Monday, December 31, 2007

I'm so fucking sick of caring.


468 calories from 3 scoops of Movenpick Hazelnut ice-cream, 525 calories from a lunch of bread and scones, 486 calories from a breakfast of pizza?


Fuck it all. Fuck calories, dress sizes, flat tummies, skinny thighs, sharp noses. Outgoing, athletic, bronzed and confidently cool? That's something I never will be. I'l always be ugly, stumpy and miserable: a pinched-faced girl with an over-the-top obsession with calories, fats and her appearance.


I stopped on the weighing scale just now a while after ingesting all that ice-cream, cajoling the needle to go up further. Come on, I thought, I know you want to creep higher....


It's either that I've gone crazy (talking to a weighing scale needle), or that this weight thing has really gotten to my head. Either way, it means I'm pathetic.


I don't know when exactly I'm in control. When I don't eat, I'm said to be out of control, 'controlled by this diet of yours'. When I DO eat, I feel like I've lost control, because half the time, I eat because I FEEL like it, and not because I'm really hungry. I'm greedy; I'm a glutton who can't restrain herlsef. Place a tub of ice-cream before me and I wolf it down before you can get your spoon; make me walk by a bakery and I emerge with 2 raisin scones, 1 pita bread, and 1 multigrain roll for lunch; get my mind fixated on a craving like pizza and I stay up for two hours, insomniac, because I'm so excited about eating it the next day.


Oh, I know. By now, you must be thinking how pathetic I am.


It's okay. I know I'm pathetic. I think I'm pathetic. To the extent that I think I hate myself.

How is it that some girls can stand in front of the mirror, look at their bodies and shrug at their love handles, the pudge at their tummies, and their thighs glued to each other? How is it that they can find it within themselves to love themselves the way they are, when they know perfection is out there, already achieved by a slight minority? They say perfection does not exist, but hello, open your fucking eyes: Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum, Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, Cameron Diaz....


If these people can look so fucking good, why can't I? In what way am I lesser than them? In that they love themselves more than I appreciate myself?


It'll be 2008 soon in about half an hour's time. I don't see what's so great about it. Sure, this year I've got a lot to be thankful for:


* LIST OF THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR IN 2007:

1. That everyone I love is alive and safe.

2. That they're still around me.

3. That my grades - though not fantastic and still needs some polishing up - are decent enough.

4. That I'm safe and alive.

5. That I just got to do some major shopping for CNY next year and have amassed four sets of clothes from Mango and Esprit combined.

6. That my country is prosperous and brimming with the potential that's about to be tapped by capable, clean and far-sighted leaders.


But. There's always a 'but', isn't there? We just always seem to want some more. Contentment is never our middle name - not even our friend - and there is always something that can be improved upon:



* LIST OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER ABOUT 2007:


1. When the hell did I stop loving myself and made myself punish me for having ice-cream?


2. School. It is said that by raising your expectations or lowering your reality, your happiness quotient falls. Self explanatory.


3. Either I'm becoming more attention-seeking, or people can't be bothered with whiny, miserable, pathetic me anymore. During this year-end holidays, I went out alone six times without any company. Everyone's just too busy, aren't they. They always are.



* WHAT I NEED TO DO FROM 12AM ONWARDS:


1. Show my love for those I love. Leave them in no doubt that I love them. (Never mind if they don't always seem to reciprocate.)


2. Be happier. This is tougher than it sounds. Because this then leads to the next question: what exactly makes me happy? And part (b): when do I realise I'm happy?


3. Say 'fuck yourself' to the next person who comments on my weight, shape, figure, appearance - my inadequacies, in general. You wanna criticise me, take a good fucking look at yourself fist. Besides, who gave you the right to comment about me? I sure didn't. So shut the hell up. I get enough grieve from myself.


4. Be friendlier. People - too many of them - say (or think; they might not articulate it, but I can tell by the way they behave around me) that I look, or maybe behave too standoffish. Look, I don't go around with an inane smile permanently plastered to my face, okay? What's there to smile at, too? This world is so screwed up, it makes it hard to smile upon request.

But, that's just the ice-queen in me talking again, I suppose. Guilty.


5. Have more discipline, for fuck's sake. That means in terms of diet (stop eating when you're full, even if the food looks really good; stuffing your fat face with another gratuitous serving of food just makes you seem more like the loser that you already are), exercise, studies and money. Just about in every aspect, in other words. I hate doling out punishment - or worse, making excuses - for myself. So to prevent that from even happening, I should stop at the stage BEFORE: the stage when I decide to indulge.


