Eight Hour Diet - Week Two

Hello, everyone! Here is my Week Two update for the eight hour diet.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was lucky enough to get my period this week. Generally, I gain about two or three pounds due to water retention during that week. So, imagine my surprise when I saw that I had lost two pounds this week. That is tremendous, considering that I usually gain weight during my period week! I am very happy. Also, this is without nearly as much exercise as I don't like to swim while I have my period.

I can tell that my stomach is a lot smaller - I no longer have as many hunger pangs during the sixteen hours that I don't eat. They still come, but a mug of hot water takes care of it very easily.

I am really quite hopeful that I will be done with my weight loss journey by mid-July. Fingers crossed!

I am at... nine pounds down, 21 more to go! And I should be able to actually exercise this week!

Thank you very much for reading!

Endometriosis Update

Hello, everyone!

So, alongside my herbal remedy, I've been trying out a basically vegan (excluding free-range eggs, wild caught salmon, shrimp, and crab), no-wheat diet. I was already a vegetarian that never drank milk (bad gag reflex), so the "vegan" part was less difficult than I thought it would be. I'm still struggling with the no-wheat aspect of it - that generally means no cakes, etc. as wheat is a component of the flour.

But what a difference it has made to my endometriosis! A few days ago, I started my period (after a full month of not having my period). And I had - not much pain at all. I had probably three hours of real discomfort, but I was fine enough to both tutor somebody and drive during that time. After that, I had some very, very minor twinging that I ignored by studying (I'm taking a class this summer at a local university). Nothing in comparison to crying and screaming for Vicodin or morphine or something to just stop. For the first time since I was 16, no desire for an immediate hysterectomy. I was pleasantly surprised.

I am guessing that part of this is the herbal remedy, but I'm sure that the new diet also contributed to my lack of pain this month.

Even though the no-wheat part of the diet really can be a pain, this new diet is definitely worth it. Thankfully, it's fairly easy for me to follow as my cultural diet pretty much follows "no wheat and lots of vegetables." However, if you are an endometriosis sufferer and are thinking of trying this out but have no place to start, feel free to e-mail me at frangipanialina@gmail.com and I can send you some recipes of the things I eat on a daily basis.

Thank you so much for reading, and good luck in your own struggles with this horrible disease if you are unfortunate enough to have it!

Eight Hour Diet - Week One

Hello, everyone! So, I've switched myself off the green bean coffee extract as I believe it is a bit of a snake oil, and I've decided to do the eight hour diet instead.

You probably wouldn't know it based on the random fad diets I've been trying, but I'm usually pretty good about avoiding marketing hype, and I definitely learned my lesson the green bean coffee extract. However, the eight hour diet was something that I did in high school unknowingly. I didn't have time to eat breakfast, I was embarrassed to eat in front of friends so I naturally didn't have lunch. So, when I got home around 5 PM, I'd eat like three meals between then and about midnight. That's seven hours. I stayed a trim during my first three years of high school, and I gained about 5 pounds when my mother harangued me about not eating breakfast and that seven hour window crept to, like.... 16 hours, although I didn't make that connection at the time.

So, week one on this diet - I've lost five pounds. Not joking. It does suck feeling hungry, I'm not going to lie.  Water does usually solve that problem, though, or exercise. And I can tell already that my stomach has shrunk A LOT. I have exercised as much as I usually do. I've eaten as well as I normally do - rice, curry, etc. I did eat a few slices of pizza about this time last week, but I still lost a pound that day, so I'm not complaining.

I did check, and I have lost all body fat, no muscle. And I can definitely tell on my body that I've lost a lot of fat. My waist has shrunk - unfortunately, I didn't bother to measure my waist when it started, so I can't give you numbers, but it is a noticeable difference.

I will weigh in again next week and let you know if this trend continues. I will be completely psyched if I lose all this excess weight in the span of a month or two.

On the green bean coffee extract diet, I actually gained some weight after my initial five pounds off. So... I am at 7 pounds down, 23 more to go!

Thank you for reading!

Green Bean Coffee Extract Trial - Week Four

Hello, everyone!

So, I've actually stayed at the same weight for the last week. I am starting to believe that this green bean coffee extract thing really is a snake oil. I am going to continue taking it until the bottle is over, but I will not be repurchasing as I really don't think that there is much to this thing. I do think it works, just not as well as it claims to, so it's not worth it for me.

Instead, I will be starting the eight-hour diet. Basically, the idea is that you eat everything within an eight hour period to give your body time to digest. The reason I'm doing this is because this is essentially how I ate in high school - I started eating at around 5 PM and finished around midnight - and I stayed quite tiny in that time period. Combined with exercise, I think that this one might actually work. I will keep you updated again, every week.

Thank you very much for reading!!

MAC Cremesheen Lipsticks - Creme In Your Coffee

Hello, everyone!

