Friday, 8 August 2014 at 9:53 pm with ≡
STATS:
Weight: 52kg
Height: 146cm
Day 1:
Weight: 52kg
Height: 146cm
Day 1:
- 7:45am - forgot to properly read instructions to take a capsule 1 hour before meals, had already inhaled 5 curry puffs my mama made for breakfast (whoops).
- 10:00-11:00am - I normally feel very hungry at work around this time but nothing today.
- 12:30pm - starting to feel hungry. I had a smaller lunch than usual (apple, tuna, crackers). Felt surprisingly okay
- 4:30pm - started feeling hungry again. Had 3 pieces of Turkish Delight.
- 5:00pm - took my 2nd capsule in anticipation for dinner at 7:00pm.
- 10:00pm - early night in because I have work the next day. Feeling a little hungry.
Day 2:
- 6:15am - took my first capsule
- 7:45am - had breakfast (John West Tuna on the Go packs). Felt hungry. Had a glass of hot chocolate. Felt better-ish.
- 12:30pm - lunch. STARVING. Appetite definitely there. I had a tuna sandwich plus a glass of Milo and the feeling of wanting to eat everything in sight went away.
- 5:30pm - had second capsule
- 6:30pm - on the way home. Was starving and could feel myself craving nuggets and fries from McDonalds. Boyfriend bought me sushi instead. Didn't eat dinner at home as I was feeling full from the sushi.
- 9:45pm - not hungry but feeling peckish. I feel like I want to eat but my stomach is not feeling hungry. Does that even make sense.
Mood: normal. No mood swings, no sudden outbursts.
Side effects: very slight dry mouth, thirstier than usual.
Diet: pretty good. The unhealthiest thing I ate all day was probably the sushi and Turkish Delight.
Exercise: none on both days. Came home too late, was tired, had an early start the next day.
Labels: diary, diet, exercise, fads, garcinia cambogia, health, review
at 9:33 pm with ≡
Before you start reading this post, I just want to make it clear that I am in no way a dietician/nutritionist/naturopath/remotely qualified in this topic. Please keep in mind that these things affect people in different ways and I highly recommend doing your own research/seeking advice from a doctor before you decide to take anything.
The bottom half of my body has always been larger than my top half. The joys of being pear shaped. I'm going to be real here and say that while everyone says to embrace your body, I've always struggled with accepting myself for how I am. It's much easier said than done and at the end of the day when you're alone with nothing else but THAT voice in your head (you know which one I'm talking about), it's hard to love what you see in the mirror.
Lately, my dislike for my body type had me chatting with a coworker who had dropped 20kg with the help of something called Duromine. It is a drug that reduces your appetite and is given to overweight or obese people. Appetite suppression? Dramatic weight loss? My interest was immediately piqued.
I did some research and spoke to a few people, including my boss, who had been on Duromine. Their reactions said it all. Everyone told me not to try it because of it's side effects. My boss had increased heart rate, constant migraines, anger management issues, and felt very volatile. And even if I did want to try it, it was highly unlikely that my GP would prescribe it for me. I'd like to include at this point that my coworker had found a site from Thailand that sold Duromine but I cannot stress enough how incredibly dangerous it is to buy pills online, let alone from another country so DO NOT DO IT.
Then someone suggested Garcinia Cambogia to me. It is supposed to be a natural appetite suppression that aids weight loss. Note that I said it aids weight loss - many sites on the internet claim that it causes weight loss without diet and exercise, which is pretty unbelievable. Dr. Oz did a feature on it and used words like "miracle" and "The Holy Grail" were used but I remain dubious. That, and the fact that Dr. Oz comes up with new fat blaster diets every other week had me feeling skeptical.
Desperate times calls for desperate measures though, so I bought a tub from Chemist Warehouse for $25. There were 60 capsules in a tub, all with 60% garcinia cambogia (recommended dosage per capsule, otherwise it's useless). It was recommended to take 2 per day, an hour before meals.
