Plexus Slim is a powdered drink mix of weight-loss ingredients that comes in a packet. You mix it in a glass or bottle of water. The ingredients include green coffee bean, garcinia cambogia and alpha lipoic acid. Plexus Slim made its appearance in 2011. The official website carries the product. Products are available both online and via its independent distributors. Plexus Worldwide, the makers of Plexus Slim, and has a good BBB rating. The products have some good ingredients. However, there are a couple of concerns. According to the company website, you can drink it twice a day to help you lose weight faster. The packets make the product portable which is a good choice for active people.
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Our mission is to advice, and to make the people of the world healthier through the power of information.
Is Herbalife The Best Weight Loss Program?
Herbalife is a supplement company with products for weight-loss and wellness. Their products may contain protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and, in some cases, caffeine. They have a four-component "QuickStart" program: Formulas 1, 2 and 3 and Herbal Tea Concentrate. According to their website, you have to take them all to get the best results. Herbalife has been around since 1980. You can order products from an independent distributor or online. The company has a positive BBB rating and longevity.
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Read This Before You Start Judging Big Girls at the Gym
In a doctor’s eyes, Katie Karlson is obese. She’s 5’9” and weighs more than 200 pounds. But those stats don’t tell you that she has worked out at least four days per week for the past six years or that she’s been a vegan for the past 10 months. By those standards, she’s healthier than most of us. But she knows many people see her and think anyone with her body type could never be healthy, let alone fit.
In a super -nspiring Instagram post, Karlson commiserates with all the other big girls (and guys) at the gym. The ones who were told they weren’t athletic when they turned the color of a ripe tomato while jogging in gym class. The ones who were taught to think of exercise as punishment—suggesting that in the process of nourishing themselves, they were doing something wrong.
Check out her wise words below—and see if she changes your mind about what healthy looks like:
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A Visual Guide to Grains So You Know How to Cook, Eat, and Store Them
Research by Nicole McDermott
Resources:
Nutrition Facts
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Health Benefits
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How to Prevent Nasty Overtraining
It can be really annoying, you have religiously followed your diet and haven't missed a workout session in like, forever, and yet your fat loss has for some reason just stalled! Why could this be, when you have followed all the advice of the experts out there, and are still not seeing the weight loss results that you would like?
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What Happens When You Let Friends Use Your Tinder Account
I'm on Tinder, but I don't have to be happy about it.
But last year, I was hanging out with a couple I'm close with, two hip, engaged-in-the-world 30-somethings with burgeoning digital presences of their own, when my friend asked, "How does Tinder work?"
I looked at her suspiciously. "Is that a trick question?" I asked.
My friend, Teresa, is married, works as a photographer, and is a minor Pinterest celebrity. (Full disclosure: I'm not sure I could explain Pinterest to you). She and her husband met eight years ago and have been married for four, so they've been off the market since the waning days of the George W. Bush presidency. Neither of them ever had a need for OKCupid, much less Tinder.
In the moment, I had to remind myself how Tinder worked: You attach the app to your Facebook account, tell it what kind of genitalia you're interested in, throw in an age range, and limit how far away a potential match can be. Then the app lines up the people that fit the bill—I assume using some sort of mathscience to order them—and presents them like targets at a phenomenally boring shooting gallery.
"Can I try?" Teresa asked.
Anyone who has used Tinder will probably be able to relate to the soul-crushing stupor you can enter when you use it—face after face getting flicked mostly to the left, occasionally to the right. At some point, it starts to feel like a war of attrition. Why would anyone want to try it?
"This guy is a lawyer... and he lives in town!" Teresa said, referencing a deep, ill-fated entanglement with a bartender I'd recently matched with while traveling. To Teresa's mind, that guy's biggest flaw was that he'd lived so dang far away. She swiped right on the lawyer. "Oooh, it's a match!" she said, showing me the victorious match screen.
I somewhat rudely snatched my phone back and examined the solicitor's profile. I knew almost instantly I would not have chosen him. He was alright-looking, just not my type. As I held the phone in my hands, it buzzed—he'd already sent me a message.
What if this whole time, I've just been doing it wrong? It's much easier to wander for 40 years in the desert if you know that there's a promised land of milk and honey at the end of the trail.
Teresa was not alone among my becoupled friends whose curiosity about Tinder was earnest and well-meaning, yet exposed large, gaping holes in my own sense of well-being. At that point, I'd already had several friends in LTRs—mostly heterosexual women, though that might just be because most of my friends are hetero ladies—ask questions about Tinder that felt gastrointestinal in their intimacy.
Of course, I can understand their fascination: Tinder and the other swipe-apps have become a cultural touchstone that is ethically inaccessible to the happily committed. Tinder offers its users thousands of faces and potential partners, while my couple friends have settled on one face that, the understanding is, will be it. To put it in cruder terms: They've got an app that shows them the same face over and over, that they constantly need to swipe right on. To someone who has chosen their person, Tinder must represent a kind of strange, forbidden playground that, for the most part, they have no real interest in, but still wouldn't mind checking out.
The disconnect seems to be in this idea that single people like being on the swipey dating apps. While I imagine there are those power users who derive pleasure from the experience, I feel that the lion's share of us Tinderers would just as soon not be on it if we didn't need to be. (If I had a nickel for every profile that starts with "Looking for someone who'll give me a reason to delete this app," well… I'd have a roll or two of nickels, at least). And though I can't deny the neurochemical high I get when I match with someone—especially an attractive someone—that dopamine dump seems rooted in the desperation of the entire exercise. Will this guy be the one that presages the end of singledom?
I know how the logic goes: The single—especially the chronically single, like yours truly—must just be not choosing right. Outsource the task to a friend (or even a computer), and they can choose a quality partner that we would have otherwise overlooked, clouded as we are by such petty considerations as attraction.
Maybe that's where my knee-jerk nausea originated: handing over control of my Tinder was equivalent to admitting that I couldn't trust my own sense of attraction, that quickening of the heart, the fuzzy tendrils that radiate out from the chest, the head-to-toe sweep of goosebumps you get when you really like someone. But without the starry-eyed thrill, what's the goddamned point?
On a purely practical level, there's another problem with letting my friend guest-swipe on my Tinder: The same way that a friend borrowing my Netflix login skewed my recommendation algorithm by binge-watching several seasons of Pretty Little Liars, Teresa's swiping had the potential to confuse the impersonal math equation Tinder uses to select my matches. Unlike the algorithms used by services like OKCupid, which try to use common interests to match people, the swipey apps use our instant hot-or-not reaction to their photos—which is apparently how good matches are made.
Maybe in the end, it all boils down to the same primal, emotional place I go to whenever someone offers dating advice: Don't tell me how I'm failing. Partly because they don't know how hard it is to not only be failing at dating, but to still be failing at dating. When they're done hypothetically and dispassionately swiping for me, they get to crawl into bed with their person.
