I love Burlesque...just because it works better on women with, shall we say, a little more padding than your average Pussycat Doll...

This gorgeous girly is called Miss Sugarpuss, and if you're having a fat day, watch her slink around on that stage and forget all about having to be a size ten to look sexy, this woman has sex appeal by the bucket load.

Enjoy!

News from the the Bible of early twenties girls, More Magazine (I used to read that - remember 'position of the fortnight'?) is that they carried out a reader poll and found out that a flabberghastingly high number of women were helping to keep the diet industry in fat profits by spending vast amounts of their cash on dieting.

Do you know how expensive it is to lose weight? Well, hold on to your seats, because the poll revealed that the average UK female spends £807 - per pound of weight they lose. This amounts to approximately £150,000 over their lifetime.

The cost includes gym membership, diet and exercise DVDs, books as well as exercise equipment and the trendy gym gear that we buy just to motivate us into going to the gym...although if you've tried to get hold of sexy gym clothes bigger than a size 16 and found some, let me know where!

With depressing familiarity, the poll also confirmed that most women, having bankrupted themselves on useless diet stuff will gain most of it back. As a matter of fact, it was revealed that over a lifetime, a total of 13 stones and 3 pounds will be lost and regained. And lost. And regained....

Two thousand women responded to the poll.

Susan Riley, assistant editor at More Magazine said: "I don't think women realise how much they are spending"

Well, I'll make it easy for you. It's more than £800 per pound! For £800 you could get yourself a really on-trend Chloe Heloise shoulder bag (£797) or a sexy pair of Jimmy Choo Storey platforms for £695. Or you could spend it on dieting. What's it to be, ladies?

...by Sue Thomason

There has been so much stuff in the news about obesity recently. It's reached crisis point and the Government wants to take urgent steps to combat the threat that 60% of men, 50% of women and a quarter of children and young people could be obese by 2050. The trouble is that the solutions they're planning will just continue to make the problem worse. This is because the predicted cause of the problem is wrong, which means that the solutions that are worked out from it are also wrong!

The more advice and information about how to stop overeating that is pushed out into society through the media, the medical establishment and the Government, the harder it is for people to control what they eat.

It's simple.

Scientific and medical reports show - and have shown for a very long time - that dieting is a DIRECT CAUSE of overeating.

The media has come so far as to sometimes admit that dieting doesn't work and even the notion that dieting might be a cause of overeating (and therefore obesity) has been bandied about in the Press every now and again. But EVERY article that you read about obesity, including the recent urgent reports on the tragedy that will befall our society if nothing is done, starts off with definite and emphatic facts but then just tapers off into some wishy-washy, undecided ending that explains nothing and takes us nowhere. It's like the literary equivalent of a clueless shrug.

The usual reads as: "Experts say cutting down, healthy eating, sensible eating or everything in moderation is the best approach."

On the surface this might look reasonable but when you consider the nature of compulsive overeating and ask the question how is 'cutting down' any different from dieting? The answer is that it isn't - that's why this advice is just as ineffective as dieting! It IS dieting!

The Government wants to 'educate' the population in 'healthy eating' - which is bizarre when you consider that for the last 20 years or so we have been systematically brainwashed, bombarded and saturated with the healthy eating message. No one could have lived a normal life, watched TV, read newspapers and magazines, listened to friends and family (repeating what they've read and seen on TV) without having involuntarily studied the equivalent of a degree in nutrition at the same time!

We spend more on diet products and services than ever before. The low-fat and the low-carb industries, diet clubs and books and magazines and the fitness industries are making billions in profit each year.

It's not working!

So when you hear some obesity 'expert' spouting that you should 'eat healthily', have a go at what they suggest and watch yourself slide gently down a slope directly into a binge on chips and cake.

The reason that every TV report and every newspaper and magazine article is able to tell the story of the obesity epidemic so dramatically, but when they come to the mention of a solution they skirt around it and let it dissolve into nothing is because they don't know the answer! The experts haven't a clue what the solution is. They know the current one doesn't work. The only reason they carry on giving out the same advice is because they have no idea what else to say or do.