Check out my next post for how it went for me on Day 1!
The bottom half of my body has always been larger than my top half. The joys of being pear shaped. I'm going to be real here and say that while everyone says to embrace your body, I've always struggled with accepting myself for how I am. It's much easier said than done and at the end of the day when you're alone with nothing else but THAT voice in your head (you know which one I'm talking about), it's hard to love what you see in the mirror.
Lately, my dislike for my body type had me chatting with a coworker who had dropped 20kg with the help of something called Duromine. It is a drug that reduces your appetite and is given to overweight or obese people. Appetite suppression? Dramatic weight loss? My interest was immediately piqued.
I did some research and spoke to a few people, including my boss, who had been on Duromine. Their reactions said it all. Everyone told me not to try it because of it's side effects. My boss had increased heart rate, constant migraines, anger management issues, and felt very volatile. And even if I did want to try it, it was highly unlikely that my GP would prescribe it for me. I'd like to include at this point that my coworker had found a site from Thailand that sold Duromine but I cannot stress enough how incredibly dangerous it is to buy pills online, let alone from another country so DO NOT DO IT.
Then someone suggested Garcinia Cambogia to me. It is supposed to be a natural appetite suppression that aids weight loss. Note that I said it aids weight loss - many sites on the internet claim that it causes weight loss without diet and exercise, which is pretty unbelievable. Dr. Oz did a feature on it and used words like "miracle" and "The Holy Grail" were used but I remain dubious. That, and the fact that Dr. Oz comes up with new fat blaster diets every other week had me feeling skeptical.
Desperate times calls for desperate measures though, so I bought a tub from Chemist Warehouse for $25. There were 60 capsules in a tub, all with 60% garcinia cambogia (recommended dosage per capsule, otherwise it's useless). It was recommended to take 2 per day, an hour before meals.
Check out my next post for how it went for me on Day 1!
Labels: body image, diet, garcinia cambogia, health, review
Wednesday, 28 May 2014 at 6:33 am with ≡
Director: Brian Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult
Soph's rating: ****1/2
I'm a real sucker for Marvel movies so this review is probably biased. I love walking into the cinema not expecting much and coming out completely blown away. The last time I was completely blown away was after watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier and I really wasn't expecting the same reaction from this movie.
It was great to see all the characters from the older X-Men movies return (Ellen Page as Kitty, Shawn Ashmore as Bobby/Iceman) as the last time we saw them was in The Last Stand in 2006. James McAvoy was a total babe and played a tortured young Charles Xavier extremely well. Hugh Jackman put every man to shame in THAT scene (for those who have seen it, y'all know what I'm talking about!!!!!!!!!!!), and Peter Dinklage (totally screamed TYRION in my head when he came on the screen) as villain Bolivar Trask was so devilishly good I got goosebumps. And who could forget Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. There are no words. Everyone just bow down to Queen J now.
Highlight of the movie was definitely the introduction of young Quicksilver (Evan Peters) and his totally EPIC EPIC scenes. Seriously, I was jumping in my seat from the sheer awesomeness of it all.
All in all, a totally epic movie with an epic plot (albeit slightly predictable ending) and epic fight scenes. Now we wait for Age of Ultron.
Labels: 2014, Days of Future Past, Jennifer Lawrence, movie, review, X-Men
Tuesday, 6 May 2014 at 9:03 pm with ≡
The reason why it's day 5/6/7 is because I've completely lost count of what day I'm up to. I oil pulled religiously for days 2 and 3 but got heavily intoxicated and vomited on day 4. I was already in bed on day 5 when I remembered but it was wayyyyyy too cold to get out of bed (no kidding, winter has come early this year).
ANYWAY. I'm surprised and happy to say that I am definitely seeing a difference with my teeth. They are definitely whiter and that was the whole reason why I started oil pulling so a big thumbs up to that. They could probably be whiter still if I kept it up daily but you know,life laziness gets in the way. I still have trouble trying not to swallow the oil around the 10 minute mark and my jaw gets really tired from swilling so I've been letting the oil sit on the right side of my mouth for a few seconds then moving it to the left to give it a rest. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to a more regular routine from now on!
