Tofu!

Haven't had tofu in a looong time so I bought some for dinner yesterday! Decided to try it marinated in chilli, ginger, soy sauce, mirin and sesame oil. Served with stir-fried veg and an azuki flavour bao - delicious! Azuki is red beans, and this bao was really a dessert because the beans are sweet, but I served it on the plate anyway because it looked pretty. Haha! I steamed my bao - always the best way to eat it.




Meanwhile my lil bro had pizza and veg, and I just had to intrude with some picture-taking before letting him dig in :P

Udon

I made that udon soup for my dinner the other day but forgot to take decent pics as I was too busy tucking in! BUT I did get a crappy pic of plain udon to show. This is my favourite type of noodle - so thick with a great bite to it. Love it!

Mmmm breakfast :)

Had a really nice breakfast this morning! Enjoyed what I actually wanted to eat without counting or worrying about anything so I'm really pleased :) I had a pot of plain probiotic yoghurt topped with chopped hazelnuts, 1 weetabix biscuit with water and an apple, sliced up. Yum :3 I also had a big cup of green tea. I've been drinking it for years, I love it! I always buy a particular brand of loose leaf green tea because it just tastes so damn good. Tea in bags never tastes as good, and the brand I buy is the freshest tasting one I've found, even compared to other loose leaf ones.






Dinner tonight will be: Udon soup with pork!! Can't wait, I love udon! Haha. Will try and post pics :)

*sigh*

Still struggling to be normal about food again, but I know with perseverance I will get there. I just analyzed todays cals and macros, as well as those of an example of how I was eating before, and surprisingly everything was much better when I wasn't stressing about it. Todays macros were p27 c34 f39, and cals about 1514. The example day was something like 1600cals, p40 c40 f20, which is far better. In addition, back then I was finally free of bloating, felt more energetic and healthy, and was much happier and more stress-free, compared to now where chronic bloating and water retention is setting in again, I feel drained and crappy, and really stressed out. There are so many foods I can't face putting into my body again, and it's ridiculous because most of the foods I won't eat right now aren't even unhealthy! If i just keep thinking back to how much better I felt back then, and focus on my desire to be an unbeatable all-round fitness freak, as well as who and what inspires me, I can do this. I know I can, I just need to be a little more patient and keep trying.

Mitotropin

I'm interested in taking this Gaspari product just to see what happens.. Anyone used it?? Any opinions?

I'm so clumsy!

I was messing about with my friend in the car today and hit my head on the ceiling - and got a nosebleed!! Oops! :P

Still trying to regain a healthy relationship with food...I'm almost there. I really thought I was over all this :/ Still compulsively counting, but as of tomorrow I'm going to try and stop that altogether and just keep a journal of what I eat at what time, and how it makes me feel. Then I can just analyse which foods I should limit, what makes me feel good and what portion sizes are right for me again. What a pain in the ass to have to go through this again :/ at least though, now I know that I can do this :) I will be enjoying my favourite foods again in no time. Until then, here's some food porn to help me out :)



Also..School breaks up tomorrow, whoo! Which means I can go back to a normal kind of day rather than chopping it up for several shifts a day. Cool cool :)

Oh and I just finished over an hour of good stretching! I now hold my stretches for a good two minutes and do about 3 sets of each stretch, so it takes a long time but I feel awesome afterwards. I've always wanted to take up gymnastics or a martial art but never got round to it yet.. So if i ever do, all this stretching should help me out in the beginning! Watching Ong Bak 2 as I write this.

Tips for losing water weight

People can carry a lot of weight from just water, and it can make you feel lethargic, puffy, heavy and bloated.. I often seem to carry the most water round my middle, which is annoying but can be lost with a little effort! Follow these basic tips to see how different you feel. You will be surprised to find how much you were actually carrying, and amazed by the results!


* Drink more water. Funnily enough you actually need to drink more water to prevent your body retaining too much fluid. Aim for 2litres or more per day.
* Cut back on simple carbs. Sugary foods and refined starches hold more fluid in your body.
* Reduce sodium and salt intake. Like simple carbs, they attract more fluid.
* Avoid artificial sweeteners, as they have the same effect on your body as normal sugar. Just because it's calorie-free doesn't mean it has no effect at all!
* Exercise more! Sweat out the excess!
* Try a water retention supplement to relieve excess retention. I wouldn't recommend using these too often as I would imagine they aren't too good for your system since they do all the work for you, but try one as a last resort if the above fails even after sustained effort.

I lost a lot of water weight in only 2 days (nearly half a stones worth!) and my stomach shrank from being flat-ish to being miniscule! Absolutely loved the results, and now that I know my own potential I'm more motivated to stop my body retaining so much fluid. Try it!

