The Happy Method

It’s not difficult to be thin if you’re healthy, rich and happy. Oh, I know that it isn’t that easy, but the opposite can definitely make you fat. If you’re poor, it’s easier to eat junk food. It seems to be subsidized in our society. The same goes for being unhappy. ‘Comfort food’ is probably something we’ve all resorted to at one time or another. If you’re sick yhou can either put on weight (for not getting enough exercise) or lose weight because of the illness.

You might be wondering why I’m thinking along these lines. The reason is that I’ve been on sick leave for being burned out and depressed and before that I didn’t have the strength for anything but my work. If you haven’t been through this yourself the same thing it might be difficult to understand how it feels. Some days I could hardly get out of bed, let alone go for a walk. My appetite was up and down. I didn’t feel like eating until I got dizzy from hunger, and then I stuffed myself to compensate.

That definitely didn’t have any positive effect on my weight. To say the least. And when I finally stood on the scales for the first time in a very long time, I almost began to cry. That was when I made the decision. This time I’ll make it work. I don’t know if I’ll reach my target weight, but I’m not going to give up.

This is it, my own method for losing weight. Let’s call it the ‘Happy method’.

I made a note of my initial weight, then filled in my partial goals. I’m going to stand on the scales every Sunday and in between I’m going to try and forget my weight.

And now the exercise. I used to think negatively, about how tiresome it was to get ready and how long it took. Now I see the fun in the walk. I bring my camera, look for motives and try to find new places to go to. I used to think ‘I have to, because…’. Now I’m thinking ‘I want to, because…’.

And finally the food. That actually came first – I know it’s being recommended all the time – eating regularly. I’ve considered this a lot, but never managed to implement it before. The idea is to eat five times a day. It may sound like a lot, but I’m trying to even out my blood sugar levels throughout the day. And two of the meals can be half a cracker, or a piece of fruit. No more than one sandwich, no cookies or candy. No sweet beverages. And nothing after 8 pm.

I also try to serve the food in a pretty way. Focus on the colors. Peppers, cucumber, parsley. Other than that I try to reward myself with something fun, not anything to eat.

So there you have it. My own Happy Method .

So far it’s worked. Three Sundays in a row with a positive result. I love to see the downward curve, that slowly but surely, approaching my first partial target. And best of all, this is no temporary change. I can live like this all the time.

Garbage!

I am using the first days of my unemployment, tidying up the garage. Not that much fun, but necessary. Part of that job is to shuttle back and forth between my home and the recycling plant. I’m referring to a bigger place than our usual garbage sorting stations, where you can leave cans, bottles, paper wrappers and newspapers. At this place you can also dump bigger stuff, like tree branches, entire sofas, electronics, bicycles and so on.

Strangely enough, I’ve never been to that kind of place before. I always thought they were just your average garbage dump/landfill. A stinking place with seagulls circling around all over the place. And the people working there would be wearing overalls and heavy boots to avoid the worst filth. It turned out my expectations were quite wrong.

You have to drive up a ramp, surrounded by all kinds of dumpsters with neat signs saying heavy garbage, wood, metall, car batteries and so on. Some of them there were more than one of, others not.

This environment is for the greater part male. The employees are men and most of those who deliver garbage are men too. Sometimes a woman comes along to advise her husband, but mainly the garbage bringers are men. I felt clearly that I belonged to a tiny minority as a young woman without the requisite accompanying male.

What surprised me the most were the employees. Sure, they wore a type of overalls, but not sort of protective coverings. Instead, they look surprisingly ordinary. They’ve collected dumped house plants of all kinds, and planted them in trunks, bowls, waste baskets and similar containers dumped by people. It looks quite cozy and the mood is calm and welcoming.

I’ll still need to go a few more times before the garage and the storage room is done and I’m already looking forward to my next visit at the recycling plant.

I’ll make bags!!

Yesterday I went to buy fabrics. Now I’ll design bags. It will be great to make them, but even better to use them. In the future, when I can afford it, I’ll order fabrics with my own pattern on. That will be awesome;).

The Glass Bubble

I’m trapped inside a bubble – an unbreakable sphere of glass. Outside, life seems to rush past it – past me. Children grow up, get married, have kids of their own. They travel, work and shop. In other words, they have a life.

Deep inside nothing ever happens. I don’t work, meet anyone or have children. All I can do is watch the others. Those who have a life. Something I lack.

I watch myself inside the bubble. The others don’t see me. What isn’t seen doesn’t exist. Inside the sphere time seems to stand still. I’m the same. Nothing happens, nothing changes.

Someone outside, help me, notice me. Break the bubble. I want to get out. Out into your world. I want to live – again.

A walk in the sun

I have been feeling really low for a long time. Maybe low isn’t the right word. I big grey nothingness has been filling me up. Today though, I took a walk in the sunshine. It was warm and sunny and there were spring flowers everywhere. I felt almost happy for a little while.

Male beauty

A while back, I bought a magazine, because there were some articles in it about being burned out. The readers could send in their questions and views. I found this very interesting. Among other things, there was this man asking if the magazine was only for women since the magazine never had a man on the frontc page.

A very relevant question, I felt and I was eager to learn the answer. The response made me both upset and surprised. The tone was ironic – of course they could occasionally show a man on the front page but in that case they had to accept that they would only sell about half of what they usually did.

