Something to think about

I'm not going to write anything here myself much, except to say that I realize my own fears and freak outs about being overweight can sometimes border on the unrealistic.
I haven't weighed myself is some time because I simply don't want to have a number send me into a self-loathing slump for the entire day.
At least, not quite yet.  I have too much on my plate right now.
Instead, I'd like to share this piece I just read on Jezebel.com, because it's food for thought for a person like me.  When I was thin, I binge drank at least 3 times a week, smoked a pack and a half a day, and ate horrible, horrible things.  These days, I eat quite healthily, (more or less) don't smoke and drink for pleasure rather than for self-annihilation. My skin and hair look better than they ever have, I'm sick less frequently and I don't bruise very easily anymore:

A few days before Maura Kelly, a blogger for Marie Claire, published a piece called "Should Fatties Get A Room?" we received an email asking why this site "glorifies" obesity.

The email read:

What is the Jezebel obsession with glorifying obesity?  Why is being obese the only exception to body snarking?  It is beyond absurd and makes no sense.

You know what? Maura and that reader are bigots. BIGOTS.

big•ot (noun): A person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

If you think that watching a fat person walk across the room is "gross," and if you think not allowing readers to comment on a woman's weight is "glorifying" obesity, you are a bigot. You are treating a group — people who weigh more than "normal" (whatever that is) — with hatred and intolerance.

We live in a society that constantly sends messages to women, telling them they are not good enough the way they are. Advertising campaigns, women's magazines and other types of media try to cajole us into wanting to be sexier, shinier and yes, thinner. But — and this is important — THIN and HEALTHY are not the same thing. And: FAT and UNHEALTHY are also not the same thing.

Some skinny people smoke, do drugs and eat fatty foods.
Some fat people exercise regularly and eat healthy foods.

As we've mentioned before, Steven N. Blair, one of the nation's leading experts on the health benefits of exercise, is short and fat. He runs every day.

Are there are fat people who are lazy overeaters? Yes. And there are thin folks who are lazy overeaters.

To discuss a fat person as a human who deserves respect does not "glorfty" obesity. Misogynistic speech is rampant on the web; anonymous commenters delight in critiquing, nit-picking, and mocking the appearance of women. Often a woman's appearance is beyond her control. There are many reasons a person's body looks the way it does, genetics being first and foremost.

Some people gain weight because they overeat.
Some people gain weight because they don't exercise.
Some people gain weight due to depression.
Some people gain weight because of medication.
Some people gain weight because of polycystic ovary syndrome.

We could go on. Point being, you cannot LOOK at someone and make a judgment about his or her health. So you shouldn't. And really: Even if you do know why someone is thin or fat, what business is it of yours? None. If a fat person disgusts you, if you're afraid of black people, if you're grossed out by gays kissing, know this: Your intolerance says way more about you than about those who repel you. When you're judging someone by weight and not moral compass, intelligence, empathy, creativity, talent or sense of humor, what kind of person are you? If you see two people — one fat and one thin — and say that the fat one disgusts you, what happens if you find out that the fat one is a loving mother and vet and the thin one is a serial killer?

Again: You cannot judge someone based on appearance. That said, you can read someone's words and tell if they are ignorant, biased, sizeist and hateful. And Maura Kelly, the reader who sent the email, and ALL of the fatphobic fat-shamers out there are crude, insensitive, and prejudiced. Back in the day, people used to say that black people were intellectually inferior, that homosexuals were promiscuous. Today we consider this type of intolerant thought disgusting, abhorrent and politically incorrect. Someday we'll realize how bigoted and offensive we were about "fatties." Hopefully very, very soon.

Read more: http://jezebel.com/5675725/if-youre-fat+phobic-youre-also-an-ignorant-bigoted-idiot#ixzz13m4YO26i

