Tag - it's not just a prepubescent body spray!

Tag ain't just for preschoolers anymore! Fellow Chicago blogger Jenn of Eating Bender recently tagged me, asking/demanding that I share five facts about myself. Well, y'all already know a LOT about me - like the fact that I speak my mind, that I have cankles, and that I'm an awful klutz. But there's so much more fun to be had! And since I just so happen to lovelovelove talking about myself, here's some more:

1) For about two years, from 1999-2001, I spent a significant amount of time dressed like the biggest whore you've ever seen, dancing on top of huge blocks in Chicago's clubs. Postage stamp-sized skirt? Check. Sparkly bra for a top? Check. Candy necklace and knee high boots and whistle? Checkity check check check. And I loved every sweaty minute of it. Until...

2) I am a hypochondriacal to the point where, in my 20s, I convinced myself - very, very truly - that I had Parkinson's Disease and was dying, when really what I was suffering from was incredible anxiety. No joke - I left grad school for a week to go home and recuperate-slash-demand my doctor perform a series of neurological exams to prove my shaking was not neurological in nature. This all was a result of a gigantic sweet cracker sandwich full of crap I was going through at the time in my personal life and relationship. Part of my hypochondira has to do with being raised in a crazed Jewish household where a sore throat meant esophageal cancer. But I'm also a Nervous Nellie Furtado by nature. Any I'm Jewish - did I mention that?

3) I truly enjoy watching surgeries on TV (be it The Learning Channel or Dr. 90210) - I can watch anything, anytime, anywhere. Breast augmentation during breakfast? Put it on! Emotional kidney transplant between father and dying son? I can take it. Nine-pound hairball absorbed twin tumor with eyes and teeth in it about to removed from a woman's stomach? Pass the popcorn, please. About the only thing I cannot stomach are those Fear Factor shows where they eat pig's vaginas and horrid stunts like that. I'll puke in a heartbeat.

(As an aside, and at the risk of embarrassing myself horribly, I must share the following experience from last weekend: I was walking in the sun and reached into my pocket to grab my lip balm [Bonne Bell LipSmackers cotton candy]. I felt something else rolling around in there and pulled out what can only be described as some sort of archeological dig-like product of my psyche. I stared at the thing, not having any clue what it was...until I did: A melted Hershey's Kiss which had rehardened around a half-pill of Luvox [the SSRI I recently stopped taking after over a decade]. And? There was a fake nail from God-knows-where embedded in the thing. Chocolate, antidepressant, artificial beauty product. It was one of the greatest moments of my life.)

4) I will spend $180 on a pair of jeans that are super long and make my butt look good, but will spend 30 precious minutes of my day shlepping to Borders to return a book I bought the week before, now that I have a 20% off coupon. I will return it and re-purchase it, all to save a dollar. It's idiotic.

5) Dan and I met on our first day of college in 1994 - we were the closest of best guy-girl friends. He loved me the whole time and honestly, I got that, but was too afraid/convinced myself I couldn't go *there,* plus I had this huge canister of wild oats I still needed to sow (see #2). I constantly protested too much, saying we would never work as anything more than buddies. He waited patiently while I dated two other men for three years each (both truly great guys), himself barely straying. All of these are facts you might not yet know, but here's the one I wanted to put out there: I always knew. In my heart, I always knew Dan was The One. He basically waited eight years for me and the instant we finally kissed, my instinct was confirmed - this was, and always would be, the man for me. It just took me nearly a decade to admit it.

PS I know a lot of you requested a biofeedback post (it is, quite literally, saving my life. Yes, I mean literally and not figuratively). However, I just wrote something on it for Health Magazine so out of respect for them and the assignment, I am going to wait until that runs (soon, I hope!) and then I can feel free to explode all over my blog.

Honey, Let's Stop Killing the Kids!

A few weeks ago, I told you about Felicia Stoler, RD, host of the TLC series “Honey, We’re Killing the Kids!” I asked you for questions you wanted answered, and she has delivered the goods. Read on to see if your Q was picked, and what the expert mom has to say about it!

Charlotte asked about healthy snacks to keep for the kidlets while zooming around town. She specifically ordered the celeb nutritionist to not suggest granola bars.

Felicia says: "Snacks in individual serving sizes generally last longer because the packaging delays decomposition from exposure to air. Granola bars actually are good snacks, as are dried fruit, nuts and 100-calorie snack packs. Many granola bars have nuts, whole grains, and some have dried fruit so it’s proper label reading that is important. (Avoid the sugary cereal bars, which are not the same thing.) Pretzels last for a while, as do many whole grain crackers. Sugar alone in food is not an issue—it’s total calories (and sugar is better than fried food anyway). Of course, fresh fruits are always great because they’re so nutritious, so keep a tasty Florida tangerine around since they’re so easy to peel."

Sonn, Alyssa and Workout Mommy wanted to get the beef on protein requirements.

Felicia says: "Protein is important for growing bodies, as it helps to create muscle tissue. However, children do not need as much as adults (and many adults overconsume protein). Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and are found in grains, vegetables, dairy and obviously eggs, meat, seafood, nuts, beans, etc. With kids, it’s often about texture and how it’s served. Some kids prefer the texture of a cold-cut sliced meat (like turkey or chicken) vs. the fresh breast meat we may make at home. Try different textures and get creative—you can 'hide' protein in sauces and stews (if your kids will eat it)."

Sonn was mildly freaked about her little girls, 5 and 2, somehow subsisting "for days on, like, 3 tablespoons of food and a glass of milk. How long can a preschooler survive on a carrot and three bites of rice, anyway?"

Felicia says: "The younger child is probably following her older sister’s picky habits. It is important to nip this in the bud and try to establish mealtime rituals that encourage trying new foods. Children will eat when they are hungry. Without having more information, this can be tough. Are you allowing your kids to snack on junk between meals? Don’t turn meal time into fight time—know that kids' taste habits and preferences are always changing."

MizFit oiled up her keyboard and typed out a message about omega 3's for little fishes.

Felicia says: "Be careful about isolating nutrients and supplementation. I always say food first, then add 'smart supplementation' to make up for what a daily intake may lack. The omega fatty acids are now being added to the food supply in pasta, eggs, cereals, etc., but the natural food form is also fine (i.e. flax seeds). Kids’ taste preferences change, so a child who doesn’t like fish now may like it a year from now. Keep trying. I cannot speak to the labeling information for Coromega and why this is for kids 4 and up. However, I can say that many labels for supplements will err on the side of caution because research is seldom done on children and pregnant women."

Greta's a sneaky little blogger and slipped in a question about "what Ms. Stoler thinks of the Deceptively Simple and Sneaky Chef cookbook ideas of hiding 'good' food in 'bad' food."

Felicia says: "These books are kitschy. I do think they are fun (and a lot of work), however, it is important for kids to learn to like the taste of the real thing vs. hiding it in something seemingly sweet. We have nurtured generations of kids driven towards sweet flavors, e.g. beverages, foods and snacks. We can modify our desires for salty and sweet foods by cutting back. If you include your kids in the cooking process, they may be more likely to try new foods! Remember, kids will not necessarily like bitter-tasting foods—they don’t have sophisticated palates like adults."

And my personal favorite comes from Dara, who asked the very Weighting Game-esque question, "How do you encourage kids to make healthy choices, without having it turn into 'Mom thinks I'm fat so she's serving me salad?'"

