Dieting sucks.

I haven't talked a lot about dieting, because I don't like to do it. I hate dieting--I hate the idea of altering your nutritional intake so drastically just to lose ten pounds and have them all come back when you start eating normally again. It's dumb.

However, in my attempt to be healthier, and let's be honest here, look smoking hot when I am laying out in my bathing suit in Vegas (more on that later), I have decided to start watching what I eat. *GASP* Shocking, I know. No formal diet, though, no crazy (and expensive) juice cleanses (although Gilt is having a sale right now), just more awareness of what goes in my belly.

The Goal: Low end of normal for my height by Vegas-time (4 weeks).
The Progress: 3 lbs left according to my bathroom scale (which MM says is off by 10 lbs--THANKS FOR NOTHING, HONEY. So maybe 13 lbs.)

This is what I have learned so far from this harrowing experience.

1. Holy shit serving sizes are small. As part of my "awareness", I have started loosely keeping track of calories. One of my biggest weaknesses is portion sizes, and one the easiest ways for me to control this is to limit myself to one serving (unless it's some ridiculous increment) per sitting. This has made me realize how small some serving sizes are--yeah, cereal is only 120 calories...for HALF A CUP. Do you know how small half a cup is?? I guarantee you, I used to eat like three servings of cereal for breakfast.

2. You don't have to eat what your boyfriend eats. When cooking for two, it's so easy to prepare a meal, then just split it down the middle for the both of us. One steak for me, one steak for him. Then I realized, do I really need a 16 oz steak? Two huge spoonfuls of mashed potatoes? No, probably not. He has more height to distribute all that food, and I need to realize our plates SHOULD be uneven. And it's okay to have leftovers. That's why they invented tupperware. This leads to...

3. You don't have to eat WHEN your boyfriend eats. MM likes to have his "wind down" beer at the end of the night. Sometimes this is accompanied by "wind down" snacks as well. I can never resist eating when he's eating. Even when I'm not hungry!! This needs to stop. Especially when he comes home with late night tacos from Big Star. Mmmmm....but honestly, who's hungry when they're awoken after an hour of sleep? Not me. Did I still eat two tacos? Yes. *for shame*

4. If it's not in the house, you won't eat it. Up until maybe a month ago, I wasn't buying chips or crackers when I went grocery shopping. Did I miss it? Maybe a little when I was having a sandwich, but honestly, we did fine without having those things in the house. Then I caved, bought a bag of chips, and it was downhill from there. Last grocery trip, I tried to be better, and came home with a bag of pretzels. Still not great, but at least they don't have the grease of a bag of Lays. My only exception to this is probably chocolate. I tried to keep it out of the house, but then my craving went crazy and I ended up buying 3 bags of chocolate chips and immediately making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Note to self: keep small amounts of chocolate in house at all times.

So that's it for now. With my loose calorie counting, I figured out I was consuming about 1800 calories on an average day. To lose a pound a week, you need to cut 500 calories a day, so I've been trying (again, only loosely counting) to keep it around 1200 per day. Combined with the running, hopefully I will be able to reach my goal!

Anybody have any helpful weight loss strategies to share?

Is every Human Resources employee out to make our lives miserable?

I think so.

What's wrong? You look upset.

I have always said that I have an "angry neutral face". So when I'm not actively smiling, or frowning, or making any sort of conscious expression, my "neutral" face, tends to be angry. I can't help it! I'm not necessarily having a bad day, or angry with anyone, I just have an "angry neutral face".

This has resulted in friends coming up to me asking, "Are you okay? You look angry." O_o??! What??? Then I have to smile, reassure them that no, I am not off to shoot out an office building or beat someone up.

Well, now I realized this is a condition that affects many women, and it has a name. It's called Chronic Bitchface.

From BuzzFeed

Now, we look for the cure.

Spring cupcakes (Another baking FAIL)

The day after Easter, I decided to go out and indulge in all the discounted Easter goodies. I went out with the intention of getting a Cadbury creme egg (my guilty pleasure), but to my dismay, they had all sold out. WHYYYYYYYY.