BBW

It's funny how even the opinions of idiots can have a devastating affect on your self-esteem.  Is it just me?  How is it that I can be reduced to the same feelings of shame and worthlessness due to my appearance that I experienced when is was 12-14? How is it that I never got over this?
Or, is it, that I only managed to escape the ridicule for most of my later teen and adult years because I lost weight?  Perhaps this is what it means to be a fat person in society; that you never get to escape the junior high school bullies.
I've heard the term BBW (big beautiful woman) before.  I've never really given it much thought.  It always seemed to be a tag used in places like craigslist dating by women who were very obese and trying to seem proud of their bodies or by men who fetishized obese women.
I, myself, would have never considered myself to be a BBW.  In fact, the very term BBW smacks of creepy desperation to me, and I do not like it at all.
I'm about 40 lbs overweight at most.
Maybe I would call myself a CBW, or even a PSBW (Chubby Beautiful Woman or Pear-Shaped Beautiful Woman), but I would have NEVER considered myself a BBW. 
Well, I guess I was wrong.
A few weeks ago, I was given the task of hiring a leasing agent for the commerical real estate company I work for.  I interviewed a number of people, one of whom was so stupid that he thought that Shanghai was located in Japan.
Of course, I chose not to hire this individual, who took my rejection email as an opportunity to ask me out on a date.
Now, I'm used to being hit on and asked out.  Or, at least, I used to be when I was thin (not so much anymore, but because I have an amazing boyfriend that I'm happy with, I don't concern myself with the decrease in male attention I receive these days very often).  I usually handle these sorts of invitations by politely ignoring them.
I thought it was weird and inappropriate to be asked out by a person I'd just rejected, via email, for a job but I didn't think much more about it than that.
Then came the other email he decided to send, which read; "I don't know if you recieved my last email, but I meant everything I said.  Send me an email let me know how you feel.  I love BBW's and want to take you out and get to know you and have fun!!"
What. the. fuck.
BBW? Really?
When, the fuck, did I become  BBW? When did I enter the category of having to endure the creepy obsessions of fatty chasers?
I think that being called a BBW is about the very worst thing anyone has ever said to me, and I now find myself incredibly ashamed of my weight.
All of these insights I thought I had had at Burning Man turned out to be delusions, and the reality of the situation is that I am fat and subject to being fetishized by those very creeps I hate.
Gross.
I am seriously considering adopting some very unhealthy lifestyle changes in order to fix this problem, and to be quite honest, I DON'T CARE if they're unhealthy changes.  This weight has got to fucking go.

Burning Man

In the past, I've been accused of having a somewhat dysmorphic view of my body.  I will admit that I've often seen fat and flaws in proportion that may not be realistic.
When I was 118 pounds at age 19, I used to walk around wearing a girdle so my "fat" wouldn't stick out. 
To me, the overweight proportions of my body are very, very real.  Startlingly, humiliatingly, real.
For 4 years now, I've been struggling with the fact that I suddenly have and extra 30 lbs on my body and it's made me feel terrible about myself.
At Burning Man this year, I had to make some decisions regarding how much skin I was willing to expose and how neurotic I was going to be about it.  Burning Man is full of half-naked women with perfect figures.
There are so many, in fact, that you stop comparing yourself to them because it just becomes overwhelming and depressing if you let it.
Granted, there are plenty of out-of-shape naked people as well, but that's a cold comfort when you're as self-obsessed and vain as I am.
However, walking around half-naked in the inescapable sweltering heat in front of 30 thousand people has taught me a few valuable lessons;
1) I'm really not nearly as fat as I think I am
2) My legs need some serious work, but this doesn't mean I'm fat and need to starve myself to death-- rather, I can just-- you  know-- work out my legs and build some more overall muscle and I should be fine

3) Even with an extra 30 pounds, I am proportioned very well, with nice firm breasts and a small waist.

I've decided to only weigh myself once per month from now on as well as stop obsessively counting calories.  I will try to eat as close to a Paleo diet as possible and spend at least a few hours a week on the stationary bike at the gym.
Most of all, I'm going to try to stop hating myself every damn time I look at more than just my face in the mirror.

I want to be just like mother when I grow up, but only the good traits..

