Thursday, January 12

here we go again

I watched Oprah a few hours ago and she had another one of her weight-loss episodes. I'm sure you know the kind. One of the people she featured was a 700+ pound man who lost a mind-blowing 500 pounds! And get this, he lost all that without any surgery.

So it got me thinking (which always happens when I get sucked into Oprah's inspirational mind-trips), if this guy was able to lose that much weight, then the 10 extra pounds hanging off of me shouldn't be such an insurmountable obstacle. I know, my train of thought is disappointingly predictable, but I blame that entirely on Oprah and her penchant for making things seem so simple. Anyway, I've decided to focus my energies on losing those stubborn 10 pounds. Nevermind all those years of trying to get rid of them and failing miserably. Its time for another shot.

I've decided to do this in stages, and the battle starts with food. I know it's going to hurt, I love food as much as the next person (the next person being an overweight person who uses food as a crutch and can't get enough of it). But it MUST be done and here are the things I plan to say goodbye to:
  • Double Cheeseburgers and Fries from Mcdonalds, KFC's Original Recipe Fried Chicken and Hotshots, Sausage Stuffed Crust Pizza at Pizza Hut
  • Whipped cream and full-cream milk in coffee
  • Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and all of its other chocolatey friends
  • all shapes and forms of junkfood
  • instant noodles and soups
  • the entire pork menu at Grill Queen
  • half my rice intake
  • cakes and pastries my mom brings home

I know there should be a lot more, but for now, these are the things I can stand to give up, and even this is taking a supreme effort. Now, I wait and see how long my willpower holds out.

Sunday, January 8

the simplest answer is often the best one

Francisco: "... if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of this strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"

Henry: "I... don't know. What... could he do? What would you tell him?"

Francisco: "To shrug."

-conversation between Francisco d'Anconia and Henry Rearden
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

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I wish I could quote every single word in this book that fired my mind but that would be the post that went on forever. Or at least for a few hundred pages. This is the book I wish everyone would read. It's more than a thousand pages of tiny writing but so worth it. I'm not even halfway through it and already I'm raving about it. I hope my mind won't explode before I finish it. :P