Mishmash Musings

I haven’t done a “Five Things” list in ages, and since I’m tired of writing about Michael Jackson, I thought I’d cobble together a quick list of my pet peeves. Well, these are just five of my pet peeves, though I have many, many more! (But it’s actually hard to think of them on the spur of the moment for the purposes of writing a post!)

1. Shared email addresses. Man, I cannot STAND it when couples share a single email address. How friggin’ hard is it to get your own address? A shared one just looks like the couple has trust issues.
2. People who write “could of” or “should of” instead of “could’ve” or “should’ve”. Actually there are a lot of grammar errors that bug me, but this is a biggie. What does “could of” even mean??? “I could of gone to a concert last night” makes no sense at all. “I could have gone to a concert last night” is a grammatically correct sentence. It’s not that hard to figure out!
3. Autoplay video or audio files on blogs. Nobody cares what your favorite Backstreet Boys song is. It’s a nuisance to have the site hang up while the damn files load, and it’s even worse to be assaulted by loud-ass music when I just wanted to read a post or two. That’s a surefire way to guarantee I’ll never come back.
4. Indian call centers. I know people in other countries have to make a living too, but I just hate dealing with Indian call center operators. Sure, they speak “English”, but it’s the textbook variety more often than not. If you use idioms or informal language, they get lost and ask you to repeat. And I can barely understand what they’re trying to say to me because of their accents. Just a frustrating situation all around.
5. Couples that say “We’re pregnant.” Need I even explain this one? Ugh, gag.

After a year and a half of working out at the gym three times a week and watching what I eat (to a certain extent), I’m still not able to lose weight and keep it off. To be sure, I’m not looking to shed massive pounds here. I’m currently 120, and want to lose another 3-5 pounds — and keep it off this time. My frame is on the small side (I’m just 5’4″), so even a couple extra pounds is definitely noticeable in terms of how my clothes fit and whatnot. Believe me, I’m not aiming for the Calista Flockhart look; I just want to get rid of the paunch that’s developing out front here!

Anyway, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my workout routine. I do both cardio and weights when I hit the gym, so I think that’s fine. And my muscles are definitely getting toned — especially my arms and legs.

I think the real problem comes from how I eat. I’m totally addicted to junk food, which is makes trying to lose weight without the help of any top diet pills pure hell! If I deprive myself, I’m sure to binge later. And limiting portions doesn’t help much, since the tiny handful of Doritos or three squares of Hershey’s chocolate in the recommended serving size don’t do anything to satisfy my cravings!

So now I’m going for a bit of a different approach. Instead of just counting calories, I’m going to limit my fat intake. For instance, before, I thought that eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese from McDonald’s was no problem, as it’s “just” 510 calories. If I had only the sandwich for lunch, I could still hit my calorie goals for the day.

But the QPC has a whopping 26 grams of fat, which would likely serve to put me well over my limit for the day. By looking at the fat content instead of calories, I’ll hopefully end up eating better.

For the past week, I’ve been limiting myself to 40-45 grams of fat per day. It’s been hard, but doable. Let’s hope doing this for a month or two gets me the results I’m looking for!

So the new glass balconies at the Sears Tower are finally open to the public. There were some pictures online today, and let me tell you, my palms started sweating just from seeing these kids play around on the ledges! I am totally scared of heights, and even though I know in the rational portion of my brain that the glass balconies are strong enough to support 1.5 tons, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to step on them. I’m just not that brave!

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)