Insanity

I bet that many of you have heard this saying and nodded in agreement. It makes perfect sense, if you apply a solution to a problem and it doesn't work, wouldn't you try a different way of solving the problem?

So please, why on earth are you trying to loose weight and gain health and fitness the same old way?

I heart lots of people say that losing weight is easy, but they don't bother to to, or think it's not worth it. The high exercise, low food, sad sad calorie restricted diet - lean meats, no carbs, no sweets, no fun. 

In my personal opinion and experience, that way of weight control and lifestyle is nothing but a sure road to hungry misery, binging and endless guilt everytime you put something in your mouth.

I love eating, I love food, I love shopping for it, cooking it and eating it. But once upon a time, I had this weird things, a compulsive idea that men shouldn't see me eat. I couldn't stand having men watch me eat food. Not because I ate ridiculous amounts or ate really messily, but because I was ashamed that I ate - period. I was fat, and the way you get fat is that you eat. (Or so I thought, later I've learned that it#s about what you eat.) I was ashamed to follow my most natural human instincts, I was ashamed to put food, energy, nutrition into my body when guys were nearby.

I'm not sure who I think I was fooling, my appearance and my body spoke for itself. 

This was back in boarding school, luckily my pet peeve didn't evolve into anything compulsive or obsessive, and I COULD eat in front of guys, I just tried to avoid it if possible and I ate perfectly normal in front of girls. I have shed this pet peeve, but recently I did find myself uncomfortable by just telling my boyfriend that I had to eat food, again - I felt ashamed. It was a sad flashback from past ghosts. 

And guess what, I never lost weight. All I gained were crazy thoughts that men couldn't see me eat, hunger, low energy levels and binging on cakes and "treating" myself with a whole bag of hot wings or cheesy pizza when things got a bit rough. What a depressing time, it brings tears to my eyes looking back and thinking about it.

So here's my plea to you. Stop. Right now, I want you to stop being insane. I want you to stop circulating, stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, because guess what Sherlock, you're not going to gain a different result unless you apply a different way of solving your problem. Enter high carb, low fat veganism!

Lastly I'd like to recommend you watching this video. It's evidence based, scientific really good information on calorie restriction. The results of this study are staggering and will leave you with something to think about. You are your own best friend, so make sure to nurture yourself and enable yourself to thrive.

 - Elk

Makeup: Luxury

Hi guys, I haven't done this in a while, probably because makeup in general have taken a back-seat in my life lately. I simply haven't really bothered all that much. So the other day, I decided to sit down and play around, slapping lots of makeup on my face. The result, is this:

These last two pictures are only cropped, otherwise not edited, so here you can see the makeup itself a little closer.

I love playing around with makeup, dressing up and doing little photo-shoots with my most handy available model - that'll be myself. I took some other photos at this "shoot", so keep tuned for Luxury .2!

Are you sick, healthy or?...

Are you sick? Do you have diabetes, high blood pressure, suffer from obesity or other lifestyle related diseases? If you do, you're probably aware of this. If you don't, you're probably considering yourself to be healthy.
This is what I want to be talking about, that middle category which we don't really have a name for, but it's in between being healthy and being sick.

Before changing my diet, I never considered myself sick, I thought I was all in all healthy, and when I went to the doctor for check-ups I'd get a clean bill of health, and be told that I was in fact in good health. I'm guessing that this sounds familiar to many of you.

Despite being seemingly "healthy", I had ailments. Many, but less severe than an actual "disease" or "illness". I was unbelievably tired all the time! I'd had to fight myself from falling asleep every afternoon, I'd have to FORCE myself to get up and out of the house, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. If I could go one afternoon without having passed out from tiredness, I considered it a success. Therefore, I also only had sporadic bursts of energy to do productive tasks like cleaning the dishes or doing the laundry, and you can forget all about studying, or even reading for the fun of it. 15 minutes with a book open right before bedtime, and I'd be done!

Obesity/overweight. Need I say more? When I was at my highest weight, I weighed 114.1 kilograms and my BMI was 39.4, I was obese! How can a doctor tell me that I'm completely healthy when I'm clinically obese, just because I haven't got high blood pressure or diabetes yet?

I suffered from oily skin and acne, it was so bad that despite a meticulous skin-care routine with scrubs, face masks, toners, cleansers, creams the list goes on, my doctor sat me down as I was coming in for a check-up and said to me "why haven't you come see me before about that acne?" I got described pills and a medical cream.

