Men Have Body Image Issues Too

Just like you can't go to a Melissa Etheridge concert without seeing an abundance of pit hair, these days you can't go to an indie rock concert without seeing... emaciated men? This season, anorexic is the new black for the skinny jeans and eyeliner-for-men set. In a profession where rock stars have typically looked drug-emaciated a la Steven Tyler and David Bowie, this new trend hasn't garnered a lot of attention. The difference now however is that rather than all the bony rib cages being a result of popping oxycontin like tic tacs, thinness is sought after as a goal in its own right. Blame American Apparel or Pete Wentz, but men in this particular hipster subculture are now being held up to the impossibly skinny standard - and realizing firsthand how difficult it is to reach and how painful it is to always come up short.

Recently Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon admitted that he struggles with anorexia. In an interview with Q magazine he says, "I always thought I wasn't good enough. I'd do anything to keep my hands and mouth busy without eating." Adds Priya Elan of The Guardian, "He lived on black coffee and would go running in hot weather wearing a heavy tracksuit to sweat off as many pounds as possible in order to stay skinny. It isn't a huge surprise that the singer of one of indie rock's biggest bands was anorexic. What is surprising is that he's admitted it."

Followill might be the most honest of the group but he certainly isn't the only indie boy in this band. Other indie stars known for their bony frames and body issues include Kurt Cobain, Pete Wentz, Kaiser Chief's Ricky Wilson and Amos Lee. Seeing as I love all of their music (yeah, I just admitted to digging Fall Out Boy. I'm 12, I know.), it would be a shame to see any of them go the Karen Carpenter route - barring Cobain as he's already playing his coffeehouse gig in the sky.

Kurt Cobain, still dead, now schills shoes for the living

Pete Wentz, belching the alphabet

Ricky Wilson gives new meaning to Hey, Mr. Tamborine Man

Amos Lee looks over his shoulder in an alley. Which I would be too if I were sitting on such a nice leather "free" chair.

Slowly but surely it's been percolating to the surface of our media-addled public consciousness that men struggle with body issues too, whether it be looking good in bike shorts at the gym or measuring up to David Beckham's, ahem, standard (is that what the kids are calling it these days?). Worse, it is filtering down to all levels of society as evidenced by my literal tug of war with a pair of teenaged boys over a thrift-store pair of women's Chip and Pepper skinny cut jeans. (I won. You do NOT mess with me in a thrift store!)

Reader Andrew (AJH) pointed this out in his comment on my Finding Your Best Weight post:

Don't think these thoughts are just in women's heads, I was just the same when I was "losing" and am still to a degree. I started at 110kg with a goal weight of 90kg. Each time I reached a goal weight, another 5 kgs seemed like a good idea. I got down to about 68kg and my wife started saying I was looking sick, I couldn't see it, but did find I was finding I had less energy when exercising. I went back up to 70kg, and even then it didn't feel right, I decided less than 75kg seemed a good target and have been there for more than 5 years, feeling good. However, I have been around 72kg the last few months, and there is definitely a thought of that "safe buffer" you mentioned. I think if you're eating sensibly, feeling good and can do the things you want with the energy level you want, you're probably at the right weight.

It's also been shown that young gay men are particularly susceptible to body image woes and eating disorders. As a mother to three wonderful sons and one adorable daughter, I often worry about how society in general and my own struggles in particular will affect my daughter's sense of self and vulnerability to eating disorders. But now I am also worried about the messages my boys are getting. Even as young as they are (my eldest is 8), they are still bombarded daily with messages about what it means to be attractive and how to achieve that standard.

Body image issues in men may not be as prevalent or as pernicious as among women but give 'em twenty years to catch up; we had a head start. What do you think? Have you seen this in any of the men or boys in your life? How do I talk to my sons about this issue? Are eating disorders viewed differently in men than in women? Anyone else a thrift-store addict like I am?? (Today was 50% off day! I so totally scored!!)

Body Checking: The One Bad Health Habit I Just Can't Break [Help Meee!]

Reusing my floss because I'm too lazy to get up and get a new piece. Downing my daily cocktail of Splenda, artificial colors and fake flavors. Sleeping in my makeup (sometimes I like waking up looking like Boy George). Let's be honest, I have quite a few bad health habits that need breaking but only one is really driving me nuts right now. And it's a doozy. I've been doing this as long as I can remember. Honestly, I can remember doing this in Kindergarten, it's been with me that long.

So what is it? Body checking. Not the ice hockey kind (although that would be really cool if slamming people into the wall on ice skates were my big problem). The kind of body checking I mean is the kind that makes me have to look at myself in every reflective surface hundreds of times a day. The kind where I am constantly adjusting my clothing or fixing my hair. The kind that makes me change my clothes at least three times a day - and often many more. The kind where the first thing I do upon standing, sitting or changing positions is to put my hand over my lower belly and squish it. Because I have to check myself.

At first glance, I look like the vainest person in the world. I remember my cousin once joking on a group shopping trip, "Quick we've got to find another mirror so Charlotte can check herself out again! It's been, like, 5 whole minutes since she's seen herself." But - you must believe me - it is not vanity. Vanity means that you like the way you look and enjoy staring at yourself. I do not generally like the way I look (working on that!) and I certainly don't enjoy staring at myself. And yet I replay this little ritual of see mirror, turn sideways, smooth tummy, straighten shirt, fix hair, turn forward, check my teeth, smooth tummy dozens of times a day. If you count every little body check, it's closer to a hundred times a day.

My compulsion - because that's exactly what it is: a ritualistic behavior performed to relieve a specific anxiety - to check my body is especially bad at the gym. A combination, I think, of all the mirrors (seriously, the Gorgon would be dead before she made it past the lobby of most gyms) and wearing fitted clothing. Although as I type that, I feel forced to admit that even at home in my baggiest of sweats, I still have to smooth my hand over my stomach, still have to look in the mirror.

All of which means I can be really annoying. I've had more than one Gym Buddy tell me some form of "Stop pulling your shirt down, it's fine!" or "Quit tucking your sports bra straps under, nobody cares!" My roommates thought I had a bladder infection because every time I walked past a bathroom, I had to go in it. Even my husband loses patience sometimes when we're trying to go somewhere and I have to change my outfit for the 17th time (cute when you're two, massively irritating when you're 32). It's even led to a bit of a shopping addiction - thankfully I'm addicted to thrift stores so the financial impact has been minimal - a never-ending quest to find clothes that make me look "not fat." There are days when I even annoy myself: I'll be running 10 minutes late but still have to run back inside and change my top or, heaven help me, my entire outfit. I desperately want to not care but I know if don't change, I'll be so consumed by what I'm wearing (Do I look fat? Are other people staring at me? Am I underdressed?) that it will drive me nuts.

If you ask me why I'm doing it, I'll tell you: "I'm afraid of looking fat."

But I've had enough therapy to know by now that "fat" isn't the issue so much as "crazy" is. It's turned into a nervous tic of sorts. When I'm feeling happy and well-adjusted - so about 5% of the time - I don't think about my clothing or hair or stomach at all. When I'm really nervous or upset, I get as handsy as Brody Jenner and Joe Francis at the last sorority party of the year.

