Healthy Body AND Mind and Spirit!

Fruit break during our exercise fun!

I found this great website for teens focusing on a healthy body and self-image called Bodimojo.

“Trying to get a grip on what's affecting your life? BodiMojo is all about building teen confidence! Instead of a "one-size fits all" approach, BodiMojo personalizes health and wellness information just for teenagers: body image, nutrition, fitness, eating disorders, emotional life, dating, sexual health, alcohol and drugs, and more. Through personalized quizzes, health tools and games, customized goal setting and tips, BodiMojo is all about YOU! There's plenty to check out and share on your social networks!”

It’s through websites like this that we’ll counteract pro-anorexia blogs that are out there. There are lots of great tips and tools for not only getting healthy in body, but in mind, too.

It’s important when we talk about getting healthy that we don’t just focus on body. Some recent research shows that young adults care more about their looks than what’s going on inside (not a big surprise!). Without a healthy mind and spirit, too, a healthy body won’t do us much good.

It’s never too early to encourage our children how important it is to maintain a healthy state of being…not just body!

Kate Upton's Body

I must be asleep at the proverbial who’s who in the modeling world wheel because when I kept seeing the latest Kate Upton is Fat headlines going by I had no idea who she was.

Today one headline from Fox News caught my attention enough to click through: Kate Upton blasts critics: 'I'm not going to starve just tobe thin.'

Oh! I said to myself—they’re talking about that woman from the Sports Illustrated cover.

Wait a minute…someone called her lardy?!

Skinny Gossip, a pro-skinny website, thinks she’s fat!

“Look, I’ll admit – I love In’n’Out as much as the next gurl, but it’s not supposed to be an everyday thing, Kate! And we can be sure that Kate is the rare model who poses with food – and then actually devours it. 

She doesn’t just look vulgar – she’s also never afraid to act the part…she is easily the most “porny” model to enter the mainstream in a very long time. She looks like she would work in the back of a motorcycle shop in Nashville and give (bad) blow jobs for $25.”

Wow. I know about the pro-anorexia sites out there that put super-skinny models and actresses and models on pedestals as beacons of what women should strive to be, but I didn’t know they also bashed fuller-figured ones as well.

And I say fuller-figured with a bit of a suppressed chuckle because we all know that Upton is by no means fat or full-figured even, she is voluptuous, which is quite different.

I’m glad that Upton laughed off the comments: “I’m not going to starve just to be thin. I want to enjoy life, and I can’t if I’m not eating and miserable," she said, according to The Sun.

But really, if there are women out there who would call a SI model “well-marbled,” what image of an ideal body type do they have in mind? Are we so used to seeing sickly-skinny models that one with a teensy bit of flesh is considered fat?

Birthdays Make Us Say Stuff

My daughter's school birthday celebration

Yesterday I turned 41-years-old. I’ve been allowing a sneaky thought to find its way into my brain. Because I’m 41 it’s okay to not exercise or care about my body. I’ve been eating whatever I want and not doing anything for making myself feel strong and powerful and beautiful.

Yes, I’ve been going to therapy and that’s a huge thing. Yes, I’m introspective.

Yes, I realize that I don’t need my body to be perfect to feel good about myself.

I won’t lie and say I want to get in shape for purely health reasons, although that’s the major impetus.

I feel bad about the condition of my whole being. I know exercise and eating right will make me feel better on all levels. Yet I’ve been resistant to change.

I’m so busy being a mom to three little kids and writing and doing publicity. I feel guilty taking time for myself. But if I take some time to get healthy, won’t that help on all levels of my existence?

Today, I change.

Today is my first tennis class; it is 90 degrees out.

The paramedics may need to be called.

Weight Loss Extreme: The Nose Tube Diet Hits America

This article and video on Yahoo’s Shine answers the question—when will women go too far to lose weight? Brides’Extreme Wedding Preparations: The Nose Tube Diet.

Sarah B. Weir writes about what I seriously hope is not a coming trend.

Want to lose twenty pounds fast? Like in ten days fast? Just have a tube stuck down your nose and be fed through a bag and surprise, surprise! You’ll lose the weight.

