Health and Body - Experts and Resources

The 10-Step Plan to Looking Great Post-Divorce

Posted to by Lois Joy Johnson on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 7:45am

Recently I attended a wedding where the bride was 30, the groom 55 and two days later, a celebratory divorce lunch for a girlfriend who is 54 and dating a guy who is 37. Neither hook-up is shocking anymore, but this is: You’d have sworn these women were the same age.

Both are smart glammy brunettes who resemble Eva Longoria Parker. The bride is a lovely first-timer with no baggage. My divorced friend (let’s call her “A”) is currently dealing with unexpected job loss, six pounds of menopausal weight gain, and the major downsizing and relocation of her entire life.

Six months ago “A” made a conscious decision to use all this adversity to fuel one of the best makeovers I’ve ever seen. Looking good is clearly the best revenge as divorcees Tory Burch, Christie Brinkley and Ellen Barkin demonstrate.

“A” looks better now than at twenty (and yes, a little dermatological intervention helped). She says starting over calls for “ruthless assessment of your appearance and no looking back.”

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Avoiding The Drama Of Divorce

Talking constructively with your spouse to create a lasting peace

Posted to by Diana Mercer on Tue, 01/25/2011 - 8:40am

Sometimes people going through divorce behave in ways that make a given situation seem much more important than it is.

The following behaviors and the tone around them make the issue seem so pressing and imperative that it is easy to get sucked in:

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Health Insurance After Divorce

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

Posted to by Diana Mercer on Thu, 01/20/2011 - 8:51pm

No one likes to think about the “worst case scenario,” but planning for life’s unforeseen setbacks is an essential ingredient to a successful transition to single parenthood.

Healthcare coverage is a critical issue, and you need to know what your available coverage is as soon as possible. Many spouses are covered through their partner’s insurance. This is a critical issue at divorce time because continuation of coverage for adults under a spouse’s plan can be expensive and limited. 

Typically, the spouse with the best coverage will continue to cover the children after the divorce. It is extremely tempting to make this issue one about power and control. Parents fight to have the coverage so that are not subject to the other person’s control over the reimbursements, or they fight not to have control because “she has custody, it should be her responsibility” or “he can do it as child support.”

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Dating Again Post Divorce With Ten More Pounds And My Saggy Best

The 'oh crap my body sucks' identity crisis

Posted to by Andrea Nemerson on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 11:48am

"There's no entitlement to a media-approved body at any age or parity," my friend Elise said tartly, when I broached the subject of dating again after time and childbearing have done their stretching and saggy best.

She's tart enough often enough that I may as well make it part of her nom de column: Tarte d'Elise, a delectable but bracingly citric French pastry. She was objecting to the idea that women who've had kids (she hasn't) have access to some special sort of imperfection-excusing status unavailable to those who were merely dealt a currently unfashionable body by luck of the genetic draw.

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Dating Again And Getting Naked With A Stranger

Dealing with our physical insecurities post-divorce

Posted to by Andrea Nemerson on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 6:50am

"How do you feel about exposing the body you have now?" I wrote to a friend we'll call "Charlotte", who's obviously attractive by any conventional measure (adorable, actually) but is in her 40s, divorced with two tween-age kids and feeling it.

Running screaming into the night now, she typed back, "My issues have issues with this one." I haven't had any children," wrote Debra, "but coming out of a five-year relationship I've found that all my insecurities and fears about myself and dating have become rolled up in body image problems. It's as if, for me, any problem I might have is automatically sublimated to loathing my body.

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7 Spiritual Principals To Help You Navigate Divorce

Preventing divorce from affecting your spirituality

Posted to by Jeffrey Gurian on Mon, 11/29/2010 - 10:22am

The experience of divorce can have a stunting effect on the spiritual growth of even the most resilient woman. But this happens because we do just that — we let divorce control us, our spiritual state and equilibrium, when the key is to turn the tables and use your spirituality to control your divorce, or, more specifically, to control how you respond to the events that unfold before you while navigating your way through divorce.

First, a quick word on the meaning of "Spirituality" so that no one confuses this with some type of religious statement. Religion can be a wonderful thing for some people, but just by naming it, it puts you into a specific category, which automatically puts other people outside of that category, if they happen not to share your religious beliefs.

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5 Steps To A Happier Stronger You Post-Divorce

How I found the smarter, sexier me

Posted to by Deborah Moskovitch on Tue, 11/16/2010 - 5:16pm

As began to rebuild my life post-divorce, I slowly realized that I had embarked on an adventure to some mysterious destination, yet-to-be-determined; I was evolving from what I once was, a part of a couple, to being single, and the transition was fraught with both fear and excitement.

I felt awkward when I turned up at social events unescorted. I would laugh and pretend to be happy, but when people asked me about life and work, I could sum up a whole year in five minutes. If I threw in the details of my divorce (well, that could have lasted five hours), but that would have been a good way to isolate myself even further: very few people want to discuss divorce at a party. I knew I was a good mother, a person with lots of interests, a loyal friend. But I felt different, rattling around in society with nothing to ground me in the events I was a part of.

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