What If You Were a Fat Vampire?

You’ll have to forgive me for the following analogy, but I’ve always had a thing for vampire stories (LONG before teams Edward and Jacob emerged!) and subsequently I’ve been immersed lately in the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series (the stories from which HBO’s True Blood were derived) by Charlaine Harris.  Though there are many variations in vampire myths in terms of their behaviors and weaknesses (garlic, crosses, sparkling in the sunlight), there is one thing all vampire stories have in common. When a person becomes a vampire, they remain as they are at the time they are turned — for eternity (or until they meet the sun). That means, if you are a handsome young man, you will forever appear to be a handsome young man. If you are a tall, buxom woman, you will forever be a tall, buxom woman. And lest you think you could get a boob reduction (if we’re talking modern vampire stories), in most lore, think again. Because of a vampires ability to heal, the likely result of any cosmetic surgery would be the eventual return to the way things were at the time the vampire was turned.

Ok, yes, I realize I’ve put way more thought into this than what might be considered healthy for a grown woman, but the whole thing got me thinking: what if you were bitten, and instead of like in the movies where all the vampires are sealed in a state of perfection for eternity (thanks to lots of HD make-up and computer enhancements), you weren’t exactly at your fighting weight when you were turned. Ok, let’s drop the euphemisms. Let’s say you were fat when the undead came along and sunk his teeth into you, bringing you over to the dark side. Imagine knowing that no matter what you did or ate (and let’s face it, drinking blood can’t really be all that calorically dense) or how much you ran at lightening speed to catch your prey, you would never, ever lose weight (ok, you might already feel that way). Would you be destined to spend an eternity feeling depressed because your body didn’t meet the ideal of one short period in history? Would you sulk around waiting for the next Rubenesque period to come along? Would you seek out Fat Vampire Support Groups?

I see a different scenario for my imaginary fat vampire. Maybe at first, you are a bit bummed about being stuck at your less-than-ideal weight until the end of days. But I think that would quickly be replaced by the incredible new abilities and opportunities you would have. Sure, immortality has its down side, but just play along with me here!

First of all, vampires have notoriously super-human strength. Imagine being able to walk down a dark alley and not being afraid of anything or anyone because whomever came along (except maybe an older, more powerful vampire), you could kick their butt! Secondly, they heal pretty quickly. Paper cut? No problem. Broken arm? So what? Severed leg? You’ll grow a new one! Third, in many vampire stories, you can fly, if not in your ‘human’ form, at least in bat form. Now I know most people aren’t crazy about bats, but hey, if you could fly from New York to LA without having to buy a plane ticket — especially with today’s prices, would you really complain too much? Fourth, you probably have some mind control over humans so you can make them do whatever you want. Hey — I’m not saying I would want — or use — that ability myself, but as long as we’re looking at the pros here, give me a little slack! And of course, even though you would be fat for eternity, cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and other problems associated obesity will be a thing of the past. No more doctors giving you the tsk tsk and telling you that you’d better lose weight or else (or else you’d suck his blood!).

And then there are the opportunities! Bucket list? How about Giant Vat list? I mean, so you didn’t get to do that study abroad program in Paris that you were dying to do in college. Now you can go next year, or next decade, or next century. What’s the rush? It will still be there. Never had enough time to learn a foreign language? Now you can learn ten! What’s that hobby you’ve been meaning to take up but thought it would just be a waste of time? Knitting? Fencing? Wind-surfing? (Ok, that one you might have to forgo, since I’ve never heard of night wind-surfing). You get the idea.

What I’m trying to say here — the long confusing obscured point I’m trying to make is that if you absolutely positively had no other choice but to accept the only reality that was given to you, you would HAVE to eventually give in to it — embrace it even. So why not do it now? Why not learn to be content in the reality you are in even if it’s while trying to bring about a new reality. I’m not saying succumb to all of the things that give you grief in life, but I am asking you to consider accepting that it’s a part of your life, but only just that — one part. And it’s a part that may change — a part that you may choose to and have the power to change. Or it’s a part that might be that way forever. But dwelling on the negative things in our lives, whether it’s our body shape, the size of our breasts, or anything else that we perceive as less than, can make our short lives on this planet feel like an eternity, but more like an eternity in hell.

So take a look at your life — all of it, and reflect on what you love about it. Reflect on what you can change about it. And reflect on what will always be. And live it. All of it. With zeal.

Shapewear: Do or Don’t?

Many body positive advocates take issue with shapewear feeling that it encourages women to hide or transform their bodies in an attempt to come closer to an ideal that is unattainable for most. I take a more flexible approach. I don’t feel the need to hide my body, or conform it in uncomfortable restrictive ways. However, on occasion, I have an outfit — a dress, a cute top with jeans — that in my opinion, on my body, looks better with smooth lines. Smooth lines that are more easily created by wearing shapewear. I don’t look at it as some problem I have to solve as some ads might want me to think, but simply a style preference.