I will not attribute this only to diet, because regular headaches can and does stem from regular strain and tension, however I have noticed a decrease in the amounts of headaches I get after having changed my diet. I never used to have bad or particularly painful headaches, but I can still see positive effects from a change of diet, in terms of headaches.

Rumbling stomach and the pain of hunger. Sounds familiar? I have great news for you. It used to be the story of my life. I would never eat breakfast, be damn near starving for lunch, dying for dinner during the afternoons. The result? I kept gaining weight, even though I so desperately tried to eat so little and control myself. Now, I haven't been properly hungry for months! If I'm starting to feel hungry, I'll eat, and I no longer have to experience that hunger I used to live with everyday for so long.

In time, my ailments got worse, as my weight increased. I got hormonal disturbances, increased levels of testosterone, little hairs starting to grow places that otherwise only would, or at least should, happen to men, irregular and missing periods. Something was wrong, very wrong and I knew it. After a loooooong time, dreading the gynaecological examination, I (wo)manned up and went to the doctor. As I suspected, of course I'd done research from home, I was diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome which, to those of you who don't know means that there are lots of little benign water-cysts sitting on your ovaries. This will affect your hormones as well as the general state of your reproductive system. The cure? Lose weight and it will all go away. (If it's due to excess weight.)

So, I did end up being sick, I also got tested for diabetes because I was starting to show unusual numbers and my doctor got worried.
 Now you might ask, what does this have to do with the missing category in between sick and healthy? My point is, just because you are not sick, does not mean that you are in fact healthy. To me, there is a difference between being healthy and being "not-sick".

To me, when you're healthy you're sparkling, you are absolutely bursting with just how good you feel and how healthy you are. Being "non-sick" does not mean that you are healthy, just because you haven't (yet) got a diagnose, just because your doctor isn't (yet) telling you that you are in fact sick, it doesn't mean that you haven't got ailments that are decreasing the quality of your life. I'm here to tell you that you CAN be bursting and sparkling with health, and I'm telling you - you should!

Change your diet, eat only the food that is going to make you the most satisfied and make your health blossom. Fruits, vegetables, grains, pasta, rice, potatoes. A high-carb low fat vegan diet. And do it now! Do it before you get sick, because all of these little ailments, tiredness, excess weight, indigestion, headaches, hormonal imbalances, heartburn etc. are the predecessor for sickness.

 - Elk

Books: Bookforum in CPH 2014

Hi guys! To all of you who don't know, every year there is a book convention being hosted at the Bella Center Sky in Copenhagen, Denmark, called Bookforum. My friend and I have a tradition to go, and this is the 3rd year in a row that we've gone. We went yesterday, on the 8th of November.

I thought I show you a couple of pictures and the show you which books I bought as well!

I hope that from the pictures, you can kind of get an idea of what the feeling and convention/fair is like. It's really cool, there are stands from big and small publishers everywhere, stages where people are being interviewed, giving talks and discussing literature. There's a stage where baker's and chefs cook some food from their books, there is a poetry stage and fun stuff for the kids to do. All in all it's great! My friend and I went to hear Chris Carter talk about murder, a dude talk about how bacteria isn't all that bad as it's made out to be, we heard a Lucas Bianchedi talk about medicine in Medieval times and we heard Niviaq Korneliussen read from her new book Homo Sapienne, and more.

Now at the convention, there are some pretty sweet book deals, and I took advantage and carried a backpack full of 12 books home with me. My friend got some cookbooks and other stuff, and I got the following: (as to not make this post to long, I won't give descriptions, merely list and then you can look it up if you're interested)

 George D. Shuman thriller/crimes, original titles: "18 Seconds", "Last Breath" and "Lost Girls".

 Books I simply CAN'T wait to get into by the marvellous Haruki Murakami, jap and eng titles: "Suputoniku no koibito" AKA "Sputnik Sweetheart", "Umibe no Kafuka" AKA "Kafka on the Shore", "Hitsuji o meguru boken" AKA "A Wild Sheep Chase" and "Dansu, dansu, dansu" AKA "Dance Dance Dance".

 Kim Thúy original French title: "Ru". Anthology by different Danish authors, original Danish title: "Fortællinger om kærlighed".

Martin Walser original German title: "Ein liebender Mann". Konrad Lorenz original German title: "Das sogenannte Böse", in English "On Aggression". Lastly, Janet Skeslien Charles original English title: "Moonlight in Odessa".

