Warning: This is a blog rant. It is not a clinically substantiated post; nor is it a touching memoir. Above all, it is NOT a carefully constructed social commentary. It is a rant. That being said, I hope you choose to keep reading.

In a previously written and less “ranty” blog, I wrote about the Narwhal Factor (N.F.). In brief, the Narwhal Factor was my step-mom’s name for the phenomenon of learning a new word or concept e.g. a narwhal, and then seeing or hearing about “narwhals” everywhere for the next few days. Each time it happens I am compelled to ask myself,

“Was it always this prevalent and I just didn’t notice it because I didn’t know about it? Or is it a cosmic re-focusing of The Lens of Knowledge that results in a mystical creationistic event and I am, in fact, manifesting narwhal stories and references everywhere I go?”

***Digression Warning, you can skip this paragraph as it has little to do with what I am writing about: Allow me to point out that the N.F. is different from an Ear Worm, which is when you can’t get a song out of your head Ear Worm Implantation (E.W.I.) usually occurs because the song is a popular tune and you are, in reality, hearing it so frequently that it gets “stuck”.

HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu

Unlike the adorable and intriguing narwhal, I am now experiencing a nightmare version of the Narwhal Factor. It is as if David Lynch and Wes Craven got together to create the worst Narwhal Factor Experience (N.F.E.) in Dr. Deah’s Hollywood, EVER. My latest “narwhal” is The Muffin Top. When did The Muffin Top emerge on the scene as a specific body part? How and why has it become so prevalent in my day to day life? On top of it all, why is the top of the muffin considered so atrocious that everywhere I look someone is telling me that there is something WRONG with my muffin top?   Not just wrong, but abominable! Look, if YOU don’t like the way YOU look or feel with some fat around your hips and want to take a cutesy little label like muffin top and change its name and personae to:  THE Muffin Top, a creature of Cthulhulic proportions go ahead. But why do you feel compelled to make those of us who just may be ok with our hips, hate ourselves?  AAARRGGHH!!  RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!

I told you this would be a rant. If it weren’t I would have methodically researched the history of the term muffin top and collected data to prove or disprove my thesis that its origins are somehow tied to what a real muffin looks like when it comes out of the tin.  I would continue to explore why there is a societal redefinition with negative associations of the term muffin top and suggest that it is based on the Diet Industry’s already well documented modus operandi (M.O.) of selling products to cure an unforgivable social ill. There would be diagrams illustrating the Cyclical Marketing Strategy (C.M.S.) employed by the diet industry and their marketing firms:

Step 1.  Sell muffin top hatred

Step 2.  Sell muffin top removal system

Step 3.  Sell muffin top replacement plan

Step 4.  Repeat step 1.

Step 5. Repeat step 2

Evil Muffin Man

And the green grass grows all around all around … It is infuriating. Honestly, if I didn’t need a computer for my work, I would disconnect from the internet for ever…really! All of a sudden it is the same ad over and over and over, “Kiss your muffin top goodbye,” Get rid of your muffin top in time for the holidays.” And then what happens once the holidays begin…after I have followed your altruistic and sage instructions to banish my muffin top? Am I supposed to continue to follow your advice and eat all of the holiday treats that you are advertising alongside your Muffin Top Removal Products? Why can’t I just keep my muffin top in the first place instead of losing it and gaining it back over and over?  Isn’t that what all of these crash diet ads are really about? Get really thin really fast and then before you know it you will look good enough to eat, um, that is good enough to start eating again!

And speaking of looking “good” from what I can tell, the only time a muffin top really exists is when women, in order to conform to fashion fascism, are wearing pants that are too tight. If you wear a looser waist band, not only are you more comfortable but voila!  No more evil muffin top!!! Hey I just discovered the way to kiss your muffin top goodbye…wear comfortable pants or stay naked! It’s like when we are told that any fat that bulges out from our bra straps is unsightly and needs immediate intervention. Hey I have an idea….don’t wear a bra! Or wear a looser bra…. Or….just tell people to shut up about bra bulge. Is it really destroying their world???

Do men have muffin tops? I don’t think so. They get to have beer bellies. Mmmmm beer, I could use a beer right about now.

Muffin top muffin top tell me when your mother drops, I’ll be there to pick her up…

Oh, that’s mutton chops, never mind. Anyone remember that song?  I haven’t thought about that bratty little sing-song rhyme in a long time. Not surprising that I would now. This whole topic makes me feel bratty and petulant and damn, now I have initiated the mutton chops Ear Worm!!!  If you don’t know what I am talking about go back and read the ***Digression Warning paragraph.

This whole blog is making me want a muffin right now.   A toasted corn, (that’s what they are cawled in New Yawk. You go into a cawfee shop and order a “toasted corn.” You don’t even have to say, “muffin” they know what you mean.

Classic New Yawk "Toasted Corn"

What’s your favorite muffin? I don’t have to ask what your favorite part of the muffin is, I  am guessing that you are one of the 99% that prefer the muffin top!!  And if you don’t…no judgment from me, just invite me to share a muffin with you!

“Kiss your muffin top goodbye,” the ads scream at me! If I could reach my muffin top I would kiss it, lovingly and adoringly because my muffin top is actually fairly new in my world and moved in when my menstrual cycle moved out. Frankly, I’d rather have a full time muffin top as a roommate than my old monthly sub-letter that made me crampy and cranky the third week of every month for 40 years. But alas, even with all of my yoga abilities, kissing my muffin top is a stretch I just can’t figure out. In the meantime I don’t think my boyfriend has any problem kissing my muffin top and I’ll tell you this, you ain’t felt nothing til you’ve had your muffin top kissed and caressed!

