My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

Between cheap dinners out with the new boo , a very stressful and time-consuming new job (and the thousands of Goldfish consumed weekly to keep me on my feet), and all the yoga-defying illnesses my little petri dishes have passed me on their homework assignments in the past nine months, I’ve noticed that my clothes have been getting tighter.   Like, a lot tighter.   As in, I find myself wincing as I take off particularly unforgiving dresses at the end of the day – dresses which, nine months ago, fit just fine, or were even a bit baggy at the waist.   And now I’m faced with a dilemma I haven’t faced in years: how to lose bulk, if not necessarily weight.   If you’ve been reading this blog (or known me personally) for the few years, you know that I am majorly anti-dieting.   And if you’ve known me for the past decade, you might recall that the last time I succumbed to societal pressure and tried to lose weight, through a strict-but-real...

The news has been so full of body-image- and obesity- and weight-related articles lately, to the point that I just haven't been able to keep up!  So in the spirit of the new year, and because the media interest in bodies/weight/health doesn't seem to be waning (so I'm sure I'll have plenty more material in the future), I'm cleaning house: here are all the articles I saved up in my email account in 2012 to write individual posts on, which I'm going to share instead through one big link-filled post.  I hope you find these links as interesting as I did (and still do)! This astoundingly brave young woman is doing a similar thing with a photo series to what I'm trying to achieve with the book – I can only hope I've produced something half as affecting and powerful as what she has created. Months ago I stumbled across this website with images of real women's bodies, sometimes accompanied by a paragraph or two about how these women feel about their ...

There's been a lot of chatter in the media lately about the trials and tribulations of traveling under the influence of a couple (hundred?) extra pounds.  And somewhere between Kevin Smith being kicked off Southwest Airlines and the constant barrage of fat-fear and obesity epidemic outcry, a few pieces have emerged that put a chubbily human face on the matter (without too much whining or crying).  I think I'm going to start linking to such pieces (if only to keep the blog alive for a while as every remotely interesting original thought goes straight into the 'book' file).  First up, Traveling While Fat , from last weekend's NY Times.  It's a pretty good start down the 'fat is human' road, although I have to wonder whether a woman could write something so matter of fact, with so little apology for her size. Lord knows I couldn't.  Hence, the GB, and now, the memoir in which I constantly express a need to apologize for my still-unacceptable size. ...

The lovely bf took me to Mexico a couple of months ago, and I started a blog post there.  Obviously, I never finished it, because I was distracted by the beautiful pool and our personal pastry class and the delectable food everywhere we turned, but I looked at it again today and realized that the subject I wanted to touch on is still worth discussing.  Basically, I started the post with a photo of the amazing resort where we were staying.  And I mean AMAZING.  I’ve never before in my life stayed at a hotel so beautiful and comfortable and just plain stunning that I didn’t want to leave the compound walls.  I’m all about real Mexico– the people, the culture, the food– but I had absolutely no desire to leave ever.  I could seriously live in this amazing place.  This is important for you to know, not so I can brag, but so you can understand how pissed off I was to still feel like such a fat cow.  I mean, here I was, with my own private villa w...

I stopped using the calorie counter when we left for our vacation in Italy (Bologna, Umbria , Arezzo , and Cinque Terre ), figuring I didn't want to ruin the delicious food I was planning on stuffing my face with, and relying on the fact that I always lose weight on vacation (my theory is that I'm too busy walking around to snack). And we were really active on vacay , especially when scrambling up and down mountains to nude beaches in Cinque Terre , so I really wasn't too worried about all the gelato and pasta I was consuming (YUM). But I was planning on getting back into the counting when I came back to London... That was the plan , anyway. But then we only had 2 days before we moved into the new flat, after which life was (still is) a blur of unpacking, buying secondhand furniture, and entertaining the friends who so wonderfully came to visit me but whom I so unwittingly told the first week of September would be fine ( gah ). So long story short, I'm still not c...