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.

If you haven’t been privy to the awesome images coming from Marilyn Wann and the STANDards campaign, you need to check it out now. It’s okay, go ahead. I’ll wait!

Glad you’re back!

Me & Michelle Matthews (fatsocialworker.blogspot.com) Stand 4 Kids!

As you scrolled through the images, maybe you noticed that the people taking a stand for kids really represented a wide range of people. Some are very fat and some are a little fat and some are pretty thin. Some are small children and some are elderly and many are in between. Some are doing pretty athletic stuff and some are sitting happily.

It seemed that a really diverse group of people were submitting photos for the campaign, so I found it interesting when Marilyn posted this on Facebook last week:

“I notice that so many of us (and I can imagine myself having this feeling if I came across such an invite)…anticipate that we will be excluded for some reason. Confronted with this open invite to share a photo and a credo in these STANDards, people are telling me they must be too thin, not the right gender, not healthy enough. I am not going to exclude anyone for any reason.”

How interesting that people were assuming that they’d be excluded from this campaign because they’re too thin or not healthy enough.  I find this sad because I hear this a lot from people.   I’ve had clients tell me that they know it’s silly, but that they feel too fat for fat pride or too unhealthy for Health At Every Size®.  Like, other people can love their bodies because even though they’re fat, they’re not too fat.  Other people can practice Health At Every Size® because they’re already pretty healthy.  I also find that people toward the thinner end of the spectrum think they’ll be excluded from fat pride because they’re not fat enough.

So I want to deal with these objections in turn.  Check for the objection that applies to you and please take what I write to heart!

THE OBJECTIONS

I Can’t Be Part Of The Fat Pride Movement Because I’m Not Fat (Or Not Fat Enough) — Poppycock!  Well-meaning people of all sizes are welcome in the fat pride movement.  Those immersed in fat pride understand that discrimination against fat people is bad for society as a whole, negatively impacting thin people as well.  We want to live in a world where assumptions are no longer made about people’s bodies based on their relative fatness.  We want to live in a world where thin people don’t hurt their bodies out of a fear of being fat.  And we know that having allies is good for the movement.  Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I Can’t Be Part Of The Fat Pride Movement Because I’m Too Fat – Hogwash!  There is absolutely no weight limit on loving and accepting your body.  Hating your body and trying to change it never got you anywhere before, right?  So why would anyone in the fat pride movement want you to continue that?  There is no separate set of rules that apply to you because you weigh a certain amount.  Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I Can’t Be Part Of The Health At Every Size® Movement Because I’m Not Healthy Enough and/or Too Fat – Hooey!  Health At Every Size® is not Health At Certain Sizes And Only If You’re Healthy Enough.  It’s freakin’ Health At Every Size® and it’s not a misnomer!  HAES® recognizes that intentional weight loss isn’t a good idea and does more harm than good.  So the best thing for anyone’s health is, in a nutshell, eating well, getting appropriate exercise, and accepting their bodies.  Of course, you’re human, and sometimes humans get sick, but that doesn’t mean that  HAES® no longer applies to you.  In fact, accepting HAES® can help you clarify to the health professionals in your life that fixating on your weight will not help you heal.  Healthy or sick, you are an important part of this movement. Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I hope I convinced you that Fat Pride and Health At Every Size® is for you.  And, I really hope you’ll join me for the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit which starts tomorrow night!  You don’t want to miss it.  Here’s just a sampling of what you’ll take away:

	Learn what to do when confronted with negativity about your weight.
	Find out how you can live your best life without the highs and lows of weight loss efforts.
	Connect with other people who are committed to being body positive.
	Get fashion tips from people who know and love exactly the body you have.
	Body positive exercise advice for all fitness levels, body types and abilities.
	Get historical and political perspectives on anti-fat efforts.
	Learn how queer activism can inform fat activism.
	Sex-positive and fat-positive advice for the awesome sex life you deserve.
	Hear the body love journeys of your favorite bloggers.
	Learn how to create fat-positive community locally.
	And so much more!

To join us, just register here.

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.

Fat Pride Is For Everyone, Even You (Yes, You!) originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 30, 2012.

