Off The Arse

The other day, I exercised (after a shameful 18-month spate of sitting on my arse). And it didn’t involve a TV remote, a tub of butter or anything resembling a donut. I had to yank a fair bit of cobweb off my running shoes but I did it. Four days in a row, in fact.  I know. I was practically an Olympian.

And then I crashed. And proceeded to sit on my arse for another two months. I fear I’m on the verge of another sofa-bound 18 months which might just be the thing that does me in and turns me into the size of a house.

So, to bring this sinister turn of events to a screeching halt, I have devised a 5-point action-cum-motivation plan:

AIM LOW
You know how people are always encouraging you to reach for the moon so even if you don’t reach it, you fall and land on the stars? Or something to that silly effect. I say bollocks to that. I aimed for the moon – four times, no donut – and look how that turned out. I believe the secret to success lies in aiming low. Aim to get off the arse twice, nay, once a week. And when you do get off the arse once a week, you’ve achieved success. Success, no matter how pathetic, bolsters the spirit and heartens the soul. And this success will springboard, nay, skyrocket you to a whole new level. I call this level Twice-A-Week, which will bring you to (dare I say) Thrice-A-Week, which is the number of times experts all around the world tell us to exercise each week. And to think it all began with aiming low.

CLICK LIKE
As with everything you’re going to be doing for a prolonged period of time, you have to like it. Or at least not hate it. Having a goal (“I’m going to lose 30kg in two months”) or an endpoint (“I’m going to run until the end of this farmhouse”) is useless. I know because I used to have them. And once I achieved them, that was it. I realise I could have set another goal but that wasn’t a pudding I felt like diving into. My point is, if you enjoy doing it, chances are much higher that you will continue doing it. Exercising, that is. What did you think I was talking about?

FEAR FACTOR
Nothing motivates like fear. Picture somebody you would rather die than look like. Preferably somebody you know in real life and not like, the fattest dude in the Guinness Book of Records or something. Every time you are tempted to blow off a workout, think of him/her and how it would feel to look like him/her and how you’d never want anyone to be picturing your body if they were tempted to blow off their own workout.

GO NUDE
Take a good look at yourself in the nude. Doing this usually elicits two responses: (1) wah lau, I look like a house/whale/elephant/insert name of any other generously sized creature, or (2) wah lau, I look damn freaking hot. If you think you look like a house/whale/elephant, you’re probably right. This should motivate you to exercise so that you do not continue to look like a house/whale/elephant. If, on the other hand, you think you look damn freaking hot, seeing yourself in the nude should motivate you to work at maintaining the hot body that you have so that you never ever wind up looking like a house/whale/elephant.

POINT FIVE
I never had a fifth point. I just think it’s bad luck to stop at four.

Good To Be Fat: 25 Reasons Why

Newsflash: my body weight has increased by 12% in the last three months. That’s right. I’m not freaked out. In fact, it’s got me thinking and I’ve come to the conclusion that being tubby isn’t all that bad. There are many advantages to being tubby / chubby / plump / big-boned / fat / whatever. Here are 25 of them:

1. People make way when you’re lumbering towards them. When you’re skinny, they stay where they are and expect you to turn sideways and squeeze through.
2. You perspire more, which means you’re eliminating more toxins than skinny people.
3. You have many layers of blubber and therefore, can withstand cold weather better – great if you plan to migrate to a cold country.
4. You don’t have to worry about becoming some shriveled old prune when you turn 60. You’ll have enough blubber reserve to be what young folks like to call, “A jolly old lady”.
5. Babies like you more.
6. Dogs like you more.
7. Come to think of it, even your grandmother likes you more.
8. If you’re ever stuck on an island with no hope of ever being rescued, you’ll be the first to be killed and eaten – that’s a good thing because that way, at least you’ll be humanely killed by your friends (unless you have very evil friends who hate your guts). Your friends will later be ravaged by the mysterious, monstrous beasts that have been skulking around in the bushes waiting cunningly for their chance to attack and tear the heads off – wait, I’ve been watching too many castaway movies.
9. People think you’re jolly even when you’re scowling.
10.  People assume you’re healthy because of all those nutrients in the mountain loads of food you’ve been scoffing down.
11. You get to buy new clothes!
12. You have an excuse for wheezing your way up the hill; skinny people are frowned upon if they wheeze.
13. You have one extra thing to bitch about.
14. You can make fun of skinny people and accuse them of being anorexic.
15. You can wear shirts that say, “I may be fat but you’re stupid.”
16. You are bigger and therefore, more visually prominent (read: important), than everyone else.
17. Robbers will think twice about kidnapping you.
18. You can sit on people who annoy you.
19. You will actually have boobs and a butt.
20. You have more fun nicknames such as Tubs, Chubs and Pui-Pui, all of which are very, very endearing. Skinny people have nicknames like Skeleton, Matchstick, Beanpole and Praying Mantis.
21. You’re nicer to hug.
22. You can be BB (Big & Beautiful) as opposed to SW (Skinny & Whatever).
23. And if you’re one of those aimless, goal-less individuals who have no idea what to do their lives, being fat automatically gives you a life goal: to lose weight!
24. Your ass doesn’t hurt as bad when you sit for a long time.
25. I’ve run out of reasons and I’m too lazy to change the title of my post

