....Know My Size!

The site, which covers all sizes up to 22, is a deviously handy web tool that finds clothes just for you by size.

Instead of clicking into Evans, then Dotty P's, then Debenhams, this ingenious site sorts everything into size ranges, and you can look to your hearts content at clothes in a size that actually fits you...and you don't have to spend hours trying to find *something* in your size.

I'm hooked, this site is an absolutely brilliant idea, and I just wish that I'd had it myself. I clicked on summer dresses - as you can imagine, being a size 22 makes finding a pretty little summer frock something of a nightmare if you're trying to do it walking around Bluewater. There they were, four pages of gorgeousness, all in my size. I could go to Freeman's, Evans, Dorothy Perkins - and then there were designers that I wasn't so familiar with like South, and Amara.

Once you've got your page of dresses (or trousers, tops, shoes...) you can then filter your results by price, brand, colour and more. It makes finding the exact thing you've been trying to find just that little bit easier.

The site also has some great tips, fashion trends and features for the discerning shopper. I'm just off to spend some money I don't have...credit crunch, what credit crunch?

This came through to me from Nancy Hayssen, author of 'Sexy at any size' and I thought I'd share it - see what you think?

"Today I received one of those notes which made me happy and cry inside at the same time.

"My name is Jessica*.

I'm 17 years old and I'm trying to become a Plus Size Model. I have started taking model classes and am currently in the running to be National American Miss 2008. Everyone I know says I am fully capable of becoming a Plus Size Model, but I am not very confident."

* name changed to respect privacy

Accompanied was a poem ...

I'm Sorry

I'm sorry...if I'm not skinny enough for you to see my ribs.
I'm sorry...if I'm not pretty enough to be "your girl".
I'm sorry...if I'm not tan enough for you.
I'm sorry...If i don't have a dream body that turns you on.
I'm sorry...if i won't drop down to my knees to get you to like me.
I'm sorry...if my hair is not long enough.
I'm sorry...if I'm not the "hottest" girl you have ever seen.
But most of all...
I'm sorry that most guys can't accept a girl for who they really are.

....As Nancy's naked body lay for all the television crew of CBS' Entertainment Tonight and soon the world to see.....

"What am I doing?", she said to herself. But, she did it for all the women who don't feel good enough because of the thousand of negative media images they've seen...Nancy says this is for the teen girl right now who is struggling in defining herself and is going on a "diet" at ten years old.

This is for Jessica, the sweet girl who just emailed me feeling not confident enough, apologising for not measuring up to society's definition of beauty.

This is for every man and woman on the planet... Embrace and accept yourself just the way you are - Right Now.

Nancy on Youtube

After waking up to yet another dire warning about how we're all going to die - apparently having a few treats at the weekend is now out too - I thought I had to post something uplifting today.

I've been watching some of the Sky 'Real Life Stories' about weight issues this week. Some have been pretty standard "I'm fat so I'm having my stomach stapled/going to a slimming club" stuff but two really stuck out - a programme on former Slimmers of the Year, where the detestable Sally Anne Voak went back to see what had happened to people who'd had the title bestowed upon them in the previous decade.

One lady admitted that she'd been anorexic when she won her prize, abusing diuretics, laxatives and starving herself (she wouldn't eat or drink at ALL on weigh in day) and so all the time she was winning accolades she was in the grip of a serious - life threatening - eating disorder. One woman went mad with the credit cards when she lost weight, and her husband saw her change so much that he begged her to put the weight BACK. Another put five of her ten lost stone back on and said that she was a damn sight happier for it because she hated being obsessed with diets and food. She says she's a better mother to her child now she can focus on him...and not her every morsel of food.

Eye opening stuff.

So...if the myth of major weight loss making your life perfect is just that, a myth, where does that leave fatties? Unhealthy and miserable? Well, no. Another programme saw fat women dispel stereotypes - we had the BBW club full of size 26 and over women having a great time, attracting men, and even posing for a BBW calendar (all very tastefully done) then a roly poly kissogram who found that since she's been taking her size 20 body out on the road and having fun with it, her self esteem has rocketed - and people love it!

Then we had a fat dance class instructor running classes for bigger women, dispelling the myth that all fat people are lazy. She runs classes and social events for people who might otherwise feel out of place ice skating, dancing and working out.

