Goodbye and Good Luck!

This is officially my last post here on NotDieting. I have finished what I set out to do, stop dieting for one whole year and blog about it. I thought of posting my stats and then realized that would undermine the spirit of this site. Instead I will post my cat's stats. She is 14.1 lbs and possibly gaining.

Interview by my husband:

H: What's been the best part of your one year of not dieting?
Me: Once I stopped focusing on dieting I was able to be more present in my daily life and fill it with things I actually enjoyed doing.

H: What's been the hardest aspect of not dieting?
Me: The hardest part has definitely been acceptance. When your weight doesn't fluctuate, it feels weird. Sometimes I miss the highs of dropping a few pounds.

H: What three specific and actionable pieces of advice can you give for people to improve their lives by not dieting?
Me: 1. Make a commitment to stop counting calories. 2. Surround yourself, virtually or in real life, with people who do the same. 3. Cook more.

H: Not to mention, 4, get a loving and supportive husband! What would you tell your teenage self?
Me: You are the skinniest you will ever be. Enjoy it. Haha. But seriously, I would say to focus on your interests and education.

H: What did you learn by writing this blog? What did the commenters have to say that was important to you? How has keeping this blog helped you to not diet, or to improve your notdieting ways?
Me: I learned that help is a good thing. All the encouraging posts the commenters made kept me on track. This blog kept me accountable for not slipping into my dieting ways and kept a record of my progress.

H: What would you have done differently over the course of the last year?
Me: Nothing.

H: What will you continue to change in the future?
Me: I think my relationship with food has improved by cooking, especially from scratch. For someone like myself who has had a fear-based relationship with food for a good part of my life, this has been one of the single best things I have done for myself. When you cook food, and I don't mean heat something up in the microwave, you get to know it on a whole other level. The preparation of a meal is almost as good as eating it...almost.


H: Not to play the blame game, but... who has been inspirational, and who needs to be muzzled?
Me: Jessica Weiner has been a big inspiration. She advocates positive body image in a fun and fashionable way. Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle and Barbara Kingsolver have both inspired me to let go of everything I thought I knew about buying, eating, and preparing food. Oprah will continue to be a thorn in the side of women everywhere who are trying to improve their body image. Her insistence upon joining diet after diet is ridiculous. The fact that she is promoting these diets for financial gain is disgusting. It seems odd that she claims to be a champion of women's issues, when in fact she is feeding into the insecurities of women everywhere.

H: How can your fans follow your continuing adventures?
Me: http://mrscaitlin.blogspot.com/

Oprah's Confession

Oprah has begun the new year with another diet, according to her show on January 6. I only watched The Confession and The New Plan portions of her show from her website, so that is what I'm basing my opinions on in this entry.

I felt like I ripped Oprah a new one the last time I blogged about her, but today I just felt sad for her. I didn't feel sad because I pitied her. I felt sad because she looked sad. When she explained her new diet and I saw her breathing hard on the elliptical machine, she looked miserable. She reported that her new diet repeats itself each week. She has it taped to the cabinet in her lunchroom at work. I didn't see any fruit or whole grains in her diet (aside from oatmeal for breakfast) and she is limiting herself to only green veggies. She allows herself half a sweet potato each day as a "treat". Don't get me wrong, I love sweet potatoes. But, when she cuddles against it in front of the camera and begins speaking in baby-talk about her "treat" it is beyond creepy.

Oprah is infamous for claiming she has never been to therapy. I think it's time she get some. In The Confession she claims that she abuses food and it is an emotional issue for her. If that is true, no diet or exercise program is going to solve that. She said her life was out of balance so now she has scheduled in time for herself, such as a manicure and a daily workout. This seems woefully inadequate. Not to mention that she says she hates working out. So, half her personal time is doing something she hates!!!

A new diet or exercise program does not heal an eating disorder. I see my old self in her eyes and am so glad I am not in that place anymore. Since giving up dieting, my life has been centered around joy. I don't feel like a ping pong ball bouncing between restriction and excess anymore. I feel happy.

Happy New Year!

Bad Blogger

I have not been a very good blogger lately, but I just wanted to check in and report that I am still not dieting!! This all started after a bad experience with Weight Watchers.

May 2007: 153 lbs.
Even though I wasn't on Weight Watchers, I was definitely counting calories (a bad habit since I was an anorexic 14 year old) and not listening to my hunger.

September 2007 (after Weight Watchers): 137 lbs.
My hair was falling out and I was being SUPER strict. I remember telling the Weight Watchers counselor that I had an eating disorder over 10 years ago and I was worried that I kept losing weight. She said not to worry about it. I tried to eat more to prevent myself from losing any more weight, but then felt guilty about regaining!

