Help the Fat Nutritionist!

I have been reading Michelle, the Fat Nutritionist's blog for several years now and she's quite amazing and worth the read. If you want to understand what Health at Every Size (HAES) really means, the Fat Nutritionist blog is an excellent place to start. In fact, you can find her on my blogroll so there's no need to search around.

Michelle has now decided to go back to school to do a dietetic internship. Like many people, Michelle is finding that money is scarce and she's decided to crowdsource her way to paying for her studies. At first, as I watched her video (below), I was a bit skeptical about her asking flat out for a contribution, but when she quoted from the vicious e-mail (no doubt one of many she's received over the years) she recently received, calling her a fake and a lazy slob, I thought "this woman has an important message to get out and I know she can help a lot of people!"

So, even though my income has gone down significantly recently (I can thank our current right-wing government for that), I am making a donation to Michelle's study fund.

Please think about doing the same.

Margaret Cho on Eating Disorders

When she says that the TV execs told her that she was too fat and then her show was replaced by the Drew Carey Show ("like he's so thin"), I just wanted to kiss her!

Yeah, Margaret!

http://shine.yahoo.com/dailyshot/margaret-cho-on-eating-disorders-143544806.html

And here's some more Margaret. Enjoy.

Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues): Love Your Tree in "America the Beautiful"

I won't ask why most women hate their bodies. The answer for us here in the West is multifaceted and tragic.

Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) went to the third world and asked a very wise woman whether or not she loved her body. The final answer: "love your tree".

Truer words were never spoken.

THIS is what's important

People are hungry.

Happy New Year!

To say that I have been remiss in posting on this blog is the understatement of the year. Please forgive me, but the spirit just didn't move me enough to warrant much commentary.

Certainly the main reason for not posting much is that the original focus of my blog--weight loss--was abandoned a long time ago. And even the "new" focus--intuitive eating and HAES (health and every size)--has ceased to inspire me to write very much.

This being said, I continue to follow a number of weight-related blogs, mostly of the HAES or HAES-friendly variety. I also continue to follow the debates on weight, weight stigma, weight loss, intuitive eating, etc. It's just that I personally don't feel like "weighing in" (pun intentional) in writing very often.

My personal focus has shifted mostly to dealing with health issues that I would rather not dwell on too much in writing. I'm not convinced that it is particularly helpful to my state of mind to constantly update the world on the next step in my body's rebellion against health and mobility. This year, I'm scheduled to have a knee replacement. The date is still unknown, as is the result. I have not been lucky up to now with joint replacements, but this time I have a new surgeon who is particularly skilled in dealing with my unusual knee morphology. Unfortunately, to paraphrase the song, "the knee bone's connected to the hip bone" etc. and even the most skilled of surgeons are extremely poor at dealing with whole body issues. They just fix parts and if the part they fix leads to further deterioration in another part, well it's tough noogies. I think you can see, from what I've just written, that it's not very good for me to wax too "poetic" on all of this. :)

I think I'd like to continue to write here, albeit sporadically. I like writing and I hope that my (very) little band of intrepid readers will continue to find what I have to say interesting.

I wish you all a very happy, healthy and satisfying 2014.

May the force (whichever one you prefer) be with you!

My Young Man is Home

Well, two months just flew by and my 18 year old son has returned from his adventures in Europe. Things went extremely well, aside from a snafu on the last day of his trip, but even that got sorted out and my young man came home on two flights that were so on time, he was actually in the arrival area looking for us by the time we got there.

Of course, I'm relieved to see him, and all in all, I was not a total mess at all while he was away. We kept in touch via Facebook and he always gave us the address of the hostels he stayed at. This was not just a safety precaution: it was also a way for me to enjoy his travels a little bit without actually getting on a plane and going to Europe myself. The secret? Google street view. With the name of the hostel, I could look it up on Google maps, then go to "street view" and take a virtual walk around the neighbourhood. It was wonderful.

My son was in Paris, Munich, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, Auschwitz (which he called harrowing--probably the perfect word to describe it), Florence, Rome, Nice and Amsterdam. By the time he got home, he was royally tired of living out of a backpack, though not happy to have to leave Europe. I think he'll go back, probably to France, for his 3rd year of university in September 2016. I will again be totally jealous and thrilled that he'll have that amazing opportunity.

In the meantime, I'm counting the days until the spring of 2015 when my husband and I are planning to spend a month in Paris during his sabbatical. As long as my health holds up (between now and then, I'm getting a knee replacement though I don't have the exact date), I will be celebrating spring in Paris, my favourite city in the world.

Women and Body Image

This youtube video is quite extraordinary. Watch it!