I don't have much to say today, but this video from The Office (British version) makes me cry (with laughter) every time I watch it. Which is a lot. Enjoy!
The Office (David Brent rules)
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Friday, March 30, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Though Feb and I are still basking in the glow of our newly regained bliss (it's the one month anniversary of new re-relationship-ness today!), there is one teensy weensy problem that just doesn't seem to be going away.
I'm insanely jealous, Readers. I don't know what's wrong with me! I'm not a jealous person in general, really, and I usually try not to be around people who are because it's just so exhausting. But lately I have become a very jealous long-distance girlfriend who cannot stand the thought of other girls being around Feb.
I think that part of the problem dates back to when I was in Foreignland. Feb and I went on a little mini-vacation to Foreignland's most well-known and popular city. We toured the sights, enjoyed the shopping and food and some theater, and even managed to find an exclusive little night club where we secured a cozy booth and snuggled together while sipping overpriced cocktails.
Feb stood up and offered to get another round. I was feeling particularly affectionate by this point and insisted on coming with him. He headed toward the bar, and I was about two steps behind him when another girl stopped him with a hand on his arm. She stepped close to him, her long, straight brown hair brushing against him and her wide, shapely mouth curving upward as she leaned in.
"Excuse me," she smiled, hand still resting on his forearm. "Do you know where the bathroom is?"
"No, sorry," Feb replied.
"Oh." The girl paused, pouted. (By this point I was ready to jump on her and squeeze her dainty little throat). "Well," she purred, leaning ever closer, "would you like to come find it with me?"
I nearly choked. I was standing RIGHT THERE! Feb turned her down quickly and politely, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to the bar. I shot her evil ice daggers with my eyes and tried to make her feel lucky that I have an accent and am clearly a tourist in her country that she is liley to never see again.
The point of this little fable, readers? Feb is really attractive. As in hot. As in attractive enough that girls will try to pick him up while his girlfriend is standing two steps away!
And really, I'm lucky to have such a good looking guy who is also amazing, I know, but it is really not great when I am halfway around the world and am all too aware that the majority of hot young things in Foreignland are interested in MY prime real estate. (Was that too far over the cheesy line? I kind of liked it!)
Anyway, I was doing some myspace stalking the other day, and realized just how many girls Feb is friends with. I know he sees them as innocent friendships; he is an incredibly friendly person who is really nice to everyone he meets, male or female. It's just that most of his friends who are female have, at one point or another, tried to get together with him (and yes, that runs the full spectrum of meanings that that phrase can hold!) And he has rejected them, explained to them again about his lovely Canadian girlfriend who is holding her breath and waiting for him, and told them he is not available nor interested. Yet they keep hanging on his every word and laughing at all his jokes, believing deep down that no long-distance relationship can really work, and if they keep wearing their skimpy little outfits and playing coyly with their white-blond hair, they will eventually win him over. I can't stand it! It wouldn't be as much of a problem if they weren't all pretty, skinny girls, but they are, which makes everything worse.
Call me crazy, but when I go to leave a comment on his myspace page as a little surprise (I dislike myspace, so writing to him on it is a special treat for Feb!), I am not thrilled to see these aforementioned girls littering his page with their pictures and flirtatious comments. Today it made me so mad that I went for a run. A good long one, and with every step I told myself that I would lose more weight and become a thousand times prettier than Feb already thinks I am, and a million times hotter than the silly little girls that surround his life.
Shallow? Maybe. Perhaps that's not the best bit of arsenal in my collections of motivation for losing weight and getting fitter, but it works. Plus, if I can show up in Foreignland and be fit enought to look better than the foreign chicks in a great pair of jeans and be strong enough to wring their necks if they ever lay their hands on Feb again, then all the better!
I'm insanely jealous, Readers. I don't know what's wrong with me! I'm not a jealous person in general, really, and I usually try not to be around people who are because it's just so exhausting. But lately I have become a very jealous long-distance girlfriend who cannot stand the thought of other girls being around Feb.
I think that part of the problem dates back to when I was in Foreignland. Feb and I went on a little mini-vacation to Foreignland's most well-known and popular city. We toured the sights, enjoyed the shopping and food and some theater, and even managed to find an exclusive little night club where we secured a cozy booth and snuggled together while sipping overpriced cocktails.
Feb stood up and offered to get another round. I was feeling particularly affectionate by this point and insisted on coming with him. He headed toward the bar, and I was about two steps behind him when another girl stopped him with a hand on his arm. She stepped close to him, her long, straight brown hair brushing against him and her wide, shapely mouth curving upward as she leaned in.
