We’re kicking off the Telesummit tonight with a big fat talk on fat activism!  We’ll be chatting with Marilyn Wann (author of Fat!So?), Amanda Levitt (Founder of Love Your Body Detroit) and Peggy Howell (PR Director for NAAFA).

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be talking health with Dr. Linda Bacon and Ragen Chastain, fatshion with Marie Denee, Rachel Kacenjar, and Yuliya Raquel, sex with Hanne Blank and Virgie Tovar, social media with Marianne Kirby, Margitte Leah Kristjannson and Brian Stuart, fitness with Jeanette DePatie and Anna Guest-Jelley, fat/queer intersections with Bevin Branlandingham, Charlotte Cooper, & Jessica Luxery, and politics with Paul Campos and Amy Erdman Farrell. You can see the full schedule here.

When you register, you’ll get free live access to all of the interviews, and you’ll have the opportunity to get yourquestions answered by our panel.

Click here to learn more and register!

I can’t wait to see you there!

Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit Starts Tonight! originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 31, 2012.

Every once in a while, I meet someone in their 20′s who’s been part of the fat positive community since his/her young teens. Often, they found fat pride as a result of a late night Google search that led them to a blog or two. They often tell me they never(!) dieted and focused on approving of their body from a young age.  Sometimes, they even influenced their friends and spread body positivity in school, college, etc.

Fat Kid All Grown Up! Activist Marilyn Wann Parodies The Strong4Life Campaign

I get so excited when I hear these stories.  If fat positivity was reaching kids ten years ago, imagine who it’s reaching now!  We could be supporting a whole new generation of kids to practice Health At Every Size ®, to know that dieting is not the answer, to know that their bodies are perfect just as they are!

I think this is definitely happening (and if you’re a young’un who reads this blog, please feel free to comment and say hi!) but at the same time, I feel like there is even more pressure on fat kids nowadays to change their bodies.  This is nearly unfathomable to me, because as a kid growing up mostly in the 80′s, I felt so much shame and pressure around my fatness, and it’s hard to imagine it being worse.  But according to people who  ignore statistics, childhood obesity is on the rise.  And rather than look at the real issues, like child poverty, food deserts and the fact that our fat shaming society is actually bad for kids and their health, groups like Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta decide to put the onus on fat kids, shaming them for, well, eating, and eating at places that actually donate money to the campaign.  (By the way, fat activists have been doing some amazing work to take down the so-called “Strong4Life” campaign.  If you’re interested in getting involved, check out this site and this Facebook group. For a quick action you can take, sign the petition.)

As I wrote last week, I would really like to live in a society where fat shaming and discrimination are a thing of the past.  I hope to meet more and more young folks (and eventually, older folks) who found body acceptance and HAES® early, felt supported in approving of their bodies, and went on to do great things because body image was never an issue.

One way to support this Body Love Revolution is to support the adults in fat children’s lives. So I’d like to share some tips for the parents/guardians/grandparents/aunts/uncles etc. out there.  If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably already aware of body positivity and want to instill it in the kids in your life.  If you have fat kids, you probably get pressure all the time to do something about their “weight problem.”  I can only imagine the pressure you feel.  And of course, you only have a limited amount of impact on your kids, since they live in this messed up, fat shaming society too.  But here are a few tips just to support you:

1) Demonstrate The Beauty Of Body Diversity — From the beauty industry to the medical industry, we’re bombarded with messages about the kind of bodies that are “good,” “healthy,” and “beautiful.”  These categories are often applied to only a tiny segment of the population, and the rest of us are expected to strive to achieve bodies that are more like this ideal.  As much as possible, try to show your children that a diversity of bodies is really beautiful.  Marilyn Wann’s Fat!So? book is particularly great for this — each chapter features a diversity of arms, bellies, legs etc. to show this beauty in diversity.  Whether you’re 7 or 70, it can feel great to have these reminders.

Dr. Linda Bacon Stands For Kids Too

2) Bring Resources With You When You Deal With Authority Figures — There are probably people in your life and your kid’s life who pressure you to get your kid to diet.  Diets don’t work for kids or adults, but that doesn’t stop doctors, teachers, etc. from pressuring you to put your kid on one.  Having a bit of research in front of you so that you can better advocate for your child can be really helpful.  Check out Linda Bacon’s incredibly helpful letters that you can bring with you to help explain why you’re using HAES® with your kids (and yourself).