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

I’m writing this post by hand in bed.  Sitting at my computer in my office wasn’t working for me, and I felt that if I changed my location and switched to pen and paper I’d be able to write.  I knew instinctively that doing so would help me with this post, so I happily acted on that instinct.

So far so good!

This post is on a topic near and dear to my heart.  As most of you know, one of the techniques I work on with clients is intuitive eating.  This is highly transformative process that allows people to reconnect with their hunger, fullness, and internal sense of what really nourishes them.

Sometimes intuitive living takes some juggling (Image Courtesy Of http://www.retronaut.co/)

As you can imagine, what nourishes you often goes beyond food.  Figuring out what food supports you in feeling your best can be just the beginning of a deeper process of finding out what else needs to shift and change in your life to support you.  In fact, if you take a deep breath right now and ask yourself, “What nourishes me?”  you might be surprised by some of the answers you receive.  Relationships, work, our homes, spirituality, exercise, hobbies, etc. can all be incredibly nourishing.

This process of listening in to what you want and need and acting upon it is what I like to call intuitive living.  The more you act upon that voice inside you that pushes you toward what you really need, the more you feel like your life is really yours.  This process is incredibly rewarding and worthwhile, so I’m going to break down the technique for you here.

How To Get More Intuitive

Step 1:  Ask  – Step one is asking yourself questions like, “What is nourishing to me?  What would be fulfilling for me?  What would be fun or enjoyable for me right now?”  This is a process of learning what you need, what makes you tick, what makes you feel satisfied with your life.

Step 2: Listen — In order for step one to work, you have to be willing to hear the answers.  You have to allow yourself to be okay with everything that comes up, even if what comes up involves major, possibly scary life decisions.  Just stay open and respect the answers that come.  The more willing you are to listen, the louder and more crystal clear your internal intuition will become.

Step 3: Act On Information (Even/Especially The Small Stuff) – This step is often the hard part.  This is the part where we take the information we gleaned in step one and take some action. Sometimes it’s easy to take action — like when your gut says it would be nice to go see a movie and you have a free afternoon and the movie theatre is a block from your house.  It’s important to act on these intuitive messages as much as you can, even if it seems nonsensical.  (For example, I have finally learned that when I drive somewhere I should go the way my instinct tells me, even if it seems out of the way.  When I don’t, I always encounter more traffic and problems than I expect.)

Sometimes, though, it’s much harder and more complicated to act upon your intuition.  It can involve more planning, like a career change, or more emotional readiness, like ending a relationship. (Believe me, I’ve been there.  It only took me about ten years to act on my gut feeling from the first semester of law school that working full time as a lawyer for the rest of my life was a really bad idea.)

Mindset Shift:  Prioritize Your Desires – In order to really live intuitively, you need to prioritize your desires.  You have to prioritize nourishing your soul.  There are going to be days when you’re confronted with conflicts like staying at work or following your desire to go to a yoga class.  In fact, probably nearly every day, you’re going to be confronted with a cascade of shoulds and the question of how and where and when to displace them with what you intuitively feel is right for you.  More and more, as you work through this process, de-prioritize the shoulds.

Being In The Flow

When you practice intuitive living, you automatically feel more in the flow.  You’re in the right place at the right time more often, you talk to someone who gives you the answer to something you were questioning, opportunities come your way that align more with what you want.

