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NW - Choose one thing to lose this week - Pg 70

In a magazine promising an 8 page expose on stars addicted to plastic surgery, it’s impressive to find an article on giving up something consumable for a week and losing weight. They’ve chosen things which are fairly unnecessary like butter, dessert and soft drinks, and the results are pretty amazing. If you gave up soft drink for a week and drank water instead, it equates to 5565kJ, or a 250g block of chocolate. Since those kJ’s are totally devoid of nutrition, it makes really good sense. **** good advice, easy to follow, and disturbingly understandable!

On the other page, there’s a small article on the value of walking - do it three times a week, has been shown to reduce abdominal fat more than dieting alone.

Famous

Famous follows last week’s trend from Woman’s Day with a free mini magazine - the “Famous Kick Start Diet - how to lose weight forever (celeb slimming secrets)”. Long title, big promises. Basically, it lists eleven stars and the “tricks” they use to stay slim. Ranging from exercise, diet or outside consultants, each snippet of information has a way that we, the humble every day person can use it to our advantage. There’s also a seven day diet plan, and a calorie counting guide.

Some of the advice from the stars is good. But heaps of it is far too extreme to be of any use. Up your exercise quotient (good), minimise fat in your diet (good), visit a nutritionist (good), but raw food diets, macrobiotic plans, etc - how many people can sustain these? Sorry to be boring, but being sensible about your diet is far more effective in the long run than any crazy plan you can’t adhere to for long. As far as a calorie counter goes - forget it. That way insanity lies. Fruit, veggies, good quality meat, legumes, pasta, bread - and occasional treats. No counter, just good sense. *** It’s okay, but nothing groundbreaking.

OK, Page 80 - Body Talk with: Hilary Duff

A whole lot of nothing. Oh, wait - she slags the Atkins Diet, but apart from that, nada.

It’s been a strange couple of days since inspecting the urine soaked hellhole of a house on Saturday. Even if I’d been fifteen, looking for somewhere to rent with ten friends for as little money as possible, I would’ve baulked at it. After missing out on the gorgeous house last week, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt quite depressed by the whole new accommodation scene, but luckily I hooked up with my brother for lunch on Saturday afternoon.

James is a great antidote to feeling down. He’s funny, crazy and always knows how to make me feel better. He’s also responsible for my newest obsession, Lethal Street Squad, a Japanese video game where you shoot a whole lot of bad guys (and in my case, some innocent bystanders - whoops). He prefers Ghost Squad, which uses some kind of semi-automatic gun in a jungle, while I dig the more urban pistol.

After several games, I came home and watched both Tomb Raider films, thus giving rise to my training goal for this year - turning myself into Lara Croft. Some people might find it odd to base yourself on a video game, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. So between running, rock climbing, weight training, yoga and my own personal shooting range at Hoyts, I should be lethal. Then I just have to complete some sort of archaeological training, and I’ll be totally authentic.

So today I ran. I hate running. Hate every minute of it. But I kept focussed on my goal, and was pretty happy with the result. Especially once I’d finished. Tomorrow sees me back in the saddle for spinning, which will be interesting to say the very least. Having sat down for some time, my legs are very sore, so I’m going to stretch, and then put the rubbish out. How glamorous!

Today I’m loving: my iPod, and Justin Timberlake, without which running would be far, far uglier.

I didn’t get the house, which is an odd mixture of good and bad. Bad, because it was a gorgeous house in a perfect position, but good because it was a lot of money which totally freaked me out. Last night I went to look at a house which is open for inspection today, and from the outside it looks totally dodgy. I’ll still check it out, but I’m highly dubious about it’s charms. It’s listing was without photo, which probably says it all.

The market was back on this morning. I bought fabulous beetroot, and later today I’m going to make a Thai-style soup with it. I would have bought a lot more, but I woke up to the phone ringing at 8.45, so my brain hadn’t really got it together shopping wise. Miss M being away means food requirements are quite different.

And here’s a segue to my favorite photo of her in ages. She doesn’t get angry like I used to, and is happy to practice for ages. Maybe I’ll be able to quit my job and live off her earnings in a few years.

Today I’m loving: Agatha Christie’s Poirot, ABC, Friday @ 8.30pm

When I lived at home, my father had a giant pool table. We played snooker, but I prefer to call it a pool table. Because it seemed like the thing to do, I spent heaps of time practicing, often with my grandfather, who was a really good player. I ended up being good enough to beat almost any of my acquaintances from the break, often upsetting men several years older than me, who would go into intricate reasons for why I’d won, which didn’t involve any credit for me being better than them.

