2012 In Review, and What’s in Store

2012 was a fascinating year. At the beginning, most of you reading this had probably never heard of me. I’ve made lots of new friends this year, a few enemies, wrote some blog posts, read a lot more, learned a ton and refined my message bit by bit. Thank you to all of you, new and old, for being on this ride with me!

A few memorable moments this past year:

My ‘fitness model diet’ that culminated in my most popular blog post of all time (it was the bikini pictures I’m sure). It also spawned my most shared and viewed facebook post ever. Everyone’s got an opinion on what women’s bodies are supposed to look like, and they all seem to have weighed in on these posts!

I made a few memes:









I watched in amazement as more and more female bloggers pushed back against the unrealistic expectations our bodies are held to in the ‘health’ blogosphere. Some great posts I had the pleasure of reading this past year:

Ancestralize Me

Paleo Plan

The Great Fitness Experiement

For the Love of Cookies

Hunt. Gather. Love.

And of course, my own post on the topic. If you read a blog post on this topic this past year that isn’t listed here (I know it’s far from an exhaustive list), please share it with me in the comments! I love that this topic is on people’s radars, and want to keep it front and center.

I released my first exercise program this past fall. Writing it was an adventure and I’ve been having a great time getting to know people in the Facebook group that supports it!

I did some
interviews, and had the great honor of doing a guest post on 180DegreeHealth.com.

So, what’s in store
for 2013? Here are some projects I hope to get around to this year:

-The Second 100 Days (follow up to The First 100 Days. Obviously.)
-designing a comprehensive program to address computer-use related chronic neck and shoulder pain
-a book! On what, I do not know yet
-a guide to critical thinking, specifically in regards to fitness and diet dogma

And also to keep up this blog and my facebook page, and working with YOU guys! Thanks for making 2012 a great year, and here’s to an amazing and world-changing 2013!

12 thoughts on “2012 In Review, and What’s in Store

  1. I couldn’t agree more – but I still think that in our society the bigger problem is the obesity epidemic and that “fit-a-holism” is a pale reflection of the OE. I remember when even the concept of the OE was debated. We can thank the First Lady for calling attention to the problem and for making it OK to admit that Houston, we have a problem.

  2. Thanks for the great blog and especially the posts about eating enough and about body recomp. I’m seeing a lot of the same theme in my reading and with my dancer/athlete friends and colleagues. I think it’s a shift in how disordered eating presents itself, from the old “teen/20s white girl thinks she’s fat/is afraid of womanhood and stops eating” to “otherwise healthy and well-adapted female takes up fitness as a well-meaning goal and it goes off track somewhere along the way”. Even Krista Scott-Dixon, one of my personal web/fitness/feminist/fierce heroes wrote about her own struggles with this detour on the path: http://www.stumptuous.com/rant-66-december-2012-the-first-rule-of-fast-club

  3. OK, now I REALLY have a red face. I just clicked on the link above to the popular FB post, and see that you said to a lady named Tamara that she was “blessed in the tits department.”

    Are you old enough to remember Emily Litella? “Never mind!”

  4. Hey, Amber. Just wanted to chime in today with my support, as I’m lurking today. I no longer have a FB profile, but appreciate and love your page as a creeper! LOL. Keep up the great work in 2013. You deserve all the abundance that’s come your way in 2012!

    • Crystol, I have really REALLY missed you! I sometimes go to your blog to try to stalk you but you’re not there either! COme back soon!

  5. Amber, I discovered your blog recently and thought, omigod, a kindred spirit. Long story short, I was a failed low-carber, very dogmatic actually, and then I discovered – against my will, the secret and profound lesson of energy balance. I lost weight and kept it off. For 2013, my goal is to get strong.

    However I did see something on your FB page that bothered me. You referred to breasts as “blobs of jelly”, which if you had them, would interfere with your power lifting routine.

    This strikes me as being strongly indicative of body dysmorphia. Moreover, isn’t it insulting to those of us (yours truly) who have naturally big tits? I wish I were a size smaller – but that in itself is just the old dissatisfaction with what society wants game, only in the opposite direction of what people usually think.

    The comment also conflicts with your entire message of loving your body in whatever form nature endowed.

    Maybe you were joking. But even so “many a truth is told in jest.”

    Apologies if I sound oversensitive.

    I still think you’re journey is extremely inspiring.

    • Hi Diana, if I recall correctly, I was referring specifically to breast implants, which I had recently been told, yet again, that I needed. And I wasn’t making a value judgement against women who’ve chosen to get implants, I was expressing my personal feelings about them in regards to my own body: my body is fine just the way it is, I do not ‘need’ implants, they would serve no purpose as I’m not unhappy with the way my body is shaped.

      This was a post from a long time ago, no? I have certainly learned a few things about wording over the last year, and I’ve grown and evolved. I’ve left my own blog posts from the past up that I no longer agree with so that people can see the way my philosophy has evolved and realize that growth and evolutions is normal. I worded that post poorly, and I think that in the discussion that followed I clarified what I meant and expanded upon it.

      • Hi Amber – Got the part about misunderstandings being rife on the Internet. Sometimes that cuts down on spontaneity.

        I don’t honestly remember what the context was but I’ll take your word for it.

        Anybody who tells you to get implants should shove it. How dare anyone say that? I am aghast at the presumptuousness of some people.

        And I *am* oversensitive. I realize that it may be hard for some to sympathize with my plight*, but it’s hard for me to understand the desire for implants and why some small-breasted women are self-conscious, because I wish I were smaller. A bit.

        Again, I find your example inspiring. I like your non-dogmatic energy-balance approach. It worked for me!

        *irony alert!!

        • Hi Diana! I would love to hear a little about how you managed to figure out the proper energy balance to lose weight, how you felt in the process, and how you feel now. I would like to lose about 40 lbs, be healthy and more fit. Thank you!!

          • Lucy,

            Everybody’s particular journey is different. What I say here is in no way prescriptive.

            I was never a believer in the “this” diet or the “that” diet. When I was in my 20s, the Stillman diet was big. Then came the grapefruit diet. I never went there. Weird – because at the ripe age of 45 around 2002 I got suckered into Low Carb dogma. I convinced myself that calories (i.e. energy) didn’t count, and that it was all carbs. Excluding carbs created that magic metabolic advantage where fat was metabolized.

            This is Amber’s blog so I won’t waste your time with the whole story. Suffice it to say that I was very resistant to facts.

            In 2010, I went from 140 to 156 pounds on low carb. By 2011, I was miserable and desperate. I HAD to do something, so, in desperation, I gave calorie counting a chance. Portion size, whatever you want to call it. Calories In, Calories Out. Eat Less, Move More.

            And I lost 20 pounds. I, who had thought she had a “broken metabolism,” – who was a “carb addict”- lost 20 pounds by eating less and moving more. That’s the short of it. I could tell you so much more but this is not my blog.

            The main thing is this: whatever you put in your mouth – whether it is low carb, vegan, or blueberry pancakes – you have to be in calorie deficit to lose fat.

            People don’t want to hear that. They want to hear anything BUT that. Even doctors have asked me, “how did you do it?” And when I tell them, “I ate less and moved more,” they say, “I was afraid you would say that.”

            I also moved more, but not in any organized way – just did a lot of walking and occasional hiking. This year is the year of exercise.

            I can’t stress strongly enough how you must accept the diagnosis: Eat Less, Move More. Once you do that, things become clear. If you fight that, you will always be a sucker for the latest trick.

            That’s my story. Those are my beliefs. I wish you success!

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