I might also add, that if you think all fatties are unfit, ask my gym instructor who has told me recently that I managed more step ups in his fitness test than anyone he'd seen that day...incuding a 16 year old lad! Unfit? Bah. I manage every task he sets me, even boxing for 30 minutes. And I ain't skinny.

So, the good news for fat people - there is plenty of it. You just have to look behind the scare stories and believe that you can be just as good, just as fit, just as healthy and just as gorgeous as anyone else.

So there.

Have you ever wanted to suffer the indignities of a slimming club in the comfort of your own home? Be virtually nagged into slimming down and shaping up by a computer generated Marjorie Dawes, who will no doubt tell you (with the advice of a proper nutritionist of course) exactly where you went wrong and admonish you for sniffing a bar of chocolate?

Well, now you can! Obviously spurred on by the success of the Nintendo Wii Fit (which is absolutely hilarious, and actually a lot of fun...) Nintendo have now got with the (diet) programme and are bringing out My Weight Loss Coach for Nintendo DS "a game for every adult, male and female, who considers reaching and maintaining their target weight a challenge."

Well, that would be pretty much everybody then?

The programme even says that it "respects your daily life constraints" - does that mean it understands when I get PMS and want to eat Green & Blacks chocolate until it's coming out of my ears? and it very kindly "tracks your progress and achievements by improving your energy balance." - does it actually eat for you then?

I have to say that if it's as accurate as the Wii Fit, which very kindly makes me weigh about two stone less than the evil scales at the gym did a few weeks ago, it will be great - but pretty pointless.

What I want to know is whether the virtual class leader will tell you to eat dust, give you that horrible pseudo-sympathetic look when you gain weight and ask "Is it your *special* week, love?" or try and sell you diet versions of boiled sweets that make you pooh through the eye of a needle if you eat more than three in one sitting....:D

How's that for the 'longest blog post of the day' title?

Sorry...so sorry...for not being a good blogger and staying in touch more. If the truth be told, the freelance writing work has somewhat taken over my life and when I get to the end of a working day, my creativity seems somewhat depleted. But I digress.

Apparently, as we all probably know, size 12 is considered fat. When John Lewis announced it was using size 12 mannequins, the world gasped in a collective intake of breath. Size 12? What was that all about? Nobody would ever buy clothes from a shop that demonstrated its wares on such outsize mannequins, surely?

Anyway, now Leah Green is causing ripples in the fashionista's skinny lattes by beating 200 other women to be crowned Miss London - despite being rejected by model agencies and told she needed to lose weight.
Leah Green, who's 22, will be competing for the title of Miss England against regional finalists from across the country, including size 16 Chloe Marshall.

Read the full story here

Leah told the Daily Mail that she has been rejected by several model agencies.

"I have tried to get into modelling," she said. "But I've been told I'm too fat and I need to lose weight. One agent told me I would have to work hard to achieve the gaunt look he was after.

"If you have to be the size of Victoria Beckham or Girls Aloud to even get a look in, then it just isn't for me."

It makes me angry that a perfectly normal sized woman is told she has to lose weight. In fact, a woman who is smaller than most of the UK female population is still considered too big to be attractive enough to model clothes. When will these agencies realise that we don't want to see clothes modelled just on very tall, slim, children with unattainable bodies...we want to see a wide range of figures so that we'll have a vague idea of what we might look like in their clothes.

Let's face it, we've all bought clothes online or by mail order, seduced into thinking that maybe that dress will look good on us, when it actually makes us look absolutely ridiculous because it's cut for the size eight slip of a thing that's wearing it in the photographs, and not for the size 16 woman who wants to buy it. Bigger women have curves in places that most models don't even have places and it's about time that people who try to sell us their clothes actually gave a stuff about the people who want to buy them.

Except that I forgot...most catwalk designer types don't even think that women over size 10 exist.

....but will we see any of the plus sizes in the shops?

Browsing the Next website the other day (at last, they've changed it so you can browse for items like 'tops' rather than trying to decide which daft sounding themed collection would contain a blue vest top) I noticed, hidden away, and very coyly named:

Additional Sizes

On further inspection, they now have a range of 24 - 28 items for women which you can buy online. Presumably they come in a brown paper bag so that nobody knows you are actually buying (gasp) Fat Girls Clothes.

