Orthorexia - The Righteous Eaters Eating Disorder

There's a diet for the management of any and every disease, for weight loss, and even a diet for returning to caveman ways of eating. Today more than ever, we're encouraged to eat healthy.

So we eat healthy and what happens? A new eating disorder pops up, and worse, it's based around eating healthy. In fact, it's based around eating extremely healthfully. How can we win?

Having recently begun my transition to an alkaline diet, I can see that I need to be careful. My motivations for wanting to eat healthy and "clean" are harmless enough, but with the diligence I've had regarding my decidedly new ways of consuming, I can understand how a perfect diet can become an obsession. 

A diet consisting of no sugar, processed or chemically altered foods, a high chlorophyll content and an overall higher pH level has proven to be not only energy providing, but surprisingly tasty. I'm constantly shocked at how delicious recipes with two or three simple ingredients can make me swoon. The discipline required however, has proven to be quite tough and I've felt guilty when I "slip." I have to constantly remind myself I'm TRANSITIONING.

I'm allowing myself time to replace familiar food choices and re-learn ways of eating and cooking, as opposed to trying to change all my eating habits overnight. 

Because of this, my dietary goals aren't a prison. Sometimes they feel like it, I can't lie, lol. Sugar is acid, period. That's been a tough one for me. I'm slowly retraining my taste buds to find the sweetness in certain vegetables.

But I LOVE dessert! We've become great friends over the years.

Orthorexia Nervosa like any eating disorder, is an outgrowth of trying to be perfect. In this case, it's attempting to achieve the perfect diet, both in food choice and food quality.

As with anything, being kind and patient with ourselves is vital when making life improvements.

If not, even eating healthy can become unhealthy.

If one isn't careful, it could become deadly.

WTS.

Orthorexia Nervosa other wise known as Orthorexia, is a term which literally means “fixation on righteous eating.”

Orthorexia starts out as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, but orthorexics become fixated on food quality and purity. They become consumed with what and how much to eat, and how to deal with “slip-ups.” An iron-clad will is needed to maintain this rigid eating style. Every day is a chance to eat right, be “good,” rise above others in dietary prowess, and self-punish if temptation wins (usually through stricter eating, fasts and exercise). 

Self-esteem becomes wrapped up in the purity of diet and they sometimes feel superior to others, especially in regard to food intake.

Eventually food choices become so restrictive, in both variety and calories, that health suffers – an ironic twist for a person so completely dedicated to healthy eating. Eventually, the obsession with healthy eating can crowd out other activities and interests, impair relationships, and become physically dangerous.

Is Orthorexia An Eating Disorder?

Orthorexia is a term coined by Steven Bratman, MD in 1996. He began to use it with his patients who were overly health-obsessed. Today, he has created an official scientific definition for the disease and is working on getting it published and accepted by the medical community. However, Dr. Bratman was not the one to bring orthorexia to the mainstream some year and a half ago. Jordan Younger, a 25-year-old lifestyle blogger from California,was.

Younger was a devout raw vegan who had built an online following of tens of thousands by writing about her virtuous veganism on her then-blog The Blonde Vegan. To Younger, veganism was the cure-all she was hoping for—no longer did she suffer from chronic indigestion or feelings of bloating and discomfort. As she preached about the benefits of a plant-based diet alongside photos of bright green smoothies, mason jars brimming with chia seeds, and chopped kale salads, the popularity of her vegan persona grew.

Soon vegan cleanse companies sought her out to try their pricey cleanses for free. Younger started cleansing religiously—for a minimum of three days a week, eventually finding that every time she finished a cleanse and reintroduced solid food, her stomach problems returned. Younger was still resolute in turning to vegan cleanses as the answer. 

Soon the cycle of cleansing, getting too hungry, binging on solid food, feeling guilty, and cleansing again became the norm. Instead of looking outside of veganism to feel better, Younger started fearing vegan foods weren't as healthy as she'd like them to be, and became riddled with anxiety about the food she ate.