Here’s an example from my own life.  About 15 months ago, I was interviewed by Autumn of The Beheld blog (the post didn’t appear until more recently.)  Around the time of the interview, the blog featured a post about how she’d completely stopped using shampoo on her hair.  I was really intrigued by it, and sort of wanted to do it, but rationalized reasons why I just couldn’t.  Nearly a year later, I finally decided to act on my intuition and try “no-poo” and now, three months into it, I really love it. It took a lot of investigating into how to do “no-poo” right, and in the forums I found on it I also found a lot of people who use only body art quality henna to color their hair.  I’d been coloring and highlighting my hair for about 7 years, but my scalp was always irritated by commercial hair dyes, even the ones that were supposed to be more natural.  Henna is a little complicated, but luckily Amanda of Love Your Body Detroit is an avid henna user and ended up providing me with great tips on henna.  (I have it happily plopped on my head as I write this.) Once I stopped using shampoo, my commercially produced body washes felt too harsh on my skin, so I started using natural soap and I (and my skin) are so much happier.  Finally, going “no-poo” also lead me to get rid of a lot of the hair products that were cluttering the top of my dresser, because when you don’t use shampoo you can’t use hair products that cause build up.  I found that I really liked using less products and having less products cluttering my space.  I wanted to declutter more, but I felt like I needed support in changing my mindset on what to keep and what to let go of.  Then, about three weeks ago, seemingly out of the blue, my client Nadira mentioned how a book called The Joy of Less had helped her and her husband pare down their possessions and create lots of wonderful space in their home.  I bought the book and it helped me immensely.  And while this is an ongoing project, I can happily say that I’m writing this to you from my significantly decluttered and spacious feeling bedroom.

In other words, listening to my intuition about not using shampoo put me on a trajectory that led to a lot of lovely changes in my life.  Of course, if I hadn’t listened to it, I’d probably be okay, but I wouldn’t have gotten to enjoy the happiness that less irritated skin and a less cluttered apartment has brought me.

I would love to hear about your experiments with intuitive living.  Please let me know how it goes in the comments section below or 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! And, please join her and twenty of the biggest names in HAES(R) and Fat Acceptance at the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit!

Intuitive Living originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 9, 2012.

The Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit Is Back & Bigger Than Ever!

Last year, over 400 of you signed up to stake your claim as Body Love Revolutionaries.  You joined us on live calls with some of the most bad ass folks in fat acceptance and HAES(R).

This year, we’re back with a group of twenty (!) amazing people who are at the forefront of this revolution for this telesummit.

I’ll be talking Fat Activism with Marilyn Wann,  Amanda Levitt  and Peggy Howell, Fat Health with Linda Bacon and Ragen Chastain, Fatshion with Marie Denee, Rachel Kacenjar, and Yuliya Raquel, Fat Sex with Hanne Blank and Virgie Tovar, Fat Blogging and Social Media with Marianne Kirby, Margitte Kristjansson, and Brian Stuart, Fat Fitness with Jeanette DePatie and Anna Guest-Jelley, Fat/Queer Intersections with Bevin Branlandingham, Charlotte Cooper and Jessica Luxery, and Fat Politics & History with Paul Campos and Amy Farrell.
When you register, you’ll get free live access to all of the interviews, and you’ll have the opportunity to get your questions answered by our panel.

Click here to learn more and register!

I can’t wait to see you there!

Join Me For The 2nd Annual Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit! originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 3, 2012.

by Golda Poretsky, HHC
http://www.bodylovewellness.com

December can be such an intense mix of stress and bliss.  So let’s share some ideas for keeping your skin happy!

1) Drink More Water — When it’s hot out, it’s much easier to remember to drink water.  So it’s important to remind yourself to stay hydrated, for your skin’s sake and yours!  Herbal teas, water with lemon, and just plain old water are good choices.
2) Set Boundaries — This is the season for giving, but giving too much of yourself just leaves you feeling running down. For some tips on setting loving boundaries, click here.
3) Move Your Body — As much as possible, move your body with joy!  Working up a sweat is great for you and your skin.

Plus, this month we have another opportunity for awesome Eucerin swag! Seriously, these prize packs just get better and better. Here’s all you have to do to be registered to win:

