The tips so far this week have all involved signatures–a walk, a song. So, Tip #20 involves a signature item:

Wear your superpower piece.

Most of us have one–that item of clothing, that pair of awesome shoes, that breathtaking piece of jewelry–that makes us feel powerful and sexy. When you find yourself feeling bad about your body, pull out your superpower garment and soar.

Now that you have your power anthem, add Tip #19 (courtesy of Tyra Banks):

Every hallway is a runway.

Throw your shoulders back, stand up straight, hold your head up high, and walk into every room like your walking down the catwalk. You’ll feel like a star.

I came across 2 great resources for curvy art and gifts:

Big Moves Calendar: a 13-month full-color 2008 calendar featuring cast and crew of the “Big Moves” dance troupe.

Voluptuart: Art & Gifts for Celebrating Your Body: Body positive art, gifts, journals, paper, jewelry, etc.

For fans of “The Full Body Project,” there is now a MySpace page (sanctioned by no less than Leonard Nimoy himself) for those who want to show some love for the book and art exhibit: myspace.com/fullbodyproject.

If you want to see some beautiful, dynamic women, just take a look at the friends pictures. There are some awesome ladies here.

Love Your Body Month Tip # 18:

Find your power anthem.

Every been to a ballgame?  Notice how a powerful song can energize an audience.  Most teams, professional and amateur, have a theme song, a tune with a pounding beat and a memorable chorus.  Music exerts a power that bypasses the logical, over-thinking part of the brain and connects straight to our emotions, and our bodies.

Find a song that resonates with you, that causes you to throw your shoulders back and walk to the beat.  Then, whenever you walk into a room, turn on your theme song in your mind, and walk in fully in your power. Your confidence will radiate through the room.  And its hard to hate your body when “You’re Unbelievable” or “Beautiful” is running through your mind.

Love Your Body Month Tip #17:

Exercise because you love your body, not because you hate it.

So much of the emphasis around exercise is aimed at what you don’t like about your body–jiggly arms, doughy abs, flabby thighs. Thus, all your emphasis during exercise is focused on hating your body, or parts of it. No wonder people quickly forsake that New Year’s Resolution to be in the gym 5 times a week.

Our bodies need and deserve exercise because exercise makes the body strong and healthy. Approach exercise with the attitude: I walk/run/swim/dance/stretch/lift weights because I love my body and want it to be its best.

Let every footfall on the treadmill, let every crunch come from body love rather than body loathing. It makes a huge difference in how you feel about your body.

Tip # 16 may require a little rummaging:

Create your own photo therapy.

Find a picture(s) of yourself from some years ago that, at the time, caused you to flinch, but now, you can appreciate as your fresh, youthful self. Remember: you looked fine then, but you couldn’t appreciate it yet.

Then find a photo of yourself that you hate today and imagine how you will feel when you look at the picture 10, 20, 30+ years from now. The same will be true of this picture as is true of the older photo–you look fine now, you just can’t appreciate it yet.

This process may take a while to work–I’ve kept an “ugly” picture file for years, and only in the past few years have I really been able to truly believe in the beauty of current “ugly” pictures. But stick with it, and you can transform your relationship with the camera.

Leonard Nimoy appeared on The Colbert Report Thursday night to talk about his latest art project, The Full Body Project a collection of photographs featuring plus size women. I just love Nimoy for his passionate advocacy of the beauty of female bodies at any size. And kudos to Colbert–he maintained his snarky character without being the least bit derogatory toward the woman in the photos.

If your not familiar with the exhibit and book, I did an extensive write up on the art collection in November, and a friend of The Curvy Life did a great guest blog on the project.

You can catch the replay tonight on The Colbert Report, or click here for a link to a video replay on The Colbert Report website.

I’m so glad to see the show featured on Oprah. There’s some great info on Oprah’s site. I’ve written two previous posts on the show. If you haven’t read them and are interested, here are the links:

Love Your Body Month Tip #9 (with video clip)

Feel Good Naked in 2008 (How to look good naked tips)

Two things strike me about the women featured on Oprah today:

1. The depth of the pain caused by negative body image.
2. The way we allow negative body image to limit living our lives.

Michael, a beautiful, intelligent woman, chooses to spend her free time in bed rather than actively engage in life with her husband and son. Body loathing is paralyzing and debilitating.

And Anita shows how the pain of negative messages can impact us for a lifetime.

Finally, I am always struck by how hair, makeup, and clothes can help a woman feel better about herself, even without clothes.

Here are some tips from the show on how to feel better about your body:

• Take baby steps.
• Live in the moment.
• Get rid of clothes that are too big or too small. “Keep the sizes that work for you and that fit for you, and then get rid of the other stuff,” Carson says. “Don’t mourn your old body.”
• Look at your whole body. “Don’t just focus on the bad stuff. If you have bad thighs, don’t automatically go there every day when you wake up and look at that,” he says. “Look at the good stuff, and reprogram your brain into thinking, ‘This is good. This is good. This isn’t so great. So what?’”

