Category: Personal

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Conventions Personal Special Features

An Untitled Treatise on The Fallout from Convention Drama

I try not to get very personal here since I don’t intend this blog to be a “diary,” but in this case I feel like this situation might resonate with others in some way, since it’s related to things a lot of us go out of our way to experience – fandom conventions and interpersonal relationships. I also thought it might be good for my own well-being to talk through it and work it out a little bit before I bring it to a formal therapy session. So feel free to skip this one if you’re just here for the anime and lolita fashion. I promise I’m not insulted <3

This past weekend was CONvergence in Minneapolis, a large local fandom and media convention that lasts for four days around Independence Day every year. I started attending this convention around ten years ago when some friends of mine wanted to enter the masquerade and needed some warm bodies for the rather huge (and funny) production (I hesitate to say “skit” since there was singing and items planted in the audience… and it was quite involved). I had so much fun that year that I came back for the next, then the next… I’ve always been a fan of quality over quantity, and thus only attend a few conventions a year. CONvergence has always been on my list.

Some things happened last year at the convention that spoiled what was otherwise a really awesome weekend. I’ll spare everyone the fine details, because that’s not the point (and it’s easy enough to search out what happened, there was some internet press about it). The short answer is that someone made a joke, it wasn’t funny, it hurt some people, there was a big blow-up online about it, and suddenly I (and, several others, from what I gathered) ceased to feel safe around my fellow CON attendees. The feeling descended like a black cloud and spoiled what was otherwise a fun weekend where I had a lot of other positive experiences. I (and others) felt that the response from the convention wasn’t swift or decisive enough, the people associated with the “event” weren’t apologetic even after several people had voiced their hurt (note: if your comedy is hurting sexual assault survivors or otherwise “punching downward,” you’re doing it wrong), and the whole ordeal left a really bad taste in my mouth. I decided it was time for a break and didn’t register for the 2016 convention, and there were a few other close friends who made the same decision.

The subject would come up again every couple of months; one friend of mine had put a lot of hard work into getting people to fill out feedback surveys and get the concerns heard by the convention committee in an attempt to either get a substantive response or to have them beef up their staff training and response to future issues of the same nature (which it sounds like they eventually did – kudos to the con on that point and in general I’m complimentary towards steps they’ve taken since even if it wasn’t as quick as I would have liked). I voiced my opinion online a couple of times, primarily on Facebook though I did fill out a very extensive feedback survey as well. Some people were supportive, some people tried to CON-splain to me about why I was being “unreasonable” (and I utilize quotes because there’s always someone who pops in to tell me that my legitimate feelings that I’m feeling for reasons that I explain pretty completely aren’t legitimate for this, that, and the other reason because they didn’t feel the same way and also I don’t understand the full situation or how conventions work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even though I have staffed another similarly-sized local convention for ten years. But whatever!). The point is that I felt pretty secure in taking a year off and letting things fall where they were going to fall. It was nice to feel a little bit of solidarity from my friends since I always worry that I’m overly-sensitive. I’d never ask anyone outright to give up their convention experience just for my sake, but I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one feeling my feelings.

Last week (a couple of days before the convention), I attended an event with several friends and learned that, sometime within the last couple of months, they had decided to attend the con. I’m not going to pick apart who originally said they were or weren’t going and who had planned to go all along because it’s not important and I’m honestly not sure. I’m also not criticizing anyone’s choice to go and have a great time, because that’s not something that I would want anyone to feel bad about. But after trying to hide my surprise and voicing an admittedly kind of pathetic offer of free “limo service” to any off-site restaurants so that people wouldn’t need give up their parking spots (the food options immediately around the con hotel are kind of crappy and my sweetie and I live in an apartment very close by), I kind of spent the rest of the evening off in my own brain somewhere. The next couple of days found me very angry, then for about a day-and-a-half I became profoundly depressed (the type of depression where about all I did for a day was lay on the couch in a daze and not do anything of use besides drop the occasional tear out of my eyes). It wasn’t really that I wanted to go (and in fact I still didn’t and truthfully couldn’t – I couldn’t afford or justify the $120 at-the-door price of admission for the weekend, and I didn’t have the ability to take any time off from work). It was more that, in that moment I was reminded of what it feels like to be excluded and forgotten. To not be part of the “in” crowd.

