Fresh new calfgarden ! Welcome calfriends!

Girl next door calves muscle capture!

Here we go again!

Everything You Know About Dietary Fat is Wrong

Nothing says health food like meat in a can. But look - it even has one of those little key thingies to help you open it!!

The Internet teaches many strange lessons. For instance, courtesy of Facebook I now know more of my girl friends' maiden names than I did when we were in high school and they were still using them. Just today I learned that millions of baby cribs are being recalled (sending me creeping into Jelly Bean's nursery with a flashlight like the stalker mom I am), that I can use oil-based exterior paint to spruce up my ugly front door (What do you all think of a cobalt blue front door? Fun? Or there goes the property value?), and that Heidi Montag was named Time magazine's least influential person (they made up a "moron" category just for her). Would I have known any of this without the great wonder that is Google? Nay.

Which I why I blame Google for all the misinformation out there about dietary fat. If that little start-up had just algorithm-ed it's way to glory a wee bit earlier then we could have crunched the data linking - or rather not linking - saturated fats with coronary disease twenty years ago and avoided the horror that is fat-free cheese. If you would have told me 15 years ago that eating fat would not make me fat, not even butter, I might have fainted.

That's right, all of the stuff you've been told about fat the last few decades was wrong. It turns out butter, real whipped cream and lard won't give you a heart attack after all. But you know what will? Simple, processed carbs.

We have a long, troubled history with fat. Back in the early part of the last century someone invented margarine, a cheap alternative to butter made out of hydrogenated vegetable oils. This oleo spread didn't catch on at first but then someone else decreed that eating fat makes you fat - especially the saturated fats found in animal products and coconut oil. Margarine, replete with the demon-spawn transfats, came to rule the market and a whole movement was born. The hysteria culminated in the fat-phobic 90's where fat grams were the only piece of information about a food that mattered. In fact, when I was a wee lass just beginning my eating disordered journey, fat grams were my number of choice to obsess over. It was my goal to make it through the day on less than 1 gram of fat. I was really good at it too! I went for years without touching meat, real cheese, nuts, avocados and even chocolate. I replaced them with - and I kid you not - fat-free popcorn and SweeTarts candy. And I felt downright smug about my "healthy" diet.

If a time machine is ever invented I want to go back and smack me.

Over the past 10 years or so, we've come to see the importance of dietary fat to our health and have welcomed "healthy fats" like olive oil, avocados and nuts back into our diet. But we were still told to limit saturated fats. Even today, this very second, the FDA is still recommending to "limit saturated fats to less than 10% of calories with the majority of fat coming from poly- or mono-unsaturated fats." They're also still recommending fat-free or reduced-fat milk despite the fact that studies have shown full-fat dairy to be healthier.

But now The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (via Scientific American) has published a meta analysis of major studies on dietary fat that refutes once and for all the assumption that saturated fats are to blame for heart disease.

The meta-analysis—which combines data from several studies—that compared the reported daily food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over a period of five to 23 years. The analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease.

The finding joins other conclusions of the past few years that run counter to the conventional wisdom that saturated fat is bad for the heart because it increases total cholesterol levels. That idea is “based in large measure on extrapolations, which are not supported by the data,” Krauss says.

But wait, it gets better: "Stampfer’s findings do not merely suggest that saturated fats are not so bad; they indicate that carbohydrates could be worse." The article goes on to discuss research that shows that eating a diet high in refined, processed carbohydrates is correlated with heart disease. All those Snackwell's are sitting a little heavy now, aren't they?

So will the FDA update their guidelines to reflect the new research? "Right now, Post explains, the agency’s main message to Americans is to limit overall calorie intake, irrespective of the source." That would be a big no.

It looks like Michael Pollan and your great grandma were right again: the less processed your food is the better it is for you. Whole milk beats skim. Whole wheat bread beats white. Virgin, unprocessed coconut oil is amazingly good for your health. And butter is not the great evil we have been led to believe. That noise you are hearing? All my gears grinding as my whole food paradigm shifts. (The one exception to this would be conventionally farmed meat. Toxins ingested by animals are stored primarily in their fat so the more animal fat you eat from animals raised in feed-lots, the more toxins, hormones, pesticides and other nasties you are exposing yourself to. It isn't the animal fat that is the problem though - it's the way the animals were farmed that is.)

However, to quote the inimitable G.I. Joe, knowing is [only] half the battle. Sure I know that fat is good for us blah blah blah but do you know what is in my fridge right now? Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (for the fam. I don't eat them), 2% milk (for the kiddos, again I can't have it), low-fat cream cheese and turkey bacon. Worst of all: Smart Balance Lite. Not that I am saying Smart Balance in and of itself is a bad product but why can't I just embrace butter already?! My heads says one thing but my heart still says no.

Anyone else having this internal conflict? Do you still buy skim milk? How do you feel about saturated fat? Do you generally try to avoid it? Do you think the FDA's nutritional guidelines need an overhaul? And I really do need opinions about my potentially cobalt blue door - would it be too much??

Confessions of a Celebrity Blogger

It all started with a dubious website for underemployed writers and a post that can best be described as the Internet equivalent of a casting call for a Valtrex ad. "Writer wanted for popular celebrity blog. Style must match exactly. I need to take a break for personal reasons and want to keep posting continuous for the readers. You will post under my name only. Send two sample posts to xxxxx@hotmail.com. Pay good."

It was the last bit that snagged me. I needed money and I don't have a lot of pride. I also don't have a lot of knowledge about celebrities so I went over to the site and checked it out. It was your basic celebrity blog: paparazzi pic, 100-word snarky description and hundreds of venomous commenters. I could totally ghost this. So I practiced my typos, snagged a couple of (probably copywrited) pictures off another blog and sent it in.

The reply was immediate via an obviously faked e-mail account. "I'm putting your posts up. If the readers like them, you're in."

The readers liked me. Or at least my slightly better grammar (I couldn't help it!) didn't tip them off that I wasn't Madame herself. Although technically it could have been Monsieur. Throughout our entire time together I never was exactly sure whom I was speaking to or what exactly the crisis of a personal nature entailed.

The job description was straightforward: There was a morning push and an afternoon push. I needed a minimum of four posts in each push. The pay per post ended up only being "good" if I could do each push in under an hour. Four posts of 100 words? Easy peasey.

My first day, I blocked out an hour before the morning push was due and started scanning the photo sites Madame had sent me for a usable picture. Sifting through pages of blurry camera phone shots (if only Big Foot were considered a celebrity!), irrelevant and thankfully indiscernible nudie pics and thousands of inane comments took me forty five minutes and left me with an undated picture of Rihanna on a beach and an Angelina Jolie promo shot from her latest movie. But they were of a decent quality so I downloaded them and dutifully started the posts. Blankness. How was I supposed to know what Rihanna does at the beach? Sweating now as I watched the clock tick by, I hastily googled her, hoping to find some story that would give me titillating information to attach to the otherwise bland picture. Still nothing.

Timidly I e-mailed Madame, who responded promptly from her Blackberry, "Don't worry about the story. Just get good pic. Write something. Love sources." Well, that was the gist of it anyhow, minus the punctuation. I gulped and finally wrote some inane blather about her unflattering bikini and athletic thighs. As soon as I hit post, I knew I'd betrayed my gender. And my own thighs. And intelligent folk everywhere. I hastily edited it to add a line about her "glowing skin." All better. Right?

