For the past extremely-long-amount-of-time I've had this constant feeling of tiredness. Not uncommon, I know. I think a lot of people feel tired a lot of the time. But I've always felt that it doesn't have to be that way, particularly not during times when I'm not having any trouble sleeping (such as now).
If you've read my entry a few entries down, you'll know that since being back in Japan I've been trying to work on my morning schedule. I've been waking up at around 6-6:30 (I'm trying to make it 6), going for a brisk walk (which is all it takes for me to start sweating profusely, as I'm neither particularly fit nor particularly feminine when it comes to the amount I sweat, much-obliged paternal gene pool), coming back, having a cool shower and eating breakfast. Breakfast for me is normally something like a bowl of cereal, or a few pieces of toast, with water. But lately I've been thinking that I should add a hot drink to the mix, since hot drinks are good for waking a person up.
Problem: I don't like hot drinks. Well no, that's not true. I love hot chocolates. If I feel like treating myself on a cold winter's morn, a Gloria Jeans hot chocolate would have suited me well every time in Australia, and the Starbuck's version is adequate enough in England. But hot chocolates have never suited me well as a kind of "wake-up juice", so I've tentatively decided to start getting into those two species of drink that I've always disliked: coffee and tea.
About a week ago I bought breakfast at Macca's. I had a hankering for a Bacon and Egg McMuffin. Annoyingly I accidentally bought a McGriddle instead (I thought they were McMuffins, I don't know, I wasn't thinking), and I dcided to take the plunge and get a coffee as well. I came home and left everything out while I showered, so it was already fairly lukewarm by the time I got around to consuming it, which wouldn't have helped taste-wise. The McGriddle was revolting. I'm quite fussy about tastes (even though I like a lot of different tastes), and to me sweet and savoury should be relatively separate, and having salty bacon, cheese and egg on a disturbingly sweet bread-like substance (which was soft and dough-y and felt uncooked aswell, yeurgh!) did not bode well with me. It's like putting chocolate sauce on steak, you know? But at least I finished it. The coffee was unbearable. I added the sugar and milk I'd been supplied, then added another teaspoon of sugar and splash of milk from my own supply, and it was STILL too bitter. People tell me that good-quality coffee doesn't taste bitter and I'm prepared to believe that it doesn't, but I've tried a lot of coffee in my time and I've not yet been rewarded for my struggles with a coffee that doesn't taste like hell and everything beyond, to me. I didn't finish it. Didn't want to.
It's a bummer, really, since I quite like coffee culture. I fully intend to do a barista course at some point and I'd be totally into owning a coffee shop, or even just working in one full-time while I complete my higher degrees (in an ideal world, of course. In reality coffee shops don't have many jobs on offer). So it's a pity I can't seem to stomach the primary beverage of these endeavours. Yet, anyway.
Fast-forward to this morning, when I went on my first walk for a few days (I've been feeling depressed lately. Don't ask. The walk greatly improved my mood, but), came back, showered, posted a Facebook status about ANZAC day (Australia and New Zealand's primary day for remembering our soldiers of war), and decided that I should probably do some breakfast-having activities. I'd been to the 100 yen store a few days previous and bought some instant coffee and English Breakfast teabags, and today I decided I would give the tea a go. I poured the hot water, added the teacup, let it steep (is that the right word?) while I thought about my grandpa (ANZAC day, y'all), took the teabag out, added enough sugar to satisfy the quota for at least a dozen Chuppa Chups, poured in a splash of milk and had a taste.
And it wasn't too bad! As I continued to taste intermittent sips of it it became gradually less nice (it was cooling down and I really had added too much sugar, and I think I'd prefer raw sugar to white), but I was able to finish it! And it wasn't the most horrible thing in the world! In fact, at first, I was actually enjoying it!
This probably seems like a really silly thing for me to get excited about, but to those of you who think that, let me explain. When you're with a bunch of people sitting around a table, and they ask if you'd like tea or coffee, it's pretty damn embarrassing when you have to say "water's fine, thanks" (even though it IS. Water's the best drink EVAH, man!). It's also pretty damn embarrassing in a cafe when the waiter brings out a mug of coffee and a chocolate milkshake and places the coffee in front of you and the milkshake in front of your 13-year-old cousin, and you have to swap them around. It's also really annoying when the only complementary drinks on offer are tea or coffee and you're there having to say "yyyyyyyyyeah I'm right" when they offer you one or the other.
So, I'm going to work on this! I've read about taste buds, and how you can train yourself to like particular tastes. This explains why my mother, the fussiest bloody eater the world has ever known (and I mean, seriously, y'all have no idea) likes coffee as much as she does, and why many people talk about controversial foods like vegemite, saying that at first it was the most revolting thing they'd ever eaten, but it ended up growing on them (my mother, incidentally, HATES vegemite). Hopefully with a bit of willpower and determination I will end up liking these drinks too. It's good to know that with tea, at least, this transition will not last for too long. I think coffee is going to take a while.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Dessert-buffet-tacular! And why having a belly can be awesome.
