The Skinny on Sam

by Samantha Childs

One Client’s Journey with Nutritious America

Yesterday, my little sister got married. I suppose I also officially became an old maid. At the reception my sister said, “I never thought I’d be getting married first.” “Neither did I,” I said. It was a small wedding- only ten guests (I was happy to make the list!) on the lawn of the Ventura courthouse with the reception nestled between the hills at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa. It was beautiful, and, more importantly, exactly what my little sister and her now husband wanted. During the ceremony, my nude BCBG stilettos sinking through the lawn and dirt, I hid my tears behind Dior sunglasses and hid my anxiety behind the red plastic face of my camera. It was here- framing my shots, choosing my angles, and zooming my focus that I found comfort and release from the stress of just existing in the moment. Rather than living life, I could be making life into art- examining life as a way of becoming detached from it. And then later, during awkward lulls in conversation with my new family, I could escape into the world of my display screen- flipping back through moments that I had caught yet maybe not fully lived.

Cameras are strange things. The images in mine just before the wedding were of my college ten-year reunion, which had occurred a week prior.

I had driven up to Claremont with two old friends from Claremont McKenna College and a burgundy leather album (this was before digital photos and you’re your own online photo albums) of our time there. We talked and laughed and they flipped through the plastic covered pages- there is something about college friends that is like no other. Inching along with traffic on the 10 past familiar exit signs while, ironically, the same Tupac songs from college beat through the radio felt weird- like I was a student again, only this time with crow’s feet.

The first night- Friday- my friends were all planning on wearing jeans. My response: “I didn’t lose all this weight to wear jeans.” A fifteen-pound weight loss deserved something special. Out came the Herve Leger dress that my mom bought me- one of the two that I planned on wearing that weekend. Was I going to something formal? No. Did I give a shit? Not one. And my lesbian friends said that I looked pretty, so that was affirming. All of my friends understood- a four-year ex of mine who had broken my heart was going to be on campus- I needed to look good.

Feeling good in my first HL dress

So I went to campus parties with kegs and bonfires and students that looked about fourteen in a thousand dollar dress. I was freezing, but confident. I got asked out by a nineteen-year-old. I took a million pictures to the annoyance of my friends. Documented my existence. Apparently things hadn’t changed much.

Saturday was the main day of the reunion. As much as I would have liked to, wearing my HL dress during the day would have been ridiculous. So I chose a $15 H&M t-shirt dress instead. “Oh my god that is short,” my friends told me. I was slightly concerned with being too scandalous, but I needn’t have been. On CMC’s campus there was a “pirate party” on one of the quads where everyone was wearing bikinis, holding fifths of whiskey and cigars, and shooting each other with water guns. I even saw some fake boobs. On eighteen-year-olds. At CMC. It felt like Spring Break at Lake Havasu, not school, and I felt like an old fogy- both surprised at myself for being so prude and taken aback and also slightly jealous that I hadn’t been more open with my body during college. The only time I’d worn a bathing suit was at the pool.

Me and my old roommate and I in front of our old room

I tried to go with it and fall back into the spirit of college. I took a whiskey shoot. I kissed a sophomore. It was definitely time to go back to the hotel. I think it was the first time that I realized that, as much as I feel like a twenty-year-old sometimes, I had actually grown past college. I was older, and not just physically.

Saturday night, fully rested after a two-hour nap, I got ready for the main party night- a gambling Monte Carlo night in McKenna auditorium. HL dress number 2. I liked how I looked, but it really didn’t seem all that important anymore. I don’t think people cared what I looked like- especially not my friends. And I didn’t really care. (Of course, this is easier to say when you feel like you look good.)

HL dress #2

I had a great time that night with friends and a horrible time with my ex. Drinking and heartaches don’t mix well. But stepping back into my college days overall was really neat- it felt as though I was visiting with the ghost of college past.

I may weigh the same as I did in college (well, maybe a few pounds more), but I have definitely grown. The core of me is the same- but I am not who I was. I’ve been to law school, writing school, lived in three states, had two and a half serious relationships, and have become much more of a woman. While part of this felt sad- I was at college and yet couldn’t fully touch it- it also felt nice. I have actually matured. Maybe in another ten years I’ll actually be on top of my shit. And hopefully I’ll be the same weight. (You can still wear HL dresses when you’re forty, right?)

