Comments on: And here’s Val Frankel . . .

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:23:04 +0000

I read the first blog, then Vals and was inspired by all of the comments. Ran to the bookstore to buy Vals book. Couldn’t remember her name (DOH!) so I ended up buying “Such A Pretty Fat” by Jen Lancaster. I was SO freaking inspired (she also has a semi-crazy mother who makes her diet in lieu of rent). I think y’all might like her too – she’s QUITE snarky but spot on. Thank you all again for the inspiration and comments.

By: Siberia

Siberia — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:31:31 +0000

Wow- Great Topic!!! Great Blog!!
I too have had lifelong obsession about weight. I think I am finally getting better at the age of 30 on what it means to be “healthy” and how I want to portray body image to my son (2yrs) and my incubating offspring (due in FEb)
My son drinks water, I don’t give him froot loops, and juice is not something he likes (yea!) or that we stock in our house. My husband and I are in agreement that we want our kids to grow up differently then we did. WE grew up in the “clean your plate” atmosphere. We both feel now, that, eating a variety of healthy home cooked food, as long as you get a little of everything is a good thing and that “cleaning your plate” is not always a healthy thing. Especially when so many people do not understand what a ‘serving” is. A “serving is not a plate full, it’s usually a cup. This was my break through into losing weight (healthfully) and getting in shape. My husband and I want our kids to see us working out and eating right, we take our 2 year old into the workout room in our house with us– he loves it! Now, I’m not going to expect that my kids will never have sugar, chocolate, etc. It will happen and that is okay. But I don’t think they need a happy meal every night for dinner, much less every week.
I threw out my scale and don’t pay much attention to weight other than how I feel and how my clothes fit…regardless of what the tag says ( I love Stacy L by the way!!) I have 3 different sizes in my closet right now. I agree with many of the posters on here, I think “we” as adult women need to shake off the negative body images and take control of how we project ourselves to our children and what we put in our mouths and on our plates. I want my kids to be healthy, not skinny, and to be proud of how they look and not measure themselves against mags, and be informed enough to know that pop/soda is 200 calories of crap you just don’t need to drink. Sorry for the long post- just passionate about women being healthy and happy with themselves.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:11:43 +0000

Actually, it is very ON topic… Live well, and let your body worry about itself.

By: robena grant

robena grant — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:37:33 +0000

Just received a belated birthday card from the land down under and while not exactly on topic, it had a toast to ageing gracefully that I thought worth sharing.

May your bum stay firm and pert
May your boobies not head south
May your lippy never bleed
Into thin lines round your mouth.

May you eat a ton of chocolate
But never gain a pound
May you always look your best
Whenever Brad Pitt comes around.

May you never wear big pants
Or grow unwanted hair
And, birthday girl, if all else fails
May you be too sloshed to care!

So, as all the above has already happened here, I’m heading out to the liquor store. Grin.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:01:47 +0000

“How to look good naked” is a British TV show – *very* interesting, and has nothing to do with losing 10 or 50 pounds.

And “The 100-Mile Diet” by Alisa Smith and JB McKinnon is an eminently readable look at how we do and can eat, and the impact on the world. Not dry at all, but very informative!

Thanks a million, Jenny and Val and posters for all the food for thought.

By: G and T

G and T — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:58:18 +0000

Everyone here has said wonderfully insightful things and this forum has been valuable to illustrate one of the most pervasive problems in our culture.

And now I am going to undermine all of that by saying this: “Shut up, you know Stacy London?!?”

I have been resisting doing that for days, but repressing stuff, I have found, is very bad for me.

By: lady T

lady T — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:43:33 +0000

Jenny, thanks for bringing in Val as a guest! And Val thanks for writing! I picked up your book a few days ago, and am loving it! Wonderful humor and startling honesty.
I was the invisible child, hidden behind siblings who got either positive or negative attention from our mom, for all issues. And as adults, 2 of us are overweight and 1 is anorexic. I never had a weight issue until adulthood, gaining ten pounds every decade, until I am now 30+ pounds overweight. I love food. I also love exercise, (luckily).
I wish I could drop the 30 pounds, but maybe I need to just love myself as I am. And separate from any parental food connection, (confront Mom? I’m not sure), focus on more exciting, important things in my life, get that clicker and work on increasing positive thoughts, and just plain old stop the obsession.
But I still want to drop the weight. Scary taking the leap into trusting that I can live without limitations; and from there even weigh less and be healthier.

