Haters Back Off

                                                                  

Ever heard of a YouTube show called Miranda Sings? 

My 8 year-old daughter is completely obsessed with Miranda, who wears baggy red sweats with a button-down striped shirt, plus horribly smeared lipstick.  She’s obnoxious.  She’s a horrible singer but believes she’s FABULOUS.   

To her detractors, Miranda declares, “Haters back off.”

Miranda Sings is on tour this summer, so we went to see her.   The venue was filled with young fans (known as “Mirfandas”) dressed in Miranda’s signature baggy red sweats, button-down striped shirts, and smeared lipstick.

“Inexplicable,” I thought, settling in for what I thought would be 90 minutes of torture.

Turned out I was wrong.  I was SO wrong. 

Miranda’s show is self-help on steroids.  With a madcap mix of song, dance, and the most bizarre stage props ever, she:

• ·      Promotes self-confidence
• ·      Encourages body positivity.  She urges fans to dress appropriately instead of provocatively (part of what she refers to as “porn”)
• ·      Teaches girls how to pick a boyfriend, instead of being picked by a boy (or in Miranda-speak “bae”)
• ·       Takes a strong stance against haters

What does this have to do with food, weight and body image issues?

#1) Let’s start with self-confidence.  When you feel good about YOU, you won’t use food to numb, cope or distract yourself from painful or upsetting thoughts, conflicts or emotions. 

What prevents you from feeling good about yourself? 

Where did you learn to relate to yourself this way?

What would you say to a friend who felt as you do?

#2) Body positivity.  When you feel good about your body, you don’t objectify yourself and make yourself a thing. 

What determines what an attractive body is?  After all, voluptuousness was preferred in the era of painters Rubens, Titian and others.  Marilyn Monroe would be considered plus-size by today’s standards.   Who defines beauty?

What do you think is wrong with your body?  Why?Challenge that idea.  What would Marilyn say?

3) Pick, don’t be picked.  So often we take our cues about our worthiness from what other people think.  If a “bae” likes you, you’re worthy.  If not, you’re not good enough.

Wrong!  The only person who decides your value is YOU.

The bathroom scale doesn’t decide.

Other people can’t decide your value.

Only you determine whether you are good enough.

4) Haters back off (especially if the hater is you).  There will always be people who don’t understand you, who point out your so-called shortcomings, and who generally try to make you feel bad.   If they’re not targeting your weight, they’ll find something else about you to pick on.

Are you self-hating?    Why?

Where did you learn to hate your body or criticize yourself?

Would you criticize others the way you criticize yourself?

When you accept yourself – fiercely and completely – you will feel good.  And when you feel good, you won’t use food to escape, numb, or reward yourself.  And that's how you make peace with food!

This was taken during the concert.  The "Self Help Seminar" that truly rocked!!

What A Tight Bridesmaid Dress Taught Me About Body Confidence

Today's guest blog is from Anne, who struggled with binge eating and knew that dieting wasn't working for her (in fact, it only made things worse).  When she gave up dieting and started examining "why" she was eating, instead of focusing on food, everything began to shift.  She didn't realize how much she had changed until THIS happened:

Anne's Story:

"I never realized how much I had changed until I had a bridesmaid dress disaster a few weeks ago.

My cousin Kate's wedding was a few weeks away and the bridesmaid dresses had finally arrived.   I was a little nervous--we've all seen 27 Dresses and know just how awful a bridesmaid dress can be! 

Well, my cousin pulled out a lacy, peacock blue dress out of the bag and I thought it was gorgeous.   I put it on, started to zip up, but as it got about halfway up my back, the zipper stuck. 

Kate came around and started yanking and pulling and tightening, but it didn't budge. The dress was simply not going to fit. 

In a very quiet and tentative voice, she said, "Are you going to be okay if we order a bigger size?" 

She was afraid that my self-esteem was going to plummet simply because I needed a different letter on the tag of my dress. 

A year ago, I would have been devastated.  But a lot can change in a  year.

I thought, "The size of the dress doesn't change my body! Just because this size doesn't fit doesn't mean I need to lose weight! 

And I'm certainly not going to keep the too-small dress around as motivation to diet. 

Heaven forbid I diet and the second the wedding ends, I turn around and binge on everything I've restricted the last three months. 