3) Make Your Home A Body Positive Space — Think of your home as an oasis from fat shame.  What might need to change?  Maybe there are a few magazines that idealize thin bodies that you don’t want to buy anymore?  Maybe you want to tell your friends that you’re going to change the conversation if they start talking about how “bad” they are for eating something.  Maybe your bathroom scale needs to be replaced with something snazzier.  Getting intentional about creating a body positive home environment can be great for you and your kids.

4) Don’t Make Weight Loss The Answer — Despite the fact that fatness makes kids a target for bullying, protecting fat kids from bullying seems to be a low priority.  Since you hate to see your kids get picked on, you may think that dieting and weight loss are the answer.  But they aren’t the answer.  They just set your child up for more physical and mental health issues, including low self esteem and negative body image.  I’m no expert on bullying, but the more you remind your child that the bully is wrong and that his/her body is perfect the way it is, the better.

5) Get Body Positive Support For Yourself — I think it’s the rare person who escapes childhood and adolescence without body image issues, whether they’re fat or thin.  Fat positive community tends to be welcoming to lots of body types, because people understand that fat pride is about acknowledging that body shaming hurts all of us.  So look for blogs and groups (whether online or local) that feel supportive.  Also consider talking to a HAES therapist or coach (like me!) to support you in feeling great about your body.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining! And, please join her and twenty of the biggest names in HAES(R) and Fat Acceptance at the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit (including Marilyn Wann and Linda Bacon, mentioned above)!

Is There Hope For Fat Kids? originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 23, 2012.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

It feels inevitable. December is all about holidays and parties and joy and togetherness. There are bright lights and gifts and delicious food and hundreds of tubas playing carols. At least, that’s the hope. It’s a time of year when we try, as best we can, to connect with our abundance and our joy.

Cupid Is Taking Back January From Father Time (it's one interpretation) (image courtesy of graphicsfairy)

Then, suddenly, January 2nd rolls around, and we’re asked to drop all of that merriment and get real. We’re supposed to take note of our flaws and resolve to be better — to eat better, to exercise more, to party less, to stop having such a darn good time and get down to work, usually on ourselves.

I just hate it. I hate this pattern that we’re told to recreate every year. I hate this pattern of flagellating ourselves for our fun, or joy, our willingness to let go of some rules and just have fun. I’m tired of the pendulum swing, the “or” and not the “and.”

So here’s what I propose. Let’s (quite literally) have our cake and eat it too. Let’s savor the cake and the kale. Let’s get more exercise by dancing more with friends. Let’s love our bodies because they’re ours, because they’re a gift, and not have our self approval depend on how well they meet some totally arbitrary societal standard.

I’m dead serious about this. So if you’re ready to join me in taking back January, check out my 2011-2012 Transition & Manifestation Book (today’s the last day that you can download it for free) and join me for the 2nd Annual Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit, where I’ll be interviewing 20 outrageously fabulous people at the forefront of Health At Every Size® and body acceptance. Together, we can make this January way more fun and fulfilling.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

My New Year’s Resolution — Take Back January! originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 2, 2012.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Most of us are taught that the way to succeed is too work lots of hours, exercise until we can’t move, and “rest when we die”. We’re taught to measure our success by how hard we work and how much we can acquire.

This “no pain, no gain” culture can have many negative effects, including a feeling of emptiness and disconnection from ourselves and others.

Sometimes you just have to say "eff it" and go to a movie. (Image from USA.gov)

We can see this disconnection from our bodies in the way many of us treat our bodies. We stuff ourselves into clothes that are too tight or clothes that we don’t even like, we say things to one another like, “I hate my thighs/arms/breasts/_____”, we eat highly chemicalized diet foods in an effort to change our body types, we over-exercise to the point of pain and exhaustion. In essence, we treat our bodies with hate and then get angry when our bodies won’t do our bidding.

Pleasurable self care reverses this cycle of disconnection and body hatred. I say “pleasurable”, because it’s important to choose your self care rituals based on what feels good to your body rather than what you think your body should want.