Over the last four months, in preparation for the reunion and all my exercising and dieting, I have learned that what is really important is that you are happy and comfortable with who you are- at any weight. I have so many pictures of myself when I was younger where I look pretty and thin when I remember thinking, as the picture was being taken, I don’t like how I look. My sixth grade cotillion picture- I felt ugly next to my best friend. A picture of me in junior high, looking thin in my parents’ driveway- I remember feeling fat. I saw a magnet the other day that said, “I wish I looked the way I did when I thought I was fat.” Older people have told me, “Enjoy how you look and your life more while you are young. I wish I had.” Of course advice is hard to take when you don’t fully understand it- when you haven’t experienced it yourself. But I am going to try and do this. Stop worrying and just enjoy the present. Another advice/saying: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” I need to enjoy the ride- and not focus on a number on the scale- it won’t bring me happiness. I’ve learned, with the great help of Abra and Nutritious America, that diet and exercise should be about health. Health and happiness. That’s what it’s all about. Who cares how you look in a picture or how skinny you look if the smile is fake. So that’s my new goal. Not weight or viewing myself from the lens of a camera or an outsider- learning to exist, in the moment, be healthy, relax, and be happy.

The real point of the reunion - memories and friendship

Thank you to all my readers for all of your support during this blogging process. It has meant the world to me.

Samantha Childs is currently writing her thesis for her MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Columbia University and posting her blog, The Skinny on Sam, every Thursday on www.nutritiousamerica.com.

Follow her on Twitter @theskinnyonsam

If you’re not a veggie eater in the winter, you’ve got no excuses in the summer. This weather just begs for fresh, crunchy, bright vegetables to be devoured. And the fact that you can use your grill makes them even tastier. Last night for dinner we had the grill piled with corn on the cob, bell peppers, and zucchini. Talk about tasting the rainbow!

The list of fruits and veggies coming in to season in May is getting longer, and within the next few months, you’ll be able to eat more in-season summer produce than you’ll know what to do with.

For May, ease in to it with:

Fruits – watermelon, plums, peaches, nectarines, blueberries, rhubarb, tomatoes

Vegetables – corn, lettuce, spinach, zucchini, asparagus, carrots

These recipes will give you all the inspiration and direction you need for savoring every last bite of your weekly run to the farmers market or even your own backyard harvest.

Grilled Balsamic Vegetables

Chilled Asparagus Soup with Lemon Pesto

Spinach Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette

Smokey Salmon Kebabs

Keep in mind these are beans, so although they are additively crunchy you don’t want to eat the whole batch. You have been warned.

Crunchy Chickpea Snack

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 can chickpeas
• drizzle olive oil
• 1/4 tsp coriander
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/8 tsp smoked paprika
• dash of cayanne
• sea salt

TOOLS:

• Baking sheet

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Drain chickpeas. Dry chickpeas well between paper towels.
2. On a large baking sheet drizzle dry chickpeas with a little bit of olive oil.  Roast at 400 for 30 minutes stirring midway through roasting.
3. Take chickpeas out of the oven. Drizzle with a little bit more olive oil and toss all dry spices with chickpeas.  Return to oven for 10-15 more minutes.  The chickpeas should be completely crispy, not soft in the middle.

This full blown immune attack can come in a variety of shapes and sizes such as autoimmune diseases, food allergies, and on the more minor of levels a bit of mucus and sneezing. So how do we empty our stress buckets and keep these immune responses from ruining a perfectly lovely spring day?

In Chinese medicine we consider allergies and the immune system to be linked to the stomach. The stomach is the first place that we truly take our external environment, break it down and then begin the process of creating our internal environment from what we have just eaten. This then, means that our immune system begins in the stomach. If we have weak digestion, this allows for a whole host of things to fill our bucket and create additional stressors on the body. In order for us to strengthen our immune systems we must consider digestion as our first line of defense.

