When I first saw stuff about the Fast Diet online, I thought it was an gimmicky fad diet and ignored it, then I started reading more about it and decided to try it.
One of the big attractions for me was that it doesn't just get the weight off but also it claims to have good results for diabetic control. I've been having problems getting my blood sugar down so figure it was worth a try.
If you aren't familiar with the diet, the premise is pretty basic. You eat normally for 5 days of the week and "fast" on the other 2. Fasting isn't actual fasting but sticking to 500 calories.
I fasted on Tuesday and Thursday. It was hard but not that hard. The hardest part for me was that I normally have 2 or 3 lattes during the day. I never realised how much all the milk in those lattes filled my stomach. I had green tea to keep my caffeine levels up but it's not the same.
By mid-afternoon, I felt a bit light headed and tired but pushed through it. Tuesday was much harder because I was unorganised and figured I could get a green salad from 7-11 but they only had ones laden with creamy mayo so a yoghurt was pretty much my only option. On Thursday, I got organised and had a roast vege salad.
The bonus is, if I really crave something and can't eat it, I know I can have it the next day (and by the then the craving has gone... sneaky, huh).
So, the results:
Weight: my weight didn't really change that much - but I weighed myself after doing a big poo last weekend. It's been too cold to get weighed naked before breakfast this week. I'm about the same this week.
Blood sugar: my blood sugar, which was insanely high last weekend, has gone down 5 points. That's a huge drop and I'm really happy with it.
Other: I've found I have a load of energy on the day after fasting. I've also been wanting to eat less than usual even though I have free rein and not been craving sweet stuff. Bonus - not buying lattes and lunch on fast days means I save $$$.
The only drawback is that you need to be a bit organised. It's not a huge pain, especially if you already eat a lot of vegies. Lunch has required the most thinking for me because I usually buy it.
If you live on KFC and are stacking on the weight with your normal calorie intake, you probably won't lose weight on this diet. If you are sticking to around the same weight and need to shift some, I'd say go for it.
18 May 2013
14 May 2013
This makes me so angry
Dumb fuck Osaka mayor, I hope you get abducted and raped multiple times over the next 5 years!
How can someone think that it is even okay to say something like that.
How can someone think that it is even okay to say something like that.
11 May 2013
50 shades of red
Sorry about the title but I couldn't resist. See my sister asked me if I knew what the infamous tampon scene in 50 Shades of Grey was about. Apparently people had been talking about it at uni, saying they couldn't keep reading after that.
Of course, I had no idea what it was about and we tried to imagine scenes where involving grossness and tampons. Then I turned to google to learn the truth.
So they are in the bathroom and she's on her rags and pulls out the tampon and they get into it.
That's it.
Oh, he chucks it in the toilet. It's not like they are going at it with a diry tampon sitting on the floor.
How is it ick or controversial to have sex during your period? FFS, they are in a bathroom. It's not like they can't wash afterwards. It's not like they are going to wreck expensive bed linen. It's not like... well, maybe I shouldn't get into the scenarios.
I'm totally squeamish about bodily fluids but I have no issues with this. It's a big, long story about sex stuff. You can't really put in a bit that is then she had her period so they sat around playing Go Fish for 5 days.
Of course, I had no idea what it was about and we tried to imagine scenes where involving grossness and tampons. Then I turned to google to learn the truth.
So they are in the bathroom and she's on her rags and pulls out the tampon and they get into it.
That's it.
Oh, he chucks it in the toilet. It's not like they are going at it with a diry tampon sitting on the floor.
How is it ick or controversial to have sex during your period? FFS, they are in a bathroom. It's not like they can't wash afterwards. It's not like they are going to wreck expensive bed linen. It's not like... well, maybe I shouldn't get into the scenarios.
I'm totally squeamish about bodily fluids but I have no issues with this. It's a big, long story about sex stuff. You can't really put in a bit that is then she had her period so they sat around playing Go Fish for 5 days.
