A weight issue

Since I was a little kid, weight is a huge issue for me. It culminated when I was in my last year of Thanaweya Amman. I weighed back then more than when I was 9 months pregnant! After leaving school, I started shedding some wight, maybe because of the new daily schedule, but I was still way over wight. Then I started working, and I got busier by day, and seeing friends by night, plus following the activities I was immersed in. At that period, I was just too busy to think about food, and bit by bit I became more confident in my body. Plus, at that period I started avoiding junk food with all my strength, though it was hard considering the Egyptian standard work environment and socializing.

This was the best period of my weight problem, and for a short period of time,  I was finally able to buy clothes that looked good on me and actually fit.

Then I got to know my husband, and as we were working together, during the dating period we went out nearly every day, and in less than a year I gained -gulp- more than 10 kilos!

That’s why I was very conscious about my weight during pregnancy, I couldn’t afford gaining a lot of weight. Not just it didn’t look good, or that it will affect my self confidence negatively, it could have had physical complications I really didn’t want to get involved in. It’s enough that my OB referred to weight every time he had troubles viewing the baby by the ultrasound, and he also said that the fat affected the healing process of the stitches.

And now, thank God I lost the kilos I gained during pregnancy, BUT I am still suffering from obesity. And I really want to lose these extra kilos, and feel better about my body and myself. Talking about it on my blog may encourage me to stick to my plan and eventually reach my goal. Hopefully!

For the past few months, I abstained from unhealthy food, and tried to maintain a healthy menu. But still, I go down 2 kilos, then up again, and I really hate this yo-yo effect.

Recently I started a food diary, by just putting down what I consumed, no matter how guilty I feel about it, made me reconsider my diet. I discovered that I consumed way too much fruit than I needed to compensate on the no-sugar rule I started following few weeks ago. So my first idea was to cut on fruits to one or two a day.

I also found that my idea of having 5 small meals, was transformed to having 2 big snacks between normal 3 meals, and this obviously didn’t have the results I was hoping for..

So now I was to keep up my food diary, continue on abstaining from white sugar, and limiting my fat intake and I plan to choose whole wheat instead of the refined grain.

My target is to lose 5 kilo in order for my BMI to go lower than 30 (to be removed from the Obese category), and then I will start to gradually lose another 10 kilos and try to maintain it.

ما بين العرض و الطول

روى أن إبن ” سينا” كان يسأل الله أن يهبه حياة عريضة و إن لم تكن طويله ، و لعله كان يعنى بالحياة العريضة الحياة الغنية بالتفكير و الإنتاج ، و يرى أن هذا هو المقياس الصحيح للحياة ، وليس مقياسها طولها إذا كان الطول فى غير إنتاج ،فكثير من الناس ليست حياتهم إلا يوما واحدا متكررا ، برنامجهم في الحياة: أكل وشرب و نوم ، أمسهم مثل يومهم ، و يومهم كغدهم، ، هؤلاء و إن عمروا مائة عام فأبن سينا يقدره بيوم واحد ، على حين أنه قد يقدر يوما واحدا طوله أربع وعشرون ساعة – بعشرات السنين إذا كان عريضا فى منتهى العرض ، فقد يوفق المفكر فى يومه إلى فكرة تسعد الناس أجيالا ، أو إلى عمل يسعد آلافا ،فحياة هذا – و إن قصرت – تساوى أعمار آلاف الناس ، بل قد تساوى عمرأمة ، لان العبرة هنا بالكيف لا بالكم .

أحمد أمين – الكيف لا الكم – فيض الخاطر ج1

Some people live their whole life without having a goal, just waking up, going through life then sleeping. Their utmost legacy is being remembered through their names of their offspring. While others through their short years leave some marks in history, and enlighten us for decades.
It doesn’t matter what sort of achievemnt they have accomplished, it is just they left something, and their contributions were felt (حياتهم لم تضيع هباء). Regardless of the achievemnt they wanted, may it be the discovery of a galaxy, or raising and educating great men and women, this is a life worth noting, and worth living.

يا رب اعطني القدرة على استغلال وقتي في ما يفيد، و الحكمة في اختيار أفعالي، و ابعدني عن ما يضيع الوقت و يذهب العقل بعيداً عن طاعتك.

