Archive for category A Friendly Rant
Christmas Sticker Shock – A True Story of how one Public School Celebrates the Holiday Season – Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Winter!
Posted by Jackie Trottmann in A Friendly Rant on December 16th, 2009
So far I have been blogging about food, ideas and other inspirational thoughts, but I haven’t done a friendly rant. I changed the subject of my blog to a friendly rant about life, love and food. This is my first rant about life. I find some stories a little hard to believe as far as where our society has gone and this is one of them.
My friend Denise and I have been getting together for decades for our annual Christmas dinner together. We met last night and she told me this true story. I thought it was funny, yet sad and shocking, so I had to share it..
Susan Boyle from Britains Got Talent – A True Beauty
Posted by Jackie Trottmann in A Friendly Rant, Inspirational Thoughts on April 18th, 2009
You’d have to be totally unplugged from electronic media to have not heard this story over the last week. Susan Boyle is a 47 year old, single, unemployed woman who has always had a dream of singing in front of a large audience. She got that opportunity by singing on Britains Got Talent television show. There are three judges, Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden and American Idol’s Simon Cowell. When Susan stepped onto the stage, the audience and judges made an immediate “judgment” based on her appearance. Everyone rolled their eyes and snickered. The audience was also laughing and making comments complete with whistles and cat calls. Unaffected, Susan proceeded to answer questions in her own quirky way and said that she wanted to be like Elaine Page, heralded as the First Lady of British Musical Theatre. This statement created more eye rolling and smirks from the judges.
My Take on the Oprah Show – Celebrities – Losing Weight in the Public Eye
Posted by Jackie Trottmann in A Friendly Rant, The Freedom to Eat on April 6th, 2009
April first Oprah had Valerie Bertinelli, Marie Osmond and Star Jones on her show talking about their weight losses. All three of these women are beautiful and all three women were successful in reaching their goal weights. But you could still see the emotional pain on their faces talking about being overweight.
Valerie Bertinelli said, “I have obsessed about my weight in some sort of way all of my life.” And when asked if she felt like she had succeeded once and for all with maintenance, she said, “I won’t know if I’ve conquered maintenance until the day I die.”
Marie Osmond said, “I started dieting at the age of 10.” She said that she tried, “Everything from diet pills to starving myself, to bulimia. You name it, I tried it.”
Star Jones went from 300 pounds to 160 pounds. She says, “I’m still 300 pounds in my head some days.”
Not only did all three women still look tortured, but Oprah was emotionally touched as well. I sat there and shook my head in sadness. My story is their story. I tried everything to lose weight. I spent forty years of my life obsessing about my weight and body image. How many other millions of women share this same story – those in and out of the media spotlight?
When I talk to people from my past, friends or business associates about my book, The Freedom to Eat, and tell them about my story of how I struggled with weight and low self-esteem and how I overcame that struggle, every person has said, “I didn’t know you had all of those issues. I didn’t know you went through everything you did.”
Of course no one knew! We suffer in silence. All of these women are bright, beautiful and talented. This preoccupation of not being good enough has to come to an end. This obsession with beauty and thinness and meeting unrealistic standards has to end. We need to turn our self loathing into self love. We need to take care of ourselves first instead taking care of everyone else. If we need to lose weight, we need to lose weight because it means being healthy and happy, not losing weight at all costs.
Join me in The Freedom to Eat – to eat, live and love your life.
