By Dana Shultz of My Little Celebration

Question: How do you make Valentine’s Day even sexier than it already is? Easy. Make it vegan. Because nothing says sexy like healthy, and vegans know all about that.  

Vegans not only enjoy countless health benefits from their diet – like lowered risk of heart disease and a trim figure – but they also save cows left and right and promote fair treatment of all animals in the process. Does it get any sexier than that? I think not.

And the best part? Going vegan doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s as simple as finding ingredients that don’t contain animal products to substitute into your favorite recipes, like flaxseed for eggs, soy milk for cow milk, and vegan butter for real butter.

Needing some recipe inspiration to get you started? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered for Valentine’s Day – morning, noon and night.

View our slideshow to see recipes for Vegan Black Bean Brownie Pancakes, Vegan Peanut Stew, and more!

Jimmy Fallon in spandex at the White House? Where’s Secret Service or a good watch dog when you need them?

The first lady continues a marathon promotion for her Let’s Move initiative’s second anniversary with an appearance tonight on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In one of the grand rooms of the White House, Michelle challenges Jimmy to a field day-like competition. Only after he changes out of the spandex and in to proper workout attire.

After announcing at a press conference that the first lady would “be willing to make a complete fool of myself to get kids moving,” Jimmy wanted to take full advantage. However, as you’ll see in this clip from last night’s episode, Michelle more or less whips Jimmy at each competition. Who’s the fool now?

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Single, two kids, sick, unemployed, and weighing in at 315 pounds, Marilyn Chivetta’s story seemed hopeless. That might be most people, but it’s not Marilyn. This is a woman whose wedding was called off six days before the vows, and she still hosted the reception, a party she ended up calling the Broken Heart Ball.

“I celebrate everything, all of the time,” she told us. While she used the party to momentarily pick up the pieces of a life that unexpectedly shattered around her, it wasn’t long before she turned all of her focus to her young son and not herself. Then, a car accident would break her back leading to multiple health problems that would render her unable to work. At the end of 2010, when things couldn’t seem to get much worse, she received an eviction notice for her rented house; she learned the landlord hadn’t been making the mortgage payments.

“One thing lead to another and the next thing you know I’m over 300 pounds,” Marilyn said. “I started 2011 barely walking. Things were really bad, I was really sick,” she told us.

It was then that she had that all-important “ah-ha” moment. She says she prayed about what to do, and relied on her faith. Her plan was to “lose the weight and go see Oprah.” It didn’t quite happen that way, but her outreach to Oprah did land her an appearance on Dr. Phil in spring 2011. That was the turning point.

At her heaviest, Marilyn weighed 315 pounds. Today, she’s down more than 129, and notes that the number is “so far,” because she’s not done. She lost the weight in about 10 months, and credits the majority to her Bistro MD diet.

“I started feeling better within three days,” she says of the Bistro MD meals, which were afforded to her after her Dr. Phil appearance to help her lose weight and start regaining her life.
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Maria Menounos is a woman of her word, and hosted Extra donning a New York Giants bikini in the wintery streets of NYC on Monday after she bet fellow correspondent AJ Calloway that the New England Patriots would win this year’s Super Bowl.

The sight of Menounos in the tiny bikini hosting next to a bundled up Mario Lopez, however, could be enough to make any Pats fan cheer for Giants colors. Menounos looked amazing, showing off her slim and toned body, showing that just because it’s winter, doesn’t mean you should let your workout routine slip.

Menounos has never been shy about her love of fitness and that she got into shape on her own. In an interview with Fitness Magazine, Menounos opened up about gaining weight in college, reaching a size 14, and how she took it off all by herself.

“I did it on my own, when I was dirt-poor,” she says. “And I’ve kept it off for nine years.”

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Katharine McPhee has overcome huge personal challenges on her journey to professional success. Currently getting big attention for her role in the new show Smash, McPhee has found a balanced approach to food and exercise after struggling with a severe eating disorder. The singer and actress suffered from bulimia for many years, culminating in three months of rehab at Los Angeles’s Eating Disorder Center of California.

McPhee tried to address her cycle of binging and purging by a number of different approaches, from therapists to Food Addicts Anonymous. She ultimately found success through intuitive eating, which helped her overcome her fear of “bad” foods and curb her binge eating. Counter-intuitively, once McPhee stopped obsessing over her weight, she was able to drop 30 pounds.

“The more I focused on my weight, the worse my bulimia got,” McPhee said. “Now I’m more easygoing. I stopped fighting myself and became more forgiving of my body. Ironically, the weight came off naturally through exercise but no dieting.” She says she works to avoid a “diet mentality” to prevent relapses.

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