Here are a few musings on weight, body image, food, and getting healthy from the web the past few weeks. Different perspectives, and yet all relatable.. These are just snippets, click on the title to read the whole post. 
Is gaining 15 pounds really "torture"? | Salon.com
For her role as the voluptuous Celia in "The Help," actress Jessica Chastain went the full De Niro, packing on a whopping 15 pounds. It was, she told US magazine this week, "a form of torture." And my God, look at her, lumbering around the film with all that extra girth. It’s like a horror movie! The vegan actress may indeed have been fighting her own natural body type to play her part, and her fighting weight regimen of melted soy ice cream does indeed live up to her description of "disgusting." Does the world really need another slender actress moping about she had to put on — and I’m quoting directly here– "all this weight"? Especially when her supposedly beefed-up version is still so damn slim?
Thirty Seven | Daily Relish
… this was the first year my birthday made me feel old. Not because I was turning 37. Because having (now) 30 pounds to lose at this age made me feel like I missed my window. I’m not sure what that even means, or how my life would (or wouldn’t) change if I was thin again. But I think more than the collection of years, that "missing your window" feeling is what makes anyone feel old. Whether you want to get your degree, drink wine in Tuscany, or play in a sprinkler; it sucks to consider the loss of "I might never ____________." For me, maybe it’s being destined to wear an ass curtain on my bathing suit forever. It’s superficial. It’s embarrassing. People have real problems like divorce and cancer. Even in my life, this is the least of my worries. And maybe that’s why I focus on it so much. It’s a problem where the solution is still up to me vs. the real ones that are beyond my control.
Veganism is Not a Crash Diet | Choosing Raw
And recently, Megan Fox also halted a vegan diet, saying:
‘For a year and a half, until about four months ago, I followed a strict vegan diet based on raw fruits and vegetables, no bread, sugar and coffee. But I had lost too much weight. As JL points out, it’s fantastic that a Hollywood role model wanted to be curvier and to regain the weight she’d unintentionally lost: three cheers to Megan Fox for not aiming to look like a waif! What troubles me is the fact that she, like Amanda Seyfried, seemed to equate veganism and raw food with a “detox diet” (or so these no-bread-no-coffee-no-cooked-food-no-fun regimens are often called). And that’s simply unfair: being vegan has nothing to do with tossing away one’s morning coffee, or refusing to eat bread. I can’t imagine my life without either my morning java or my beloved Ezekiel sandwiches, or without a healthy balance of raw and cooked food.
My love affair with TED. | Barefoot Foodie
I spoke about my career, and I made a few jokes to disarm everyone enough to make it okay for them to hear every uncomfortable thing I had to say. I spoke about being bullied in elementary school and moo’ed at in the halls during high school. I spoke about being bulimic in college and spending the last decade just trying to stop hating myself. I told them I needed to redefine beauty and how women looked at their bodies, for myself and for my daughter. I told them I was done just talking about change. And then, well…
Sneak peek courtesy Enoch Wu
The Shape of a Mother
One day I sat in a restaurant in Anaheim, California eating breakfast, when a woman passed by my table with her infant carrier in tow. As she lifted it up to fit between the tables, her shirt raised and I saw that, although she was at a healthy weight and her body was fit, she had that same extra skin hanging around her belly that I do. It occurred to me that a post-pregnancy body is one of this society’s greatest secrets; all we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen. That makes me want to cry. Sure we all talk about the sagging boobs and other parts, but no one ever sees them. Or if they do, it’s in comical form, mocking the beauty that created and nourished our children.
Did Loving My Body Almost Kill Me? | Jess Weiner at Glamour
I understand why women are so fed up with being told by society (and doctors) that they need to get to some “ideal” size. I get why they’d want to rebel and no longer care about weight—I’ve been there too. But we also can’t pretend illness doesn’t happen to us. Health matters, and paying attention to markers like your cholesterol, blood pressure and, yes, your weight doesn’t mean you’re giving in to some societal ideal. It means that you’re listening to your body on the inside, which is a crucial part of loving yourself completely.
Beneath every body is an untold story | Happy Herbivore
You may look at me and think I’m skinny. I’m not. I know what I look like when I’m skinny. I look gaunt. I’m pale. My face looks older. Today I look healthy, rounder in my size 6 and 8 clothes. Yes, according to US standards of "average 40+ year old American women" that may seem small but, for me, it’s not about the number on the scale or the size on the label. It’s that I’m no longer chasing an image of what I should look like…or be. I’m chasing health and healthy, for me, is rounder. It’s curvier. It’s happiness, finally found.
