Jealousy Can Motivate

I am jealous of Drew's ex-girlfriend Samantha because she is skinnier than me, prettier than me, has a farm, a full time job, a successful fiance, a dog, a garden, a fish pond, and never even went to college. Her life is better than mine and mine should be better than hers. Drew gave me hope today that if I was skinny I might be as pretty as her, or more pretty. I want to prove something. I want him to be proud of me, not her. She has stuff over me and I want to win! I deserve to win and I will prove it. One day I will be as skinny as her, prettier than her, richer than her, have a better job, smarter than her, happier than her, and have more animals than her. I will wear better clothes and make her jealous of me. No one will be able to look at her and say that Drew got the worse deal. No way am I going to let this go. Drew drew the line in the sand and I am going to cross it. He has never known me to be thin so I must show him how good I can be. I am not telling him this because I don't want him monitoring or judging me. Sam will go down. I will take her place in his life! So far I have won with him except for looks. No longer! She will not win!

Wedding Dresses

Most little girls dream about the day they will get married. The tradition is surrounded in mystery and awe-big cakes, big dresses, decorations, food, wine, song, relatives reuniting, and the highlighting of the bride as beauty itself. Who wouldn't want a day that they can plan to be all about them, all that they want, and all that they can imagine? And...people go along with it willingly! Indeed, the bucks forked up for these events is still heavily provided by the bride's father, a custom that has taken the place of the medieval dowry ( a sum of money paid by the father of the bride to the groom and his family for taking her in and feeding and clothing her). Friends are expected to buy extravagant, creative gifts; and the attendants must give time, money, travel, and effort, all to the nuptials. It can be a day of happiness, joy, and celebration, or one of stress, fighting, and dashed hopes-not to mention debt.
But the wedding is still considered if not the, ONE of the best days of a woman's life. Some go for fun, some for glamour, some for simplicity and intimacy. Whatever the dream, it can be achieved with a little money and a wedding planner at your disposal. The thing that gets our imaginations flying to the highest flights of ecstasy, however, is-the dress. It is the most expensive thing you will ever wear, and ideally it is to make you the most beautiful you will ever be.
Indeed, every woman's fantasy can now be met with the vast variety of styles available to the public. Like never before have women been able to achieve their seam dreams--so why is picking a wedding dress so stressful and emotional for so many of us?
I believe that part of this has to do with the extreme importance put on weddings, especially the dress, and the concern that one might not pick the best one, or that the dress you want will not please your family or groom. An identity crisis can be reached, where a bride has to dive deep into her soul and pick the very "style" of her personality. This can be a cause of great concern, or great comfort. When a bride goes to a bridal salon with her mother of friends, it can be hard for her to sort out what their opinions mean to her. On the other hand, if a bride goes alone or with the groom she is most likely going to second guess her decision anyway because she has no one to bounce the vision off of. It is always a good idea to seek the advice of the most experienced attendant in the salon and to have her bring dresses of her choosing for you, even if you have only wanted a certain kind. She has been at this a long time and could have an eye for what you'll love more than you do, as a flustered bride to be.
Brides tend to view their bodies negatively and want to hide themselves or even avoid the experience of shopping altogether. Breakdowns are common in bridal dressing rooms and demons come out of the closet when faced with hard decisions about your appearance. Even traumatic issues from the past can surface. One bride's sister had passed away and the bride was reluctant to pick a dress or even go forward with the wedding because she didn't want to celebrate when the sister wasn't there. She didn't realize any of this until she started trying on gowns.
Having an emotional game-plan before shopping is always a good idea. Plotting out how the day will go to the letter isn't going to work but vaguely hoping you might find something will leave you with nothing at the end of the day. Giving yourself enough time is also key. If you go into a salon and only have an hour, you will not be able to focus and will annoy the salon employees. You might need them to be on your side when you need rush tailoring. Looking at this as you did for prom shopping might not pay the proper decorum to the situation.
No longer are the days when a virgin wore white and divorcees were discouraged from celebrating their second marriage at all. Almost anything goes and if you want to show every inch of your body except for your genitals you are accommodated, if somewhat reluctantly.  After all, there are websites that cater to that type of client. However, most brides go for the more family-friendly approach and cover their choicest bits until the wedding night.
ANY dress you want, you can have. ANY color too (even though white, cream, and ivory are still the clear favorites). You can buy them online, in a shop, order them from a catalog or specific designer, buy them from the runway, get them used on ebay or at a flea market, or design it yourself and have it made by a seamstress in your area. I have my own personal opinions about the types of dresses I think are lovely and tasteful but I have made some guidelines you might want to follow when choosing your dream frock:
1. It must fit.
2. It must flatter.
3. It must not exceed your dress budget.
4. It must be a style that you know you will continue to appreciate after many years time has passed.
5. It must make you feel very special.
6. It must not take the attention away from yourself, but rather showcase you.
7. It must not hurt in any way (shoes included).
8. It must fit into the car.
9. It must make you feel secure.
10. It must not be dirty.
11. It must appear to fit into the venue's style, decorations, architecture, and atmosphere. It must fit the tone.
12. It must not make you appear ghostly, peaked, or dirty.
I know that the unique bride might be going for an extremely sexy, creative, loud, gaudy, period, or genre specific dress but that does not mean you can not adhere to all of the guidelines suggested above.