Eventually, Younger came to understand that she had a problem. Hers wasn't a classic eating disorder people were familiar with; hers was a fixation on the virtue of food. She introduced the term orthorexia to her following, saying that she was suffering and was going to get help. The response she got was overwhelming: "Once I started talking about experience with orthorexia on my blog, national news picked up on it. A flood of people then came forward saying they identified with me."

"People have died of orthorexia because they haven't been properly diagnosed," according to Nutritional therapist Dr. Karin Kratina, who has specialized in treating eating disorders for over 30 years. "I have absolutely seen a rise in orthorexic patients, and it's rising exponentially. Now I get a new client every week with orthorexic symptoms. It is more serious then people realize."

One of the reasons Dr. Kratina believes orthorexia is rising in popularity is because of our fixation on health. "There is nothing wrong with eating local or being a vegetarian or vegan and  a lot of those diets are valuable. The problem is food has become presented—more and more—as the answer."

How Do You Know If You Have Orthorexia

Consider the following questions. The more questions you respond “yes” to, the more likely you are dealing with orthorexia. I have filled in my own answers as well.

Do you wish that occasionally you could just eat and not worry about food quality? - More like eat w/o weight gain.
Do you ever wish you could spend less time on food and more time living and loving?
Does it seem beyond your ability to eat a meal prepared with love by someone else – one single meal – and not try to control what is served?
Are you constantly looking for ways foods are unhealthy for you? The opposite actually
Do love, joy, play and creativity take a back seat to following the perfect diet?
Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet? -YES.
Do you feel in control when you stick to the “correct” diet? - YES.
Have you put yourself on a nutritional pedestal and wonder how others can possibly eat the foods they eat? Sure do!

What Is The Treatment for Orthorexia?

Society pushes healthy eating and thinness, so it is easy for many to not realize how problematic this behavior can be. Even more difficult is that the person doing the healthy eating can hide behind the thought that they are simply eating well (and that others are not). Further complicating treatment is the fact that motivation behind orthorexia is multi-faceted. First, the orthorexic must admit there is a problem, then identify what caused the obsession. She or he must also become more flexible and less dogmatic about eating. Working through underlying emotional issues will make the transition to normal eating easier.

Recovery
A practitioner skilled at treating eating disorders is the best choice. Recovered orthorexics will still eat healthy, but with a different understanding of what healthy eating is. They'll realize that food will not make them a better person and that basing their self-esteem on the quality of their diet is irrational. They'll find that while food is important, it is one small aspect of life, and that often other things are more important! 
 

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Female Orgasms From A Mushroom!

When I found this article, the song "I believe in miracles" started playing in my head. Could this really be true? A mushroom that can give women spontaneous orgasms simply by smelling it? You mean to tell me, we don't even have to eat it? Just a whiff to get our inner thighs t'shakin'?

Oh joy!!

News like this really makes me love being alive. Who says life has to be hard? Thanks to the mushroom called  “Tropical Dictyophora” or "stinkhorns" for short, even your guy doesn't have to be hard. Even better, you don't need a guy. Even BETTER better, to receive the pleasure of the Big O., you don't even need YOU! Or your hands at least, just your nose.

No need for batteries, condoms, lube, acting classes, etc. This miracle plant can even save you money!

Give me a second to get back into my skin as I seemed to have leaped out. 

Ok I'm back.

According to an article in the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, the smelling of this mushroom has been described as a strange and wonderful practice in Hawaii: women gather together to search for a particular mushroom. When they find it, they sniff it. The scent of this mushroom causes sexual arousal, often to the point of orgasm.

The article also describes a trial where 20 men and 16 women were asked to smell the mushroom. All the women showed signs of arousal, and six experienced orgasm from the smell. The study noted that the women who did climax were the first women to smell it, while those who smelled it later (when it was older and weaker) noticed fewer effects.

