Well this is one of those subjects, that I, even with all of my degrees and such ... I just can't wrap my head around explaining it perfectly to you. I guess that's what links are for!

Let's just put it this way, a combination of: fruit, gas, fermentation, constipation, pelvic rotation and inflammation can be causing your back pain. I don't think this article will provide the answer to everyone's back pain, but for some ... maybe so!

The article even suggests that a "pooping situation" or "lack of pooping situation" might be responsible for weight gain. So! Without further a-doodoo, click here.

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I typically like to address my Stress Less installments to everyone, but this one is for parents of preschoolers who are potty training. That's because I've noticed potty training tends to cause the most stress amongst my fellow parental cohorts. I'm not going to offer magic tricks for how to get your kids to use the potty. But I will aim to ease minds about doing so in public restrooms.

I actually find it strange that parents allow their kids to romp without a care on pesticide laden grass in public parks, identified as such with those handy little flags, but freak out if their child touches anything in a public restroom. Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat and they teach their kids to do the same. But in an ABC News test, the toilet turned out to be the cleanest thing in the public restroom. As the subsequent report points out, you're not going to get germs from your backside. You're going to get them from your hands.

There really is little need to worry anyway. At least not about genital herpes or HIV. But you might worry about staph infections. It's possible to contract an infection from potty seats, but it's not as likely as you might think. The bottom line: as long as you wash your hands after a trip to the bathroom, you and your kids will likely never acquire anything by way of the public potty.

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Do you panic about public potty seats? Many people do. I get it. Just imagining how many sets of buns have been planted on the same exact toilet seat I must use is enough to stir up a little health scare in me. Is anxiety about sharing toilet seats warranted, though?

Well, kind of.

Don't worry about genital herpes or HIV. These diseases can't survive outside the body, says D. Scott Smith, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center in California. But you might worry about staph infections. There's a slight risk of picking one up -- you'll know you have one if you develop a mild skin irritation. And if your hands come in contact with germs in a filthy bathroom and you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth, the bacteria can enter our body and cause diarrhea.

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I'm training for the the Hood-to-Coast relay along with a group of my best mama friends. The Hood-to-Coast is an epic race: the very most elite of road relays, run from near the top of Mt. Hood to the beach, 197 miles in all. The top runners in the world will be there, along with, well, us. Even amongst our team, we have different approaches: I come from a very competitive running background. In high school and college, I was a jumper/sprinter, and I'm the sort of person who tries to catch other runners when she's out on the streets. It's terrible and silly and probably bad for my karma but when I see someone else running more slowly than me? It only makes me go faster.

That said, I'm a lot slower than some of the other women on our team. We all ran a half-marathon together back in October and I struggled in at just over 10-minute miles. When I started training in earnest for the Hood-to-Coast, I decided my goal was to get back to my post-college speed of 8-minute miles, partially so I could run in the same league as some of my fearsome running mama buddies, and partially so I could regain that feeling I used to have when I was 23 and in awesome shape, when I used to get to the four-mile mark of a 10K and feel great.

I'm very into the mental aspect of running; I've had some "Psych-K" training and more than your average dose of quantum physics "create your day" philosophy, and lots of yoga, soaking into my brain. So last night when I ran I stepped it up a few hundred percent. I ran uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back, negative splits, you know. I crushed my previous time heading into a three-block uphill that's usually the end of my run. And I visualized myself running fast, high knees, clear lungs, energy energy energy and I laid it out. I was as fast as one can be at the end of a 4.5-mile run. I was thoroughly in the zone.

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