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Picture of Meghan Trainor by Drew de F Fawkes By Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, CEDRD 3 Body-Positive Songs That Will Increase Your Self-Esteem Pop music, like so many other forms of mass media, glorifies a very narrow definition of what is “beautiful,” and women who are plus-sized are rarely represented, either in lyrics or videos. Teens and women look at these videos, and hear these songs, and may feel like they don’t measure up, or that their self-worth is all tied up in a number on a scale or a dress size. It’s much more difficult to find songs that elevate women, that encourage girls of all shapes and sizes to love themselves, but I’ve done a bit of digging and come up with some great tunes featuring powerful lyrics that encourage body positivity. Listen to these songs, absorb the lyrics, and see how they make a difference in the way you feel. 1. Lady Gaga, “Born this Way” Released in the summer of 2011, “Born This Way” was a chart-topper that was embraced primarily as an LGBT anthem, but it goes so much deeper than that. It’s about loving yourself exactly as you are, regardless of what you look like, or what the bullies say. Gaga paints a beautiful picture of an impressionable young girl (perhaps it was Gaga herself) learning this vital life lesson from her mother: My mama told me when I was young/”We are all born superstars”/She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on/In the glass of her boudoir/”There’s nothing wrong with loving who you are,” she said/”Cause he made you perfect, babe” The theme of the song is that God — or a higher power, or Mother Nature, or whoever you believe in — does not make mistakes and that there is no “perfect” way to be. To change ourselves to fit someone else’s standard of beauty would be going against all that is natural. We are all perfect in our uniqueness, and self-confidence is the key to moving ahead in life, to being everything we are capable of being. This theme is so important to Lady Gaga and her mother that they created the Born This Way Foundation to support young people in their struggle for self-esteem. 2. Trisha Paytas, “Fat Chicks” YouTuber Trisha Paytas may not be a household name (yet), but she made a big splash last year with the release of “Fat Chicks.” Paytas is not afraid to be sexy and fat, and her appearance brings to mind glamour queens of the 1950s and 60s like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, or more recently, the late Anna Nicole Smith. In the video for this song, Paytas and her plus-sized friends wear tight clothes, dance seductively and are every bit as beautiful as the thinner girls. The storyline features Paytas as a waitress in a diner, fighting back against Mean Girl-type bullying by stealing the girls’ boyfriends! (Okay, maybe that’s not the most mature course of action, but the point of the video is that bigger girls can be sexy too.) Her lyrics really drive home that message: Oh, I’m no stick figure/Oh baby, that’s okay/I’m so beautiful In my own way … Now, I know, I know./Fat is a word used to negatively bring down a girl with a little extra junk in the trunk/But being called fat is just a label!/A label put on to us by others who can’t handle this wow-wow-wow!/So I’ll take that label and wear it because it does not define me./You wanna call me fat?/(Laughs)/Well, you’d be right I am F.A.T.: Fabulous And Tasty! Paytas is also the author of several books, including Curvy and Loving It, a guide for teens and adults on how to live and love confidently as a plus-sized woman. 3. Meghan Trainor, “All About That Bass” Last month, Meghan Trainor took home a well-deserved Grammy for Best New Artist. The singer’s All About That Bass was a major hit in 2014 and became a huge body-positive anthem. It was a catchy pop tune with a deep message, and even helped Trainor accept herself. As Trainor explains in a recent article, she spent a long time not feeling comfortable in her own body and being convinced that her figure would not be accepted when she was trying to make it in pop music. But writing “All About That Bass” helped Trainor feel confident again. Like “Fat Chicks,” “All About That Bass” promotes the idea that fat is just as sexy as thin. Trainor sings: Yeah it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two/But I can shake it, shake it like I’m supposed to do/’Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase/All the right junk in all the right places. Lyrics like these give girls confidence that they don’t have to lose weight just to make boys like them, that boys are attracted to all shapes and sizes. She also takes aim at the false and damaging practice of magazines using photo altering software to achieve what they deem to be “perfection.” I see the magazines working that Photoshop/We know that sh– ain’t real/Come on now, make it stop/If you got beauty beauty just raise ’em up/’Cause every inch of you is perfect/From the bottom to the top. Although we have a way to go when it comes to having enough body-positive messages in pop music, artists and songs like these are encouraging. Hopefully, more will follow their examples. And, hey, don’t stop with just these three tunes. Build a whole playlist of body-positive tunes to inspire you! You can find plenty of others right here.

By Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, CEDRD Mindfulness Monday: How Mindfulness can benefit your health Much has been written about mindfulness’ impact on stress levels and I have written (in the Body Clock Diet) about how mindfulness can help with disordered eating. And while it’s true that those are two very positive things mindfulness can do, that’s not all it may be able to achieve. A slew of studies have assessed mindfulness’ impact on back pain, IBS, glucose control and even colds. Let’s take a look at the research and potential benefits: Glucose Control A study conducted by Brown University School of Public Health, and published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, found those who did best on a mindfulness test had a better chance of having normal plasma glucose levels than those who did worse. (400 subjects participated in all.) That being said, there wasn’t a statistically significant connection between mindfulness and type 2 diabetes in this study, though two out of the five studies that have been done on glucose and mindfulness have found a positive relationship between mindfulness and normal levels. The upshot is that more tests need to be done, but this is encouraging research. “These findings,” the authors write, “need to be replicated by prospective studies to establish causality and to evaluate potential implications for mindfulness-based interventions to reduce risk of type 2 diabetes.” IBS In 2011, a study found a link between mindfulness meditation and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). The study, done by the University of North Carolina, discovered that people with IBS could better manage their physical and psychological symptoms by doing mindfulness meditation than by attending support group therapy. After an 8-week mindfulness program, IBS was reduced by over 25% versus 6.2% in the therapy group. The reduction in symptoms even continued three months later! “Our study indicates that mindfulness meditation is a practical, widely applicable and inexpensive method to enable irritable bowel syndrome patients to improve their clinical outcomes and gain associated improvement in well-being,” Olafur S. Palsson, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist said. Back pain The University of Pittsburgh did a study on 282 seniors who had back pain for three years. They were separated into two groups. The seniors who focused on mindfulness made greater strides in their pain after eight weeks than the group who did not. Since back pain can not always be treated with medication in some people, this is a worthwhile natural alternative, the study researchers said. “The mind-body program teaches patients how to be more aware of their thoughts, emotions, sensations and behaviors,” main author Natalia Morone explained. “As the patient learns to do this, they can become more aware of behaviors or even thoughts or feelings about pain that make it worse, or make it difficult for them to do activities.” Colds Almost nothing’s worse than a nasty winter cold that just won’t go away. Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered that mindfulness (in addition to exercise) might be as good as a flu vaccine, in terms of improving the immune system’s resistance to colds. “The results are remarkable,” main study author Bruce Barrett, MD, PhD, said. “We saw a 40 to 50 percent reduction in respiratory infections. When we give flu vaccines, which is one of the most well-proven and beneficial interventions that we have, it only protects at a level of 50 to 60 percent and only for a few strains of the [flu] virus.” Also, the types of colds the mindfulness group had were not as bad and didn’t hang around for as long. Although this research is promising, there’s no guarantee mindfulness can cure or help your particular illness. Still, considering mindfulness costs nothing to do, it’s certainly a worthwhile addition to make to your lifestyle.    

