Sunday, March 25, 2012

why i hate the number 33

"way to go!  you've made a great choice to live healthier," the website says.  i decided to click "stay with weight watchers" only because they offered me a free "recipe book" (more like a brochure) download if i did.  but in all seriousness i'm quitting.  hopefully for good.

i decided to go on weight watchers in mid-January.  they were running this 3 month special promotion, and i wanted to drop some pounds.  so i signed up.  i originally thought that the program was great; i learned about portion control (scary, what a portion really is), and i started to feel as if i were losing something.

but then the honeymoon ended.  i  think for a minute there, i became a bit obsessed with the numbers.  i take my ipod touch everywhere so i can track points for everything i eat.  when i weight myself on weight-in day, i end up getting kind of stressed, partly because for some reasons my scale(s) like to go haywire on me when i step on them, and partly because according to the scale(s) (when they work) i've been gaining fractions of pounds just about every week since joining.  i've been toying with the idea of just dropping the program, trying to see how i'd do on my own, and joining spark people (for free!) if i end up falling flat on my face.

fast forward to today.  i woke up, stepped on the scale, saw the usual message from weight watchers ("oops, you gained this week") when i punched the numbers in...and got angry.  i realized i was sick of being obsessed with this number, with point values and all of this.  i kept saying to myself, "my self-worth is not on that scale."  and i also began to realize that maintaining my mental health (and attempting to maintain my physical health on my own) is better than reaching some random goal weight and staying under a points plus value every day.  my well-being is so much more than 33 daily points and whatever exercise i can punch into the system.

*if there are any errors or awkward sentences, apologies.  i actually wrote this while nodding off.  been keeping some late hours these days...*

Friday, March 16, 2012

Natural Hair Rocks

at the beginning of February, i (FINALLY) went to the salon and told the hairdresser not to straighten my hair after washing and deep-conditioning it.  i was afraid of facing breakage, not being able to manage my curls, having a style fail on me...there were so many things keeping me from doing this sooner.

but i have never loved my hair more.  it's been a definite learning process--talking to friends who made the transition from relaxed/straightened to natural, poring over forums and blogs devoted solely to the subject, arguing with my mother about how her thoughts that this would be disastrous weren't quite rational...the list goes on.  below are some pictures of my hair in the past month.










try this on for size


[Now Playing (often on repeat; is that narcissistic?): "Insanity/Black and Yellow (3Ni's Mashup)" -- iNexus vs. Wiz Khalifa]

in the spirit of reinventing myself...i finally broke down and did a mashup.  and i think i did a pretty good job (minus the fact that the volume balance is off between the lyrics and the background in places...always a struggle).  i'm especially proud of the fact that it only took me a couple of hours; for some reason i kept thinking that it'd take a lot longer.

anyway, take a listen for yourself.  and comment.  and share with your closest friends, relatives, and enemies (especially your enemies haha).  pretty please??

more to come, i promise.