Symmetry

interesting 🙂

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

The Lake

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My Ancestors

So I’ve talked about Aly Ramzy Janbek before in a post that re-connected me to some of my extended family, then I remembered that I didn’t mention other ancestors I’m proud of. Two men who contributed substantially in our history and I’m very proud to be one of their descendants: Osman Moharram & Aly El Rouby.

Frankly I don’t have lots of inputs yet on their lives, so I’ll share with you what I got to know thanks to the web.

Osman Moharram

(22 January 1881 – November 1958)

The link on Marefa.org says that he was called شيخ المهندسين في مصر, and that he headed the ministry of Public Utilities وزارة الأشغال العامة fourteen times. Then it traces his professional history from the start till he became a minister. The article mentions that he was subject to unjust accusations following the 1952 coup, which put anyone from the old regime on trials, and put several examples of actions he took proving that he didn’t give favors, even to relatives of his party members (Al Wafd).

Then it mentions some of his achievements, such as the establishment of the Union  of Engineers (whereas his membership number was 6), some irrigations projects, raising Aswan water reservoir, building bridges, plus some city planning projects.

This article was based on Lamei El Motaei’s “This Man from Egypt” لمعي المطيعي: موسوعة هذا الرجل من مصر.,  but there is also a book written on him by Mohamed El Gawady, published by Madbouli in 2004, as part of a series on Modern Egypt.

 Aly El Rouby:

Though there is very little info written on this man, as far as I know he is the only one among my ancestors who has his portrait in a museum (it’s the military museum in Cairo Citadel).

I found only a small post saying that he was born in Defna village, Atsa in El Fayoum, and had a modest upbringing (memorizing the Quran, then being sent to El Azhar). Later on he joined the army as a simple soldier, but was promoted bit by bit till he reached a high rank thanks to his performance in a mission sent to Ethiopia.

Then he was transferred to a high rank in the ministry of Interior, then the ministry of Justice, before returning back to the army and joined the Orabi movement. He was promoted to a General in March 1883, though the high ranks in the army was exclusive to Turks and Cherkess. And he was the first to head the Ministry of Sudan. But after the failure of the Orabi movement, he was among those who refused asking the Khedive for pardon, and thus was sent to exile in Sawaken in Sudan, where he passed away.

I know that we have an extended family in Sudan, but unfortunately I haven’t met any of them.

—

I have to mention that I was glad to find streets named after them in Cairo 🙂

Osman Moharram street, in el Haram. And Aly El Rouby street, in Roxy.

—–

That’s it for now. I hope I’ll be able to add more on these great men, who I’m proud of having some traces of their traits in my DNA.

In the park

Faces from Tirana

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

From the World Digital Library

Layla Magazine:

the first women’s magazine to be published in Iraq. Launched in 1923, the magazine dealt with new and useful matters related to science, art, literature, sociology, and in particular to child-rearing and the education of girls, family health, and other matters pertaining to home economics.

Description of Egypt:

You can even download the whole book (Volume 1 is 288 MB) !

Photo of a young Albanian (1923):

They look so cute!

A Merchant from Samarkand (around 1905):

I really love the photos of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. He was a pioneer in the development of color photography, and went for a photography journey across the Russian empire in the early 1900s.

The original La Fontaine Stories (1888):

Special Bride (1870):

a Chinese bride in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in her wedding dress.

قال أبو العلاء المعري:

من ساءه سبب أو هاله عجب
فلي ثمانون عاما لا ارى عجبــــا
الدهر كالدهر والأيام واحـــدة
والناس كالناس والدنيا لمن غلبا

قال الإمام الشافعي :
كلما أدبني الدهـــــر
أراني ضعف عقلي
وإذا ما ازددت علما
زادني علما بجهلي

Masks Factory in Shkodra

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Finally I got the chance to visit the arleccino factory. Too bad I forgot my camera and I had to use my phone cam.

We visited a display room, where hundreds of venetian carnival masks were hung all around, then we walked by the workshop itself, and the steps of making the masks. Too bad photos were not allowed there.