Category Archives: beauty/body image

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Be Ye Transformed by the Renewing of My Closet aka Makeover Me Pleaz!

Hello World,

My Michelle O. Dress...

A week from this Saturday, on May 29, I will be the featured speaker at the 31st Annual Christian Women’s Retreat banquet at the Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel…Yep, that’s right little ole me is the keynote speaker…This is the first time that I will be speaking at this type of event and I’m excited and scared…

I will be speaking on this verse…

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:1-2

Since the key word is transformed, I’ve been thinking about that word…and suddenly it occurred to me that maybe I need to transform my closet too…I mean I will be speaking to a whole room of women, and I want to be on point…it’s true, most women do dress for each other…At 36, I think I have an idea of what looks good on me – basically since I have wide hips and a small waist, I have to wear clothing that comes in at the waist and flares at the hips…other than that, I don’t know much…Recently, I’ve become a baller on a budget but I do think I need to splurge within reason on a few timeless pieces that will upgrade or transform my closet if you will…I do have the sense to know that what you can get away with at 26 will not work at 36…I’m also wondering if I should have my makeup done for my speech…what do you think?..also, I’ve  posted my outfit for the evening…and if you are wondering, yes, I wore this dress (my Michelle O. – inspired dress)  to church on Easter Sunday and to the ABC News’ “Nightline” debate, “Why Can’t A Successful Black Woman Find a Man?”  Do you think I should wear this dress? Do you like it? What about the shoes? What are the “must haves” for the closet of a professional woman in her ’30s?

On a side note, I dated this guy about two years ago that whipped out a clothing catalogue on of our dates…He told me that I worked out way too much to not dress well…I could have been insulted, but I wasn’t…He ended up buying me what is still my favorite winter outfit for Christmas…(I may have to call him for some help…)ah, the adventures of dating…

Anywho, any thoughts?

P.S. Something about this post makes me remember this song… 🙂 Love Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam…

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Searching for Thelma…

Hello World!!!

Me and Thelma!!!

Her signature!!!

I admit it…I’m a total Stan when it comes to “Thelma” from the hit ’70s show “Good Times.” When I was around 7 or 8 years old, I desperately searched for images on television that affirmed and celebrated black beauty…In the early ’80s, those were hard to come by…While the white girls in my classes looked up to Jill (Farrah Fawcett) on “Charlie’s Angels” and “Daisy Duke” from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” I looked up to “Thelma.”  Next to my mother, she represented everything I wanted for myself in the future: beauty, brains, strong family ties, a loving relationship with a fine husband and a determination to make it in this world despite all of its challenges.

I do think this pic looks like me...

When I got older, I was delighted that I got curvy like my beauty icon. And one Halloween in my ’20s, I even decided to dress as her for a Halloween party. (If you go to my ‘How’ page on this blog, you can see that pic…) I smiled for days when two guys nearly back -to-back told me that I favored “Thelma” just a few years ago. One of those guys is an artist who draws wonderful portraits so I took that as a huge compliment!!!

So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out Bern Nadette Stanis aka “Thelma” would be at the Sweet Auburn festival last weekend. I did not know how I was going to find her among the throngs of people at Sweet Auburn on Saturday, but I desperately hoped it would happen. As R and I walked through the crowd, I overheard a woman say, “That’s ‘Thelma’ back there.” My neck turned nearly 360 degrees. “Where,” I said, forgetting my manners. “Back in that booth just back there,” the woman said as she pointed behind us. Forgetting that R was with me, I bulldozed my way through the people until there she was…the dream of my little girlhood…

Me being a total Stan!

I went up right to her and stammered something about her being beautiful, and she smiled and simply said, “Thank you.” Then I paid $15 to have my picture taken with her and an autograph…As we got close to each other, she said, “You are so cute.” I felt like was levitating…THELMA SAID I WAS CUTE…It came from her own lips…Since she opened the door, I walked right in…”Ms. Stanis, some people have told me that I look like you. I don’t know if that’s true, but I took it as a compliment,” I said quickly. She looked at me closely and then said, “I can see that.” I don’t know if she meant it, but it made me feel good anyway. R said I don’t look like her…Maybe not…but a girl can dream, can’t she?