Felicia says: "The key here is to lead by example—period. Keep the junk out of the house or limit it. Keep artificial sweeteners and fats (olestra) away from kids. Have fresh fruits washed and ready to eat. Keep Florida’s tasty oranges or tangerines in a bowl on the counter where the kids can see it. Or save cut-up oranges/grapes in the refrigerator, bananas on a hook, melon that is already cut, etc. Serve fruits to your kids as a snack after school or after dinner. Serve veggies with lunch and dinner! Have your kids keep a chart of their fruit and vegetable consumption. Are they getting at least 5 servings a day total?

Also, let’s not forget exercise and physical activity (soooo important), limiting technology time to no more than 2 hrs/day."

P.S. New from the American Academy of Pediatrics: DO PARENTS HELP OR HURT THEIR OVERWEIGHT CHILDREN?
Obesity among children is a growing public health concern, given the physical and psychological consequences associated with excess body weight. In a new study, researchers determined that parents need to talk less and do more when it comes to weight-related matters. Parents who recognized that their teenage children were overweight did not do “healthy things” at home to help their children with healthy weight management, such as having more fruits and vegetables available. Rather, the only behavior that they did more frequently was to encourage their children to diet, which was not helpful to weight management over a five-year period (Leslie: "Uh-doiii!"). In fact, it predicted poorer weight outcomes (i.e., increased weight gain), particularly in girls. Study authors suggest placing less emphasis on getting parents of overweight children to correctly classify their children as overweight and more emphasis on helping all parents provide a healthy home environment, which is supportive of healthy eating and physical activity, for their children.

Dangerous curves ahead

Tyra Banks on the cover of the current New York Times Magazine:

"I said a hip, hop, the hippie, to the hippie, to the hip hip hop, ah you don't stop, the rock it to the bang bang boogie, say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat."

Yeah, Ty-Ty's brick shithouse curves are making me sing! Daaaaamn, girl! "I put my hand upon your hip;
When I dip, you dip, we dip."

For a little side-by-side (coughAIRBRUSHINGcough) camparison, check out her hips in the SI cover below:

Admittedly, these shots were taken over a decade apart, but hip bones don't just widen like that, do they? I mean, I know childbirth changes things up a bit but (a) Ty-Ty is not a mommy and (b) she appears to have gone from ultra slim-hipped to POW! right in the kisser.

I think she looks auw-tongue. You?

It's "Who serves yogurt at their wedding?" good

Different people have different opinions when it comes to yogurt. Those two TV bridesmaid actresses practically have orgasms over it, while lifelong dieters have been trained to tolerate it, as it promises to whittle your waist into a teeny-bikini size 8. Jamie Lee can't be regular without it. Guys often gag over it. All of my friends with eating disorders (myself included) in college practically lived on the frozen stuff (Peanut butter fro yo with Golden Grahams for dinner? Yes, please!) Uber-crunchy gynies will even tell you to dip a tampon in the plain stuff - not, I repeat NOT the vanilla kind) and rocket-lunch it up yer hoo-hah to prevent yeast infections. And, of course, nutritionists love it for its "bone-building calcium and tummy-filling protein" (Jesus, how many times do we need to read that same tired line over and over in magazines?)

Let me start this by saying...I kinda like yogurt. I eat Dannon Lite & Fit lemon or peach about twice a week, but not straight - it must be mixed with a very healthy amount of cereal and craisins. And twice a week I eat Fage 0% Greek yogurt, which I absolutely LOVE and would eat every day if I weren't afraid of burning myself out on it. Oh, and I really like kefir, and not just because one of my best friends is CEO of Lifeway, the nation's #1 maker of the delicious, creamy, probiotic-filled treat.

OK, all that creamy-filled crap aside, I aboslutely must share the following video with y'all. Kate Harding at Shapely Prose posted it recently and I was just laughing out loud at it, like a freak.

Please, take some time out from your busy, shortened work week to avoid deadlines and watch the following - it starts off a lil slow but gets wicked funny (my cousin Rob from Boston was in all weekend). One of my favorite parts is at 1:15...check out the response of the narrator.

Other gems:

“Get it? It’s not real food..it’s yogurt!””

"It's the “I have a Masters but then I got married” look."

"Say more stuff I generically relate to then go to a wedding!"

"It's 'Who serves yogurt at their wedding?' good."

"Who's on first? Yogurt is!"

The Princess and her Bea

God forbid the day comes where a picture of my backside in a bathing suit hits mainstream newspapers and the morning TV circuit – I may be a body image specialist but should anyone ever circle my cellulite in white football game marker or call me The Dutchess of Pork, I fear a heavy dose of Xanax shall be required.

Lately, all we’re hearing is about how fat J. Love Hewitt is; how bumpy Mischa Barton’s bum is; how Priscilla Presley is a gargantuan, mean, awful monster (um, no, she was snapped while pregnant in a sweatshirt). So I guess I shouldn’t be in any way shocked that Princess Beatrice, daughter of Fergie, the Duchess of York, has been annointed the newest recipient of low-blow body image attacks.

UK columnist Allison Pearson recently laid into the lovely Bea. And it wasn’t so much a simple comment on the girl herself as it was an obnoxious, woman-hating teardown of her body. Accompanying a pic (scroll down for the horribly offensive image) of the smiling young woman emerging from the ocean in a bathing suit with her boyfriend, the Daily Mail columnist snarked, "Can't someone buy the poor girl a sarong? For her sake, as well as ours...I fear that Bea is in danger of combining her mother's toe-curling excesses with her dad's physique. Can someone please have a kindly word with her before it all goes pear-shaped?"

What the hell is wrong with this woman? The same woman, I might add, who gained international success with the release of her book, I Don’t Know How She Does It (which, if memory serves, had a smidge to do with female empowerment. Obviously, fake.) What is with the woman-on-woman hatred? I maybe – maybe – could comprehend such a shitstorm a bit more if the ignorance came from a man, but Pearson has a woman’s body and, unless she’s one of the few who simply never has struggled with her weight and snapped right back after birth, she should have the common knowledge to shut the eff up and not target any young woman with such a crude comment. Young girls have enough to worry about…and body image is likely at the top of their lists…without having such snide remarks plastered across headlines or making their way across the pond to the Today Show. (PS Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talked about this today...check out this link and listen up about halfway-through.)

Admittedly, I love Fergie’s response:

"Don't criticise my daughter. Big mistake. This woman... I would like to go to her family and look at the size of her derriere." (Check out the Daily Mom post for more on how mothers can protect their daughters here.) Fergie's words remind me of a civilized momma bear swiping its claw just close enough to the enemy to show she means business but not quite close enough to draw blood. And good for Fergie for pointing out the fact that Pearson has a family herself. She’s a mother…but her maternal instincts seem to have evaporated along with the sea salt on Bea’s bathing suit.

Pearson is not the first – and, sadly, won’t be the last – to make a Perez Hilton-esque comment about Bea’s bod. The Daily Mail's Amanda Platell has written about Beatrice's figure succumbing to "the curse of the mummy gene". The Sunday Mirror’s Fiona McIntosh said: "Here's a tip: try putting down the biscuit tin, love." And, in perhaps the most appalling display of misogyny and ignorance, The Times's Janice Turner said, "Heck, she's 19 now, old enough to handle the... bitchery. And if she can't, she'd better... succumb to a fashionable food disorder like her late aunt."

I can’t/won’t/have no idea if it’s even possible to dignify that last comment, but it definitely speaks to society’s bigotry towards anyone with a bigger-than-size 2 physique…and the light-hearted way people toss the word “anorexia” about. Like it’s a cute trend to dabble in.