Unsurprisingly body checking behaviors are highly correlated with eating disorders. It only makes sense that when a person is hypercritical of their body that it will manifest in a variety of ways. I also know I'm not alone in this. Our society is very reinforcing of body checking with the constant attention to people's bodies. We blow up celebrity butts and circle them with red pen. We giggle at the lady in Wal-Mart with her thong showing on both ends. We watch so many television shows (in high definition!) about how to properly dress, accessorize and do our make up that they had to create an entire channel to fill the need. When you live in a world where Gwyneth Paltrow has to wear two (!) pairs of Spanx to feel beautiful then who can be surprised that the rest of us become self conscious about our tummies.

Unfortunately I don't know how to stop doing it. Even though this feels like one of the most embarrassing confessions I've made on this site (kinda hilarious when you remember I'm the girl who copped to farting through an entire exercise class after I ate soybeans), I think writing it out here has been a great help. I've never really admitted to myself before how much I do this and how much it negatively impacts my life.

So - do you body check? If not, do you have a bad habit that even annoys yourself? Anyone else change their clothes multiple times a day? Have you ever put on an outfit and felt completely awesome in it until the second you step out the door and then suddenly it gives you cankles, a tummy roll and bad skin to boot? What do I do to quit this??

Where is the Line Between Your Weight and Yourself?

Girl Disappearing by Curly Tops

Perfectly round. A circular platform encircled by a raised bar. Like a stage! The kind that lights up underneath and lifts the performer above the crowd as mist billows beneath! And indeed I am being watched. But there is no applause and I am given no chance for a monologue. Perhaps, I think - silently, to myself - it reminds me less of a stage and more of a teleportation device. Closing my eyes I wait for a beam of light to descend and obliterate the particles of my mortal shell, to reduce me, no more no less, to the same matter that permeates the universe. No light comes. My atoms stay rigidly arranged, the faulty DNA that is Broken Me still intact, still informing.

I wish it were anything but what it actually is: a scale.

The brushed steel platform on which I stand, obediently thinking defiant thoughts, does not look like any scale I am used to. Certainly it doesn't resemble either of the torture devices to which I have arranged my bathroom, and my life, around. (Two: one to check the other. Accuracy is paramount.) This is an industrial scale, large enough to weigh an elephant but stark enough to weigh an anorectic. Even if she is too weak to hold herself up and must lean on the circular rail for support. But not comfort. No scale has ever been comforting. The very idea of weighing and measuring a human being is not so they can be loved but so they can be compared.

I know quite well what I am being compared to. The problem is that I don't know how I measure up. The digital display that shows the all-important numbers is across the room. Across the room! And turned away so only the nutritionist can read it. Upon first entering the eating disorder clinic, I had protested vehemently at this weighing ritual. "But I'm at a healthy weight!" And then, "But I'm not anorexic! I'm here for compulsive exercise and orthorexia!" Then finally, "My shoes (large wedged heels) and my coat (thick for winter) are so heavy!" All of these things were quite true.

"It doesn't matter. This is just to get a baseline. All patients are weighed at every appointment. Please step on the scale."

"But I'm not even trying to lose weight!!" My final plea. This, incidentally, was not true.

The nutritionist didn't blink. "We can't continue until you are weighed."

There was a standoff. I held out for a half hour, picking my nails, studying the pastel 80's artwork, staring blatantly at my nutritionist - a woman so thin that she must always get asked if she has an eating disorder, if she is a size 0, if she has any tips . Of course these things are filtered through the madness of my illness. I can't see anyone in any other light except fat or thin, evil or righteous, rebellious or obedient.

The thing that breaks me is knowing my babysitter can't stay past an hour. White as a sheet, I step on the scale. The silence that had started at our inauspicious beginning continues to blanket the room. I make not a peep as my worth blinks in black and white. She makes not a sound as she writes it down on my chart, her face inscrutable. Surely, I think, she had never seen someone weigh as much as I do. Surely, I think, she is horrified. Surely she thinks I'm faking sickness. It makes me feel so angry and impotent and worthless that the only thing I can think to say when we finally sit down in proper chairs - as if one of us hadn't just subjected the other to an invasive and dehumanizing ritual - in her office is, "My shoes have solid rubber heels, they probably weigh two pounds each."

She nods, unsmiling, "I'll make a note of that on your chart." And she does. Although I do not know whether she notes it under my weight or under the "disordered fixations of patient" column. I reassure myself with the thought that next time I will wear tiny sandals and take my coat off in the waiting room, no matter the fact that it is winter. No matter the fact that I am always, always freezing. Next time, I vow, that number will be less.

"Excuse me," my lips stretch and I show my teeth in what I hope is a smile, "but I didn't catch the number. What was it?"

"I already told you, the number doesn't matter. It's just a baseline for our charts. Something to see if the intervention is working." Her bony chest, visible through her v-neck sweater, rises and falls as she sighs.

Intervention. I bristle at the word. Bristle at the thought that something as intensely personal, as intrinsic to my corporeal self, as my weight is kept from me. It's mine! I want to scream. It's all I have left! I don't want to add.

"Now, since it took so long getting started," she pauses and I stare right back into her hollow-cheeked face, "I won't be able to finish all of the intake questions. But I'd like you to take this and read it before our meeting next week." She slides a bound booklet across the desk to me. It has a clip-art picture of a fruit bowl on the cover. Nutritional Guidelines the title reads. It is tacky and I hate it without opening it.

But then I remember Pam, my beloved therapist, the one who insisted that I go to this meeting, do this intake, finish this outpatient program. I can't face her next week and report yet another week of no progress. Flipping open the booklet, the first page tells me to eat a protein, a grain and a fat at every meal. The nutritionist leans over to point out more clip-art pictures illustrating each of these categories. As if I don't already know every macronutrient, every calorie, every gram, every vitamin, every category that a food could possibly be compartmentalized into by heart. Did you know an apple is a fruit?

My sickness does not make me stupid.

The nutritionist thinks it does. She hands me a list and asks me to circle which foods I will eat. Scanning the everlong list - is every food in the world really on there? Because I am an adventurous eater. At least, I used to be - I draw a heavy X through them all. This will be faster: I scrawl on the bottom "salad, berries, nuts, steel-cut oats and non-starchy vegetables."

"This is what you will eat?"

A lump forms in my throat as I realize that several days ago I struck oatmeal off the list. Grains are bad for you, our primal ancestors didn't eat them, our systems haven't evolved to digest them without inflammation. See? I had to take them off. It was the right thing to do.

"Charlotte?"

I'm not aware that I'm not saying any of this out loud. What I know is this: I am crying. And my babysitter can't stay any longer.

"I'm sorry, I have to go now." I stumble over my too-tall, too-heavy shoes. (How could I have ever thought these made my legs look thinner? Clearly I am huge and no shoes are going to hide that.)

"All right, I'll see you next week?"

"Sure." By the waiting room I have chewed my lip raw. Mothers don't have the luxury of eating disorders. By the elevator I have dried the tears. I can't go back to my children with red rimmed eyes. With problems. With heavy shoes. By the front doors I have recovered myself. I toss the booklet in the garbage can under the cigarette sandbox.

I don't come back.

I prefer my small-scale scales. The ones that don't have the power to transport me to another world. The ones that won't take me apart piece by piece, demanding my faith that it will put me back together in the end.

* Note: I wanted to end the essay here. But I worry that some of you will think that this is my contemporary state of mind. And it isn't. This incident happened several years ago and I have made amazing progress with my disordered eating. The reason I write about this today is to try and describe what it felt like for me. Why the scale still holds such prominence in my life. And because today, for the first time since my baby's birth, I weigh the weight that I did that day (of course the first thing I did when I got home and paid the babysitter was to run upstairs and weigh myself, shoes, coat and everything). Before you worry - do realize that my weight today, totally naked, is what I weighed then fully (overly) clothed. It isn't truly the same but seeing that number brought back this memory. It seemed important to write it down.

