We're all women, right?

 Today I would like to talk about women's rights in regard to our diet culture.

Every single one of us has had this experience: you walk into a room and the eyes of every other woman is on you, picking you apart and tearing you down piece by piece until they reach their final judgment.  I want to emphasis the word "judge" here: women do not simply "take in" other women, we judge them.

It will never stop breaking my heart to see girls berate their fellow women for their weight, shape, size, hair, clothing, etc. just to give themselves a boost.  This is not to say that I don't participate in this behavior myself.  Far from it, we are all guilty of such participation; this is namely because we have been taught from an early age that women should be judged by their beauty first and foremost.  But the fact that everyone does it doesn't make it right and it doesn't make it true.  Conversely, men are far from held to this standard.

Imagine a man walking into a bar.  He is clearly unattractive, but he pulls up in the newest Porsche model, checks the time on his Rolex, and tips the bartender with $100 bills.  Obviously this is a man of high regard and he deserves our respect, regardless of his appearance, yes?  Now imagine the circumstances are tweaked: the man is not a man but an unattractive woman.  That woman, regardless of how wealthy or influential she is, will automatically be judged on her appearance first and foremost.  Further, if her appearance doesn't measure up, no amount of expensive dress or prestige will erase the fact that she is not attractive.

And therein lies the problem.  Wonder why women only make 77 cents to every man's dollar?  Here's your answer.  As long as women hold each other to the standard of being beautiful enough, thin enough, having full enough lips, tan enough skin, big enough breasts, long enough legs, flat enough abs, toned enough arms, or a round enough butt, they will continue to keep themselves down.

The last major feminist movement occurred when we stopped judging our fellow women by how perky their breasts were, burned our bras and let our hair grow long.  For the first time in a long time, we made progress in women's rights because instead of standing apart, eying each other from afar, we stood together for the collective female.

I think Naomi Wolf summarizes best what I'm getting at: think about the few women you know who are happy about the way they look, the number on the scale, and the tag on their jean, regardless of what those numbers are.  Those women are clearly the most dangerous, per say, because they are not restricted by what society thinks of them.

Think about what those few women have been able to accomplish, and then imagine if we all gave up our preconceptions about how much we should weigh, as well as how much all the other women in the room should weigh.  Imagine what we could do together, as an empowered female population.

Until we women can give up our conceptions of what female beauty should look like, we give up the most significant thing we have in the mounting battle over women's rights - our unity.  Divided we are powerless; united we can move mountains.

So do yourself a favor: the next time you start giving another woman the once-over, remind yourself that she is struggling with the exact same things you are, regardless of how put-together she looks.  You are united as sisters in female suffering as well as in the fight to advance women's rights everywhere.

Instead of looking at her as an enemy, look at her as a partner.  We are all partners in this struggle, and if we could put aside our superficial preoccupations and see the truly amazing women that surround us, fat, skinny, short, tall, we could do some truly amazing things.

The selfie.

I was recently reading a blog by a woman, Skinny Emmie, who has an awesome post about defining "skinny" as "being happy in your own skin."

I think this is really important because every girl grows up wanting to be "skinny," and every woman has some notion of what she will do when she is finally "skinny."  I think we should take a page out of Emmie's book, and instead of defining "skinny" as a certain weight or jean size, we define it as finally accepting our body and loving it the way we should.

If we started doing all of the things NOW that we used to reserve as things we could only do when we reached our goal weight, we could instantly be living happier and more fulfilling lives.  Think about it: who says you can't love the pictures others take of you unless you have a "perfect" body?  You look magnificent in that bikini, cellulite and all!

So, in that spirit, I have decided to do something I have always wanted to do, as soon as I got "skinny": post an awesome poolside vacation photo online!  Don't you always envy those beautiful, "skinny" girls with their super cool poolside vacation pictures on Facebook?

Well fear not, bloggers! I have now officially proven once and for all that you can indeed post a bikini picture online AND include some unedited cellulite and tummy pooch, and the world will not crumble and fall!

I went back and forth a lot with this decision because it's one of those that makes me feel very vulnerable, but I decided to practice what I preach and accept my slightly inebriated Mexican bikini body, in public and on the internet, once and for all.  And you know what?  It feels pretty great. #

Keep kicking.

"Radical self love is a daily fight."  There are some days you'll wake up and feel great, there are some days where you'll look in the mirror and wish you never started down this path.  We live in a society that constantly reinforces the perception that you're never good enough.  You will spend the rest of your life fighting this.  It's going to be a long, hard war, and I can't promise you we'll win every battle.  But I can promise you this:

It will be worth it.  Be brave.  Join the revolution. #

Mind and body, body and mind.

Who here has watched The Biggest Loser?  Basically everyone, right?

In my opinion, weight loss shows are the bane of the body positive movement, and here's why: the entire show, be it one episode or a whole season, leads up to a single moment- the moment of the big revealing.  Everything is leading up to the moment where you finally get the "money" shot: the before and after.  Whether it's jumping through a blown-up picture of your old body, or coming down a staircase to stop at a cardboard cutout of your former self, there is always a big moment in which you see the end result, the final goal, the ultimate transformation.