For more click here.

Love Your Body Month Tip #15:

Buy (insert favorite style here) lingerie.

I’m a fan of the lacy, racy stuff, but whatever your flavor–pretty, funky, comfy, silly–treat your body to something that makes you feel your best, most powerful self.

This is a great time of year for lingerie–post-Valentine’s should provide you with selection and sales. Check out our Shopping links for some great resources.

Enjoy!

Today, Valentine’s Day, is the 10th anniversary of V-Day, a day and an organization created to combating violence against women that developed from Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues. The V-Day organization has raised more than $50 million for local anti-violence groups and rape crisis centers.

Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda were interviewed twice today on the TODAY Show, and I appreciated this comment by Jane Fonda on the power of the play:

“I knew that women have a right to our humanity and bodily integrity. I didn’t always live it behind closed doors. But when I saw ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ I never laughed or cried so hard in the theater. I think it was while I was laughing that something happened and I kind of slipped into my body and I really changed.”

If we are fully in our bodies, fully appreciative of our bodies, we will not tolerant bad treatment of said bodies by others or by ourselves.

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of V-Day, Ensler and company are staging the biggest production of “The Vagina Monologues” in its history. It will take place over two days at the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome on April 11-12, with a star-studded cast: Jane Fonda, Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Hudson, Glenn Close, Julia Stiles, Ali Larter, Sally Field, Marisa Tomei, Calpernia Addams, Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, and musicians Common, Eve and Charmaine Neville.

Friend of The Curvy Life, Authentic Beauty, will be providing makeovers for up to 5000 of the women of New Orleans as part of V-Day’s “Superlove” event at the Superdome. The Curvy Life plans to be in New Orleans for the event–if you want to join us, see V-Day 1{0} for details.

I love Kathleen Turner as a fabulous curvy icon. She has been making the rounds with her new book, Send Yourself Roses:Thoughts on My Life, Love and Leading Roles. Give yourself a Valentine’s treat by watching her interview on the Today show (click here) or go and check out her book.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Tip #14 is:

Be your own Valentine.

Valentine’s Day, at it’s heart (pun intended), is supposed to be about appreciation. Could your body use some appreciation? If you feel like sending your body flowers or candy, I’m sure it won’t complain; however, how about a nice love note? Here’s mine, feel free to copy:

Beloved body,

I know that I don’t always say it enough, but thank you for being my true partner is this world. Thanks for sticking with me thorough thick and thin (or thin and thick, as the case may be). I promise to shower you with love for as long as we are together.

Remember, I’ve got your back, because, baby, I know that you have mine.

XXOO!

I usually don’t tune in to American Idol until after the audition rounds (I find these episodes to be painful to watch),but I caught the last 10 minutes of the final audition round, just in time to witness the show down between the final 2 of each of the male and female contestants.

American Idol is meticulously produced, such that every angle and combination is played for full effect. The two male finalists were pitted against one another because they had similar vocal styles. So why were the two women, Joanne and Cardin, brought in together? I only saw brief clips of their auditions, however, they singing styles seemed quite different (anyone who has followed the show can let me know if this is true).

Again, why the pairing? Is it because these two are so physically different? They both appear to have compelling stories in their quest to be professional singers, but I think that the point of the pairing was: big girl vs. skinny girl. Personally, I think that it is fantastic that the plight of plus-size performing artists is highlighted in Joanne’s appearance on the show. And, I won’t say that it wasn’t somewhat satisfying to see the curvy girl beat the skinny girl (although, in reality, this was not a head-to-head competition, and as the only plus size woman in the competition, she beat out all the other curvy girls as well).

It sounds to me like Joanne can sing, but I think that there are interesting issues around American Idol and body size in female contestants (doesn’t seem to apply to the guys). Again, I’ve only seen snippets on teasers for Entertainment Tonight, but it seems like this year’s exploited AI rejected is a lovely, young super-sized girl with a mother nearly disabled by weight.

Female body size is definitely an issue around current and former AI contestants and winners. I’ll be curious to see how the issue plays out this season.

Of course, good luck, Joanne. Knock ‘em dead!

Love Your Body Tip #13 comes from Dr. Margo Maine:

Your body is extraordinary–begin to respect and appreciate it.

The human body is amazing. Consider some of these facts:

• Your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, your liver every six weeks, and your skeleton every three months.
• The heart circulates your blood through your body 1000 times a day.
• Your bones are 4 times stronger than concrete.
• Your eyes can distinguish over 1 million colors.
• You exercise at least 30 muscles when you smile.

When negative thoughts about your body enter your mind, meditate on the amazing nature of the skin your in. (For many more facts about the human body, click here.)