Do you have a weight that holds particular importance for you? A number that brings back a particular memory, good or bad? Edited to add: I ask this not to have you fixate on an arbitrary number but to encourage you to challenge the beliefs that you hold about yourself and your weight. You are so much more than a number.

Have You Ever Hid a Healthy Habit?

Best hiding place ever! My kids would never find me in here!!

My house is a veritable treasure trove of hidden goodies. There are birthday presents stashed at the top of my closet, lingerie under the bed, dark chocolate peanut butter cups in the freezer (bonus: takes me longer to eat them that way. un-bonus: I have to pass by the cookie dough on the way to them.) and our emergency flashlight that my husband and I have hid and re-hid so many times that we don't even know where it is anymore. Obviously, my squirrel tendencies are because I live with 4 little people who have zero concept of respecting other people's belongings. Seriously, they think my panty liners are huge awesome stickers and no matter how many times I hide those suckers I still find them stuck all over the house.

But when it comes to food, I can't really blame the kiddos. In the past I've had some admittedly bizarre behaviors around food (behaviors that I have made a LOT of progress in fixing as of late - wahoo!). I hated eating in front of people. And yet I couldn't eat alone either. I destroyed food. I lied about it. I even hated it. And I hid it. While my food-hiding tendencies run more towards eating abstemiously in public and then shoveling in a half gallon of ice cream at home alone, a comment left on my post "The Slow Metabolism: Fact or Myth?" made me see food-hiding in a totally new perspective. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own neuroses that I forget other people have their own closeted crazies.

Jessica wrote, "I'm not sure I buy the whole 'some people can eat whatever they want and never gain weight' thing. There have been points in my life when I felt like I could eat whatever I wanted, and points where I've felt so obsessed with food that I was never going to win. Maybe there are a couple of people in the world who really can eat thousands and thousands of calories a day, but I think they're extremely rare. I think if you look more closely at those people who seem to be eating junk all the time, you'll find that the numbers add up-- they are not actually eating as many calories in a day as you think they are. If you're thin and don't have much stress around food, it's easier to only eat when you're hungry, and that cuts out a lot of calories. Also, people love to make it look effortless, because it makes them feel special and important, which means they're eating the candy in front of you and hiding the turkey on whole wheat. " [emphasis mine.]

I have this problem: I always think that people have always been the way that I know them now. For instance, when I meet someone new who is very thin it never occurs to me that they might have been heavy in the past or are recovering from a long illness or work very very hard for that tiny body. I just assume that they have always been thin and that it is easy for them. Weird, right? So when I see some skinny girl chowing down on the pie and ice cream, I think "Huh, she's really lucky. She must be one of those who can eat whatever she wants." And then I try not to roll up into a ball of shame and jealousy.

But Jessica makes an excellent point. Of course people are not always as they appear to be. This was brought home to me the other day when I walked into a lady's room to change Jelly Bean's diaper. A young, beautiful mother sat nursing her baby (it was one of those fancy lady's rooms with rocking chairs and plush couches and artwork! Oh yes men, those bathrooms really exist!) and we chatted a bit about our kids who were almost the same age. As I threw away the diaper - in a pail much nicer than the one I have at home, sigh - she suddenly stood up and the distressed look on her face surprised me. "I know this is really weird but I just have to ask you this before you leave?" I blinked. If she was going to try to sell me Amway or Quixstar or whatever it is now, I was ready to bolt. "How did you do it? You're so thin. I mean, you look like you've never even had kids." I turned 7 shades of red and stammered something about my last 10 pounds still hanging around. "No," she said more insistently, "I really really want to know. Did you do a diet? A workout? Pills??" My eyes widened as I contemplated explaining to her my brand of crazy. "I'm desperate," she added as if the tears filling her eyes didn't explain that well enough.

"Well yeah, I do eat healthy most of the time. And I workout." I thought about just leaving it at that - it is true, after all - but then I realized I'd be leaving her with the impression that I've always been this way and that it is easy for me, both of which are so laughably untrue that I plopped my butt down on the couch next to her, gave her a hug and proceeded to tell her my whole sorry story. Four different kinds of eating disorders, my Very Bad Boyfriend, my gymnastics team, my 6th grade health teacher, my bulimic grandmother - the whole shebang. We spoke for about 45 minutes during which I learned that she had been hospitalized with an eating disorder before she'd had her daughter and was now really struggling with the way motherhood had changed her body. By the time we parted I think she felt a lot better and I was immensely glad I had resisted the urge to let her believe I was what she assumed me to be. Sure I obliterated my "perfect" image but that conversation was so healing for both of us that I don't regret my honesty one little bit.

So whether it's hiding the fact that you eat healthy food 90% of the time so you can eat hamburgers and fries when you're in front of people, like Jessica pointed out, or whether it's hiding how much you workout, like I was tempted to do - I want to know, have you ever hid a healthy habit? What made you do it - were you afraid of being called a health nut? Afraid of being labeled as eating disordered (whether you were or not)? Were you just trying to avoid a slew of unwanted advice (You're a vegetarian?! You're going to die from a protein deficiency!!)? Are you ever tempted to just let others think you have it all together?

"Truthiness" in Advertising

You already know that many starlets grace (is grace really the word I'm looking for here?) magazine covers half undressed but did you hear about Carey Mulligan wearing a towel around her bottom on the cover of Vogue this month? No it's not the latest terry-cloth fashion hot off the runway - as if! - poor Carey was actually the victim of an ill-fitting haute couture dress. As she explains: "The cover dress was very pretty but wouldn't go over my arse. Sample size is very, very tiny. I'm actually wearing a towel around my waist and the bottom is clipped up because I couldn't fit."

While Carey seems to be taking it all remarkably well - further on in the interview she talks about feeling free from the thin pressure that crushes many other actresses her age - but that had to have been at least a little unnerving. You're on the cover of Vogue and you have a priceless dress on your top and a towel on your bottom. What do you say when a Vogue stylist hands you a dress and you can't get it over your hips? And then how do you work a towel into that conversation?? But what really irritates me is that they made her do the cover shoot anyhow, even in such a state. Instead of finding a dress to flatter the already gorgeous actress, they forced the actress into an unflattering dress. All to sell more "aspirational fashion" to women who probably can't fit in it either.

The twisted marketing reminded me of this adventure with Gym Buddy Allison:

Random Suburban Mall, Old Navy, 10:05 a.m.

me: What is THAT?!?

Old Navy now specializes in rib removals. For $10. Suh-weet.

me: Did they lose all the non-anorexic mannequins?

Allison: How do I look?

me: Hi, Cher.

The beauty of a 16-inch waist is you can totally heimlich yourself.

And it gets better. Not only was the shirt pinned within an inch of its sweat-shop life in the back:
But it was a size small to begin with:
We left the store empty handed.

Store mannequins are basically the photoshop of the physical world - you've seen the ones standing (shirtless) sentry at Abercrombie and Fitch, right? - so I don't really expect much. After all, they don't even have heads! Or hands! Or even a spot to house pretend internal organs! And then there's Lane Bryant using a size 8 mannequin to model size 16 + clothing (with more outrageous pinning, I'm sure). But in a world where tiny Carey Mulligan can't fit in the couture dress they forced her to wear on the cover of the magazine anyhow, do we really need mannequins adding to the lies and deception?