I think as geeks we can get so insular that we forget that people are people, no matter what group they’re in. I’m very introverted and (though I risk retribution for even alluding to this) I spent quite a while having my friendships and activity choices subtly policed, manipulated, and controlled. Eventually I sort of lost the drive to leave the house and spend time with people, even to maintain friendships. And it’s really unreasonable to expect people to remember, let alone go out of their way to contact, someone who hasn’t done a very good job of making themselves present or upholding their end of a friendship. I literally don’t know how to friend, sometimes.

I was also reminded that my problems are just that – my problems. Whatever problem I had with the convention is mine to deal with, and it would be silly to expect others to react as dramatically to something that is based so much around my own feelings and history.

In any case, I realized after a while that it wasn’t jealousy or a desire to be at that hotel for that convention that was getting me down so much (though I did read through the programming guide and there were a lot of things I’m sad I missed, and I really lived vicariously through all the photographs that were and still are being posted online), it was more just knowing that I was outside looking in all along, and I should have known better. It’s kind of the same way with my friends from high school – I see them visiting one-another and interacting and I know a lot of them keep up their relationships and friendships with one-another, and all I feel like I can do is ask “how in the world do people achieve that?” It’s such a huge mystery to me, because I always just feel like I’m creeping on other people, looking through the window at them as they live their lives. I think I’m a nice person and I can kind of bribe people with food, but I’m sort of confounded by that next level and how to get there.

The one other thing that hurts my heart, which is one hundred percent my own fault, is that in choosing not to attend the convention in the manner that I did, I made my boyfriend feel obligated to sit it out with me. Last year was his first CONvergence, and he had an awesome time. And then I took that away. I’m the type who would have told him to go without me if I were more aware, but I just assumed that he felt the same way I did without asking and that was wrong to do. I feel profoundly guilty because of that.

I think ultimately the shock of feeling totally justified in what I was doing and then suddenly being faced with a huge pile of conflicting evidence just shook me down to my center, and I no longer know where I stand. I have no idea what I’m going to do for next year. My heart aches for what I’ve missed but I think in all my outspokenness I may have simply just made myself unwelcome. I still have fears about the type of people who would say the types of things that were said in the big Facebook blow-up of 2015 (it boiled down to a strong lack of empathy towards survivors and those triggered by slut-shaming and sexual assault references). I don’t trust the people around me that I don’t know, because they could very easily belittle me and my experiences, or at least that’s the conclusion I came to. I don’t know. I’m feeling very lost and I don’t know what to do about it.

I do want to mention (and end on more positive note) that a couple of people did reach out to me directly over the weekend; that in itself made me feel a little bit warmer and less isolated. I am always very thankful and amazed that there are people who are still willing to make the first move; it kept me from wallowing any deeper, at least.

I don’t think there’s a conclusion here; I don’t know that any person other than myself can say anything to help this. I don’t know if it’s an apology I’m looking for, because I don’t think I’m really owed one, exactly. I’ve always said that the best con drama is the con drama you’re not involved in, and those words are echoing for me right now. I wish the comedian who did the thing at the con last year had just not done the thing, because then none of this would have happened. I wish she’d taken more responsibility after the fact; that would have gone a long way to help, too. I wish people in general were more sensitive to those who have had rough experiences. But I also really wish that I could convey my feelings a bit better, so that maybe more people could understand the kind of emotional hell that I put myself through when these things happen. I try to keep that kind of stuff off the internet because it’s always so personal and it’s easier to let people assume that there’s nothing wrong than to try and explain why something is wrong in a way that they would care about. I feel like talking about it too frequently or at too much length makes it easier for people to just ignore. I don’t know what prompted me to come out and say anything this time, except that maybe the wound is still fresh (and honestly… every mention of how this year’s CON was BEST CON EVER reopens the wound every time I see it. Not that I would have gone! But it feels like rubbing salt in the wound).

Anyway, I thank anyone who at least tried to read some of this, I’m sure it makes very little sense and ended up being kind of a chore, but it feels sort of good to air it out. I don’t know that I’m looking for any advice either; I’ve had people on Facebook say some stuff they thought was helpful (“I’m not going to CON either because of [insert other mundane reason]” or “I didn’t think there was a big enough issue to keep from going” which is all fine but doesn’t amount to much when your heart is hurting) and I think I’d rather just come to my own conclusion and maybe work up towards trying to approach some other people about it. Thanks again.

