I’m really liking the Maxi Dress trend this fall! I’m not much of a person for short dresses or short skirts; it just always worries me about the skirt blowing up and just makes me feel more exposed. Unfortunately, that’s usually the majority of the dresses that you can purchase, so I’m really in love with the Maxi Dress trend that seems to be going around.

The Maxi dress already is a pretty big “look at me!” statement, though, so how do you accessorize it? From what I’ve seen most bloggers doing, make sure you wear some cute shoes as it really can make a huge difference. Some bloggers also like to accessorize with a low-hanging necklace, and you’ll almost always see them wearing the Maxi dress with some bangle-type bracelets as well. I like to pair mine with some not-too-many straps summer heels.

How do you accessorize your Maxi dress? Do you enjoy the Maxi dress trend?

Before I get the chance to make a “proper” outfit post, I wanted to post this here just because I’ve fallen SO hard for this outfit. I never used to be one to purchase dresses because I hate showing my legs and I hate the “pressure” that comes with showing legs to be completely clean-shaven. This dress solves all that! It’s adorable and VERY sexy because it “covers” your legs while still being see-through so you can show off your legs a bit more. The black slip is detachable from the lace dress portion, so if you want to use the lace dress with something else or have other ideas in mind for it, you can certainly do it!

So what’s the dress? This thing of beauty!

It IS shapeless (and drapes quite intensely – even when you purchase it in the correct size), so I have been using a fashion belt to “take it in” underneath the breasts which shows off my hips wonderfully. As the dress itself is a pretty big fashion statement, I’ve been partnering it with some wrist bangles and some basic wedge heels. The only warning is that, because of the obvious black color of the dress, if you don’t accessorize and wear it in a fun manner, it can almost look like a funeral dress, so make sure to have fun with it!

Pictured are the Black Lace Maxi Dress with Slip, Stretch Black Butterfly Rhinestone Belt, and Black Morgan Wedge which is exactly what I wore this outfit with. I’ll get pictures soon!

Happy shopping, and if you want, you can use the coupon code “7AF11OFF” at check-out to save 10% off of anything at Torrid. Enjoy!

Exercise can certainly suck, and it can certainly be fun. While nobody said that exercise has to be part of a weight-loss plan (and it doesn’t!), it’s certainly a good thing to do to stay healthy – regardless of your weight. Fat girls should exercise too, but when a lot of the DVDs on the market have you jumping around (ouch with big breasts or a tummy!) or doing other work-out positions that may not be possible for someone who hasn’t worked out in awhile or isn’t built for jumping around, it may be difficult to actually start a work-out when you feel like it’s going to be impossible to finish it.

Here are some fat girl workout suggestions to help you find a good choice for the work-out that you want to do:

Debra Mazda and her Shapely Girl workout videos are perfect. All of the women in the videos are plus-sized women, and Debra’s philosophy is that healthy can come at any size. Her work-outs are low-impact, so most of the moves do not require jumping or quick transitions to and from the floor. Many of her DVDs also come with short versions of her program in case you are short on time as well. Plus, with easy “stop” points, you can easily pause the DVD and come back to it after you’ve had a chance to take a break if you need to. Even if you do exercise on a regular basis, you can put more effort into Debra Mazda’s workouts and they will still provide a good fat girl workout. Her videos include: Walking Fit and Fabulous, Let’s Get Moving, Let’s Get Moving 2! (requires weights), and Let’s Get Stepping (requires step).

Heavyweight Yoga: Yoga for the Body You Have Today makes a great fat girl exercise DVD. During the entire DVD, Abby Lentz stresses that it is important that you love yourself and be comfortable with yourself. During some positions, she actively will move her weight out of the way of the position, and she believes that you should be able to do yoga no matter what weight your shape you are today. The workout is challenging, but Abby gives many ways that you can modify the moves to work if you aren’t flexible or can’t hold a position. She also talks about using blankets and other helpful props to make the yoga more comfortable for heavier body. There’s also a feature on the DVD that gives you yoga you can do from your bed if you have disability issues or just require an easier workout. It’s a good DVD to check out if you’d like to try some fat-accepting yoga.

Dance Central makes a decent fat girl exercise work-out too. This is a game that is made for the PS3 and XBox 360 gaming consoles. Basically, there are little dance routines set to popular pop and dance music that you can follow along. As each song is pretty short, you can easily take a break after each song if need be, and the songs start very easy in difficulty as well (with some of the beginner songs just using a side-step as a main move). It includes a work-out mode that allows you to input your weight to find out how many calories you’re burning (in real-time!) as well as how many minutes you’ve worked out. If you like your exercise to feel like it isn’t exercise at all, Dance Central is pretty fun to play. If possible, I recommend it on the XBox 360 over the PS3 as the XBox 360 has better movement recognition.

I never used to use Tumblr. In fact, I was actually a bit surprised that so many people seemed to hang out on Tumblr. I mean, it just seems to be a way for people to post pcitures to one another, and I never saw a point behind that.

However, all that changed when I came across a body-positive Tumblr. All they do is post user-submitted pictures of plus-sized women in clothes or suggestively posed. These are all REAL women who are submitting their REAL selves for acceptance, love, and to feel better about themselves. That’s when I signed up for a Tumblr account and have been following body-positive accounts ever since. What better way to “escape” from the traditional very-small people we are shown in the media than to spend all day looking at women who look just like me? I love it.

