Recycled Body Image

Today I went to the gym.  Yeah, big deal, I know, right?  Sure, I’ve heard of these strange creatures who make it a daily occurrence.  Once, a long, long time ago, I used to be one of them.  I only recently started going to this particular gym again after an almost four year hiatus.  I will not waste your time and mine detailing all of the excuses for such a long break. Instead I will just say: child.

After a quick shower today, as I struggled to get my not-quite-dry body into the leg holes of my skinny jeans (me thinks this could be an olympic sport), I was reminded of another time in that very same locker room, a time before child.  Instead of rehashing all my various views on body image, I am regurgitating some that that locker room inspired some four-and-a-half years ago.  (Perhaps it will inspire me to write something new, or at least go to the gym more often.)

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Shameless
(first published 4/12/2008 at pretty please me)

Feet firmly planted in a wide stance, knees slightly bowed she stood in front of the full-length mirror, naked for all the world to see – at least all the world currently inhabiting the women’s locker room. She was not naked in the transition from swimsuit to sweat pants or the one from towel to tank top, she was just plain ol’ naked. Her flesh was not hidden by the open door of a locker or a strategically placed duffle bag. She stood in the sink area away from the lockers and the other semi-clad women. She flossed her teeth as one roll of fat rested upon another around her middle and her breasts draped across that, her nipples like two cherries on her melting sundae best.

I caught a glimpse of her on my way to the toilet and thought about her the whole time I was peeing. I have not been consistent in my views on public nudity. On the one hand, I had to give her a silent, “Right on, Sister!” for displaying with pride her whole self. On the other hand, isn’t it polite to show a little more modesty and a little less mons pubis when removing clothes in front of others? By the time I made it to the sink, the first hand had won – hands down. As if to answer my question of modesty, the fat, naked, grandma – still in front of the mirror – took a swig of mouth wash and began to gargle. Her short dark hair stood at attention in all directions, much like the mane of lion who’d had a run-in with an electric fence. Like the queen of her pride, she began to arch her head back; I could almost hear her Listerine-scented roar: “Damn right I am naked. I own my body, and right now I own the whole damn locker room. Whatcha gonna do about it?” Grandma arched until the back of her skull was level with her ample bottom, gargling the whole way.

In my mind, she is still arching backwards. The image of the naked, lioness grandma is tattooed on my brain (it wouldn’t fit on my ankle). I have spent years practicing my awkward dance of trying to avoid nipple or pubic hair exposure while changing in front of others. I have balanced a bra here and shimmied a skirt there in order to keep from view no more than a square foot of my fleshy real estate. Why?

When I was a kid, I was naked all of the time; I showered in front of my mother and sister right through the sixth grade. Even in high school I had a group of friends with whom I’d roam the halls, and the woods, sans clothes. It wasn’t even a sexual thing (most of the time); we just enjoyed being naked. I still enjoy being naked. My husband sometimes has to give me a not-so-gentle reminder that we “live in a goddamn fishbowl!” so that I will put on a robe or turn off the lights.

The locker room has been a different story for me. Perhaps I fear the scrutiny of others; if I keep a towel around my waist they won’t be able to see exactly how many dimples reside on the flesh of my bottom.  Further, I seek not to offend. I don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable by subjecting them to a fuller view than they had anticipated. I want to be polite.

Wow! What a load of BS!! Who the hell cares how many dimples I have on my ass? Why should it matter if a nipple or two comes into contact with an eyeball or two? Who made these stupid rules, and why the hell have I been politely following them?

Grandma makes her own rules, and I thought of her today as I emerged from the public shower post work out. Instead of awkwardly squirming and wriggling to make myself invisible while I reached for my towel, I stood up straight and dried myself as I would in the privacy of my own home. I took my time getting dressed. I didn’t quite make it to flossing in the buff, but I didn’t hide either. As ridiculous as the image of a naked, gargling grandma may be, it is not nearly as ridiculous as the concept of a grown woman so afraid of revealing her own body that she foolishly dances with her towel to avoid, at all costs, the dreaded exposure of a nipple. Right on, Grandma! By the time I’m sixty, I hope to be gargling right along side you.

My Boobs Rate!

Several months ago, I tired of the generic looking graphic design that Gravatar  assigned to me as a profile picture every time I left a comment on someone else’s blog.  It bothered me enough that I actually went to the trouble of opening my Gravatar account  and messing with the settings.