I read that Fergie's spokeswoman said Bea is holding up well, and that “Of course Beatrice was upset, but she's bouncing back. She knows it comes with the territory." Uhh…what territory would that be? Oh, the territory of being a woman?? (I know the spokeswoman was referring to being a celebrity/royalty, but just because you were born into the public eye doesn’t mean you should be forced to contend with having your body picked apart and criticized by millions and, eventually, blogged about by people like me.)

Oh, and if you're significantly riled up and want to shoot off an email: allison.pearson@dailymail.co.uk

Happy almost-Memmy Day!

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I'll be softly swinging in our brand new hammock, enjoying the fruits of my writing labor all weekend long. (PS the hammock fits two, so feel free to join me. PPS don't you just love the word 'hammock"? It's almost like saying, "Ham hock." Yay.)

Anyway, it's Memorial Day, which we refer to as Memmy Day around my house. As you know, I am a huge fan of abbreviations (OMG, WTF, BTW, IDK...My BFF Rose?) Dan and I have also concocted a sort of cutesy, shorthand language for almost everything in our lives, and I have decided to share some of our gems with you, in honor of the holiday. Because sometimes, life gets hectic, and it just takes too damn long to pronounce poly-syllabic words like "memorial."

A crash course in Lolly language:

Show-show (pronounced with an "ow" not an "oh") = shower
Ceer-ceer = Cereal
Mae-Mae = Mail (Example: "Did you get the mae-mae today or should I pick it up?")
Compi = Computer
Rainding = Raining
BTDubs = By the way
Tie-tie = Tired
Bloggy McBloggerson = What Dan says when he sees me writing out my daily nuggets of yummy prose
America's Next Top Lolo = How we refer to ANTM, subbing in my nickname for "model". Dan's idea, I swear!

While we're at it, a look at my nicknames:
Lolly
Lolo
Lollsters
Lollerama
Lollybear
Bear
Lol (all of the above are from Dan)
Rara (from my dad - apparently as a child, I used to zoom around singing "Ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra!" Much like today.)
Opul (childhood friend - we had a little clique called "The gems." Ruby is still a very close friend of mine.)

PS If you understand the following pic, I officially love you and you are invited to be a part of the Lollybear Abbreviation Club. Simply mail me $15 and I'll send you an official "OMG, I'm totes in the Lollsters ABC Club!"

PS Don't forget to leave your own fun sayings for me to cop!

It’s summertime and the living is easy…if you’re thin, I mean.

Hear me out.

The temperatures climb and for many women, this means one very exciting thing: shopping. Shopping for sundresses, jean skirts, tank tops, even – for some freaks of nature who actually enjoy this sort of thing – bikinis. It’s time to start slathering on the Jergens lotion with a hint of color so all that exposed skin looks healthy and glowy. Yeah, cellulite might present a challenge for the beach but if Mischa Barton and Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kim Kardashian and Janice Dickinson all have it, why the hell can’t we?

But I’m getting off the point.

A week ago, UK columnist Kira Cochrane wrote a piece for The Guardian about the perils of being overweight in the summer. Her point: There’s this intense societal pressure to cover everything up, but damn, it’s hot out here (or is it just me? tee hee)

(Note: This idea came from my iVillage editor who read the column firsthand while on a trip to Scotland and had the audacity to email me pics of her cavorting in gorgeous castles and drinking real Scottish tea and playing with cuddly, cottony sheep, which is a lifelong dream of mine. The sheep thing, I mean.)

An excerpt from the column: "The other thing that makes us hotter than the average Joe is that, when it comes to clothes, there is lots of cultural pressure for fat people to cover up. This comes in many forms, both obvious and insidious: the columnists who write about how disgusting fat people are, the people who call out, "Oi, fattie!" in the street, the well-meaning aunties who take us aside and tell us we really shouldn't be revealing any flesh, save our wrists and ankles, out of aesthetic consideration for others.

This pressure isn't such a problem in the winter, when we can happily throw layers at our body, like a stripper in reverse: vests, tops, cardigans, hoodies, anoraks, job done. Down below, there's the option of trousers, and also, for women (and the more adventurous men among us) that wondrous invention: tights.

… Come summer, of course, and it's goodbye to tights and layers, and hello to a constant calculation of how much you can get away with wearing. Too few clothes, and you run the risk of being scorned, or, worse, pitied for your excess flesh. Too many, and you will burn up suddenly, shamefully, like a sausage in hell. And so I found myself on Sunday, in a Topshop changing room, trying to decide whether I could get away with a white cap-sleeved T-shirt. Did the sleeves finish far enough down my arm, or was there just too much of my wonderful, rippling upper-arm cellulite on show? I finally decided that the T-shirt would be absolutely fine - with a cardigan on top. And thus I resigned myself to another sweltering summer.”

So, how do you feel about this? She’s not asking for pity – just the ability to wear a cute, comfortable outfit on a sweltering day. Something like this, perhaps. (Which, incidentally, I recently purchased, though the style is totally out of character. It’s short, but cute. A padded bra will be necessary. As will some cajones.) But the sad fact of the matter is, as a woman who does not have to deal with society’s prejudices against obesity, I can wear this on a 95 degree/102% humidity Chicago day and won’t be pointed at…construction workers aside. Kira just wants to wear a freaking tee shirt without worrying if her heavy upper arms will somehow offend a passer-by.

While the column ran abroad, this is a wholly American conundrum. Just this morning, I heard two radio jockeys bantering back and worth about summer fashions that piss people off. One caller mentioned gigantic, bug-eyed sunglasses on gilrs; another said he always laughs at guys who "pop" their collars...especially mutliple collars. Then one DJ asked, rather crudely, "What about fat women? Should they let it all hang out in the summer?" The other responded a bit more kidly with, "You have to know how to dress your body."

I don’t know if this is going to devolve into a ‘personal responsibility’ discussion, but let’s remember to be kind and compassionate. That said, what are your feelings? Do you –consciously or sub - expect heavy people to cover up more than their thin counterpart come summertime? And if so, why?

I'm a sad clown...

I'm hurting.

This morning, Dan was making me laugh - like, can't breathe, stumbling-around-like-a-drunk-woman laughter. Which is good. Until my back seized up in some sort of prehistoric instinctual attempt to protect my spine from what it clearly thought was an attack. Instantly, I knew I was screwed - first the pain, then the twitching, then I flopped onto the bed like an electrocuted fish, doing my best impersonation of Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

I had to get downtown for a few meetings so Dan had to DRESS ME (I only had jeans and a black bra on, and while it was mildly hysterical watching him try to figure out how a cami/shelf bra works, um, OW) and then fed me four Advil. Let me tell you, parallel parking in heavy traffic was fun. I can't really turn my head so I have to move my entire upper body, like an owl, to look left and right,

On my way to a biofeedback appointment, I was walking down State Street in a crapload of pain and was stooped twice - once by a woman with a clipboard asking If I had "a minute for the environment?" and then by a similarly outfitted man asking if I had "a minute to save the children?" I was annoyed and hurting so I actually said to the guy, "Actually, I have to go to therapy right now - I need to save THIS (double thumbs) child." He was like, "Okaaay."

In retrospect, I know I brought this on myself - in the past week, I have done hard core power yoga with lots of inversions; kayaked; lifted weights; sat on a hard wooden chair at Starbucks for nine hours a day tip-tap-typing on my laptop; and just generally been a stressball. No workout for me today - I'm off to head home, pop a Vicodin pilfered from the medicine cabinet and watch So You Think You Can Dance.

