Tag Archives: weight

“Weight Loss” Perfume Sounds Just About As Legitimate As Any “Weight Loss” Anything

Rachel KrauseAugust 1, 2012 //

Yep, it's a thing. Read More »

Dumb Beauty Products

The 10 dumbest beauty products we've ever seen. 10 Photos »

Celeb Weight Loss

These celebs have pushed weight loss products. 3 Photos »

There is no shortage of bizarre products and tools claiming mystical weight loss properties that will have you dropping pounds as if the basic rites of diet and exercise never existed. My personal favorite pitch thus far is that of SlimScents, which urges you to, and I quote, “harness the POWER of an EXCITING new research breakthrough” to “sniff yourself thin.” Convincing, no?

Alas, my beloved SlimScents have been upstaged by the latest and greatest in fraudulent weight loss technology: Prends-moi, now available on the British market, is “the world’s first slimming fragrance,” designed to “slim with pleasure” using ingredients that release endorphins already present in the body to trigger a “pleasure message” within the brain. (Also noteworthy: egregious overuse/abuse of the word “pleasure.”) Keep reading »

Mirror, Mirror: Am I The Only Person Who Eats Carbs?

Kate FridkisJuly 19, 2012 //

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Sayonara Skinny Girl

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Fairest shmairest! Let’s get real about beauty and body image. Mirror, Mirror is a column running every other Thursday on The Frisky. It is written by Brooklyn-based columnist, freelance writer, and bagel enthusiast, Kate Fridkis who also writes the blog Eat the Damn Cake. You can follow her on Twitter at @eatthedamncake.

I am the only person in my family who eats carbs. I am a rebel. But I am not able to be self-righteous about it because I might be killing myself with sugar. I don’t want to die! But these doughnuts are so friggin’ good. Am I just weak-willed and gross? Or is it possibly a little bit OK to eat some junk food once in a while? Or, you know, the occasional carb.

My whole family is not only mostly composed of type one diabetics, but also, everyone is obsessed with health. All the time. Everyone is passing around these 500-page books called Sugar: The Mass Murderer and Why You Will Die From Eating That Thing You’re Eating Right Now.

I grew up eating all organic. We lived in a rural area and my mom grew all of our vegetables. The rest of our food came by truck, frozen, from a distant, organic coop. As a kid, I thought pasta was made from artichokes. OUR pasta was, anyway.

Type one diabetes, in case anyone was wondering, is the kind that doesn’t have anything to do with what you ate first. It’s a chronic illness that you have to take insulin shots every day for, and it really, really sucks. Not eating carbs makes it a lot easier to regulate your blood sugar, which is really important. So my dad and my youngest brother and my husband and my husband’s mom all don’t eat carbs. Because that’s how many diabetics there are in my life. Keep reading »

Michael Phelps Talks About His Weight Gain After The Beijing Olympics

Ami AngelowiczJuly 10, 2012 //

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Quotable

“It was weird going from the highest of the high, the biggest point of your life—winning eight gold medals—and then saying, ‘All right, where do I go from here?’ I wasn’t motivated. I did nothing, literally nothing, for a long time. I gained 25 pounds. A friend of mine and I were playing football on the beach in Miami, and somebody got a picture of us and put it all over the place. And he’s like, ‘Bro, you gotta start working out, man. You are fat.’ So I started going through the motions again. I would go back for a week or two and then stop. I’d show up for dry-land practice and then just sneak out the back door so nobody saw me. I was watching ‘Rocky II’ the other day—the one where he’s fighting Apollo for the second time and he’s just going through the motions. It reminded me of how I was … I’m the kind of person who has to go through the learning experiences myself. Somebody could tell me, ‘If you eat this much you’ll be fat,’ and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, okay, let me try it.’ Growing up, my mom taught us to make our own decisions, but also that you have to pay for the consequences of those decisions. I’m thankful for that. I’ll be the first to say I’ve made thousands of mistakes, but I’ve never made the same mistake twice … People make a big deal out of what I eat, but it’s not [12,000 calories a day]. I had a three-egg omelet and three pieces of French toast and coffee this morning. For recovery, I think it’s a big deal to eat within a half-hour after you exercise. Otherwise I just try to put carbs into my system before I swim and then load up on the protein after. I don’t count calories. Whether it’s Sour Patch Kids or Reese’s or a bag of chips, if I feel like eating it, I’m going to eat it.”

