Sportsgirl & Aje

Love these pieces, they are just so pretty - especially the pink one! May have to get my hands on one of these. Wish they would bring Sportsgirl back to NZ!

P.S have finally reached my goal weight! Yay me :D

The Dukan Diet

Rereading yesterday's post reminded me of something called the Dukan Diet which I read about in a magazine a few days ago. The Dukan Diet is a four-phase system created by Dr Dukan, established when Dukan's friend asked him how to lose weight without sacrificing meat. Apparently, the difference between this diet and every other diet is that it ends with a vow to eat only protein for one day each and every week - for the rest of your life.

"It is the secret of keeping the weight off" - Dr Dukan

According to Dukan, if you stick to protein one day a week, you will surely lose 1kg instantly and in doing so, correct any excess incurred during the rest of the week. The four phases of the Dukan Diet are Attack, Cruising, Consolidation, and Stabilisation.

Phase 1: Attack

Eat only protein - white meat such as chicken and non-oily fish like cod - for two to seven days depending on your personal weight loss goal. Washed down with three litres of water and a tablespoon of oat bran, Dr Dukan says you'll feel full and the oats will ease any constipation you experience. (Sounds delish LOL). During this phase you can feast on fat-free yoghurt and cottage cheese, turkey, boiled eggs, salmon and prawns. Tea and coffee are also unlimited!

Phase 2: Cruising

Alternating protein-only with combination - protein mixed with veges - days will help you to your ideal weight. Soups are a great way to start each meal, followed by white fish cooked with your choice of veges - except potatoes! Once you've reached your goal weight, you are ready to move onto phase 3.

Phase 3: Consolidation

Designed to prevent any rebounding to old habits, this phase allows you to give yourself a break and start introducing carbs like bread and pate and high-fat food like cheese - but only in moderation and only for two days each week. Dr Dukan recommends having two "celebratory meals" a week where you can enjoy whatever you like. Don't expect any weight loss during this phase, but you shouldn't gain any either - which is the ideal balance.

Phase 4: Stabilisation

The best and final part of the Dukan Diet - phase 4 means you're able to eat whatever you like as long as you make a promise to yourself to eat only protein for one day a week for the rest of your life.

Gisele Bundchen, who is apparently a dedicated fan of this Dukan Diet only gained 4.5kg DURING PREGNANCY because of it, and as the world's highest paid supermodel, who wouldn't want to try it?

Super Secret: The Bath That Beats Bloating

Super Secret:

Add 2 cups of Epsom Salts to a hot bath and soak for up to 20 minutes, 3 times a week.

Elle McPherson swears by this trick to detoxify and to banish belly bloat. I haven't tried it myself but thought it could be useful.

I've been feeling really blah and bad lately. Since exams, I've been eating really unhealthy food due to boredom and stress, which of course, has made me put on a kg. Grrrrr. Really need to motivate myself to start eating healthy again! I even went to the gym for 3 hours on Monday. Yep, 3!!! Crazy right? Totally poured that hard work down the drain from my 2 donuts I ate this morning for breakfast plus the other half donut I ate half an hour ago - BEFORE BED!!!

Tomorrow, I PROMISE is the start of my healthy eating regime. I have agreed to help motivate a friend of mine to do the same to slim down for her 21st.

Goal: To tone up and lose 3 kgs.

Inspiration: Miranda Kerr, who by the way, is finally engaged to Orlando Bloom. Yays!

Hypothesis: It will be done!!!! :D

Fashion: An Awful Industry?

Tom Nicon

Ruslana Korshunova


Daul Kim


Alexander McQueen

Today reports have confirmed that male model Tom Nicon's death was in fact a suicide, speculated to be over a break up with his girlfriend. He was only 22. There are so many models and designers that have committed suicide recently - Ruslana Korshunova (20), Daul Kim (20), and the almighty Alexander McQueen (40), to name a few. These suicides really have got me questioning if fashion is such an awful industry? Why did these models/designers feel like they had no other choice other than to end their own lives? I guess it's something that we'll never know.

The September Issue

Just watched The September Issue which I found very inspirational - the fashion industry is a hard industry to get into, especially under the watchful eye of Anna Wintour, who by the way, was amazingly beautiful when she was younger as was Grace Coddington!

One of my favourite moments from The September Issue was where Raquel Zimmermann ate a whole pie - proof that models do eat! Although she probably just ate in front of the camera to make it look that way and possibly threw it all up afterwards. Nevertheless, she is amazing as is evident from the photos of her above.

I now officially love and want to live in Paris. Can't wait to be there next year :D

Potential Dresses

A few potential pieces that could be my winning dress for a black and white ball-themed 21st a friend of mine is having seeing as she has never been to a ball! SHOCK HORROR! Can't decide whether to wear a long elegant dress or just a norm cocktail dress. Will be exciting, to see birthday girl in a dress and my boyfriend all scrubbed up clean in nice dress shirt and pants (probably wouldn't go as far as a proper suit for a 21st)! I've always been a fan of dressing up, it's my favourite part about going out in the weekend although times can be hectic when I'm stumped about what to wear! Need to stop spending as I am uber-broke but guess this is an actual special occasion where I must buy a nice dress (or so I keep trying to convince myself!) - At this rate, I'll never get to Europe next year.