Categories
Fashion Personal Product Reviews Reviews Special Features

Review – Bodyline S532 Violin Boots

Obligatory disclaimer – this is a review of items I purchased with my own hard-earned money. I did not receive incentive or compensation from the company to write this review (not that anyone would honestly consider that a possibility, but still…)

I’ve somehow amassed quite a few violin-related Lolita Fashion items over the last couple of years. Two Innocent World violin dresses, a couple of violin-themed bags… one would probably think that I have some experience playing the violin. The joke’s on you all, I’ve never even touched a violin. I would have no idea what to even do with it. But I find violin motifs strangely appealing for some reason. At some point in the past, I noticed that Bodyline was planning to release a pair of boots with a violin-inspired design (it was the winner in one of their clothing design contests). I thought that sounded pretty awesome, but as the days went by and the boots didn’t show up on their website, I kind of forgot about it.

Because I often get a lot of my basics from Bodyline (especially shoes… I have large feet and just can’t cram them into brand shoes no matter how hard I might wish to do so), I generally poke around the website every couple of months to see if anything new has been added. Lo and behold… violin boots! And they weren’t expensive! I tossed them into my cart and a couple of days later, they arrived at my doorstep.

Bodyline Stock PhotoThe boots come in several different colorways, the majority of which seem to skew more towards classic lolita styling. I purchased the “brw-dbrw” (or “Brown and Dark Brown” as translated from Bodyline’s color language) since I thought those would be most likely to match with other items in my wardrobe. I do also like the wine colorway, though, and if I had more items to match I might have gone for that one instead.

They’re available in sizes up to 260, which is what Bodyline calls 26cm (which is more standard that mm in Japan, at least judging by what I’ve seen while online shopping) and which roughly equates to a US women’s size 10 and a UK size 42. Some shoes on Bodyline’s site go up to size 270, but not these, unfortunately.

The price listed for these boots is $39.99, which doesn’t include shipping, so keep that in mind – EMS Shipping cost $13.80 at the time I purchased the boots. If you prefer to utilize Bodyline’s airmail option it will likely be cheaper, but then you’ll be poised to wait at least a month and I didn’t feel like doing that, partly because I’m wary of the postal system as it is (a dress of mine got lost in the mail one time, it was a huge bummer). As it stood, I got the boots in less than a week, not taking into account the amount of time it took me to be able to make it to my apartment’s office hours to pick it up (I understand why they’d want to be open regular business hours like any other regular business, but since I work those same hours and also have a bus commute it doesn’t work out very well for me a lot of the time.

The package arrived inside of the standard gray shipping plastic. The boots were shipped in their shoebox, which had gotten a little bit mooshed up in transit (not unexpected, it had a long way to travel). Sometimes Taobao shopping services will offer to ship your shoes sans the shoe box to save a little bit on shipping costs, but Bodyline doesn’t have this option, so just be aware that you’ll end up with a shoe box that’s probably going to be pretty useless by the time it gets to you. The boots arrived with plenty of packaging inside the foot portion to keep from getting mangled. They were in good condition when I opened them up, with no wrinkles, smudges, scuffs, scrapes or flaws.

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The color in the stock photograph seems to be pretty accurate for these boots; the primary portion of the details are a nice warm tan color, while the accent color is a deeper coffee brown. The violin details are printed on the body of the boot, and there are few visible printing flaws (at least until you get up very, very close, and I think they fall within the realm of acceptability). The material is a faux-leather like Bodyline’s other shoes, and definitely has a distinctly plastic-y feeling and smell to it. It’s also not particularly thick, but this gives leg portion some needed flexibility. There are some very cute scallop details along the length of the laces and around the toe of the boot, as well as along the top. The lace holes have eyelets/grommets and the boot laces included are long enough to allow for some loosening if the wearer has thicker calves. There is a size zipper for easy on/off.

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One thing to note (and this is true of all Bodyline shoes that I own), is that the sole of the shoe has about zero cushioning or support, so if you’re like me with feet that tend to get sore pretty quickly and which need some arch support, you’ll have to invest in some decent insoles. Aside from that, the heel is at a really nice height and feels sturdy. I don’t wear heeled shoes very often, so I prefer the type of wider heels that these boots have – they keep me from feeling like I could topple over at any moment.

