Tag Archives: image

Calories, Calories

None of my pants fit. NOT EVEN MY FAT PANTS. I am chunking out pretty fast. I recently told my husband “It is like my body WANTS to be fat”.  As soon as I said it I felt this big UH OH and rushed to buy a pregnancy test.  It was negative so I have no idea what is going on.

Actually…I have a small idea about what might be going on.

The other week some of the folks on my team invited me for Poutine. Which after pizza, is my favourite food. But get this… I said ” I would love to, but I can’t. I have a salad in the fridge. I went to yoga last night so I don’t want to spoil my hard work with junk food”.  To which my coworker responded “No, it’s BECAUSE you went to yoga, that you can eat Poutine”, to which I responded, “Ok, let’s go!”.

I have no willpower when it comes to food so I completely embraced this new thought that I can actually eat shittier because I am exercising.

And then there are the car snacks. I have a long commute…and somewhere near the start of it I get this crazy snack attack because it is the end of the day and I am ready for dinner, but I still have to drive for an hour or more, which is boring…and I eat when I am bored so…. So I basically feel ravenous at all times in the car.

If I don’t have healthy car snacks ready to go (aka I have literally never had a healthy car snack ready to go), I stop at a gas station and buy Zesty Cheese Doritos and a Crunchie bar. Then I need a drink, and because I have a fundamental issue with the bottled water industry (But yet never remember my reusable bottle, ever), I can’t get water so I get ginger ale or apple juice or coconut water. When I have PMS  I get really smart and actually stock up on car snacks and my PMS tells me that the best snacks are at Bulk Barn, in bulk, and you see where this is going. My centre console is filled with dozens of those flimsy film bags with holes ripped in them. My glove compartment should be renamed ‘salty snack world’.

I recently took action and reactivated my My Fitness Pal account to count my calories, and it was pretty shocking. I was going over my daily allotment by 50%, 60%…70%. But I mean, really red wine? 450 calories a glass? WTF. And who knew how many calories there are in a burrito bowl! Like come on, it is not even wrapped in bread!

In all seriousness, I really do find tracking calories to be a very useful tool to control my eating habits. I am super competitive and sticking within my calories feels like a game I have to win. It also motivates me to exercise more to win back calories.  I have to WIN. I have to end right on the number.

Over the last three days I have eaten 300% more veggies and stocked my car up with snacks that are healthier. Like these puffed quinoa cubes that are super gross but hey, they fill the void, are low cal, and have protien.

Also, I am learning a lot of new things … here are some samples from my internet search history:

  • What foods have negative calories? (Celery! Black coffee!)
  • What are the most low cal cocktails? (Gin Gimlet! EW)
  • What causes sudden weight gain? (Cancer, inhaling food)
  • How many calories do you burn doing yoga? (hardly any, is it even real exercise?)
  • How many calories do you burn during sex? (well…depends on how long you go and wild you are. (None of your business!))
  • How many calories do you burn jumping on a trampoline? (doesn’t matter, it’s too cold out and I haven’t been doing my kegels)
  • How many calories do you burn walking up stairs? (THIS IS A COP OUT)
  • How many calories are in a shot of maple syrup? (less than you think! WHOOP)
  • Why am I always hungry?

A friend of mine told me to get a step counter that syncs to my fitness pal because it will automatically roll back the calories for you. Since she got hers she has been going up and down the stairs 10x a day. Sounds like fun.

I feel like having a step counter would actually destroy my life.

Did I mention this thing I have where I have to win? Winning at steps means doing 10,000 a day. I am willing to bet my next paycheck that I currently clock about 800 steps a day. I walk from the house to the car, the car to my desk, my desk back to the car and then home where I sit or sleep. Very grim. Fucking yoga won’t get me steps.. too much flow. I think I need to switch to Zumba.

If I had a step counter I would go crazy trying to get those steps to the point where everything and everyone in my life would be completely neglected. Sure, I would be skinny and fit, but also prob get fired and divorced. Where do people find the time for 10,000 steps?!

This whole clothes that don’t fit, car snacks, steps situation … SIGH.  I know my middle-aged body doesn’t rock the same metabolism I had when I was younger. That is an issue. My lack of self-control, also an issue. Poor food choices…all on me. But the thing is…this is a symptom of a greater problem.

I need a complete lifestyle overhaul.

 

The Skin I’m In

So here is another post that falls into the category of ‘most selfish lady alive wastes your time talking about her skin care regime while millions, prob billions, of people suffer with real problems all over the world’.  **SIGH**

The thing is, I am kinda freaking out and have been really distracted for days by a decision I made earlier this week. Let me take you back a couple of weeks…let’s say to The day after my birthday. I took my youngest son to a party for one of his friends.  It was a kid/grown up situation and I love those. I love connecting with new people in a non networking setting. I will always come to your party. Please invite me.