So after so many years of practice, it was distressing to be beaten rather hideously by my friend Pete this afternoon, not once, or twice, but five times. Granted, it’s been about twelve months since I last played, but even I was horrified at some of the dodgy shots I performed. While most of my new years resolutions involved some sort of healthy living content, I decided today on a belated resolution, which is to gain back my mad pool playing skillz.

Some of my friends who are the best players are total nerds, and claim it’s all about simple trigonometry, which makes me wonder why schools don’t pitch grifting as a good reason to study maths. I used to think ability was enhanced by being just “drunk enough” (whatever that is) - but now I don’t drink regularly enough to put that to the test. But by the time the end of the year comes, I swear I will beat Pete at least three times, and one of them will be from the break. A big call, but it’s my pride at stake, dammit.

I also hear a rumour (from my parents) the phrase isn’t pool shark, it’s sharp. They were talking about card sharks/sharps, but I have to say I much prefer shark, so although it’s wrong, I’ll keep saying it.

Today I’m loving: all the sweet children in my class this morning.

The application for my dream house is in, so now I’m going to try and forget about it until I hear from the agent. I feel slightly ill at the thought of being completely responsible for a household, but growing up is somewhat inevitable, and I think that’s what I’m experiencing. Either that or low grade nausea.

Tomorrow I have my first training session back with Steve, and after nine days of doing absolutely nothing over Christmas, I’m certain my body will have something to say about it.
Miss M is having a great time in Tassie, learning to play tennis, playing her grandmother’s grand piano with a disturbing level of skill, and going to the beach as often as she can. Hopefully coming home won’t be too much of a let down for her.

I have an early start tomorrow, so I’m taking this opportunity to head to bed early. Goodnight.

Today I’m loving: Buderim ginger bears - like jelly babies, only made with ginger and super spicy. Highly recommended

Tax almost done - one month left. I worked on it for six and a half hours, my back and brain are both hurting. The house was gorgeous! Now I’m going to work!

Today I’m loving: the cat that was playing outside the very house I just mentioned.

Kicking off the inaugural Health and Fitness Weekly Review is the Woman’s Day bonus 36 page magazine promising 14 day fast food beach diet, losing 4kg’s in 2 weeks, and Liz Hurley’s best bikini body tips. Let’s check it out, shall we?

The basic premise is that you can eat what this booklet recommends for a fortnight and still drop more kilos than is healthy in that time. I’d be interested to know how much energy this diet provides, because it doesn’t seem like a lot of food, so I’m thinking most people would find it fairly hard not to bust out some extra snacks.

I can’t help getting irritated at advice like “ride your bike to the pub”. Why does it have to be the pub? Why not ride your bike around a park, and not have an accident on the way home because you drank a few too many chardys? Maybe if you’re hoping to lose 4kgs in fourteen days you could avoid the pub. And later on, “invite some friends to join you in the park for a … glass of wine and a few games of softball”. Meh!

There are some crazy alternatives to high fat food, like replacing microwave butter flavoured popcorn with microwave lite butter flavoured popcorn. If you love popcorn so much, get yourself an air popper and save the whole 24 grams of fat. Or instead of replacing a jam doughnut with a jam tart, eat a handful of cherries, a peach or nectarine while they’re still around. Save 10.9 grams of fat, and you won’t have to mess around with fat free salad dressing (you could just use lemon juice and garlic), or reduced fat tzatziki. Instead of drinking a bottle of diet coke, just drink water.

Some of the superstar advice is a bit dodgy: Rachel Hunter cuts out carbs (silly), Elle McPherson eats organic most of the time (but doesn’t seem to realise organic food can still make you fat if you eat too much of it), Danni Minogue trained as a dancer so steers away from dairy and wheat (?) … once again, I profess my love of Cameron Diaz, who seems like a really smart woman.

I’ll leave the last word to well known weight loss expert Paris Hilton: “don’t be afraid to eat fast food. Just keep busy. Go out and dance away the calories”

I rate this booklet **. Don’t try to lose 2 kg a week, and don’t think replacing KFC crispy strips with KFC nuggets is a good idea nutritionally.

Woman’s Day, Page 56 - Be a Loser and Live

If you’ve been waiting for a good reason to lose weight, you should definitely check this page out. It covers some side effects of being overweight, which are all happily reversible.

*** for scare factor

Also on this page is a BMI calculator, and an inspiring story about a man who lost 40kg following a sensible diet and exercise plan. I wonder how many chicken nuggets he was encouraged to eat?