Want to get your own start on Tumblr with body-positive women? Here are some of the Tumblrs I recommend checking out (and adult content ones are marked as such):
Chubby Bunnies
Curvaceous Fashions
Fluffy Girls
Love the Chub
Death Fatties
Big Belly Babes
Hey Fat Chick
Domino Dollhouse (reblogs cute clothes and those wearing it)
Faye Daniels (can be adult)
C4d3nz4 (can be adult)
Chub Fatuation (can be adult)

The picture used in this post is from C4d3nz4 with permission. Isn’t she beautiful?

Are you on Tumblr? What other plus-sized tumblr blogs do you recommend?

I’m sure Bath and Body Works had something else in mind when they made these little bookmark/perfume-testing sticks, but they just remind me of the BBW acronym for Big Beautiful Women.

What else does it remind you of?

I like to read, and I don’t know about you, but as I consider being plus-sized as a large part of my identity, one of my favorite things to read about is plus-sized women. Once you start exploring that genre, though, you realize that almost all of the books feature a plus-sized women who is miserable, loses weight, and then is happy and “snags” the man. That’s just not right! Why can’t the woman be happy before she loses all of this weight?

After reading that theme over and over in books, I was pleasantly surprised to come across “Alternate Beauty” by Andrea Rains Waggener.

From the description:

She couldn’t change the way the world looked at her, so she changed the world.…

Ronnie Tremayne is a big girl with big dreams: she wants to be a fashion designer. But as her model-thin mother never fails to remind her, in fashion, image is everything—and Ronnie is a size 28. When she learns that her job managing a plus-size boutique is in jeopardy because her weight is “disturbing” to the clientele, Ronnie loses control. After a late-night binge, she dozes off wishing for a world where fat is beautiful. When she awakens the next morning…it is.

Now the ideal woman, Ronnie is thrust into the spotlight. She attends the best parties. She has her mother’s approval. Her boss invests in her clothing line. And the men! But as her appetite for life grows, Ronnie’s appetite for food shrinks. She soon becomes unrecognizable—inside and out. And while navigating the giddy highs and miserable lows of this so-called perfect world, Ronnie discovers what she should have known all along: it’s not the size of your body that matters, but the size of your heart.

In the book, Ronnie is a fashion designer who wants to open her own line. However, because of her weight, no one will take her seriously in the fashion world. One night, after dreaming about an alternative world, Ronnie wakes up to find that she’s in it! In this new world, “fat” is the new “thin”, and fat is considered sexy and desirable while thin is now alienated. Ronnie can finally start her fashion company, and her designs are completely taking off. However, as she finds herself getting really busy, she finds herself not having as much time to sit down and relax, and her body starts to naturally shed some of her weight. With that, her plus-sized-loving boyfriend has a surprise for her, her fashion contract should have been evaluated by a lawyer, and lots of other surprises start popping up as she finds herself, once again, starting to become the minority. Out of the whole ordeal, Ronnie finds herself treasuring her body, exactly how it is (which is still plus-sized even after losing weight), and learns a valuable lesson.

So how does the book actually compare to the description? It’s okay, and I really love the way that the author makes the character go from hating herself to learning to love herself. Basically, while the reviews on Amazon are correct, the main character, Ronnie, discusses her body and other fat girl’s bodies in negative terms towards the beginning and middle of the book, but as the book gets towards the ending, the author starts to see herself more positively.

I think part of the negative reviews over the terminology has a bit to do with the fact that the author doesn’t use euphemisms for the character’s weights. She calls them “fat”, “huge”, and other fat-obvious terms. However, we currently call people “thin”, “tiny” and other skinny-obvious terms, and as, in the book, she refers to the skinnier characters as “small-boned” and other more delicate terms, I think this was a literary change trying to rival the way that our current language system is set-up.

Another interesting aspect of this book is the way that it “flip flops” what’s normal. In the fat-is-beautiful world, Ronnie meets with thinner women who can’t accomplish the things she used to have problems with, and she finds herself being treasured purely for her looks. The book, while still fiction and not 100% realistic, does take an interesting look at the importance that weight plays in our culture.

For example, one of the lines, when the disdainful parent is talking to Ronnie, is “What did you think was going to happen when you stopped eating? Did you think society would make an exception for you? I told you before, Veronica, the only excuse for being skinny is bad genes or illness, and the only wa to counter it in the circles you wish to move in is with money. Otherwise, you lower yourself to the bottom rung of the social ladder. That is how it is. …The way out of your circumstances, Veronica, is simple. You must eat, darling. You must. Otherwise, I fear for you. Truly, I do”.

Another interesting aspect is that, towards the end of the book, Ronnie finds herself hearing about the WWSP – the World Wide Sweep Project. It might sound familiar since it rivals some of the current biases that larger women encounter. The WWSP’s mission statement is: “Being thin is the reflection of a complete lack of self-will. People who don’t have the self-control to eat enough to keep themselves up are not properly equipped to hold positions of great responsibility. The only exception to this rule is those people who are thin because of illness or an unfortunate metabolism, and even those skinnies are a threat because they act as role models for the rest. Our organization is only a fledgling enterprise. But with effort, we can effect our slogan, to unite in concert to clean up and reorganize society”.

So, overall, while it’s still a piece of fiction and has some fat-hatred terms as part of the literary structure, I think it’s a neat book to look into for those who are tired of the “loses weight, everyone loves her” theme that a lot of fat-main-character books follow. I think we need more fat books out there, and this one, while not perfect, is one of the best “accept yourself at any size” fiction books I’ve read. I bought my copy of Alternate Beauty at Amazon.