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?

Random middle-of-the-night thought

Life is so strange subhan Allah.

Sometimes, events that are so diametrically opposed are juxtaposed in such a short space of time, that I find it impossible to understand how some people don’t believe in a cosmic intelligenece (Allah).

I’ve just had a humongous opportunity drop into my lap like a ton of bricks. But a couple of days ago, something happened that makes me hesitate to take advantage of that opportunity, though I would have jumped at the chance a week ago.

Fate is such a tricky concept. I’ve always believed wholeheartedly that I make my own choices in life. True, I believe God/ Allah already knows what I’m going to choose, but that’s only because He knows me so well. It’s like me knowing my little sister will always forgo KFC for McDonalds, even though I never make the decision for her.

But let’s not get sidetracked.

Question is: how do I decide what to do? On the one hand, my friends are telling me that this is an amazing good thing. But I’ve never believed that just because something is ‘good,’ it’s actually good for you. That’s actually one of the biggest traps to fall into: thinking that just because you’re blessed, God must love you and vice versa.

I’m getting all deep and philosophical here. Kefaya.*

Something funny:

A woman in my gym is pregnant, with TWINS, and still manages to run faster than I do on the treadmill. And she has a clearly visible bump too! Can I just say that I never feel more like a blundering hippopotomus than I do when she’s around?

Oh, and in case you didn’t guess, of course she’s not Egyptian! More like a lithe Russian. If she was Egyptian, she’d be lying on her bed at home eating macaroni and drinking gallons of (full cream) milk. Fat chance of her running anywhere, mesh 3ayzenhom yo2a3oo ya habibti!**

* That’s enough.
** We don’t want [the babies] to fall out, love!

I’ll Make a Man out of You

Apparently, according to my brother, this is a really good song to listen to at the gym.

Dude’s kind of hot. And props to Mulan, the only Disney heroine who didn’t need rescuing.

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.

Cat and Camel Playlist

Today was an interesting day at the gym.

First, I got some weird looks for my Bigger is Better t-shirt (What? I couldn’t find any of my tank tops so I just grabbed one of my brothers’ t-shirts. Is it my fault he has so many Maxim T-shirts?)

I was also dying of thirst today. Never again will I go to the gym when I’m fasting,* it’s torture.

Two new gym poses today that had me cracking up:

• 

  Sexy old man

  Seated curl with dumbbell aka ‘Al Omda pose. Made me laugh because I immediately associated it with those sa’eedi men on TV sitting with their arm on their knees all macho like.

• Cat & Camel. On your hands and knees, straight back. Arch your back like ‘an angry cat’ or camel’s hump, then drop your back, sticking your butt out in the air. Need I say more?

The things I’m doing for you future hubby. You had better appreciate it!

In honor of the latter pose, I have (finally) created a gym playlist and named it “The Cat and Camel.” It’s an English playlist because I can’t burn a CD with my Arabic songs, since I download them all from 6arab, which means they need to be converted before they can be burned. In other words, too much hassle. Think I’ll just buy the new Melody Hits CD and download those songs to my iPhone.

So without further ado, here’s my playlist:

THE CAT AND CAMEL

Please don’t stop the music — Rihanna
Breakin’ Dishes — Rihanna
Disturbia — Rihanna
Beautiful Liar — Shakira & Beyonce
Irreplaceable — Beyonce
Bleeding love (remix) — Leona Lewis
After party — Craig David
Woman Trouble — Craig David
It can’t be right –2play
Butterflies — Karl Wolf
Since u Been gone — Kelly Clarkson
‘Aint it funny — J.Lo
Womanizer — Britney Spears
Circus — Britney Spears
Pump it up — Danzel
Crazy –Leki
Feel good time — Pink
So what — Pink
U & ur hand — Pink
Move your body — Nina Sky
Scandalous — Mis-Teeq
Hot ‘n cold — Kate Perry
I kissed a girl — Kate Perry
Love is gone (remix) — David Guetta
Candy Shop — 50 cent
Rumors — Lindsay Lohan
Shut up — Black Eyed Peas
My humps — Fergie
When I grow up — Pussycat Dolls
Oh my gosh — Basement Jaxx
Low — Flo rida
Gasolina — Daddy Yankee
Shine on — R.I.O
Contagious — Y & T
Push up — Enrique
Dangerous — Akon
I like big butts — Sir Mixalot
She wants it — Justin Timberlake
Tempted to touch — Rupee
Turn me on — Kevin Little
Unwritten — Natasha Bedingfield
Wake me up inside — Evanescence
We will rock you — Queen

