The Post-Holiday Guilt Complex

by

“Blood on the dance floor, MJ says!!!” Our instructor shouts this to the music as we sweat through a round of pulsing pliés. This is a snapshot of my friendly neighborhood Jazzercise class. My friend and I were recently recruited to join, and since it’s just down the street from us, we decided to give it a go. I know what you may be thinking. Jazzercise is still a thing? It’s not just a relic … Read more

The Ways We Talk About Food: Part 3

by

How Now Do We Talk (And Eat)?   Before we pick up where we left off, I want to preface our conversation with a little formula: Skinny = healthy       Fat = unhealthy If you haven’t already encountered this formula as the driving force of, say, a fitness community or diet plan, you can encounter it verbatim in a book like Skinny Bitch (true story). But at the risk of losing popularity points with the fitness … Read more

Survey: Clothing Sizes

by

What Do You Think? When was the last time you saw one of those infomercials that features the “I was a size 22, but now I’m a size 4” success stories and photos? Or the “I can fit into pants I wore 20 years ago” testimonials? How did it make you feel? Some of us may roll our eyes and dismiss them; some of us may be more affected than we’d like to admit. It makes … Read more

The Ways We Talk About Food: Part 2

by

The Fallacy of “Perfect Eating”   Take a moment, if you will, to revisit the mid-2000s with me: there are trucker hats and velour sweatsuits galore; there is the birth of YouTube (which no one really remembers) and Lost gaining a cult following; there is Carrie Underwood winning American Idol and Tom Cruise bouncing on Oprah’s couch; and there is a smattering of hot female celebs photographed with the book Skinny Bitch in hand. When … Read more

The Ways We Talk About Food: Part 1

by

Introduction I can still see my 19-year-old self in the usual paraphernalia: lime green organic cotton T-shirt, burlap cap, juice-stained apron stitched with the image of a rising sun. This was the work uniform of health-food-enthralled Cammy—the Cammy who was brewing her own kombucha, being discipled by books like Natural Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About, and who had just started her first of three consecutive summers working at a local grocery store. … Read more

Survey: How We Talk About Food

by

What do you think? Thank you all so much for your awesome input on the last Body Electric entry! You have great things to say, and I’d love to harness your responsiveness for the next upcoming posts, if possible. 🙂 Feel free respond to the following questions if they interest you. I am the only one who will see your response, and you also have the option to remain anonymous. Thank you in advance for your … Read more

Have You “Let Yourself Go”?

by

“Letting oneself go”: A sustained period of inattention to the upkeep of one’s appearance; a disregard for maintaining a should-be-maintainable level of attractiveness; a negligence toward managing the look of one’s body, common in the passing from young to old and/or fit to unfit. “I used to be so fit and put-together, but ever since I became a mom, I really let myself go.”        –a mom  “He has really let himself go … Read more