STORIES, STORIES

I knew that I'd have to face the issue of fixing up my diet at some point. I just didn't think it would be this soon. My original plan was to get on it after I'd successfully put in place a proper workout routine that won't require my trying to make excuses for not working out. That was my first mistake, of course. I will always and forever try to get out of exercise. There's a billion other things I would really rather do than work out. With this binge-encouraging month of Ramadan upon us, I've had to grab whatever I could to keep myself under control, which really isn't much. I am grossly unfamiliar with the term "self-control". Saying stuff like "I'm such a pig" when it comes to over-eating is a major understatement. I'm always constantly eating crap. Not in small portions, either. People who fast, especially in Jeddah, are no strangers to that psychological affliction of I MUST SHOVEL FOOD INTO MY MOUTH CONTINUOUSLY UNT...

I've discovered a side effect of working out almost everyday: Pushing myself all the time.  I've carved this mantra on to my brain so that whenever there's a new, tough move that I think I can't do, I just automatically push myself a little more. What, can't lift heavier? PUSH YOURSELF. What, can't double jump-rope for 30 seconds? PUSH YOURSELF, YA WIMP. Most days it works. Every workout is a challenge that I work hard to beat. This became a side effect only when I started yoga. I've never done yoga before because, I dunno, I'm just not into that whole zen spirituality thing. My idea of zen has always been to sit down and read, very minimal physical exertion. Or play Letris on my phone. A few weeks back, I started seeing yoga as another form of exercise that I can try to test my limits on. It worked the first few times. There's so much in yoga that puts to test my core strength, my chest and arms, my breathing technique, all those things I...

It's strange to be writing here again. I almost can't account for the past month - it flew by with very minimal change. One year and 4 months into my fitness challenge and everything is just as difficult as the first day I started, if not more  difficult. The laziness hasn't gone away, and neither have the excuses, but what I've learned to do is to LIVE with them, maybe tiptoe around them every now and then and avoid their vise-like grip. Most importantly, I've learned that there is no secret. Just consistency. Powering through. Also, you become a meathead. Last weekend, I spent a few hours talking to a couple of friends about nothing but workout stuffs. So there's that. Here's something that helps me: motivational marketing-heavy sports ads. BRB, protecting this house. P.S. I'm working on making That Jeddah Podcast biggerstrongerbetterfaster, and it would really help me if you guys would answer this 2-minute survey . 

I got into this whole fitness thing the same way I get into everything else: all out. Just ask my friends - they're the ones who have to put up with my nonstop blabbering about it. I took up running late last year. Granted, Jeddah isn't the best place to start running, me being female and all (in fact, anything easy to do in other parts of the world is almost always pretty tough in the kingdom), but that's the thing about running. Once you've made up your mind to do it, you just do it, whatever the obstacles.  I know that's the kind of vague, inspirational crap that those annoyingly fit freaks always spit out, but I understand that now, and maybe I'm toe-ing the line. I started out last year I couldn't run for 30 seconds straight without feeling like I would die. I've gone up 30 minutes now, at 7mph, and I still can't believe I can do it.  The thing I've learned about fitness is that once you get so into it, it's no longer about...

It's a new year, friends! When "change" becomes our favorite key word. There have been many changes around here, the most notable one being the religious police's very assertive presence in the city. The general mood here is mostly "No, we're not going out, we don't want to risk getting caught by the religious police", if you are wanting to know. For many years, we've enjoyed a pretty lax and "open" Jeddah, but that has obviously changed. Whether or not it's just another one of those fear-mongering projects that we are sadly accustomed to doesn't matter, because really, isn't this part of the package you sign up for when you move to Saudi Arabia?  But. Moving on to some pretty good changes.  Regular BSG friend of this blog,  Hakeem , is gearing up to start Veggiesaur Dawn , where he will be building and monitoring his own fitness goals while at the same time being part of a community that could "spot"...

The weighing scale is my worst enemy when it comes to my weight loss superplans. But you know what they say about your enemies. KEEP THEM CLOSE.  I keep mine in the kitchen.

This is the locker room at the spa floor of the gym I go to.  I've been working out for about 2 years now, almost half of that time at the gym. You know how fitness geeks are always talking about that adrenaline rush you get when you work out, how your body CRAVES exercise, and how you REALLY REALLY feel good after an especially difficult workout that you somehow survived?  That doesn't really happen until after you've been working out for a while. The first year will be full of being lazy and practically bribing yourself (with food and/or money) to go to the gym/exercise. But soldier on. By the second year, working out will be such a part of your routine that no amount of excuses (coming from yourself or the people around you) can stop you from getting your daily workout. Trust.

