Workout Like a NFL Cheerleader! [Plus: The worst potty training stories!]

Stuff I wrote lately:

Fitness

It’s here! It’s here!! The NFL Cheerleader workout slideshow is live! Think cheerleaders aren’t real athletes? Try this workout and get back to me… if you can still sit up to type.

Lipstick and Lunges: My day as an NFL cheerleader. You already saw the (hilarious) preview, now see what I really learned!

Confessions of a Pro Lingerie Football Team. From how they feel about the uniforms to how much they know about football, the ladies of the Minnesota Valkyries bare all

The Cure for Carb Phobia: Carb Cycling 101. I got to interview Franco Carlotto, a six-time Mr. World Fitness, about his nutrition and was more than a little surprised when he told me he eats chocolate, pasta and potatoes on a regular basis (he IS Italian!). His trick is a practice called carb cycling. It’s not new but for people looking for a way to have their cake and eat it too, it’s worth checking out.

Want to know what I think the biggest myth in exercise is? Check out my interview with College Life Styles!

Metabolic Testing: Should you try it? Your metabolism is simply the way your body gets energy from food and uses it to help you live your life. It sounds simple, but it affects everything from your fertility to your mood to whether you are one of those people who can eat whatever they want and never gain weight (and we all know one of those people). So it’s worth checking out what’s going on under the hood!

Body Fat Testing: What you need to know. Fat has become a dirty word. We’re afraid to eat it, confused about how much we need, and especially don’t want to be it. Yet we need fat to live. In fact, how much fat you have and where you store it on your body plays a huge part in how long you live and how happy those extra years will be—much more so than body weight alone.

The Best and Worst Way to Measure Body Fat So you’re convinced that you need to build more muscle and not worry about what the scale says – yay! – but the tricky part is measuring your progress when it’s not as simple as stepping on a platform. Or is it? Find out what works, what really doesn’t and how accurate each method is.

8 Tricks to Making Your Weight Training More Effective

And don’t forget: There’s still time to enter my Under Armour giveaway and get you some sweet gear!

Parenting

Sidewalk Chalk, Bubbles and Other Subversive Childhood Toys But I think the home owner’s association stopped too short with just banning sidewalk chalk. In addition to the aforementioned Legos (i.e. plastic landmines), there are so many childhood toys that are a hazard to life and limb. Bubbles, for instance, are really just soap and soap on pavement makes it into a concrete slip-n-slide. Plastic jump ropes can leave big welts if you get snapped with one. And Silly Putty is just creepy. I mean, it looks like skin! That you can roll up and make into a bouncy ball! (Warning: major sarcasm alert)

Top 10 Things Parents Hate About Potty Training. “Those auto-flush potties are a nightmare! Nothin’ like having your toddler finally get comfortable with using the toilet, then ‘whooooosh!’ The dang thing goes off! I have to stand there covering the sensor, constantly reassuring her that ‘It’s okay; it’s not gonna suck you down the pipe,’ (even though I’ve thought the same thing!).” – Kevin

Fatherhood Changes Everything. Watching my husband cram into a tiny kiddie pool with our four little ones, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling: This is not the man I married. Not only is he better than that guy (no offense to my college sweetheart!), but he’s changed in ways I never could have anticipated. I chalk it up to having kids. Everyone talks about how transformative new motherhood is for women, but you don’t hear as much about how it changes men-and change them it does.

Are School Nurses Really Necessary? Budget-strapped schools are saying “Eh, not so much.”

How Good are Your Mommy Instincts? The problem is that often we moms have nothing else to go on but our instincts. Kids are tricky creatures and little ones don’t communicate very well, so even figuring out what they want to eat can mean playing charades for 20 minutes.

Should Kids Be Kicked Off Airplanes For Just Being Ornery?  This little boy’s crime? Lying sideways in his seat so that the seatbelt wasn’t properly situated. That’s right. He wasn’t screaming or throwing food or kicking the seat in front of him. Granted, I’m sure he was being obnoxious but given all the explanation provided in the Time magazine article (and perhaps there is more to the story?) the airline’s actions seem horribly, well, childish.

Is “Spoiled” Just a Harsh Word for “Well-Loved”?

Plus: Show your park (or mine!) some love with Coca-Cola’s Live Positively campaign!