You are beautiful at any weight

There is a big difference between discomfort and pain. This can be applied to your body in a yoga class, or speaking about race and images in this country and the media. I am not trying to make any body feel uncomfortable, well only people that uphold a system called society that oppresses and puts people in boxes based on the way they look, and anyways who said being uncomfortable is such a bad thing. Comfortableness is the ingredient that keeps people in bad relationships, even sometimes abusive keeps you doing bad habits, in poverty and lots of other things. Uncomfortable is not pain it is the feeling that things need to change in order to grow. So attention I may throw out words that make you feeling un easy like the D word (diet) and analyze a system that boxes people in based on raise and continues stereotypes to continue keeping people of a darker shade oppressed and limited.

This may seem a little out there, some folks may think Im coco to put race race and body image in the same topic (i don;t know these people but they may exist). But I know for me they have always been connected. Being raised in a prodominantly Black community I was always aware that while the folks around me were more likely to tease a girl for being a bag of bones then a thich chick, the rest of the country was all trying to be a size zero. I was exposed to all types of food, some of it very healthy and not. I was raised by a village of woman of all sizes and walks of life. And over the years my weight has fluxuated from thick to skinny.

Exploring Body Image is one of those topics I usually associate with the media's perpetuated views of super models, and those health education documentaries that talk about eating disorders, but I want to talk about it on a personal level, and also look at how race and today's pop culture/media and stereotypes play into it. My focus is more on women's body image because I am a woman, I can only write on my experience, and what I hear from others, and see in the magazines and movie screens...

It all starts with food, toxic food continues a lot of other toxicness, in poverty stricken communities especially. The bottom line is no matter what race everyone deserves to be healthy, and healthy and skinny are not the same word. As I do more work in the field of sustainability I want to promote sustainable healthy eating. Just in that same way that Obama said "it shouldn't be considered 'un-black' to for a kid to open up a book and read." Same goes for eating habits in any ethnic group. Its one thing to have homecooked dishes interwoven into your culture from past generations in your family that you don't want to change. But its a whole differenty thing to have a tradition of eating fast food nation and dieing of diabeties and heart failure. Healthyness is not a white thing or a race thing its a human thing. I believe people are beautiful at any weight. Health is not only an image thing its a I wanna live my life without pain thing. It might be uncomfortable to begin to eat things that are better for you and cut out all the junk food, but it will take away pains. Trust.

It is called comfort food for a reason, it doesn't mean it should be your daily meal!

I say all this because this is the background yes you should be healthy! But that is completly separate from the immense amount of pressure most people, (women especially) feel to be skinny. Its the reason people develope eating disorders. So I want to stress that difference because some folks are naturally bigger and some folks are naturally skinnier and I am sick of people having little tolerance for the huge spectrum that is beautiful. "You are beautiful at any size" - dpesn't mean you can go eat whatever you want and stuff your face and never excercise, it means that if you practice a healthy lifestyle and still dont look like a skinny girl in a fashion magazine, you are not less, you are just as beautiful, and the problem is only that you are underrepresented, not anything to do with you.

I am guitly of being vain, of skipping meals to compete with skinny girls, and I am breaking bad habits to hold myself to what I say. It is about empowerment, health, strength, as well as wanting to look a size that complements me, and makes me feel good about my figure.

skinny does not = healthy

This post will probably seems like I am pointing out the obvious, but I gotta put out there my take on the weird world we live in, where some children die from starvation, and yet here in America we waste food eveyday. In some "third world" countries there are people who look very similar to some models on the runways because they are both starving.

I want to break down some of the images that we see everyday, and subconsciously put onto ourselves (skinny girls in the magazines of the how to loose 15lb in a day articles). One of my mentors, and an amazing designer Lucie Beauchemin once said to me that skinny does not equal healthy. This was coming from a women who is skinny, probably because she works so much that she is always running around at work, and never has time to eat. Whether its your body type and you were just born like that, or you skip meals, or the drugs being skinny does not at all mean that you are healthy. On the flip side being severely over weight usually means you are unhealthy or your habits could lead to health problems down the line. The reason I wanted to write on this is my weight (like most women) has fluctuated, and I've seen the way people treat me and judge, based on weight and usually it's kinda off. Whenever I was at my most unhealthiest, not sleeping, not eating right, but had lost a couple of pounds people would complement me on how "healthy" I looked.

