I Don’t Disagree with Not Selling to Fat Chicks

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

I wanted to blog about this recently, widely discussed article, “Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Explains Why He Hates Fat Chicks”

First of all, at least in this article, the CEO never says he “hates” fat chicks or that he dislikes them in any way. But it’s a poorly written article, so what do you expect? Here’s why I don’t find his statements shocking or even offensive, particularly as a marketing professional.

  1. 1.       For-Profit Business Exist to Make Money

It’s not their job to help you feel good about yourself or serve as positive role models. So it is silly of you to expect them to. Just like athletes, singers, & actors aren’t always good role models, neither are CEOs.

Some said he should tell teenagers to get over themselves & encourage acceptance, to which I have to ask, “Why?” WHY should he do that? That isn’t his job, for one thing. For another, do you really think it would make much difference?

  1. 2.       Telling you, “You’re Beautiful As You Are,” is Not a Profitable Message

I think this is the key and the thing people really don’t get. What A&F does is nothing new. Nearly ALL products, particularly those pertaining to personal appearance, are trying to tell you you aren’t good enough as you are! It’s not a new message. Telling you the opposite, actually, is what drives purchases. “YOU NEED TO BUY THIS TO BE HAPPY/ACCEPTED,” is a common B2C marketing message. (And the reason why it’s best to not be exposed to much marketing!)

  1. 3.       Beauty Sells

Someone posted with the comment, “What an a-hole!” To which I just had to reply, “Yeah… he’s a total a-hole. He should be like other clothing retailers who use fat & unattractive people in their commercials…. oooohhh, wait! ;) ”

Seriously. Beauty sells. It is used to sell everything from perfume, to cars, to kitchen cabinets. Clothing retailers use beautiful people in their ads and want beautiful people working in their stores. A&F is just more blunt about it.

  1. 4.       Elitism is Necessary for High Margins

You can’t be a brand that appeals to everyone, and yet be elite. It doesn’t work.

CEO Mike Jeffries stated, “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. … A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

He is right. People, especially teens, DO want to be part of the “in-crowd.” People DO want to be attractive (both feeling that they are attractive and that others view them as attractive.) People also want something elite. & you can’t charge high prices unless you are elite. Why else do people pay for elite brands like Coach purses & Prada sunglasses? These companies want their brands to remain elite, so they don’t sell them at Walmart or Target, because they would lose that allure.

  1. 5.       Fat isn’t Considered Beautiful

This is the only thing that I hate to say & makes me sad to post. I am not saying **I** feel this way… but IN OUR CULTURE, fat is not considered beautiful.

So he wants his clothes to be associated with in-crowd, and therefore doesn’t want to sell to fat people. I can see the logic from a business sense.

It’s bizarre that our country is one of the (the?) fattest on the planet & yet we dislike fat people…. really odd and I don’t understand it. But it just seems odd to me to vilify a business person simply for applying known facts about Americans’ motivations & desires to make money for his business. That is all this guy is guilty of!

  1. 6.       Controversial Statements Get Talked About

I only have 117 friends on Facebook, plenty of whom never post, and yet two posted this article today. So there you go – he got us talking.

  1. 7.       This is B2C (Business to Consumer) Marketing, People

Most of what he said is pretty basic B2C marketing… and it is why I am NOT in B2C Marketing! My career has been exclusively B2B – where I sell to businesses that have a problem to solve & will need to prove a return on their investment in my technology – an entirely different scenario!

I’m not saying I think what he is saying is good… it’s just SMART BUSINESS. SMART BUSINESS ISN’T ALWAYS KIND. That is a fact of life. It’s sad to lay people off. It’s sad to fire people for making mistakes, but it’s smart business.

Don’t look to for-profit business for guidance on how to live your life. They’re trying to sell you products.

Posted in Misc Wellness | Leave a comment

The Impact of the Stink of Brussel Sprouts

Posted on March 31, 2013 by

I posted recently about a new found love of brussel sprouts. I wrote that it was the fresh rosemary that made them delicious.

Well, I was feeling a little burned out on rosemary and decided to cook them the same way, just with the olive oil, fresh ground pepper, & kosher salt and skip the rosemary. They’re still delicious!

