Posts by ajde

What a rollercoaster. I'm just two weeks into my first -real- attempt - 1000-calorie-a-day deficit, 1350 calorie target a day, 2x weekly with a TOUGH trainer and 3x weekly aerobic stuff, plus 30+ hours a week on my feet for work... I haven't weighed so I don't know if I've lost, but I feel the beginnings of muscle definition coming out, and I feel like my shape has changed, albeit minimally... and what do I feel, but anxious?

After all this time of wanting to be at a normal weight, how is it that I'm nervous to lose weight? As if I'm afraid to be my friends' sizes? Or to be able to hike without being in pain, or jog a mile in less than 12 minutes? I'm worried that those weird feelings might make me occasionally self-sabotage, especially after sticking to the rules - the deficit, a fairly rigid balance of carbs, fats and protein, the exercise - like tonight, where I have just now most likely consumed 200-300 calories of snacks. I could normally do 3 times that in a sitting but I haven't done that in the last two weeks, but here it goes again. How do we control these feelings? What do we do with them? Maybe it's the fear of failure, more than the fear of success, because it'll feel great to be where I want. I guess I've just never been there so I'm afraid to try.

In any case, I'm going to have to see how it feels once I get measured next week. All I can do is keep myself on track til then, and maybe once I see that first inch gone, those first few pounds, then maybe the excitement will start to come out.

Is this a very close friend? If she's someone who has been a good friend to you in the past I'd talk to her about it right away and ask why she's cutting you down. Is she upset about her weight gain? Gently ask her to join you for walks or in getting healthy. Is she jealous because you're not married and with your new body you have a world of opportunities ahead of you, romantically or otherwise? Try to help her see the good in her marriage.

She's most likely upset because she's starting a new life that she doesn't seem sure that she even wants, while you're getting a new lease on life, which you've worked hard for and earned. If I were you, I would try not to let the comments get to you, because they're untrue and said out of spite. If she reacts positively to talking with her, i.e. gets that she's been kind of a bitch and needs to support you, then maybe you can try to be extra supportive of her situation til she figures it out for herself. If she reacts negatively, then I guess she's too jealous to be your friend. Keep away from her and see if she comes around, and decide for yourself if you want to forgive her or not.

Good luck and great job! :)

Maybe balance out your coffee intake with tea?

And I'm not talking bags of mediocre tea, I'm talking delicious, possibly caffeinated (or not) loose-leaf tea. Some of the best I'd suggest are green - genmaicha specifically, which has toasted rice, medium caffeine and a delicious nutty taste, satisfying in a way very similar to coffee. Green tea is said to boost the metabolism.

Oolong tea is supposed to help burn fat, so that one (similar in taste to green, apparently kind of a halfway mix between black and green) could be beneficial for drinking.

Lastly, red aka rooibos aka red bush tea is naturally slightly sweet and excellent with some milk (or almond milk!), a touch of honey and a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg (which are said to help blood pressure). It is said to have 5 times the antioxidants of green tea, is overall amazing for you (it keeps pregnant mothers in South Africa, its country of origin, healthy to full-term and is given to babies in formula down there), and is caffeine-free so it's great for the afternoon.

1.5 ounces of loose-leaf tea is equal to about 20-24 cups, all of which can be steeped twice. Buy a French Press for cheap secondhand or for like $10 at Ikea to steep them and go to any tea store or Asian market to ask. They even sell thermoses that have the press inside so you can have loose-leaf to go. Good luck!

Italian: Lobster-stuffed ravioli in white wine-fennel cream sauce, omg...

Mexican: Queso fundido de chorizo y ongos con salsa verde, tacos al pastor y una margarita en las rocas con sal :)

Chinese: Lame, I know, but orange chicken from Panda Express...

Japanese: Miso soup, edamame & a spider roll

Thai: Tom kha gai soup

French: Whole roast rosemary chicken

Indian: Chicken tikka with jasmine saffron rice & naan

Morrocan: Couscous t'faya! Had it in Morocco and it was amazing.

American: Teriyaki pineapple burger with fries & garlic aioli

English: Yorkshire pudding, which my dad makes excellently

Greek: Feta cheese & greek olive

Finally select a country whose cuisine you like but may not be that popular in American dining:

Vietnam: Pho!  Bosnia: Cevapi!   El Salvador: Pupusas!

Too much good food in the world. I wish cooking burned more calories.

I'm going to get one too! I'm afraid of it because even paps hurt me like crazy for a day, so this should be loads of fun. But, I think you might be able to ask your doctor if they have any special procedures that can help numb you up a bit, which I think mine offers, and they said to be sure to take OTC medicine like ibuprofin beforehand to reduce any pain, and to try to relax and take deep breaths while it's happening so you don't tense up.