I did bring home some jelly beans and some peeps, and I thought I would try my hand at some spring cupcakes. (They are listed at Food Network as Easter cupcakes, but we will ignore that, and pretend that we're not too cheap to buy full priced Easter treats.)

I used a white cake and lemon frosting recipe from i am baker, which sounded pretty spring-y to me. I decided to tint the frosting pastel green, and omit the green coconut, because I'll be honest, I am not super fond of shredded coconut on my sweets.

Baking FAIL # 1: I tried to read the recipe off the computer, and remember it while I was running around in the kitchen. This resulted in the omission of 1/4 cup of sugar. My white cake cupcakes were more like white muffins.

Baking FAIL # 2: I did not have any cake flour on hand, so I substituted all-purpose flour using the handy dandy Cook's Thesaurus. They said cakes would be "slightly less delicate and crumbly", but hole tamale, was that an understatement. These are the densest cupcakes I've ever eaten.

Baking FAIL # 3: To compensate for the slightly less sweet cupcakes, I added a little more powdered sugar to my frosting. OMGDIABETESINACAN. One bite of my mega sweet frosting may satisfy a sweet tooth for a decade.

Baking FAIL # 4: When I tried to recreate the uber-cute spring scene from the Food network's cupcake, I realized that either my cupcakes were too small, or these peeps were TOO DAMN BIG.

Look out! It's Peep-zilla!!!

UGH. So I just frosted the rest, and left them blank.

Poor cupcake. You have no outlet in which to express yourself.

MM ate one, and declared it edible, and if you eat it with a proper ratio of frosting to cupcake, I agree it's not too bad. However, my baking ego has been hit hard with this one. I had a whole strawberry shortcake planned out, but now I think I'll just used my berries to make smoothies.

Sigh. Any big baking fails out there to share?

No chip manicure

Way back in February, before MM and I departed on our two week long snowboarding adventure, I decided I needed a sturdy manicure to endure 14 days of what would otherwise be a nail-polish suicide mission. I had a Groupon for a No Chip Manicure at a local salon, so I gave it a whirl.

I loved it as soon as I left the salon! All in all, the process took about 45 minutes. A total of 5 coats of polish were applied + one clear coat, with a round of setting under a UV lamp after each coat. With the final clear gel coat, my nails were rock hard, and I didn't have to worry about immediately chipping the polish by reaching into my purse or holding my keys (that has happened one too many times *shakes fist*).

True to its name, my manicure remained chip-free for about 14 days. This was by no means an easy 14 days either. Lots of lacing up snowboarding boots, grabbing snowboards, and not once did I think twice about messing up my mani. LOVED IT.

This is what it looked like after about 3 weeks:

Definitely grown out, but still mostly chip free, with a couple of dings on a few fingers. Being too lazy/cheap to go back to the salon to remove it, I decided to try to do my polish change at home. BAD NEWS BEARS AHEAD.

At first I tried just scrubbing away with an acetone soaked cottonball. No go. Did not even touch the surface. Then I realized that the polish was starting to peel at the edges, so stupid me thinks 'oh, what a GREAT way to take off polish!' (On a side note, does anybody remember back in the day the kiddie nail polishes that actually were supposed to be peeled off? Oh so satisfying.)

This is what my nails looked like after THAT brilliant idea:

*shudder* Frightening, I know. In a panic, I just cut them, buffed them all down, and covered them with a quick coat of my new favorite cheapy nail polish Wet n Wild Grays Anatomy. It's a pretty opalescent gray with hints of green and purple with the light.

I believe it's pretty similar to the color "Mash Up" from the Sephora by Opi GLEE limited edition line.

Anyhow, it's been two months after my terrible polish removal decision, and my nails are still growing out. The part that had been under the polish is incredibly thin, and brittle, and to prevent daily broken nails, I've been having to keep my nails super short, which makes me sad.

So take heed: if you should decide to get a no-chip, I am 1000% supportive, and I think they're fab. But do NOT attempt to remove them by yourself, lest you want sad, thin nails for a couple months.

(On a funny, semi-related note, I keep joking to MM that I need to start taking pre-natal vitamins so my nails will start growing strong again. He does not find that very amusing.)