Unhappiness Can Make You FAT

This article was originally posted at http://aichakubeautification.blogspot.com. If you see it anywhere else without credit, the content is stolen without permission.

Right, lately I'm working more on my inner-self, hence my absence from the beauty blog. You can find my sporadic "creative"-related posts at my newly re-started craft blog Aichaku Creates.

Today I just wanted to pop in to tell you something about weightloss.

Cue music from Oprah Winfrey Show
Oprah: Cathy here went for a Gastric Bypass Surgery, what we call "Stomach Stapling", and she lost more than 1000 pounds! Cathy tell us about what happened after your surgery.
Cathy: I was so beautiful, but I didn't feel beautiful inside. I still felt unhappy and empty, so I started drinking.
Oprah: Nodding So you used to eat to fill the void that you felt inside your heart and now you're drinking instead.
Cathy: starts tears Yes. I was soooooo unhappy. Until I dealt with the unhappiness, I was still a fat girl, even though I'm thin on the outside.

Well, I may not be so accurate with the dialogue phrasing. I mean, Oprah does have her very unique way of talking, but that was essentially one episode of Oprah Winfrey that I saw one afternoon.

I thought it was pure crap until just 2 weeks ago, I returned to work and found myself gaining weight! I noticed a trend.

When I was on my Sabbatical Leave in December, I was actually losing weight. I was happy and not fat. Now that I returned to work, I was stressed and unhappy that I didn't have enough time to work on my personal projects anymore. I started to think alot about food and ate alot of junk even when I wasn't hungry.

However, if on one particular night, I worked hard on a successful project, I wouldn't feel the need to eat so much on the day after.

So, I begin to think that there really IS a connection between food and emotions for me. Maybe weight-loss is just a simple matter of me making enough time for myself to ensure I am happy enough!

Maybe I'm over-simplifying things here, but I suspect there's some food for thought in here.

This article was originally posted at http://aichakubeautification.blogspot.com. If you see it anywhere else without credit, the content is stolen without permission.

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Pretties to Share

Apologies: I used to put prices as a service for those who wanted to know, but I no longer do it. ^__^ I've been away from work and looking after my son. Have tweeted about it so I won't bore you about the details. Occupying myself and making the son happy with baking cupcakes (wow I made alot!) and this is one batch I recently made: chocolate cupcake base with chocolate ganache glaze and chocolate cream cheese frosting. (What to do? He loves chocolate. Man, I'd like to do some fruity or tangy cupcakes soon or something.) I know they are not uniform and some look deformed, LOL! I don't have enough cupcake trays so I just put them in the oven in the paper cups and they bake into weird shapes. And no electric mixer so I hand-beat everything, you can see specks of cream cheese that were not mixed in properly buahahaha cause I didn't wait for it to warm to room temperature. But hey, they taste pretty nice so that's good enough for us. Managed to get out of the house for a while on Thursday and haul some stuff. Very fast buying! All within 1 hour. LOL. Photos are kinda grainy, because I took them in dim light, in the night. ❤ ❤ All very, verrrry pretty colours. I couldn't resist.❤ ❤ New colours from Lunasol, with a 10% discount. ❤ So matchy-matchy huh? ❤ ❤ Items from Mac's Spring collection, with a 12% rebate, woot! ❤ I don't like pigments at all but the Mac MA told me these will be perfect for my skin colour and a great combi with the purplish Vintage Grape blush I bought. She showed me how to use these pigments and assured me these are different from the usual pigments. Truly, they are very intense even when applied dry and without a fix-it. So I was convinced and bought it. :D The very popular peach blush from the same collection was sold out. I wanted to get it so I asked the MA for an orange, peach or brown blush dup but we couldn't find anything suitable. Everything in those shades make me look very sallow, or abit sick or like I put on fake tanning lotion. :( Finally, a gloss from Kiehl's that I picked up to make up $100 spending, together with the shampoo and lotion I purchased from Kiehl's, to get an umbrella that I totally didn't need. LOL but I like Kiehl's glosses. Btw, I tweeted about it before, I don't get the Kiehl's boys, they aren't cute neither do they have personality, what is their function? ☠ ☠ Haha. Looking forward to the weekend. :D © Copyright. All rights reserved.