– Michael Phelps talks about his weight gain and diet in Details. You don’t hear too many men talk food and weight. When they do, I always find it really fascinating. Granted, he is an Olympic athlete, so there is a different kind of attention on his body. It sounds like he was semi-depressed, smoking lots of pot (he kind of references it in the interview) and emotionally eating his share of Sour Patch Kids after Beijing. I don’t know if I would choose Sour Patch Kids, but I get it. I mean, what do you do after you’ve worked your whole life to win Olympic gold medals and then you do? Existential crisis alert. Well, based on this photo spread, I would say he’s back in fighting shape and then some for next month’s games. [Celebitchy] Keep reading »

Girl Talk: The Things That Freak Me Out When I Think About Myself In A Bikini

Kate FridkisJune 13, 2012 //

The Skinny Girl

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I don’t want to write about bikinis. I want to write about the amazing blue cheese dressing I made with buttermilk! (For some reason, I think buttermilk is the coolest thing ever.) And the pizza I found myself absentmindedly dipping in it until I’d eaten a whole piece like that.

I want to write about little victories and subtle triumphs. But there’s a bikini in the back of my mind, its strings tangling in my thoughts, its sliver of a bottom giving my brain a wedgie.

The thing is, I keep lying. Because I’m embarrassed.

This month, my husband Bear and I are going on a trip with my family. My parents won the trip, to a beautiful house in the Virgin Islands, in a synagogue raffle. My brothers and their girlfriends are coming, too. I can’t wait. I am imagining the ocean and that sudden sense of eternity that engulfs you when you look at it. You have to look away, because it’s too big.

Also, I will be wearing a bikini, I’m assuming. Since I have never found a one-piece that was a match for my long torso. Since I am young and sexy and perfectly capable of wearing a bikini.

I hope. Keep reading »

Mirror, Mirror: I Was The Skinny Girl

Kate FridkisJune 7, 2012 //

My Buzz Cut

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Brave Style

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My Nose Job

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I started writing about beauty when I wasn’t skinny enough anymore.

For a long time, most of my life, I was skinny. And everyone always commented on it.

“You’re SO thin!” they’d say in this jealous, admiring way. As though I was doing something better than them. As though I’d earned it somehow, rather than that I just had high metabolism and a health-obsessed mother who raised me to believe that soy milk counted as a “treat.”

My boyfriends were always like, “You need to eat more!”

And then they smiled and kept dating me anyway. Keep reading »

How Does Your Relationship Status Affect Your Body?

Winona Dimeo-EdigerMay 29, 2012 //

Fat-Shaming Jessica

On Jessica Simpson, her pregnancy, and the word "fat." Read More »

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She calls it a bubble butt, and she's proud of it. Read More »

He Told Me To Lose Weight

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Celeb Weight Loss

These celebs have pushed weight loss products. 3 Photos »

In case you haven’t heard, Kelly Clarkson has a new boyfriend (who just happens to be Reba McEntire’s stepson, Brandon Blackstock), and she’s also looking noticeably slimmer lately. Coincidence? She says no:

“I have a boyfriend, and if I’m being completely honest, no one likes to be not toned when you are dating someone. I’m eating better and working out, but I’ve always fluctuated within 20 pounds. I tone whenever I want, and I chose to now because my boyfriend and I are both really into it. But we don’t work out together. We did that once and I didn’t like huffing and puffing. I didn’t like looking all red and gross, so I don’t do that.”

