Fasting for Four Weeks

Ramadan is the holy month each year when many Muslims are fasting from dawn to sunset. It always occurs on the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar.

The Washington Post has a good article about it here. One man they interview says,

"It's about abstaining from the feeding of one's passions. The whole personality is fasting. The mouth is fasting from improper speech. The ears are fasting from hearing speech that is not appropriate. Our eyes are fasting from looking at things that might arouse us even if those things are permissible under normal circumstances."

It's not meant to be a time of hardship or torture, but rather a time of spiritual awakening. People do eat before dawn and after sunset each day. And people who are feeble, sick, pregnant, nursing or traveling are exempt from the fasting.

____________
Photo above is by Naser

Latifah in a sexy plus size dress

Plus size Queen Latifah is gracing the cover of Essence magazine this month. She's wearing a beautiful and sexy plus size dress. Someone pointed me to this and asked if I could find out if it was custom made for her or if it's off the rack somewhere. If anyone has any word on this, or on what her current weight might be (her height is 5'9"), please let me know.

Update: Ona Diet says in the comment below;

I'm not sure what she is wearing exactly but I did find a similar dress in a plus-size from nordstrom.com. It's a Bari Jay Lace A-Line Halter Dress in Black/Bronze. It's a great fit.

Thanks much for this. I've copied a photo of it here. It costs $178 and is described as 'Deep V-neck and shirred charmeuse waistband shape a lace A-line with a metallic satin lining.'


If anyone else recommends a sexy dress in plus sizes, please send me a photo or link.

An Innovative Food Scale

Here's a cutting board that lets you slide the food into the middle and weighs it for you. This neat idea is still just in the design stages. Here's what the designer has to say about it;

"This concept is a cutting board that has an integrated scale within a defined area on it's surface. This allows a person to both cut and measure ingredients on the same surface with very little extra effort. Simply put, it precisely reduces the steps of preparation, dishes to clean, and time wasted. There has been a transformative trend in cooking based around the science of food. Central to this is the idea that precise measurement leads to more possibilities for new flavors. Recipes will become more demanding, requiring simple ways to be precise in the kitchen. Technology feasibility: (estimated timeline for research and development) Now: Manufacturing methods to embed the following electronics into cutting board material. 1-3 years: Strain gauge sensor grid technology that enables precise measurements to be embedded in a substrate. 1-3 years: Low-voltage PV (Photovoltaics) that would provide sufficient power. 1-5 years: "Electronic ink" display technology that does not use light and can be embedded into substrates."

Found via Aging Fabulous

Alcohol and Weight Loss

I came across this discussion about drinking alcohol and trying to lose weight at the Clubplanet forum;

I have come to the conclusion that my frequent drinking is the reason for the extra weight that I have. I eat very well for the most part and I try to do half an hour of light jogging a day, 5 days a week, but I feel like I'm not seeing any results. I know jogging isn't the most intense workout, but that in combination with my healthy eating habits should make a difference. So here's my question - if I completely stopped drinking for a month (which would mean eating a little better on the weekends too b/c when you're hungover all you want to eat is grease), could I see a major difference, say a loss of 10 to 20 pounds? I drink to get wasted 2-3 nights a week and just to have a few beers 1-2 nights a week, so I'm hoping it will get me somewhere. If and when I want to have a drink again - what's best as far as low calorie, maybe vodka and diet coke? Suggestions needed, so feel free to comment....

Thanks!

One person answered...

i think most ppl go through this...i was positive that my wieght gain was due to alcohol...and i was right.. i gave it up for 5 months but it worked amazingly ...i lost just about 50lbs and completely cut up ...got in the best shape of my life...the pics are floating around here somewhere...so i definitely suggest it. i don't know if ull lose 20lbs but I'm sure ull feel much healthier and definitely definitely be happy with the results....

good luck

Initial questioner wrote again;

I really do think that I will benefit from giving it up for awhile and then incorporating it back in slowly and much more healthy (i.e. 2-3 vodka or rums with diet soda vs. 6-10 beers per night.) Plus, it's time to stop putting my body (and my bank account) through so much in one weekend. I estimate that I drink anywhere from 2-30 beers a week and that is a lot of calories that my body will not be getting from now on, so I can't see it not making a difference. Plus, the only time I eat fast food or unhealthy stuff is when I'm drinking and/or hungover, so that should help too. I'm not looking at this as a diet per say, but as a healthy lifestyle change in the long run.

Another reader answered;

I hear ya, when you are hung over & starving, I just run to Mcdonalds & down #1 sup-A Sized w/ Hi c, 6 piece Mcnuggetts, extra big mac, extra fries...

THE last thing i want is chicken breast w/ vegetables in this condition.

