The Exercise Widow(er) Phenomenon [Coming to a marriage near you?]

Do you or someone you love suffer from the following symptoms? – Attending only parties that serve salted nut rolls and Powerade. – Picking up 8 pairs of different (but still look pretty much the same) running shoes every evening. – Waking up alone to an empty bed and a note that says “8 miler, …

What Finally Made Me Seek Help for My Exercise Addiction [Plus, prayers for Jelly Bean]

I’ll be honest: fashion is what really got me into exercise. I can’t wait for unitards to make a comeback! It wasn’t the runs in the dark in the middle of winter at 4 a.m and again at 10 p.m. It wasn’t leaving my son’s hospital bed to go do a high-intensity interval class instead …

Finding Safety in an Unsafe World [The Four Steps of Self-Defense You Need to Know.]

This picture is simply too awesome to caption. I spent my Saturday night getting my aggression on: gouging people in the eyes, yelling “I’ll rip your larynx out!” and watching my best girlfriends get cornered by a bunch of threatening men. Makes your screening of Tron, The Legacy seems pretty lame now, huh? No, we …

The Beauty of Strong Women [Rachel Cosgrove Experiment Results are in!]

Click picture to enlarge. I wish I had a source for this, it’s hilarious! Fragile. Tiny. Vulnerable. Weak. I’ll admit it: I liked being those things. For a long time (most of my life?), I enjoyed people grabbing my arm and cooing “Oh, I’ve never seen such a tiny wrist!” I liked that men got …

What I Mean When I Say I Have 5 Children [Talking about the loss of a baby]

Willow Tree “Guardian“ “Noun: The evacuation of a dead child or organism.” Stillbirth. No warning at all, there it was right between “veterinarian: a person who practices medicine or surgery on animals” and “blunderbuss: a short musket of wide bore used for shooting at close range” as if dead babies are as pedestrian as ailing …

Sacrifice: On Being the Throw-Away Girl

photo credit “Wow,” my psychiatrist looked up from her notes where she’d just written in my case history that I’d been sexually assaulted, pressed charges and sent him to prison, “you must feel so proud! And vindicated! And powerful!” I’d gone to see her to talk about medicine for my post-partum depression, not a court …

The Magic Bullet For Losing Weight and Keeping it Off [Answering the Question I Get Asked the Most.]

Not getting drunk-texted at 2 a.m. is one of the big perks of being an official grown-up (the closest I get these days is when the autocorrect feature on a friend’s phone sends me really random messages about Sydney and gum GymBuddyAllison!.) So when this grammatically challenged missive from a friend showed up in the …

What Running (And Failing At) A Race Taught Me

Pre-race, post-potty – the high point of my day. The End: Shaking, incoherent, sobbing, vomiting and laying under all my blankets still in my sweat-soaked racing clothes: This was how my kids found mommy yesterday. The Beginning: “Sure, give me some of your pills!” Famous. Last. Words. That pretty much sums it up. But if …