The toe box is roomy like a lot of Bodyline shoes (and lolita shoes in general). I own a pair of their heeled oxfords (model number S272, they don’t appear to sell them anymore) and those have kind of a pinch-y toe (they’ve gained the nickname “those stupid shoes” because I wore them to a con where I ended up having to walk a whole lot and my feet were in bad shape in short order), but these strike a good balance between the elegance of a less-boxy toe area and keeping enough room in there so my toes don’t get mangled.

I put these boots on straight out of the box without making any adjustments to the tightness of the lacing, but there are a few centimeters of give if you’re larger than I am. In the photos below I’m wearing crew socks but nothing that goes too far past my ankle. If I were wearing tights or some of the OTK’s that I have, I might have to play around with the fit a little bit. Oh, and I totally didn’t just put on some frilly Innocent World shorts for the pictures, there’s totally a full coord going on up above my waist (spoiler: I was wearing an old T-shirt. Fight me). Also, we’ll pretend that those are patterns in the carpet, and not little fuzzy gifts from my very shedding long haired cat that haven’t yet been vacuumed.

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The Verdict: I really like these boots, and definitely think they’re worth the very nominal price they’re charging. I’d been looking around for a pair of taller lolita boots, and these I think will make a really great addition to my wardrobe.

Edited to Add: Attitude Lolita has a video unboxing/review of these up at her channel. Check it out for some more information on the boots (she ordered the gray ones).

Categories
Personal

Anime Detour 2016 – My Schedule

Also known as, “why do I overextend myself every year?”

Anyway, as some of you know, I’m both a staffer and a panelist at Anime Detour, an anime convention in the Twin Cities area. Every year I run just a ton (in my opinion) of panels and events throughout the weekend. In case anyone reading this happens to be going, I thought I’d list off where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing over the three days of the con so you can come and say “hi” if you want to. Here’s where you can find me:

Friday

5:00 – 6:00pm – “Manga for Grown-Ups” in Plaza 3

8:00 – 9:00pm – “Myths of the Japanese Wolf” in Atrium 3

9:30 – 10:30pm – “Anime By Numbers Trivia Game” in Plaza 2

11:00 – 12:00am – “Unlicensed Gems” in Atrium 4

Saturday

9:00 – 10:00am – “AMV Contest Showcase” in Plaza 4

12:00 – 1:00pm – “AMV Contest” in Main Programming

1:30 – 2:30pm – “Anime for Grown-Ups” in Plaza 2

6:00 – 7:00pm – “J.C.’s Anime Jeopardy” in Edina Room

9:00 – 10:00pm – “Beyond Moe – Surpassing Character Tropes” in Edina Room

10:30 – 11:30pm – “Don’t Judge and Anime by its Cover” in Atrium 4

Sunday

9:00 – 11:30am – “Cel Painting” in Plaza 3 (assuming I can get out of bed that early – it only really requires me to be present and then help with cleanup)

12:00 – 1:00pm – “Shiny New Anime” in Edina Room

3:00 – 4:00pm – “AMV Contest Awards” in Plaza 4

 

Assuming I can find time to eat, sleep, and use the restroom in there somewhere, I’m planning to at least attend the 3 MN Rufflebutts (the local lolita fashion community) events/panels, but we’ll see how that goes (the schedule looks really daunting now that I’ve listed everything, but several of the panels are games or things that otherwise don’t require a whole lot of input from me, so it’s not as bad as it seems). I can always nap during the AMV contest since it’ll be dark in the room and I’ve seen it all the way through several times already.

Oh, did I mention that I’ll be arriving at the hotel some time around midnight Thursday because of a work trip? Yeah…

Anyway, I hope this sort of explains why I haven’t been around much over the past several weeks.

Categories
Personal

Self-Post: My Food Lifestyle

IconSo I thought I’d update on my “diet” since it’s been a really long time. I’ve been reticent to talk about it too much in “real life” because I don’t want to inadvertently say something that might be triggering to someone or to sound like I’m body-shaming people. So just take this as something I wanted to do for myself any only applicable to me and my life.