Yours in pain,
Leslie

So you think I'm self-obsessed?

Mazel tov - you're correct! I am all about pictures of myself lately and now I have a super sexy one for you all to cut out and tape up, NKOTB-style, above your beds:

I know, I'm mesmerizing.

Actually, what you're looking at is a shot of my punim (look it up) before and after I altered it using LiftMagic, "the world's most advanced visual face processing studio." Yes, I totally stole the idea from Steph at Back In Skinny Jeans and no, I am not ashamed to admit it.

So, let's break this down, shall we? I used the Nose Reduction, Lip Augmentation and, just for flips and giggles, the Weight Reduction function.

Whaddyouthink? I my have overdone things a bit, as my chin looks pointer than a pair of Gwyneth Paltrow's stilettos.
But I must say (as I hang my head and genuflect to the gods of hypocrisy), I think my nose looks kinda good. My lips were already kissably lucious, and I don't know why my teeth turn all horsey in the After pic.

Feedback, please? Is it time to call Dr. Rey from Dr. 90210? (I kid, I kid.)

Check my bogus baby bump!

By now, you know my proclivity for wearing fake body parts (booty, padded bra, etc). Well, yesterday I received an email from Miss Charlotte asking about the time I wore an empathy belly in Locker Room Diaries to get a feel for being pregnant and how it affects your body image. That reminded me that I still have pics in my digital camera so below, I present to you, Leslie at 9 months. Note this is very much the "basketball on two sticks" look - I doubt that anyone other than Nicole Kidman would actually gain weight in this pattern (tell me if I'm wrong!)

I'm wearing my husband's mortgage company tee-shirt. HOT.

Anyone out there have any post-baby body image nuggets to share? I actually just wrote a three-part cover series about this for Babytalk Magazine! If you're interested, here's part one, part two and part three, from this month.

518 pounds down, 448 to go

This weekend, while barhopping on a trolley for my friend Amanda’s bachelorette party (please refrain from judging me – I understand this is slightly abnormal for a 32-year-old professional woman. But hey, in the words of a pre-SATC SJP, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!) we stopped at an establishment with multiple large dead animals sticking out from the walls and a stale popcorn machine in the corner next to a poster proclaiming the glory of Wisconsin bratwurst.

Anyway.

My friend Julie – eight months pregnant, making for quite the interesting bachelorette arty scene-stealer – made a comment to me about the bouncer, who I honestly hadn’t even noticed. He was extremely obese, with a wide smile and kind eyes. “That must be so hard for him,” Julie said. “I bet he’s in a lot of emotional pain.” Julie used to be a social worker, and I thought it said a lot about her character that instead of making a catty remark or giving a look of disgust, as many people might do when they confront a morbidly obese person, her mind immediately went towards compassion.

And then I got to thinking about this man:

His name is Manuel Uribe and, at his heaviest, he weighed more than 1200 pounds. To put this in perspective, there are compact cars that weigh less. Manuel is bed-bound, living in Monterrey, Mexico and has been called “The heaviest man on earth.”

Manuel recently made headlines with a stunning 518-lb weight loss, achieved primarily through a low-carb diet of grapefruits, egg-white-only omelets, fish, chicken, vegetables and peanuts, plus some bed exercises. His current weight is around 725 lbs. and he has asserted his goal of losing much, much more, with a goal weight of 280 lbs. by 2010. If he does, he will break records for most weight lost. It would also allow him to truly live – he has only left his house three times in six years, due to his condition.

Here are some pictures, after the jump (Note: The pictures are graphic – not in a sexual way, but they may be disconcerting for some people to view). Plus, take the quiz...

As ABCnews.com asks, can you tell this man has lost 500 pounds?

Here he is again, in his bed…I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with his legs, but I believe it’s some sort of inflammation.

Here is Manuel, doing a modified pull-up in bed.

Notice the genuine smile on Manuel’s face – at the risk of sounding condescending, I think his positive attitude is amazing.

Totally bed-bound.

Is it weird that I’m amazed by his apparent flexibility?

OK enough voyeurism. I think what is striking about this story is, as my friend Julie alluded to, there must be such an incredible amount of pain that comes along with being in Manuel’s situation. Personal responsibility aside, he, at some point, lost enough control that he could no longer function on his own. TV shows have covered his saga, tabloids have made fun of him, countless strangers have pointed and stared. He has missed out on so much in life, confined to his bed and home. I feel for him and think it’s wonderful that’s he’s lost so much weight already (BBC News phrased it as “it is as if two fully grown men have climbed off his body”), but I can’t help but think of the enormous obstacles that lay before him. In addition to still needing to lose hundreds and hundreds of pounds, think of the physical therapy and amount of muscle he’ll need to build to simply be able to walk again, let alone jog, dance, be intimate, etc. Will he suffer from osteoporosis (from the lack of weight-bearing exercise) or struggle with massive amounts of sagging skin? And mentally, can you imagine the challenge of moving from a 1200-lb body to a 300-lb one? Women who lose 100 pounds deal with body image issues, struggle with changing their wardrobes and accepting that they are no longer “the fat girl.” But Manuel’s whole image is that of “The World’s Fattest Man”.

I also think his story opens up a broader discussion about how we view overweight and obese people. Who can forget the shitstorm kicked up by my March blog on the fed-up overweight woman who concocted a fake book titled “How Sitting Next To A Fat Person Can Make You Fat"? People have a significant amount of prejudice and hatred towards obese men and women. But WHY? Is it born out of fear that we could end up like that? A result of societal biases too hard to ignore?

Regardless, I wish Manuel nothing but the best and think it would be an extraordinary story…I just hope he gets the support he needs for the tough road ahead. I certainly don’t think headlines like “Can you tell he’s lost 500 pounds?” will help.

Wanna pose naked? TimeOut NY is happy to help!

Because everyone know posing naked is The Best way to gain status/earn respect/help push the women's movement forward, it's no surprise that the benevolent folks over at Time Out New York are jumping on the birthday suit trend and allowing readers to view (clothed) snapshots of everyday women and vote on who they most want to see nakesters.

The vote was announced in last week's "horny issue":

Naked poll (women) (Leslie - "Duh.")
TONY readers want to strip for you. Read their stories, and vote on whom you want to see in her birthday suit. One winner will appear, in all her glory, in a future issue of our magazine.

The women who have sent in their pics and stories are diverse in age and ethnicity, but what struck me is the common belief that doing this will somehow lend a sense of validation to their lives. Take Fiona Bayly, 40, Upper East Side, for example. A triathlete, Fiona writes, “I’m a former dancer and have been a competitive athlete since age 7. I went to the world championships in New Zealand as a member of Team USA, and I’ve posed as a professional model for Nike. For TONY, I might ‘pin’ a racing number on my body or pose like a swimmer. I’ve always been a strong advocate for women’s athletics; one of my intents is to have the general public recognize that female athletes are just as accomplished as male athletes. Posing nude would help ‘unhide’ us.”

Really? You've competed in international competitions, finished grueling triathlons, posed for Nike...and you think taking off your workout gear will help the cause of women athletes not being valued?

How unbelievably sad is this, people? I mean, it may true - the world is screwy like that - but, my God.