image via James Wilsher/freeimages.com By Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, CEDRD What are the nutritional benefits of Kale? As you know, my philosophy is “eat kale and cupcakes.” This being National Nutrition Month, I thought it would be a good time to look at the “kale” portion of my favorite phrase. We are all aware that kale is a nutritious food, but what kind of nutrition does it provide? Let’s take a closer look. Kale has many vitamins, including A, C, K and E, plus protein, iron, magnesium, potassium and fiber. It is also low calorie. In a side-by side comparison of kale and spinach on Prevention.com, kale comes up the winner in terms of “an extra-powerful nutritional punch,” and is recommended as a great way to get calcium for those who can’t eat or don’t enjoy dairy. Kale also has phytochemicals that help the eyes, beta carotene and antioxdants. Little wonder then that kale has grown to become a hugely popular food in the American diet. One of the most enjoyable ways to get kale into your diet is to use it as a base for salads. In the Women’s Health Body Clock Diet, I explore the “anatomy of a healthy salad.” Pomegranate seeds, nuts, and cheese are all great ingredients to add to liven it up. Oil and vinegar is an easy and healthy dressing. One of my favorite kale-based salads is a kale and fennel caesar, created by Candice Kumai; you can find the recipe on Mom Dishes It Out. But what if you are not a salad person? This Fox News article, which I was a source on, includes 8 ways to use kale in your diet. These include sauteeing, smoothies, kale chips, and steaming. Kale can also be a nice add-in for homemade veggie burgers. You can even eat kale at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Panera. Nutrition and versatility — what more can you ask for from a food? So give kale a try and see how you can incorporate it to become a regular part of your diet. And don’t forget the cupcakes!      

Image via Steve Snodgrass/Flickr By Rebecca Weiss How does diet play a role in having breast cancer? For those of us with cancer, food is not the enemy. I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in May 2014. I, like many newly diagnosed women, wondered what I could have done to prevent the cancer, because I couldn’t imagine it just happened for no reason. Then, all of those health segments on the TODAY Show and headlines on medical studies in the New York Times jumped out at me in a way they never did before. I started to think my diet was the culprit. Had I eaten too much soy? Drank too much wine? Indulged in too much hormone-laden cheese? Not had enough mushrooms in my diet? Should I have been drinking green tea every day? Truth is, many of us have no idea why we get cancer, and obsessing over what we have and haven’t ingested only serves to make us feel like we deserved to get this terrible disease. And, let’s get this straight: No one deserves to get cancer. Yes, I ate non-organic foods, enjoyed red meat cooked on the grill, had slices of birthday cake at the parties I took my young kids to. But, the reason I got breast cancer wasn’t due to those choices—I got breast cancer because I have a genetic mutation that causes breast cancer. Now, that’s not to say that what we eat doesn’t play a role in our overall health and that we can’t make food choices that reduce the risk of disease, but food is not the enemy. When I tried to stay on track with all of those health study stories, I did start to see food as my enemy. Many of the studies contradicted each other, which was confusing. And, if I eliminated soy, dairy, alcohol, sugar, canned tomatoes, farmed salmon, red meat, artificial sweeteners, vegetable oils, white flour, and so on, what would I eat? I decided that the way for me to eat to avoid cancer was to eat the way the medical establishment usually advises for general health: A high-fiber, plant-based diet with limited sugars, alcohol and artificial ingredients. Here’s some specific recommendations I received from dietitians throughout my cancer journey: Make red meat an occasional protein in your diet; look for chicken and dairy products that are marked “hormone free;” avoid sodas and energy drinks; focus on whole foods instead of packaged; eat soy in moderation (my breast cancer was related to estrogen); limit alcohol to three or so drinks a week; exercise regularly. I want to feel like I’m doing everything I can to prevent a recurrence, so I follow these guidelines as best I can. I know that my body feels better when I eat cleanly and simply and get enough exercise, but I don’t police myself because I don’t want to get thrown into despair over a piece of candy or an extra beer on Saturday night, as though these choices will bring cancer upon me again. While it’s good to have a sense of agency with regard to our own health, if it sets us up for self-blame, then it’s not helpful. And, if I cut out all the edible things that bring me pleasure, I would feel I’m punishing myself. And, I don’t need to be punished for having cancer. It’s not my fault. Rebecca Weiss is a wife, mother, and cancer survivor living in New Jersey. Her professional roles include writer, marketing communications expert, and media relations guru. In 2015 she founded Bob’s Boxes, a 501(c)(3) charity that provides post-mastectomy care packages for women with breast cancer.

