Temptation

When you finally decide to get serious and go for it, that's precisely the moment temptation seems to rear its ugly head. For years, everytime I get serious about losing weight and eating healthy, people would buy me chocolates, take me out for meals etc etc...and I hadn't even told them that I was trying to diet!



Last week, I decided to get really serious about making sure I work out every day for the rest of my holidays. But the very next day, at lunch with my family, my sister and I shared this awesome dessert with chocolate pie, ice cream, caramel and nuts and marshmallows all on a hot plate...yummm..(Photo from http://www.swensens.com.sg/) Delicious but totally not a good way to start my whole weight loss thing.


The next day, my bffs and I went out to visit a friend. After lunch, we needed a place to hang out. Like most people, we've got a few go to places and the various parts of the island. That afternoon, we happened to be in the area of out favourite Baskin Robbins outlet. Agh!


Then that very night, my parents had a craving for cheesecake. And instead of just getting a slice each, there was a whole cheesecake, small as it may be, tempting me in the refrigerator.


I've kept to the goal of working out every day. But I quite doubt I've burned any calories I haven't put back on with all that food! :(

While I still fit in clothes like this (photo from http://www.look.co.uk/) I'd very much like to look less frumpy. And with more awesome arms and shoulders. I've come to realise that empire waist dresses only do so much to hide your tummy. If you still have one under there, chances are, you tend to look a wee bit preggers.

Looking in the mirror

I don't know when or how it happened. Right until this time last year, I still felt absolutely hot, way below 60kg and didn't have skin problems. Friends have been telling me I've put on weight this year. At a family thing earlier this year, some stupid relative even assumed I was preggers. But I'd assumed it was because the dowdy woman had never seen people in empire waist dresses before. I no longer have flawless complesion either. But I didn't realise it was this bad.
I'd gone without a weighing scale for a couple of months sometime back. When I bought a new one, I figured there must've been some kind of calibration error on the old one because the new one says I've gained 5kg. But right now I'm beginning to think there wasn't anything wrong with the calibration on the last one right until the time it just gave up and refused to take any more readings at all.
"Well, it would look nicer if you didn't have all that extra weight on you. You've put on a lot, you know?" was my hair stylists reply when I asked if I should get bangs and if they would look good on me. WTF. But as he said it, I looked in the mirror and realised he wasn't all that far off the mark. When on earth did my face get so round? Like really, it went from heart shaped to...just round. And when did my skin get so....awkward high schooler - like? I wasn't even like that when i WAS in highg school. In my twenty first year, I'd gone from absolutely awesome to...this. This last semester has really taken a toll on me. I don't think I've relaxed at all since January. Neither have I gone shopping properly. "When did I get so dowdy?" is what crosses my mind many times when I'm picking out an outfit these days.
But right now, I've got about 8 weeks to get rid of all these extra kilos and sort out my wardrobe and possibly do something about my skin...although I haven't quite figured out what to do about that last one yet. But I will.

Trying to slow down

A few days ago, I argued with Josh that I wasn't going out of my way to look for work to keep myself busy during the holidays. I insisted that I do know how to enjoy myself and just take it easy. Well, now I see that I might have been wrong - agreeing to help a lecturer out with research over my holidays might have been more responsibility that I initially realised..and more work, too! I don't really know how academic research is usually carried out but I'm beginning to feel like she's setting me very unnecessarily tight deadlines. It's only been a week since I started helping her out and right now it seems like my deadlines are typically two days for each piece of work, after which I'm given the next one and so forth. Okay my first assignment was simple enough and it was reasonable to finish within two days. But the last one and the one I have to work on now seem like stuff I'd expect a few more days than that to complete. I mean, this stuff is like actually reading up on things and looking for relevant information and stuff. If people could do all this reading so quickly, wouldn't all academics be churning out papers each month?

The promise of holidays

Don't you just love the few days before holidays? When you just can't wait for the extra free time that seems to hold so many promises of awesome things you just didn't have time to do while busy with work/school? It could be as simple as finally having time to catch up on sleep. It feels particularly good this time around because it'll be my first holiday in about a year where I don't have any uni activities encroaching on my time. The previous holidays pretty much passed me by because I was so busy with Uni activities, which admittedly were like vacations but...working vacations? Sometimes it's just nice to know you've got time to waste.
Well goals for the holidays will be....
1. Working out and getting fit. Throughout the whole semester, I never really recovered from coming back late from uni related activities..which left me rushing to keep up with school work and everything else. I've gained to much weight that my 'normal' weight is up about 3kg from what it used to be last year. No way I'm letting that continue. So it's going to be lots of jogging, swimming and pilates for me this hols.
2. Learn something new. But since I'm trying to lose weight, I'm thinking of taking up some kind of dance class. Never taken one in my life.
3. Update my wardrobe! I hadn't realised just how out of date my wardrobe has gotten. It just becomse so routine to pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt every morning just to go to class that when it actually comes to going out, I realise I've got nothing nice to wear. Everything's just so..two years ago. Shopping!!!!