What do you think of Carey's confession? Brave or embarrassing? How do you feel about mannequins so small they can't even model the smallest size of clothing in the store? Anyone else feel compelled to manhandle the mannequins?

What is Your Secret to Body Confidence?

What does it say about me that I really want that dress? Except in green, please. They can keep the plastic barrettes though.

"You're prettier but she's way sexier." Thus started one of the worst back-handed compliments I've ever received. "She just knows how to use what she's got. You're... kinda spastic."

The speaker was Shane, my rakishly handsome neighbor my freshman year of college. My roommates and I all had massive crushes on him which he both knew and used to his advantage. Two of my roommates were quickly out of the game, one by her own volition (she claimed she was playing hard to get but it came across as just not playing) and one was summarily dismissed when it was discovered she was running from the law. That left my roommate Becky and I to vie pathetically for his affections.

For reasons I can only now attribute to a lackadaisical attitude towards school and an overconfidence in his parents' ability to take care of him the rest of his life (what a winner!), he was constantly over at our apartment. And his favorite game was wrestling. Preferably both of us at the same time. You have no idea how embarrassed I am to have just typed that so please forgive my idiocy and remember I was young - I was on campus part-time at 15, full-time at 17. Young girls do stupid things. Girls Gone Wild is a billion dollar industry based on that one fact. Not that what I did was Girls Gone Wild worthy. Wow, I'm just digging this hole deeper and deeper. Anyhow.

It was during one of these epic wrestling matches that he decided to lay that bit of wisdom on me. My face burned red and I knew I'd lost to the less-pretty but more-sexy Becky. Sure enough he was soon sampling all the flavors of her Lip Smackers - Dr. Pepper was the clear winner - and I was relegated to pretending not to hear despite the fact that Becky and I shared a room. (Sadly, that was not my worst roommate-makeout experience. That award goes to my junior year when I woke up to my bunk bed rocking. While I was getting my beauty rest on the top bunk, my adorable freshman roommate who only wore daisy dukes and camis even in the dead of winter, was playing birth control bingo on the lower bunk. Best part? As he was a (drunk) cop, he handcuffed her to the bed with real handcuffs... and lost the key. Yours truly to the rescue, hiking to his house in the middle of the night to get the spare. Hey at least it got me off the Noah's Ark Bed.)

But back to my original humiliation: Shane quickly learned that Becky, being more of a buffet fan than a single entree girl, was really more interested in the touchdown than the after party (10 yard penalty for the mixed metahpor!). Becky moved on to other more evasive men and he and I remained friends. In fact, when I had a pus-filled infected wound on my finger from - no joke - scraping it on a jagged corner of a formica desk, he was the one who volunteered to drain it for me and then hugged me while I cried for 10 minutes because it hurt. (Seriously - one of the most painful stupid injuries I've ever had! And I've had a lot them.)

One evening we were watching late night infomercials together after we'd both returned home early from bad dates when I asked him to explain. He was brutally honest. "You have no sense of self, no confidence. You have a great body but no idea how to use it. I love you but you are such a dork. When you try and act sexy, it's almost comical but in a painful way. You even hug self-consciously."

"I what?!?"

"I don't know how you do it but you do."

This was the memory that came back to me after reading the Fabulous Body Poll. The commenters were going back and forth about whether the men in the poll were lying through their British teeth when they said they most liked a "size 12" (size 8 US) woman and yet voted for bombshell Kelly Brooke (the only size 12 thing about her are her boobs) as their ideal woman. And then one of the commenters wrote: "I honestly think confidence is more important than any of it." And after my experience with Shane I have to agree.

Since body confidence comes from trusting and loving your body, it would make sense that I had none of it. Especially at that time in my life. I was geeky and weird. Way too transparent. Intellectually smart but dumb in common sense. So how does one get it if you are not born with it? If I were awesome, I'd come up with an inspiring bulleted list - with a picture of someone jumping! In front of a sunrise! On a big rock! - of five easy steps to loving the skin your in. Do I get bonus points for quoting a commercial too!

But the truth is I still don't know. I was discussing my obsession with those STUPID 10 POUNDS with my therapist the other day when she made an interesting point. She asked, "Why do those 10 pounds matter to you? Losing 10 pounds puts your BMI into the unhealthy range. Why would you want that?"

I answered, "Because people like me better when I'm that skinny. I get more compliments. People are nicer to me. People trust me more. Bag boys offer to get things off high shelves for me. I swear I even get more Google hits on those days."

She shot back, "Maybe it's because you're more confident and other people pick up on it. Maybe it has nothing to do with your weight and everything to do with how you feel about yourself."

The light went on.

So now I need to figure out a way, besides losing weight, to feel confident in myself. I've made a good start with aging - amazing what getting older can do - and also dancing, kick boxing, and running but I'm not there yet. Help me out - how have you learned to love your body? Do you have a favorite trick for those days when you need a little confidence boost? High heels? Sassy lipstick? Clinical strength deodorant?? Bonus points for aspirational pics!

Plateau Busting 101

Manscaping your nipple hair to attach to your nostril hair won't help you lose weight butI admire his willingness to change things up! Also, I think this dude shaved a swatch down the top of his head. That might be my fave part.

Sprained ankles. Broken bones. Gym Hottie rejection. Stolen spots. The occupied state of the "lucky" treadmill. Pistol whipped by a resistance band. A personal trainer with cold calipers and cold fingers. All the TVs locked onto The Hallmark Channel during a Nicholas Sparks cry-a-thon. Discovering the protein powder mixed in your water bottle is actually infant formula. There are many reasons for tears in the gym and I've seen my fair share of them. (Okay, that last one was me. (Fine, all of them were me. Shut up.)) But the number one reason I've seen people of both genders collapse in hysterics can be summed up by one word:

Plateau. duh-duh-duh!

Enter from stage left (gym studio left?) my gorgeous, leggy, thin, blond friend. While she recently had a great deal of success losing some poundage, she was not quite yet to her goal and yet her weight loss had stagnated. This, in spite of continuing with her healthy eating and exercise habits. Nothing, my friends, sucks worse than doing "everything right" and have it not work anymore. I wrote a detailed - and rather witty, if I do say so myself - post on plateaus and how to deal with them back in January. (Really go read that one first.) That one deals with all touchy-feely weepy aspects of the Dieter's Nightmare. (And you thought it was those awful Weight Watcher "cakes" that appear twice their real size on the outside of the box and taste just like the inside of the box. If the box was spread with chocolate-colored grout.) The basic gist is that we've all been there. Some of us are still there. It royally stinks.

But my friend wanted more detail about point #4, "Change it up." (Well, actually she just wanted to borrow my Jillian Michaels book Master Your Metabolism but I can't find it - I loaned that sucker to somebody, if you know who you are can I please have it back? K thx! - so I offered her my advice as a sorry second.) There are a ton of variables to try changing to see if you can kickstart your metabolism back into high octane burn. Here are a few suggestions to try and a few not to try:

Try It!
1. Interval training. The science really supports this one. Intervals done right are very painful (you're training at 90% or more of your maximum ability) but they are short. As with most exercise, more is not better (hgh, human growth hormone, works while you rest, remember?) but do try working in a couple of interval workouts a week. 20 minutes max is all you need. And don't tack them on to another workout. Seriously. Because then you won't be able to give those intervals your all. Bored of treadmill sprints (or they give you shin splints)? Try bike sprints. Or rowing sprints. Or, heaven help you because you will barf, swimming sprints.

