Dear Reader,

I started this site for very personal reasons. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan as a half-Israeli Jewish girl, I often felt like a misfit. My journey to embrace this identity has included a long struggle with body image.

As a kid, my friends were from many different ethnic backgrounds. We were fat, skinny and everything in between. But in spite of our diversity, we all felt the same pressure to fit a very narrow (and often impossible) definition of beauty. We all read magazines and felt inadequate comparing ourselves to the "perfect" models in their pages. Although we knew fashion magazines weren't reality, their message—"you don't measure up"—stuck anyway.

I spent most of high school dieting and exercising obsessively. Somehow, I thought this would bring me happiness, attention, the perfect boyfriend, and the perfect life -- all things that seemed far from my reach.

It never happened. And finally, I stopped looking and took on the challenge of loving myself NOW -- through thick AND thin. It's not easy, and I'll never act like it is! But hating myself turned out to be a lot harder. With the help of my twin sister Tali and our friend Dyann Logwood, we started a magazine called HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters), which promoted self-esteem among women of all cultures and sizes. HUES was around from 1992-99. Having a creative project gave me somewhere positive to channel my energies, and I gave up dieting for good. (Today, we can all find a voice to talk back with, using blogs, our own websites and all the tech tools that weren't around then.)

Now about 15 years later, I keep the bodylovin' fires burning with my book, Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty & Body Image, with this website, and touring the world spreading a message of body love! My twins sister and I also write astrology for a bunch of magazines and websites. You may have seen my column in Teen People magazine, or at HelloKitty.com or Oxygen.com. We have a brand called AstroStyle that I use to spread a message of love for onself and others through the lens of astrology. I love it!

My wish for you is that, no matter where you long to be tomorrow, that you hold that vision while still loving yourself today. You're perfect as you are, in all your imperfections. Enjoy this site and love your body!

xoxo,
Ophira