Today I received an inquiry from a lady asking if her new corset was suitable for waist training — but the corset was manufactured and purchased elsewhere, and not from Romantasy. It’s a good question — but not a topic I care to write about today in this particular blog (check our FAQ page for a further answer, which answer generally is – it depends and I’ll need a lot more information about the corset and you to advise you properly!).

When I checked her corset manufacturer’s website , I went first to the ‘About US’ page, and I recommend you do just that when searching out a reputable corset manufacturer if you aren’t going to purchase from Romantasy to being with. There was no image of the owner, no personal qualifications in corsetry or corset design and education, and no image or names of the various qualified corsetmakers referred to who produce their ‘authentic’ corsets — as opposed to ‘fashion corsets’ they say are ‘mass produced.’

I always find lack of personal qualifications or images and names, quite curious. Are they ashamed to be identified? Are they hesitant to reveal their lack of corset experience or manufacturing qualifications? Are they an offshore corporation that cares very little for the particular form-fitting foundation garment they sell, and just found a convenient, popularized product to add to a line of dresses and pants sold in their quest for the almighty dollar?

A corset is a very intimate garment that wraps and molds the body. Often information about a corset can be derived solely from wearing one, to see how it holds up over time, how it specifically shapes the body and how it fits and feels. How do you  know the owner wears corsets him or herself and knows about what she speaks, if the owner doesn’t say? How do you know the corsetmakers of this company are ‘qualified’?

I won’t work with a corsetiere who hasn’t made at least 50 corsets of one style, and I test and wear corsets in many if not all styles made by my makers. Most of  makers on our team of five corsetieres by now have produced at least 200 corsets per style we offer for sale! Per style–not just total number of corsets of any style. That’s an amazing wealth of experience–and it’s required of any corsetiere who would produce top quality, durability, fit, comfort, and artistry.

The manufacturer also said they produced either standard corsets, or for only $20 more (amazingly cheap, I thought for ‘custom’ work–especially when a base price I saw for one overbust style was only $90!!!!), ‘made-to-measure’ corsets?  “Custom” or ‘made to measure” to me, means made to fit the contours of your body, not just made to fit one or two or even three horizontal torso measurements — but three measurements is all this company requires to produce their ‘made-to-measure’ corsets! And true quality ‘custom’ work by a qualified, experienced corsetiere worth his or her salt, won’t be priced at under $100, of that you may be assured. Lingerie–yes, custom corsets, simply never –or rarely ever unless it’s on consignment or priced for a quick sale for one reason or another.

Further, it’s extremely curious to me that the manufacturer says:  “Please remember that your measurement of bust, waist and hips should be 3 inches less than your actual size.” If a corset is truly “custom” as we define that term, then how can a measurement be set in stone as they suggest it is?

I was beginning to suspect that this website was soon going to join the best examples of the worst kinds of misleading web advice out there provided to unsuspecting and inexperienced corset enthusiasts. I read on.

Why should you buy a corset? According to this company, apparently because Hollywood stars wear them, and apparently because corsets give you an hourglass shape.

Bullcrap. Pure and simple.

At this point in my read, I declined to go any further.

Corsets give you several, if not many, figure shapes and silhouettes depending on style, how the corsetiere prefers to pattern, quality of fabrics used, and other. Check this point out on our webpages showing graphics and pictures of the basic shapes (and styles, which is a different thing!) that Romantasy corsetieres produce, as well as the speciality of each corsetiere on our team regarding fit and other issues:

http://www.romantasy.com/Styles/FigureSilhouettes.html

http://www.romantasyweb.com/Styles/index.html

http://www.romantasyweb.com/cyboutique/corsetmakers.html

Which all leads me to a final point I’ve made before:    Caveat Emptor!

I wonder what the New Year will bring in terms of health care reform — and whether or not we will reform our eating habits and choices for the better, and stop killing ourselves? Don’t individuals have some responsibility for controlling the high costs of health care? Or shall we continue to abdicate responsibility and look to the government to provide it all for us?

Charlie Gibson on the evening news just reported that in ten years, 43% of Americans will be “obese”, that we now spend $344 billion on health care each year with 1 in every five dollars going to matters related to obesity. By 2018 each obese person will spend $8315 per year on health issues –  $2300 more than non obese individuals.

There’s apparently a new book out by Dr. Marian Nestle called Food Politics. It sounds like an important read so I intend to check it out.

It makes me gloomy to know time and yet again, that information and education are not changing poor eating habits and food choices according to the statistics, at least in this country. I’m wondering if this miserable economy is contributing to poor choices because of low cost of fast and fatty foods? Is one a cause and one an effect?

I’ve discussed eating well with less money before, but as always, ideas from you are welcome. We seem to need all the help we can get when it comes to taking care of ourselves.