If some lovely idea for a self care ritual has popped into your mind already, do that as your first self care ritual.

Schedule self care every single day. You will find that making time for self care sends a message to you and your body of its intrinsic value, and you will find yourself, more and more, making decisions throughout your day that support your true needs rather than what others expect of you.

Here are 15 ideas for self care rituals, just to get you started.

1) Massage your whole body slowly, with wonderful smelling lotion.
2) Get or give yourself a manicure.
3) Take 10 deep breaths with soothing music playing.
4) Take an dance class.
5) Take a walk in a park and smell the air.
6) Put your feet up and call a friend whom you haven’t spoken with in a while.
7) Read a novel by candlelight.
8) Trade foot rubs with a friend.
9) Go to a comedy show and enjoy those big belly laughs.
10) Wear your favorite party clothes or lingerie while doing the dishes.
11) Put a fake tattoo on a body part that you typically denigrate and giggle whenever you see the tattoo.
12) Get a massage, facial or body scrub.
13) Draw a picture like you did when you were a child.
14) Play with your dog (or a friend’s dog).
15) Free write in a journal.

As you can see, self care rituals don’t have to cost a lot. The key to enjoying your self care ritual is to notice, with all 5 senses, what it feels like to your body. Also, it’s important not to judge yourself. This is just playtime, and it’s about your enjoyment and nothing more.

Comment below with your favorite self care rituals. Let us know how you felt, before, during and afterwards. Feel free to comment with questions too.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

(This post was first published in 2008.)

15 Easy Self Care Ideas originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 19, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Do not adjust your monitors. The image below is not some work of photoshop magic. It is merely a scan of photos that are now irreparably stuck together because they were left on a radiator.

Totally ruined vacation pics

Why would anyone leave perfectly good pictures of a vacation to a tropical paradise atop a hot radiator? That is an excellent question. Well, that picture at the top of the stack was the only picture of myself in the whole stack, and, at the time, I hated it. I couldn’t stand how I looked. Back in 2005, before I had heard of fat acceptance, this picture confirmed for me how fat I was (and yes, I’m definitely fatter now). To my mind at the time, fat equaled bad. Consequently, I never put the photos into an album, and “unintentionally” left them on a radiator, where they melded together. I had taken them with a disposable camera (my digital camera died in the middle of my trip), have no idea where the negatives are, and consequently lost all photographic evidence of this trip, save for this melted pile.

As a result of this picture and pressure from people in my life who were doing Weight Watchers, I embarked on my last diet.  To make a long story short, I lost a bunch of weight, started gaining it back (like everyone else), found HAES(R) and fat acceptance and eventually gained it all back, plus more.

For the first time since that trip, I’m going on vacation to a tropical local (with my fabulous friend Anne).  In the past, I would have avoided any pictures of myself.  The fact that I only had one picture of myself from a 5-day trip speaks volumes about my nearly lifelong avoidance of pictures.  I never felt good looking at pictures — they weren’t reminders of lovely trips and time with friends, they were reminders that I never looked as good or “acceptable” as I thought I did.  They just made me depressed.

Even as I got deeper into body acceptance, pictures were still hard for me.  I could wrap my head around the idea that fat didn’t equal bad, but I always seemed to have more fat than I thought.  I always had a bigger double chin, a bigger belly, etc. than I thought.

In the last few years, I’ve done some great experimenting with photography.  I think it all started when I took Lesleigh J. Owen‘s class at the NAAFA Convention, where she encouraged us to take “bad” pictures of ourselves.  Being encouraged to do that was really liberating.  I also started to seek out more images of fat people in general, whether they were artfully done like Adipositivity or just regular pictures of regular folks.  I realized that I needed to change my perception of what was “normal” or “good” when it came to pictures.  I didn’t want looking skinnier than usual to be my only criterion for a good picture.

So, I’m hoping to do this vacation a little differently, and end up with some beautiful pictures, including ones of me.

Do any of you have this picture phobia?  I hope you’ll share in the comments below.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

The Dreaded Curse Of “Bad” Photos originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 12, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

Click here to listen in itunes.