*** - great to see the basics never go out of style.

NW, Page 66 - Breaking Bad Diet Habits

Ah, NW are my favorite so far this week. This is a really sensible article with some great ideas. Smart snacks, great alternatives that actually make sense, so I can forgive the crazy reduced carbs section they’ve started putting in. If you ignore that, this is a high scoring article that gets ****

OK, Page 88 - Mandy’s Body Secrets

Mandy Moore has an awesome body, and it seems she relies on a nutritionist to keep it that way. She keeps a food diary, and gets tested weekly for blood sugar levels, body composition and body fat. That’s pretty obsessive, but I think the idea of talking to a professional about nutrition is very smart. Nutrition is an insanely complex science, and just reading a couple of these magazines can be incredibly contradictory, leaving a lot of people with no idea of what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

Mandy also exercises, but focuses mostly on plyometrics, which are explosive movements, usually performed with body weight only. These aren’t suitable for everyone, but if you’re relatively fit and get bored easily, plyometrics are a great way to increase your muscular power, and bring something new into your routine. Make sure you get good advice, and start off slowly.

At the bottom of the page, there’s a sample of the healthy weight program recommended by the nutritionist, which looks good. Not enough snacks for my liking, but it is just after Christmas, and I’m into a huge eating phase at the moment, so maybe that’s just me. ***

Sadly lacking in weight related headlines this week.

To sum up today, I hate tax. I guess I should qualify that by saying, I hate stuffing receipts into a bag all year, then having to go through my diary, bank and credit card statements and said stuffed receipts to try to make sense of it all. I expected to breeze through, be done by 6pm, then have a leisurely dinner. Um, wrong. Refer to the title of this post to see how far I got.

My self imposed deadline falls at 6.30pm tomorrow, which is when I have to head in to work. Hopefully getting through the first chunk will help put me in a more “taxy” headspace, which should get me to the end with sanity intact.

Apart from horrendous paperwork, tomorrow’s mission is to view the house I’ve been trying not to get too attached to over the last few days. You may choose to insert derisive snort here, but I really am trying. After I finish at the gym, I have to transform myself into some type of slick corporate chick, instead of a sweaty gym girl. Wish me luck, and no doubt I’ll be posting about it tomorrow evening - unless my stupid tax deadline gets in the way!

Today I’m loving: Chickpea, haloumi and rocket salad. I’ve mentioned it here before but it’s so delicious it’s worth a second go.

Well, it’s official, reading heaps of sassy romances messes with your mind. Last night I had a disturbing dream featuring Dave Navarro, who once played guitar with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I know what you’re thinking … but it’s probably not that Dave Navarro was working in a supermarket behind the checkout, had a surly limo driver, stole my shoes, and stayed in an el cheapo motel. Sure there might’ve been some other stuff, but that’s all a bit hazy now.

The strangest part is I have no idea where the DN connection came from. Sure he’s cool, played on some of my favorite albums (Jane’s Addiction as well as RHCP), and I remember seeing the Chilli’s live and admiring his bare midriff, but why he was in my dream (and behind the checkout) I’ll never know. Still, it’s entertaining, and I since I’m not seeing a dream analyst, I guess it’s okay*

I’m about to prepare for work this afternoon, have spent a lot of this morning listing things on eBay, but still have many to go. Happily, tomorrow is another day - most of which will be taken up with a hideous tax return. Boo! Now it’s time for coffee, program writing, and other miscellany.

Today I’m loving: clearing clutter

*If you are a dream analyst, please tell me what the stolen shoes mean.

I’ve spent the majority of today “researching” raunchy romance novels. Which translates to reading four of the finest tomes the genre has on offer, and consequently I’ve been exposed to every euphemism on record (and some that aren’t) for sex and body parts. Damn, those women are creative!

In between books I cleared out some cupboards, checked out domain.com, and found the coolest house ever, in the exact location I wanted. I’m trying not to fall in love with it too much, since I don’t think it fits into my time frame, but since I’m not really known for detached emotional responses, it’s probably already worked its way into my heart. And hey, who wouldn’t love a California bungalow?

Tomorrow is going to be an epic eBay listing day, since I’ve resolved to get rid of a bunch of large and unwieldy items before I move. So if anyone wants to buy an entire darkroom set up complete with chemicals and dozens of accessories, check out eBay tomorrow afternoon.

It’s still stinking hot, but there are some ominous looking rain clouds hovering in the sky. It’s hard to know if any rain will actually eventuate, or if it’s just a big tease. The poor garden is looking tragic, except for a box hedge in a pot, which is thriving in a way that’s almost obscene. Fingers crossed for some actual precipitation!

Today I’m loving: glutinous rice, made crispy in a wok