beauty

Hello, everyone! 

It’s half-hour to midnight as i start typing this. I wrote several entries before, related more or less to this topic here and here.

Self-love is difficult. I should know because for the longest time i felt ‘i wasn’t enough.’ Enough what, you say? Enough anything. Especially not good enough. 

i know im not the only one feeling this way. Last year i finally accepted i needed help to get out of the dark spot i was in. This was also difficult for me to accept. 

What helped me to finally accept this was Anna. Her support was and still is beyond what words can describe. She’s a blessing to me. 

So, i started ‘therapy’ and treatment, at first for anxiety. The treatment for depression started some 3 months later. I feel MUCH better. The results started to manifest some 3 weeks into the treatment. 

I'm not fully cured or fixed. I don’t know if i ever will, but who knows. I hope i'm getting there or that i'm on the right path. 

No self-love

It’s hard to love thyself when you feel you’re not enough. like i said, I constantly felt this way, even before i showed no signs of bad anxiety or depression. I used to doubt myself, not feel confident enough when going out, and always feel like an impostor even when i was going to buy a bottle of soda. 

The few times i felt better when out and about, was when i was wearing what i perceived as "unusual" clothes. This was related to what the majority wears: office clothing, casual, smart/casual, and sports. 

So, my sense of "unusual" is something that could be remotely associated with subcultures, like for instance goths or rockers. i also like the avant-garde, urban decay, and futuristic styles. 

At home, the "not enough"/impostor feeling, weirdly enough, made me procrastinate. Did i know this doesn't help with anything at all? Logically, yes, of course, i did. However, knowing this didn't and doesn't magically motivate me to become (pro)active. 

At night, i used to have many dark thoughts as well as heavy guilt that was not mine to bear. These dark thoughts and guilt, i don't want to talk about. At least not now. i hope i never will be forced to talk about them. 

How can a person riddled with dark thoughts and guilt, love themselves? I have no idea, because i couldn't. 

I eventually got rid of these thoughts and guilt through prayer. I prayed with a lot of hope and pain. That evening i felt a tall dark human-like figure entering the bedroom and sitting on my bed. i didn't feel any evilness from it, just calmness.

Like a black hole, it sucked all those thoughts away. They never returned, or at least not to that extent. But this was still pretty far from ending everything. The scars are still there. At least one wound didn't completely heal. i don't know if it will ever. 

In time, all these along with other issues, like the water problem, got me in the dark spot of depression. 

it took some time for me to admit this and to accept the treatment. But everything changed once i did. 

Some self-love

The antidepressant made me not care whether i'm enough or not. I don't feel like an impostor anymore, and i feel more self-secure about everything. Well, maybe not about every little thing, but, you know, most things. 

Even more important than this, i can laugh! I can laugh so much more easily. Before the treatment, laughing was some sort of luxury. Everyone could do it but me. And it feels natural, normal ... GOOD! 

So, what does self-love have to do with anything? it does. Almost everything, actually. If you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. How? if you don't love yourself, or take care of yourself, you can't take care of those who you say you love. 

Why? Because you'll stretch yourself left, right, up, and down, again and again. At a certain moment, you'll stretch too much and snap, if you're unlucky. I was unlucky in '16 but we don't talk about that year this way.  

When you take care of yourself, you won't stretch yourself out to the breaking point. You have boundaries. Boundaries are healthy for your mental wellbeing. Not stretching yourself too much means your chances of snapping are much lower. This means you can be around for those who you love and who love you back, for longer.

…forgiving oneself…

Self-forgiveness is an important part of self love. It’s well known that nobody can criticise you more than you can. We often have the impression that we made some huge and horrible mistakes regarding some small stuff. Others might say otherwise if you were to ask them. 

And you know what? They may be correct at least some 99% of times. So, if there arevery high chances for them to forgive you, why don’t YOU try to firgive yourself? It’s NOT your fault for what happened. Surely you did your best with the tools and knowledge you had. Or you simply didn’t know any better. 

You need to understand that we are just humans and all we can do is trying our best. When we make mistakes, we can apologize, learn from them, and try to fix them. 

This post was written on different days, so now, when I post it I’m not sure what was the original point I wanted to reach. I do hope it will be of some help for some of you out there. 
 

See you next time ~~~~

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share something else today, but I kinda like to mix things up and not talk about the same topic in consecutive entries. 