This post really could be an indictment of the way that fat always equals bad in the symbolism of Progressive movements, including Occupy, but it isn’t.  And as much as I wish that fellow Lefties would take up the call of fat acceptance rather than fatphobia, for now it’s a dream deferred.

But I do think that the Occupy movement and the fat acceptance movement have a lot in common.  In essence, the Occupy movement is trying to break down a prevailing myth.  The myth is that with enough smarts and fortitude and hard work, the American dream of prosperity will be realized.  People have been led to believe that it  just takes hard work, dedication, putting your nose to the grindstone, and various other cliches and you too can make it in America, when the reality is endemic income disparity, high unemployment, lost homes, hunger, poverty, and discrimination and all the while huge multinational corporations are in cahoots with much of the government to keep things that way.

Here's my 68% rant!

The reality could not be more different than the myth.  And yet, the Right’s only response is, “Get a job, ya hippies!”  The Right continues to attempt to discredit Occupy’s argument by insisting that the myth is real.  If the Occupy folks would just work harder and do things right and stop being so lazy, they’d all be living the American dream, the Right argues.

Does this sound familiar?  Have you ever been told that if you just worked harder at it and did things right, you’d lose weight and keep it off?  It’s pretty much the argument of every diet pusher when their diet fails.  It’s the argument of every doctor who, despite supposedly having a knowledge of the way the body and metabolism works, insists that diet and exercise will work if you just work hard enough.  It’s the argument that supports continued discrimination against fat people because if fat people really are just lazy and not working hard enough, then it’s their fault, and the diet companies, and pharmaceutical companies, and doctors, and the AMA etc. don’t have to do the work of realizing that the whole system is based on a lie and that it’s dangerous and needs to change.

According to the Lancet, based upon the (utterly bogus) BMI, 68% of Americans are overweight or heavier.  That’s more than two thirds!  Imagine if all of these people had a new awareness.  Imagine if all of these people (and their thin allies) began to see that fat wasn’t bad, that diets don’t work, that discrimination against fat people is wrong, and that people having a diversity of bodies is beautiful.  Imagine the healing that could happen for all of us.

I think it would be exciting for some of us to share our fat stories of being one of the 68%.  I shared mine above, and I’d love for you to share yours here, on the Body Love Wellness facebook page, and anywhere else you desire!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Occupy Fat Street: We Are The 68% originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 28, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

(Note from Golda: This post first appeared on the lovely blog, Roots of She. I realize it’s a little different than what I write for this blog, but I hope you dig it!)

"Abundantia," by Peter Paul Rubens (courtesy of wikipedia)

Nearly every woman I know has a screwed up relationship with food.  I think the way to heal this is not more of the same, it’s eating like a goddess.

Right now, we’re living in a cultural moment that tells us that the masculine paradigm is better than the feminine.*  This paradigm honors logic over intuition, outer rules over internal guidance, avoidance of pain rather than attraction to pleasure, and fear of scarcity over acknowledgement of abundance.  And this lack of balance between the masculine and feminine shows up again and again in the way we eat.

But our goddess selves know that none of that feels right.  Your goddess self doesn’t believe in diets, or rules, or calories or Weight Watchers’ points.  Your goddess self knows that food is a blessing, that slowing down a bit feels good, that your body knows what food you need and what you don’t.  Your goddess self knows that your body is beautiful, and doesn’t understand why you would control your food as a way to control the size and shape of your body.

In order to heal the way that we relate to food, we have to return to our wilder selves.  We have to let go of the rules, and delve into our true desires.

For many of you, this concept may be just at the edge of your comfort zone.  You’ve been taught to create meal plans, follow rigid rules, count calories, count fat, weigh and measure your food, etc. etc., so when I say to you that all of that should be tossed out the window, it may feel really scary.  Perhaps you even tried to throw it all out the window and things got kind of weird.  Perhaps you found yourself bingeing, and it freaked you out so much that after a while, you looked for your next diet.  You saw that out of control behavior as proof that you need rules and strictures and meal plans and counting.

But you had it all wrong.  Because you were eating at that time as a reaction to diets, and not as acknowledgement of your goddess self.  And the way to do that is to connect with your true abundance.

