Scrambled Eggs of the Brain

Who would have ever thought that ‘The Devine Miss M’ (Bette Midler), Mallard Fillmore (cartoon strip), and Moi would have something in common. But we do. The dislike for the latest style sensations…plaids!

Mallard says that the ugly clothes from the 70’s are back and that is giving him a headache.

On a recent show, Bette showed a picture of her from the 70’s wearing a plaid jacket, with less than stunning commentary. Her husband was also wearing a plaid jacket, but with less color intensity. She thought he was showing harmony in the marriage.

And me…well you know how I feel about plaid. Plaids are scrambled eggs for the brain. And I don’t mean nourishment!

The plaids of the 70’s were missed matched color spectrums, that were large ugly combinations of depressing colors that only young inexperienced buyers would think were “wonderful and cool”. No different today.

Young buyers are the majority of the people that I see wearing these problems to match. Oh yes…what do you put with a plaid? The main color? The minor color? The background color? Or do you just do what most of the young designers do today when showing these scrambled eggs. Pick a color that isn’t in the plaid and wear that? If you want to get noticed…that is the way to wear plaid! But why would anyone wear plaid.

Of all the colors and designs plaid (as well as the mod patterns) MAKES THE WEARER LOOK FATTER! If you don’t think that is true try on a plaid skirt. Okay, now how much weight did you instantly gain? I don’t care if you are a size Zero; you look like you have gained weight.

This is due to what happens to the eye and relationship with storing the information in the brain. To make this simple…when too much is going on, the brain keeps looking and looking and looking at the colors and patterns to store all that information; so it (the brain) can get to the shape of the object. Because the patterns and colors are so big; the shape also looks bigger to the brain.

When I weighted so much, I steered clear of plaids. My brain knew that I looked fatter. It just didn’t know why till I did the studies later in life. Those studies also revealed the colors used in the plaids in the 70’s and today are mentally depressing colors.

If you don’t think this is true…just take a look at some of the plaids that men wear.

Talk about scrambled eggs in the brain…

I rest my case!

Amazingly Yours,
Dr Marlene

Join me Wednesday’s for one hour of high energy and intrigueing guests on Amazing Women: brains, beauty & style the #1 show on Voice America Women’s Radio network. http://www.amazingwomenbbs.com/ . If you want to get your shape into better shape buy my book The Thinking Side to Thin http://www.thinkingsidetothin.com/ How to change your thinking to keep, (or get) that shape to become a fashion icon.

Ah…spring is in the Air…first a word about Jay

Before I get started on the word about spring, let me say a word about Jay Leno. Yes Jay Leno! Jay has been a staple in our home as a funny before bed. The news is always so depressing that we didn’t want that in our heads while we slept. So we enjoyed the craziness Jay would give us. I was very happy when the writers’ strike hit and Jay decided to keep doing his show. Then I discovered something. While the writers were out…Jay was much funnier! The comments about the audience didn’t happen and the jokes were GREAT! The audience thought the jokes were funny and the entire show had a lift to it. Oh my; now the writers are back the jokes are back to being flat! Jay has to keep wondering about the audience and the show is back to really dumb jokes. Jay it’s not the audience…it is the stupid jokes the writers are giving you. You were funnier on your own. After all didn’t you keep audiences’ laughing for years before the show? It is only my opinion, but could it be the audience thinks so also?

Now for spring…I know that I am ready for spring, including clothes. I received one of my favorite catalogues the other day and flipped it open to a mouth dropping visual. I know I had a problem with the PJ’s but I think those designers are now into regular women’s wear with the same laze-a-fare attitude. Again I must say they are forgetting that grown women are not 9 years old.

Cutesy little clothes that have zero sex appeal. Little bows around the waist….peter pan collars (ugh). And those wonderful mixed spectrum mod prints. What are these designers thinking? I stopped into stores where I know the managers and asked about business. Most answers were business was off. A couple of managers said it was probably the economy. Oh Pleeeeze…we all know if a woman likes the clothes they will find a way. Shoppers were sparse.

Most people can’t afford Haute Couture or even high end designers clothes. $3500 for a simple handkerchief hem summer dress isn’t quite in most of our budgets. But taking the designs from kids clothes and sizing them up for adult women doesn’t work. Yes I know many times during Easter Mommies and daughters do have similar dresses. That is because the designs went from Mom down to daughter with many changes but, like fabrics. Now it is going the other way???

However once you weed through all the less than appropriate clothes out there, you can find a few gems…more on the gems later.

Amazingly Yours
Dr Marlene

Join me Wednesday’s for Amazing Women: brains, beauty & style on Voice America Women’s Radio network. www.amazingwomenbbs.com . If you want to get your shape into better shape get The Thinking Side to Thin www.thinkingsidetothin.com How to change your thinking to keep, (or get) that shape to become a fashion icon.