07 May 2013
Lurve
We were talking at work today about lurve and the difference between men and women. Men, in my experience, seem to go along quite happily being single then it's like a switch clicks over and they decide it's time to settle down and get in a relationship while women are more like to look for *the one*.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Labels:
tell me
04 May 2013
Gaijin of Doom
I read on twitter that the Japan Times wants people to write them
letters outlining how they think working conditions for women in Japan
can be improved.
I know how it won't be improved - by a bunch of gaijin making a bunch of half-arsed suggestions.
You are there to teach English people, you are not there to save the natives or show them the light of your Western culture.
And seriously, if I was going to invest time and energy into improving conditions for women, I'd be looking at countries where the working conditions mean that women are raped and killed, where they have to work ungodly hours in ungodly conditions to barely survive.
If you live in a first world country and you can't be bothered doing anything to change your lot, then why should I care?
I know how it won't be improved - by a bunch of gaijin making a bunch of half-arsed suggestions.
You are there to teach English people, you are not there to save the natives or show them the light of your Western culture.
And seriously, if I was going to invest time and energy into improving conditions for women, I'd be looking at countries where the working conditions mean that women are raped and killed, where they have to work ungodly hours in ungodly conditions to barely survive.
If you live in a first world country and you can't be bothered doing anything to change your lot, then why should I care?
27 April 2013
Japanese women don't get fat (or old) - the book, the bollocks.
When I read this post on Fight Start, I remembered I'd been planning to post a rant about that very same book.
For starters, the author obvs has never been on the Mita line north of Sugamo or to Gusto in the Itabashi-ku or they'd never have called it that. At least she didn't call it Japanese women never get fat or old or pick their noses because the Mita line could surely be renamed the Pick a Winner Mita line - I've never seen so many nose pickers in one place in my life!
Most middle class women in Japan though are pretty thin, I have to say.
Anyway, the author, like most people, ignores the true reason why Japanese women don't put on weight. And that is this:
Japanese women are oppressed by a misogynist society where their entire worth revolves around looking thin and young.
If you don't look your best, your husband will be taking all the moneys and spending them on trying to get a 15 year old AKB48 look-a-like to suck his cock. If he leaves you, you will struggle to survive because you spent your university days and early career focused on GETTING A HUSBAND then gave it all up to look after him and the kids and now you are over 35 and it's impossible for a woman to get any kind of half decent job at that age even if they didn't have a 10 year+ career break.
Ergo, if you don't look thin and young, you are fucked.
The entire feminist movement is a failure because Western women are fat? We should forget about having careers and fulfilling lives because it's taking time away from our efforts to be thin? Fuck that bullshit. I'll take my rights as a human being on this earth over being thin any day.
I'll take living in a society where I can be married, have kids and have a career - or any combination I want - over looking like a little kawaii doll. Where, if I apply for a job I don't have to include my age or photo on my resume - and where my future employer can actually be fucked up for even asking for that.
Thinness is not the ultimate goal for woman. Some women are naturally thin, some women choose to be thin but no one should be telling them it's mandatory. Policing women's bodies is misogyny and oppresion. And, if you are not part of the STFU on this, you are part of the problem.
I have no proof of this, but I bet you can make a direct correlation between the expectation of thinness on women in society and the level to which they are oppressed.
But Kathryn, you say, Japanese women are healthier than those fatty-fat Western women.
The healthy argument is always trotted out when it comes to body policing but it's a load of balls really. Is it healthy to live on white rice and a scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables? Is it healthy to obsess about every single thing you eat?
Studies have actually shown that being overweight is healthier for you than being underweight (the desired weight for Japanese women is below the healthy BMI). It is definitely healthier to be overweight than to be on a diet lacking in essential nutrients in order to obtain and maintain a certain weight. If you look at the ads in the back of Japanese women's magazines, there are a heap for weight loss products and the scary thing is that the "before" pictures look a hell of a lot healthier than the "after".
So back to the book. Japanese women don't get fat or old is full of bollocksy diet advice and, like most diet books, is intent on making you so concerned about being pleasing to men that you get back in the kitchen where you belong -- but only to cook to please others because heaven forbid you actually eat some of that food yourself.