You might also like And partly because… what if they're right? What if this whole time, I've just been doing it wrong? It's much easier to wander for 40 years in the desert if you know that there's a promised land of milk and honey at the end of the trail.
Still, the swiping continues, not because I think it's a good way to meet people, so much as it feels like one of the only ways to meet people. And though I am living for the day when I can hit the X over the jiggling app icon because I've met (and locked down) the man of my dreams, I wonder if that final click might be 10 percent bitter to the 90 percent sweet. As one friend who has recently left singledom for a guy she met on Tinder said to me the other day, "I finally deleted Tinder last night, and it felt kind of sad."
After a moment, though, she reconsidered.
"No, not sad… what am I saying?" she said. "I guess I mean it felt sort of like a strange end of an era."
For a couple of weeks following Teresa's guest appearance on my Tinder, I kept matching with guys I had no memory of swiping on. I felt bad about ignoring them—though that seemed kinder than explaining the situation. Besides, there's a kind of horrible usefulness to the rhetoric of silence on dating apps. In fact, years of using these apps have taught me something like a new language—and maybe that was the at the core of the problem: Teresa didn't speak it.
I suppose I find myself locked in a strange symbiosis with Tinder, hating it, but also feeling ownership over it. Still, I keep swiping, hoping that with every flick of the finger, I'm bringing myself just a bit closer to the end of this strange, strange era.
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The 19-Minute Workout for Increased Stamina and Core Strength
Doing separate workouts for cardio and core strength sounds like a total time-suck to us. Instead, get two workouts for the price of one with this short circuit routine that'll keep your heart rate elevated while you strengthen your midsection.
You might also like This workout includes 11 basic bodyweight exercises, which means you don't need any equipment, and it only requires enough space to fit an exercise mat. This one is not about hammering out moves as fast as possible. [Insert prayer emoji.] Although you'll keep your heart rate up, it's about focusing on your form and getting the most out of every repetition. Hit play to get started.
To recap: An exercise mat is optional. Perform each move for about 30 seconds. Don't rest between each exercise.
Workout:
Jumping Jack
Kangaroo
Traveling Push-Up
High Knees With a Twist
Superman
Plank With Knee Tuck
Greek Shuffle
Squat With Side Kick
Bicycle Crunch
Seal Plank
Turtle
-Repeat-
Looking for more short and effective at-home workouts? Grokker has thousands of routines, so you’ll never get bored. Bonus: For a limited time, Greatist readers get 40 percent off Grokker Premium (just $9 per month) and their first 14 days free. Sign up now!
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Save Time And Money With A Healthy Food Delivery Service
When many people hear of a food delivery service, they think of the regular fast food. This isn't the case as there are many food delivery services that deliver fresh, organic, healthy food.
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A Meal-Prep Lunch Bowl That Will Last All Week
Yes, even you can be that coworker who brings their lunch to work every day. Whether you call it a salad, a bowl, or a mason jar meal, this healthy combo is super easy to prep on Sunday, so it's ready for you to grab in the mornings, stash in your bag, and eat healthy all week. We're providing suggestions for how to build your bowl, but you can select any ingredients that make you happy (happy=healthy).
Step 1:
Hit up the grocery store.
Get on your feet. We know it can be hard on a lazy Sunday, but spending 30 minutes at the store will save you a week of hardships at lunchtime. Too dramatic? We don't think so.
Use this grocery list as a guideline to determine quantities of the recommended ingredients. Keyword: guideline. We've provided suggestions, but if you're yearning for pecans, and we've listed cashews, get the damn pecans. And if you can't fathom eating grains or cheese (we see you, Paleo fiends), just leave them off your list. It's that simple.
Shopping List
- 5 cups greens: arugula, baby kale, and/or baby spinach
- 2 cups grains: quinoa, barley, wheat berries, and/or farro
- 1 cup nuts: walnuts, almonds, and/or cashews
- 2 raw vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, and/or onions
- 2 root vegetables for roasting: sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and/or acorn squash
- 5 servings of protein of choice: chicken, salmon, tuna, and/or tofu
- 1/2 cup cheese: goat, feta, cheddar, and/or Parmesan
- 1/3 cup dried fruit: cranberries, dates, and/or apricots
Dressing ingredients:
- 5 tablespoons olive oil
- 5 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 3 lemons
- Sea salt, to taste
6 large mason jars (5 for salads, one for dressing)
1 bowl to leave at work (and a fork, duh)
Step 2:
Prep everything in 30 minutes.
Make Sunday an even more fun-day by preparing the ingredients for your bowl. Need some tips to get you going? We got you:
- Greens: Keep 'em as is.
- Grains: Normally the instructions are on the box, but if not. use this guide to cooking grains.
- Nuts: Chop 'em up.
- Raw vegetables: Chop into small bits.
- Root vegetables: Roast them using this super-helpful guide.
- Proteins: We recommend canned chicken, tuna, or salmon, since these stay fresher longer, and you can drop them into your jar in the mornings. But if you're cooking, here are the best ways to cook chicken and salmon.
- Cheese: Crumble it.
- Dried fruit: Chop into bite-size pieces.
- Dressing: Combine 5 tablespoons olive oil, 5 teaspoons Dijon mustard, juice from 1/2 lemon, and sea salt to taste. Mix it up and store in a mason jar for the week.
Step 3:
Build a bowl.
In each mason jar (five total), you're going to add your ingredients in the same order they are listed below. When you're done, seal each mason jar with a lid and keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
1/4 cups grains
1 cup greens
1/5 raw vegetables
1 tablespoon cheese
1 tablespoon dried fruit
1/5 roasted vegetables
2 tablespoon nuts
1 serving protein of choice (or add each morning for freshness)
Need some inspiration? This is what we're bowling up.
- Vegetarian Dream combo:
Quinoa and mixed greens topped with cucumbers, goat cheese, dried cranberries, roasted butternut squash, almonds, and tofu. - Paleo Bowl combo:
Kale topped with bell peppers, cucumbers, roasted acorn squash, walnuts, and canned salmon. - I-Eat-Everything Bowl:
Farro, quinoa, and spinach topped with cucumbers, feta cheese, dates, sweet potatoes, cashews, and canned chicken.
Step 4:
Get ready for lunch-master status at work.
Every morning, drizzle 1 1/2 tablespoons of dressing on top of your mason jar salad, reseal it, pop the mason jar into your bag, and off to work you go. Store it in the fridge and put your name on it, so greedy hands stay away. When you're ready to eat, give it a shake and dump it into a bowl. All hail the BYOL master... that's you.
Step 5:
Become an expert.
Follow these tips to create the best bowl ever.
- We like adding our dressing in the mornings ,so we don't run the risk of a soggy jar. But it's totally cool if you add your dressing to the bottom of your jars when you're prepping on Sunday, so then you have nothing to do in the mornings.