Logging in alone was no small feat — I am not a master IT person by any stretch (it is by the shear grace of god — or Al Gore? — that I don’t still have an AOL account; you get the picture?).  I twiddled and poked (wow, that sounds kinda wrong — I hope it doesn’t alert the censors), and finally managed to upload a photo as my profile picture.  Not surprisingly, I chose the image that is the masthead for my blog — my fantastic nursing-era cleavage and my infant’s hand aiming to cop a feel.  I followed all the rules, and was delighted to see my picture staring back at me when I looked at my own Gravatar profile.

Weeks passed, and I began to notice that when I commented on other blogs, I was still faced with some stupid, abstract image sitting next to my words rather than the picture I had uploaded.  Flummoxed, I bravely journeyed again into the dim world of my Gravatar settings.  There my own breasts sat, happily staring back at me under the gentle hand of my sweet, nursing infant.  I made sure that I had selected the picture.  I uploaded other pictures.  I re-uploaded the original picture to see if it might take on the second go-around.  No dice.

For over a year now, I have bean grimacing in disbelief and bewilderment every time I see some random graphic displayed next to my witty and thought-provoking (OK, maybe I am exaggerating) typed comments.  It has bugged me like that piece of popcorn that sometimes gets lodged in one of my tonsils for a day or two.   I am annoyed by it, but find myself feeling impotent.  It just becomes this vague nagging knowledge that something is not quite right (God, I hope it’s not made my breath stink like the popcorn does).

Tonight, I tired of it again, and despite my lack of luck with the popcorn, I decided to refocus my energies on the problem of the missing picture.  I must have pushed some new buttons or pulled down some new menus.  Or maybe they have just dumbed down the system making it easier for dimwitted AOL heads like me.  Tonight, with relative ease, I discovered the problem:  my boobs!  I haven’t decided yet if my official stance is flattered or annoyed.  Perhaps I am standing in two spots?

Apparently, some person (or program — wow!  Can you imagine, a whole program just looking for boobs like mine?) deemed my boobs unworthy of a “G” rating.  That’s right, biatches!  My boobies are “PG” (at least according to some entity at Gravatar).  Personally, I like to imagine that this “entity” is some delicious slice of tall dark and handsome who had to take extra time scrutinizing my overflowing cups and marveling at the cute, dimpled knuckles on my infant’s adorable digits.  Regardless of the sort of package this entity comes in (hee-hee, I just said “package” and “comes” in the same sentence — censor that!), it has declared my boobage unfit for general audiences.  As a result, anytime I’ve left a comment on a blog with a “G” rating, Gravatar has graciously protected the public at large from my offending cleavage.

For a moment, I am tempted to jump on the nursing-mothers-who-think-that-Facebook-is-evil-for-editing-nursing-shots bandwagon.  Alas, I am too busy celebrating the fact that for the first time in my life someone (ok, maybe it was  a program.  Who cares!  They are pretty smart you know.  Why you gotta hate?) noticed my boobs!  I’ve been waiting for this day since the sixth grade!

Unfortunately, such unprecedented attention has caused me to remove my fantastic cleavage shot from my Gravatar profile.  Isn’t that just the way it is; as soon as you notice someone’s boobs, poof!  They are hidden from view.

Really, Jillian?

photo courtesy of: http://dizzypixel.smugmug.com/Portraits/Mosa-Laren/9711890_xpmZZk#!i=340240808&k=pXPqd

For almost a year now, I have been cultivating a love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels.  She’s gorgeous, and her workouts make my body hurt in the most delightful way.  My envy of her tiny thighs and concave belly have enabled me to tolerate some of the drivel that spews forth incessantly from the well-glossed hole between her attractively sunken cheeks.

I read somewhere once on the magical interwebs that she is merely an actress who is given a script that tells her how to tell people how to workout.  The story said she had no real knowledge of exercise science or even basic anatomy.  Doing her videos, I am sometimes able to find support for this claim — she turns her head the wrong way during stretches sometimes, and (perhaps the production quality is to be blamed for this) I’ve seen her skip entire sets — we never do the left side of those stinkin’ rows, Bitch!

