Picture for the Weekend: True Love

Sent to me by Mae.

Friday Snack: Fat Fad

Working in a large format bookstore (and just reading health news in general) I've noticed a few health/diet trends emerging over the last few years:

1. local foods (The 100 Mile Diet)

2. whole/unprocessed foods (Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Mark Bittman, Barbara Kingsolver, Nina Planck, Marion Nestle)

3. veganism & raw food (Oprah, the Fireman diet, the Skinny Bitch series)

All of these are probably coming in part from disappointment with anti-fat anti-carb trends of the 80s and 90s. Despite the aerobics and counting calories, North Americans haven't gotten thinner (US report Canadian) and so the quest for the magic cure continues. Both the whole foods and veganism might be (as noted in Salon) coming from the mad cow scare, concerns about hormones in meat, the green movement etc. Orrr it's all Victoria Beckham buying Skinny Bitch.

I think local food is here to stay, if only because trend will become the reality of a low-oil world; but we're due for a backlash against the whole foods and veggieness, especially with the recession. Veganism for weight loss will go away once people experience how restrictive it is (raw food moreso.) The whole foods stands a chance to make some permanent inroads into our culture--it takes more time, but there is no one food group that you shouldn't eat.


Want to join the next bandwagon? My prediction is hormone diets:
* The Hormone Diet
* The Metabolism Miracle
* Master Your Metabolism

Questionay for the Day: What do you think of these trends? What's coming next? Should we all just give up and join the Cookie Zombie Army?


Book Recommendation:
A fiction book, and romance, about how trends begin: Connie Willis - Bellwether

Stay in my 20s forevah?

While I dislike the never-ending growth of cosmetics aimed at fighting aging (I can't imagine how much money gets spent in this part of the industry), I dislike cosmetic surgery even more. MSNBC has a good article about all the surgeries-gone-wrong, like the Perpetually Surprised Look of many face lifts.

I agree with this statement:

'Maggie Little, a bioethicist at Georgetown University, worries that our culture is in a state of denial about aging. ... “As a culture, we’ve developed this very narrowed view of beauty — only one decade, the 20s.” We spend adolescence gearing up for this peak, Little says, and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to reclaim it.'

What I can't believe is how women in their 20s are starting to get procedures:

'Last month, Rachel Cothran, 26, visited Alster for her very first Botox fix smack between her brows, where she was starting to notice the beginning traces of a furrow. “Nip it in the bud,” she says. “Why wait until you’re older and completely dissatisfied?” ...Cothran ... considers preventive Botox “a no-brainer — like wearing sunscreen."'

Oh. My. God.

If you're worrying about your looks--about tiny lines!!--when you're in your 20s, how will you feel about yourself in 10, 20, 30, 40 years? Like the song says:

'...trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.'

Questionay of the Day: Thoughts on Botox? Plastic surgery? Worth it if it will give you peace of mind?

A quote

"Our job on this earth is not to get thin, then start living, but instead to hold the highest concept of ourselves in every moment." - Deborah Low, The Quest for Peace, Love, and a 24" Waist.

Questionay of the Day: Did you ever put off something you wanted to do until you lost weight?

Helena Part 2 - les shoes

As requested by Mae... the shoes.

They are apparently Z-coils, meant to absorb shock as you walk. Since I've returned to working full-time, much of it on my feet, I've discovered that I have sore feet a LOT of the time. Possibly this is an age thing, because I can't think offhand of any women my age who wear high-high heels on a regular basis. So I must say... I would totally wear shoes like this to work, if they really did help!


And some more Helenas...