Diet secrets from a working girl who's always thinking about food

At the risk of sounding like Cosmo, I've developed two tricks in my transition from full time college student to full time employee that saved me from the post-freshmen 15. In college, When you wake up at 11 every morning, the number of calories consumed before 11 a.m. is a whopping 0, and lunch is practically a second away. But when you have to be at work by 8 and awake by 7, it's a long way and a lot of hunger until noon.

There's a learning curve involved in re-developing your eating habits to match 40 hour a week schedules, especially when you think of food as on a higher plane than most worldly pleasures. Though I haven't lost any weight, I haven't gained any either, and I can promise these tips are completely original. None of that "eat several small meals a day" crap.

1. Pack snacks that you have to prepare. I used to bring two granola bars--one for the morning and one for the afternoon. But it's very difficult to know that food is right next to you and all you have to do is reach into your bag to eat it. Then you'll end up eating both at 9 a.m. and indulging your inevitable mid-afternoon hunger with a trip to the vending machines.

Now I bring oatmeal because having to get up, walk to the kitchen, mix in the water, wait for the microwave and then clean the bowl afterwards is such a pain that I have to be really hungry before I'm willing to take the time. Call me lazy, but it keeps me thin.

2. Eat your lunch at your desk while you're working, and spend your lunch break doing something recreational that doesn't involve eating. If you have an hour to eat, but are so hungry that you scarf down your sandwich in 10 minutes, you'll feel inclined to find more food to fill up the time. Instead, eat at your desk, and when you're finished go off somewhere with your book.

Male singers that understand the line between romantic and creepy

Every woman has a different idea of what's romantic. There's the ever so popular long walk on the beach, or dinner under the stars. I personally like my romance to have a little more edge, like cuddling under a blanket and watching Freddy Krueger tear the shit out of horny teenagers through their bed sheets.

But one thing that almost every woman, and man, would agree on is that music has been the cornerstone of romance since the beginning of time. In "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare wrote, "If music be the food of love, play on. . ."

You've got your Mariachi bands serenading lovers at nice restaurants and 9-piece orchestras at wedding receptions. In 1989 John Cusack held a boom box in the rain to declare his love for valedictorian Diane Court and in the 90s the boy band was born.

As has always been true, different women get the ooh-if-he-were-only-mine chills from different types of songs. David Archuleta has women swooning (some illegally, is he 18 yet?!?) over his crush that ain't going awaaay aay aaay yaa yaa.

Personally, I think Blink-182's "Going Away to College" is one of the most romantic songs ever written. "Why does it feel the same to fall in love or break it off?" Ahh, brilliant. Makes absolutely no sense, but just brilliant.

But I hope that all of us women can agree that sometimes men take their vocals too far. Songs about following your women around are usually creepy. Some of them are done ok, but the mostly they're just stalkerish.

However, songs about successful stalking due to supernatural abilities are just disturbing. Like Clay Aiken's "Invisible."

Watcha doin' tonight

I could be a fly on your wall

Are you really alone?

Then

If I was invisible

Then I could just watch you in your room

If I was invincible

I'd make you mine tonight

Kind of sounds like he's going to use his invisibility to sneak into her (his?) room and then rape her (him?). Thankfully, Clay turned out to be gay, so at least we know as women, we're safe.

Parachute was a little more explicit with their recent hit "Ghost."

Look behind you

Avoid the shadows

Watch your back now

Make your breathing shallow

Keep your room locked

And leave the blinds closed

I'm right there staring at your window

Then

I'm in the background

On the radio

I'm in your car, in your house

Waiting at your door

Under your footsteps

I'm everything you know

Just let me haunt, let me haunt

Let me be your ghost

Hmm. A lot of women dream of having a hit song written about them. I guess this sort of shatters that fantasy.

Fictional Female Fridays: Dee from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"

It's very difficult to create a fan base for a show that's premise is four horrible people own a bar, but "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has garnered a cultish following from its quirky humor, encouraging fans to take a weekly, 30 minute breather from their moral codes.

Dee Reynolds, played by previously unknown Kaitlin Olson, runs with the abominable crowd comprised of her three co-owners, which include her twin brother, and her equally despicable father played by Danny DeVito. Ironically nicknamed "Sweet Dee," she is the classic definition of a guy's girl, who despite her slim figure and long brown hair, is completely de-sexualized in the man's world of alcohol.

