#GetInMyBelly: The 12 Times It’s Perfectly Okay To Cave Into Your Carb Cravings

As females, we try our hardest to avoid carbs at all costs, but there are some circumstances that make these delicacies unavoidable.

Being drunk is probably the number one time we don’t give a sh*t about what we’re eating and, as a result, we consume our entire body weight in whatever food we can get our hands on at that very moment.

However, there are very few times when you can rationalize the effort you will have to put into working off your indulgences and indiscretions (aka when you’re sober). But when you can, the results are glorious, fulfilling and happily fattening.

So, when do we cave? The countdown goes a little something like this:

12. Any time you see a Chick-fil-A

If you’ve never had the waffle fries from Chick-Fil-A, then you’ve truly never lived. This fast food restaurant is the unicorn of the industry and should be treated as such.

Unfortunately, it’s not open on Sundays — which would probably be the best day to enjoy some deep-fried loving — so you must take advantage of the restaurant when you come across it.

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11. McDonald’s during the Monopoly game

PSA: It begins today! Yup, you’re welcome. It doesn’t matter how long McDonald’s has been practicing this tradition, you fall for it every damn time — especially while under the influence.

The more items you purchase, the better your chances of winning huge prizes, so it only makes sense to keep eating McDonald’s, right? Right.

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10. Wings during a football game

What else are you supposed to indulge in during a football game? Is there nothing better than lying on your couch while simultaneously stuffing your face with football-themed foods? (That’s rhetorical: No, there is not.)

Sure, you can opt for chips and other small snacks, but you know they won’t fill you for a three-hour-plus timeframe. Plus, calories don’t count on Sundays.

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9. Eating pasta after dieting all summer long

Thank God bikini season is over because you are f*cking starving. You haven’t allowed yourself to indulge for a solid three months, but alas, that awful time period is over and done with; well, that is, until next year.

So, what better way to spend your time than swimming in a bowl of spaghetti? Enjoy, you deserve it.

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8. Grilled cheese, any damn time you feel like it

Grilled cheese is a gift from the gods because you really have never tasted anything quite like it. It doesn’t matter what time of the day it is; grilled cheese is amazing at 9 am, delicious at 1 pm and definitely satisfactory at 11 pm.

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7. Anything you can get your hands on at a tailgate

The best part about participating in a tailgate is eating while you drink and drinking while you eat. I mean, isn’t that the point of being a female at a tailgate? Oh, you mean people actually watch the game? Could’ve fooled me…

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6. Chinese food on Christmas

This one goes out to all my fellow Jews. It gets a bit lonely on Xmas when half of your friends basically vanish, so you must fill the void with immense amounts of Chinese food. There’s a reason this tradition has been going on for so long — it’s too hard to resist.

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5. Chocolate on your period

Ah, your period: the three- to five- days of every month when you can eat everything you want to, skip the gym and don’t even feel bad about it.

Sure, having your period may suck and temporarily ruin your sex life, but at least you can indulge in your favorite cravings without feeling guilty about it.

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4. A hungover breakfast sandwich

Does BAE stand for bacon and eggs? Because that is how you feel about breakfast when you wake up with an awful hangover. There is nothing that can cure the nausea you are experiencing quite like a breakfast sandwich.

The best part? You can order it right to your bed via Seamless. Thank heavens for delivery because there is absolutely no way your hungover ass is crawling to the nearest bodega.

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3. Beer when you’re on the verge of blacking out, but still want to remain social

Okay, so you don’t usually drink beer, but when you’ve already downed upwards of seven tequila shots, this is probably the best move you can make to prevent yourself from blacking out.

In all honesty, you probably should’ve stopped drinking three shots ago, but hey, that’s never stopped you before.

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2. Candy when you’re high, especially while watching movie

Bring on the sour straws because your stoner self has a bottomless pit for a stomach. Is there anything better than watching a movie while binge-eating your favorite snacks while hitting the pipe? No one, I repeat no one, can resist candy. It’s just against human nature.

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1. Drunk pizza

Okay, maybe I lied because eating pizza at 3 am may just be better than binge-eating when you’re high. Your intoxicated-self knows no limits as you shove yet another slice down your throat while simultaneously ordering another slice.