For starters, the author obvs has never been on the Mita line north of Sugamo or to Gusto in the Itabashi-ku or they'd never have called it that. At least she didn't call it Japanese women never get fat or old or pick their noses because the Mita line could surely be renamed the Pick a Winner Mita line - I've never seen so many nose pickers in one place in my life!
Most middle class women in Japan though are pretty thin, I have to say.
Anyway, the author, like most people, ignores the true reason why Japanese women don't put on weight. And that is this:
Japanese women are oppressed by a misogynist society where their entire worth revolves around looking thin and young.
If you don't look your best, your husband will be taking all the moneys and spending them on trying to get a 15 year old AKB48 look-a-like to suck his cock. If he leaves you, you will struggle to survive because you spent your university days and early career focused on GETTING A HUSBAND then gave it all up to look after him and the kids and now you are over 35 and it's impossible for a woman to get any kind of half decent job at that age even if they didn't have a 10 year+ career break.
Ergo, if you don't look thin and young, you are fucked.
The entire feminist movement is a failure because Western women are fat? We should forget about having careers and fulfilling lives because it's taking time away from our efforts to be thin? Fuck that bullshit. I'll take my rights as a human being on this earth over being thin any day.
I'll take living in a society where I can be married, have kids and have a career - or any combination I want - over looking like a little kawaii doll. Where, if I apply for a job I don't have to include my age or photo on my resume - and where my future employer can actually be fucked up for even asking for that.
Thinness is not the ultimate goal for woman. Some women are naturally thin, some women choose to be thin but no one should be telling them it's mandatory. Policing women's bodies is misogyny and oppresion. And, if you are not part of the STFU on this, you are part of the problem.
I have no proof of this, but I bet you can make a direct correlation between the expectation of thinness on women in society and the level to which they are oppressed.
But Kathryn, you say, Japanese women are healthier than those fatty-fat Western women.
The healthy argument is always trotted out when it comes to body policing but it's a load of balls really. Is it healthy to live on white rice and a scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables? Is it healthy to obsess about every single thing you eat?
Studies have actually shown that being overweight is healthier for you than being underweight (the desired weight for Japanese women is below the healthy BMI). It is definitely healthier to be overweight than to be on a diet lacking in essential nutrients in order to obtain and maintain a certain weight. If you look at the ads in the back of Japanese women's magazines, there are a heap for weight loss products and the scary thing is that the "before" pictures look a hell of a lot healthier than the "after".
So back to the book. Japanese women don't get fat or old is full of bollocksy diet advice and, like most diet books, is intent on making you so concerned about being pleasing to men that you get back in the kitchen where you belong -- but only to cook to please others because heaven forbid you actually eat some of that food yourself.
25 April 2013
Things that piss me off the most - Myki
If you don't live in Melbourne, well Myki is the ticketing system we have here. Like Suica except that Suica actually works! Myki is the biggest pile of stinking dog turd that the taxpayers money was ever wasted on.
For starters it costs $6 for the card, regardless of if you are a visitor to Melbs for only one day and you only want to take one trip on public transport.
And good luck trying to charge the bloody thing. I catch the train home from one of the major stations in the city. They have TWO charge machines. TWO. Cheap-arsed bastards. And the machines take so bloody long to work. And even longer if you want to pay by card. Not to mention that half the people using them don't know how to use them because the instructions are so shonky. I can use the charge machines in Japan in Japanese more intuitively than the ones in English here.
So you wait in the line and wait and wait and then you miss your train and it's 20 minutes until the next one because the train service is so lame here.
Then, you touch your card against one of the few touching on machines. Again, a huge line and then you touch it and touch it again. Then you get your card out of your wallet and hold it against the machine and eventually it registers and the gate opens.
At the other end, you have to touch off. You can just walk through the gates but then you have like $200 subtracted from your card. So the same waiting process with even less machines. And by the time you get through, you've missed your bus and it's 15 minutes waiting time for the next one.
The system is fucked.
Monday morning. I've been sick. I had a cold which has turned into bronchitis. It's been lingering for nearly 3 weeks now but you can only have so much bed rest when you are a contractor.