You see, you’ve got to get past the reaction of “I can eat whatever I want!  Screw you Jenny Craig!  I’m going to eat everything in sight!”  Because when you eat from that place, you’re not eating from a place of abundance, you’re just reacting to the rules and strictures of the masculine paradigm.  And while it may feel good to do that for a while, it can start feeling bad pretty quickly.  It can start feeling really out of control and just as unaligned with your true desires as a diet plan.  So the next move is to truly connect with your abundance, intuition and pleasure.

So here are 3 powerful tips for healing your relationship with food by eating like a goddess:

1) Connect With Your Abundance — Imagine for a moment that you can eat whatever you want whenever you’re hungry.  Imagine that you have a fridge and a pantry full of food that you really love, and that when your body says it’s hungry, you have your pick of really delectable offerings.  And here’s the key, it’s all going to be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.  Whenever you’re hungry, you may eat.  You don’t have to worry about getting enough, because there is always enough.  Diets and restrictions don’t exist in your world.  You can trust that your bodily hunger will always be respected. You don’t have to worry about over-eating either, because there’s no reason to overeat.  Why have more cake tonight, and stuff yourself, when there will be plenty of cake tomorrow?

2) Connect With Your Intuition — Your intuition is a powerful tool that connects you to your body, your wisdom, and a greater knowing.  If you want to start eating more intuitively, then you need to build your intuitive skills.  The way to start building your intuition is by trusting it, even if you think it might be wrong.  You start by paying attention.  If your inner wisdom tells you to take a different route to work, you listen to it, even if it doesn’t make logical sense.  If your inner wisdom says, “I’m hungry, let’s have seconds!” you have seconds, even if you don’t have any weight watchers points left for that day.  If your inner wisdom tells you to say yes to going out for drinks even when you feel like going home and watching TV, go with your inner wisdom.  It’s important to rebuild this trust in your intuition in order to heal your relationship with food.

3) Connect With Your Desire — People often conflate hunger for things other than food with our hunger for food.  Hunger could be for anything from a new job to a new lover to better boundaries with a friend.  But if you don’t take the time to identify your desires, you’re more likely to turn to food to try to satisfy them.  So I’m going to ask you to start listing your desires, and keep adding to that list.  No desire is too big or too small.  Whether you desire a free iced coffee or to own a villa on the Italian coast, add it to your list.  Be specific.  Be bold.  There is no desire too big for a goddess.  Challenge yourself to think bigger than you ever had in your life.  And if you notice a few days from now that a desire has come true, check it off and write “Thank you, goddess!” next to it.  Just remember that these are not goals, they’re desires.  They’re meant to be enjoyed.

*I realize that the terms “masculine” and “feminine” may be problematic.  I’m using these terms to describe a duality of guiding principles for how people look at the world.  In no way do I mean that all men are one way and all women another, or that they should be one way or another.  It has nothing to do with anyone’s gender or identity.  It’s more to do with how an overabundance of one paradigm and a negating of the other is damaging to all of us.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Eating Like A Goddess originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 21, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

Of course, you don’t actually need my permission to love your body, right?  Who the frick am I to give you permission to love your body?!  That’s your choice, isn’t it?  No one has the right to give you permission or to take away permission.

So if I can’t give you permission, and no one else can give you permission, why then are you (possibly) still struggling to give yourself permission?

Perhaps I can think of a few reasons.  But before I do, I want to make it clear that loving and accepting your body is actually really important, healing, and healthy.  You’re a spiritual being having a physical experience.  The way you experience the world is through your body.  When you feel love and approval toward your body, then you can truly experience your life and the world around you.  The stress of worrying about whether your hair is right and whether your outfit disguises your belly rolls and whether you should’ve had that second cookie at that meeting at work all melts away.  You can live your life with more peace.  You can hear your inner truth.  You can enjoy being in a body that is uniquely yours.  And it truly doesn’t have the negative effects you think it will have.  (For more on why it’s important and healing, check out this post.)

Permission Granted (image by me)

You can do and experience all this and more, but first, you have to give yourself permission to love and accept your body.  In order to get that permission, you’ll probably need to work through at least one of these five objections, so let’s explore them a bit.

Reason #1:  Everyone Around Me Hates His/Her Body, So People Won’t Like Me If I Like My Body.