Love Always Wins

So basically, this post, my first post on this blog might I emphasise, is about my blog title: Love Always Wins. It seems that in our modern day society, love is a much desired object. People live for it, people die for it. Sounds all a bit melodramatic doesn't it? However, at the end of the day, everyone wants to feel loved, or at least, wants to believe in it. Call it cliche but I believe that there is a soul mate for everybody, even for all critics of love. Why else would we be here? It's our mission in life. Meet the man of your dreams, fall in love and then produce a million babies. Or marry the boy next door, whose cooties disgusted you when you were a child but who somehow ended up being the one, and then live happily ever after.

If only it were that easy.

I find that in this day and age, as everybody wants to feel this touch of passion, people rush to find love which, might I add, is quite a disastrous move. I say this from experience, not from my own, but the experiences of people around me. Typical story: girl meets boy; boy makes girl's knees weak, heart beat faster, stomach toss and turn etc etc; boy does all he can to impress girl; girl falls hard; boy breaks girl's heart. OR, girl meets boy; boy is amazing (or so girl thinks); girl plays hard to get, telling friends that she won't let this one get to her that fast; boy gets bored, plays around; girl thinks boy is genuinely interested in her and only her, which leads to her falling hard anyway (you know what I mean - not getting your full beauty sleep because you can't stop thinking about him); boy plays games, carries on playing around; girl finds out. End of relationship. Except girl starts thinking that there is something wrong with herself or gets put off the idea of love altogether.

True story.

This is why I have always been a firm believer of the fact that although desired by many, love it not something that can be rushed, forced or found. It is something that finds you when you've decided that it does not exist; when you've stopped searching for it and when you least expect it. SMACK, right in the face; a sudden shock to everybody, including yourself. Nobody chooses to fall in love, and I mean actual love.

It's interesting really, how this relates to the concept of how love is dangerous, forcing us to act in ways that we might not usually, if we were conscious of our actual surroundings a.k.a not head over heels, madly in love with our perfect man, or at least, the idea of our perfect man, or shall I say, somebody we think is the perfect man. When it's over, who do we blame? Ourselves? Never. Of course - we blame the bastard that did this to us, and most definitely, the girl that follows. She may have nothing to do with the 'break up' but it makes us feel better to blame it on her anyway. If she was the cause of the break up, well that's an even better reason to just want to knife her. One good thing from the break up though, is that we are too depressed to even think about, or even eat food. Thus, we are finally able to reach our goal weight in two days, when it would have otherwise taken as long as never. As skinny as we feel due to the 'break up' diet, we are still too depressed and therefore, carry on blaming the two for putting us in this misery and subsequently, ruining our lives. But really, is it fully their fault or are we partially to blame? I myself, have experienced, and unfortunately probably always will, the feeling of hatred towards the ex-girlfriend, and it's something that is natural (to a certain extent), just as many others have feelings of hatred towards the ex-girlfriend, the new girlfriend, the cheating ex-boyfriend or, as a close friend of mine likes to call her good-for-nothing ex-beau, 'it'. Weird really, how we let these feelings eat us up like this, get us all fired up, make us want to slit 'it's' throat and pull her hair while giving her the left hook, when we know that we're better than and better off without them. Yet we still let it get to us and we feel somewhat fulfilled when badmouthing and bitching about the 'it', midget, or whatever. As they say,

"Behind every bitch, there's a guy who made her that way."

Too damn right. Maybe it's because we care too much, or maybe we're too naive. Maybe we should just forget our feelings for this one person that made us believe that love actually exists, this one person that crushed our world and caused us to feel this hatred, anger, sadness. Then we'll feel better again right? WRONG! If you give up that easily, what's the point? It's not love if you can just walk away from it all that easily. One may think it is, but isn't love supposed to be about passion, chemistry, desire, a million emotions all in one and finally, a happily ever after? I deem that everybody has their own definition of the term 'love' and the meaning of it may vary according to different people, yet, might I repeat, it is one of the most sought after intangible objects in the whole world, universe, galaxy.

I have always believed in going with your gut instinct. If it feels right, it probably is - even if you have to work at it to perfect it and make it right. To me, giving up is a sign of weakness. Because at the end of the day, you aren't ever going to be able to forget somebody you shared a part of your life with (unless you get hit by a train, miraculously survive and wake up with amnesia - if you could be so lucky!), so why not either count your blessings that it's over and wasn't meant to be, or pick yourself up and go get what rightfully belongs to you? As I always say, competition is a good thing, and if it's really love, and I mean actual love, it will always find a way to work itself out. Think Noah & Allie from The Notebook. Ah, what a beautiful love story.

I may not be an expert, but I am not dim. After all, it did take me a while and a bunch of loser boyfriends to realise what love was and here I am, in a committed relationship of 3 and a half years. I had to work hard to get to where I am and I'll admit, love has me on a bipolar train; some days I'm on top of the world, others.. well, no comment. It's not easy, it never will be, but that's what makes it exciting. It's not about who's right or wrong, no instruction manual or guide to a man's heart. It's just the pure and simple fact that no matter what obstacles you encounter, or however long it takes you to find you, love always wins.

P.S. If you get the guy in the end, treat yourself by buying a new pair of shoes. Hard work but you did it and you're definitely way better than her - I remind myself of this everyday :D