Anyways, when I arrived the hostess told me that her sister and her sister’s six grown children and even some grandchildren were all there. Right away I was thrilled because as a member of six kid family it is so much fun to compare notes about things like giant sock piles and washroom schedules and general chaos. I love when I can make an instant connection with people and I totally did. These folks were LOVELY, and I would love to dive into that more, but right now I am seriously running the risk of straying way off topic, so let me make a potentially long story short (haha, let me try at least)

***UPDATE***This is the longest blog post I have ever written.

I met a beautiful woman who I assumed was one of the six kids but nope, she was their MOTHER. Their insanely youthful, hot mother. So I immediately asked her what her secret was and she told me that she uses a certain skin care line, which I immediately wanted. And lucky me because this stunning woman actually sells these products which are only available through a direct sales situation. She told me about every product she uses and one by one I was sold.  Hook. Line. Sinker.  The enzyme peel. The hydration mist. The serum. The moisturizer. The multi-step cleansing system.

So, I got my hands on a catalog and guess what? All of the products that I just had to have cost a whopping $530.90.  Can I just say that this is more than double the monthly income of a person living in Nepal. It is $200 more than the average Turk makes in a month. I could go on. You get my point. Who in their right mind spends that kind of money on Skin care? Not me.  That would just straight up be fucking stupid.

So I went back to the catalog, I spent hours reading online reviews of the various products, I narrowed my wish list down considerably to only two products worth $79.00. I emailed Mrs. Perfect Dewy Glowing Skin with a great personality to boot (hereafter, Mrs. PDGS with GP), and told her what I wanted. She responded with great news. A March Madness Sale.  This opened a whole new world of opportunity up for me. Two of the products I had taken off my list were dramatically reduced. I needed them. What a crazy insane deal!!!! All of that Hyaluronic Acid and peptides and mist could actually be mine for less than half price!! I could achieve the results of cosmetic injections without actually getting needles stuck into my face! WHAT.

And since I was saving so much on those products I could throw in a few of the others right?  And then… another miracle. Mrs. PDGS with GP offered to place my order with hers for an additional 20% off!! WHAT. Sign. me. up.

So I went back to my original wish list. I ordered it all, all 12 products (I currently use 2. Ain’t nobody got time for that (12! Gah), but that is a different issue all together). $226.00 later (Seriously awesome deal btw)  I am sitting here freaking out. Because right at this moment in our lives spending that kind of money on beauty products is not responsible – not that it is at any other time ( you know, unless it is 20X points day at Shoppers or something).

Because I know my husband is going to be really pissed off and there is going to be an argument. Because it is a slow time for him with his work and we are trying to be really careful so we don’t accumulate debt.  I don’t want to contribute to his stress. Sincerely. So I regret that this is coming.

I know it is being delivered to me today or tomorrow and I know that when it arrives it is time to face the music. I’ll have to listen to myself explain my own frivolity. I haven’t paid for the stuff yet. Because Mrs. PDGS with GP very kindly extended her own discount to me, I have to pay her in cash, but not until I receive the order.

I have been scheming. How can I sneak the cash out of our accounts, that are all joint, without my husband noticing? There is no way to do that, and furthermore, I don’t actually want to do that. I don’t ever want to be sneaky in any way in my marriage or work or friendships or life in general.

In case it sounds like my husband is some kind of controlling dick, that is not true. I am totally scapegoating him here.  It is my own music I have to face. My own weakness. My own vanity.  My own selfishness. My own weakness. Did I already say that one?

The fact is, I am all out of cleanser, 2 days away from needing moisturizer and I use fairly decent products so I would have spent at least half that amount anyways and not had this insane guilt going on.

Look, if all of the product claims are true I will write a follow-up blog and prob start selling them myself, and everyone who knows me will ask if I have had work done and when strangers find out my age they will want to know my secret and my life will be forever changed and I will be so happy that I will have to change the tagline of my blog to something else.

But seriously, when have beauty product claims ever been true? (Tell, me, I need that product).  Prob what happened is that someone totally recruited Mrs. PDGS and GP because she is gorgeous and has perfect skin and they knew that her very own face was worth a million bucks. Prob I am a huge sucker.  Def I am a huge sucker.

I am disappointed in myself. Disappointed because I want to just love the skin I am in and shine from the inside. Disappointed because I spent so much time this week fretting about this. I should have just cancelled my order and I can’t pin down why I didn’t. Is it because I am holding out hope that it works or because I don’t want to feel like an idiot calling this lady to cancel?  Either way it involves me caring about what other people think in a way that I don’t like. It involves me caring what I think in a way I don’t like.