Meanwhile, while all this confusion and diffused opinion is argued about and no one seems to know their a*s* from their elbow, the situation continues to worsen and the predictions look likely to be correct - there will be soaring rates of diabetes, strokes and heart attacks and our children will grow up unable to regulate their own eating habits and fall into the overeating trap without any hope of being able to climb out again.

So what is the answer?

Overeating is a compulsion, a drive, not a life choice. Learn why you do it and then learn how to stop, simply and easily without using willpower.

www.foodphilosophy.co.uk

This man owns a gym. He thinks he is God's gift to the double X chromosome, and thinks that he is reeeally funny. His name is Michael Karolchyk and he has no hair. And he hates fat women. And has a sexist, misogynist website with frankly terrible soft porn style graphics that would make most sensible men and women of all sizes want to steer well clear.

He's enraging the American public (well, the fat ones) with a set of adverts so terrible that they should be banned for lack of imagination if nothing else. But these adverts have actually made people cry...and the furore is making the sad creep who dreamed them (and the website) up...RICH.

He probably has a very small penis. And no girlfriend. Here's his rubbish website...and here's his blog.

Apparently, if you don't like him, or the way he markets his gym, you are a 'preposterous hater'. He says:

"It is amazing how livid and wild both the chubbies and bearded ladies have become because of these ads!! Why does a selected portion of the public complain so vigorously about the marketing that the Anti Gym uses? Why do they personally attach Michael Karolchyk and myself because of these advertising ploys? Why are people complaining about the marketing style of the Anti Gym, and not looking at the product itself?

There is a simple answer to these questions. The Anti Gym product, its systems and concept is indisputable. The results of the Anti Gym’s ways are obviously impressive across the board, so what is the point of bickering about the marketing. Talk about the product!!!!!"

Apart from the fact that the writer can't differentiate between attack and attach and has a horrendous over-attatchment to the exclamation mark, it doesn't make any sense. Your advertising and marketing are supposed to make your product stand out and get you talked about, so why complain that you're being talked about?

"Every woman that calls makes a strong claim to be skinny, in shape, and not fat or chubby. Why then, when challenged to show up at the Anti Gym to prove their sexiness, does each one decline the offer."

Why would they want to be judged fat by a moron with a vested interest in getting people to go to his gym and lose weight? Oh, and you missed a question mark, love.

"Michael has on numerous occasions offered to pay $1000 if the hater will appear to verify the claim of being low body fat and thin. If these individuals are proven wrong, and are higher body fat or chubby, they must donate $1000 to Mr. Karolchyk’s www.getphysical.org charity. No one will do it!? Why are these chubby people so angry about the honest punch line of the Anti Gym’s commercials? "

Why do you think, numb nuts?

“You’ll never get a hubby if you’re a chubby”. Fact! "

Not like you, true enough. but surely that's a godsend. I have a husband downstairs, thank you very much...and I'm just about to go downstairs, snuggle up to him on the sofa, and thank my lucky stars that there aren't many *men* as ignorant as Karolchyk, who probably wouldn't know what to do with a woman if she smacked him around the head with a Krispy Kreme box.

He should be tied up, stripped naked so that fat women can point at his small willy, and force fed Big Macs until he's sick......

Edit: Oh, it gets worse.I didn't read the blog properly...the blog is actualy written by a (semi literate) woman! Jeez. So much for sisterhood....

Good news for you all - Just as Beautiful is out and proud. This issue features Katy Brand - the pros and cons of internet dating, and oh look, on page 14 there's an article by Sarah Clark on how to activate your inner Dita and switch on the glam woman you really are!

So get out your red lippy and turn to page 14...then if you haven't done so already, sign up for the magazine here...it's FREE!

Oh no, I thought, as I walked to the train yesterday. Another newspaper with the word 'FAT' plastered all over the front page. Here we go again.

