Book review of How to Eat Like A Hot Chick and my meandering thoughts on beauty

I had a fabulous birthday and wonderful anniversary with my dear husband.  One of my birthday gifts was a gift card to purchase some new books for my Kindle.  One of the books I purchased was How to Eat Like a Hot Chick by Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent.  I originally heard about the book on Facebook.  One of my friends was a fan of their How to Live Like a Hot Chick page.  The page offers useful advice for women everywhere.  The advice is often the kind of advice that epitomizes who I want to be, who I think I am, etc.  After reading their posts I started looking in to their books.  I decided to give the How to Eat Like a Hot Chick book a chance.  What I liked about the book is that it is not a diet.  It's just lifestyle changes, maybe not even changes, more like tips.  They also take a perspective that I love...the concept is we are all beautiful.  It's sort of a book on how to live a confident life as the beautiful woman you are.  It's a quick read and I suggest you pick it up or check it out from the library.  Of course like any book there are things to take with a grain of salt.  Most of it though is just straight forward...like how to approach the salad bar, how to splurge, daily habits that make sense, and why eating spinach is great for your body.  I also appreciated that they suggest physical activity, about an hour a day. It's a simple approach and one that really doesn't deprive a person of anything, which I love!
Really, my favorite part of this book is that they don't put words like fat, skinny, and beautiful on the same level.  Words relating to size never relate to beauty! Beauty is something that comes from within, it's your confidence, your personality, who you are.  Even when I am frustrated with losing weight, I still know I am beautiful. I don't think I have a big head or an ego the size of Texas, I'm just confident.  Obviously, I want to lose weight for health reasons and know my quality of life would be improved.  Not because beauty has to do with the size of my pants, but everything to do with what really matters in life! So, I hope all of you know this too.  You are beautiful.

(Psst...this is where I would cue a great song like Mika...Big Girls You Are Beautiful or My Wish by Rascal Flatts)

Coincidence and Credibility

I don't really believe in coincidence. I think everything happens for a reason. Usually, these are experiences or people I meet, being in the right place at the right time, but recently it has been more about words and books. My professor assigned a text called Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. I expected this book to be a technical, dry read. I was delighted to find the words on the page seemed to be written just for me! I am not done with the book, but am so excited to finish it. Here are a few of the profound thoughts by Kouzes and Posner:

-"When values are clear they don't have to rely upon direction from someone in authority." pg. 61

-Conflict is the result of values colliding...wow, how true is that? I thought back to all of the conflict I could think of in the past few months and was able to trace every bit of it back to two or more of my values conflicting. I realized that at work I have been frustrated because I value being successful almost as much as I value spending time with my husband. Traveling on nights and weekends are required to be successful, unfortunately, that's when I get to see the love of my life! Some how just being more aware of why there is internal conflict brought a sense of peace over me.

-"If they do not believe that they can meet the challenges of a particular task, even when they have the requisite skills to do so, they have no business trying to lead a group under those circumstances." Pg. 76

Okay, now for the fun part of the book. I'd be really curious to hear all your examples for this following piece. Kouzes and Posner discuss how trends in your history can be indicative of what you value. Think about the following question posed in Credibility:
What were your favorite books as a child? What values did they espouse?

My heart was so warmed thinking about my favorite childhood books. The ones I loved the most were: The Little Engine that Could, I'll Love you Forever, Little House on the Prairie, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Amelia Bedelia, All the Little Miss books, like Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Manners, etc., Bernstein Bears, One Fat Summer, The Bible- specifically Noah's Ark, Jesus' birth, and Easter and the list of other books could go on forever! Some of the values are so obvious, but others left me thinking for a moment. Amelia Bedelia always meant well and tried so hard! The Bernstein Bears were just such a sweet little family. Little House on the
Prairie was full of characters who were hard workers and strong people. I'm still not sure on the Hungry Caterpillar, I might have to go back and read that one very soon!

Okay, I have to know- what were your favorite books? Any insights?

Even though I'm far from done with the book, I think Credibility is a great read!!