I shall ask myself if I DESERVE it.


DESERVE. It's simple enough to tell yourself you deserve another scone. Hey, I just burnt a few hundred calories from that power-walk around town! It's easy enough to allow yourself to treat you to a chocolate bar. Come on, I just went five hours without fuel man!


But to deserve something, don't we then deserve the punishment that comes from it? Nothing comes for nothing, after all. Or is this yet another chicken-and-egg conundrum?


The trick is to fall into a routine existence. I don't - won't - have that ice-cream becasue I generally do not indulge in such high-fat foods after a meal, or worse: in between my meals.


Willpower is elusive. The trick is to capture it, and then slip it right into your existence to make sure it never slips away again.


5. Work hard. I have an IQ of 127 (from the online quiz I took yesterday night). If I don't make use of it, there's pretty much nothing else that I CAN actually do to make me feel like I am worthy of my existence, that I'm worthy of a place on this earth, in the hearts of those who love me (even if the number might be kind of small).


6. Be better?


What IS better?


It seems like I'm entering 2008 just as clueless as I have been in 2007.


Do I sound ungrateful, because I don't mean to be a party-pooper.


But do pardon me for not being so chipper at the moment. Seems like the endorphins from the ice-cream aren't doing their job: they seem to be causing a reverse effect on me.


Have a fulfilling 2008.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Okay. You have no idea how guilty I'm feeling right now. Because guess what. For all that discipline and self-control I've tried to carve into my thick, greedy, gluttony, numbskull, I almost cleared half a mega-tub of hazelnut ice-cream from Movenpick yesterday and today. So all in all, yesterday and today combined, I've scarved down about four scoops of ice-cream.



Plus, I had three slices of thin-crust Hawaiian pizza from Delifrance (it sucks; don't ever try it - oh wait, try it, then you'll waste the 8 bucks I did and I'll feel less bad about it. The cheese was overgrilled, and mozarella-who? I could hardly taste any sign of it) at noon, a charsiew pau in the morning, and after the pizza, I decided to 'treat' myself to a curry puff from Old Chang Kee (after deprivation from it for over a year), which turned out to be a REAL mistake, because then, afterwards, I went on to buy a walnut-raisin muffin from Rocky Master at PS. Shoulda eaten the pizza from there. For one thing, it was smaller. And for another, it was cheaper than Delifrance's. And as yet another plus, it looked more appetising too.




And then, my eldest aunt swung by in the evening. With lotsa gifts and goodies on her sleigh as usual. She gave me this Nike bag, some sports bras, some tee-shirts, a pair of Le Coq Sportif track pants, a really nice diary (dunno where she gets them; they're really exquisite), a Nike cap and tank top and a bagful of cosmetics (skincare products).




Plus, of course - the darn ice-cream. Pistachio and Hazelnut. Two tubfuls of sinful indulgences taunting me, beckoning, to taste them. Well, the pistachio sucked. I never liked pistachio ice-cream (though I love the nut); it tastes like puke. But the hazelnut's my Achilles' heel. If I can even be called Achilles. I'm sure the Greek hero of the Trojan War had WAAAAAY more self-control than I did. Or do.




It said 9 grams of fat, 17 grams of carbo and about 500 milligrams of sodium. I bet they're lying. How can that entire tub of ICE-CREAM (aka, sugar overload) filled with NUTS (omega-3 fatty acid overload) contain only 9 grams of fat?!?! It doesn't make any sense! Not that I'm complaining, of course. I very much wish that were true, but come on, even though they used skimmed milk and all that, I highly doubt there's only 9 grams of lipids in it.




I told myself yesterday was a once-in-a-VERY-darn-blue-moon treat, and that I would have to pay for all that I've ingested yesterday in the next few months to come. But oh no. Look what I've done today. Gone ahead and wolfed down another two generous helpings of ice-cream. I'm just lying to myself, man, consoling myself. I don't deserve to be consoled, or treated. I deserve to be punished for losing control like that. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?! Why am I such a sucker for high-calorie foods?!?!




Okay, you know what. For the whole of the next schoolyear, this is my meal plan:


- Morning (6.30 am): 1 bowl of whole-wheat cereal with low-fat milk OR 1 cup of yoghurt and a piece of fruit (on mornings where there's no PE).


- Mid-morning (9.30 - 10 am): fruits.


- Noon (12 - 1 pm): 1 wholemeal sandwich OR an omelette with salad and beans.


