Just as beautiful or missing the point completely?

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"I'm Just as Beautiful as you, rake face!"

The launch of Just as Beautiful, the UK's first magazine aimed at 'curvy girls', certainly got the media flapping their bingo wings lately.

Now, if I'm honest, I've got a love-hate relationship with women's magazines. I'm nosy enough to read them from time to time, but I can't be bothered with pages of fashion or the mating habits of so-called celebrities (no, I still can't use the word celeb without having a gag reflex) - non-entities more like. And with every titbit of interesting, I find I'm forced to choke on a generous side of clap-trap. How to get a man, how to keep a man, what to do when your man shags your best mate,  how to rescue your man's libido, and then just when you think you can't possibly be enlightened any more, the trumpcard: you don't need a man, you're just wonderful all on your tod!

Well thank you very much for validating my existence.

But I digress. All I really wanted to do was flag up the latest fly-swatter to hit the news stands: JUST AS BEAUTIFUL. It's a magazine with solely plus-size models. It can't be just me that thinks the title couldn't have been any more patronising if it tried. I mean, how condescending sounding is that?!

Call me cynical, but it looks sneakily like the fashion world's answer to the size 0 backlash, and it sounds something like: "No we won't put fuller (read normal) figured models in regular magazines, but over here on the sidelines you can wallow around in your giant fat pants and big yourselves up as much as you like. Now get off our case!"

Meanwhile, over in The Economist, a magazine that is worthy of the trees that sacrificed themselves for its existence, I read that scientific tests have revealed that a group of mice (which are nocturnal) fed during the day gained 50% more weight than a group fed in darkness, suggesting a possible link between weight gain and mammals' natural metabolic cycles. Scientists are now wondering whether we might all be slimmer if we didn't eat after dark.

What I want to know now is - does the light of the refrigerator door count?

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Priorities

Image by National Media Museum via Flickr

Three more lbs and I'll be RICH! RICH I tell you!

I'm flagging.
It's this change of season you see. The leaves falling, the diminishing hours of daylight, the cold and rain and the inevitable giant gas bill that goes with it. Pardon me if I just can't get thrilled about it.

Some good news would be grand. But no, it's just one big diet of cuts, despair and shite weather. I was half way through my Shreddies yesterday morning when Bill Turnbull announced I was now inhabiting the fifth fattest nation in the world, and the fattest in Europe.

So what's the solution, Bill?

Well, apparently, one of the big giant heads on the BBC sofa thinks it'd be a great wheeze if the taxpayer paid the nation's tubbies to lose weight. You know, like cash incentives.

Fantastic! I'm going to set out my stall right now...

"Roll up, roll up, get your lard here. A bargain at only £100/lb! Can't say fairer than that. This is well matured lard we're talking about, not your common or garden spare tyre."

If it goes well, I'll be able to fit into my not so teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini and high tail it to the Bahamas before the clocks change. Ahhhh, bliss.

Yes, maybe I had this government all wrong. Maybe there is something to be said for our 'let's not take any responsibility for ourselves' culture after all.

What? They're not going to roll this out in Scotland? Meanies.

Cake, hope and charity.

Image by HowardLake via Flickr

Did you know that when you eat cake for charity it has no calories?

That's right, none at all. 

So the yummy slice of chocolate cake I gobbled this morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support was particularly enjoyable.

What a cracking fundraising idea too. 


Can't believe I haven't been along to one sooner. 


Thanks to Fay at Leith Open Space for tipping me off!

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If aliens landed...

 Saw this product on a facebook ad today.
It's a babygrow you sleep in so your fake tan doesn't get all over your sheets.

WTF?!!!

Come get me when the spaceship lands. I want to be there to explain the subtleties of human absurdity to our extraterrestrial guests.

"No Zorg, they are not children. They are adults in babygrows. Streaky, tangerine-stained adults. And as for why some of us are lardier than others, well I can recommend this blog..."

Jenny Craig, you've got to be kidding?

Image by OwenBlacker via Flickr

Thinning hair, Jenny Craig diet?
Oh dear Cheryl, what's it going to be next? Piles?

I'm gobsmacked. Apparently some fatties really do sign up for the Jenny Craig diet. 

The telly ad's a psychological masterpiece too. Cue Cheryl Baker complaining that x months ago she looked like a pudding (or was it a sausage?) but now thanks to the Jenny Craig programme, she's lost gazillions of pounds. Yipee, good for you Cheryl. (Just please don't sing.)

So Cheryl, tell me, how is it working for you? Do tell!

"Well, it's simple, I don't have to do or think about anything. I just get meals on wheels." 

What? Are you out of your plastic-wrapped, calorie-controlled F***s Fizzed mind?

I know we all have our own weird and wonderful reasons for putting on weight, I do, really I do.  But until Tesco is nuked and the Star Trek replicator becomes the norm, I'll hold vice-like to the view that taking just the tiniest bit of responsibility for what I shove down my cakehole is the grown up thing to do. 


I hate food shopping. It's dull and lethal when you're hungry, but I'd rather guerrilla-fight my way down the chocolate aisle and take my chances than be condemned, yes CONDEMNED to an existence of pre-packed budgie food that even the couriers must be embarrassed to deliver.


Am I being too harsh?  Perhaps Cheryl Baker is just the glamorous, mumsy advertising face of Jenny Craig, and not in any way representative of their real clientele? That must be it. Because unless you are a poor soul who needs a winch to hoist you from the sofa to the kitchen, why on Gandalf's green earth would you do a diet like this? 


But let's just suppose you do decide to chuck in your last shred of self respect and sign up.  What happens when you reach your goal weight? When you've GPS'd the last quinoa grain on the last environmentally evil plastic platter, and you're wrenched from the bosom of mother Jenny to fend for yourself. What then? 


Yes, that's right, slim one, it's only a matter of time.


Temptation is patient. 


MOOOHHHHWWWWWHHHHAAAAAAAHHHAAA! 




Bon weekend!