I have been tolerating her inability to count and her lengthy motivational speeches (even when they force me to continue doing squat thrusts past the predetermined stopping point) because I am seeing results.  I hate her more than ever during those undocumented seconds when she’s telling me that, “Transformation is a present activity,” and I am drenched in my own fluids and contemplating calling 911.  Despite this, I have come to appreciate some of what she’s saying (even though she often chooses to say it when the set at hand should have ended already and I am nearly dead).  Like beer or sautéed onions, I have acquired a taste for her.

But the other day Jillian said something that kinda makes me wanna punch her in the face (not in the rock hard abs — my fists aren’t that strong).  While I lay on the floor, thrusting my legs in the air and bringing them back down to the floor at even intervals, sweat pooling in a small, salty sea around me, the lovely ladies of Thirty Day Shred smiling down at me from the TV, Jillian pissed me off.  No, for reals.  Her toes pointed towards the top edge of my TV screen, slightly to the left of the center of her body, engaging her obliques, she said, “The obliques are those really cool V-muscles in your lower abs.  Usually only men get these, but we girls can get them, too, with a little bit of work… maybe a lot of work.”

Really, Jillian?  We girls?  Now, I am not much of a feminist, but this kinda bugs the bejeebers out of me, and I am shocked that such a strong WOMAN would lump herself in with “girls” especially when she’s using the word to directly compare females to “men.”  In fact, it is this comparison specifically that unnerves me.  If she were just talking about her “girls,” as she often does, it wouldn’t even be a blip on my radar.  Using the words, “Men” and “Girls,” to describe supposed equals is disturbing. Perhaps this further gets under my (taught, muscle-stuffed) skin because I have actually done one of Jillian’s workouts with a  MALE personal trainer, and it kicked his sorry, muscle-bound ass.  Seriously.  He was huffing and puffing to keep up with the girls — Jillian and me.

Her statement annoys me in the way the old Secret deodorant ads used to: “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.”  I fully get that men and women are different — they have different anatomies, different hormones, different ways they’d totally get with Jillian if given the chance (assuming she’d shut her trap for a minute), but why make what a woman needs or wants or can build muscularly dependent on a man?  Presuming that a woman might need something “strong enough for a man” or “usually only gotten by men,” keeps women in the paradigm where they are still being compared to men, trying to live up to men, failing to be as good or as strong or as macho as men.  Fuck that.  And I certainly don’t want to be compared to men (whom I, more often than not, see sporting beer bellies rather than six-packs) when I am sweating my guts out, my own six pack peeking out from beneath my ribs.

Hey, Jillian, referring to us as “girls” and telling us that we might someday achieve what usually is only possible for men undermines the beautiful example of a strong, female roll model  I want to see in you.  I have laminated pictures of you adhered to my fridge with magnets.  This doesn’t mean I am a crazy stalker (mostly); it means I have mad respect for you and the hard work you have done to mold your body.  Don’t undermine it by belittling the hard work I am doing to mold mine.  Don’t pull that shit, Jill.  I will put up with your failure to count reps, your doofy fart jokes and your unconvincing scowl, but don’t call me a girl and then compare me to men.  That just perpetuates myths that I would like to think died a long time ago.  ’K, Jill?

Parenting Tip of the Day:

Take compliments where you can get ‘em; “Mom, you smell hot,” totally counts.

Boob Juice

My daughter was born on a Wednesday.  The following Monday, we made our way back to my OBGYN for the first post-delivery check up.  It wasn’t quite the planned time for a check up, but my not-quite-planned- C-section was oozing various substances, and, although we hadn’t planned on ooze either,  we thought the doctor ought to have a look.

As I sat in the waiting room with my husband and this new little creature we had known less than a week, my breasts tingled and leaked, the gaping incision below my belly button oozed and ached, and the remainder of what had been my child’s home for the last nine months dripped steadily out of me into a  giant pair of Depend-style disposable underwear (I hadn’t planned on these either).  I was awash with emotion and bodily fluids of various kinds.  Oh, and I hadn’t really slept since my daughter’s birth.

Sitting still, so as not to upset any of my fluid flow, I spotted a woman entering the waiting room.  Her straight hair was dark and glossy, and her designer maternity jeans flattered her already small and perky booty — she was one of those women who doesn’t look pregnant when viewed from the rear.  The waiting room was crowded and loud, so she was forced to sit down fairly close to me and my various drips (to date, I don’t think I have ever been leaking from quite so many places — if only I’d had a cold, too).