"Excuse me," she smiled, hand still resting on his forearm. "Do you know where the bathroom is?"
"No, sorry," Feb replied.
"Oh." The girl paused, pouted. (By this point I was ready to jump on her and squeeze her dainty little throat). "Well," she purred, leaning ever closer, "would you like to come find it with me?"
I nearly choked. I was standing RIGHT THERE! Feb turned her down quickly and politely, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to the bar. I shot her evil ice daggers with my eyes and tried to make her feel lucky that I have an accent and am clearly a tourist in her country that she is liley to never see again.
The point of this little fable, readers? Feb is really attractive. As in hot. As in attractive enough that girls will try to pick him up while his girlfriend is standing two steps away!
And really, I'm lucky to have such a good looking guy who is also amazing, I know, but it is really not great when I am halfway around the world and am all too aware that the majority of hot young things in Foreignland are interested in MY prime real estate. (Was that too far over the cheesy line? I kind of liked it!)
Anyway, I was doing some myspace stalking the other day, and realized just how many girls Feb is friends with. I know he sees them as innocent friendships; he is an incredibly friendly person who is really nice to everyone he meets, male or female. It's just that most of his friends who are female have, at one point or another, tried to get together with him (and yes, that runs the full spectrum of meanings that that phrase can hold!) And he has rejected them, explained to them again about his lovely Canadian girlfriend who is holding her breath and waiting for him, and told them he is not available nor interested. Yet they keep hanging on his every word and laughing at all his jokes, believing deep down that no long-distance relationship can really work, and if they keep wearing their skimpy little outfits and playing coyly with their white-blond hair, they will eventually win him over. I can't stand it! It wouldn't be as much of a problem if they weren't all pretty, skinny girls, but they are, which makes everything worse.
Call me crazy, but when I go to leave a comment on his myspace page as a little surprise (I dislike myspace, so writing to him on it is a special treat for Feb!), I am not thrilled to see these aforementioned girls littering his page with their pictures and flirtatious comments. Today it made me so mad that I went for a run. A good long one, and with every step I told myself that I would lose more weight and become a thousand times prettier than Feb already thinks I am, and a million times hotter than the silly little girls that surround his life.
Shallow? Maybe. Perhaps that's not the best bit of arsenal in my collections of motivation for losing weight and getting fitter, but it works. Plus, if I can show up in Foreignland and be fit enought to look better than the foreign chicks in a great pair of jeans and be strong enough to wring their necks if they ever lay their hands on Feb again, then all the better!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
My last post seemed to attract more readers than usual . . . I have the nagging feeling that there are lots of people out there who struggle with their personal fitness and health goals. I guess that is a given in our society: we are all aware of the "supermodel syndrome", the ridiculous expectations that we and society place upon our bodies and personal image, the fact that every woman (and probably lots of men, too) will always have something that she cannot accept about herself. Really, all one has to do is look at the young women around her to see the insecurities and confidence issues that plague the collective female consciousness.
I think that lots of companies are starting to pick up on this problem, and some are even trying to address it and change the status quo. Dove in particular does a great job; I'd encourage everyone to check out the Campaign for Real Beauty website to see tons of videos that feature everyone from young girls to older women talking about their self image and their struggle to come to grips with who they are and what they have been created to be.
Subservient Worker recently voiced some of the problems she faces in my comments section and asked for any advice I might be able to offer. I don't know if she quite knew what she was getting herself into with that request-- I could talk about this subject for hours! But, for the sake of you all, I will try to keep this abbreviated.
SW, I feel your pain! In lives as busy as ours, it often becomes difficult to eat well and exercise. It feels like we only have enough time or willpower to do one or the other, but to keep control of both is far too great an exertion in the midst of work and school and homelife and long distance relationships that depend entirely on webcams. (Maybe that last one just applies to me . . .)
Firstly, though, I want to encourage you that losing five pounds is a HUGE accomplishment, and to say congratulations! It is so easy for us to look at the number five, or seven, or even two, and think "That's nothing! I need to lose so much more than that!", and then we get discouraged. I once had a coworker who was working really hard to lose weight. She had been over 250 pounds for as long as I'd known her, and was just starting to attend a weight loss support group and really work on improving her health and lower her body weight. I remember I was once sharing with her my own frustrations about my body, and she told me something I will never forget, mainly because it came from someone who had clearly faced her own unique battle in this area.
"LM," she said, "when you think of losing five pounds of fat, it often doesn't seem like much, and I understand that you can get annoyed that the pounds aren't flying off. But look at this." She went to our office fridge and pulled out the industrial size five-pound tub of margarine that someone had left in the fridge for everyone's use. "Look at this tub. The fat you lost in the last month, the five pounds you worked so hard to get rid of, would fill this container. Feel how heavy it is. Look at it and imagine how much work it would take to make this entire container just disappear. That is what you have accomplished!"