No matter how platonic and well-intentioned, close friendships between heterosexual men and women typically contain some sort of element of sexual tension, or at least flirtation. But Sweet Dee has made the full transformation into "one of the guys." She swears, schemes and takes no crap from her co's, and the writers have shrewdly refrained from creating sexual relationships or even mistakes between Dee and the non-blood related members of her crew, even though Olson is married to one of them.

Instead of sweetly batting her eyelashes when she doesn't get her way, she fights for it, whether it's convincing her brother to sleep with his friends' moms, pretending to be retarded for a welfare check or eating homeless people.

If celebutantes auctioned off their virginity for charity

There are few things that irritate me more than promise rings, where teenage girls and boys wear chastity rings to show off their virginity, making a promise to god and the rest of the world that they won't have sex until they're married.

Sometimes they attend ceremonies where the youngsters take a pledge with their parents that they will abstain from sex. Turning a sexual promise into a family affair is creepy, and seems sort of incestuous in an inexplicable way.

The promise rings are all the rage with the teenage brand of child stars and singers, especially the Disney ones. Why they need to advertise virginity like a new clothing line is completely lost on me, but for some reason it's just as trendy as skinny jeans and hormonal vampires.

If you're going to make a public spectacle of your virginity, why not make one of losing it as well? And at the same time contribute something more to society than a soundtrack detailing your dysfunctional relationship with the Jonas Brothers.

Every now and then a story of some girl auctioning off her virginity becomes public. Why not a charity auction? Miley's virginity could probably feed a small country, or at least a supermodel gone rogue (Tyra).

The lesbian kiss in "Jennifer's Body"

When I first saw a preview for the slasher/possessed/high school Megan Fox flick "Jennifer's Body," I thought it looked ridiculous but I kind of secretly wanted to see it. Then I found out it was written by Diablo Cody, and I was no longer ashamed of my desire.

I had high hopes for how the ex-stripper, sharp (and busy) tongued creator of pregnant tomboy Juno would handle the old don't-go-in-there-because-you-will-be-[insert passive verb associated with eating, armageddon or getting high]-to- death.

The answer? I don't know, because I can't convince anyone to see it with me. My boyfriend came close, because, well, Megan Fox is sexy as hell, but I'd still have to exchange a night watching some documentary about the lesser known U.S. presidents. Sorry Diablo, you're not worth spending three hours trying to figure out how to strangle myself with my boyfriend's shoelace without him noticing.

Whether or not the movie delivered is secondary to the media buzz, especially about the kiss between Fox and co-star Amanda Seyfried. What's interesting, though, is how Cody, Fox and Seyfried all had different interpretations of the kiss.

Cody told the Frisky the kiss "was intended to be something profound and meaningful to me and to Karyn [Kusama, the director]. . .There is a sexual energy between the girls which is kind of authentic, because I know when I was a teenaged girl, the friendships that I had with other girls were almost romantic, they were so intense."

Seyfried had quite a different take on smooching Fox. She told WENN "We knew that it was going to play a really in role in publicizing the movie. We kind of rolled our eyes at the idea of having to make out."

And, of course, count-on-her-to-be-weird Fox, in an MTV interview, said she prefers kissing Seyfried over her soon-to-be-meat male co-stars.

"I feel much safer with girls, so I felt more comfortable kissing her in the movie than kissing any of the other people that I had to kiss."

Although Fox goes onto acknowledge that Seyfried felt uncomfortable with the whole thing, it sounds like the kiss was quite the spectacle, both on and off camera.

Why the fact that there's a lesbian kiss is such a big deal, who knows? I feel like more movies come out with at least minimal girl-on-girl action than they do without.

The double standard for women

Women have been complaining about the sexual double standard for god knows how long? And rightfully so. I don't know where it came from (probably men), how it started and why it's prevailed for all these years. But it sure as hell isn't fair.

Women who have sex are sluts, and women who don't are prudes. Having verses not having sex can mean a lot of things. Waiting to have sex until you're in a relationship can go either way. You're a slut because you didn't wait until marriage, or you're a prude because you demanded a commitment before you gave it up. It can vary based on the situation, who's having the conversation, and which way the wind is blowing.

