Book Review: Skinny Bitch

...ugh, Ugh, UGH! I want my money back.

Or I should just blame myself for buying a book because it was being talked about, but not actually bothering to find out what it was actually about or read any reviews about it. Which is weird for me because I am a review-a-holic. Mine and Bart's first vacation together took forever because I kept searching for reviews on each of the places we were considering on going (I heart TripAdvisor!)

Now keep in mind that this is all my own personal opinion and it is not uncommon that peoples' opinions can differ. But this book...*one highly raised skeptical eyebrow* I have half a mind to take it's picture off the blog for fear of advertising for it...

Anywho, it's cover describes the book as a no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous. I don't even know where to start...I guess 'no-nonsense' would be a good place...since I found this book full of nonsense! Granted there were definitely some good basic points in the book that cannot be refuted or denied. But regardless of who holds a whatever kind of degree in anything, trying to write an intelligent book that you want people to take seriously cannot have a sentence like, "...before you say, 'I could never give up meat,' realize that nearly every single vegetarian on the planet said those same words, then shut the fuck up, look at an inspirational picture of a skinny bitch and clean out your freezer." (pg. 53) *wrinkles nose* To me it just seems so...tacky.

When I was younger I read an interview with Will Smith and he was talking about how his grandmother saw some of his earlier lyrics and told him off for having expletives in it. She said that "intelligent people do not use these words to express themselves," and I have kept that with me ever since. If it is not acceptable to write profanity in a scientific peer-reviewed journal, then you don't write a 'self-help' book that you want other people to take seriously. Not ONLY does it have profanity in the way I just illustrated, it goes on to swear and mock the reader, ie. "Coffee is for pussies," (pg. 15) and the ever amusing, "Get your head out of your ass. Milk = fat. Butter = fat. Cheese = fat. People who think these products can be low fat or fat free = fucking morons." (pg. 63) and "Don't be a cheap asshole." (pg. 179). Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Inspired to feel good about yourself? I know I certainly do! *feel the sarcasm here, please*

If those lovely tid-bits of inspirational goodies didn't convince you of these ladies' credibility and didn't get you rarin' to take their 'intelligent' advice, let's look at some of their actual recommendations. Hmmm...lemme see...oh, here's one: "Health is Wealth makes fake buffalo wings that taste so good, your pubes will fall out." (pg. 54). WOW!

Now don't get me wrong here. I am not being a prude or uptight. I can cuss it up with the best of the trucker's at any truckstop and can even string a few along to make one messed up sentence even an athlete will have to pause in their tobacco chewin' to make sense of what I just said - but that's not the point. I will not write it in a novel I'd like to have published and then expect to be taken seriously. I would not hand it into my former University professors and expect an A+ and a glowing recommendation. Having those little gems in there is not no-nonsense and it is not tough-love and it does not imply savviness. It's trash masking scientific half-truths and misleading, misrepresented data.

Getting into the nitty gritty of the book as a whole. What the authors are saying is that to be a Skinny Bitch you must do this: Give up dairy. Give up meat. That's it. No two ways about it. It doesn't offer any helpful tips on how to improve your diet, it pretty much suggests tells you to radically change your diet and then goes on to give 'scientific fact' on why veganism is the way to go. I'm not saying it isn't and I happen to know a vegan who looks pretty freakin' fantastic, but is it the ONLY way to go, as the book suggests? I highly doubt it. Is it safe to suggest to the readers out there to cut out ALL forms of meat, dairy, poultry and seafood in order to get skinny? I highly doubt it.