So, in this entry, I talked about the china items I have 2 of, as for couples. I promised i'd present to you my ARPO collection as well. 

ARPO used to be a Romanian factory manufacturing fine porcelain items - plates, sets for coffee or tea, and decorative items. The factory is now defunct and its demise was the fall of communism back in 1989. This is a short presentation of the company, by Wikipedia, in Romanian. You can easily translate using Google Translate (not sponsored) or any other translation service. 

If you click this link, you'll see a selection of items made by ARPO. 

Ok, so now let's talk about my collection. I remember that I saw a youtube video in which the creator was saying that if you want to feel good, you should surround yourself with items that you enjoy seeing. In another video, the creator was saying that we all have a set of good things we keep for special occasions. 

She was saying that we all know that those special occasions rarely happen, and we should just use those special items. And I realized she was right. 

I don't know how I decided that I really like the porcelain plates made by ARPO. I think I just looked up the brand once I had some items in my possession, to try and learn more about it. 

I think my collection started with this set for coffee. It currently contains 4 cups, 6 plates, bowl for sugar with a lid, tall coffee pot with a lid, and a cup to pour milk from. 

You probably think that i don't have the coffee pot and the other items I mentioned. But you're wrong. 

The thing is that at the end of 2020, an aunt of Anna's died. She had no children, so Anna's family is in charge of figuring out what to do with the woman's possessions, which are not many. 

As it happens, she also had a set of this coffee set, but with different flowers. I took the set and gave it a good clean, and put it in my collection. in a storage box because i don't have enough space to display them. And i have other coffee or teapots to use instead. 

Well, here are the remaining and doubles of this set, if this makes any sense at all. Obviously, the set with the smaller monochrome-blue flowers belonged to the dead aunt. 

This blue set is the latest addition to my collection, as you can imagine. 

Now I'll show you the plates I have.

i already shared these plates in my previous post. I had 2 of them back then. Now I have 3, as 1 came from MIL maybe around Christmas. 

These are shallow, almost flat dishes. They're for serving semisolid or solid food on. 

I also have this set of 5 plates I got last year from my friend's mother. These plates are a bit deep, ideal to serve soup in. If you click on the image, you'll see the plates better. 

I don't like these plates as much as the other items in the collection, but what can I do. 

I almost forgot this plate. This is my favorite and needless to say I keep it as safe as I can. This picture doesn't do it justice, in my opinion.

The stamp on the back is also barely visible. It says ARPO and then a name. I can make out "C. Beargee" or maybe "C. Bearger", all in capital letters. 

The flowers on this plate have a texture to them, while the plate is as smooth as it gets. This is a shallow plate, almost flat. I forgot when and where this plate came from. 

My china collection is not done. My next entry will have to be on the remaining items that are either random sets or one of a kind. 

Stay tuned for that! 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello all! 

I don't know what to make this entry. I might change the title in the future if I can find a better title. 

This blog entry is probably a boring one for most of you. Unless you like to see cups and plates made of porcelain. 

Here I want to somehow list my china collection. There's a  second part coming related to my collection of plates/cups made by ARPO Porcelain, a now-defunct Romanian company that was making dinnerware, decors, and other stuff out of porcelain.

I can make a 3rd entry about the plates and cups I have only 1 of. 

All these entries are designed more for me, I suppose unless you're curious and like porcelain collections as well. 

And it just occurred to me that I have some pairs of glass items as well. I'll include them here, as somehow one pair started everything. 

These plates are the oldest in the collection. 

They are modern, as the colors can tell. I'm not familiar with the brand and I don't know what else to say about them. They were given to us at some point. 

These cups followed at some point. I like these cups because they can go in the microwave oven, if I need a bit of water warmed up quickly. 

They came with a 3rd cup that has the same shape and size as these ones, but a different design and color scheme. 

These plates are rounded-squares if that makes sense. I believe they're from MIL. They might also have been received before the cups above, but who can remember anymore? 

These plates are larger. They're best used for putting a cake on, the Salad à la Russe, pancakes, or anything that you cook more of and can be stacked.

Currently, one of the plates serves as a tray on the kitchen table, for various smaller items to try and keep some order.  

These glasses were supposed to be 3 actually. One broke before I got them. I found them on the local Freecycle group. Here, people give away stuff they don't need or want anymore, and those who need or want them can just take them. 