Most of the items you can get up to a size 28 are fairly basic, and they are all just bigger versions of the normal ranges, not specially designed for those of us with ampler-than-most curvaceousness. The day I see one of their size 28 specimens hiding in the shop, I will do a cartwheel. And as I can't do a cartwheel to save my life, you can tell I'm not expecting much - it's as much as I can do to find a 20 in there most of the time. But hey, credit where it's due, it's a start!

Fat Girls Clothes at Next

This one really made me giggle so I'm sharing it with you...just because it's raining and we could always do with a laugh...A woman involved in a Weight Watchers demonstration at a supermarket has been arrested after shoplifting cupcakes and other items, according to a police report.

I did wonder what a Weight Watchers demonstration would entail...I was imagining placards and fat women shouting "Down with saturated fat"...however, a loss-prevention official told police that Kelly L. Barber, 47, was in the Publix store last week,

"conducting a demo for Weight Watchers."

The official said she saw Barber conceal store items in a blue bin and leave the store without paying for the goods, which included Weight Watchers cupcakes, a book and teeth-whitening strips.

"When questioned, Kelly explained she just wanted to whiten her teeth and stated it was stupid she stole the items as she had never done this before," the report states.

"Kelly did not have an explanation for all the other items."

Barber, of Fort Pierce, Fla., faces a retail theft charge. Hmmm. I find it ironic and amusing in a sick kinda way that someone representing the biggest, richest weight loss conglomerate in the whole wide world (OK, if you have any arguments about my financial knowledge, please feel free to comment) was caught pinching CUPCAKES...

Now in my twisted imagination I am picturing her class leader reassuring her in a soothing voice, "Now now Kelly, it's alright. They were within your points allowance..."

Thought you'd heard it all when it comes to get-thin-quick quackery? Think again! I had a fantastic e-mail from the lovely ladies at Beyond Chocolate the other day, and here it is for you in all it's glory.

Want to lose weight fast? Why not try the lip gloss that leaves you both energized and beautiful". We kid you not.

Too Faced FUZE Slenderize Guilt-Free Gloss, to give it its full tongue-twister of a name, is "the first lip gloss on the market to fuse beauty and fitness benefits." Really? A lip gloss can make you fit? Couch potatoes of the world, rejoice! Apparently, "application of this long-lasting, high-shine formula actually helps suppress one's appetite for food without sacrificing delicious glamour." Just what we've all been waiting for, eh? Now we can lie supine on the sofa, wearing little more than a come-hither glossy smile, as mealtimes come and go unnoticed and the pounds just melt away.

Made by Coca-Cola and inspired by its FUZE Slenderize range of soft drinks, Guilt-Free Gloss, they tell us, is infused with energy-boosting, appetite-curbing chromium, L-carnitine and super citrimax (huh?) and available in three "high-impact" (what, like aerobics?) fruit flavours, including Dragonfruit Lime, Strawberry Melon and Blueberry Raspberry. Heaven help anyone you kiss...

It has quickly became a "celebrity favourite", attracting the likes of Jessica Simpson, Katie Holmes and personal trainers such as Harley Pasternak (?!) "who stocks the beverage in his LA workout studio for his clients such as Eva Mendes and Kanye West". Kanye West wears lip gloss? Now we know he's partial to a bit of bling, but, really, we had no idea that his love of sparkle and shine went that far...

"Too Faced FUZE Slenderize Guilt Free Lip Gloss offers delectable shine with zero remorse!" the press release concludes, triumphantly. Maybe you'll feel remorse, Coca-Cola, when we come round your place and give you a fat lip for taking us smart, savvy women for suckers!

However, for every one of us who isn't hoodwinked into purchasing products like these, there are hundreds of women who are. Slimmers who think that relying on artificial appetite suppressants, rather than simply stopping when you're satisfied, is the secret. Dieters who are desperate enough to do anything and buy anything to reach weight-loss nirvana that they'll spend a tenner on a lip gloss that offers nothing more than the lustre of fool's gold.

....and I know you're all far too clever to be taken in by this sort of marketing ploy, but just think - there are people out there who actually THINK you can lose weight by using a lip gloss. Save your money girls, spend it on something colourful from the Boots counter, it'll do you far more good...

