10 posts guaranteed to get you thinking about being healthier. GO.

1. What weight loss really looks like (NSFW)

Photographer Julia Kozerski lost 73kg to become literally half her size. She took photos to document her weight loss journey, but this isn’t a before and after shoot. Her photos also show the reality of life after dramatic weight loss; saggy skin and all. In this post written exclusively for Mamamia, Julia detailed the story behind her famous photographs. Read her story (and see her photographs) here.

2. Are some people using ‘gluten-free’ to mask an eating disorder?

While coeliac disease is a legitimate condition (with legitimate implications on a sufferer’s diet) going gluten free for the sake of it can be dangerous. In this article, Mamamia spoke to eating disorder counsellor, Paula Kotowicz, about the worrying trend toward people – particularly young women – using faux dietary requirements to mask eating disorders. Read it here.

3. 10 reasons not to get Botox

In a world where cosmetic surgery is being normalised, we published an article with 10 quick and simple reasons as to why you don’t need to inject anything into your face. One pearl of wisdom is simply: “it makes your face look weird.” Read the rest of the – occasionally thought provoking and frequently hilarious – reasons here.

4. The Brainwash Project

When student, Jess Barlow, wrote for us in August of last year, she had a simple message for women’s magazines: “enough is enough.” She was so sick of the photoshop, sick of the vanity and sick of the vacuousness of the magazines her friends read, that she decided to make one – that she would be proud to read – herself. Read about the plight she termed the Brainwash Project here.

5. Extreme fitness: why?

There’s a new trend in fitness: extreme fitness. Sure, you can go for a jog… provided that it contains 10 foot high brick walls that you have to scale using a ragged rope while which delivers electric shocks. In this post, Nat, our MM Wellbeing blogger, weighed in on extreme fitness events like Tough Mudder. Click here to read about why death waivers are now just as important as well-fitted sandshoes when it comes to exercise.

6. Plus-sized bodies: what wrong with them anyway?

Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less. These are the stats that are currently facing the fashion world and their portrayal of women.

In January 2012, PLUS Magazine in the US published a beautiful spread of plus-size model Katya Zharkova, accompanied by confronting statistics about how women are represented in fashion editorial. Read the statistics and see the pictures here.

7. 9 things not to say to someone who has cancer

Author of ‘Things Not to Say to Someone Who has Cancer’, Jo Hilder, wrote us a list of the 9 things she wished that people would just stop saying to her as she battled blood cancer in 2004. Read her list of blunt and useful advice here.

8. I’m fat today, how about you?

Claire Varley went to the Solomon Islands. Where people called her ‘fat.’ Not in a mean way, but just as a point of small talk. While she was offended at first, the whole experience prompted her to rethink the way that language can have such a stranglehold over our emotions. Read Claire’s account of discovering that ‘fat’ is just a word here.

9. Feeling intimidated at the gym

MM Wellbeing blogger, Nat, was scared of the weights section of the gym. It was full of big, burly men who lifted weights that weighed more than her. But, Nat decided to conquer her fear, and thinks that you should too. For advice on how to be confident in your gym’s weights room, click here.

10. Why this woman changed her entire life

One day, Wendy Squires decided to start doing things differently. And it changed her entire life. Read this story about downsizing your commitments, but upsizing your fulfilment here.