THIS POSTING’S DEDICATED TO ANYONE WHO THINKS THEY’RE STUCK BEING FAT. It’s not all hand-holding and gentle. I cut through the bullshit. You want your reality check? Start here. Oh, and I’m not selling a fuckin’ thing. I’m just trying to help you do what I’ve done, because it’s WORTH it.
I get a lot of people asking me how I lost my weight. Like there’s some magical store you can walk into, point, and say, “I know, I’ll do it THAT way.”
After a lifetime of being fat, trying shit, and finally figuring it out, you know what I think? There’s only one way to lose weight. Continue reading
Tag Archives: health
About My Dad, About Weight, About Change
My dad was moved from the emergency ward, where they were keeping him under intense care because there were no beds in the ICU available, to a “normal” ward because he’s now stabilizing.
The long and the short of what’s wrong is, he has a systemic diabetic infection. Bad shit’s going on inside him and they’re trying to flush it all out. He is sick because he is fat and because he eats shit and does no exercise. Plain and simple. I love him, but these are the facts.
Continue reading
How to REALLY Do Kegels: Things I've Learned In Rehab
PLEASE READ THE COMMENT DISCUSSION ON THIS POSTING, SINCE THERE ARE VALID CONCERNS BEFORE FOLLOWING ANYTHING IN THIS POSTING. Let me be perfectly clear: This is NOT a posting about how to heal back pain. This remedy is for MY back pain, conjured after a few hours of one-on-one time with a physiotherapist who took $65 an hour for his diagnosis. If you have back problems, go to a professional because there’s no way you should be self-diagnosis, ‘cos that could seriously fuck you up.
THIS is about the proper way to do Kegel exercises, why getting the technique is right, and a bit of a warning about doing them wrong, as I’ve learned from personal experience.
Again, got back problems? There are professionals you need to see, not laypeople’s blogs because you think they know their shit, right? Okay. Good. Disclaimer done. Here you go:
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Well, I’m seeing a physiotherapist for rehabbing regarding my sorry-ass back after blowing it out in September. I’m apparently on track to be “healed” sometime in February. No, seriously.
Despite losing 50 pounds via cycling a couple thousand clicks and climbing some 45,000+ steps and yoga and shit, my back just up and died something fierce. Apparently all that activity is precisely why
Physiotherapy’s interesting when you have a good practitioner. I landed myself a geek who recognises the smarty-pants geek in me, and he’s breaking down very clearly all the ways my body works so I understand the mechanics behind what’s failed inside me, and how to circumvent such failures in the future.
Part of this means I’m learning about my body in a very new way.
Ironically, the number one thing I’m supposed to be doing in order to prevent this injury from ever, ever returning? Kegel-based exercises. As I wrote on Twitter, at the end of the next three months, I’ll have the strongest, most powerful twat in the world. Why? Because I’m to do 360 Kegel-based repetitions a day. Yes, 360 vagina-clenching excercises. Not like I was Little Miss Stretched-Out in the first place, either, so I’m a little daunted by the extent of these, urm, repetitions. I shall be She of the Vice Grip, I tell ya. Continue reading
Good Times Ahead? Let's Hope.
I normally write mornings, but I feel really good right now. In every sense. I want to remember it now, rather than chance it ebbs away during the night.
It’s times like these I remember why I never wanted to go to bed as a child: I was very, very scared life would go on without me. Sadly, growing up I only learned that’s exactly what it does. But I’ve learned to like that. It’s something to wake up to, isn’t it? The constant movement and shift of our little microcosms.
All is not sunshine and roses just yet, boys and girls. I still need to get a loan this week in order to make important changes in my life, but if I don’t, then at least a fairy godmother — or at least my aunt and uncle — did save me heroically with a much-needed immediate infusion. They’re awesome to the nth. They sent me a surprisingly large cheque today (four times what I asked for, double what they said they’d send), so I can pay the rent-eating monsters from the east (“landlord” type things) and maybe even get important cycling and scootering gear. I need that stuff now. Our good weather died today and fall’s forecasted to arrive with a vengeful fury sometime afore noon tomorrow.
