An Inspiring (Work)Book, A Godsend of a Substack, and A Chaotic PB&J
Plus: The Talented Mr. Bieber (SERIOUSLY!)
Awooo, body acceptance is a LONG! TOUGH! JOURNEY! And I’m just getting started. So in the spirit of accepting my new and bigger body, I did a few things this week to set me on the right path forward.
I bought Body Talk: How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life, by of , whom I’ve mentioned here and here. Katie has BLOWN UP recently, and if you don’t know why, here’s the CliffsNotes version: In March, Sima Sistani, the CEO of Weight Watchers, appeared on An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution for a conversation that many say seemed like an infomercial for weight loss drugs. The next day, Katie (respectfully) called out Sima for not apologizing for Weight Watchers’s role in diet culture. WELL, Sima saw this and ACTUALLY APOLOGIZED! This led to another Oprah special - Making the Shift: A New Way to Think About Weight where Katie, Sima, celebs, doctors, and some regular folks had a much more body positive conversation about weight and diet culture. It was three hours long and I was riveted! Katie’s really making changes. 💪 Body Talk is part workbook, part self-love guide, and ALL adorableness with cute illustrations. And it’s so inspiring to see how Katie went from insecure “Heaviest Kid” in class (literally - they told her that when her classmates were all weighed in front of each other…can you imagine?!) to the badass body advocate she is today!
I signed up for ’s membership level, and BOY, am I happy I did! Dacy, who I’ve written about here, is a stylist who helps women discover their authentic style by using principles of Health at Every Size (HAES), and listening to what clients REALLY WANT to wear (and not what society and influencers tell them to wear). A perfect example is her Substack post titled Can Stylists All Just Shut Up About "Defining A Waist?" Dacy’s Unflattering membership is choc full of amazing resources, including a CRAZY organized and consistently updated spreadsheet of over 250 retailers sorted by size, price, style, and sustainability. 😲 That alone is worth the price of admission! Dacy’s community is SUPER warm, kind, and lovely as well. 💗
I promised I’d try - *TRY* - my hardest not to let thoughts of food distract me from enjoying myself. Years ago, during my third attempt at Weight Watchers, I was flipping through the channels when The War of the Worlds came on. I’d never seen it so stopped to watch, when suddenly, I became TRANSFIXED by Tom Cruise spreading peanut butter on bread to make PB&J’s. All I could think was, “Is he SERIOUS?! Does he not know how many Weight Watchers points are in a mere two tablespoons of peanut butter?! And he’s just taking this HUGE wooden spatula and globbing on like - twenty tablespoons without a care in the world?” He must’ve put my entire day’s worth of points onto that bread and it was like watching a freaking horror movie. It totally pulled me out of the experience. Unfortunately, I still have feelings like this today. In Body Talk, Katie writes that she wants the book to serve as a tool to “free up valuable headspace so that you can focus on the things you’d rather be doing.” And so, I’m trying to get away from these intrusive thoughts that serve no purpose other than to deprive me of my enjoyment of a movie, or of life in general.
Peanut butter scene below. (It starts at the 1:25 mark and goes on for about a minute.)
THIS WEEK’S BRAIN CANDY 🍭🍫🍬
Last week, I introduced Uncle Ronnie’s newest feature - The BodyPop Questionnaire - which you can answer here! I’m BEYOND excited at the responses I’ve gotten so far and can’t WAIT for everyone to meet these fab people and hear their wonderful recommendations! 💖 However, it seems a mystery guest is in our midst. 🤔 Someone filled out the questionnaire but forgot to write their name. So to the person who splits their time between Florida and Victoria, BC - can you please DM me and reveal yourself LOL? If you prefer to remain anonymous, not a prob and I’ll still publish your answers because you had some FAB ideas! 😄
The season three finale of Hacks aired and wow - is there anything better than Deborah and Ava’s complicated relationship?! Love this TikTok vid below pointing out Jean Smart’s comedic brilliance…all she has to do is give a LOOK!
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserOk, on most days, I couldn’t care less about Justin Bieber. HOWEVER, I find this video of him conducting REALLY COMPELLING. Most people (myself included) forget that he taught himself how to play MULTIPLE instruments by the time he was like, twelve. His talent here, plus his respect for and encouragement of the musicians (the violin soloist - holy shit!) is a really cool thing to watch.
Ummm, hi young and hot John Corbett! 🔥
Fun lil’ piece of trivia about Three’s Company.
Ok, I had NO idea that The Critics Choice Real TV Awards are a THING?! Like the Critics Choice Awards, but for reality TV? And I. AM. SEATED.
The thing is - the categories make reality TV seem so…legitimate?! (For example, Shark Tank is in the Best Business Show category, The Great British Baking Show falls under the Best Culinary Show category.) I’m ECSTATIC that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was nominated for Best Unstructured Series and Best Ensemble Cast in an Unscripted Series! BUT, I’m disappointed Heather Gay - who orchestrated the entire Salt Lake City season four finale including that mafioso moment where they met on the beach which led to this image of Meredith Marks that people said should be hung in The Louvre…
…and spoke the most iconic four words in Housewives history - wasn’t nominated for Female Star of the year. However, Phaedra Parks WAS nominated in this category, and totally deserved it, not only for her commitment to the bit of being a “murderer” on the second season of The Traitors, but really for this viral moment alone. And speaking of The Traitors - yay to Alan Cumming for being nominated in both the Best Show Host and Male Star of the Year categories! (And he totally would’ve won Best Wardrobe if that was a category because THOSE. OUTFITS. SLAYED!)
The Critics Choice Real TV Awards are taking place on Saturday, June 15th. (I don’t think they’re being filmed?) See the complete list of nominations here.
Alan Cumming deserves all the awards, all the accolades, all the good things in life!
I remember in science class in the first year of high school they weighed and measured the height of everyone in the class so we could practice graphs. I'd rather never have known what a graph is than be subjected to this level of horror!