There’s A Worm In My Stomach & His Name Is Harry

Why? Because he has hair all over his slimy body. Oh you mean why do I have a worm in my stomach? I have no idea. I just know that Harry quietly took residence last December and started full-on attack sometime in February. It’s been two months and he’s not letting up. He’s ferociously sucking every last calorie, inhaling every last trace of nutrient in my body … leaving me for dead.

While boasting the BMI similar to that of a pre-pubescent girl is the hungered-after beauty norm today, the Starving Bug-eyed Refugee Look has never been something I ever aspired to – at least not intentionally. What’s so sexy about gaunt, hollow cheeks? Sunken eyeballs? Protruding collarbone and painfully visible ribs? Pelvic bones sharp enough to poke somebody’s eye out? Bony, wrinkled fingers?

The aesthetic aspect of it is one thing, the shopping aspect of it is another. Having gone down one dress size in a couple of months has thrown my wardrobe into a bit of a tailspin. Clothes I’d purchased a mere month ago no longer fit me properly, which means I have to now go buy more stuff that will fit me. God, losing weight is tough on the purse strings.

To make matters worse, thanks to Harry’s relentless attacks, not only is the poundage melting off no matter what I eat, there are other miserable side-effects as well. My hair is drier and has lost its sheen, giving rise to what I count among the greatest banes of my existence: Bad Hair Days. My nails are weaker. Just the other day, my beautifully pedicured toenail broke off. That tiny nail cost me six bucks to have done. Damn, I wonder what else is going to fall off.

I don’t know what Harry wants with me and I don’t know if he’s ever going to stop. What I do know is that I’m going to have a huge plate of thick, gooey, cream-based pasta for lunch tomorrow and hope he’s not going to suck all that up too. He can’t. I’m running on empty as it is.

If I Am What I Eat, I Think I’m Screwed

They say keeping a food journal will help you lose weight. It will open up your eyes to understand why you’re so fat / skinny / ugly / emotionally unstable. It’s a pound-dropping, eye-opening, soul-baring exercise. I’m all for soul-baring, so I thought I’d give it a go. So here goes:

MONDAY

Morning: Have one coffee and one banana. For me, coffee comes from a 3-in-1 sachet. Oh well, what can I say? I’ve never been a coffee connoisseur. Get to office. First day of the week, lots of things to get in order. A meeting here, an impromptu discussion there, a minor ‘crisis’ which requires immediate intervention here … and very quickly, it’s past noon.

Afternoon: For lunch, I have meehoon soup with fresh fish chunks and four miserable leaves of green vegetables. I don’t understand why hawkers are so kiamsiap with their vegetables. They’re so cheap (the hawkers and the vegetables). I request for more, they give me two more leaves. I’m reminded how tough it is to get vegetables with your meals here in KL. For most, it’s hawker fare for a quick lunch and here, all dishes are either noodle-based or rice-based, come with meat and a few leaves of veggy. Oh well.

Night: I get home late, so I have dinner late. Dinner is economy rice (sans rice) with omelette, tofu, spinach and sweet sour pork. What can I say? I’m still nursing a fixation on pork.

Fried noodles in Phnom Penh, Cambodia plus a side dish of mozzie repellent

TUESDAY

Morning: Have one coffee and a pack of Anlene calcium concentrate. My friend introduced Anlene to me recently and I love it, not so much for the high calcium content but for the fact that it tastes like McDonald’s sundae in liquid form. Yum! I go for a short 30-minute run before heading to work.