Does this scare the living bajeezus out of anyone else? And it’s not cheap either—$1,500 for the ten-day program.

"People think I'm sick, I'm dying," Jessica Schnaider, 41, of Surfside Florida, told the Times referring to people's reaction to seeing her wearing a nasogastric feeding tube attached to a portable plastic bag of low-cal liquid nourishment. During the program, she skipped picking up her daughters at school because she didn't want to scare the other children.

But this does not deter her from her weight-loss plan.

What does she say to her children about why she has a tube down her nose? For vanity’s sake? Which is kind of humorous when you think about it; you have to look like you’re a seriously ill person to get to the desired end.

And, of course, as most people know by now, the weight loss will most likely be temporary and one might even gain back extra weight afterwards.

I was going to say—what will be next? Surgery to reduce body weight that is merely cosmetic? And then I was like, oh…yeah.

We’re already living in this beautiful new world.

Jennifer Aniston's Beauty Regimen

I’m not sure I’m totally buying into Jennifer Aniston actually spending this much money on her beauty regimen.

According to Nicole Fabian-Weber on Cafe Mom, Jennifer Aniston’s monthly beauty bill is roughly $8,000.

Here’s the alleged beauty breakdown:

•Euoko neck cream made with crystals from the planet Mars, $450

•Tracie Martyn Spa Red Carpet Facials, $50.

•Tracie Martyn goodie bag of products, $390

•Mila Moursi Rejuvinating Serum, $350

•Neutrogena Facial Cleansing Bar, $2.50

•Dr. Hauschka Rose Day Cream, $40

•Private yoga sessions with Mandy Ingber, $$3,500

•Dietitian Carrie Watt's delivery service, $2,700

Well, this list of expenses does include some food, too, so I’m not sure that’s really fair to include in a list of beauty expenses since, you know, a girl’s got to eat.

I would also think that a lot of these products are probably gifted to her, so she may well use all these things, but is she really spending the money for them?

I suppose the issue that I could see really being serious is—how are other women supposed to compete with that?

The truth is—we aren’t. Just because superstars spend that much attention to their looks doesn’t mean we have to.

It’s easier for us grown women who have realized as well as we can that looks are not what matter to say, who cares? But what about younger, impressionable women who may look to these exemplars of beauty and think they need to look that way, too?

I was going to say, why can’t more stars just be more au naturel in the world? But then they get their photos taken at their worst moments and plastered across a magazine cover.

Who or what will break the cycle?

Mila Kunis Talks About the Wrong Way to Lose Weight

Diane Mapes writes Mila Kunis, 'Black Swan' and how extreme diets warp your body for Today health on MSNBC.

Mapes addresses an important issue that I’ve often stressed to my yoga clients—it’s not good to lose weight too fast!

I’ve had female clients who wanted weight loss NOW! I always try to encourage women that rapid weight loss is not only not healthy for you, but can actually cause the exact opposite result of what you are trying to achieve.

“Already lean, Kunis dropped 20 pounds in order to play Natalie Portman's ballerina frenemy in "Black Swan." At 95 pounds, Kunis says "I was muscles, like a little brick house, but skin and bones."

Unfortunately, when she gained the weight back, Kunis says it ended up in completely different places.”

Isn’t this what every mother experiences?

We gain weight rapidly; our poor bodies stretch and moan. Then as quickly as the weight was gained, a vast majority of it is dropped out quite quickly (Well, if you consider ten hours of labor “quick”).

“Andrea N. Giancoli, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, says redistributed weight isn't uncommon after drastic weight loss (and weight gain).

"What often happens with extreme weight loss and when you lose weight very quickly is that you lose muscle tissue," she says. "Unfortunately, when we gain the weight back, it comes back as fat."”

This phenomenon has a lot to do with why we see so much yo-yo dieting—ups and downs in weight loss and gain.

“If you're dieting, Giancoli advises you shoot for losing 1-2 pounds a week, which gives your body opportunity to adapt to the weight loss and minimizes the loss of lean tissue and muscle.”

Perhaps some women may not be happy that they won’t see the immediate results they desire, but in the long run (I know it’s sometimes hard to consider that), you’ll be much healthier and happier!