STORIES, STORIES

Notes on Running by Nessreen I hate running.  I mislike all the things about it. The hard work, the mental anguish, the physical exertion, all the emotional pummelling you get when you hit the track. It’s way more than just running  to me, it's a constant test.  When I run, every part of me is fighting to go against all my natural tendencies of laziness and at-rest spoiled-brattery.  And I suppose that’s what made me take it on. Because I’m nothing if not the kind of person who only knows to excel under extreme, oppressive conditions, whether or not I conjured them myself. I revel in this oppression, and it makes the end of each run for me all the more glorious. When I’m in a yucky pile of sweat and dirt and sometimes tears, and I play back the distance and speed I’d just covered, without fail – I feel fascinated at how much I could endure . How much of something I hate I could endure just to reach a goal that no one but myself cares abo...

Still on the Band by Chukwudi Barrah Seeing a post recently about the Microsoft Band being the best fitness band you never heard about reminded me that I was going to write a review—or rather ended my procrastination in writing a review—about the Band. I've owned mine for five months, paired primarily with my iPhone 6 plus. In that time I have come to the conclusion that the combination of both devices do not meet the requirements for which they were purchased. In essence, I need to change one of these devices. I know, first world problems, right? Not really. The essence of exchanging hard-earned money for electronic devices—or anything, ever—is to derive some sort of satisfaction from those things, and so far my satisfaction has been relatively low (at least compared with my expectations). Again, I know the argument is that experiences are lower than expectations. I'd argue that that is the case if the expectations are set unreasonably high. In my case, I don'...

One of the suckiest things about starting projects is that you are reminded – at almost every turn – of how close you are to failure. This is even more pronounced when you have a tendency towards perfectionism (also sometimes called "illusions of grandeur" and "ambition"). Given my proneness to starting all kinds of shit in all aspects of my life, you can imagine how familiar I am with this affliction. It manifests in all sorts of ways: I suddenly feel like it's a bad idea, that I want to give up and shut it down, that I'll walk away from the project and start something else and clean-slate it, or just simply a bottle of wine paired with a generous helping of self-pity on a weekend. To fight these waves of negativity, I've taken to listing down my "weekly wins", to remind myself that I'm not a (complete) failure. These little wins add up to one giant Band-Aid that I cover my first-world wounds with. For the week of 20 July 2015, ...

One of the best things about living outside of Jeddah is the myriad of fitness and workout options available to me that I'm naturally not taking advantage of, because I'm a well-trained complainer and self-oppressor. Here in Malaysia, you really have to work hard at making excuses. Look at these two old dudes just chillin like martial arts villains on an early Saturday morning. Like whatevs.   See, excuses adjust, too. They're like those people you hate so much: they have feelings, too, and we have to be considerate about them. In Jeddah, I'd whine about expensive gyms getting in my fitness way. I used to go to Z-Club, where they charged about 3,000 US dollars a year (if you were on a corporate account, you get a USD 1,000 discount on that price). Seriously, wtf. Now, there's a gym upstairs from my office that charges about USD 300 a year, and that's considered a fancy gym. WAIT, there's a free gym in my apartment building. It's a ...

I haven't been doing very well on my workout and fitness goals the past few weeks. I went through my Fitness Motivation Files to help me get back on my regular 1-hour 6x a week workout schedule and a normal diet (as opposed to freestyle bingeing), and I found there was almost nothing there that could get me back going. Except one thing. Confident or Confused? One of the arguments I made as to why I have abruptly put my fitness goals on hold is that I've suddenly "become confident about myself". But am I really? I've never had any real problems with my physical appearance, even though "in theory"(major air-quotes), I should: I have unmanageable frizzy hair that is made even worse by the imperfect shape of my head, causing my weak curls to sit awkwardly on top of it, my face is on the unattractive side of ethnically ambiguous and/or Asian, I have alternately dry and oily uneven skin that causes my T-zone to Shine Bright Like a Diamonddd and, at the...

I am a smart person. I am. I promise you. I am inquisitive, self-aware, self-motivational, proactive, articulate, contemplative and focused. Those are also all the reasons why I am so, so profoundly stupid. I inspire the best Jim Halpert break-the-4th-wall face in my brothers and my guy friends. The Jim Face is the male equivalent of eye-rolling.  I like to think they adore me because of it. I HAVE A CUTE DUMBASS QUIRK IN MY PERSONALITY, YOU GUYS! At the sports shop, I asked my fitness and shoes-obsessed brother Othman to help me pick out good running shoes.  Othman : "This pair is good. It's for your gym training, and it's light for your running days, has good support and cushion, and it's water-proof-ish for the rainy weather you're gonna be living in."  Me : "Yeah, no, I don't like it. I want something pink."  Othman : *Jim Face*  Me : "Yeah, that pink one, it's pretty. I'm sure it's good. It's Nike. I...