Some other gems:

Alina Braverman
36, Financial District; mom and entrepreneur
“I am going through a divorce, taking care of my seven-year-old son and starting my own company. I have an amazing new boyfriend who is eight years younger than me. What I find sexy is a strong, intelligent, independent woman who takes care of herself. My initial thought for a fantasy shoot would be naked on the piers in running gear.”

Heidi Exline
31, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; works for a non-profit anti-hunger organization
"My fantasy shoot would have to involve food, since I am insanely obsessed with eating and cooking. I would love to pose among tons of sweet things, like cakes, cookies, cupcakes, etc. It would be in a cute little bakery and I'd be wearing an apron with ruffles."

(Leslie: The fact that she works for an anti-hunger organization makes this doubly mind-boggling.)

Teresa Sellinger
39, Sparta, NJ; stay-at-home mom
"I consider myself an ambassador for New York; I'd love to be photographed as part of the city. My ideas include me wearing my Vegas showgirl outfit and driving a Central Park carriage; sitting in a tourist information booth, handing out maps; driving a cab; with open arms on the GW Bridge; driving the Circle Line boat; as an announcer or guide on one of the tourist double-decker buses; running through the sprinklers at the Chelsea Waterside Park with my kids; getting a haircut at Whippersnipper with my kids; or sipping milk shakes with them at Serendipity."

(Leslie: "Wait, so you want to pose naked while drinking milkshakes with your kids? Oh, that trigger horrifying eating disorders for them later in life.")

Following each woman's plea is a link that reads, "Want to see her naked? Vote now."

Is the human body a beautiful thing? Undoubtedly. I think having nude photos taken of yourself could be empowering if done for private reasons (remember when I wrote the Women's Health Magazine story about the Atlanta photographer who helps women overcome their shame and body hatred by taking nude photos - faces not showing - to great therapeutic effect?) I also understand no one forced these women to offer up their bods for public consumption.

Other than society, I mean.

OK, judgments aside, this whole "contest" got me thinking..."what if?" If I were to pose naked, what would best convey my personality? Sitting cross-legged at my laptop in Starbucks, cup of oatmeal in one hand, Cadbury Egg in the other? Running topless, mid-stride, along Lake Michigan, while I yell at gawking men for staring at me?

Honestly, I think my ideal would be something black & white and intimate, just lying in bed with the appropriate bits covered with a cool white sheet and sunlight streaming in. But I can tell you this: It would be for my eyes only, and no self-proclaimed 'horny' magazine readers would get to vote.

How about you??

Can we turn this into a ringtone?

Susi from fitsugar.com just emailed me in reference to the 23-inch waist model story:

"As a mom of two girls, I am so happy you are out there spreading the word about the unhealthy attitude we have toward weight in this culture. My three-year-old was looking at herself in the mirror this morning and she said “Me beautiful.” I hope her attitude never changes and I am going to do everything I can to prevent it from doing so!"

"Me beautiful"?? Are you kidding me? I have just been reduced to a big ball of warm fuzziness and chirping birds. How pure and simply gorgeous is that statement? I want a ringtone on my cell so that everytime someone calls me, a strong little girl calls out, "Me beautiful."

Enjoy your weekends, everyone, and remember, "You beautiful."

"A cheeseburger away from being obese."

According to a highly scientific report in the New York Post today, Star Jones (who had surgery to facilitate a massive amount of weight loss) recently hosted a taping of "The Bad Girls Club" reunion special (admission: I absolutely nucking futs LOVE this show) in which one bad girl accused another of being "a cheeseburger away from being obese."

Chaos, obviously, ensued (I mean, have you seen the show? An empty juice container was enough to elicit a physical blowout...imagine what would have happened if the whole three-girls-peeing-in-a-sink prank had become common knowledge) and after bodyguards took down all the girls, Star joked, 'If I punched every bitch who called me fat, it would be dead bitches all up and down the highway."

When I read this, I chuckled a bit at first but now I'm thinking, was that really appropriate? Isn't Star Jones an accomplished lawyer who used to sit next to Barbara Walters on The View? Then again, she is now hosting a reality TV reunion involving gross mishandling of sexual body parts and fights resulting in a stage littered with hair extensions. Then again, why in the sweet cracker cheesecake do I care?

I think it was her use of the phrase "dead bitches" that irked me.

PS The reunion episode airs Tuesday on Oxygen! I'll be there! (shamefully) If you want to know why I watch, it's for ridiculous-yet-amazing scenes like this.

America's First Top Plus-Sized Model

She did it!

Whitney won ANTM last night - making her, as Tyra put it, "The first girl with some booty to win America's Next Top Model."

Paulina commented (quite nicely), "This [type of body] should not be called 'full-figured' or 'plus-sized.' This should just be called 'beautiful.'

Upon winning, Whitney (a size 10-12 according to the show) said, "...in middle school, in high school, [I was ]always being judged and thinking, 'Am I different? Is there something wrong with me?' No! I'm here because I DO feel good about myself and I want other women in America to feel better about themselves. I honestly think that girls will look up to me and say, 'I could do that. I could be that. I don't have to starve. I don't have to have plastic surgey. I can really be like that. I could be on that billboard. I can be in that magazine. Why? Because I'm beautiful from the inside-out.' I have breasts. I have hips. I have a butt...and I am so proud of those things. I'm here and I'm not going to change myself."

Youuuu better work!

Did you watch?

(If not...I suggest watching at around 1:20.)

And of course, vintage Zoolander. It's in another language, for full effect (OK, I'm exhausted from a three-hour kayaking trip...more on that later...and can barely lift my arms to type anymore....)

23-inch waist? You're too fat to model

Here's a heartwarming story:

Ali Michael, 17, walked all the major catwalks in Paris last year, from Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld. Oh, she also had an eating disorder. Which was encouraged by her employers, she said.

In an effort to get healthy (you know, something simple like regain her period), she put on five pounds with the help of a nutritionist.

Her reward for taking small steps to boost her well-being? Being banned from nearly every runway show this season, and being told her legs were "too fat." (BTW I don't know her thigh measurements but her waist is twenty-freaking-three inches around. That's about the size of my cankles.)

Watch the Today Show segment below...your bonus is that yours truly is the expert!

They actually taped my segment in our home on Monday so what you see in the background is my family room. I did my own hair and makeup and am very proud that I didn't end up looking like this.

A few notes about what's happening in the fashion industry to help stop the insanity, after the jump...

-In Nov. 2006, Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston dies from complications from anorexia. She weighed 88 pounds and reportedly was subsisting on apples and tomatoes. At that point, she was the second model in months to succumb to an eating disorder…a model from the same region had died of heart failure minutes after finishing a fashion show.

- This prompted Madrid & Milan to ban "thin" models. A BMI of 18 is used as a cutoff but, as I mention in the Today Show segment, that's still painfully thin - I could lose 25 pounds and still pass muster, which is frightening.

- In Feb. of this year, three models were sent home from Spain’s top fashion show after being rejected as too thin - they had BMIs of less than 16. That's about 5’11 and 115 pounds.

- According to the CDC, today's average woman is 5'4" and weights 160 pounds.

- Most models are 5'9"-5'11" and weigh about 120 pounds.

PS On a totally selfish note, I need to tell you it was quite surreal to see myself on TV as I was blogging about, well, myself. Also, I got a call from an editor of mine at Women's Health, saying she was doing her makeup and heard my voice and was, like, "I know that voice!" Apparently it is that bad. Be thankful we communicate mostly via blog....

Everyone's talking about my butt!