Obesity Epidemic

I think it can be assumed that obesity creates health problems like acid reflux disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arterial plaque, blood clots, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, hormone imbalance, joint problems, osteoporosis, tooth decay, halitosis, skin infections, pulled ligaments and muscles, fallen arches, and limited ease of movement. 25-40% of Americans are obese by the FDA’s testing; and up to 64% are overweight. What overweight and obese mean are sometimes seen as highly speculative. Obesity and overweight are supposed to be determined by a person’s BMI score but the word obese is now being used for people, who 20 years ago, were considered overweight. Nowhere can I find where the FDA has changed its BMI standards so why the discrepancy? Is this just a hysterical escalation exercise? A BMI of 30 or higher (for your height, gender, and age) is considered obese. Doctors are encouraged not to trouble patients with overweight, just with obesity. By then, isn’t it too late? Shouldn’t they have tried to prevent it? Plus, there are many different types of bodies, some more muscular than others, so why does the BMI not take that into account and give an assurance of leeway in its system?

So, many people in America are obese. It seems to be generally accepted that we have an epidemic, systemic of our food processes, sedentary lifestyle, and over-consumption. Models have also become thinner as we have become fatter. Is this because Americans feel bad about themselves and give up trying to be an ideal by overeating or because societies always glorify what it is not (like the bourgeoisie of France loving corpulent bodies while the peasants starve)? Or is it because excessively thin models are the only socially acceptable way to keep women “in their place?” Whatever the reason, the ideal woman has become what most are not. Eternal youth is chased by the majority of the population-women over 40. Youth was when women were thin due to a more active lifestyle and metabolism calling to mind memories of a happier time, perhaps?

Whatever the reason for the thinner models, the majority of Americans are overweight. Men and women alike are equally affected. When it comes time to treat the symptoms of obesity, pills are used as it is very hard for people to change their lifestyle and eat and move differently. There is no way known to successfully enable people to change their habits, but say you could cause will power to surge? What diet would you use to lose the weight?

These are just some of the diets recommended as most healthy to the American public: only protein, high protein, everything in moderation, vegetarian, vegan, organic, juiced, no red meat, all red meat, no dairy, no sugar, eat all you want of certain foods only, eat certain foods and exercise x amount each day, drink only water, eat twice as many vegetables as other groups, cut out starches and carbohydrates, calorie counting, grapefruit fasting, fasting lite, fasting extreme, eat less of whatever you want, vitamin regimens, and basing your foods on the region your ancestors came from. Obviously, how can a patient ever know which one to choose? Even if your doctor tells you to do one you might think maybe another one would be easier or might be healthier. So you go back and forth, or stick with one only to realize it makes you sick. The FDA uses the food pyramid, which in itself can be confusing or vague. What in the world can obese people do? They love food and are addicted to it, they are not used to exercise, they are told they must change everything NOW, and then they look to find the right diet and are faced with a barrage of conflicting “facts” and overly generalized or overly specific information. THEN you get the videos of the horribly mistreated animals and “pink slime.”

Obese people are sick, mentally exhausted, and confused. Why then do people wonder that they don’t lose weight? Fat people think about how to lose weight all the time so when THEY can’t wade through the diet information you know there’s a problem. The doctors who wrote the diets don’t have a life or death situation to fight-obese people do. They are in a losing battle unless they can pick one diet, hope it is the most healthy one, and use all of the will power they have to stop eating too much of the “wrong” things. One wonders, isn’t there some therapy to get them not to WANT to eat too much? The answer-none of it works. Our bodies need food and you cannot help a food addict because they can never forgo their drug and live to celebrate sobriety.

