A smart, funny, brave, and devoted pop culture acolyte, writer/comedienne/member of US Weekly Fashion Police (!!!) Wendy Shanker first won us over with her wise and witty 2004 book The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, which explores the complex reality of being a healthy, plus-sized woman in a world that doesn’t always encourage self-acceptance.

Out today: Shanker’s new memoir Are You My Guru?: How Medicine, Meditation & Madonna Saved My Life, chronicles an intense eight-year period during which the author was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating autoimmune disease, Wegener’s granulomatosis. While holding down a demanding job, Shanker seeks relief and guidance from medical experts and healers representing a variety of traditions, from the hardcore pharmacological to the ancient Ayurvedic.

As Shanker begins to trust her own instincts about which therapies will work for her, she learns how to cope with the stresses of the disease and a hectic New York lifestyle — and discovers a thing or two about what it really means to heal. The narrative is laced with references to her ultimate guru, Madonna, as Shanker covers the topic of serious illness with the same forthrightness, attention to detail, and laugh-out-loud humor that made her first book such a refreshing read.

The delightful Shanker spoke with BreakupGirl.net about her memoir:

Who do you hope to reach with this book?

Um, Madonna. (laughs) I assume she’ll never even know it exists, but if it does cross her path, I hope she’ll get a kick out of it.

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Nikki Finke hates it. I think she’ll at least be less chilly. How do you feel about the original Glamazon’s new outfit? Let us know in the comments.

15 pounds = reason #23058 to adore Christina Hendricks:

“I guess my mom raised me right. She was very celebratory of her body. I never heard her once say, ‘I feel fat.’ Back when I was modeling, the first time I went to Italy I was having cappuccinos every day, and I gained 15 pounds. And I felt gorgeous! I would take my clothes off in front of the mirror and be like, Oh, I look like a woman. And I felt beautiful, and I never tried to lose it, ‘cause I loved it.”

From the July/August issue of Health. Via TheFrisky/HuffPo.

Weighing the options on March 23, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Frankly, I am losing interest in my husband; he is not the man I married. We have known each other for a number of years and have been married for about two. The passion is gone. We rarely see each other because of his job and mine (about 12 hours a week if we are lucky). We have had numerous discussions and he leads me to believe he is no longer attracted to me because I have have gained weight (30 lbs.) since we married. The reasons for my weight gain are numerous: #1 would be the period of unemployment prior to my current job and the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the town we live in and I have no friends here. My true concern is how do I keep the flame alive? I have tried seduction, homemade meals, talking, time alone — frankly I am fresh out of ideas.

— Q

(more…)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn hears from Distracted Dan, who is worried about what his online date with think when she sees him in the flesh — but for a very specific reason:

The problem is I have not told her that 18 months ago I had gastric bypass surgery and lost 140 lbs. I still have a lot of loose skin left over (which is not very obvious once I am dressed).

How should Dan handle the situation, and more importantly, his own insecurity? Get the full picture at Happen, then let us know in the comments what you’d do!

“TRANSform Me,” a television series co-created by <YAY!> our own Kristine </YAY!> with partners from the documentary “T” (currently in post-production), is premiering tonight at 10:30pm EST on VH1.  “TRANSform Me” is a makeover show starring three talented transgender women –  Laverne Cox, Nina Poon, and Jamie Clayton — as they answer 911 calls from women around the country.  Having faced the ultimate challenge of transformation themselves, they push boundaries and help women connect with their own brand of femininity.

Kristine sez: “It’s a fun show!  Please tune in if you can!”

Here’s a sneak pizzeek:

Hey!

Via The Frisky:

“Any time I do a red carpet, I feel vaguely confrontational. I feel like, ‘All right, now somebody’s going to come on the red carpet who doesn’t have a stylist, who did her own hair and makeup, who’s wearing a $25 dress from H&M. I have cellulite. I have big hips and big thighs. And you have to look at me.’ I feel like people have to pay attention to somebody who would typically be invisible.” — Diablo Cody

Nice eulogy here.

…Certainly she embodied, in her rather brief career, many fairly significant shifts in how women were viewed, on television and in the culture, something I can’t imagine any of us expected as we gazed through the dim choking haze of adolescence at that mane of golden hair and perfect smile and wondered why the gods were so arbitrary with their gifts.

If nothing else, Farrah Fawcett proved something that should make life a little easier for the rest of us: You don’t have to have a huge body of work to make a pretty big imprint. Though a great smile certainly helps.

Ya know, I don’t automatically get offended by the word “fat,” or even the term “fat girl.” After all, one of my favorite Guides to Life was written by a body-positive fat girl.

But something about this grossly-named product from Bliss really exfoliates me the wrong way. Could it be the headline “rub-a-dub blub?” The idiotic and spurious claim that rubbing “Himalayan pink salt” on your hynee is a valid alternative to healthy diet and exercise? Maybe it’s the barely literate mis-use of single quotes.

No… no… I think it’s definitely the name-calling, and my niggling fear that tubs of this and its corrollary product, “FatGirlSlim,” will be left in the lockers of “less-than-perfect” women and girls across the globe. (All this when apparently we’re “officially over skinny.” Oh, wait.)

Hey, I’m all for kicky and edgy marketing copy. But this just sounds like advertising by way of sorority hazing.