Image via Flickr/mararie By Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, CEDRD The Five Top Tools for Self-Care Self-care is exactly what it sounds like – taking care of you! The ultimate goal of self-care may differ for each of you, but in this blog I am pointing to self-care that leads to emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. Think brushing your teeth twice daily, getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night, ensuring you are fed throughout the day, and even such things as daily hygiene practices. More specifically, this trendy word is something CEDRDs always refer to in nutrition sessions because when you take care of you, this process ultimately lends itself to health and wellness. Being I am the feeding and eating expert, I ask you to set an intention to practice self-care specifically focusing on your nutritional well-being. This may include being mentally present before, during and after a meal. Awareness of your meal allows you to recognize you are actually eating and to make the decision on how much or how little to eat. Self-care at meals can more specifically lead to being mindful of all five senses. Engage in tasting your food, touching your food, smelling it, listening to it (yes, food does make noise – think of sizzling fajitas) and truly looking at it (the beautiful colors in a salad or perhaps the presentation of your fast food item). It may be learning to listen to your body’s internal sensations that will guide you in your food decisions. Think if every time you eat dairy, you get a bellyache, listen to your body and give it a smaller portion or a lactose-free option. (Lactaid is also available at many drug stores to use as a supplement with your first bite of food to make digesting lactose easier.) Self-care can also mean using coping skills to deal with feelings rather than food or just exercise. How does one practice self-care? Here are my five favorite tools that are sure to keep you active in the pursuit of self-care.   Mindful Meal Logs Learn when, why, what and how you are eating. That’s right. Logging the time, place, level of hunger, thoughts, feelings, behaviors and food eaten before and after your meals will provide you with tons of information. You can then use this information to make decisions such as “Does this food work for me?” “Does it keep me full or am I hungry in one hour?” “Is there another food that may keep me sated longer?” Check out the free Mindful Meal Logs from my Women’s Health Body Clock Diet and read this post to learn how to use the logs. You can create your own or even use a regular spiral notebook to jot down your observations. The Comfort Card This tool is your answer to end emotional eating. In order to eat for physical reasons (aka a source of fuel), to replete your daily energy requirements, you need to know how to deal with stress. Most people eat when they feel stressed, sad, angry or even happy. When we speak to self-care, the act of consistently eating for emotional reasons can be self-destructive. Instead, create a comfort card (postcard size) with your five top coping skills or even distractions to engage in to either delay the emotional eating or completely avoid it. Here is a sample and free printout of your very own comfort card. Think breathing, knitting, self-talk or getting a manicure. Mindfulness Monthly Subscription With all the things you have to do, who has time to even remember to live in the moment and take care of yourself? I found the cutest concept that serves as a great tool to keep regular with self-care. Part of self-care is logging and or journaling. It is connecting with yourself to feed your mind, body and spirit with non-food items just as much as it can be fed with food for fuel. But of course someone already recognized help is needed. Self-Love Worksheet In order to practice self-care, you must think you are worthy of doing so. Create or download a worksheet to use daily or perhaps weekly to help increase the reasons to love yourself and ultimately nourish your mind, body and spirit. There are many worksheets available online for free and even books that can help to lend a hand. Here is a sample worksheet I found online. The How To Series Need a step by step guide on how to be mindful? Well, books are great tools especially when they are authored by the Zen Master, Thich Naht Hanh! If you follow me on twitter or Instagram, you’ll notice I recently tweeted a pic of his book “How to Relax.” Hanh is a Buddhist monk but you can connect with his teachings regardless of your beliefs. As part of the Mindful Essentials series, there are four small books, How to Sit, How to Love, the aforementioned How to Relax and How to Eat. How to Eat is all about how eating can become a form of meditation. It’s about being mindful in regards to all aspects of food — the growing, preparation, serving, tasting and even the cleaning up. So there you have it! The five tools that will make self-care easier this year. Start with one tool and then keep adding! Remember, every little act of self-care can lead to greater health.    