The commenters eviscerated me. The picture was apparently over a week old, had already been discussed ad nauseum earlier, and how did I not remember that her thighs were fat, not athletic. One more-observant-than-normal person wrote, "Madame, are you sick? Is this even really you?"

Madame was furious and let me know it short, grammatically challenged bursts. What I took away was that I needed to, duh, check the archives before I posted and also check the archives of every other celebrity blog on the Internet to make sure they hadn't already covered it. If they had, I had to either scrap the post or come up with a better angle. Slowly I realized that this was going to take me a lot longer than fifteen minutes a post. There are only so many angles on Angelina Jolie, and I'm not just talking about her collar bone.

I stumbled along through the rest of the morning push, coming out with several inoffensive, mostly incoherent, but at least current, posts. There was Liv Tyler. And something about Lindsay Lohan (isn't there always?). I had to kill the Angelina Jolie story because, frankly, I couldn't think of a single new thing to say about her.

Madame checked in with me before the afternoon push. I asked her how she knew what celebrities ate (or didn't) and watched and did in their spare time. There wasn't even a pause before I got her reply, "I don't." And that was the missing piece. All that time I had spent researching my story? Unnecessary. The direction was implied: just make it up. With this new knowledge I flew through the afternoon push and the next couple of days. Just as I was beginning to think this job was going to work out (when I bothered to think about it all, which I tried not to do because then I had to pay attention to the Jiminy Cricket drowning in the fountain of bile in my stomach), a celebrity struck back. I had felt safe in my electronic nowhereville, hadn't even imagined that the people I was writing about might actually read what I had written and, heaven help me, have an opinion about it.

Michelle Williams tripped me up. Heath Ledger wasn't dead yet and so she was still a middling celebrity. But she made the mistake of wearing a blousy shirt and getting photographed at an unflattering angle so I did what any good first-time celebrity blogger would do: I cried pregnancy. I even cited a "source" confirming the happy news, that actually linked back to an interview with Williams in which she discussed nothing even remotely close to children or pregnancy or even Heath. It was no bigger a lie than any of my other posts (and probably nicer) but, strangely, the celebrity blogs went haywire with it. The link was posted on numerous other sites, corporate media ones even, all citing me (well actually Madame) as the source. Apparently none of them bothered to fact check my post. By the next day, it was everywhere. Williams' rep even issued a statement vehemently denying the rumors.

Madame was giddy. I was horrified. How angry was Williams when she when read my post? Was it possible she could sue me? I'd been a celebrity blogger for all of three days and suddenly I was facing possible legal action? Madame comforted me by pointing out that celebrities don't have time to sue everyone who writes crap about them. Plus Williams got tons of free publicity out of it, so she probably secretly liked it. Great, now I'm a literary rapist.

If Michelle Williams was the beginning of the end, then Posh Spice was my undoing. Like every Gen-Y'er, I could tell you what I want, what I really, really want. Even if that thing was the incoherent "zig-a-zig-pie." But I had made the mistake of not keeping up with Victoria Beckham as she dropped the rest of the dollar-store dried parsley and transformed from merely a condiment to the whole spicy meatball - not that she would eat one.

So when I heard on the early radio gossip show which I only listened to since becoming Madame's flunky in the vague hope it would be able to make up for 10 years of cultural laxity, that "unauthorized" pictures of Posh had surfaced, I didn't know enough to drop my scrambled eggs and run for my computer. Apparently the pictures showed a small unidentified growth under her right armpit that the host insisted was evidence of her plastic surgery. Because we need evidence? But I jotted down the website anyhow.

Eventually when I made it onto the web, I typed it in and sure enough there were a few of the most unshocking pictures of Ms. Spice-Beckham I'd ever seen. (Seriously, if you caught the August 2007 cover of W then you're already 10 steps down the skank path from these pics.) There was no explanation other than a melodramatic "See these pictures now before her lawyers get to us! They won't be here long! Tell the world!!!!" Tell the world what, exactly? That Posh has a huge skin tag? Cancer of the armpit? A too-tight shirt and a phenomenon women around the world know as "armpit boobs"?

Still, I was becoming accustomed to the minutiae of Celebrity Blogging and besides my morning push started in a mere hour. Plus the pictures were high-res and in my book that was reason enough to use them, even if they had been, say, Madeleine Albright in a bikini. Armpit boobs it was.

Suddenly, shaming lazy abusive boyfriends everywhere, Madame's pre-dawn stalker e-mail arrived, wanting to know what I was working on. Her "crisis of a personal nature" obviously didn't involve her fingers, retinas or perfectionism. I told her about the radio show only to be interrupted with "U got scooped by RADIO??? Our readers go to US first!!!!" - thereby making up for an entire week's worth of omitted punctuation.

I didn't bother pointing out that a) I'm not psychic and b) none of the other celeb-sites were reporting it either. Somewhere a radio reporter was cackling gleefully. Radio: 2 Internet: 8,234,987,201 (in 2.3 seconds) I threw the post up and e-mailed her the source link, feeling a teeny bit excited that we were the first site to report it. An uncharacteristic silence reverberated from her BlackBerry. I took that to mean she was proud.

I would be wrong.

Madame: WHAT HAVE U DONE

Me: Ummmm

Madame: Am taking it down

Me: Why?

Madame: Obv faked

Me: If using photoshopped pics is off limits, we'll have to retract 70% of our posts, including every magazine cover you've ever ran. I didn't add, "If honesty were truly a virtue then there goes the remaining 30% and you'll have to go back to selling beanie babies on E-Bay."

Madame: Lawyers (the "idiot" was implied)

Me: I thought we didn't have to worry about that (See Williams, Michelle).

Madame: Idiot (no longer implied)

Me: Thank you?

Madame: THIS IS VICTORIA BECKHAM

Me: Yes, we've established that

Madame: $$$ = LAWYERS

Me: Which is why we never cover Tom Cruise?

Madame: Look... this isn't working out

And then I knew what was coming. A brief flare of indignation.

Me: Are you firing me?

Madame: Your morning push is late

Me: But I HATE this job! You at least owe me the dignity of QUITTING.

Madame: Don't owe you anything

Me: Crap. Does this mean I'm not getting paid?

It did.

(Note: In writing this post, I did go back and try to find the original Posh Spice Underarm Growth pictures. Not that I tried very hard, but I did google at least seven different search strings, and nothing came up. As far as I can tell the original site was pulled and no other celeb blogs reported on it. Apparently the lawyers got us.)

Anyone else had a job they are too ashamed to tell their family about? What's the worst job you've ever had? (Unless it's hooking, I win.)

Ladies time to take your fitness serious. Here's how.

Lean, Sexy, and Hard! Weight Training for Women.

1. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train with weights.

A desirable female physique is one that can be achieved by moving some serious iron in the weight room! But what about all the talk about weight training making women big and bulky? First, it is physiologically impossible for you as a woman to put on large amounts of muscle mass; you're body's hormonal makeup is not one that will allow you to do so. God never intended for women to look like men (go figure), so he made the chemistry of each gender's respective bodies different. Regardless of how you train, how often you train, how much protein you eat, etc, your not going to even come close to the big, bulky physique of a female bodybuilder. Science tells us this, not me.

2. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train HEAVY.

Yeah, I know what they told you, lighten the load and go for the burn-- bull sh#@. To comprehend why this is indeed nonsense, we have to understand a few things about muscle tone in general. There are two types of muscle tone; myogenic and neurogenic. Don’t get thrown off by the science; the first simply refers to your muscle tone at rest. It is affected by the density of your muscles; the greater the density of your muscles, the harder and firmer you will appear. Heavy training increases your myogenic tone through the hypertrophy (growth) of the contractile proteins myosin and actin (myosin and actin are by far the most dense components of skeletal muscle). Training in higher rep ranges promotes more sarcoplasmic (fluid) hypertrophy, as does steady state cardio (treadmill) which in turn yields a "softer" pumped look. If you want to be hard, firm, tight, etc, the latter is certainly not the way to go

3. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train with compound, multi-joint movements.

Forget the butt blaster, forget leg extensions and leg curls, and forget "muscle sculpting" with Susie the hyperactive personal trainer. If you want to sport a hard body, you better start training heavy. Big, compound movements such as the deadlift and the squat are superior to machine, isolation-type movements for hardening up your thighs and butt as they allow you to use maximal weight while training a number of muscle groups simultaneously. Another benefit obtained by performing multi-joint compound movements is increased confidence. With strength comes confidence.

In Closing, Remember this!

It's not important that you move big weights; what is important is that you are selecting and lifting loads that are heavy for you. Over time, you will get stronger and the poundage you can handle will increase. So, for you as a female trainee, a "heavy" load can be defined as a weight that you can lift in good form for 3-6 repetitions.

AbFitt. Live fit, be fit! Now over 60,000 worldwide readers.

The mission of AbFitt is to provide information & environment where athletes and individuals can learn to train and recover to achieve their dreams, not just their potential. I will assist you to maximize your health and guide you to reach beyond your ability in developing a life-long love for fitness and wellness.


My mission is to provide each individual/athlete with all of the necessary physical and mental tools they require to perform at peak levels, maintain a lean muscular body for life. To do this, I employ a comprehensive, unique and proven approach to developing success called ( H.I.G.T ) high intensity group training. Learning to train in this fashion starts with a thorough education, consisting of various insight into flexibility, functional movement, strength, power and performance all found here on the pages of Abfitt, because I know there is far more to developing and insuring continued whole body fitness & health success than just running and jumping. I am proud to announce that for the first time ABFITT has reached the 60,000 readers mark. Thanks for your support!

Richard

Countering the negative effects of aging. Part #1

This article has been written by friend of AbFitt, Fabrizio Rinaldi of Italy. We send our thanks for his time and insight.

Countering the negative effects of aging through effective fitness protocols

(by FABRIZIO RINALDI - 48)


There is nothing nice about aging, especially for people actively involved in sports.
Many of the determinants for aerobic and anaerobic capacity change negatively with age. First of all muscle mass, which is an essential component for both aerobic and anaerobic capacity, decreases with sedentary aging, and this decrease appear to occur primarily because of the loss of muscle fibers, but also due to atrophy of individual fibers, particularly fast twitch muscle fibers, an important point to bear in mind.

In addition, aerobic capacity (the functional capacity of the cardiorespiratory system) declines steadily with age. In healthy sedentary individuals, VO2 max (the main indicator of aerobic capacity), which is the maximum amount of oxygen the body can use during a specified period, usually during intense exercise, decreases about 1% per year. This abatement is related to decreased capacity in all of the factors that determine VO2 max:
- maximum heart rate
- stroke volume
- and arterio-venous (A-V) O2 difference (which is the ability of the muscle cells to extract oxygen from the blood passing through them).
Maximum heart rate declines about one beat per year with age, and not reaching the same maximum heart rate inevitably implies operating at a lower level of intensity.
Furthermore older people have less muscle glycogen to metabolize (in other words, less energy to spend) and a significantly lower capillary to fiber ratio (which means that muscle tissues are perfused less by blood).
Another age-related change that athletes experience is a significant decrease in their ability to recover from training, mainly due to lower reserves of glycogen, consequent to reduced muscle mass.
Age-related hardening of the arteries also cuts blood flow to all tissues, which means longer times for stressed muscle fibers to receive the required materials for rebuilding damaged fibers. And even levels of testosterone and growth hormone, that aid recovery, fall with age.
Connective tissues between muscles and bones become more rigid with aging, and decreased flexibility can reduce range of motion, impairing performance and increasing risk of injury.
Our body is an adaptable system which operates when the need arises, and can maintain its functionality only through physical activity. This is clearly demonstrated by the unfortunate people that are confined to bed; as a matter of fact they experiences substantial losses of muscle mass, flexibility, strength, bone density and range of motion in relatively few days. Deprivation of movement has deleterious effects on the human body, and aging is somewhat comparable to be confined to bed. Therefore the only way to substantially contain the negative effects of getting older is through physical activity, and this is true for all the physiological aspects we listed above, with the only exception of the reduction of max heart rate, which cannot be avoided.
Therefore the issue to investigate is what kind of fitness program one should be engaged in, if the purpose is to best counteract the negative effects of aging.

NRG Fitness by Motus USA... want to know more?

Want to be the first to know more?
Email us at Sales@MotusUSA.com

The Flaw I Refuse to Apologize For

I love it - the artist even gave her a little orange-peel bum hole!

You might not know it due to the lack of red circles drawn around my thighs or arrows pointing at my butt but I have cellulite worthy of an US cover, In Touch at the very least. It's cottage cheese-y or orange peel-y or any other bumpy food analogy you might care to apply but you know what it's not? Embarrassing. At least to me. I wear a swimsuit with no sarong tied around my waist. I run in my Nike tempo track shorts. And when I step out of the shower, my eyes never linger disapprovingly over my misbehaving collagen. (It helps that it is behind me.)

Even worse than not being embarrassed about my cellulite, like any good woman should according to dozens of breathless shame-filled articles, I absolutely refuse to do anything about it. I've never bought a "firming" cream or special tights or supplements. I've never tried thermologie or endermologie or any other -ologie that involves heat and/or lasers aimed at my backside. I've never even used fake tanner to cover it up - which brings me to another "flaw" I refuse to apologize for: my pale (to the nth power) skin. I'm not knocking any of you who love your self-tanners but for me the idea of daily painting all my exposed skin an entirely different color than the one it comes in is the very definition of ludicrous. (Note to all high school SAT essay writers: "Ludacris" is a rapper and I can think of no occasion that would make it appropriate to invoke his name in your college entrance exam. Unless you are him. For the sake of my sanity, please learn to spell the word correctly.) It's bad enough I feel compelled to paint my face on Sundays and other dress-up occasions; most other days I don't bother as I'll just sweat it off during my workout, plus my baby likes to lick my face and what's the point in buying her organic baby food if I'm giving her a cocktail of known carcinogens and lead with every kiss?