- When using proteins, plan accordingly. Cooked chicken and fish only stay good for up to three days. If you don't want to worry about cooking chicken again on Tuesday night, consider canned chicken, tuna, or salmon that you can throw into your bowl in the mornings.
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Dating Someone With a Disability Isn't "Inspiring"... It's Normal
Illustration: Kath Nash
While pictures of pugs definitely fill me with the warm fuzzies, stories about this girl going to prom really don’t.
You might also like For me, the problem with stories like these is that they don't focus on the girl in the wheelchair; they focus on the date. Instead of acknowledging the universal need of humans to love and be loved, in stories like these, people with disabilities aren’t depicted as loveable and deserving humans in our own right. Instead, they reward an able-bodied person for daring to love someone who uses a cane.
But it's not inspirational to date me.
A few years ago, I wouldn’t have ever made a statement like that. I used to take up as little space as I could. I didn’t even really talk. Back in those days, I had diagnoses but no support. I was scared to reach out because of the stigmas I faced. Who would want me if they knew I struggled to get up in the mornings?
Go ahead and check out a few of the things people have said to me and tell me I’m overreacting:
You can't have disabilities—you're too young.
No one will want you if you can’t have children.
Fibromyalgia doesn’t mean anything. You’re not really sick.
Luckily, I've had partners who didn’t think this way, but I know plenty of people who do. I’ve received comments from family members, and comments from strangers when I'm out in public. When my disabilities were invisible conditions, these were rarer, but when I started using a cane, they got worse... and perhaps the hardest part is seeing the looks.
I want to be beautiful and feel fabulous in my body too—whether I'm using my cane or not.
If I show up in a lingerie shop without my cane, the clerks treat me like any other customer. But with my cane, they often assume I'm buying for someone else, or give me a side-eye. I become a creature, someone who would never have sex, who wouldn’t ever want to feel beautiful.
When I’m out on a date and I’m using my cane, it pisses me off that some people make it clear that they think my date is being noble for being with me. While I’m grateful for my friends and partners, as anyone is grateful for having people they love in their life, this isn't amazing—it's basic human psychology. When someone tells me how great my partners are for being with me, what it seems like they’re really saying—whether they mean it consciously or not—is that I’m not fully human in their eyes. It’s like I’m some kind of prop, and people do a "good deed" by hanging out with me.
I want to be beautiful and feel fabulous in my body too—whether I have my cane or not. I want to be able to go to a makeup store and not feel as if I’m running in there to be fixed. When I go back to that lingerie shop, I want the clerks to simply assume that I’m buying for myself. So what if my body isn’t factory-perfect, and it injures more easily than some other people’s—it’s mine, and I want to enjoy having a body in this world. Besides, just because I use a cane doesn’t mean I’m any less worthy of love… or that I’m any less fun in bed, for that matter.
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12 Signs of Breast Cancer Every Woman Needs to Know
If you’re an adult woman, chances are at some point a doctor has explained how to do a breast self-exam. They show you how to use your hands to press down on your breasts and feel for a lump. And then the conversation ends. But there’s so much more to know!
For starters, a cancerous lump feels like a lemon seed—it’s hard, and will rarely budge when you push up against it. Plus, lumps aren’t the only sign of breast cancer. This handy graphic that’s gone viral on Facebook shows 12 things every woman should be on the lookout for. (You can ignore the fact that lemons have been superimposed on an egg carton—we know it doesn’t make any sense!) The important part here is the takeaway: If you see an indentation, growing veins, or one of the 10 other potential signs of breast cancer, it’s worth consulting a doctor.
Photo: KnowYourLemons.com
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The Lifting Technique Is a Good Way to Stop Bedwetting
Looking for an effective solution on how to stop bedwetting? Here is an interesting lifting technique that can do wonders for your child. Overcoming bedwetting was never so easy and precise. Read on and explore how you can begin your treatment right now!
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Women Write the Sh*tty Things People Have Said to Them as an Act of Self-Love
Remember the adage “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Man, we said that a lot growing up! But here’s the thing: It’s not true. Words hurt. They sting. And they stick with you for years.
That’s exactly what The Worthy Project, an inspiring photo series, points out. Photographer Kierra Mellenthin gathered dozens of women and asked them to write “a memory, incident, or a phrase that stuck in their mind that had ever made them feel unworthy.”
Here are a few examples of what the women wrote down. The comments people have received are upsetting, but it’s important to recognize how a couple of words can really impact us years later. And ultimately there’s a happy ending—just keep scrolling:
Photos: Kierra Mellenthin
So, at the end of the shoot, the women ended up with uplifting messages all over their bodies. It’s a simple thing, but after years of being told you aren’t worthy, having someone say you’re brave, strong, and beautiful is pretty empowering. Check out the great messages below:
Photos: Kierra Mellenthin
(h/t Revelist)
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No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
Let's be real—there's no day we're not craving cookies. But instead of running out to the bakery (who's got time for that?), we like to keep a stash of these no-bake chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen. They're super simple to make—like, 10 minutes-easy. Plus, thanks to an oat- and nut-flour, the cookies are wheat free and naturally sweetened with maple syrup. Basically, we're admitting that sometimes they make a mighty fine breakfast too. No regrets.
No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe by: Jamie Webber
Makes: 30 cookies
Ready in: 10 minutes, plus freezing time.
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1/4 cup raw pecans
3/4 cup oats
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup coconut oil
Pinch of Himalayan salt, or more to taste
1 3.5-ounce dark chocolate bar
DIRECTIONS
1. Grind cashews, pecans, and oats in a food processor or blender until a fine meal forms.
2. Place cashew mixture and remaining wet ingredients in a large bowl. Mix until a dough forms, then refrigerate.
3. Chop the chocolate bar into tiny pieces.
4. Remove dough from the fridge and mix in chocolate.
5. Roll into balls (or any shape you prefer) and try not to eat them all in one sitting.
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Cooking Is Way More Like Therapy Than You Think
The author with a particularly awesome-looking copy of Meals with a Foreign Flair / Photo: courtesy of Iconic Pinups
When I was a kid and I skipped a dose of medication, my mother would say, "Remember to follow your recipe." I started having panic attacks when I was eight and slid into my first bout of deep depression when I was 14. Now that I’m grown, I realize my mom didn’t use the word recipe by mistake. Although I have half a lifetime of experience in therapy and only half a year of experience in the kitchen, I’ve learned quickly that mental healthcare is a hell of a lot like cooking.
My parents never did much in the kitchen—we ate a lot of fast food picked up after the normal workday, sometimes in the quick hour before one of them had to tackle another work project at home. (My dad always worked on the laptop during the nightly news, and for a few years, my mom had grad school in library studies at night). Unsurprisingly, I became an adult who lived on quick meals made from packaged stuff engineered in food science laboratories. I didn’t start actually cooking with real ingredients until this year.