I wonder what my music choices reveal about me? Anyway, let me know if you have any suggestions for ‘gym’ songs.

And speaking of music, I caught another one of those patriotic songs today, this one by the supremely unsuitable baladi singer Hakim. Titled Resala (subtitles included), this one addresses all the issues in one stanza: Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, Afghanistan etc. Nice combo. Funny thing is, it’s old. But I guess it’s the same old “focusing on the consumer” lark: now the viewers want to watch nice patriotic songs so they can feel that they’re actually emotionally invested in what’s going on.

.

* I was fasting since today is the 9th of Muharram, a month in the Islamic lunar calender. The story goes that the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) saw that a group of Jews were fasting on the 10th. He asked them why they were fasting and they said because it was the day Moses (PBUH) escaped from Pharaoh. Prophet Mohammad said that as Muslims we should also fast to honor our great-grandfather. But to distinguish the Muslims from the Jews, Muslims should fast either the day or before the 10th, which was named ‘Ashoora. It’s said that if you fast ‘ashoora and your fast is accepted, your sins for the past year are wiped out. So kind of like a ‘Get out of jail free’ cardYay!

Elliptical Exercise Machine

What I look like on the machine. Well, not really.

My sadistic trainer got me up on the elliptical exercise machine today.

I hate her.

It’s simply torture. I thought the treadmill, which jars my knee and makes me feel like an old woman, was bad, but this new machine takes the cake.

It’s like you’re a crab. Or walking on your legs and hands.

I finished my hour with very muscle in my body screaming in protest. You know all those endorphins they say you get when you exercise? Lies, all lies. The only high I get from exercising is realizing I’m done for the day.

And I hate sweating like a pig. What’s more, I have very sensitive skin so when I mop up my sweat with a towel (that sounds disgusting, I know), I get a faint rash. And dry skin. But heck no am I losing my soft skin—it’s the fat girl consolation prize for having so much of it, doncha know?—so out comes my Crème de la mer, the beauty cream that costs as much as it does to feed an Egyptian family for a month.

I miss desserts.

Abaya Adventure

Today I started my two week vacation.

And yet, there’s no rest for those of us who are gym-bound.

I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower, but couldn’t manage to force myself to get dressed. In case I didn’t make it clear earlier, I hate getting dressed. I hate the whole shebacle: what shoes to wear with what bag with what belt and with which hijab etc. If it was up to me, I’d go to work in my pyjamas.

So, I decided not to bother. I got into my gym kit and threw on a abaya [long, black dress-looking garment] over it. Who cares, I thought? I’m going to the gym.

But it seems I failed to realize the novelty of tracksuit bottoms peeping out from underneath a abaya. Coupled with my bright white trainers, and I’m sure I was a sight. But whatever. I’ll march to the tune of my own drum, and I don’t especially care if you disapprove of the way I’m dressed.

I’m off to a very unorthodox Christmas dinner. At the airport. Uh-huh.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it!

Gym and Video Clips

I’m starting to get into a gym routine. How sad.

I finally caved and signed up for personal trainer sessions, mainly so I’ll have a reason to drag myself to the gym when I’m feeling lazy. So I met my trainer today, and guess what? She weighs as much as I did when I was a fetus, and has arms I can snap like twigs. Fantastic.