I’m such a Stan, I even took a picture with her daughter Brittany…

Bern Nadette's daughter Brittany...She's so pretty...and really nice too..

Any thoughts?

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It’s a Workout Wednesday…

Hello World!!!

Before...my eyes always do weird things in pictures...

As I was getting ready to teach a class last night at the gym, it occurred to me that I should share how I went from the girl who always placed last in those awful and humiliating physical fitness tests I was forced to take each spring of my childhood to the woman who teaches weekly classses at the gym and looks forward to training for road races each summer…

Like many major decisions in my life, I was motivated by vanity 🙂 … The year was 1992.  I had graduated from high school earlier that year and was now a proud freshman at UGA (Go dawgs!) Although I was homesick, I had managed to find comfort in the dining hall…At home, my mother never really fed me and my brothers baked goods as that was not her specialty. But now that I was on my own and armed with a meal card, I indulged in cakes, cookies and pies galore particularly as one of the dining halls was next to my dorm….And since a vending machine was nearby my room, I often indulged in Baby Ruth candy bars with a can of Coke as a pick-me-up for those early morning classes…And for a mid-morning snack, I downed small bags of salt and vinegar chips from that same vending machine…My girls and I frequently devoured slices of pizza at midnight before, during and after late night study sessions…And after church on Sundays, my roommate and I got down at our local Ryan’s Family Steak House….

Three months later, I was 20 pounds heavier, and my father began calling me “Big Mama…” It was especially troubling as my roommate who ate along with me had not gained any weight…It must have been all of that exercise she was doing as a member of the Army Reserves…My other girl didn’t gain any weight either…she was just one of those naturally skinny chicks….(i was soo jealous…) But I continued to eat and gain weight anyway…

The summer before my junior year, I saw myself in one of those surveillance videos at a supermarket…Before I saw myself on the video, I thought I was looking hot…I had on one of those full-body, shaped linen dresses that were in style at the time…I just knew I was just looking voluptuous…but I had to face the truth when I saw the video…I was beyond voluptuous…I was fat…

So when I started school in my junior year, I had a plan…I had to take one P.E. class to graduate so I decided to go ahead and finally enroll in a class…all of the walking classes were full so I had to take a running class….Thankfully, UGA had a diet program similar to Weight Watchers. I decided to enroll in the program at the same time that I took the running class. In the diet program, we learned how to count calories and plan nutritious meals according to what was served at the dining halls…I learned that with moderate exercise combined with eating 1345 calories and 37 grams of fat each day, I would lose that 20 pounds or so that I gained…

I huffed and puffed in that running class, and I was sooo slow that sometimes the teacher had to run with me because I was sooo far behind the other members of the class…And I monitored each morsel that passed through my lips and tallied up all of my calories and fat grams for months….And it worked, by spring quarter, I was fine as wine…And I had a new found appreciation for exercise…Our teacher told us at the beginning of the class that he wanted to inspire us to continue to run and exercise for the rest of our lives…at the time, I never imagined that could happen for me, but it did…I have never stopped working out….And by the grace of God, I will be working out even when I’m old and gray….

Now, I’m not as skinny as I used to be…In fact, I’m not skinny at all…I have discovered since then that what you eat not how much you work out is the most important factor in long-term weight loss…but I still love working out…To celebrate 10 years of working out, I ran a marathon (26. 2 miles) in 2004…True to form, by the time I finished, the finish line had been packed up and most of the runners were gone…but I still did it…I trained with the Jeff Galloway Training Groups. I don’t know if I will ever do a marathon again, but I do manage to run a few road races each year….And each year, I run with a Jeff Galloway Training Group…I cannot describe how alive I feel as I run on those brisk Saturday summer mornings…

If you’re in Atlanta, the 10k training program starts on April 17! I’ll be there…will you?

After...again, my eyes always do weird things in pictures...

Any thoughts?