And even if it sounds silly, ever since then, I have learned to picture my weight losses, small or large, in one pound blocks or five pound tubs of butter or margarine. To be able to look at a physical object and know that I, through sheer determination and hard work, have forcibly removed its equivalent in fat from my body is a huge boost for my self-esteem. It has really taught me to appreciate my own efforts and to celebrate the small successes along the way.
As for the fine balance between keeping up our healthy eating efforts and exercise goals at the same time, I can only share what I find helps me. This method may not work for everyone because we all have different ways of envisioning ourselves and our fitness efforts, but over the last few years, when I really started caring about my health, I have developed this habit which has helped me control this tricky area.
I look at calories. You see, 3500 calories equals one pound of fat. If you were to eliminate 500 calories from your diet everyday, over seven days you would lose one pound. So, I figure out how many calories I need to take in to maintain my current body weight (if you want this formula, feel free to ask/comment/email me). Then I take 500 calories off of the total, and over that week, I should lose one pound. The 500 calories can be either directly taken out of your diet, or they can be burned off by exercise, or a combination of both.
Using simple math like this helps me because it is indisputable fact. If you take away those 500 calories each day, you will lose the weight, no questions asked. To help myself control my eating, I tend to look at the calories I am burning while I am, say, exercising on the elliptical machine. In 25 minutes on the machine, I burn about 350 calories if I am working pretty hard. Later that day, if I am tempted to eat a bar of Swiss chocolate with hazelnuts (my absolute favorite!), I will look at the nutrition information on the bar and see that it contains 300 calories.
Then I think to myself, "I just worked really really hard to burn 350 calories. If I eat this chocolate bar now, will it be worth nearly 'cancelling out' all of the sweat and effort I just put in to burning the equivalent amount from my body?" Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes no. But at least I know that I have stopped to evaluate my choices, and by attaching a real experience (the sweat and pain I endured at the gym) to what I am putting into my body, I have a better understanding of what the food that I am eating will mean to my exercise regime in upcoming days.
I hope this helps. Like I said, some people don't operate by imagining the "trade off" between food and exercise, but this is a really effective tool for me when I am struggling to make good choices for my mind and body.
And my former coworker? She lost about 95 pounds and not only looks amazing, but is healthy and vibrant and able to do so much more than before. May the margarine tub illustration live on!
I think that lots of companies are starting to pick up on this problem, and some are even trying to address it and change the status quo. Dove in particular does a great job; I'd encourage everyone to check out the Campaign for Real Beauty website to see tons of videos that feature everyone from young girls to older women talking about their self image and their struggle to come to grips with who they are and what they have been created to be.
Subservient Worker recently voiced some of the problems she faces in my comments section and asked for any advice I might be able to offer. I don't know if she quite knew what she was getting herself into with that request-- I could talk about this subject for hours! But, for the sake of you all, I will try to keep this abbreviated.
SW, I feel your pain! In lives as busy as ours, it often becomes difficult to eat well and exercise. It feels like we only have enough time or willpower to do one or the other, but to keep control of both is far too great an exertion in the midst of work and school and homelife and long distance relationships that depend entirely on webcams. (Maybe that last one just applies to me . . .)
Firstly, though, I want to encourage you that losing five pounds is a HUGE accomplishment, and to say congratulations! It is so easy for us to look at the number five, or seven, or even two, and think "That's nothing! I need to lose so much more than that!", and then we get discouraged. I once had a coworker who was working really hard to lose weight. She had been over 250 pounds for as long as I'd known her, and was just starting to attend a weight loss support group and really work on improving her health and lower her body weight. I remember I was once sharing with her my own frustrations about my body, and she told me something I will never forget, mainly because it came from someone who had clearly faced her own unique battle in this area.
"LM," she said, "when you think of losing five pounds of fat, it often doesn't seem like much, and I understand that you can get annoyed that the pounds aren't flying off. But look at this." She went to our office fridge and pulled out the industrial size five-pound tub of margarine that someone had left in the fridge for everyone's use. "Look at this tub. The fat you lost in the last month, the five pounds you worked so hard to get rid of, would fill this container. Feel how heavy it is. Look at it and imagine how much work it would take to make this entire container just disappear. That is what you have accomplished!"
