Hi FitBabe!
How would you determine a maximum heart rate for me? Continue reading
ASK A TRAINER # 14: What is My Maximum Heart Rate?
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Your Daughter is Listening: Guest Post Written by My Sister Lorrie
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I have always wondered whether or not I would go through a mid life crisis. As I approached and then passed age 40, I thought “what could possibly happen?” Then whamo! I was hit square in the stomach with a major personal crisis in November. When I was explaining this experience to a friend at Starbucks one day, she likened it to being clanged on both sides of the head with large cymbals. She said it was a wake up call and she was right.
Since then I have done a lot of thinking about who I am and how I see myself. Continue reading
Metabolic Conditioning: An Actual Fitness Post
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Introducing Dr. Lenny Kravitz, Program Coordinator of Exercise Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
A few weeks ago, I heard Lenny Kravitz present his research at the the annual Can-Fit-Pro conference in Edmonton. I was quite excited by the chance to learn how the sultry retro singer maintains six-pack abs despite being in his late 40s. Imagine my surprise, then, when a white man wearing a bolo tie entered the room to grab the microphone. This Bizarro Lenny was actually quite a hoot, joking and laughing while discussing his recent findings on nutrient timing, the relationship between stress, cortisol and obesity, and metabolic conditioning. The last topic particularly caught my attention and, with Dr. Kravitz’s permission, I present some of his key points here. [Aside: my LSP has a great story about literally bumping into the "real" Lenny Kravitz in a Marais bagel shop in 1994, when we were living in Paris. At the time I was unfortunately in the library, reading about seventeenth-century French vaginas]. Continue reading
Monkey Balls: Things to Do During Your Midlife Crisis
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Will this teal pair bring out my eyes?
A silver-haired man with thick jowls receives a birthday present from his wife. Ripping the card open he sees its contents and shouts ”Gray Power!” He and his wife chuckle as they contemplate the exciting and energized future that lays before them. To celebrate his fifty years, she has given him a gift certificate for monkey balls. Literally. His aging orbs will soon be surgically removed and replaced with a simian sack, guaranteeing beastial virility for years to come. Continue reading
Why I Will Go to the 118th Boston Marathon: Guest Post by a Long Distance Runner
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Sasha Mullally describes her love of running, responding to the recent attack on the Boston Marathon.
I am in my early 40s and had never run before two years ago, but now I have taken to running like a duck takes to water. I feel I have always been a distance runner; I just didn’t know it. I feel designed for it physically and psychologically. Up until now, I was simply not aware of this part of my “design.” It feels like a mid-life gift of epigenetic proportions. Continue reading
Perfectly Embodied: Guest Post by WhiteFeather Hunter
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This work by WhiteFeather (made of animal bones, a beak, feathers, and human hair) hangs above my desk, protecting me from evil.
Introduction by FFG: I met WhiteFeather in Fredericton many years ago, admiring both her innovative art work and fearless personality. We had a lot in common, including a fierce commitment to feminist politics, borne out as we volunteered together to walk women and their families into the Morgentaler Clinic. Most importantly, we were and remain similarly enthralled by all things corporeal, things that others often find disgusting. WhiteFeather is now pursuing an MFA degree and she recently wrote me to describe a crit—when students present work for an audience of teachers and peers—during which she was condemned for using her naked, decorated body in a performance piece. Some viewers argued that her body was too attractive and could only be sexualized when placed on display. Continue reading
ASK A TRAINER #13: How Can I Get Back on Track?
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Hello Fitbabe,
I really need your advice. My mother passed away 3 months ago and since then I have let my health slide. I have put on 20lbs and I am miserable. I used to go to the gym 3 days a week and also I went for long walks at least 2 times a week. Continue reading
Pregnancy and Engorged Womanhood: Guest Post by HissyFit
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One of the most accurate representations of pregnancy I’ve seen: http://cdn.parenting.kidspot.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pregnancy_
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When one is 36 years old and pregnant for the first time, the changes that one’s body initiates are shocking. Throughout my adult life I have been in control of my nutritional and fitness regimen – splurging when I wanted to, directing bodily outcomes when specific goals were sought. With pregnancy, however, even my best attempts to control my rapidly expanding flesh are unsuccessful. No matter what I eat or tone, my belly – and my breasts, and my hips, and my veins – are following their own paths, growing larger, more engorged, more alien with each passing day. Continue reading
The Sausage Finger Diet, and other Crazy Ideas
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My sausage finger is now ready for amputation.
I instantly trust the take-charge doctor who enters the room without looking at me. No time waster, he focuses on the bloody hand laid open on a metal table. After prodding the deep cut in my middle finger for ten seconds, he makes a dramatic announcement: “three stitches.” The nurse who preps me for the minor surgery is annoyed, for I have bled profusely, dripping onto the dark gray mat by the reception desk before leaving a detective-worthy trail to the examination room. In her eyes, I am nothing but a biohazard, and a stupid one at that. Continue reading
Anatomy Lessons: Fighting Body Shame (aka It’s a Celebration, Bitches!)
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In a memoir called Fat Girl: A True Story (2005), author Judith Moore concludes “I am ashamed and I am resigned to my shame.” It is hard to blame Moore for failing to take pride in her fat body. Large bodies have been associated with inferior, primitive qualities, and considered to be unproductive, undisciplined, and weak for a very long time. Amy Farrell dates the rise of fat phobia to the end of the nineteenth century, when an emphasis on industrial efficiency made fat bodies seem wasteful, undermining their previous status as alluring signifiers of wealth (Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture, 2011). Continue reading
Gorilla Hands: A Female Powerlifter Confronts Body Ideals (Guest Post by babyeaterlifts)
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My nickname through part of my undergraduate degree was “Gorilla Hands,” and the story behind this moniker is as follows: the boyfriend of a girl who lived on my floor during my short duration in the dormitories told his girlfriend that he thought I was “really cool, but that I have huge hands.” This girl—whose name I can no longer remember and am feeling vaguely guilty for it—relayed her boyfriend’s observation to me as I sat with her and a few other dwellers of the fourth floor of our dorm. I joked that I had “hands like a gorilla” and “Gorilla Hands” stuck. Continue reading
The Tanned and Butt Ugly: Photos I Cannot Resist Showing You
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This gallery contains 32 photos.
After finishing my book, which is now in the hands of external referees, I realized that many photographs—taken by the incomparable artist and designer Patrick J. Reed—could not be included in it. I think his images offer feminist interventions in the often heteronormative, … Continue reading
Excerpts from My Forthcoming Book
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Feminist Figure Girl: Look Hot While You Fight the Patriarchy
September 08, 2010
Introduction Becoming Feminist Figure Girl
Even more appealing to me was the chance that my plan would fail, and that I would be unable to compete on stage. My literal failure was certain, for I could never win a figure competition, and would likely not even place in the top ten at an entry level contest. Continue reading
First Post: Feminist Figure Girl is Born (written Aug 2010)
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I have been thinking about this project for quite some time, and post here sections from the introduction to my book “Feminist Figure Girl,” written at the end of last year:
It is December 12, 2009, and I am at the gym, feeling euphoric. Continue reading
