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I Love My Body – Heart
[Guest Post by Sundi Jo] – The heart is something we obviously can’t live without. When it stops beating, so do we. But how often do we really live, even though our heart is pumping life into us? There was a time in my life that yes, I was breathing. My heart was beating. Blood was running through my veins. But there was no life in me. I was simply surviving. I used food to build walls around my heart. For each wall that was built, the harder my heart became. Calloused. Stiff. I was a 330 lb., little girl living inside the body of a 25-year old woman. I…
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I Love My Body – Unique Beauty
[Guest Post by Melissa Thomas] – When I was 4, I knew I wanted to grow up to be a ballerina. They have such a unique beauty. I used to dance in my parents living room. I would play Tchikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” and “Swan Lake,” and dream of being on stage with a giant tutu. I took dance lessons and learned how to twirl around, point my toes and stand in second position. When I was 11, I had my first seizure. I was waking up, getting ready to go with my family to breakfast. My dog jumped on my bed, excited to see me and greet me. I got…
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I Love My Body – Compared To Yours
[Guest Post by Amber] – I’m just going to come out and say it–I love my body–no matter what yours looks like. It took me many years to stop playing games. You know–the comparison game? I once was a: cheerleader, softball player, National Honor Society, top 5 percent of class, homecoming princess, voted most spirited, and the prom queen runner-up. All of these phrases described me in high school. Sounds pretty stellar on the surface, right? Except that I was: lonely, insecure, tired, disappointed, and scared. Those are words that also described me in high school, despite the fact they were less noticeable. Sure, I had lots of friends and…
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I Love My Face
[Guest Post by Songine’ Clark] – I love my face. Yeah, I said it. I love my brown eyes, I love my big nose, I love my round lips, I love my small ears, and I love my brown skin. There was a time when I definitely could not say those things confidently though. I remember back in high school growing up and going through those lovely body changes. I developed pretty early, so I guess my body decided to just let acne run rampant during my middle and high school years. I tried it all to make the acne disappear, but nothing worked. It did suck going through those…
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I Love My Body – Fat Girls
I once thought I had this really great idea for one of my next books. I wanted to call it: For All The Fat Girls: Who Never Thought Their Dreams Could Come True. Whew. Long title. It took me even longer to realize it was kind-of-offensive. Whoops. Maybe that’s because I was used to carrying around the label that: I Was Fat. One thing I know: labels might lie, but clothing labels sure don’t! Just try putting on a size 9 when you’re a ballooned sized 24. Yep. That was me in high school. Last week, I mentioned in more detail about my health issues related to eczema, and how…
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I Love My Body – Stretch Marks
[Guest Post by Alice Sullivan] – Because of my stretch marks, I have struggled with body image for as long as I can remember. I started puberty early, had a woman’s figure by the age of twelve, and never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was always active with sports, but by the 8th grade, my soccer coach pulled me aside during a practice and said I was putting on too much weight. I might have weighed 150. At 5’4” I wasn’t rail thin, but I wasn’t that heavy. Still, I knew I needed to lose weight or I would get benched. So at age 13, I dieted for…
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I Love My Body – Anorexia
[Guest Post by Emily Wierenga] – I don’t know when a child typically becomes aware of her body–or even what anorexia means. For me, it was when a neighbor came over and commented on what a big girl I was. I was seven, and her tone was disapproving. So I went to the mirror and stared at the face of a girl with a mushroom cut and thrift-store clothes, and I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. Then I put my fingers around my wrist, and they just barely reached and that would become the way I measured my value. For the next six years, I’m not…
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I Love My Body – Esthetician
[Guest Post by Kayla Johnson] – I am an Esthetician–and let me tell you–celebrities are not perfect. Here’s the truth: To look like a celebrity you have to have a stylist who can look at your body and will dress you in the right clothes to conceal your flaws and accentuate your strong points. The book The Science Of Sexy shows you how to do this yourself, and is a great book! You will then need a professional makeup artist and hair stylist and be willing to sit in a chair for sometimes two hours to make you perfect. That’s right–two hours. After that you will spend thousands of dollars…
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I Love My Halloween Body Parts
[Guest Post by Meredith Munro] – When it comes to body shape and size, I feel more like Halloween body parts. Let me explain. I’ve spent most of my life being rail thin and tall like a skeleton–a whopping 5’8″ and 3/4ths, baby! I ate whatever I wanted, exercised rarely, and pretty much never worried if I looked fat. By a lot of people’s standards, I had it easy and maybe in some ways I did. I’ll admit that I’ve been blessed with good health and good genes–yeah mom and dad. Like any warm-blooded American woman, I’ve often fixated on my flaws and been self-conscious about my body. Loving my…
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I Love My Skinny Body
[Monthly Columnist – Rebekah Snyder] – Please don’t judge me for my skinny body. “Oh my gosh, Rebekah, you are sooo skinny!” She said it like it was a compliment. As if she had called me cute or gorgeous or some other word that could lift a wounded spirit or brighten a woman’s day. But no, she called me “skinny,” which isn’t a compliment at all. On the contrary, my dictionary describes skinny as, “lacking sufficient flesh; very thin; emaciated; lacking usual or desirable bulk, quantity, qualities or significance.” And you wonder why I felt insulted. Even though I knew it was meant to be a compliment—even though there were…