But this double-edged sword has a positive twist. If you can't win either way, then why bother to play at all? In it's own way the double standard is revealing a liberating truth--that there's no right or normal way to have sex.

If the double standard didn't exist, and all women were valued more one way or the other, we would all try to emulate that, which would be a bad thing because the right answer to waiting or not, or for how long, is different for everybody.

I know virgins who I consider slutty and women who can't count their encounters on both hands (sometimes toes) completely well-adjusted.

If you can't win, make up your own rules and play your own game.

When girls you don't like get fat

I don't judge people based on their appearance. In fact, I think that attractiveness is based on much more than your weight, hair, complexion etc. I'd argue that 90% of it is how you carry yourself and how you feel about yourself, especially if you're female.

But when I don't like someone for other reasons, namely their personality, I really have no problem making fun of them for their physical flaws. And If we were once friends and you suddenly went stone-cold bitch on me, I will talk about how your treasure trail looks in a bikini behind your back. If you're a disgruntled waitress with an attitude problem, I will laugh at the muffin top you tried to squeeze into size 2 jeans (for the record, I am not a size 2 either...and I'd never pretend to be).

When I was in high school, I was eating lunch at a cafe with my mom when she saw a girl who had been particularly bitchy the past year walk by. She asked me if she was pregnant. She wasn't.

It's not secret that girls get hit a lot harder for less than flawless appearances, by fellow females and the male population alike. It's also not to say that I'm not disgusted when it happens most of the time, and this post may just be fueling the fire, assuming my blog actually has some clout, which I seriously doubt.

But don't pretend you don't do it. I just say save your respect for the people who deserve it, stand up for those people when they take crap for how they look, and sit it out on the people who don't. You wouldn't want to tire yourself out.

And don't deny yourself a good laugh at someone else's expense once in awhile, as long as they suck as a human being, and you don't do it on a public forum. Oops.

Wondering why some idiots thinks last night's VMA stunt was staged

Seriously people? Yes, the Movie Awards' Bruno/Eminem fiasco was scripted. But how could you not know that? Bruno's genitals were slowly lowered onto Eminem's face, and he stayed in character the entire time.

Scripting something like the Kanye scandal would've involved the forging of both Swift and Beyonce's awards, or at least informing them beforehand, and it made Kanye look like a total shithead.

It left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, and it wasn't funny...so it must've been real.

Taylor and Beyonce

It's always nice to see some lady lovin' in the big, crazy, competitive music world.

As Pink eloquently put it on her Twitter feed , Kanye was "the biggest piece of shit on earth" for the crap he pulled at the VMAs, especially because it was Taylor Swift, arguably the sweetest and most innocent celebrity in Hollywood, not to mention she's only 19!

Although I'm not a big fan of her music, I fell in love with Swift when I saw her on the MTV special, "Once Upon a Prom," where she chose one lucky Tuscaloosa high schooler to be her prom date.

She was too sweet to pick the lucky man based on the video interviews they sent her because she didn't want anyone to get hurt. So she picked out of a hat.

And after extensive deliberation over what prom dress to wear, her date showed up in pink, explaining that his baseball coach had breast cancer. Swift rummaged through the back of her tour bus for old performance outfits and quickly changed into a pink dress to match him. Too cute.

So Kanye, fuck you, Beyonce, way to be a role model for a younger starlet, and Taylor, damn girl, you handled that admirably for someone with a few months still left of adolescence! 

Nerdy sexy guys

This seems to be the "in" thing right now, and I definitely didn't coin the phrase or the concept.

But I can take credit for always having had a thing for nerdy guys. I think it's super sexy when a guy has dorky habits. Like my boyfriend recently made sourdough bread, and spent several hours trying to understand the chemistry behind the yeast and the flour and the fermenting and all that stuff.

The last time I was so attracted to him was a couple weeks ago when he wrestled me for an unopened t-shirt crammed into plastic packaging the size of a bar of soap because he wanted to feel it uncrumble.

I think there are two types of nerdy sexy. One is the Justin Long and Andy Samberg nerdy sexy--kind of disproportionate looking, inappropriately funny, somewhat unkempt and lanky.

Then there's the baby-faced nerdy, which my boyfriend embodies. Cute like a puppy, pretends to be timid but is actually confident. Like Harry Potter and Ron, or Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) in "Pirates of the Caribbean."