Like it’s not bad enough that the only two people in the women’s section EVERY friggin’ time I go are two blonde European-looking women. One is young and looks anorexic, swilling water every few minutes, and one is my MOTHER’S age and yet manages to look fabulous sprinting along in boxer shorts as if she’s strolling down a street, not one drop of sweat daring to mar her face, while I lumber along on my treadmill, panting heavily, with a red face and crazy hair. Oh, and did I mention their swishing blonde ponytails and tiny pert 8-ball-buttocks?

If I wasn’t so fattractive, I could get depressed.

But onto another fascinating aspect of my gym life: videoclips.

I’m not the biggest TV person. But when you’re slogging on a treadmill, TV is as good a distraction as any. Unfortunately, the TVs in the gym only have four channels: Sports, Al-Jazeera, a weird talk show channel, and Mazzika.

Mazzika it is.

For some reason, every time I get on that treadmill, Dolly Chahine’s Ana geyt (I’ve arrived) plays.

I’ll just give you a few minutes to watch it:

Of course all we see in the clip is boobs, butt, gloss-slicked-lips, repeat.

The lyrics of the chorus go: “He must stand up because I’ve arrived, it is only etiquette.” Yeah, I’m sure something will stand up when your top half is falling out of your dress.

I know that all Arab videoclips have basically become excuses for soft porn. But when did the ability to sing cease to become a prerequisite of becoming a singer?!

It seems all you need now is the ability to look smokin’ hot, with a body that lives on air and doesn’t exist in real life. Here are some of my other observations on the videoclips I’ve seen recently:

1. One new singer looks like Haifa’ and one looks like Nancy Ajram. The rest all look the same, with nothing to distinguish them from each other.
2. All the new singers have just one name. They’re so incredible they don’t need a last name.
3. Old men (Amr Diab, Aly El-Hagger, Ihab Tawfik etc) singing to women their daughters’ ages. Ewwy.
4. Locations of women singing: Bed, shower, gyrating on floor.
5. Men crying like babies. Get a backbone, man!
6. No new woman singer has a good voice.
7. None of the lyrics actually mean anything.
8. A lot of transvestite-looking makeup.

Guess it’s time to create some ‘gym’ playlists on my iPhone. But that’s just so cliché: music to listen to that will help me “pump it up?” Gag.

The weather is fucked up today. Intensely cold and intensely dusty. When will it make up its mind? It’s seriously schizophrenic: one day it’s hot, one day it’s cold.

I dreamt I was on a NASA space shuttle yesterday. Weird.

Gym and overpopulation

Today was my first day in the gym, to be known from here on out as the torture chamber.

I hate exercising. It’s just so unnatural! I was not built to jump around and I am at my best while stationary. Even as a child I was always the person semi-jogging (but more like power walking) around the track.

Running I simply will not do. I read somewhere that running will cause your uterus to fall out and I have decided to believe in that. I need my uterus for the dozen babies I must conceive one day!

Plus the women’s section of the gym is always so neglected since of course all the women are down in the co-ed area trying to catch the eye of some buff protein shake swilling guy. That’s because the gym I’ve chosen to go to is one where people go to ‘maintain’ their bodies and not to lose weight. A gym where a fattractive woman like me is no longer fattractive, but fugly.

Did I mention that I hate the gym? 40 frickin’ minutes on the machine and I only burned what, 200 calories? That’s like two apples. And oops, I’m eating a chocolate bar right now. Ah well, gym today, diet tomorrow.

And then I got stuck for an hour on the 6th of October bridge, staring at the red PSA announcements urging Egyptians to have less kids. I hate that campaign, Wa’fa masreya [An Egyptian Stance]. Honestly. Here is a photo summing up the six main ads. They all begin: “If we use our minds right,” followed by a picture and then an inspirational message:

We’ll all learn.
We’ll all be full.
We’ll all be treated [medically].
We’ll all relax.
We’ll all drink.
We’ll all work.

Every picture also has how much the government is spending on said service (of course, it’s billions and billions!) The ads then end with:

“Before we add a new infant, we should make sure this his right over us exists.”

And so on and so forth.

Like, yeah. I’m sure if we grew by only half a million people a year rather than the current 1.3 million, all of Egyptians’ problems would be solved instantaneously.