I guess that’s why I was only recently struck by the notion that, just as many common dishes can be made dozens of different ways, many mental health issues can be treated in any number of ways, and you have to play around with the ingredients to find the right combination for you.
Of course, the tasks of experimenting in a kitchen and inside your own brain are not exactly created equal. For an amateur cook, it’s fun to try out versions of the same dish, trying out braised Brussels sprouts and roasted ones, discovering which you like best. But it’s the opposite of fun when you’re stuck with crippling depression, and the knowledge that the new meds you’re trying out may not kick in for two weeks, or even two months.
This year, like so many folks with or without a history of depression, I’ve been down in the dumps a lot, although I didn’t want to kill myself, mostly. (This is how I determine if my depression is really bad: Do I want to kill myself, mostly? Then my depression is really bad. Do I not want to kill myself, mostly? Excellent news! I can work with that.)
It is impossible to cook one’s way out of depression, but cooking distracts you from your troubles. You have to focus on the ingredients before you. You have to take care with heat. You have to be present.
But despite my medical problems of the mental sort, I really do have a naturally upbeat disposition. And as someone who has managed on a few occasions to resist the siren’s call of suicide, I tend to walk around with a lot of gratitude—I always say that’s my only religion. Simple things bring me odd delight, like the knowledge that I get to live on my own and stay up as late as I want. I also greatly enjoy taking out the recycling, paying the heating bill, and riding in a car without experiencing a heart-pounding, gut-wrenching panic attack.
This is probably because there was a time when I wondered if I’d ever make it to my 30s, much less get to live on my own outside my parents’ house without close monitoring. I remember very clearly what it was like to be afraid to leave the house even to bring garbage to the end of the driveway, so perhaps you can see why I get a jazzy charge out of taking out that glamorous blue recycling bag.
This year, I carried in my heart all my gratitude, and the knowledge that I was very, very lucky. And still, I got depressed. But there are recipes for combating depression, and recipes for a life well-lived. In the wake of this election, I tried to follow this one: Donate what you can, volunteer, and support and encourage elected politicians with respectable track records. And for the first time in my life, I’ve started following real recipes. I began to cook.
You might also like It is impossible to cook one’s way out of depression, but cooking can distract you from your troubles. You have to focus on the ingredients before you. You have to take care with heat. You have to be present. And more tangibly, it is very possible to save some money by cooking at home instead of ordering delivery or grabbing fast food every day, even when you work seven days a week and think you don’t have time to cook (chances are high that, yeah, you actually do).
I make basic things: oatmeal, toast, scrambled eggs, candied yams, Brussels sprouts a million ways to Sunday. I live alone, so I cook for me and me only. I like that. I like that I’m in my own little cooking school of one, guided by my small collection of cookbooks.
My small collection of cookbooks.
I am trying to figure out how to do things right, to follow the recipe that’s right for me. To that end, I’ve determined it’s time to get back into regular therapy. I called a few psychologists until one called me back. He can’t see me for a couple months, but he said that so long as I’m not in crisis and feel OK most of the time, there are some things I can do on my own that can help a lot, no matter which therapist I end up choosing. He gave me a recipe to follow:
- First, he said to read a particular book. I’d tell you the title, but I haven’t started reading it yet, so I don’t know if it’s any good.
- Next, he said to meditate once a day for even five minutes at a time using a mindfulness technique that feels safe and good. Don’t worry about being perfect. Just do it.
- Finally, he said to get moderate-to-vigorous cardiovascular exercise six days per week for 30 minutes at a time. He said I should check with my doctor first before I start any exercise plan. And of course, if I feel like I’m in an emergency, call 911 and all that stuff.
It sounded like a pretty good recipe to me. So I bought the book. I’ve started meditating. And tomorrow I see my doctor for a physical, and we’re going to talk about the whole exercise thing.
Cinnamon bread!
Tonight I took a photograph to prove that I have indeed started using my kitchen for something other than a place to display Game of Thrones refrigerator magnets and a poster of The Adventures of Pete & Pete. The photo is blurry, but you can see the dough (and my Bride of Chucky t-shirt). I thought I was making pizza, but it turned out to be cinnamon bread. With cooking, as in life, you can plan it out, but in the end, you just never know.
Sara Benincasa is an author and comedian. She's @sarajbenincasa on Twitter. Her weekly zine is The Stories.
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How Dogs Can Ease Your Depression and Anxiety
Rosemary and Milo
The sun peeked through the blackout curtains of my allegedly-one-bedroom-but-really-a-studio apartment, and I groaned and rolled over, trying to block the light out with my pillow. Just one more hour, I promised myself. But then, the bed moved. Suddenly, a cold nose was an inch away from mine.
My dog Milo could tell that I was awake, and he was ready for playtime. I groaned again, but this time it wasn’t genuine. I rolled over and petted him, and he pressed his furry head into my stomach.
It had only been three months since I’d picked up Milo from the shelter, but in that short time, he had helped ease my anxiety and depression more than I’d thought possible. Dogs really can sense what you’re feeling and match your emotions with their energy. When I was feeling positive and happy, Milo would play with me; when I was upset and need to relax, he’d curl up to me.
Milo also helped give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. While his needs are minimal, he does have them—he relies on me to take him on walks, give him food and water, and play with him. Even on my most depressed days, having him around helped me plop my feet over the bed and on the floor. Prior to my life with Milo, I’d spent entire weekends not leaving the house (and barely leaving the bed), but now I wanted to get outside and take him to the park. He helped me create routine, and brought a renewed sense of purpose to my life.
You might also like A few months later, I met my partner, and at the end of the summer, we moved across the country from California to New York. We knew we wanted another dog, but we thought we’d be a little more settled when we adopted again—however, soon after we had moved to Brooklyn, we got Lily. Was it risky? A little. I was still looking for a job at the time of her adoption, but when we saw her on the adoption website, we fell in love, and that was that.
In between applying for positions online, Lily and I would take naps together on the guestroom bed, her little head resting in the crook of my neck. It was hard to be so far away from family and looking for jobs in a new city, all while trying to make new friends. Lily was a compassionate new companion, licking my tears and by my side while I wrote cover letters in bed. It felt like we were figuring it out together.
Milo and Lily
Moving to New York was ultimately the best decision for me, and I began addressing my depression and anxiety head on. It would be a new start for me, and while that was a good thing in the long run, I was flooded by emotions that affected my energy and my ability to explore the city and make friends. While I began developing some means of coping (including medication and a support group), my dogs helped immensely—maybe more than anything else. They calm me down and make me feel loved and accepted. Without them, on my worst days, I might have gone back to not getting out of bed. But the small tasks I need to do for them are just enough to get me up and moving. Having a routine, albeit a small one, makes me feel normal again.