I'm glad nerdy sexy is now nationally recognized. Though I'm kinda pissed the industry stole my market, all the nerdy sexy men of the world deserve their time in the spotlight.

Sex with people you hate

The concept is pretty steamy and also pretty strange. Isn't sex supposed to be a manifestation of love, and isn't love the exact opposite of hate?

No, it's not. In one episode of "Desperate Housewives," and yes, I'm aware I'm about to quote "Desperate Housewives," said to her malicious son, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

This makes a lot of sense. Sex with people you're indifferent to is entirely unsexy. Hate and love aren't opposite because they're both emotionally charged, and what is sex if not some crazy mix of emotional and physical?

I thought a Google search was in order. I found this book, "How Emotions Work" by Jack Katz. He says, "Only through sex can human beings focus all of their energies in using a small part of themselves to physically attack each other with unparalleled intimacy and unrestrained force. . ."

According to Katz, sex and hate are linked because hate is inherently violent, love is not. And sex, well, it can be.

Fictional Female Fridays: Emma from "Glee"

"Glee" premiered last week and I am obsessed. Judging by the Facebook status buzz, I'm not alone in this either. Despite its uncanny likeness to the 1999 Broderick/Witherspoon hit, "Election" (though it appears they have no production staff in common), "Glee" is the exact comedy I think we all need right now to forget all the craziness in our country.

It's uplifting but it's only cheesy at the right moments. It's also dark and inappropriate when it needs to balance the happy musical numbers with some relatable cynicism.

I don't have much reason for picking "Glee's" germaphobe, borderline OCD guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) except that she is so adorable you just want to squeeze her until her cute little bug eyes pop out of her head.

Hopelessly in love with kind-hearted Spanish teacher turned glee club director Will Schuester, Emma spends hours crying to sad music in her car and continuously turns down propositions from the well-intentioned but kind of gross football coach.

But when Will starts to notice Emma in the way she wants to be noticed, she quickly ends their flirtation because she feels guilty that Will is married with a baby on the way.

Well, either that or she doesn't want to get her hopes up.

But we will root for them anyway because Emma is cute and Will's irritatingly self-entitled wife lied about being pregnant.

Emma, just keep on polishing your grapes before you eat them and cleaning that pencil sharpener for hours. You'll get him in the end!

Men that don't cheat on their girlfriends/wives

I was watching TV the other night and saw a disturbing advertisement for The Ashley Madison Agency. Their message is simple, "Life is short. Have an affair." They guarantee users will succeed in having an affair with the help of their services, and pride themselves on their discretion.

I consider myself pretty open minded when it comes to relationships. I'm all for fuck buddies, open relationships, swinging, poly-amorous, whatever your thing is as long as everyone agrees on it and there's no deception involved. Cheating is based on lies and deceit and completely undermines the idea of an egalitarian relationship.

In this CNN interview, Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman explains that his 30-second TV spot is not going to convince anyone to have an affair, and that the people using his site would've cheated anyway.

I agree with that completely, and I'll take it one step further. I think cheating serves a purpose. It's part of the natural order of things. It can teach people about their own capacity for monogamy. It can be a quick way to end a bad relationship that no one would have had the strength to end on their own, and it can make you appreciate the virtues of a trusting and honest relationship if you have experienced cheating in your past, whether you were cheated on or the cheater.

But every good thing that comes out of cheating happens when the cheater either fesses up or gets caught. Nothing good can come from cheating if the partner doesn't eventually find out, which is why nothing good can come from Ashley Madison, which strives to not only guarantee the affair's secrecy, but eliminate the guilt factor, which is the necessary and natural catalyst to the growth that infidelity can potentially yield.

However, that is not my biggest issue with Ashley Madison. Just about every media element produced by this company implies that it's the man who is going to have the affair because his wife is disgusting and how could he possibly pass up these sexy ladies who want sex without commitment?

Check out these images here, here, here and here

And to top it off, this commercial that was my introduction to the agency:

Why can't it be the woman looking for an affair after her husband gained 300 pounds or suffered from erectile dysfunction? Why is the wife always gross post-wedding when men are the ones that burp and fart and think Dorito breath is funny?