For men, it was reported:

"The male volunteers, on the other hand, all said they thought the mushroom’s "fetid odour" smelt disgusting, and that was the extent of its influence on them."

GOOD. That just means more for us ladies.

It's been called the "Holy Grail of Aphrodisiacs." Doesn't news like this make you wanna dance?

This mushroom though found in Hawaii, can also be found in Africa, Southern Asia and Australia. In Hawaiian and South Pacific lore, it's referred to as Mamalo o Wahine, which translates to "women’s mushroom." It has a recorded history of use in Chinese medicine dating back to the 7th century AD.

This goes back to the 7th century and we're just finding out about it? Hmpf!

Today, it's aptly named Phallus Indusiatus because of it's shape. It makes sense that a penis shaped plant would be related to female orgasms. That may not be scientific logic but it works for me! When eaten, this mushroom is very high in protein. 

I won't even comment on that, lol.

Of course, there will always be naysayers when such a claim is reported. Anything unusual or uncommon to science will usually be purported and debunked. I personally don't care about the so-called lack of proof and would like to know where I buy this. 

I'd like to do my own, ahem, research study. :)

-WTS

Source 1

Source 2

Good Ole' Wiki aka Source 3
The Flimsy (I admit) but Hopeful Study

The Haters

The Haters Some More

Believe in miracles!

52, and Still Working the Streets

It's been said that "pimpin ain't easy."

Well, hoe'in is harder. 

Barbara Terry has been a prostitute for more than 30 years. One can only guess the mileage accrued on her vagillac-cadillac. Disease, shame, fear and just the overall element that would pick up a street hooker, one can only imagine why she chose to stay in that field for so long. No judgment, but with realistic occupational hazards that include dangerous men, rape, murder and jail, surely there must've been safer ways to pay the bills. The good news is that she survived. She was always her own boss, and even managed to buy a house and put two children through college.

Sounds like some damn good hoe'in. 

By COREY KILGANNON

LIKE many single mothers, Barbara Terry, 52, scrounged for baby sitters and leaned on her own mother while raising her four children and working the night shift.

But Ms. Terry is a prostitute who has worked nearly her entire adult life on the streets of Hunts Point, in the Bronx.

“When they were old enough to understand, I would tell them the truth,” said Ms. Terry, whose daughter and three sons are now grown. “I’d say, ‘This is how I’m supporting you.’ For me, it’s a business, a regular job.”

Yes, she said, she was arrested more than 100 times, sometimes landing at Rikers Island for several days or weeks — but that never deterred her from returning to this area of industrial warehouses and repair shops off the Bruckner Expressway.

By day, heavy industrial traffic fills the streets. By night, the traffic comes for other reasons. Years back, this prostitutes’ “track” bustled with working women, and Ms. Terry was front and center in garter belts and high heels and fur coats.

“It was beautiful out here then,” she said. “There was so much money out here, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The area is less active now than in the 1990s, when HBO made its “Hookers at the Point” documentaries, in which Ms. Terry appeared under a street name, Cleo, and flashed a youthful, toothy smile.

Those great teeth are gone, lost to diabetes, Ms. Terry said. She mostly works days now and dresses more conservatively. “Most women don’t make it to my age out here,” she said. “I call myself the last of the survivors.”

While it is impossible to corroborate all the details of an eventful life in a profession often synonymous with drug abuse, violence and tragic outcomes, the Correction Department confirmed that Ms. Terry had been jailed many times for prostitution over her career.

Today, Ms. Terry lives nearby in the Bronx, but she hopes to retire in a year or so to a house she bought upstate, she said on Tuesday at her usual spot on Whittier Street. She had a supply of condoms in her purse, a plastic cup of vodka and orange juice in her hand and a cellphone for steady customers.

Those customers, dates or tricks, can be lawyers, city workers, husbands, fathers or truckers heading in and out of the sprawling Hunts Point food markets.