So, the entire beauty world seems to rave about MAC lipsticks. I can definitely see why just because of the color selection. There are a LOT of colors and textures to choose from, and this is really great for somebody like me that has really, really tricky coloring. I have dark skin, but I also have a dark brown top lip and a pink bottom lip. It's just about impossible for me to find a lipstick that will actually suit me, so it's really lovely to get the entire MAC color range to choose from.

I mentioned this before, but I have really horrible dry lips. I am always putting Vaseline on them (unless I'm lazy, in which case I wait far too long and then apply my Tropic Skin Care Lip Love). So, when I was at MAC after finally deciding to buy a MAC lipstick, I mainly looked at the Cremesheen texture because I read so many reviews on how it was "super moisturizing!" and things like that. And, on the few occasions prior to my venture into beauty when I had worn lipstick (for a play and for being a bridesmaid at a wedding), my lips had turned horribly dry by the end. It took a few weeks of Vaseline both times for my lips to return to normal - and I figured that if I bought a lipstick and wore it on a regular basis, it couldn't be like that!

I've had this lipstick for about six months now and wear it quite frequently. And I can say with absolute certainty that I don't think the Cremesheen formulas are moisturizing. At all. They do still dry out my lips, although I will say that they are not nearly as bad as the other lipsticks that I've worn in the past. But the fact remains that if I want to wear it comfortably, I do have to put a thin layer of Vaseline or some other lip balm underneath it. This is mildly irritating, and I am not sure that I will repurchase the Cremesheen because I have found a different lipstick that actually is hydrating (more on that later).

I will say, however, that the color I bought, Creme in your Coffee, is lovely. It's a dark pink rose color, perfect to slightly brighten my bottom lip color (I bought it as my evening lip color). I can lightly pat the lipstick onto my top lip and blend it so that it looks natural. The effect is not at all chalky. Here is swatch on my hand so that dark-skinned people can see what it looks like against a dark background:

And then against white skin so that you can see the "true" color:

So, I realize that if the entire beauty world is saying that something is moisturizing when it's not, it could just be because I have incredibly dry lips. It's definitely not as bad as a lot of lipsticks with regards to that, but it's not good, either.

I hope this was helpful, especially to those with dark skin and for those with super-dry lips. Thank you for reading!

Green Bean Coffee Extract - Week Three

Hello, everyone!

So, I've decided that my scale at the gym is officially completely wacked up, mainly because before and after a workout, I managed to gain five pounds. Not possible. I'm now going with my home one. Even though it's wrong, it's at least calibrated to the point where the weight difference is fairly consistent. According to that scale, I've lost two pounds this week. Not terrible at all considering I only really worked out hard for a few days. I will keep you posted on how this thing continues to go!

So, we are at... 7 down, 23 more to go!

Maybelline Expert Wear Eyeshadow in Nutmeg

Hello, everyone!

I thought I'd do a post on my staple eyeshadow. This is actually the first eyeshadow I ever owned. I am dark skinned, so it really evens out the skin tone on my eyes and makes it look a little darker and a little more polished.

As it says on the back, it is a matte shadow. I am a no-makeup makeup kind of girl, so I'm really not into shimmers unless it's for a special occasion of some sort. This eyeshadow looks natural, but at the same time, does make me look better - it's just very subtle.

Also on the back, though, it says that it's an all-day, crease proof shadow. This claim could not be more wrong. I will mention that I have fairly oily eyelids, but after wearing this every day for six years, I can tell you that after about three hours, it creases really, really badly. Of course, because I was very uninformed about makeup until about a year ago, I didn't know that these things called primers existed, so I just dealt with the creasing for years! When I finally learned that they existed, I.... waited until about four weeks ago to buy one. I'll do a post on my primer later this week.

What I used to do until about a week ago was take a sponge applicator and apply it on my eyelid. Now, I use a MAC 217 brush, which is very, very new to me, and apply the shadow with it. I don't like sponge applicators, but I didn't have enough money to get a good brush until recently.

This eyeshadow definitely blends well. I have tried it against some higher end ones, and I actually like this texture a lot better than some more high-end brands. It is quite well pigmented as well, so a little goes a long way. It's definitely good for someone like me on a college budget!

Sorry about the bad lighting - it's very hard to capture exact shades on camera, but you get the general idea. It's a deep, dark, very matte brown. For people with fairer skin than I - which is most of the world's population - it's a very good crease color. I used it on a fair-skinned friend in her crease, and it worked beautifully. Although the eyeshadow is very pigmented, you can take a lot of it off on the back of your hand if you just want to apply a sheer wash. I did this on a blue-eyed girl, and the effect was gorgeous - her blue eyes really popped out as a result of this eyeshadow.

So, overall, this range of eyeshadows is very good texture and pigment wise. If you have oily lids... you're going to need a primer, unfortunately. I have no idea how well this works on non-oily lids. I've used it on myself, my sister, and two friends, and all of us have oily lids so we used a primer. I would recommend it because it is not very expensive - I believe I paid something like $5 at most, and this particular one has lasted me a year. It's recommended that you change your eyeshadows about every two years, so this will definitely last me the duration of that time if not slightly longer.

Thank you very much for reading!