March 2008: 153 lbs.
I decided I wanted to put a permanent stop to the dieting/gaining cycle FOREVER! I decided it would be fun to blog about it along the way. I had been dieting for 13 years (a little less than half my age at the time) and needed the blog to keep me accountable from slipping into my old ways of thinking.

November 2008: 160 lbs.
Honestly, I wish I didn't weigh 160 lbs. Also honestly, I will NEVER diet again. I'd rather be 160 lbs. and not dieting than jumping on the losing/gaining cycle again. Occasionally, I have the urge to diet. However, I don't believe in it anymore and just the idea of it pisses me off!

Lately, I've been eating more whole foods and kicking out a lot of the processed items I used to snack on. However, I'm doing this for my insides, not my outsides. I'm not measuring, weighing or couting anything.

Don't get me wrong, if an oreo comes my way and I feel like partaking- I do. But, I'm also noticing more often than not I don't want one. Today happened to not be one of those days...My kindergarten class and I made the cute little oreo turkey treats you see in the picture above. I had 4 oreo cookies throughout the day, but don't feel guilty or like I've BLOWN anything.

After work I came home, made a black bean quesadilla on a whole wheat tortilla with homemade guacomole and a spinach/cucumber salad with vinagrette. For dessert I had fage (greek yogurt) with chopped up grapefruit, honey, and cinnamon.

Not dieting is one of the best decisions I've ever made!!

"The Office" Mocks Dieting

UPDATE: If you are outside the U.S. try the following link.

My Favorite Is The Anal Bleach

Miss Mabel (who has a couple of awesome blogs on beauty and veganism, btw) made some good points about this article on my judgement of plastic surgery and those who get it:

I do have a problem with too much of The Judging People...(c) I'd hate to think that my judging was putting more pressure and guilt on women who might already feel crappy about themselves. We're already so critical of women as it is.

This got me thinking about what I wrote:

I'm not making fun of women who have a naturally puffy face. But, I am making fun of those women who get butt-fat injected into their face. Why? Because it's ridiculous.

I wrote that out of frustration, but I think there is a grain of truth to it. Is it ever okay to make fun of someone? As a kindergarten teacher, I would say no and give myself a time out. I don't really want to tease anyone about their plastic surgery, because that is mean and useless. However, I do think it is important to shed light on the topic in a public manner. I think the kid from The Emperor Has No Clothes did that (I'm a little obsessed with that kid right now so bear with me). I think it's wrong to shame the emperor for having been duped. But, it is necessary to point it out. "Dude, your clothes aren't invisible. You're naked."

I live in southern California and cosmetic plastic surgery is all over the freakin' place. I'm not talking about having reconstructive surgery or anything like that. Calf implants, chemical sacs in your boobies, vaginoplasty (it is what it sounds like), and dimple fabrication are something that everyday citizens get around these parts. For those who keep up with the Joneses, the "to do" list of plastic surgeries is never ending.

To sum up my thoughts:
teasing is bad and honesty is good
plastic surgery is ridiculous and harmful to the recipient and society at large
anal bleach will change your life

The Emperor Had No Clothes!

I am so glad that one of the guests here wrote the following comment after this article:

"Although I doubt that I would ever have any "elective" surgery outside of re-constructive surgery (life-saving procedures, A-OK!), I won't/don't judge those who do. It may not be my cup of tea, but it's their bodies and what they choose to do with their bodies is their prerogative."

I disagree and think we should judge them. Elective plastic surgery is wrong and our silence surrounding the issue condones it. This website is kind of like the kid from The Emperor Had No Clothes. Imagine if the emperor was slicing up his face because someone told him it would make him look younger and more handsome. Then imagine that nobody said anything because they didn't want to pass judgement. Pretty soon others would start to do it and soon a cut up face would be the new standard of beauty. Parents would begin signing consent forms to allow their underage children to have the procedure performed. Sound familiar?!?

88% of those who receive elective plastic surgery are women. WTF?? That is crazy! Women die from elective plastic surgery and I'm pretty sure nobody died from accepting their body the way it is. All natural sizes and shapes are beautiful. Gaunt face, chubby face, in between face...whatever. Flaunt what you've got, but don't let it get in the way of thinking you are fabulous!

I'm not making fun of women who have a naturally puffy face. But, I am making fun of those women who get butt-fat injected into their face. Why? Because it's ridiculous. Silence normalizes what these women are doing. The purpose of this website is to call out the artificial reconfiguration of the female form for what is. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Victims of Puffy Face Syndrome

Lara Flynn Boyle 2008
Priscilla Presley 2008

Heather Locklear 2008

Uma Thurman 2008

Since I wrote this article on Madonna and the new new face of plastic surgery I have been noticing lots of celebrities who seem to have gotten lots of Restalyne or Sculptra injections. Allegedly Madonna's face doesn't look AS puffy because she got a deep muscle facelift in addition to injections. The women above seem to have just received the injections. This is so silly...Don't mess with your faces ladies!