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Media Appearances
Jess is available to serve as a guest on television and radio programs as well as offer expert quotes for print media. She has been featured on, Oprah, CNN, MTV, The View, The Today Show, Good Morning America and countless other media outlets.
For more information contact:
Jen Bolin jen@jessweiner.com |
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Chicago Sun-Times:
Stop looking ahead, focus on your positives now
Your life doesn't begin 5 fewer pounds from now. That's the message from Jessica Weiner, author of Do I Look Fat In This?
Weiner makes the excellent point that women always seem to be saying they feel fat. In reality, "fat" is not a feeling. When we say it, we usually are talking about something else. We feel inadequate for our partner. We feel insecure when around another woman. Have you ever found yourself:
- Talking in the bathroom with a virtual stranger about how bad you look.
- Lamenting about how fattening the appetizers must be with your friends.
- Asking your partner those feared words: Do I look fat?
- Overshopping for clothes and skincare products as the "cure."
- Putting off buying clothes or even taking care of yourself in other ways until you lose weight, which, in all honesty, never seems to come off.
The point is that as women, we spend far too much time waiting to feel good about ourselves rather than deciding to feel sexy in the here-and-now. If you're always on a diet and always plotting the next weight loss strategy, it might be time to take a different approach.
While it doesn't mean you just give up on a healthy lifestyle, living in the moment is a good lesson to learn -- for your confidence and your sex life. Instead of punishing and paralyzing yourself, what would happen if you finally said "I look good enough? I am no longer waiting until I lose weight to find the right guy/have great sex/be who I really want to be" -- whatever the case.
Feeling good in the moment will only motivate you to work toward your weight goals. It also helps you realize that complaining about your weight is a symptom of a far deeper insecurity.
Fears about our appearance speak to a deeper need for love, acceptance and approval. Get to the root of it. Sometimes a fear of success or even a fear of intimacy might be at work. You don't actually believe you deserve to be that fabulous, attractive woman. Or you are scared too much will be expected of you from your partner or potential partners if you become confident and sexy. You won't be good enough in bed or you'll come up short in some other way and your weight is an easier excuse.
My advice is to celebrate what you like about yourself, instead of focusing on what you don't like. Minimize negative self-talk, as well as negative or food-obsessed talk with others, be they friends or partners. Do you have beautiful hair? Are your eyes well beyond average? Finding the beauty in your individual parts is what confident self-love is all about. It's important to take a step back and see the forest for the trees -- or in this case, your body for its features.
Make the decision to luxuriate in you. It also helps to stop buying magazines that idealize unrealistic standards of weight and beauty. Banish them from your magazine bin. Take down any pictures that don't make you feel good, whether photographs or pieces of art.
And by all means continue to indulge in the beauty of makeup, enjoy lovely clothes, pick special jewelry -- you are still a woman. Just do it to decorate, rather than to conceal, to charm instead of to compete. Shopping is like all pleasures: There's a fine line between healthy and unhealthy habits.
Ultimately, you are as beautiful as you think you are. Feeling good about yourself is not going to be found in anyone else's opinion. And it's certainly not going to be found in a magic potion or purchase. You hold the power!
Laura Berman, Ph.D., is a couples therapist and director of Chicago's Berman Center. She also appears Tuesdays and Thursdays on "Fox News in the Morning" on WFLD-Channel 32. |
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