There’s a reason this is everyone’s go-to late night option — and one you are way too familiar with.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It

Never Settle For Someone Who Wants You Over Someone Who Would Do Anything To Keep You

Human beings are almost entirely governed by two instincts: desire and the need to avoid loss. We are loss-adverse animals who constantly want something.

The instinct to want and to avoid loss are so strong and so deeply ingrained in our psyches that we see little purpose to life outside of them.

Wanting to own and to hold on to things is the reason we believe life has value to us as individuals; if we were unable to keep things for ourselves, then we would find little reason to participate whatsoever.

The problem arises when people are more worried about satisfying their wants than they are of satisfying their instinct to avoid loss — when the scale tips in this direction, you have people who attain things they don’t need and then find it difficult to appreciate any of the things they already have.

Not being capable of appreciating the things in your life is one thing — a bad thing — but not being capable of appreciating the people in your life is another.

As a rule of thumb, if you are in a relationship and do not fear the thought of losing the person you are with — if you wouldn’t do just about anything to keep them in your life, if you don’t feel that you need them — then either you don’t have your priorities straight or they simply aren’t worth keeping.

If you find yourself with someone whom you feel only wants you but wouldn’t move heaven and earth to keep you, then move on. You’re not a thing and you deserve better.

But how can you tell the difference?

A person who wants you…

Only gives you attention when it’s convenient. If this person is in the mood to see and to interact with you, if this person wants or needs that interaction, then this person will give you attention.

Otherwise, if this person isn’t in the mood to talk to you, to help you, to spend time with you, to be there for you, he or she will simply be unavailable – until, of course, it’s convenient to be there.

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A person who needs you…

Is there for you because being there for you is something this person needs to do. This person needs to keep you safe and happy. This person needs you to enjoy life so that he or she, in turn, can enjoy life.

Regardless of whether it’s convenient or not, this person will be there for you. This person will do anything to avoid losing you, even if it means sucking it up from time to time and doing the little things he or she isn’t especially excited to do.

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A person who wants you…

Will keep the conversations to a minimum. This person puts up with you because you serve a purpose.

This person understands that this means he or she will have to talk to you in order for you to feel comfortable enough to allow him or her to use you, but if this person could have it his or her way, conversations would be avoided altogether. This person doesn’t care what you have to say because this person doesn’t really care about you.

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A person who needs you…

Will do anything to keep you. This is the type of person who is always interested to hear what you have to say. This person wants to know about your day, to know what you did, what you ate, whom you interacted with.

This person wants to know every little bit about you because he or she is still trying to figure out why it is that he or she needs you so much.

This person knows he or she couldn’t bear living without you, but this person can’t exactly pinpoint the reason why.

This person is in love with you because this person is in love with you, and although that’s enough of an explanation, this person still wants to figure you out.

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A person who wants you…

Never makes long-term plans with you and avoids talking about your future. This person doesn’t want to plan any trips for next month — hell, he or she may not even want to plan dinner for next week.

This person doesn’t want to promise that he or she will see you again because it may never happen.

Every time this person leaves you, there’s a good chance it will be for the last time. You never know… maybe this person will find something better, or simply newer, later this week.

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A person who needs you…

Has no problems planning trips or discussing your relationship. This person may not be able to promise you forever, but at the moment, he or she sees no reason not to.

During conversation, this person will mention things that you need to do together, that you need to see and experience together.

This person will talk as if the two of you were the same person, living life side by side. When a person needs you — reallyneeds you — that person sees his or her entire future with you in it.

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A person who wants you…

Will never love you. If you pay close attention and remain as objective as possible, you can tell how much a person cares about you.

It can be difficult to distance ourselves in such a way when we believe ourselves to be falling in love, but it must be done if you wish to avoid wasting your time and getting your heart broken.

If this person looks at you and smiles and you can tell he or she isn’t just looking at you, but looking into you, then you may have a keeper on your hands.

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A person who needs you…

Either loves you or will soon accept that he or she loves you. A person who only wants you will never love you. It can be difficult for people to admit to themselves that they love other people — forget about admitting it to them. It takes some people significantly more time than others.

However, just because people can’t admit it — to you or themselves — that they love you doesn’t mean they will never admit that they love you. You have to be patient with people.

Runaway Bride: My Choice To Walk Away From Love Led Me To Everything I Was Looking For

When I imagined myself getting married, ironically, I pictured that ending scene in “Runaway Bride” when Julia Roberts walks through the grassy field towards Richard Gere.