By: colognegrrl

colognegrrl — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:59:30 +0000

As a matter of fact, I do have some things which have special meaning and which relate to people or certain events in my life. I still have my children’s first baby shoes. I particularly asked for a china parrot after my grandmother died – in a shop, I would have ignored or even made fun of it, and the rest of my family thinks it’s absolutely ugly, but for me it means something, knowing how much my grandmother cherished it. So I like to think that when I’m dead and gone, one of my kids will keep this parrot and tell those who look at it with disgust that it’s a special memory item. And if they toss it into the nearest trash can, I won’t mind any more.

But not all of the 10.000 things we own have this meaning. And not all of them are necessary to keep our household up and running. And those I intend to lose a.s.a.p. Not today, though. It’s hard work to sort out stuff.

By: Jenyfer Matthews

Jenyfer Matthews — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:02:31 +0000

I don’t quite get the shakes, no pun intended, but sometimes I get hit with an intense craving for the greasy-cooked foods.

Though I don’t indulge often, my weakness is KFC. What do they put in that stuff anyway??

By: Jackie

Jackie — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:15:17 +0000

Colognegrrl and Karla – I put together your 2 unrelated posts and got

If Cologne bought Karla’s pooch and her heirs found it as they cleared out her things – what would they think?

If they remember it sitting beside her bed or by her computer, would it just become a part of the to be donated pile? If it sat by her sewing machine or craft basket as she worked and talked with her freinds – would it move to another sewing room? Things only have the meaning we bring to them. And really, the meaning resides not in the thing but in us.

By: colognegrrl

colognegrrl — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:47:43 +0000

It’s not only the question “Do I want to dust this for the next 10 years?”

I found that the thought that really puts me off buying or keeping unnecessary things is the vision of how my kids/ grandchildren/ whoever else cleans out my house is going to pick this item up and say “Holy cow, what did she want with that?”

You see, even if my statistical agy expectancy gives me another 40 years, I live according to Psalm 90: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

By: Karla

Karla — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:27:56 +0000

Jenny, my apologies for an off topic post. I saw this etsy listing and thought of you & Veronica
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_21&listing_id=12770791

By: Rakisha

Rakisha — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:58:08 +0000

Thank you Val for more insightful words. I just picked up your memoir from the library yesterday. I wish I could get to the place where I could stop worrying so much about my weight as I do now. (Seriously, I am overweight not just in my mind.) It doesn’t seem to bother my husband or my daughters (3 years and 1 year old). I just want to be able to accept myself and be healthy without focusing so much on trying to be thinner just for the sake of my daughters. My body, through very thin and very thick, was a constant topic of discussion for my mom and my grandmother when I was kid.

When I was young and sickly and very underweight, I was forced all types of tonics and nutritional supplements to gain weight. Then, once I put on weight and started to fill out during puberty, the focus was to get me to lose weight. I still remember when I was around 16 or 17 years old, my mom told me only horses have 36″ waists. I was only 120 lbs and 5’4″ (and at the time very athletic). Nearly twenty years later that statement haunts me. I can’t shake it. I’m starting to blabber now but I just want to thank you for writing.