All in all...like I said before, the book has some very good points (if you can read in between the lines that are so desperately shouting 'trying too hard to be "cool" and "modern") there are some facts there that even the newbie dieter should have already picked up. Nothing new there. But that's pretty much it. Besides spouting the nothing new factoids, the rest of the book pretty much goes on to paint a completely negative picture of the farming industry, the FDA and the cruelty to animals. I get it girls, you are not big fans of meat or the government. In fact, this theme is so apparent in the book that it should have actually been titled "Skinny Bitches Bitch about Government Agencies." They have a WHOLE 23-page chapter entitled: "Have No Faith: Government Agencies Don't Give a Shit About Your Health. To have the gall to create a chapter titled that way, you'd better give me more than 23 pages of facts, data and proof to support your thesis. Which is entirely what it is. A theory. The funny thing is, when I said that 23 pages was too short to form a solid foundation to uphold such a theory, this chapter is probably the longest of all the other chapters in the 191-page book. Besides talking about what healthy foods to eat, besides talking about the benefits of exercise and the truths about carbs, the authors spent a better part of their book on their negative views of government agencies. Interesting...

In closing (I know this is getting pretty long) I am so downright irritated by this book I can't even keep my jaw from dropping every time I remember certain "features" it. The short version of the review is this: if you are not planning on giving up meat, dairy or poultry you are a "fucking fat pig moron" (all quoted words are taken directly in-context from the book. If you are looking for a way to better improve your diet, if you are looking for tips and suggestions on what you could add to supplement your diet, this is NOT the book for you. Save yourself $16 (which is what I paid for this ridiculous "book" - thank GOODNESS I didn't get the gift set) and research other books with better reviews or with sound/scientific/proven data that attempts to make the you who are you BETTER and not radically change you from the person you are into a bitch...albeit skinny.

Disclaimer: I am in no means putting down veganism or vegans' all around the world's choices in becoming a vegan. I think it's awesome for those out there are have chosen to become one and are enjoying that chosen lifestyle. I am in no means implying or indicating that the cruelty to animals that were outlined in the book "Skinny Bitch" do not exist or do not happen (chances are, in some cases they do because there are just stupid people out there who think that their having a certain power over another helpless creature gives them the right to behave in those ways). The opinions of this review are solely mine and I am not expecting you to take it at face-value. If you are thinking the book would be helpful to you, by all means please go out and get it. In fact, E-Mail me, you can have my copy, just pay shipping and handling and it's all yours.

WORKING OUT TO:

Pitbull - Ay Chico - Pitbull - Ay Chico

Day 9 & 10: It all works...

Now, I can see that this looks a bit contradictory. The cashier especially thought so when I plunked it down on the counter. *LOL* It also got me thinking about some things...

First of all, lemme just say that the chocolate isn't really technically for me. CONFESSION: My craft room has about 8 bars of chocolate right now. But the thing is, most of those chocolate bars have been in there for over a week now - and I haven't touched them! Well, I've touched them..but not to eat! This Crafty Loser likes to re-wrap chocolate bars with paper and make it look all cute more than she likes to EAT them! So when I was at Chapters for the purpose of picking up this book and saw the Moments chocolates (little individually wrapped confections are my crafty weakness) I thought they'd make a good thing to try and re-package all crafty-like.

Anywho...CONFESSION: I have been very, very bad this weekend! *deep breath* I fell off the wagon. *winces* I had french fries today with my breakfast! In my defence though...we usually always go out for breakfast after church on Sundays! And I always substitute french fries for my homefries because I'm not a big fan of homefries (except for calling people homefry) and I automatically ordered the substitution when the server came around. *cringe* But I ate them too since they were already ordered and right in front of me. But to help a little, I did invite Bart to partake in the eating of the fries which almost makes it not a bad thing because I probably had about three fries before I looked down at my plate and saw that the rest of them were already devoured. Besides being a popcorn hog, my husband is also a french fry monger - and today, a very useful diet aide! Anywho, not making excuses for myself...I was baaaad!

My mom and I did flowers for a wedding this weekend and we were so behind that we were still working at 4 am Saturday morning. For me, when I get really busy or focused on something, that means everything else goes right out the window. I took a half day on Friday and as soon as I left work, there was no drinking of the water. For dinner on that night we went to McDonald's for something quick and I got water but was so intent on the bouquet-making that I didn't even touch it. Saturday morning I made the delivery an hour out of town and came back home and slept. Until about 9 pm! Hence STILL no water drinking and no eating either! Bart came home from work with a pizza and we ate in bed and I promptly fell asleep after that! I've already confessed my Sunday transgression, so all in all..not a very good weekend - especially as lax as the diet already is! And exercise? Nada! Not even a little hippity-hop on the trampoline to make up for any of bad things I ate!