I’m thinking it’s time for all of us to reclaim the label Muffin Top and restore it to its natural place as a good thing! It is, after all, the best part of the muffin. It is the part of the muffin that everyone wants to eat first. The part of the muffin that is so good that if you split a muffin with someone and you give them the top it means you really really love them. Perhaps I will even start a website where we can all blog about the virtues of The Muffin Top and wage war against the evil campaign to impugn and malign it.

Look for the inaugural issue of Dr. Deah’s Muffington Post!

Maybe I can recruit Marilyn Wann, author of Fatso? to be a contributor. She just announced the release of her new daily planner that includes a whimsical non-stigmatizing section of  muffin top art. In fact thinking about that section is actually cheering me up quite a bit right now.  Wow, sometimes writing a rant blog can be really motivating; I can’t thank you enough for letting me vent.  Really, you ain’t seen nuthin muffin yet!

If you enjoyed this blog post, you may want to visit the website Leftoverstogo.com and check out our DVD/Workbook or sign up for our free monthly newsletter!

Yes you read that correctly.  I am promoting a restrictive diet and I am inviting you to join me in my Guilt Loss Program.

One of the comments I hear frequently in my work is some version of:

“I really want to embrace the Health at Every Size™ point of view.  In fact I do embrace it. I live it, I breathe it, and I believe in it.  But I’m still attached to wanting to be thin.  I feel guilty about that.  Do you still like me?  Can I still be a part of your club?  Am I ok???”

The answer is, “Yes, you are human.”

I know it’s hard to believe that there is a point of view where you can define your own standard of ‘perfection’; a point of view that is NOT based on comparisons or where someone else capitalizes on your feeling that you are not ENOUGH.

And your skepticism makes sense because there is a paucity of places in our lives where we are allowed to just “be enough.”  Even in places we assume would be guilt-free safe havens, turn out to be hot beds of comparisons, insecurity and feeling guilty about not “doing it” right. 

Take yoga for example.  I used to take yoga. I lived on an ashram and everything.  It was the most competitive environment I had ever been in!  My poses weren’t “posy” enough, my gauzy drawstring pants weren’t gauzy enough and my mat was a towel.  We were supposed to be going inward as we went downward dog; but a quick glance sideways inevitably revealed that everyone was looking at each other to see if they were stretching as far as the person next to them.   I don’t want to digress and have people think I don’t love yoga. I do. (And there are fabulous exceptions thanks to yoga teachers out there like Anna Guest-Jelley, Curvy Yoga^TM.   But for me, when yoga turned into X-TREME ASS-ANAS with the heat cranked up to 90 degrees and the sun salutation was done in fast forward…well let’s just say I didn’t want to be Jane Fucking Fondananda and feel the Bikram Burn*(see disclaimer).  It got in my way of reaping the benefits from the practice.

So enough with the guilt already! 

• An inclusive movement means just that, INCLUSIVE!  A size acceptance movement means just that, ALL sizes accepted.
• A self acceptance movement means that our goal is to accept ourselves and each other at every size, at any size.
• This does not mean you have to stay fat.
• This does not mean you have to love every minute of being fat.
• This does not mean you have to stay thin.
• This does not mean that you don’t have personal preferences.
• This does not mean that you don’t wish you could fit into your pre-menopausal weight gain clothing because you don’t have enough money to buy new clothes because you have to pay for your expenses to go to a conference and sell your book so you will have money to buy new clothes…(oooh, see how I made that all about me??)
• It especially does NOT mean that you should be bullied or ostrasized for being whatever size you are.

Seriously, how much happier would we be if we just lost The Guilt?  We weren’t born with The Guilt.  We can survive without The Guilt.  It is not a primal instinct. It doesn’t feed us, clothe us, keep us safe, and it certainly does not make us happy.

Guilt is NOT the same as remorse.  Someone who is able to feel badly about hurting another living being or committing some other egregious act against society is showing that they have a conscious. They can tell right from wrong and hopefully learn from the experience and change.  Remorse and empathy can be liberating.  Guilt?  Guilt just festers…It’s like a black mold that begets more black mold and more until you are completely filled with guilt and feel like a failure.

Who needs that? 

So, I’m embarking on a lifestyle change today.  Some people are gluten free, I am going to be guilt free.  I am not going to feel guilty about feeling what I feel. Except perhaps feeling guilty…still working on that paradox.

I am going to give up the self-destructive habit of constant comparison with others. I am going to accept that doing this may be difficult, and that’s o.k.

I invite you to join me.  And if you choose not to, please don’t feel guilty. I still love you.

* Disclaimer:  I don’t judge anyone that enjoys the Bikram Method. It’s just NOT for me.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you may want to visit the website Leftoverstogo.com and check out our DVD/Workbook or sign up for our free monthly newsletter!

Dr. Deah’s Tasty Morsels will be on a Blogoliday while Leftovers To Go is presenting at the Expressive Arts Summit in NYC.

Our session is sold out but there is still time to register for the summit at the venue btw.  In the meantime, you may read my posts on the FFF website and on the MOMTL website. I’d like to leave you with this thought…scroll down…

This comic is funny… but not…Self-Hate is learned behavior. Pure and simple. We are not born hating ourselves. We are taught what makes us valuable and what makes us NOT o.k. I hope that when I die people remember me as more than numbers on a scale and my jean size!