I know! Yay!

So here’s where I need a bit of your help.  As you know, the popularity on the Interwebs is all about rankings and page views and links and all that.  And I know that most of you reading this right now are fans of Body Love Wellness, the blog, the podcast, and the work that we’re doing to revolutionize the way that people feel about their bodies.

How You Can Help With Just A Few Clicks:

• Add It To Your List — If you have a list of books in certain categories on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads or wherever, add it to your lists.
• Share The Link — Share Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and other links on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.
• Write Reviews On Book Seller Web Sites — Even if you haven’t read the book yet, if you read the blog you have a good sense of my writing style, so feel free to comment and give lots of stars!
• Tag It — Agree with tags or add your own on bookseller web sites.
• Buy The Book — If you feel so inclined. :)
• Have Me Speak – If you have a book club or other group that you’d like me to talk to or do a reading for, shoot me an email!  Blog interviews are great too.

Where to find it:

• Goodreads
• Amazon US
• Amazon Canada
• Amazon UK
• Barnes & Noble
• More Of Me To Love
• AbeBooks
• IndieBound

Thanks, dudes!

And stay tuned for info on my upcoming book signing at Re/Dress NYC!

Happy Bastille Day!

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the Body Love Wellness Blog!
2. Brooklyn, NY – 04/07/10 – Re/Dress NYC – NEW CLASS! Attracting Love By Loving Your Body
3. Self Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

The Body Love Revolution Needs You! originally appeared on on July 14, 2010.

• Fat Bride Flickr Pool – A bevvy of fat and fabulous brides!  A great antidote to the must lose ___ pounds in order to get married b.s.
• Ding Dong Change4Life Is Dead — Britain’s anti-illiteracy anti-obesity campaign is being tossed.
• Losing Some Weight! – Tabayag shares the power of losing some weight (from your closet).
• Facebook Allows Hate Speech Against Fat People — HuffPo reports on this glaring reality.

And, I know I said I was going to pick only one commenter to this post, but I couldn’t.  So I picked 3.  Congrats to Chibi Jeebs, Kate D, And Amy T!  You each won a free Body Love Breakthrough Session with me!   Look for an email from me with scheduling info!

Thanks to everyone who commented.  If you’d still like a free session, click here to sign up for my newsletter, and you’ll get info on how to get your own Body Love Breakthrough Session.

No related posts.

Back To The Fature & Contest Winners! originally appeared on on July 9, 2010.

From an early age, our culture tells us that losing weight and dieting is the key to having it all.  Whether it’s better health, a better body, or a better lover, we all learn that dieting will get us what we want faster than anything else.

Though we all want this to be true, if you’re like most dieters, then you know that dieting does not equal happiness.  Not only that, dieting can result in lots of unintended effects, like weight gain, disordered eating, and low self esteem, just to name a few.

But there is a way out.  In this breakthrough book, I show you why diets don’t work and how you can break free from dieting patterns that are holding you back from happiness.

When you read Stop Dieting Now!, you will come away with breakthrough insights and practical actions that you can take immediately to change your relationship with food and your body.  Here are just a few things that you will learn from this book:

• Why you can’t stick to diets (hint: it’s not about willpower).
• Simple techniques for letting go of food-related guilt and shame.
• Why you always seem to gain back the weight you lose from dieting.
• How old diet rules and habits can negatively interfere with your food choices, long after you stop dieting.
• How to avoid passing on dieting behaviors to your kids.
• The dangers behind “weighting” to be thinner before you make changes in your life.
• Real tools that support you in making peace with your body.
• And so much more . . .

Where to buy:

• Goodreads (If you’re a member, please mark it as to-read!)
• Amazon US
• Amazon Canada
• Amazon UK
• Barnes & Noble
• AbeBooks
• IndieBound

Let me know when you get it!

And stay tuned for info on my upcoming book signing at Re/Dress NYC!

Related posts:

1. What’s Wrong With Dieting, Again?
2. Why Dieting Is A Bad Idea
3. How To Lose Your Diet Rules

Stop Dieting Now Is Now Available! originally appeared on on July 7, 2010.