I go to swipe my card but there are about 10 people lined up to use each of the swipe machines and the train is pulling into the station.
So I jumped on the train. What's the alternative? Waiting at the wet, cold station for 20 minutes?
I figure I'll tell the man at the ticket gates my card isn't working and he'll sort it out. No sweat.
Except the cunting ticket inspectors are at the station and I'm nicked.
In any other country, you'd have enough trust in people to realise they will pay at the other end. In Japan you can buy the cheapest ticket and just top it up at the destination station. Not in Melbourne.
The ticket inspectors have this no-balls system where they don't actually give you a ticket. They take your details and send them to someone else so that the mysterious someone else is issuing the ticket. I think they must be on a quota system because they will get you for anything at all then you get a ticket and have to fight it.
You can go into a negative balance on your myki card but, if you get caught travelling with your card in negative, you get busted. Never mind that their system lets you do it. Never mind that you have the balance taken off your card the next time you put money on it.
Anyway, I gave the inspector a lot of grief. I don't usually think it's fair to do that to people doing the dirty work but he choose to become a ticket inspector.
After a lot of pissfarting around, making me even later for work, I got asked why I was travelling on a invalid ticket.
I told him, "your system is fucked."
So that's how you make money, folks. You set up a system that doesn't work, that people can't use even if they want to (the poor bastard beside me was getting busted because the machines weren't working at his station), then you fine people for not using it. At $208 per fine, what incentive do they have for making it adequate?
For starters it costs $6 for the card, regardless of if you are a visitor to Melbs for only one day and you only want to take one trip on public transport.
And good luck trying to charge the bloody thing. I catch the train home from one of the major stations in the city. They have TWO charge machines. TWO. Cheap-arsed bastards. And the machines take so bloody long to work. And even longer if you want to pay by card. Not to mention that half the people using them don't know how to use them because the instructions are so shonky. I can use the charge machines in Japan in Japanese more intuitively than the ones in English here.
So you wait in the line and wait and wait and then you miss your train and it's 20 minutes until the next one because the train service is so lame here.
Then, you touch your card against one of the few touching on machines. Again, a huge line and then you touch it and touch it again. Then you get your card out of your wallet and hold it against the machine and eventually it registers and the gate opens.
At the other end, you have to touch off. You can just walk through the gates but then you have like $200 subtracted from your card. So the same waiting process with even less machines. And by the time you get through, you've missed your bus and it's 15 minutes waiting time for the next one.
The system is fucked.
Monday morning. I've been sick. I had a cold which has turned into bronchitis. It's been lingering for nearly 3 weeks now but you can only have so much bed rest when you are a contractor.
I go to swipe my card but there are about 10 people lined up to use each of the swipe machines and the train is pulling into the station.
So I jumped on the train. What's the alternative? Waiting at the wet, cold station for 20 minutes?
I figure I'll tell the man at the ticket gates my card isn't working and he'll sort it out. No sweat.
Except the cunting ticket inspectors are at the station and I'm nicked.
In any other country, you'd have enough trust in people to realise they will pay at the other end. In Japan you can buy the cheapest ticket and just top it up at the destination station. Not in Melbourne.
The ticket inspectors have this no-balls system where they don't actually give you a ticket. They take your details and send them to someone else so that the mysterious someone else is issuing the ticket. I think they must be on a quota system because they will get you for anything at all then you get a ticket and have to fight it.
You can go into a negative balance on your myki card but, if you get caught travelling with your card in negative, you get busted. Never mind that their system lets you do it. Never mind that you have the balance taken off your card the next time you put money on it.
Anyway, I gave the inspector a lot of grief. I don't usually think it's fair to do that to people doing the dirty work but he choose to become a ticket inspector.
After a lot of pissfarting around, making me even later for work, I got asked why I was travelling on a invalid ticket.
I told him, "your system is fucked."
So that's how you make money, folks. You set up a system that doesn't work, that people can't use even if they want to (the poor bastard beside me was getting busted because the machines weren't working at his station), then you fine people for not using it. At $208 per fine, what incentive do they have for making it adequate?
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