Author Archives: Nikki

The Lazy-asses guide to losing weight: the workout edition

Posted in Body, Health & Fitness by

Not to be confused with the lazy-asses guide to losing weight: the food edition, which will be posted at a later date.

Hi, I’m the Black Widow, and in the past three months, I have lost ten kilos. To some, that may be a walk in the park, but for me, that’s a whopping change. For my entire life, I have relied heavily on my metabolism to cut down my body weight and remain the trim little spitfire that I am, but it eventually caught up on me and I packed on a few extra kilos that weren’t necessarily wanted. Finally, after snatching a good deal with Anytime Fitness, I decided to shed that extra weight and return to my most fitting form.

I know some of you have read weight loss stories and thought “But these people have all the motivation and discipline in the world to achieve their goals, and I don’t. How will this work for me?” The solution is simple: me. I can honestly tell you that when it comes to physical exercise, I am one of the laziest mofos in the world. Usually, when someone starts going to the gym and they get into a regular pattern, they love going to the gym and can’t get enough of it. For me, after three months of regularly attending the gym, I still dread going to that metal clanging-and-banging hellhole.

Those are interesting coloured paperweights...

Those are interesting coloured paperweights…

To help others get fit and get into the shape they desire, I have compiled a list of steps that I personally took to help me achieve my weight loss:

Step one: Set a goal
I know it’s cliché to say this but a goal is needed if you’re even thinking of getting into shape. I set a goal as soon as I decided to go to the gym and it’s definitely helped me. When I am struggling to breathe as I run for my dear life on the treadmill, or my arms are about to snap off when I’m lifting weights, I think of my ultimate goal and picture it in my head… and it allows me to keep going. For at least another like two minutes or so.

Step two: Stay disciplined
After a few days of hitting the gym, you’ll feel really pumped and think “Yeah! This is for me!” but then you’ll gradually stop going until you realise you’re donating money to the gym. Don’t fall into this trap. If, for some reason, you feel yourself thinking “Hey, I don’t need to go tonight” or “I can do without the gym just this one week”, discipline yourself . You won’t achieve that goal if you skip a day or two. You’ll go back to the way you were if you miss an entire week. For me, if I keep this thought in mind, I will always go back to the gym: “If I miss the gym tonight, I won’t get to walk around the beach without a shirt on because people will think a whale has washed ashore and throw water on me.”

Step three: Stick to a schedule
In a similar light to setting a goal, planning a weekly schedule will keep you going. If you go to the gym with no real set plan in mind, you’ll just aimlessly wander around, pretending to use cardio machines and looking at your dumpy ass in the mirror and then go home. What did you achieve? Nothing. However, if you know that Monday is leg day and Wednesday is abs day, then you’ll know what to do, how long to do it and what’s up next. For me, I plan to go to the gym at least five times a week with three of those days being dedicated to specific parts of my body. If I miss a day, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll catch up with it next week.

Step four: Believe you can do it… the results will show
I had a really good week at the gym in mid-December. I had been hitting the gym really hard and felt great about myself. I stepped onto the scale and… still the same. Honestly, it shattered me a bit and I thought “I’ve been killing myself for so long and nothing is showing!” Like all good things in life, however, it’ll come to the patient ones who wait. Don’t let a bunch of numbers and results slow your efforts down. Stick to your plan and I can guarantee you the results will show themselves eventually. It also helps if a friend of yours stops and says “Hey, you’ve lost weight!” because then you’ll know that something is changing, and it’ll motivate you to keep going.

Now I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could do to maximise your efforts at the gym, but these four fundamental steps will prove vital in your journey to your ultimate weight loss destination. If a naturally lazy writer like me can get off my laptop and go to the gym (begrudgingly, of course), then I’m sure you can as well.

Of course, the other (bigger) half of weight loss is eating properly. Stay tuned as I tell you what I did to my diet which led to my weight loss.

– by The Black Widow

The Black Widow’s Bucket List

Posted in Lifestyle by

In celebration of my 22nd birthday, I’ve decided to publish my personal bucket list.

Before I had never really thought of having a bucket list. I thought my life was pretty great and didn’t really feel the need to go extreme and jump out of a plane or bungee jump off a bridge in New Zealand, but then I stopped to think of all the things I haven’t done.

How cute is this movie though?!

How cute is this movie though?!

I haven’t gone travelling (which will be rectified later this year).
I haven’t even left this country.
I haven’t been hiking at night.
I haven’t been part of an animal rights liberation protest.
I haven’t stepped foot in a wrestling ring.
I haven’t fulfilled my wildest fantasies.

So by the time I pass on – and if my palm is to be believed, I’m dying pretty early – I want to have accomplished at least 80% of this bucket list.

Alas, here we are:

The Black Widow’s Bucket List
[x] Attend a wrestling class and make a Beautiful People style entrance.
[x] Go skydiving, regardless of how much I hate heights.
[x] Attend an animal rights liberation protest, with my own sign.
[x] Go hiking at night.
[x] Travel across Europe by myself (and hopefully not be that naive traveller who gets their things stolen)
[x] Fill a Ute bed wtih pillows and blankets and sleep out under the stars.
[x] Abseiling, also despite my fear of heights.
[x] Perform a flash-mob like pole dancing routine OUTTA NOWHERE.
[x] Cycle through Central Park.
[x] Go (country) star hunting in Nashville.
[x] Go on a trip with a fake persona and back story and make it last for the entire duration.
[x] Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
[x] Organise and host a charity fundraiser for the local firehouse.
[x] Go on a hot air balloon ride… despite my fear of heights.
[x] Mud wrestle.
[x] Publish a novel.
[x] Go on a blind date.
[x] Take up capoeira.
[x] Live in a different country for at least six months.
[x] Fly first class.
[x] Dress up as the Bella Twins for a costume party (another person required).
[x] Tell Katy Perry she sucks.
[x] Change the world.

