Greetings from the tiredest person you know. This home remodeling biz will definitely take the wind out of your sails. Having paid someone to paint both bathrooms, with less than remarkable results, I’ve decided to tackle the next paint project myself. They’re two itsy bitsy rooms (guest/exercise room and home office)–what could go wrong? Next week should be fun.

In some good-Cammy news, I received the lab results from my recent doctor visit! I’m sharing them here as a measure of my success:

I am quite pleased, especially with that “good” cholesterol number. It was 30 last year.

I am also pleased with my snazzy table and sincerely hope it displays properly in your browser. I used a nifty little online app called Tableizer, which requires only that you copy/paste your spreadsheet contents into a little box. Then, presto! They generate the code. FOR FREE! Next, I’ll learn how to align it properly.

Oh, and in the event you’re like me and didn’t understand why total cholesterol didn’t equal HDL + LDL, you have to add in 1/5 of the total triglycerides. I’ve checked this off my to-do of “learn something new every day.”

Okay, on to starred links from my reader:

From Lifescript Health Bistro: Women: Critical Tips to Recognize a Heart Attack or Stroke

From MakeUseOf: A review of a new app – BetterMe: Self-Improvement with Anonymous Feedback

From Healthy Theory, a post on one of my favorite topics: Napping Does a Body (and Mind) Good

And with that, I’m ready for the weekend. Nothing going on here but work, work, work. Unfortunately, the two rooms I’ve decided to paint contain all my computers and related peripherals, books, office supplies, files, and exercise equipment. And that all has to be relocated somewhere else in this house.

So unless you can give me a good reason why not, I’ll expect you all here tomorrow a.m. at 10:00. How ’bout it? What have you got going on this weekend that’s somehow more important than helping me move heavy crap a few things from room to room?

Whatever it is, I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you for subscribing to The Tippy Toe Diet!

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This is me at my High School graduation. (Mom is going to KILL ME. lol)

I practically starved myself my senior year because I thought I was fat. I was delusional. I was happy but uncomfortable. By this time I already would NOT be caught dead in a bathing suit without a t-shirt and nothing made me more uncomfortable then that sleeveless dress.

I really thought about getting skinny constantly. I was pre-occupied with it. Secretly depressed I didn’t look like a twig. I know, I know. Ridiculous. You don’t have to remind me I have imaginary discussions with my younger self ALL the time.

Now here I am graduating college (with Mom again.

A mere 5 years later (no wise cracks about taking 5 years. I did end up with a Masters Degree after all

Still preoccupied with weight? Yes
Depressed about my body? YES
Wished I was back in that body I loathed in High School? MORE THEN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD.

What did my obsessive, preoccupation with my body get me? More and more weight. You can read my story for all the up and down details but I said it once and I’ll say it again. Dieting made me fat. If I just lived a normal, non-dieting, happy-with-myself life I probably would have never gained so much weight in the first place. It was the cycle of depravation and bingeing. It was the consoling myself with food. Even the lack of activity because I was ashamed of my body. All of those things made the scale go up. Nothing else (I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, just my personal experience)

Why am I taking this trip down memory lane? Well, I’ve been trying to find my workout groove again since moving and starting this new job. Last year at this time I was running tons, training for my first half marathon, lifting weights and taking classes when I could.

I felt great. I felt better then great. I felt fan-FRAKIN-tastic! Especially when I did that pull up. Talk about confidence and strength and fitness. I swear I was on top of my game and for the first time in my life I felt like an athlete. I really did, and that’s coming from a prior self proclaimed exercise hater.

The funny thing is I didn’t feel fan-FRAKIN-tastic because I was thin. I felt fan-FRAKIN-tastic (ok, so I just like to say fan-FRAKIN-tastic, sue me) because I kicked butt, scratch that, ASS. It sounds better.

Today I don’t kick as much of it. Ass that is. I mean, don’t get me wrong I’m still in great shape. I can still run a few miles and I can do a few push ups but I have no were near the strength or cardio capacity I had last year.

While working out this week I couldn’t help but feel a little tinge of regret. It saddens me that I went backwards a bit. That I lost some of the strength. The girl who would never run because someone told her she couldn’t ran a both a half and full marathon in just 1 short year, now hasn’t run in over a month.

I found myself really get depressed about this.