It’s in between these routine moments, when we can all just be, that I see and appreciate Milo and Lily’s acceptance of me the most. When I’m feeling good and energetic, they’re happy to go on long walks with me, or—their favorite—to the dog park. When I’m feeling sad or anxious, I get in bed and spoon Lily, and Milo curls up at the base of my feet or pushes his body into my back. Lily takes these deep sighs, like she’s telling me it’s OK to breathe. Milo always, inevitably, rolls over onto his back with his little paws up in the air. No matter what I’m feeling, they’re happy to meet me where I am and tell me in their little ways that it’s OK, or at the very least, will be.
The thing about cliches is that they become part of the lexicon because so many people identify with them, and the one about dogs saving you as much as you save them—now a slogan you see on bumper stickers—is no different. When we decide to take home an animal, the line between rescuer and rescued often becomes blurred; our animals are capable of providing something amazing: unconditional love. They wait for us while we go about our busy lives, always trusting that we’ll come back. They press their furry faces into our bodies, nudging us to feel better, simply because they care. Over time, Milo and Lily have helped ease my depression and anxiety simply by existing.
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A Few Tricks for Kicking Insomnia (Without Medication)
A portrait of the author, Lisa Marie Basile
People say "I’ve got insomnia" the same way they say "I’m depressed." They don’t mean the literal, actual, clinical condition. They mean, "I’m not sleeping as well as I usually do," or "I’ve been kind of down lately." But as I’ve recently discovered, true insomnia is like true depression. This year, I got to the point where my days were starting at 2 p.m. and ending at 6 a.m.; my body felt feverish and disconnected; swirling lights took over my periphery... and I knew it was getting serious. I wasn’t just sluggish or tired; I was disinterested and constantly fatigued. Any semblance of circadian rhythm was gone.
Have you ever had one of those incredibly turbulent years, where every month seems to bring about disaster after disaster? I know that basically everyone hated 2016 with a passion, but aside from all the major world issues and deaths, the year felt simultaneously unstable and monotonous—plagued with repetitive vulnerabilities and new problems. On a personal level, my job's department shut down. Suddenly, I was unemployed and grasping for stability—change and I are not friends—and I developed my first bout of true insomnia.
You might also like So I saw a doctor, who noted that the reasons for my insomnia were glaringly obvious. They were pretty textbook: I had no real daily schedule, I was battling anxiety over major life changes, I wasn’t very active, and the days were getting shorter as fall approached.
When I think back about my habits at the time, I see myself moping all day, working, and staying up all night. I even became a little addicted to the idea of staying awake through the night: Maybe I’d get more done? Maybe I’d wake up early tomorrow anyway? When I thought this way, sleep never occurred to me, despite knowing how I was wreaking havoc on my body. So it was me against myself—fighting sleep while simultaneously fighting for a desperately needed change.
There is no perfect cure for insomnia, since everyone experiences it differently. We all have our own triggers, and we all respond to potential solutions differently. Let’s just say that I’m picky, which means I really had to get creative about fixing the issue. Among the ideas my doctor and I discussed were yoga and sleeping pills. Now yoga makes me want to gouge my eyes out (I’m not knocking yoga—this is a me problem), and I personally tend to veer from the pharmaceutical route. So I considered my alternatives: working out, melatonin, and meditation.
Melatonin
Melatonin seems to be a great choice for plenty of people—and some science really seems to back that up. A friend of mine swears by its ability to knock her out immediately. Not so for me. After a month of use, I noticed even a half dose made me groggy the next day and caused the kind of dreams I can’t write about here.
Meditation
I downloaded the Headspace app, which promises that its 10-minutes-a-day meditations could "help people stress less, exercise more, and even sleep better." Yes, please. I’d force myself into bed around 9 or 10 p.m. to meditate, which due to my off-kilter schedule, felt more like afternoon tea time than any normal person’s bedtime. I was able to decompress enough to focus on the meditation, to breathe slowly, showing my body that the bed wasn’t an enemy. My body fell into a soft place, and even when my mind raced, I pushed through. I kept coming back to the core thought: my breath. It was simple, conceptually. Just be mindful. Just keep being mindful.
So I meditated one or two more times per day. I focused on releasing all that stress, anxiety, and self-doubt that had built up in the months of self-neglect. I confess I’m no expert, but I sensed a change, a release, like a grid was shifting beneath me. It don’t know if the meditation had changed my brain chemistry, per se, as science suggests it might, but I was definitely giving myself the chance to heal.
Working Out
I also started working out at night, not too close to "bedtime," but late enough to tire me out. I hadn’t really stuck to a workout routine in a while, but I gave it my all: I went for an hour a few times per week at night, and really pushed myself. I wanted my body to feel tired, like it had done something. I wanted it to feel alive, to remind myself that I was an engine of blood and muscle—not a listless bag of bones. I actually cried because it felt so good to treat myself with kindness.
These simple acts began to change things. Complacency had kept me in a spiral of sleeplessness, and laziness had made it all the worse. But by trying—and failing—and trying again, I found the right solution for me. I took actual care of my body, said no to the problem, and gave myself the time I needed to move through it.
Last month, my body slowly started to reverse itself, and due to utter exhaustion and my efforts, I’d begun falling asleep at a regular grown-up hour: 11 p.m. Getting my sleep back was, frankly, a magical experience. Looking back, my fling with insomnia feels like a manic nightmare—a physical representation of my fears and stresses.
"It was me against myself—fighting sleep while fighting for a desperately needed change."
I’m still dealing with many of the same issues I had before, but I have a few new tools to combat them now. I still struggle with waking up early, and I still am tempted to stay up well past a reasonable bedtime, but I was never going to magically become a morning person overnight, although that’s certainly next on my list of things to try.
If I can go from making to-do lists at 3 a.m. to getting to bed before midnight, I can be the person who wakes up at 7 a.m. to—hey, let’s be audacious here—work out or clean house or, should miracles exist, write.
Lisa Marie Basile is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and moderator of its digital community. Her work has appeared in The Establishment, Bustle, Bust, Hello Giggles, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is also the author of three poetry collections and holds an MFA from The New School. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.from Greatist RSS http://ift.tt/2jb4Axa
Why a 92-Year-Old Calling Me Fat Made Me Change My Life
A few months ago, I traveled home for my birthday. At the party, my grandmother, always a subtle and delicate woman, gave the following toast in my honor: "Michael, you’re fat. You need to lose some weight." Not exactly what I was expecting, but nobody ever accused The Greatest Generation of having an overabundance of tact. And the fact is that she wasn’t exactly wrong. Over the past few years, I’ve managed to balloon from 125 to slightly over 200 pounds, the simple result of too many eight-pint nights and too much neglect for myself.
While it may not have been in the form of kind and loving support, Gran had given me the push I’d been waiting for. Apparently, getting called out on my physique on my birthday by a particularly beloved 92-year-old was all the motivation I needed: It was time to draw up a plan.
I grew up as the fifth-generation progeny of Italian immigrants in New York; in my family, hints handed down from the older generation are basically edicts. As a kid, I was never more than a five-minute walk across the city from any member of my family. Sunday dinners with more than a dozen people gathered were commonplace, and holidays would see 30 or more people around the table.
