Tag: Being Well

Kelly Clarkson is best known for her soulful vocal chops and reached singles, but behind the scenes, the pop superstar was fighting for her life.

In a recent interview with Attitude magazine, Clarkson exposed she battled depression and suicidal guess during the early years of her career. She was in such a dark place that she began to lose weight. Sadly, her new look resulted people to believe she was doing well, even flourishing.

“When I was really skinny and unhappy, I wanted to kill myself. I was miserable, like inside and out, for four years of my life. But no one cares because aesthetically you make sense.”

Host Carson Daly, Kelly Clarkson, and Justin Guarini pose at the MTV Beach House in 2003. Photo by Scott Gries/ Getty Images.

Clarkson sought extreme measures to induce herself feel better, even literally running away from the real problem.

“I like wrecked my knees and my foot during those four years because all I would do is put in headphones and operate. I was in the gym all the time. Before my depict, and any time probably, because it was the one time no one was talking to me and it was the one time there was no bullshit going on. It was just me listening to music and checking out.”

The number on the scale has nothing to do with with someone’s value as a person, but celebrity or not, it’s easy to equate weight with happiness or success.

Though Clarkson was suffering, her weight loss was celebrated, making it difficult to get better. But when it comes to depression and suicidal believes, there is always hope. Clarkson determined it with the assistance of her close family and friends.

Photo by Rick Diamond/ Getty Images for Music Business Association.

An “aha” moment occurred when Clarkson let go of the negative people in her life, and others trying to bring her down.

She realized that pleasing everyone, left little room to do right by herself. Before she could ever hope to get better, Clarkson had to stop people pleasing, and start trusting her instincts about what was right for her heart and career.( Emphasis added .)

I just slowly started running: “You’re not good for me, I can’t save you and I’m drowning because I’m trying to help you.” It was really that moment of trying to be all things to all people and it’s like, “I can’t.” I was around some genuinely negative people and I got out of it because I also had a lot of great people there. So, it was more a case of turning around and facing them, and strolling towards that light.

Photo by Ethan Miller/ Getty Images for dcp.

If you or someone you love has depression or suicidal supposes, it’s imperative to get help and support from people and professionals you trust.

Depression can feel all-encompassing and scary. It’s easy to lose yourself in the disease , no longer finding exhilaration in the things you love, or feeling irritable, sad, or anxious. You may gain or lose weight, sleep a lot or have trouble sleeping. It’s a complicated mental illness, but there are ways to feel better and find relief.

If you or someone you love has suicidal thoughts, reach out to your local or national crisis line at 1-800-273-8255. It’s available any time, day or night.

Because celebrity or not: You are enough. You are worthy of love, and you are not alone.

Photo by Theo Wargo/ Getty Images for Citi.

Read more: www.upworthy.com

I’m fat.

The kind of fat I am depends on what side of fat you’re looking at me from. If you’re a thin person, I probably seem very fat. If you’re a very fat person, I might seem median to you. To me, I am fat.

Aiana Omipi suffered from a food addiction that caused her to weigh 277 pounds at the age of 19. So she went on a strict diet of keto and low carbs and dropped 149 pounds in simply 11 months.

Soon after, she returned to her old eating habits until she made 299 in 2018. “My portion sizes were big section and I’d constantly feel hungry so should be going for seconds, one-thirds or sometimes even just make another meal, ” she told The Daily Mail .

Omipi wanted to lose the weight again, but knew that she couldn’t return to a rigid, calorie-restricted diet. “It devoured me in a way that I can’t even describe. It was an overwhelming hunger that I could not silence but merely block out temporarily, ” Omipi said.

“That wasn’t something that was sustainable for me as I had a constant feeling of hunger, ” she said. “So, I discovered other solutions to eliminate the root cause and have a sustainable weight loss and healthy eating regime.”

Omipi decided to go through a gastric sleeve surgery that removed 90% of her belly.

“This was me only 5 days ago – unposed, raw and vulnerable in my hospital bed moments after surgery, ” she wrote on Facebook. “I lay unconscious and unresponsive like this for 4 hours before my eyes opened. My boyfriend took this photo of me in shock as he’d never seen me like this. I wanted to share this side of my journey because Gastric Sleeve Surgery IS NOT glamorous nor is it a decision that is constructed lightly.”