Most people have conflicted relationships with their mothers.  I don't, but sometimes I just wish she took better care of herself. 
My mother was most likely abused by her father (this is an assumption based on the fact that I was never allowed to be alone with him and once my grandmother called him a "pervert"), and I think this  has caused her to be why she is the way that she is.
My mother is soft-hearted, giving and kind but she often has the emotional maturity and outlooks of a little girl.  She  doesn't do a very good job of thinking through the cause and effect probability of most situations and frequently blames others or comes up with excuses for why she's unable to do something that is patently more logical or better for her.
To give you an example:

Me: "Mom, have you been using the recipes in the diabetic cookbook I gave you?"
Mom: (first, she lies, to avoid getting in trouble) "Yes, they are delicious"
Me: "Really? Which one did you like the best?"
Mom:"Um, the first one.  With the vegetables"
Me: "You aren't using it, are you?"
Mom: "Well, I tried, but then Kenny (my stepfather) wanted white bread, not wheat, and they were all out of those kinds of ingredients in that book at the store"
 Me: (sighs) "Mom, you realize that if you keep eating this way, you are either going to go into a coma or they are going to cut off your legs.  Do you really want to be fat, with no legs and a bad back for the rest of your life?"
 Mom: "No, I'm fine.  My feet only started tingling that one time.  I'm having cinnamon tea every day now, and I'm pretty sure that's curing the diabetes."
Me: (silently bangs head on the desk)

My mother is in very poor health for her age.  She is only 51 years old (she had me very young. my parents were still in high school when they got married.  Surprisingly, it was not a shotgun wedding.  I was born over a year and a half later.) and she is something in the range of 150lbs overweight.  She is 4'11, and the last time I forced her to get on a scale, it read 260lbs. She has also been smoking about a pack and a half a day of cigarettes since she was 14 years old. She wasn't always like this.  In the 80's when I was little, she was a young beautiful single girl with golden blonde hair, tight slacks, and a shiny blue Camero.  She looked exactly as you would expect Marsha Brady to look, post Brady Bunch at a coke-fueled disco party.
I think it was a combination of poor food choices, excruciatingly painful back problems and poor relationship choices that caused her to get to the weight she is now.
I think a lifetime of feeling like a victim to her circumstances in life has made her unable to grasp the concept of personal responsibility of the conditions she often finds herself in.

My mother is great.  She's loving and funny and a really good person.  I just wish she valued herself as much as I value her.

The Fat Lady at the Buffet

This afternoon, I went to this buffet style place for lunch, primarily because their salad bar is really immense. I also went there because there is enough seating that I am not forced to sit too close to any Financial District douchebags in suits and ties flapping their lips at each other about shit they should have left behind in the office, or frathouse, or LL Bean Store,  or where ever it is people like that conduct business.
As I sat down with my salad, I happened to notice a morbidly obese woman sitting down and eating a lunch that consisted of 6 full plates of food.  Now, mind you, this is an establishment that offers buffet, but it's NOT all-you-can-eat.  The food is also priced by weight.
This woman had something like 40 dollars worth of crappy Financial District chow splayed out before her, and there wasn't a single vegetable anywhere on any of her plates.
The horror I felt while watching this woman eat was akin to the horror I used to feel when I'd watch my junkie friends shoot up in front of me back in my early twenties.  It's difficult and extremely uncomfortable to watch a person doing something that you know is killing them.
It's like a suicide in slow motion.
There are many people who belong to online communities that support what they like to think of as , "Fat Acceptance", or The Fatosphere, as it's more commonly known.
This is a collection of bloggers and activists who fanatically defend the right for anyone to get as fat as they want to and not be demeaned, harassed, or discriminated against because of their size.
Though they say that they are proponents of the Health at Every Size concept of body acceptance activism, they have been known to criticize and even outright delete, from their websites, any member who expresses a desire to lose weight.
Fat discrimination is too complex an issue for me to discuss with any depth and quite frankly, as a person who is only 20-30 lbs overweight at most, I also feel that I am not qualified to speak that much of it.
I may have become invisible since becoming overweight, but I certainly have never experienced the kind of cruelty the morbidly obese face, all the time, from random strangers.
Do they deserve to be mocked and marginalized for "letting themselves get like that"? Is there ever a time when any human being deserves to be mocked?
Why are fat people so frightening to us? What is it about them that we fear so much? Is it purely a pack animal reaction to poor physical health? Do we react in the same way wolf packs do when they chase off and attack the sick and weak ones?
Why aren't there more people approaching this issue from the perspective of mental illness the way we do anorexia or schizophrenia?
As I looked at this woman eating herself to death, I wondered what her story was. 
I tried not to stare, but as I looked at aoo of her plates heaped with burritos and lasagna and cakes and then at my own tiny salad bowl, I had two thoughts.
One of them was, "I wonder if I would be so disgusted if she were a skinny person sitting there with that much food"  and the other was this: "Her food probably tastes way better than mine, and I bet she's enjoying her lunch more too".