We ate a lot. I was a pudgy child.
I moved to the South a while ago, but every time I came home, Gran always had a new list of suggestions (OK, demands) for me. After greeting me, she’d start in quickly: "Michael, when are you gonna get married?" This sentiment was usually followed by, "You better have children while I’m still around." While I’d been expecting the reprise of these particular desires on my birthday, my weight somehow earned multiple mentions. Losing a few pounds sounded just a bit quicker and simpler than getting married and fathering a child, so I figured that was the ticket. I’d be home in four months, and by that point, she’d be able to see me a bit trimmer and on my way to being healthy. No sweat.
My grandmother died a few weeks later.
It’s funny what a sudden death in the family can do. Everyone’s on the next flight home, at the wake, at the funeral, at wit’s end trying to process what just happened. It becomes easy— in fact, essential—to put one’s own life on hold. I spent days in the funeral parlor, in the church, at the cemetery. My plans went out the window.
When you lose someone close to you, your life tends to get thrown off balance. How do you pick yourself up and keep going where you left off? And when your inspiration for changing yourself disappears, how do you keep going?
I’d had a Rocky montage in mind, but my body could only tolerate a Jane Fonda tape.
That’s how I found myself realizing that there's no central reason to do anything. It’s all on you. You’re the only one who can reliably get out of bed, look at your day, then set off down a smart path. Routine is an easy road to drive when things are going your way, but grief is a collision that can send you flying in all directions, your careful route disrupted.
At the lunch after the burial, I sat in an Italian restaurant, sandwiched among 50 aunts, uncles, and cousins, each of us joking or otherwise trying to throw off the terrible sadness of the day. Out from the kitchen came plates piled high with ravioli as big as my fist. They looked delicious, but my first thought was: "I shouldn’t eat this. I’m already fat enough as it is."
While I wasn’t being kind to myself, at least I acknowledged that I still wanted to work toward my goal. But of course I ate those ravioli. I was grieving, and they were amazing.
You might also like I spent at least a month watching my brain tell my body to get up, while my brain heard that message and steadfastly sat on the couch watching Netflix. Did you know that every single episode of Airwolf is on there? I was somewhere in the middle of the third season of hot Ernest-Borgnine-flying-a-helicopter action, sprawled on the couch, passively hating my body, when I realized what I was doing.
I had to stop worrying about my weight without actually doing anything about it. I’ve noticed that when my life goes a little off the rails, my goals tend to stay in place, but I stop advancing them. I’ll stare at a goal, ponder it, think that maybe I should do something about it, then steadfastly ignore it.
And this time was no different. But it was time to try, and I wanted to acknowledge where I was starting from. After peeling myself away from a Quantum Leap binge, I took a hard look in the mirror, and realized that I didn’t look anything like I thought I did. After a careful examination, I determined that I’m not fat, I just have fat parts. My legs look great, and my arms are spindly like an old cartoon character’s. It’s just my torso that’s a problem. Some days, I look at myself and wonder what it would cost to get lipo just for that piece of me.
I was 208 pounds the day I started the plan. I started out thinking that I would jump right back into cardio, weight training, running, the whole nine yards, but I’d injured my knee pretty severely a few years ago, so while I’d had a Rocky montage in mind, my body could only tolerate a Jane Fonda tape.
The searing pain in my legs that came from running full-out that first day nearly sent me back to the couch. After all, there were seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to watch if I gave up and went back to my living room.
But I stuck with it. Mostly, I’m doing a lot of walking, a little jogging, three times per week on the elliptical, and push-ups until I feel just short of awful. (This usually means 10 push-ups). I still find myself thinking about death a lot. Sometimes it’s easy to get tripped up on that looming thought: Why exercise if death is coming for us all? I wonder if when the end comes, I’ll be happy with how I treated myself. I figure I probably won’t, but I’m glad I’m on this better path. I want to keep going. I guess that’s what we do; we move away from sorrow any way we can.
I want to honor the memory of my grandmother, to remember who inspired this healthy change I’m making. I know that moving is good for me. It helps me get in shape, and it helps me clear my head so I can organize my thoughts.
I don’t presume to know anything about the afterlife. But I’d like to think that my Gran is somewhere taking note of my progress, understanding who I am and who I’m probably always going to be, proud that I’m still trying.
And then telling me to lose 15 more pounds.
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5 Ways to Finally Get Your Ass in Gear (and Quit Stalling)
Ever have that feeling of powerful opposition to doing something you know you want to do? The feeling that stops you from getting your butt to the gym, cleaning out your chaotic closet, or finally signing up for the yoga training you’ve been yearning to master?
In his bestselling book, Turning Pro, Steven Pressfield identifies this feeling in one brilliant, accurate, precise, and simple word: resistance.
To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence. —Steven Pressfield
I know resistance like I know my oldest, closest best friend. It knows me too. We’re inseparable. We cling together so much that every day, I have to practice my independence from it.
Resistance applies to everything from our health to our savings accounts, creative work… anything that delays gratification in favor of longer-term gain. Pretty much without exception, resistance stands in the way of what’s good for us. But the pros know something we don’t: They know about resistance, and they know how to slay it.
Here’s how to be the pro you were born to be and live a far more productive life on your terms:
1. Do the work.
This means we do not wait "to feel inspired" to blog or paint, nor relent to the illusion that "we’ll get to it tomorrow." There is no tomorrow. The only time to act is now. Now is all we will ever have; it’s always now. So book that nonrefundable spin class and find those leggings. It’s on, baby.
2. Cut the crap.
In order to focus on what's critically important to us, we might have to say no to our second cousin’s birthday that’s 90 minutes away. We might have to skip Westworld to meet a personal deadline (or hey, just watch it later—it doesn’t always feel like it, but that stuff really can wait)! We can Snapchat in a few hours, after doing the important stuff that resistance begs us to avoid, or when we need a little break after doing the important stuff for two hours. The important stuff is the important stuff. The rest is crap… and we kinda know it, don’t we?
3. Ruthlessly remove distractions.
My preferred distractions include prosecco, Instagram storying, calling my sisters to talk about anything (which is most often nothing, or nothing critical). I even let myself get distracted by unpleasant thoughts, like worrying about my dog dying of heartworm because my neighbor’s brother’s dog had it once. It’s all resistance. Nothing else. What should you really be doing? You know.
4. Quit seeking approval.
Living by the opinions of others is a recipe for a very sad, unfulfilling life. When I became a life coach while juggling a very busy full time job, people thought I was a weirdo. "Why are you pushing yourself so hard?" I'd hear. No one understood. But they didn’t have to. My inner wisdom understood extremely well.
You might also like I turned down weddings. I turned down brunches. I most definitely turned down destination bachelorette parties, and was pretty much always the first to leave the bar on a Friday night. Were my friends disappointed? Hell yes. Did I feel some guilt and self-reproach for pulling back on social stuff to focus on my true calling in this world? Definitely.