Wikipedia says that “grellin is a hormone produced mainly by P/D1 cells lining the fundus of the human stomach and epsilon cells of the pancreas that stimulates hunger.^[1] Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease after meals. It is considered the counterpart of the hormone leptin, produced by adipose tissue, which induces satiation when present at higher levels. In some bariatric procedures, the level of ghrelin is reduced in patients, thus causing satiation before it would normally occur.”

I heard Dr.  Oz on his recent tv show mention that hormone and I went to look it up. Editors of a study on ghrelin quoted by Wikipedia, clarify that rapid emptying of the stomach is closely related to overeating and obesity and that gastric distension acts as a satiety signal. But corsets prohibit stomach distension. Does corseting substitute for gastric distension and also delay emptying of the stomach so that the wearer feels full faster?

The above brief introduction by Wikipedia doesn’t give me the answer to a few hunger-related questions I failed to address in my waist training book simply because I don’t have the answer yet. Those questions relate not only to what causes hunger and what’s related to it, but to why squeezing the stomach with a corset, aside from physically reducing the area one can stuff with food, reduces hunger not just in the moment–but permanently disappears hunger in a matter of days. That’s something I observe personally, and something that is consistently reported to me by other corset enthusiasts and by many of the students whom I coach in waist training.  If ghrelin levels increase before meals yet a corseted person doesn’t feel hungry, what is happening?

As with any medical issue, there is a level of complexity that a layperson cannot possibly comprehend, and research changes the horizon study-to-study. It’s a topic I’ll pursue in the near future, but I’d like to hear about your practical hunger experiences of all kinds, especially with consistent corseting.

I found an amazing article in one of the online magazines to which I subscribe and I commend it to you:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15758

It’s a bit ponderous, overly-long, and replete with extremist terminology, but we’ll forgive that because it provides a great reminder about the importance of thinking. It deals with the unjustified reliance that many people place on ‘governmentally-approved’ drugs, that is “FDA approved” drugs, to solve medical problems. Diet pills immediately came to my mind.

Here’s a bit from that article to peek your interest:

“The country is pacified by a blind belief that the drugs being prescribed to them have been proven safe because our government health agencies have our physical health and well-being in their best intentions.  This is a lie, an extraordinarily deadly lie. Iatrogenesis, medically induced injury and death, is the number one cause of death in American medicine annually, since only a small percentage of these deaths are actually reported. Each year more Americans die from preventable deaths due to our medical system than all military causalities in the two world wars combined. This is tantamount to medical genocide.

“One of the major causes of these deaths is the overmedication of Americans in all ages. The constant need for profits has created an environment that allows the pharmaceutical industrial complex to use their enormous financial and political clout to literally make normal life experiences into new diseases, such as social anxiety disorder, in order to sell its drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has been given the authority to pathologize life, with the drugging of our children, seniors, etc. For example, the leading cause of AIDS deaths today is a result of liver failure. This is not a condition of HIV infection, but a direct result of the anti-HIV drug AZT. Is it little wonder then that we are being intimidated and frightened into believing that mandatory vaccination is being touted even though the science of efficacy and safety, even the need, for these new swine flu vaccines is patently unproven. It is perhaps one of the largest falsehoods ever perpetuated on humanity that dwarfs the sleaze on Wall Street.”

I just heard a news reporter mention that the new diet “pill” is now a shot! Even less thinking and even less human involvement it seems.

Considering the above point, why wouldn’t the pill and shot manufacturers want to promote reliance on drug labels and governmental approval, rather than encourage us to think for ourselves, and put out a little bit of effort to drop those additional pounds with fun things like a three-month trial of corset waist training?

I just had a client whom I’ve come to know on a surprisingly deep human basis over the past three years, ring my door bell. I’m not one to like drop-bys very much, and I typically require appointments before opening my door. Something compelled me to open it this time, and for a few seconds of ‘catch up’ I chatted with my friendly client who promised to soon call and make a formal appointment to be measured for his third corset. One quick result of corseting he wanted to report, however, surprised me even more than his visit.

Although he wears his corset occasionally underneath female clothing when he choses to crossdress, he told me he also wears it consistently every night. Upon rising he removes his corset and goes off to the gym for a regular exercise routine. He reported that lately he has noticed that he has developed better and more toned muscles, and disappeared his back soreness when he arises from sleeping on a waterbed! His theory is that the pressure of the corset at night when we tend to relax and spread out in bed, keeps his muscles taut and constricted, and in that sense, enhances body memory and tone of the muscles themselves, perhaps like the electric stimulation device that promises the same results? I’m not sure about the scientific basis of his theory nor is he, but the body memory part resonates with my own theory about one of the primary reasons that corset waist training works.

Does anyone who sleeps in a corset or wears one regularly, care to comment or theorize with us?