There are certain foods that put particular stress on the body such as gluten, dairy and sugar. You don’t have to be lactose intolerant, gluten sensitive or diabetic to feel the effects of these culprits. Gluten with the base of the word being GLU, creates a very sticky form of slime that collects in the gut. It often will block a lot of the permeable wholes in the intestines which doesn’t allow for all of the nutrients to be absorbed in the body. The result is often swelling, weight gain, and leaky gut types of symptoms. In addition it can produce a lot of phlegm in the upper orifices of the body and for those sensitive to gluten it may produce mucus production in the nose and throat. Dairy also has a mucus producing quality as we often feel that milk coats our mouth when we drink it with a slightly slimy feel. This is the same thing it does to the internal terrain of the body. Additionally most adults lack the amount of enzymes to fully digest it which is why it ends up lingering in the body wreaking havoc on the digestive system. Last but certainly not least, sugar. Ah yes, sugar. Sugar, believe it or not, does the same thing as gluten and dairy in its ability to create dampness and phlegm but additionally it also reduces the amount of white blood cells in the body. White blood cells are our immune fighting system and when those are reduced our immune system can only function at sub-par levels. So when we really need it to fight off serious infection or invasion, it just isn’t capable of getting the job done.

These three foods receive a lot of press these days, and for good reason. Sadly, these are not just a fad but very important to reduce if not eliminate from one’s diet. We all love to have a yummy muffin, a stack of pancakes or a pastry from a bakery window, however, unfortunately our bodies are paying a high price for these little treats.

If you are an allergy sufferer of any kind, whether it be seasonal, food, animal, or autoimmune the first thing that you should consider doing is eliminating or greatly reducing your intake of gluten, dairy, and sugar. I can only imagine the amount of grumbling and eye rolling that is happening while reading this post, but I promise that I don’t recommend this to make your life miserable! At the very least consider trying these eliminations for a month to three months. See what happens when you have taken them out and then see what happens when you put them back in. You will be very surprised at how differently the body functions without these foods! If you are unwilling, and unwavering in your decision to consider these foods as a major contributor to your allergies try to at least eliminate them during allergy season. It may be difficult but you should find a tremendous amount of relief and it will hopefully help you to avoid too many over the counter allergy aids, prescriptions and downright suffering.

There is nothing easy about eliminating gluten, dairy or sugar from your diet, but I commend all of you for making positive decisions to impact the quality of your life. Allergies are no walk in the park but hopefully with a little effort and some creative eating you can certainly enjoy a walk in the park without is spoiling your day!

GUEST BLOG POST: by: Autumn Bear M.S., L.Ac, Dipl Ac

Autumn Bear has a Master’s of Acupuncture Degree focused on Classical Chinese Medicine. She has a successful acupuncture practice in New York City and can be contacted through her website at: www.autumnbear.com

By Brandi Koskie for DietsInReview.com

In case you need a gentle reminder, this Sunday, May 13, is Mother’s Day. Often considered a “Hallmark holiday,” it actually originated centuries ago. Whether it’s commercialized or ancient myth, it’s a perfectly good excuse to celebrate the hardest working women we know.

As Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, it’s an obvious choice to host a brunch in honor of the moms in your life. And when you do, consider a cocktail over which you can share a toast to these fine women. Yes, they’re empty calories; however, with the right ingredients you can make it just a touch healthier than those cocktail mixers at the store (yuck!).

Grapefruit and Lime Mimosa – Orange juice and champagne is a staple at any Sunday brunch, but who says you can’t offer a little variety! Hand-squeezed citrus mixed with champagne (the lowest calorie of all the alcohols) offers a fresh complement to eggs benedict or even fresh guacamole.

Blackberry Thyme Margarita – Liven up your brunch with this boldly colored, and flavored, cocktail. It scores high for its ORAC value, per the O2 Diet, but best of all it tastes amazing. You’ll use those fresh, in-season blackberries with champagne, lime, quality blue agave silver tequila and sprigs of thyme.

Thai Basil Bliss – A little more tequila with a splash of Veuve Clicquot champagne is combined with fresh muddled pineapple, basil, and lime juice for a sweet and bright way to say good morning to mom!