I encourage everyone to start their own bucket list and see what kind of whacky and crazy things they can come up with. A life not lived is not a life I want to live.

– by The Black Widow

Why I Don’t Like the Term “Plus Size”

Posted in Opinion by

TL;DR version: plus size is as defineable as what water tastes like.

One of my best mates happily remarked on how a department store had a plus size (female) mannequin. Thinking that this was a step in the right direction for the way women are influenced when shopping regarding what is “the look”, I asked her to send me a picture of this mannequin. Looking at the picture, however, the “plus size” mannequin in question wasn’t that plus size at all; in fact, it was probably a size 12 at most. It was noticeably fuller than the other mannequins, but the point remains the same.

I wouldn't even say these models are plus size. They're just how they should be. (Image via Marden Plus Size Facebook page)

I wouldn’t even say these models are plus size. They’re just how they should be. (Image via Marden Plus Size Facebook page)

That left me thinking… if a size 12 is considered plus size in today’s society, what happens to those women who are a size 16 or 18 or even bigger? Are they made to feel worse about themselves because they aren’t even considered to be plus size? What are they considered then… double plus size? Triple plus size?

If you rewind it even further, why is it even called “plus size”? The term kind of implies that it is a normal size plus a little bit more. I’m sorry but who is this ultimate power deciding what women’s size is normal and what isn’t? Why is a women’s size 8 completely “normal” but a 14 isn’t?

I remember having a discussion with a friend of mine and she told me that nearly every if not all marketing ads you see in shopping malls or kind of subliminal messages to tell you how you “should and shouldn’t” look. You see the ads where there a group of “normal looking” models wearing the clothes that are sold in the store, but what are you meant to do if you don’t look like them? Imagine there was a short, chubby girl with a brown bob cut looking at a picture of a leggy blonde with a perfect tan and perfectly-toothed smile wearing a floral playsuit. Would that brunette girl think that she isn’t allowed to wear this floral playsuit because she doesn’t look like the girl in the picture?

With so many ads and marketing tools in today’s society telling us what we should look like and how we should feel about ourselves, why isn’t anyone telling us “Hey, if your health is fine and you’re happy with who you are and what you look like, fuck everyone else. Go ‘head wit’ yo’ bad self.” If you’re content being a size 6, all the power to you! If you’re pleased with your size 14 figure, all the power to you! If you’re happy to be at the gym 7 days a week – or if you’re okay with never stepping foot in a gym and living off Nutella – I say all the power to you!

In the same light, just like there is nothing wrong with being a size with a higher number, there isn’t anything wrong with being a size with a lower number. Don’t be a Meaghan Trainor and skinny shame “them skinny bitches”. People were made to be different. It’s time people really embrace that.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Temptation

Posted in Books, Entertainment by

This just in: Alexis Summers is a dumb bitch. Hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The latest novel to be reviewed by The Black Widow is an adult romance novel entitled Temptation by K.M. Golland, which is the first in a series. The premier novel in this series introduces the heroine named Alexis Summers, who is a married woman in her mid 30s with two kids. Sounds peachy, right? Well…

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn't have fallen for the second.” - Johnny Depp

“If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.” – Johnny Depp

After nine years of being a stay-at-home mum, she’s happy to get back into the workforce as a hotel concierge in Melbourne, working for the typically drop dead gorgeous male protagonist, Bryce Clark. Sparks fly and Alexis is challenged: should she give into temptation – pun intended – or stick with her loving husband Rick?

Now, where was I? Oh right. Alexis is a dumb bitch.

I found the character of Alexis completely repugnant and I did not at any time throughout this novel ever sympathise with her whatsoever. She was hypocritical, annoying (almost as annoying as Ana from Fifty Shades, and that’s saying something) and just hella inappropriate. And she fell way too easily for Bryce. She literally sets eyes on him and is all like “OMG I LOVE YOU GET IN ME”. Girl bye.

On the other hand, however, I will say that I didn’t mind Bryce. After you’ve read as many raunchy adult novels as I have, the “attractive, wealthy and witty” male protagonist effect kind of wears off, but I still found Bryce quite likeable. There’s something about a man that knows what he wants kind of attractive, even if it is someone else’s wife. Hey, I’m not here to judge. Even though Alexis is a dumb bitch. Golland certainly wrote her characters pretty well.

In saying that, however, there were some scenes throughout the novel that I found really unnecessary. Some parts of the story weren’t actually germaine to the story, and that to me was a bit of a turn off. I will say that Golland did plant the seeds of a very interesting series and I will definitely be getting into the next crop once my skyscraper high pile of “books waiting to be read” dies down a bit. The language she used was very easy to read and it made for one of those books that you could read at the beach, in a bus or in the comfort of your own bed. I think I read the second half of the novel in one go and refused to put it down.

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 7/10
Style of writing: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

If you’re looking to have your fancy tickled after having it chained and whipped by Fifty Shades, then I suggest you pick up this novel and the rest of the series. I’m sure it’ll tide you over for when the Fifty Shades film comes out on Valentine’s Day… or Anti-Valentine’s Day, if you’re like me.

– by The Black Widow