I Wanna Quit The Gym!

So today I ran 6.7 miles/10.7 kilometres (according to Walk Jog Run) from my building and around Richmond Park. I haven't actually been running outdoors properly since last summer, and ooooh my word, how I've missed it.

 I took that big leap a few weeks ago - I decided to quit the gym. Now I know what you're thinking here... 'I wannna quit the gym!', the infamous words of Ross and Chandler from Friends. Although judging by the fact I am female, and massive pecs and washboard abs don't particularly entice me, it was the easiest decision ever.

Picture this. Dull, dim lighting; sweaty, tired, overweight old men and women at one end, ludicrously and impossibly toned muscle bulging fitness freaks at the other; the monotonous hum and whiring of all those fabulously complicated  machines. Where is the excitement? Where is the appeal? Every single person in that gym looked either utterly miserable, or was in a 'must work out noowwww' trance, staring at themselves in the mirrors with dead eyes and robotic expressions, quite similar to that scene in American Beauty when he picks up a weight and enters some sort of workout psychosis.

Why in the world would anybody want to slave away in a stuffy gym 3-4 times a week? Does anybody out there actually enjoy doing this? I can remember the EXACT moment I decided to pack it in. I was hammering away on a treadmill, bored out of my skull, watching Eggheads on the big TV monitors. I looked around, and realised that the gym staff were all gathered in a group, leaning back and watching us as if we were all hamsters in cages struggling to keep the wheel going round and round.

(Cute lil' fact here - my ex-hamster Sweepy used to run on top of the wheel rather than in it. He was obviously some sort of macho-flexi hamster who aimed to develop and define his upper body. It was funny and cute, despite the fact it was a bit bonkers.)

Anyways. So yeah, I decided I would no longer have a part in it. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy some aspects of being a gymanite, but I would much rather be the person with a big tub of ice cream stood in front of the gym window and laughing my face off. Funny thing is, I can see the main gym floor of David Lloyd's from my bedroom window, so this is actually very feasible.

When it comes to exericse, everyone is different. Some people recoil whenever the word is mentioned - they're usually the ones who crouched behind the cricket bats to avoid doing P.E. at school. Some people feel really good about going to the gym, and have the motivation to keep going back on a regular basis, and get the most out of their monthly direct debit. For me, however, my motivation only lies in the things I'm most passionate about. It's not unusual for me to sit at my laptop on Audacity for 20 hours solid making a music mashup, but only spend an hour or two at a Beyonce gig before getting restless.

To be honest, I don't particularly believe in the concept of exercise. Everybody says 'oooh you should exercise for at least half an hour every day on the dot', but doesn't that just seem like you're placing limits on body movement? Should we count how many times we need to breathe out in one minute? I find running in the countryside as peaceful as sleeping. It's so relaxing, especially when you're almost completely alone with your surroundings. Running in the city is unnerving, frantic, and a downright chore. On the route I ran today I had to run through the city to reach the gates of Richmond Park, and it was rather chaotic to say the least. I had to swerve through big groups of people waiting for buses, I nearly got run over by a car turning left, and then again at the roundabout. I couldn't breathe properly due to the fact I was choking on car fumes, and I was also very aware that most people automatically tend to stare at runners in the street like they're insane.

But once I got away from the chaos of London and turned off the main road through Richmond Park, it was the best feeling in the world. I didn't think I would make it to the end of my route due to the fact I reeeeeally had to pee, but I did eventually make it to Pen Ponds with dry clothing. It's a beautiful place, and I think I was the only person there. It's a bit muddy at this time of year, but it's breathtaking all the same.
Anyway, I thought I would share that experience with you. If you're a lonely gym sufferer just like I was, why not take up something more enjoyable? Hang up the lat bar! End those leeching gym payments! Throw on a pair of combats and take up break dancing! Everyone needs to find an exercise that makes them feel happy and good - and I'm also pretty chuffed that I can eat a whole packet of BBQ chicken wings tonight without an ounce of guilt. Peace out!

A Coca Cola Comparison: Regular Coke, Diet Coke, and Coke Zero

So, what’s the actual difference between Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero? Before I decided to have a root around on the Coca Cola site (http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/) and find out the answer by inspecting the ingredients, I took a moment to consider what I believed the answer to be, simply from what people have told me and the messages I’ve received from the media and advertising.