So yes, I own a few shapewear pieces myself. Do I wear them every day? No. Would I recommend them to everyone? No. It’s a personal choice, and I would never encourage anyone to wear something that made them feel uncomfortable or even that they are sacrificing comfort for fashion. I’m a big proponent that you should be able to have both!

What do I wear? Well, early this year, I blogged about a Merona Fit Solutions Faux Wrap Dress. I think it’s an excellent example of having a streamlined look while staying true to myself and my body. It doesn’t mold my body into something it’s not. It doesn’t make me feel like if I eat dessert, I will burst out of the seams. But it does make me feel like my look is more pulled together and I like that.

I was also given the opportunity not long ago to review the Spanx Bra-llelujah bra, which I absolutely love. Not only is it the most comfortable bra I’ve ever owned, but, as promised it smooths things out under my t-shirts.

More recently, I bought a couple of Hanes shapewear items at Target. I will be wearing this Hanes Waist Cincher in black (don’t let the name full you — it’s not really a death grip on your waist) with the outfit I picked out to wear to my 20-year high school reunion.The outfit consists of a pair of dark rinse trouser jeans I picked up from Banana Republic (thankfully there were on sale for $49.99) and a cute sparkly gray tank top from Express. I bought the outfit before I had the shapewear, and I would be perfectly happy to wear it without the Hanes cincher. But for me, the smooth look that comes from wearing it makes the outfit look even better.

Oddly enough, the other piece of shapewear I bought recently at Target has been impossible to find online. It’s also from Hanes and is similar in style to this Spanx Open Bust Camisole, but at Target I found the Hanes version for only $14.99. I actually bought this one to go with my reunion outfit only to find that the back of the cami goes up too high for the tank top, which is how I ended up with the cincher. But I have been wearing the Cami shapewear almost every day because I actually find that my posture is better when I wear it.

So am I recommending that you go out and buy a piece of shapewear? Not in the least. But if you like how you look and feel in it, I can personally recommend the Hanes products.

Eat, Pray, Love: An Invitation for Inner Reflection

by Michelle Market, LPC

I recently finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, in much anticipation of my favorite actress playing the leading role in the movie that came out on August 13. The book prompted an intervention of inner reflection, all done through the lenses of Elizabeth Gilbert. I interpreted the book as a journey into reaching a comfort in your own skin and finding the silence within. Gilbert offers nuggets of advice through her own experiences of trials and tribulations, as she visits Italy, India, and Bali in a quest to find herself.

As you read through this article, I invite each of you to delve into your own personal journey and re-create your own experience of self-reflection outlined in the mindfulness exercises presented below.

EAT (Italy)
As Americans, we are constantly misunderstanding what happiness and pleasure is. So often we are caught telling ourselves, “I will be happy when …. I change careers, move, the children are older, I make more money.” Take a step back and start to reflect, instead, on creating happiness and pleasure on a daily basis. Gilbert outlined a few questions while in Italy to rekindle her own quest for pleasure. The clearer you can paint the picture the greater direction you will have in attaining this daily presence in your life.

How do you define pleasure?
What would you enjoy doing today?
What would bring you pleasure right now?

Italy Mindfulness Experience
Order a gelato. Before even stepping into the store, ask yourself, what flavor am I in the mood for?  Is it something sweet, like strawberry, indulgent as chocolate, or perhaps something minty and crisp, like a mint chocolate? Find a comfortable setting to enjoy your refreshing gelato. Take notice of the coldness, crispness, texture and smoothness as you taste each spoonful. Push away any negative thoughts or feelings about the experience. With each spoonful imagine that you are on streets of Rome. Notice the beauty of the gelato, its color, its appeal, and the taste. Be present as you indulge in each spoonful.

Pray (India)
While in India, Gilbert challenges us to keep our fire going. She invites us to look within for motivation.

“How do you keep the motivation to stay with it. Well, what is the alternative. Is it to quit whenever something gets challenging? The answer has to be no.”

Creating a healthy food relationship does not occur over night. It is an on-going process, an on-going journey. So much of what we want in life takes time, effort and diligence. It does not happen through osmosis.

In India, Gilbert was exploring being with her mind and her life experiences. I thought this quote hit home as an invitation to re-evaluate how you view things that have happened in your own life.

“There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction….I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life, where I will see them as curses or opportunities”

What choices will you make in terms of how you view your life and the path that your life has taken? Will you choose a different path? Will you embrace the path that you are on? Will you seek out additional support in your life? How do you view your own happiness?

“people tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.

India Mindfulness Experience

In this experience, I want you to focus on quieting your mind. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote, Sneaking Quiet time into Your Day:

Quieting our mind, results in becoming more centered.  Gilbert demonstrated this in her experience in India that was developed as a result of her practice and due-diligence. When we have slowness in our day we develop greater awareness of what is going on in our mind, body and with our emotions.