These glasses are the ones that made me decide to have a collection of matching cups and plates since I already had a few matching stuff. 

These are my matching ARPO plates. When I took the pics, I only had 2 of them. Last week I received some food on a 3rd identical plate, which I will be keeping. Surely MIL won't mind. 

They are just so pretty in real life, these plates. 

These mugs are not identical. And I only just noticed when ii took the picture. My brain didn't realize this before. 

The thing is, these mugs were found in a box, packed together. They were an unwanted gift. I found it at a FreeShop event at the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020 before the nonsense started. You know what nonsense I'm talking about ;) 

At this event, people brought whatever they didn't need, like, use, and took home whatever else they liked, from the others who came. so, it was like an item exchange, though the focus was clothes. 

These are big mugs: 450 ml. I can serve soup in them if I want to, and I even did a few times. 

These cups are from H&M HOME. I first saw them either in the summer of towards the end of 2019, but they disappeared quickly. I hoped they'd go on sale, as I didn't want to pay full price for them. Go figure. 

They returned only after the stores reopened after the quarantine. They were bought at separate times though. I REALLY REALLY wanted 2 and not just 1. I'm using them ALL the time. 

These cups cannot go in the microwave oven, but I think they can go in the dishwasher. We don't have one, so I'm not 100% sure. 

I bought these cups AFTER I saw the ones from H&M were gone. They're not matching 100%, but they have the same shape and size and were bought at the same time. 

Fun fact, they're from the same store as the Christmas ones. I only realized this recently, as I saw the red ones in that store. i entered the store out of curiosity, to look for something else which I didn't find. I can safely put these in the microwave oven as well. 

These are salt and pepper shakers. They were a bit dirty, but I o make sure to clean them regularly. We bought these last year I think.

These plates are not porcelain, but glass or opal. You could get these by buying 2 bottles of Coca-Cola, of 2L, from the participating supermarkets. Not much to say here. I used these in the microwave oven. 

They read something like "I like your cooking, but I prefer your loving" or something. 

I can imagine what you must be thinking: "These are not the same." No, they're not. Fiance bought the bowl and then i saw the tile in a thrift store. It serves as a coaster. 

I'm using the coaster ALL the time as it sits by my computer. The colors are more vibrant in real life. 

These are 2 glasses that came with a bottle of gin. And i have no more to say about them. They're the latest addition to the collection. 

I'm pretty impressed with how many paired items i have for the kitchen. 

This is it for now. See you in the next one!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

It doesn't matter you're a woman or a man - cover up! 

I'm not a Muslim and i'm not any other type of extremist religious person, so before you bash my words, please read my 2 most important reasons I urge EVERYONE regardless of gender, race, religion, and skin color, to cover up. 

What are you supposed to cover up? hair and skin. Hear me out!

By covering up your hair and most of your skin, you protect them from pollution. If you live in a city, you're aware of the levels of pollution on the streets. If you live out in the country side, you might want to skip to the 2nd reason ;) 

Sure, not everyone is made the same, but whatever skin and hair issues you may have, they can get worse when exposed to pollution. Dust and smoke get attached to our skins and hair, especially when our faces become oily towards the end of the day, most of the skin becomes sweaty throughout the day especially in summer, and so on. 

We're then getting home and we have to use various chemicals to remove all the stuff our hairs and skins collected. Sure there are many products that use natural ingredients, but let's be real - not everyone can afford those, or pays attention to buy them. Most of us need to buy really aggressive cosmetics that leave our skins and hairs really dry, and in turn we need other products to help moisturize them back. 

These products are pretty bad for out skin, hair but also for the environment. Maybe by covering up, we won't need such aggressive cosmetics, nor in such a large amounts. However, this need is influenced by other personal factors that you can't ignore and that i'm not aware 100% aware of.

The sun does a lot of good but a lot of bad as well. Doctors say that you should be fine as long as you wear sun screen when you go out. Truth is that CLOTHES are the best sun screen - as long as they're not transparent. 

Sun screen usually needs to be reapplied, usually leaves a sticky sensation on the skin which can attracts more dust and pollution on your skin. 

The sun doesn't avoid some people - just because you're a person of African descent, and your skin is as dark as coal, it doesn't mean the sun won't burn you. It also doesn't mean you won't get skin cancer - not that i wish cancer on anyone, for i don't. You could be a dermatologist and still get it. 