Then there are the psychos. All the women out here have had friends attacked or cut or dumped dead somewhere. Last year, a man was arrested, and recently sentenced, for terrorizing prostitutes in the Bronx with a razor.

“I’ve survived because God was with me,” Ms. Terry said. “Every Sunday, my mother and grandmother prayed for me out here.”

She has shown younger workers the ropes: how to jump in a Dumpster to hide from the police, and how to stay alive. First, never enter a car with more than one person in it, and never let someone drive you out of the area. Get your money up front — Ms. Terry charges $50 or $100 — and try to work with a buddy.

“You look for weapons, you check the back seat, and you go by your vibes,” she said. “If they look strange, you stay away.”

There have been close calls, like the time a trucker locked her in and tried to rape her.

“I never did drugs and never worked for a pimp for protection,” she said. “What protection? If I’m in someone’s car, about to die, ain’t no pimp in there helping me.”

“I never carried a blade,” said Ms. Terry, who grew up in the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn before her family moved to North Carolina for her teenage years. “My fists were my weapons. I learned to fight growing up with nine younger brothers.”

Ms. Terry said she completed two years of college, training to be a medical lab technician, but by the time she was 21, her husband had left her and she had two children to support. All she knew about prostitutes was what she saw on “Starsky & Hutch,” but she knew about the Hunts Point action and came out on her own. She admits she became addicted to the stimulation of the street life.

“I love the excitement of coming out here and seeing all these beautiful people I know,” she said. “Even my dates are a comfort. This place has made me strong. It keeps you young.”

But she has slowed down. A year ago, she was in a bad accident and was hospitalized with a broken jaw and neck injuries. Her children, two of whom she says she put through college, beg her to get off the street.

“I’m the mother, so they can’t say anything,” she said. “When I’m ready to get off, I’ll get off.”

Not a career I would advise, but some women work hard for the money. A little too hard. 

-WTS

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"Pussy Pipes" - Clitoris Artwork of Billy Pacak

Billy Pacak’s sculptures have been featured in exhibitions in galleries and cultural centers, including Surreal Salon Six juried by Greg Escalante, the FLAG Art Foundation in New York City and the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana. In Los Angeles, he has had exhibitions at 825 Gallery, the Antebellum Gallery, the Speakeasy Gallery, the Ultrastar Gallery, and the Hive Gallery. In addition, he participated in the traveling invitational exhibition “The Dirty Show.” Pacak’s work is in numerous private collections, including Glenn Fuhrman of New York City.

"Using the oldest sculptural technique – carving a block of wood with a sharp tool – I am able to “paint” the surface of my pieces with the innate beauty that is found within the material. Using traditional wood carving themes I push the traditional boundaries of sculpture to make conceptual, surreal, erotic, and sometimes political statements." - William “Billy” Pacak.
 

We SO love a man and/or artist who can appreciate the female form, -the clitoris being no exception. Kudos to Billy Pacak for being so creative and tasteful in his rendition of the clitoris, and giving it's shape a variety of materials and uses. -WTS.

Lynn Pussy Pipe

2010

Hand carved functional pipe sculpture. Pipe is cocobolo wood, the base is russian elm. 

Model - Lynn.

Virgin Mary Pussy Pipe 2009
Hand carved functional wood sculpture pipe. Pipe-cocobolo wood, base-maple wood, model- Mary. Mounted in recycled wood frame with niche influence. 

(Totally awesome btw)

Christine

Maple and Cocobolo wood

6 x 4.5x1.75

Hand carved functional wood sculpture pipe. Pipe-cocobolo wood, base-maple wood, model- Christine. Mounted in frame with Magritte reference.

2007 (red)

Jen out

Ebony wood

6x5x2

Wendy

Maple and Pink Ivory wood

6x5x2

And the man himself, an interview with Billy Pacak

WTS loves Billy Pacak.


Source and more of Billy's Art