Exercise Obsessives article for Marie Claire

I wrote a piece for Marie Claire about Extreme Exercise. It's about those women you probably know--the ones who work out twice a day, do back-to-back spinning classes, or hop on the treadmill for 40 minutes before taking a vigorous yoga class. We looked at whether, physiologically this makes sense (spoiler alert: it doesn't) and what psychologically drives some women to do this (often, the need for control). You can read the full article HERE.

Celebrities do it all the time: In anticipation of a film or event, they whip post-baby bodies into top shape by training like madwomen — lunging, squatting, and tricep-dipping their way back into the size-00 kingdom of heaven.

The good news for the rest of us: a) We aren't endlessly scrutinized by paparazzi, and b) it doesn't actually take that kind of high-intensity training to reach peak form. In fact, most experts agree that by pushing your body to the limits, you're more likely to get injured, sick, or burnt-out than reach HD-ready perfection.

And yet, more Americans are engaging in extreme exercise than ever before. According to Running USA, a nonprofit organization based in Colorado Springs, the number of marathon finishers has increased by nearly 50 percent since 2000. Yoga, meanwhile, has exploded — going from 4 to 20 million practitioners in the U.S. alone over the last 10 years — with a surge of interest in vigorous forms like Bikram (hot yoga) and Ashtanga (an athletic series). Add to that the proliferation of high-octane boot camps, Spinning classes, and barre workouts — many of which inspire almost cultlike obsession.

Electrotherapy article for the New York Times

I wrote an article for the New York Times about electro-stimulation, which is gaining ground again as a way to firm skin and tone muscles.  

Bliss Spa, for example, launched FatGirlShrink, ($180) an hourlong service last January. And Camille Obadia, an aesthetician who owns Beauté Oblige in Manhattan, offers clients an electrostimulating treatments that she says can do as much work as 4 hours in the gym.  The women I interviewed in the article swear by the treatments, although doctors say the effects are only temporary and mainly attributed to the increase of blood flow to muscles and skin caused by the electrical pulses. I think the concept is pretty interesting. 

"First developed for use in rehabilitation clinics, electrical muscular stimulation, or EMS, became popular in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s as part of a so-called passive exercise movement. (Remember those vibrating belts that were supposed to melt inches?) Now, decades later, the idea has re-emerged among a body-conscious contingent increasingly wary of liposuction and other cosmetic surgeries, but still wanting an easy solution for their weight woes."

You can read the whole article HERE.