Roger, rrroger

Stop EVERYTHING. I have just discovered that I can fit three tangerines into my mouth while successfully singing Miley Cyrus' "Start all over." I think I felt guilty after eating a bunch of deliciously sodium-smothered Cheerios Snack Mix.


....McMUN bus comes for us in 2 hours 15 minutes! Agh, so many articles to read.

Snacking 101

I am eating a nectarine! That is all.

Zen Gardens is closing...

I made my mom go with me to Zen Gardens, a vegan/raw restaurant that is closing on King Street January 31...I've only been there one other time, and I ran into a Geography teacher with his wife and a three-year-old girl with firey orange hair...they asked me to babysit because she clung to me the entire night and she is usually a very passive and unattached toddler...sigh. I couldn't take the job because of school, and I was very mad. I should have forsaked one class and taken it.

...anyway. Zen gardens food is crap, it's no wonder they're closing! The food was so bland...there was something slimy in my soup, there was a black fiber in mom's eggplant and everything lacked spices alltogether. Places like that make me want to drop out of school and do my own version of Ramsay's Kitchen.

Which reminds me, I have pumpkin pie in the fridge. Can you say YUM?

P.S. Butt muscles still hewt.

P.P.S.

Oh yeah, - and I tried to work out despite my sickness through improv-Pilates and about 20 reps of squats, and now by butt hurts and walking down the stairs my thigh muscles feel as pronounced as a Grey's Anatomy illustration. Being sick, I kept thinking to myself, "You should be ashamed, Anya! What if you're on campus and a hyena chases you? How will you escape?!"

...so I think it's safe to say it's time for Anya to take a Benylin day.

To cake or not to cake

I spent the last two days being nauseous and dizzy and out of whack - which led to the ingestion of a honey-peanut butter sammich (aka 700 calorie snack...but I still wish someone called me Peanut) pudding and handfuls of Blue Cheese Buffalo Wing Chips, my carbodydrate sin of choice. What's worse, Thursday through Sunday I will be in Montreal at McMun - a mock United Nations conference, living as a humanitarian by day and a student-pub-nightcrawler by night...which means grease, grease and more grease in my diet.

The question is...do I take a diet vacation and pig out, or do I contort to eating healthy while traveling? "Let them eat cake," said Marie-Antoinnette. Since I will bust my bum at McMun, will you guys let me eat cake?

P.S. I have been thinking it all evening...although my self-imagine has improved, I would still much rather be skinny than be full. And that in itself sets off alarm clocks. I must learn to respect myself, and though this blog, I hope I will.

I want susi on top of a burger scattered with popcorn and cheeeeeese

I've finally admitted to myself that the mantra I think I live by, "FOOD IS FUEL," is irrelevant to my current patterns of food consumption. If my mantra was realistic it would say,"CHOLESTEROL IS MY EMOTIONAL TRANQUILIZER." It's true, - I eat unhealthiest when I'm overwhelmed by strong emotions, like missing the b.f. or family theatrics. I know this isn't a novel concept, but food induging is a bit like AA - the first step is admitting you have an issue.

I arrived about my conclusion about my food consumption having a direct link with emotion when, over the past week, I felt so ravaged by the events of my life I purposely shut off my two biggest emotional weights - compassion and objective thinking - on order to shut off feeling completely and just get through the week. The result? I wasn't hungry, and lost two pounds. Now that I'm admitting this to myself as I'm typing the sentence, my kitchen timer (which is in the shape of a sushi) is making me drool uncontrollably. Here is an example of the unhealthy 'fasting' I've been doing for the past week, demonstrated by today's menu:

Breakfast:
1 Banana - 120 cal
Lunch
Chicken BBQ pizza slice - 500 cals
Coffee w cream, brown sugar - 120 cals
Dinner
1/2 a compost muffin - 250 cals
1 strawberry-apple smoothie - 300 cals
1 coffee black - 2 cals
--------------------------------------
1292 CALORIES
= lacking nutrients for brain and organ function
= lacking energy for information absorbition
= lacking patience for proper human communication

Lastly, more and more I have been thinking - why is it I eat a little bit for breakfast, aim for a light lunch, then a snack, and a big dinner with the family? That is certainly not the optimal way for energy utilization. I'm going to try re-organizing it so that it's a smallish breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner and lots of fruits inbetween as snacks.

My new self-improvement rule: snacking is unlimited in quantity, but is limited to fruit and veggie-based foods, fresh only (caesar salad included).

Sorry this is so text-heavy this time around; to make things better, a good note to end things on, and a summary of how I feel about now:

Let's get aquainted. Anya, internets. Internets, Anya.

Let’s get this straight: I’m not a fat person. This is not a blog about numbers, pounds, or calorie counts. Not to say that I don’t think I have a weight issue, but simply because I think the above method of weightloss is inhumane and unsustainable. Personally, I am prone to carbohydrate binges, cravings and baking marathons, - which, in combination with the sporadic schedule of a working university student leaves little time for meal planning. This also means I’m on a budget and am under slept most of the time. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?)

After saying this I have the urge to cringe. Yes, it’s true my insane schedule doesn’t leave time to cook meals ahead of time, to plan regular workouts into my workweek, and leaves me exhausted by the time the weekend comes around (and it’s time to put in 16 paying work hours). But why have I put myself into this situation in the first place? At which point did I decide to compromise my health? Taking on a full university course load, 16 work hours a week, 10 volunteer hours a week, a fish, a rat and a cat – why do I give all those things priority, but not my own health? Is the reason somehow linked to my dislike of my physical appearance? I certainly think it is. Little by little, I’m beginning to realize that the reason I’m out of shape, run down, depressed and tired is my external environment’s fault just as much as it is my lack of commitment to my own health.

And this, my dears, is what the blog is about.

I will brutally analyze myself in terms of my eating, sleeping and exercise habits in order to produce a happy, healthy person as the end result. My methods will exclude anything I do not have before starting this blog – like herbal supplements, elaborate gym equipment or a trainer. I’m going to find out why I (and the nation), are overweight and unhappy. I will read books, watch movies and embarrass myself and my non-existent audience by talking about uncomfortable subjects along the way, because…because this blog isn’t about making things look effortless. It’s about honesty, and approaching fitness, happiness and food from a realistic perspective.

Why now? Because after two decades of living, I realized that if I plan on spending the rest of my life understanding worldwide corruption and the patterns of human behavior, I must stand strong on my own two feet and first understand myself. Also, because I wish my mother did this before having me, so she would have more self-confidence, self-discipline and self-love to raise me with. As such, I feel this blog is valuable on an endless number of levels – to mums, teenagers, parents, brothers, babysitters. It’s valuable to everyone who serves as a role model at one point in their life, because through this blog I hope to discover ways of personal empowerment that the government can’t tax and skinny Vogue models can’t shatter.

Friends, foes and acquaintances, I invite you along for the journey of one person’s reconstruction from the base up. A lot of muck, frustration and hopefully inspiration are to follow. Whether your interest lies in beating me down with criticism or holding me up with the crutches of encouragement, I welcome you all.