What's in your fridge?

This what I do at work all day.

A Lazy Post

I haven't written a post in a while, mainly because I've been waiting to see if my new Thyroid Meds make any noticeable difference to my weight loss efforts.
After discovering that I am hypothyroid, I have gone through a variety of emotions, most notably, relief and hope.

It's been almost six weeks now, and it does seem as if I'm losing weight at a more "normal" rate, but I think it's still way too early to tell.

All the same, I am very happy to have reached my 5% lost mark in Weight Watchers. Just another 22 lbs to go to be considered "borderline" healthy weight!

Eat Less, Move More

Yesterday, I went to have my blood drawn to test for diabetes/cholesterol/thyroid problems.
  So far, my diabetes came up normal and my cholesterol came up very good.  I apparently have  very high levels of HDLS, which are apparently the "good" cholesterols that help prevent the bad cholesterols from building up in the arteries.
I attribute this to 2 years now of staying mostly away from processed foods and sugars.
I am still waiting for my thyroid test back, which is kind of the most important of the three.  A part of me is kind of hoping that there is something wrong with my thryoid so they can give me pills and i'll be thin again.
It's not that I mind eating well and working out, it just seems to be so much damn work for such little return.  There are some weeks where I don't lose any weight at all, and this is frustrating, especially when I know I've done everything right.
All of this reminds me of an old MADTV skit that pretty much sums up the general attitude to weight loss that most people have.  I love it:

The Kirstie Alley Effect

I first started this blog with the intention of it becoming a beauty products news and review site. Hence, the name, Pretty Baby, which is what I will name my very own Beauty Supply store someday when I get around to growing up and becoming self-employed.
The blog lay fallow for months and months until I finally realized that I didn't know enough about beauty products anymore to write an interesting blog about them. I've been out of the beauty biz for too long now. For fuck's sake, I still think Glycolic acid is the wave of the anti-aging future..
I also realized that it doesn't really matter what you put on or do to your face if your body is a mess. It doesn't matter how beautiful your face is, really, if you happen to be overweight.
It's not right or good or fair, but it's the truth. I call this, The Kirstie Alley Effect. In case you don't know, Kirstie Alley is the beautiful actress from Cheers in the 1980's who has gained notoriety these past few years for letting herself get very fat:

Now, you will read any number of celeb gossip blogs, news stories, or other such nonsense regarding Kirstie's ever losing battle with her weight. I often notice, however, that nobody ever talks about what an amazingly gorgeous face the woman has. Or, if they do, it's always in the context of what a shame it is that she's gotten so portly and lost her looks. As if, somehow, her face mutated into a rubber pig mask or something when she got fat.

 

But the truth of the matter is, fat or no fat, Kirstie still is an amazingly beautiful woman.  And no one cares, because she's gained tons of weight.

The reverse of the Kirstie Alley Effect is, of course, the Jamie Lee Curtis Effect, wherein you can actually look like Clint Eastwood in the face, but people will still love you and call you hot because you happen to have a bangin' body:  

Other notorious instances of the Jamie Lee Curtis Effect would be actresses like Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Aniston, and Sarah Jessica Parker.  These women are often referred to as "beautiful" "hot" and "sexy" despite the fact  that the only thing they have going for them physically is a low BMI and a great personal trainer.

Sometimes, I personally feel like I suffer from the Kirstie Alley effect.  I used to jokingly refer to myself as having the face of a porn star and the body of a housewife when i was still thin.

Ha, if only I'd known then how true that would become later on, I might have actually put down the goddamn macaroni and cheese once in a while.

Sad story of the day

Today, I came across this really sad story on Divine Caroline of a woman who struggles with severe depression and obesity:
http://www.divinecaroline.com/24133/92534-bbw
Now, I want to point out that I 100% believe that the only way to combat the things that cause you sorrow in your life is to change the way you perceive and react to them.
I also believe that Morbid Obesity (like, obesity that has reached the point where you need to ride a cart around the store)is entirely self-inflicted and that you need to take responsibility for yourself if you want to correct it.
That said, I also want to add that this is the saddest story I've read all day, and it's a good reminder for me to be patient with people who seem to be victims of themselves (the morbidly obese, addicts, etc.) because you never know what events in their lives led them up to that point.

