Copycats suck.

Sure it is just another no pain no gain game; I’ve been cutting down my food intake since last week Monday. The first two days weren’t easy, I kept craving for food and sometimes I even got a slight headache, apparently from lack of “the usual amount of nutrition I’d been taking”, or it had got to do with my blood sugar level which got effected by my eating less. However, I guess after a while the whole body finally understood my intention and got more and more cooperative. Which I like. It would be a disaster to work with a counterpart who has exactly the opposite objective than what we are holding on to.

I understand that I am not obese in any way, neither I am overweight, however these extra pounds I’ve been bearing really got a bit annoying at some point. It seriously made me sad when bending over for putting on panty hose became no longer effortless, or when the sales lady in my favorite clothing shops had to run to the store room to find a cute dress for me and only came to say that they didn’t have my size. What did I become? What have I done?

That morning, when I saw that the number on my weighing scale had become totally ridiculous and unacceptable (65.1 kilograms last week Monday morning. Disaster!), I said to myself, well that’s it. I am not going to let this go on and on and on. This avalanche has to stop. From now on I am the one who decides how I want me to look like. I am taking over control. No discussion. Period.

And so it goes. I did some research and made a quick glance on the comparison of a few different type of diets that are now popular in the market. Even though I was very much eager to lose weight, I thought trying out to do it myself first is the best way to go rather than signing up for some online dieting program. From my research I came to know that you basically need to burn calories everyday to get you going. Weight gain occurs when you take more calories than what your body needs daily (which depends on your height, weight, age and how active you are in a day). So, in view of this fact, if you take the same amount of calories as what your body needs you will maintain your current weight, and if you want to lose some pounds, all you need to do is to reduce your calorie intake to be lower than your daily maintenance level.

It is quite simple, isn’t it?

So I’ve been cutting my calorie intake down to 1300 calories whereas my daily needs is around 1800 calories. With the time, I gained a little bit of knowledge about guessing how much calories are there in particular type of food, which is quite practical and opens up more options in choosing the food for your diet. Makes it more interesting and fun, rather than torturing yourself over and over by telling yourself you’re not supposed to eat this, you’re not supposed to eat that. Diet does not have to be horrible.

As about the exercise part, I am planning to add this to my weight loss project as soon as I hit 60 kilograms. Multi-tasking is simply not my area of expertise.

Anyway, who am I to brag about dieting, while I’ve only lost two kilograms and just been doing this for eight days so far? We’ll see how it goes. Would be a nice feeling to wear size 36 again sometime, or I don’t even mind 38, in stead of the frustrating 40.

I’ve just quickly gathered a few ideas what to give to your precious one on this special day. What you will see here are beautiful items, kinda on budget, since you can get them for under USD 120. Of course if you think she is worth more than that amount to you, other options are out there. However, isn’t it the thought that counts?

Have a lovely one on Valentine’s Day!

Modern yet beautiful bangle from Marc by Marc Jacobs.

Preppy, casual kiss and/or hug ring from Juicy Couture.

Wild and sexy animal print scarf from Coach.

Gorgeous Brilliance set from Swarovski Crystal.

Lovely Miss Dior Cherie Eau de Toilette from Dior with a feminine scent.

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]]> http://wp.cuteprincess.de/?feed=rss2&p=188 0 http://wp.cuteprincess.de/?p=175 http://wp.cuteprincess.de/?p=175#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:14:13 +0000 Nana http://wp.cuteprincess.de/?p=175 As far as I know, Forever 21 does not have a store in Hong Kong. So I ordered a couple of their cute dresses online at www.forever21.com which happened to be on sale.

And they arrived today. Wooohooo! It so feels like Christmas!

I’m pretty happy with the online shopping service. They mention on their website that International shipment takes about 5-10 days. My invoice date is January 15^th, which is the day they shipped out the parcel, and it arrived today on January 25^th, which made it exactly 10 days. Well, I placed the order on January 13^th, but I guess it is human to grant them 1-2 days to process the order. I am not being overly kind, am I?