And even if it sounds silly, ever since then, I have learned to picture my weight losses, small or large, in one pound blocks or five pound tubs of butter or margarine. To be able to look at a physical object and know that I, through sheer determination and hard work, have forcibly removed its equivalent in fat from my body is a huge boost for my self-esteem. It has really taught me to appreciate my own efforts and to celebrate the small successes along the way.
As for the fine balance between keeping up our healthy eating efforts and exercise goals at the same time, I can only share what I find helps me. This method may not work for everyone because we all have different ways of envisioning ourselves and our fitness efforts, but over the last few years, when I really started caring about my health, I have developed this habit which has helped me control this tricky area.
I look at calories. You see, 3500 calories equals one pound of fat. If you were to eliminate 500 calories from your diet everyday, over seven days you would lose one pound. So, I figure out how many calories I need to take in to maintain my current body weight (if you want this formula, feel free to ask/comment/email me). Then I take 500 calories off of the total, and over that week, I should lose one pound. The 500 calories can be either directly taken out of your diet, or they can be burned off by exercise, or a combination of both.
Using simple math like this helps me because it is indisputable fact. If you take away those 500 calories each day, you will lose the weight, no questions asked. To help myself control my eating, I tend to look at the calories I am burning while I am, say, exercising on the elliptical machine. In 25 minutes on the machine, I burn about 350 calories if I am working pretty hard. Later that day, if I am tempted to eat a bar of Swiss chocolate with hazelnuts (my absolute favorite!), I will look at the nutrition information on the bar and see that it contains 300 calories.
Then I think to myself, "I just worked really really hard to burn 350 calories. If I eat this chocolate bar now, will it be worth nearly 'cancelling out' all of the sweat and effort I just put in to burning the equivalent amount from my body?" Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes no. But at least I know that I have stopped to evaluate my choices, and by attaching a real experience (the sweat and pain I endured at the gym) to what I am putting into my body, I have a better understanding of what the food that I am eating will mean to my exercise regime in upcoming days.
I hope this helps. Like I said, some people don't operate by imagining the "trade off" between food and exercise, but this is a really effective tool for me when I am struggling to make good choices for my mind and body.
And my former coworker? She lost about 95 pounds and not only looks amazing, but is healthy and vibrant and able to do so much more than before. May the margarine tub illustration live on!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
My blog-friend OTC (mentioned in last post) has begun a running program called "The Couch-to-5K Running Plan". Her commitment to get in shape has inspired me! As you know, I am still engaged in the battle for BB 07, and I do visit the gym at least 4 times a week. I do cardio every time, and alternate between working my upper and lower body with each visit.
Altogether, I'd say I do a pretty respectable job of working up a sweat. I have noticed some great new muscle tone developing, and overall, I look leaner and trimmer. There is just one little problem . . . there is still fat everywhere!
Okay, maybe not everywhere. But I'm sure most of you female readers understand what I am going through, here. I used to be very fit and ran for an hour almost every day, and then did weights AND another half hour of cardio after that. Five days a week . . . back when I had no life!! Nowadays, I am a very busy girl who is just trying to stay healthy and fit and is struggling to find the time to do even that!
The problem isn't so much my physical condition now-- I mean, it's not that bad. It's just that once you've had a taste of being at your fitness peak, of fitting into anything you try on and looking great, of getting compliments all the time on your shape, well, it's hard to go back. This is what I'm referring to when I say that I'm sure most female readers understand this feeling- it's the knowledge that you aren't what you used to be, and it's hard to come to grips with.
So, in the endeavor to put aside my feelings of frustration and self-loathing everytime I look longingly at the tiny pairs of jeans littering my closet that I just can't quite do up anymore, I have taken up this running plan with OTC as my accountability partner! Though I don't think that either of us are quite at the point where we are going from the couch, as the name of the plan suggests, I am taking comfort in the fact that if the plan is made for couch potatoes, it can't be that hard!
I just got home from doing my first workout of week two. I'm feeling good, and hoping that this will be the kickstart that my little self-help body-scultping regime needs. After all, it is March and I seem to have plateaued at a weight loss of 10 pounds since the beginning of the year that I just can't seem to budge past. Sometimes a bit of variety is all you need to push yourself past that roadblock. Let's keep our fingers crossed that turning back to running once more is just the variety I need!
Altogether, I'd say I do a pretty respectable job of working up a sweat. I have noticed some great new muscle tone developing, and overall, I look leaner and trimmer. There is just one little problem . . . there is still fat everywhere!
Okay, maybe not everywhere. But I'm sure most of you female readers understand what I am going through, here. I used to be very fit and ran for an hour almost every day, and then did weights AND another half hour of cardio after that. Five days a week . . . back when I had no life!! Nowadays, I am a very busy girl who is just trying to stay healthy and fit and is struggling to find the time to do even that!