• Head to the Eucerin Facebook Page and share your New Year Skin Resolution ideas for improving the health of your skin!
• Leave a comment below (with a valid email address) and a winner will be picked at random from the commenters on December 30th. Let me know what you’re doing to support your skin this winter! The winner will receive Eucerin’s Jolly Holiday Gift Set, including:
  • Eucerin Calming Crème (8 oz.)  a gentle, non-greasy formula that combines calming oatmeal and rich emollients to help relieve dry, itchy skin for softer, healthier-looking and more comfortable skin.
  • Eucerin Plus Intensive Repair Hand Crème (2.7 oz.)  a unique, non-greasy formula that intensively moisturizes and is enriched with buffered alpha hydroxy to gently exfoliate.
  • Eucerin Plus Smoothing Essentials Fast Absorbing Body Lotion (16.9 fl. oz.) has a unique formula with buffered alpha hydroxy that gently smoothes and moisturizes to reveal healthier-looking, radiant skin.
  • Eucerin Calming Body Wash (8.4 oz.), a unique body wash formulation that combines soap-free cleansing with omega oils and other natural lipids to nourish and soothe.
  • Eucerin Calming Itch-Relief (6.8 fl. oz.)  a non-greasy formula calms itchy skin flare-ups with cooling menthol and natural oatmeal for effective relief that lasts up to 8 hours.

• Awesome festive nail polish.
• A lovely makeup bag to hold it all!
• Be 18 or older and a U.S. resident.

Happy swagging!

Full Disclosure: I’m receiving Eucerin products (for my readers and me). The thoughts and opinions, however, that I share in this post are strictly my own and are not influenced by receipt of these products.

EDIT (1/2/11): Congratulations, Justine! You’re the winner of this month’s Eucerin swag, and I’ll be emailing you shortly.  Everyone else: be on the lookout for next month’s giveaway!

Jolly Holiday Skin originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 1, 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, HHC
http://www.bodylovewellness.com

As I seem to mention a lot in these posts, I’m kind of weird.  I love cold weather (I find it invigorating and energizing) and my skin doesn’t get very dried out.

But, I realize that I’m in the minority there.  And as the weather turns colder, many of you probably experience a little more fatigue, and some seriously dry skin.  And maybe just a little stress about the impending holidays?

So let’s talk tips for keeping your skin (and yourself) happy as the temperature drops.

1) Not So Hot — Although it’s tempting to use really hot water in the shower, it’s not so great for your skin.  Using lukewarm water will allow your skin to retain more moisture and get less dry.
2) Get Your Rest — November is often a really busy time.  Students are gearing up for finals.  People in lots of professions are trying to finish things up before December holidays.  But if you’re one of those people who always seems to get sick January 1st, it’s important to start taking care of yourself now.  Schedule some relaxation, even if it’s just putting your feet up for 15 minutes and reading a book.
3) Notice Changes — I just switched to much more moisturizing facial cleanser and I’m so happy I did.  Although, I’m not sure if I made the switch because of the weather or because I’m getting older. :)

Eucerin Smoothing Essentials Body Lotion & Calming Creme (Just Part Of The November Eucerin Giveaway)

As for skincare, see what changes might feel good. I’m (still!) really enjoying using the Eucerin Calming Crème right now!

Plus, this month we have another opportunity for awesome Eucerin swag! Seriously, these prize packs just get better and better. Here’s all you have to do to be registered to win:

• Follow the Eucerin Twitter handle (@eucerinus) and tell us your tips on how to make November lovely for skin.
• Leave a comment below (with a valid email address) and a winner will be picked at random from the commenters on November 30th. Let me know what you’re doing to ease the transition into Fall! The winner will receive Eucerin Plus Smoothing Essentials Body Lotion (a unique formula with buffered alpha hydroxy that gently smoothes and moisturizes to reveal healthier-looking, radiant skin), Eucerin Calming Crème (has a gentle, non-greasy formula that combines calming oatmeal and natural emollients that help relieve dry, itchy skin for softer, healthier-looking and more comfortable skin), Eucerin Calming Body Wash (8.4 oz.) ( a unique body wash formulation that combines soap-free cleansing with omega oils and other natural lipids to nourish and soothe), and a Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier.
• Be 18 or older and a U.S. resident.

Happy swagging!

Full Disclosure: I’m receiving Eucerin products (for my readers and me). The thoughts and opinions, however, that I share in this post are strictly my own and are not influenced by receipt of these products.

EDIT (11/30/11): Congratulations, Shirley Brandenburg!  You’re the winner of this month’s Eucerin swag, and I’ll be emailing you shortly.  Everyone else: be on the lookout for next month’s giveaway!