• “Second Verse, Same As the First; Fat Acceptance Is For Everyone” — Marianne explains why fat acceptance is for everyone, even thin people.
• “On Cure Evangelism” — Really interesting post by Feminists With Disabilities about “cure evangelism” that will definitely ring a bell for anyone who’s ever dieted (or been told that losing weight will cure whatever ails them).
• “Arm(istice)” — GirthfulGirl declares a truce with her arms.  Let’s hope they don’t take up arms against her!  (Heh, heh. Heh.)
• “Huge, Episode 1: Goonies never say die” — Reading Lesley’s recaps of fat-related shows is like watching those shows with your BFFF (Best Fat & Fabulous Friend).
• ” How to Heal From Emotional Eating: Insights & Advice” and “Notes on Body Image and Feeling Sexy At Any Size” — In case you missed them, Margarita from the Weightless Blog wrote fantastic (and thorough) recaps of my two recent teleclasses — How To Heal From Emotional Eating and How To Feel Sexy At Any Size.

No related posts.

Back To The Fature originally appeared on on July 2, 2010.

• “The World Is Buzzing About Full Figure Fashion Week” — Nice round up by Daily Venus Diva of the amazing amount of well-deserved press that FFF Week got this year.  Kudos to Girthful Girl PR for her amazing work!
• “The Rhetoric Of The Real Woman” — Mo Pie at Big Fat Blog shares why using the term “real women” to describe plus size women is problematic.
• “Body Image Confession” — Margarita at the wonderful Weightless Blog talks frankly about her recent body image set back and shares tips she used to start approving of her body again.
• “WWWW III” — Check out how blogger Atchka organized a fatty guerilla attack on a fat hating facebook group!
• “Biggest Loser Finalist Says Show Gave Her An Eating Disorder” — Giving some love to Jezebel for reposting the second part of my 3 part series with Kai Hibbard.  And yes, this is probably where Perez Hilton found it so he could plagiarize it.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Your Right To Bare Arms
2. The Compare-Despair Conundrum
3. Self Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

Back To The Fature! originally appeared on on June 25, 2010.

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Last week, thanks to Kevin Smith’s vocalness about his mistreatment on South West airlines and NAAFA‘s willingness to let me be their spokesperson, I had the opportunity to appear on two national news programs.

As some of you know, I am a ham. (I was part of a musical improv comedy team at the P.I.T. for a while, and that stuff is not for the faint of heart.) Not only that, though I sometimes struggle with my eagerness to avoid confrontation, I love to have a good fight about things that matter to me, and discrimination in any form really rankles me. So when Kevin Smith decided to talk about his experience, and his 1.6 million twitter fans and the national media decided to listen, I was all too happy to make some appearances for the big fat good.

Until now, Body Love Wellness, has kind of flown under the radar. The toughest, most critical comments I would get were of the, “hey, I don’t think that tip would work for me” variety, and even then the commenters were usually willing to engage with me about what might work for them instead. So I wasn’t accustomed to getting real, trolly hatemail. I wasn’t accustomed to the kind of hatemail and comments that were only about how I looked and had nothing to do with what I wrote or said.

I’m so used to ignoring the comments at various non Fat-O-Sphere blogs that I completely forgot that adults, protected by the veil of the Internet’s anonymity, find it perfectly acceptable to insult other people with bullshit playground name-calling.

The comments started to get to me until a part of me, maybe that little eight-year-old inside of me, said something to the effect of, “Look, you survived elementary school, middle school and junior high for godsakes. How are you going to let some anonymous Internet idiots bring you down?”

And that part of me was right. In other words, I can’t play it small because someone else called me big. I can’t live my life small, avoiding conflict, avoiding the public eye, just because a bunch of jerks think I should be smaller. The more willing we all are to be out there about who we are and what we look like, the more power we will have as a group and as individuals.

In essence, if I weren’t the only fatty on The Early Show on Thursday, then maybe the couple of hostile commenters that took the time to search for me on google, find my blog and comment wouldn’t have known who they should pick to pick on.  Maybe they wouldn’t have even noticed my fatness if fat people on television weren’t so unexpected.

And yes, I’m going to wear an even bigger pattern the next time I’m on TV. :)

So this week, let’s all try to live a little bit bigger. Try something you wouldn’t normally try, speak up about something that matters to you. Extra credit if you wear something outrageous in the process.

As always, let me know how it goes in the comments section!
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Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in transforming your relationship with food and your body. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/stay-in-touch/ to sign up for her newsletter and get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining.

If you’re in the NYC area, do not miss Golda’s March classes.  Click here to learn more or to register.

Looking for more support with intuitive eating and getting off diets? Click here to sign up for your FREE Body Love Wellness Consultation.

Related posts:

1. Feeling The Feeling of Feeling
2. The Way I’m Feeling About My Feelings
3. That "Thin Feeling"

Don’t Play It Small When You’re Feeling Too Big originally appeared on on February 22, 2010.