Nine months later, she lost 128 pounds.

“I believe a lot of that was hormonal as now with 90% of my stomach removed and a large part of that being the gland that produces the thirst hormone Ghrelin, I don’t have that feeling of constant starvation anymore, ” she said.

“I feel like I have control over food. I can cook something without feeling the desire or need to eat it, ” she continued.

In March 2019, she shared what she looked like one year after surgery.

Her two massive weight losses have given her stretch marks, but Omipi isn’t planning on having surgery because she sees them as part of her journey to self-acceptance.

“I have excess scalp in lots of areas of my body and I have had stretch marks all over my belly particularly, ” she explained. “I think it’s important to embrace them and wear it with confidence but if you want to minimize their appearance that’s okay too.”

Read more: www.upworthy.com

Can you believe there are people who still haven’t watched the new “Queer Eye” reboot on Netflix?

Image via “Queer Eye.”

If that’s you, you need to get on it!

The new series is fun. It’s optimistic. It’s bridging the gap between liberals and conservatives( believe it or not ). And it has a whole lot of heart, too.

At its core, “Queer Eye” is about finding the pep in your step via confidence and self-love — not just a new haircut. And that’s something Jonathan Van Ness, the show’s grooming expert, knows all about.

Photo by Neilson Barnard/ Getty Images.

On April 17, Van Ness shared photos on Instagram in recognition of #TransformationTuesday.

While the two side-by-side pics may look like your standard before-and-after shot focused on weight loss, Van Ness noted the photos weren’t about valuing one physical appearance or body sizing over the other. They were about the power of seeing yourself as “lovely and gorge” no matter what.

In the caption, the “Queer Eye” superstar noted he fell into some unhealthy habits after his stepdad passed away about five years ago. “I didn’t like how I felt or looked, ” he wrote.

But today, he explained, he’s not trying to block out those difficult memories or employ that image as a measuring stick to mark any kind of fitness or nutrition progress. He’s focused on celebrating the old pic just as much as he’s celebrating the new one.

“It’s so important for me to look back and tell that man from five years ago he was lovely and gorge, ” he wrote. “I can celebrate where I am now as long as I send love to the’ me’s along the way.”

A lot of #TransformationTuesday posts concentrate on pounds, muscle mass, and the existence( or absence) of abs.

And you know what? If you’ve decide fitness or nutrition aims for yourself and are reaching them, good for you. You deserve to pat yourself on the back.

But Van Ness’ post serves as a great reminder that internal transformations are the more critical ones. And there’s a whole lot of power in learning to love every “you” that resulted the way to today.

Read more: www.upworthy.com

via Shutterstock

Adrienne Osuna is a fitness blogger with a focus on weight train. After years of struggling with her weight, this mother of four eventually got serious about her health, adopting a rigorous schedule of power lifting, cardio, and intermittent fasting to lose weight, gain muscle, and kick ass.

And while her personal regimen might be a little too ambitious for most of us, she’s still inspiring–because she keeps it real.

An image she posted on her blog is running viral for pointing out that focusing on your weight is a misinforming objective. The before-and-after pic demonstrates her before she started lifting and after–a complete physical transformation which resulted in a staggering one pound of weight loss.

“But I DID NOT use anyone’s products to do this, ” she wrote in a postwhich since been stimulated private. “This was all hard work in the gym lifting heavy weights and intermittent fasting.

Kudos to Ms. Osuna for getting the word out–fitness isn’t about a number, it’s about having awesome muscles you could use to punch a hole through a plaster wall.

This article was originally published by our partners at someecards and was written by Matt Nedostup.

Read more: www.upworthy.com

Remember this ad?

Image via Graham C99/ Flickr.

Unfortunately, lots of people do.

The ad for Protein World — featuring a slim, bikini-clad model in a heavily edited photo — was plastered across billboards and entire subway vehicles in New York City and London in 2015. Its message was embarrassingly clear: If you’re body doesn’t look like this one, you don’t have a beach body — but buy our weight loss products and perhaps you will! * rolls eyes forever *

The ad was explosion by commuters and advocacy groups alike.