Skin cancer can be a small dot on your skin, can look like an ingrown hair. But I'm not a doctor so you better go talk to one, or do more research on your own. As you can see from the experience of  that dermatologist, cancer can appear on your scalp too, if your head is not covered. 

You thought I'm done? not yet. 

REASON #2 - PART TWO: PREVENT PREMATURE AGING

If you're a woman you may want to look young for as long as possible - maybe men want this too, but i haven't seen as many as i saw women. 

Sun exposure doesn't only increase the chances of getting skin cancer, but also ages. Have you seen the truck driver with half face looking like an 80 year old man and the other half looking about 60 years old? His real age was 69 at the time of having his picture taken. Read more here. 

The clear message from this man's picture is that the sun ages a person and that being somehow covered prevents that. 

CONCLUSION:

Cover up! Cover up if you want to increase your chances of staying cancer free for as long as possible, and for looking younger for longer, without the help of bad cosmetics or plastic surgeries. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Some of you might remember one of my past entries in which I talked about losing weight, and you can read it here. At the time I promised I'd talk about how I also gained weight. 

It wasn't very easy for me to talk about gaining weight, and the only reason I can find is that this is something a bit hard to think about. Right now, I passed through 2 periods of rapidly gaining weight. 

First time of weight gain

The first time happened after we rehomed a puppy we found on the street. There's no secret that owning a dog makes you go out a lot, and sometimes walk a lot. Owning a dog is great if you need an excuse to go for a walk to either stay in shape or lose some weight. Best results are when you find a dog that needs long walks, that is full of energy. 

Sadly, such a dog is not really happy in an apartment with other pets, or with people who are more lazy than active - such as myself. 

As you know, Kali [the puppy] found herself a home with a dog-loving family [we're more of cat people], and this meant I had no reason to go out and walk as much. This lack of exercise translated into extra 7 kg for me [about 15 pounds]. 

I gained this much weight in about 2 months. Sadly, I can't remember my before or after weight. 14 pounds in 2 months seemed a lot to me, but it really can be worse, like the second time around. 

Second time of weight gain

The second time when I gained weight happened at the beginning of 2017 after I gave up my job as a supermarket cashier. I haven't talked about this job because it needs a separate entry, and I'm not ready for that yet. You can read about other jobs I had though, if you're really curious. 

A bit of background info

Working in a supermarket as a cashier is close to working for the devil himself. And giving up that job was both a good and a bad thing for my health. If you ever worked in a supermarket, you'd know what I'm talking about. 

This place was opened from 7 am to 11pm and we were supposed to work only 2 shifts! i was very "lucky" [can you sniff the sarcasm there?] to work mostly the afternoon shift ... and this meant I'd get home at 1 am [because of random "duties" we were supposed to perform after the store closed]. 

This messed up my sleeping hours, that I tried hard to fix [I used to go to bed at about 3 or 4 am, and managed to make myself sleep quite early at midnight. with my new job, i'd go to bed at about 2 am]. A poor sleeping habit also means poor quality sleep, therefore not getting the rest I needed. Especially for the weekends I had to be there the whole day, from 7 am to about midnight. yes, you read that right - 2 days of 14 hours in a row, meaning on Saturday [make that Sunday morning] I'd sleep 2 or 3 hours? 

Of course, this further led to stress and having a breakdown at work and almost fainting. I also started to feel my overall health impoverishing as my diet was all over the place, not getting enough nutrients from my food. The breakdown and near-fainting happened after a couple of months on the job [wow, that was fast]. At that point I decided my health is far more important, so I decided to quit.

The aftermath

As soon as I finished working there, on New Year's Eve, I went into a sort of coma for 2 weeks straight. I'd sleep for 22 or 23 hours of the day straight with whatever breaks for restroom and food. A lot of it. All of it. Can you imagine what food with no working out does to the body? 

Before starting the job from hell, I was about 59 - 60 kg [so about 130 - 132 pounds]. While on the job [for some 3 months] I went down to 56 - 57 kg [123 - 125 pounds]. When I finally started to need less sleep I noticed i reached 70 kg! [154 pounds].