Why am I Not Shredded Yet??

6 days ago, I started doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred workout DVD.
I must say, it is quite challenging, despite the fact that the workout is only 20 minutes long. You do short intervals of cardio, abs, and strength exercises focusing on getting the most benefit for the shortest amount of time. The idea is that you do this workout daily, for 30 days to see maximum results.
Ideally, you want to move up from level one through to levels two and three as you progress.
I am still on level one. I haven't found this workout to be quite the killer that I was expecting it to be, but it is still no picnic.
So far, I haven't really seen any physical changes in my body, but we'll see how things look when I am at least 15 days in to it.

In other news, as of Dec.25th, I have only lost 5 lbs and an inch and a half. Not the stellar losses I have been expecting. I have to admit that it's a little discouraging being stuck at the same scale weight for 4 weeks now, even though I know that plateaus are common, especially as you begin to work out and build muscle.
I still haven't decided if it would be wiser to eat more or less right now in order to blast through this plateau.
In the past, I have tended to give up right as I hit a plateau. This time, I will perservere, tweaking my diet and fitness routines until I see positive results.
I also have to go get my blood drawn soon to see if I have any medical problems that may be contributing to my slow weight loss.
I hate having blood drawn.

Perspective

I don't really have anything to write about at the moment.. I just wanted to share this image..

Funhouse Mirror Eyes?

I've been thinking a lot about how fat I really look. A friend of mine who is into photography pointed me at a number of reasons why we all really do look fatter in photographs, and how, one should never use a poorly taken photo from an awkward angle to take it to mean we look fat to the rest of the world:

"there are several tricks to making the camera your friend: the 2D presentation means that depth is compromised (fotags try to recreate this with backlighting and shadowing) so when you're in front of the camera, keep in mind the phenomenon of ... foreshortening -whatever is closest to the camera looks the biggest (which is why I always stick my hips back and my chest out) This transition to 2D is also why we tend to look 20lbs heavier on film - we basically flatten as dimension is lost. Next, lighting, lighting, lighting - it can make an anorexic look fat and give bone structure to jabba the hut. Sadly, lighting that makes your skin look great (beauty lighting) usually destroys any bone structure if used alone. Posing, as lame as it is, is the best way to mitigate these effects other than post-production efforts. Models do a lot of contorting to highlight certain features, low light others, clean up lines (jaw and muffin tops), so that the image captured appears to have more dimension and movement than it actually does."

That said, I realize that my self-image issues regarding my weight have been there since about puberty and I don't think they are going to go away any time soon.
I spend a fair amount of time trolling the internet for photos of women who are also 5'4 and 175lbs.. I do this to see if they look fat to me (which they seldom do, admittedly).
In one of my more recent explorations into, "Do random women on the interent look fat to me?", I stumbled across a project that an aquaintance of mine has been working on for his amazing website: http://www.cockeyed.com . (link)< It is a photographic height/weight chart using images of real people, most of whom have submitted their own photos in to him.
It reminds me a lot of Fat Acceptance Movement Blogger Kate Harding's own (link) BMI Project.
What these two projects illustrate to me is that height, weight and the appearance of such, can vary dramatically from person to person.
I still haven't figured how fat *I* look to others. I don't know if I ever will.

Irony

I've spent the last week psyching myself up for going to the gym. I went out and bought two new fitness outfits and a new combo lock.
I pep talked myself, read fitness blogs, looked at photos of fitness models and got excited about getting into working out again.
Ironically, I did something strange to my lower back yesterday and now it hurts to stand up and even walk.
I guess the pep talks will have to continue for a while longer.

