May this year life give you a break from the first blossom to the last snowflake. Be fit and determined to reach all your goals. May destiny serve you year round delicious bowls. © Helena Smole, 2014

A friend asked me not a very long time ago: »Did it not help you to hear from your friends and family that you are not fat?« I answered: »No, it did not.« Being a slim beauty, she was curious: »How so?« My explanation was as follows: »You see. It’s pictures that really get to you. You see them everywhere – the professional models. These pictures are very strong messages to our subconscious. Stronger than any words. We are being brain-washed since childhood.« She was appalled: »That’s horrible.« I smiled a most content smile and told her the secret: »But you can beat these...

When I was a child, my mother never bought me a Barbie doll. Still there have been more than enough images along the way that made me think I was fat. The thought got intensified when doctors told me to lose weight. I wasn’t really fat, only swollen from tranquilizers I was taking. I kept looking at the fatness of my bottom in mirrors for years and I always found myself fat. The subconscious, full of photoshoped images of models, would not accept the fact that in mirrors objects appear larger. I had a ‘panic attack’ every time they would not keep larger sizes of clothes in stores. The...

I was buying new jeans the other day, because I had realized that I only had one pair of trousers. Thus I would have nothing to wear, when I washed the sole pair of jeans I own. The lady at the shop was very nice, but guess what – I only could fit into one type of jeans. All other types had no slightly-overweight-people-numbers available. Oh, yeah, there was this pair of jeans, but I would have to pull my belly in. The lady was surprised: »But are you sure you cannot fit into these?« To her cute appall, I answered: »I could, if I held my belly in. But I won’t do that, because it...