Afternoon: It’s a bit mad at the office. Drafts are streaming in, proofs are streaming in, emails are streaming in. My eyes are going wonky. Clients are challenging our … sanity. Lunch time rolls round and I’m too lazy to go out. Besides, it’s scorching outside. I eat the mango yoghurt sitting on my desk. Half hour later, I make a Nestum cereal and Milo drink which fills me up for a while. Sometimes, to bulk it up, I add oats to pacify my brain that I’m not starving myself. At a discussion later, I polish off four sour gummies and a pack of prawn crackers.

Night: I get home by about 9pm and have ABC soup, which is simply a soup where anything goes. You can toss in whatever you want. For me, it’s chicken, potato, carrots, cabbage and a hard-boiled egg. It’s genius. Even lazy people devoid of even the slightest smidgen of talent in the kitchen can make it.

Organic fried rice in Bali in a restaurant on stilts in the middle of a rice field

WEDNESDAY

Morning: I worship at the altar of the great 3-in-1 coffee again this morning. I also have a banana and a cup of yoghurt while scanning the papers, reading silly stories about our silly ministers and the foolishness they’re up to. Feel sufficiently depressed at all the foolishness and head to work. There’s a photo shoot today.

Afternoon: It’s common at a shoot to forget to order lunch until late. The lunch menu comes to me and I scan it. Nothing looks particularly appetising, so I pick the hakka mee – dry noodles topped with minced pork bits. I choose it not because I like it, but because it’s quick and easy to eat. Last thing I want is to fumble with chicken rendang or some complicated kway teow soup.

Night: I go home to leftover ABC soup. I have two huge two bowls. That’s another great thing about soup – you can make one humongous cauldron that’s enough to last for a couple or more days! I then have two oranges, two chicken biscuits and two slices of Japanese sponge cake. Have you ever tried Japanese sponge cake? Me neither … until now and I tell you, it’s heaven.

Fried noodles in a restaurant overlooking the sea in Bali

THURSDAY

Morning: I have a coffee and an Anlene calcium concentrate. I’m going through an Anlene phase right now. I’ve been through many other phases – the Kellogg’s cornflakes addiction, the Marigold yoghurt fetish, the Gardenia Butterscotch fixation, the siew pau madness, the list is endless. So don’t worry; this Anlene thing will die soon enough. I do a quick 30-minute run before heading to work.

Afternoon: For lunch, I’m again too lazy to go out to eat. I make my Nestum cereal and Milo and get my colleague to tapau something for me. She asks me what to buy. I tell her to surprise me. I wind up with konlo panmee. Not bad. I’m a big fan of pan mee. I’m halfway through the noodles when I have to leave for a meeting. By the time I get back, the noodles are cold, dry and all clumped together. Yuk. So I toss them into the trash.

Night: For dinner, I have noodle soup with carrots, broccoli and egg. Later that night, I’m surfing the net and itching for something to eat. So I have pineapple rubbed with salt.

Udon in Tokyo, which - strangely - nearly killed me.

FRIDAY

Morning: I wake up late. Rush through two cups of coffee (haha, late but still have time for coffee). Today’s another photo shoot.

Afternoon: Like I said, photo shoots are always a license either for a delayed lunch or simply a horrendous one. For lunch today, it’s three slices of gooey cheesy pizza and two slices of garlic bread. When you work through lunch, you always eat mindlessly. Which is bad. And you almost always end up eating more than you usually do. It’s evening by the time I get back to office. I’m checking emails when my colleague offers me a small Shanghai mooncake. Of course I eat it.

Night: I go home to a bowl of noodle soup swimming with carrots, Chinese lettuce, broccoli and fish balls. Nice, light and hot. Have a big mug of coffee right before bed. I do that sometimes for fun. I sleep like a baby.

A delicious meal cooked by Slugabed - salute!

SATURDAY

Morning: I have a mango yoghurt and a banana. Can’t eat too much before working out or I’ll barf. I go for my run and after that, have two glasses of limau ais and a dosai. It’s practically a tradition.

Afternoon: I have a late lunch of dim sum. When it comes to dim sum, I’m a creature of habit. I rarely steer far away from century egg porridge, char siew chee cheong fun, stuffed green peppers, fried radish cake and fried char siew pastry. Yum. Later that afternoon, I make an error in judgement and purchase a pack of frozen mantous. I wind up eating three, just for fun.

Night: A small bowl of spaghetti with minced beef. Smaller than what I’d normally have cos I’m still stuffed from the mantous. I have a sick fondness of processed foods even though I know it tastes pretty lousy. I don’t seem to respect my poor stomach very much, do I?

