Get your Pure Insanity Journals out everyone, because it’s time to make another entry! For all those new to this activity, this is where we jot down the latest story that provides concrete proof that we’re all going completely mad. I’m kind of hoping that there won’t be enough stories to fill the pages of our journals, but at the rate we’re going with high heeled babies, and women opting out of what it is to be a woman, I don’t think we’ll even need to fill the journals to make the diagnosis stick.

Today’s topic just may be the clincher. I’ll summarize with one sentence: Perfection-obsessed women take their self-loathing out on their vaginas by turning genital mutilation into a sport that society now calls “Vagina Reconstruction.”

Have you heard of this, ladies? This is the latest and “greatest” in cosmetic procedures that our esteemed medical community is pushing on society, with promises to “correct” and “perfect” the vulva of any woman naive or insecure enough to pay for it. If it weren’t for the fact that women are lining up in droves for these surgeries, I would think that “Vag Repair Services” as a business model was a joke conceived by a high school business economics class filled with sixteen year old boys who were still waiting to see one for the first time.

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Mark this down as a VERY happy *f.a.t. day for me!! Why? Because one of my favorite *f.a.t. topics is finally being addressed by Oprah! I’ve talked before about bio-identical hormones and in my mind, they are the key to the locked door of all health mysteries for both men and women! They are also the key to women staying horny, vibrant, healthy, sexy, and happy, after the age of 30!!

I have been hoping with all of Oprah’s talk of recent thyroid issues, that bio-identical hormones would be on her radar so she would spread the word, and it looks like my wish is coming true in a big way!

The reason I’m so excited, is because when Oprah lights a match, the fire spreads fast and furiously, which means a lot more women will be exposed to, and educated about, the influence that bio-identical hormones can have on their health!

She introduced the topic on Thursday’s show with the promise to continue discussing it on future episodes, which I am over the moon about, because it is far too important a topic to cover in just an hour. During the show, she interviewed Robin McGraw (Dr. Phil’s wife), and two OBG docs who specialize in keeping women hormonally balanced.

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For all of you moms who got your kids video games for Christmas, I’m curious to know if your kids look like these kids in this New York Times Magazine video. 

Can anyone say, creepy? 

My video game experience is limited to Donkey Kong and Pac Man, neither of which became addictive for me. I could take them or leave them, and most of the time, preferred sport recreation to most other forms of recreation. So, I have never really understood the video game craze, and kids’ complete obsession with them. I suppose the level of realism and interactivity in today’s games, ups the fun factor for kids, but how much is too much?

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Awhile back I asked the question about where our minds had gone, relative to a story about moms turning babies into living Barbies, but I think I now have the answer! Our minds have joined our periods in the world of non-existent. Yup. Our brains apparently joined the normal menstrual cycle on the oversized jetliner called the feminine pad (with the sticky wings) never to return.

So, everybody, it’s time to break out your journals. No, not your food diaries or exercise log; I’m talking about your Pure Insanity Journals in which you track all things that make you say, “has everyone gone certifiably mad?”

Okay, fine; you can start your journal today if you don’t already have one. And in it, you can add today’s post for your first entry. Write this down: Many women comply willingly to scientific community urging them to give up periods. 

No, not the punctuation marks. You can still use a dot at the end of your sentences. I’m talking about periods as in those biologically natural monthly occurrences that make a woman a woman. Calm down, Monopausal Molly, I’m not spitting in the face of your femininity, I am merely making the point that the menstruation factor is a key component of being chromosomally XX rather than XY. And apparently, there are enough menstruating women who are tired of being XX and fed up with wearing period panties, that they’re ready to kiss their “monthly visitor” goodbye.

It’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. Did the loss of our brains cause us to be okay with letting science turn us into human lab rats, or is it the lack of our normal hormonal functions what caused our brains to go haywire enough to want to dress our babies like Carrie Bradshaw? 

I don’t know which it is, but apparently, society hates women being women so much, that it wasn’t enough to give us options of two pills that can reduce periods to three days, and a third that can limit them to four times per year. They had to introduce a fourth that can delete them as easily as if they were just typos on your computer screen of life. One day it’s wings and torpedoes with strings, and the next it’s the ability to go commando 24/7, 30 days per month.

My God, didn’t we learn anything from the 2008 study that showed pill use in women undermines our ability to sniff out the right male pheromone match for ourselves? (Based on some of the men I chose to date while I was on it, I can vouch for the study’s accuracy!) So, if we tinker with nature anymore, are we all just going to turn into lesbians?

Have we become so tired of anything we label as an inconvenience that we demand it be erased from our lives, even if it is nature’s way of letting us know we’re the healthy, fertile beings we were meant to be? I’m not trying to go Ezekiel on you gals, but what are we going to let them do, turn us all into space aliens by the time it’s all said and done? Yes, I know, some of you  bleed like stuck pigs every 28 days, and want out of your confining pens, called menstruation, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. (High Heels and all!) 