This is what I believed to be true. Regular Coke is full of sugar, is bad for your teeth, and is not a great substance to drink if you have diabetes. Diet Coke is a none-sugar version of Coke, it’s aimed largely at a female audience because of the ‘nil’ calorie content, and that Karl Lagerfeld famously drank it to lose weight for the catwalk. Coke Zero is also a none-sugar version of Coke but it can only be consumed by men with masses of testosterone looking for an adrenaline fuelled rush. Well I can report that I have inspected the ingredients free of media brainwashing, and I was in for a surprise…

• Regular Coke has 10.6g sugar per 100ml. Three cans of the stuff has 105g sugar, the exact equivalent to one 500ml tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, although I can’t see myself downing cans of Coke after a breakup.

• Diet Coke will not give you a menstrual cycle, funnily enough, and can be drank by men – really. A male repelling force field does not automatically appear when a man picks up a can. In fact, Diet Coke is almost identical in ingredients to Coke Zero.

• Coke Zero has one difference to Diet Coke – it contains the acidity regulator E331, which is used as an aroma compound. That’s all. No adrenaline fuelled rushes and helicopters involved, just an acidity regulator that somehow warrants a black can label and male marketing.

The one thing regular Coke does not have in comparison to Diet and Zero, however, is the addition of dangerous chemicals known as aspartame and acesulfame-K, which are supposedly 200 times sweeter than sugar, but have been known to cause brain tumours and allergic reactions. It’s fascinating how the FDA (American Food and Drug Administration) can so easily approve these products despite the evidence against them.

Anyway, so we have concluded that Coca Cola has some pretty powerful marketing guys behind the scenes, and that there are no healthy options when choosing a Coke drink. I feel it’s better to be aware of the health risks and have the option to acknowledge or ignore them, than to be completely oblivious and brainwashed by advertisements in the first place.

You can check out where my weird assumptions about the different types of Coca Cola originated from with these TV advertisements on Youtube:

The Story of My Vegetarian 'Phase'

To be or not to be… a vegetarian? Most people recoil whenever the word is even mentioned, as if they think a lettuce ninja is going to spring out of nowhere and steal all the meat within a 5 mile radius. Even the word ‘Quorn’ doesn’t exactly sound thrilling. So why do people decide to become a vegetarian? How can they possibly live in a world without chicken nuggets and big juicy sirloin steaks?

For me, the decision was rooted way back to when I was sat outside in the summer of 2002, while my parents were faffing around one of those Sommerfield bought one-use barbeques. They handed me a plate of different barbequed meats, and for the first time in my life, I actually looked at what I was eating. My parents aren’t the type to impose their own views and lifestyle choices on their children, and I more often than not got away with eating just a plate of chicken nuggets and ketchup. But the official vegetarian change happened just 5 years later, when my mum bought the book ‘Skinny Bitch’ by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, thinking it was some sort of bitchy dieting book that would whip her into action.

It wasn’t. In fact, after I’d finished reading it and become a strict vegetarian overnight, my mother made a hasty withdrawal from the book shrieking “I’d rather not, thanks!”. ‘Skinny Bitch’ is most certainly not a dieting book – it’s mostly about explaining how different foods are bad for you, and describes the horrific treatment of animals in vulgar detail. It also builds up a sweat in a mountainous effort trying to convert you into full-blown veganism (someone who chooses not to consume any animal products at all; cheese, milk, the lot). From reading the book I became more aware of the treatment of animals in factory farms in order to put food on our plates, but my new found vegetarianism and views on animal ethics did NOT go down well with my friends - a large percentage of whom were proud farmer’s sons and daughters.

Now I’m not going to suddenly start gabbing on about the gory details of factory farming, because quite frankly, I haven’t had my breakfast yet. Being a vegetarian wasn’t difficult in the slightest, because my entire perspective had been altered. Sure, I got ill every month without fail, a variety of coughs, colds, laryngitis, pharyngitis etc, and of course I had to deal with the moans of disgust from people around me as I broke the exciting herbivorous news. But the most important factor was, I felt I was completely in the right, and that other people around me would eventually give in and listen to the vegetarian message.

