Friday, September 23, 2011

Things That Piss Me Off...

I know I haven't written in a while, and I'm not trying to be a downer on this blog, but sometime I have to rant!! Just to preface, I'm just dandy lately and I will write more on that in another post...but there's been some stuff that I keep reading about weight and body image on the internet that infuriates me so MUCH I had to blog about it.

I have a bit of a celebrity gossip addiction.  I read a few celebrity gossip blogs and one of my favorites is Cele|bitchy.  So in the past week alone there's been a lot of stuff that I've read of celebrities talking about their bodies and it pissed me off enough that I wanted to write this post.  I know I know, I shouldn't care about what these people are saying because "celebrity" is a strange bizarre world completely disconnected from the rest of the world, BUT they are putting it out there to the public and what they say is downright harmful...and misleading to many many women who struggle with their weight and their body image!

WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO KID??


Kristie Alley... I have nothing against her, and I'm very happy for the weight loss she did achieve on dancing with the stars...but what the HELL are these claims that she's making that she's a size 4 now?!?  If that's what a size 4 looks like at 5'8", then based on my real size in her world I'm a size 20 at 5'9" (I'm a size 10-12 depending on the cut of the pants). She claims that she went from a size 8, and after losing 100lbs, she went to a size 4. WHAT? When I lost 100lbs I went from a size 22 to a size 10-12.  Who is she trying to fool besides herself?

Here's my advice to her/her publicist, STOP WITH THE DELUSIONS!! Be proud of the weight, you DID lose it's a great thing, you're 60 years old and your skin looks damn good...  but please...please stop being dishonest about how much weight you actually did lose and your "size 4" pant size. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say she's a 12 and she's carrying her weight around her middle and her hips just like I do, hence the the smaller upper body.

Moving on...

SHE WANTS TO EAT MY BRAAAAIINNNS....

I had never heard of this woman before, but she's the heiress of the Guinness fortune and she's some sort of "fashionista"  Looking at her here I'd say she's pushing 75+....she's only 43.  That's scary.  What's more frightening is the things that come out of her mouth...

In a recent interview with New Yorker Magazine style icon and international heiress Daphne Guinness, whose couture is currently on display at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, has revealed her stay skinny mantra – and it is sure to shock eating disorder groups.
“I’ll eat when I’m dead!” the startling thin and pale-faced fashionista exclaimed when offered lunch during her photo shoot with the magazine.
According to the publication, the 43-year-old Brit, who is the daughter of brewing heir Jonathan Guinness and the ex-wife of Spyros Niarchos, keeps her stick-thin figure through a diet of Red Bull and Ensure shakes.
She defended her diet by simply stating, “If I eat, I can’t work.”
A few years ago, Kate Moss created controversy when she coined the phrase “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
Jesus... I'm not even going to pretend to understand whats going on inside the head of someone with an eating disorder, but I do understand what it feels like to have no control over what you eat and to want to have that control.  I was having a discussion the other day with a co-worker about the very FINE line that dieters sometimes straddle between eating healthy, eating the right amount of food vs. not eating enough because you  keep cutting back little by little.  I can see how women fall down that rabbit hole. After struggling with my weight my entire life I understand the mentality of someone who thinks I can't I can't I can't when it comes to certain types of food.  I have that struggle myself daily sometimes, and sometimes I even feel a resentment towards junk food laying around the office and towards people who eat what ever they want all the time.  Because I can't eat what I want all the time and that's just part of my life and my metabolism.  I know by now how my body treats excess sugar and junk, it turns it straight to fat that takes a heck of a lot longer to burn off than to gain.  I need to reach that point in my life where I stop thinking how unfair it is to have to be diligent about the way I eat.  My struggle may be for a while finding my happy place with food.  My goal is to get to a place where I'm ok being around bad food and snacking every once in a while with out feeling guilt!  Anyway, that being said although I do have my hangups with food, I'm in no way heading towards having an eating disorder like surviving off of ensure and redbull.  I feel bad for people who deny themselves the food that is good for them, I understand giving up snacks and junk food, but all solids??     It's sad and these people need help. It really is sad that she thinks that she has to live her life this way, and that some women think that this is how you might have to eat to get "skinny".   


JUDGEY GOOP...


