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.

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:

(I’m bringing an oldie but goodie from 2 years ago back this week.  New stuff next week.  Enjoy!)

How often have you heard the aphorism, “it’s better to give than to receive?”

Well, I’ve heard it a lot, and I must beg to differ. I think they are equally wonderful, but receiving has gotten too bad of a rap.

(Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy)

Many of us have become accustomed to over-giving. We over-give of our time, our brainpower, our emotional energy. We do this all year long, and then heighten our over-giving for the holidays, where we buy more presents for others than our budgets really allow, we make food that we don’t really like in order to please others, we endure lots of parties we don’t want to attend, etc. etc. etc. It’s as if we’re all suffering from “Over-Giving Syndrome.” Amazingly, we do this at the time of year when the nights are the longest, when our bodies are telling us to rest more, to dream more, to restore our energy.

Giving, when done out of a true desire to give, is indeed beautiful and wonderful. But you can’t get to that point of pleasurable giving until you’ve really received.

In other words, you can’t pour eggnog from an empty container of eggnog.

(Mmmm… eggnog….)

But I digress. In this season of giving, I want to talk a little about the art of receiving as a cure for Over-Giving Syndrome. How is it done? How do you replenish your energy? How do you refill the eggnog container?

(Mmmm… eggnog…)

I think receiving can be as simple as strategically employing a few simple words.

1) Say “No” More Often — “No” is such simple word, yet so hard to say when you’re unaccustomed to it. “No” is one of the best words to use when you feel your energy waning and know that you need to protect it. Practice saying “no” to small things first, just to get used to it. If you typically have trouble saying “no”, remember that “no” is a more loving word than it’s given credit for. When you say “no” to something you don’t want, you are being loving to yourself, your desires, and your needs. In addition, you’re being loving to the person who is requesting something of you, because they know where you stand and won’t suffer through your resentment for “making you” do something you don’t want to do.

2) Say “Yes” More Often — How often do you say “no” to things you want and say “yes” (or acquiesce) to things you don’t want? In order to receive joyously, you also have to learn to say “yes” to the things you want. Just like saying “no” to the things you don’t want, saying “yes” to things you do want can take some negotiation. Say “yes” to lunch invitations, phone calls from friends, curling up with your favorite new novel, and other things that make you happy. If you want to refill your proverbial cup of eggnog, you’ll have to start saying “Yes” when someone cute at the deli accidentally drops it in your cart.

(Did someone say eggnog?)

3) Say “Thank You” (Without Caveats) More Often – Way back when, whenever someone complimented me on my outfit, I would immediately blurt out something like “It was so on sale!” or “Really? It’s so old!” or any number of horrendous things that deflected the compliment and made the complimenter sorry she ever said anything. (Okay, so I still do this 10% of the time. I admit it.) I had no idea that I could just say, “Thank you!” I also had no idea that simply saying “thank you” would have the desired effects of (a) allowing me to receive the compliment, (b) making me feel good, and (c) making the complimenter feel good about complimenting me. When someone gives you a gift or a compliment (which is also a gift), saying things like “you shouldn’t have” or “oh, no, I look terrible” has the completely undesired effects of (a) deflecting the compliment so that it doesn’t sink in and get received, (b) makes you feel bad, and (c) makes the complimenter feel bad because they were just told that their gift was not appreciated or accepted and that they were wrong for giving it.

Who knew it was so easy to receive? A few strategic “yesses”, “noes” and “thank you’s” and you’ll be feeling replenished in no time. Try it and comment to let me know how it goes.

Wishing you a very happy holiday! Have some eggnog for me, will ya?

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 Gift Of Receiving originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 5, 2011.

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:

(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, 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, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

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.