Topic : 09/14 Season Premiere: 1,000 Women!

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To every woman who has ever struggled to accept her body: I recently attended the funeral of a family friend who lost her battle with cancer. The disease ravaged her, as she lost half her body's weight. The experience profoundly affected me, and my reflections prompted me to write you this letter in celebration of your body.I write to honor you, to honor your body, to honor every part you pull, lift, tuck, stretch, judge, tweak, hide, disguise, obsess about, and criticize. I honor every contour, every roll, every wrinkle, every pucker. I honor the "too fat" and the "too thin". I honor the perky, the jiggly, the firm, the round, the plump, the juicy, the knobby, and the saggy.I honor this creation, your soul's companion, as it embraces, rages, wails, caresses, howls, explores, nurtures, twists, bends supports, stumbles, crumples, expands, contracts, heals, destroys.I honor you and your beautiful, robust, strong, perfect body.

I am all for the empowerment of women and the idea of what Dr. Phil is trying to accomplish - however - How can Dr. Phil figure that giving those 3 women breast augmentations is empowering! Am I the only person who thought this was an insult? As women, we need to realize that our bodies look the way they do because of life experiences! You had a child? expect your breasts to change! Its a part of life! We need to be happy with ourselves, and Dr. Phil should be promoting self-improvement with out plastic surgery. The more women that do the surgery, leads to more women wanting to have the surgery - we need to see what we are doing to ourselves - its ugly.  

I am a big fan of Dr.Phil and all the wonderful things he does for people, but i found this "reward" of plastic surgery too much. There are bigger problems in the world today  

 saw it, via tv.  Weight issues, and body image.  Paula was nice. The girl who had anorexia, was truly sick, and i hope she gets better.  After seeing the show, and having had an eating disorder, I feel sorta confused. Of course I wached it, and understood it, but When i am setting at home on my couch, and look at MY own body, and start Naming parts that are wrong, it is rather triggering and makes me want to use those coping mechanisms of my eating disorder to feel better, and manage my weight.  Currently I am at a stable weight and my children are my lifesavers, But ...it didnt quite leave me feeling Empowered...just negative about myself.  "Thunder thighs, flat chest....tummy..." Ugg..

Where I definitely had a break from reality about my weight and appearance...I was NEVER psychotic.  Most anorexics aren't.  Psychosis is an ENTIRELY different diagnosis and not to be taken lightly.   

  

Common concurrent diagnonsenses (intentional error there) are Moderate to Severe Depression, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...there are many more. 

  

Even those who self-injure in addition to anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa are not "Psychotic".  They are in touch with reality.  We are pretty sure reality sucks, and that we should be punished or disappear.  It's not about vanity.  It may start that way for some, but truly the "I Feel Fat" is a cover up for an inability to voice deep and often primal emotions. 

  

I may be perfectly able to write a diatribe at the moment...rant and rave with the big vocabulary words, but if I'm truly upset and in eating disorder/low self-esteem mode I am hard pressed to go more than the "six year old" vocabulary. 

  

Therapist:  How do you feel? 

Me: (curled on couch, pouty face, sullen voice) I am sad. 

  

Hello, hi??  Is that how an articulate young woman speaks?  It's almost like aphasia when asked to reveal actual emotions and difficult feelings.  It took my therapist six months to pry out of me that PERHAPS my Mom was less than perfect.  (We were super enmeshed, I love her, but she is my best friend and my worst enemy, and a LOT of the time the Head Shrink with the drugs and the Counselor who have seen me at my WORST say I'm one of the saner people they've met.) 

  

And Obese or not?  A few pounds over your ideal, a BMI of 25 or more...is overweight.  Obese is 30.  THAT IS BIG.  That is VERY big. 

  

The difference between a BMI of 17 and the death camp look I had on my face and the rosy look of health and well being is a LARGE difference.  The weight of an average FIRST GRADER difference and it's NOT that many BMI points.  I'm still taller and smaller than the "Average" American woman...even after gaining 1/3 of a person.  I have had people say they were "sorry" when I'll laugh and say how much I've gained...I'm PROUD.  I'm alive and curvy in all the right places, I'm me sized and I wouldn't change it for the world.  Thanks to my team (Therapist, Nutritionist, Medical Doctor, and Psychologist for meds.) I eat what I want, when I want.  A little bit of everything.  I walk my dog and I do yoga.  That's it.  I fluctuate by maybe 5 pounds either way.  I'm not exactly sure.  I smashed my scale with a hammer. 