Steps to incorporate meditation into your day:
•    Chose a time in the day that is most conducive to your meditation practice. (All you need is 5 minutes).
•    Initially, it is helpful to set a timer (start at 5 minutes).
•    Find a space where you can sit comfortably. Sit up tall with your legs uncrossed. Have your hands open and palms up. Close your eyes.
•    Find a word to focus on that will elicit a calm response. For example, peace, acceptance, slow, breathe.
•    When you have other thoughts that enter your mind picture them as clouds floating through the sky and then focus back on the calming word that you had chosen, refer to this as your mantra.
•    Take notice of taking slow, intentional deep breaths. Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Love (Bali)
When Gilbert was in Bali she had to get re-acquainted with her heart. In this experience, I want you to get re-acquainted with yourself. Being your own best friend and support takes some commitment to learning to be comfortable by yourself.  During Gilbert’s stay in Bali she examined the concept of self-esteem building, which I believe to be an integral piece of having a healthy food relationship.

“So much about self esteem building is choosing your outlook. How will you speak to yourself. Will you entertain negative thoughts or refute them. Will you dwell in negativity or break free. Will you ruminate on the things that you cannot control, or will you accept life. (p260)

Bali Mindfulness Experience
Make a date with yourself this week to do something that is purely fun for you, not what you think you should be doing. Instead of waiting, incorporate small pleasurable experiences within your week. For example, a visit to a nearby museum, catching a movie, lunch at your favorite sandwich shop, or perusing the books at a bookstore.  Get reacquainted with yourself and enjoy your own company, indulge in the following questions as a way to take an inventory in your life right now.

I Want …
I Am…
I Need…
I Value…
I Require…
I Believe…

Imagine getting to a place in your life where you are able to sit in silence with yourself; where you are able to have an enjoyable dining experience by yourself; where you are able to commune with nature by yourself.

Gilbert invites us to learn your way around loneliness and your feelings (both positive and negative). She suggests to make a map of it and sit with it. Welcome it. Learn to savor and nurture it. Learn to sit with yourself. Get comfortable with the silence of your mind. Disordered eating distracts us from really being present in our bodies and in our life. It keeps us from listening to our emotional needs.
May you continue on your own journey to accept yourself imperfections, flaws and all. To embrace your beauty and greatness. Just Be You! Be your Authentic Self. Stop running and be present in your life. You only get one shot.

EDNOS: The Eating Disorder You Haven’t Heard Of

When I received the diagnosis of Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified two years ago, I had a very mixed reaction. On the one hand, the label didn’t seem to fit. Me? With an eating disorder? I wasn’t underweight, and in fact was technically on the edge of being overweight. I had intentionally thrown up from time to time, but certainly was not bulimic. I had tried starving myself periodically in an attempt to get my weight under control, but I definitely wasn’t anorexic. At the most I considered myself a chronic dieter, or someone who at times could be a little obsessed with healthy eating and exercise. I could agree that my eating was very disordered but to identify myself as someone with an eating disorder made me squirm in my seat a bit. (For more on the differences between disorders and disordered eating, read Disordered Eating or Eating Disorder?)

On the other hand, after hearing my therapist tell me I had an eating disorder, I felt relief. After all, I was there to get help, and if I could label my problem, perhaps the solution would come more easily. I was ready to silence the voice in my head that made me obsess over my body and food 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and if giving that voice the name ED (for Eating Disorder) would help, I was willing to accept it.

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is February 21-27 this year, which seems like a good opportunity to bring attention to this lesser known sibling of Anorexia and Bulimia. Everyone knows about Anorexia and Bulimia, but EDNOS, which has only recently begun to receive recognition in the mental health community can be as equally dangerous and life consuming as its better known counterparts.

So what does Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified mean? Well, the short answer is a “category [of] disorders of eating that do not meet the criteria of a specific eating disorder,” according to the most recently updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Ultimately, the definition is more anecdotal which explains why it is often harder to identify, though according to the publication Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 50 percent of individuals who present for treatment of an eating disorder receive the diagnosis of EDNOS which effects 4 to 6 percent of the general population.*

While many of the criteria for EDNOS may closely mimic anorexia or bulimia, some behaviors are less obvious, and in fact, within our diet and body-obsessed culture, can appear perfectly normal. What may look to an outsider as just another diet involving close monitoring of caloric intake as well as exercise, may in fact become — if not already — an unhealthy and unnatural way to control weight based on an intense drive to be thin combined with an unrealistic body image. On the flip side, EDNOS also includes the sub-category of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) which is often overlooked as a simple lack of willpower and/or self control. Regardless of wherever a patient lies in the spectrum of EDNOS, it is important to realize that the emotional trauma suffered as a result of the disorder is equal to that of Anorexia and Bulimia, and should not be seen as anything less than a serious illness.