Shift of focus

I'm terrible about keeping up with blogs. I have the attention span of a housefly, coupled with extreme laziness.
However, I find that my weight loss journey completely stalled right around the time I went to Burning Man.
You see, I knew that I would not be able to manage what I ate very effectively in such a hostile environment. Who wants to think about how many sodas you've consumed when you're in the middle of the desert and your whole body is busy freaking out about theheat, sun, and dust storms?
I naturally assumed that this week of hardcore living might actually be good for the waistline, seeing as how food is usually fairly spartan in preparation and availability there and you ride your bike around everywhere.
Sadly, this Burning Man was also the year that we expirmented with storing meat in the deep freezer and bringing out a portable gas grill.
I gained 8 pounds while at Burning Man.
Shortly after Burning Man, I was surprised with a trip to Paris for my birthday, which included several fine dining experiences.
I sort of gave up trying to count and monitor what I ate at that point.
Life just... you know... gets in the way, sometimes.
Keeping a regular fitness regime is even harder for me, seeing as how I've always been sort of pre-disposed to long naps and bouts of excessive laziness.
So now, it's time for me to jump back into healthy routines and goal-setting.
I don't want to be obsessed here, but I also don't want to live with the same looming beast of obesity that my mother and granmother do.
I truly, deeply want to be that super energetic woman who truly loves working out and being physically active.
It's time to catalog what worked for me in the past and what didn't and see if I can make some sense of what I'm doing here, and what will work best in the future.
In a sense, I'm fortunate.. I have a max of 50 lbs I should lose, and only 30 to be considered within the "normal" range... This is a very small number when compared with the weight loss challenges some people face.

So, let's start with what's worked for me in the past:
1. Eating Clean.. making 70% or more of my meals consist of fresh fruits and veggies and/or whole grains. Cutting dairy down to 1 serving a day and meats to less than 3 times a week. Refraining from processed foods and refined sugars whenever possible
2. Bringing lunch to work so I know exactly how much is in what I'm eating
3. Moderate working out with an emphasis on strength training at least 3x a week
4. Counting everything that goes into my mouth. Not eating it if I don't know how to count it.
5. Staying active and interested in fitness, nutrition and weight loss communities online

What hasn't worked:
1. Gluten-free, Vegan, or No carb diets
2. Hoodia
3. Telling myself that appearance doesn't matter (it may not actually matter in the great grand scheme of things, but I'm kind of shallow, and it matters to me A LOT)
4. "Intuitive" eating. Sadly, my intuition tells me that it's ok to eat pizza and cheeseburgers every day.
5. Obsessive self-recrimination. Unsurprisingly, this is demotivating.

Oh baby, it's Haute Couture!

After reading Tanya Gold's article about how, at a UK size 16 (US size 14), she was not able to find any high end designer shops that carried her size, I became a bit obsessed with the idea of whether or not I could fit into a high end designer brand, or if I was "too fat for fashion" as well.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I generally despise the body image dictates and exclusivity of high fashion. I despise anything that sets women up for hating themselves because they don't look like what they see in the magazines.
I hate this entire culture of thin is in and curves are out, and I wonder about what it says about our society and the increasing masculinization of the feminine beauty ideal.
Who was it who decided that models needed to look like 12 year-old boys, anyway? The predominantly gay male designers, perhaps? Hmmmm, or maybe it's just that Anna Wintour has a sick anorexia fetish that she wishes to foist upon the entire world.
At any rate, I found myself becoming a traitor to my own cause as I pondered whether or not I could fit into a designer brand. Any designer brand. Truth be told, I wouldn't be able to tell a Versace from a Gaultier and would feel like a shallow twit if I could.
I basically know what the Chanel logo looks like, and that Chanel perfumes smell like bitches or old ladies and that's about it.
So I decided to start my quest with Dolce & Gabbana. Why? Because of this skirt:



I know nothing about Designer sizing. 29, 24, 22? What does that mean? Does that mean inches in waist? What if my hips are bigger than my waist? Is it in Centimeters?
I decided to err on the side of caution and grab a size 29, the biggest they had available.
I nervously wandered to the fitting room and pondered what it would mean to me if I could fit into this deliciously tacky skirt. At only $300 on sale, surely I would need to have it. Surely, it was a skirt to put all rockabilly chicks and Peggy Bundy wannabes to shame.
Surely, I would never fit into a $300 size 29 Dolce & Gabbana skirt.
Wiggle up the hips, and lo and behold, it was a size too big! Did you hear me world? IT WAS A SIZE TOO BIG!!!
Sadly, the bold animal print of the skirt also made my ass look enormous, as animal prints often do. I decided not to buy the skirt, after realizing that perhaps it made my butt look just a bit too ghetto fabulous to be considered in good taste.

The moral of this story is, just because you can fit into designer clothes does not mean they will look good on you.