Cleansing Foods for Good Skin and Healthy Body

Note: I used to put prices as a service for those who wanted to know, but I'm feeling this exposes my spendings abit too much, so I'm no longer going to put in prices. ^__^ Inspired by bloggers and sites I've read online, I've been eliminating (actually more like reducing) some foods and eating some extra stuff to make my body more healthy, get rid of bloating and excess weight/water. It seems to have helped, so I'm sharing some here. Just remember, I'm no doctor or nutritionist, just sharing my personal experiences. :D Things I try to reduce/eliminate: Meat, processed starches and sugars. I read that processed starches like pasta, noodles and bread are worse than plain starches like rice or potato. Ofcourse, alot of diets tell you to eliminate carbohydrates all together, but I'm not really going to that extent. I've been eating this concoction of cereals for breakfast (I can't seem to digest plain oats), black beans (good for hair and skin, I think) and yam paste (just for the taste). It looks gross, but it's really yummy. Plus I imagine it helps eliminate all the bad stuff in my body. I tried to go raw, but it didn't really work out for me due to my lack of discipline. So I just include more raw stuff in my meals. I chuck all these vegetables and fruits into the blender, mix in some collagen and water, to make a smoothie. It helps that I've always liked vegetables. My husband likes to say I'm always eating grass. Definitely this was inspired by Beauty Box's post, "Should you drink juice or smoothies for great skin?" I haven't tried straining the pulp to get juice only though.

I've also been drinking this on days when I'm not drinking the Meiji Collagen. Good for skin! Always feel my skin is smoother, even though I've been told by doctor friends that drinking collagen only makes the stomach lining smoother, not the skin. :p

So far, I've been doing this properly for about 2-3 days and I've already felt my bloating reduced. My feet and stomach don't feel so swollen anymore. I hope I can continue this for a bit longer and maybe even reduce my weight too!!

I'm heading to the doctor's to review my medication, as it is part of the cause of my recent weight gain. I don't think it's good for me if it makes me gain so much weight in such a short time. Hopefully he'll give me something else, or maybe say I can get off the medicine soon. :D

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Of A Small Cake, Nails and Whitening

This is a cake I ate on Mothers' Day for lunch. It's quite tasty but why do I get the feeling that it's something that I might be able to buy at the supermarket? I got a box of nail blingbling that was packed together with one of the makeup items (I forget which) that I bought from Matsumoto Kiyoshi. I used it together with an Etude House nail polish and nail sticker I bought in Seoul to create this look. One thing I'll never get used to is long nails though, so I'll have to be content with painted nails that are short. (Darned those 10 years of Christian school upbringing!) I think it's quite simple (and amateurish keke), but I actually had fun doing it! I used to think it's troublesome to add bling bling or even to paint my nails, but lately I've changed my mind. I'm fighting a losing battle with evening out my skin tone. My arms keep getting dark, when I go out into the sun, even if it's just a short walk to lunch or the bus-stop. I 've been using these sunscreen/sunblock and body whitening lotions, but I still can't get my arms as fair as my neck or my face. So weird. These are what I use for the body. So far, the best body whitening lotion is Fancl's. I bought Orbis' but haven't tried it yet. The other 2 lotions from Nivea and White Rose don't work. I don't see any whitening effects at all when I use them. I also suspect my sunscreens/sunblock don't work? Even if I slather them on before I go out, eg. before lunch, I still get dark arms ... :( I've been using the Biore on my arms because I'm now using the other sunscreen/sunblock from Fancl for the face. Edit: just after I read K's comment, I see this on my Google Reader. Good tips on sun-protection. K, you're right, I should be reapplying more often! Every 2-3 hours? Gosh! © Copyright. All rights reserved.