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The final Stefon sketch from Saturday Night Live.
The Stefon bit was one of my favorites. I’m gonna miss him
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Me for the past three days!
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Paleo Banana Bread
After starting the paleo diet, I started craving the exact foods I wasn’t allowed to eat. This is my first...
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Apologies for the terrible image quality - I’m lacking scanner access at the minute so I had to take these photos on my phone
I was...
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Extended Standing Leg Stretch Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana
One of the biggest myths about...
One of the BEST ad campaigns about representation I have seen.
Everyone has a backbone. Use yours.
(via showtunesrockmysocks)
Art and text by Madeline Gonzalez.
Can this be made into a children’s book so I can buy it for my future children?
I second this^^
yup
Serious. I want Finn to see this when he’s older.
(via illfightyouforthelibrary)
A quick list of things you can work on this year, that will bring you nothing but ‘awesome’. And none of them have to do with weight loss, losing ‘flaws (always in quotations), or changing your appearance. Those are bonuses and things you can ALWAYS work on of course, but unless those changes are made with LOVE (not hate), they aren’t likely to stick OR make you feel better.
This is about being mother f*cking at HOME in the body you are in, whatever it’s shape. You deserve it. You do. Trust me & thank me later.
Here’s some ways you can START your body love journey.
#spreadthelove
1. Put down the magazines. Scroll past that site. Don’t indulge in hours of ‘ideal body’ pinning (and pining). Want to feel better about your body? Stop feeding it unrealistic expectations.
2. Re-examine your relationship with the scale. Does it make or break your day? Does the thought of missing a weigh in stress you out? Ditch it. Nothing should have that power over you.
“Eat a cheeseburger”
“She looks disgusting”
“She’s clearly unhealthy. Skin & bones. Gross”
“That’s not what a real woman looks like”
“Ew”
“She’s clearly anorexic. Someone feed her”
“Anyone who thinks this is beautiful is warped”
“She’s just TOO thin.”
“To me being that skinny is just as bas as being obese!”
“Real men prefer women with curves”
“She looks like she’s going to die”
A few comments from The Victoria Secret fashion Show this year. Which I don’t watch, but was bombarded with on social media anyways. The evening of the show, I avoid Twitter like the plague. It’s a body shaming apocolypse, and I find myself disppointed in some of my favorite people whenever they share these seemingly “innocent” opinions. It’s so common to talk ‘bodies’ amongst women, that many don’t even realize or consider their comments as ‘bullying’ or ‘inappropriate’.
“Calling women “disgusting & anorexic” totally changes everything for the better and helps them in the long run”
- Said NO ONE with any insight into eating disorders and body image. In fact, it makes everything soooo much worse.
Just a quick reminder: anorexia is a mental disorder. An illness. A pretty brutal one at that. It’s horrible. All consuming. Shameful even. Devastating in some cases. And so, so misunderstood. Same goes for bulimia and the myriad of other eating disorders out there.
SOME people with anorexia become very, very thin for their frames, and many do not. Some people are naturally very, very thin with no disorder whatsoever. Some people have an eating disorder and remain overweight. Because it’s a mental disorder, it’s not something that can be diagnosed based on appearances alone. There’s also a range in the realm of disorders; some can be milder such as someone who is constantly ‘dieting’ and ‘restricting’…but still eating a little. Perpetuating the idea that only the thin can suffer from anorexia, makes it harder to diagnose the millions of women who have it but are not quite “thin” enough for it to be apparent. Because everyone’s looking for thinness as a sign something’s wrong, behaviors that are actual signs to be worried about often go unnoticed. (language, eating patterns, withdrawal, fixation on food etc).
Can you imagine how many more girls (and boys) would be treated earlier if we stopped focusing on looks and started focusing on behavior warnings and signs? (family members of those who suffer from eating disorders often blame themselves for not noticing warning signs that were very clear in hindsight). By the time most are diagnosed, treatment becomes very, VERY difficult.
