Positive Steps: A Dieting Story

I’ve been having all manner of difficulty lately staying on track of my fitness and diet goals.  Oh, I’m still going down to the gym and the pool for almost-daily workouts, sometimes even with Mr. Finger Candy or my mom in tow, but I’ve been eating such garbage, and lots ‘n’ lots of it.  I’d wager in the first year of my “Turn things around or you’re gonna die” regime I dined at McDonald’s (a favourite, because that’s where the golden delicious fries live) perhaps just three or four times.  I went there three times over this past long weekend alone. 😦

So that’s all kind of suckiness that I’m attempting to set right here at the beginning of this shortened work week.  No more eyeballing it, no more creeping portion sizes, no more crap dietary decisions.  No more McDonald’s, at least for the time being.  Instead, I’d like to see a return to the sensible – and very casual – diet and exercise “plan” I’ve been following to great success these past 15 months (you know, up until the high caloric affair that was The Great Quarter Poundering of Victoria Day Weekend 2018.)  I’m just a happier, better functioning human being when I keep a reasonable eye on body and soul, so that’s what I’m going to do.

As always, though, motivation is key.  After all, if I had such a limitless font of the stuff in the first place, I wouldn’t be here right now!  So this past weekend I went looking for something to juice the old motivational gears, evidence that what I’ve been doing has been working – a formerly snug tee, a formerly snug necklace, a formerly snug (insert the item *HERE* because everything was snug.)

Including my shoes!  Because you actually can gain quite a bit of weight in your feet.  Which is why these kawaii cuties from Irregular Choice have been banished to the top shelf of the front hall closet for the past six years – because they simply do did not fit.  I’m one of Cinderella’s step-sisters, but instead of greed and avarice, I was kept out of these slippers due to my extreme love of butter.

But they fit now!  And I was beyond excited yesterday when I found them, jammed them onto my feet (no surprise here, but they are muy uncomfortable) and discovered that not only could I fasten the Mary Jane straps across my arches, but I could also stand up in them AND shimmy around for a bit (before the daggers in the balls of my feet demanded I stop.)  Victory is mine!  And so is a whole pile of positive motivation to keep on keeping on.  I truly never thought I’d wear these shoes not just again, but EVER, because they have never fit.  I’m as happy as a gilded, googly-eyed cupcake on a pair of four inch heels.

Or my fingers!  Because, you know, nail art.  I think this manicure turned out wonderfully, if not totally impractically.  But sometimes in beauty – and footwear – you want to take the more is more approach, and these nails, and their inspiration, definitely qualify as MORE.  Love it all, and glad to be back on track in so many different ways.

Saddle Up!

Second week of school saddle shoes.  I think I also may be dating myself with my choice of back-to-school nail art – chalkboard nails last week and 1950s-style saddle shoes today. What’s next, a lacquered ode to typing class?

These nails were inspired by MY saddle shoes, silver studded Bass saddles that weigh about five pounds each. Wearing them around for just a couple of hours totally counts as leg day!  But they look super cute paired with retro swing dresses (obviously) and skinny jeans, too, AND they make for some pretty fantastic nail art – all ticks in the plus column. 🙂

Running Late

Yesterday was National Running Day (though, whose nation exactly?) so it would appear I’m running late on this mani inspired by my fly new Asics running shoes.  Also, Asics? More like Ass-Kicks!  These shoes are so dope; when I run (yes, that’s a thing I occasionally do) it looks like I’m wearing a pair of Cyclone Pops on my feet.  Just slightly less sticky. 🙂

Foot Candy

No, I have not changed the focus of this blog to foot fetishism…yet.  Rather, I received a rather awesome pair of ice cream-style ballet flats for Christmas (generous gift-giver: me!) that were just begging for a sweet matching mani, and who am I to deny my shoes when they’re calling out for love?

This manicure is your basic drippy waffle cone design, but the shoes are a different matter altogether. Available solely (heh) through Shoe Bakery, these flats, and their many gorgeous high-heeled cousins, are handmade, custom made and beautifully unique – edible-looking, wearable works of art that are now inspiring this edible-looking, wearable work of nail art.  I can’t wait to give these guys a proper workout come the spring and summer – just in time for ice cream season.

I Shoes You! (OMD3)

That these nails, a manicure inspired by a favourite pair of shoes, turned out so well has come as a rather delightful surprise. Sometimes when you just randomly start sponging polishes onto your nails, as I did here, things can go a bit pear-shaped. But at the risk of sounding abhorrently pretentious, these nails came about in a really organic way where I just knew which polishes were going to recreate the look and feel of my favourite Nine West pumps, and that’s exactly how it happened. Zero drama! And I think this manicure – nothing more than four polishes sponged one atop the other – is a pretty solid ringer for the real deal, right down to the lightly textured sparkles.

So down to the nitty gritty! Although this manicure is actually not gritty at all, even though we’re dealing here with at least one textured polish. 😉 I started off by laying down two coats of Glam Polish’s Lydia, a purple duochrome stuffed with indigo blue sparkles. After it had dried, I sponged on one light coat of what I call the reverse version of Lydia, Glam Polish’s Wednesday, an indigo blue duochrome speckled with purple glitter. Inspiration then struck, and I decided to go the textured route, sponging on, again, one light coat of OPI’s Liquid Sand in Get Your Number, an ice blue textured polish stuffed with silver holographic glitter. Finally, I – yup, you guessed it! – sponged on one very light coat of Hard Candy’s Mermaid Magic, a teal micro glitter speckled with purple hexes.

I toyed around with the idea of painting a frame around the edges of my nails – my shoes, after all, are edged in metallic purple piping. But sometimes it’s best to quit while you’re ahead and not let things get too needlessly complicated. I think that’s something we should all shoes to do more often, don’t you?