2. Mess around with your macronutrient ratios. Recent research has shown that eating fat and protein for breakfast can give you a metabolic boost that will help you burn fat throughout the day and help you stay full longer. I'm not saying cut out healthy carbs all together, just don't fear the fat! And don't mess around with that Smart Balance stuff - go for the full fat butter, coconut oil, olive oil, heavy cream and whole eggs. For instance, my go-to breakfast these days are my (by way of Deb, Allie, Heather and half the fit-o-sphere) protein pancakes topped with a tablespoon of coconut oil or two tablespoons of heavy cream.

3. Try a new type of exercise. Always do step class? Try martial arts. Die-hard runner? Try boot camp. There are more ways to exercise than even I can blog about (not that I'm not trying, mind you) and change is good. It shocks your body and will make you sore in places you didn't know you could be sore!

4. Cut back on your cardio. For many of us, the instinct to just do more - more classes, more miles, more laps - is strong. If some is good, more is better right? Not so with exercise. And you know that I speak from experience here. Too much cardio actually teaches your body to store fat, can increase your hunger or just convince you that since you ran 10 miles you can eat whatever you want, goldanggit. Many of the leanest people I know (holla, MizFit!) do minimal cardio and focus mainly on the weights. I'm not telling you not to do cardio - you can have my endorphin rush when you pry it out of my cold dead fingers, er, neurons - just to resist the impulse to do more of it. If you want to run a marathon to prove to yourself you can do it or because you love to run or because racing gives you a thrill or even just because you think the finisher's tee is adorable then you should totally do it! But if you are running a marathon because you think it will make you lose 10 pounds, rethink that.

5. Lift heavy stuff. If you haven't started lifting weights, do it. Not just because adding muscle will increase your resting metabolism (not by a ton, but every little bit helps) or because muscle takes up less space than fat but because it is good for you in so many ways. Increased bone mass. Stronger heart. Fewer varicose veins (unless you squat too heavy and then you can get hemorrhoids but that's another post). Increased confidence. And if you already lift weights, change it up: try lifting heavy with few reps, or light with many reps. Try doing supersets. Lots and lots of different programs out there.

6. Eat more calories. This may sound counterintuitive but I think by now we've all heard about how our metabolisms will head off into the Siberia of starvation mode if it thinks it's not being sufficiently fed. Cutting back on your calories only helps you lose weight to a point. You may actually need to eat a bit more. How to tell? Do you feel tired, lethargic and/or more cold than usual? Have you lost your sex drive? Losing your hair? Brittle or strangely ridged nails?

7. Get your metabolism tested. If you have health insurance and this isn't too costly, this can be a good thing to do if nothing else is working. Get your thyroid tested (especially if you are pregnant, recently were pregnant, are lactating or are female and over 50). Get your vitamin and hormone levels checked. It can't hurt and who knows - it might turn up a health issue you need to know about!

Maybe
1. Calorie counting. For me this one is a loaded weapon but the truth is that it takes you an hour to burn 500 calories but it only takes you five minutes to eat a Cinnabon. It's much easier to watch what you eat than to change your exercise. If you are trying to break through a plateau it can be useful to track your calories for a while to help you be honest with yourself about what and how much you are really eating. It can also help you see patterns (like, say, if you hit a plateau at a certain time of the month every month.). But if you decide to do this one, do it with care and kindness. Too many of us have sacrificed our well being and mental health on the (un)holy altar of FitDay.

2. Cleanses. I've never done one of these. While I do fast for 24 hours once a month for religious reasons (I'm a Mormon), I've never tried a fasting or juice or any other "cleanse." I have friends that swear by them. I remain dubious. If you do one, drop me a line (or write a comment) and tell me about your experience with these!

Don't Do It
1. Pills. Just remember this: if they actually worked, every one would buy them and we'd all be thin. They don't work and they prey on your hope and your pocketbook.
2. Extreme diets. Sure you'll drop pounds but you'll drop so much more than that too. This is how eating disorders are born.
3. Over-exercise. Learn from me. Please. If there is any silver lining to having gone to treatment twice for exercise addiction, it is that perhaps I can spare some of you a similar fate.
4. Tapeworms. Um, ew.

I know I didn't hit everything - what suggestions do you have for busting through a weight loss plateau? What have you tried that has worked? What have you tried that hasn't?

Telling Yourself You Are Beautiful, The Robert Downey Jr. Edition

All images are from the Pinup RDJ blog, which the artist delightfully explains thusly: "Vintage pinups are the pinnacle of art. Robert Downey Jr is the pinnacle of sexy. It's not rocket science."

For those of us not lucky enough to be the love child of Robert Downey Jr. and a pin-up girl, feeling beautiful on a daily basis can be hard. While it is easier than easy to look into my children's eyes every day and tell them they are gorgeous or tell a Gym Buddy they look stunning (sweat-soaked hair and all) or to tell my husband that I think he's hotter than the day I married him, telling myself is... well, I just don't.

My husband has this annoying habit of whenever I say something negative about myself immediately replying with "Now say 5 nice things about yourself! And it can't be 'I make beautiful kids.'" If I refuse, he then tickles me until I either squeak out 5 nice things or I pee myself, whichever comes first. And after birthing five babies all I can say is that man loves his carpet cleaner. (Side note: I do not enjoy being tickled. I really don't. I'm laughing because for some biological reason I can't help it but deep down I hate it. It's the weirdest sensation, laughing like a hyena and simultaneously hating every second of it.)


My point here is not that I have filthy carpets - although I do - but that I find it ridiculously hard to look myself in the eye and give myself a genuine compliment. It's hard enough learning to accept a compliment from a stranger but it's like the first round of college-level calculus to accept a compliment from myself. How messed up is that? If I don't believe that I'm a beautiful, worthwhile, lovable human being, then who will?

Part of Geneen Roth's program is learning to be kind and loving with yourself. This is harder than it sounds. I am so used to beating myself up for every mistake I make. You should have heard the string of mental profanities I let fly every time I "failed", whether that meant not getting a job I wanted, totaling my car (oh yes I did!), or even gaining a pound. I was my own worst enemy. Over the past 3 months I've made a very concerted effort to kill the mean talk. Geneen calls it "talking back to the voice." I call it refreshing.

At first it took a lot of mental energy to combat all those negative messages. I took a count and in one day, I said over 500 cruel, mean, evil things to myself. 500! These days it is significantly less. And I think that is one of the biggest reasons I am feeling so hopeful these days. When I eat too much, instead of cursing myself out and vowing not to eat for the next 3 days to make up for it I quietly whisper in my head, "It's okay. You can eat when you're hungry. I will feed you. You can stop when you're full. I'm going to take care of you." Now when I mess something up - which I do with shocking regularity - I say very gently to myself, "It's okay, everyone makes mistakes. I still love you. God still loves you." You would be amazed at what a difference that simple statement has made.

But I've yet to say it out loud.

I remember Katie O. of (the sadly defunct) Sister Skinny telling me once how when she looked at herself in the mirror and told herself she was beautiful that she broke down in tears, it was so powerful. She challenged me to try it. I said I would. But I didn't. Every time I tried the words just wouldn't come out.

So when I got an e-mail about The Beauty Message Challenge, I was intrigued. The idea is simple: tell yourself you are beautiful every day for 10 days. That's it! There's a video on the site explaining it in greater detail. (They give you some tips and try to sell you an iPhone app.) This is kind of like Operation Beautiful, except instead of leaving notes for strangers - which is an awesome concept and one I totally support - you leave the notes for yourself.

