Fatness

Today I felt like taking revenge against myself. So, I woke up, and proceeded to eat & drink, within the space of two hours:

1) Half a sandwich of melted cheese.
2) A burger sandwich with cheese and tomatoes and lettuce and ketchup
3) A slice of basboussa
4) A 250 chunk of thick Norwegian salmon with lemon.
5) Nescafe
6) Half a box of Anthon Berg chocolates with raspberry cream filling.
7) Half a Mars bar.
8 ) A small chunk of white sour cheese

And now I feel very, very sick.

I’ve been fat all my life.

Well, perhaps not as a fetus, but soon after that.

I was a chubby kid who ate too many fruit roll ups, but still not fat.

Then the teenage years came along, and things spiraled out of control. A little bit chubby, I was teased mercilessly, which only made me eat more. The fact that I was top of my class and quiet and shy only intensified the teasing, which turned into bullying. I didn’t tattle tale, which made it worse. I got fatter. I didn’t go out. Didn’t have a boyfriend. Then I wore the hijab. Stopped ballet, gymnastics, and swimming. Suffice to say, I finished high school as the fat girl.

University changed my life. I grew up. Made friends. Lost weight. Dressed a little better. But I was never normal, never slim. Always just a little fat. And never had much fashion sense. And always the Fat Smart Pretty-ish Girl. Then my friends started pairing up. Getting engaged. Getting married. Getting babies. I got a little fatter. A little lonelier. A lot more successful. A little thinner. A little fatter. Yo yo style.

Being fat colors your life. People look at you, and all they see is fat. It doesn’t matter how fashionably you dress. It doesn’t matter how pretty your features are. It doesn’t matter how clever, funny, smart you are. All people see is fat. And being fat, for some reason, gives people license to take you less seriously. Everything you say or do means less.

And I’m only, literally, 10kg overweight.

Which, in one way, actually makes it worse. To think that I’m only 10kg away from being ‘normal,’ from fitting in, yada yada. If it was 50kg, then oh well, it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s like being forth place in a race. Just. almost. made it.

It makes me mad, because I still don’t understand why this goal in life, this itty bit thing that compared to all I’ve achieved is nothing, is the one that stumps me and I still can’t reach. I really don’t eat that much. I excersice. I lose weight, I gain weight, then I settle back in the same 3 kg range.

And what’s even more annoying is that with every achievement I make, I know that losing weight would be seen as a better achievement. Which pisses me off even more–that your weight means more than what you do, and that I care that people care.

I’m feeling just a little bit emo today.

Double Crossed Legs

Double Crossed Legs!

I started this blog to chart my weight loss/ gym journey, but it seems I’ve fallen short of chronicling my experiences. So today, a post about how much I’m craving Alain Le Notre’s yogurt ice-cream cake with blueberry sauce. on top

Well, I am.

I don’t want to bore you, so here’s the summary: I’ve lost quite a bit of weight, built up muscle, become more curvy, and dropped a dress size. Best of all, my measurements have gone way down–my waist in particular has shrunk by 15cm.

Yay me. (Hip hip, hooray!)

I’ve started eating healthily (i.e. eat something every 3 hours rather than my normal eat nothing all day then have a humongous meal once a day).

I was at the gym once and saw this episode on Oprah* where Dr. Oz said it only takes 12 tries to get used to any kind of food. So I girded my loins (sp?) and I’ve finally gotten used to the taste of skimmed milk and brown toast.

I don’t feel like I’m really dieting though, which is great. The only thing I crave like crazy are desserts, since I definitely have a sweet tooth (or five or six).

But though I’m not starving myself, I have upped the exercise. I still hate it, though. I am never going to be one of those exercise junkies, chugging away on treadmills at 6am.

So how has my life changed now that I’m slimmer? Not really all that much. People have noticed, I’ve gotten the compliments, etc, but walahy it hasn’t really changed me in any way. Perhaps in another 5kg.

The coolest thing I’m loving about the weight loss right now? I’ll give you a hint: look at the picture! Ta da! I can now double cross my legs!!

I seriously couldn’t believe it. I was watching American Idol a couple of days ago at the Gym** (so sick of the blind guy already, can we kick him off? And I’m still not feeling the new judge, Cara) and I noticed this woman in the audience who had her legs double crossed, and for some reason I immediately tried it. I was shocked to find out I could now do it!

I remember once in university I had this professor who always double crossed her legs, and I used to look at her like she was a martian. It looked sooo uncomfrtable and athletic! But now I can proudly say that I can double cross my legs, and I will proudly show my talent off every chance I get.

* By the way, I am so not a TV person. But there’s nothing to do in the gym except watch whatever is on. I’m never there at night, which is when all the channels have cool things on, which is why I have now watched many episodes of Oprah, Doctor Phil, Rachel Ray, and–I’m almost ashamed to say this–Charmed.
** See what I mean?