I was thinking this as I was wandering down the Health & Well-Being aisle at Chapters. There are a TON of diet books and there are a TON of exercise books. They even had exercise DVD's as well and from just standing there, who the heck would be able to choose just one? And I'm thinking to myself...ALL of these probably work. I reached for the Skinny Bitch Booty Bouncin' DVD and then put it back before I remembered I already have the whole series of Hip Hop Abs DVDs at home (I am SUCH a sucker for infomercials I tell you!) I also have Core Rhythms exercise DVDs, I also have the trampoline and the weights and a membership at the gym. I'm sure they ALL work at weight loss. The only problem is I'm not DOING them.

I'm thinking that's probably the problem with a lot of people trying to lose weight and it's just easier to blame it on the method we chose to lose weight. I got Hip Hop Abs and considered it money wasted because it didn't work and told everyone that it didn't work...conveniently leaving out the part that I only did it for like, a week before quitting (okay, seriously, the guy on it IRRITATED the living daylights out of me!) So even though I kind of fell off the wagon, I'm not going to quit. I'm going to get back up and try to do better this week instead of dwelling on the stuff I (didn't) do this week - starting with my book!

Here's what this crafty loser did when she got into her craft room with one of the packages of chocolates:

You know...for emergencies...*grins*

That's it for me, off to read about how to be a skinny bitch! Will let you know how it is!

WORKING OUT TO:

Dirty Little Secret - The All-American Rejects

Day 8: Punch, Drink, Kick, Drink, Jab, Drink...

...are you seeing some sort of pattern forming? Let me tell you, that pattern right there is the only reason why I'm still ALIVE, I tell ya! I can't even believe a week went by that fast. Wasn't it only yesterday that I was punch, kick, jabbing? And all of a sudden I'm doing it again?!

Even though my burning calf muscles, thighs, abs, back, shoulders, arms, wrists, toes, nailbeds and hair follicles are telling me different, I did actually do much better this time around than last week. I think I was able to last a bit longer throughout the different combos and take less pretend water breaks (plus I think the instructor was beginning to catch on since I did it so many times last week...*LOL*) She's a tough one, she actually yelled out "COME ON! This is what you came here FOOOOR! Why did you come if you're not going to GIIIIIVE IT?! Don't you dare stop unless you actually really NEED TO!" I was too busy gasping for breath and trying to see around the black spots dancing around my field of vision to yell at her that I DID NEED TO! I'm going to keep going and not complain too much about it...but I'm just saying...if I get attacked in an alley or something, I better be able to throw down punch, hook, jab and drop kick the living daylights out of that moron without breaking a sweat. If that karate kid was able to learn how to beat people up after waxing on and waxing off, then I should be able to do it no problem...I'm just saying...

ANYWHO! That's that with the exercise part. From absolutely ZERO activity (unless you count my arm movement when I bring the food to mouth) to cardio twice in one week, I'd say I'm giving myself two thumbs up!

That towel right there has SWEAT on it. LOTS! And that water bottle is EMPTY! (2 parts pretending to need a water break and drinking the water and 1 part actually just needing to drink the water - but whatevs, the same goal is accomplished anyway! I will be very proud of the day when I'll get through class without having to feign a water break, though...)