I think they might take a biopsy at the time if they see something that looks strange, which is kind of a blessing in disguise, since you hopefully wouldn't have to come back a second time to get the biopsy done and can get it all in one sitting. That's what I'm most scared of, honestly, because I tried to have an IUD inserted once and even that being what it was was pretty terrible. Do you have anyone that could come with you while you have the procedure done? It's really not supposed to  be that bad, but it never hurts to have loved ones around.

Anyway, just wanted to empathize with you since I'm getting one too. If you don't mind, let us know how it goes cause I need to prepare myself too. Good luck!

Oh man, I know the feeling. The holidays are terrifying for me. I'm going to give myself leeway not to lose weight, but I cannot -gain- weight. My dad just baked a ton of delicious cookies and fruitcake and nutbread, so I finished off most of that. Greaaat. But now it's time to make sure I count my calories, so that if I end up going over I can at least attempt to make up for it. The only thing I've been able to do to offset my holiday overeating seems to be calorie counting and getting regular activity and exercise - walking the dog, going out dancing, going swimming, walking instead of driving. I'm not good at food control, which is how I gained 20 lbs last year from November to February. But, this year, so far so good - no weight gained - and I'm going to watch myself a little more now that the cookies and breads are mostly gone.

The only problem now is that I just got really sick, too sick to exercise in any form for the last 4 days, and then it's supposed to snow here big time for the next week (and make it impossible to drive - people in Seattle can't drive in snow) and so when I'm better, my gym will probably be closed... :P

Oh god, I've been drunk in way too many foreign countries... Most recently in Guatemala with some polite Englishmen who live there and took my friend and I out drinking to a local village where they go to get a liter of beer at about $2US. They were buying, and my friend and I kept drinking, and although I'm positive I couldn't have consumed much more than a liter or two, by midnight the four of us had plowed through over 13 liters of beer. Which is an inhuman amount. Granted, one of the English guys was a rugby player for 18 years, and they both own bars, so probably that wasn't such a big deal for them. We rode from the village back to town in a tuc-tuc, which was, well, bumpy. Then my friend and the rugby player ended up knocking over a bench in the bar, I was shouting at people loudly (but in a friendly way) in drunken Spanish, a local kid named Manuel borrowed my camera and took pictures of the whole bar, and I remember buying a delicious piece of chocolate cake from an indigenous woman selling it on a giant tray. And the next day, we had to take a 4-hour ride on a chickenbus to another city. If you don't know what a chickenbus is, it's more or less what it sounds like, and not a bit of fun to ride around in with a hangover.

Of course, I have plenty of other international drunken stories - Sarajevo, Sevilla, Dubrovnik, Rome... Egh, hostel hangovers...

Original Post by clairelaine:

There is nothing sadder than a tattoo that was done on young firm skin that has now, many decades later, aged and sagged into wrinkles.  With all the tattoos around, the nursing homes of the future are going to be filled with truely hideous sights.

Heh heh, my mom is a nurse and one of the funniest stories she ever had to tell me was about a tiny wrinkled old lady who was probably 80 at the time, on whom she had to do a dressing change for lower-abdomen and pelvic unpleasantness. Well, this woman was a little on the sour side and without much humor, so when my mom pulled down the woman's skirt to do the dressing change, she said she actually had to excuse herself to the restroom for a moment - the reason being that the old woman had a giant kitten wearing a pink bow tattooed on each butt cheek, which by age 80 was not looking as great as it did at 20. My mom wisely decided it wouldn't be appropriate to laugh until she cried in front of the old lady.

My knees didn't exactly love the treadmill when I first started going to the gym. I do love the elliptical though. I've found that I can get a great workout as long as I push myself hard enough on the elliptical. Still, since I used to avoid the treadmill like the plague, I found myself wondering one day if my aversion to it was simply because I had mean gym teachers in grade school and running reminded me of being yelled at. Well, I decided, screw it, hopped on, and have come to find that I like it too, but in combination with the elliptical.

Basically, I get on the treadmill first and do a speed walk at 3.5 mph and 5+% incline for 15 minutes, then do whatever on the elliptical for 15-30 minutes, then finally I get back on the treadmill and put on this music that goes perfectly with jogging at 4.5 mph for 10-15 minutes, depending on how tired I am. I only like jogging if I have music I like, though - but walking on it is always a fun part of my workout.

