The Fat Girl's Guide to Living

One of our first Fat Girl’s Guides covered how to practice yoga when your boobs and belly are, shall we say, significant enough to render certain poses difficult without a skilled instructor to offer alternatives. Now we’d like to offer our readers a free copy of Plus-Sized Yoga: Beginners Yoga for People of All Sizes by Donald Keith Stanley. A yoga student for many years, Stanley worked with yoga instructors and students to develop this guide for “the rest of us,” dispelling the myth that you have to look like a cover model to practice yoga. The book also covers the many benefits of yoga, including improved posture, stress relief, and improved focus and sleeping patterns – benefits Toni can happily attest to since returning to practice at the beginning of this year.

To enter, comment here with the FIRST word that comes to mind when you hear the word “yoga,” and you’ll be automatically entered in the drawing. (One entry per person and you must enter a valid email address).

The contest closes Wednesday, March 10 at 11:59 pm CST. A winner will be chosen at random from the comments, and will be notified by email within 24 hours after the contest closes.

Once upon a time, I was shy about wearing knee socks

While we’re lucky enough to have readers around the globe, it’s cold and gray where I live in the midwestern U.S. While I love winter, once the snow disappears and the sun goes into hiding for days on end, I start hankering for color. As a treat,  I bought some new nail polish in a shade I never wear: pearly pink. I couldn’t stop peeking at my beautiful toes – that one tiny choice just lit up my whole weekend, and I got such a thrill from stepping outside of my tried and true, earthy matte palette.

That’s where the challenge comes in: try on a new color you never wear, whether in your hair, on your nails, or in your wardrobe. Maybe you’ll find some tights or shoes in an awesome new color. Perhaps it’s time to hit the salon to finally add that vibrant red or funky purple to your hair. Maybe that tattoo you’ve been wanting for years is in order, or you can play around in photo editing software to give yourself a new eye color. Post a link to a photo (or add it to our FGG Girls Flickr Group and link to it from there), and tell us about your adventure with a new-to-you color. We’ll pick the challenger who steps the furthest outside of her comfort zone to win a prize.

Open call for Biggest Loser, by Pierre Lascott

We don’t typically cover weight loss on FGG because, let’s face it, you can’t throw a Weight Watchers cookie very far without hitting a diet or weight loss web site. It’s unoriginal, it’s redundant, and in the end that stuff usually does nothing for our body image and self-esteem.

Instead, we focus on how to enjoy a fun, active, enriching and rewarding life now instead of waiting until you’ve achieved some magic, “when I’m ______” criteria. And it’s in that spirit, not the deflating spirit of “self-correction,” that I’m posting this guide. Stay with me.

I’ve seen five or six episodes of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” and I have markedly mixed feelings about it. On one hand it’s inspiring and the human stories are fascinating. Who wouldn’t be moved by those transformations, and by what they suggest about our own possibilities?

On the other hand, it’s disconcerting. Losing that much weight in such a short a time period isn’t healthy, the sequestered and intensive means by which they do it aren’t sustainable in the long term for most people, and the show is set up to be as melodramatic as possible. During every episode I’ve gone through bi-polar spells of disgust and intrigue.

I mentioned to a friend a month or two ago that it would be fun to take what’s great about the show, like the teamwork, the relationships and support, the mental rigor, leaving behind the drama, the backstabbing, the unhealthy obsessions – and create a small group of our own. We were in a rut, wanting to get back into shape but feeling uninspired. My friend said, “Why not?”

And that was all it took. Over the next few weeks I placed ads on Craigslist for people with at least 50 pounds to lose, set up a local web site and NING social network, got a gym to sponsor us with deeply discounted membership and other perks, and then waited until kick-off day on January 1, 2010. I crossed my fingers that at least 15 people would show up.

I walked through the gym doors that morning to a crowd of more than 30 very excited, motivated men and women ready to dig in. And dig in we have. The outpouring of support from sponsors and the gym staff has been incredible, and the group has already started bonding into friendships with a mischievous twist of healthy competitive spirit. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Many organizations have started hosting biggest loser-like competitions for employees, but if yours doesn’t, or you’re not working,

We defined group criteria
My friend and I felt that to be most able to identify with each other’s struggles and to feel most comfortable in a group, it made sense to recruit people who had a similar amount of weight to lose. We decided 50 pounds was a good number, and was doable and healthy in six months for a person committed to those goals. And we wanted committed: no wishy-washy, victim mentalities to drag down group morale allowed. Each member had to commit to attending at least one of two official monthly meetings (one of those would be a weigh-in). Those requirements, and being at least 18 years of age, were our only criteria.