Gaining some 13 kg [28 pounds] in 2 weeks is insane if you're not pregnant! This happened in January of 2017. Only in October I managed to start losing a little bit of weight. Now, in April I'm about 67 kg [147 pounds]. I'm trying to work out as often as I can, and of course I'm eating much less. 

some advice:

If your job is too demanding and you can barely get any rest, it might be better to give it up, unless it's your dream job. In my opinion, no job is worth risking one's health because health is something we take for granted, but it has no price when we have it. As soon as we get sick, we start shelling all the money we have and don't have, just to get better. 

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

All of them! It really doesn't matter what they promote because all of them are trying to sell impossible things! This is one reason why we don't own a TV set, even though at times I wish we did.

I'm pretty sure others may have written about it as well, but I still need to rant. You can stop reading, if you don't like rants, I guess. One of the reasons I'm putting this one out is in hopes for more people to be inspired to speak their minds and DEMAND realistic or trustworthy ads. Here it goes.

This phrase pretty much sums it up. I could end this here, but I must provide some proof for this claim. Let's start with beauty ads.

MASCARA: Do you know that ad for that mascara that makes the lashes appear 3000 times thicker and longer than they really are? That's a lie! There's no mascara available that gives that much volume. That can be obtained ONLY with fake lashes.

I can't even leave aside the amount of photoshop that went in her eyes - the eye ball itself doesn't look normal at all [#shameloreal] - this ad is full of lies. No human being has this much of a difference between their upper and lower lashes. YES, some people HAVE naturally long lashes, but I've only seen it on guys, for some reason. I also wonder if Gwen is really so self centered in her private life - saying about her own lashes they're outrageous is not a good way to present yourself. I also have to point out that people have all sorts of fine lines on their hands, and that some people have a different skin shade on their hands compared with their faces.

HAIR PRODUCTS

The hair products that are commonly advertised are hair-dyes and shampoos. However those ads are also all lies. If there's a famous face used in the commercial, it's safe to assume they use professional products applied by professionals. Also, keep in mind that some hair products actually make your hair more dry than it needs to be, especially when used by themselves. -Don't tell me you didn't notice this!- To have a gorgeous looking hair you need to help it with some masks or oils (especially after a certain age).

Those ads are made against a green screen, some of the models use hair extensions. They also use some guys with sticks to flick the hair of the model to give the impression of more bounce in the hair. Pretty sweet and deceiving, right?

CLOTHES, ACCESSORIES, GADGETS

The clothes ads are perhaps not all lies - with the exception of the very photoshopped models they use. But that's a well known reality and nothing shocking. What the ads for the products have in common is the complete absence of reality, such as: a normal person will never stay in that pose the whole day, or go to the same places the model was taken to for the photo shoot. This applies to rich people too: they're generally busy getting more rich [more power to them, I guess] but they still wouldn't stay motionless throughout the day like in some ads.

I also don't think an experience will become better or worse thanks to the clothes or accessories I use. For instance, if I buy a bathing suit from an ad and I go to the beach I will still have the same experience as when wearing a 20 years old bathing suit that was not advertised for. The weather would be the same as well, regardless of what I wear.

And please don't tell me I can find the love of my life while running just because I chose to wear a certain watch, like seen below. I also won't have more fun or run [work out] more/ better with it on.

 If I choose to work out I'll do so because I want to lose weight, and to find an excuse to flirt. I saw a similar ad in a supermarket - I found it ridiculous. If I go buy groceries that's what I need, not a new significant other, and I'm certain many of you will agree with me.

THE SMILES OF THE MODELS

Could they be more unrealistic? I don't mean their perfectly white teeth, but the smile itself. You might argue that they heard a really good joke, but how many times or how often do we hear a really good joke? Sadly, not often enough.

Some people might even think there is something wrong with them if they can't smile at all times with a big wide smile. They might think there is something wrong because their teeth are not perfect looking and a perfect white color too. The hard reality is that the average person can't really achieve this "standard" and they shouldn't feel pressured to do so either.

I also have the impression I should reach a certain level of happiness if I use those products or brands ... but I don't. I don't think anyone does.

PRODUCTS THAT DON'T WORK

Well, I suppose the whole entry is related to this. However there are some items that do work and they are advertised - pain killers for instance. They might not work for everyone based on their personal conditions and other factors, but do work for a large amount of population.