Then I started thinking about my younger self, that young woman in that picture up there, and how she literally punished herself for not being as thin as she thought she should be. I remember back then thinking my life would begin once I lost the weight. Once I wore a certain size. Once I could wear a bathing suit on the beach.

What bull shit.

Excuse my french. I normally don’t curse here but seriously what complete and utter BULL SHIT.

I had nothing to be ashamed regardless of my weight and ended up punishing myself for what? What did I gain besides weight and an even lower self esteem?

I’m now in a bit of the opposite situation, aren’t I? Instead of looking ahead thinking how great it would be when I lost the weight, when I got into that dress, when I saw that number on the scale, whatever. I’m now looking back and longing for when I was stronger, when I could do x number of push-ups, when I could run x number of miles, whatever.

It’s the same difference and I refuse to fall prey to this type of thinking anymore. Longing for what was or what could be, accomplishes nothing. Life is to short to live in the past or the future. I choose to live in the now.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Since tomorrow is the PriorFatGirl & Future PriorFatGirl Get-together, Lindsay, another priorfatgirl and her boyfriend Adam came over tonight. I needed some help putting some goodie bags together and roped Lindsay, another priorfatgirl into it.

For her compensation, I bribed her with pizza. Do you ever eat at Papa Murphy’s? They have these DeLite Pizza’s (I’ve mentioned them before) which claim to be 40% fewer calories and 30% less fat than regular pizza because they cut back a little on the toppings. Even though they cut back on the toppings, you CAN’T EVEN TELL!

After pizza, Lindsay and I got down to business. We had 40 goodie bags to put together with product from a ton of sponsors. We had to make an assembly line and get down to some serious business.

There may have been a little left over after our goodie bags were put together so expect to see some coming your way in the next couple of weeks!

Weekend Plans
One HUGE plan. Tomorrow morning. I can’t wait!! After that, I have a baby shower to go to and then I can come home and relax. I am going to do whatever I can do to convince Carlos (and convince myself) to stay home and do nothing tomorrow night because I could really use some serious rest & relaxation. Although I’m pretty sure the minute I stop and just sit for a moment, I’ll fall asleep.

Besides those two events on Saturday, I plan on going to the gym both Saturday and Sunday to get some calorie burnage going. Expect a sweaty picture from me and some others from around the world! They are coming in and I love them!

Oh…and, one more picture of Iggy for you. Just to get you through the weekend. Remember I said Iggy has been monitoring my computer usage and proof reading my blog posts? I’m so not kidding!

So…if you have any comments related to my grammer or spelling errors, direct them to Iggy cause I surly did not graduate in writing or English.

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What’s up blog stalkers?! HAHA, no worries – chances are I stalk your blog just as much I’m still not 100% but haven’t gotten worse. It’s all in my throat right now. I came home last night and did 30 Day Shred, level 2 and by the end, my lungs were on fire – they hurt so much! I’m trying to just hang on through the next crazy week and then am thinking I can slow down. Ah…if only life would slow down, right?

Oatmeal Fanatic

I am realizing I really do go in spurts. I went for about a month and ate more eggs than a farm could produce. Now I’m back at the oats. But as I mentioned before (or maybe on Twitter), I’m having a field day with old-fashioned oatmeal. Wanna know the difference between old-fashioned oatmeal and instant? There really is no time difference at all. Old-fashioned oatmeal is big – like whole oats. The instant is little flakes of oatmeal (which is why it’s suppose to cook faster.)

A Little Giveaway
Holy SHITE!!! I cannot believe how serious ya’ll got on your entries for the Exercise TV Giveaway! I won’t waste any more time talking about it, instead will just get to announcing the winners….

Winners, please email me your mailing address. I wish I could have made everyone a winner! Thank you all so much for all the entries.

I’ll be back in a couple of hours because I have some more pictures to share with ya from last night!

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Submit your sweaty splendor to me at jen@priorfatgirl.com and I’ll share it with the world!

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Today will be a little different around here. Why? Because yesterday I woke up with a tingle in my throat. And despite my over dramatic attempt to get enough vitamin C yesterday, I woke up today feeling even worse.

Good news? I got an amazing person to fill in and share their story! So excuse my lack of words for an introduction…I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into a complete sentence today.