Weight among women is weirdly a taboo subject ( if taboo means people hate to talk about it yet its always talked about) where some women refer to diets as the "d" word. When in reality everyone is on a diet, diet is just what you eat some people are on the I.D.G.A.F. diet (i don't give a f*ck and I eat whatever crap I want or can afford) this is usually my demographic: broke college students with no time who were raised by single mothers who don't always have time to cook. But we all know that its healthy to eat your veggies.

Anyway we learn about anorexia and bulimia in school you learn about it, but I never really was concerned with the issue I always said I couldn't understand how somebody could do that, cause I love food to damn much. Until I saw a friend of mine suffering from it. I saw that every time she ate a meal she had to use the bathroom (to yak her food up), and she basically was starving herself.

This is extreme but all women think about body image and we all know why, and i know I'm guilty of skipping meals thinking that because I ate a lot the day before that it would be healthy to not eat. Or the even worse thing (more unhealthy) to do not eat all day (hella busy) and then eat one big meal at night. The other day I went to an event while I was at school in the design gallery and there was free food, me and my homegirls immediately got in line to get some, and as girls passed us by (all of who we knew so it wasn't like they were talken mess) they jokingly said "fat ass" and things of that nature to some of my friends who were helping themselves. I didn't think nothing of it at the time, I hadn't eaten anything all day and it was about 8pm, but later the situation kinda had me thinking about what is thrown at us, as women. So anyways I have never viewed being thicker as being bad, probably cause I was raised in Oakland and girls with junk in the trunk get more attention in a good way then not. And the people that raised me. But I noticed that as soon as I moved to the LA area that that everyone seems to be trying to be hella skinny.

When my homegirl Katiana came down and stayed with me she was doing a cleanse, which her mama (who is really into healthy food) didn't want her to do. I did it for about a day and didn't stick with it, just didn't really have my head right for it.

Anyway Beyonce did it to get skinny for Dreamgirls so now people call it the Beyonce diet. But B herself has said she would never recommend it too anyone (unless there bout to film a movie) and that she gained all the weight back. But then there other people that swear by it, do it every year as a healthy way to clean out their system.

So like everyone knows, but doesn't nessasarily practice, eating right, and being active is good for you. But skinny does not equal healthy. I ask you(probably the one person that reads this) to not waste food cause thats just rude, and that's it- cause I'm tired of writing about this sh*t, oh yeah and this post was talking about when people try to be skinny to be vain not to be confused with the dope album by that talented man Do Dat called The Skinny...

Weekly Recipe Yum Yum

I don't mean to brag but I throw down in the kitchen and so does my man, when I have time I go all out but when I don't I get creative to quickly make some bomb ass food. Most of the food we make is a healthy twist to traditional Filipino dishes, but this right here I got from my god mother and its Portuguese. This one is good cause you can make a lot and then freeze it and it is still delicious. Me and my hubby have both been sick in the last month so I decided to make something that would get our colds away. (when I was little, my mama would make me take cayenne pills whenever I was sick, I hated it but now I add cayenne to soup when ever I'm sick. it works!) for those cold sick days.

*I just made it and this time i used soy chorizo for the first time,it turned out pretty good, I'm not vegetarian but I don't eat pork or beef, if i make posting recipes a regular thang on here I will try to always post a veggie version (shout out to Braia and Laura on a mission to saving the animals).

KALE AND CHORIZO SOUP:

Ingrediants
2 tablespoon	olive oil
1½ pounds	chorizo sausage; sliced 1/2 slices
1 cup	chopped onions
2 tablespoon	minced garlic
2 large	white potatoes; peeled and diced
3 quart	chicken stock
4 cup	rinsed and stemmed kale; cut into 1 strips
(2	bay leaves
¼ teaspoon	dried thyme) or whatever spices ya got in the kitchen
1 pinch	crushed red pepper
¼ cup	finely-chopped parsley or basil
and some	fresh mint

In a large pot, heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the chorizo and onions. Saute the mixture for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and potatoes and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock and kale and bring the liquid up to a boil. Stir in the bay leaves, thyme and crushed red pepper. Season with salt and pepper. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender ( for about 30 minutes). Remove from the heat and skim off any fat. Stir in the parsley or basil. Depending on how sick I am I add a lot of cayenne and pepper to the soup...a little garlic bread on the side is nice with this.