Why not order a dress that fits me and and makes me look like a million bucks?" 

To Kate's compassionate question, I cheerfully answered, "Of course we should order a different size! We don't want me walking around with my dress zipped down all day! What would grandma think?" 

She laughed, and together we called the company to ask about their exchange policy.  

And that's when I realized how free I was from all the body hatred and shame that I'd struggled with for so long."

Anne is a college student in the Midwest who's thrilled to have created a healthier, happier relationship to food - and most of all, to herself.

Wow, what a story!

I love Anne's body-positive response to the bridesmaid dress.  As I considered her experience, I started thinking about numbers.

Why do we allow our identity and our worth be determined by the letter or number on our clothing? 

Some of the world's largest crimes against humanity have been when we stripped others of their names and identities, and instead we assigned them a number. 

Enough!!

Promise yourself today to stop seeing yourself as the size of your jeans or the number on the scale, and instead see yourself as a person with wants and needs, likes and dislikes. 

Be more than a number... be YOU!

Today, refuse to say anything negative about your size. Assess the size of your heart, not the size of your jeans. Count the number of your friends, not the number on the scale.

  

Today, find positive attributes of your body to focus on. 

Today, challenge the thought that you will be happier when you are skinnier. 

Today, tell yourself that you love and respect yourself. 

That's how you win the diet war! 

Hugs,

Dr. Nina

"Do you really need to eat that?" (cringe)

When was your last encounter with the food police?

Maybe you can relate to my friend Tilly, who was at a wedding reception last weekend, surrounded by waiters passing around trays of appetizers.

As she reached for a mini quiche, her husband leaned in.  Tilly thought he was about to give an affectionate kiss.

Instead, he whispered, "Do you really need that?"

Needless to say, Tilly was mortified.  Humiliated.  Upset.

She told me later, "He just doesn't get it.  He's just making it worse?" 

I bet you know how Tilly felt because you've been there.  When the food police strike, you want to throw your hands up and scream LEAVE ME ALONE!

Here are some strategies to deal with this situation:

Choice #1

Say, (with some sarcasm ) “Wow, I never thought of that.  I don’t actually need this.  Thank you for enlightening me.  I’ll alert the media.”

Choice #2

Say, “When you talk about what I’m eating, I feel embarrassed and angry, because it means... (here’s the tough part – what does it mean to you?):

• You only care about how I look
• You don’t get what I’m going through
• You completely misunderstand me
• You are treating me like a child
• 
  

Choice #3

Say, “I know you’re trying to help, but mini quiches are not the problem.  The real problem is, I’m using food to cope.  Sometimes I don’t even know why but I'm doing my best to understand.  The best thing you can do is ask what’s going on with me.”

You can also mix-and-match all three of these responses. 

Your goal?  To get these well-meaning folks to BACK OFF and stop policing what you eat.

When friends and family are more supportive, you’re increasingly likely to turn to them for comfort, reassurance, understanding and/or escape, instead of to food!

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There's a money-back guarantee, so if you complete the program and you're not completely satisfied, I'll refund your money, no questions asked.

How to Accept Yourself

When you think about the concept of self-acceptance, what “self” do you think of first?  The one in the mirror?   Because there is so much more to you than meets the eye.  

In this video, I'll show you how to find a renewed sense of self-acceptance and feel better about yourself. When you feel good, you won't turn to (or against) food to comfort, numb or express yourself.

Go ahead and WATCH now!

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Behind The Billboard: One model's confession about what's really going on

Today's guest post is from Briauna Mariah.  Here's her inspiring story and her revolutionary mission:

"I was never one of those girls who "always" wanted to be a fashion or runway model. It was suggested to me when I stopped growing and realized I was 5'11" and slender. I thought it would be a good way to pay for college. I never thought modeling would change my life, but it has.

I still remember hearing my first agency booker tell me, "You are a product, so don't take what I say as personal." It's impossible not to take it personal when someone tells you, "You have too much baby fat, come back in 6 months." I was 15 years old with a BMI of 18!

Every aspect of a model's skin, hair, curves, walk...is constantly criticized. She is never good enough. As a society, our beauty standards in the fashion world are warped. They are completely unrealistic. Yet, young girls are expected to conform. This is what it feels like to be a model. Moldable.

Being represented by an agency has always been a stressful experience for me. I was always pressured one way or another, bullied strategically, bossed around, and strung along for months along waiting for my paychecks. At one point, I weighed 123 pounds (at 5'11") and was still being told to lose more weight. "You'll never be an international model unless your waist is smaller!" My waist was 23" at the time.  

Sadly, the experience is the same for so many women. Young girls losing too much weight is too often celebrated! This perpetuates and encourages eating disorders among young girls across the globe.

Once I realized how much damage I was doing to my body, I kept wondering when things would change. 

Everyone talks about it. People complain about the unrealistic images painted by the glossy campaigns, the high end runway shows and photos so edited they hardly resemble the actual model. 

The damage to the models themselves is only a fraction of the problem. The media creates this expectation of perfection. Our kids see this and can't stop wondering, "why don't I look like that?"

Shouldn’t something be done about the way models are being exploited? 

Shouldn’t someone, somewhere do something instead of just talking about it? 

I realized if I wanted to see change, I had to take action myself. I decided to create a modeling agency to promote positive change, diversity and health.

Changing the way media portrays women will help eliminate the root of many eating disorders, self-esteem issues and even social bullying. Promoting health as the new standard will create positive images we can be proud to have our kids aspire to."

Briauna is the founder of We Speak, a modeling agency designed from the ground up to empower and protect models, give designers and consumers a choice to make a difference, plus create an advertising culture we can be proud to have the next generation look up to. 



Learn how you can help support revolutionary change by visiting: 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/we-speak-beauty-awareness-campaign

www.facebook.com/wespeakny

www.wespeakny.com 

For more information:  917-274-7324

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https://winthedietwar.com/kick-the-diet-habit-now/

You Are NOT Your Eating Disorder

Today's guest post is from Thomas Grainger, adapted from his book, "You Are Not Your Eating Disorder: A Practical Guide To Overcoming An Eating Disorder."  An award-winning producer and filmmaker, Thomas writes from the perspective of his own experience of struggling with anorexia. He seeks to help others - including men - who struggle with anorexia and other forms of disordered eating. He recently contributed to the website Men Get Eating Disorders, Too.

(Please note:  aspects of this post may be triggering)

Here is his story:

"I was inspired. After watching the season premiere of The Biggest Loser, I wanted to be one of them. Not what the contestants looked like on day one of the program, but I wanted to be a success story, to shed the weight just as they do week in and week out. 

So I did. 

As if a light flicked somewhere inside that confused head of mine, I swapped two minute noodles doused in peanut butter, with low calorie ‘miracle’ snack bars, fruit and very little else. So began my journey to body mutilation.

Yes, I was heavily overweight at the time, but it wasn’t too long before I had orchestrated a complete 180. As The Biggest Loser contestants would weigh themselves in each week, so would I…and I lost just as much weight as they did. 

Everyone began to praise me. ‘You look fantastic Thomas’… ‘Keep up the great work’. ‘How did you manage to do it?’. For a time I reveled in the appraisals…until they began to dwindle away. 

That fat-kid-turned-skinny had transitioned into the fat kid who was too skinny, to the skinny kid who had become a walking skeleton. 

An addiction to thinness

I had become addicted to calorie counting and excessive exercise. I paid no attention to the nutrition in my food. All I cared about were the numbers going into my body, and the numbers going out. Come rain, hail or shine, you could have seen me walking, hopping, skipping, jumping or running the streets at all hours of the day, trying to keep ‘fit’.

I was miserable, but I had convinced myself that the only way to happiness was being thin. I had become yet another teenager who was caught in the unhealthy belief pattern that your body shape and size was a measurement of your likeability, your popularity, your own sense of self and joy. Yet the blunt reality is this: the more you lose, the sadder you become.

It was never as if I thought I was fat, I just was terrified of putting on any weight, and my prevention mechanism was best executed by simply losing more. I had spiraled out of control. Most individuals think anorexic people believe that they’re fat. I don’t think this is exactly the case. 

Most people with an eating disorder that are underweight, are not happy with their body shape and size. They don’t think that they’re fat, they just aren’t satisfied with where they currently are, and the more weight one loses, the more dissatisfied you become. It’s a perpetual pursuit for perfection, with perfection never being attainable because there’s always a ‘more perfect’ to reach.