For my challenge I decided I want to do a mixture of both. Frankly I'm not sure I can do it this time either but I'm going to try. And hey, if it doesn't work the first time, I'll just cut out Robert Downey Jr.'s face and paste it over my own and then it'll be easy peasey! Any of you want to take the Beauty Message Challenge or do Operation Beautiful with me? Do you have a hard time telling yourself out loud that you are beautiful? What happened the first time you did it? Did you cry too? Anyone else HATE being tickled?


UPDATE: Reader Ali linked to the best short film ever in the comments and I had to bump it up here so you all can see it. It's a little long but if you've got 16 minutes, you'll be grinning all day I promise. Because you ARE great!! (Love you Ali!)

Can I Be a "Formerly" If I Am a "Never Was"? (Giveaway!)

This is as close as I'll ever get to being a hot chick in a hot tub.

Stephanie Dolgoff is omnipresent in the body-image blogosphere these days. You might have read a review of her new book My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches from Just the other side of young (that comes out today!) from MizFit, Leslie, or Jezebel. Or perhaps you caught her front page story in the style section of the New York Times (which strangely pictured her amidst a large pile of shoes because shoes... are a measure of youth? Hotness?) ANYHOW. Even Gawker - a site dominated by gay men - had to weigh in on the debate surrounding the perceived hotness of older females in our culture. So of course I had to read it. Thankfully a few months ago I was privileged to receive an advance review copy of the book - which instructed me cryptically not to quote from it without consulting the final version first... which hadn't been released yet which made me read the review copy very closely looking for any covert messages Dolgoff might have slipped to me such as "Help! I'm locked in a cage! Send shoes!" I didn't find any secret messages, sadly, but I did get a sweet hand-written note from her saying she hoped I enjoyed it.

And I did! Dolgoff is hilarious and quirky and - it must be said - still hot, even in the conventional youth-loving sense of the word. Which is where my train and hers split tracks. (Don't disabuse me of my metaphor - I have read quite enough Thomas the Tank Engine books to know that trains do all kinds of wacky things like split tracks and bump buffers and, you know, talk. All the time. Frankly, if I were Sir Topham Hatt I'd put Thomas in the coal yard too just to get some peace and quiet.)

Stephanie, as I am wont to call her as her writing engenders such a feeling of familiarity, originally came to be writing a book about being Formerly Hot (or just Formerly for short) after a man on the subway asked her for the time. And that was it. As a hottie, she was used to being hit on and this man's narrow chronological focus surprised her. (Perhaps he was reading Gawker on his phone? Just a thought.) She realized that she had crossed the line drawn crookedly in the sand by our fun-house-mirrored society into... what, exactly? Not old age. Not even middle age really. Just, Not Young. As one would expect from any major life transition, this was jarring to her both physically and in her sense of self, causing her some deep (and witty) introspection.

Confession: I have never had a man ask me for the time with any intent other than to find out the time. I've never had a stranger send me a drink at a bar or a waiter leave me his number on the check or any of those other rom-com clichés. (DID YOU SEE THAT? I got the é to work! I love you guys!!) Nor have I even had a man try and use one of those awful pick-up lines every other female loves to giggle about. "Hey baby, are your legs tired? 'Cause you been running through my mind all night!" Never!

After reading through page after page of amusing anecdotes about boyfriends and college parties and the swingin' singles life in New York that she navigated with aplomb wearing both 6" heels (in the snow, when fashion called for it) and the title of editor of many lady mags like Glamour, Fitness, Redbook, Seventeen and even O, I had my own realization: I can't be Formerly Hot because I Never Was Hot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm hideous or anything. It's just that Dolgoff and I have had very different lives. My college years consisted of working three jobs, studying like a manic's dreamgirl to keep my scholarship and 4.0 GPA, and occasionally going out on double dates with my Barbie-esque blond roommate to whom I was always a distant second. (Side note: I knew I had to marry my husband when I asked him on our second date what he thought of Barbie and he looked genuinely confused and said, "Who?") By age 21 I had two degrees, a husband and a professorship (and an ulcer) - all great things but things that definitely lowered my hotness quotient. And it wasn't high to begin with. All I'm saying is that it's hard to miss what I never had.

Fortunately for me, Steph's (see what I did there? We're on such friendly terms I just wantonly truncated her first name! That's what she does to me when she tells me one of her life's mission statements is "Anna Wintour would not eat the fish!" You'll have to read the book to get the story behind that one. It's awesome.) Life Lessons Learned can be generalized to those of us who are living a very unsexy life. Advice like "wear clothing that fits your body now" and "treasure your adult girlfriends" definitely ring true to me now. Even her deliberations about plastic surgery - a subject she adroitly points out that feminists come down on both sides of - something that I, being poor, have only an academic interest in, are funny and interesting. And she totally had me at the chapter about upper lip waxing (sisters with pale skin and dark hair unite!)

Being 32, I'm not quite at the official "Formerly" age (what that is she doesn't come out and say exactly although she hints that it's hot on the heels of the GMFU, or "great metabolic f*** you", that hits around 40) so perhaps I'll relate a bit more in a few years. At any rate, it was a fun read. Want to check it out yourself? Leave me a comment below telling me about your experience with aging in our culture - did you notice crossing over into Formerly territory? Or are you a Never Was like me? - and you'll be entered to win your own copy!

What's your best "getting hit on" story? Please tell me so I can live vicariously through your fun!!

Designer Denim: Is Your Butt Bold, Demi or Slight?

Somehow I think tight denim is the least of his worries.

Mel Gibson's massive, public death spiral is depressing. Discovering that all that Dawn dish detergent that so photogenically cleans oil-drenched wildlife doesn't prolong their lives is really depressing. But do you know what is super depressing? Giving a pair of adorable designer jeans away to a friend because they don't fit you... and when she shows up wearing them you realize she looks better in them than you ever did, even at your thinnest. Oh yes, I just put my jeans drama ahead of Mel Gibson and the BP oil spill on the importance scale. (What? They capped the well didn't they? And don't say you aren't entertained by ol' 'Sugar Tits' Gibson's antics.)

There's a reason I favor the retro look: Like many women of yore, I have a (relatively) tiny waist and fuller hips and thighs. My body likes to store its fat reserves in the areas that are not the current trend. (Missed the memo? You're allowed fat in your boobs, your face and teensy bit in your backside. You may have the left pinkie finger on odd Tuesdays if you've been especially good this year.) And there's nothing wrong with all that pear-shaped awesomeness... until I try and buy jeans.

Any pair I buy must pass the thigh test. As in, I have to be able to get them over my thighs. The upside is that I never, ever have to worry about jeans being too tight on the waist. Too small pants never reach my waist, thanks to my twin bodyguards below. The downside, well, is that my jeans are always painted-on tight on my thighs and then they gap at my waist. This trend of no belt and pulling your shirt down over the top of your pants? Totally doesn't work for me. Crack city ain't pretty.

I don't own a single pair of jeans I can wear without a belt.

Don't misunderstand - I'm not trying to bodysnark on myself. My "athletic" thighs have run me through many miles, carried me up countless mountains and even, so says the research, made my babies smarter. I'm just trying to explain why I wanted to weep after seeing a friend of mine wearing a pair of supercute jeans I'd given her because I was tired of losing the tug-of-war to gravity every day. Not only were said jeans cuter on her than they ever were on me (even pre-baby) but they were actually loose on her legs. For the love of little green apples, I don't even know what it feels like to have loose fabric on my legs unless I'm wearing a skirt. I don't know what they looked like on her waist - I resisted the urge to rush her and yank up her shirt - but I do know that we carry our weight in completely opposite ways (weighs?). And sadly, 99% of jeans these days are cut for women of her proportions rather than mine.