My day of booty made it on to HuffPo (yay for my before/after pics being broadcast to a bazillion times more people!) and it's getting some great responses. among my favorites:

"Fake booties, huh? So, when a guy lands a bootylicious woman, takes her to bed to bounce on that big rump, and it turns out to be fake, what then?" - Pete

"So happy big bootys are back in style. Good news for us girls who got it. For a few years big ass was out and flat ass was in. Better flaunt it while you can ladies. Next year will big ass will be shameful and we'll be subjected to People's "Celebritys with out of control butts" issue." - sizzla

"Brothers been loving "Big Butts" for centuries, it's just now acceptable in mainstream society. I think those rail thin, skeletal, bone racks, they parade up and down catwalks from France to Italy are disgusting. White, Black, Brown, it doesn't matter, nothing is sexier than a full figured, curvy, thick(in the right places), bootylicious woman. You can keep the Paris Hiltons, and Nicole Richies of the world, I don't want to do anything but give them a damn sandwich." - BigMike75

"Women need to wake up and realize that men are just NOT as obsessed as women are with THEIR bodies. YOU'RE being conned. Most men are put off by skeletal bodies. We're really pretty easy to please and actually PREFER someone who eats now and then. Everyone starving on a diet is always grouchy and too many women are getting all their exercise in the gym." - XRepublican

"Booty booty booty rockin' everywhere!" - ALMJr

"What about men's butts? Nothing is worse than a guy with a flat or flabby ass." - DaphnesDad

And...in a bizarre move, the comments turned racial:

"Tries to have rhythm when they dance... tries to rap or speak slang, takes the influences of urban cities for fashion, tans to look darker, and now fake plump booties...but they don't like black people in America...this mess always leaves me rotflmao.." - Testtubebaby

At least my butt is sparking dialogue and really, that's all I can ask of it.

I have a confession...

I have been eating something truly disgusting, wholly unnatural and definitely not "clean."

Brand: Edy's® Slow Churned® lite ice cream
Flavor: Take the Cake
Description: Yellow cake flavored light ice cream with frosting swirl and multicolored sprinkles.
My unforgiveable sin: It contains an opaque teal swirl not unlike the nasty IHOP WhoCakes syrup. I did not know this swirl was hiding inside the carton when I purchased it a PMS-induced sugar frenzy but I must say, it's seriously disturbing (that I've kept eating the ice cream, I mean.) Don't get me wrong - I've been furiously and diligently digging out the swirl with my spoon and dumping as much infected ice cream in the sink but a few dribbles inevitably wind up in my mouth and I just CRINGE knowing that I am consuming something not found in anyone's nature - not even on Mars. Seriously, the thought goes through my mind, "MizFit would throw up if she knew I was doing this" - and I DON'T EVEN KNOW THE WOMAN! See how we all seep into each other's psyches?

The easy thing would be to throw out the carton but I have a weird, Depression era-esque thing about conserving food so it shall emain in my freezer. Hopefully all the edamamae, frozen chicken breasts and shrimp, whole-grain waffles, Ketel One vidka and other healthy fare in there will intimidate the Edy's into the back of the shelf, where it will remain for weeks, developing blue frostbite and never again infiltrating my mouth.

Confession complete.

Please, please do tell me - what crappy food do you find yourself ating even though you know it's about as natural as Posh Spice?

My day of booty

One week ago today, I woke up to chirping birds and soft sunlight streaming in through our bedroom windows. My husband was curled lovingly around me in a John/Yoko fetal hug and my breath smelled - I swear - like freshly spun cotton candy. It was truly a stunningly beautiful morning.

I stretched by body out, all cat-like and sinewy, rubbed the sparkles from my eyes and made a very fateful decision. "Today," I announced, "is the perfect day to wear my fake butt."

Padded boo-tays are all the rage these days - I had recently heard about Bubbles Bodywear, when a reader left a comment, as well as BootyPop, which counts Kelly Ripa as a fan (Note: Do NOT go to bootypop.com or you may be fired from your job. It's mybootpop.com Those two little letters make a world of difference, trust me - I just pulled up some extremely naughty images in the middle of a kid-infested Starbucks.)

So I wrote to the company and requested back-up reinforcements. An abundance of pink boyshorts arrived, along with separate circular padded inserts. I looked at some before-and-after pics and started to get tres excited.

I know you're all wondering how amazing my butt looked, so here is a self-portrait of my tush pre-Bubbles (and my foray in posting personal photos on the web - watch out Miley, here I come!):

And here I am, after the jump, my badunk-a-dunk firmly in place:

Big difference, right?

And yes, I did wear them out in public, all day and all night long. I picked last Monday, the day I flew to NYC for a Today Show appearance (ironically, the topic was 5 Ways Women Sabotage Their Body Image). But the point here was to see if a bigger but boosted my self-esteem, so I strapped 'em on under my Sevens (made it a bit harder to button/zip up, but I was OK), turning them into hot-to-trot Twelves :-)

Slipping the boyshorts on reminded of how much I hate any pair of underwear that is not a thong. My theory: Because my natural posterior is on the flatter side, any and every inch of material is going to migrate up my crack anyway. Why not save the hassle and material and wear a G string? But once my Bubbles are firmly in place, I see that when one actually has a rounder tush, her panties (yeah, I said the P word) don't slide up to No Man's Land.

8:20am I run into the bedroom where Dan is still sleeping and start yelling and screaming for him to "look at my new butt!" He is very tired but musters the energy to prop himself up on one elbow (note: the fact that his wife is running around like a banshee, hollering about her butt at 8am, does not even cause him to blink an eye. He is quite used to such antics by this point.) "How lucky do you feel to have a wife that pulls stunts like this?!" I ask/demand. He firmly swats me in the ass to show his appreciation and we are both struck by the resounding, hollow "Thwuhp!" that fills the room; usually, such a move would emit a hard "Thwack!"

8:45 am I bend over and Dan plays bongo drums on my Bubbles in some form of bizarre new-wave mating ritual. Then I leave for O'hare.

9:35 am In the airport security line, I am momentarily struck by panic that the guard will ask me to remove my fake booty and place it in a bin for inspection.

9:36 I get called for a pat-down. I am not kidding. Apparently, my booty feels quite natural to the woman who feels me up and down because she waves me through and no fake-ass sensors sound.

10:20-noon I nap on the plane and get some much needed Booty Sleep

The rest of the day, nothing huge happens. I was thinking I'd get a crapload of second-glances and compliments but really, nothing is different, except I do walk the streets of NY with a little more sass in my step. I admire my profile often in store windows and, upon meeting my iVillage editors for dinner, turn around in the middle of a nice restaurant and, pointing to my patootie, announce, "Look what I'm doing for Weighting Game!! How much do I love my readers?!" They each feel me up as our fellow diners sample their fancy olive oil flights and cast askew glances our way.

That night, I whine to Dan on the phone that no one really said anything nice - unprompted, I mean - about my butt. "I didn't even get anything free!" I moaned. "Leslie, it's not like you look like Kim Kardashian or anything," he explained, talking me down with a reassuring yet let's-get-real manner. "Besides, you always look great." Whoo, doggie. Looks like someone is gonna score him some glutes when I get home!

PS May I point out that all of this happened three days before the research about a big bottom possibly protect people against diabetes hit the stands? I am so ahead of my time. A visionary, really.

PS, Look - they have it for boys, too!

For boy's fronts!!

And I will close with this fannytabulous ad.

Ask an expert mom...