By: JulieB

JulieB — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:44:31 +0000

I have felt the burden of too many things. I had gotten into the habit of purchasing an impulse item, because I didn’t go out to shop frequently, so it didn’t seem like a big deal.
But when I did an assessment a few years ago, I realized I had a bunch of things I didn’t “love” and some things I did, but didn’t use for fear of breaking them, or because I had too many other things out, and the things I wanted were packed away or hard to get to.
When I started to declutter, I started asking myself at the stor “do I really want to dust this for the next 10 years.” Usually, the answer was “no.”
As I started tossing and donating my “stuff” I became very aware at how much _junk_ my kids were bringing home on a daily basis. Volumes of worksheets a week. Bags of “gifts” and candy from room parties. Lots of extra photos that didn’t make it into the school yearbook. Pencils and awards from every special event at school. (Don’t get me wrong — I’m very supportive of positive rewards in education). Plus, as the only grandchildren on both sides, there was no wanting for books or clothes.
I know I was overwhelmed by stuff when I tried to clean my room as a child. I had a _fraction_ of the stuff they had.
I think as a family we’ve been more conscious of reducing our items in general over the past few years, as have many other people I’ve known recently. And most of them agree, we’re going to be joined by a bunch more people.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:33:05 +0000

Cologne – It works like this –

He says – what do you need this for?

She says – it’s sacred! I need it for…..

She says – what do we need this for….

He says…

By: colognegrrl

colognegrrl — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:09:55 +0000

Wow, I appreciate this turn of the discussion because ever since we had to clear out a couple of households after the deaths of their owners, I have a new attitude towards things. Like, they’re just things instead of something that will give me everlasting happiness. Having been a hunter-gatherer for most of my life, I’m trying to get rid of all this unnecessary clutter that I collected over the years now.

(By the way, I have this theory that couples are mostly formed by one gatherer and one discarder, my husband being the one who is great at throwing things out. If I can do it, too, is he going to change and cling to all this stuff that I want to get rid of??)

Recently, I read that in Western cultures, people own an average of 10.000 things. (And this does not count the single parts of a jigsaw puzzle.) Too bad I lost the source of this information. But I think it’s scary, because it may apply in my case, too. I can only hope that I’ll live long enough to have sorted out my stuff before my kids have to order the XL-sized dumpster after the funeral.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:13:29 +0000

I like to hear people agreeing with the thought that we don’t need quite so much. I really don’t want any one to tell me how I should live, so I shouldn’t be telling any one the same. I like to see more of us simplifying our lives by spending less time on collecting more things. I lived in a small (by US standards) 2 bedroom coachhouse for about 5 years. I loved to go shopping and soon discovered that I would have to get rid of something in order to aquire something else. It made me a careful shopper. I am glad for the lessons that little house taught me. I spend less time cleaning, shopping and just plain looking for things. We went and fed the ducks more.

And we bought more books. They’re small.

By: AgTigress

AgTigress — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:18:03 +0000

I think there may, indeed, be a move away from vulgarly conspicuous consumption if the recession lasts for any length of time, and this can only be a good thing. One of the minor problems as far as food is concerned is that many younger people (despite being knee-deep in glossy cookery books!) tend not to have all that much experience in basic cooking using fresh, raw ingredients, especially with the cheaper cuts of meat (sales of these have gone up in the UK recently, too) and plainer veggies. But that can be remedied; it’s not that hard.

There is also another force now turning us back towards the old-fashioned, long forgotten virtue of avoiding wastefulness; namely, global warming. Certainly in the UK, the compulsory recycling of paper, plastics, metals and textiles has burgeoned over the last few years, and many of the more responsible manufacturers are cutting down systematically on unnecessary packaging, and using more recycled and recyclable materials. If it becomes unfashionable and socially unacceptable to buy more than we need, whether of food, clothing, furniture or any of the myriad objects and utensils we all regard as essential these days, it will be good for us, and good for the planet.

But don’t try to stop us buying books…

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:56:31 +0000

Some agreement here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4916300.ece

By: McB

McB — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:53:52 +0000

I think we’ll see people thinking twice about their food choices and striking a better balance between necessity and splurge. Which is cheaper, scratch or prepared, will likely vary by household. If you have a family of 5, from scratch might be more economical; but with smaller families, couples and singles, it might work out differently. Also, preparation time often dictates choices. But I think people are already thinking about what can be stretched and how much might be wasted. That in itself can lead to healthier eating.