This got me thinking about how our relationship status often affects our bodies and body image… Keep reading »

The “Moonlight Sonata” Diet

Ami AngelowiczMay 24, 2012 //

Weight Gain Rules

This writer is loving her weight gain. Read More »

Dressing Vs. Dieting

Why women should focus on the bodies they have. Read More »

Celeb Weight Loss

These celebs have pushed weight loss products. 3 Photos »

The Breast Milk Diet

Say what?! Read More »

Another day, another creative way to lose weight. Discovered on Facebook, the “Moonlight Sonata” Diet is easy. You can eat whatever you want, but you have to be standing in front of a mirror, watching yourself, and listening to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” through the duration of your meal. I’m just waiting for a celebrity to endorse this one. It sounds way more realistic (not to mention emo) than the Cookie Diet. [imgur]

8 Reasons You Shouldn’t Go On A Diet

Kate FridkisApril 16, 2012 //

Weight Gain Rules

This writer is loving her weight gain. Read More »

Brave Style

10 things this writer will wear when she's braver. Read More »

Dressing Vs. Dieting

Why women should focus on the bodies they have. Read More »

It’s spring! The trees are blossoming! All six of them! Or maybe that’s just on my block. The several tufts of grass are violently green. I suddenly want to buy at least two pairs of gladiator sandals. Because suddenly one doesn’t feel like enough. And also, because it’s spring, weight-loss advice is blooming. It’s everywhere. Shed those extra pounds before summer! Be able to fit into those shorts! Get your bikini bod on! Or, you know, catchier slogans.

I am going to the Caribbean in a couple months. My dad won a trip at an auction, and he’s taking the family, significant others included. When I found out, my first thought was “Yay!” and my second thought was, “Shit.” The “shit” related to the fact that I have not put on a bikini in well over a year, and since then, I’ve gained about 15 pounds. Keep reading »

The Soapbox: A Former Fat Kid Responds To The “Vogue” Mother Who Put Her 7-Year-Old On A Diet

AnonymousMarch 27, 2012 //

My Scale

One write talks about why she brought a scale back into her home. Read More »

Secret Eating

One writer talks about being a secret eater. Read More »

Weight Talk

One writer is sick of talking to women about weight. Read More »

By now, many of you may have read Vogue’s annual “Shape” issue and had some reaction to the story of Bea, a seven-year-old girl whose mother was intent on curing her “obesity,” which was, in reality, 16 extra pounds of baby fat.

“One day Bea came home from school in tears, confessing that a boy at school had called her fat. The incident crushed me, but it was a wake-up call. Being overweight is not a private struggle. Everyone can see it,” said Bea’s mother, Dara-Lynn Weiss.

Weiss immediately put Bea on a Weight Watchers-type diet designed for children. Reading this, I felt a familiar pang in my gut. I was also an overweight child who came home from school and complaining about being teased. It was fifth grade, and I was the new kid in school. I didn’t know I was overweight until one of the popular boys spit on my new pair of Vans and called me “fat ass.” The girls were even worse. They attacked me in the bathroom with a barrage of spitballs. I spent most of the school year alone, writing in my journal. There’s one heartbreaking entry I’ll never forget: Dear Diary, Please let me be popular. Please let me not be fat anymore.

Although I’ve moved on and healed from these experiences, which happened more than 20 years ago, it still hurts to write about them. They’re a reminder of how cruel people can be, perhaps without even meaning to. What’s more painful for me, though, is remembering how my mother reacted to these incidents. Keep reading »

Crystal Renn’s Been Every Size — So What?

Julie GersteinFebruary 3, 2012 //

Crystal Renn Q&A

An interview with the gorgeous plus-size model Crystal Renn. Read More »

Plus-Size Coats

Coats for gals of every size. 7 Photos »

Plus-Size Models

Vogue Italia features three plus-size cover models. Read More »

“I have been every single size in women’s fashion. I really don’t think anyone can say that. I’ve been a double-zero, children’s clothes, at 95 pounds, and I’ve been all the way up to a size 16 and everything in between. So to come to this place of being a 6, 8, sometimes a 10 depending on what designer I’m wearing. And that’s an interesting place to be in fashion, where extremes are the norm.”

– Crystal Renn talks to “Entertainment Tonight” about her weight. It seems like nobody can believe that a woman who works in fashion — and struggled with anorexia in the past — could be completely comfortable in her body and be okay with being somewhere in the middle. Pretty crazy, right? It’s like the media wants her to be as fixated on how much she weighs as they are. Gross. [ET Online]