It even aimed up being banned in the U.K . for actual false ad; as it turns out, Protein World’s weight loss products didn’t quite live up to the brand’s claims.

Three years later, the infamous ad haunts many of us who had to see it every day on our morning commutes. But a different brand is now taking advantage of the marketing gaffe to promote a dramatically different message.

A plus-size fashion brand in Europe has given the ad a 2018 makeover.

“Me and two of my colleagues were just sitting around one day and were like, ‘Remember that ad? ‘” Bethany Rutter, who works in social media and marketing for the brand Navabi, told Today Style. “It’s something that really bided with people. It was a really troubling instance of something that happens all the time, but it’s the most explicit version of it that people had seen.”

Rutter’s team decided to flip the alarming instance on its head.

The fashion line’s new ad, which was carted around on wheels throughout London on May 3, simulates Protein World’s bright yellow and black and white aesthetics. But it comes with a much more empowering message: “We’re beach body ready.”

The three women on Navabi’s ad weren’t professional models either. Rutter rocked the swimwear alongside Lauren Tallulah Smeets, a style brand director, and blogger Stephanie Yeboah.

“Me, Lauren and[ Rutter] did a thing lately, ” Yeboah tweeted excitedly. “LOOK AT OUR FAT BAADIES ALL UP ANS THROUGH[ LONDON ]. “

Lookin’ fab, ladies .

Unlike reactions to Protein World’s 2015 campaign, people are loving Navabi’s take on what constitutes a “beach body.”

“I love this, ” one commenter wrote. “Makes me feel so much less anxious about my own ‘flaws.'”

“You all look incredible! ” another person told. “I perfectly love this shot. The exuberance, the joy, the beauty.”

“I get so stressed about wearing a bikini but yes, ” someone chimed in, “we are all beach body ready! “

Damn straight . Have a body? Heading to the beach? Then congratulations: Your body is ready for the beach.

Read more: www.upworthy.com

In May 2016, performer Gabourey Sidibe had weight loss surgery.

As Sidibe explained to People magazine, the decision to go through with the procedure was both difficult and personal.

Photo by Bryan Bedder/ Getty Images for Hulu.

Now, a year after the surgery, Sidibe is opening up about the reactions she’s gotten for her visibly smaller size.

While you might is considered that losing weight would earn her nothing but kudo from the thin-obsessed world “were living in”, it turns out people’s reactions haven’t been too great.

As Sidibe explained to NPR, before the surgery, people liked to tell her that she needed to lose weight. Now that she’s had the surgery, people have felt compelled to warn her not to lose too much. It’s literally a lose-lose.

No matter what her body looks like, she’s noticed, people feel they have a right to tell her what to do with it.

As the actor explained 😛 TAGEND

“It’s important because I don’t happen to have the various kinds of body that we usually see on television and in films. I am plus-size, I have dark scalp, and I am 100% beautiful, but I get a lot of flak. ‘Oh, you should lose weight.’ And now that I have lost weight I lost weight for health reasons I get, ‘You look good, but don’t lose too much weight because your face is starting to sink in.'”

Sidibe also noted the awkward commentaries she’ll get from others celebrating her weight loss for the wrong reasons 😛 TAGEND

“Literally someone said, ‘Congratulations, I see you lost weight. Congratulations.’ And I say, ‘That’s a weird thing to congratulate me on because this is my body.'”

Photo by Valerie Macon/ AFP/ Getty Images.

Sidibe’s experiences exemplify the impossible beauty standards women face and why when it comes to weight you really should “mind your own body.”

All of us( but especially women) are relentlessly pressured to adhere to absurd standards when it comes to appearance. These expectations are ridiculous when it is necessary to defining “real” beauty, of course, but they’re also ridiculous when it is necessary to defining our health.

A person’s weight, generally speaking, really doesn’t tell you all that much about their own health, many experts say . And even if it is unable to, what someone else does with their body is their business and their business alone. A person’s weight, in and of itself, is not something to be congratulated for.

