Diet Update

I never really did an update of my 17 Day Diet and how it went. Well, my goal was to lose 15 pounds. If you read my initial post on the 17 Day Diet, you would know that I have a really hard time losing weight. Before starting the diet, I ate healthy and exercised like crazy and was still only able to lose 12 pounds in 1 year. That's right. It took me ONE WHOLE YEAR to lose 12 freaking pounds. So I decided to try this diet. What have I got to lose? 

Well, one year has passed and let me tell you. That diet was amazing! I wish I took pictures of the results before and after 17 days to show you. In the first phase of the diet, I was able to lose 10 pounds. My goal was to lose 15. It was hard the first couple of days of the diet because my body was adjusting. But after that, it was easy for me. I guess it's because I'm not a picky eater. It was much harder on my BF and he complained A LOT. And I would not let him cheat at all, which made him complain even more, which made it harder on me (to hear his whining). Other than that, it was pretty easy. 

Since I still needed to lose another 5 pounds, I continued on to phase 2 of the diet. And I was able to lose those 5 pounds easily within the first few days of that phase. I love this diet because I got to eat constantly, yet I was still able to lose the weight. Also, I hardly even had to exercise at all. During the first 2 phases of the diet, you don't really need to exercise that much. I just did a leisurely 30 minute walk every day. That was it. Easy. 

Once I got to my goal weight, I've just been maintaining it. To maintain my weight, I eat healthy meals during the week from the suggestion of the diet plan. I get to splurge on the weekends so it doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything. There are a few staple food items that I feel have contributed to helping me maintain my weight, which I suggest you should also add to your diet if you haven't already done so. 

Greek Yogurt:

I eat Greek Yogurt every morning (except for weekends). It was a big part of the 17 Day Diet and I have continued to eat it ever since. I usually buy Fage but I'm pretty sure any brand will do. The reason why I get this brand is because they sell the container (pictured) at Cost for under $5 and I buy multiple containers each time I go. I believe it's the calcium in the yogurt that may be helping with the weight loss. I'm not an expert so I don't know for sure. 

Frozen Berries:

I eat these frozen berries with my yogurt every morning. I buy them frozen because they last a long time and you don't have to worry about them going bad after a few days. Also, I like to add it to my yogurt frozen and leave it out for about half an hour. What happens is the berries will melt and their juices come out which will be mixed into the yogurt, giving it flavor. This way, you don't have to add any sugar or anything else to make it taste good. I guess the berries have a lot of fiber to them that helps with weight loss and maintaining your weight. If you don't have time to let it sit out, you can make it ahead of time by putting it in to-go containers and leaving it in the refrigerator for when you are ready to eat it. I always buy this from Costco. It is very cost effective and tastes great.

Sometimes I will get bored and want to change it up a bit, especially during blueberry season so I eat my yogurt with about 1/4 cup of granola cereal and blueberries. Like this:

Then mix it up:

Looks disgusting but tastes so good!

And eat it!

Read my post on the 17 Day Diet here.

Nutella Obsession

Recently, I have been addicted to nutella. If you have never tried it, you should go get a jar ASAP. Or maybe you shouldn't because it is sure to ruin your diet. For those of you who don't know what nutella is, it's a chocolate hazelnut spread. If I'm not mistaken, the people who make nutella also make the Ferrero Roche candy. My BF had to hide the jar of it from me because I was eating way too much of it. Little does he know I found where he had hidden it and have slowly been eating some behind his back. HA! 

You know you want some of this!

Nutella pretty much goes good with anything. I especially like to eat it with pretzels or crackers. Yum! Have you had a nutella and banana sandwich? Delish! I have been thinking of other creative ways to use nutella to make other desserts and have come up with some recipes that may sound good. Once I get around to trying these recipes out, I will definitely post them on this blog. Until then, treat yourself to some of that delicious chocolate hazelnut spread. 

Ugly Kids

In one of my past posts, I mentioned that I don't want to have kids. Well not right now, at least. Lately however, I've been thinking about how I would feel about my kids if I do end up having them. This may sound superficial but I hope my kids turn out cute. I always wonder how I would feel if my kids turned out ugly. Would I still love them the same? Would I be embarrassed to show pictures of them to strangers? 

I always wonder if this is how parents with ugly children feel. I mean, there are ugly people in the world so of course there have been shares of ugly babies. How would I feel if a friend saw my child for the first time and I didn't hear, "Aww! Your daughter/son is so adorable" or "He/she is so cute"? Would I feel bad that I had an ugly child? Would I even notice or would I think my child is adorable no matter what?