Snack on Japan Airlines on the way home from Tokyo

SUNDAY

Morning: I have two packs of Anlene, no coffee. For some reason, coffee is a weekday work thing. I hardly do coffee in the weekends, which means technically, I’m not addicted to caffeine and working is hazardous to my health. I go for my run except that I swap the dosai with a full American breakfast. I even eat the toast – gasp.

Afternoon: Feeling gooey – and not in a good way – all day thanks to the heavy breakfast. Hate the feeling of having over-eaten. Yuk. So when lunch time comes, the last thing I want to do is eat. Wind up having ‘lunch’ at a late 4pm: sar hor fun. I don’t know how to translate this. It’s like kway teow soup with prawns and chicken shreds.

Night: It’s Thai tonight. I’m not terribly hungry, so I order a papaya salad. Should’ve paid attention to the chili icon cos the salad is freaking spicy. I nearly pass out. I go home and have three oranges and a few slices of jackfruit.

And that wraps up my food journal for the week. I wonder what good will come out of this?

Confessions Of A Skinny Hypocrite

Read this and tell me if you agree or disagree.

1. If you aren’t thin, you aren’t attractive.
2. Being thin is more important than being healthy.
3. You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve yourself, do anything to make yourself look thinner.
4. Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty.
5. Thou shall not eat fattening food without punishing oneself afterwards.
6. Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly.
7. What the scale says is the most important thing.
8. Losing weight is good; gaining weight is bad.
9. You can never be too thin.
10. Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.

You know what’s scary? These are the ten commandments I found on a proana website. I know, I know, why am I even hanging around a proana website? Well, if you know me well enough, you’ll know that I often develop sudden bouts of fascination with certain topics and I’ll spend days googling them out of morbid curiosity. Recently, it has been anorexia (at one time, it was obesity – yeah, call me crazy). While I can be all horrified and spew righteous indignation at the proana culture, in the spirit of candour, I will now confess that some of these ‘commandments’, I myself hold to: namely number 1, 8 and in a sick and twisted way, number 10. Yes, I am a hypocrite.

I see pictures of anorexic girls and I’m suitably horrified … as all we regular folk are duty-bound to be.

Eeeeww!

Holy hell!!

What the ****?!

Why would anyone do that to herself??!! Well, we all know why – warped minds, the desperate need for self-control, low self-esteem, self-loathing, body dysmorphic disorder, etc – but this, we may not readily admit to: that many of us are not all that different from these girls. Which girl hasn’t complained about her weight? Even the skinny ones? (In fact, especially the skinny ones). Which girl doesn’t think she’ll look better and life will be better if she could just lose a few pounds? Which girl hasn’t mourned about the fat on her thighs / belly / arms / butt / hips / neck / ankles / calves? Which girl hasn’t complained about her face being “too chubby”? Which girl hasn’t envied somebody who’s skinnier?

Recently, I saw a before-after ad in the local paper – the girl was “fat” before (49kg) and “thin” after (44kg). I don’t care what height you are, an adult woman who’s 49kg does NOT need to lose weight. Good grief.

Despite all my righteous indignation however, I am a bit of a hypocrite. I myself am sort of a “skinny” person. I don’t think that I’m skinny but people seem to think so. And what’s worse, they say it with admiration. And what’s even worse, I like hearing it. *Horror*. As an allegedly intelligent person, I’d like to think myself above all these trivialities, too smart to fall for all that inane Hollywood skinny celebrity crap … but I’m not. Just like everyone else, I’ve gotten swept up in the waif wave. With all the skills, talents and passion that I have, does it really matter whether I look skinny? The answer is still a big fat YES.

I am, by no means, anorexic or bulimic. I find resembling a 2,000-year-old corpse a tad unattractive and while I’m still alive, I would still very much like to look human. But like all these sick ana girls, I do want to be (and stay) skinny, and while I may not subsist on a cracker a day, I do avoid rice. So who am I to judge them? Who am I to be repulsed by them? In some ways, I’m just as bad as they are.

5 Ways To Motivate. That. Ass.

I was really motivated to exercise at one point. I mean, REALLY. I was literally on a high. Not only would I dedicate a whole hour to exercising every single day, I daydreamed about it when I wasn’t doing it, was excited about waking up the next day to do it, journalled about it, googled and youtubed it and just soaked it all in. Yes, I know. I was insane. Unfortunately, that was last year and my drive went kaput when I joined my present company (where I became suicidal and instead of exercising, spent most of my time trying to decide which blunt instrument I could use to knock myself unconscious).