Other sites that aren't as forward about infidelity send out the same messages. Like this one:

The idea is that she's no fun, so you should have a one night stand. This commercial makes the girlfriend into the villain, when she reacted just like any self-respecting woman should when her boyfriend is ogling everything with two tits and bare legs.

I have no problem with sites to help people looking for one night stands fulfill their itch. But why advertise to people already in relationships?

And then, of  course, is the biggest question of all: How can a country so concerned with the "sanctity of marriage" allow for crap like this to occur within "bible-sanctioned" marriages dare to suggest that marriage between people of the same sex is immoral?

Fictional Female Fridays: Shosanna from "Inglourious Basterds"

Jewish producer Lawrence Bender described Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds" as a "fucking Jewish wet dream."

That phrase seemed kind of offensive, but the guy's Jewish and it's also kind of true. A less offensive term would be "a great fantasy film," as my mom described it, and a "wouldn't-it-be-cool-if-that-actually-happened?" movie as my dad said.

Personally, I liked the part where Eli Roth shot Hitler in the head repeatedly until his face sort of exploded.

Anyway, back to Shosanna Dreyfus, a beautiful Jewish woman in her early 20's played by stunning French actress Mélanie Laurent. After witnessing the brutal massacre of her family hiding beneath the floorboards in a dairy farmer's home, she escapes to Paris, gathers forged papers and runs a movie theater.

A Nazi admirer convinces his superiors to hold the premiere of his film, where he portrays himself as a war hero, at her theater. 

Shosanna decides to burn it down with the help of her African-American boyfriend.

Though never aware of each other's plans, the Basterds, once they discover Hitler and his comrades will be in attendance, form their own plot to blow up the theater.

The Basterds take a quick and easy route by strapping dynamite to their legs, but Shosanna's plot to lock the Nazis in the theater, reveal herself as a Jew on the big screen, and slowly let it burn is much more creative and much more dramatic.

The Basterds raise suspicion the moment they walk into the theater, but Shosanna keeps her cover until her on-camera moment.

Her beautifully scripted mass murder scheme was the perfect contrast to Roth's intently focused face as he shot Hitler's face into the floor.   

A gay best friend

I've never had a gay best friend (though I've had my suspicions), but I've always wanted one. It seems like it would be the best of all worlds.

You can talk about boys with and compare notes on who's hot without the competition. You're never going to go for the same guy, and even if you do, there's no hard feelings because it's nothing against you if he turns out to be gay, and nothing reflection on him if he's actually straight.

You can hang out late at night without having to worry that some fleeting moment of attraction will ruin the whole friendship. Plus, he'll never look better in your little black dress than you do, and will probably always weigh more.

So gay guys in need of girl friends, please call?

Hooking up with assholes who are nice to you

I wouldn't recommend it, but we've all done it. We've all found ourselves desperately attracted to some guy we know to be a complete tool. We hear stories about him hooking up with some poor girl, and then kicking her out of bed afterwards, or laughing about intimate details with his friends.

But sometimes, you can't stop thinking about how hot the sex would be, and you realize you just have to do it once so you can move on with your life.

Once in awhile, this guy falls for you. He doesn't tell his friends, he keeps calling you and begs you to stay the night and take you to breakfast in the morning.

This one would fall under guilty pleasure--earning respect where apparently no one has before. And telling him to fuck off when he tells you he wants to commit.

But seriously, don't do it. If it's happened to you before, enjoy it, but don't go looking for it.

Hooking up with guys who don't brag about their conquests

It's been a long time since I've "hooked up," since I've been with my boyfriend for almost 2.5 years. I was a sophomore in college the last time I went on a first date.

But there are certain patterns I recognize in hindsight, and patterns I continue to see with my single friends. Certain types of guys that seemed to keep reappearing. One of those is the guy who brags about how many girls he's hooked up with. Sometimes he'll do this while trying to convince you to come home with him. The worst is when he does it during.

It's no secret that girls go for guys who excrete confidence. The idea must be by telling potential hook-ups how experienced you are, that girls are going to assume he's good in bed and want to try it out for themselves, or think he must be super confident to have succeeded so many times before.

I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish when they start bragging in the middle of "things."

Either way, the result is these guys come off as insecure douchebags. If the girl agrees to see him again, she's either really desperate or really horny.