All of these drinks have one thing in common – fresh ingredients! Make sure to buy more fruit than you need for the cocktails and serve it as part of your brunch. Pineapple is decadent served cold, and especially when grilled. A broiled grapefruit is a fantastic addition to your meal. And any fruit salad is made all the better with a drizzle of honey, fresh lime juice, and a handful of plump blackberries.

Cheers to mom, and to you for serving such fine celebratory cocktails!

Photo Credit: Dana Schultz DietsinReview.Com

Warm, comforting, a touch sweet, a hit of crunch, a warm aromatic cinnamon kick, and I am happy.

Sweet potato soup is a cinch. A handful of ingredients and you have all you need to make magic.

Go for it.  Instructional video to follow, just because I want to make sure you are super duper set up to succeed!

VEGAN SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH CINNAMON SUGAR KALE CHIPS

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 cups chopped sweet potato
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• salt and black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 1 tbsp maple syrup

kale chips

• lacinato kale, washed/dried/and torn into bite size pieces
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp coconut palm sugar
• sprinkle of salt
• sprinkle of olive oil

TOOLS:

• Vita-Mix
• Large stock pot
• Baking sheet

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Saute onion in olive oil until soft (about 4 minutes)
2. Add sweet potato, cinnamon, salt and black pepper
3. Cook for 2 minutes
4. Add vegetable broth, bring to a simmer and cover for 20 minutes until sweet potatoes are tender
5. Transfer contents to a blender or vita mix. Blend with almond milk and maple syrup
6. Top with kale chips (toss w/ cinnamon, coconut sugar, and olive oil – bake in 300 oven for 20 minutes, or until crisp like a chip)

I have an assistant that began working for me a few months ago. She had never had acupuncture before and we decided she should receive acupuncture so she could write a blog about her experiences. For weeks and weeks she would write lovely summaries about her experiences with the needles or her fascination with how I do diagnostics. Her blogs, however, never went much past talking about her skin rashes and sleep cycles. A few months into her treatments something changed. She began to blog about things that were deeper in her soul, concepts and perceptions that began to really FEEL instead of being just an outside observation. She had changed her eating habits, sleeping habits, and she began to understand her own body’s reactions to food and stress. She began to really be tuned in to her own channel of life. Things were changing, she was changing.

One day she walks into my office and just starts balling. She had rolled her ankle, which had hurt but had really just been the straw that broke the camel’s back. She cried about what was really bothering her and what was really hurting on the inside. We had this incredibly insightful and spiritual conversation about life, healing, loss and recovery. We talked about being vulnerable, emotional strength and personal empowerment. Truly, to her awe, she wanted to know how did acupuncture work and how did it create such a profound shift in her life?

I told her that acupuncture is about transformation. In its most ancient of uses, acupuncture was used to elicit alchemy. Yes, alchemy, the process of conferring youth and immortality. It is about the shifting of our energy. Just like the modern physicists who discuss the concepts of energy and that we can neither create nor destroy it, but rather we can transform it from one state to another. Chemistry does the same thing. It is about applying heat to a solid and creating a liquid or a gas. These concepts are in essence exactly what is happening in the body with the use of acupuncture. Acupuncture is the catalyst to a series of metamorphic reactions. The enzyme, so to speak, that sets a course of movement in the body to elicit a healing response. We are transforming disease into health.

Alchemy, in one of the many ways in which it was used, was used to convert base metals into gold. On a philosophical level, this idea still applies. Acupuncture is about taking the physical body, eliciting a series of energetic shifts and changes, and in the process creating healing. We could think of immortality as the preservation of youth, the capturing of our innocence, the simplicity of a child’s mind; a living with ease, wonderment, fascination, and joy.

The other thing that I think is important about understanding acupuncture is that it is rooted in the philosophical idea of conscious living. When receiving the needles you are very acutely aware of how that feels, you feel every sensation; you are focused on one thing and one thing only. As the needles continue to be inserted we learn to understand that sensation is a feedback system. We learn to override our sense of fear and we begin to understand how to trust that the sensations are part of the road to health. We learn to surrender. On the opposite side of the spectrum, when we are not receiving acupuncture we are thinking about what we eat, how we sleep, how much stress we create in our lives. We learn to be conscious of our emotions and where we feel vulnerable. With each session we learn something new about our body, something new about our life, and something new about the choices we make in daily living. Acupuncture is a “whole”-istic practice. It is about the transformation of your life, not just about the modification of your pain.