I don't know why this is. Frankly I'm as baffled by my confidence in this area as you are. It's not like I'm known for my self-confidence, especially when it comes to my body. Cellulite has just never bothered me. I don't notice it on myself and, even better, I don't notice it on other people either. Although that's not for lack of afflicted specimens, apparently. According to an article on the dreaded red-circle disease in May's Fitness magazine (which contains a shout-out to our very own MizFit, holla!) over 90% of women - and 0% of men - have cellulite. (For those of you curious, the gender discrepancy is accounted for by the different way male and female bodies position their collagen. According to the article, men's collagen lines up diagonally while women's goes straight up and down, thereby making it easier for fat molecules to squish through.) The article then goes on to explain that cellulite is "incurable" but don't worry they have pages of advertisements disguised as reporting listing various creams you can try anyhow.

Can someone please explain to me how a condition that over 90% of women have - including Brittney Spears, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and a host of other gorgeous women - and is "incurable" is a flaw? Doesn't that just make it normal? It's like criticizing women for having elbows. And then trying to sell us an elbow-removal file.

How do you feel about your cellulite? Or are you in the genetically-blessed 10% without it? What's your "flaw" that you refuse to apologize for?

Don't Forget - the Arm & Hammer Sweepstakes Ends Friday!

Be sure to enter on everyone's blog - you have 7 more chances to win that $200 gift card!

Pregnancy: Attack of the Body Snatchers, Jillian Michaels Edition

Tiger Lady. That's what my oldest son christened me as soon as he could talk, thanks to my knees-to-navel stretch marks. (Note: that proud day was also the day I decided he was too old to shower with mommy anymore.) So I will be the last person to tell you that you can have a baby and bounce back to exactly the same shape you were in before having a human erupt from your loins. Even if you do get down to your pre-pregnancy weight - a touchy enough subject - most likely things will settle into new positions. (We won't even talk about the disasters that befall your nipples.) For every Heidi Klum in her Victoria's Secrets, there are a hundred Charlottes in our control-top tights.

And yet it still rubbed me the wrong way when Jillian Michaels said in a recent interview with Women's Health that she didn't want to get pregnant because of the effect it would have on her body:

There is no doubt that “The Biggest Loser” trainer Jillian Michaels has one of the best bodies in America, and given her childhood history of being overweight, it's something the 36-year-old has worked ultra-hard to achieve. So hard in fact, that she’s not willing to let it slide even to become a biological mother.

“I’m going to adopt. I can’t handle doing that to my body,” Michaels told the new issue of Women’s Health magazine. “Also, when you rescue something, it’s like rescuing a part of yourself.”

Not being an adoptive mother, I'm going to let that comment about "rescuing something" slide (okay I can't let it slide: Children aren't puppies. And also, adoption is not about fixing yourself. Now I'm done.) but I'm always a little leery when women tell me they don't want to biologically have children for fear of marring their bodies.

While there are many good reasons not to have children - and I am in no way saying that all women should start popping out young 'uns like a Pez dispenser (oh, if only labor was that easy!) - I don't think fear is a good one. Especially not fear of losing your looks.

Jillian may be in a particularly unique position due to her job depending primarily on her physique but she certainly isn't the first woman who has voiced this concern. In a society that trades in sexuality and abhors aging it is often seen as a woman's currency to stay looking as youthful is possible. (The irony of living in a culture that worships sex but freaks out over the product of sex - see: men who love looking at boobs... until there is a baby attached to them and then they're "disgusting" - is a different rant for another day.) The problem with that is that everyone, even Demi Moore, will age eventually. The laws of physics will not be denied: Your body will move towards entropy. Not having children may buy you a few more years but in the end, everyone's boobs sag and their butts droop and their tummies deflate to bread dough.

Whether or not Jillian (or anyone else) ever has kids, or even wants kids, is none of my business. I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if she'd just said "I don't want to have children" or "I'm planning to adopt." Likewise I would have been fine with "I have a family history of illness I don't want to risk passing down" or "I don't have the resources to support a child" or even "I have a deep-seated fear of Ronald McDonald and the chance of running into that evil clown is exponentially higher with wee ones around and I'm just not willing to risk it."

Putting the blame on her body bothers me for two reasons: 1) I think her stance reinforces the view that pregnancy is an illness or a condition to be feared, rather than a natural bodily function for women and 2) It reads as if she is saying that women who have had children are inherently less beautiful and that our self worth should be tied to what we look like rather than who we are.

My last point may be purely speculative based on the wonderful experiences I've had with my kids but I also worry about regret. Call me biased (I did birth 5 of the little nippers after all) but I just think that if the only reason you choose not to have kids is fear of stretch marks and loose skin then there is a good chance you'll regret that choice when you realize you have stretch marks from puberty and loose skin from aging anyhow.

I'm not trying to come down on Jillian for speaking honestly; I just don't want her to miss out on an amazing experience because of something so ephemeral. You tell me - is Jillian just saying what everyone else is thinking? Did I misinterpret Jillian's meaning? Does fear of ruining your body impact your decision to have a baby? Do you feel like pregnancy has wrecked your body? Any thoughts on "rescuing yourself" by adopting a baby?


UPDATE: Jillian Michaels has taken to Twitter to further explain her comment. Like many of you suggested might be the case, she clarifies by saying "I never said I was anti-pregnancy or taht pregnancy ruins a body. I said that 'I can't put my body through it.' There are emotional issues and physical LIMITATIONS that have resulted in that conclusion. Some I have discussed publicly and some I haven't." [emphasis hers]

I want to thank Jillian for taking the time to clarify her comments and to apologize for misunderstanding her intent.

Tag You're It! Contest Winner!

Some of you asked to see my beautiful Tag! You're It! necklace, so here you go! All 5 of my kiddos near to my heart and setting off metal detectors, just as they should be. (Sorry for the bad pic - I'm not good at the whole MySpace self photography thing. Maybe if I stood in my bathroom in my underwear and pouted....)

With no further adieu, the winner of the Tag You're It! necklace giveaway is....
Sarah Lewis!

(Sorry, no random number generator picture this time - the sponsor opted to choose the winner themselves.)

Selling Out My Health Principles

I can be bought. For the low, low price of $80. You'd think my morals would be a bit pricier than that and honestly I myself was surprised but there you have it. Last night and tonight found me parking around back of a large building, sneaking in a door left cracked open, and then jogging up six flights of stairs to arrive sweaty and breathless in a tiny room full of...

Pizza.

I don't eat white flour, sugar, processed foods, meat with nitrates or even meat at all. I am repelled by foods with words like "lite" and "tasti" in their names. I avoid "cheese product" like the plague. I don't think I've eaten a conventional pizza in years. And yet there I was with 12 other women eating frozen "healthy" pizza like it was our last meal.

You see, I signed up to work for a marketing research company and every other month or so they call me in to test random products. The stuff I've tried in the name of research reads like a stranger's list you find in a grocery cart (anyone else fascinated by those??). I've done diapers, muffins, yogurt, cereal, ice cream and lighters among other sundries. And no, smart alecks, I did not wear the diapers, I used them on my children. Who also wore the yogurt and muffins. What can I say? Breakfast is a no-man's land at our house. If they could've figured out the lighter they probably would have burned the kitchen down to hide the evidence.

