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May 7, 2012

Beauty Tips the First

Following with my pre-arranged blog post plan, I am going to post things like this, tutorials, home decor tips, and things for sale in the second week of the month.

I have a simple tip for tonight for those of you with acne problems: Pop them.

Tons of people say not to pop zits in the case that your hands are dirty and they will get infected. But a zit isn't a wound, it's crap in your pores. Based on personal experience, when you pop your zits, they DON'T scar. If you don't? They DO. Horribly.

If you get zits on your back, have your mom pop them for you. Just get rid of them. Don't listen to people who tell you not to pop them. They don't know what they are saying, and you will end up with a scarred face because of them.

I might sound a little vicious about this, but I am sick and tired of the people who believe that they will scar you if you do anything about them. It isn't correct, and by them telling other people that, people end up with ugly faces. So many of them could have had nice faces!!! So stop listening to your friends and family and listen to ME.

.....hehe ^^

May 5, 2012

Very basic overview of a Low Carbohydrate Diet

My boyfriend and I are starting a low carbohydrate diet. We're not going to follow a specific plan, because they are all pretty much the same: Eat about 20g of carbs per day for 2 weeks, gradually up the carbs until you've lost all the weight you wanted, up them some more until you reach a plateau but NOT gain weight.

Some people want to just to do the "Induction" Phase, where they eat a very low amount of carbs per day until they lose all the weight they want, and then go back to eating the way they did before. Well, you COULD do this. However, you will simply gain all the weight back.

The point of eating very little carbs in the first weeks is to switch your body from burning the sugars from all the carbohydrates for energy into burning the fat you eat for energy, and then continue burning the fat your body has stored for energy. Once your body has switched from sugar to fat, you will start dropping pounds.

The second phase is usually called Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL). In this phase, you begin to gradually raise the amount of carbs that you eat daily, between 5-10g per week. You need to find how many carbs you can continue to eat without gaining weight. If you reach a "plateau", try dropping some carbs. If you need help, you should exercise. Exercising REALLY helps accelerate the weight loss!

At the end of OWL, when you are closing in on that weight loss goal, start upping the carbs even more. You will lose weight more slowly, but at this point, you don't want to go below your goal, you want to stop at your goal. When you have lost all the weight, continue eating as many carbs as you can without gaining weight. You will feasibly do this the rest of your life. This is the third phase, Maintenance.

I've recently read that if you do a low-carb diet, and then end up gaining weight because you didn't follow your individual Maintenance plan, it's harder to lose weight the second go around. Nobody knows why, but I read from plenty of women that this is the case with them. It doesn't seem to happen to men quite as much, but it still does happen. This really worries me, but I have been doing fine, especially when I get to the gym!

UN-PROCESSED meat and eggs have no carbs, so you will be eating those a lot. You can cook the eggs in any which way you like! The meat must NOT be breaded though. That's extra carbs! That first 2 weeks you will be eating a lot of meat, eggs, and salad. However, if you plan to do a low carb diet, you will need to research. Some vegetables have a lot of carbs, some have almost none. Most fruit have a lot of carbs.

In order to figure out how many carbs you are getting, look at the nutrition facts on whatever it is you are eating. Subtract the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbohydrates. That's how many carbs you are getting. However, some packages have mistakes about the amount of carbs. If something says it only has 2g of carbs per serving, but the fiber and sugar add up to be MORE than 2g, it's WRONG. Always look at the package!!

Another mistake people make is trying to do a low-carb, low-fat diet. The fat in all the meat you are eating is what is helping keep you full. You need the fat, don't worry, you are BURNING IT ALL OFF! If you don't eat the fat, you will get tired, you will be hungry, and you will fail and just start eating carbs again. Again, you need to do your research about a low carb diet before you start one.

May 2, 2012

Maladaptive Daydreaming

All my life, I have rocked back and forth while I am sitting. I shake my leg violently at other times, like when I am laying in bed. While standing, I sway side to side. In all this time of moving for no apparent reason, I am actually daydreaming without being aware of it. When I snap out of it, I am not confused if I am in reality or a fantasy world. I know where I am, what I am doing, and that I was daydreaming. At least, now that I have realized that I AM daydreaming.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally googled this strange behavior. I never thought to do that before, but now that I have, I'm kind of sorry about it. I found pages and pages of people talking about their symptoms, wondering what they could do about them, and how it seemed impossible to stop. They talked about their addictions to spending hours at a time daydreaming, and how they wanted to stop WASTING their life doing NOTHING.