  

We're all "ME" sized, and MANY people have food issues.  You don't need to be a skeleton and on tube feedings to be dying and be doing damage.  By the time they are sticking tubes in you your body is PRETTY far gone and the damage is DONE.  Osteoporosis, kidney and live damage, heart damage...with the wasting of muscle come the wasting of the HEART...a muscle.  Eventually it EATS YOUR BRAIN. 

  

Chronic dieters with their "flabby arms" and "big bust" are putting themselves for malnutrition as well...diet pills, yo yo diets and food group restriction can have some of the same effects as prolonged anorexia. 

  

Per DSM-IV Revised edition anorexia nervosa has a BMI criteria, however the behaviors without the physical health symptoms can be classified as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified(EDNOS) with Anorexic features. 

  

For more information look at Something-Fishy.org or WebMD.  My friend and sister-of-the-heart in recovery has her story there. (On Web MD.) 

  

As grotesque as the show "Starved" can be...that's pretty much it.  I actually love it, but that's because I can look back and laugh at some of the things I've done because they didn't kill me and I've crawled out of that hell. 

Keep fighting. :) 

  

You are YOU sized.  Please don't be imprisioned by your pants.  Do you still see your therapist?  Have you looked into Something-fishy.org? 

  

Have you thought about smashing your scale to bits, or hiding it with a friend so you don't use it so often?   

  

You are much much more valuable than what a "simple machine"(physics geek) like a scale or caliper, clothes, tape measures or even the mirror can "tell" you.  They are incapable of determining your true worth. 

  

OH, read SARK. :)  The Play Journal and Succullent Wild Woman are excellent starting places if you haven't found her already. 

  

NO offense Dr. Phil. :)  You are neat too...but SARK is amazing and you should have her on your show. 

I am upset that Dr. Phil didn't ask two of the three women who are getting free breast augmentation if they ever plan to have children  -  and if they are if the said childrens health is important to them. 

Once women have beast augmentation or breast reduction, it becomes very difficult and most times imposible to breast feed.  I have known women who have had augmentation at a young age (early 20's) and regreted it.  I don't feel it right to help very young women who are just beginning to live their lives get something as invasive as breast augmentation.  A few years from now when one or more of the women on todays show has children and aren't able to feed their children in the most natural and healthy way, they most likely aren't going to be able to.  Dr. Phil, how can you sleep tonight knowing that you may be  affecting the health of a future child 

My sister and I concur! we just posted a similar message!!

 I am only 5 ft. and I weigh 124, but I can only eat about 700 calories a day, or my weight will soar. 

  

Have you talked to your doctor about this?  Gotten your thyroid checked?  Perhaps you might try excercise?  Even a walk around the block or light weight training can up your metabolism. 

  

What your diet of 700 calories a day is doing is stalling out your metabolism. 

  

I ate that many calories a day when I was deep in Anorexia...granted I also worked out like a maniac, ditching social activities for classes...but that is not a lot of food at all. 

  

You need to eat small, well balanced mini meals or snacks throughout the day. 

  

If you can swing it, talk to a nutritionist for the good of your WHOLE family.  It can't be good for your daughter to see you barely eating. 

  

I know it didn't do me any good to see my mother barely eat...it hasn't done her any good either.  She's not even sixty and she has osteoporosis. 

  

Even if you never said ANYTHING to  your daughter about weight and food, she watches, she observes and she sees.  She's already picking up that "Grown Women Don't Eat".  Read "Stick Figure", you can look it up by that on Amazon, it's very common and "Reviving Ophelia:Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls" also readily available. 

  

I wish my Mom had. 

Just some food for thought.   

  

  

Today looks like it would have been a really fun show to be a part of.  A few (many) years back there was this diet concept of "FOOD COMBINING."  Any of ya all ever heard of that?  Where you don't combine carbs and proteins or you don't combine dairy and meats. And you drink juice in the morning.  I know there usted to be books on it.  It's suppose to give you energy.  Anyone I know anymore on a diet is on the Adkins diet.   I think that's the protein one or they're on the glycogen carb index or something like that.....  On this show it seemed everyone who was on an extreme diet was on it because of something someone said to them about themselves that they took to heart.