If you want to beat the diet trap, you'll have to learn to take your instructions from a very important source....yourself! Sue Thomason explains how.

I’ve just started trying out intuitive eating after many years on and off diets with no lasting results. I’ve been on a few internet sites and I can’t figure out whether I’m allowed to weigh myself or if eating intuitively means I can eat things like chips just because I feel like it. My friend swears by it but I’m worried that I’ll gain weight.

Briony, 24, Nottingham

Hi Briony,

Intuitive eating is a very good way to live if you’re a compulsive overeater because it puts you back in the driving seat where food is concerned. The hard thing is actually getting into the driving seat as you can see from your question – you are asking if you are ‘allowed’ to weigh yourself and querying what you can and cannot eat.

This is entirely natural for a long-term yo-yo dieter like yourself because the kind of diet thinking you’ve been brainwashed into over the years deliberately removes all self responsibility where food is concerned and you have effectively become an automaton, in passive receive mode, unable to eat anything or think about your own body without externally referencing it all to check that it is ‘allowable’ or ‘correct’.

You’re not alone, though. Every single overeater in the world looks outside themselves for instructions when it comes to food and weight (and sometimes other parts of their lives too - sometimes, but not always, they do this with EVERY area).

Even overeaters who are great successes in other areas of their lives and who wouldn't dream of looking to others for instructions about what they should think do it in the area of food and weight. They don't even realise they're doing it. Not one compulsive overeater and chronic dieter knows their own mind in this respect - every overeater is in passive recieve mode.

This is something that really does have to be turned around if you want to get out of the overeating trap. Intuitive eating can never be intuitive unless all of your decisions are made internally and based on your own wants and needs.

You have to work out for yourself the answer to the questions about whether to weigh yourself and what you can eat. It’s not something I can answer for you.

The Food Philosophy is now more affordable as there is a non-coaching version of the six-week online weight-loss course available for just £30. Not everyone can afford the course at the moment and it is important that as many overeaters are reached as possible and given the tools to get themselves out of the overeating trap, lose weight, increase confidence and raise their self esteem.

For £30, you get all of the online course material as well as membership to The FP forum where you can chat to other people who are doing the course, support each other, go through the steps and exercises together and also talk to those who have already been through the course and who are already out of the overeating trap.

You know what, even people who extol the virtues of self acceptance have fat days. The fat day seems to have become synonymous with feeling totally crap about yourself, a bit like a more permanent version of a bad hair day I suppose. At least you can go into a hairdresser and get your bad hair sorted out in an hour or so...when you are blessed with an hourglass figure where all the sand has sunk to the bottom, it can be stressful even thinking of how you're ever going to really practice 'self-acceptance' in a world that seems determined to hate you simply for your size, and because you are everything they are scared of becoming, and make you hate yourself at the same time.

It's like people think that a hefty dose of self loathing is all that's needed to sort out the obesity epidemic. We can all see how that works - if the number of women in this country who hate themselves because they don't fit the acceptable weight range of a so-called attractive women were positively spurred on by hurtful remarks, headlines and not being able to fit into nice clothes, we'd all be size ten by now. Hey, that was a very long sentence, wasn't it?

I think I'm just feeling miserable because I'm ill again. Because I tried to start my walking routine this week ready for Race for Life, managed around 10,000 steps for a couple of days in a row, and then came down with the lurgy. Because my jeans feel tight. Because I got some old photos out at the weekend and was horrified at how much I've changed, aged and expanded since the 90s. Because I'm getting older. Because I'm writing like a demon at the moment and people aren't paying me so I am going to run out of money soon. And because I post things about a gorgeous size 16 teenage beauty contest winner and smug arseholes think it's their God-given divine right to slag her off for being fat...and oh, because even on this blog, I get people posting about fat people being lazy and size 16 women needing to shift a few pounds.

And you know what? Stuff the 'fatosphere' - the stupid blogger's term for people who blog about fat acceptance (I don't accept my fat, I just live with it most of the time) I don't think things will ever change. With TV shows like 'diets that time forgot' showing that people were following stupid, dangerous and unappetising diets as far back as Victorian times, what hope is there that things will ever change?