Ana Pires 2.0

I went shopping for clothes yesterday.

I used to find it a terrible experience. Nothing would fit correctly, nothing seemed like it was worth it’s money, since it was only going to cover a not-so-nice body, I even used to feel ashamed of saying what jean size I was when asking for help.

No more!
Since February, I’ve been losing weight. It was a New Year’s Resolution for 2006, which I seem to be achieving!

I’ve started working out. Leaving the house to do so was a problem, I hated the feeling everyone was looking at me, and I’d get it every time. So, I bought a stationary bicycle, and I started doing 15 minutes a day. Then 20, then 30, then 60.

I started eating right (and less) too. No more fried food, no more emotional eating, no more blaming my periods for over-eating. I admit some of my eating habits became a bit wrong, and that I went a bit hungry for a few days for a speed up in weight loss, but it was temporary and necessary. Now, I’m doing something I can live with, and which is, ultimately, healthy.

To this day, I’ve lost 11 kilos (25 pounds) through healthy food and exercise. I know it doesn’t seem much for 9 months, but I wanted to lose it for good, and not too fast, like I had tried on previous occasions. And I seem to be doing just that. 2 more kilos (5 pounds), and I’ll be on my perfect weight, a bit bellow 50 kilos (110 pounds).

I never thought I could do it. But I did. All my old clothes stopped fitting (some jeans would actually fall off of me), I’ve gotten tons of compliments, and I’m all confident and happy.

The only thing that has been annoying me, is the people who think know me better than myself in this issue, but that’s another post.

Once I get on my perfect weight, I’ll post a couple of pictures
Hurray for me!

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.
You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

I have never sent a secret there, but I’ve seen many of mine sent by other people. It’s a great and strange feeling, knowing you’re not alone, that there are people you don’t even know that feel the same way as you do, that, maybe, you’re normal.
There was a secret once, one that I saved to my computer, that said “Sometimes I feel closer to the people who send in their secrets more than anyone I know in real life.“. That’s exactly it.

I’ve been completely addicted to that blog since it appeared. When there were still no books for sale and all the secrets were kept on the blog from week to week. I don’t know how many times I cryed over it. Sometimes, when you can relate with the pain portrayed on the postcard, or even when you simply try to imagine that pain, tears just start coming…

Every Sunday morning, I wake up and run to the computer to go visit PostSecret. Every time I finish, I feel a bit “lighter”. I hope you do too.

Go visit PostSecret.com

As you may or may not know, coffee is one of my favourite drinks. I think it tastes wonderfully, I think every type has its own special characteristics, I think it’s good for my health… And I get a bit teased about it, specially about the last thing I mentioned.

When people say coffee’s bad for one’s health, they usually don’t know what to say if I ask them to be more specific. Coffee’s bad, because that’s what other people usually say.
But no. Actually, coffee’s quite good to people’s health, when taken with moderation, like everything else.

So, first of all… It improves our awareness. Meaning, it takes away sleep, it improves our short-term memory, we become more attentive and focused, it makes us have faster reflexes, etc.
This is due to the the action caffeine takes on the frontal cortex of our brain, which controls all those things I mentioned.
Keep in mind though, coffee doesn’t replace 8 hours of sleep. It’s only a fix, and when the effect goes away, you’ll feel tired.

Coffee is also considered a mood optimiser.
Caffeine slightly changes our production of Dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical our brain produces that regulates our feeling of well being. When we take coffee, that production is increased, and we feel better.

Coffee helps to prevent certain types of cancer, more specifically, the colon and bladder ones. Some illnesses as well, as Diabetes Type II, gallstones, and Parkinson’s disease.

Antioxidants. Loads of them on coffee beans. What do Antioxidants do? They help to prevent eye diseases, they help to reduce muscle and tissue damage, they help our immune system, they prevent age-related neurodegeneration, they promote cardiovascular health, etc.

Cavities. Yes, coffee helps to prevent cavities due to the anti-adhesive and antibacterial properties it has.

To people who are trying to lose weight, coffee helps as well.
First of all, one normal cup of black coffee has 5 calories, and 30 after we put the sugar in. 30 calories isn’t much.
Second, coffee is a hunger suppressor. Instead of having a snack, we can have coffee to take that hunger feeling away.
Third, it works as a diuretic.
Furthermore, coffee helps to accelerate our metabolism. Metabolism is what defines at what rate our body burns fat when we exercise. So, if our metabolism is more accelerated, we burn more fat, and more quickly.
These are also the reasons why caffeine is one of the ingredients in most diet pills.

To finish up.
Of course that, if you drink 10 litres of coffee in a row, you’ll have problems. The rule is, the more you drink, the less are the benefits. So, one, two or three cups a day are quite healthy, and cause no problems whatsoever.

For your health, go drink coffee.

Hello! So I finally decided to create a WordPress account.

My name is Ana, I’m currently 17 years old and I live in Lisbon, Portugal.
I’m on the 12th grade on an area called ‘Languages and Literatures’. I’m not entirely sure what I want for the future, but it’s definitely something related to that. Things here in Portugal aren’t that great in what concerns getting a job, but I’d be happy with anything related to journalism. Writing would be lovely, but I really want to keep all my options open for now.

Some random facts about myself… I’m not a very social person. I’m completely addicted to online communities, you’d honestly be surprised to know on how many different ones I’m active on. Different cultures and languages amaze me, I don’t really think you can understand the world around you if you’re closed inside your own. I love reading, I love coffee, I’ve been losing weight… That’s pretty much all I have right now. If you want to know more, I have a webpage with information about myself and a list of all my online activities on my Personal Webpage. As for the reason for this blog, you can read about it on the About page.

Thank you for reading!