Nail Biting: It Could Be Worse, I Could Smoke!

My finger nails after a particularly stressful day.

I’ve written about bad habits before, but the one that drives the craziest is the fact that, no matter what I do to try and stop, I keep biting my nails. I’ve tried clear nail polish, I’ve tried Vaseline, and I’ve tried that foul tasting stuff you put on your nails. Nothing can make me stop.

In an effort to change that, I’m going to use this blog. Every couple of days, I’ll take a picture of my hands and we will see if I’ve made any progress towards being a non-biter.

It’s something I’ve always done. It isn’t a comfort thing, I know that. But I seem to do it most when I’m stressed out and/or bored, and lately it’s been driving me nuts. It doesn’t bother me personally in the sense that I hate the way my nails look (although that is part of it), but I always feel when I go to shake hands or hand somebody something, they immediately can tell I’m a habitual nail biter. Not to mention the fact that (and my trainer really made me think of this) that my hands are everywhere… the dirty-ass TTC, all over stuff at work and then they go in my mouth for nail biting. Gross.

Let the word go forth that, as of April 6, 2012, I am beginning the journey towards no longer being a nail biter. I’m going to try and snack on something any time that I get the urge to bite my nails, because that will help me in my goal to continue to gain weight. Win-win.

It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be pretty but at the end of the day, I’ll have killed another bad habit (the first was slouching and I’m not doing too bad on that one anymore).

Confidence.

I’m starting to really like these one-word title blog posts. I know that people always say that a blog should be focused and consistent in its content: be it entertainment, food, cooking, drinks, home décor, or whatever; I, however, like having an ecclectic blog. I do, after all, have a blog with a focused theme. This one serves as my creative outlet. If you don’t like it, too bad.

There is a huge difference between being confident and being cocky. Confidence is alluring; it lets people know that you have absolute faith in yourself and that they should have that same faith. Cockiness, on the other hand, is arrogance personified. It’s vain and it shows that you are capable of loving nothing more than yourself. To boil it down: confidence > cockiness.

These days, I have to say, I’m feeling pretty confident. While it may only be two days in, I straight up love my new job. It’s like night and day between any other position I’ve ever had. The people I work with seem to enjoy what they do and genuinely want to make sure that I not just integrate in to the team, but succeed alongside with them and grow at the same time. I can’t say enough good things about the group. It’s nice to be able to go home at night and feel like I’ve accomplished things. I’m looking forward to the many challenges and exciting things to come.

What’s more, is that there is a lot of progress being made on the gym side of things too. Now, I’m no “Ah-Nuld” but I’ve put on a good amount of weight (muscle, for the most part), I have more energy and I look healthier. Sure, I may curse when things get hard at the gym, but as I have said before: I have a fantastic trainer who understands my goals, helps me reach them, knows how to push me and isn’t brutally mean and hard on me when things get difficult.

So, it’s a rosy outlook from here on out and I’m excited about what lies ahead!

Diary of a Skinny-Minny

In late November 2011, I got fed-up; not with life in general, not with the people who are around me, but with the fact that for all my life I have been the skinniest guy around. I was in high school when I cracked 100 pounds – and it was grade 11 at that. It never really bothered me too much: in fact, everybody told me how lucky I was to be so slender.

My body didn’t (and doesn’t) cause me to have a low self-esteem, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to the realization that being so skinny wasn’t going to last forever. I decided to take the plunge, hired a trainer and have been at it for just over a month now.

I honestly can say that the decision to get fit and active was the best decision of my life; however, it’s more than that: I’m eating more (and more often – for a former breakfast hater, that was tough for a bit), I have more energy and believe it or not: you can see biceps and pecs starting to develop.

The big milestone for me will be to hit 120 pounds. That isn’t my end goal, but it will be a huge thing for me. None of this is easy – but it isn’t impossible. I don’t know where I found the motivation to get started, but I have a wonderful trainer that pushes me and who also knows my limits: he pushes me past them, but doesn’t go to extremes if and when I struggle.

All in all, I’m pretty damn happy with the decision to go to the gym. I don’t like people who take those awful mirror photos, but maybe I’ll take a progress photo when I hit 120. That isn’t a promise, though…