A little note, in terms of the books and their titles. All of the ones I bought are in Danish, I've tried to give the original title in it's language and then the English title, if it wasn't originally English to begin with and if I could find an English title for it on Goodreads.com. I hope it was helpful!

 - Elk

Nails: Cartoony

Hi guys, so I realize that the whole cartoon-nails thing, or the outlined nail trend is soooo last season! However, first of all it took me a long time to finally decide to try these nails out, and when I finally did I fell in love. I think they are so cute and cartoony, and for some reason they make me think of Katy Perry. (Did she wear these nails in a video or something??)
Anywho, secondly I've had a picture of this manicure hanging out on in a folder rather thank having put it up on the blog, duuuuh, I know - I'm sorry. Anyways, here they are. I paired these cartoony nails with big round sunnies, probably not very relevant for the winter time, but it's all good!

 - Elk

Progress - oh the clothes!

As a lifelong fat person, I have always hated CLOTHES. Hated looking at it, buying it, wearing it, paying for it just.. Hated it

I reckon that there is alot of overweight people out there like me who knows the terrible feeling of manning yourself up to go into a store, well aware that you will have to get the biggest sizes on the shelves, and that out of all the clothes in the store, only some of it will look decent on you and if you're lucky to find something that looks fantastic you'll have to pay whatever it costs because you've been lucky enough to find some!

I don't know if this story seems familiar to some of you, but that is basically how I feel about clothes, and how I have always felt. But today I wanted to share something lovely with you. As some might know, I went raw till 4 vegan on the 22nd of April 2014, and say whatever you want about it, I have yielded amazing result so far that thrills me on a daily basis. I could make a whole long list about all the amazing things that have happened, and I will - but today I just wanted to share this.

 

 About a month ago, I bought this pair of pants. Two sizes down from what I've had to have my ONE pair of (very ill-fitting and never worn) jeans. On these pants I could only close the top button, closing the second or trying to zip the zipper was impossible. But I really liked the pants, and they were at a very decent prize. I called my mom to the fitting-room and asked her whether to buy them or not. I feel like we always get taught by the magazines and the media not to buy clothes that we'll have to lose a little weight to fit into, or we should throw out old clothes that doesn't fit anymore in order not to discourage ourselves. Despite this, I bought the pants. I didn't try them on again, and I said to myself "I'll try on these pants again when I'm at 97 kg".

Well, today I was 96,6 kg, so I tried them on, so worried that they wouldn't fit, worried that I had fulfilled a prophecy for disappointment and failure, but as you can see - they fit! And I am just ecstatic!

 

I thought I'd add in a picture of my t-shirt here. I bought it a while ago in the hopes that I could wear it and show some university pride, but the fact of the matter is that even though it was a huge man-size, I looked terrible on me, and look now. It is super baggy, very oversize and I wear it all the time now around the house, to remind myself how far I've come. (I don't wear it out all that often because it is really ill-fitting due to oversize!)

I know that I have soooo much more weight to lose, but when you've been completely down in the depths and never ever thought you could get any better, not even the slightest. When you'd leaned back and given up, accepted obesity, looking and feeling terrible, accepting that diabetes was an inevitability in your life, seeing this now and feeling it can almost make me cry!

 - Elk

Makeup: The many faces

Hi guys. Yesterday I had a conversation with a guy, and we talked about girls and their makeup.
He said something which I feel like us ladies hear alot from guys, but still resist to believe in. He said that girls don't need to wear makeup, that it's silly and the whole concept is just due to unobtainable ideals set from the world of celebrities.
All I could say was: "a huh, yes.. Why are you telling me all these things I already know?".
To this he replied: "so why do you do it?". - Ah yes, we could spent hours, days, weeks, months, years discussing why women feel the need to wear makeup, or on the other hand why the choose not to.

However, that is not what this post is about. This post is about the next bit I uttered in that conversation.
I understand far too well that wearing too much makeup can be too much and very unattractive, but I see nothing wrong or twisted about a little mascara, some blush and lipbalm to help nature along. My conversational partner on the other hand thought that it was just as bad as going all out - it's a principle I guess.

So we cut a deal. To prove my point, I was to take a picture of myself first thing in the morning. Fresh out of bed, hair all over the place, oily skin and absolutely no makeup. Then I'd proceed to go through some of the different faces of makeup, and this is the result.

Excuse the giant picture, but it's a big comparison. I realized that the lighting in picture one is slightly different than the others, but I can't control the morning sun ;)

I think I'll leave this picture for effect and say no more. Which do you prefer?

 - Elk