Oh, one more thing – if you haven’t already, make sure you enter the Exercise TV Giveaway by tonight! Winners will be announced tomorrow.

Please join me in giving a huge atta girl to our special guest, Marlena!

Hello, hello!!! This is soooo exciting! I’m really honored to be a guest blogger on Jen’s blog today. So let’s begin, shall we?

My name is Marlena. I’m 31 years old & live in the Sunshine State. All my life I’ve been battling my weight. Literally. I was a chunky kid, chunky pre-teen, overweight teen, & eventually an obese adult. I tried all sorts of diets: pills, shakes, meal-replacement supplements, eating only once a day….whatever. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn’t. The ones that worked, well, they didn’t last for very long. Nothing I tried lasted. I either gave up because I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted or because I couldn’t maintain that lifestyle forever.

 So, let’s fast forward to 2007. April 11, 2007 to be exact. That was the day I joined weight Watchers for the 3rd time. Why did I join again? Mainly because my friends Jack & Susan joined, so I thought, “Eh, why not?” Did I really wanna lose weight? Sure. Like always. So why not give it another shot for the ump-teenth time? I figured I’d have more support having my friends doing this with me.

Have any of you been there? Done that? Joined a program “just because”? My mindset wasn’t about succeeding this time around. It was more like, “well, it can’t hurt.” You have NO idea how that mentality was soon gonna change!

Can anyone guess what happened 5 days later? Yup, 5 days later was April 16. It was a day that changed the rest of my life.

My husband, then 43, had a heart attack.  Yes, that’s right. A heart attack.  He was working in our yard & felt some discomfort in his chest & neck. Fortunately, he stopped working & came inside. He cooled down & looked up heart attack symptoms on the internet. What he felt was a heart attack. Heart disease is in his father’s family, and his father died of a massive heart attack in 2003. My husband went to work the next day & felt the same discomfort. When I got home from work, he told me what happened & told me that I needed to take him to the ER. WHAT??? After a few tests & blood work, the ER doc said that he had a minor heart attack. Those were the last words either one of us wanted to hear. Because he has a family history of heart disease, the cardiologist ordered that he spend the night & have a heart catheterization the next morning. What did they find? Two arteries were 100% blocked, two other arteries were 70-85% blocked. Results: open-heart surgery. Quintuple (5) bypass.

 So, why did I tell you this? It was the biggest eye-opener of our lives. For me, losing weight was no longer about being skinny. It wasn’t about shopping at the “regular” stores. It wasn’t about wearing tank tops & looking good in a swimsuit. It was about being HEALTHY! Not once during my numerous attempts at weight loss did the H-word ever cross my mind. NEVER! Why would it? As a teenager, it’s about fitting in. It’s about wearing the cute clothes everyone else is wearing. Not once did I think that the food I was shoving in my mouth was clogging my arteries, raising my cholesterol, or increasing my blood pressure.

But that’s all changed now. I want to be healthy. I want to be healthy! I want my insides to function properly, my blood to flow normally, to live the way I am supposed to live.

So…that’s why I’m here. I’m a PFG & proud of it!! I’ve come a loooonngg way. Topping the scale at 245 when I was 18 years old, I can honestly say that I never, EVER, wanna go there again. 85 pounds are gone. I lost 65 with WW this time around but I was already down 20 when I started in ‘07. So can you see why I titled this post, “One-Way Ticket”?

 

 Regardless of where you are in your journey, can you honestly tell me that you wanna go back to the beginning? This isn’t a round-trip journey. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought it was. Yet, somehow that seems to be the flight we always take, right?

Not this time. I refuse to go through this again!! Is it hard? Uh…YEAH!! But is it worth it?? You better believe it!!!

For before & after pics, check out my website: www.freewebs.com/marlena78
Follow me on Twitter!

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EATING DISORDER AWARENESS

Thanks for all the great comments and emails about the post on compulsive overeating yesterday.  That was much scarier for me to admit to doing than emotional eating.  Everyone emotionally eats a little bit (I firmly believe this) and it’s okay on a small scale.  But food addiction?  Compulsive overeating?  Feeling voids with food?  Scary to admit, scary to talk about.  Why is it so scary?  No one wants to be negatively judged.  But when people who deal with it but never talk about it, it just makes others who deal with it feel alone.  And that gets us nowhere.