Greetings, watchers! Have you all noticed the subtle change in my name? It seemed criminal of me to have a blog that talks primarily about fat acceptance stuff, and for it to have a title that doesn't reflect its content well. For this reason, I decided to add a T, thereby changing "Fashion" to "Fatshion"; a blend between "Fat" and "Fashion", because that is what this blog is. Or at least what it aims to be.
So, today was pretty fantastic, I have to say. You'll all be relieved to hear that I wore clothes:
I've GOT to start turning my light on before I take these shots. Anyway, my outfit today was admittedly not very interesting, but I wanted to show you all a picture of my purple skinny jeans. Unlike that sorry excuse for skinny jeans I presented a 'before' shot of in my sewing outfit, I can actually call these babies "skinny" without feeling the need to demand that they explain themselves. However, they are INCREDIBLY baggy on the top half. I won't be criticising Asos for this, because fatties are so diverse in their body proportions that it is impossible to make trousers that will fit correctly on each and every one of us. However, needless to say, these jeans require a makeover. And I'll be getting to that arduous task in a few days' time, hopefully.
Anyway, today I gathered up a group of merry men (myself and my friends B and R) and headed to a dessert buffet place in Shibuya, called Sweets Paradise. If anybody out there, anybody at all, is vaguely interested in the prospect of all-you-can-eat cake, this is the place for you.
Behold! Pictures!
And the remaining debris:
After licking our plates clean and thinking that we will quite possibly never have to eat again, we went to karaoke and ended up staying there for three hours. Some of the songs I showed considerably prowess in mimicking (ie. B and R's ears weren't bleeding after I was done with them) were "Telephone" by Lady Gaga, "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani, "You're My Best Friend" by Queen, and "In My Life" by the Beatles. I wanted dearly to sing "On My Own" from Les Miserables, because the damn song has been in my head for the past three days, but they didn't have it in the song catalogue. We headed home afterwards, feeling full, happy, and as though we'd done something, if not necessarily worthwhile, certainly incredibly fun, today.
People appear to have arrived back here from an event that was taking place tonight at a nearby restaurant (an event I would have gone to, had it not cost 2,500 yen and only been for two hours). And of course, they aren't troubling to keep their voices down. Most considerate of them.
One thing I noticed while sitting in the karaoke room listening to B and R singing obscure K-pop songs, was how I was sitting. I was slouched on the couch, my feet resting on a footstool in front of me. My hands were clasped lightly together and resting on my stomach. And because of the shape and size of my stomach, my hands were able to rest there, quite comfortably, without any danger of falling off and lying to rest awkwardly by my sides.
This got me thinking. If I did not have a stomach that stuck out like mine does, I would not be able to attain such a comfortable yet non-threatening position. If I wanted to put my hands somewhere comfortable like that, but I didn't possess my sort of stomach, I'd probably have to fold my arms. Indeed, I do do this on occasion. But that is a very threatening-looking position, and probably the sort of position you want to avoid when you're out with friends. So instead you're stuck with putting your hands on your legs, or to your sides, which can be kind of awkward. I, however, seem to carry a personal "handstool" (as opposed to "footstool") with me wherever I go.
So amused was I by this discovery, that I decided the time was right for me to make a list of the advantages to having a protruding, squishy belly, flabby arms, a well-padded posterior and wide legs like mine. The disadvantages to having such appendages are plentiful, but I think we can all already name a great many of those so there's not much point in me repeating them. This angle, however, is pretty new. So, here we go:
Fatshion Hustlings' List of Awesome Advantages to Having Body Fat
1. The fat stomach's aforementioned "handstool" use. Very handy when your hands are bothering you and you want to put them somewhere vaguely accessible, so that they can be called on easily when you next need them.
2. Fat people make excellent cushions for other living creatures. So far the only living creatures that have utilised my body for this purpose are my brothers and a few past and present cats. But none of them have issued any complaints about the comfort of my body. In fact, one brother used to use my arm for a cushion, and he once said "It would be sad if you lost weight, in the sense that your arm wouldn't be so comfortable anymore." And I can vouch for that - I use my arms as cushions often. I think this is a particularly good point, however. Let's consider intimate relationships for a moment here. I'm admittedly no expert, but I think one of the great things (and certainly one of the things I'm looking forward to) about a romantic relationship is the ability to draw comfort from each other's bodies. At the moment when I want comfort, I will stroke a cat's fur. In an intimate relationship I can absolutely see myself stroking my lover's hair for comfort. I'll also breathe in the familiar (and really, really nice - don't ask me why) smell of my cat. You get the idea. There's comfort in the familiarity, the warmth, the affection, the uniqueness of it. And fat bodies, in my opinion, are so well-equipped at being a source of comfort for people. We are squishy everywhere, so our hugs are fantastic. We make excellent cushions, so leaning on us is wonderful. And we carry that squishiness with us everywhere. You can even squeeze our arms to relieve stress, if we permit it. I'm kind of happy to know that I can provide that sort of support to people, just by being me.