Photo by Richard Shotwell/ Invision/ AP.

Every body looks differently, works differently, and serves the person who occupies it differently. And that’s important to remember if we’re considering the sizing or shape of someone else or ourselves.

Sidibe gets it.

“This has been my body since I was 5-ish, you know? ” she told NPR. “It’s been a 30 -year thing of other people putting their own stuff on my body. But it’s mine, so I will police it, thank you.”

Read more: www.upworthy.com

Lena Dunham was pretty pissed off to find herself on a recent cover-up of Us Weekly, and we candidly can’t blamed her.

Next to a headline offering “2 0 Slimdown diet tips superstars are use, ” Us Weekly operated a photo of the “Girls” star with the caption “Lena: how she gets motivated.”

But here’s the thing: Dunham didn’t give the publication any “slimdown” tips-off nor did she let them know how she gets motivated.

In a sizzling reply on Instagram, Dunham fell some brutal honesty about weight and health:

The caption reads:

“2 0 slimdown diet tips! 1. nervousnes ailment* 2. resultant constant nausea 3. an election that exposes the true depths of American misogyny 4. constant sweaty dreams of dystopian future 5. abdominal adhesions pinning ovary below uterus* 6. baseless but still harrowing threats to physical safety online and through smail mail 7. watching institutions you love from Schemed Parenthood to PBS be threatened by cartoon mustache-twirling scoundrels 8. ultimately realise superheroes aren’t real( specifically the X-Factor, genuinely thought they’d handle this) 9. marching your ass off 10. a quiet rage that replaces need for food with need for retaliation 11. sleeping 19 hours a day 12. realizing that even the liberal media wants dem clicks no matter whut 13. worrying endlessly about the health and safety of women you know and women you don’t 14. realizing who ya real friends are 15. having to switch from Uber to Lyft( lots of calories burned trying to understand a new app, then even more trying to understand if the conflict was resolved) 16. bladder spasms, urinary frequency and importance* 17. having your telephone number leaked and violent images texted to your phone by randos under names like VERYFATCHUCKYBOY @creepz. com 18. maintaining your back arched against the wind 19. um, who the fuck cares? 20. I have no tips-off I dedicate no tip I don’t want to be on this cover cuz it’s diametrically opposed to everything I’ve opposed my whole career for and it’s not a compliment to me because it’s not an accomplishment thanx* Star indicates a pre-existing condition”

“[ Weight loss is] diametrically opposed to everything I’ve opposed my whole career for and it’s not a compliment to me because it’s not an achievement, ” she wrote as the 20 th and final “tip.”

Listing everything from an anxiety ailment to being stalked by strangers online, Dunham touches on a bunch of factors that may have affected her weight in one way or another. The most important phase here, though, is that weight simply shouldn’t matter . And in Dunham’s case, this is something she’s talked about over and over c’mon, people!

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images.

“I feel I’ve constructed it clearly articulated over the years that I don’t devote even the tiniest of shits what anyone else feels about my body, ” she wrote on Instagram back in March.

“I’ve accepted that my body is an ever changing organism , not a fixed entity what goes up must come down and vice versa. I smile just as broad no matter my current size because I’m proud of what this body has find and done and represented.”

A person’s weight or weight loss don’t automatically correlate with a person’s health and that’s something worth keeping in mind the next time you’re seduced to say, “You look great; did you lose weight? “

Illustrator Miriam Caldwell opened up about the extremely awkward situation she was put in as friends congratulated her on losing weight not knowing that the weight loss was brought on by an illness. And in Dunham’s case, she’s recently lost some weight as the result of taking steps to try and manage her endometriosis.

The point is that you don’t know what someone’s situation is, and sometimes these “compliments” can actually be painful and embarrassing.

Being skinny doesn’t automatically build you a spokesperson for all things healthy, just as being fat doesn’t mean mean you’re unhealthy. Health can’t be measured on a scale, and it’s not something any of us can see just by looking at another person. So don’t let publications mislead you by merely telling you half the story. Health and happiness is possible at any size.

Read more: www.upworthy.com