________
Photo above is by Tobes501 on Flickr.

The Fat Smash Diet

The Fat Smash Diet is a getting a lot of buzz these days. It came out this spring and was written by the doctor who provides the diet plan for the Celebrity Fit Club television series.

The basics of the plan is to eat nothing that contains flour or white rice for the first month and to try to ultimately exercise for an hour five days of the week.

This first 'detox phase' is meant to wean you off a dependency on processed foods and wheat products. But you can still eat four or five meals a day by focusing on beans, lentils tofu, vegetables and yogurt.

It would be hard to not lose at least eight pounds (and much more if you are morbidly obese) if you can stick to the plan in the first month.

Many of the people who've followed the diet write about a similar experience as this person;

"I had a month with no pasta, no bread and no rice and at the end, ten pounds came off effortlessly and I no longer felt I had to eat these foods to be satisfied.

It happens that two weeks to a month is the time needed to break habits (call it detox if you like.) This is true of many things, whether cigarettes and nicotine or starchy foods. If you follow the precepts here, you will find that weight starts to come off, even if you are very resistant to weight loss as I am. I give this diet a big thumbs-up because it gets right to the source of problems and trains you immediately for success. Of course you have to walk, run, jump or otherwise exercise, as the book mentions, but the 90 days will be 90 well spent."

The Fat Smash Diet is now the best-selling diet book of the hundreds of diet books out there. The sub-title is "The last diet you'll ever need". The eating plan seems very healthy (not faddish) and doesn't require any counting of calories. I guess if (the big if....) we could keep to the rules as outlined in the book, the subtitle could probably prove true for almost everyone.

Getting Started is the Hardest Part

Here is a young woman whose personal story of weight loss is just beginning. She wants to lose over 100 pounds. It's a little daunting when you're just starting the process.

Her nickname is 'Ona Diet'. She is 24 years old and weighs 245 pounds. She'd like to weigh 140 pounds. She says;

I think maybe if I constantly had mirrors around me all the time I never would have gotten as fat as I am. Almost 250 pounds? Never! I really believe that as I walk around in this body of mine I never really think about my weight. When I am working or eating or watching TV or anything, I never really give a thought to my body or my weight or my size. I pretty much feel like I did 5-6 years ago when I was a much thinner 160 pounds. I guess, in my mind I'm still that size 12 girl from high school who wore 'normal' clothes yet felt fat and out of place anyway. Looking back at old pictures I realize I was pretty thin. Compared to what I look like now, I was very thin! Not anorexic, but healthy, 'normal', looking good. I am seriously confounded as to why I felt fat back then when I looked fine, great. Now I find myself at 246 pounds hardly fitting into a size 18. It hurts. As I look through recent pictures of myself I see a girl almost bursting out of her body. My face is huge. My body is huge. It is quite obviously the embodiment of the statement "you would be so pretty if only you were thinner." I see that now, I do. So, as I said, enough is enough. I am done being fat. That's it. I have had enough of constantly feeling uncomfortable, being huge, not fitting into clothes, being unhappy with myself. I start changing things right now. Today. I can't wait to see the numbers on the scale get progressively smaller.

Visit her site and help cheer her on!

_____________
Photo is by Very Good With Computers

Ciara Works Out

Ciara Harris looks very toned and fit. She must have a strict and regular workout regiment. I've read somewhere that she tries to stick to a low-carb diet but doesn't fuss too much about what she eats. Rather it's the exercise she focuses on.

Ciara Princess Harris, who will turn 21 this month, will be releasing her second album Ciara: The Evolution on December 5th. The bottom photo was a promotional shot for her debut album "Goodies" from a couple of years ago. The pic on the top is a candid one where someone snapped a photo of her on the streets of New York City a couple of months ago. Here are two comments from a popular forum about this photo;

"Ciara looks beautiful! Her body looks that way cuz she'’s in shape and hits the gym, that is something Black women don'’t know too much about. Every time i go to the gym i see white, etc, but hardly never my sisters are there. Some Black women consider themselves fit w/ a fucking bulge popping from their stomach and/or have a little meat poking out when they wear tight ass jeans. Ciara looks toned and slim the way she supposed to look and she is very pretty. Also, she'’s just shopping so she don'’t need to look all special. I wear sweats out sometimes when i go shopping. Soooooooo whaaaaaaat!"

********

"Boogiegirl cut the bullshit, I hate when blacks group all together and try to separate themselves just to try to look different. Black females DO go to the gym, where the hell do you live? And the nerve of you to call us your sisters while at the same time talking shit about us. And I also don'’t know what kind of women you know who thinks that that shit you described is fit.

And Ciara'’s look is not all from her '‘hitting the gym'’ she really has a boyish frame which I think is ugly. I could care less about her weight, I just really hate the way she'’s built. Soooooo STFU. :0)"

Here's the promotional photo for her new album: Ciara: The Evolution.