With her hair blowing effortlessly in the wind; the fall foliage is vibrant against her ivory gown, and her off-the-shoulder dress trails behind her. She finally strides up to her groom with ease and confidence and says, “I do.”

When it came time to don my own ivory gown and tie the knot, I proved to be the real runaway bride, calling off my wedding just 11 days before the ceremony was to take place.

In the aftermath of my decision, as I sat sifting through ripped-up RSVPs, wedding favors and registry refunds, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I was missing that “bridal gene.”

With this being the second wedding I’ve called off in less than two years, it seems I have my answe … but let me start at the beginning.

A year ago, almost to the date, I had plans to be married abroad at a charming chateau in Europe. My fiancé and I had been together since college and our relationship had already taken on a lifetime of memories as. We joked about being “an old, married couple” in our 20s.

With a ring on my finger, wedding planning took full force and began to consume both our lives. I had imagined wedding planning to be a movie montage of laughing girlfriends, vibrant bouquets and cake tastings. Instead, I felt overwhelmed and distant from the celebration, as if I was taking a back seat to my own life.

Just six months shy of the wedding, my fiancé and I called off the nuptials and notified 100 guests of our “postponement.”

We had chalked up my cold feet and runaway bride behavior to the woes of planning a wedding abroad. Since we weren’t in Europe, or involved in the tastings, venue selections or décor, how could I feel like the wedding was my own?

It was a perfectly rational explanation for such irrational behavior, and in the months that followed, I clung to that logic like a life raft.

As I watched my best friends distance themselves and my family retreat into disappointment in the post-wedding fall-out, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for having bolted in the opposite direction of marital bliss.

Perhaps because of this, a year later, I found myself back on the wedding track and convinced that the second time would be the charm. With plans for a wedding stateside, I knew I would be more involved and integrated into every phase of the celebration.

What I hadn’t accounted for was the mutual realization that my fiancé and I were simply two different people. It was a cold awakening to realize that our problems never rested with wedding details, but rather, stemmed from an incompatibility in how we viewed our futures and what we wanted out of life.

While growing up, I would spend time on top of a red brick ledge that marked the entrance to my parent’s flower garden.

High above the vibrant red roses and black and yellow bumblebees, I would sit perched above our quiet, suburban neighborhood with a journal in hand. On these lazy afternoons, I would stare up towards the sky as planes flew overhead, imagining the exotic, faraway destinations they were going to.

Maybe that plane was en route to London? Perhaps that one had just come back from Asia? At that age, the possibilities were endless, and the world was wondrous as I imagined all the places I had yet to explore. Now, at age 26, I am still that little girl dreaming of her next adventure.

The vision of my life, or at least the next couple years of it, is a kaleidoscope of volunteering abroad, backpacking the world, submerging myself in various cultures and growing emotionally, spiritually and personally through travel.

With a journalism degree in my back pocket, I have been pouring my heart and efforts into developing my travel writing, growing my travel blog and getting my work published.

As I flew off on press trips and travel assignments, the reality of my dreams, and the future my fiancé and I would have, started to dawn on us.

While he envisioned something more comparable to “the American Dream” and longed for a backyard, cozy home and a dog, my aspirations pointed toward a future that was less stable and more spontaneous.

It took some time for my heart to catch up to my head and realize I wasn’t running from a wedding; rather, I was running from a future in which I didn’t see myself.

I blamed the stress of wedding planning, the miles abroad and the money, but at the end of the day, the reason for our wedding being called off was simple: My fiancé had roots and I had wings. There was no future where we could reconcile that difference.

The label of ”runaway bride” is a heavy one to carry, and although the decision to cancel our nuptials was mutual, the spotlight seemed to burn most brightly on me.

Perhaps my dreams of travel writing will never come to fruition, or maybe a year from now, I will find myself living abroad. Anything can happen, and while a month ago, it felt as though my future belonged to someone else, now what happens next belongs to me.

Life Is What You Make It: How To Appreciate Your Past Mistakes Rather Than Condemn Them

How many times have you wished for a time machine so you can go back in time and change what was? Or, do you find that you constantly beat yourself up for past decisions?

I have heard friends, family and even myself say, “If only…” but life is about learning! I can now say emphatically that everything is exactly as it should be.

