Lose 100 pounds in 5 minutes, guaranteed!

…with photoshop, that is.

Watch as a skilled photoshop artist transforms a decidedly "plus size" lady into a more mainstream definition of beauty. Not only does she lose tremendous amounts of weight, but her hair grows and thickens, her cellulite disappears, and her skin tone evens!

Does this make you think at all about the "before" and "after" shots you see for weight loss products, beauty products, spa treatments, etc? (Hint: It should.)

See this and more at plus-size model Nancy Hayssen’s blog: The Magic of Photoshop Makeovers

I realize it’s become cliche to criticize the media’s standards of "beautiful" and "slender." But I can’t help but think of the classic Aerosmith music video for Sweet Emotion (awesome song, btw) where the teen guy calls a 900-number and believes he’s speaking to a sexy young vixen, when in reality (as the viewer finds out at the end of the video) he’s speaking to a portly housewife doing her ironing.

That sight gag worked because you knew you couldn’t trust your ears to paint the right picture, but you believed you could trust your eyes to see the body carrying the voice. Now you can actually present, in movies and photos, whatever body you want the viewer to see–that portly housewife can be photoshopped into the sexy young vixen. That teen kid nowadays would find that hot young vixen on a dating website, and spend hours IMing with and fantasizing over his perfect woman… and in reality, he’s just as likely to be "seeing" photos of one of the thugs from The Sopranos. Just with a few modifications.

So when you flip through the pages of Vogue, Cosmo, Enquirer, or even Good Housekeeping, bear in mind that what your eyes see is nothing more than an electronically-contrived version of the person in the photo. It is merely an artist’s rendering of the photo’s subject. So when we aspire to be as cellulite-free, or as blemish-free, or as toned, or as tan, or have the same thick flowing hair as whatever celeb or model we’re admiring, what we are really admiring are just manipulated pixels. That’s it.

So if you want that body, that hair, that peaches-n-cream complexion, snap a digital pic of yourself and send it to a photoshop savvy friend. Voila!

Do you see all the money and time I just saved you?