Zits and Tuna

So I wake up today and find a humongous, and I mean humongous, zit on my nose. My skin is (elhamdulela) really clear so when I get a zit it’s like a glowing shiny beacon. Great. And it’s one of those under-the-skin-lurkers, so I can’t even pop it. And I’m being interviewed on TV in a couple of days. What if it’s not gone by then??!!!!!!!!

Ok, breathe deeply, I told myself.

I then thought: It’s probably because of my diet, right? Perhaps I should forgo my usual cornflakes-and-skimmed milk breakfast and try something new.

But I only had 10 minutes before I had to leave for work so I couldn’t really ‘cook’ anything. So I began to maniacally open and close the kitchen cupboards searching for anything that was quick to eat, and eventually settled on diet tuna in water.

I was late so I ate it right out of the can, and that gave me ample time to actually look at the can and search (in vain) for the nutritional information. But why oh why is the tuna named ‘Rose Tuna?’ And why does the can have a picture of Ariel from The Little Mermaid on it standing next to a tuna fish? Are they trying to tell you a mermaid likes it? But why would she be eating tuna? Isn’t that a little cannibalistic? Or are we eating her, since she’s a fish? Ughh, I feel sick now thinking about it.

I’ll play with Mr. Potato Head for a bit. He’ll make me feel better.

Quality street…

…are the very devil.

A friend of mine just came back from London, and knowing how much I love Quality street he bought me a bag.

Temptation in a beautiful purple bag. Damn it.

They can’t be very fattening now, can they? Oh look. 10 gms of fat, 200 calories, and 20 gms of carbs in every 4 pieces.

Hmm, to eat or not to eat?

Today I broke my own speeding record, which was 135 km/h. Today I hit 150km/h. Ok, so kind of dangerous but it was a deserted highway, it was late at night, and I was tired and cranky.

On my way home I passed by the usual group of men selling stuff, only this time they were selling, wait for it….

Inflatable penguins!

Only in Egypt.

Sunglasses and Morta

Hot hot day today.

I hate driving with the windows down and then getting a hijab tan*

I also hate it when hijabis put their sunglasses on top of their hijabs. It just looks tacky. Or put their phones inside their hijab. That just looks weird.

Anyway, I drove today to the gym and my sadistic trainer. Haven’t been there in around two weeks but surprisingly I slid right back into my circuit. (That sounds strange to even write). Guess I’m kind of getting used to it now.

Thankfully, I didn’t gain any weight during my two weeks of messing around (what? I was on semi-vacation!)

I realize I’ve never actually mentioned how much I weigh. For some reason, I don’t want to write the figure. Let’s just say I’m a comfortable size 16 and an uncomfortable size 14 (UK size). Jeans are the most annoying thing now that I’ve lost weight–size 14 is sometimes too small for my big butt and size 16 is too big on my waist.

I’ve lost around 5kg now, which isn’t bad considering I’m not exactly dieting hard core. My aim is to lose 10 more kgs. 15 would make me skinny but I’m aiming for 10. I’ll get there. Slow and steady turtle, that’s me.

It’s weird how 1kg seems like nothing on the scales but a lot when you see a bag of sugar.

Anyway, today was a perfect example of how contradictions = my life. I had breakfast with friends today at Cafe Richoux, which is as British as you can get, with the scones and the tea and everything.

Then I went home and ate morta with bread. Yeah, that’s right, morta.

I’m assuming absolutely no one knows what that is, so let me explain.

Normal Egyptian families use oil in cooking, or ghee–a kind of butter–if they hate their arteries. Se’eedi families like my own though, make their own ghee:

Milk is curdled. The curd is then manually churned until it precipitates butter and leaves behind some whey. The butter is then heated on a low flame until a layer of white froth covers the surface. This state indicates the end of process and the liquid obtained on filtering the suspension is pure ghee. In addition to the ghee, Egyptians use the remaining solids as an alternate cooking butter called “Morta”.

So basically, I just ate samna. Imagine dipping bread into pure butter. Joy to the world.

*That’s when your face tans but the parts of your face covered by the hijab don’t. So you end up with a half tanned and half untanned cheek.

Diet and Holiday Ponderings

Today I semi-began dieting. How I hate that word—it’s “DIE-iting,” for God’s sakes. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

But ehem, given that it’s my first day, macaroni bashamel and chicken pane is not too bad, right? Oh well, I can do the starvation thing tomorrow. Today I needed all the energy I could get to sit at my desk for 13 hours straight. They’re slave drivers at work, I tell you.

But Christmas vacation is looming on the horizon. Where oh where can I go? Spending a week sleeping in bed seems like a wonderful idea. Or I could, you know, jet off to a land of snow and beauty. Decisions, decisions.