Unfortunately, DH is growing weary of the smell. I admit, I’m not a big fan either. Strange how most foods that smell bad, taste bad and vice versa, but there are a few odd exceptions, such as tuna fish.

DH wants to buy a new range hood to improve the venting above our stove. For a mere $700, we can cook whatever we want without the whole house stinking like it! I have to say, it’s probably a wise investment. Not only is the stink unpleasant, but DH is annoyed about it and I feel guilty for roasting brussel sprouts. Why should I be feeling guilty for cooking healthy food?! We ought to buy the darn range hood & alleviate the stress.

We do currently have a fan that vents outside. Sometimes you can actually smell what we’re cooking outside. But, unfortunately, as pictured, it includes the microwave. Apparently you can’t buy microwaves with built in vents that are as good as range hoods without the microwave.

That means… we need a new microwave or another space for it. DH is honestly proposing remodeling our kitchen! ARGH! Like, literally knocking down walls to move the powder room & enlarge the entire kitchen space.

Actually I gotta admit… I see his rationale. But then again, I almost always do. My DH is very wise. Potential kitchen remodel photos coming! In the mean time, now that it’s FINALLY starting to warm up in Maryland, I might try cooking them on the grill, as that will solve the problem too!

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Kettlebell Research – Good Science?

Posted on March 30, 2013 by

I had a professor in college who ranted about research with small sample sizes. It seemed to really tick him off. I can’t even remember the class (I think it was a marketing class), but I clearly remember that point.

I’ve grown to share his frustration. A research ‘study’ with a small number of data points is simply… worthless. Smaller data sets lack statistical significance and are essentially just anecdotal.

I’m certified with ACE, the American Council on Exercise. They refer to themselves as “America’s Workout Watchdog.” While I admire the ambition and think it’s worthwhile having a non-profit take a scientific approach to fitness trends; time and time again, ACE does studies with absurdly small sample sizes. I’ve rarely seen over 50 total participants.

ACE Sponsored Research Study: Kettlebells Kick Butt

“..the research team recruited 30 healthy, relatively fit volunteers… Eighteen volunteers were put into the experimental group, while 12 others were used as the control group.”

 “the 18 volunteers from the experimental group began an eight-week training period. Twice a week, the subjects participated in an hour-long kettlebell class …”

Oly

I’ve done tons of cleans with barbells and tons of snatches with barbells & dumbells alike. They are indeed fantastic moves and I simply adore them! But I don’t see the point of putting aside those wonderful tools of barbells & dumbbells to replace them with something new that requires a new learning curve and has a huge added disadvantage of whacking your forearms. I just don’t get it.

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If you want to evaluate the kettlebell as an exercise apparatus, wouldn’t a better study have been to compare a group who did the SAME MOVES with the more ergonomic options of dumbbells & barbells, versus those who used the awkward kettlebell? 

Same moves. Same weight. Same number of reps and sets. Same training volume (overall reps across the workout session, frequency per week).

THEN let’s see how they stack up.

Comparing a group that worked out with kettlebells to a group that did not workout at all just doesn’t strike me as good science. I could workout with cans of soup and I’d get better results than a control group who did nothing. Does that mean I should start a new soup can class at the gym?

“…you don’t do resistance training and expect to improve your core strength, unless of course you’re specifically doing core-strengthening exercises.”

WHAT?! Seriously? If you do total body movements, and a wide variety of free weight exercises, you can absolutely expect to increase your core strength without doing specific core moves. How on earth could you NOT increase core strength doing push-ups? How about squats? If you’ve got a heavy weight on your back, you had better be engaging your core. I found this comment so false that it almost seems to me he is looking for ways to deliberately shine a better light on kettlebells…

Do you use Kettlebells? What do you think? Leave me a comment!

Posted in Group Fitness, Strength Training | 1 Comment

The Never-Ending Battle with Sugar Cravings

Posted on March 29, 2013 by

About 6 weeks or so, I was teaching step aerobics & noticed in the mirror that my upper body looked really cut… like to the point where I thought, “Hmm… maybe I ought to eat a bit more carbs. I don’t need my body fat to be quite this low.” I never ever thought that would cross my mind, but it did.