So I was beyond excited to see that Levi's has not only come out with a line of denim that has the same styles with 3 different fits but they based it off of actual research! (And no, Levis is not paying me to write this. Nor have they given me a free pair of jeans to try out. I'm pretty sure they don't even know I exist. Um, call me Levis - ok??) Levis studied 60,000 full-body scans of women around the world to come up with their new fits.

"Jeans that fit right are like the Holy Grail for women," Mary Alderete, Levi's VP/global marketing, tells Marketing Daily. "We analyzed women's bodies around the world, and did 60,000 body scans, and found that 80% of all women fall into three different body types." Once Levi's identified the types -- Slight Curve, Demi Curve, and Bold Curve -- "we took these pants on 'fit safaris' around the world to test them out."

The three fits are based on the ratio of your waist to your butt. (Dear Levis, thank you for not calling them "small," "medium," and "large"):

(click on graphic to enlarge, click through to their site for more details)

It's about freaking time. While brands like Apple Bottom and Skinny in the Middle have tried to reach this niche market, they are often expensive and found only on the Internet (precluding the funfunfun of trying them on first.) The only problem I foresee with the Levis is that all those models with the cute behinds up there have skiiiiinnny little legs. My issue isn't my butt so much as my thighs. But I'm hoping that they took that into account and just didn't advertise it that way because thighs make people think of chicken and the current tagline of "All a$$es are not created equal" wouldn't be nearly as sassy.

So what kind of butt do you have? Do you have a "slight" bump or a mound that would make Sir Mix-a-Lot think up a new rhyme for anaconda? What's your solution to ill-fitting denim? Anyone else ever give clothes away to a friend only to discover they look 100 times better in them? And lastly, where would you wear these??

Scare Tactics: What Keeps You Out of the Gym?

Baffling equipment. Mean girls. Chronic cell-phone chatters. Unidentified puddles of bodily fluids. Germs. Old men on the exercise bike in nothing but tighty whities and black dress socks (true story). There are lots of reasons why people avoid the gym. Frankly, there are probably more reasons to skip the gym than to go. (Thankfully the reasons to go are much more compelling for me than those to skip it!) So when I got this e-mail from Reader M, I was simultaneously irritated - not by her! - and sympathetic:

I keep thinking that I should overcome my fat-girl-phobia and show up at a gym, and then one of these articles come along.

The article she is referring to is the recent New York Times expose (side note - can anyone please tell me how to type the little accent over the e? It's killing me. I once had to write an entire post about my awesome shiny gold leotard that I seriously do workout in, the whole time referring to it as my gold "lame" leo. That's a crime against fashion, is what that is.) "Be Sure Exercise is All You Get At the Gym."

Cue the scary Jaws music, here is yet another article about how bacteria at the gym can kill you. Every few months someone writes an article about MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) - an admittedly terrifying bug - being transmitted through gyms and locker rooms. While the risk is real and potentially lethal, there is a lot of selective reporting involved in this articles (cue my irritation with the NY Times, not my darling Reader M). And I've even written myself several times on this topic (warning: only click through that link if you have a strong stomach. I received more complaints about that pic than any other I have ever posted. Which I don't really get since I think it's hilarious and awesome but I'm gross like that.)

First, as the Mayo clinic points out, while community-acquired cases such as those in gyms, locker rooms and designer wedding dress sample sales (anywhere there is a lot of wrestling involved) are on the rise, "Most MRSA infections occur in people who have been in hospitals or other health care settings, such as nursing homes and dialysis centers." Second, there is a one in three chance you already are carrying MRSA on your skin right this very second. And you are probably still healthy. Lastly, if you do pick up something nasty at the gym - and according to the NY Times 1/3 of us are carrying a contagious skin infection at any given moment - it's more likely to be the unglamorous (but also undeadly) ring worm, athlete's foot, impetigo or, heaven save us from thong panties on a bicycle seat, yeast infections.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm downplaying the seriousness of antibiotic-resistant germs - I had a very dear friend nearly lose her life to one - but I do wish they'd stop using it as a Get Out of Gym free card. Sure you could catch an illness at the gym. But you could also get sick any time you leave the house. I think that the benefits of consistent exercise far outweigh the risk of illness, especially if you take common sense precautions like laying down a towel between you and the weight bench, sanitizing your machine both before and after you use it, wearing flip flops in the showers and drinking Purel straight from the bottle after tongue kissing the towel boy. (None of which I do, by the way. I'm awesome at ignoring my own advice!)

The first part of M's e-mail was what really caught my attention and sympathy though. "I keep thinking that I should overcome my fat-girl-phobia and show up at a gym." Despite the fact that I've been working out deliriously happy in a gym setting for many years now, I have definitely not forgotten how it feels to be new. Whether you are gym-phobic because you are afraid of being the fat-girl freak show or because you're afraid of burrito-ing yourself in gym equipment that has more instructions than the lathe you used in 6th grade wood shop or because you're afraid of missing the step in step class and ending up flat on your back, it all boils down to this: we're afraid of what other people will say (or even think about us).

Do I sweat too much? Is my bacne too disgusting to wear a tank top? Do I smell? Will they laugh at my ratty t and boyfriend's sweat pants? Am I too uncoordinated to do an aerobics class? Will the bootcamp instructor yell at me if I can't run a lap? Will the older women in the pool laugh at me as they pass me lap after lap after lap?

I wish I could tell you no. People are judgmental critters. I don't know if this will make anyone feel better but it happens to all of us. You aren't unique in your problems. I'm not overweight but I've had plenty of people laugh at me, talk about me, and even hawk a loogie into my hair once. I know it hurts; people will roll their eyes, elbow you out of "their" spot, mutter under their breath, giggle. But a lot of it stems from insecurity about ourselves and in my experience if you open yourself up (I know, I hate being vulnerable too!) most people turn out to be remarkably, beautifully helpful and caring. Also, I think people think about us a lot less than we think they do. Chances are that woman's stern look is actually directed at herself in the mirror as she watches her bicep curls and not at your dimpled thighs. Give us the benefit of the doubt and we may surprise you.

And for those who really would be unkind based solely on your weight/clothes/accent/skin color/experience? I'm not going to tell you to "just not care." I care what people think about me. It's very hard not to. But you can acknowledge the hurt without letting it stop you or bring you down. Their negativity will corrode their soul long after you've moved on. Making fun of an overweight person at the gym is like making fun of a sick person for going to the hospital. Exercise is for everybody - literally, every person with a body.

Do you have a gym phobia? Do you worry about germs? Have you ever been made fun of at the gym? How did you deal with it? Any advice for M? Anyone else think this germs-in-the-gym angle is way overblown or am I being flippant about a real risk?

How Thin is Too Thin?

Photo Credit

Our society is warped. Twisted. A veritable fun-house of fat and thin mirrors when it comes to body image. One on hand we have Kim Kardashian, queen of curves, compelled to exclaim in an interview, "I look a lot bigger on TV. When I meet people, the first thing they say is, 'Wow, you're so much smaller than I thought'. I look about 15 lbs heavier. I'm only 115 lbs, and everyone thinks I'm like 130 or 140. It's bizarre. I'm a US size 2!"