People overeat for many different reasons but all of them become addicted in some capacity to one or more parts of the overeating process. Obese people feel like they are defeated before they start, especially because they try to diet all the time and fail daily at the goals they set for themselves.

Go ahead and judge us. Tell us it’s a question of will power and knowledge. Tell us we are disgusting and killing ourselves. Tell us we are lazy and make too many excuses. I wish I could put you in my shoes for a day and see what you say then.

Of course, all of us fatties could be completely able to lose weight and all of this talking about it and giving excuses IS avoidance. But that is the problem, isn' it...I don't seem to KNOW anything.

Fed Up

So, this is going to be my most serious post. I will try to be as thorough and exact as possible. Up front, I admit I am a hypocrite and may contradict myself, but we are all bigots and liars. I am trying to protect myself and I want to protect you. I don't want us to be consumers more than citizens. I don't want women to hate themselves anymore or be the victims of a violent and manipulated culture. Some of this you will have heard before but I want to make it CLEAR that I am going to take a distinct stand from now on-a no tolerance position on sexism. I can no longer hurt myself for a lie. 
Ads lie. They are lies. Marketers want you to buy their product and they will tell or show you ANYTHING to make a buck. Ads seem so harmless. They seem enjoyable or helpful, informative, or silly. What is really going on is an insidious brand of subconscious prepping. They are setting the stage for a lifetime customer. 
When people are satisfied with themselves and what they have, they do not want to purchase anything new unless the old breaks. If a company wants to stay in business it must create a demand for its products. The most effective way to do this is to demean what the person has and seduce that person into constant consumption of the latest and "greatest." If you want to take it a step further, you tell the customers they are inadequate and need to buy things to complete their identity and make themselves feel whole. If a customer can believe a product will make them better or sooth stress then the deal is sealed. 
The way that ads have demeaned and KILLED women is disgustingly unfair. Men overwhelmingly run the advertising industry, and rather than abuse and dupe their own sex, they have made females their scapegoat, taking advantage of their industrial power. It is the worst thing that has happened to the U.S., bar none! As a result of this sexism and inhumanity women have been hating themselves for 2 centuries at least! We should not have to suffer for this anymore and we shouldn't have suffered at all. 
If you pay attention to the ads in our magazines, on TV, in movies, and online, many more ads feature women than men. Marketers make more money on women than men. How is this possible? Women are made to hate themselves and it starts with our bodies. We are being attacked and we have to fight back! 
Our pants are sizes 0 and 00. If a man walked into a store and found a size 0 he would think it ridiculous because it doesn't make sense, yet we have to deal with the fact that a size 00 woman, a nothing woman, is the ideal. We are to be silent, vulnerable, used, needy, and the great consumer. A woman must be a skeleton with skin stretched tight against the bones, sag-less breasts, full hair, and round faces. This is IMPOSSIBLE! A size 00 should be IMPOSSIBLE! Because the ads have manipulated us to want whatever is out at the moment, over time and much practice (imagine it, we are in 2012) the ideal woman has become the one no one is, a hodge podge of morals that leave us subdued and impotent. Sex becomes only for the young/ideal. A beautiful woman becomes what all women want more than ANYTHING else in their lives because the advertisers know this is what will make them buy the most products. People grow OLD so why not make it so that they always want to look younger? They can never achieve it and will always try to! We win! 
It is sick. This has changed our health-care system in so many ways. Now the weight of the patients are more important than the patients themselves. Being ugly (fat) is worse than being poor, sick, degenerate, or unpopular even. It is worse than dying young. In fact, most older women WISH to die young so that they don't have to face the dreaded ugly. 
This is all SO ridiculous! It is disgusting and degrading. The more we see and live this shit the more it will destroy us. We have to fight NOW! For our children AND ourselves because things are getting worse. Pornographic images are always degrading to women. If you don't believe me, I don't care. All ads glorify the woman of beauty, the woman of women, the only woman allowed, the only woman wanted. No one is perfect but we believe we must be, and so hate ourselves. This is all from ads and we can stop this onslaught by boycotting the media in all of its forms. 
I am dead serious about this. No Barbie. No magazines. No movies. No television. No ad friendly sites. This has got to stop. I don't want to see ONE more image of the 'ideal' woman. I am sick of this. I don't care if I never see another movie again or read another magazine. Being sexy is important but I believe those images hurt our sexuality. Clothes are important but not so important as to make you hate yourself. The images we have come to live are killing us. The thrill we get when we see a beautiful woman has been cultivated in us, not inborn. It is a trick, a learned lie that must be stopped. 
Walking down a street I cannot cover a billboard, but I can look the other way. I am going to take a stand against sexism and consumerism. I am going to take a stand against the images I have   come to love more than myself. NO MORE! Join with me and clean up your mind, for your soul's stake. Please. Less women will have horrible, victimized lives if you do this. NO MORE MEDIA. 