And apparently this week (Feb 21 -27) is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (thanks to Jody for bringing this to my attention!).  Cooly enough there theme is: It’s Time To Talk About It.

Their mission? “Our aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.”  I agree with that.  Eating disorders aren’t simply eating choices gone astray, they are a serious thing that you need to take seriously.  There is no shame in them and there is no shame in reaching out and getting help.  I wish someone would have told my 14 year old self that.  So instead, my 23 year old self will tell you that.  Don’t be ashamed and don’t be afraid. If you ever want to talk about it just send me an email through my contact page.

“RUNNING”

Wednesday’s workout was a short one and I’m so thankful for that. The weights part of the workout was less intense, but I still got on the treadmill to run.

On the treadmill for 15 minutes, 9 of which were spent running. I still can’t say I enjoy running.

But there is something about running I like.  Usually within those two minute intervals of running there is about 30 seconds where it feels… easy.  Where it feels like running is not hard at all and I could probably run forever.  I like that feeling.  It never lasts since my mind and body switch back to struggle mode, but it does happen.  And when it happens I feel encouraged.  I feel like maybe this time I will finish this.  Maybe this time I won’t give up.  Maybe this time I will transform myself into someone who can at least jog three miles without dying.

And then of course there is always the post run feeling where it’s like “OMG!  I did it!”  Regardless of how much I ran or how far, every time I get done I’m going to think that.  I’m going to be proud of myself.  Because progress builds upon itself and the more times I do this the further I will get.  So I need to appreciate the small steps like this that are preparing me for the big picture.

But it’s hard!

It’s hard to see the small steps as successes.  Both in running, in weight loss, in life.

I think we all have trouble with this.  Even if mentally we know the small steps are leading us to our ultimate goal, it’s easy to lose focus.  It’s easy to forget that the small successes are leading us somewhere.  It’s much easier to look at them and say, “Oh, it’s not enough.  I have SO far to go.”

But I’m celebrating small steps even if I have to force myself to do so.  I’m also celebrating rest days like yesterday.  Glorious!

WEEKEND

This weekend I’ve got big plans.  Okay, just kidding.  I’m babysitting a friends kids to pick up some extra money and working on the health blogging ebook (coming out in early March!  Yay!). I’m also putting together my new scooter and will take pics for the blog.  I do have some big announcements coming up soon, but if you read my other musings online you probably already know what I’m going to announce.  Either way, life is good.  Have a great weekend!

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This is the second post in a series on the issues (the first was on emotional eating) that led me to overeat and develop bad habits that caused me to become obese.  In these posts I try to examine the problems and issues I had with food in the years when I was becoming obese.

One thing that caused my obesity that I’ve never told anyone about was my problem with compulsive eating.

It’s hard to explain compulsive eating to people who don’t do it.  It’s something I feel like a lot of people don’t understand.  Although I’ve moved on from it for the most part I’m not even sure I understand why I did it or what caused me to develop this particular disordered eating habit.

Let me allow Wikipedia to define compulsive eating first:

Compulsive overeating, also sometimes called food addiction, is characterized by an obsessive/compulsive relationship to food.  An individual suffering from compulsive overeating disorder engages in frequent episodes of uncontrolled eating, or bingeing, during which they may feel frenzied or out of control, often consuming food past the point of being comfortably full. Bingeing in this way is generally followed by feelings of guilt and depression. Unlike individuals with bulimia, compulsive overeaters do not attempt to compensate for their bingeing with purging behaviors such as fasting, laxative use or vomiting. Compulsive overeaters will typically eat when they are not hungry. Their obsession is demonstrated in that they spend excessive amounts of time and thought devoted to food, and secretly plan or fantasize about eating alone. Compulsive overeating usually leads to weight gain and obesity, but not everyone who is obese is also a compulsive overeater.

In addition to binge eating, compulsive overeaters can also engage in grazing behavior, during which they return to pick at food throughout the day. This results in a large overall number of calories consumed even if the quantities eaten at any one time may be small. When a compulsive eater overeats primarily through bingeing, he or she can be said to have binge eating disorder. Where there is continuous overeating but no bingeing, then the sufferer has compulsive overeating disorder.

