GiddyUp, Girls!! Remember playing horsey when you were little? The grown up version is now here.

Do you remember when you were a little girl with a mad crush on Lee Majors’ character, Heath Barkley, on The Big Valley TV show, dreaming of riding behind him on his horse, hair blowing in the wind, as the two of you trotted off into the sunset? NO? Was I the only one?

Well, okay then  - have you ever envied the lower body shape and tone of female equestrian riders in their riding breeches?  Did you watch Nicole Kidman in the movie Australia and just wish you could have the feeling of freedom of riding a horse like that?

Have you ever gone horseback riding and realized what great exercise it is when every muscle in your butt and thighs was sore for the next three days? Well, now you don’t have to own a horse and have three acres of land to enjoy the benefits of horse riding.

This fitness gadget pretty much takes a child’s innocent fantasy about Heath Barkley into the adult world-and turns it R rated. Watch Ellen Degeneres try the igallop:

So, if you take my advice from the other day and put more fiber in your diet, you’ll be using the toilet more often. And if you are implementing my ab exercise advice from a couple weeks ago, along with the fiber, then you are truly on your way to sexy flat abs! So what more is there to do to get a flat stomach?

Well,  I thought you may be interested in knowing that there is now a new kind of toilet which will allow you to “dump” the remains of your fiber-filled meals while also building and strengthening back and ab muscles. Makers of the toilet say it has a yoga-like effect on the body. 

Interestingly enough, this new age commode functions like a squat toilet. Imagine that. All this time that my closed mind has been associating squat toilets with poverty and third world countries, I should have been envious of the opportunity to kill two birds with one er…poop. Nothing like relieving yourself while conditioning your core muscles, huh ladies?

If you still think this is a joke, see for yourself at Gizmodo.com

When I was in high school, I started developing a strong interest in healthy eating, and somehow came across a book called The F Diet. (No, not the F#$^* diet, the Fiber diet).

Putting aside the issue of what a huge geek I had to have been at 18, to find this book interesting enough to read it cover to cover, I must say, it made a lasting impression. Hell if I was going to let my colon rot in putrified waste matter! I began incorporating fiber into everything I ate. I made psyllium (a second cousin to sawdust) muffins as snacks, I sprinkled oat bran on everything I could, and put it in smoothies, and I ate Rye Crisps like they were potato chips. Yes, I know - Nerd Girl.

I don’t eat nearly that much fiber anymore, but I should. Most Americans get far less fiber in our diets than is recommended, with the average person consuming about 14 grams. We should all be consuming between 20-38 grams per day, in order to maintain optimal digestive and colon health. Fiber is thought to help in cancer prevention, but eating it is also a great way to achieve weight loss goals! It fills you up and staves off hunger and causes you to eat less calories throughout the day.

Also, fiber keeps your system free of junk by sweeping it out, reducing bloating and fat buildup. Therefore, some say fiber is the ticket to a flat stomach.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish the feat of consuming more fiber, is to eat a high fiber cereal in the morning. Most people find cereal to be a quick and easy breakfast option, so why not choose the brands with the highest fiber, if you’re already eating cereal anyway?

Here is a great comparison chart of all the top fiber cereals which will help you make the best choices!

I recently received a question from a reader about which attachment to use at the gym for the tricep pulldown machine in order to get the best results for toning the back of the arm. The answer is that all of the attachments work a slightly different part of the muscle so it may be beneficial to mix it up from workout to workout. 

The rope attachment allows you to squeeze the very back of the muscle as you bring the ends down and outward. The straight bar with normal and reverse grip, work different angles so that you can isolate the inner and outer parts of your tri. Some people feel that the EZ bar allows them to use more weight, which may be useful if you are trying to build more muscle mass. 

Remember, it is easy to get in a rut, and as they say, vareiety is the spice of life - mix it up to keep it interesting and to keep your muscles guessing! One last piece of advice, whichever one you choose, try not to imitate the model’s clothing selection while doing them - purple and green just don’t match! It’s possible that triceps respond better when wearing gym attire that matches. (Don’t quote me on that). 

