I've been struggling with a secret, which is this: I'm really, really not in love with my body right now. I have, been keeping it secret for two reasons: 1) it's totally new to me - I've never really struggled with my body image, even after my last pregnancy, which added padding where no padding had hitherto existed, and so it just feels foreign and weird and (obviously) bad, and 2) it also feels so, I don't know, anti-feminist or anti-woman or anti-me (which, really, collapses into a kind of counter-womanism, to be anti-yourself as a woman) and I just so don't want to be that.

I gave birth six weeks ago. Since then, I've lost a lot of the baby weight. Partly because the baby that I was carrying was so huge that his expulsion from the womb represented a massive weight loss, and partly because I've hardly been able to eat anything since he was born, what with his unremitting need to be held ALL THE TIME HOLY HELL. Hardly anything but cookies, that is, and maybe the odd bagel or two. Which, you know, is not the best post-partum diet.

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of V-Day and BlogHer's exclusive interview with the writer of "The Vagina Monologues" Eve Ensler, I was asked to focus this week's post on "The Vagina Monologues" on YouTube.

I became a vegetarian almost 20 years ago, and when I did Diet For a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé was one of those bibles you kept by your side. It wasn't just inspiring, but a practical guide to leading a healthy vegetarian lifestyle.Decades later Moore's daughter, author and activist Anna Lappé, carries on this tradition of activism that is both inspiring and dedicated to helping people make a difference via personal action. I'm thrilled to be conducting an exclusive podcast interview with Anna next week as part of our ongoing Earth Day is Every Day coverage this month. Our interview with Anna will coincide with a launch of an entirely new project that I'm also going to ask her about, and I'm also going to ask Anna about these three main goals in her work:

Do you stress over money? I do. With the way the economy is going, if you're not stressing over money now, you sure could be in the near future. Gas prices are going up, home values are going down, and what money we do have is buying less and less. The thing about stressing over money is...It doesn't pay the bills. What it can do, is make you sick.

When I made the decision to breastfeed my children, I did so confident in the knowledge that I was doing the best thing for both their health and mine. After all, studies have consistently shown there are numerous health benefits to both mother and baby.

Time. There isn’t enough of it, right? After all, if you could add additional hours to your day, certainly you could find more opportunities to be active. Here’s the thing. If you look around, you’ll find a lot of people who don't believe that a lack of time is a good excuse for not doing something – especially when it comes to working out. Certainly there will be days when we don’t feel like moving our bodies. But if you get that feeling, own it. Tell it like it is. Say, “I just don’t want to do it today. I’d rather sit here with my laptop, put my feet up, and read blogs.”

Candles, music, lingerie... Sure, there's the traditionals. But the other night I was wearing a stretchy dance top, the kind that's cut across the top ala "Flashdance," and some oversized Calvin Klein drawstring shorts that may be guys shorts for all I know (both the top and the shorts are from clothing exchanges with friends), and I was thinking about how I always feel so sexy in this most schlubby of outfits. It's just something about how the top stretches across me and the way the shorts sit loosely on my hips like they could just fall down at any moment.

I'm the sort of person whose first reaction when she hears bad news is to stick her fingers in her ears and chant la-la-la-la-la. Economy taking a turn for the worse? Cow farts burning up the ozone layer? La-la-la-la-la-la. But if the news is really scary? I take my fingers out of my ears and go running around like a madwoman looking for information. To the point where I get somewhat obsessive and - my doctor tells me - prone to anxiety. The thing is, though, sometimes one has good reason to be anxious.

Last week I wrote about The Big Push for Midwives, a national grassroots campaign pushing for the regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. As it currently stands, there are 26 states that ban CPMs. If caught practicing there, midwives could be subjected to fines, jail time, even face the possibility of a felony conviction in Missouri. Despite the fact that other developed countries in the world that have adopted midwives as the primary care providers for healthy pregnant women, the United States has yet to catch on. One percent of American women choose to give birth at home. Just last week the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a trade union representing the financial and professional interests of obstetricians, released a statement reiterating their opposition to home births and CPMs, and suggesting that mothers who give birth at home with a midwife are choosing the birth experience over the health of their baby. Rather than advocating for "quality health care for women" as the group claims is part of their work on their about page, the entire statement perpetuates FUD; Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

The latest book from Mark Bittman's "The Minimalist" How to cook everything series was published last fall. Perhaps because it's such a tome -- think 1000 pages, 2000 recipes and endless variations -- that it's just now starting to reach consciousness. Or perhaps it took Bittman's recent New York Time Op-Ed piece called Rethinking the Meat Guzzler to get the attention the cookbook seems to deserve. The cookbook reviews are complimentary. But some from the vegetarian community are wondering about the credentials of a meat-eater who writes a vegetarian cookbook. Let's take a look ~

This is the FIRST MONTHLY update in a series, following the launch of BlogHer's 2008 Good Health-a-thon. Sign up (and get your blog badge) here. Betcha thought I forgot.