I’d like a skinny bitch, please

I’m actually referring to the drink here; vodka and soda water. Yeah, it’s a thing. My husband, aka the long and lean noodle, has it almost exclusively. I, on the other hand, prefer shorter drinks that usually have traces of worm in them and leave you so confused and delirious by the end of the night that you end up having conversations about religion with plants. I’m absolutely fine with this state, what I’m not fine with is banning alcohol abuse from diets.

On my 4th week of a strict atoms-only meal plan, I began to miss my drunken escapades with society’s refugees. Diets are as varied as the people who need them, yet most of them explicitly ban most traces of good-times-booze. According to many new reports, alcohol is detrimental to weight loss because the minute it is in you, your body stops burning fat and switches to burning alcohol.

Yet it seems to me that these scientists need to differentiate between types of alcohol and how you consume them. If, like this author, you smoothly sashay into a club at ten with the intent of having “one or two glasses of wine”, only to stumble into the men’s toilet at midnight with traces of Jager, Tequila and vomit on your shirt, then banning alcohol is probably a safe bet that you will reach your weight loss goal.

On the other hand, if you can somehow commit to the oxymoron of “sensible drinking”, then you just might have a chance to escape your calorie deficient days with giggle filled evenings. The following list will help fellow dieters commit to a smaller waistline without skimping on good times:

1) Designate a Bar Vader, preferably a good friend otherwise this won’t work, who will shadow you throughout the evening and ensure that you stick to one type of the approved alcohol list. This is for those of us who have the resolve yet struggle with reality.

2) Pace yourself. In this race, the tortoise is the winner. If you have had a light dinner, you won’t need that much liquor anyway, and if you space out the drinks to one per hour, you should be fine.

3) Move! This is no time to sit and ponder the fate of humanity. If you are drinking your carbs, you should be moving, dancing or molesting some piece of furniture/security guard. At least give your body a chance to burn those empty calories instead of converting them into self-hating prophecies.

4) Avoid the sugary, mixed stuff. So long Pina Coladas, anything with an umbrella, or drinks that make your pancreas erect. Instead, befriend the straight up folks like tequila, vodka, gin and the like.

5) To beer, or not to beer. This is a tough one. I know some folks who drink this exclusively and are physically free of the Homer Simpson gut. Yet they are also quite active and drink nothing else. If you use beer as a chaser then it’s probably a good idea to cut it out, otherwise limit your intake.

6) This is probably the most important: Avoid the fast food in the aftermath! I don’t care if the McD’s vendor has promised you his first born, late night eating is a sin by normal standards, and late night junk food binging is an invitation for all sorts of snug trouble.

Thanks to these simple rules, I still make the rounds on the weekends. They have helped me maintain a balance between my night life and my daily commitment to health. For other sources that allow your inner lush to come out and play, try the following. In the meantime, I am enjoying the fruits of my starvation, while keeping my thirst in check.

 

alcohol

Unnatural Selection

Life is all about change. You change partners, jobs, countries and friends. Last Friday, I changed ideals. I ventured to one of my favorite outdoor events; Groove on the Grass, for a good dose of dancing and entertainment. The dancing was great; the entertainment was met with mixed feelings. At some point during the evening of merriment, the area was filled with many people hoola-hooping (henceforth known by its official name among members: hooping).

It was quite nice to watch; many women were quite dexterous at it and effortlessly flitted from one sequence to another, with nothing short of style and grace. Then I noticed the men. I’m not talking pretty little effeminate boys, I’m talking bearded, could-probably-start-a-fire-in-the-wild, please tell me what’s wrong with my car- men.

I was quite surprised by the sheer number of masculine oscillating hips. And even more surprised by how good they were. These weren’t a few sheep trying out the sport to find an in with these beautiful ladies, like that one jerk that always shows up to that yoga class and drools over your ass in downward dog. Nay, these were men that had seriously adopted and obviously been practicing their swirling and sashaying skills.