Summer, how sweet you were. You shall be missed. But thanks for overstaying your welcome. Make a note: Come back any time.
And, my back! It’s loosening up! With the damp weather coming in, I’m coughing but it doesn’t hurt. (Astounding. You have no idea. I nearly jumped with glee when putting my jeans on didn’t make me cry out this morning. ) I’m even becoming, dare I say it? Flexible? I’m not normally the ankles-behind-the-ears type but, you know, I do yoga. I even sprang up some steps today before I stopped myself with a “Whoa, slow down, skippy!” admonishing. Walk before you run, Grasshopper.
Now, I do have this little kink in my right hip. But, hey, it’s only fitting; we already knew I had a little kink in me. It’ll settle down.
I can work again. This is good. I can produce. I like producing. Hell, I can even get crazy and live a little. Maybe even date some boys.
But most of all, I have that “I came, I saw, I kicked its ass” feeling about everything. I feel really, really good for the first time in a while. Life has tried to beat me down, and while I had some bad moments, I kept the faith over all. And look how it’s turning out.
Did I mention I’ve lost weight during all this? Shit, man. I’m wearing the Joe Boxer pajamas I bought a few years ago, and the pants that I couldn’t even pull over my thighs are eight inches loose on me. (They were about six at their best.) I haven’t weighed myself, I promised myself I’d wait until one week after my back healed. Even if I’ve lost weight, wouldn’t it be cool to get on the scale in a week or two and see an even larger number than I expect? Wicked.
I knew this would pass, but, you know, when you’re expecting to be holed up for 3 days and it turns into 31, well. It gets a little trying.
But I came. I saw. I kicked its ass. Simply put, I win. This is good. Let’s hope this continues a little longer.
After all, I know I don’t deserve it. No, I’ve earned it. And I want it now. Thanks. Got a side of fries for that?
Steff the Public Service Announcer
Okay, a couple of things. I’ll get back to the orgasmic neighbours tonight or tomorrow, but there are more pressing things that need mentioning.
The first being a rare but possible cause of death resulting from blowing air into a woman’s vagina. If you’re doing oral or playing around, never, ever, ever blow air into a woman’s vagina. This is not a sex myth. This is not a legend. This shit happens. The air bubble can cause an air embolism, which can then float up into the heart and essentially kill her. Not good. This condition is more likely if the woman has enlarged blood vessels resulting from pregnancy or past vaginal trauma. Since you don’t know if she has these larger vessels, don’t do dumb shit, and don’t try to cause a “pussy fart.” (During some sex moves, you’ll hear strange air sounds happening, but I don’t think that’s anything to worry about; it’s actively trying to “inflate” the woman that’s an issue. Like I sez, rare, but it does happen, and it does occasionally cause death.) And really, while everyone thinks sex is probably the best way to go out with a bang, why rush it?
You can blow on a woman’s vagina, and have fun doing so, as there seems to be no evidence of that ever causing problems. Just don’t pucker up and treat her like she’s a balloon at a kid’s party, all right?
The second thing is, the annual UNAIDS report has been released. This report is released by the United Nations’ AIDS organization and is essentially a “state of the union” report on AIDS internationally. You can find the massive, intimidating report here, which is a staggering 24MB PDF file in entirety, or you can select individual segments to read on the same URL there.
The important thing to note is that A) an increasing number of American gay men are apparently devolving and becoming STUPID FUCKHEADS because there is an increasing segment of them now engaging in unsafe sex practices because they think the dangers of HIV are somehow magically disappearing. And B) the number one cause of death in African-American women between the ages of 25-34 is now AIDS. The A-A woman is more likely to contract HIV than any other female race, and safe sex is imperative!
Safe sex is imperative whoever the hell you are. You and your partners need testing. You need to use a condom until you know you can trust your partner and you’ve both been tested. If you think they might fool around on you, insist on condoms. If you’ve ever witnessed any behaviour from them that makes you question their integrity and character, you may be risking your life by not using a condom.
Scared of hurting their pride? What, would you rather get a virus that will compromise your quality of life, threaten you with a potentially far shorter lifespan, and even make you fatally vulnerable to stupid things like the common cold? Get the fuck over yourself. Be vigilant. Condoms may kill moods, but AIDS kills you. Do the fucking math.