Although by far the best - and by best I mean "stops a dinner party conversation in its tracks" - product test I did was for feminine hygiene products. We had to save all the used products, wrap them in plastic with the business side facing out and then haul them across town in a huge plastic bag* which we had to return before they'd pay us. Ever contemplate how maxi pad commercials can claim their winged wonder is "67% more absorbent"? Well, you're welcome.

But back to the pizza**. I had to try eight different pizzas and fill out a survey of what I thought of them. Two forty-five minute sessions and all pizzas nibbled would earn me a nice 80$ check. Never before though had a taste test challenged my moral convictions. While it is true that I am currently a vegetarian - and like it - I have in the past eaten meat - and liked it. So was 80$ worth breaking a year-long streak of no animal flesh?

Apparently. I'm sorry chickens. It was nothing personal. I'm just cheap! Do you know how much "Chik'n***" I can buy with that kind of dough? If it makes you feel any better, I tried really hard to just nibble around the chicken pieces and not actually eat any. I'm so ashamed...

Have any of you ever sold out? How much would someone have to pay you for your used maxi pads? Please tell me so I can feel better!!

*Can you possibly think of a worse job that to be the official used maxi pad inspector?
**The pizzas were everything I'd expect of a "healthy" "lite" frozen "meal": disgusting.
*** I don't actually eat "Chik'n" either - I hate processed meat replacements. But it just fit so nicely in that sentence.

This post sound familiar? Most of it - with the exception of the feminine hygiene anecdote which I added tonight - ran two years ago. Fridays are Greatest Hits Day here at the GFE.

Offensive Ads Just Giving Women What They Want?

Here's one mild example. I was too horrified to post the worst offenders. Feel free to click through and check out others if you are so inclined. Be ready to wish for your retinas to detach.

One model in a ball gown stabbing another through the neck. A gang bang of a man perpetrated by other men clad in haute couture. A woman fishing a Jimmy Choo bag out of a pool... wherein lies a floating male corpse. If you've skimmed the ads in any fashion mag recently then you probably already know the ads I'm talking about. They're bizarre, fantastical and incredibly violent with an emphasis on sexual violence and strangely the product being sold - general luxury clothing and accessories - is secondary to the macabre storyline being played out. But that's not the scary part. According to new research from The Journal of Consumer Research, there's a reason for the recent proliferation of grotesque imagery in high fashion ads: we women like it.

Offensive advertising is nothing new. I've posted about the Dolce & Gabbana gang rape ad (apparently a theme with them), the creepy fitness ads in Men's Health, the hilariously bad diet ads, the homicidal video game ads and even Lady Gaga's glamorization of rape and murder in her videos, among others. The twist this time around is that it turns out we women prefer these ads to their more peaceful counterparts. The high fashion industry is all about eye balls and one way to get those is to rip them right out of your sockets (and serve them on a bloody platter to a model wearing nothing but expensive shoes).

The researchers found that in many cases, the key to constructing an engaging fashion ad was not to make it likeable or conventionally pretty, but to make it engaging.

"The merely pretty was too easily passed over; grotesque juxtapositions were required to stop and hold the fashion consumer flipping through Vogue," the authors write. "For the brands that choose to use grotesque imagery—roughly one-fourth, according to a content analysis—the promise is that greater engagement with ad imagery will lead to a more intense and enduring experience of the brand."

The study - which only examined a paltry 18 women - claims that women see the ads as "high art" or as a "type of fiction" leading them to study the ad postulating about the story being told as well as the artistic details like lighting, composition and so forth.

On one level I can see the authors' point. I have found myself flipping mindlessly through a fashion mag only to be jerked out of my reverie by a bizarre ad. And I hate to admit it but I do stare at it longer than I do at, say, those stupid perfume ads where everyone is wearing white on a beach and yet no one has muddy sand on them. This attention however does not translate into purchasing the high end product being advertised. At least not for me. The more appalled I am by the ad, the more negative associations I attach to the brand. Not that I ever buy luxury goods - I've never owned so much as a knock-off of a designer purse - but I can tell you that even if I had a million dollars I'd never buy anything Dolce & Gabbana as I now think of them as the gang rape brand, the official spokesbrand for Darfur if you will. (Rather, I'd buy you a monkey, haven't you always wanted a monkey? Or a K car? I hear they're a nice, reliable automobile.)

I don't think I'm alone in this. I'm going to call shenanigans on this study: just because women may look at an ad longer - and 18 women said they liked macabre ads - doesn't mean most women like them. And if the point of advertising is to sell something then I'd have to see proof that these ads move merch before I'll believe my fellow sisters really do like it rough.

What's your take? Do you find these ads offensive or intriguing? Does it make the brand being advertised more memorable to you in a good way? Is there a "line" that shouldn't be crossed or do "lines" not apply to art ads? Have you ever bought a luxury item? (Just curious on the last one!)

Body Fascism: Why I Hate Food

I'm just going to warn you straight out. This post is crazy. And if you are one of those people who gets crazy reading about my crazy then you probably want to skip all the crazy and go straight to your therapist (do not pass Go, do not collect 200 xanax). Which is where I would be venting this nonsense if she hadn't abandoned me for the prison system (sure, like people in prison need excellent therapists... oh, um, right.)

I hate food.

If there was a pill that I could take every day and never have to deal with eating actual comestibles (note to self: now there's a fun word that doesn't get used nearly enough!), I would take it in a heart beat and never look back.

Hunger feels like failure to me. (Which is probably the stupidest sentence I've ever written - and I'm the same girl who once wrote a 600 word post for a celeb site I can't name about how Michelle William's blousy shirt made her look pregnant. Newsflash: blousy shirts make all of us look pregnant. And I'm wearing one right now. Nope, not pregnant, just ate a huge lunch. Which brings me back to my point thereby negating the necessity of these parentheses.) Despite the fact that every human being on the planet gets hungry at least several times a day and it is a natural biological signal necessary for survival, I still feel like if I just had enough self mastery I would never get hungry. And if I never got hungry then I would never be held hostage by my growling tummy, staring down an unholy array of foods while mentally cataloging the nutritional pros and cons of each.

In the past I've dealt with this "paralysis by analysis" by just not eating. Going to bed with the growlies was preferable to trying to figure out if the organic chicken or non-organic tempeh was the lesser evil. (But one's an animal product and I don't eat animals! But the other one's soy and soy gives me gas that clears a room faster than a wrapping paper fund raiser!) Nursing the ever ravenous Jelly Bean has, understandably, removed this option. Along with the fact that Lamaze breathing does zilch for labor pain, something else they never tell you in childbirth class is that lactating will make many of us as hungry as a popgut at a picnic. Hunger, when your boobs are responsible for feeding an exponentially growing human being, feels like a true emergency. I don't care how many times Judith Beck tells me hunger is not an emergency, it still feels like code red.

So, unable to decide what an appropriate meal and caloric allotment should be, I procrastinate eating until I can't put it off any more and then - because I'm so hungry - I eat something truly crappy. Like jelly beans. And as soon as I eat it, the guilt sets in. Really, it doesn't need to be jelly beans or some other junk food to induce guilt. I feel guilty after eating raw spinach. I feel guilty after eating. Period. Allow 15 minutes or so for the sugar high to wear off and the guilt to peak and then the cycle starts all over again.