After 3 years of not eating meat, however, I actually sat down and re-read the wise tale that was ‘Skinny Bitch’. What bothered me the most was the author description: ‘Rory Freedman, a former agent for Ford Models, is a self-taught know-it-all. Kim Barnouin is a former model who holds a Master’s of Science degree in Holistic Nutrition.’ So, they’ve both been involved in the modelling industry – that immediately rang alarm bells for me. If you actually Google ‘Ford Models’, you can witness for yourself a vast array of women putting themselves up for subjection, battling against one another to deliver the best modelling form for an agent, quite similar to a bunch of cattle fighting to deliver the best milk produce for a farmer. Also, fair enough that Kim has a holistic nutrition degree to her name, but how on earth can Rory justify ‘self-teaching’ herself information and then write a legitimate book? I tried to teach myself something once. I tried to teach myself how to walk downstairs in flip flops as an infant, and I still have the scars to this day.

So, was being a vegetarian worthwhile? Yes and no. I’ll never know if I truly made a difference, and if enduring frequent severe throat infections was actually worth it. Apparently, if you don’t eat meat for a time period of 1 year, you can save 100 animals from slaughter. Well then, I was vegetarian for 3 years, so where are these 300 saved animals? I’ll tell you where they are. They are being slaughtered, alongside horses, to make a fine and tasty Tesco burger.

Katie Price vs Kelly Brook

As I am merrily sat at my laptop and tucking into a southern fried chicken salad wrap from Tesco, a rather bewildering headline catches my eye. There has been a (hella) lot of hype about the progression of women celebrity body obsession, with our favourite celebs shrivelling away to nothing more than bags of bones with plastic boobs in long sequin dresses. In the world of the celebrity, you can never be too rich, too thin, and evidently too fake. Am I the only person who thinks that Madam Tussaud’s would be exactly the same if all the waxworks of women were replaced by the real celebs themselves? There’s nothing desirable about the waxy look of Victoria Beckham’s pasty and withdrawn body wrapped away inside a £10,000 Gucci number, which rather amusingly bears an uncanny resemblance to those manky coffee sweets in selection boxes - the ones that always have the most attractive foil wrappers.

Anyway, back to the bewildering headline, and the slight catch of chicken wrap in my throat. The headline read, ‘Katie Price calls Kelly Brook a ‘heffer’ after seeing her in a bikini’. Now, the infamous urban dictionary describes the term ‘heffer’ as, ‘a really fat bitch, one comparable to a cow's size’, and instantly I assumed that poor Kelly Brook must have either had a baby and not been able to lose all the baby weight within the usual celebrity dictated time allowance of 2 days, or she had let herself go after achieving a perfectly contented lifestyle. The images of Kelly shocked me more than what Katie Price had initially stated – she was perfectly normal. In fact, she was thinner than most people I see from day to day. Under the only circumstances Katie Price could issue such a remark could only be from within this warped, fun-house mirror body standard within the celebrity society. If I ever met ‘Jordan’, I can only hope that the sight of my ungodly 'normal' body shape doesn’t melt her plastic tits off.

I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in my disgust over Katie Price’s comment. A tonne of Twitter users have also voiced their disbelief in her claim that Kelly Brook has ‘obviously been comfort eating’. But is ‘Jordan’ really wrong in her claim, from the perspective of the unrealistic celebrity body standard? It’s very possible that Kelly would be unable to model any bikini range if she was without the factor of her celebrity status, simply due to how the industry only opens its doors for rail thin women, whether this thinness is natural or not. Despite the claims on how fashion industries are striving to use ‘plus size models’ (AKA size 12 women - still smaller than the average woman in the UK), I don’t believe anyone is fooled. It will take some time for the ideal body image to reset itself back to a curvier shape (similar to that of the 60s, before ‘Twiggy’ rudely barged in and caused a shift in the body image norm), but in the meantime I think I would much rather look like Kelly Brook than Katie Price.

Just Lost My Blog Virginity...

Hey there...

So this is my first blog entry – how exciting! ;) My name is Olivia, and I’ve decided to start up a blog, mainly to keep me occupied in my spare time and to thrill many others with my random thoughts and opinions on subjects both light and fluffy, and occasionally some of the heavier stuff. I’m mostly interested in health, media, and flaws in the system. 

I’m an English Lit & Drama student at a university in London. I like beards, and am envious of those with a Y chromosome and the beardy potential it possesses. I have an obsession with the mixture of coconut and pineapple. I am an avid online shopper, but I like to reassure myself daily that having an online clothes shopping addiction is better than being a crack head. I also have a music mashup channel, check it out on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/MindTheMashup

Not quite 100% on how these things work at the moment, but feel free to comment/message me, or send me your blog so I can follow you.

:)