The introduction of EDNOS as an accepted diagnosis “gives a voice to sufferers who don’t fit into the narrow diagnostic categories of Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder” said Shannon Cutts, author of ANA: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder and Take Your Life Back, and founder of Mentor Connect, a community of people in recovery from eating and related disorders.

Cutts, who herself suffered from Anorexia, Bulimia and EDNOS feels grateful for the recognition of EDNOS, and encourages sufferers to seek help. “If you know that your symptoms, thoughts, and behaviors are affecting your quality of life, then you both need and deserve help. Use your voice and ask for help. Do not assume you are the only one who “doesn’t fit” into a category and therefore you don’t deserve help. There are many people who suffer from EDNOS and you help not just yourself but everyone who suffers from it when you demand the care you deserve. Search out a medical professional who is familiar with eating disorders rather than struggling to educate an unsympathetic doctor or therapist. Be your own health care advocate. You know better than anyone else when you are struggling and need help. Eating disorders kill, and just because your symptoms don’t fall into the three most commonly-recognized categories does not mean they are not equally deadly.”

The health complications that arise from eating disorders are extensive, and include low blood pressure, slower heart rate, a decrease in bone density, a disruption in hormones, sometimes leading to infertility, and more. Even more alarming is the fact that eating disorders have the highest rate of death among any mental disorder — just one episode of bingeing and purging can cause an electrolyte imbalance causing sudden death. That is why it is so important to recognize that eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, and present themselves in a variety of ways.

Is there treatment for EDNOS? Though whole rehabilitation centers have risen to address the problems specific to Anorexia, Bulimia, and even Binge Eating Disorder, there is help for other non specified eating disorders. The effort to overcome any eating disorder is extensive and should not be downplayed. Most of the times, the help of a mental health professional is necessary, and the journey through recovery is never quick and painless. But when you consider the alternative of living a life plagued by self loathing, fear of food, and serious health risks, including a premature death, the effort is one that must be undertaken to break free and live a full and happy life.

As for my own journey, to be honest, it’s an ongoing process. Sometimes it’s two steps forward, one step back. But as Jenni Schaefer, author of Life Without Ed, and Goodbye Ed, Hello Me likes to say, fall down seven times, stand up eight.

Book Review: Women Food and God

After reading a sample chapter of Geneen Roth’s new book Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything my former therapist sent to me, I immediately went to Amazon, ordered the book, paid for upgraded overnight shipping, and waited impatiently for it to arrive while going back and rereading the sample chapter (which is Chapter 4, entitled “It’s Not About the Weight, but it’s Not Not About the Weight.” Saturday morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee, went out on my patio in the chilly morning spring air, and opened up the book. As I devoured page after page, tears streamed down my face as I felt both happiness and sadness with each sentence I read and identified so deeply with: happiness to realize how far I have come in my own journey to ending years of disordered eating habits and finally reaching levels of fulfillment I never thought possible, and sadness to recognize the isolation and emptiness so many around me feel and try to numb themselves from with food.

Let me preface this review by saying I am not a religious person, and when the book was first brought to my attention, I initially dismissed it, turned off by the title. I didn’t feel that God has anything to do with my relationship with food, and, I was guilty of judging a book by its cover (or in this case, the title). So, if you are inclined to dismiss it for those reasons, don’t. The book is less about God, and more about finding a space within ourselves — a space we often fill with food, rather than exploring to its depths. Some people, when they open themselves up to that space have a name for it in God. Others might define it in broader terms like spirituality. And some might simply feel it as being one with themselves and all around them. The point of the book is to demonstrate how the relationship so many people (or more specifically in this book, women) have with food keeps us from any of those things, and more importantly how to change that relationship.

In part one, Roth addresses the “God” part of the book and how God related to dieting for her in the past. “Dieting was like praying. It was a plaintive cry to whoever was listening: I know I am fat. I know I am ugly. I know I am undisciplined, but see how hard I try. See how violently I restrict myself, deprive myself, punish myself. Sure there must be a reward for those who know how horrible they are.” She talks about how dieting gave her a purpose — perhaps much in the same way religion might for some people, and then she goes on to say “bingeing gave me relief from the relentless attempt to be someone else.”

Roth has written many books (which I am sad to say I have not yet read) on the subject of emotional eating, but a realization she says she has only recently come to is that “the radical part of the tale is not that I stopped dieting; it’s that I stopped trying to fix myself.” This reminded me of a similar realization I came to and wrote about in the article Self Acceptance vs Body Acceptance in which I proclaimed to end the urge to fix myself.

