Wonder why all those hours spent on the treadmill or lifting weights aren't getting you the results you want? According to Thurmond, if you're not working out in a way that's just right for your individual body type, you're wasting time and energy. In 12-DAY BODY SHAPING MIRACLE, Michael Thurmond presents his breakthrough exercise program for getting your body into a better proportional balance. Using Thurmond's exclusive "blueprinting system", you'll identify your unique metabolism and body type. You'll then discover a personalized exercise plan to quickly target your specific problem areas and transform your body shape in just 12 days. For example, if you are bottom heavy, you learn how to trim your thighs and hips while building up your shoulders and back, giving your body that trimmer, more hourglass-like shape. Thurmond's unique program focuses on sculpting muscles through select, easy-to-do weight training techniques with cardiovascular activity. And, no matter what your starting weight, level of fitness or shape is, Thurmond guarantees rapid results.

A fashion consultant demonstrates how women of all sizes can identify their body type and select the right clothing and accessories to define their personal style and overcome a variety of fashion challenges.

Wouldn't you like to define your own style? Filled with wardrobe-building advice and shopping tips from Sam Saboura's Real Style: Style Secrets for Real Women with Real Bodies, this journal is designed to serve as your style scrapbook. Use its pages to assess your wardrobe needs, brainstorm for your next shopping trip, store magazine clippings, and launch your very own style makeover! 128 two-color pages (guided), 8 x 9 inches, with 3 full-color pocketed and tabbed dividers

In 2004, roughly 25 makeover-themed reality shows aired on U.S. television. By 2009, there were more than 250, from What Not to Wear and The Biggest Loser to Dog Whisperer and Pimp My Ride. In Makeover TV, Brenda R. Weber argues that whether depicting transformations of bodies, trucks, finances, relationships, kids, or homes, makeover shows posit a self achievable only in the transition from the “Before-body”—the overweight figure, the decrepit jalopy, the cluttered home—to the “After-body,” one filled with confidence, coded with celebrity, and imbued with a renewed faith in the powers of meritocracy. The rationales and tactics invoked to achieve the After-body vary widely, from the patriotic to the market-based, and from talk therapy to feminist empowerment. The genre is unified by its contradictions: to uncover your “true self,” you must be reinvented; to be empowered, you must surrender to experts; to be special, you must look and act like everyone else. Based on her analysis of more than 2,500 hours of makeover TV, Weber argues that the much-desired After-body speaks to and makes legible broader cultural narratives about selfhood, citizenship, celebrity, and Americanness. Although makeovers are directed at both male and female viewers, their gendered logic requires that feminized subjects submit to the controlling expertise wielded by authorities. The genre does not tolerate ambiguity. Conventional (middle-class, white, ethnically anonymous, heterosexual) femininity is the goal of makeovers for women. When subjects are male, makeovers often compensate for perceived challenges to masculine independence by offering men narrative options for resistance or control. Foregoing a binary model of power and subjugation, Weber provides an account of makeover television that is as appreciative as it is critical. She reveals the makeover show as a rich and complicated text that expresses cultural desires and fears through narratives of selfhood.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.

Now updated for 2008, this annual edition of the classic bestselling directory provides everything working writers need to find the most receptive publishers, editors, and agents for their work.