Here I refer to certain cleaning and beauty items that are supposed to work but do not: there is either no change at all or they make things worse. How many times have you seen ads for products that are used by professionals? Not too many times, right? Because those actually work.

UNHEALTHY PRODUCTS or SERVICES

There are a few words to say here: Coca-cola, McDonalds, KFC. How healthy are they? I thought so.. Not to mention their taste, ethics..... and the list goes on.

These thoughts are my own. The post is NOT sponsored. [how could it be? LOL]

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved. 

I like painting my nails these days. It's relaxing and fun. I tried challenging myself to see for how long can I keep my manicure. The answer? not too long.

I suspect it may have something to do with using cheap polishes, or not being a professional, or even with the fact that I use my fingers and nails a little too much.

In any case, this entry will have quite a few nail pictures, with little explanations.

FIRST ATTEMPT - remember I'm not a nail professional. days 1 through 5

Oh the horror, the chipping started. Challenge aborted. LOL

SECOND ATTEMPT

These are days 1 through 4. I guess, I really couldn't do more...

They must have started chipping, or I forgot to take pictures. I forgot why I aborted this attempt. 

THIRD ATTEMPT

This is where I gave up. One of the reasons I gave up was that I forgot to take pictures of my nails.

BONUS PICTURES:

And if you want to see more pictures, that don't have nails in them, checkout my instagram account!

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

This blog entry is LONG overdue. And I mean, 1 year overdue! wow! So, everything you'll see here was recorded in 2016, but I never got around to do anything with all this material. Today is a good day to show you all that I gathered.

I like looking at old buildings and imagine their history - what did they look like when they were new, what did people think of them, the lives of those that lived in them as well as what did they think of the construction they called "home."

Some buildings are nicer than others, but I rarely discriminate - I'm usually able to see beauty in the weirdest places and forms. All the images are from Bucharest, but you won't see them in any travel guide as they're generally from residential areas. The video will show you both sides of the river splitting  the city in half and was recorded in early spring - March, and then a few weeks or a month later.

The next few houses cannot usually be seen by tourists. Well, I also forgot where exactly they are located, sorry.

I know where this one is. On a very quiet street, uptown, in a very posh and expensive area. The street has 2 lanes, one for each direction. In my opinion, the picture doesn't make it justice, or maybe my memory is bad. The roof covers the sides, like a mountain house. I remember it was love at first sight when I laid my eyes on it the first time around.

The next one must have looked really good at first. I really like that patio in the "tower" - it must be my favorite feature of this house.

I wonder if anyone bought this next house. It looks really bad, but I see a lot of beautifying potential in it. Since [I'm pretty sure] it was on a quiet street, the possibilities are quite many for it.

Next, is an old and rather ugly apartment building. I believe its facade was redone, but it simply is not as impressive in my eyes. I forgot why I took a picture of it - perhaps the creepiness factor was what drove me to it. Maybe it looks better in real life? Anyways, you can easily see this one downtown as it is on one of the main street tourists are taken on a double-decked bus.

I also like mosaics. The one with blue tiles can be seen downtown in Unirii Square, in one of the fountains. I'm not sure if all the fountains have the same mosaic design, because I never really paid close attention. Perhaps they're just similar? The brownish one was the floor of a shop uptown, in an old building. That's all I remember.

And if you made it this far, maybe you want to take a short bus ride with me? Tourists don't really get to see this scenery.

You should let me know if you want more posts like this one. I still have some unpublished pictures.

Until next time, stay safe!

[ps: i just started learning Chinese, so please don't be too harsh on me]

© Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

It seems that talking about a person's weight turned into a taboo subject as it always ends up in a 'body shaming' topic. It seems everyone likes to point how the others are worse looking ... but they forget to look into their conscience mirror to see how ugly their thinking is.

I'm not here to promote any secret magical diet given to me by Fairies. Sorry :( It's not because I don't want to share, but because I have yet to meet said Fairies. I also don't want to tell you "You absolutely MUST lose weight" because in the end, it is your life and your body and you have the right to control them as you think it's fit.

That being said, in a much earlier post I promised I would tell you more about how I managed to lose some weight. I never got around to do it.. until now.

Why did you want to lose weight?

The reasons for which I wanted to lose weight are simple: I couldn't fit into my pants anymore and I didn't want to go shopping for others as I really liked what I owned. I always bought larger shirts, so that wasn't an issue. Just my pants.