The body, as it is seen in our ancient teachings, is the child of heaven and earth. It is an axis that hinges between our mind and the environment in which we live. It is our feedback system that tells us when things are not right or when things need to be changed. If we spend enough time listening to what our body tells us, we can make different choices and ultimately we can each create our own transformations.

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Assaying Acupuncture – A client’s blog
GUEST BLOG POST: by: Autumn Bear M.S., L.Ac, Dipl Ac

Autumn Bear has a Master’s of Acupuncture Degree focused on Classical Chinese Medicine. She has a successful acupuncture practice in New York City and can be contacted through her website at: www.autumnbear.com

Monk photo courtesy of: Image: mack2happy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Gold photo courtesy of: Image: akeeris / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Chemistry photo courtesy of: Image: posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With friendly service and a hip, yet charming atmosphere, (even the art on the wall is made by local artists), it felt like I was back in Los Angeles. What I was most excited about, of course, was the menu.  The cocktail list was killer! Did you know there are more Massachusetts breweries than just Sam Adams?? Listed on the menu were 22 beers on tap featuring local microbrews served in chilled copper mugs, a great selection of wines, and innovative cocktails made with their “house-made” ginger beer. WOW.

The bar menu has typical “bar bites” with one common theme… They’re all made from scratch!  Ahhhh, music to a Nutritionist’s ears! Smokey wings, a beautiful hummus plate with fresh vegetables and warm bread, and fried brussel sprouts with spicy dipping sauce.  For those who think they don’t enjoy brussel sprouts, you have been given a second chance!  Yes, they are flash-fried, BUT they’re still pretty loaded with nutrition, and though we usually turn our nose up at fried foods, when it’s a green vegetable that you never would have introduced to your food chain otherwise, then it’s a winner as long as it’s got more nutritious items with it.
Also on the bar menu is a great artisanal cheese selection that changes nightly.  Entrees ranged from homemade , (non-eggo) chicken and waffles, to white bean cassoulet.  The grass-fed cheeseburgers are a hit as well as the sea scallops, and the lemon, garlic, statler chicken with warm arugula, 24 hour tomatoes, and shiitake salad. The vegan dish was called, “badass risotto” made with fresh local veggies” which I almost ordered because the name was so cool. The beet salad also sounded delicious, but my body was screaming out for something green. And boy did i find it!

When dining out, look for at least one green food!

For dessert….(does that really say “chocolate shake made with malt and maca?!?!)  I smell a great idea for a protein shake! See how possible it is to inject nutrition into your foods and still make them delicious?

There is definitely something for everyone at Local 149. Bar foodies, you won’t miss the grease-fest, while the healthy folks will continue to be inspired. Not sure if it’s intended, but little Miss Southie is flying high on the health-foodie richter scale. (shshshshshshsh…don’t tell anyone). I suspect more restaurants and specialty stores will begin to follow suit in the coming year since fake food is slowly becoming a thing of the past.  I’ll take a deep fryer over a microwave anytime!

This has been Karen Sherwood reporting.

…..One Client’s Journey with Nutritious America

She-ra in my backyard, a weekend biking on Catalina, pool party in Palm Desert, and Universal Studios for a tour of where Pretty Woman was filmed- my birthdays used to be all about elaborate parties. At thirty-two, which I turned last Thursday, things were different. Birthdays were now a day when your life is put under the microscope- a day when you reviewed your job (or lack thereof), your relationship (or lack thereof), your happiness (or lack thereof), your writing, etc. It was definitely not as fun as hanging out in a dorm room with ten of your closest friends and a surprise cop stripper (my nineteenth birthday).