The diet portion is going pretty well too! After that not-so-great start on Monday, yesterday went awesome! I ate my breakfast, had to force myself to eat my snack (sometimes I actually do enough work that I'll forget my break - CONFESSION: we were stuffing bills today so I was actually reading the Breaking Dawn eBook while stuffing which is the actual reason why I almost forgot to eat my snack - and I feel okay with announcing on my blog that I was reading because I was SIMULTANEOUSLY doing ACTUAL work at the same time. MULTITASKERS are AWESOME!) I totally got sidetracked, where was I? Oh right, so for lunch I wasn't so good (but didn't cheat) and ended up having a burger from Harvey's (I've been eating too many burgers lately, methinks...) but just the burger. No fries, no pop. I took the burger back to the office and ate that with my tall glass of water and my delicious salad. Ate my afternoon snack of non-fat yogurt and cereal for crunch and went to the cardio kickboxing class! Came home and ate pork souvlaki and mashed potatoes. All of these are STILL ten times better than how I used to eat before, so I'm feeling good about everything! I did go a bit lax on the water drinking today. I was only able to get in two glasses at work (even though I've already read it, Breaking Dawn is STILL such a good entertaining read!) but I made up for it at the gym during my water "breaks" and after!

So that's Day 8 and I'm feelin' GREAT! I haven't really been weighing myself (can't seem to find a scale I actually trust) so I'm going to use a different method for now. Yesterday, Bart and I were cleaning out our closets and I found a pair of jeans. These are THE TEST PAIR of jeans that I will be using. I tried to put them on last night and it fit pretty good everywhere else except for the fact that I couldn't get them done up. So every few weeks or so, I'll put on the TEST JEANS and see what's what...after I'm able to get them done up, I'll know that I'm on the right track!

I think this may be the longest I've ever stayed on any kind of diet plan...so I'm definitely going to stick with it! How're you doing?

WORKING OUT TO:

Just Like A Pill - Pink

Deskercise

Like a majority of the population, your bum probably spends a majority of the day creating it's own little butt-groove in an office chair. There is no easier way to get NO exercise than working in an office (except if you work at mine and your printer dies and nobody knows how to fix it so you have to spend every five minutes getting up and walking to the other side of the office to get your receipt print-out and then walk back to your desk to give it to the person at your window...but I digress...)

There are actually a LOT of 'exercise-at-your-desk' instructions and videos out there on the great WWW, but I found this one to be pretty all-around.

Fit Exercise Into A Busy Schedule: How To Do Basic Deskercise

Some of the things I wouldn't actually do at my desk and to be honest, if I walked by and saw you doing it at yours, I'd probably secretly laugh at you. I'm not the politest person, so I probably wouldn't even do it secretly...but you get the gist of it. If you're sitting down more than you're up and around throughout the day, you should be making a conscious effort to get up from your desk and get a little movin' and a shakin' going on. It'll also help around the 3 PM mark...you know, the time when your lunch finally settles and your eyelids get all drooooopy...if you're able to get outside, especially now that the days are looking mighty fine, make sure to take advantage of that!

P.S. If you're going to be doing some of the suggestions on the video (ie. rubbing your eyes, your face, etc.) make sure to wash your hands or disinfect! Fact is that the dirtiest thing in the office is NOT the toilet, it's your KEYBOARD! Especially in busy places or where desktops or workspaces can be shared, you have NO idea what other peoples' fingers have touched before they've tinkered around on your keyboard! *wrinkles nose*

So if you're reading this from your office chair...isn't it about time you got up and stretched or had a little walk? (Just not down to the vending machines!)

Leeeeeet's go!

WORKING OUT TO:

My humps - Black Eyed Peas

Day 6 & 7: Where did my hip go?

...I can't find it. I think I must have dislocated it sometime yesterday while I was shakin' what my mama gave me.

Who knew that intentionally acting all loose and hippy could be so freakin' painful! *LOL* I got nothin' on Shakira, lemme tell ya, the woman must not have any bones or vertebrae or something! My hips can't possibly lie, they're dislocated.

Okay, so whining aside, the class was actually pretty AWESOME! I think I got more cardio in than I did with the kickboxing/martial arts class - or it could have been that I had a tiny bit more energy/stamina to give 'er a little more. Whatever the case, I was movin' and a-shakin' and a-shimmyin' like nobody's business! I think I must have shook too hard though because things were starting to hurt halfway through class! It's weird too...there were some moves that the instructor was wanting us to do that I found a lot harder in a class...although much easier to do in a dance club...with alcohol. Maybe next week, we can get slightly smashed first and then go to the class. I'll out-shake that instructor then! *LOL*

Anywho, Day 6 of the three-step diet was actually pretty hard for me. I think after the weekend of being slightly naughty, I was having a hard time. I ate breakfast and sensible snacks throughout the day, but I wanted MORE!