I am so tired of this cycle. I am so tired of caring what the scale says every morning. I'm so tired of reading nutritional labels like they're the secret to world peace. I'm so tired of getting enthused about some new weight loss plan/tip/trick/non-diet/etc. and then realizing after I've invested time, money and energy into it that there is no one-shot cure. I'm so tired of wanting to shake anyone who tells me I look good and scream at them, "Can't you see how ugly I am?!?" (I'm like one of those sad drunks at parties. But without the drunk. Or the party.) I'm so tired of crying my eyes out (in the original draft of this post I wrote "me eyes" - which if I'm going to be crazy, an Irish accent would be awesome, no?) over pants that don't fit, shirts that don't button and the weird fact that despite my feet not growing a centimeter bigger during my first four pregnancies, they seem to have enlarged by at least half a size from number five thereby making my lovely shoe collection painfully obsolete. (On second thought, that last one totally justifies a few tears.)

But mostly I'm tired of believing that if I just weighed XXX, I'd be happy.

I may be nutso - a fact I freely admit - but even I know that that isn't true. Happiness is a choice. And every day I am choosing to make myself miserable over something so inconsequential as to be embarrassing. It makes me angry. How did I ever buy into this fallacy that I am my pants size? Who was the first person to tell me that I wasn't good enough? And why did I ever believe them? And most importantly, if I can choose to believe this crap, can I just choose to unbelieve it? Can it possibly be that simple?

I have a daughter. A glorious, beautiful, perfect-just-as-she-is-even-though-she-chronically-reeks-like-barf baby girl. And I am her touchstone. No matter where we are, when anything novel happens her first instinct is to look at me. When her eyes lock on mine, I know what she's doing. She's reading me. If I'm scared, then she is too. If I'm happy and unconcerned than so is she. This trust. This responsibility. It's so overwhelming; I don't feel worthy. And yet it's a gift to see myself through her eyes. To her I am the most beautiful creature in the world.

Can a mother who has a "complicated" relationship with food have a daughter who doesn't? I'm not the only one asking that question. And yet none of us have answers. Our culture has been overtaken with a mass delusion my friend Dr. Jon calls "body fascism." In an e-mail response to my post about Jessica Simpson he wrote, "I doubt it's an original combination, but this preoccupation with image in our mad little world has many of the hallmarks of Nazi-like intolerance and bigotry. We've become obsessed with "ideals" to the rejection of common sense, leading to stereotyping and stupid intolerance, and to an eating-disordered world . Malnutrition isn't just about starvation, it's eating too much of the wrong things as well, and living without balance . Body Fascism rules - Sieg Hiel!"

I asked before if the solution was as simple as just choosing not to believe the thousands of negative messages I'm bombarded with on a daily basis. I think it might be. Unfortunately simple doesn't mean easy.

I've asked you all before how to reconcile my need to eat with hatred of food. And I apologize for not listening when you shared all your secrets with me before. What is the answer? Therapy? Intuitive eating? A frontal lobotomy? Have you managed to change your relationship with food for the better? Please please tell me again. I'm listening this time.

If there was a pill that could totally replace eating, would you take it?

Fit to be Champion, Sergio Martinez...The new......

Sergio Martinez did not look like a fighter who had just shocked the boxing world by upsetting Kelly Pavlik for the WBO and WBC middleweight championships at Boardwalk Hall Saturday night.

Indeed, the handsome 35-year-old Argentine, wearing sunglasses and a wide smile, could've passed for a Hollywood star as he addressed the news media at his post-fight press conference.

Through an interpreter, Martinez told of a childhood growing up dirt poor in Argentina, and dreaming of one day becoming a world champion. He was also a star soccer player and cyclist. He didn't start boxing until he was 20.

"Boxing gives you a chance to dream of a day like today," Martinez said. "I never stopped dreaming of becoming a champion. And today I accomplished that dream.

"And I will always know that I am a world champion."

Martinez, looking much smaller than Pavlik in the ring, moved around during the first eight rounds, using his quickness to make Pavlik miss many of his punches, and connecting on occasional jabs and right hooks.

Martinez overcame a seventh-round knockdown by Pavlik.

The last four rounds, Martinez — nicknamed Maravilla, "The Marvelous One" — dominated the 28-year-old champion, opening up two nasty cuts around both of Pavlik's eyes, and turning his face into a bloody mess by the final bell. Pavlik needed at least 36 stitches to close up the gashes. Martinez landed 112 punches in the final four rounds to Pavlik's 51, according to statistics provided by CompuBox.

"He came out in the ninth with a sense of purpose, and the fight just turned," said Lou DiBella, Martinez's promoter. "He sliced him up — that was just speed and angles — and he destroyed him. It was as dominant a last four rounds against a great fighter (as I've seen)."

There is a rematch clause, and both fighters indicated it's a possibility. "It's hard to make 160 (pounds), but I hate losing," said Pavlik (36-2, 32 KOs). "I want to get those belts back."

Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KOs), also could get a rematch with Paul Williams, who won a majority decision against Martinez last December that was a top candidate for fight of the year, and which many thought Martinez might have won.

Williams fights Kermit Cintron on May 8, and the winner of that fight could fight Martinez.

Another possible opponent is Antonio Margarito, who has been suspended from boxing for a year because a hardening substance was found in his hand wraps before his loss to Shane Mosley in January 2009. Margarito, who fights on May 8 against Roberto Garcia in Mexico, handed Martinez his first loss a decade ago.

DiBella also mentioned Alfredo Angulo (17-1-1, 14 KOs), who fights Saturday against Joel Julio in California for the WBO interim light middleweight title.

Suddenly, for Martinez, the future looks brighter than ever. He made just under $1 million for this fight — "he'll never make less than a million for awhile," said DiBella. "I think he's still in the prime of his career even though he's in his mid-thirties. He's just discovered how good he is. He's got a window of years where he could really be a superstar."

Yet, DiBella says Martinez knows his time is now.

"He knows he's not a kid. He knows he's got a (limited) number of years left …," he said.

"He wants to be a superstar. He wants to entertain. This guy grew up starving. He wants to make money."

Your Insurance Company is Trying to Kill You... With Fast Food

image credit

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of personal responsibility versus our obesogenic environment as the primary factor in the obesity crisis, there is one thing we all seem to agree on: Fast food is awful. Whether you think it's your fault for choosing to eat it or the companies' faults for engineering such addictive concoctions of fat, salt and sugar, everyone knows that fast food will kill you by inches. That's not up for debate.

And yet there's a reason there is a McD's, Burger King, Taco Bell or any other edifice with a drive through window at every major intersection in America. See, fast food is the Charlie Sheen of nutrition; we all love to vilify him and yet everyone giggles watching Two and a Half Men, even though it's so stereotypically stupid that butter knives look sharp by comparison. So how would you feel if you knew Charlie Sheen was actually an assassin bankrolled by some of the most powerful companies in the world and sent to kill you for their profit?

Ok, took that analogy one step too far. Back up to fast food. Actually back up one step higher - to the companies who buy stock in fast food. According to "Harvard Medical School researchers, 11 large companies that offer life, disability, or health insurance owned about $1.9 billion in stock in the five largest fast-food companies as of June 2009." Yes, you read that correctly. The people whom you are paying to be invested in your health are actually invested in ruining it.