Are people really that non politically correct? I can’t believe that they have actually made a survey about it. And why would people in general not buy a magazine just because they show a man on the front page?
Is that true? Do I belong to a minority, that appreciates seeing a photo of a handsome man? Do most people choose magazines after what face they see on the front page? In that case, I simply don’t get it.

Why can’t the editors of the ladies’ magazines stand up for more equal media?

A few years ago, one of our major clothes retailers put Marcus Schenkenberg, in a sexy pose, in their ads, instead of the usual porn (women only, of course). Unfortunately, they didn’t follow through. The year after Marcus, they had a bland, non-descript older man and after that, only undernourished females, simpering ‘come and get me’.

Come on!

Let’s see a little more male beauty on our magazine covers!

Do Looks Matter?

Beauty is in eye in the beholder, they say. Does that saying contain a portion of truth? Maybe, but in any case, looks do matter a great deal, whatever we might feel about it. Some people seem to be condemned to be left outside and others to be in the center of things, being admired.

I have always felt that my looks were never enough. I have always been the kind friend that hasn’t been “girlfriend material”. The one that the guys cries with when their girlfriend have left them, and have always been there for them. Of course you can always argue that it doesn’t have any anything to do with my looks. That the explanation might lie in my personality.

Everything can be explained away. If an overweight person doesn’t get the job, you can always say she or he lacked in social competence and that it didn’t have anything to do with looks. Despite that, research shows that looks, like height and weight, matters a great deal for the outcome of a work interview.

On the internet, I’ve been given a chance, to see both worlds. I started out as the invisible ugly girl to be one of the popular admired ones. Ever since I was a teenager I’ve hated to have my picture taken and the few photos of me that I have from those days are awful. Every time I’ve tried to show those pictures online, I’ve gotten the same reaction as I’ve had from people I’ve met.

Now I’ve learned to take good pictures of myself. Self portraits with clever angles and lights. Pictures that I later worked on in PhotoShop (slight alterations, but important ones) and suddenly I looked like a model. The effect was amazing. Now I get more attention than I want to. People that never would have looked twice at me, suddenly want to be my friend. One wanted to send me presents from the other side of the world and the compliments are raining over me. The strange thing is, I’m still the same. I haven’t changed.

Of course it’s great to feel pretty, but since I’ve seen both worlds, I know that it doesn’t matter all that much. I know now that people only care about me for my looks. The looks, I’ve only “borrowed” from my photographic skills and my cleverness with PhotoPhop. So do looks matter, I mean really matter? You don’t get more friends, only more attention. Does that really matter?

Some fat thoughts

A few thoughts on being overweight.

Sometimes I try to think that maybe I don’t have to be skinny. Can’t I be the girl who is different? The one who is a little fat. But unfortunately, that never works. You simply don’t want to be fat, because fat=ugly.

Perhaps people haven’t always felt that way and not even all over the world, but right now, in the western world, we do. And more importantly: I do.

Another thing: have you noticed that if you ever were to be happy with your body, you’d hate your face and breasts. And vice versa. If you’re happy with face and breasts, you’ll hate the body. Typical.

Barbie for grownups

I had ordered it online, a couple of weeks earlier. Even though it’s very handy to do that, I always feel it takes forever to get the delivery. First you have to sign the agreement and send it back. Not until that’s done, can you get the new phone number. After that, you can only wait. Hopefully it’s just as good as it seemed when I read up on it, when I compared it with similar phones. Ok, ok, I confess, I am a techno geek. I love my electronic gadgets. I still have them all. All the old mobile phones and computers that I have owned. There’s actually quite a collection and it takes up a lot of room, but like I said, I love them.

I unpack the package that I’ve just picked up at the post office. I’m so excited to take it up and test it. And there it is, in the transparent box with a lid in orange plastic. My happiness is complete. Suddenly I’m struck with a dejá vú. Sometime a very long time age, I’ve felt exactly the same way. And then it occurs to me. Every time I unpacked a new Barbie, Skipper or one of the other fantastic dolls, I felt like this. Oh yes I know, it’s not all that politically correct to love Barbie dolls. They are plastic and have huge breasts.

As a small kid I learned that I wasn’t allowed to like them. And as I grow up I understood that my growing breasts had to be something wrong too. And since I also had a slim waist, like Barbie, I dressed up in loose fitting clothes, trying to hide.

But back to my new mobile phone. I play with it. Almost hugging it.:) And then I realize that it’s got to get a name. A name that reflects my feelings towards it. Barbie is the first that comes into my mind, but since my feelings for this doll are a bit mixed, I settle for Skipper. Skipper is politically correct enough. She is flat chested and totally lacks a waist. Just like my new W800. Smiling, I plug in the charger and start to test all the new features.

I’m Fat

I stood on the scales this morning, after sticking to my new workout and diet for a week. No, it’s not Atkins or the GI method, or even one of those ladies’ magazine diets like: ‘Lose 6 pounds in time for your vacation! Ha ha, what would losing 6 pounds do for me? It’s nothing.

No, this method I came up with myself. It simply means living more healthy. At least one hour’s walk every day, regular meals, no candy or sugar and half the number of sandwiches, which is my worst vice.
‘
How stupid of me to think this could work. But I did think so. How naive and stupid of me. Why should I succeed this time, when every other attempt had failed before?

My judgment came today: 2 pounds up. Despite that I won’t quit. That would make me feel even more like a loser. Which I am.

I’m fat and I’ll always be fat.