Look what I had for lunch the other day: I repeat: a cheese sandwich and a banana. I have decided to become healthy and vegetarian, and to change my whole diet and lifestyle.  Hahaha I LIE SO MUCH. The sentence above holds no truth. Mere minutes after I ate this lunch, I ordered a pizza.  I have, however, just started monitoring my food and calorie-intake with MyFitnessPal , and it's awesome. I like to track just about anything I do, and this website just does everything for me. Weight loss is just as much psychological as it is physical, so if you're like me, you need to do all kinds of shit to trick yourself into losing weight and just generally being healthy. If you're in a weight-loss rut, and you take advice from an unhealthy blogger, go try this website!

Some tips on how to change your lifestyle and become the healthy person you deserve to be: 1) Go to the gym. Of course this means managing your time, so if you work all day and go to the gym after work, don't forget to pack your gym bag. 2) If you must eat at a restaurant with fatty food stuffs (and you know you must), eat guacamole. Live.

This post demonstrates how I'm a whore for: A) Good advertising. I'm Mad Men's dream target market: when I see a good ad, I just eat it up and go and buy the product. B) Anything purple. That's how I make decisions. If I have to choose most anything, I go with the color I like. I haven't owned a pair of Nike shoes since I was 13, which was a hundred years ago (I still remember, they were Air Jordans , when I thought I was a kickass basketball player). I needed new shoes because apparently, when one is losing weight, one's feet might also shrink! Who'd have thought? These were the simplest I could find, and they are really comfortable and lightweight. I wish we could run here. I'm gonna start running soon. 100 points, Team Potato Chips! You are champion!

I'm still playing Portal 2 . I only manage an hour of it at a time, mostly because I'm not physics-inclined, and it takes me forever to understand spatial information. Also, I have a very minor form of ADD, so minor that in fact it is not ADD and is just a lack of focus. My brain gets tired after a half hour of thinking because it's so not used to this activity. My brother finds this a great source of amusement, and takes this opportunity to state a very obvious fact when we play cooperative mode on this game: "Maybe you're just stupid." I object, of course, because while I have caused his death a multitude number of times, I myself have yet to die just as often . Who's stupid now, bitch? EH? EH? I've also recently injured my knee. WOO-HOO. This officially graduates me to the level of REAL LIFE ATHLETE, since I acquired my magnificent knee injury over playing a sport. 100 points, Team Potato Chips! HUZZAH! Now that I am limited to doing knee re...

I've successfully emptied out my wardrobe. By the time I was done, I had a boxful of my fat clothes ready to be chucked out. Another victory for Team Potato Chips! Goodbye, my size 20 sweatpants. May we never meet again.

Today, I successfully pulled myself together and away from the bag of chips I was raping while trolling the intertubes. In the process, I halted my own mutation into one huge potato chip. I therefore feel I have earned the right to brag about my best month yet (in terms of working out) - March. As you can see in this here graph, I worked my butt off, and got nothing in return. No bets won, no real weight loss, and no obvious change in my appearance. My only real reward is Bragging Rights. HUZZAH! Oh, hai! Look who's training for Squash! Wenyhoo, I don't get to take pictures of people outdoors much, so when I have the chance, I grab that shit. I'd asked Turki, who's home from the UK for spring break, to drop me off at the gym. But not before I shot him in the middle of the street. We had quite an audience, too. And then, when I got to the gym, Klaudia the trainer asks me: "Oh, you painted your hair red!" And I said, after a pause, "Yes. Yes, act...

I have a new fitness/weight loss goal. I want to look healthy and slim so that when I get on one of those bikes at the gym with the backrest, eating a bag of chips while pedaling at 10 pedals/minute and watching TV, it will look REALLY FUNNY. This goal shall be named "Lulz". Speaking of gym, I saw Sera today, whose house we desecrated for hours one fine weekend with our BSG board game while she was away gallivanting in India. [That, my friends, is how you segue. (You know, coz Sera and I always talk about the gym and working out, and her hubby Joey is my BSG buddy, and I am about to post pictures from that day. It's like the 6 degrees of separation. In writing. Husssaahhh!)]  Rayan trolled the game. And Didi photobombed.  This Guy. Is such an Adama .  The thing about being my friend is that you are bound to turn up on my blog. It's written in that fine, fine print you didn't read or take seriously, found at the bottom of that paper you didn't know you ...