Most of us have a fear of being different too different than those around us.  For thousands of years, being an outcast could literally mean death, and so that desire to fit in with our social group is quite intense.  At the same time, we have to remember to think for ourselves, and make choices that are for our highest good.   If you’re drawn to body acceptance, there’s a reason for it.  And if you accept your body more and more, you may get some flack for it and you may find that some people in your life don’t understand or respect it.  You may also, however, find that some of your friends want to learn more about it and go with you on that journey, you might find that you make new friends who are into body acceptance and are happy to encourage you, and you may even become a voice for change for those around you.

Reason #2:  Everyone Around Me Hates His/Her Body, So Why Do I Have The Right To Be Different?

One of my favorite quotes of all time is this saying by Hillel the Elder, “If I am not for me, who will be for me?” You have the right to be, do, and have anything that you want.  If you don’t stand for that right, who will?  You must be for yourself.  Acknowledge for yourself that you deserve to love your body.

Reason #3: I’ve Heard Negative Messages About My Body For Most Of My Life, So They Must Be The Truth.

Negative messaging about our bodies is so insidious.  If you’re one of the lucky few who has managed to avoid hearing negative messaging at home and in school, then you’ve gotten it from the advertising you’ve been exposed to since birth.  It’s one of those flaws of human thinking patterns that we tend to believe what we hear if we hear it enough.  But just because you’ve heard something a lot does not mean it’s true.  And even if 99% of people believe it to be true, it doesn’t mean it is.  There is no objective truth that some bodies are beautiful and some are ugly.  There is no objective truth that some bodies are good and some are bad.  Just knowing that your body is not horrible doesn’t mean that your inner critic is going to stop telling you that, but disentangling yourself from this belief is an important first step in accepting your body.

Reason #4: If I Start To Like My Body, I’ll Eat Junk Food All Day And Just Melt Into My Couch Forever.

This is classic inner critic b.s.  Here’s the thing, if you like your body, you’ll want to treat it well.  So, if you’re engaging in over-exercising and harming your body, you might find that loving your body forces you to reevaluate your exercise routine to make it more joyous and fun for your body, but it’s not going to mean never moving again.  Same goes for food.  When you start respecting your body, you’ll start to trust it when it says it’s hungry and when it says it’s full, and it’ll be easier to respect that information and act accordingly.  But I can assure you that you will not melt into the couch forever and ever.

Reason #5: I Don’t Know How To Love My Body

If this is your main reason for not loving your body, this is actually a step forward.  You know on some level that you want to accept and love your body, but don’t know how to do it.  So I want to encourage you to keep reading body positive blogs (including this one) and keep looking to connect with body positive people.  You might find the free teleclass that I’m teaching this week helpful too.  I’ve also opened up a few free Body Love Breakthrough sessions with me this week, so if you’re looking to go deeper and get some one-to-one time with me, feel free to sign up.

Are any of these reasons keeping you stuck in body hatred?  Let me know in the comments section below!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Join her for her upcoming FREE teleclass, HAES For The Holidays: How To Navigate Food, Family & Fatness Better This Holiday Season, by clicking here.

You Have My Permission To Love And Accept Your Body, Just As It Is, Right This Minute originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 14, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

In November of 1998, during my senior year in college, I embarked on a new diet.  I called it “low carb with fruit.”  I cut out a lot of foods, and like most diets, it started working in the beginning.  Because I was losing weight, I stuck with the diet very carefully.

In early January 1999, I went on a trip to Prague with my scholarship group from school.  It was extremely cold in Prague, and I didn’t have much money.  There was hardly any fruit or vegetables to be had anywhere, so for about a week I subsisted on about 2 sausages that you buy on the street per day, carefully throwing out the hearty roll it was wrapped in.  I was also walking for miles each day, exploring the city.

I'm bummed that I can't find my pictures from that trip. But here's Prague Castle (image courtesy of wikipedia).

As you might imagine, I was hungry for most of the day, and I ignored that hunger for both convenience sake and because I wanted to stick to this diet. Only someone on a diet (or with a severe wheat allergy would have thrown those rolls away).  And maybe there were some other foods I could have found on the cheap, but I was so single-minded about sticking to my diet that I probably didn’t consider them.