One one level it does make a certain amount sense. The harder your arteries and the bigger your belly, the more money they make in bypass surgeries and drugs. The Harvard researchers emphasized this:
"The insurance industry cares about making money, and it doesn't really care how," says the senior author of the study, J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. "They will invest in products that contribute to significant morbidity and mortality if doing so is going to make money."

They don't actually come out and say your insurance company is trying to make you sick but then again Charlie Sheen was just spotted with a shaved head - the new universal symbol of crazy a la Brittney. Some things just don't need to be explicitly said.

The insurance companies, naturally, disagree. Their first point - that their stock portfolios are made up of many diverse stocks of which fast food is only a very teeny tiny percentage - is a good one. Heck, I don't even know what all stocks are in my portfolio and I'm only working with a few thousand bucks. For all I know I could own stock in Al Qaeda Airlines. But all this talk of index funds, subsidiaries and parent companies is boring. Frankly I'm more interested in their second point which is that it does not serve their long-term financial purposes to go killing off their customer base.

"Health insurance companies get profits if they invest in tobacco and fast food, [but] these are some of the top drivers of mortality in the country," says Sara N. Bleich, Ph.D., an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland and who researches obesity policy but was not involved in the current study. "They are essentially killing off their consumer base, so it's not a sustainable model in the long-term. Long-term goals should be consistent with health, because that ensures a large population from which to draw consumers."

I love that we are having a national discussion about whether or not sickening one's customers is a "sustainable business model."

The study authors call for insurance companies to jettison the fast food stocks which makes for good news bites, I suppose. Unfortunately this introduces a whole other set of ethical dilemmas. If insurance companies are barred from - or guilted out of - investing in any companies that are possibly detrimental to their clients' health then Wall Street is going to see a mass dumping of stocks for everything from Jim Beam to Willy Wonka to Charlie Sheen's Production Company. While this is an entertaining take on the health care debate, it's not a very meaningful one. Let's put the focus back where it belongs: pearl-clutching over KFC's latest abomination, the double down (that'd be two pieces of fried chicken bracketing two pieces of cheese and two strips of bacon).

What do you think - do insurance companies have a corporate responsibility to only invest in healthful stocks? Would you eat the Double Down (guess what - despite all the hype it has less fat and calories than one piece of Chicago style pizza.)? Also, can anyone tell me what fast food icon the 3rd one from the left in the above picture is supposed to be?? Seriously, I have no idea and I've been staring at it for 20 minutes now.

What Do You Do With Your Oxygen?

This man is pretty much an oxygen savant. He breathes it and then recycles it into energy! And to think Al Gore got the Nobel...

What, you think you're doing well just by breathing the O2? Pansy. Why settle for basic respiration when there is so much more you can do with oxygen?

Top 3 Things To Do With Your Oxygen:
1. Sleep ala Michael Jackson (and I don't mean in the final sleep sense - may he rest in peace - but in the sleep sense he was so famous for in life. I know, can I make this any more complicated?) so you too can live to "see world peace, a world without hunger, a world where children and all mankind know no suffering." Who wouldn't want that kind of Coca-Cola utopia? All you have to do is live in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Fun!

2. Become an elderly terrorist by insisting on smoking while toting around your oxygen tank that you must have for your inexplicable emphysema. Tell everyone loudly that oxygen is NOT flammable (which is true) but fail to mention that it will make a very pretty combustion reaction when in the presence of fuel such as, oh, clothing, hair or skin.

3. Go to an oxygen bar just so you can use the line "Want to share my oxygen, baby? I'm trained in mouth-to-mouth." Practice in front of the mirror first for maximal effect. I'd say practice ducking too but if she's got a canula up her nose then she probably won't be too swift.

O2 4 U!
Or you could be boring and use oxygen to metabolize your food. Which technically isn't an option as we all do it and, I know, it's not funny. Sorry. But hey, at least I got to do my PSA about smoking and oxygen tanks (Hi Grandma!!). And who doesn't love a good Michael Jackson segue?

A few years ago a diet fad came out about eating for your metabolic type. At the time I summarily dismissed it as the underlying science seemed shoddy and the press very hyperactive and anecdotal. This weekend however, I decided to take a closer look at it. Why? Because it turns out that it tells me exactly what I want to hear. Research, smesearch.

Everyone's cells use oxygen to convert food into energy. This is called cellular oxidation. Back in the 1930's (incidentally the era for best women's hats ever), while everyone else was worrying about how to procure food without resorting to the Joad method, scientists discovered that the rate at which people oxidize their food varies. Researchers postulated that given this natural variation, usually attributed to genetics and climate of origin, different types of oxidizers would thrive on different types of food.

What Type Are You?
According to Making the Cut by Jillian Michaels - she of Biggest Loser infamy - there are three basic types:

Slow oxidizers: "Also known as carbo types or sympathetic dominant. They generally have relatively weak appetites, a high tolerance for sweets, problems with weight management, "type A" personalities, and are often dependent on caffeine."

Balanced oxidizers: "Mixed types are neither fast or slow oxidizers, and are neither parasympathetic or sympathetic dominant. They generally have average appetites, cravings for sweets and starchy foods, relatively little trouble with weight control, and tend towards fatigue, anxiety, and nervousness."

Fast oxidizers: "Also known as protein types or parasympathetic dominant. They tend to be frequently hungry, crave fatty, salty foods, fail with low-calorie diets, and tend towards fatigue, anxiety, and nervousness. They are often lethargic or feel "wired", "on edge", with superficial energy while being tired underneath."

According to Ms. Michaels, your oxidation type changes your macronutrient ratios. Specifically, slow oxidizers should eat Ornish at 60 carb/25 protein/15 fat. Balanced oxidizers go with The Zone at 40/30/30. Fast oxidizers are Atkins at 20/50/30. She then goes on to give you a complete list of foods in every category that you should and should not eat, depending on your type, complete with menus.

This was interesting to me because a) I covet Jillian's abs and b) if I allow myself to eat how I feel best, I fall very close in line with her slow oxidizer recommendations which according to her test, is what I am. Given the hype lately around low carb and my love for Mark's Daily Apple, I have been trying to limit my carbs. This makes me feel groggy, lethargic and all-around crappy. But as soon as I get my carb infusion (usually via healthy carbs like whole grains or fruit although a box of Junior mints will also do the trick) then I feel awesome again. I love it when people tell me what I want to hear!

Want to know your type? For fear of Ms. Michaels (have you SEEN her?) and her legal team, I am not going to post her quiz although I certainly can't stop you from, say, going to Barnes & Noble and plopping unceremoniously on the floor for half an hour in front of the Fitness Section. Just remember to bring a pen & paper. They frown on writing in the books. Not that I know this from experience. Ahem.

Or if you prefer Internet tests, I found this one which is not quite the same but gives the general idea. There are plenty of other Internet tests but they all cost money. And because my skepticism is squealing like a stuck pig (a misfortune I have actually had the displeasure of witnessing), here is an interesting rebuttal to the metabolic typing quizzes.