3. Our fat is kind of fascinating to watch. It jiggles when we move! You can press down on it for ages! It can be poked and prodded and played with! Come on!
4. It protects more vital organs. OK, not entirely sure if that's true. But if it is? Awesome!
Edit: A mate of mine, D, provided me with this link, which shows that, yes, this is in fact true. Or at least it was in the past. :P
5. It is a form of stored energy, so we could potentially live off it for a long while, should food ever become scarce. This is a weak point for a number of reasons, but I'm putting it up anyway. Admittedly, if our bodies were starving, they'd eat up muscle before going to the fat cells, and fat in itself is hardly nutritionally sound enough for humans to survive using their deposits up. But yeah, if I were to be in a famine-like situation (extremely unlikely of course, but for argument's sake let's say it happened) I would last for far longer than people without that sort of emergency storage.
6. It protects us from the cold. I don't really like wearing jumpers. Mainly because in the course of one day I have to wash my hands a few times, and I HATE how wet sleeves feel on my hands. As such I'll avoid wearing jumpers whenever possible. And because I'm fat, that's so much more doable than it would be for a thinner person. My brother is frequently cold.
7. It protects us from injury. An image of Homer Simpson being hit by a cannon ball comes to mind. But yeah, it's true. I rarely get badly injured, even though I'm pretty klutz-y. When I fall down (an event that in itself measures on the richter scale) I'm normally OK to jump right back up again, because it's rare that I'm going to directly hit some bone or joint or something. Most of me is surrounded by a layer of blubber, or the blubber sticks out enough to protect protruding bone in its wake. On the other hand, one very thin friend of mine has bruises down her spine. She says she gets them from lying down, because her spinal column has no protection from the ground, or whatever. Um, OUCH! That would MAJORLY suck. I can't imagine getting injured just from lying down. All around me is soft, reliable padding. You've got to feel sorry for people without it.
That's about all I've got for now. But I think it's a pretty good list so far. And I think that for all fatties it is worth bearing this stuff in mind. Fat acceptance is about "accepting" our fat (because people like things to be spelled out in titles, and all), and that's absolutely great. But maybe part of doing that is to figure out what about our fatness is actually BETTER than what other people have, so that when other people start talking about the disadvantages of being fat, you are able to turn around and say "touche, old boy, but we can ALSO..."
Just a thought.
So, today was pretty fantastic, I have to say. You'll all be relieved to hear that I wore clothes:
I've GOT to start turning my light on before I take these shots. Anyway, my outfit today was admittedly not very interesting, but I wanted to show you all a picture of my purple skinny jeans. Unlike that sorry excuse for skinny jeans I presented a 'before' shot of in my sewing outfit, I can actually call these babies "skinny" without feeling the need to demand that they explain themselves. However, they are INCREDIBLY baggy on the top half. I won't be criticising Asos for this, because fatties are so diverse in their body proportions that it is impossible to make trousers that will fit correctly on each and every one of us. However, needless to say, these jeans require a makeover. And I'll be getting to that arduous task in a few days' time, hopefully.
Anyway, today I gathered up a group of merry men (myself and my friends B and R) and headed to a dessert buffet place in Shibuya, called Sweets Paradise. If anybody out there, anybody at all, is vaguely interested in the prospect of all-you-can-eat cake, this is the place for you.
Behold! Pictures!
And the remaining debris:
After licking our plates clean and thinking that we will quite possibly never have to eat again, we went to karaoke and ended up staying there for three hours. Some of the songs I showed considerably prowess in mimicking (ie. B and R's ears weren't bleeding after I was done with them) were "Telephone" by Lady Gaga, "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani, "You're My Best Friend" by Queen, and "In My Life" by the Beatles. I wanted dearly to sing "On My Own" from Les Miserables, because the damn song has been in my head for the past three days, but they didn't have it in the song catalogue. We headed home afterwards, feeling full, happy, and as though we'd done something, if not necessarily worthwhile, certainly incredibly fun, today.
People appear to have arrived back here from an event that was taking place tonight at a nearby restaurant (an event I would have gone to, had it not cost 2,500 yen and only been for two hours). And of course, they aren't troubling to keep their voices down. Most considerate of them.
One thing I noticed while sitting in the karaoke room listening to B and R singing obscure K-pop songs, was how I was sitting. I was slouched on the couch, my feet resting on a footstool in front of me. My hands were clasped lightly together and resting on my stomach. And because of the shape and size of my stomach, my hands were able to rest there, quite comfortably, without any danger of falling off and lying to rest awkwardly by my sides.