Their customer service does reply emails, even though it takes a bit slow, like one or two days after we send them an inquiry. The items I received are in a good condition, I can’t complain. Normally you are allowed to return the items for whatever reason within a certain period. However it does not apply to sale items.

I sense that I’ll be placing many more orders at Forever 21 Online Shop in the future.

I used to go to ballet school three times a week over a period of over 10 years, until I started study in the university.

I always had tons of fun in the class. I find ballet is one of the most beautiful form of art and the most elegant dance genre that ever existed.

It is clear to me that I will no longer be able to live up my dream to be a professional ballerina, but the passion and the wonderful memories remain in my heart.

Of course you’re not obliged to read my blogs or to browse through my website. If you like, feel free to do so anytime of the day, if not, you are free to leave

Cheers, Nana

Though we didn’t manage to get there early enough to get the priority bracelet (you know what this is right?), we all still brought something home. In fact, what I’ve got is not at all bad, I started to like the heels more and more now. I was thinking about bringing them back (just thought it might be just lust, not love, when I bought them), but now the idea is slowly vanishing in the air. I do like them and I think I’ve got an idea as to which kind of dress I should wear that would look nice with my zebra heels. Oh, and I’ve also got a zebra clutch that matches! Thanks to Naomi who helped me hunt all the nice items for me

It was quite an experience for me to queue for a few hours just to shop. I had fun and now I am happy that I was part of the Jimmy Choo for H&M craze that does not happen very often. Furthermore now I own a couple of items designed by such a talented person eventhough they only belong to the cheap and cheerful version

The allegory of women and wine is surely not for nothing. As a teenager, I always adored those pretty Ms. Perfect cover girls and dreamt about being like one of them one day. In my then (too) simple mind I always thought how lucky they were to be born pretty, the world must be totally under their beautiful well-taken-care-of feet. It must be great to be surrounded by admiring guys and fun to play them between your finger tips. These kind of silly thoughts could even get me quite frustrated sometime, for what did world have to offer to that one girl in the crowd with her puberty pimples on her face? At that time, I felt that growing-up was really painful.

Fortunately, my brain and commonsense didn’t stop to grow.

Along the way towards maturity, I’ve seen a quite lot. Beside those cover-girl-pretty girls, I saw a lot of arrogant pretty girls, stupid pretty girls, materialistic pretty girls, desperate pretty girls, unhappy pretty girls, and a lot more types of pretty girls who now do not look as shiny and sparkling anymore. There I realised that they are actually not at all different than anybody else. At the same time I got to know some smart average-looking girls, intelligent average-looking girls, witty average-looking girls, mature average-looking girls, talented average-looking girls, happy average-looking girls, who are interestingly now look a lot more attractive than the first group I mentioned before, even though they are, hmm, just average-looking girls. So given these facts, striving to be pretty is no longer a priority in my life

Not that I am discriminating pretty girls though. I find Paris Hilton awesome. Especially her spirit of entrepreneurship . That (ironically pretty) girl really knows what she is doing. TV shows, publicity of her book, her own perfume line, a number of contracts for commercial spots, and I don’t want to know how much Juicy Couture paid her for wearing this funny-looking training suits in public! Yeah sure, it was just a co-incidence that paparazzi happened to be there. And my dad is the president of the United States.

Now I find that happy women with brain and personality are a lot more sexy and glamorous than those unnatural-looking women who strive their butt off to look pretty but ignoring the importance of being oneself and having a character. Nowadays it is very easy to “renovate” one’s look in any event; open the yellow pages and, voila!, you’ll find dozens of “aesthetic centres” for some nip & tuck work. But can you please tell me where to get an instant heavyweight brain and personality?

Not that I need it though. I feel sexy the way I am

~ Written for the first time in August 2006 ~