On Facebook when people post pictures of their children, they will always get at least 1 comment saying how cute or adorable their child is, even when that kid is freaking hideous. I have a few friends on Facebook that have the most ugly children. I know I'm a bitch for saying this, but it's true! And it seems like they constantly post pictures of their children for all their friends to see in hopes that someone will reassure them that their child is cute. One Facebook friend of mine has a daughter who looks like Chuckie. Remember Chuckie? That hideous looking talking doll from the Child's Play movies? And of course, whenever she posts pictures of her daughter, she gets tons of positive comments. It makes me wonder if the commenters are lying to her to make her feel better or if they're telling the truth. 

OK. So I might be cursed with having ugly children for saying and thinking all these mean things. Am I the only one who feels this way? Maybe it's because I don't have any children. People always say your views change once you have children. I have a reputation for being too honest about everything. I once told a close friend that her son looks like a baby troll. I didn't mean to say it so be mean but it was just an observation. You know, those toys that people used to collect a years and years ago? I think those things are cute. But I think it offended her that I said that. But honestly, every time I looked at that kid, I was reminded of those baby trolls!

Aren't these baby trolls cute?

Of course, I would only say these things to my close friends. I would never tell that mother on Facebook that her child looks like Chuckie because we aren't that close. On a positive note, if I ever tell my friends that their child is cute, they can be assured that I'm telling them the truth. 

I love Payless

Recently, I've been falling in love with Payless shoes. It had been a long time since I had shopped there because they usually never had anything I liked. However, I've recently fallen in love with Payless.

You see, I have big, muscular calves which I hate because I've never been able to wear those cute knee high boots. For years and years, I've envied women with skinny calves that can wear those boots which they wear over their jeans, with skirts, or with tights. I was so jealous. Having big calves meant that I would have to actually special order the boots and pay hundreds of dollars for them. Being the cheapskate that I am, I would never spend that much money on shoes. This led to years of envying all the skinny calved women and their knee-high boots.

A few years ago, I bought knee high boots that I was able to tightly zip over my calves. The problem was, I was limited to only wearing them over tights because the jeans were too thick to zip over. This made the boots pretty useless. Plus they were too high and hurt my feet when I wore them. So it was back to square one with my search for affordable, wide calf boots.

A few weeks ago, out of boredom, I decided to check out the Payless website and lo and behold, they happen to have quite an impressive stock of wide calf shoes. I found one online that I thought I would like and I decided to stop by one of their stores instead of ordering online because I wanted to make sure that they actually fit. Once I got to the store, I was pleasantly surprised. They had more styles of wide-calf shoes than I had expected!

They had so many styles, I couldn't even decide on which ones to get. Ultimately, I ended up buying two pairs of riding boots (costing me less than $100 for both pairs), which I wear all the time because they are super cute and extremely comfortable. Afterwards, I went on the Payless website again to see what else they had. I now wanted other different colors and styles to add to my collection as well. Unfortunately, a lot the their stock of wide calf boots were sold out. Since this is basically the end of winter shoe season, they were already stocking for spring. Too bad I didn't know about them sooner.

So I'm definitely looking forward to what Payless will have in stock for us wide calved women next season an will be eagerly waiting. Thank you Payless for finally thinking about us. We like affordable boots too!

I Hate Glitter!

So it's that time of year again. The holidays! One thing I look forward to about the holidays is decorating the Christmas tree. Although I'm an atheist, I still celebrate Christmas. To me, the holiday is not so much religious, but instead a secular tradition. Anyway, back to the tree. Since I'm sort of crafty, I like to find creative ways to decorate my Christmas tree and make it look pretty. I'm very picky about ornaments that I use. One thing that bugs me the most about looking for Christmas decorations is the damn glitter.

I mean, c'mon now! Why the hell do they have to put glitter on all the ornaments? Are we in elementary school or something? I hate it when I find a cute ornament and it's riddled with glitter. Why am I so against glitter? It's messy, it gets all over the place, and it sticks to you all day long. For some reason, glitter bugs me more than anything. For me, glitter lost its appeal a long time ago. 