Now that she was closer, I could see that her modern and stylish engagement ring glistened almost audibly next to her matching wedding band whilst neither made her finger flesh bulge due to water retention, or God forbid, weight gain.  She sat with her small, dainty feet close together, knees pressed together, making obvious her charm school pedigree.  In all honestly, I don’t recall her shoes, but in my imagination, they are penny-loafers, and she actually has the pennies in them, two Lincoln profiles shining up at her in perfect copper-colored symmetry.

As I sat thinking about how badly I had to pee and began to fantasize about whether it was worth it to risk waking my daughter and/or leaving a trail of my own DNA on my way to the bathroom, the woman reached into her smart leather purse with a tassel on the zipper, and pulled out her spiral-bound, “Essential Pregnancy Organizer.”  After quickly locating a heavy pen in what I am sure was a “pen section” in her purse, she began to make some notes on the crisp, glossy pages.  I wasn’t close enough to see her handwriting, but I am sure it was as perky and bubbly as her seemingly-un-pregnant ass.

I stared, agape, at this woman whose offspring I am sure is now just a few months younger than my own (God, I hope he/she/it is a terror!).  While we were sitting mere inches from one another and we were both wearing maternity clothes (mine were not designer), I could not have been farther from this woman.  I had crossed the line from pregnant lady to mother, and there was no going back.

And this is the origin of this blog’s name: Boob Juice.  You see, I planned to be a mother — generally in my life, and specifically about ten months prior to my daughter’s birth.  I had seen lots of other women make the transition.  I had spent much of my life around babies and mommies.  Despite all of that, nothing could have prepared me for the gooey, sloppy, unplanned mess that motherhood is.  I was overcome by the tidal wave of emotion and bodily fluids (my daughter’s and my own).

I am sure that smart woman diligently recording her thirty-second-week checkup in her glossy pregnancy planner planned to lactate, to breastfeed, as did I, but once the Creature was on the outside of my body, Boob Juice seemed like a much more apt description than lactation.

Motherhood is awash in juices, bodily and creative, and I like to think that one of the benefits of this messy, free-flowing life I now lead is the creative juice that leaks out of my brain.  Of course, it is probably also due in part to sleep deprivation, but I love the analogy of this nurturing, essential substance, that is so rich and abundant flowing freely from me.  Sure, sometimes I am just a leaky boob (in the stupid awkward sense), but sometimes, I hope, I provide some essential nutrients, at least to my own soul.

While I don’t wish leaky fluids on anyone (OK, maybe that’s not entirely true — I don’t wish pus-oozing surgical wounds on anyone), I hope that that woman in the waiting room, now a mother in full bloom, is allowing herself to get messy, to be milked, to flow, to drip on the formerly pristine, glossy pages of her planner.  I aspire to frolic in the boob juice, both the nutritive and awkward variety, and bask in the unplanned, juicy mess that is motherhood.

Workout Partner

I have been addicted to exercise videos (off and on) for a really long time — as evidenced by the fact that I still call them videos, I suppose.  My collection contains at least fifty different workouts both on VHS and DVD.  Yes, in my exercise room there is a whole shelf of VHS tapes featuring legwarmer-clad weightlifting goddesses.

Usually, I do these workouts in my precious alone time, sans child.  Recently, her father has been traveling a fair bit (thus limiting my alone time), and I have discovered that me foregoing exercise in order to minimize my child’s screen time is not good for either one of us.  It started innocently enough — I gave her some snacks and a book to look at so that she might keep herself occupied whilst I sweat out a few calories.

I have, it would seem, created a monster.  Yes, she still brings her snacks, but now she wakes up asking to workout, and she knows the instructors by name. “Let’s exercise! I want Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty [workout] number two!”  When her pleas are met with resistance on my part, they intensify, “Mama! We have to exercise.  It is good for my body and helps me feel healthy.”  Recently, my “Not right nows” have been answered with persistent tears.  Yeah.

Despite the fact that the Child’s new-found passion is mildly annoying at times (mostly the times before 7am when I would rather be asleep still) she has given me a wonderful idea.  I think I will market my own set of exercise videos that, instead of coming with weights or a stretchy pilates band-thingy, come with a two-year old.  You could just shrink-wrap the kid to the DVD.  I mean, I know I burned a few extra calories the other day trying to make sure I didn’t land my back kicks in her face and making sure not to drop my weights on her little toes.  Further, she offers added resistance by sitting on my stomach during my ab routine and hanging on to my booty while I am in side-plank.

