The "Reality" Of Beauty

The campaign for "real women" shows up quite often these days. This morning I read Mishelle's post on Curvy Girl Guide called "Real-Sized Style Icons". The post lists her top ten “Real-Sized” Fashion and Style Icons. I get what her point is here; she verbalizes herself quite neatly.

"After all, this is not a cookie-cutter world.  We are all different, and that should be embraced in our society, not shunned."

She then lists ten celebrities who all fit a particular body type. While these women are unquestionably beautiful, I have an issue with labeling them "real women". Real women come in all shapes and sizes, even slim.

Via WetPaint.com.

This is Kasia, the "fiercely real" competitor on America's Next Top Model. Can someone please tell me what makes her more "real" than the Cycle 15 winner, Ann?

Via Starcasm.net

The way we label each other matters. It's like condemning a woman for being "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen". The point of gender equality wasn't to keep women from being stay at home moms. It was to empower them with the choice to do so or not. Telling women that real beauty is looking like Christina Hendricks is no different than saying they need to be a size zero to be attractive.

It is exciting to see more body types represented in the media as attractive, and I understand the urge to rally around that excitement and shout "see! I am beautiful!" I get it. But for those women who don't fit this facet of beautiful, we need to be better. We need to rise above any one definition, because no matter what size it is, it's inadequate. We need to stop pointing to any one type of body and identifying it as the standard of beauty. Instead, why can't we push a message of individual beauty? Who you are at your core and the choices you make are what make you attractive.

Real beauty for me.

Day Six and Seven: The Final Results!

So after a brutal six days, Tom and I kyboshed the total no-carb diet. My urine turned orange on Saturday (how's that morning coffee tasting?), which Dr. Google informed me is a sign of ketones, an indicator of anemia, liver disease, and/or diabetes. Now, obviously one day of this does not mean I have any of those conditions; what it does mean is that my body was in distress. Ketones are formed when the liver glycogen stores are depleted (Wikipedia). I knew that part of the no-carb process was to deplete that store in order to force your body to draw energy from fats and proteins instead of carbohydrates (which are a "cheap" form of energy). But there is something that doesn't feel right about forcing my body into that kind of distress.

The symptoms we experienced during this diet were:

1. Bitchiness

Let's just say it was a good thing Tom was away for work most of the week.

2. Stomach pain/severe nausea

It was bad. To be fair, I think a lot of this came from suddenly eating a ton of cheese (I usually never do) and eating high sodium, high fat meats like turkey/chicken pepperoni snausages or whatever they are.

3. Fogginess/confusion/utter stupidity

We would forget words. There were several times I didn't feel safe to drive. It was almost like being buzzed all the time without it being any fun.

4. Weakness and general sucking for workouts

I added 15% to my swim time, and a whopping 20 minutes to my bike time (BRUTAL). I felt awful during my workouts and my times really suffered.

5. Losing weight very quickly

My starting weight was 153.2 pounds. The lowest I weighed during the six days was on the fifth day at 144.5 pounds. That's an 8.7 pound loss in five days (!). While the numbers are fun to look at, I can't believe that this is a healthy way for me to shed pounds. And the way I felt was honestly not worth it. I was sleeping 9-10 hours a night and still needing an hour nap each day. I woke up dreading the day because of what I would have to eat; everything I could eat made me nauseated. Opening the fridge would actually make me choke back bile (and not just because I haven't cleaned the fridge in a while).

There are some positives to take away from this experiment.

1. I do consume a lot of easily removed carbs.

Although delicious, I don't NEED to have sugar in my coffee every day. A meal doesn't HAVE to have a bread component to be complete. Eating three yogurts and two pieces of fruit a day is probably excessive.

2. Eating more veggies is easy if I pay attention to it.

One meal I really enjoyed on this diet was tuna salad (with mayo) that I ate using cucumber slices as "scoops". It was like dipping tortilla chips (same crunch) and I didn't need bread to eat my tuna (although I do love me some tuna sammich).

3. Planning meals makes a huge difference.

If you're just grabbing food, you make poor choices. A little planning ahead can mean you eat with purpose instead of mindlessly. On that same note, it is VERY easy to mindless eat carbs. It's as if your body doesn't have an off switch to tell you that's enough. When you are eating protein or fat foods, your body  has a trigger finger on that off switch, and it'll let you know when enough's enough.

For the next week (at least), we're still eliminating refined carbs (sorry Shreddies, I still love you!) and milk. We've added back in fruit and potatoes in limited amounts. Hopefully that will help us find a bit more balance.

Random Act of Kindness #7

Ok, I can't lie to you guys.  This isn't a random act of kindness in the traditional sense.  What it is is a kind bit of advice about goal setting, learned first-hand.  The hard way.

We are now more than two months into this project, and for those of you keeping score, this is only my seventh RAK.  Of fifty.  I swear I've actually done more than that, I just haven't written about them yet.  I'm all like Mother Theresa, promise!

I have a French exam in 2 hours so I'll be brief.

When you're setting a goal, you need to be realistic.  In my youthful naivete, I had thought I could write four RAKs a week.  Turns out, I'm  a jerk  busy.

Ambition is good, but it must be tempered by realism.  Did I really have time to devote four hours a week to this blog, on top of my other responsibilities?  Not really.  Did I want to?  Absolutely.  Am I really that randomly kind?  I don't like your tone.

Picking such an unattainable goal was silly.  I was setting myself up for failure, and every week that went by that I didn't have time to write here I felt like a failure.  I was paralyzed by my own ambition.

What I'm saying here is that when you're setting your goals, remember that it doesn't always have to be perfect.  Sometimes it's ok that your goal just be good enough. 

Don't run a marathon.  Run a mile.  Then lather, rinse, and repeat.

Does this count as an RAK?  Yes, because it's good enough.