On the other hand we have Kai Hibbard, a finalist on Season 3 of The Biggest Loser, interviewing about how the show gave her an eating disorder to the point where she was eating 1,000 calories while working out 5-8 hours a day. Says Kai about the consequences of her experience, "It gave me a really fun eating disorder that I battle every day, and it also messed up my mental body image because the lighter I got during that T.V. show, the more I hated my body. And I tell you what, at 144 and at 262 and at 280, I had never hated my body before that show."

Kim Kardashian and Kai Hibbard I am not (and not just because my name doesn't start with K) but I really sympathize with their feelings about being on TV and dealing with the resultant body image woes.

I've gotten a lot of interesting feedback from my 20/20 piece but one of the most common comments I've got is some incarnation of "But you never looked that skinny." The implication of course is that I wasn't skinny enough to have an eating disorder. I first encountered this during my pre-interview process with Fox News. The producer kept asking me for my "skinniest skinniest pics, the ones that show the most bones." I knew what they wanted. They wanted to see a 64-lb walking skeleton with a nasogastric tube and furry arms. Because that's good television. From the very beginning I told them I never got that thin but sent them some pictures from that time period. They weren't satisfied and kept phoning, texting and e-mailing me for better pics all the way until I'd boarded my airplane. If I were more technically savvy it would have driven me to Photoshop, I swear.

The Skinny Pics Debacle Take 2 happened after the 20/20 interview taped, but before it aired. The producer for the segment e-mailed me many times asking for better shots with the implication being skinnier shots. But it wasn't limited to just TV people with their characteristic penchant for extremism. My own family joined the chorus. In an e-mail to my uncle about the piece, my father wrote, " I saw her frequently through the whole time period in question and yes, she was slim, but she was healthy, energetic, and happy (as far as I could see), and so I was never worried. I admit freely that she cares about food in ways I don’t, but hey, different strokes for different folks."

I love my dad dearly and consider him a great friend as well as a great father but his seeming dismissal of my illness stung. Friends and acquaintances jumped on the bandwagon as well - some by comparing me to the super-skinny Johnny of the 20/20 piece and others by comparing me to popular TV or movie stars. "Well, you were thin but not like Angelina Jolie thin. And she doesn't have an eating disorder." To my crazy mind all of these comments came out sounding like "You weren't thin enough as a normal girl and you certainly weren't skinny enough as an anorexic/orthorexic. Even when you're bad you're not good enough!" How skinny would I have to get before people thought I was actually sick?

Here's the thing: I had a BMI of 17. According the World Health Organization anything under 18.5 is considered unhealthy. But in a world where Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham subsist at about a 16, I do look kind of porky. And it wasn't just low weight. I lose my period when my BMI dips below 19 - a fact I've discovered on several occasions in my post-pubescent life. Amenorrhea is indicative of such poor nutrition that the body feels like it cannot support a baby. I had low iron, whacked-out electrolytes, vitamin deficiencies, a suppressed thyroid, heart arrhythmias and hair loss. But worst of all was the mental damage. I was depressed, neurotic and withdrawn.

It's true that I didn't break any bones, lose teeth or end up in the hospital with a tube up my nose - a fact for which I am deeply grateful. But I did hurt. It's just most of the hurt was emotional. And that's the wound I'm still working on healing.

At my thinnest - and most fragile mentally - I got tons of compliments. Everywhere I went people commented on my physique. One woman at the gym even told me I had "the perfect body" (as if there is such a thing). I loved how I looked in clothes, even while I was secretly horrified at how I looked naked - since I lose weight in my upper body first, my chest looked like a xylophone while my legs still kept their fatty bits. My therapist maintains that the compliments came because of my increased self confidence - and she may be right - but I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we are conditioned to appreciate only extremely thin women.

A lot of women with eating disorders look "normal" to us.

My dirty little not-so-secret is that I would love to be that weight again, ribs and all. But I can't do it and remain healthy. Some women probably can weigh what I did and keep their periods and their sanity. Not me. Not my body. And so I choose to maintain a weight higher than what is comfortable for me and waffle back and forth between self -hatred and -love because I know where the alternative leads and I can't pay that price anymore. Even if that makes me look 15 pounds too fat on camera.

What about you - does the weight you personally like yourself best at correspond with the weight other people think you look good at? Have you, like Kai, ever felt worse about yourself at a lower weight?

Pet Peeve: People Who Complain About Being Too Pretty

You know who I really want to sympathize with? Debralee Lorenzana, the banker who was allegedly fired from Citibank for being too sexy. When the story first broke a couple of weeks ago, my initial reaction was dismay at one more woman being Windexed off the glass ceiling. But then Debralee started talking and hasn't shut up since. Every interview I read with this woman - and she is everywhere, no one can say she isn't taking full advantage of her new notoriety - makes me a little angrier and a lot more irritated.

In a Village Voice interview (via Jezebel) she says, "If being less good-looking means being happy and finding love and not being sexually harassed and having a job where no one bothers you and no one questions you because of your looks, then, definitely, I'd want that. I think of that every day."

See, Debralee is one of those people who likes to chronically whine about how hard her life is because she's just too darn pretty. Everyone knows somebody like this. In college I had a roommate who was blond and tiny and blue eyed with eyelashes so long she was constantly tugging on them to prove they weren't falsies. And her favorite topic of conversation was how hard it was to be her. To this day her Facebook statuses say things like "I ate 6 Reeses Peanut Butter Cups today and I'm still a size 0! Why can't I gain weight??! I'm having Ben & Jerry's for lunch - wish me luck!!!!!" If she could mind-read what I'm really wishing her I'm sure we'd no longer be Facebook friends.

There are other permutations of the I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt persona: the guy who claims he's been fired from every job because he's too smart and his bosses feel intimidated by him or the reality star who claims that everyone hates her because she's just too honest and "real" for reality TV. But none of them get under my skin quite like the I'm Too Pretty person.

While I do understand how beauty could be detrimental in some situations - I swear I'm not totally missing the empathy gene - it just screams false humility to me. By telling everyone not to look at them, they're inviting everyone to do just that. Like when Jessica Biel told Allure magazine that she doesn't get offered many good movie roles because she's too beautiful. I wanted to write her and ask if perhaps it's because she's not a good actress? I saw 7th Heaven, people. Not to mention how insulting this attitude is to people who have to live with the very real and much worse effects of being not pretty in a society that values nothing more than sex appeal. My roommate once said to me, "I wish I could just trade places with you for a night - you know, so I could blend in and watch the guys without being mobbed by them. You're so lucky!" What she really meant of course was that I should feel lucky to be her official purse holder/seat saver/designated driver.

But I have to admit that where Debralee really lost her case with me was when footage from a 2003 plastic-surgery reality show surfaced showing her getting multiple surgeries including implants, a tummy tuck and lipo to acquire her desired shape, one she describes as "t*ts on a stick." First she decries Citibank's actions, "Are you saying that just because I look this way genetically, that this should be a curse for me?" and then we find out that actually she's not this way genetically.

Unfortunately, none of this should matter one iota in her case against Citibank. If she was truly fired for wearing "turtlenecks and pencil skirts" despite having above par performance then she deserves to win her discrimination suit. But that doesn't mean I have to like her. Can Citibank fire her for being obnoxious?

What do you think about Lorenzana being fired for being "too sexy"? Do you know someone who is always complaining they're too sexy/smart/rich/thin? Is my annoyance really just sour grapes?