Ladies, I implore you not to do this. In addition to this flying in the face of good sense and not passing my “caveman test”, think of all you’ll be giving up:

Unacceptable Effects Of Eliminating Periods:

 1. You will remove your free pass to be a bitch once a month due to PMS, which pretty much takes away your right to go ballistic on all the people you can’t stand.

2. You will no longer be able to blame having a puffy face in photos on “being bloated” because it’s  “that time of the month”, which means you really WILL have to start doing my list of 10 Diet Resolutions.

3. You will forfeit the opportunity to truly know the depth of your boyfriend’s love for you, when he sees you in your period panties for the first time and still stays with you.

4. You will miss out on the creative fun of making up cool code phrases that substitute for “I’m on the rag”, like The Crimson Tide floweth, and Aunt Flo is visiting this week.

5. Tampax and Kotex will lose a ton of business, which will cause them to seek a Feminine Product Industry Government Bailout along with the car industry, which will fall to you, the taxpayer.

6. Advil and Motrin will lose a ton of business from fewer cramp-suffering women, which will cause them to seek an Anti-inflammatory Industry Government Bailout along with the Feminine Product Industry, which will fall to…….you get it.

7. You will lose the opportunity to call in sick to your male boss with no questions asked, when you say the phrase, “I can’t come in because I’m having “female issues.”

8. You will miss out on the chance to tell the annoying girl from work that you can’t go to her Pampered Chef party because your period just has you exhausted.

9. You will no longer get the sympathetic back and foot rub from your significant other who hates to see you in such discomfort.

10. You will completely abolish your right to dump the kid in your husband’s arms at a moment’s notice, and prance off to the bathtub for “me time”, with no rebuttal.

Bonus Reason Not To Wear The Pure Insanity Badge:

11.  You’ll lose the “toiletries rule” as a gauge for whether your boyfriend is serious about you. (This is the rule that says if he lets you keep a  box of tampons under his sink, he’s into you.)

Massage for most of you is probably no more than an occasional treat you get to enjoy when someone gets you a gift certificate or when your muscles are so knotted up you just can’t take it anymore. But it is starting to be recognized as a true medicinal therapy, and because of that, I want all of my *f.a.t. (Fit After Thirty) sisters to start thinking of regular massage as a prescription for your health, rather than as a luxury. 

Regular massage is truly one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to stay Fit After Thirty! Besides, if you incorporate it into your relationship with your partner, it can serve as great foreplay, and will go a long way toward keeping the romance alive! After all, what woman doesn’t appreciate a man who pampers her, and what man doesn’t love a happy ending? Granted, there is nothing like a professional massage therapist to really work out the kinks, but a novice with a pair of strong hands can go a long way toward helping achieve some of the following major health benefits of massage:

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I recently had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Shahram Jacobs who runs an Internal Medicine practice in Encino, California. He has also studied mind-body medicine extensively, and is currently writing a book on the topic. Mind-Body medicine is a subject I have had great interest in for a long time, so I am excited that Dr. Jacobs will be a regular guest contributor to Fit After Thirty. The following is a recent interview I conducted with him about the topic of mind-body medicine.

Suzy: Can you describe the basic premise of mind-body medicine?

Dr. Jacobs: It is the idea that your mind and emotions affect your physical body and overall health. It involves various practices aimed at improving and maintaining health and promoting spiritual growth.  These practices include meditation, hypnosis, visual imagery, intercessory prayer, biofeedback and others, all of which focus on a sense of awareness and presence.

Suzy: One of the things we want to do with this site is to help women create a new image in their mind of what fat means (Fit After Thirty), thereby training their mind to associate themselves with a more positive vision. Is that kind of the same concept that you are talking about?

Dr. Jacobs:  Absolutely.  The way a person perceives herself has a profound effect on his or her health and wellbeing and that includes weight.  I’m glad you brought this up since it gives me a chance to let you know what a great service I think you’re providing for all women by starting this site. 

Suzy: Thank you very much. And thank you for your willingness to participate to help educate our readers. 

Dr. Jacobs: Your goal will not only help women feel better about themselves, but will help them become more motivated to live healthier and more active lives.  Simply stated, if someone has the self perception of being fat they’re also prone to think of themselves in other negative ways which our society has come to associate with being overweight or fat, such as laziness and overeating. 

Suzy: So true!

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Let’s flash forward into a future place called Regret. You’re sitting there with a full time nurse to feed you and you can’t remember your adult children’s names let alone their faces. The reason? Alzheimer’s. Now, enter into the scene, Mr. In Retrospect. He’s the annoying reporter coming to interview you about past life choices. He sticks the microphone in your face and asks you one question, “Mrs. Alzheimer’s Sufferer, if you had it to do over again, would giving up sodas and candy THEN have been a small sacrifice in exchange for having a functioning brain NOW?”

Your  answer? Well, actually, you’ll look at him with a confused look and say “Who the hell are you and what are you talking about?”, because your brain doesn’t have the capacity to remember back to the place you used to dwell called Opportunity.  But if you could answer him with your present brain, you would of course, say, “YES, Mr. In Retrospect, losing soda and candy would have been a small sacrifice in exchange for a healthy brain. Sugary foods in exchange for not remembering my own name was not worth it!”

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