Anybody tried this? What kind of oxidizer are you? Am I clouded by dreams of air-brushed abs? Or is there a grain of truth to all this? Nothing intelligent to add? Hit me up with YOUR best oxygen-bar pick-up line!

Confidential to the Barnes & Noble Book Boy: I appreciated your (unasked for) review of Ms. Michael's book & The Biggest Loser (which I have never seen) and I was with you right up until you said, "And you know strong women can be a real bitch." Which is not only grammatically incorrect but offensive. Jillian Michaels may very well deserve the epithet but if she does it isn't because of her strength. Which is probably why you were working at B&N at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night.

New Research: Men Can Eat Carbs and Don't Fear Getting Fat. (Women, not so much.)

File this under It's Not Fair (or, Another Reason It's OK to Steal His Comfy T-Shirts): Men can eat simple carbs like white bread, pasta and rice galore and it doesn't up their heart disease risk. Women, on the other hand, just smell the stuff and their ticker goes off like a firecracker. To pour salt on our razor-nicked legs, men aren't even afraid of getting fat - a woman's worst nightmare, second only to our Pill packs getting replaced with Pez.

Men Get Carte Blanche With Carbs

In the first study, out of the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, a national institute for cancer research in Milan, Italy, researchers found that women who eat foods high on the glycemic index - think crusty French bread, French fries and French silk pie - have twice the incidence of heart disease as their whole-grain chowing sisters. (Side note: I don't think the French have forgiven us yet for the XYZ Affair.) Men, it was found, were able to chow down on the villified white stuff to their heart's content - and their heart would actually be content. They may get fat but their hearts don't suffer.

This idea of eating according to a food's rank on the GI is not new. The glycemic index

"is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels, and have proven benefits for health. [...]

Recent studies from Harvard School of Public Health indicate that the risks of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are strongly related to the GI of the overall diet. In 1999, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommended that people in industrialised countries base their diets on low-GI foods in order to prevent the most common diseases of affluence, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and obesity."

But targeting the recommendations to women is a new development. Fortunately, eating low-GI doesn't take any more diligence than does a normal healthy diet (which is to say it takes a lot of diligence but at least it's stuff you already know you should be doing): replace white grains with whole ones, avoid sugary drinks and candy, get enough good fats and protein in your diet and so forth. But then you always knew, deep down, that crunchy-yet-still-styrofoamy rice cakes weren't really health food, didn't you?

Men Aren't Afraid of Getting Fat

Anyone who has ever spent time people watching with a straight man at the mall can skip the details of this next study and jump right to the conclusion: Men aren't afraid of getting fat. Some men may fear gaining weight due to societal or health pressures but this fear isn't hardwired into their brains like it is for women. Of course. Researchers from Brigham Young University found that the brains of all women, even those with no previous history of eating disorders and self-reported that they weren't concerned with their body image (wherever did they find these rare, mythical creatures?), lit up like a Christmas tree in the area that conveys fear when shown pictures of obese strangers (and where did they find people willing to pose for these pictures?).

The point of the research was to use brain imaging technology to help in the treatment of eating disorders. Unfortunately this plan was short-circuited when even the control group of "healthy" women showed brain patterns of body anxiety similar to those of the eating disordered women. Men showed no such predilection to feeling badly about their own bodies when shown pictures of overweight strangers.

The lead neuroscientist Dr. Mark Allen concludes,

"Although the [healthy] women's brain activity doesn't look like full-blown eating disorders, they are much closer to it than men are. Many women learn that bodily appearance and thinness constitute what is important about them, and their brain responding reflects that," he said. "I think it is an unfortunate and false idea to learn about oneself and does put one at greater risk for eating and mood disorders."

The findings are more sad than surprising but I found it interesting that our thin-is-everything culture is so powerful that it actually alters our brain wiring. Bring that little tidbit up the next time someone says that photoshopped ads are harmless.

Now that I've got you contemplating your thighs and glaring at your man eating pizza, check out Marc Ambinder's nuanced look in The Atlantic about the obesity crisis. It's a must read for anyone interested in the national conversation on weight and what it means.

What do you think about the GI diet? How do you feel when you see an obese stranger? Do you immediately feel fear and shame, like the women in the research? Would you admit it if you did?? What differences have you noticed between you & your man when it comes to food and body image?

Martinez ready for middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik

Rarely does a fighter get the biggest opportunity of his career by losing.

That's precisely what happened to Sergio Martinez.

The junior middleweight champion dropped a close and somewhat questionable decision to feared puncher Paul Williams in December, but Martinez performed so well and made such an entertaining bout that he was given another chance in the spotlight.

On Saturday night, Martinez will face middleweight king Kelly Pavlik at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., in the main event of an HBO-televised doubleheader. Super middleweight champion Lucian Bute faces Edison Miranda in the opener from Montreal.

"You will see a great fight and definitely I will take my championship back to Argentina," Martinez said Wednesday, during a final news conference for the event. "All this year I was praying for this particular fight and everybody knows I'm ready for a war."

Martinez has quickly amassed a significant following among boxing aficionados, and for good reason. The former cyclist and soccer player is one of the fastest 154-pound fighters in the world, with tremendous movement and tactical ability that resonates with purists.

He also exudes charisma.

Martinez showed up for the final meet-and-greet with media and fans dressed in a dark gray suit, red power tie, and rock star shades that he wore even in the dimly lit upstairs reception room of Gallagher's Steakhouse. He shook hands, cracked jokes and smiled freely -- and laughed uncontrollably when "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" played over the sound system.

"He's got tremendous athleticism and conditioning, he's always in shape, he's always quick," said his promoter Lou DiBella. "He fights in a style all his own, and that's why he's one of the best 154-pounders in the world."

Despite so much going for him, Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KOs) has been stung by questionable judging and scoring when he's been on the sport's biggest stage.

He fought Kermit Cintron last February in Sunrise, Fla., and managed only a draw despite most ringside observers giving him the fight handily. Martinez then returned to the ring against Williams in December, battling one of the most dynamic fighters in the sport for 12 rounds, this time losing a majority decision in a candidate for Fight of the Year.

"If they're worried about the referees and the judges, you won't even need to bring the judges that night. They won't be needed," Pavlik's trainer, Jack Loew, said half-jokingly. "They can stay home that night, because it won't go the distance."

Pavlik had wanted a fight with Williams, but the acrimonious relationship between the two fighters and their camps prevented it from happening. So he extended the opportunity to Martinez in what will still be the most dangerous fight he's had in more than a year.

"He wasn't that known in the States, but that Williams fight put him on the map," Pavlik said. "He's a tough fighter, he's slick, pretty good hand speed. But I've seen him do a lot of things wrong in his fights. There's goods and bads."

DiBella believes that if Martinez can coax the fight to a decision, this time it will go in his favor. Martinez typically throws a high volume of punches, whereas Pavlik (36-1, 32 KOs) will often wait for openings to land a power shot.

Still, DiBella confided that it is a dangerous matchup and he's concerned that Martinez could get caught with a knockout punch if he isn't careful.

"This is a matchup that's about as good as it gets," DiBella said. "Kelly didn't have to take this fight -- he could have taken another route -- but he took the toughest guy who wanted to face him. It's going to be a great fight."