Well… 6 weeks later, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. I’ve been indulging in sweets in an insane amount. See, that’s why I try to not touch sweets except for once every 2 weeks. It’s not just that sweets make me fat (sure, that’s part of it, but not the only reason); it’s that once I have some, I just want more and more and more. Sometimes I indulge outside that 2-week restriction and I’m OK with it, and it doesn’t extend to weeks of binging. But it has been disastrous the past 3 weeks or so.

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I can’t even tell you why. I’ve had a bit more stress at work, but nothing awful. The family & I have been doing well – no other stressors, thankfully. I ADORE Easter candy and with the holiday around the corner, that means soon there will be no more treats like Cadbury cream eggs, so that has been a slight push to indulge more. Is it that I’m thinking, “Wow, I was TOO lean back in early February, I can lighten up on how strict I am?” If so, that is only a contributor subconsciously.

cadbury-mini-eggs

Whatever it is, I need to get back on the wagon, because the negative effects sugar has on me extend way beyond jeans size!

I wish I had good answers, but I don’t. “JUST SUCK IT UP,” is what I have to tell myself right now. It’s something I’ve struggled with my entire life and I don’t think the struggle will ever go away entirely. It is just a matter of minimizing the cravings.

Do you struggle with cravings for sugar or other junk? How do you resist temptation? Leave me a comment!

Posted in Nutrition | 1 Comment

Primal Buffalo Chicken Wraps

Posted on March 21, 2013 by

This is yet another recipe that, because of the inclusion of high-fat dairy, is not paleo, although it is primal.

I used this simple recipe for the buffalo chicken sauce. Cut in half, it still made a good 4-5 serving’s worth.

I believe bibb lettuce is traditional for lettuce wraps, but I’m not a big fan of that taste or texture. Romaine did the job quite well.

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I had pasture-raised chicken from Flying Plow Farm. We brined it (but no sugar in the brine solution!) and cooked it on our rotisserie on Sunday. I just diced up some chicken, nuked it, poured sauce on and filled my lettuce leaves. Yum! I did add a bit of crumbled blue cheese for dinner the other night, but skipped the extra dairy for lunch today.

The next day I did lettuce wraps again, but with chipotle mayo. It sounds so exotic, but it’s very simple to make! Take canned chipotle peppers in adobe sauce. Dice up some of the peppers (there is a lot of sauce & the peppers sorta fall apart, so this is easy to do) & mix with mayo. That’s it!

I used about equal parts chipotle & mayo, which made it rather spicy, but then spread just a little bit on each lettuce leaf. I used it sparingly since you don’t need much, and the mayo isn’t paleo so I want to go easy.

Have you ever made lettuce wraps? Leave me a comment! :) Are they too messy to eat to be worth the hassle?

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Brussel Sprouts are Awesome! No, Really!

Posted on March 20, 2013 by

;) Juli at PaleOMG motivates me to try new things. I roasted brussel sprouts in the oven once years ago & didn’t like them. However, I am a fan of cruciferous veggies and often eat steamed cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. When Juli recently posted this root veggie recipe, I figured I’d give them another go.

YUM! Totally yummy. I made only brussel spourts, but with fresh rosemary, they actually have a lovely almost sweetness to them. I think fresh rosemary is key. Thankfully, it is an ‘evergreen shrub’ & my neighbors have a big bush full that I’m welcome to tap into.

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The only problem? They really stink up the house. (The brussel sprouts, not me!)  DH is not too happy. We really need to invest in a better vent fan above our stove so our house doesn’t smell like whatever we’ve cooked for over a day. That is something we’ve been wanting to do anyway.

Do you like brussel sprouts? Leave me a comment! Have you ever tried them roasted, with fresh rosemary?

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Link to One of the Funniest Blogs Ever – The God of Cake

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

If you haven’t yet read the fantastic blog, “Hyperbole and a Half,” Go Read NOW! Hysterical! Unfortunately, it’s no longer being updated, although there is supposed to be a book coming out.
No matter, I don’t recall ever laughing at something I’ve merely read the way I did at this post, “The God of Cake.” Cake is both my #1 favorite sweet and #1 weakness. A fellow sugar addict sent me that post and I was literally laughing out loud hysterically, slapping my desk & crying.

I recently posted about my sugar addiction, which made me think of that post again. It has been over 2 years since I first read it and I was still hysterical rereading it.

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