Sidenote: bought new Windsor Smith boots and I am in LOVE.
ANYWAY. I'm surprised and happy to say that I am definitely seeing a difference with my teeth. They are definitely whiter and that was the whole reason why I started oil pulling so a big thumbs up to that. They could probably be whiter still if I kept it up daily but you know,
Sidenote: bought new Windsor Smith boots and I am in LOVE.
Labels: health, oil pulling, review
Tuesday, 29 April 2014 at 8:44 pm with ≡
Whoa. It's been a full 7 months since my last post due to writer's block/laziness/I have no other excuse. Many a things have happened in my life since that last post but none of that is relevant right now because we are all here to talk about oil pulling.
I only heard of this through a friend on Facebook but it is essentially putting a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and sloshing it around for 20 minutes then spitting it out. People claim benefits of oil pulling include whiter teeth, better breath, general improvement in oral health, as well as improvement in the state of your skin. There are A LOT of people on the internet who claim this is bullshit but I thought I'd give it a try. The reason why I decided to start this is for the whiter teeth and better oral health (my last dental visit was the first in a year and a half, terrible, I know) although I am skeptical on the skin thing. From what I understand, you can use any type of oil. I used coconut oil because putting a tablespoon of any other oil in my mouth seems nasty.
Important points to remember:
I only heard of this through a friend on Facebook but it is essentially putting a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and sloshing it around for 20 minutes then spitting it out. People claim benefits of oil pulling include whiter teeth, better breath, general improvement in oral health, as well as improvement in the state of your skin. There are A LOT of people on the internet who claim this is bullshit but I thought I'd give it a try. The reason why I decided to start this is for the whiter teeth and better oral health (my last dental visit was the first in a year and a half, terrible, I know) although I am skeptical on the skin thing. From what I understand, you can use any type of oil. I used coconut oil because putting a tablespoon of any other oil in my mouth seems nasty.
Important points to remember:
- Do not swallow the oil. Apparently the oil removes toxins from your mouth and it could make you quite sick if you did swallow it.
- If you're using coconut oil, don't spit it down your sink because coconut oil hardens when it cools and that shit can clog your sink.
- Rinse with salt water after you're done. Not sure why it has to be salt water but that seemed to be the recommendation when I was reading up on it.
- Apparently it's better if you do this in the morning but y'all know I get up at 5:30 in the morning and I usually have around 20-30 minutes to get to the station so this doesn't really stack up on my priorities list in the morning.
DAY 1:
My boyfriend and I tried this together and a tablespoon seemed really intense for the first go so we opted for half a tablespoon. The first minute or two was spent trying to break up the coconut oil in my mouth and trying to hold my gag reflex because that shit was foul. It got better around the 5 minute mark and my jaw started to tire around 7-10 minutes. I kept getting this feeling of wanting to swallow and had to concentrate on ignoring it. No results seen yet which was what I was expecting.
Will (try to) keep y'all updated!
Labels: health, oil pulling, review
Monday, 30 September 2013 at 8:52 pm with ≡
Now we all need a little help in cellulite department, y'know what I'm sayin'? Slimwear is "an amazing puff-draining peptide balm that firms, contours, smoothes and reduces the appearance of cellulite". Instructions at the back says to massage vigorously every morning using circular motions from the knees to the inner thigh, twice a day if you're keen.
I've been using Slimwear for about 2 weeks now and I'm surprised to say that it really does reduce the appearance of cellulite. But I will have to say that I'm at the end of my 30 day squat challenge plus have been cutting fast food from my diet for the past month so I'm not sure if the improved appearance of my legs is due to that or the product. There is a section on the back of the bottle though that says, "Slimwear users who control their diets and get regular exercise will undoubtedly see the combined consequences more quickly." As for firming and contouring, the verdict is still out on that.