I should have taken that $226 bucks and mailed it to a random person in Nepal or bought food for the food bank or given it to a group sponsoring refugees or bought a teenage girl from a low-income family a prom dress or put it into an RESP or RRSP  or  bought 100 strangers a coffee or…

God I suck. I am going to go read the fine print now and see what the return policy is on all of this stuff.

 

 

 

Hair Woes

Personal Truth #6 I want to go full Britney. Yup, I am THAT crazy.

My husband had a dream last night that all of his hair fell out. He worries about losing his hair a lot, as do most men I think. The fact is, he has a nice head full of hair, but his hairline is ever so slowly creeping back. I mean…EVER. SO. SLOWLY. But I get his anxiety. We express ourselves through our hair, our youthfulness or lack of it, and what sub culture we belong to. He is a professional musician so his image is a critical part of his work, and his hair is a critical part of his image. One thing that I really envy about him is that he can do whatever the hell he wants with his hair – grow it long, get a hyper stylized cut, dye it crazy colours. He has no limitations. Unless it all falls out. That would be limiting. So I guess his dream was really more of a nightmare. His hair represents so much more than just his hair.

Anyways, this blog is about me and I also have a preoccupation/obsession with my hair. Every month like clockwork, for the last 22 years or maybe longer, I have coloured my hair back to its original very dark brown, almost black. The white hairs started coming in my mid teens… and never stopped coming. I don’t know what my real hair looks like. If my roots are any indication, it is all pure snowy white. When my roots come in, I look like a skunk.  Obviously (or I guess since you don’t know my personal financial situation it might not be obvious) I can’t afford professional upkeep so I am a DIY hair colourist.

A few years ago I developed an allergy or sensitivity to PPD the main ingredient in permanent hair dye. Like my entire scalp got scabby and my hair started falling out in clumps. Then a hairdresser/colourist told me she had to quit her job because she was peeing blood and that hair dye causes bladder cancer. So I researched alternatives and switched to henna colour.

If you are like me, and your hair is white but you present as a brunette, this is shitty solution. First of all, it literally takes about 5 hours from start to finish. So kiss a whole day goodbye every 2-3 weeks. Second of all it smells like sewage. Third of all, it fades fast to a very unnatural looking colour in a gradient, so you need to use it OFTEN. On the plus side, zero chemicals. Hair gets healthy fast. I only stuck with it for a year.

Finally I found a decent product, sort of natural, no ammonia, no PPD, none of the harsh stuff. I can only find it in one store in the entire province, half the time it is out of stock, it is expensive and I need to use it every three weeks (and that is stretching it by using mascara on my roots for a few days). I have to call and order it and really plan ahead or I am SCREWED.

I feel like a slave. I am a slave to my hair, and to my image. Because I don’t want to look old. Because I don’t want to look like a skunk. I just don’t know how to be free.  I don’t even know what hair I actually have! But know that right now I don’t have the hair I want – The same way I can’t wear ripped jeans and flip-flops to work, I can’t show up with purple hair (most of those vivid gemstone colours are vegetable based!!), or even better NO HAIR AT ALL. I totally get it. Why Britney shaved her head. To have freedom from her image.

I can’t shave my head, but I want to. I want a fresh start. I want to see what is really under there. Maybe it is really nice and I won’t look old after all. When I was in high school this guy’s mother was famous for her gorgeous head of white hair that she wore swirled up into a messy bun. She had a young face. Everyone thought she was so hot. I want to be the cool white haired Mom. Or pink haired Mom. Instead I just keep dyeing it. Wearing it in an ok but not great style. Growing it longish and parting it in the middle because someone told me that is supposed to make you look younger. Contemplating bangs because I think dramatic bangs look cool and edgy but still conservative enough. Wondering if it is too late and I already have bladder cancer but that the silver lining is that the chemo will make my hair fall out and I will be forced to start fresh without being perceived as crazy – if I don’t die. Very fucked up shit right here. OVER HAIR. Talk about first world problems.

And just now as I type this I am having a sad kind of revelation.

Our 9 year old son has extraordinarily long and really beautiful hair – by anyone’s standards. He hasn’t cut his hair in about 3 years. The reason he stopped getting his hair cut is because the result never quite matched what he hoped for.  At 6 years old he decided would rather never cut it all and deal with people constantly misgendering him, than be disappointed with his image. He is a person who avoids negative feelings at all costs. Not liking the way he looked profoundly affected him. I always wondered why he cared so much about his hair at such a young age…and now….

DUH. Fuck. Shitty, shitty, shit.

If I was queen of the world I would smash EVERY. SINGLE. MIRROR.