Well, this blog is not really about plumbing plumbing, if you know what I mean. A young corset client and new waist-training enthusiast just wrote inquiring about wearing her corset when dealing with ‘plumbing’ issues, particularly no. two, and if wearing her corset will help or hinder those things. She also inquired about why her new higher fiber diet (35 gms per day; we also recommend even moving up to 40 to 50 or more gms of fiber a day, but doing so slowly over time with some compensation needed in terms of adding calcium, magnesium, and potassium when fiber gets that high as a portion of your diet), didn’t seem to be making her elimination easier as she had expected.

Sound questions. Considering advice I’ve solicited and received over the years I’ve been studying nutrition and corset waist training plus other health matters, much of it from practicing physicians and nurses, and even from a recent dietician client, I suspect that changes in one’s nutrition as to intake amount and portion of fiber, cutting back on calorie intake, or even changing ones eating habits such as slowing down to chew more slowly, all this can have an impact on other systems of the body. After all, we are one human body, not a body separated into unrelated systems.  Change one thing and other things will be impacted.

It didn’t sound like my client’s problems were serious enough for a doctor’s visit, but being a responsible person I should stress to her and to you that paying attention to things like this early on before they become medical matters, is highly responsible and logical. Waist training brings to you a lot more body-consciousness, and this consciousness is crucial to preserve your health, understand your body, and work with it and not against it as you move slowly forward with waist training. It’s the same thing as with any other kind of rather rigorous discipline. Waist training is after all, both a mental and a physical challenge requiring new patterns, habits, and certain changes to be made.

If there is one thing I have learned over my past 20 years in the corset business, it is that every one is individual. How you relate to corseting and training will differ from anyone else, although certain patterns can be expected. What I recommended to this young client is that she experiment going to the bathroom wearing her corset tightly, loosely, and then not wearing it at all, to see what worked for her. I know folks who do all of the above or prefer only one!

Also I suggested that she be sure to up her water intake to 10 glasses per day for certain, and chew her food extra well. In addition, I suggested she might want to try two things I personally have found effective to ‘keep me on track.’  The first is to add wheat bran (purchase at health food stores; sometimes even at supermarkets), starting with 2 Tbsp per day moving up to 6 to 9, to her diet. It can easily be added to soups, salads, cereals and even more. The taste is rather nice, nutty as it were, and it’s easy to down. That’s insoluble fiber that seems for some to aid the passage of stool. Second, I suggested she try one small can or juice glass of prune juice every night before bed. Those two steps seem to work for me–but again, everyone differs.

For certain if one’s pattern of elimination changes dramatically for the worse and persists for more than a few days (depending on what is normal for you), and you  can’t seem to find the right solution, then it might be time to check with your doctor, but I’ve yet to find anyone who couldn’t solve this problem by themself.  Do you have some tried-and-true remedies for occasional constipation? One a friend sent some time ago, was to warm a glass of prune juice in the microwave and the put a small pat of butter on top.  Try it–you might like it!

I thought that Doug Casey was right on! Who’s Doug? To me an obscure (sorry, Doug) financial advisor but despite that, obviously a very smart man! Chatting with one of his cohorts at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/casey/casey29.1.html, he meandered off into the world of health, and I found some nuggets there.

“You know, Michael Moore, who is physically obese, intellectually dishonest, and philosophically unsound (what a pathetic combination – he should run for Congress), made the argument in his ridiculous movie that the average Cuban is healthier than the average American. That’s totally correct – but it has absolutely nothing to do with the health care system. The average Cuban isn’t healthier than the average American because his health care system is better. It’s a horrible – actually, a primitive health care system. The technology stopped advancing there back in 1960, and the doctors stopped learning new things in that year… medicines… Nothing has changed since 1960. But the average Cuban is in much better health than the average American. – There are two reasons for that: he has a much better diet, which is to say that he eats way fewer calories (and they are unrefined calories), and he gets a lot more exercise than the average American. – When things change in Cuba, so they have a diet like that of the average American and the same kind of transportation as the average American, the average Cuban will be in much worse shape. – People conflate the health of a population with a country’s medical system, when these things really have almost nothing to do with each other. – What this actually shows is the degraded state of American society. Instead of taking some personal responsibility for their health and lifestyle choices, they try to rely on medicos to engage in heroic efforts to keep them alive with tubes up their noses after they’ve become flaccid and bloated from a lifetime of bad habits.”

(To which the interviewer said:) “This reminds me of the way Romans were said to have gorged themselves at banquets until they couldn’t eat anymore, proceeded to the vomitorium to unload, and then headed back to their couches to gorge again… But that might actually be healthier than what so many Americans seem to want to do, which is to eat all they want and then have it removed surgically later.”

To which we say: a-woman! The message loud and clear here, is to look beneath the surface of anything that seems transparent.  It likely isn’t.

