Food Diary: Brother left :(

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*UPDATED*

BREAKFAST

1 c sliced mangoes

1 glass chocolate protein shake

MID-MORNING SNACK

1 whole avocado

LUNCH

2 fried eggs

1 handful goji berries and 1 handful raw mixed nuts

1 packet instant oatmeal with brown sugar and honey

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

apple

1/2 c strawberries

SUPPER

garlicky quinoa with shiitake, carrots, soybeans

a handful of goji berries

WATER: 5 liters + innumerable little cups of green tea and other teas

***

Notes:

 

Cuddleception

From Cutest Paw.

 

 


- #WhatMadeMyDay
I will be getting enough sleep tonight for the first time since the last 2 weeks. I have followed my schedule to finish my assignments according to the deadlines I set myself, and pray that I shall continue meeting these goals I’ve made for myself for the next 7 days, so that I can work efficiently while still able to have time to sleep. I’m also glad that I’ve gotten rid of 2 of my heaviest cardboard boxes out of here, sent it to Indonesia. My mother has received one box already, and these 2 boxes I’ve just sent this morning will arrive by the end of next week. I’m thankful I have a brother who’s understanding, helpful, and strong even though he’s severely underweight. I don’t know when will I see him again, as he has returned to Oregon shortly after we left the post office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muchaluva,
Stace

Update #3: NISIM F.A.S.T. shampoo and conditioner

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*UPDATED* I apologize for doing this review with the interference of my personal life. I’ve gotten rid of it – and now here’s a more comprehensive overview of NISIM’s products!

 

 

Please refer to this post, on 2 weeks after using NISIM F.A.S.T. shampoo and conditioner, and this one, 4 weeks after using the products.

Today is exactly 6 weeks since I started using the products.

Again, compare my photos from the beginning till the end.

 

Didn’t seem to grow that much, do they? :(

 

 

I gotta confess: For the past 2 weeks, I haven’t been doing as the instructions told me to do so (as I did on the previous 4 weeks). There were times within these last 2 weeks I was so busy I didn’t leave the conditioner even for a minute before I quickly washed it off. I also used the shampoo only once (when the instructions tell you to do twice) before you use the conditioner, whereas in the first 4 weeks I’ve been religiously following those instructions, in addition to good diet, great sleep, and using my leave-in conditioner. I also haven’t even been applying my leave-in conditioner for the past 2 weeks, except maybe once.

I haven’t had lots of sleep. In case you didn’t notice, I put on extra concealer under my eye to hide my black under eye circles. It’s more obvious on the second photo.

Just in the previous entries, these pictures are taken in the morning after I woke up. I believe on my first entry, my hair was a bit more than 9 inches. In the second entry it was almost 10 inches, and now it’s still almost 10 inches.

So that’s still a much longer hair growth than the average growth of half an inch per month.

It’s humanly impossible for hair to grow shorter, unless you’re losing hair. And if you do, I suggest you start thinking of getting biotin supplements, like the one that I’m taking now from GNC. I find that the biotin content, with the addition to eating enough protein everyday, helps your scalp to grow more voluminous hair. Also I have to give credits to NISIM F.A.S.T. shampoo and conditioner for having less to no hair falling out when I brush them now. I started taking GNC supplements long before I use these products from NISIM, and during that time, on a daily basis, I can see strands of my hair pulled out as I brush them, and they would fall miserably to the ground. Considering how much stress I’ve been lately, it’s amazing that I stop falling out my hair, and I can safely say my hair is at its strongest.

However, according to my picture this morning, I’m pretty much not growing any hair for the past 2 weeks :( On a side note, though, I guess this is just because your hair behaves differently every morning when you wake up.

Overall, I think NISIM F.A.S.T. shampoo and conditioner does help in hair growth, although if you’re not one of those people who wash their hair everyday like me, I do not promise whether it will work for you. The instructions specifically said that you must wash your hair everyday, therefore using both the shampoo and conditioner everyday. This is the instructions as I quote from their website:

 

 

Fast shampoo and condtioner works best when it is used daily. Shampoo: Wet hair, apply shampoo and work into a rich lather. Scrub entire scalp thoroughly and rinse with warm/hot water. Repeat. Conditioner: After shampooing apply the moisturizing conditioner onto hair and massage in thoroughly. Allow conditioner to permeate the hair for 1-2 minutes and rinse with warm/hot water. Style as usual.