The thing about going to the gym is that you think everyone's checking you out, or talking about you, when the truth is, everyone's too busy thinking everyone's checking THEM out. The best way to deal with this is to just think you're a huge celebrity: whether or not people are talking about you shouldn't matter anymore because you're so used to it.  Changing rooms at the gym: the hub of female scrutiny, where confidence is built or broken. Funny enough, I feel more comfortable in a mixed gym than in a ladies-only one. There is less scrutiny. Or maybe there is MORE scrutiny, but it's more expected. If that makes sense.  Going to the gym needs a lot more than just paying for the membership (and then regretting it). It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, motivation and planning. You have to think of your goals. There are 2 excellent goals you can set when you go to the gym. 1) To become healthy. I've said this before about psychologizing yourself whe...

I loved this Victoria's Secret 2010 show. It's fun, the outfits were beautiful, the models gorgeous, very creative, confident, so vibrant and just fun. (Saw it on Heba's blog. ) What man watching didn't think "I'd love to be with a woman like that"? More importantly, what woman watching didn't think "I'd love to be THAT woman"? Yes, my friends, I know, we have discussed this extensively. That whole image of the perfect woman (at least appearance-wise), and its effect on society, human behavior, and ultimately, health, so on and so forth. And no, I'm not shitting on my skinny, gorgeous friends (who also happen to be models) just because I'm not them. This is about realizing certain things. Some men who end up with plus-size women are just "settling" because that's "all they could get". Especially if they believe that women are only attractive if they look like a certain way (which is like a skinny model, or ...

Blog, Heart Rate Monitor. Heart Rate Monitor, Blog. This is the Polar F6. I initially didn't want it (or need it) because I'm pretty nerdy when it comes to my workout sessions, and I have this book where I record all of my activity and graph my pattern. (Sue me.) Some of the info that I log on to my workout book are the following: * Calories I consumed per day * Length of my workout * What kind of workout I did (cardio, strength, etc) * Calories I burned during that workout * Little notes to myself such as: "YOU MAJORLY FAILED TODAY" or "I LOVE YOU BASKIN ROBBINS, NO MATTER WHAT" I knew about the whole heart rate thing, how to get in what zone to achieve what goal for my workout. (If you want to know more about it, click here ) I didn't take it seriously, though, because I am, in fact, quite busy, contrary to popular belief, and I can't spend more than 5 minutes geeking out on my workout log. Besides, I've always relied on my instincts as to whet...

"Sorry, honey, did you say FAT? I couldn't hear you with all that ugly you have going on your face." A friend of ours once remarked how she found it interesting that most plus-size women she knew were cheerful, happy people. "They're just always in such a happy mood! Always breezing through! And they have such hearty laughs!" she said, a decidedly smart woman for knowing the consequences of saying "You" instead of "They". You know why they're so happy? Coz they fucking eat. It's true that food makes happy people fat, but it's also true that food makes fat people happy. You know what else makes them laugh so heartily? Fat jokes. I don't mean the mean, gossip-y type that insecure women (whether or not they are fat) always indulge in. I mean like the ones that toe the line that separates funny from pathetic. Not all plus-size women are emotional eaters, not all of them (ahem) are depressed or un-confident, and not all of them...

What's purple and brown and pink all over? Hint: If you're not me wearing a purple dress after spending the whole day suntanning (aka burning), then it's not you. Still don't get it? That's okay. Here, I spent the whole day hanging out with S and J: This picture was taken at around 11am, but it's dark because.. well, it's dark, I don't know why. I just took it with my mobile phone camera. *** So, back to Fat Issues. Dear People-Who-Would-Like-To-Support-Friends-Or-Family-Trying-To-Lose-Weight, Here are some things you can do to help. 1. Stop comparing me to the other fat girl you know who went and "did it", lost some weight, all on her own, diet and exercise, persevered, and is now finally thin. (I mean "healthy". ) That's not really a motivational technique. It's more like a "fuck you, thanks, I'm working my ass off here and it's still not good enough for you" technique. It's especially not motivating wh...

There comes a time in your little diet when you start to feel confident. It could be because of several reasons; maybe now your clothes have start to become loose, maybe people have started to take notice of some weight loss, maybe you're getting more attention from the opposite sex, or maybe, like me, you just feel like you can do anything after you've survived at least a couple months of (almost) daily exercise. Whatever the reason is, it is at this exact moment that you start to think: "You know what, fuck it. Really, I don't need exercise. I'm confident, in whatever shape or form." Like R. Kelly said, I am the world's greatest. Simply put, you become LAZY. I've always expected to reach this point. I just never thought it would be this soon. I will forgive myself for this little failure, and will take a small vacation from all that working out. Exercise resumes on Thursday.