I’m led to wonder if the base of all troubles both personal and professional, goes right back to the notion of personal responsibility? The first way to demonstrate responsibility is to start with thinking. And the way to end today’s musings is to paraphrase Will Rogers: “Thinking is extremely uncommon.”

I found it instructive once again, to note the importance of media pandering to the allmighty dollar and the baser nature of some human beings. After David Letterman, a popular late-night tv host in America in case our non-US readers don’t know, announced last Thursday night that he was being attempted to be blackmailed for alleged extramarital affairs with some of  his staff which he then admitted,  his viewer ratings went up Monday by 36%, and this continued on Tuesday. Go figure the intelligence level of the American public. And the true objectivity and responsibility level of the American media.

The importance of this minor flap to corseting and waist training, you ask? Easy to answer. If the media prefers to focus on extremist stories and sensationalism that obviously sells to unthinking recipients, don’t you feel media may or will tend to do so the same when it comes to the controversial corset and the common prejudice or stereotype that corsets hurt, are antiquated, and anti-feminist? Please don’t trust everything you read, is our bottom line.

On another entirely different matter, a long time friend and artistic designed of our current website, Lydia, pointed out the following regarding ribs:  “We all know that guys don’t have one fewer ribs that gals, but until a couple of days ago, I was unaware that a significant fraction of the population (of the order of 8% in some sources I’ve seen) actually do have a different number of ribs, even if not because of The Fall From Grace!  Here’s one reference with quite a few details and even a bunch of x-rays.:
http://radiographics.rsna.org/content/22/1/87.full”

The only gender difference I’ve noted over my past 20 years in the corset business (yes, 20 on January 7, 2010!) personally measuring most likely over 5,000 folks (with another 5,000 as long-distance clients), is that men have a shorter vertical distance between the lowest palpable rib and the top of the pelvis, making the hourglass or was- figure silhouette the most comfortable–but not the most artistic or desirable–to wear because it provides plenty of room and sculpts out over the ribs. The ice cream cone silhouette tends to press inward on the ribs as it descends straight down from underarm to waist. Take a look at our graphics on these silhouettes and you’ll see what I mean:

http://www.romantasy.com/index.html?BodyURL=ZXQ/second-level-pages/products.html

Silhouette differs from corset style, so be sure you understand the difference when you shop:

http://www.romantasy.com/Styles/index.html

I’m happy to help you sort this all through to ensure that you have the level of comfort, fit, and longevity in the corset you order from ROMANTASY. After all, client education is our first commitment. In exchange however, we’ll ask only that you do a little homework to research and gather the facts we point to on our website, then  gather your thoughts and communicate accurately and upfront, not dragging out our email back and forth to 20 or 30 emails as some clients do. The latter situation makes it far too easy for your order to become garbled in the translation and for us to lose the thread of our conversation and analysis. When you want to order any corset, you’ll be rewarded if you take a bit longer, don’t rush the process, then patiently wait for corset perfection as your skilled corsetiere works her or his magic! Remember the old adage: don’t be penny wise and pound foolish!

I’d like to than our client Lisa who is doing her level best to educate me about whole wheat–a label and phrase tossed about lightly, and unfortunately so. Check this out which can be helpful, and thanks Lisa (who works for Barilla, and I highly recommend their Barilla Plus pasta!)

http://www.foodservicedirector.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=106447

Just the other day at our supermarket I heard a chap pick up a loaf of bread and proclaim “Wow. This one has 15 grains. It’s got to be good! I had no idea there were that many grains!”

I’m not so sure it ‘had’ to be good. In fact I’m sure food manufacturers are often negligent in clearly labeling foods, and we’re just as negligent in seeking out responsible and factually-correct information to guide our own proper food choices. Hope this article is helpful to you.

Professor  Soraya Shirazi-Beechey of Liverpool University says: ‘If someone wants to lose weight, I don’t think artificial sweeteners are going to help. My recommendation is to eat natural foods, but to eat less of them.’

It’s sound advice, and something I say all the time. Aristotle was right, moderation is the key to most things in life, including health.

Check out this Sept. 4 article in MailOnline reporting on the research. The professor says  ‘Artificial sweeteners can also activate the glucose sensor and increase the capacity of the intestine to absorb more sugar.”

The article says that ” artificial sweeteners behave in a similar way to sugar, by activating sensors in the gut which are key to the absorption of glucose.As a result, the body processes extra sugar – and all the calories that go with it. For the dieter, it means little or no weight loss. Over time, it could even lead to extra pounds being put on.”

For my part, I use Splenda and I use sugar as well, in about equal parts.  A former waist training student brought some evidence of detrimental results of eating Splenda to my attention a year ago. I considered the one or two articles but decided to continue using Splenda on occasion. It’s a matter you will have to decide for yourself, but I’d like your thoughts.