Reading the definition makes me want to cry. I wish I had told someone that I did ALL of these thing years ago.  It probably would have saved me a lot of pain and a lot of time.  I just felt so much shame and guilt over myactions that I refused to admit them and in the end I only hurt myself.  If I just had admitting doing these things I could have gotten the help I needed instead of having to claw my own way out.

For this particular post I want to save the bingeing part for another post and just address the other parts of comuplsive eating that I suffered from, even though these things are related.

A lot of the time I was one of those compulsive overeaters who grazed and ate over long periods of time.   I would obsess over food and feel the need to eat it until it went away.  If something was in my house and I knew it was there I would think and obsess about it until I finally gave in to the thoughts and started eating it – even if I wasn’t hungry.  I would eat it a little bit at a time, trying to convince myself it was okay if I did it that way, I just needed to eat it to make it disappear.

I remember so many times my mom would buy cookies “for my brothers” and leave them on the counter in the kitchen.  I would look at them and wonder why she bought them but just move on.  A few hours later I would be obsessing about the cookies and secretly plan to sneak back into the kitchen and grab a few when no one would see me.  I would do that and take the cookies to my room or another empty room and eat them.  I would repeat this process several times within the same day!  By the end of the day the cookies would either be gone or almost gone and my mom would wonder where they went.  I always blamed my brothers.  After all, three boys eat a lot, right?

Covering my tracks was easy, or so I thought.  After years of sneaking food and compulsive eating I guess I was good at being sneaky.  I knew when to get food and how to hide it.   I think everyone knew eventually what I was doing and sometimes I would even admit it.  “Who ate all the granola bars?  I had a whole box!”  I would admit it was me and then make a joke or something to divert attention.  Whenever food would go missing I would be the first one to be blamed and although it hurt, it was usually true.

I ate because something in my brain told me I needed to eat everything.  If it was gone I would be fine.  So I ate all the food without thinking of the calories or caring much what it was or what it did to me.  I was obsessed with food and knew it had to disappear for me to clear my mind.  So I often ended up getting rid of it by eating it.  I ate because quite frankly I couldn’t stop thinking about the food.  I knew that once it was gone I couldn’t think about it because it wouldn’t be there to torture me with it’s existence.

That obsession over food that led me to compulsively eat thousands of calories without ever being hungry.  I would often find myself eating and having an internal battle because part of me really didn’t want to be doing it (because I knew I would gain even more weight) but the other part of me said I needed to (to make myself feel better emotionally).  I felt out of control.

Some quotes from other websites, when I now read them, are so clearly descriptive of my behaviors then that it scares me no one every noticed:

People suffering with Compulsive Overeating have what is characterized as an “addiction” to food, using food and eating as a way to hide from their emotions, to fill a void they feel inside, and to cope with daily stresses and problems in their lives.

People suffering with this Eating Disorder tend to be overweight, are usually aware that their eating habits are abnormal, but find little comfort because of society’s tendency to stereotype the “overweight” individual.

Or when I read the signs/symptoms:

Binge eating

Fear of not being able to stop eating voluntarily

Depression

Self-deprecating thoughts following binges

Withdrawing from activities because of embarrassment about weight

Going on many different diets

Eating little in public, while maintaining a high weight

Believing they will be a better person when thin

Feelings about self based on weight

Social and professional failures attributed to weight

Feeling tormented by eating habits

weight is focus of life

In high school I fit every single one of those bullet points, except the multiple diets one.  I’m not trying to diagnose myself (or my former self) with an eating disorder since I’m not a professional or whatnot, but every time I read about compulsive eating it takes me right back to where I used to be, to who I used to be.

I know longer eat because of the impulses that tell me I need to get rid of food or use it to cope.  I’ve learned how to control them, how to react to them, how to deal with them.  But they haven’t completely gone away.  I know that if I bake a cake and sit in on the counter I’m probably going to think about it and want to eat it until it’s gone, and in a stressful moment I still might succumb and allow that to happen.  But the difference now is that I don’t eat it.  I don’t put myself in that situation if I can help it.  I know the foods that trigger that kind of thinking and I know how to limit my exposure to them.

Compulsive overeating is definitely one reason I became obese. Binge eating is another reason, and like I said, is related to compulsive eating.  But I’m saving that for next installment since this is already so long.  Thank you blog readers, for a little bit of sharing therapy today.