Several months ago I realized I was eating an awful lot of candy and junk, constantly, all day at work. I was depressed for a very long time for reasons that I won’t go into, and it was manifesting itself through overeating on sugar and soda and all that stuff that your dentist doesn’t want you having. I decided in May or June that I wanted to stop doing that, and so I cut out candy and soda without a whole lot of trouble. I was never really craving it, I was just eating it out of habit and not thinking about it. It’s amazing some of the things that we do when we put our brains on auto pilot.

Somewhere in that time frame a friend of mine also recommended Gary Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat (and What to Do About It)” which essentially talks about our human physiology and why a lot of official dietary recommendations for our health are based on shaky science and don’t match up with how our bodies process food and convert it to energy (the biggest revelation for me was that consuming dietary fat does not mean your digestive system converts it into fat on your body, which goes against a lot of what we’re taught). I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in that sort of thing. In any case, that helped me consciously and purposefully start making some other dietary changes.

Another thing that helped was discovering the /r/keto subreddit. Reddit is mostly a shit hole and /r/keto can definitely be a huge circlejerk too on occasion but it was there I got a lot of solid advice on the benefits of cutting out other carbohydrates and how doing so doesn’t F your brain up like so many people wrongly believe. Since about July-ish my goal has been to keep to about 20 grams of carbohydrates a day (or less) in order for my body to start burning fat (dietary fat and its own fat stores) instead of seeking out the “easy” energy that carbs provide. Mostly I stick to this, occasionally I go over, but now that my body is “fat adapted” I find that going over a little doesn’t really have any negative effects. According to the subreddit, this diet is apparently good for both Type 2 diabetics or pre-diabetics, and women with PCOS, and was originally developed to treat children with epilepsy.

There were a couple of weeks in there that sucked royally at first. I didn’t go about implementing the lifestyle in a systematic way and wasn’t getting enough salt or other electrolytes (one thing about keto is that your body stops holding onto water, so you’re peeing all day all the time and the salt that your body needs gets flushed right out with it). Once I figured out what was going on, I started feeling a lot better and didn’t feel like I was literally going to fall asleep all day long.

The biggest benefits I’ve noticed have actually been the clarity of mind I have and improvements in my mood. I actually wake up in the morning and feel ready to go, have an easier time thinking through things and making decisions, and find it a lot easier to write which is always something I wanted to work on but I could never find the magic way to fix my cloudy brain. I dealt with pretty significant anxiety for a long time and I’ve found that I have fewer bad moments. Now something that would normally have been really triggering to my anxiety or depression feels more minor (the problem is still there and I still go to professional therapy every couple of weeks, but things are a lot better and I worry about myself a lot less. I’m also not in a place where I feel like I need to take medicine to help with symptoms, which is a road a personally don’t want to go down).

One other major benefit is appetite suppression. My body has basically stopped riding the never-ending insulin roller coaster, so my appetite isn’t falsely triggered all day. I stopped eating breakfast in the morning (and no, it’s not “the most important meal of the day,”). Prior to this breakfast had always made me feel nauseated, but I ate it out of obligation. Now I know better. I do a 16/8 intermittent fast (eating your day’s calories within an 8 hour period and fasting the remaining time) and actually today I didn’t eat anything until about 4pm because I just forgot to (then I ate a double helping of dinner, haha). Eating more fat helps with satiety, so this happens to a lot of people and it’s okay.

Some obstacles I’ve encountered mainly revolve around eating with others. I’m a good cook and make most of my own food (I’m very lucky to have the funds and access to fresh meat and veggies, as well as the time available to cook them in creative and appetizing ways). When out with others, though, I sometimes feel obligated to indulge somewhat, primarily because I don’t want people to start asking questions or thinking that I’ve suddenly become a super picky eater or am faking a food allergy. I feel bad if someone has made something when I’m over – I will usually eat a little even though now food with a lot of carbs tends to give me a headache and screw up my sleep schedule. I’m bad about asking for things at restaurants – a bun-less burger is always a good option on keto, but I’m afraid of offending people so that’s something I really need to work on. It’s hard when food gets ordered in at work for special events, too – I generally can’t eat it (pizza, chinese, italian are big favorites there). It can be kind of a bummer since food defines so many of our social situations and I sometimes feel like these restrictions I’ve imposed on myself aren’t considered legit enough.