And yet, it is often hard to imagine a world in which we are not constantly trying to fix ourselves, especially our bodies. For one, it’s how women have learned to relate to each other. As Roth points out, “we fit in by hating ourselves.” I’m sure from time to time you come across that person who seems to hold that secret to happiness and balance the rest of us struggle daily to find, and isn’t there just a tad of resentment towards them? Maybe you’re just waiting to see them fall in order to prove they too  are actually imperfect humans like you, which probably explains our obsession with celebrities and the great joy many find in seeing photos of their cellulite and jelly rolls as we go through the check out line with smirks on our faces. It’s almost as if there is something wrong with someone if they don’t hate themselves — or at least some part of themselves. And yet, the ability to see their imperfections and embrace them as part of a greater whole is what makes them happy, and it’s the lack of that ability that keeps others from achieving true happiness.

It’s also hard to let go of the belief that achieving weight loss will be accompanied with the answers to all of our problems. Though on a rational level, we can understand that a number on the scale won’t change the world, “the promise of weight loss is that it will allow [us] to live on a magical piece of earth from which everything else will be manageable … If I fix myself so that I am no longer myself, then everything will be fine. My feelings will be manageable.”

In the chapter entitled “Never Underestimate the Inclination to Bolt” Roth addresses head on why we might avoid overcoming compulsive eating (or dieting). She bluntly states it when she says “compulsive eaters wouldn’t have an obsession with food if we believed that life was tolerable without it … There is madness in obsession, yes, but its value is that it drowns out the madness of life.” This sentiment is followed by the chapter that hooked me on the book: It’s Not About the Weight, but It’s Not Not About the Weight. And that’s when Roth goes on to explain the conundrum of addressing the very real problems that are created by excess weight: diabetes, joint pain, shortness of breath, and for many, a general decrease in the quality of life due to health complications, while all the while trying to unsurface the deeper issues which are being covered up by the weight problems. Here is a very poignant passage from the chapter:

“The bottom line, whether you weight 340 pounds or 150 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom, or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection. Food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb. Of creating a secondary problem when the original problem becomes too uncomfortable. Of dying slowly rather than coming to terms with your messy, magnificent and very, very short — even at a hundred years old — life. The means to these ends happens to be food, but it could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine. Surfing the Internet. Talking on the phone … Weight (too much or too little) is a by product. Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life.”

And, if you’re thinking your compulsive eating stems from a simple case of too much love for food, Roth has an answer for that too: “When you like something — love something, you take time with it you want to be present for every second of the rapture … Overeating does not lead to rapture. It leads to burping and farting and being so sick that you can’t think of anything but how full you are. That’s not love; that’s suffering.” How can you love something that makes you sick over and over again? It’s like returning to an abusive partner every time they say they are sorry, and really, they do love you, and really, it won’t happen again. But like so many women who are abused and feel that they somehow deserve the abuse — as if they brought it on themselves, compulsive eaters and dieters continue to punish themselves through their relationship with food because they don’t feel worthy of something better.

Like most other books that address emotional eating, Women Food and God is for those ready to do some serious work and reflection on their lives. Roth challenges the reader to face head on the pain and uncomfortable feelings that drive them to eat when they’re bodies are telling them not to. What she reminds the reader over and over throughout the book is that the very feelings they feel will destroy them are the same feelings that allow us — everyone of us to feel alive. If you are ready to top numbing yourself with food and dieting, start feeling alive, this beautiful written, incredibly powerful book is for you.

Self Acceptance vs Body Acceptance

I use the phrase “self acceptance” a lot. I believe very strongly in the power of self acceptance, and am devoted to helping others find a place of self acceptance. On my own journey towards body acceptance, I came to use the term self acceptance interchangeably with body acceptance, not differentiating between the two phrases. But in a recent conversation with my Life Coach Andrea Owen, I realized the body acceptance is only part of self acceptance, and reaching one doesn’t neccessarily equate to achieving the other.

Through several years of active work with the help of a mental health professional, I have overcome my eating disorder, and have begun a love affair with my body — something I never thought possible without first losing a lot of weight and reaching some kind of societal ideal. And when I realized I had reached this moment, I celebrated this monumental achievement by claiming self acceptance for myself at last.

And then I sort of clapped my hands together with the sense of satisfaction that comes from fixing something that is broken, metaphorically said to myself “Ok, so what’s next?” and went on to start working on fixing the other areas of myself that I saw as broken. Aside from my relationship with food and my body, the qualities about myself that I saw as needing dire improvements were my organizational skills (or lack of them) and my time management skills (or again, the lack of them). Just as I was once convinced that losing weight would change everything and give me the happiness and success I so desired, I held firm to the belief that transforming my cluttered unorganized personality into a compartmentalized and structured Type A personality would help me achieve my dreams. It was at this point that I hired my Andrea, and told her of the list of things I hoped to accomplish, but felt that meeting those goals could ultimately done by focusing on the areas of organization and time management.

Throughout each conversation, I lamented the mess on my desk, the clutter in my brain (i.e. the inability to focus on any one thing at a time), and the fact that I wasted countless minutes on meaningless things like Facebook when I should be focused any of the kazillion tasks I had on my to-do list. I would harp on my childhood, blaming my upbringing which lacked any kind of structure, organization, or discipline, and dream of waving a magic wand which would transform me into the Type A personality I thought I should be. I mean, after all, what are the merits of being disorganized and not managing my time well?