In addition to being a daily reminder to exercise and added resistance during exercise, the Child also acts as a heart rate monitor — by requiring me to talk and explain things almost constantly during my workout, she keeps my heart rate in check.  Am I too winded to talk?  Uh-oh! Better tone down my jogging in place.

The other day, whilst patting my shaking leg as I held a particularly painful squat, she said, “I am Jillian.  I am helping you.”  So you see, I have a coach, too.  Really, with all the added benefits of toddler-aided exercise, it’s a wonder I ever thought to exercise without one.

Butt Girdles Don’t Come in Small

A little cross posting never hurt anyone, right? I just wrote the story that explains the name of my diet and exercise blog. I thought it might be worth sharing here. [Translation: it is almost midnight, and I just spent most of the night working on this piece, and I don't have it in me to write anything else, even a parenting tip.... well, maybe a parenting tip: If you want to make sure to post to your parenting blog on a daily basis, don't spend all your time writing a post for your diet blog.]

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You know when you’re buying a butt girdle…. oh, wait, you don’t, do you? Who the hell buys a butt girdle? Um, I did once (cue flashback music a-la Wayne and Garth)…

Once upon a time, I was in a play in Castro Valley. No, not The Castro. Castro Valley. I was cast as the lead — a sexy 1960′s witch. Hot, right? I beat out the only other person who auditioned for this coveted role. Given the extensive budget of the community theater that was staging this elaborate production, I was to provide my own wardrobe. It is noteworthy that much of the existing budget was spent on rescuing a live cat from the animal shelter as the script called for a feline to have a leading role as well. That poor cat was rescued and given the name, “Sweety.” I think I’d rather be euthanized.

Anyway, back to my wardrobe. I found, in the back of my closet, a long, slinky black dress that I hadn’t donned in ages. I tried it on in front of the director who readily agreed that it looked fabulous, and would be the perfect dress for the show. I was relieved that he liked it because I had thought my ass looked way too big in it, despite my vigorous and regular heart-rate-monitored workouts. “See?” I told myself, “Your giant ass is all in your head. Foolish girl! Stop being so self-critical!”

The next night I wore the dress again, and this time the director’s wife was in attendance. She pulled me aside after act I, and said, “Sweety (she wasn’t talking to or about the cat), that dress is not… flattering on you. You look thin on top, but it makes your hips look even bigger than they are.” I inhaled so deeply, my flaired nostrils must have rivaled my buttocks in size and fullness.

“Thank you,” I said with a smile and no external tears, “Thank you for being honest with me. I really appreciate it [and I kinda wanna punch you in the head]. Thank you!”

I immediately went to the director, and told him I couldn’t wear the dress, that I would find something bigger, and better (emphasis on the bigger). “Absolutely not!” he raged, “That dress is perfect, and you are going to wear it, and my wife is not the director, I am!”

With less than a month until the opening curtain (wait, would curtains provide enough material to fashion a new dress big enough to cover my ass?), there was no time for liposuction, and my already extensive exercise regime was not going to cut it (so to speak). I went to the director’s wife, this time the tears were nearly on the outside. “What can I do?” I said. She sighed and did her best to look me in the eye, not the butt. Silence. “I know!” I said, “I can go buy some sort of shaping garment (girdle was not yet part of my vocabulary).” What I expected her to say was, “No, sweety (again, not the cat), it’s not that bad. The week you spent exercising since my initial disgust has done wonders! Your butt looks so much smaller, and say, is it me, or did your boobs get bigger, too? You know, I have a friend who’s an agent for models….”

OK, maybe I didn’t expect her to say all that, but I wasn’t prepared for her to say, “Yeah, that’s a good idea! You could find something to wear that would trim your hips.” Oh the suffering! Again, I took a deep breath, and on a sunny, beautiful day, I set out to the land of butt girdles: Walmart.

Upon arrival, it was a challenge to even find what I was looking for. Unlike electronics, or toddler girls’ clothes, the “shape wear” section (as I learned to call it) was not very well marked, and screw me if I was actually going to ask someone where to find the stinking girdles.