We defined challenge parameters
Like the show, we wouldn’t be relying on the highest number of actual pounds lost to determine the winner, but the percentage of body weight lost. Each month the biggest loser that month will receive a sponsored prize, and the grand prize goes to the person who loses the highest percentage of body weight overall by the final weigh-in.

We also decided we’d split the group into teams to get people fired up and accountable to a group. That turned out to be a good move: as soon as we started planning team challenges, the buzz and activity in the group went WAY up. Winning teams get prizes for the whole team – like dinner out, or free haircuts from a local salon.

We set the group up to revolve mostly around two things: a NING social network and the sponsor gym, with some extra activities like hiking, bowling and healthy dinner parties set up separately.

When setting member dues, we we needed to decide if we’d charge only what the gym was charging us – $25/month per member for full access – or upcharge to cover time and administrative details. Because there were few if any other expenses associated with managing the group, and because we wanted as many people as possible to be able to participate, we chose not to charge more than the $25. That made logistics easier, too, as the gym collects payment automatically and we just need to show up.

We spread the word far and wide
We drew up flyers and left them at libraries and on post office counters, we created a basic web site and placed ads in Craigslis’s community groups section, then we emailed all our friends and family and recruited them to email theirs, too. The more the merrier, and we knew the more people we had involved, the less chance there was of the group fizzling out within the first few weeks.

We created a sponsor kit to get local businesses excited
The Biggest Loser is a national hit, and achievement against the odds for people in transformation is addicting to an audience. A local version of that combination with a well-thought-out plan and good materials was compelling to sponsors, and we’ve brought some great ones, including Subway, on board. We gave them each a sheet with the prize slots we still needed to fill, along with recommended values for each, and let them choose what best met their goals and budget.

For their sponsorship, they’ll receive a linked logo on our web site, mention in all our materials and press releases, and an invitation to each weigh-in, including theirs, where they can present their prize to the winner in person.

We got busy getting busy
Nothing is more motivating than seeing other people in action and enjoying it, and energy begets energy in a bonded group. We injected lots of energy into the initial weigh-ins and “before photos” to be sure we didn’t lose momentum during everybody’s “ugh” moments.

Then we wasted no time getting our “gym legs” – setting up small group meets, signing up for classes together, showing each other how to use this piece of equipment or play that game. The more we work out together, the more we WANT to work out together – in fact, I’ve been to the gym every day this week and have yet to not run into at least a couple of other group members while I’m there. I predict big successes for this group.

It’s now taken on a life of its own, and I’m loving it. I’ve made 30+ new friends, have new partners in crime for things I want to try but felt too self-conscious to do in the past, and have a whole team of people pulling me on, and vice versa, should the urge to give up set in. No matter who wins six months from now, in less than a week we’ve all changed course of our lives.

So if you’re looking for an engine for your own efforts to get in shape, why wait? Pick up the phone or open up a blank email, recruit a good friend to help, and get busy planning your big win. And when you get sucked in and start having a great time, too, we’d love to hear all about it.

Ready…set? GO.

“Better than Chocolate” – clitoral vibrator by Nomi Tang

Whew! The first Wednesdays of each month are quickly becoming known as “sexy Wednesdays” around here, with Peony’s hot new monthly column, Sex and the Single Fat Girl, and now a sexy giveaway from brand new FGG sponsor Eden Fantasys.

Popular blogger, FGG reader and sexy Eden Fantasys liaison, Cecily Kellogg, wants to give away a decadent Better than Chocolate clitoral vibrator to one lucky reader. To enter, comment here with a one-liner about your favorite chocolate snack or dessert, be sure to enter a valid email, and you’ll be automatically entered.

Contest closes Saturday, January 9, at 11:59 pm PST. A winner will be chosen at random from the comments, and will be notified by email within 24 hours of contest close. Only one enter per person.

Good luck, ladies!

I realize that not everyone owns an iPhone, or even wants to. But one look around any public space and you’ll notice that like it or not, the smartphone is here to stay. The good news: the technology is rapidly advancing in terms of performance and the array of inexpensive downloads (known as “applications,” or “apps”) available to users. These babies are only going to get better, faster, and able to perform more tasks to simplify and amplify our lives. Even if you have no immediate plans to purchase an iPhone, there are some good web sites associated with some of these apps that are worth checking out.

Shopping – Red Laser is the first app I discovered (thanks to my friend Jennifer) that made me feel like the new millennium had finally arrived. Sure, we don’t have jetpacks or flying cars (yet), but we can use our phones to scan stuff to compare prices! That’s close, right? Okay maybe not, but still . . . it’s a simple, cool, useful app you can use to instantly comparison shop in ways we’ve never really been able to do before. The down side: it only compares prices among a set amount of retailers, but I’d watch for this one to expand. For groceries, Grocery IQ and Shopper are handy grocery list apps (I use Shopper but wish it had a menu planning function) and Relish has a seriously delicious-looking app for meal planning and shopping (and making our foodie columnist Michelle drool) and Big Oven has a free app that lets you browse their burgeoning recipe database.