And then one day, Andrea said “What if that’s just you?” She suggested, if just for a moment, setting aside my desire to be a different kind of person, and reflect on the possibility of staying the way I am. “What would happen?” she asked. “Would your husband leave you? Would your kids suffer? Would your world fall apart?” Andrea reminded me that I’ve gotten along pretty well doing things my way for 37 years, and in fact, I’ve done more than just get along. I would actually define my life as pretty successful. I have a fantastic marriage. I have terrific kids who are smart, creative, and compassionate — to name a few of their qualities, I have a web site that I’ve worked hard on for the last year, and have had several big milestones related to it. I could go on, but the point is, Andrea was right. “My” ways may not be perfect, but then, what is? And they’ve worked pretty well over time. Maybe with my disorganization comes my creativity, not bound by constraints. Perhaps with my less rigid time management tendencies comes the willingness to try new things and be spontaneous. The things that bug me about myself are inseparable from what I love about myself, so why not learn to love the whole package?

Have there been frustrations? Of course. I hate it when I can’t find something because I didn’t put it back in it’s place. Occasionally I miss a deadline of some sort. But for the most part, projects get done, bills get paid, and my house is generally not a terrible mess, though I’m sure there are plenty of Type As that would disagree. (It would help if my dog didn’t shed so much!) But then, ask any one with a Type A personality, and they will find plenty to complain about in their own nature, often wishing for a little more flexibility and spontaneity that comes with a more disorganized (for lack of a better word) mind like my own.

Of course, my realizations and new level of acceptance don’t mean that I am going to stop cleaning my house, never wear a watch, and let chaos take over — no more than learning to accept my body led to eating with abandon. But I will no longer try to be what I am not, and instead reflect on the values that come from who I already am — which I tend to think is a pretty awesome person. What have you thought you needed to change about yourself? Is it possible that the qualities you most want to change are integrally connected to what make you wonderful?

Book Review: The Body Love Manual — How to Love the Body You Have as You Create the Body You Want

You might find it strange to think that you need a manual on loving your body, but in fact, there is a book written by Elizabeth “Lily” Hills called The Body Love Manual*, and that’s precisely what it sets out to do — teach you to love your body. Right now, go to a mirror, look yourself directly in the eye and say “I love my body.” How does that feel? When one person I know said those words out loud, she said she felt silly. Silly because nothing could be further from the truth for her, as I suspect is the case with most people. I don’t have any statistics on how many people dislike their bodies, but if I were to take a guess, I would probably say that most people range somewhere from a vague dislike to an intense hatred of their bodies. And our eating habits confirm that.

It seems like most of us are either on a diet, trying to create a body that we can feel happy with, or treating our body with complete disregard, filling it beyond capacity with foods that would make our body scream in pain if it could talk. And then, when we can’t stand to look in the mirror anymore, or feel totally out of control around food, we go on a diet. Again. But let’s face it — diets don’t work.

Ninety-five percent of people who go on a diet regain the weight lost, and often more, within five years. But how are we supposed to reconcile those statistics with things like “obesity epidemic” or “1 in 3 Americans are overweight” and “war on obesity”. If diets don’t work, how are we supposed to cure our country of unhealthy eating habits and an inactive lifestyle? Jamie Oliver thinks he has the answer with his Food Revolution. Michelle Obama hopes she has the answers in trying to eradicate childhood obesity by encouraging kids to get off the sofa and get outdoors. In both cases, the focus, ultimately, is about teaching people to live healthier lives — to choose apple slices instead of chips, grilled chicken instead of burgers, bike riding instead of Playstation. But together, both Obama and Oliver are only getting at half the problem — which is what people eat, and without addressing the other half — why people eat, they will never reach the long term success they both genuinely want and hope to achieve.

The concept of intuitive eating is gaining momentum and working towards that goal with the help of books like Intuitive Eating, and Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat will be far more effective than wagging the finger at people in an effort to get them to make better choices. The Body Love Manual takes intuitive eating one step further by guiding readers through a process of identifying what it is that keeps them so disconnected from the bodies, preventing them from listening to and properly nourishing their bodies. Though the subtitle of the book is How to Love the Body You Have as You Create the Body You Want, don’t be mistaken. This is not a diet book in disguise. The Body Love Manual is for anyone ready to put away dieting forever, deciding to become an intuitive eater, and challenging the thoughts and feelings that so far have preventing you from achieving that goal. Integral to this process is learning, as the title suggests, to love your body. As Hills points out, “The human body is tragically under-appreciated, neglected, and abused…The fact is that it is very hard to feel motivated to take care of something you don’t care about. Conversely, when you care deeply for and truly honor your body, you will be far more likely to make the healthier choices for it.”