Open Letter to Pajamas Designers

Dear PJ Designers:

The other day I was in a large national store looking for PJ’s as a gift. I was having a hard time finding anything. As I wandered the department I noticed other women with scrunch noises, a-gasp mouths, scrunch eyes and just plain rotten looks.
Finally I said to one woman; “Having Problems?” Her comment was just my thoughts. “Everything is ugly! There is nothing worth buying!” I went to the next woman; “You look like the rest of us…having problems?” Her answer was the tops: “Did they get this department mixed up with the pre-teens?” The next one wasn’t so nice: “This is garbage!”

Designers… how long has it been since you have walked the floor of a PJ’s department in any store that is not in New York City? How long since you were in any other state but New York? Or are you just sending the junk out to the other states? The one woman had it right…we are not pre-teens and pre-teens should not be dictating what adult women wear to bed!

Just because we are going to sleep doesn’t mean that we have lost our fashion flare. Scotty dogs, ducks, lambs, bears, moose or any other animal on our sleeping or at times, our lounging attire we left years ago! And by the way there are more colors in the rainbow than, pink, blue, extra pale purple oh yes, and GRAY. And why do most of you think we all like to get ready for bed in pastels? I prefer something just a little sexier in colors.
Oh Please, we have been setting the fashion curve for decades. Including the mod designs: which, came to some designer in London on an acid trip during the late 60’s. But the PJ’s of today are an actual shame.

We are not trying to look like our pre-teens, or our teen daughters. You might think that is ‘cute’ but most of us don’t. We want stylish, designs with great interesting fabrics. You can’t tell me that they can’t print almost anything on fabric these days? They print the moose don’t they? Designers; watch what stores are putting on sale and how soon they go on sale after the item hits the stores. This should help you in what you design.

We don’t want the cramp your style, but the last thing my husband wants to see is me coming to bed in PJ’s with ducks on them. It is demining to women that have been setting the style longer than most of the new designers are old. We might have worn and made the mod designs a hit; but that was back in the 60’s when our mothers were still wearing full skirts.

Happy Holidays
Amazingly Yours
Dr Marlene

I sincerely hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season. No matter how you celebrate it the only thing that is important is that you do celebrate and enjoy life.

Small World Getting Bigger

Talk about sending mixed signals. Big news this week…Disneyland is shutting down the Small World ride to make all the boats bigger to accommodate today’s larger people. At the same time there is news that schools are trying to get younger students to eat better. Studies have shown if the fat is put on at a younger age it is harder to get off later in life. (That is so right)

So here we are as a nation; making it easier to be fat and telling our younger people you should not be fat. HUH??

Talk about sending mixed signals. I still can remember when I was very fat the availability of larger size clothes was next to nothing. Today…not only do we have lots of choices, but every store, including the very high end, has teens and younger big size clothes.

Are we becoming a nation of fat people? What happen to the trying to get the weight off and get healthy trends of the last few years? I have noticed on some websites of large size clothes they are not offering size 40 or 6X for women. What size is that?? We have never heard of that size before.

I have been doing some research, and let me tell you this. If you want to shorten your life get fat! The body and the skeletal system can’t support all that weight. Why do you think fat people have a hard time walking? And those who are really fat sit most of the time. Remember the story of the 1200 pound man who had grown into his couch? He couldn’t walk!

I will get into this more on Friday. For my Amazing Women I will tell you this now. To slow it down or even bring that aging clock to a slow crawl…losing the weight and getting the body healthy and balanced is the number one thing to do. Until Friday…

Amazingly Yours

Dr. Marlene

You can learn the secrets about my weight loss of 170 lbs. with the mental methods that I used in my book: The Thinking Side to Thin: available on Amazon or under links to my other sites. Or if you want to learn more about color, my book Marketing’s Silent Language includes how to use it to your advantage.

Two of the Three Senses…Gotcha!

Eating out instead of at home when someone is trying to lose weight, can be one of the toughest things to do. It doesn’t matter whether you are going to a nice restaurant or a fast stop to fast food you must manage the restaurants advantage of appealing to two of your three main senses.

First as you walk into the food establishment, you are engulfed with the smell of food! Your personal smell sense with pick out the smell that you like the best, if you are in a group note that one person will smell one thing and another with hit on another smell. (The only time this will not happen is if something has been burned in the kitchen)

Second, comes the sight. The wonderful pictures of all the great dishes the place offers in perfect full color just dripping with enticement. Gone are the days of a simple list of what the restaurant has to offer. Children, teens as well as adults are hooked. Then comes the mega plate meal for each person including the children. What can you do?
Children are easy: an adult can order for them or better yet, if the child is old enough get regular food an extra plate and let them have part of your food. Trust me you have more than enough in today’s market. I will tell you how I avoided the picture trap later.

Teens: Teach them how to make the better choices when they are not eating at home. Here are some quick fixes to today’s problems. Mexican Fast Food: Sticking with the tacos is the best bet. Here is where the boys will appreciate this. Tell them instead of ordering 3 get 4 (more food) then take all the filling out of the tacos onto a plate or wrapper and toss the shells!! Eating the inside, without the shells makes a much better less calorie and fat meal. And it is good! If their peers start ‘hassling’ them, use the allergic to something in the shells comment and let it drop. They may also discover that eating this way will lessen that mid-afternoon sleepiness.