Comics!

I love comics but I hardly buy any because I'm too picky! I most love the ones with a hot, strong, fit and intelligent female as the lead. ie: someone to look up to! haha. I mean, I know they're not real but isn't it better to aim for something superhuman rather than within normal human capabilities? If you shoot for the moon you will at least reach a star, whereas if you only shoot for a star you may not even make it to the sky. Know what I mean?
Of the ones I've read, I love Witchblade and Tomb Raider, and I've always wanted Fathom too.. What kind do you like, if any? Any suggestions?


Oh and also, the photos I promised of fitness/figure idols..Well let's just say I've been rather busy lately but I'm working on it! Will get some posted up soon.

Uh oh...

Right, so a very close friend of mine who is trying to lose a little weight asked me if I would help out by writing a diet plan. I'm very much into health and nutrition which is why they asked me and I was really excited to get started on it. I wrote out height, weight, current daily calories, resting metabolic rate, goal weight loss etc etc and started working out macros to a new calorie total. I wrote out a few daily calorie totals for them to choose from, each with various macronutrient percentages to try out and see which they felt healthiest on and lost weight on. BUT...thinking so deeply into nutrition calculations got me a little neurotic about my own consumption again..I very quickly went a bit haywire again and started tracking my own diet down to every tiny morsel consumed, obsessing about my own macros and when I could eat. I thought I was over any dodgy relationships with food! Obviously not. Luckily I realised this very soon and have decided I need to take a break from writing their diet out until my head is sorted out again. I just need to focus on how much happier I felt when I was eating without counting and worrying. And how much better I was actually eating by not stressing about it! Being worried about it only makes you obsessed with food anyway, and then you struggle to maintain any balance.
So apologies to my friend, I will get right back on it asap!

Fitness models

I usually find it quite hard to find fitness models, figure athletes etc that I really find inspiring. I look for a mix of several things, including physical beauty, intelligence, good attitude, good TV personality and so on. Y'know, an amazing all-rounder. But I have now got a fair few favourites, like Ava Cowan, Alicia Marie, Mary Jarmolowich.. These women inspire me not only in terms of fitness and physical ability but also with their confidence, success-driven minds, intelligence.. They inspire me to break through my physical limits, to believe in myself and to follow my heart in my own way as they have done. In all, just to be the best me I can be! Here's Alicia and Ava :) Who inspires you?

My art

I've posted up some of my drawings under the tab 'Art'. This is stuff from when I was 16 or 17 until now. They're not in chronological order though! Hope you like :)

Mmm coffee :)

Found a great magazine to start reading! Anyone who knows me knows I'm crazy about magazines - I buy so many different types you wouldn't even be able to keep up, from fitness to lads mags, gossip mags, you name it. Anyway, it's New Scientist, a weekly full of all kinds of cutting edge news and it is fascinating! I used to buy Muscular Development mainly for the sciencey bit at the front, so this is similar but covering all aspects of science.

Just enjoying a nice cup of coffee too, Starbucks style. Decaf coffee with frothy milk, vanilla and cinnamon on top :) I use decaf espresso and just make a huge mug full instead of a tiny cup.

University..?

I went to Leeds Met uni to study graphic design straight after college but it didn't work out for me at all.. College kind of push you into uni so I ended up going before I even knew what I wanted to do. Graphic design was a natural choice because I've always been into art and I've drawn for as long as I can remember but I realised it's not something I want to do as a career, so I left university after only four months.. I'm glad I left but at the time I felt so lost and such a failure! Anyway I paid back everything I owed for my student loans straight away so I wouldn't have to worry about it, but recently I got statements from them saying I owe another £4000!! This is like, at least a year and a half after I left! So I rang them about it and they explained that £2000 of it is for tuition loans, which even though I left, the uni could still claim those since I'd taken a space on the course. I know for definite my place was filled though, because I was told there was a queue for the course when I was leaving! So that sucks. The other £2000 I actually paid them by debit card over the phone or online but for some reason they never received it :S So this needs sorting asap. What a pain :/

Even so, I do want to go back into education eventually.. I just can't decide what to do! What I originally wanted to apply for was languages, mainly Japanese but possibly Italian too. The only reason I didn't was because I have no previous qualifications for those languages, but that doesn't apply now as I'm a 'mature' student. Also I don't really know if a language course is worth it.. I mean, what careers could it lead to?

Another subject I keep going back to is human biology. I'm really interested in anything to do with the human body, genetics, fitness, health etc etc. But again, I don't know really what it would lead to. And I've been a little put off by all this crap from the student loans company, so if I go back to uni in future I'm gonna try and self-fund!!