SELF-IMPROVEMENT

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Dating advice for chicks:

Most people have room for improvement. But, despite what advertising tells you, “fixing” your perceived problems with pharmaceuticals or designer handbags will not suddenly make you totally, and finally, happy. Losing 10 pounds won't make men flock to you like pigeons to popcorn. A nose-job won't have you beating men off (bad choice of words...)

Fortunately, most girls' problems aren't so horrific that they can't be solved with less drastic procedures. Big improvements can be made by showering regularly, getting a good hairstyle and buying some clothes manufactured in this decade.

If you've watched the Fox TV network at all lately, then you know science has made great strides in cosmetic surgery. But before you go into hock getting a doctor to cram in artificial cheekbones, lips or boobs, consider a radical way to save several thousand dollars: Try coming to terms with your own God-forsaken appearance. Learn to like it or, at least, accept it for its flabby, pasty charm.

Sure, this approach won't help you get a date for Saturday, but it is something you'll have to do eventually, and the sooner you get started on the project, the better. Genuinely accepting your grotesque physique means rejecting the bullshit Hollywood and the Media has “taught” you your entire life. And that's not easy. It takes awhile to get the poison out of your mind, but knowing how you've been manipulated is a good start. One day, you will make peace with the very same body you currently despise and will be pissed you wasted so much time stressing about what you look like, instead of stressing about the important stuff like your horrible cackling laugh.

Another big mistake girls make is letting someone else decide what acceptable is. You have to decide that for yourself. You have to establish the bar, using your own criteria. You don't want to be chasing someone else's idea of acceptability. Because they can and do change that ideal anytime they want, for whatever reason, and you'll have to keep chasing it. It's a race you'll never win.

The Media and Hollywood have ulterior motives for what they choose to idealize as “attractive”. They want to sell you a fantasy. The fantasy of perfection. A perfection that doesn't, and can't, exist. Hollywood movies, media hype and corporate advertising are all designed to sell you shit; tickets, magazines, newspapers, commercials and/or products. So the people, ideas and things they choose to glorify are skewed towards that one purpose—making you feel less than perfect and/or deficient in some way without their product. Don't try to live up to a manufactured, unachievable physical ideal. Don't jump through their hoops. Especially when it comes to something men don't really give a shit about.

Take weight, for instance. If you don't look emaciated and heroin-addicted, you're not alone. In fact, there's so many other people in the fat-ass boat, it's sinking like a stone. Still, if you can't see your own feet because your gut is the way, it's time to do something about it. Though, while we're not big believers in changing to fit into society's current idea of attractive, we do believe that healthy girls are more attractive to men than lazy, fat, couch-denters hooked up to an iron lung. Besides just being healthier, being in shape makes you more confident, too. Go figure.

Wai Lana 137 Yoga Mat It's all you need to get healthy.

Obviously, getting healthy is more easily said than done. The hardest part is starting, as laziness breeds more laziness; the less you do, the less you feel like doing. Luckily, the opposite is also true: The more you get off your ass, the easier it is to keep getting off your ass. Before you know it, you're standing up. And then walking. And, soon, you're outside (where men are!).

AT LEAST YOU CAN LOOK COOL.
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Now, getting fit requires changing the habits that put you in your current predicament—namely, dateless and pre-diabetic. The critical thing is to stay active. There's no trick to it; weight-control is simple physics. If you burn off more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. If you eat 500 calories but don't burn 500 calories, it's gonna go somewhere (any guesses where, lard-ass?).

Power Yoga Total Body Workout with Rodney Yee.

There are lots of ways you can burn calories. You could take up jogging, but you'll destroy your knees and wind up a cripple. A better choice is to take a yoga class.

Yoga's less likely to cause bodily injury than most other forms of exercise (especially those with names that end with “o-matic”). If you don't want to be seen in yoga-pants publicly, get an instructional DVD and do it in the privacy of your own home (not a bad idea considering all that bending can make you gassier than The Hindenburg, FYI.)

Yoga for Fitness and Wellness Inspire students to stay healthy for the rest of their lives.

Regardless of which method of exercise you choose; you need to keep at it. To stay motivated, don't consider “working out” a black & white issue, where you're either on a program or off it. You are going to have slipups, everyone does. But, binging on a whole bag of chips is not reason enough to admit defeat on the whole effort. All you need to do is take two steps forward for every one slip backward to make progress. Eventually, you will get where you are going, which is more than you can say for people who never even start. When you inevitably slip, get back on the horse by not eating like one. Start working out again as soon as you can.