This is the first product cellulite-appearance-reducing product I've purchased so I can't really compare how it is to other brands. It seems to work pretty well for me with my lifestyle changes I've got going on. I would recommend it as a little extra help or a boost for people who are exercising and wanting to tone up but it definitely ain't no miracle worker. At $22.95 a bottle, I'll probably rebuy this when I run out! :) let me know if there are other products like this you'd recommend!
P.S. also bought Soap & Glory's Sit Tight, will do a first impression on that soon.
Labels: cellulite, exercise, first impression, products, review, skincare, Slimwear, Soap & Glory
Saturday, 21 September 2013 at 10:31 pm with ≡
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| TOP: ALMAY, BOTTOM: L'OREAL |
Phew, what a long title. My life has been a constant question of, "Sophia, why are your cheeks so red? Are you feeling warm? Omg, are you blushing?? That's so cute!" (Answers to all those questions are I don't know, no, no, and no). So when I found out that there was such a thing as the CC cream, it's like all of my dreams had come true. BB creams didn't work for me - except the Maybelline BB Cream is very close to converting me, review/impression to come later - so I was really excited to try these CC creams.
First one is the L'Oreal Nude Magique CC Cream. I only bought this one because I saw an advert for it in CLEO mag and it was my first intro to CC creams. The cream is actually green which made me think that it was really going to work in covering my redness (previous experience with green concealers). And it really does! It goes on smooth, is very buildable, covers redness and discolouration of my skin, and the coverage lasts for a good 9-5 shift at work. The only con to this is on some days when my skin is particularly bad and my cheeks are more flushed, the product still doesn't cover ALL the redness, so I end up putting more layers on but then end up with the cakey foundation look which no one wants. But that might just be my high expectations talking.
Almay's Smart Shade CC Cream (in light/medium for myself) I only bought on impulse. I have Almay's green concealer which is AH-MAH-ZING so I thought, "Hey, this will probably work wonders for my redness." The verdict: very so-so. It felt more like a foundation than a light CC cream and it didn't do much for covering up the redness at all. My skin also looked reallllllly oily after each application but my skin somehow ended up realllllllly dry at the end of the day (and I mean really dry, I wore this today and you could actually see the flakiness of my skin up close), which I'm confused about.
THE WINNER: by far, L'Oreal. It just lasted longer and most importantly, covered up the redness of my cheeks. It also felt really light, like most of the time it doesn't even feel like you're wearing anything. The Almay CC cream you could probably wear on cool days with a bit of powder on top to get rid of the oily look but I'm not sure how that would work for people with dryer skin. My skin was already flaky without powder so I don't even want to think about what would happen if I had powdered.
Any other brands of CC cream that you'd recommend? I'm definitely open to trying new products even though my bank account is screaming no.
Friday, 20 September 2013 at 10:19 pm with ≡
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| Excuse my shoddy paint job. |
I'm a huge nail polish girl because I have childlike fingers that somehow look like stumpy man fingers at the same time so having some colour on my nails distract from that, I think. While I've got an okay collection of polishes, I've been getting shellac on my nails since starting work because my nails chip really quickly due to the alcohol wipes I use at work to wipe down instruments.
HOWEVER... Priceline started selling Essie polishes recently at an introductory price of $12.95 so how could I say no?! Seriously though Priceline, your sales are killing me. I have a serious case of buyer's remorse. Picked up a greyish mauve colour (Chinchilly), a dark purple (Sole Mate), and a nice pink with a slight shimmer through them (Mamba). All good colours to wear for work.
After using OPI for a long time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only is Essie polishes $8 cheaper but it also went on a lot smoother. No bubbles, no annoying lines from the brush (except you can see the lines and crater in my middle finger above - bumped my finger picking up a pen WHYYYYY) so a thumbs up from me. Will update later to see how long it lasts before the first chip.
Labels: Essie, makeup, nail polish, priceline, products, review, shopping