Then after school, I either walk home, or hit the gym for some cardio workout, or head home straight for circuit training.


- Dinner: fruits OR vegetables that my grandmother has cooked (and maybe SOME fish).




I read from some magazine that naturally slim people are creatures of habit, ie. their meal patterns are mostly fixed, and they HAVE SELF CONTROL.




Plus, it's alright to have a hearty breakfast.




And the more you weigh, and the more muscles you have, the higher your metabolism.




And consuming proteins raises the metabolism as it takes more energy to digest them.




Also, carbs create the feeling of satiety so we feel full and our appetites (ie, cravings for high-fat food) will be curbed.




And guess what:


- 5 pretzels only contain 114calories and 1g of fat.


- 20 baked tortilla chips: 110 calories and 1g of fat.


- 1 slice of raisin bread: 88cal, 1g fat.


- 20 choc-coated raisins: 78cal, 3g fat.




I sound like I'm consoling myself, don't I. Gawd, I feel like such a loser. How pathetic. I'm not eating to live; I'm living to eat. Am I being controlled by food? It kinda sounds like I am.




Anyway. GIRLS, THERE'S A NEW HOTTIE THAT I JUST DISCOVERED AFTER WATCHING ELLA ENCHANTED YESTERDAY NIGHT!




Yup, HUGH DARCY! He's dating Claire Danes. What a perfect match. She's so pretty and he's so cute; they make a complementary pair. Damn, it's like the more I watched him play Prince Char, the cuter I found him. I totally whizzed off to Google him after the show was over. And you know, from some angles, he kinda looks like Orlando Bloom. And from another, he resembles Hugh Jackman.






But you know what? He's 32! That's even more ancient than Bloom.


But damn, he's cute!








Plus, Anne Hathaway's really beautiful. She's got a great singing voice, talking voice, lovely smile, AND she's tall with a great complexion and large almond eyes, a sharp nose and luscious lips (except her mouth's a lil too wide). How unfair.


OH AND BY THE WAY, GUESSWHATGUESSWHATGUESSWHAT?!?!?!


I was at Borders today and I saw the BOOK: Supernatural! Yeah, HarperCollins has published books based on 'the hit TV series'. With DEAN and Sam Winchester on the cover, no less! SCREAM MAJOR! I totally bagged them. 34 bucks gone. But that's okay. I used my own savings, you know, so it's not like I'm wasting my dad's money. I won't even use the word waste. More like spend. There's a difference. 'Waste' is less redemptive than 'spend'.


Anyway. Can they PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. Come out with the Supernatural Season 2 DVD already! It's been released in the US since Sept 11, and I've been WAITING, PINING, since then. It's been more than three whole feckin months, people! Stop torturing me! I'm torturing myself enough!


Thursday, December 13, 2007

Had a good workout at the gym ytd. Clocked 4km worth of jogging (2.4km in 14.10mins at 10km/h), brisk-walking (0.8km at 6.5km/h) and running (0.4km at 11km/h). Then did 10 minutes of cycling at 21.5km/h. Fruits for dnr.


Been following a healthy-diet regime. The only time I slipped since Monday, when I first embarked on this regime was yesterday, when I lost control and decided to permit myself a mini kitkat bar before going for gym.


But other than that, I've been eating a crapload of fruits and veg, wholemeal bread, cereal and yoghurt.


Anyway, I read online that a female stops having her period when her body fat is below 10%. The healthy percentage of body fat she should have in her is 15% to 23%. Well, I suppose that means I need some more fats, since I've stopped having my period since before I can remember. Sometime around ......... August or September, perhaps?


Anyway, on a different note, I've decided to go back to working on High Grounds. Just do some last form of editing before I publish it on WritersCafe. Been receiving some positive feedback on When the Lilies Turn Orange, which is truly gratifying, but it's still kind of primitive. Needs some more touchup on some details.


Damn, upon reading High Grounds again, I realised how much I've missed it. It was two days ago, when I heard Believe Me, by Fort Minor. It was a 2005 song, and it kind of brought me back to my sec 3 days. Man, remember those times? When we were all still new to the class and made a hell lotta noise and drove those teachers insane (Ng TC loved us, though :p). And my plot for High Grounds was still in the primary stage, developing. And I spent the year-end hols just working working working on it everyday, 9am to about 6pm, not caring about anything except how to get the story moving and developing the characters to their max....


And, snapping back to reality, only two weeks more to go before school reopens for J2 year.