Goopy tries to be this I'm every woman type on her website...you know by blogging about stuff most women can't really afford and sharing her experiences that most women will never experience (again the celebrity disconnect)...like presenting at the emmy's and walking the red carpet...or winning an Oscar and hanging out with Beyonce and Jay-z...or having a guest appearance on a hit TV show and singing at the grammys...why does she try so hard?  She already had most people's admiration with her acting and beautiful looks and figure... now she's everywhere and it's annoying.  But she really did prove she's just like every woman out there...no not by blogging about how she's better than you, but because she's insecure about her appearance just like 99.9% of us.  Oh, Goopy, here I was thinking you were so far above... well, everything for that matter.. Here's what Goop had to say:
I live for Tina Fey and I love Kenneth from 30 Rock! Wait ... why does my arm look like that and since when do I have 9 chins?
Ok. So I'm looking the picture over closely.... Dear god in heaven....does this mean Goopy is human and has flesh that moves and flattens in certain angles like the rest of us? She's not a robot slowly taking over the our movie theaters, tv's, kitchens and mark my words radio and broadway will be next! NO ONE is safe from the Goop... But she is right about one thing... Tina Fey.  Now she's someone to admire all around.

On to the next thing that pisses me off...


ONCE AGAIN I HAVE BEEF WITH THE BIGGEST LOSER...



I get asked pretty often if I watch the biggest loser, I don't, but I previously I wrote my mixed feelings on the show after seeing one episode.   Well one of my co-workers mentioned they were having a new season so I thought maybe I'd give it a chance and check it out again now that I'm moving to the "other side" (ie losing the last few and maintaining) of this weigh loss journey.  I watched the first episode of the new season Battle of the Ages... and once again.  I have issues with this show. 

  1. They take people completely away from their home life which could be the root of 90% of their problems with poor diet and lack of exercise.
  2.  They exercise exercise exercise all day long.  realistically how many of us can dedicate more than an hour at the gym?
  3. They never show the participants refueling with protein or banana's or some kind of healthy snack even though they spend hours working out and burning hundreds of calories.
  4. In fact...they didn't show them eating AT ALL in the first episode.  
  5. People loose ridiculous amounts of weight in a short period of time so it leads me to wonder what their diet is and how is that diet maintainable for the long term.
  6. If someone loses the least amount of weight they aren't rewarded for the hard work it took to even lose the amount they were able to lose, they are instead punished and possibly booted off the show.
I will give the biggest loser credit for showing that it DOES take hard work and dedication to lose weight, but so far it's a lot of smoke and mirrors and it completely glosses over the fact that realistically 2lbs of weight loss a week is healthy.  I'm going to stick around and try to give the show a chance to redeem itself, but for now my opinion remains firm that just like Kristie Alley, the Biggest Loser is spewing out a lot of myths and misinformation about weight loss.

I don't think people realize how damaging the media is to someone struggling to lose weight.  Magazines are airbrushed, XXS is the new Small, celebrities are botoxed, nipped and tucked on camera projecting a image of what an "ideal figure" or an "ideal face" should look like.  Everywhere you turn there's a new fad diet a new fad work out...there's SO much misinformation out there its hard to process fact from fiction.  Fact: Eat vegetables, eat whole grains, eat lean proteins, eat occasionally some nuts...eat the diet that the human body was meant to live off of before cheetos and twinkies and coca-cola and McDonald's was invented.  Fact: watch your portions.  Fact: Exercise at least three times a week, even a long walk is enough if you're watching your diet.  That's that trick to being healthy and the pounds will come off in the process.  BTW... you know what tastes better than skinny feels.  Chocolate.  Just saying.  It won't kill you every once in a while.

Just so this entry doesn't end on a completely negative note, I'm going to write about a few people I admire for their recent comments on tv about their weight and body image.




I loved this woman's story.  Her sense of humor is awesome and she really does prove that confidence makes you a beautiful person no matter what your size.  I just want to give her a fist bump and say I wish I had as much balls as she does!!

Also, I want to give much love to Hope Solo.  Hope Solo and Abby Wambach were on Letterman after the world cup final this summer and Hope was talking about her shoulder injury around the 5:30 min mark in the video:



She mentioned her weight on the air and then she said "Yes, as a woman I just gave all of you guys my weight!"  I was stoked when she said that on national television and then pretty much said yea I weigh 150 what of it!?  And she said "I'm proud of it" !!  I LOVED HEARING THAT.  I dare anyone to say she looks bad. She just proves that weight is just a number on the scale, it is not a reflection of our physical appearance. Plus, she's my height!!  150lbs is totally an obtainable and realistic weight for me but I also have to remember she's a professional athlete and I'm just a pretend one on the weekends ;).