My terminal funk went on for six months. Now that I’m out of it, I’m trying to get back on that exercise wagon but the challenge is: how do you motivate that ass (the ass being you) when you’re not feeling particularly motivated/ inspired/ excited/ enthusiastic? It’s easy to get moving when you’re feeling motivated/ inspired/ excited/ enthusiastic but hello, when you’re not, it’s damn hard. So here they are: my tips to help you Motivate. That. Ass. Tried and tested.

1 DON’T THINK

For me, exercise is purely mental. It’s not about building muscle; it’s about winning the battle with the Syaitan of Sloth (otherwise known as SoS). Before I even get off my ass, the SoS comes and starts playing with my mind. I’d think about how I’d feel if I exercised: would I enjoy it? How I’d feel after: would I be happy? What would happen if I chose to stay in bed: would I regret it? How I’d feel doing something else instead: I can use this time to go to work earlier! After all, got so many things to do wor. And etc etc etc. And many times, the evil SoS wins. I wind up thinking so much that I end up crawling back into bed and not doing anything. And it just goes on and on … and that’s why I believe the key here is: DON’T THINK, JUST DO. Thinking is over-rated. You know the saying: 80% of success is showing up. That’s so true of exercise. 80% is getting off your ass; 20% is moving it.

2 SET ONE ALARM ONLY

Okay. Confession time: I have these horrible pre-set alarms – six of them. I have a 6.00 am, 6.30 am, 7.00 am, 7.30 am, 8.00 am and an 8.30 am. So, you already can guess what I do, right? I turn all of them on before I sleep. In the morning, the 6.00 am goes off. Toot toot toot toooooooot. I turn it off, go back to sleep. 6.30 am goes off. I turn it off, go back to sleep. 7.00 am goes off … you get the idea. On and on it goes until 8.30 am. This time, I really wake up because I know there are no more alarms left ma … and that’s why I believe the key here is: get rid of all the alarms and SET ONE ALARM ONLY. Duh.

3 AND MAKE IT WEIRD

Forget the nicely rounded 7.00 am or 7.30 am. For some reason, your brain will process 7.00 am as, “Eesh, so early … baru a minute ago was 6-something … can sleep some more. Snore.” And your brain will process 7.30 am as, “Eesh, still early what … not even 8 yet … can sleep some more. Snore.” And that’s why I believe the key here is: SET A WEIRD ALARM. Confuse your renegade brain by setting it at 7.43 am. It’s almost 8 so it’s like you’re kinda late and it’s too far from 6-something, so you’re not early.

4 HAVE A MANTRA

I saw this saying on www.webmd.com last year, which goes, “You never regret a run. There’s hardly anything in life you can say that about. You will regret a chocolate sundae.” Isn’t that great? I love it!!!

5 DON’T BE A TERRORIST

Terrorists are all-or-nothing people. They either love you (and will therefore, devote their lives to you) or hate you (and will therefore, blow you up). Okay okay, so I don’t actually know any terrorists, but I needed an analogy and couldn’t come up with anything else. Besides, terrorists are hot right now.

Anyways, I’m also all-or-nothing. I’m either all black or all white. All happy or all miserable. I either buy nothing or buy half a dozen of one thing. I have no middle ground. Unfortunately, I’m also like this with exercise. I’m either doing a solid one-hour every day or a solid nothing on none of the days. Middle ground would be say, 20 minutes three times a week. Yeah, I’m not so good with that. This is a problem because it means I either exercise every day like a crazy person or I sit on my ass every day drinking coffee, facebooking, blogging and youtubing (which incidentally, is what I do these days – I love it, btw!!!). But you know how they say that something better than nothing? Yeah, I need that middle ground. I read somewhere about perfectionists being the worst procrastinators. They will put off doing something because they fear they won’t be able to do it perfectly, so in the end, they do nothing. Omg. That’s so me!!! And that’s why I believe the key here is: DON’T BE A TERRORIST.

Must. Get. Off. Ass.

This picture motivates me to exercise. It’s a pic of me 9 years ago when I was studying abroad and gorging on pizzas and cheese and butter buns every day. I never realised how um, tubby I’d become until I came back to Malaysia where all the girls resembled toothpicks. Anyways, this pic worked pretty well in the motivation dept for a while but lately, I’ve been slacking off so I’m taking it out again to stare at it. Must. Get. Off. Ass. And. Exercise. Argh!!!!