Here's where I get really aggravated: whenever you see interviews of people who have lost a significant amount of weight, they reveal their "new" body and then talk about their "old" body as if it wasn't really part of them at all, as if it was a body they were trapped in and that this "new" and supposedly better body is the "real" them.

One of the many things I think Western culture has lost touch with over the years is the perception of body, mind and spirit as one entity.  In our Western mode of thinking, we look down at our body from our mind as if it's somehow separate. In many cases, women refer to their body as an "it," as if our body is simply an object, not part of us but simply where we live, as if our body is some dilapidated house we have to reside in for now, until we can do some major home improvement projects and really make it our home.

Here's what those people have missed: your body is absolutely intrinsic to who you are.  You are not better than your body and you are not worse than it.  You are part of it and it is part of you, and possibly THE most important step in ending body hatred is realizing this.  Those "weight loss success stories" may have lost a lot of weight and changed how their body looks, but it's still the same body, plus or minus a few fat cells or some muscle tissue. 

You do not live in your body.  You ARE your body.  For better or for worse, every freckle, scar, wrinkle and stretch mark is a postcard along the road of that little adventure we call life.  Why would you not want to embrace every little thing that makes you the person you are today? I hope that by learning to embrace your body as your home, you will also learn to show it a little more kindness and realize all the incredible things it does for you, without asking anything in return. #

Making a decision to change.

A lot of the time, we don't give enough credit to the fact that you can simply decide to change.  Yes, old habits die hard.  But all it takes is one moment of strength to decide you want to change.  As long as you can keep coming back to that moment, you can make it real and you can make it last.

When I was 18, I decided I wanted to be confident in my body, no matter how much I weighed.  I lost my way a little while ago, but last week I decided I wanted to uphold that change for good, and here I am.

What would you do, if you had that one moment of courage it takes to make a change? #

Fat and fit!

One of the comments I often get from men and "skinny" women is that, by pushing a "love your body at any size" mantra, I'm encouraging women to reject reasonable health goals and instead embrace a destructive lifestyle.

This is not at all the case, and I wish to make that clear at the outset.

Here's the deal: You are beautiful at any size.  Tall, short, fat, skinny, curvy, straight, whatever you are, you deserve all the love and respect in the world.  You also deserve to live a long and happy life, and that means you need to be healthy.

That being said, can you be healthy and fat?

A burgeoning amount of research says yes, at least to an extent.  According to such significant sources as Time Magazine and the New York Times, more and more researchers are discovering that as long as you're eating well, exercising regularly, and all of your vital statistics (blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels, etc.) are considered within healthy limits, there is no reason you should be stressing about carrying a few extra pounds.

When I was in high school, I weighed over 200 pounds, a significant amount on my 5'4" frame.  I was so out of shape that even walking long distances was difficult.  My feet hurt all the time from carrying so much excess weight.  I fueled my body with junk food and I felt horrible.

Then in my senior year I lost 30 pounds.  I started eating an organic, vegetarian diet based in whole foods.  I made exercise a priority.  I even trained for and completed a triathlon to prove to myself what my body could now achieve.

Then in college I went through a dark period (fueled by being surrounded by body-obsessed girls and eating disorders galore) where I dropped another 10 pounds by starving myself.  I stopped exercising and started eating junk foods again.  I again felt horrible and eventually gained the weight back due to binge eating.

The moral of the story is this: I was not healthy at my heaviest weight and I was not healthy at my lightest.  The place I found serenity was somewhere in between, at a place where I was (and still am) happy with the way my body feels and the way it serves me.  It is my goal to keep my body in a place that I can do whatever I want to: triathlons, backpacking journeys, bike trips, anything and everything that catches my eye.

Here's my point:  I'm considered overweight for my height, but I'm in much better shape than the vast majority of my "skinny" friends.  The BMI chart is not the be-all and end-all of health concerns, but neither should you throw caution to the wind and decide that loving your body is enough to keep it running.

So yes, long story short, I believe that, regardless of what you weigh or what size you wear, you deserve to love your body and recognize all the incredible things it allows you to do.  But in the same spirit of living your life to the fullest, I also believe that living an unhealthy lifestyle is a waste of all the incredible opportunities you've been given.  So while you enjoy never needing to diet again, keep in mind that a little more exercise and a little less junk food never hurt anybody.  In fact, it will probably lead to a much longer and more fulfilling life in the body that you are now learning to love! #

Pierce Brosnan likes your curves.

To supplement my "No Fat Chicks?" post:

I give you the beautiful and curvaceous Keely Shaye Smith, an NBC correspondent, out for a stroll with her incredibly sexy husband... wait for it... Pierce Brosnan!!

To all those beautiful ladies out there who are under the impression that you won't find any man, much less a quality one, if you don't lose the weight, I'm here to tell you that's absolutely not true.  In my own experience, once I decided that I am beautiful, amazing, and deserving of a just-as-amazing partner, I found that there was no guy in the world who was "out of my league," extra pounds and all.

Your weight has nothing to do with the kind of partner you can find or the kind of partner you deserve, just as it has nothing to do with how beautiful you are or how much you can achieve in your life.

As Justin Timberlake attests,