It’s sometimes hard to watch people make the same mistakes you’ve already learned from, but keep in mind that your own ‘wisdom’ came from experience… not from someone telling you what ‘not’ to do.
This applies to loads of life things, but with regards to fitness, it might be really tough to manage your own emotions when dealing with individuals who are going down a road you’ve already been down. I’m talking ‘irks’ like not using proper form, endorsing fad diets, promoting “tips” from TV or magazines, adhering to “rules” about which foods are ‘bad’ and which are ‘good’, insisting that something they heard “somewhere” is 100% true, showing signs of disordered eating or poor body image, clinging to behaviors that don’t serve them, etc, etc, etc.
What ‘irks’ me the most are the lessons I’ve already learned the hard way. Every day I talk with women who are convinced lifting 5lb weights makes them bulky (nope). Who’ve been told to avoid fruit like the plague. Who are obsessed with the scale & don’t see weighing in 3 times a day as “disordered” or dangerous. Who are convinced they “can’t” get fit. Who refuse to use proper form because it’s “harder” (ooooh, that one bugs me, lol).
Here, I talk about “myth” dispelling subjects often, but I’m fully aware it’s not enough to convince someone who’s dead set in their ways. It certainly wasn’t enough to convince stubborn old me, lol. I had to live it. Do it myself. In my own time. I HAD to learn it the hard way. I wasn’t ready to let go of my belief that a workout wasn’t a workout unless it was an hour long. Or that I could eat more and lose weight. Or that the quality of my diet was more important than the calories I was consuming. Or that _______.
I made every mistake in the book, and I’m happy I did. It puts me in a better position to help now.
Just a little clarification, in case fitness marketing has SKEWED you over. :)
Some things you should know about ‘fitness’.
1. Fitness is about what your body can DO. Ability. Weight loss does not make you fitter.
2. Getting “fitter” is the process of challenging yourself over time with the end result of being able to do MORE. Being really fit does not make you a better person than anyone else. You’re just someone who can do a little more. That’s all.
3. Lacking physical fitness or losing fitness, usually means you’re limited in terms of what you can DO. For average people, it’s just about the basics: being able to walk around, shop, go to work, play with your kids, enjoy life, escape zombies etc. For those who were formerly “fit” or very physically active, losing their ‘fitness’ may mean noticeable drops in performance: what was once easy is hard or impossible.
“My weight/loss/gain since I was a child has tormented me. No amount of help has ever helped my pain about it. But YOU have. My boyfriend prefers me curvier, when I eat and am healthy and not so worried about my looks, I’m happy. Happier then I have ever been. I am not going to go on a psycho-spree because of scrutiny. This is who I am. And I am proud at any size.”
- Lady Gaga on recent body snarking (bullying) about her weight.
Photo caption reads “anorexia & bulimia since I was 15”.
Your weight is one thing. How you feel about it is another.
It’s easy to confuse losing weight with a boost of confidence/happiness, but one actually doesn’t CAUSE the other. They might happen simultaneously, but working on your head (and satisfaction with your body) is a whole other issue. If you’re not just as focused with trying to acheive body acceptance and doing more of what makes you happy, that body you want won’t mean much…even if you get it.
Don’t wrap up your happiness in your weight. You’ll never be satisfied. Believe it or not, you might get the body you want and still be unhappy (it’s fairly common). Don’t ignore everything else that makes you YOU. Those things end up being MORE important than what you look like at the end of the day, trust me.
Body love takes practice. Start with changing the way you talk about your body. Then surround yourself with body loving resources (unfollow blogs that promote body hate, especially those that mask it with health). Discourage negative body talk with those around you and don’t engage in it yourself. If you spend too much time picking yourself apart in the mirror, STOP.
It’s not cool to hate your body. Hating your body is NOT healthy. Work on changing the way you SEE your body, changing how you RELATE to it. View it as a vehicle and not an obstacle. Something you have to protect, not mold to unrealistic standards. Something that takes you places and not something that holds you back. Happiness and body satisfaction is in your head. It has little to do with your body, though making healthier choices is always a good thing.
If you have a blog try using it as a vehicle to promote body love. Put out into the world that which you are seeking, instead of letting it be a place for body hate to fester.
It takes practice, but trust me, it’s worth it. You can’t hate yourself healthy. OR happy.
Thin isn’t happy. Happy is happy.
Xo
There’s a reason I heart her so much.
Erin from Fit Mama Training (you may be familiar. I share her stuff a lot, and I think she’s the bees knees) posted another faboosh piece on body love, acceptance and diversity. When it comes to loving ourselves and raising ourselves up, we NEED to stop bashing each other and we need to expand our own definitions of beauty.
I’m a girl with muscles. I’m not in competitor shape (that’s not my goal… at the moment), I don’t have bulging biceps or hammies that split into 3 or 4 sections, but I do have muscle. And it looks GOOOOD on me. And it feels GOOOOD to have. I worked for it and I work it. Damn proud.
But there are some people who aren’t down with my body type. In some cases, women have decided (or been convinced) that having muscle is a bad thing. An undesirable trait. A unfeminine characteristic.
That’s complete and utter bullshit.
What you like is what you like: I’m in no position to tell you what your attractive is. But I am here to tell you that there is no right way to have a body. That there are thousands of body types out there, all of which deserve representation, all of which are beautiful, and all of which are real, hot and worthy of the spotlight. I’m here to tell you that curves are sexy, but you can be sexy without them too. I’m here to tell you that muscles ARE feminine, and having them is awesome, but if you don’t have muscles, that’s okay too. There’s no right way to have a body. And nothing makes me angrier than women telling other women how they should be.
Oh, my heart.
I get messages from you lovelies each and every day, and they range from basic fitness questions to incredibly personal stories that just melt my heart. While fitness and health are the main topics here, I’ve also made an effort to focus on body love, self love, acceptance and intolerance. As my bio says, body negativity has NO place here. Fitness and healthy living are just two tools that people can use to help them acheive a place of body love, but they are by no means the end all, be all of self acceptance. To help women love themselves better, we need to target real issues, focus on positivity and spread messages of hope. We need to let girls, all girls, know that they don’t need to be perfect to be happy. In fact, we need to remind them that perfection is complete and utter bullshit, that it doesn’t exist, and we need to do so on a daily basis. It’s a war, and not one we’re going to win if we keep on hating each other, putting each other down, and focusing on our flaws as anything other than unique and beautiful.
This morning, I received a mind-blowing email from a mother who’s daughter follows my blog, and who has decided to check herself into treatment for an eating disorder that she’d been hiding. If I had any doubts that what I was doing was having any real impact, those doubts are gone (as are any notions of having a productive morning. Emotional BEYOND). I wish them both the best, and I want to make sure those of you out on “Body Love” missions know that people are listening, differences are being made, and lives are being saved by putting out messages of hope, love, light and promise.
It’s so important that we keep it up, and continue to let young girls and women know that perfection is a myth, that they are valuable, important, unique and loved as they ARE, and that there are people out there willing to fight for their right to live in a better world, free of judgment and girl on girl hate. We don’t need to tear each other down to do it: supporting women, ALL women, is how we’re gonna beat the hell out of the issues that plague us.
Margaret Cho pointed out that every single thing we say and do is being watched by young girls, and they learn to hate themselves from all kinds of ‘teachers’. If self-hate works that way, then self-love can too. They need to know that the only standard they should strive for is their own, and that they are not only enough, but that they are special and valuable.
Just as they are.