Confession: I ended up eating POTATO CHIPS! *gasp* I know...and worse than that, I ate more than what the package said to eat for 140 calories. *winces* Ah well, the extra salt helped me down more water, but of course, more salt helps my body RETAIN more water, so it pretty much cancels each other out.

I did find that I did much better yesterday (Day 7) and didn't need to snack extra. I did my breakfast (sausage breakfast sandwich), snack (one snack slice of cheese) and for lunch I had two pieces of chicken from Mary Browns and with that I ate a salad that I brought from home which was DELICIOUS! Normally when I eat Mary Browns I go for the whole shebang of chicken, TATERS and GRAVY (oh my gosh...) and a pop, but eating JUST the chicken left me feeling pretty good. So all in moderation to help me build up to being even better at choosing the right foods! Trust me, for the crap that I USED to eat, just those two pieces of chicken is already like, a breakthrough for me. *LOL* Anywho, had four glasses of water throughout the day and another bottle at the gym (again, I had to resort to my trusty "go-for-water-breaks-to-stop-the-BURNING-PAIN-in-my-muscles" technique. For those who are new to exercising, I highly recommend this method...) and of course on my breaks at work I was able to jog around on the trampoline in my co-worker's office. So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about Day 7! I know if I can keep this up, little by little, I can get better and better!

Anywho, here's an idea of the "recipe" for the salad I had at lunch today:

Catherine's Sweet Cranberry Salad
(by sweet I mean sweet-tasting, not just me loving all over myself and naming my recipes with ego-boosting names...)

Lettuce blend with julienne carrots (this was already pre-packaged, I got it from Costco, I think)
Dried cranberries
Chopped walnuts
Light raspberry vinaigrette dressing made from extra virgin olive oil - or EVOO as Rachel Ray likes to say (Kraft)

That's it! Nothing else needed and it is soooo YUMMY! I didn't mix the salad and the dressing together. I had the dressing in a separate container and kind of just dipped my fork into the dressing before grabbing up a bunch of the salad. The dressing is flavorful enough that a little really does go a long way - and that's ALSO saying something because remember, this girl is a more is MORE kind of girl. I like EXTRA sauce on everything!

And here's another recipe that came to mind when Marti busted out with her awesome salsa! I'm not a big fan of salsa the regular ol' way (like the Old el Paso stuff in the jars *wrinkle face*) but I do like this version:

Catherine's Strawberry-Mango Salsa
I don't know why I'm calling all the recipes "Catherine's" I didn't invent them...but I figure it's half my blog, I can name them mine if I feel like it - plus these recipes do come with my form of variation...

• 1 yellow mango (the sweeter the better, I usually use the small yellow ones and not the larger red/green mangos for this recipe) diced
• Strawberries - quartered
• Scallions - chopped pretty fine, it doesn't really matter, you can chop them however you like
• Finely chopped jalapenos (I get mine in the Old el Paso jars that are already pre-sliced. I usually use about 3 - 4 of those, but you can use it to your taste...the slightly spicy with all the sweet is SO GOOD!)
• Squirt of lemon juice (don't you love how precise my recipes are?)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Just like Marti's salsa, these are awesome with pita chips or tortilla chips or with fish (I love this with tilapia).

Confession: None of those pictures are actually mine, so that's not EXACTLY what my food looks like after I've done butchering chopping them. Photos courtesy of Google Images.

Anywho, that's it for me today, it looks like I've been going on for quite a while now with this post. It must be all the extra energy that I've got now that I'm on my way to living a healthier more active life! *LOL* If you've decided to try out this three-step diet business with Marti and I, I hope things are going just as swimmingly for you! Please definitely let us know how it's going! Marti and I looooove comments. Okay fine, I guess it's not really fair for me to speak for Marti (or hide behind her) so I'll go ahead and just say it: I LOOOOOOVE COMMENTS!