The Body Love Manual should not be a quick read. It requires reflection and real emotional work. But ask yourself if you identify with this passage from the book:

“As the number I saw on my bathroom scale went up, my sense of self-worth plummeted. During this period of my life, it was rare for me to appreciate and value any of my other qualities … [which] became secondary in comparison to my weight.”

If you feel like you could have written those words yourself, then perhaps it is time to begin the work towards loving your body because “When your thoughts about yourself are respectful and appreciative, you will begin to attract more positive experiences of all kinds into your life.”

Though the Body Love Manual talks about achieving your ideal weight, you might begin to question what your “ideal weight” is and in fact you may find that you are already there, because your “ideal weight” should reflect a healthy lifestyle that is not measured by a number on the scale but by the feelings that come from your mind and body which will tell you when you’ve reached it.

*As required by FCC law, I am disclosing that The Body Love Manual was donated by the author for purposes of this review.

To My Body, the Vessel of My Soul

by Anonymous

I offer you this apology for the many times I have treated you badly.
For not giving you rest when you were tired
For not feeding you when you were hungry
For overfeeding you when you weren’t
For putting you in danger with smoking and too much weight

For comparing you incessantly to other bodies and usually deciding that you came up short
For the harsh words, thoughts and scrutiny over qualities about you that I deemed as less than
For falling victim to others’ definitions of beauty and not defending my own
For my disappointment when you didn’t do things fast enough or strong enough
For placing you on a pedestal with lavish praise so fleetingly that it must have felt like you were the victim of emotional abuse – which I suppose you were

But the truth is this
You are strong in so many ways
You’ve got an immunity of steel and can heal yourself so quickly
You can carry your weight in grocery bags and a two-year old for hours with your strong left arm
You can hear a child crying in the middle of the night and drag yourself out of sleep to comfort him
You can run for a long time and cover a lot of distance

And you are beautiful
With your Easter hair and cat green eyes
With your sexy Morgan nose and breasts so perfect their authenticity has been questioned
Your ears and nose and eyebrows are fine featured and delicate
You have strong muscular legs

And you work – you work extraordinarily well with very little complaining. And so I apologize and I praise and I thank you. You are a gift from God – made perfectly in his eyes – who am I to criticize the works of his hand?

When Weight Loss Is the Ultimate Indicator of Success

If you’ve read some of my more personal posts on VenusVision, or you otherwise know me, you know my body image and food issues go way back. In fact, my first diet was the Beverly Hills Diet at age 7. I don’t remember feeling fat at the time, but for some reason my mom and I went on this diet together (for the record, she wasn’t fat either). The main thing I remember about the diet — which I didn’t realize as such — was that all the nuts and dried fruit were having an “effect” on my digestive system. I was worried about all the trips to the bathroom, but my mom explained that the food was doing its work “cleaning out my system.”

Other early memories include giving my pudding away because I knew it would make me fat, and later on in elementary school, being offered incentives to lose weight (though again, I wasn’t fat, but perhaps on the high end of “normal” and therefore bigger than most of my peers).

The diets increased, though the weight loss never came, and as for so many girls and women it became nothing short of a quest. I was searching for the Holy Grail of weight loss because surely with it would come the label of success which I otherwise felt unable to reach.

I graduated from high school as an honor roll student after pulling my grades out of the gutter. But it didn’t mean anything when I put on my graduation dress and it was tight, revealing my large tummy. (As soon as I took off my graduation gown, I immediately changed out of my dress as well before anyone could see me in it.)

I graduated from college, again with high marks, but still didn’t feel as though I had reached success because I had not lost weight.

I earned a black belt in Karate, but could never stop thinking about how my Ghi pants never got looser during my training.

I ran half marathons, but felt defeated after looking at the race photos and seeing my flabby legs.

I birthed two children but always lamented my flabby middle from which they came.

I completed a triathlon, but worried about how I looked in my wet suit, and cropped the after-race photo before sharing with my friends to avoid showing my legs in my bike shorts.

No matter what great accomplishments I succeeded in, it was always overshadowed by one thing. My failure to lose weight.

Once, actually, I did manage to lose a fair amount of weight, reaching the lowest number on the scale I had ever seen as an adult. When I reached what I thought would be my “goal” weight, I wasn’t happy. That weight did not reveal the body I desired. So still, I felt like a failure.

And of course, any temporary weight loss I ever did manage to achieve was met with what seemed like far more recognition than any other accomplishment. I learned early on to judge others by their weight and assumed accordingly that every person judged me by mine.

So if I was able to do all of these other things, why couldn’t I succeed at the one thing I had been working at my whole life? At least that’s one way of looking at the situation. Of course, another way of looking at it was to ask myself why I defined success almost entirely by a number on a scale or the size clothing I was wearing? And, after living and thinking that way most of my life, how was I going to change that way of thinking?