Nutrition & Fitness Tracking – Not all of our readers are looking to lose weight, but for those who are, the SparkPeople iPhone app received props from our readers when we gave a shout-out for faves on Twitter. Membership on SparkPeople is free, and it works a lot like Weight Watchers, My Food Diary, and other sites that allow you to track food intake and exercise – and it’s free! (We love that!). Speaking of Weight Watchers, members can take their points with them via the Weight Watchers Mobile app, which is also free.

Health & Wellness – hLog is a comprehensive app that tracks your overall health, including medications, sleep cycles, and other information.  GoMeals helps diabetics track nutritional information, find nearby restaurants, and record daily food intake. Diabetes Pilot allows users to record blood glucose levels, insulin doses, and produces trends summarizing your diabetes care. There are even apps to track your menstrual cycles – yes, really. For time zone and otherwise numerically challenged people like me, this is ideal (though I just circle the date on my wall calendar). iPeriod estimates your future periods and also helps you predict ovulation, for girls who are trying to conceive. New millennium, indeed. ShapeWriter is a company dedicated to making typing easier and more intuitive. For those of us with tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, having easier ways to type that put less stress on overused tendons is definitely worth considering. Finally, I use Ambiance daily for relaxation while meditating and background music while working, and there are tons of white noise sounds to help you get to sleep.

Good Eats – Urban Spoon offers city-specific restaurant recs, and I love the simplicity of TripAdvisor’s Local Picks. And not to tempt you Starbucks addicts too much, but they have two positively dreamy apps: one to find the nearest ‘bux and another to record the balance on your Starbucks card. Hello Vino is a free app that pairs the perfect wine with whatever you’re dining on at the moment.

Just for Fun – I may have an addiction to Words with Friends (a Scrabble knockoff with a social networking twist) and Crosswords, but they’re relatively healthy and inexpensive brain workouts compared to my former Starbucks jones. The Gratitude Journal and Vision Board apps are not only a blast to use, but they’re a perfect way to kick off a new year by giving thanks and dreaming big. I included this one just for Tee: Star Walk is a stargazing guide that shows phases of the moon, meteor showers, and constellations. Tell me that isn’t fun! And just today, I just discovered the Lego Photo app, which instantly turns your photos you into bright plastic brick works of art – for free.

Before You Buy - Talk to your friends and ask them about their favorite apps – a fun rite of passage for new iPhone owners. You’ll be sure to get an earful and/or an inbox filled with suggestions. A quick shout-out on Twitter (using Tweetie2, my favorite Twitter app) asking people for their favorite apps related to any topic under the sun will net you at least a few good responses. Also, read reviews before you buy and write them afterward; developers want to keep customers coming back and will listen to your requests for tweaks and additions. Finally, many apps associated with social media sites are free – like the flickr and Facebook applications, allowing you to bring your friends with you wherever you go.

So, girls: dish on your favorite iPhone apps, fat-girl-specific or not. And from all of us at FGG, have a wonderful new year!

I’ll even add a hot sparkle for emphasis

As 2009 lumbers on out of here, taking the first decade of the new century with it, we thought this would be a great opportunity to bid the year farewell. Why? Looking back and letting go allows us to make room for new and better things to enter our lives.

We know how hard women can be on themselves, and we fat girls can sometimes be even more brutal in our self-talk. So today we invite you to use the comments to kiss off whatever didn’t serve you in 2009. I’ll post in the comments, too. Ready? Set? Pucker up!

My self-portrait project was both scary and liberating

Can you tell we love to see your self portraits? We’re always elbowing you to get in on the FGG Girls Flickr group, and now we’re willing to materially reward you for it. That’s because we know how powerful a self-portrait series can be…especially when grappling with body image.

So I’ll get right down to it. This week’s mid-week mini challenge is:

Join a Flickr self-portrait project group like 52 Weeks or 365 Days, upload your first self-portrait, then commit to at least one self-portrait each week for a year.

When you’ve joined the group and added your photo (which should be taken just for this project), come back here and link to that photo in comments. You’ll be entered to win the mini-challenge mystery prize, and we’ll choose a winner at random on December 31. As for the rest of next year, well…you’ll just have to be on the honor system to stick with it.

Deadline: 11:59 pm (PST) December 30, 2009. Edit: We’ve extended the challenge till the end of the first day of 2010 (11:59 pm PST on January 1, 2009)! Post links to your first 365 Days or 52 Weeks images in the comments either in this post or here.