Good Taste

This is such a fun subject but one that some people will never understand or care about. The world turns and there are many different people under the sun. Maybe the people who DON'T care are the ones who have it right. However, there is such a thing as "good taste" and to get it right you have to know the rules. To get it really right you must put your own spin on it without going into distasteful territory. In fact, the more rules you are able to break successfully, the more tasteful you are. Anyway...I think living within the boundaries of good taste can be good for you morally, spiritually, and socially. We are social beings and we care what others think of us, even if you care less than most. The first, and most important, thing you need to know about good taste is to be considerate of others- Don't wear clothes that show your bum. No surprise body parts on display. Open the door for others and don't interrupt in a conversation. Secondly, wear clothes that are currently in style and fit. This does not mean that all clothes that are "in" should be worn. Good taste is not elusive. It is actually common sense. If a blouse seems too provocative or too edgy, it most likely is. Avoid trends that don't flatter your figure. There is always something for everyone within any given season. If you always have basic staples like plain jeans, button down shirts, a business skirt, jacket, and the like, you will be safe. Thirdly, Don't use words that generalize. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Do not be inconsiderate, but be direct. If you are witty, add a few jokes to your conversation. Don't pretend you know what you don't and don't drop names or brag. Don't talk about your hardships unless that subject is brought up or you are in an intimate, private conversation. Don't speak ill of others, even if everyone else is doing it. Their intended wit will shame them later on and they will remember how you kept yourself free from the fray. Fourthly, buy within your means but don't settle for sub-par. Even if you are ashamed of your lowly job do not tell this to others unless they are your best friend. You should make the best of what you have. Buy higher quality but just have less of it. People are impressed with a small apartment decorated perfectly, but they walk away empty from a house with many rooms and no furnishings of note or comfort. Fifthly, be clean and punctual. These imply professionalism, courtesy, and pride in oneself. Sixthly, take good care of your things and your relationships. Keep up on the maintenance required or you will lose both. Next, keep your virtues at your sleeve and your faults at bay. People pick up on your faults quickly but it may take awhile for the effect of your virtues to manifest. By giving a good impression as often as you can, you avoid conflict and a poor reputation. Everyone has faults, having them does not make you necessarily a bad person, but if you don't keep them in check people will be run off even if they like you. Lastly, vulgarity of any sort is out of line. Too much eye liner or lip liner gives off a vulgar impression. Crude language or contempt for the law is also vulgar. Vulgarians don't have to be ignorantly poor, they can come from the richest circles of NYC. Good taste can't be faked. Either you have it or you don't.

Body Size, Shape, and Weight

I don't know why we are so obsessed with our bodies. I have many theories but no proven facts. Our lives revolve around eating and dressing. Our minds are filled with loaded messages about body size, shape, and weight. Women's bodies seem to take more of a beating in life, in childbirth, and in the media. Women's bodies are objects of lust and fascination, jealousy and despair. Is it so odd that we should hate ourselves or love ourselves because of how we look? It is the only part of us we can see. Our soul and mind are hidden from view so maybe we can be fooled into thinking that the body is who we are (or mostly who we are). This is so unfortunate because for unproven reasons developed countries love thinness and hate fatness. These two things are black and white because you are either like a model (thin), or not (fat). The problem is, women are all fat and thin! Everyone is a combination of both! If you look at the website "My Body Gallery," you will quickly realize that women cannot be sized up, shaped up, and weighed into a certain mold. One cannot simply guess or assume what a woman weights, her pants' size, or if she is an apple or a pear. Everyone is a bit of everything. Seriously! This is true!

Seeing the women on the site really helped me to understand more about myself. It is impossible to imagine all of the different sizes and shapes we come in! Why would the world want us all to be one certain mold that doesn't exactly exist? What makes the king of 1676 love the strong muscles under the soft fat of a pale woman? What makes the bronzed toned woman with slack thighs so appealing to the male executive of today? Why weren't BOTH celebrated in BOTH times? We cannot let a dictate hurt us! To be fat and thin is part of human design. We are all, both. Look at the site. You will see what I mean.

Thin Is In :(

Check out the website:

www.mybodygallery.com