Fashion tip: see number ten on my list of making fitness fun: trade grumpy and frumpy for sassy and classy. Try Femme Athletic matching sports bras and workout bottoms.

This isn’t quite the look we’re going for, is it ladies?

When I was on the birth control pill during part of my twenties, I told the gynecologist that I thought it had decreased my libido, made me less orgasmic, and turned me into a moody, emotional basket case. Just based on my common sense belief that anything that affects hormone levels could likely affect libido, I asked her innocently, “Can the pill cause those symptoms?”

As if she had stock in the very company that made them (and she probably did), she insisted that there was no evidence that the pill could cause any of the symptoms that I described.

I never researched it; I just chalked it up to her being stupid, went along my merry way and stopped taking the damn things. Thanks to incessant media coverage of the AIDS epidemic when I was a teen, I was already a diligent condom user, regardless of how much I trusted my boyfriend, so stopping the pill didn’t cause a disruption to my normal routine.

As it turns out, she was uneducated about the issue, because I now know that studies existed from years prior to that conversation, which reported the negative effects of oral contraceptives on sexual function, including diminished sexual interest and arousal, suppression of female initiated sexual activity, decreased frequency of sexual intercourse and sexual enjoyment. 

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Recently I was feeling restless for a new place to live -  I was craving more windows, more light, more space, wood floors. All I needed was a good excuse to overlook the time and expense of a move to justify looking around at other places. A few plumbing problems later, I had my excuse. 

I didn’t want to move far- same zip code even - just to a different building. So I spent a couple weekends looking at other places in nearby neighborhoods. But the more I looked, the more I was reminded of the things I love about my current place that I couldn’t find at any of the new places - the dog park and all the friendly dog lovers in the neighborhood, my quiet street-free of traffic noise, (with an atypical amount of free parking nearby), my intimate, small complex with friendly tenants, private garage, pool……..

Focusing on the positive things made me realize I did not need an entirely new place to live right this instant - I just needed to make a few changes to my current place. A little redecorating and de-cluttering I thought, is all it would take to be happy in this apartment that I already loved.

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My life the last couple weeks have been crazy busy with family, travel, work, love life and training obligations that have made it difficult to plan my meals in order to fulfill my yin-yang-balancing diet promises to my Chinese Witch Doctor.

So rather than break the diet and mess up the progress I had made on balancing my chi (yes, I know it sounds soooo new age), some days I ended up subsisting on an apple or an orange for an entire meal. It was quick, easy to transport, and could be eaten en route to the gym or airport or wherever!

However, you can only do that so long before your muscles say: “Hey bitch-feed me more or quit making me do so many damn lunges and ab exercises on that freakin’ ball.”

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Since fat loss, sexy abs, and tight buns aren’t the only things required to stay healthy and fit in your thirties, I like to give you reminders on how to protect yourself on a cellular level - from the inside out. So, for anyone who had any doubts about whether to drink bottled water over tap water, here’s an article about tap water contamination that you should read.

Pharmaceutical contaminants seem to be finding there way into the American tap water supply with more frequency. Although drinking water from plastic bottles seems to have its dangers too, I am starting to think the chemicals from plastic may pale in comparison to the cocktail of drugs we may be absorbing in small quantities every time we take a shower, or to those that we ingest every time we make coffee out of the kitchen tap water.

This is yet one more reason we all need to try to be healthy in all the other areas that we can control! In other words, eat right, exercise, and manage stress so you can ward off the damage done by living in an industrialized society! And it may just be worth investing in some water filtration systems for your home!

Okay, ladies (and gents)- as promised, I had Nik Herold, personal trainer and owner of Fitness Doctors, write up his three favorite exercises for strengthening your Transverse Abdominal area. Remember, these are the smaller, support muscles that help tighten your pelvic floor muscles, help give you a flat belly, and help in preventing back injuries.  Add these to your gym routine to get that flat stomach before summer! Here they are:

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