And now it was my reunion- I am driving up to Los Angeles tomorrow. Pleasantly (and surprisingly) I am not feeling the same intense magnification as I did on my birthday. Instead, I am looking forward to falling back into the past- spending time with old friends (including my best friend, V, who is flying in from India) and seeing faces I haven’t seen in ten years. We are even piling into hotel rooms- four girls a room- just like we used to do on trips to Vegas. (Although then it was actually eleven in a room- both boys and girls.)

And I’ve lost the weight that I set as my goal- fifteen pounds- largely due to the cleanse, which I now plan on doing twice a year. I have a new Herve Leger dress. (Thank you mom and thank you Erica!) I’m ready. I feel like this weekend will be more like a birthday party than a life review.

So what to write this week? This week, I’d like to pay homage to my favorite professor at my Masters program at Columbia, Philip Lopate. He wrote an amazing personal essay called Portrait of My Body, where he examined every aspect of his physical appearance and what they said about him. In order to not have this be an unbearably long post, and as an exercise for not obsessing over my body, I will analyze just my face. So here is my attempt:

Sketch of My Face

Me

Four pages into my baby book, after the birth announcement and pictures of me being taken home from the hospital and laying next to my first bouquet of flowers (from an older man- I think he was 3), there are x-rays of my baby head. Not a typical thing to see under the plastic sheet of a baby book page.

My head is large. In every sense of the word. I have a long face, with a broad forehead and from front to back it only fits in men’s extra large hats, despite the fact that I am a rather petite girl and only 5’5’’.  My head has been a constant source of distress in my life. In elementary school I couldn’t have a black velvet riding helmet like my younger sister- the tack shop didn’t carry them in my size- instead I had a beige one with no rim. I looked like a cone head. In junior high school every boy called me “Egghead” in my class and that, coupled with many other factors, lead to my eating disorder. And in high school my high school boyfriend would tell me that his friends said that my “head looked like an alien” but that I “had a good body.”

I think that it is appropriate that my head is so big, because I have always been so caught in it. It is the source of much of my happiness- my creativity, my imagination, and my wild dreams. It is also the source of most of my unhappiness- my critical thoughts, obsessions, depression, anxiety, and self-doubt. I carry a lot- and you can see it. My physical therapist always comments on the strain that it puts on my neck.

On my head are my eyes. I like to think that my eyes are my best feature, because they are the “windows to the soul” or whatever, but in reality they are quite ordinary. They are wide, not squinty and mysterious and set slightly far apart. Brown, sometimes leaning towards green, with sparse clumps of lashes. (I really should start using my Latise.) I read that people perceive brown-eyed people to be smart, green-eyed people to be sexy, and blue eyed people to be nice. This used to make me happy- for most of my life I thought that the most important thing was to be smart- as though being smart raised your self worth. I defined myself by this- thinking that my value came from having thoughts that other people didn’t. It is also what I sought most in a partner. This has changed.

In my rehab group, we went around the circle and everyone said something about you. Every person talked about how smart I was. And I felt sad. I wanted to tell them that there was more to me- more important things behind my brown eyes and in my big head. I wanted to be thought of as kind. “Strive for average,” the group leader would always say. I tried so hard to be better than others that I always felt worse than others. What does being smart get you anyway? Definitely not happiness.

My hair tracks my aging. It was stick straight until I hit puberty, when it decided to become neither straight nor wavy, but rather more bumpy. It was as awkward as I felt at the time. I can’t cut it short- I need to hide under it- I hide under a thick slab of bangs, which I feel that truly beautiful people don’t need. But without them I am too naked. Too vulnerable. Since law school I have found ten white hairs within it- stark against the brown- and all during times of stress. I always pull them out and examine them and realize that I am dying.

My nose has acne scars when I look up close in the mirror. I think of them as my scarlet A. The scars are from my year in Oxford, where I was, for the first time in my life, a slut. A slut with a zit. I asked my dermatologist about the deepest scar (I am always trying to fix myself) and she said that it couldn’t be fixed but that perhaps I could temporarily fill it for my wedding. I found this ironic.

My ears are decent sized, which I like. I have a weird relationship with ears- my first memory is of being rushed to the hospital at night because of an ear infection. For some reason, particularly in men, I find small ears a huge turn-off. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps because my dad’s side of the family has big ears- his brother’s were enormous- I associate large ears with manliness. And almost nothing makes me more nauseous than seeing wax in someone’s ears.