A crisis of the heart

Fast track two years after I first embarked on the ‘weight loss journey’, and I was lying in the cardiac ward of Westmead Hospital in Sydney on a heart monitor. I had been admitted through the emergency department, but I couldn’t go into the regular adolescent ward because my heart rate was too unstable. Months earlier my mother had tried to have me hospitalized, but I fought and fought until agreeing on a date to enter the hospital setting once my year nine exams were completed. The day straight after my final exam I was taken to hospital. A few more weeks and who knows what would have happened to me

A nasal-gastric tube made sure I was being nourished 24/7. This was my lowest point in my eating disorder experience. This basic plastic tube was shoved down my nasal cavity and into my stomach by a group of nurses. As one nurse inserted the tube town your nose as you sat upright in bed, the other nurses would be telling you to swallow consistently. It was the most unpleasant experience I’ve had in my life so far, followed by having the same thing removed weeks later. My nose bled for several hours afterwards. I vowed that I’d never allow myself to be in this position again, and for the next month I stuffed my face whenever possible. I can remember secretly eating a bag of lollies right after breakfast, in the hope of putting on the weight even faster and getting out of the hospital. It worked. For the time being…

Dealing with weighty issues

Fast-forward two years and I was back in the hospital again. This time it wasn’t for my weight, but for the shell of a person I had become in the midst of chronic depression. No longer relying on the eating disorder to control my feelings as much as I had previously, I was left to deal with the overwhelming self-criticism that was screaming from inside that head of mine. Being surrounded by depressed people who don’t attend the therapy sessions and who sit around the same table each day chain smoking, isn’t the most uplifting or inspiring way to recover. What it did do, apart from making me feel like I was living out the film ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ on a perpetual cycle, every time we heard ‘medication time’, was make me realize just how many people, from all walks of life, are affected by debilitating thought patterns, addiction and self-hatred.

With more life experiences to store in that memory box of mine, I managed to pick myself up, tick all the boxes, say all the right things, which included not saying anything I wasn’t sure would be received well, and re-enter ‘normality’. I was flung into my final year of schooling to complete my High School Certificate. Everything seemed to be going well for me. I smashed my exams, landed a scholarship at The University of Technology, Sydney and was off to pursue by dreams as a Film Producer with my double degree in Communications and International Studies.

Two years later, I was back at square one. Only worse. What this demonstrated straight away, was that my eating disorder behaviours, were a product of how I saw myself, and my inner conflict with coming to terms with knowing who the hell I was. Perfectionism had led me to some really great opportunities and achievements in the past, but it had also landed me into a nasty concoction of anxiety, depression, self-abuse and a diminishing body. Now with chronic digestive issues, lymphocytic colitis, chronic anxiety, depression and osteopenia (the precursor to osteoporosis) at the age of 20, I was a complete mess.

How did I get to this place…and worse still, for the second time? I hadn’t just become a little underweight. My weight managed to plummet to an embarrassing 45kg. My Body Mass Index was 15 and I didn’t care. I was miserable.  

Choosing Life

Since restoring my body to a healthy weight and for the first time coming to love my makeup for what it is, to embrace myself for the unique and beautiful person that I am (it’s still hard to say that, but I encourage everyone to see themselves as nothing less than a beautiful human being), I have become fascinated in understanding the way we fall into these unhealthy and terribly unbalanced lifestyles. I am dedicated to helping others see their behaviours as being just as irrational, stupid and downright dangerous as mine were.

Most importantly, I hope this book will act as a vehicle to help you to love yourself and unlock the inner potential that is inside of you. Never forget how beautiful and truly special you are. There is only one you, and you only have one body. Treat it with respect. Love it and it will love you in return. 

You can buy the book here:www.eatingdisorderbook.info 

Bio:

Thomas Grainger is a creative producer and wellness coach from Sydney, Australia. After suffering from anorexia and orthorexia nervosa for several years, he was inspired to combine his expertise in digital media production with his passion for helping others overcome their debilitating personal issues, to embark on a journey of spreading an international message about self-acceptance, empowerment and body awareness.

Website: www.thomasgrainger.info

Twitter: @Tommy_Grainger

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