Well, it’s taken a lot of work, much of which was done with the help of a professional. I have worked on reframing the constant barrage of negative thoughts that used to invade my head 24/7.  In the past, I would take note of every body (not ‘everybody’ but EVERY BODY) that came into my visual range, and compare my body to theirs. Was I thinner or fatter than each person in the room, I would think to myself. Now I still notice everyone in the room, but instead of seeing what might be noted as flaws, I look for their unique characteristics that make them beautiful.

By judging others less on their appearance, and  stopping the constant comparison of myself to them, I was able to begin the work of accepting my body, and end the cycle of constant dieting/deprivation/calorie counting that has made me miserable for so many years. Of course, there were many elements to my progress, many of which are highlighted in the article Celebrate Your Body.

I have come a long way, and most days, I can look in the mirror, noticing all the things about myself I used to see as flaws, and simply see them as they are — parts of me. At the same time, my reflection in the mirror has little do with any of the things I accomplish day to day. All of my successes, both large and small have come about through hard work and dedication, and are — I realize now — completely unrelated to a number on the scale.

Some days, every now and then, the old thoughts come creeping back in, and a voice starts telling me I am fat, but I know now that I need to ignore those voices, not just because they are  negative, but because they are irrelevant. Yet, what I have noticed, is those days crop up when other things are bothering me, and I don’t want to — or don’t know how to — deal with them. Dealing with feelings of self loathing may be pretty terrible, but they are familiar. And like an abusive spouse, you sometimes take comfort in what you know, even if it’s unpleasant.

With new coping tools and more attention to self care, I am now able to concentrate on the deeper issues. The effort it takes to push back at times like this is considerable, but I also know I have come a long way, and the effort is worth it. More importantly, I can finally look at all of the amazing things I have accomplished and take pride in each of them, rather than feeling inadequate

A Confession in Numbers

I am 37 years old. I am 5 feet 5 inches tall. I weigh 159 pounds. I wear a size 36 AA bra. My pant size ranges from a 10 to a 12.

These are numbers that so many people don’t share — at least in full honesty. Some lie about their age or are too embarrassed to admit it. Many lie about their weight, and we’d probably be surprised how many people stretch the truth a bit on their height.

I decided I am going to break the taboo and share my numbers here … publicly … for anyone to see. And guess what … I have not been sucked down into a pit of shame for doing so. To me, they are just numbers. There is no value or meaning behind them. They are a numerical representation of particular facts pertaining to me. But I have not always felt this way.

When I was in my teens and early twenties, I always looked much younger than my age. When I was 17, I was offered a children’s menu at a restaurant. When I was 19, people would ask me what grade (in high school) I was in. When I was 25 people would inquire about my major (when I had completed my degree 4 years prior). For the most part, I was annoyed because if people thought I was younger, they also treated me that way, condescending to me, or at least that’s what I thought. But I also felt mature for my age, and was threatened if people undermined that feeling by assuming I was younger (a clear indication I still had some growing up to do). Of course, as I got older, the tables began to turn, and as the number of times I got carded had an inverse relationship with the number of gray hairs I found, I began to fear aging a little more.

My height, though less of an issue was also something I was insecure about. For most of my young adult life, I was 5 feet, 3 and 3/4 inches. Of course, it was natural to round up, but I hated the idea of being short. That probably stemmed from the fact that my short stature was accompanied by a more rounded shape. Which brings me to the next number: my weight.

Until pretty recently in my life, my weight — whether I knew exactly what it was, or shied away from that knowledge in the pursuit of blissful ignorance — had an enormous impact on my mood. If I woke up feeling great, and stepped on the scale only to find an unexpectedly high number, my mood was instantly deflated, and I might stay depressed for days. The opposite also held true, however, and a low number could add a note of joy to my day. The same could be said for the times I went into a dressing room and tried on an item of clothing. If I tried on my usual size and it was too big, I was overjoyed. If the size I picked out was too tight, I was devastated. Never mind that there are so many factors in what goes behind that number on the tag ranging from cost of fabric to clever marketing.

As for my bra size, well, in this breast-obsessed culture, it can be just as hard to accept small breasts as it can to accept a larger stomach (and even more difficult if you have both!). I sometimes felt humiliated going into Victoria’s Secret and not being able to find a single bra that fit my less endowed chest.

But allowing any of these numbers to have a such an impact on our outlook in life can be so hindering, or worse, damaging. Through a lot of work, I have learned to embrace each of these numbers (though oddly enough, I now measure at 5′5″ — perhaps due to a higher self esteem and better posture??) no matter what they are. I do not fear my age, but embrace the wisdom and experience that has come with each year I have passed.

I do not fear the number on the scale. Learning how to see each of these numbers for what they are has been liberating for me, and I have to say has led me to a more peaceful place in life since I know longer devote the majority of my effort resisting them — mostly the one on the scale.

So, what are your numbers?

« Previous Page — Next Page »