Sounds suspiciously like new coffees from Starbucks, doesn’t it?

It’s not.

6 or so months ago, Levi’s introduced Curve ID, a line that offers three new styles, depending on how rounded a woman’s backside might be.

How rounded her backside might be?

So let me ask you this. If you are told you needed size BOLD, having thought you’d be a Slight, would you be devastated?  Surely you didn’t think that up until that moment in time you were mistaken for having the body of Heidi Klum?

The manufacturing community has confounded us shoppers for a very long time. Sizing is not consistent. So what.

Here’s a scenario. You go into Banana Republic and you try on a size 10. It fits. Next you meander into American Eagle and try on a 4. It fits. What’s confounding about this?  You just don’t shop in Banana Republic anymore. Right?

Some entrepreneurial type created a company called MyBestFit. It offers a full body scan. It figures out things like thigh circumference. Yeah, you got that right, thigh circumference. The upside of this activity? Correct. You only shop at the stores where you wear the smaller size.

But you knew this already.

There is talk of trying to have all manufacturers standardize sizes. No more guessing when you enter a store. Am I am 6, 8, 10?

That would work. Until you see that you are a size 12.

And never shop again.

Or red, green, maybe yellow.

Then again, maybe not.

Experts are being summoned by the F.D.A. to “review the evidence and advise on including warning labels on food as it relates to artificial food coloring.”  A link, it seems, has been bandied about that artificial food coloring can cause hyperactivity or behavior problems in some children.

Let’s think about this for a minute.

Food coloring/high sugar content?  Let’s weigh that again. Food coloring/high sugar content. Any correlation that you can see? Froot Loops, Pop tarts, Twinkies anyone? Yet, it appears that some parents are convinced that when they eliminated foods that were artificially food colored the behavior of their progeny improved.

Really?

As for us grown ups…it appears that if it looks yellow, without any change in taste, we think it’s banana flavored. Go figure. Gray food, I suppose, holds little appeal.

I suppose putting on a blind fold prior to eating seems a tad over the top. Besides, how would we rate the chef’s presentation skills?

I, for one, find the whole debate odd.

Except for one thing.

When was the last time you saw red pistachio nuts?

Right. In forever. After all, after you had indulged in consuming a pound, give or take, of that delicacy, did you want to be caught, literally, red handed?

I love me. I’m a good person.

Am I thinner yet?

Self-compassion. That’s the trick.

Psychologists are researching how kindly one views oneself by administering tests to pin point just how you feel about yourself. Do you like yourself? Or not?

So now having taken the test I have determined that I am the poster girl for having little self-compassion. So sad.

But, I have learned the antidote for feeling and acting on my imperfections. Acceptance and self love.

All of which I can internalize by reading a new book called “The Self-Compassion Diet.” Ironically published by a company called ‘Sounds True Publishing’. I wondered if anyone else thought to snicker when reading that. But, then again, I learned that if you are a self-compassionate person you are very forgiving. Those of us with little or no self-compassion are, apparently, critical of others, too. Oh dear.

Anyhow,  Jean Fain, is a psychologist, a teaching associate at Harvard Medical school, and totally aware of the vulnerability of those who are looking for something, anything, and any purported expert, to help them shed those unwanted pounds.

Her advice, “treat yourself with self-compassion. Eat when you are hungry, stop when you’re full, rest when you are tired and move when you feel energized. You will lose weight naturally.” Gee, that’s a unique approach.

There are four roots to sustainable weight loss for you to follow in her book. In addition to self compassion there are sections on mindful eating, social support and hypnosis.

Hypnosis?

So, look into my eyes and repeat after me. “I love me, I like me, I am a good person, I am wonderful. And really thin. A size 0.”

In the area of “self” whether its awareness or compassion, self delusional has always worked best for me.

You read that correctly.

Somewhere out there, there is a group of scientists who are actually touting the benefits of menopause.

Clearly, they must be hanging with a younger crowd.

Nonetheless, they contend hot flashes might actually be a good thing depending on when they strike.

Depending on when they strike??

A first date I imagine, for any woman queried, would not be a good time. But reading on, I found that what they meant was women who had hot flashes at the start of menopause, but not later, seemed to have a lower risk for heart attack and death, then women who never had hot flashes.

Probably the lower risk of death was because their loved ones decided not to kill them.

Women who developed hot flashes years after the onset of menopause had higher incidents of heart attacks and death. See, that proves the theory. Having thought they got away without any symptoms, then wham…

“I think I’m going to kill myself” are not idle words.

Scientists have discovered that cell phone usage causes an increase in brain glucose (or sugar) metabolism.

My first reaction was a huge wow. An increase in my metabolism?! Terrific, with the amount of time I spend on my phone I’ll be a size 2 in no time.

Not so much.

Here’s why. As a sobering explanation, if you eat and drink too much, your glucose level is raised and the effect on the brain is that you compromise your ability to concentrate, remember and learn.

Great.

Talk on the phone for fifty minutes or longer, simultaneously throw back a cheeseburger and forget your name.

There is good news.

This particular study was only able to document that there was an increase in brain activity. Whether or not it is harmful, in the long or short term, remains to be seen.

Texting, anyone?

Any budding zoologists out there?

If so, you’ll know that my weight lifting, furry friend is neither rat nor mouse.

If you want to be able to positively identify what it is, retain the information, and be able to recall it, hmmm, lets say as far out as two days from now, get thee to the gym.

But, say researchers from Brazil, get off the treadmill, elliptical machine or stair stepper and hoist those weights instead, if you want to improve brain functioning.

Let’s consider how this research was conducted. “Weights were secured to the tails of a group of rats then the researchers had them climb a ladder,  five sessions of this activity a week. Other rats on the same schedule ran on a treadmill, and a third group just sat around.”

Secured weights to the tails of rats?

The conclusion of this study, as well as a similar study conducted in Japan, was that endurance and weight training seemed to make the rats smarter. Cognitive functioning improved.

Trying to verify this, I decided to see who might be the next presiding leader of the organization called Mensa, the high IQ society.

And there you have it.