The CDC has a well-written and concise look at how HIV is transmitted, and if you’re at all ignorant about AIDS or HIV, you should, at the very least, read this.
Out of all the diseases in the world you can catch, the one you can most easily avoid is HIV. Responsibility saves lives. Be safe when playing with others. A friend of a friend of mine contracted HIV last year and can actually pinpoint the exact encounter in which he caught it. What a horrible thing to have to live with, the knowledge of how stupid you were in a single moment in time, and how the rest of your life is changed as a result of it. Don’t let that be you.
READER SAYS: My Sex Drive’s Out of Gear
First things: Here’s where I remind you people that I’m not a doctor. I have no degrees in any medical or scientific discipline. I’m schooled in common sense and street smarts, and that’s it. In more blunt terms? Take my words for what they’re worth – an interested party offering an opinion, nothing more. In other words? I’m not liable.
All right, so, a reader emailed me. When she hooked up with this guy, it was all sex, all the time. Playtime was gold, and she couldn’t get enough. And then? Nothing.
Suddenly, she’s got zero sex drive. As she says, I am 100% uninterested. It is absolutely uncanny. I have no desire – not towards him, or ANYONE, male or female. If I even wanted to cheat right now, I wouldn’t be able. I used to be this voracious sex creature, all my life – and now, I’m just a sexless zombie. I was on The Pill for a while but I was certain it was fucking up my natural “sexy” hormones, so I stopped about 2 months ago in favor of condoms, basal thermometers, herbs, and moon cycles, which has in fact made me feel a lot better— just NOT SEXY!!!
So, then her question is, What I need to know is, how can I transform myself back into the hormonal sex-on-the-brain tigress I used to be?
Oh, here. Let me just wave my magic wand. POOF. There, that should do it! Oh, it didn’t work? Damn.
The thing about feeling sexy is, it tends to be an indicator of all the other things going on in your life. More on that in a minute. The problem with having that “I’m too sexy for this shirt” feeling dissipating on you is, we’re surrounded by sexuality all the time. The media tells us we have to be beautiful. Society tells us constantly that they judge our books by our covers. Our relationships are supposed to be value-rated by how hot the sex is. The pharmaceutical companies have gotten in on the act with Viagra and Cialis and all those other fun little drugs so we can be sex gods for all the wrong reasons.
The little dark secret that no one wants to talk about is that feeling sexual can go up in smoke pretty fucking fast. There isn’t one thing that could be causing your problems, it’s many.
- Fatigue (overwork, lack of sleep)
- Depression (seasonal moods, moodiness)
- Diet (lack of iron, lack of protein, etc)
- Underlying relationship problems
- Worries (money, school, future, life)
- Fitness (not enough cardio, etc)
And more. Let’s look at your specifics then.
Your relationship has changed for a number of reasons. Your guy’s in a new job that leaves him being less of the guy you used to know – a guy who was creative and passionate and now is a guy in front of a computer, doing a draining and uninspired job.
You were on birth control, something that is well known for affecting sexual sensitivity as well as sex drive. But you fucked up, honey. You went all knee-jerk and stopped taking the pill smack-dab in the middle of your cycle, and you had NO medical consultation before doing so. For anyone else thinking of this: Don’t. Stopping the pill in the middle of your cycle is borderline dumb, because it’ll fuck up your cycle, but worse, it’ll really mess with your hormones. Unfortunately, many chicks don’t know this because the medical information that comes with pills is written in fucking medical/legal-ese.
Pills really do a number on us. Guys will never, ever understand how much pills can fuck us up until we decide to be cruel and shoot them up with estrogen overloads. Here’s an example from my own life, all right?
I started my cycle a day late back in January. It’s five months later and my period has still not returned to normal. I changed it by a SINGLE DAY, and I’m still paying the price. The medical professionals say, “Oh, it takes three months for your system to get back on track.” Know what that’s called? The lowest common denominator. They take all the data from all the chicks who’ve gone awry on their cycle, and they find average length of recovery, and that’s the magic number. Trouble is, every number has exceptions. Hi, I’m Steff, and I’ll be your exception.