My mouth is full, especially the bottom lip, and the top one peaks in a small heart. My lips are always chapped. Never fully taken care of. I bite and suck on them- perhaps I am keeping inside what I should be expressing. Some would definitely argue the opposite.

What you don’t see on my face, because it is covered just beyond my hairline above my right ear, is an eraser sized brown birthmark. “Wow,” my ex once told me, “If that had been an inch over you would have been known as the girl with the mole.” When I was younger I would show this mole to my mom and tell her that if anyone ever kidnapped me that is how she would find me. I thought about being kidnapped a lot- perhaps because I was adopted- and I always assumed that my skin would be dyed a different color so that my mom wouldn’t be able to recognize me. But they couldn’t get rid of that birthmark, I figured.

So that’s my face. One big head with a “big brain” as my baby doctor told my parents, two eyes, a scarred nose, decent sized ears, a mouth, and a birthmark. Would I be a different person if I had a different face? Would I be a different person if I had a different body? Probably. But I am ok with who I am now. It’s not such a bad thing to be. And someday, I think I’ll meet someone who truly finds me beautiful, egghead and all.

And until then it’s time to put down the magnifying glass, both over my life and my face, and act like everyday is one of my childhood birthday parties. Because, while I am still alive, it kind of is.

I’ll talk to you after the reunion.

Samantha Childs is currently writing her thesis for her MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Columbia University and posting her blog, The Skinny on Sam, every Thursday on www.nutritiousamerica.com.

Follow her on Twitter @theskinnyonsam

Asking someone if they’re on Pinterest yet can go one of two ways – “Yes, I’ve been down the rabbit hole,” or “No, I just can’t let myself yet.” It’s like Internet crack. After his wife discovered Pinterest, a friend said, “I didn’t see her for three days.” I was on an eight hour tear the first night I logged in and couldn’t pull myself away, forcing myself to go to sleep at 2 a.m.

So how is this social network that has already overtaken Google+ and sometimes has more influence than Twitter supposed to help you lose weight? By connecting you with the best healthy finds on the web.

OK, so sitting at your computer for an eight hour stretch with glazed eyes and a cramped index finger is *NOT* healthy. But using Pinterest in a moderate and not obsessive way can actually be a valuable tool in your journey.

1. Eat Well. Pinterest is full of “food porn,” seductive pictures of tasty recipes that draw you in. Lucky for you, a lot of it is healthy. Especially if you follow sites like, oh, I don’t know, DietsInReview.com on Pinterest. From dessert to dinner and gluten-free to vegan, you’ll find a healthier version of just about any food you want, plus inspiration to try some exciting new things. For instance, one of our most popular recipe pins is for our Post-Workout Ice Cream Sandwiches.

2. Start Moving. Do not tell us you can’t get fit because the gym is expensive. There are boards full of free workouts you can do at home, in your office, in a hotel room, in your backyard… you get the picture. Step-by-step, image-guided workouts that tone every inch of your body are just a pin away. Pin or not, you can get moving with our Sexy Summer Abs workout designed for us by Jessica Smith.

3. Stay Motivated. Whether it’s before and after pictures of successful weight loss stories, or quotes that make you think, Pinterest is full of feel-good, light-a-fire motivation. You just have to want it.

4. Get Rewarded. There are pins a plenty for gift ideas. You can create a board with a “wish list” and every time you hit a milestone, be in 10 pounds or 10 miles, you can reward yourself with one of your pinned items. Just make sure you’re keeping the food pins on the recipes board, OK. As one pin says “You’re not a dog, don’t reward yourself with food.”

5. Look Good. For some people, a raggy pair of sweats and a trusted T-shirt are all they need for a workout. For others, they want to look as stylish in the gym as they do at happy hour. Pinterest is loaded with pics of the trendiest workout gear, from sports bras to tennis shoes. Plus, if you’re tired of your hair getting in your way during a good sweat, there are more braid ideas than you have strands of hair.

Nutritious America on Pinterest