Why isn't George St Pierre everyone's personal fitness motivator? No, seriously. GSP is a monster . I got into a conversation with Abdullah [of The Order ] about what it is that motivates us where our fitness goals are concerned. Here are mine: 1) Mostly sportswear ads . It takes less less than 2 minutes - the average length of a sports drink or sportswear ad - to get me all pumped up for a grueling hour of workout. It doesn't matter if it's a video of guys or girls working out, just seeing these people choreographed to work out reminds me of the kind of work it takes to get to where I want to be. If I'm honest to myself, of course the music, the make up and the videography has a lot to do with it. How can you resist the temptation of believing  you look just as glamorous and "locked in" as these people when you're  working out? Go get a few overpriced Nike shirts and shoes, while you're at it. Yay consumerism. Hey, if it helps you...

I don't see it as working out, or exercising. I tell myself I'm training. Hard. What am I training for? For when I no longer can. Also, for when Channing Tatum asks me to marry him. I don't want to be the fat one in the couple.

No S on my chest, but I've hit 2 of my major fitness benchmarks this month! The Camel Pose Photo credit: The Internet Remember when I was all OMG PHILOSOPHY AND CONTEMPLATION all over yoga on this post ? In it, I complained about how I couldn't do the camel pose, pictured left in the form of a girl who is not me. Now, eight months after that post, EIGHT MONTHS, I can finally FINALLY DO IT. Like, I'm at that stage where I'd camel pose for anyone who makes the mistake of paying me the smallest amount of attention ever. Like, I'd be at work and a colleague could just be passing by and mumbling "Good morning" and I'm all ::camel poses on the spot::. Yeah, dude. In fact, I'm typing this post in camel pose, motherfuckers. Please also remember how I'm one of those people who can't reach to touch their toes. Or knees for that matter. I'm made of hardcore metal stuff. Flexibility is a cylon word to me. So yes, I am accepting awar...

Whenever I forget, I am reminded of just why it's good to LISTEN to people. I'm a talker. I non-stop blab and I'm loud, and because that's not enough, I like to interrupt people when they're  talking. Listening takes incredible effort. Last night, at a small gathering of Jeddah's young, smart set, I tried this thing where I listened more than I talked. It's stating the obvious, but I really took away a lot from the experience. The subject of Death came up. Like Omar (pictured in left), Death is something that always runs in the background of my mind, like an app you can't really turn off. [ I wrote about it a few weeks ago for one of our  writing sessions ]. Most everyone agreed that we fear death because we just generally fear the unknown, because we fear pain, because we are just built with an innate fear of death, and - the most popular one - because it's the one thing that can stop us from doing all the things we've set out to d...

Hakeem and Abdullah talk about The Order . Follow them for fitness and LOLs, two of my favorite things. Here are reasons why I like these two: * They have never looked better than they do right now. Proper workout routines, good eating habits, discipline, and for Abdullah, quitting smoking. These things work and the guys are living proof. I hate getting (unsolicited) fitness advice from people who aren't themselves fit. These two can go on for all I care, I'm listening. * They're real because I know them in real life. They happened. * They're funny. 

Now that we're safely past New Year's Resolution season (by now, most of us have slowed down on the gusto we started off with, AMIRITE?), and because I am reverse-hipster, I'm making public my own resolutions. In keeping with reverse-hipsterdom, I started working on my New Year's Resolution in December last year, so I'm really just continuing the work. I call it The Yes Man Plan, because how can anyone not love any movie Jim Carrey is in? I have 3 goals this year: Fitness, The Having of Lots of Money, and Writer Betterment. The Yes Man Plan states that I will say Yes to anything that will contribute to either one of those 3 goals, and No to anything that takes away from it. The simplicity of this plan hurts my head. I've done years and years of overcomplication and over-analysis that just settling for something this simple is gonna take me a little time. It's been working for me so far. Not excellently, because I am nothing if not below-average, bu...

It's officially the 3rd year of my Great Flirtation with Fitness! The last 2 Januaries were nice because when I looked back a year, the changes were huge - I'd dropped down a few dress sizes, my weight in kilos reduced dramatically, and my fitness level several notches higher than when I first started out. THIS year, though? Disappointing. Not disastrous, just disappointing. Last year, I committed to Hakeem's Veggiesaurs program and was excited about the changes I would see a year on. Well, there have been zero changes. I'm at the same weight, same dress size, same fitness level as exactly one year ago today. Now, sure, that's not a bad thing at all, coz at least I didn't gain weight, right? The problem is that I wasn't consistent at all this year. I went through cycles of frenzied workouts + healthy eating and fat-ass binges with no exercise for weeks on end. You'd think that after a couple years of this, I'd have at least done away with ...