When I got back to New York, I had lost more weight, and received a lot of praise for that.  My hair was also thinner, and I’m not sure it ever really recovered.

I remember, at the time, feeling happy to have lost more weight, but sad that no one seemed to mind that I did it in a really unhealthy way.  I thought, if I had gone to Prague a size 2 and come back a size 0, they might have considered getting me some help for an eating disorder, but leaving a size 14/16 and coming back a 12/14 was considered a great accomplishment.

A lot of my clients come to me with self-diagnosed restrictive eating disorders.  And they come to me that way because when you’re fat or plus-sized or even toward the larger end of the “normal size” scale, weight loss is considered a healthy, important goal, and almost any way that you arrive at or strive for that goal is approved of.  Many of the symptoms of dieting (obsession with weight, obsession with food, body dysmorphia) are akin to eating disorder symptoms, but they’re overlooked if you’re engaging in them while existing in a fatter body.  They still have deleterious mental, emotional, and physical effects, whether you’re fat, thin, or in between.  I think it’s time that the health and wellness community and the world at large recognized this reality.

This lack of recognition for eating disorders in fatter people is something I think about quite a lot, but it was brought to the fore by the fact that the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) has decided to partner with Strategies To Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance, a group who’s funded by pharmaceutical companies that produce dangerous and questionable things like diet pills and lap bands.  (To read more about it, read Ragen Chastain’s excellent open letter to NEDA and sign the petition to stop this alliance.)

Is engaging in restricting and obsessive behaviors perfectly great if you’re fatter and yet something worthy of treatment when you’re thinner?  Or are our societal norms and unfounded beliefs about health and beauty clouding the fact that it’s pretty much the same thing?  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Join her for her upcoming FREE teleclass, HAES For The Holidays: How To Navigate Food, Family & Fatness Better This Holiday Season, by clicking here.

Are Dieting Behaviors And Disordered Eating Behaviors Really So Different? originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 7, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

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So for some reason, I’ve been writing a lot about my “no-poo” hair experiment lately.  And now I’ve gone even deeper into this experiment, as I’ve begun doing something called water-only washing.  In essence, I’ve completely stopped using any thing on my hair other than water, baking soda, eggs, and apple cider vinegar.

Big deal, right?  It’s just hair.  But by making this change, I’ve noticed some other things start to change as well.

Snuggly Bunnies (Image from herwordskill, Flickr Creative Commons)

Mostly, the way I’ve always treated my skin suddenly feels sort of harsh.  Hot showers suddenly feel way to hot.  The Neutrogena foaming face wash that I’ve used for years suddenly seems overly drying.  The Body Shop body washes that I used to love just feel like they have one too many chemicals.   Now that my scalp is being treated differently, the rest of my skin seems to be calling out for something different too.  I’ve been playing around with the most natural soaps I can find, and using natural oils like jojoba and lovely essential oils as well.

I feel like my skin is calling on me to be more gentle with it, and I’m finding that the more I heed the call, the better my skin feels, and the better I feel. It’s like the old Hermetic, mystical saying, of “as above, so below” and “as within, so without.”  The gentler I treat my skin, the more I seem to find gentleness within.

There is such a beauty in gentleness, and I think it’s a quality that we often forget.  Who are we gentle with, other than babies, and maybe ourselves and others when we’re injured or quite ill?  Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could cultivate more gentleness in our everyday lives?

Imagine being gentle with yourself when you’re late for work.  How might you feel differently or plan differently for next time?  Imagine being gentle with yourself when you overeat at dinner.   What might you learn from that experience, and how might you treat yourself later that night or the next day if you were gentler with yourself?  What if you were gentler with your friends, your kids, your coworkers, your partners?  How might things shift and change in your relationships and within you?

I see a strength in gentleness.  It takes strength to be kind to yourself and others, to listen, to flow with what is rather than resent that what is isn’t what it should be.  Cultivating gentleness, to me, doesn’t mean ignoring other, potentially less gentle emotions.  It just means deciding, when possible, to go a little easier on ourselves and others than we might otherwise.

Does this concept of gentleness appeal to you?  Is there a place in your life that is calling out for more gentleness? Let me know what you try and how it went on my facebook page!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Finding Strength In Gentleness originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on October 24, 2011.