So what do I eat? I think people don’t realize that cutting carbs still leaves you with a ton of options. Fatty meats, cheese, and veggies comprise the majority of my diet. These were always my faves anyway (luckily I was never big on dessert to begin with!). I don’t eat most fruit (I know, some of your are like DAI SHOKKU but the fruits that we’ve bred are basically sugar bombs and you can get those vitamins elsewhere). Anyway, here are a few things that I like to eat:

Meats: Chicken (mostly legs and wings, I’ve never like breasts), steak, bacon, pork chops (bone-in and tenderloin), ground meat, sausage, fish (any kind, basically, including canned sardines and tuna as well as fresh fish), eggs (this is a big one – I love eggs a lot and you can cook them so many ways!), preserved meats (prosciutto, salami, etc.)

Dairy: Cheese of almost any kind (I’m a cheese fiend), butter (Kerrygold is my favorite), heavy cream (at the outset I would have coffee with heavy cream in the morning, now I don’t need/want it anymore), sour cream, creme fraiche (I can’t say that without hearing Randy Marsh, lol), occasionally full-fat plain yogurt (what we call “yogurt” is generally sugared-up big time so I don’t normally eat it)

Vegetables: Cruciferous veggies (brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, etc.), cauliflower, asparagus, avocado (technically a fruit but I consider it a culinary vegetable), zucchini, peppers (hot or mild), onions (sparingly, they actually contain some sugar even though you wouldn’t immediately think that), fennel, root veggies (also somewhat sparingly as they are rather starchy), spinach or other greens, green beans

Fruits: Mostly berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries) – they are lowest on the carb scale. Coconut (very fibrous and fatty and delicious)

Snacks: Pork chicharrones (pork rinds) – I know it sounds gross but these are basically made of meat gelatin and serve as a great sub for potato chips, jerky (EPIC uncured bacon bar is my favorite – zero carbs!), Quest protein bars (occasionally if I haven’t prepped enough food for the week I’ll have one of these), Almonds (delicious and full of fiber, vitamins and potassium) and some other nuts, very dark chocolate (85% cacao – Trader Joe’s is my favorite one) or chocolate sweetened with stevia/erythritol, chia seed pudding (made with chia seeds, coconut milk, unsweeted cocoa or matcha)

Beverages: Water, iced tea, sparkling essence water (La Croix), Coke Zero (occasionally, I try to not develop a taste for soda but sometimes I just want some caffeine and I’m not near a coffee supply), coffee (plain or with some almond milk or heavy cream), protein shakes, almond milk, coconut milk

Condiments: Mustard (dijon or the really grainy kind are my favorites), mayonnaise (have always loved it), soy sauce, ranch or blue cheese dressing (full fat), Sriracha or other hot sauces (I like spicy food), vinegar, olive oil, coconut oil. I know Heinz makes a low sugar ketchup but I haven’t tried it yet since I’m not that big on ketchup in the first place.

What don’t I eat? I know most people are more concerned about restrictions, and I think many people would feel too restricted on this type of lifestyle. So here are some things that I don’t really eat anymore:

Flour products, like bread and cake: I will occasionally make exceptions, but it has to be really high quality bread/cake/pastry/whatever. Life’s too short for crappy cake! Some of my exceptions have been chocolate mousse cake on my birthday (my boyfriend and I shared it at a fancy restaurant) and some good fresh bread at a fancy steak house for my friend’s birthday. I’ve made some keto-compliant substitutes that are good, like keto cheddar biscuits made with coconut flour. I don’t make a habit of bread or pastries, though. And I don’t eat pizza. I’ll eat the toppings off of the pizza, but not the dough. They do sell a sprouted wheat bread at Trader Joe’s sometimes that’s okay, I keep a loaf in the freezer in case I need a replacement hot dog bun or something.

Fruit: people really give me the side-eye on this one! Now that my taste buds have adjusted, I just find most fruit to be way too sweet. And like I said, our fruit has been bred to be really sweet and there are other ways to get those vitamins. I do still eat berries, and technically avocado and tomato are fruits, and I’ll eat those. Juices are right out also, since they’re like having fruit without the minor benefit of fiber.

Certain Vegetables: Carrots (although I’m flexible on this), root veggies (also flexible), corn (not flexible, it’s all sugar basically). I’ve started to come around on some vegetables since I feel like the carbohydrates in most of them aren’t doing me a lot of harm since there’s a lot of fiber and I haven’t noticed vegetables interfering with the benefits of my way of eating.

