Gwyneth Paltrow is Gwyneth Paltrow, with Gwyneth Paltrow's skeleton and bone structure and musculature and basic framework. You are you, with your own infrastructure, which apart from everything overlying it, is fundamentally different from hers. Comparing yourself to her is not terribly constructive. (For one thing, you have fabulous tits. She doesn't have any at all.)
Smaller is not better. This is an artificial aesthetic imposed by mass-produced fashion, among other things. Clothes that are not custom-tailored fit better if you have little to no curve in your body. You are free from that constraint because you are such a wonderful seamstress. You do not have to be smaller in order to dress well. In fact the curvier you are, the more you can show off your seamstressing skills, because as I've been finding out this summer in my attempts to clothe myself, it is damn hard to tailor clothing properly to a very curvy body.
Being healthy, mentally and physically, is more important than being smaller. A woman's highest aspiration should not be to take up less space.
And I just had a long conversation with a medical researcher (who is an Internet acquaintance; the conversation began because I wrote about being interviewed by a reporter about the Fat Acceptance (http://kateharding.net/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/) movement) who started off by saying "But it's true there's an obesity epidemic!" but immediately followed it up by saying, "but the problem is not the fat on people's asses, it's the fat around their organs. And you can't see that from the outside. Viibly thin people who eat poorly are just as likely to have this problem as visibly fat people who eat poorly."
So there's no medical reason to want to be smaller. Starving yourself strains your heart and even depletes brain tissue, and can lead to longer-term metabolic damage that will cause weight gain later.
The only reason to want to be smaller is aesthetic. Why suffer *so much* for aesthetics? Gwyneth has the motivation of a paycheck to cry herself to sleep at night-- if she is not Hollywood Skinny Perfect, she won't have a job. You don't have that motivation: you make your living from your brain, and dieting will only hurt your powers of concentration, your emotional stability, and your ability to think. So why torture yourself? You are beautiful as you are. You have such an amazing fashion sense and you truly do rock the body you have. Why change it? Don't change it.
I hope that helps your mood. At any rate, it's my honest feelings on the topic, for whatever that's worth.
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Date: 2008-07-25 02:17 pm (UTC)Smaller is not better. This is an artificial aesthetic imposed by mass-produced fashion, among other things. Clothes that are not custom-tailored fit better if you have little to no curve in your body.
You are free from that constraint because you are such a wonderful seamstress. You do not have to be smaller in order to dress well. In fact the curvier you are, the more you can show off your seamstressing skills, because as I've been finding out this summer in my attempts to clothe myself, it is damn hard to tailor clothing properly to a very curvy body.
Being healthy, mentally and physically, is more important than being smaller. A woman's highest aspiration should not be to take up less space.
And I just had a long conversation with a medical researcher (who is an Internet acquaintance; the conversation began because I wrote about being interviewed by a reporter about the Fat Acceptance (http://kateharding.net/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/) movement) who started off by saying "But it's true there's an obesity epidemic!" but immediately followed it up by saying, "but the problem is not the fat on people's asses, it's the fat around their organs. And you can't see that from the outside. Viibly thin people who eat poorly are just as likely to have this problem as visibly fat people who eat poorly."
So there's no medical reason to want to be smaller. Starving yourself strains your heart and even depletes brain tissue, and can lead to longer-term metabolic damage that will cause weight gain later.
The only reason to want to be smaller is aesthetic. Why suffer *so much* for aesthetics? Gwyneth has the motivation of a paycheck to cry herself to sleep at night-- if she is not Hollywood Skinny Perfect, she won't have a job.
You don't have that motivation: you make your living from your brain, and dieting will only hurt your powers of concentration, your emotional stability, and your ability to think.
So why torture yourself?
You are beautiful as you are. You have such an amazing fashion sense and you truly do rock the body you have. Why change it? Don't change it.
I hope that helps your mood. At any rate, it's my honest feelings on the topic, for whatever that's worth.