I never realized that I was daydreaming while rocking back and forth until I read about other people with the same condition. Then it clicked. I have Maladative Daydreaming, I have had it all my life, and I wish I never found out what it was.

Usually, and apparently, it starts with a traumatic incident in your childhood. It's a way to escape. I however have had it since birth. I would rock at night until my crib would block the door from being opened. My younger brother seems to have it, too. He doesn't make friends well, he would rather be by himself... Like me. People just get in my way of daydreaming...

Maladaptive Daydreaming is much worse than having idle daydreams while in school and your teacher is boring you. It's addictive. You can't stop. It's like a drug. If you can daydream for hours at a time? You might have it. While daydreaming, you do some kind of movement over and over. Shake something in your hand, rock back and forth, shake your leg. It will bother people, and they will ask why you do it. Most people don't have an answer. Then they make fun of you.

It's not a very nice existence. You waste your life. You stay in. You daydream during jobs and get fired for it. You don't keep friends. People yell at you.

You can stop it yourself. I would suggest doing so, unless you want to spend years of your life doing nothing. but daydreaming. Just catch yourself, and stop. Just keep trying.

There are usually triggers... Something that gets your mind start being creative. A book, a movie, music... The weather. I've noticed when there is a lightning storm, I start daydreaming about North Dakota. I used to spend summers there, and there is a lightning storm almost every night there. I am terrified about tornadoes, and then I get scared. That feeling remains with me when I snap out of it, but I know I am not in N.D. I'm still in a lightning storm though.

You end up with weird feelings and thoughts and it's just annoying. I feel like now that I know about it, I'm diseased. I never thought it did me any harm before, but now? How much of my time am I spending daydreaming?

May 1, 2012

May Holidays

So from now on, in the first week of the month I plan to do one of these posts. Just letting you know what monthly events are coming up and when, and possibly how they started.... If I feel like that last part.

I recently restored this laptop back to it's factory install, because I felt like it was going to die on me soon if I didn't. I had high hopes for speedy internet to come back to me, but now this laptop is slower than ever! I will type out a sentence and then stop to watch it slowly come into view, letter by letter. Blogging has now become a complete nightmare! Especially since I have finally wrote out enough things to actually start up again. Bah! This computer will become better if it's the last thing I do!

Well, today, May 1st, is May Day. This is, (in some countries) a celebration for the coming of Spring and Summer. In other countries, I guess it's a celebration for the workers. It's not really celebrated in the U.S. yet it's on our calenders.

May 5th is, quite obviously, Cinco De Mayo. (Spanish for Fifth of May.) This is really a celebration for Hispanic descent, however many people chose this day as an excuse to party and drink. It's on a Saturday this year, and Saturdays are MY excuse to party.

May 6th is Teacher's Day! Well how about that? Get them a Red Delicious! Wait, no... This year it's on a Sunday. Aw, well.

May 13th: Mother's Day. This also goes for your Grandma: She's a mother, too! Mother's day is really the second Sunday in May. Mother's Day doesn't seem to have much history, except that it has been going on for years.

Armed Forces Day this year is May 19th. Like thanksgiving, Armed Forces Day is actually set for the third Saturday of May, instead of a set date. This day is a sorta screw-over: Each military branch had it's OWN day of celebration, but then the Secretary of Defense and the President (Harry Truman) decided that they wanted to put it all into one day.

Then, Memorial Day is May 28th. This year. This is also one of those dates Congress decided to change from always on May 30th to the last monday in May, so they could always get a 3-day weekend.

So, now you know that Holidays are subjected to personal gain. Either it's many days consolidated into one day, or it's changed to get a day off. President's Day was made so instead of getting the day off on both Washington's birthday AND Lincoln's birthday could be celebrated in one day, but it also was placed on a Monday to ensure another 3-day weekend instead of a day off in the middle of the week, or during the weekend.

I encourage you to change holiday dates for your own personal reasons if you have too. In order to spend Mother's Day with mom, you've got to BE with mom, and if that's not possible, decide on a date that's good for the both of you! The dates aren't important... Celebrating them properly is!