No, not me! My uterus is nice and fist-sized, thankyouverymuch. As such, I often feel a wee bit odd offering nutrition advice to parents. Luckily, we have an expert here to help: Her name is Felicia Stoler, RD, and she is the host of the TLC series “Honey, We’re Killing the Kids!” If the name of the show sounds familiar, it's because you probably saw one of the toe-curdlingly scary ads in which computer imaging is used to balloon real kids up to the size they soon will be if their parents keep shoveling crap down their throats. Or, more passively, if they're simply allowing the kids to shovel said crap down said throats (hello, IHOP WhoCakes?).

Considering May is National Family Wellness Month (it's also Mental Health Awareness Month, Better Sleep Month, National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, National Physical Fitness and Sports Month and Celebrate Older Adults Month, all of which are somehow related to Mother's Day!)

25 million children are affected by childhood obesity...is yours one of them? Do they move more with Wii than on the actual basketball courts or think ketchup counts as a veggie? Or are the little ones starting to make unintentionally absurd comments like, "Mommy, I don't want a banana - my teacher says it has too much sugar!" (True story from a mom friend of mine.) Or do you simply want to ask a nationally recognized expert a burning question about feeding your kids but don't want to fork over th cash to hire a personal nutritionist? Well, then...here's your chance! Type your question in the Comments section and I'll submit a bunch to Felicia, who will provide the As to your Qs.

PS She's a smart cookie: Masters of Science in applied physiology and nutrition education; dietetic internship at Columbia University; doctorate in clinical nutrition from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; mom of two; gets along well in Jersey.)

XOXO and lots of love to all of the fabulous, hardworking moms out there - Charlotte, MizFit, Workout Mommy, Alyssa, FitSugar, Dara and everyone else...you're doing beautifully!

Wanna look like Madonna?

Lucky for you, I've been scouring my US Weekly for topless pics of Patrick Dempsey the hottest workout tips out there - all extremely safe and nutritionally sound, of course - and I came across an article titled, "Lose 20 pounds IN 6 WEEKS." Trainer Tracy Anderson, who barks orders at Madonna and Gwynnie P. , swears her 1100 calorie/day diet (TOO LOW!!) and patented toning moves will get you fit, fab and ferosh. My personal fave?

"With feet shoulder-width apart, bend one wrist and pull across body, arm straight, in a smacking motion across your body. Alternate arms."

Oh, really? That's how Madge got her rock-hard arms...by pretendig to be one of those kiddie drums that you twist back and forth between your hands, making the beads swing around on the ends of the strings? Color me surprised.

I wonder what MizFit , she of the heavenly arms, would have to say about this?

OK, off to go slap my limbs across my chest like a flailing monkey!

Leslie

Chunky monkey

I'm sorry but this just makes me sad and disturbed and all kinds of depressed. I'll be blogging about it soon at Huffington Post and will update this with a link. In the meantime, Please Don't Feed The Monkeys.

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover

It was a beautiful day in the (now cougar-free) neighborhood and Dan and I decided to walk to the grocery store to pick up some salmon and veggies for dinner. So, we're walking, we're talking, we're kissing and in love. All, generally, is good with the world. I know, how Mentos Commercial are we?!

Then we pass Scooters.

Scooters is a neighborhood frozen custard store, the kind of place where you gladly wait 45 minutes for the kids behind the counter to bang out a pound of ice cream on a marble slab while using a sledgehammer to drill fist-sized chunks of Oreos and Milky Ways into the fat-bomb slurry, shove it in a chocolate-dipped cone, and hand it to you along with a sample of the newest diabetes drug to hit the market.

It is good.

As I stared, slackjawed, at the Peanut Butter & Jelly Concrete Mix-up sign, saliva drooling down from the right corner of my mouth, Dan snapped me back into reality by asking, "Do you think they have anything healthy?"

He is so cute sometimes.

So I turned around and said to the 14-year-old Scooters scooper, "Do you have anything healthy here? Like sorbet?"

Her reply: "Well we don't have sorbet but all of our custard is 90% fat-free."

To which I replied, placing my hands on the counter in a classic power position, followed by an exaggerated head drop and a 'we're-all-in-this-charade-together' tone of voice, "Yeah, but you and I both know that that doesn't mean anything. There's still, like, 20 grams of fat in there."

I actually heard Dan's jaw drop to the floor. (Incidentally, this is not by any shot the first time I have cause a man's jaw to actually fall open, cartoon-like...and I don't mean because I'm so damn hot. In my early 20s, when I got pulled over for speeding in a school zone, my then-boyfriend dared me, as the cop walked up, "You always say you could get out of any ticket you wanted. Let's see it now, big shot." The police officer asked me if I knew why he pulled me over and I chirped back, with the sweetest apple pie grin on my face ever, "Did I win the Safest Driver of the Year Award?!" Cue: Jaw Dop in the passenger seat. PS I got off without even a warning. I'm funny-ha-ha.)

Back to my story.

Apparently, when I made this comment to the ice cream girl, it came out sounding insanely bitchy and condescending, which truly is not how I meant it to sound. But c'mon - "90% fat-free"? So instead of having 1000 calories and 50 grams of fat, it would be 1200 calories (more sugar to make up for the missing fat) and 45 grams of fat? This is why little kids are getting their periods at age 5 and also, why monkeys are starting to look like this. Too much food!

Counter Girl retorted, rather smartly, "Actually, it's the lowest amount of fat you can have while still calling it custard." Oh, I'm sorry, are you being nutritionally smarmy with me? Because I will open a sugar-free can of Cool Whoopass on y'all and start pulling out all sorts of scary tidbits o' knowledge from Nutri Sci 320.

I said something back to her which vaguely resembled me miming a three-year-old making fun of his mother. We left, entering the warm sunshine of that Chicago afternoon, and I truly thought nothing of what had just transpired.

Dan called me out for being bitchy. I say I was just a savvy consumer, fighting for my man's arteries.

Whose side are you on???

Rule #1: Play Nice

I have a challenge for you: The next time you have a negative thought about your body, write it down. Feeling fat or ugly, or comparing yourself to the woman next to you at the gym? Write it down.

Then read it out loud to yourself.

Hearing yourself actually say the words, “My thighs are disgusting” or “I could never have as flat a stomach as her” can be quite a wake-up call. And here’s the message waiting for you on the other line: “You’re being way, way too hard on yourself.”

Watch my segment from TODAY:

Why is it that so many of us treat our bodies and ourselves with so little love or compassion? We would never say these things to a friend or to our mothers. But in our minds, we let the self-hate fly free, and the results can be destructive.

It’s called self-sabotage. It’s something many of us partake in and something we need to start working on eradicating. Here are a few of the most common types —and some possible solutions - include:

Self-sabotaging behavior #1: Comparing ourselves with other women, be they celebrities or the woman standing in front of us at Starbucks. I'm guilty of doing this too. I hardly ever turn my head to look at a man on the street, but other women? Watch out! So many of us size ourselves up to other women, even if they have wildly different body types (i.e. stick-thin model type on the streets of NY; the curvy and voluptuous celeb chef on TV; our buff trainer at the gym). This will always make us feel badly and, in some cases, will even lead to bashing of other women. (Picture yourself walking down the street with a friend, and a woman walks by with an incredible figure. You and your friend look at each other, roll your eyes and say, "Hate her!" It happens to the best of us.)