This got me thinking. If I did not have a stomach that stuck out like mine does, I would not be able to attain such a comfortable yet non-threatening position. If I wanted to put my hands somewhere comfortable like that, but I didn't possess my sort of stomach, I'd probably have to fold my arms. Indeed, I do do this on occasion. But that is a very threatening-looking position, and probably the sort of position you want to avoid when you're out with friends. So instead you're stuck with putting your hands on your legs, or to your sides, which can be kind of awkward. I, however, seem to carry a personal "handstool" (as opposed to "footstool") with me wherever I go.
So amused was I by this discovery, that I decided the time was right for me to make a list of the advantages to having a protruding, squishy belly, flabby arms, a well-padded posterior and wide legs like mine. The disadvantages to having such appendages are plentiful, but I think we can all already name a great many of those so there's not much point in me repeating them. This angle, however, is pretty new. So, here we go:
Fatshion Hustlings' List of Awesome Advantages to Having Body Fat
1. The fat stomach's aforementioned "handstool" use. Very handy when your hands are bothering you and you want to put them somewhere vaguely accessible, so that they can be called on easily when you next need them.
2. Fat people make excellent cushions for other living creatures. So far the only living creatures that have utilised my body for this purpose are my brothers and a few past and present cats. But none of them have issued any complaints about the comfort of my body. In fact, one brother used to use my arm for a cushion, and he once said "It would be sad if you lost weight, in the sense that your arm wouldn't be so comfortable anymore." And I can vouch for that - I use my arms as cushions often. I think this is a particularly good point, however. Let's consider intimate relationships for a moment here. I'm admittedly no expert, but I think one of the great things (and certainly one of the things I'm looking forward to) about a romantic relationship is the ability to draw comfort from each other's bodies. At the moment when I want comfort, I will stroke a cat's fur. In an intimate relationship I can absolutely see myself stroking my lover's hair for comfort. I'll also breathe in the familiar (and really, really nice - don't ask me why) smell of my cat. You get the idea. There's comfort in the familiarity, the warmth, the affection, the uniqueness of it. And fat bodies, in my opinion, are so well-equipped at being a source of comfort for people. We are squishy everywhere, so our hugs are fantastic. We make excellent cushions, so leaning on us is wonderful. And we carry that squishiness with us everywhere. You can even squeeze our arms to relieve stress, if we permit it. I'm kind of happy to know that I can provide that sort of support to people, just by being me.
3. Our fat is kind of fascinating to watch. It jiggles when we move! You can press down on it for ages! It can be poked and prodded and played with! Come on!
4. It protects more vital organs. OK, not entirely sure if that's true. But if it is? Awesome!
Edit: A mate of mine, D, provided me with this link, which shows that, yes, this is in fact true. Or at least it was in the past. :P
5. It is a form of stored energy, so we could potentially live off it for a long while, should food ever become scarce. This is a weak point for a number of reasons, but I'm putting it up anyway. Admittedly, if our bodies were starving, they'd eat up muscle before going to the fat cells, and fat in itself is hardly nutritionally sound enough for humans to survive using their deposits up. But yeah, if I were to be in a famine-like situation (extremely unlikely of course, but for argument's sake let's say it happened) I would last for far longer than people without that sort of emergency storage.
6. It protects us from the cold. I don't really like wearing jumpers. Mainly because in the course of one day I have to wash my hands a few times, and I HATE how wet sleeves feel on my hands. As such I'll avoid wearing jumpers whenever possible. And because I'm fat, that's so much more doable than it would be for a thinner person. My brother is frequently cold.
7. It protects us from injury. An image of Homer Simpson being hit by a cannon ball comes to mind. But yeah, it's true. I rarely get badly injured, even though I'm pretty klutz-y. When I fall down (an event that in itself measures on the richter scale) I'm normally OK to jump right back up again, because it's rare that I'm going to directly hit some bone or joint or something. Most of me is surrounded by a layer of blubber, or the blubber sticks out enough to protect protruding bone in its wake. On the other hand, one very thin friend of mine has bruises down her spine. She says she gets them from lying down, because her spinal column has no protection from the ground, or whatever. Um, OUCH! That would MAJORLY suck. I can't imagine getting injured just from lying down. All around me is soft, reliable padding. You've got to feel sorry for people without it.
That's about all I've got for now. But I think it's a pretty good list so far. And I think that for all fatties it is worth bearing this stuff in mind. Fat acceptance is about "accepting" our fat (because people like things to be spelled out in titles, and all), and that's absolutely great. But maybe part of doing that is to figure out what about our fatness is actually BETTER than what other people have, so that when other people start talking about the disadvantages of being fat, you are able to turn around and say "touche, old boy, but we can ALSO..."
Just a thought.
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