I have to admit that watching them at first didn’t sit well with me. It was a little like watching a female wear a strap on to jerk off. Then it hit me. This was the product of my gender-defined upbringing. When I was a kid in the 80’s, girls wore pink, boys wore blue, girls played with dolls (and hoops) and boys played with cars.

I’m pretty sure that if my brother had gone up to my dad in those days and asked “Dad, can I have a hoola-hoop?” my dad would’ve been like “No son. You don’t hoop. You fuck bitches.”

Fast forward 3 decades and in ushers a new era where such delineations are rendered null and void, and gender boxes and traits morph into masses of fun activities for all. I tried to imagine if cavemen hoola hooping in the Stone Age would’ve been allowed to procreate. Yet in today’s day and age, these norms no longer apply. In today’s world, you can hoop and fuck bitches, probably while eating your cake too.

man hoops

Lateral Living

Thanks to my gloriously soothing bulged disc (as if my 3 curved scoliosis spine wasn’t enough fun on its own), I’ve had to seek out alternative treatments to go about my daily business.

One of my earliest attempts at pain free movement was physiotherapy. A sweet Asian lady was recommended to me, and when I met the little creature, I had no idea she was capable of such evil. Her office was sterile and white, save for a brightly colored teddy bear on one of her chairs.

“Aw how sweet, is that your child’s?” I asked innocently.

She covered her mouth and giggled (the first sign that should have set me off) “Tee hee! No this is for you!”

As I lay on my stomach, she brought the eternally gaping teddy to me and told me to hold it if things got too much. I was a little perplexed, but she answered my quizzical face contortion with a small introduction to “dry needling”. Sounded like something that should be done to a quilt but I was in so much agony, I gave her the thumbs up. As she prepared the needles, I recalled never having seen such a thing in physiotherapy scenes in movies. On screen, the ordeal always entailed a trainer helping the victim of circumstance or genes in some movements. There was no penetration involved. Nevertheless, this little teddy bearing lady was indeed highly recommended, and who was I to go against the grain?

I’ll give you the short version: OUCH. Fucking OUCH. Grit your teeth I’m going in dry ouch. Teddy didn’t help much either with his cold unfeeling stare.

After a few sessions of leaving her office feeling like I had been raped by a voodoo doll, I vowed to seek out another method.

I went through the usual suspects: chiropractors, more traditional physiotherapists, realignment specialists, Santa Clause, and even alcohol (I don’t recommend working out drunk, treadmills tend to suddenly swerve), but all only gave me short term relief.

After months of trial and error; I can safely say that the only things that worked for me and that could probably help most people with back issues are: Kinesiotherapist (performing the Dorn method) and Pilates.

Ah, wonderful Pilates. I have to say, if you do suffer and have never given it a try, you might as well set yourself on fire.

Two things about Pilates:

1) I think they are pronouncing it wrong; I think it should be Pie-Lates (as in “oh my god, I’m so lates to that meeting!”)

2) You will be introduced to a very foreign concept called ‘Lateral breathing’.

In a nutshell, lateral breathing is inhaling without heaving your chest up or letting your belly bulge out. The whole idea is to keep your top chest and tummy pulled in tight as you inhale. So where exactly can this intake of air go?

If you’re like me your first guess might have been: ‘my ass?’ Wrong answer. This kind of breathing works by flaring out your lower ribs, and then contracting them to expel all the air out.

As foreign as this is, this kind of breathing not only protects your back but if you practice it throughout the day, it will invariably strengthen your core and make you more mindful of your posture and movements.

Pilates is full of weird jargon. One of my favorites is “navel to spine”, a command that floods most sessions. In the beginning the expression really angered me. My navel was so far away from my spine it needed a GPS to get there. Nevertheless, a few sessions in and I could see the blatant results of committing to this mispronounced sport.

I strongly and wholeheartedly recommend Pilates to everyone, even the people I don’t like very much. If you can get past the new age lingo and breathing like a flattened flying snake, you will reap a world of benefits and mobility, and you can go back to chasing dreams and victims as you see fit.