Paparazzi!

One week has gone in best paparazzi style, hiding around corners, hoping to snatch the well kept secrets of the skinny-French-girl. How does she get so skinny that the highest point on her body while laying down is her hipbones? How does she manage her diet so that her thighs never touch? And how does she get upper arms almost as tight and skinny as her wrists? Having only seen those women assembled is such large groups when flipping through Vogue and knowing those pictures are photo-shopped too perfection, there logically must be a secret.

Day 1: Having chosen two skinny-French-girls in my office get’s more difficult as we move office. They now sit in the other end of the room, in the corner even. Luckily the table right next to them is the official cake/coffee table, so I have an excuse to drop by now and then. But as I don’t drink coffee, going to the cake-desk 3 times a day is not doing any good to my behind, so a discreet stretch now and then off my chair gives me a small peek of their status. Hopefully my new neighbor likes my deodorant.

Result: Has not observed anything but coffee going in.

Day 2: Having respect for them not taking a single piece of cake – I think I know where this is going – but maybe they just don’t sugar on Mondays? Ate lunch close to them today: Noted intake of salad, the obligatory yoghurt and a piece of fruit. Plus more coffee and even more cigarettes.

Result: Can someone actually live on coffee??

Day 3: Colleague brought sweets to celebrate becoming a dad, lots of kisses but not a single piece of chocolate gets near the lipstick. Lunch is salad, fruit, the tiniest yoghurts I’ve ever seen and more coffee with cigarettes.

Result: They must be non-human. Sitting an arm’s reach from a pile of kitkat’s, twix’s and other goodies, without as much as recognition of their presence is amazing will-power.

Day 4: Went out with a friend from work to celebrate pay day, this always calls for ice cream at the little café by the park. Spotted my experiments at a table nearby – having espressos and cigarettes. For a moment I considered to curl in shame when the huge banana split landed on the table between my friend and me. We looked at each other and I could see she was thinking the same thing, but then a smile spread across her face –‘you know what?’ she said ‘we only live once, and when those skinnies become 50 they are going to be nothing but bones and loose skin with lung cancer.’ So we dug in – and it was good!

As we were fighting over the chocolate pieces, the skinny-French-girls started stealing glances towards us. They were jealous! Obviously they didn’t want us or each other to notice, but the conversation dipped to nothing as the attention shifted to our calorie feast. I could see the cravings in their eyes for the first time in a week and made me realize that they have cravings just as everyone else, they just choose not pursue it, but instead drown it in coffee and nicotine.

Result: They are human and they might be unbelievable skinny, but are they really happy? I’m sure having a body like Gemma Ward gives you a load of recognition and you don’t have to worry about your belly fat bringing too much attention when wearing a thin t-shirt, but living on coffee and cigarettes to get there is not my definition of enjoying it proper.

BUT until I convince fashion, Vogue, my mirror, general opinion but most of all me that skinny equals unhappy, I will accept this, until then the fight against the 5 pounds will continue. But without the caffeine and ciggies, there are limits to this craziness.

Disguised food and mayonnaise

I once read an article stating that women should allow themselves to be pampered once in a while. I guess this article was meant for stressed women with big jobs and crying babies, but nonetheless I thought this was a wise suggestion and have been living it ever since. I now hold an impressive shoe collection and am not shy to treat myself to a blueberry muffin.

But as I’m trying to loose some weight, I have collided with this little saying quite a lot. The main thing in loosing 5 pounds must be changing food habits and watching what you eat. So I have started to look around for healthy snacks and swapping out bad habits with healthy habits, I started with exchanging the easy pasta dish with couscous. So far so good – Now, if you are a bit brighter than me, you would know couscous is in fact the exact same thing as pasta, I simply didn’t bother to check this as I really like couscous and deep down knew it was too good to be true.

A women’s logic #2 – If you enjoy a new type of food, it’s doomed to be unhealthy.

As I already bought quite a stock of it, I will have to finish it before I can completely devote myself to brown rice and barley. But to avoid binging the whole thing at once, every Thursday is now pasta/couscous day. Hopefully I can clear out the last box before I have to go back to Denmark.

I am not completely hopeless in knowing healthy from unhealthy foods though. My mom taught me well and I know shredded wheat, gravy, sugar and fatty meats are a no-go if you want to shed a few pounds. So to eat and be comfortable full afterwards, I decide one evening at a cramped train station, that a whole wheat chicken sandwich with plenty of salad and tomatoes must be the best choice in these pasta-box-mania days. As I investigate the display case I see nothing but chicken sandwiches, but all full of what seems to be mayonnaise. In my broken French I ask the nice girl behind the counter if they have a chicken sandwich without mayonnaise. She simply stares at me. Knowing that my French is almost non-understandable I ask again, with same result. She explains to me that no one has EVER asked for chicken without mayonnaise, she slowly explains it would make the chicken to dry without and I will not find such a sandwich in the entire France. I doubt she has been in every sandwich shop in France, but I get the point. Mission is failed as my grumbling tummy is attracting insulted looks from the travellers in the queue behind me. I give up as she ensures me it is fat free and buys a sandwich.

For once this was not hard for me to have choosen the healthier option, I really hate mayonnaise and the fat free version is one of the biggest scams on this earth. Fat free mayonnaise is like anti-wringle cream. It does not exist.

But what can you eat in this country that makes you full and is still healthy? Looking around for inspiration, the skinny-French-girl catches my attention, how does she do it? It can’t all be good genes, so I will secretly spy on a couple of good examples of the species that happens to work in my office. Report will follow.

Cookies n' Cream and Celebration

Going to the supermarket is a fight of willpower. Will I pass by the forbidden isles just to prove to myself that I can make it, or should I completely avoid them?
I usually end up testing my willpower past rows of candy, chocolate, cakes and cookies. Surprisingly I more than often pass the test as French sweets aren’t my style, but today I spotted the queen of all sinners: Oreos! Normally not common in European supermarkets, it catches me off guard every time I come across it. As I punish myself by calculating how many extra inches that now will be added to my waist, I am not concentrating where my feet are going and as I look up, I look straight in the eyes of a familiar cow, the king of all sinners. My sugar cravings are taking over my body as I read the label of a yet undiscovered flavour of Ben&Jerry’s.

A feel-good-quest for fresh vegetables and fruit has turned into a calorie orgies and I am defeated once again. Worse yet, I now know where to find those delicious fat bubbles that the skinny French girl will have willpower enough to withstand. It is now up to me to get rid of the temptation, piece by piece or avoid this supermarket altogether.

...

I have decided to avoid the supermarket, it’s too expensive anyway - walking three kilometres to the next one is even good exercise, so good that I decide skipping the planned workout of the day. It does replace it, or so I have hereby decided.

All this exercise of dragging a week’s worth of groceries several kilometres and up four floors has made me full of energy, so I decide to take up baking for the evening (yeah, I’m that cool...) I haven’t bought a single unhealthy thing this time, so I celebrate by baking a crisp loaf of cornbread. I save most for lunch tomorrow, but devour a big piece with salty pesto.

As I lie in bed that night I congratulate myself for a full healthy day, when remembering that cornbread – it’s not as healthy as it sounds. Now how did that sneak into my plans unnoticed? Seems like I always celebrate being good, by eating something not good. I skipped workout for a couple of kilometres with a single shopping bag and celebrated it with a bucket load of carbohydrates and oily topping.

I guess my sugar craving brain is cleverer that I thought... sneaky brain, sneaky