The problem isn't so much my physical condition now-- I mean, it's not that bad. It's just that once you've had a taste of being at your fitness peak, of fitting into anything you try on and looking great, of getting compliments all the time on your shape, well, it's hard to go back. This is what I'm referring to when I say that I'm sure most female readers understand this feeling- it's the knowledge that you aren't what you used to be, and it's hard to come to grips with.
So, in the endeavor to put aside my feelings of frustration and self-loathing everytime I look longingly at the tiny pairs of jeans littering my closet that I just can't quite do up anymore, I have taken up this running plan with OTC as my accountability partner! Though I don't think that either of us are quite at the point where we are going from the couch, as the name of the plan suggests, I am taking comfort in the fact that if the plan is made for couch potatoes, it can't be that hard!
I just got home from doing my first workout of week two. I'm feeling good, and hoping that this will be the kickstart that my little self-help body-scultping regime needs. After all, it is March and I seem to have plateaued at a weight loss of 10 pounds since the beginning of the year that I just can't seem to budge past. Sometimes a bit of variety is all you need to push yourself past that roadblock. Let's keep our fingers crossed that turning back to running once more is just the variety I need!
Monday, March 12, 2007
Thanks, On the Cusp, for the comment- I do need to get myself updating, don't I?! Sorry about the delay . . . it's funny how when things are going right in life you tend to neglect certain pursuits. I find the same thing happens with prayer. I always pray when things are going wrong or I don't know what to do, but when everything seems right, I just forget about communicating with the Higher Being. I'm not sure what that says about me, but hey, at least I'm honest!
Yes, things have been "hot and heavy" with Feb lately. He LOVES his webcam, and I think it really is very helpful for us. Seeing someone makes such a huge difference when you talk to them- it really cuts down on the little snarls and arguments that can arise from only hearing their voice. I can see when he is joking, I can see when he is getting frustrated, and I can see his beautiful smile . . . how could I possibly ever get mad again!?
Basically, things are going well between us. I am still hesitant to tell him how I feel. He knows it, and sometimes asks me if I am holding back because I don't want to be hurt. I just say yes. I think it's good that he knows that I am still wary of him; it keeps us both on our toes. I am simply not interested in having any sort of pretense in this relationship, so if I am scared of him, he is going to know it!
In other news, I am in the middle of (count 'em!) three group projects for school right now! It is utter madness, especially since one of my groups appears to have, collectively, a grade four reading and writing level. It is honestly disgraceful. Basically what happens is that I collect the work that each of us brings in each week, take it home, and rewrite ALL of it. I make it understandable, replace made-up words with real ones, add adjectives and lots of nice description, and try to make it something that anyone with an education beyond grade seven might enjoy reading. It really is that bad.
Aside from doing four times the amount of normal work that I should be doing with that one group, however, my other projects are coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to the end of the term in a few weeks. Feb is all concerned about me starting my new classes, but I have told him that they will begin in April, and I will see them through to completion- I need to get this designation if I want my dream job! After that, the possibilities of when I may go to Foreignland will be open for discussion . . .
Yes, things have been "hot and heavy" with Feb lately. He LOVES his webcam, and I think it really is very helpful for us. Seeing someone makes such a huge difference when you talk to them- it really cuts down on the little snarls and arguments that can arise from only hearing their voice. I can see when he is joking, I can see when he is getting frustrated, and I can see his beautiful smile . . . how could I possibly ever get mad again!?
Basically, things are going well between us. I am still hesitant to tell him how I feel. He knows it, and sometimes asks me if I am holding back because I don't want to be hurt. I just say yes. I think it's good that he knows that I am still wary of him; it keeps us both on our toes. I am simply not interested in having any sort of pretense in this relationship, so if I am scared of him, he is going to know it!
In other news, I am in the middle of (count 'em!) three group projects for school right now! It is utter madness, especially since one of my groups appears to have, collectively, a grade four reading and writing level. It is honestly disgraceful. Basically what happens is that I collect the work that each of us brings in each week, take it home, and rewrite ALL of it. I make it understandable, replace made-up words with real ones, add adjectives and lots of nice description, and try to make it something that anyone with an education beyond grade seven might enjoy reading. It really is that bad.
Aside from doing four times the amount of normal work that I should be doing with that one group, however, my other projects are coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to the end of the term in a few weeks. Feb is all concerned about me starting my new classes, but I have told him that they will begin in April, and I will see them through to completion- I need to get this designation if I want my dream job! After that, the possibilities of when I may go to Foreignland will be open for discussion . . .
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