No matter what else you talk to your doctor about, you need to tell him/her you did this. Go and ask what it may have done to you. The trouble is, doctors don’t tend to believe too much in pills causing depression and things like that. My doctor was sort of disbelieving when I said I was depressed by way of my pills last fall. Gradually, he came to understand it had to be the case. Since then, I’ve been trying different pills, but I’m still less sexually sensitive than I was, and my sex drive is lower.
You say you don’t eat a lot of meat, and you’re really healthy diet-wise, and maybe you don’t spend enough time with yourself, and perhaps you’re antsy about your future, and all of that. Hell, you even say your relationship has changed because your guy’s not the same. That could do it right there.
Well, sexy comes from caring for ourselves and putting ourselves first – not relying on others’ perceptions of us. We need to exercise, take the time to make ourselves look nice, spend quality time alone, and show ourselves the respect we deserve. Somebody wanting us seems like it should make us feel sexy, but it just doesn’t work that way. We can’t rely on outward situations to provide us with our sexuality. It comes from within.
You’re obsessing about it because it’s something you can’t understand and can’t get to the bottom of. That’s not helping. That’s like guys who worry about whether they’re going to get hard and be able to perform – it exacerbates the problem. But how do you get out of your head?
Talk to someone, and by “someone,” I don’t mean some faceless chick half-way across the country, on the internet. I mean a doctor or therapist and see where it’s going.
The trouble is, not all doctors will see “not feeling sexy” as a medical issue. I think it is. I think you’ve got things going on in the background that are figuring into the equation. Worse, I think quitting the pills cold turkey has probably done quite the number on your hormones, the fall-out of which might take a little while longer to reset itself because you’re so young and hormones aren’t exactly on your side these days anyhow.
The long and the short of it is, this isn’t something you should be fucking around with on your own to solve. Talk to someone and see if there’s possibly something underlying that’s causing it. Spend some more time alone doing things you love, and make fitness a priority. Get sexy for you, not for him, and value how it feels for yourself, not because it’s rejuvenating your relationship.
As women, we tend to forget ourselves in relationships, and the effects of that (especially combined with estrogen upheavals like pill neglect) can be pretty profound on our self-images.
The thing is, we’re lied to. We’re told that getting into relationships is how to feel complete, how to become whole. A lot of the time, though, the relationships we choose are wrong for us, and the result is, the relationships make us less whole.
Sometimes it’s just life doing a number on us, and we want to blame our relationship so we don’t have to face life.
It’s complicated. Herbs and supplements and all that shit are likely not going to solve your conundrum. The IMPORTANT THING to remember is, it’ll work out. You’ll come back to yourself, you’re just taking the long way of doing so. And when things do come back to normalcy, remember, the best sex is still to come, ‘cos sex improves like all hell when you hit your late 20s and 30s, girlie.
Good luck with that. Anyone able to offer personal insight in this situation? Thanks.
Baker’s Dozen: Yeast Infections
Once upon a world, a reader asked me to write a little something about yeast infections. Uh… know what? I don’t wanna. What a topic.
But here’s the deal. It’s important to know about them, so I’ll say a couple things.
First off, they’re a sexually transmitted disease, people. Yes. They’re not just an inconvenience, but are a sexually transmitted disease. If you have one, you shouldn’t be having sex. It’s pretty much that simple. But if you’re a horny mofo dying to get laid, then be intelligent enough to wear protection.
If you have frequently recurring yeast infections, it can be a sign of more serious things going on inside you — like diabetes — and getting assessed by a medical professional is a smart way to go, and I encourage visits to naturopathic professionals as well.
Any number of things can cause yeast infections — from having a sexual “binge,” ie: having sex many times in a short period after a period of abstinence, since it can cause bad fluctuations in pH levels, through to a bad diet with too much alcohol, or just being stupid enough to work out or swim and keep your sopping clothes on for an extended period. And sometimes skankiness just happens to good people, and that’s the way it goes.
But read here for more information if you just want an overview. Read here if you’re a man. Read here if you’re a woman. Seriously, read it. This shit’s too common to remain ignorant about it.