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When I was a senior in high school, I became friends with some Swedish exchange students – Per, Henrik, Charlotta and the guy who asked me to prom, but I said no because I wanted to go with Per, but he didn’t ask and so I went to the drive-in with my girlfriends instead. What was his name? That’s going to make me nuts today.

Anyway, it was a Friday night and we were all going out. I thought I was supposed to pick up Per at his host family’s house. I arrived, knocked on the door, and heard, “Come in!” I walked in to find his host parents engaged in *ahem* full-on amorous activity.

I didn’t hear “don’t.” They had yelled, “DON’T come in.”

Oops.

Claire uses the word “don’t” a lot, particularly when talking to (well, yelling at) her baby brother. “Don’t play with that, Luca Man!” “Don’t touch my blankie!” “Don’t look at me!” Don’t, that that context, is such a negative Nelly word. But when used in its cautionary and instructive context, it’s one of the more important words in our vocabulary.

Here are three “don’ts” I’m striving to live by:

1. Don’t stray from the moment

I have a bad habit of wishing time away, especially when I’m on the elliptical or hungry and waiting for the microwave to heat up my food or waiting for an auction to end on eBay.

I was really bad about it when I was losing weight. I made a spreadsheet predicting where my weight “should” be weeks and months in the future based on my average pounds lost per week. Every week I couldn’t wait to get to the next week. Every month I couldn’t wait to get to the next month. In the future I’d be smaller and I was convinced smaller was better. All living in the future did, though, was waste a lot of moments that I’ll never get back. Moments when I could have really gotten to know (and more importantly, APPRECIATE) myself at each weight.

I’ve done a lot of reflecting on this since making goal, and while I certainly have come to appreciate the person I was at 300, I wish I’d – in the moment – appreciated who I was at 265, 209, 172, etc. My impatience gets me nowhere. A minute will pass whether I’m impatient or serene. Ergo, don’t stray from the moment.

2. Don’t take your body for granted

Jon Kabat-Zinn once said (and I’m paraphrasing): If you’re breathing, you have everything going for you. Our bodies are pretty amazing, at any size or fitness. But I often fall into the mind trap of lamenting what my body can’t do rather than what it can. Or, when it can do something, not remembering there will be consequences if I overdo it. And when do I overdo? Either when I’m attempting to show off (the gym is really bad for that) or when I conveniently forget I have limitations. (Arthritis? What arthritis?)

This “don’t” reminds me of a lovely song by Toad the Wet Sprocket called “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted.”

I’m listening
Music in the bedroom
Laughter in the hall
Dive into the ocean
Singing by the fire
Running through the forest
And standing in the wind
In rolling canyons


I will not take these things for granted

3. Don’t offer unconstructive criticism and don’t wait until tomorrow to make things right if I fail at Don’t 1 and Don’t 2.

I’m the queen of self-flagellation, although I have come a long way and am much more mindful when I’m being a total bitch to myself. (So manybe I’m no longer the “queen” but a maidservant…LOL) I don’t treat myself half as badly as I used to. That’s a HUGE step forward for me.

I need “don’t” in my life. Don’t keeps me on the straight and narrow. And, if heard and paid attention to, can prevent me (and amorous couples) from a whole lot of embarrassment, too!

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FYI: Lynn’s Weigh is on Facebook! If you’d like to join our group, click here and become a “fan.” Every day I post a question or topic that we chat about throughout the day, and readers post questions to me and other readers, too. It’s a fun way to stay in touch.

Also, check out my latest blog on Refuse to Regain, “No, thank you. I stay here.” I’ll mark my 3-year maintenance anniversary in a few weeks and I reflected on how maintenance changes year to year. Would love to hear your feedback!

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Quick post (a blog is forthcoming…hopefully tonight) to let ya’ll know (because I’m sure you’ve been checking ALL DAY) that the winner of the Slim & Tone Pilates is reader Maya! Congrats to Maya and a big THANK YOU to all of you for your emails and comments.

Next to be reviewed: “Dance Off The Inches: Striptease Workout with Megan Armond.” Cassie will be reviewing this one, too, along with a few comments from her “old but still got it a little bit” mother. This review will (probably) be posted next Friday (March 5). It’ll be a fun one, I assure you.

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