healthy and beautiful

You can be successful in every area of your life and fucked up with food. Oftentimes, you can’t even take in that success if “food stuff” is casting a pall. I recently watched an interview Oprah did with songwriter/composer Carole Bayer Sager (pictured above with the "That's What Friends Are For" crew). Carole described the semi-spiritual way she approaches writing. She spoke of her desire is to help people feel less alone via her songs. There’s a universality to her lyrics that always made her seem like someone who got it. But you can “get it” and not internalize it.  As the interview moved along Oprah, as Oprah tends to do, delved into Carole’s personal history. In her words, she was a cubby child born to a narcissistic mother. Carole shared a memory where her mother said “fatty, walk behind me”. As we know, those comments sting and stick. I watched his (almost 70 year old?) accomplished, beautiful woman say she had never solved her relationship with food. That chatter ...

We have another great giveaway coming your way, but an article I read this weekend pushed my “must write about” button.   Let me first say that I love Jennifer Weiner’s writing and I’ll even admit I appreciate her Bachelor live-tweeting. I didn’t enjoy   “ One Day We Can Stop Trying,Right ?” I may be in the minority because multiple Facebook friends posted the link to it. If you didn’t catch the piece, JW starts out with the observation that magazines tend to stop focusing on women after 60.   “It’s as if, for the purposes of good looks and sexiness, older women cease to exist.” Ouch I thought but JW takes comfort in the notion of being cut off as “a finish line, a point at which you were no longer expected to perform what sometimes feels like a woman’s major duty in life- looking good for men.” Though “perform” and “duty” made me cringe, I used to wonder about what Jennifer describes. Will I care about my skinny jeans, bathing suit body and scale surges and dips when I’m...

We are all hypocrites. I realize that’s not the most motivational sentence to start the year but it’s true. My ears perked up with I heard Oprah’s soothing voice seemingly honestly recounting her weight struggles. “You look in mirror and you don’t even recognize yourself”. The press said that people were in tears over this narrative. In another TV spot she says, and I paraphrase, it’s not about a pair of pants but I want my best body (I’m confused, doesn’t the “best body” feel good in our pants?). I love O but she alludes to weight being about underlying issues and then the Weight Watcher’s logo pops up. Weight Watchers is about counting and points.   And if we’re talking numbers let’s just say that Oprah's "numbers" or should I say bottom line improved from this deal (and  stock purchase )* Then there’s Bon Appetit’s pretty January “healthy-ish” cover. Props to Bon Appetit for their health-conscious issue but “healthy-ish” reminds me of my most hated wellness phrase “eve...

Our newsletter today focuses on healthy rituals. We culled top food and fitness experts for their daily rituals and the answers were inspiring (and funny).   Some responses were too in depth for our monthly newsletter and so we’ll feature them here this week. In the meantime, the newsletter also mentioned those rituals you wish you did which we call “wishuals”. Meditation has been a wishual for me for some time. I think it’s been a New Year’s resolution.   I’ve polled my Facebook friends to find out their favorite meditation teachers,  I even went to an intro session on transcendental meditation (the twice a day requirement and weird cult-like infomercial ruined it for me).   This past summer, I registered for a meditation retreat at The Garrison Institute retreat taught by Jack Kornfield (who I had heard about as I own one of his books). But I didn’t go; I didn’t read the book or attend classes either.   And if New Year’s resolutions were superstitions, I’d be...

I didn’t plan on posting this week. I f igured I’d store up some ideas (and calories) for all that January-ness. Then I saw a page I had ripped out of People (in my bathroom, hey last TMI for 2014 too, why not).  I will take a photo of the clipping but you’ll be relieved to know I’m not typing this from the bathroom nor have I ever typed there. Anyway, this article featured the ever-adorable Drew Barrymore. The title was something like “losing weight on her own terms”  and the gist of the piece was that Drew immersed herself in her new baby, continued to eat what she wanted when she wanted etc etc. It was patting Drew on the back for not caring or not caring too much. But you know what happened? Yup, sure enough Drew eventually cared and hired Tracy Anderson who I happened to catch on the Insider suggesting we workout 7 days a week. Then there’s Oprah (another one of my favorites). A friend of mine happened to tape something with O recently. She remarked how relaxed she was, ...