Imagine my surprise when I read on the front of the Independent:

"Now being fat could be good for you"

I thought I might be hallucinating, but I bought the paper and read it on the train. Oh yes, it would seem that a new study in the Journal of the Amercian Medical Association says there is a "grey" area where being up to around a stone and a half overweight may not be the life ending disaster that we've all been led to believe. But no doubt this piece of news will be superceded by another scare story soon, so we'd better make the most of it.

OK, it makes sense that if you are starving yourself to death, morbidly obese, or the nearest you get to working out is wearing trainers to drive in, you probably won't be all that healthy. But there is no way of telling that someone is healthy based on their BMI alone. It's just rubbish, and frankly always has been, even before some clever doctor gave people with a muffin top a reprieve.

The study is the second carried out by US Government scientists who two years ago first suggested that deaths from being too fat were overstated. Well, I'm sure there were many people who could have told them that, but everyone knows we need statistics before we'll believe anything these days.

The report further analyses the same data, this time looking at specific causes of death along with new mortality figures from 2004 for 2.3million U.S. adults.  Lead researcher Dr Katherine Flegal, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which funded the study, said:

"Excess weight does not uniformly increase the risk of mortality from any and every cause, but only from certain causes."

WEll, the Americans know all about being fat so I'll take my chances...

...and what's more, overweight people were up to about 40 per cent less likely than normal-weight people to die from several other causes including emphysema, pneumonia, injuries and various infections. So a little extra padding doesn't hurt, then?

I find it quite useful when sitting on hard chairs, personally....

A fabulous fashion store owner has made a plea to the UK fashion industry to open up the catwalk to models of all sizes in a bid to save generations of children from anorexia and millions of women from shopping hell.

Janet Tappin Coelho, who runs the west London fashion store and website, Popozao, told 'The Voice' that the UK should introduce a campaign similar to the US based Walk the Catwalk campaign.

Walk the Catwalk wants to get designers, fashion colleges and fashion houses to stop making and showing only small sample sizes. It also wants models and clothes of all sizes showcased at popular fashion events like London Fashion Week. Anna Scholz designs gorgeous plus size clothes but will we ever see her on the catwalk? On a cold day in Hell, maybe?

"It is time to see bigger role models on the catwalk so we can better reflect what is going on in our world and our lives," said Coelho, who sources Brazilian jeans and other clothes for all women with curves.

"This is probably the way forward for the industry here. We need to recognise that most women are not size 8 or 10. The industry needs to recognise that women's shapes are changing.

Women of all races have curves and healthy bums. They are voluptuous and proud of their shapes. It needs to cater for them," she added.

Walk the catwalk

Walk the Catwalk was started by US-based plus size models, Diane Pellini and Liis Windischmann. They said on their website that it was time for designers to put what they have labelled 'the forgotten zone' meaning regular sizes 14 to 20 on the dressing models and on the catwalk.

The Voice is a publication for black women but I think that women of all races probably agree that there is a need for larger sizes on the catwalk and on the high street.

Quoted in The Voice was a curvy size 14 Chantelle Eccleston, a 25-year-old sales assistant blessed with both boobs and bum, who told said that she has problems finding things that fit-especially jeans. I feel her pain, having just been jeans shopping!

"The jeans will fit the legs but stop halfway across my bum. It annoys me," she said.

And there's no winning among the popular ranges.

"If they cover me up, there will be a gap at the back or even at the front depending on the style, or they are too long," added Chantelle, who is 5ft 2 inches with wide hips, a rounded bum and a 36DD bra cup size.

Karen Scott, a 38-year-old care assistant who buys size 12 to 14, added that skirts end up being too narrow for her 41 inch hips while trousers and jeans fall short on her 5ft 8 inch frame.

While some fashion chains and shops cater to curvy women, many others seem to forget that many women are over size 12 and come with curves.

What do you think? Who is the best for jeans, who does the best range for plus size divas? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Until then, I'm back to the Simply Be catalogue taking my chances...