November Skin Tips originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 4, 2011.

The holidays can bring up a lot of . . . stuff.  Whether you look forward to the holidays or not, being with family can mean being scrutinized about your weight, your food choices, and even bigger life choices. 

Whether you come from a family of constant dieters or one where cleaning your plate is the best way to show love, navigating your way through the holiday season can feel more pressured and stressful than anything else.  In the end, you may find that you’re overeating or undereating just to please members of your family.

Wouldn’t it be fabulous to have more fun this holiday?  Wouldn’t it be lovely to have the tools you need so that you can have a really joyous holiday season?

In this free teleclass, Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. (founder of Body Love Wellness and author of Stop Dieting Now: 25 Reasons To Stop, 25 Ways To Heal) will share her top techniques for feeling great during the holidays– the same ones she shares with her private coaching clients.

You’ll walk away from this call with surprisingly powerful, yet simple techniques for keeping an even keel with food during the holidays.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• An amazingly simple technique for saying “no” and setting boundaries in a loving, positive way.
• Easy ways to enjoy your favorite foods without feeling like you overdid it.
• The top mistake that we make when trying to deal with the stress of the holidays.
• Helpful tips for having fun and enjoying your friends and family while staying true to your needs.
• More tried and true secrets….

Whether you’ve been working on dealing better with your family or not, you’ll get at least 3 BIG insights into how to have a happier and healthier holiday that you’ll be able to use immediately!

Note: Everyone who registers will receive a link to listen to the recording of the class, so you should still register if you can’t make it live!

Just enter your info in the boxes below, and you’ll receive the complete call details via email.

New FREE Teleclass! HAES For The Holidays: How To Navigate Food, Family & Fatness Better This Holiday Season originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 2, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, HHC
http://www.bodylovewellness.com

I’m a little biased about October. It’s my favorite month of the year. Here in New York, October always signals cooler weather, changing leaves, and for me, my birthday! (Hi, Libras & Scorpios!)

But October is also a month about transitions, and transitions, though necessary, can be challenging for both mind and body.

Eucerin Smoothing Essentials Body Lotion & Calming Creme (Just Part Of The October Eucerin Giveaway)

One way to ease this transition for our minds is to feel gratitude. Take a moment to feel gratitude for shifts and changes. Feel gratitude for what was, what is, and what will be. Remind yourself that transitions and change are a necessary and wonderful part of life.

And for your body, take some time to notice how your body’s needs may have changed. As it gets colder, maybe you’re craving more soups and cooked vegetables. Maybe you need to rest a little more. Or maybe the cooler weather is energizing you and you want to move more.

As for skincare, see what changes might feel good.  I’m really enjoying using the Eucerin Calming Crème right now!

Plus, this month we have another opportunity for awesome Eucerin swag! Seriously, these prize packs just get better and better.   Here’s all you have to do to be registered to win:

• Follow the Eucerin Twitter handle (@eucerinus) and tell us your tips on how to make October calming for skin.
• Leave a comment below (with a valid email address) and a winner will be picked at random from the commenters on October 31st.  Let me know what you’re doing to ease the transition into Fall! The winner will receive Eucerin Plus Smoothing Essentials Body Lotion (a unique formula with buffered alpha hydroxy that gently smoothes and moisturizes to reveal healthier-looking, radiant skin), Eucerin Calming Crème (has a gentle, non-greasy formula that combines calming oatmeal and natural emollients that help relieve dry, itchy skin for softer, healthier-looking and more comfortable skin), an Aromatique™ Pumpkin Spice candle and a holiday cookbook by Williams-Sonoma entitled Thanksgiving.
• Be 18 or older and a U.S. resident.

Happy swagging!

Full Disclosure: I’m receiving Eucerin products (for my readers and me). The thoughts and opinions, however, that I share in this post are strictly my own and are not influenced by receipt of these products.

EDIT (10/31/11): Congratulations, Amber Wallace!  You’re the winner of this month’s Eucerin swag, and I’ll be emailing you shortly.  Everyone else: be on the lookout for next month’s giveaway!

Transitioning Into Autumn originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on October 2, 2011.