – because their bodies eat to adjust. So, what’s the point in burning (up to) 1,000 calories if my body is immediately going to want to replace (at least) 1,000 calories with whatever food is easiest for me to scarf down?

Q: Do You Need a Heart Rate Monitor?

Most people I know that have a heart rate monitor were talked into getting one either by their personal trainer or a gym promotion. (Side note: Most people I know that have a heart monitor say programming the dang thing is on par with reading the tax code… in Hungarian.) Considering they’re pricey little pieces of equipment, you need to consider it’s utility before you buy. There are two main reasons to use one:

The first is “zone training” with the theory being that since you burn a higher proportion of carbs to fat at higher intensities of exercise then having preset zones will help you maximize your fat burning by keeping your heart rate from getting too high (burning straight sugar) or staying too low (burning fat but at a very slow rate). Different types of workouts are designed to take you through various zones and it can be hard to know which zone you’re in if you don’t have a monitor.

The second reason is usually calorie tracking. The watch provides a more reliable and customizable number than guessing from a website.

Okay, there is a third reason. You just like the way it looks! It makes some people feel hardcore or show that they’re “serious” about their workouts. Or they just really like the third-nipple look.

So do you need one to get a good workout? No. Are they sometimes useful to have? Yes.

Q: What do I do? 

Honestly, calorie burn doesn’t matter much to me anymore.  I haven’t worn a heart rate monitor in over two years and don’t miss it a bit. My main measure these days of a good workout is the fun measure. Granted, I’ve been exercising long enough to know what it feels like for me to be at “maximal effort” or “90% of my max heart rate” or even what my aerobic threshold (AT) feels like. I can see how wearing a monitor could help someone new to fitness learn to recognize how hard to push yourself (hint: it’s always harder than you think). But for me it ended up just being one more number for me to obsess over so just like I no longer count calories, weigh myself, or even measure my body fat percentage, I also don’t worry about my calorie burn. Call it intuitive exercising, if you will.

All of which is not to say that exercise – even an occasional session of long, intense cardio – shouldn’t be done. Ask any triathlete, marathon runner or Iron(wo)man if their race was worth it and most of them will give you an enthusiastic yes. But it isn’t because they burned 3,000 calories, it’s because they were having fun and it gave them a sense of accomplishment. Does it mean that I don’t get a great workout from Holiday Turbokick if I don’t burn quadruple-digit calories? No! I’m still increasing my endurance and having a lot of fun to boot. I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t measure your calories burned – you may find it motivating, educational or just entertaining. My long-winded point: When we are evaluating the merit of a particular fitness program, there are a lot of better factors to consider than supposed maximum calorie burn.

Do you have a favorite fitness infomercial? Anyone else ever been obsessed with burning a certain number of calories during your workout? Do you wear a heart rate monitor?

Did you know people take pictures of their food? And post them to public places? For dubious reasons other than just enjoying a well-plated meal? It’s like A Thing. And this Thing might be making us all obese or have eating disorders. [Social] Science says so. Commence freaking out.

[Forgive me if I sound glib - I just spent the last two hours researching antibiotic-resistant "super strains" of gonorrhea that are apparently poised to make the AIDS epidemic look like a cakewalk. First I made myself laugh by rewatching that Friends episode where struggling-actor Joey inadvertently ends up as the poster boy for venereal disease. (It was RESEARCH people.)  Then I had to wash my eyes with acid after doing a Google image search for symptoms. Lastly because my Shape editor asked me if there was anything else women can do to protect themselves from getting it besides wearing condoms, I had to go find a quote from a scientist that said "The only foolproof way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases is to not have sex." I don't know if I'm more amused that someone had to actually say this quote or that I actually had need of it. But seriously this superbug stuff is crazy scary. The zombie apocalypse has nothing on the clap. Egads.]

These scientists, who apparently are stuck in 2005, recently presented a paper at the Canadian Obesity Summit in Vancouver entitled “Food Fetish: Society’s Complicated Relationship with Food” that says our obsession with Instagramming our meals emphasizes the dysfunctional relationship people have with food. And as much as I want to laugh at this (I gotta laugh at something after two hours of reading gonorrhea statistics, right?) I do think that Dr. Valerie Taylor might have a point.

“Many people post pictures of food because they enjoy it, but some do it because food plays a significant role in their lives,” Taylor explained. But what was really interesting to me was her litmus test for knowing if all the food pics are an issue for you: “[It's when] you don’t take pictures of who you’re with, you take pictures of what you’re eating.” Admit it: You know at least one person for whom this is true…

I’m going to be honest: I’ve never liked taking pictures of my food. Mostly because everything I eat looks like (literal) crap stirred up in a bowl (I LOVE my food touching!) and I don’t think it would be right to inflict that on anyone. (Instead I just post nasty pictures of other people’s food - you’re welcome!)  But also because I don’t like people scrutinizing what I eat. It makes me nuts just thinking the cashier at the grocery store is silently judging my jumbo bag of dark chocolate truffles snuggled right up next to my sixteen bunches of kale. Having 2000 of my closest friends dissecting my dinner on Facebook? Would probably push me right over the proverbial ledge. I did blog one day of how I “eat intuitively” because I had so many reader requests for it but I figure that should be sufficient for like… ever.

When it comes to looking at other people’s food however, it gets complicated. On one hand the whole “What I Ate Wednesday” food/fit blogger phenomenon makes me want to stab my eye out with an artichoke barb. It just feels like an excuse to lie about what you eat – either showing pictures of an austere meal because it’s what you think you “should” be eating, or it’s posting pictures of a huge decadent meal that I’m 90% sure the blogger didn’t actually eat in real life but is trying to prove that they’re cool or whatever. Not to mention looking at people’s food is the one thing more boring than listening to someone recite a play-by-play recap of the Seinfeld finale. And of course there’s the whole eating disorder component: knowing that people are going to be scrutinizing your every bite does change how you eat. It has to. You’re not Schrodinger’s cat. And any time you give their (our?) opinion power over what you eat you are in tricky territory.

On the other hand though, I’ll be the first to heart or like a beautiful food picture that a friend has posted, especially when it’s of a meal that they’ve obviously put a lot of care and thought into. I also love finding new, healthy recipes and attractive food photos are a huge selling point (I’m a magpie, I’ll admit it!). And one of my favorite things about social media ever is when people post all the weird, kooky, wonderful, crazy, random things they come across in their daily life – including food. I mean, can anything that showcases bento box art be bad??

If my lunch looked like this you’d better believe I’d be posting pics of it everywhere from Pinterest to Poland.

Plus, the flipside of the eating disorder issue is that a lot of people find support and ideas for making healthy changes by posting their food online. (It doesn’t work that way for me but then we all know I’m already messed up. Other people have told me they find this helpful.)

Your turn: Food pictures – the ultimate exercise is narcissism or harmless fun? And I have to ask: Anyone ever ordered something (or cooked something) just because they knew it would be awesome to post to Pinterest/Facebook/Instagram? Anyone here photo-journal their food? How do you feel about seeing other people’s food photos posted online?