But I could live with that. I could also live with disgruntled texts and sad face emojis. But sacrificing the unique calling of my soul I could not live with. So I didn’t.
5. Welcome delayed results.
Deferred gratification is the ability to resist temptation for an immediate reward and wait for the greater one that comes to those who never give up. Published authors know this, as do those seriously fit types. So do people with sweet bank balances—you know, the folks who think, "I don’t need that new car—mine works just fine." Think about new parents who endured multiple rounds of IVF or filled out endless streams of adoption paperwork to finally receive the family they dream of.
Is this easy? No. Does it get easier? A little. Especially as the delayed wins compound over time and you feel immense pleasure over what has been awarded to you by time, consistency, and patience.
The good new is, you’re already a pro.
Think about how you show up at your job every day, even when it might not be the career of your dreams.
Consider how you parent, even when you’re exhausted and your child tests your tolerance.
I doubt you gave up learning to walk as a baby, learning to drive as a teenager, or mastering any skill you’re now proud of after a few failures and a whole lot of fatigue along the way.
Whatever you want next, it’s in your reach, just as soon as you refuse to live life as a shadow version of who you truly are and accept the magnificence inside of you. Let it get to work. It’s dying to, I promise.
And the opposite is being a pro? It’s called being an amateur. An amateur treats life like a dress rehearsal. A pro owns the live stage. Will I see you up there this year?
Susie Moore is Greatist's life coach columnist and a confidence coach in New York City. Her new book, What If It Does Work Out?, is available on Amazon now. Sign up for free weekly wellness tips on her website and check back every Tuesday for her latest No Regrets column!
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Facebook Can’t Replace Family... but When You’re a New Mom, It Can Come Close
The author nursing her child
I imagine that most harried parents of young children fantasize about the days when entire extended families lived together on the same block, or even in the same house, like multi-generational Matryoshka dolls. Consider the beauty of it: a never-ending stream of grandparents, aunts, and cousins ready to lend a helping hand with childcare, household chores, and the minutiae of daily living. Because my dad’s family is Greek, my vision of this scenario always takes place on a cliffside in the Mediterranean, in a whitewashed villa, a great-grandmother in the kitchen, cooking up spanakopita and fresh seafood... an image almost as beguiling as the fantasy of free childcare.
In reality, like many American millennial parents, I live with my partner and our children, and both of our extended families live far away. So when it’s 4 a.m., and I’m desperately seeking advice on nighttime cluster feeding, I can’t go knocking on the door of my beloved yiayia. But as new parents, we don’t always know exactly what’s going on with our precious newborn… and we seriously need that font of experience and wisdom.
One night not long ago, we literally couldn’t tell if our baby was starving to death or just going through a very normal, very frustrating developmental phase. What can I say? When you combine extreme sleep deprivation and a fundamental lack of knowledge about infants, you get two well-educated parents who are contemplating taking a seemingly healthy newborn to the emergency room simply because he won’t stop crying.
Sure, we could have called one of our mothers in another time zone, but something about that seemed like admitting defeat. Because we live far away, we’re so unused to asking for their help that relying on them for answers almost feels like confessing that we’re unsuitable parents.
However, I do know someone who’s always ready for a 4 a.m. inquiry, and always has a ready answer: my pal, the internet. In your Facebook mom group, you can ask the crowd, "My newborn won’t stop screaming… what the hell do I do?" and in addition to some sympathy, you’ll receive articles on everything from colic to Harvey Karp to developmental growth spurts.
While easy access to information—all the information—may be the most useful aspect of being a new mom in the internet age, the communities we have developed are just as important. There’s a strange sense of solidarity in knowing that I’m not the only otherwise competent adult who has to ask strangers how to keep my baby still long enough to trim his nails. And the sense of failure I felt in the early days of parenting has slowly been replaced by a feeling of unity as I stare at these early-morning queries from exhausted parents around the world.
Online spaces have become the modern parenting community for many people because of the sense of connection they offer during a stage of life when getting out and finding a live community just isn’t feasible. Although a lot of people have claimed that this new reliance on the internet is as an indication of how we’re failing as a culture, most moms I know embrace the advantages of online groups while acknowledging their limitations. I wouldn’t want to rely on online spaces as my sole social contact for the rest of my life, but for the time being, they’re keeping me connected to the outside world and to other people experiencing many of the same challenges I face.
As a plus, they introduce you to new ideas that nurture your family in ways you never would have considered. Am I the kind of mom who spends her time Pinning recipes for DIY "ice chalk" made with eco-friendly, toddler-safe ingredients? I surely am not, but I will absolutely take advantage of the industrious parent who came before me and created a craft that could potentially occupy my child for more than five minutes when I’ve run out of episodes of Thomas & Friends.
Perhaps most importantly, there are times when Facebook groups, blogs, and other online parenting forums have let me feel like a person again, instead of just a mother.
Last year, we had a particularly long winter, and I was experiencing a brand of cabin fever that is perhaps unique to parents of children under 2. Sweet, sweet relief was promised by the weather forecaster, who predicted a relatively balmy January day. But almost as soon as I got both kids out of bed and into our playroom, I realized an outing was not in the cards. My heart sank as the forecast became more and more dire, and no amount of coffee was able to prepare me for the day ahead, as a light shower of rain was quickly replaced by the ominous noises of freezing rain and wind.
As I pulled out my phone to check Facebook, parents up and down the coast joined me. My feed was full of people lamenting school closures and cancelled plans as they too realized a long day indoors was inevitable. Memes lamenting the realities of a snow day with little children were everywhere:
As frustrated as I was that today was shaping up to be an inside day, it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t the only one.
But mom groups are more than just places to vent about being cooped-up with toddlers; they also offer genuine connection. As ridiculous as my partner thinks my cloth diaper groups are, they have not only kept my children from smelling like a barnyard, but are also real resources for parents. After one mother posted that she’d lost all her cloth diapers in the August 2016 flooding in Louisiana, the responses were amazing. She had only been asking for advice about where to buy on a limited budget, but her post was quickly full of comments from people around the country who wanted to mail her diapers for free so she could get back on her feet.
Maybe it sounds silly that this woman was getting this support from an online community instead of a local organization, but she was able to connect with other people who were not only empathetic to her story (and understanding of her desire for cloth diapers), but able to quickly follow through with a solution.
Sometimes I think wistfully of that Mediterranean compound full of pasta and grandmothers willing to take over the odd diaper change. But I have also come to realize that said grandmother is probably overly intrusive about your family planning and will take advantage of Sunday dinner to publicly lament the fact that two years have gone by since you had your first baby and to ask if you have plans for another, as all the cousins look on attentively and wonder what’s wrong with your marriage. Perhaps the anonymity and convenience of online forums are to be desired during a time of life when sleep deprivation makes emotional personal interactions too complicated. And after all, I can always order Greek takeout.