I finally found a sub-section of the underwear department that had lots of stuff with pictures of Queen Latifah on the over-sized labels. This must be it. I sorted through a collection of what appeared to be bike shorts for people with crazy butts that might, at any moment, try to escape and needed restraining much like inhabitants of an asylum need straight jackets.

I had made peace with the fact that I was buying a restraint for my ass, that I would don it under my skin tight (stupid, ugly, unflattering) dress and walk on stage in front of a paying audience. Right, so I may have body dysmorphia, but I knew that I had to be on the smaller end of the spectrum of those purchasing butt girdles. If I was going to subject myself to the humiliation of buying a girdle for my ass, please, at least let it be small, heck, extra small could do in a pinch! Med, Large, Extra Large, XXL. Where the hell were the small butt girdles?

I certainly wasn’t going to sink to asking a Walmart employee for help. Could they really be sold out? At Walmart? Really? Finally, I stopped staring at one of the many glossy portraits of Queen Latifah, and flipped a tag over to find a sizing chart which, I noticed, was also sorely lacking a size small. Seriously? They don’t even make small butt girdles?

Let me pause for a moment to say, that if I am ever in the business of making plus-sized clothing — butt girdles specifically — I would label those suckers, “small, extra-small, extra-extra-small, and ultra petite.” I mean really! Give a girl a break! She’s already sunken to buying restraining underwear, at least let it be the one thing in her closet that says, “small.”

Dejected, and nearly in tears already, I headed to the dressing room with an armful of size medium butt girdles, numerous pictures of Queen Latifah in various poses from “sporty” to “sultry” staring up at me.

“I’d like to try these on, please,” I said to the Jabba-esque woman behind the laminate desk, trying not to show her what exactly “these” were.

“You can’t try those on.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t try those on. Those are underwear, and you can’t try underwear on in the store.”

“Wait, so I can go home and try them on?”

“Well, I guess, but then you’d have to keep them. Underwear are not returnable.”

“I am sorry, I can’t try them on, and they are not returnable? How am I supposed to know if they fit?”

“Mmm-mmm-nnno.”

It took all the restraint in my body (I imagine I would have had more had I been wearing a butt girdle already), to let a quiet thank you slip from my lips as I set my armload of Queen Latifah restraints in front of the woman’s heaving bosom, and walked away. I was already crying by the time I squeezed my ass into the car.

I cried all the way to Macy’s where I was able to try on and purchase a butt girdle — still size medium, god dammit!

At the next rehearsal I modeled the dress with my new undergarment firmly in place. Great efforts were made to assure me that it looked much better — a totally new and smaller rear had surely taken the place of my existing ass-trosity. “Sweety, (I was beginning to get an inkling who named that poor cat) you look great,” cooed the director’s wife as her husband scowled at her from the front row.

The play opened, and closed. Each night, I spent most of act I (the act of the dress) trying to strategically carry that poor, small cat around in front of my hips while walking sideways so as not to reveal the depth of my booty. I even got reviewed as having “narrow shoulder’s,” which I translated to mean, “Wow! Look how narrow her shoulders are in relation to her ass! She looks like a Russian stacking doll with the first three heads removed!” I have not worn the dress to since.

I do still have the butt girdle, hidden somewhere in the dark recesses of my closet, but I have sworn an oath to myself that the waistband, with its stupid size medium tag, will never again make its way over my knees. When I want to eat boatloads of chocolate, or sleeping in instead of working out seems like a superior option, I think of my butt girdle, and how donning it again would be far more painful than any diet or exercise program I could ever conjure up. I’d sooner carry that poor rescue kitty around in front of my hips for all eternity than ever again wear a butt girdle, even if it came in size small.

Healthy Diet

I have heard before that the best way for a parent to lose weight is just to do everything her child does. Tiny humans burn mega calories, and simply by trying to keep up with them, theoretically, we could do the same. But exercise is challenging. It makes you sweat and stuff. Gross.

The problem of maintaining a girlish figure is further compounded by the food our children practically force us to eat — peanut butter and jelly sandwich-rinds and leftover mac’n'cheese do not a thin mom make.

Leave it to my daughter to lead the way in demonstrating an effective and easy way to lose weight through diet alone. At this rate, my mom jeans will be baggy in no time! Behold, the Dyslexic Diet: