Featured Stories
Halloween Costumes Kicking the artificial sweetener habit Review: I The (On-going) Saga of Nancy Upton How I stopped consuming (as much) media, and started loving myself Even your dishware can fat shame you now Consuming Kids Fat people can have eating disorders, too Talking back to The Biggest Loser Obesity vs. Anorexia Life fail: The 101 Ways to Say Don Is dieting anti-feminist?
 
Halloween Costumes & The (Plus-Size?) Girl

Halloween Costumes & The (Plus-Size?) Girl

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween, and Halloween costumes. OK, it’s mostly a hate-based relationship. I haven’t dressed up since I was ten and the few occasions where I have “worn a costume,” it’s been my making a half-assed attempt to be something where I could wear clothes I already owned (see: Bridget Jones [...]

Kicking the artificial sweetener habit

Kicking the artificial sweetener habit

Artificial sweetener is everywhere. Calorie conscious individuals, such as myself, long gave up sugar — it’s how many calories for how many tablespoons? No thanks! — not wanting to “waste points” on sweet tea, sugar in coffee, etc.  And why drink sugar when the alternative was even sweeter, and advertised as zero calories? ZERO! But [...]

Review: I’m Not The New Me, by Wendy McClure

Review: I’m Not The New Me, by Wendy McClure

The first weight loss memoir I ever read & reviewed was I’m Not The New Me by Wendy McClure. The original post appeared on my blog Mavenity, with the book review folded into a ramble about my personal life. In honor of the new launch of Curvy Nerd Books, I am reposting my review with [...]

The (On-going) Saga of Nancy Upton & American Apparel

The (On-going) Saga of Nancy Upton & American Apparel

I’ve been avidly following the saga of American Apparel’s “plus-size” model competition, and the entry of a fantastic woman named Nancy Upton, but previously chose not to add to the many, many blogs about it. Until now. Quick refresher: American Apparel, which makes skimpy clothing for very small people who like to pose naked, decided [...]

How I stopped consuming (as much) media, and started loving myself

How I stopped consuming (as much) media, and started loving myself

Total honesty: I really like myself. Like, really! Just as I am. (cue Mr. Darcy moment, only by myself) I have some more weight to lose, but it’s becoming less and less important as I gain a better perspective on weight, health, fitness and my body, and just plain learn to love myself physically. I [...]

Even your dishware can fat shame you now

Even your dishware can fat shame you now

You know where fat shaming and food guilt are absent? On my dishware! Luckily, Fishs Eddy is there for me — now I can have demotivational messages that remind me I shouldn’t have eaten that, fatty, right on my dishware! No, really. Called “Intervention-Ware,” these meet-cute plates don messages such as: “It’s hard to be [...]

Consuming Kids – Advertising to children & the obesity epidemic

Last night, I rewatched one of my absolute favorite documentaries — Consuming Kids. It’s fabulous from start to finish, and despite being a few years old is still completely relevant. It is, in short, about how deregulation of the advertising & marketing industry when it comes to kids has lead to a generation of super [...]

Fat people can have eating disorders, too

Fat people can have eating disorders, too

An additional, key takeaway from the recent article I posted about, which examines the morality assigned to certain body types & disorders, was that the media, and society at large, don’t believe that overweight/obese people can have eating disorders. This is due, in large part, to it being ingrained in our culture, via the “pulling [...]

Talking back to The Biggest Loser

Talking back to The Biggest Loser

As I’ve mentioned before, The Biggest Loser is my ultimate guilty pleasure reality TV show. Ethically, it goes against pretty much everything I stand for — it’s foundation is (sugar-coated) fat hate, body shaming, fat shaming and reinforcing the SHEER WILLPOWER diet. But I love a good makeover story – always have – and seeing [...]

Obesity vs. Anorexia – cultural stigma & the media

Obesity vs. Anorexia – cultural stigma & the media

I am NERDING OUT. I stumbled upon an academic article published in 2010, which examined media portrayals of the eating disorders anorexia & bulimia, vs. obesity & the eating disorder of food addiction, over approximately a ten year period. The article is by a professor and grad student at UCLA. For those of you who [...]

Life fail: “Subtle Ways To Tell Her She’s Getting Fat”

Life fail: “Subtle Ways To Tell Her She’s Getting Fat”

So AskMen.com, in an effort to aid men in Being Awesome and Having Hot Girlfriends, has published an interesting top ten list. Top 10: Subtle Ways To Tell Her She’s Getting Fat.” … Amazingly, unlike with most journalism nowadays, this isn’t just the case of an incendiary headline + mundane article. AskMen.com reaches truly new [...]

The “fat girl’s” manifesto

The “fat girl’s” manifesto

Two events recently took place, concurrently, which begged for some personal reflection so far as it concerns this blog, my “weight loss” and this journey. One blogger (*waves hello*) called me out for dispensing advice when I have, essentially, “lost only 15 pounds in thirteen years.” Dodgy maths aside, there’s that. On the same day, [...]

101 Ways to Say “No Fatties” (on an online dating site)

101 Ways to Say “No Fatties” (on an online dating site)

While there aren’t literally 101 Ways (at least not in this post), I’ve seen some pretty creative, eye-roll inducing and damn frustrating ways that men on dating sites specify “no fatties.” They’re worth looking at, and maybe laughing a little. Beats crying, right? This post is for the LULZ — read on, enjoy, and let’s [...]

Don’t pull the trigger! Trigger foods & what to do with them

I’ve waxed ad nauseam that deprivation diets don’t work, and that we should ditch food guilt and stop lamenting a lack of sheer willpower, but this neglects what is still a vital part of working on food issues and making a lifestyle change. Because I did most of my work on this issue BEFORE I [...]

Is dieting anti-feminist?

Is dieting anti-feminist?

An interesting discussion cropped up on Jezebel regarding whether it is anti-feminist to diet. This stems from a post by a woman conducting a social experiment, not to look in the mirror for a year. She’s a recovering anorexic who says that recovering made her a feminist… and now she’s on a diet. She wrote: [...]

The State of The Curvy Nerd

10 May 2012

So obviously I’ve not been posting. This is for a variety of reasons, are very good, but I’ve also felt terribly guilty about it. I’m sure some have wondered — or even assumed — that my lack of blogging (and tweeting, whoops) meant I’d fallen off the wagon (to be fair, when I do tweet, [...]

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Posted in Meta/Personal3 Comments

The Weight Loss Benefits of Being Sick

The Weight Loss Benefits of Being Sick

12 January 2012

So, I’m sick. Third time in six months, which is unprecedented for me — must be something about this California sunshine that adversely affects me! The bright side? Weight loss. You know how it is, anyone who has ever been overweight: the joy of being sick, losing your appetite and losing weight because of it. [...]

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Posted in Meta/Personal4 Comments

2012 goals; 2011 accomplishments

2012 goals; 2011 accomplishments

06 January 2012

Long time, no blog! I know, I know… but I have good reasons! XD Let’s just say that my professional writing career has made significant strides in the last month.  Plus I learned to knit. XD More on the proffi writing very soon, but for now, I thought I’d kick off the New Year — [...]

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Posted in Goals, Meta/Personal4 Comments

YA Heroines and body size

YA Heroines and body size

23 November 2011

I am now 18,000 words into my YA novel (not, by any stretch, a “winning” NaNoWriMo, but a HUGE accomplishment for me… and the reason I’ve not been blogging), and am simultaneously reading some recent YA titles, for tonal inspiration. When I started writing my novel, I didn’t even know what my heroine looked like. [...]

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Posted in Books, Fat in the Media, Gender Politics & Feminism9 Comments

Food & Creativity

Food & Creativity

07 November 2011

Glutton for punishment that I am, I have decided to do NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. What does that mean? Well, I’m trying to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month — hence no posts here for the last week. The frustrating thing about writing? For fiction, I like the ritual of [...]

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Posted in Meta/Personal1 Comment

Halloween Costumes & The (Plus-Size?) Girl

Halloween Costumes & The (Plus-Size?) Girl

27 October 2011

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween, and Halloween costumes. OK, it’s mostly a hate-based relationship. I haven’t dressed up since I was ten and the few occasions where I have “worn a costume,” it’s been my making a half-assed attempt to be something where I could wear clothes I already owned (see: Bridget Jones [...]

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Posted in Body Issues, Fashion, Featured, Gender Politics & Feminism, Society & Culture18 Comments

Nothing like a good detox

Nothing like a good detox

26 October 2011

Long time, no post — sorry about that! What have I been working on? Nerd alert: I’m on the organizing committee of a Harry Potter convention, and we had a “site visit” to Orlando a few weeks ago, followed by a heavy blitz of publicity for a week or so. It’s meant I’ve been dedicating [...]

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Posted in Health & Fitness, Meta/Personal0 Comments

Comment Fail: Curvy Nerd + Gawker = FAIL

Comment Fail: Curvy Nerd + Gawker = FAIL

07 October 2011

I usually don’t comment on Gawker (or even Jezebel), as I don’t like getting drawn into fights. Instead, one of my favorite past times is watching OTHER people getting drawn into fights. There are some epic threads that make for good reading. But yesterday, on a post about a man who opened up a plus-size [...]

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Posted in Comment Fail, Fat Shaming30 Comments

Discussion: Food Deserts

Discussion: Food Deserts

06 October 2011

The concept of food deserts — areas where a significant population, usually low-income, has no access to supermarkets and/or affordable, healthy food — came up in Monday’s post about the cost of junk food vs. healthy food. It’s easy, especially for those of us who live in cities and read blogs using our high speed [...]

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Posted in Class Disparity, Nutrition, Society & Culture15 Comments

The nut test

The nut test

05 October 2011

One of the big recommendations of the Hormone Weight Loss diet (and Paleo, as I understand it) is that one snack on nuts – a “good” fat, great for tiding one over to the next meal. I was fascinated by the notion that low-fat diets actually make us fatter, and delighted by the notion of [...]

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Posted in Food, Meta/Personal5 Comments

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The Curvy Nerd

The Curvy Nerd, aka Alexa, is a blogger based in Los Angeles.

New here? Start with these posts!

Guest Blogs

The Invisible (Horrible, Lazy, Unattractive) Fat Person on All The Weigh - posted 6/16/2011

Got a Curvy Girl? Top 7 Tips For Back-to-School Clothes Shopping on Fitsmi for Moms - posted 8/15/2011

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