Learning to get rid of most of the breads or fillers in fast food means, while not a perfect meal, will be better. Hamburger places are starting to put out more ‘low carb’ burgers. Again for teens, teach them this way to eat a burger, and let them add an extra slice of cheese; again more food less problems.

Now let’s tackle the problem with those wonderfully rich ‘coffee’ drinks you get at those coffee places on every corner. Teen girls seem to be addicted to them. So I asked one while waiting in line for my coffee. Why do they get those drinks? “Oh, it’s my lunch…so much better than all that fast food!” I almost fell over!! So I asked them do you know how many calories are in each of those drinks. Well…in most of the large ones, there is over 800-1000 calories and you don’t want to know the fat grams! Do you know that you could get many tacos or a couple of hamburgers for that many calories! They were stunned. I explained how I knew, and one in front of me didn’t order her drink. Yeah, changing one mind at a time!

For the girls: if they ate the food instead of the rich coffee drink, maybe some of the “muffin top” hang over on the low rise jeans would go away; which is the start of midriff bulge in many women in their 20’s and 30’s.

For the boys: more protein would help them build better muscle to take into manhood.

I will tell you about the pictures in the next posting. More hints in future postings.

Amazingly Yours
Dr. Marlene

You can learn more secrets for teens and about my weight loss of 170 lbs. and the mental methods that I used in my book: The Thinking Side to Thin: available on Amazon or under links to my other sites.

Training Teens and Eating Right

One of the comments that I get when it comes to my weight loss is “You have such will power; I’ll bet you never eat anything bad and never eat in a fast food restaurant”. Yeah, right, sure…NOT!

During the entire time that I lost the weight, I had fast food. Mexican, hamburgers, even hot dogs (which are the worst) and pizza, I still ate. The difference, I didn’t make it a habit and I was very careful in what I choose.

Teens on the other hand practically live in these places. Or should I say, they drive through them often. Dashboard dining is very common amount those teens with drivers licenses.
What can you teach a teen to; either lose weight or keep it in check, when all the choices of food are spread out on a wall in full color pictures looking enticing and delicious, perfect to eat? Then there are their peers…what can you do?

Let’s take the peer problem first. The age of the child has a lot to do with what is said. As I tell them, if you are losing weight or trying to stay healthy the easiest way to explain the difference in eating habits is one of two ways.

The first is you have discovered that you are allergic to what you are cutting out of your eating. Flour, sugar, bad fat, those items make a huge difference. If peers say they have never seen you with a runny nose, the answer is, this allergy hits me inside. Enough said then drop the subject.

The second is a little harder to pull off. That a coach suggested this is a better way to eat for the child’s or teens build.

Here is what I teach the teens. Within a few weeks to months the body will start to change. They will look better and have a lot more energy. With the right changes they will have more alertness and not be so tired. They will be changing their system to be more efficient. And in some teens, their skin might start to clear up. Wow what a benefit that will be.

They are right in the middle of raging hormones. The body is going through many changes at once. Taking a few of the problems away from the body makes the hormone changes easier on the system.

This is an easy ‘sale’ to teens; they may call you crazy at first, but challenge them to try it. It is easier than they think.

Friday I will discuss what to look for and choices at fast food, or eating away from home. They will be surprised that quantity may not have to change.

Amazingly Yours,
Dr. Marlene

You can learn some of the secrets for teens and about my weight loss of 170 lbs. and the mental methods that I used in my book: The Thinking Side to Thin: available on Amazon or under links to my other sites.

Teen Agers and Eating Right

At least once a week I read in the newspaper or even a magazine how nutritionist or psychologist are training pre-teens and teens in school how to eat better so as to not be one of the 38% of children that are overweight. Then, because I live very close to a high school I see kids do as they want. The places that are the busiest during lunch is the pizza parlor, the convenience store, the Mexican fast food place and now the ice cream truck with a line of 20 deep. At this age nothing is worst than not fitting in. Peer acceptance is what drives most teens.
It is almost as if the nutritionist and the psychologists forgot what it was like when they were a teenager. That their “new way” of teaching ‘children’ is going to work. Good grief ! Telling teens that they should not be eating in fast food restaurants, is like telling them not to breathe! Then you have the peer problem.

Rather than teaching them the ‘new way’, which is no different from the old way, wouldn’t it be better to observe them, then teach to their needs and life style; giving them a few secrets on how to eat, not get fat, still fit into their peer group and not get teased by others?

The biggest problem these ‘teachers’ have is they never had the problem of gaining weight or losing weight. Or they have the problem of being overweight while teaching and the teens blow them off immediately. Teens are not stupid maybe just a little ill-advised, and when presented with options they can use in everyday life, they usually respond.

Presenting a science to teens and pre-teens in a non-scientific way is a hurdle the nutritionist and psychologists need to understand and presenting it at the right time of the lifecycle when it is best absorbed.

More Wednesday on what to present and how.

Amazing Yours,
Dr. Marlene

You can learn some of the secrets for teens and about my weight loss of 170 lbs. and the mental methods that I used in my book: The Thinking Side to Thin: available at Amazon or under links to my sites.