Open thread: Follow the rules?

Shapeling RedSonja has a question that we think you all can answer better than we can. Let’s play collective Aunt Fattie!
Here’s the situation:
My boss was telling me the other day that his sister and her children are coming to visit. Apparently she felt both fat and ostracized in high school (I say felt, because he [...]

Happy International No Diet Day!

Happy International No Diet Day!
Book news: As of early this morning, we are the number two bestseller on Powell’s. HOLY CRAP.
 

 
Thanks to Meowser for first pointing out that we were on the list (at #3, last night) and The Bald Soprano for catching the move to #2!
And a huge damn THANK YOU to everyone who’s [...]

Shut up, Bob Greene

A couple people have e-mailed me (thank you) about Bob Greene saying on Larry King that it’s healthier to yo-yo diet than stay fat. Specifically:
King: Is fluctuating weight like Kirstie Alley bad, Bob?
Greene: Well, there’s two sides to that story. First off, if you remain heavy, that’s when the most damage is done to your heart [...]

Behold the Queen of Fats

OK, so the best article that ever has been and probably ever will be written about me is in the Chicago Tribune today. (Thank you, Nara Schoenberg!!!) If you live in the area, you should totally go pick up a hard copy to see the hilarious photo on the cover of the “Live” section. (ETA: [...]

1,000 calories a day: Officially not torture

Via Rachel at The-F-Word, the HuffPo is reporting that calorie restriction was a Bush-administration-approved torture technique, and the justification for its legality was that people do it voluntarily. We just call it “dieting” instead of “torture.”
In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office [...]

Bachelorettes, bathing suits, etc.

Hi! Remember me? A long time ago, I used to blog here.
So, last time I wrote, I was off to my first destination bachelorette party. The destination, it can now be told (OK, it was already told repeatedly on Twitter last weekend), was Vegas. The bride, one of my oldest and dearest, works for a [...]

The End of ‘Results Not Typical’?

Tari just Twittered about this, and I see Rachel’s already covered it in-depth. I am giddy.
Updated guidelines on ad endorsements and testimonials under final review by the Federal Trade Commission—and widely expected to be adopted—would end marketers’ ability to talk up the extreme benefits of products while carrying disclaimers like “results not typical” or “individual results [...]

Read ‘Em

There are about a gazillion things we’ve missed in the last week, so it’s round-up time.
First, though, I have a favor to ask of anyone who can swing it. Al’s friend Peter lost his job last July. He and his partner of 20+ years, Ericka, are now in danger of losing their house — [...]

I am in love for the second time this week

This time with an officially real person, Emily Blunt. That is, Emily Blunt, Doughnut Smuggler. 
On being monitored to make sure she didn’t gain weight while playing a diet-obsessed fashionista in The Devil Wears Prada, she says:
I understand why I was asked to be like that for that role, my character was surviving on cubes of [...]

WTF of the day: Fling candy bars

Andy Wright at Mother Jones nails everything wrong with Mars’s new candy bars for the lady market so perfectly, I can’t even add anything. I can only quote:
Predictably, one of the hot selling points for the Fling bar is that “at under 85 calories per finger, it’s slim, but not skinny. Indulgent but not greedy. Naughty [...]