Olivia Williams is a full-time attorney turned stay-at-home feminist and mother of two. She enjoys craft beers, yoga, and the rare opportunity to read a Victorian novel in the bathtub. Follow her on Twitter @oawillia.
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Kendall Jenner Says Her Pink Wall Makes Her Less Hungry. Here's the Science
Last month, Kendall Jenner shared a photo of her Christmas tree with her 72 million Instagram followers:
The frosted white tree was quickly upstaged by Jenner’s bold pink walls. The reality TV star and model didn’t paint her living room the bubblegum hue known as Baker-Miller pink on a whim.
"Baker-Miller pink is the only color scientifically proven to calm you and suppress your appetite," Kendall wrote in a story on her app. "I was like, ‘I need this color in my house!’”
We give props to Jenner for doing her research. Studies have found that Baker-Miller pink made participants feel more Zen and less hungry. Most notably, when a prison in Seattle painted the color on some of its walls, the number of outbursts from inmates decreased.
The only problem with these findings? They’ve been impossible to replicate. So, Jenner is wrong when she says the color's psychological impacts have been “scientifically proven.” A correlation was shown in a handful of studies, but the theory hasn’t stood up to the test of time. Subsequent scientists have alleged researcher bias and poor study design are to blame for the false initial findings.
We're not saying you should avoid the color. If you like it, go ahead and paint it all over your home. But don’t expect this shade of pink to magically make you relax and eat less.
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Growing Up Black in America, Where Pretty Doesn't Look Like You
Here I am, finally feeling beautiful in this great pink motorcycle jacket.
I don’t even remember how old I was the first time I felt ugly. From a very young age, girls are informed by the world around them that being pretty is a kind of power, and can lead to success; we see women who are lauded for their beauty all over TV, in movies and magazines, and in our own communities. While being ugly, well... it sucks.
While the connection between beauty and success is problematic in its own right—all women have more to offer than just our bodies—this screwed-up system is the one we actually live in, and it’s made exponentially harder when the vast majority of women who are praised for their beauty don’t look anything like you.
I could count on one hand the number of beautiful black women I saw on TV when I was a young girl, and when it came to kids’ shows, that number dropped to one: Meagan Good on Cousin Skeeter, a minor Nickelodeon show most of my peers don’t even remember. I dreamed that I’d be half as gorgeous as she when I grew up. Beyond this one actress, there were virtually no other black women to admire on child-friendly TV. While my friends could base their aesthetic on favorite celebrities, determining whether they wanted to be a Jennifer or a Courtney, Britney or Christina, Demi or Miley—I was stuck. Being pretty and being black felt mutually exclusive.
I am tired of hearing the words 'you’re pretty… for a black girl.'
This lack of representation caused my 13-year-old self constant confusion and self-doubt. I know I wasn’t the only adolescent black girl to look in the mirror and think: How do I feel pretty when pretty doesn’t look like me?
When there are very, very few people on television who look like you, it’s easy to believe—especially as a teen—that it’s because you’re not worth representing. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when people aren’t choosing to behold anyone who looks remotely like you, you’re bound to start asking why.
When we did occasionally receive representation, the characters were awfully cliched; the few times a beautiful black girl was introduced on the shows I watched, she was inevitably depicted as an over-the-top urban sidekick. Whether I was watching Fairly Oddparents or That’s So Raven, the black characters were hardly multidimensional.
By the time I was in college, TV had become ever-so-slightly more diverse. Glee was arguably primetime’s most obvious effort at inclusivity to date, and I fell in love with the show’s humorous and often progressive plotlines. However, while there was a black protagonist named Mercedes (shout-out to the fabulous Amber P. Riley), I still couldn’t relate. Sure, Mercedes was rather straightlaced; her father was a dentist, and she was a smart high schooler, but her character was usually assigned the most tired storylines. Mercedes was frequently depicted as the overweight, over-agitated, loud, obnoxious black woman, a trope that’s so played out. Pair that with her inability to keep a man—much less the white guy she truly fell for—and my eyes were rolling all the way to the back of my head.
Things haven’t changed much since. If you ask someone to name a beautiful black woman (yeah, I’ve asked), their response is usually Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, or sometimes "that black girl from Scandal," a.k.a. Kerry Washington. Although I’m sure most millennials could name at least dozens of blonde, brunette, and redheaded white actresses (hell, probably dozens of each), most of my peers would be hard-pressed to name 10 black actresses… much less 10 they consider beautiful.
Feeling comfortable in my own skin.
I am tired of Beyoncé being the token woman of color when there are so many other beautiful black voices and faces that deserve to be amplified. I am tired of feeling like my beauty and the beauty of those who look like me can only shine on an urban series like Empire or Power. And I am tired of black women being portrayed as one-dimensional, for that matter. I am tired of being seen as threatening, "ghetto," and just too much. I am tired of hearing the words "you’re pretty… for a black girl." That sentence has been said to me on more than one (or two or seven) occasions, and it stings like rubbing alcohol in a fresh wound. And in a way, it is exactly like that: a constant reminder that the world would love me if I was disinfected and sterilized of the blackness they think I’m plagued with.
I have spent a lot of time wondering if I am overreacting to all of this. It’s easy to suggest that self-confidence is an internal characteristic we should nurture independent of others’ opinions. But unfortunately, changing how we think and feel isn't so simple. From billboards to our local prom queens, young people are inundated with image after image of beautiful women who are celebrated exclusively for their beauty. And many of the jobs that confer status and glamour, and are depicted as being especially desirable—being a Hollywood actress, for instance—are overwhelmingly populated by white people. What conclusions would anyone draw here?
You might also like So when my 6-year-old sister asks me why there aren’t girls who look like her on TV, I know that no, I’m not overreacting. I don’t want this cycle to keep repeating; I don’t want my sister to grow up flipping through Teen Vogue and wondering where all the girls with brown skin are. We need to do a better job at expecting and demanding their inclusion. We need to stop focusing only on Jennifer Lawrence and Bella Thorne and Kendall Jenner, and talk more about Yara Shahidi and Zendaya and Amandla Stenberg. There are so many brown and black girls who are not only talented, but also stunningly gorgeous.
It took a long time for me to look in the mirror and see myself as pretty. I may have been blessed with cheekbones I don’t need to contour, but for years, my sense of my own beauty was masked by the insecurity I felt as I developed hips and griped about the texture of my hair. Self-love is an uphill battle for all of us, but it’s downright treacherous when you feel you simply can’t be beautiful. When I was 13, all I wanted was thin hair that fell freely down my back and skin that was seven shades lighter. A decade later, I want my little sister to live in a culture that won’t inhibit her feeling beautiful for so long, and for pop culture that shows her that yes, brown girls are pretty too.
Alexis Dent is a writer and cupcake aficionado from Western New York. Follow her on Twitter @alexisdent.
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