When I was in grade school (not that long ago - just graduated 3 years ago), every time I went to buy new school clothes or something for a special day like Homecoming, I was in agonizing pain because I had to buy -gasp- size 10 when my friends were all healthy and natural sizes 2-6, and other girls were even thinner. Looking back on it, while being the heaviest one out of my group was painful, it wasn't painful because of my friends - they were always loving and supportive. It was because I'd spend hours at 14 poring over Seventeen magazine and reading celebrity news, watching the famous shrink thinner and thinner as time went by. Even if this Shenae girl meant this as an innocuous comment about only herself, it just adds to the terrible way pretty much every single young girl feels about herself when she looks at herself in the mirror and thinks, 120 means I'm chunky? But I'm 130 or 140 or 150... etc. Granted, it's different for everybody's frame and height, but still, what a dumb comment for her to make.

Original Post by cellulitedelight:

When I did work as a waitress, I detested the **** who would pile everything on to one plate.  All of their trash, uneaten food, and silverware, all on one plate.  How the hell am I supposed to carry that without dropping stuff all over the place?  Just leave it on your plates, I'll clear it when I get to the kitchen.  I'd rather take two trips to clear your table than one very slow, very awkward trip.

How funny - I actually loved it when people would do that! It's just that I was working in a crazy busy bar/restaurant, so unfortunately we'd have to sacrifice grace for speed sometimes... Granted, I'm not sure how much you're actually talking about being stacked on one plate but if it's a few plates, some napkins and some silverware I don't mind. On the other hand, at some nicer restaurants I've worked at, I would agree - I'm okay with making two graceful trips rather than one slow and awkward heave.

Today I got a tall salted caramel hot chocolate with a shot of espresso, non-fat milk and light whipped cream... Even still, my jaw dropped when I realized I was ingesting 460 calories as well just with that stupid little drink. If I get it again, it'll be a short, no whip and once every two weeks. I wish it weren't so cold outside or I'd get my regular summer Starbucks drink, a venti green tea with no sweetner...

That said, I generally try to avoid Starbucks and head to local coffee shops instead, but the salted caramel hot chocolate is so good...

Shoot. I didn't see that it was 2.5. Well, if it's 2.5, that's setting the bar a little lower. I think that much of the system in school is flawed, seeing as I've had classes where I aced every test and missed 2 pieces of homework and barely made a B, and other classes where the formatting of the class changed so completely from the midterm to the final that nobody in class even managed a C, and certain classes that I thought I'd get a D where I got an A, that it can be hard to tell.

Well, I think that for community colleges, most of the students have other things on their plate - family, full-time jobs, back from a prolonged break, just finished getting their GED - to worry about getting better than 2.5 at all times. However, the univeristy I'm attempting to attend does require a minimum 2.5 GPA at all times, as well as a 2.5 average minimum GPA to even apply, let alone make it in. If you fall below that line, you get on academic probation, and I believe that if you do that two quarters in a row, you get kicked out of your major. I could be wrong, but if you do it yet another quarter, you get kicked out of school completely. I do agree with that system, but I feel there should be exceptions for people who have extraordinary circumstances, like a death in the family or another unexpected event. They should have at least a quarter to make it out without repercussions. But, school is for learning and working hard, so maintaining a 2.5 GPA seems reasonable.

Nope. It's unfair. I had over a 3.5 until... my boyfriend lost his job and moved in with me when I was making $9 an hour, my roommates began to hate me, for the most part unjustly, I was caught in the middle, tried to move back home, found out my parents were divorcing and my mom moving 3 states away, found out my dad was moving in with his girlfriend, had to pack my stuff from home on the night before a final, kept supporting boyfriend, watched the house I grew up in get sold, proceeded to move 4 times in 6 months, etc etc. I'm doing much better now - my boyfriend is supporting me and has a great job, my mom moved back to my state, and my last grades were A's - but you can't expect people to maintain those sort of grades because life happens. I actually failed a class for the first time in my life, but with all that happened, I can't blame myself for doing poorly. Furthermore, I have many talents that can't be measured by a GPA, like speaking 2 foreign languages fluently (which I learned from scratch), working as a tutor, and volunteering, that I feel are more valueable than what my grades have been every quarter. It'd be like not letting somebody into college because their IQ wasn't high enough when it's entirely possible that they just had a bad day when they took the test.

The thing with coffee is that you can overdose on it - I did and it sucked, and ever since I get a stomach ache from having more than a cup or two of drip. And, it hurts your stomach and isn't great for digestion, so I'd skip that. Look up the veggies and fruits highest in fiber (and make sure you're not eating cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower) - a friend of mine suggested papaya as being both a soothing thing for stomachs and something to get things moving. Sweet potatoes and yams are super high in fiber and easy on the stomach... Also, an apple with skin has even more fiber than a prune. So, maybe make yourself a smoothie or something with apple, banana, orange and papaya or something. That might help both to hydrate you and give your digestion a boost.