Legumes: legumes are full of starch and they really give me stomach issues now. Hummus is a no-go but baba ghanoush is okay. I’ll occasionally have peanuts but not often.

Sweeteners: Sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave syrup are all out (although on occasion I’ll use a little honey when making some Korean food in the flavoring paste, but it’s like a teaspoon for a whole pan of stuff). I do use liquid stevia and erythritol, which do not cause an insulin spike for me (erythritol is considered the best for this).

Candy: Obviously. I don’t even eat sugar free candy because some people get a major case of the ass blasts from it and I’m not going to even give it a chance. What kind of sucks about not eating is that many people give candy as gifts, especially around the holidays; I got a very nice gift bag from my job and it was almost entirely candy, so I ended up giving it away.

Alcohol: Technically certain alcohols (like hard liquors) aren’t a big deal for keto, but I’m not a big drinker anyway and I prefer beer and wine which are carb-filled (the good ones, anyway). I have had maybe two beers since starting, and a couple glasses of wine and a little liquor over the past 6 months, but nothing dramatic.

Really, there aren’t that many restrictions, but the ones there are are big ones for a lot of people, so it can be kind of daunting to start off.

Some other things I wanted to add are that I tried tracking my calories and stuff for about a week using the My Fitness Pal app on my phone. It actually started giving me anxiety problems, so I stopped and have technically been doing “lazy keto” for the majority of the time. It hasn’t been a hindrance though I know correctly estimating portion sizes and calories can be an issue for some.

I’ve spent all this time justifying my lifestyle, so I’m finally going to talk about one of the other benefits – easy weight loss. One of the other reasons I started looking to change my eating habits is because I’m into lolita fashion and I was starting to not fit into some of the really expensive Japanese clothes I had bought. This was really getting me down and I didn’t want to have to sell all the pretty things in my closet. This problem has happily been addressed at this point. Here are some of my stats:

Starting weight: 183(?) lbs/83kg – I didn’t take an official starting weight, so I’m estimating. My first weigh-in had me at 18olbs/81.6kg exactly.

Current weight: ~145lbs/65.77kg (I weighed in at 143 this morning but that was before I ate/drank anything)

Goal weight: Not sure? I’ve always told myself I’d re-assess when I reached 14olbs and see how I feel. Other than that I don’t have a goal weight.

Starting BMI: ~29.5

Current BMI: ~23.5

I don’t believe in BMI as an accurate measure of anything, really, but I wanted to get into the “Normal” range from “overweight” so my doctor would stop bugging me about it. I don’t think weight is a strong indicator of health for the most part, and doctors tend to attribute any medical problem a fat person has to their weight, which is a total load of bullshit.

Beginning bust measurement: 38inches/96cm

Current bust measurement: 35.5inches/90cm

Beginning waist measurement: 30.7inches/78cm

Current waist measurement: 27.6inches/70cm

I don’t have other measurements because they don’t matter as far as lolita fashion goes for the most part. Needless to say, the items I bought when I was pushing the top of the measurements (96cm bust is basically not fitting right in the Innocent World dresses I have and I’m sure I was a bit higher than those measurements at my largest) fit really well now. I can zip them all up without fighting with them! I’m very happy about that. The downside is that most of my normal clothes don’t fit me anymore, and I’ve run out of notches on my belt.

I also wanted to mention that I don’t exercise. I work in a very sedentary position in my office and I don’t go out of my way fit in extra activity. This goes against a lot of advice that’s given – my thought is that exercise just makes me hungry and when I’m hungry I eat more. Exercise also doesn’t burn many calories at all, and I don’t have an hour every day to spend on the treadmill for little benefit. I do occasionally do some bodyweight resistance training, but not on a consistent basis.

Again, I want to stress that weight does not equal value in a person and I believe all bodies are beautiful and worthy. It’s been difficult for me to reconcile that opinion with ones I have toward myself; they’ve not always been very positive and that’s definitely something I’ve had to work on. I wanted to lose the weight, change my eating habits, and most importantly just feel better and have more energy and drive, because for me this signaled taking control away from my anxiety and depression and nourishing myself in a healthy way. This is the way I’ve been able to do that for myself.