To those of you who consistently put out messages that support women, I encourage you to keep on doing what you’re doing. To those of you who aren’t quite there yet, I encourage you to try to put some hope out there, little by little, and focus less on body parts, being perfect and photoshopped images. The messages we need to focus on are ones that support women, and don’t box them in. The ramifications are serious, and I see it every time a 14 year old girl writes me that she’s so scared of getting fat that she’s slowly starving herself to death. I see it when mothers are so focused on weight loss, that their health suffers and their kids see it. I see it everytime a photo of celebrity cellulite gets plastered on the front of a magazine, and is labeled as ugly, hideous and gross, when it’s nothing but perfectly normal. I see it when we attack each other, call each other whores, and shame women for their sexuality, while simultaneously telling them that in order to be successful, they have to look a certain way.
Enough.
Please take some time today to put some positivity and body lovin’ in your posts, messages, statuses and personal relationships. Take the body talk out, replace perfection with uniqueness, and do your best to let women know that it’s okay to be who they are. It takes all of us.
xo
- Chichi
LOVED this. :)
Alie arrived at our 1st-grade classroom wearing a sweatshirt with a hood. I asked her to take off her hood, and she refused. I thought she was just being difficult and ignored it. After breakfast we got in line for art, and I noticed that she still had not removed her hood. When we arrived at the art room, I said: “Allie, I’m not playing. It’s time for art. The rule is no hoods or hats in school.”
She looked up with tears in her eyes and I realized there was something wrong. Her classmates went into the art room and we moved to the art storage area so her classmates wouldn’t hear our conversation. I softened my tone and asked her if she’d like to tell me what was wrong.
“My ponytail,” she cried.
“Can I see?” I asked.
She nodded and pulled down her hood. Allie’s braids had come undone overnight and there hadn’t been time to redo them in the morning, so they had to be put back in a ponytail. It was high up on the back of her head like those of many girls in our class, but I could see that to Allie it just felt wrong. With Allie’s permission, I took the elastic out and re-braided her hair so it could hang down.
“How’s that?” I asked.
She smiled. “Good,” she said and skipped off to join her friends in art.
‘Why Do You Look Like a Boy?’
The world is filled with conflicting messages, right? Body acceptance in the world of fitness is a topic where conflict often arises. Many people struggle with the messages that they should love and accept their bodies as is, while simultaneously they feel pressured to improve the body they have (lose weight, get stronger etc). It becomes murky territory for those of us who support people on their quests to implement change in their lives, while also trying to make sure they love themselves and stay realistic.
There are people on both ends of the spectrum (though most of us fall somewhere in between). I’ll go into examples of two extremes here, but there are many more types of people out there (don’t want to box anyone in). You may fall into one category or the other, have bits from each, or neither.
Some people are firm body acceptance believers: they see and preach that there’s no reason to want to change your body to fit a certain standard. People in this group often have a hard time seeing weight loss or fitness as anything more than trying to be something you’re not (although they tend to forgive athletes and those being active for health reasons alone). Fitness magazines & advertising can be threatening to this message, so occasionally (not always) you can see a rebellion towards fitness & weight-loss in this group. However, when a person in this group is unsatisfied with their body, they feel it goes against their belief system to want to make changes: therin lies their conflict. They find it hard to reconcile wanting to make changes while simultaneously preaching that no one should fit a standard. It’s tough to be in this group.
On the other end, you have individuals who hate their bodies and feel complacent if they’re not making changes: they’re constantly trying to fit a standard that’s not realistic and lies outside of themselves. This group believes firmly that changing and striving towards the standard they set for themselves is what life’s all about. They don’t feel happy or satisfied with their bodies unless they’re working towards that goal or diligently maintaining it. Often (but not always) people in this group might see body-acceptance as an excuse to be lazy. They find it hard to reconcile body-acceptance while simultaneously feeling as though they’re giving up if they adopt the philosophy that their body is good enough as is.
These are extremes: most people lie somewhere in between, or struggle with aspects of each.
You can love your body AND want to improve it: many people do. :) Here are my thoughts on loving your body AND being okay with wanting to change/improve it (taken from a question earlier today).