Save yourself: It’s unrealistic to think we can simply stop comparing ourselves to those around us, but how about flipping the script and complimenting the other woman with the toned yoga shoulders or the gorgeous purse or the strawberry blond hair? Research shows that complimenting someone—whether it has to do with their looks or not —improves her mood and I’m willing to bet it’ll make you feel better, too. Try it. I do this at least once a day, and it does feel great.

Self-sabotaging behavior #2: Body checking This is basically the over-evaluation of one's shape and weight via any number of methods, such as:

Looking at ourselves in the mirror (to obsess over a body part—not simply to groom).

Hopping on the scale numerous times a day to track our weight.

Trying on a pair of jeans or other item of clothing to see if we "still fit" into it. (Yes, many people like using their clothes as a measure of whether they’re gaining weight, and I really like the idea of doing that versus scale-hopping, but this is different. This is "I'm going to try on my skinny jeans and see if I can still button them. And I will do it every day, especially when I'm PMSing or feeling bloated.")

Pinching fat on our bodies.

Save yourself: Of course you need your mirror to make sure you don’t poke your eye out with the mascara wand, or to check and see if your pantyhose are tucked into your skirt. But the mirror turns from friend to foe when you look into it expecting to see something bad. If you use it to constantly monitor your belly or breasts or thighs, you are just looking for trouble. Try limiting the times you check yourself out—even if it’s little by little. You may find your stress levels decrease. Also, remember that you are more than a collection of body parts—there’s a whole body there, not to mention a beautiful mind. You are not your arms or your calves or your butt.

Also? Don’t pinch fat or skin, or really anything on your body. Pie crusts are for pinching, not your waistline.

Self-sabotaging behavior #3: Eating like a bird on a date. Why do so many women think the words, “I'll have a diet coke and salad, no dressing, please" makes them more appealing? Here’s why: In the journal Sex Roles, a recent study showed that when subjects read phony food diaries—some were of women who ate small meals, while others were about women who ate larger meals—the small eaters were perceived to be more feminine, more concerned about appearance, and better-looking than the larger eaters! So basically, we've got these cultural notions that women should be eating less, and we’re totally buying into it by forgoing the steak au poivre for a salad. And besides sabotaging your body (um, hello, aren't you hungry?), you’re also starting off a potential relationship on a false note.

Save yourself: Eat. Ordering a low-cal entrée will leave you unsatisfied and seeming anxious, and is the perfect setup for a binge later on. This doesn’t mean you should order deep-dish pizza every night, but do try to listen to what your real gut is telling you. If you need protein, steamed broccoli ain’t gonna cut it.

New banner!! New banner!!

No, you have not inadvertently stumbled into some mysterious never-never land full of pink and blue graphic goodness.

This is the Weighting Game and This. Is. The. Future.

A future free from scary, empty-eyed brunettes who threaten to suck your very soul through your lips with their zombie-like powers and magical measuring tape.

A future full of swingy hair and cute yoga tops and curiously even city skylines.

A future where, yes, you can balance a cupcake/whopie pie with working out and just enjoying life in general.

Welcome.

5 ways I plan on celebrating Cinqo de Mayo

I'm leaving for NY soon but wanted to write something quick and dirty so here, I present to you the five ways I plan on celebrating the incredibly uniquely-named holiday of Cinco de Mayo:

1) Asking the airline attendant for a large pitcher of sangria, extra fruit, when she pushes the cart by me, then cursing the hell out of her (or him, OK!?) in my limited, broken Spanish when she informs me all they have is OJ or Sierra Mist.

2) Attaching a pinata in the shape of the $18 turkey sandwich I was forced to purchase pre-board to the ceiling and giving all my fellow passengers a go.

3) Demanding sopapillas and nachos with homemade guacamole, no beans and individually placed pieces of iceberg lettuce hand-shredded to the exact same width and height in the Green Room at Today. If a single nacho does not appear to have the delicious taste and texture of a personally-cut and flash-fried tortilla, I will pitch a hideous hissy fit.

4) Walking up to strangers on the streets of New York and explaining that, according to wikipedia.com, Cinco de Mayo commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. If they ignore me, I will follow them, continuing to scream, "It's a common misconception in the United States that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day; in fact, Mexico's Independence Day is actually September 16 (dieciséis de septiembre in Spanish), which is the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico."

5) Showing up for dinner tonight with my iVillage editors wearing a traditional long, ruffled, flowing skirt and brightly colored shawl, my hair tied back in long, flowing, multi-hued ribbons. When they look at me with jealousy flaring in their eyes like I'm a freak, I will point out the numerous other holidays our country has co-opted as an excuse to drink (St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, Chinese New Year, Passover) and demand a lime margarita on the rocks, extra salt.

Adios, amigas!

Sabotaging Our Self-Image

Friday Poll Time!

I'm going to be appearing on the Today Show on Tuesday, discussing common ways we women sabotage our body image (Whoopie Pies not included). Can you help me out by answering the poll below and leaving comments? I'd really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks! xo

leslie

Birthday whoopie (food porn alert)

Last night, Dan picked me up at the gym with a little surprise in the back seat...revealed, once home, to be the most insane, decadent, outrageous and just plain wrong Whoopie Pie from a bakery called Sweet Mandy B's.

It looked like this, only more frosting and with sprinkles:

Accompanying said Whoopie Pie was an even more extreme version, a Dreamy Pie - imagine two frisbee-sized, freshly baked choco chip cookies sandwiched around the most decadent three inch-high layer of vanilla buttercream. I had a tiny orgasm just opening the box.

Might I add that my husband is so crazy amazing that he actually called the bakery yesterday morning to ask them to reserve these treats for us, because they typically sell out by 5pm? Who does that? I mean, besides people I love, respect, admire and build shrines to. He apparently learned a lesson when I sent him on a PMS-fueled Whoopie Pie mission about two months ago and he arrived after work to see an empty cake platter sprinkled with a few sad little WP crumbles. He said he looked at the woman behind the counter and said, in a very serious voice, "I think we might have a problem." But it all worked out in the end because that is how we discovered the Dreamy Pie.

It's a celebration, bee-yotches

Note: This is not a picture of me. I have much longer hair.

Plato may have once said, of old age: "A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master but from many."

But it was the fabulous and wise-before-her-years Miss Britney Spears who said, "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman."

Go Britney! Go Britney!

I don't feel the slightest bit old as I turn 32, although I certainly have matured a bit since my 30th birthday bash, which featured an extravagant Hello Kitty theme, a face cake (a glamour shot of my book jacket photo airbrushed onto a gigantic slab of buttercream) as well as a signature cocktail called the Lollytini, after my nickname (Lolly, not Teeny!) I am writing all day today - so many assignments - and am totally hopped up on Americanos and fun phone calls. I am freaking out on work and love. CAN YOU TELL?!

Anyhow, send me lots of b-day love and watch the following hysterical video card my dad emailed me - it is amazing in only the way a talking egg video can be.

PS: Proof that the squeaky wheel gets the grease -- yesterday, I was shopping in Express for absolutely no reason at all and I tried on a purple ruffled dress and I just kind of, off-the-cuff, asked the cashier, "So...you don't by any chance offer birthday discounts?" And she said, "No, we don't...but I can give you $25 off since you're spending more than $50." I shrieked, mild chaos ensued, and I snagged the dress for $56.24.

Gotta speak up girls, right? Like me and my gyno - open that mouth and say something. You never know what'll happen!

Or, like my grandma recently said to me, "Oh, Les, I'm getting so old - I had a gynecologist's appointment and a dental exam today and I didn't know whether to open my legs or shut my mouth." Truer words have never been spoken.