So, what did you do to lose weight?

Let's make a few things clear, shall we?

1. I dislike working out - especially running or jogging.

2. I'm trying hard to use my common sense.

3. My common sense tells me that most "losing weight diets" don't give long lasting results.

The first thing I did was analyzing my diet AKA what was I eating and when. I discovered:

1. I would eat the most in the evening and then I would go to sleep.

2. I also found out I was eating a lot of bread and not enough fruits and vegetables.

3. My eating pattern wasn't  'regular' - I never ate at the same hours.

When I realized a few of the things I was 'doing wrong,' I decided it was time to change all that. I never tried to follow this or that "losing weight recipe," but I did try to see a common pattern in them and follow that instead.

I cut down on bread to the point of not eating any at all with any of my meals. I was left still hungry at first. Then, an idea occurred to me: what if I ate SLOWER by chewing my food more? and what if I drank more water?

This actually worked! I would chew more, and therefore I got the impression I was fuller! There is science behind this, so feel free to go search it yourself to convince yourself. I also started to eat more vegetables and white meat [just chicken, though I like fish too].

Not eating in the evening was the most difficult part though. I went and drank water every time I felt hungry. I started hating the water :( However, in the end, not eating in the evening started to feel OK, even normal...?

Another change I made was paying attention to how much I ate, AKA the size of my portions. Eating smaller portions means less ingested calories as well.

Did these changes do anything?

You mean, if I saw any positive results? Yes, I did. Or I wouldn't have written this.

I do have to mention the results weren't fast, like say in 1 week, but maybe more like a month? One month is the earliest I started to see a difference.

You should know that this "common sense diet" is actually a change in lifestyle. It doesn't make one obsessed with counting calories, though doing that would help in faster results. I wouldn't recommend it though. This "diet" doesn't force one say "oh, I can't have cake because I'm dieting," because you can eat anything you want, just not too much.

Do you have any further tips?

Well, if you insist, the last piece of advice I have for you is to look for those diets doctors insist diabetic people follow. They are specially designed to keep diabetes and weight in check, and why wouldn't they help other people as well?

If you like working out, you will also see faster results and your body will tone up as well.

I hope you find some of these tips helpful.

©Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.

Hello world.

Today's topic is something we all should think about. Today's topic is one of the reasons I started writing this blog. I'm not a good person, or better said, I'm not as good as I would like to be. However, this is something that defines "being a human, " isn't it?

But, what does "good person" mean?

"Good person" means anything you want it to mean. It can be a person with a kind heart who cares about the pain other people feel. It can be someone who simply wants to help everyone in need, be it a person, animal, plant, cause, insect, alien... you get the point.

A "good person" can be someone who wants to be the best at doing something: their job, a hobby, at school.. the list goes on.

Can I be or become a good person?

This sounds like a really silly question. Of course you can be! Anyone can become a good individual if they so want. How to become a better person is a topic better discussed in a different entry though.

Back to the current subject, now.

What I noticed is that many people are mean these days. And with each passing day they become more and more mean. I wonder why is this happening.. It can't be terrorism. Or not just that.

I think it's because people take for granted way too many things these days, and each of them has the impression they rule the Universe when it's the Universe ruling us. You don't believe me? Just think about who gives birth: the Universe decided only women can give birth. This is just one sign that the Universe rules over us.

Sadly, everywhere I go I see someone bearing hate feelings towards another. I see hate speech, hateful behavior, and a general lack of respect. All of these are proof that people are not "good." A good person wouldn't do all the above.

Ironically, there is a whole group of people that recently emerged. This group of individuals put up an image of "promoting love, kindness, and consideration towards others," .... but by preaching. Preaching is not "being a good person either." Preaching is trying to give the impression the person is loftier than the rest, but they actually aren't because they still use a hateful speech when addressing others. This aspect is easily seen online when people discuss a controversial subject.

Trying to think of alternative ways of saying something can make you a better person. Walking away from a conflict can be a sign of a wiser or better person, and not sign of weakness. Announcing you're walking away from the conflict doesn't make you a better person though: you have to simply walk away and forget about it.

Am I good or better person by saying all of the above? No. What I'm saying here is something I may be doing wrong and I hope to help the readers to avoid making the same mistakes and choose to be better. 

©Charly Cross 2013 - present. All rights reserved.