Eyeballing Portion Sizes

If you've ever travelled to another country, you may have noticed how much smaller the portion sizes are there.
Americans like to point to any number of factors contributing to this country's soaring obesity rates, but the simple fact remains that we simply eat too much of the wrong kind of things.
I remember, when I began watching what I ate a year ago, I was utterly shocked at what an actual serving of cheese was supposed to be.
1oz? 1oz? That tiny bit of cheese is all I'm supposed to eat all day? I used to eat half a block at a time, just as a snack.



In just 20 years, the serving sizes have doubled, if not quadrupled in size. It's no wonder we are considered the fattest nation on earth.

When you are trying to watch what you eat, every bit of food you put in your mouth becomes not just food, but a breakdown of calories, fat grams, carbs, and portion size.
Going out to eat becomes an activity fraught with anxiety because you don't know how much butter they put in something, or whether or not that amount of mashed potatoes on your plate is about a cup's worth or a half cup.

It would be nice to say that it's better to not be neurotic about it and to just go ahead and sit back and enjoy the meal, but that's near impossible when you are crying yourself to sleep because you can't see your collarbone anymore.
After all, not paying attention to how much you were eating is what got you fat in the first place.
I have friends who suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia and they will tell you that even after they've recovered, they never do quite manage to give up counting calories or examining portion sizes.
I think about what I will do once I lose this last 20 pounds, and wonder if I will forever use a tablespoon to spread my peanut butter, because then I will know exactly how much I've used.
Perhaps this obsession with weight and food has replaced corsetry as the way in which society keeps women figuratively constrained.
Regardless of the negative moral or psychological connotations portion sizing and calorie counting may imply, it still cannot be argued that doing this is the single most important part of dieting. As such, the question still remains: What do you do when you're going out to eat? Do you bring measuring cups and spoons with you everywhere you go?
I hope not. How tacky would that be?
Instead, I've found that there are many ways in which you can eyeball your portions to make a relatively accurate guess as to what exactly something like 3oz of chicken breast is supposed to look like.
This website is a great start: http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/qt/eyeportions.htm
In the end, regardless of what Dr. Atkins or anyone else tells you, it still holds true that calories in, calories out is the only formula needed for successful weight loss.
I must admit, however, that I find the calories in part far more fun than the calories out. My next blog post will be about me going to the gym for the first time ever in my life. Stay tuned. There may be tears.

Fat Bottom Girls

Yesterday, I bought a cute retro-style gingham pattern dress from Ambiance in Noe Valley. The dress is slightly too tight and probably not tight in the right places, either.
Regardless of the fact that it makes me look a bit like a Desperate Housewife, circa 1964, I decided to wear the dress to work today.
Is it just me, or are the windows of retail shops extremely unflattering? I was shocked looking at my reflection this morning as I made my way through the financial district to my office.
My ass in this dress looks so big, that I actually look like I am leaning forward slightly and pushing my butt out as I walk.
I have always had a big ass. It's genetic. My mother has a big ass too, as does my grandmother and her mother before her. We are a family of fat bottom, tiny waisted gals.
This got me to thinking about a medical term called Big Butt Syndrome, or steatopygia if we want to be polite. This is a medical term that refers to the presence of excessive accumulation of fat on the buttocks and thighs, and is often accompanied by abnormally long labia.
Of course, most women do not have Big Butt Syndrome. Not even the fattest, curviest woman you know technically has Big Butt Syndrome.
Steatopygia is generally found in certain African tribes such as the Pygmies of Central Africa or the Khoisan Bushman of South East Africa and is thought to be a genetic adaptation to famine. It was thought that women who stored excessive fat in their lower bodies were probably more capable of surviving times of little food, in addition to being able to physically produce healthier offspring.
Being a member of modern Western culture which tells us that only our upper bodies are sexy when they abnormally large, it's hard to imagine that there was ever a time and a place where a woman with these types lower body features would ever have been considered the most attractive of the bunch.
Although, you still do see some evidence of fat= attractive in cultures where food is scarce, the importation of Western culture and it's beauty standards across the globe is quickly eradicating the love of bigger women and replacing it with it's own love of women who look a bit like plucked chickens to me. All breast and muscle with skinny legs.
Sadly in Victorian times, African women who had Steatopygia were often carted around America and Europe in freak shows to be gawked at by stupid white people in funny hats and corsets.
The most famous of these sideshow acts was a woman by the name of Saartjie Baartman, who was a Khoisan tribeswoman in the mid-1800's. She is most commonly referred to as the, "Hottentot Venus".