 

 

 

Like I said, for the past 2 weeks I’ve only been using the shampoo once, and I did not wait for the conditioner to be absorbed into my scalp for a minute or two like I did during the first 4 weeks I’ve been using these products. Besides this factor, clearly the fact that my lack of sleep completely affects the hair-growing hormones I’ve been expecting and watching the results for those 4 consecutive weeks.

Now I learned that sleeping is a huge part of human hair growth, just because that’s when the human growth hormone levels, or better known as hGH levels, are at its peak the moment when your mind starts to relax and your body’s about to go into a deep sleep, i.e., REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. When you merely close your eyes for the night and wake up to the restroom every 2 hours, that doesn’t count as sleep. When your tinging head gives you headaches throughout the day and all you feel is anger, stress hormones (namely cortisol) affects the production of your body’s GH levels. (See: Growth hormone (Wikipedia)).

Even though I’ve been eating well everyday, diet isn’t as much a big factor as sleep is, because getting enough sleep means regulating a healthy metabolism. Even while still supplementing my diet with GNC products, it is proven here that nothing else will work if you don’t get your quality time of sleeping.

I would buy these products again and is recommending others who are desperate after a bad haircut to use NISIM F.A.S.T. shampoo and conditioner.

Periodically massaging your head with olive oil, coconut oil, and essential lavender oil helps stimulate your follicles to grow too, but do it only when you’re ready to go shower as your hair will become really greasy. On an important note, I conclude and strongly emphasize that if you want to grow your hair longer, faster, these are the most important things you must be doing: Do get your sleep, and when you do, sleep well. Minimize and cope with daily stress, and commit yourself to eating healthy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muchaluva,
Stace

Fear No More

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Let me just say that I have not fully overcome the fear yet, but have improved a lot.

Yesterday, I’ve decided to stop trying to understand why my boyfriend loves me. I haven’t been the easiest person in the world to deal with, far from confident and comfortable with who I am now (though I fake it all the time), and does not trust anyone easily (how can I if I don’t trust myself, have confidence in myself first before trusting anyone else?!), even though he’s been one the few most trusting, hopeful people I’ve ever met who believed in me.

And my fear was the blinding belief, based on zero real occurrences and which only occurs in my head, that he will leave me.

Because I fear that would happen, I have repeatedly asked him to leave me before I love him too much to let go. And that has saddened his heart about a thousand times, now.

Guess it’s just things about men that I learned over my life that are actually not him. Things like unfaithfulness, untrustworthy, rich but not wealthy in mind, superficial, impatience, and the list goes on.

The men in my life (except for my ex-es, of course) had been all that. I first dated when I was 16, then 17, and was single ever since until last year when I was 21. During that period of time, I’ve met lots of men who resembled the dark moon of my dad, based the marital problems he and my mother has for over 20 years now.

And somehow, my subconscious might have relate all men to my dad.

I guess it’s that saying when people tell you that “every woman grows up to marry their own father.”

However, ever since my year of depression, I found something I’ve never known before: My daddy really loves me.

For a man I’ve never had a relationship with other than for financial support, and for a man who’s never been present in family get-togethers since he and my mother faced their first marital problem, I didn’t trust anything else in him other than for money. Even though it’s harsh, it’s the reality – he hasn’t been involved in my life and I his. I only know he’s always busy with work so that he can support our family, and that we would never be the kind of family who does not have enough but always have something in excess, in the form of bank statements.

Yet the only person I can run to when I was depressed is him, because it has a lot to do with money management. I’m tired of my mom’s constant nagging, tired of worrying about my elder brothers and their future, too sick of everything else in my life during my junior year in college and that I couldn’t picture myself with and art career in my future, and the tuition fees didn’t seem to worth all that money anymore. My future didn’t seem to matter anymore. I didn’t seem to matter anymore other than giving up life once and for all – before I was too stupid to find a pill and go to sleep forever like she did in Paolo Coelho’s book, “Veronika Decides To Die”, I e-mailed my father in a long, comprehensive format the he immediately told me he loves me and he believes in me. He settled things with my mother and that he told me my brothers’ futures are none of my business. My future is my business, and that he will support me and be my mentor in any way that he can.

I talked to him about starting up my own thing, and he would fund me, but he suggested me to keep developing my idea (AND finishing school) until I am completely confident to go with it.

Well, just another great thing I have to think AND thank about, because my boyfriend has the exact same quality as my dad has:

He made me believe in my worth.

It’s clicheic, but cliches are popular for a reason, but let me just say that when you’re with the right man in your life, they make you glow.

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