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

When I first heard V Magazine was producing an issue featuring plus sized models, I was non-plussed (lame pun intended).  For my own sanity, I tend to avoid fashion magazines.  And for whatever reason, I thought that plus sized models were sometimes in fashion magazines anyway.  At the very least, they’re in the plus sized section of department store web sites and attached to the Lane Bryant coupons that I receive with some regularity.  Okay, if I’m to be honest, I haven’t thought much about plus sized models since my beloved Mode Magazine died in 2001.

That is not to say that I’m not glad that plus sized models exist.  I am so glad that they exist.  I’m so glad that gorgeous plus sized models like Crystal Renn are out there, being gorgeous and writing about healing from eating disorders.  The more that plus size models work their way into mainstream media, and the more that they are seen as beautiful, the more hope I have that more young women will grow up loving their curvaceousness and not spending money on diet programs and diet pills.

But can I just say, because I really have to say it, that I can’t help but wish for a few things?  I can’t help but wish that size 10/12 models weren’t considered “plus size” (because, honestly, they can fit into lots of clothes that 14+ plus sized women can’t wear).  I also can’t help but wish that having a few plus sized models in a regular old fashion magazine wasn’t cause for a media blitz.  Finally, I can’t help but wish that we weren’t being served up the same hourglass, youthful (though slightly larger) ideal all over again.

Despite my doubts, I do think that the V Magazine spread is a major step in the right direction.  But to me, the most remarkable part of it is how it all happened.

I believe that this V Magazine issue happened because of you.

I know some of you will say that this is just a calculated attempt by marketers to capitalize on the realization that fat women really do buy stuff.  Maybe they’ve also bought in to the “obesity epidemic” b.s., and they’re thinking that their market of thin women is morphing into a mass of plus sized women, and so, out of self interest, they’re adding photos of relatively thin fat women to their magazines.

That all may be true, but to me, that’s only part of the story.

The real story is that fat women and men are showing up in the world in a new way.  More and more, I see people coming to fat acceptance, finding their voice, and finding that weight loss isn’t a prerequisite to beauty.

One of my favorite fat-o-sphere spots is livejournal’s Fatshionista, where women take pictures of their OOTD’s (outfits of the day) and share where they found their fatshion treasure.  I just love seeing women of a variety of plus size shapes and sizes showing off their outfits and themselves.  I love the sense of community they create, the inventive ways that they have find to showcase who they are, and the joy they display in the beauty of who they are right now.

Most of the women in the OOTD’s, like most women in general, will never meet the ideal required of them to appear as a model, plus or not, in a high end fashion magazine.  But, to me, the great thing about these OOTD’s is that they make fashion magazines kind of irrelevant.  The women in the OOTD posts are reveling in their beauty just as it is.

V magazine was just trying to catch up with all of you.

And so, for this week’s tip, I desire for you to revel in your beauty just as it is.  Wear something you’ve been saving for a special occasion.  Do your makeup in a new way.  Add a little glitter to your hair.  Wink at yourself in the mirror.  Do whatever turns you on to the beauty that is you.  Let me know how it goes in the comments.

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Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in Health At Every Size.  She counsels women and men on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves.

Looking for more support with intuitive eating and getting off diets?  Click here to sign up for your FREE Body Love Wellness Consultation.

Are you loving the podcast? You can now subscribe and download it directly from itunes! Be sure to rate it highly and share the Body Love!

Related posts:

1. The Only Diet I Recommend

V Magazine And Your Stand For Yourself originally appeared on on January 25, 2010.

FAT GIRLS FLOAT is the provocative, engaging and moving new documentary from 300 pound filmmaker Kira Nerusskaya, who shares her message of perseverance and heart with the world.The film showcases intimate interviews with fat women from around the world who discuss size discrimination, political activism, fat and size acceptance, and their experiences as fat women under attack in a thin-centric world. Please be a part of making this film by pledging HERE. Any donation in any amount is appreciated. We only have until December 13th to raise the rest of the funds we need for this next step of post production, so please help us spread the word about this amazing project by tweeting, reposting this paragraph in your blog every Wednesday or on your site and telling your friends. Donate Now.  Join us this Sunday, 11/15/09 at 7:00p.m. EST for a “meet the film maker” conference call and Fat Acceptance discussion. Check out the Fat Acceptance Salon for more details at http://www.meetup.com/SizeAcceptanceSalon/calendar/11829542/

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Fat Girls Float! originally appeared on on November 11, 2009.