"If society were in concert with how females actually develop, we'd celebrate the rounding of the female shape around puberty, but because women are told to be thin, adolescence signals the onset of a fight with the body that never ends...."

Kelly D. Brownell, PhD, professor of psychology, epidemiology and public health at Yale University.

Ah...the heat is upon us, and summer has gotten its blasts and bangs of celebrations out of its system and kicked itself into full gear.
Of course, if you're anything like me you spent all of last month going to parties and BBQs, eating lots of mud pies and brownies and such, and feeling totally guilty about it, but doing it anyway! End of July us people here in the entertainment business of LA get back to work. People have been to Cannes, taken their vacations. TV shows will begin production again, so now's a time I use to reorganize and regroup for the next busy spell--getting my new headshots, examining all of my
priorities and what I want them to be throughout the course of the rest of the year, etc. This fact, plus the fact that I live near the beach, puts staying healthy and in shape at the forefront of my consciousness now even more so than usual.

Now I've never had a serious weight problem, as I've always been pretty tall for a girl (5'7) and blessed with a decent metabolism.But given the media images and messages which surrounded me as I've grown up, and the attitudes of the industry of which I am a part, I am coming to the realization that I have never really had a good body image, and may never, despite my awareness of all of the craziness that causes me and millions of women like me to reach the same critical conclusions. Every day is a battle against the voices that tell me to wish I could weigh just a little bit less. There were some posts recently on alt.acting about weight issues and acting, and I think many people were surprised to learn what a deep impact this issue has on so many women. So I am devoting this month's thoughts to my success story in progress, which I hope will inspire other people to feel good about themselves and face facts with full awareness of all of the things that operate in our lives to make us think and behave the way we do, for only then can we even try to really be healthy. While I have never been bulemic or anorexic--thank God!--I have endured and continue to endure milder forms of the same obsession--as do so many others. So this is my story....

Like I said, I never had a weight problem. Until a few years ago--when I realized I had two. Sometime about 2 years ago I realized that I had had a problem of which I had been unaware for quite a long time. It seems that sometime after moving to LA, and being part of a highly stressful Internet start-up venture, I had managed to put on something I'm guessing was around 15-20 pounds, possibly even more and was in the middle of a depression unlike anything I had ever before experienced in my life. And since I somehow miraculously never did the Freshman 15 thing back in college, all of this was totally new to me. Looking back, I think, "How could I not realize?" and there are several conclusions I have come to about this all got away from me. Not worrying about attracting guys anymore since I was very happy with the guy I was with (perhaps even actively trying to dissuade them since I was one of those girls that guys hit on all the time, despite my being pretty shy about it). I was throwing on T-shirts and not wearing the tight fitting clothing I had in the past--I was definitely hiding my body--I'm not sure why. To keep men away from me maybe at first--but at some point, I think it became that I was hiding from myself because I didn't want to really look at what I looked like. Not having time to take care of myself--because I was so busy either pursuing acting work or making money on a side gig. I have no idea if this is the chicken or the egg, but somewhere in there, I got depressed, and the desire to get out of my funk just wasn't even there. I became accustomed to the low-energy lethargy that was my life, the headaches and little illnesses that just seemed to crop up all the time--and started to accept it as normal. Smog in LA made me literally sick to my stomach. Plus all the messages I got--from daily life as well as specifically from within the industry of which I am a part were interpreted by me to mean that I was "fat". All this while coping with the usual rejections that are part of any acting career and the insecurities which are present in just about anybody's life, though magnified for sure here in LA-LA land, land of the Unrealistic Standard. Maybe I even became depressed and gained weight as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I have never seen myself as thin--not without hearing those voices telling me that "I was OK, but if I could just lose weight here and here, then I could be happy". Whatever the reasons--there I was--and I can't say it was a very fun place to be. No one knew how unhappy I was then--hell, I didn't even know myself...

Now all of this may seem silly to someone who has been REALLY overweight--to the point of being obese--so I recognize that many people with extreme problems like this would have been happy to be in my position of having my problem. After all, even at my heaviest I fell well within the government guidelines for what was healthy for someone my age and height (which should tell you that those guidelines are ridiculous, because I was in no way, shape, or form healthy) But that doesn't mean that this issue had any less of an effect on my life--after all, all of our problems are relative. The sad fact is--I wasn't really taking care of myself. Stress meant that lunch was often a muffin and a frappacino and there was no time for excercise with all the work that had to get done all day long, and I had to work from about 2 PM until 8 or 9, and by then, I was ready to go home and veg on the couch. The only walks I took were to go across the street to Ben and Jerry's after dinner--and this was before they had their delicious low-fat line of ice cream!! LA Car culture had me in its grip--Brentwood was seized and in the national eye (this was during the whole OJ scene--and I lived pretty close to the condo where the murder happened, so traffic was a bitch!) The whole vibe of life at that time was pretty fucked up. It was clear I had to do SOMETHING--make a change--make it big, and make it right away!

Then I moved to the beach. Talk about life-changing moves. Connecting with the ocean on a daily basis has allowed me to stay in touch with the things that are really important--energy flow and calm. All else flows from there. And slowly my life started to change. I cannot diet--have never had the willpower to do that successfully, and to me, it feels so unnatural. I needed to find a way to make my life healthy in such a way that I could follow that path indefinitely. And I think I have been successful. Here is what I have done to make those kinds of changes in my life. (I now comfortably wear the size 6 or 7 I should BTW). I still eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. All of the weight I gained is now gone-- and I am determined that it won't come back.


Do you think I needed to lose weight ? Well, believe it or not, even here, the voices were raging....

Which leads me to my second problem. Those Fat Voices that just don't know how to quit. Every day is an effort to make peace with them. But at least now--the facts are on my side. I eat healthily. I exercise almost every day. I take time out to quiet my mind. I AM taking care of myself, and I have nothing to apologize for. Not even to myself. Not even when I push all my own buttons. Moderation in all positive things is the key to true success and happiness (I just drop my Sagittarian/Fire sign love for excess a notch or two as a concession to that requirement --and it usually works!) Fortunately, that also reminds me that I can't be TOO harsh on myself. I have to cut myself at least a little slack. the messages are not going to stop. Not from the media. Not from my head. But my reaction to them is softening. Day by day....it's working....just a little bit....

Here is what I did, and my suggestions for how you can take control of your own life and be as happy as you can and should be.