I can only imagine what Saartjie's life must have been like, beginning as a slave and ending as a curiosity. The stories of her being forced to gyrate her nude buttocks at crowds of people are painful and heartbreaking to read. I wonder if she ever elicited the kind of primitive awe in people that a living Venus should have elicited.
I hope she found dignity and power in her role as earth goddess, personified, and that she died with her head held high.
Here's to you, Saartjie. I'm proud to be a member of the tribe of fat bottom girls.

To Veggie Box or not to Veggie Box?

Living in the splendidly fertile agricultural state that is California, I am fortunate to not have to go far to acquire freshly grown, healthy organic produce whenever it suits me.
I don't have to pay very much either, which is also a bonus because I am not only poor, but I am also cheap.
For the past 8 months, I have been receiving monthly organic produce deliveries from Farm Fresh To You .
Their farms are located in the Capay Valley near Chico, California and everything is grown organically, so you don't end up with bizarre things like monster-sized apples or bell peppers who are so perfectly formed and colored you would swear that they were wax replicas.
In fact, the best apples I've ever had in my life have come from this place.
I've had a great time these past few months trying to figure out what the hell to do with vegetables I never normally would cook myself. I've learned that Chard is wonderful in casseroles, and that Japanese Pumpkin is so sweet that it's better in cookies than it is in curries.
It's been amazing, but in the end-- I've decided that June will be my last delivery box month.
The truth is that even one medium box a month is too much veg for me. It's even too much for me AND my boyfriend, on the rare occasions when I actually remember to cook for him as well. It makes me sad to see that wilty lettuce in my fridge that I so casually ignored in favor of one too many sushi take-out nights or the flashier, "sexier" vegetables such as eggplant and Oyster mushrooms.
I tried to take my friend M's advice and freeze it for making soup stock later on, but I know in my darkest of hearts that I'll never get around to it. Most of the frozen lettuce in my freezer these past few months has gone to feeding my tadpoles who have since sprouted legs and gone on to being carnivores.
I do encourage everyone to invest in your local organic farms and seek out similar delivery programs in your area if possible.
Those of you in Northern California, I highly recommend Farm Fresh To You as an alternative to the much more expensive Planet Organic.
Besides, if you tell them I sent you, there's a free box of tasty, tasty fruits and veggies in it for me.

Carb Watch Pitas, yum!

In the past year or so that I've been dieting and trying (stress on trying to) exercise, I've discovered that bread and related products (pasta, rice, etc) is one of the great saboteurs of a healthy eating regimen.
It's just so high in carbs, fats and calories that it turns an ordinary sandwich into some kind of spiral of shame where you feel that even eating half may be pushing it for the day. This is even worse if you're one of those types who still champion the cause of Wonder Bread and other nutrient deficient processed sliced bread brands.
I highly recommend against eating such things, but we'll save that rant for another blog at another time.
Recently, I've discovered the Middle East Baking Co's Carb Watch Pitas. These little babies are a miracle to your diet, no matter what kind of diet kick you're on. (Especially those of you doing Atkins or South Beach).
These pitas aren't as bready or sweet as most pitas out there. Rather, they have a satisfying slightly doughy texture that reminds me of fresh Roti or other basic, peasant-food type flat breads.
Because of this doughier texture, they can be a little harder to cut open and stuff them, but I find they're just as good if you roll them like a tortilla or bake cheese or veggies on them flat like a small pizza crust.
I'm in love with these things, and are fast replacing regular bread as my staple of choice when making a quick and dirty lunchtime sandwich, or I need something to sop up my soup with.
Take a look at this nutritional info. Wow! Only 6 carbs per half a pita.:

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1/2 Pita

Amount per Serving
Calories 35 Calories from Fat 15
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 1g	2%
Saturated Fat 0g	0%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 150mg	6%
Total Carbohydrate 6g	2%
Dietary Fiber 3g	12%
Sugars 0g
Protein 2g	4%

Calcium	10%
Iron	2%

---

Est. Percent of Calories from:

Fat 25.7% Carbs 68.6%

Protein 22.9%