It really bugs me that these manufacturers insist on putting glitter on everything. OK. Sometimes the glitter does make some of the ornaments look cute but isn't there something else they can use? Like metallic? I guess glitter is just a lot cheaper. Am I the only one who feels this way about glitter or what? Since about 99 percent of Christmas decorations have glitter on them, it makes it very difficult for me to find decent ornaments. I like to buy just a few ornament every year and then add on to my collection as time goes on. This year, all I bought were some high end Christmas lights and two small boxes of ornaments. Last year, I made a bunch of bows from ribbons I bought at Michael's and the Dollar Store. I was also able to get a bunch of artificial poinsettia from Walmart for 25 cents each post holiday season. My tree topper is also a homemade ribbon. Next year, I'm hoping to buy a tree topper such as an angel or a star or a tree skirt. 

Since the theme colors for my tree are blue, white and silver, looking for cute decorations is extra difficult (I'm not too fond of red and gold). But I love my tree this year. It looks so beautiful. Did I tell you my Christmas tree is an artificial white one? Last year I had blue Christmas lights with green wires but didn't like the way it looked with the white tree. So this year, I bought white Christmas lights with white wires. I like this look better. I found an blue-themed angel on Amazon that looked cute so I'm looking to maybe buy it next year. It's quite expensive so it will have to wait. 

Since I'm on a budget, I only decorate about half my tree. haha. I don't decorate the side that's against the wall. What's the point? No one sees it anyway. So my tree looks like it has more ornaments than it actually does. Most of my ornaments are from Michael's. They have high quality ornaments and when you go at the right time, you can get them at 50 percent off. I also have some from Dollar Tree. Surprisingly, some of their ornaments look really high quality. Never ever buy your ornaments at Walmart. I bought some from them last year but ended up returning them because they looked so crappy and poorly made. I can get better ornaments at Michael's for the same price (when they're on sale)! 

Sex in Sleazy Motels

I know there are many couples who go to cheap motels just to have sex. But the idea of having sex in cheap motels just grosses me out tremendously. My bf and I would stay at cheap motels if we are stopping off somewhere during a trip for some rest. But we would never go to one just to have sex. In fact, if we happen to be at one of these places, sex is the last thing on my mind.  

I just wonder how people can have sex at one of these places. Imagine all the dirty stuff that goes on in these rooms. Yuck! The sheets don't even get cleaned very often either. I usually have a pretty hard time falling asleep at one of these places because I'm trying so hard not to think about all the germs and bodily fluids that are all over the room. This is why I try not to stay at these places too often.

I'm very picky when it comes to picking hotels to stay at for vacation. If I'm on vacation, even though I'm not going to be spending a lot of time in the hotel, I still want to be able to sleep comfortably in the bed. I usually look for rooms that have down comforters and fluffy looking pillows. What can I say? I like being comfortable.

Not only will these hotels be comfortable, but they also have better souvenirs. Yes, I also like to take home as many travel size shampoo bottles and bars of soap as I can take. And if I can sneak a towel home (specifically the ones with the hotel's logo), even better. Yes. I am ghetto but I don't care.  

Unattractive Fat Girl

A lot of people have been talking about Lady Gaga's weight gain. Lady Gaga used to be hideously stick thin but she has since gained 25 pounds. I'm pretty sure this is due the fact that she is happily in love in her relationship and her father's cooking. To be honest, I don't think Lady Gaga looks too overweight. But boy does the extra weight gain make her look horrible.

She has only gained 25 pounds ( I don't think it's that much weight compared to how much she weighed before) but all the fat definitely shows in her face. She has a double chin and her face is much rounder which makes her look unattractive.

I must say that I can definitely relate to Lady Gaga. Everytime I gain a few pounds, it seems that it shows the most in my face. Not only that, I also tend to break out and lose my glow. Also, I have naturally red lips but when I gain weight, its color fades.

This is just not fair. There are some girls who look gorgeous overweight and it's just not right. I always complain that I am not allowed to be overweight because I look extremely unattractive. Not only that, but why does my face also want to turn on me and grow pimples? Why? Isn't it bad enough already that my face gets chubbier? Why also add the acne? And forget about taking pictures, my naturally photogenic skinny self would look horrible on camera fat. But why is it that there are girls that still look beautiful overweight?

For example, take Adele. Even though she's overweight, she's still extremely beautiful. I think if she were to lose all that weight, she would look even prettier, but that's beside the point. Also, look at Jennifer Hudson. When she was overweight, she was still gorgeous. Honestly, I think she looks prettier overweight than thin.

This is one reason why I never want to be pregnant. I would just look awful. I'm so jealous of those women who look gorgeous pregnant. It seems like they only gain weight in their bellies and nowhere else.

I guess the upside of this curse is that I would always be motivated to stay thin if I want to stay attractive. But can't I have it both ways too? Is that so much to ask?