image via Celine Gros/FreeImages.com By Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, CEDRD The Best Way To Eat An Oreo Chapter 8 of The Women’s Health Body Clock Diet is called “Skill Builder: How to Eat an Oreo.” You might wonder why a diet book would include a chapter on eating what you might consider “junk food,” but the exercise is all about establishing a healthier relationship with food. It also allows you to fully embrace my All Foods Fit philosophy — meaning no food is off-limits or to be labeled as junk food. An Oreo is the kind of food you may feel you have no control over. You might eat a dozen of them in one sitting, despite only originally planning to eat one. It’s not your fault. Food manufacturers have made their products to be seemingly “addictive” and tantalizing. So, how do you handle this? One way is to eat a satiating food (example, chicken or hummus sandwich) before, with or after the food that is more difficult to portion. The next way is to practice mindfully eating the challenging food. The full three-step process can be found in The Women’s Health Body Clock Diet, but here is a brief overview of “How to Eat an Oreo” or whatever your food of choice is. 1. Relax and Breathe Choose your food, be it a cookie, piece of candy or potato chip. Only choose one. If it’s a food you believe you have no “control over,” eat it with a meal and not as a stand alone snack. Set the table. Sit at the table with your feet on the floor. Put a napkin on your lap. Take a deep breath, allowing your shoulders to rise and fall with the breath. 2. Do a Body Scan This is an exercise for you to connect with your body’s energy and perhaps even use helpful imagery. Here is a shortened version to start with. Bring attention to your feet and imagine yourself as a reed in a field. Grounded into the earth but flexible with the wind. As you continue the exercise, notice the sensations in your calves, knees, thighs, abdomen, back and up until your shoulders. Imagine you are under a waterfall. As the water pours over your shoulders, and arms, just notice. Observe your breathing, your chest and belly rising and falling. Notice your scalp, you jaw and your eyes. Notice and breathe. The body scan can be much more holistic and relieving. The full version is available in my book the Women’s Health Body Clock. Take your time. There is no right or wrong. You can fully benefit from this powerful tool. 3. Engage All Senses We have five senses, but so rarely make use of all of them. Here is how to use them effectively during the mindful exercise. Sight — Look at the food, but refrain from touching at first. What does it mean to you or remind you of? Sound — Yes, food makes a sound, or if there is no sound, then note that lack of sound, but just be aware. What sound does it remind you of? Touch — What does it feel like beneath your fingers? Crumbly? Squishy? Melty? How is your body reacting to the feel of the food? Is your heart rate going up? Smell — Put your nose to the food. What does it smell like and what, if any, memories do you associate with that smell? Also note your body’s reaction again. Is your heart rate higher? Are you salivating? Taste — Take a small one. Notice heart rate, breathing, salivation, body tightness and relaxation. Is the food meeting your taste expectations? Move the food around your mouth. Does that change the way it tastes? How do you eat your food? Do you chew it well or not? Swallow, breathe, get in tune with your body. Notice remnants of food, if any, and remaining food flavor. Breathe and repeat the exercise a few times. Finish the food, save it or throw away. That is, in brief, a mindful eating experience. When you do it often enough, you will be less likely to fall into a cycle of emotional or behavioral eating. You may even discover that a food you thought you loved is one that no longer brings you joy. This happened to me while mindfully eating M&Ms. You may discover that you eat a certain food more as a habit than anything else. The revelations you have while mindfully eating may astound you, and that’s part of the point of the exercise. So next time you are ready to eat an Oreo, or an M&M, or any similar food, try eating it mindfully, and see what you discover and how it changes your eating habits in the future.