WORKING OUT TO:

Hips Dont Lie - Shakira

exercise *sigh*

SOOOOOOOOOOO

at my last post we were NOT going to discuss exercise.....mostly because i hadn't done any. me and exercise should not be in the same sentence.....i am not so much lazy as just busy i find very few forms of exercise appealing. i USED to do a TON of hiking back in MO but not so much here.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
this morning i got an email from my SU rep - my goodies from tech club AND scrapbook club were in. she lives around the block so i thought hey perfect - i can do my first walking session just me n pez. now pez has not sat in a stroller for a walk - or anything else - for a year. so we set off around the block......very...VERRRY slowly.....first time EVER that she WALKED and didn't RUN.....so i am thinking wow i walk faster than this inside the house. so i tried to encourage her to get moving a little. finally she gets back to normal and starts running....trips...rolls down the sidewalk ending with her forehead. YEP.....so i scoop her up and she cries a bit and then she says she wants to walk so we walk SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWLY to Stacey's and then on home and she says she wants in her stroller and wants to go around the block again. about 6 houses down she wantsa to come back home...very strange. we come home and she sits on my lap and starts nodding off at 10AM. so now i am thinking concussion??? so i start asking her how many fingers and she thinks thats funny.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO
as i am contemplating concussions hubby calls and tells me that the new job he started may 1st did not turn our insurance paperwork in right so we have no insurance......

and so at the end of the day everything turned out ok - pezzy is fine, insurance is being fixed and i still got no exercise. BUT i did eat well and i drank FOUR glasses of water - FOUR!!!!

and now i need to wrap things up - my show (mentalist) is over and i am ready for bed!!!
hugs
M

Running for a Cause...

...I DID IT!

Well, I haven't actually done anything yet, but I started the first part! I signed up for the CIBC Run for the Cure event! It's basically a fundraising program to raise funding and awareness for breast cancer. It's a 5 k distance and you can choose to run it or walk it...and guess what this crafty loser is going to do? I'm RUNNIN' IT, BABY!

I figure that having three little goals every month is fine and dandywith the long-term goal of losing weight being the object being awesome, but I thought that I needed to have an ACTUAL goal to really work towards. I mean, losing weight is always an on-going thing so there is never anything to work towards, or build up to. So I saw a Run for the Cure commercial and I was IN!

I signed up this morning and I've already got donations from people who would like to support me on my run and would like to support the cause that I'm running for! You can't beat that in inspiration! Plus, if people have already donated money, I'm definitely accountable to them to actually complete it, right?

The run isn't until October 4, so I think I signed up at a perfect time. It gives me a lot of time to train and to fail (undoubtedly, I'll quit a bunch of times and wonder what the whole point is) and get up and get going again! I think this will really help because even when I do start to wonder what the whole point is of even trying and blah blah blah and I get all Debbie Downer on myself, I can always remind myself that there is ALWAYS a point to fundraising for a cause - especially this cause. Nowadays, who doesn't know anyone who is suffering from cancer or know someone who isn't affected by cancer? If my doing this helps more people than just me out and along the way I happen to lose weight, then I'm thinking it's a win-win situation! *fist pump* Yes, I did the fist pump!

So if you've got a CIBC Run for the Cure around your area, consider registering as a participant or even as a volunteer! This even is 100% volunteer driven, so I know that they'll always find a place for a helping hand. If it isn't around your area, maybe look for something similar around you or if it's just not your 'thang' just yet, maybe you'd like to sponsor me on my run and in turn support those that I'm running for!

Here's my Run for the Cure Donation Page: https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/p.asp?t=3317742&l=1

I am now off to my Zumba class! I'll leave you with a quick peek at a video I found when I first wanted to know what this Zumba business was all about!

WORKING OUT TO:

Dont Cha - Pussycat Dolls