Food and exercise

I am borderline hypoglycemic.  In practical terms, this means that my body doesn't know how to store up energy from food and dole it out gradually (like everyone else's does).  I'm like a wind-up toy: eating "winds me up" and gives me energy...

...and then as I digest my food, I "wind down" until finally I am both extremely hungry and pretty much unable to function as a human being.

I have to "recharge" myself with frequent meals.*


Also, I have to be careful of sugar because it hits me all at once.  Apparently, eating a popsicle or cookie gives "normal" people a bit of a buzz for a few hours as their pancreas(?) rations out the sugar a bit at a time; I get high as a freaking kite for 20 minutes**. 

It's actually pretty fun...until the inevitable crash.

I bring this up because I'm going to the gym today for the first time in years and I'm nervous as hell.  I love(d) weight training, but it's always so hard to time it right...you know, to contrive to be at the gym during that fifteen minutes between when I feel "too full" and "too hungry" to lift weights.  I do have some pills that help even out my blood sugar, but I went off them for a while and just started up again yesterday so probably they haven't kicked in yet (they're called Multi Glyco, if you're wondering. The brand name is Genestra).  But I did make sure to eat frequent, balanced, low-carb meals yesterday and today in preparation, so that's something.

I've got a friend going with me to the gym, by the way.  I've never had a "gym buddy" before, and I'm totally psyched - the social aspect of the workouts will give me something to look forward to no matter now I'm feeling, plus I'm way less likely to weasel out of working out if there's someone to hold me accountable.  Still...I'm afraid I'll have an energy crash today and not be able to do much of anything, and I'll feel like a loser.  Plus, I think at this point I've surpassed "out of shape" and gone straight into "seriously atrophied" so even if my energy holds up, my performance will be...embarrassing.  To me, anyway.

I seriously do turn this red when I exert myself.  Other gym-goers have stopped to ask me if I'm okay.

Wish me luck.


*At my old job, they once took us to lunch at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant.  Later that day, a coworker saw me eating a salad at my desk and said, "How can you be eating?!  We had such a huge lunch!" and I replied, "Dude, that was like two hours ago!" and she looked at me like I was weird.

**Even a piece of fruit can give me a buzz and a crash if I eat it on its own, without some protein to help absorb the natural sugars.  Yes, my life sucks.

Staycation!

The holidays are a time for relaxing with our loved ones.  It says so in all the Hallmark cards, and who am I to argue with Hallmark?  They're a huge and powerful company and I'm just, like, some chick with pink hair. 

Anyway.  I'm gonna close my laptop, put on some flannel jammies, and watch cartoons in a big cuddle pile with my boy and cat while consuming potentially lethal amounts of chocolate.

Posting will resume on Monday, December 27th.

Merry Christmas*, everyone!

p.s. I'm working on a fun little treat for you guys.  It should be ready in the New Year.  Stay tuned!


*If you don't celebrate Christmas, please pretend I just wished you a super-happy weekend instead.

Shoutout Sunday: Bathwerks

I'm not normally a person who wears perfume.  For one thing, my body chemistry turns many perfectly lovely scents into a combination of cinnamon and burning polyester.  For another thing, I worry that other people will find the smell of my perfume gross - better to aim for total scentlessness, I figure, than to try to smell good but fail.

Still, every few years I have a brief ill-advised craving for a new perfume and I go all over the place obsessively trying different things out (and usually don't end up buying anything).

But then everything changed.

A while ago, I did some apartment- and cat-sitting for a much girlier friend while she was out of town.  She said I could use anything of hers that I wanted while I was there, so one night I painted each of my fingernails a different colour using her many nail polishes, sparingly applied some of her MAC lipgloss (Russian Red), and poked around among her many bottles of perfume.  One of them was "Dark Chocolate" from Bathwerks and OMG IT MADE ME SWOON.  This stuff isn't a mixture of different elements with a top note/middle note/base note; it just purely and unmistakeably smells like dark chocolate.  And when I spritzed a bit of it on my neck, it still smelled like dark chocolate even the next day!

In short, Bathwerks Dark Chocolate solved all my perfume issues in one fell swoop: it smells amazing, lasts a long time, and I figure very few people will be offended by the smell - you almost can't go wrong smelling like a yummy dessert, right?  Indeed, although the scent doesn't leave a huge trail in its wake (another plus for me), if I'm in a crowded car or elevator someone will always eventually ask "does someone have cookies?" or "who smells yummy?"

By the way...the Dark Chocolate perfume happens to be half-price right now.  Also on sale: their Creme Brulee and Sugar Cookie perfumes.  Sugar Cookie also smells exactly like the real thing; I've never smelled real creme brulee but I can tell you the Creme Brulee perfume is heavy and sweet and creamy and delicious, which seems about right.  If any of these sound good to you, go order them online while they're only $15!!!  You really can't go wrong!  And their shipping is pretty fast - I always get my stuff within three days - so if you live in Canada you could order now and get your goodies by Christmas.

But there's more!  Bathwerks doesn't just make perfume; as their name indicates, they make bath stuff (and lotions and scrubs) as well!  They claim all of their products are made with wholesome ingredients (I'm no expert on this stuff but it looks like their ingredient lists do have more recognizable ingredients than unpronounceable chemicals on them, which is a good sign).  Also, if you're not as into the desserts as I am, you can get their products in scents like bergamot, English tea, or rose geranium instead.

Here are brief reviews of all the things I've tried:

Solid Bath Oil: this is a bar of cocoa butter (looks just like a chocolate bar).  You break off a square and toss it in the bath, and it melts into a delicious-smelling, moisturizing bath oil.  They have white-chocolate ones and regular-chocolate ones; I've tried both (chocolate orange and dark chocolate, respectively) and both smell lovely and will leave your skin feeling nice, although the regular chocolate kind will leave a brown bathtub ring.  Solid bath oil is on sale right now!

Milk Wash: a yummy-smelling, moisturizing body wash.  I have the dark chocolate one, and it feels and smells great.

Creme Fraiche: a very thick moisturizing cream that comes in a tub.  I have this in (what else?) dark chocolate.  It's rich and luxurious, smells exactly like the perfume, and totally soaks into my skin - not like a lot of drugstore moisturizers where you rub your arm ten minutes later and get that "eraser shavings" effect. This is also on sale right now!

To be honest, I almost didn't want to tell you guys about this stuff.  I wanted to hog all the delicious dessert-scented goodies to myself.  But then I thought, "if nobody knows about it, nobody will be buying it, and then maybe Bathwerks will discontinue it, and I can't let that happen."

So there you go. :)

Conversational Snippet #2

Boy: I thought about buying you an advent calendar today, but then I thought "will she actually be able to pace herself?"

Me: You'd be surprised at how well I do when there's portion control.  Those little perforated cardboard doors would hold me at bay...but I'd know the chocolate was there.  Waiting for me.  And it would drive me insane.

Boy: That's exactly what I thought would happen, so I didn't buy one.

Me: And this is why you're awesome.

(He had bought me a full-size chocolate bar, though - another reason why he's awesome.)