There’s a great master plan for each of our lives, and if we learn to embrace what comes, we would be better able to guide ourselves towards fulfillment, peace of mind and success.

There is no right or wrong, good or bad way in life. Each unique moment in time gives us wisdom and grace to deal with our future experiences.

It’s easy to look back with a heart full of regret and even self-loathing after the moment is gone, but the truly courageous thing to do is to find the silver lining in each situation:

What has this experience taught you? What did you gain? How can you make the next (similar) situation work for you? What are some signs that you can look for, so as to avoid making those decisions or perceived mistakes in the future?

I don’t hold the magic elixir to solve anyone’s problems, but with time, comes wisdom and perspective. If we quiet the internal and external “noise,” and reflect deeply on our past and what is important to us at this present moment, we can chart our destiny and watch the answers manifest in our lives.

It’s so strange that when I practice this, the right situations and people appear in my life so as to guide and take me to the next level of my journey without fail.

The power of intent and faith is truly amazing. It’s also important to never lose heart. Someone wise once told me that when you are at your wit’s end and about to give up is the moment your miracle will come and things will turn around. These are definitely words to live by.

Many of us may desperately want to move on from a situation, whether it is a job, place or relationship, but may find it challenging to do so.

During the time it takes to successfully transition, it’s helpful to try to make the most of the situation. The reason why it’s taking so long is probably because you haven’t learned the lessons yet.

A few years ago, I was at that place; I was at my wit’s end desperately searching my being for a revelation, to progress to the next stage in my life.

I remember blogging about it for many years, and bit by bit, I evolved, until one day, when I least expected, I got my breakthrough.

Sometimes, the answers you are looking for doesn’t come right away, but the key is persistence and being in a constant place of preparedness for the next step.

It was only after several months of that chapter being closed, did I realize why my breakthrough was taking so long. I was being prepared for the next step along my challenging journey.

Indeed, all aspects of your life may never be perfect, but the key to healthy and wholesome living and mastering this thing called life, is learning to appreciate and value the good and bad, and take it all in stride.

Everything happens for a reason, and we ought not to underestimate this sometimes cliché statement.

The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, first said,

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, but make the best of everything they have.

If we bear that in mind, we can then appreciate that we hold the key to happiness and success in our hands. It’s all a matter of perspective and conditioning our minds to fulfill our desired outcomes.

Why Gen-Y Needs To Stop Arguing Over The Word ‘Feminism’ And Start Practicing Equality

Growing up, I suppose I more or less always identified as “one of the guys.” In many ways, I strived to epitomize the son my father never had. This soon became an essential part of my identity. At the time, this seemed entirely normal to me.

It wasn’t that I consciously tried to act like the males with whom I hung out. My behaviors were simply natural inclinations for me.

I made friends by playing sports, dressing how I wanted, speaking how I wanted and exploring my childhood. I did so without fear of or regard to gender restrictions, as to me, they didn’t yet exist. I simply knew my identity as my own, without any specific definition.

As I grew older, I realized that a divide exists between men and women, which has developed from our understanding of gender roles. At a certain age, it became inappropriate for me to play sports with the boys as I always had; suddenly, it had to be separate.

Soon, my relationships with males changed, as well. Genuine friendships could be interpreted to possess blurred lines or suggestive undertones.

In my teenage years, girls who hung out with more guys than girls were seen as trying to “market” themselves in a certain way. We had become sexualized beings and were considered more for our romantic or sexual motives than for our independent desires or decisions.

Eventually, I realized that certain jobs were seen as “unfit” for me simply because I am a woman. When I began pursuing journalism, sports-related articles I wrote often earned negative comments from men, who questioned my sports knowledge. Again, solely because I am a woman.

I even dated men who seemed threatened by my need for independence and general rejection of typical machismo.

Suddenly, I became aware of the pressures women face to define themselves and their choices according to gender-biased standards, which had never mattered to me in my childhood. I, along with many other women, choose to reject this archaic ideology.

While this truth inspired me to explore feminism and female empowerment, I found myself at a point of contradiction, much like Emma Watson touched on in her groundbreaking speech for the UN HeForShe Campaign.

While many of us have likely experienced sexist undertones, limitations and stark double standards, we also struggle with social connotations of being “feminist.” Somewhere along the line, “feminism” became an undesirable, misunderstood identification — a loaded concept of sorts.

At one point, when asked if I identify as a feminist, my answer was always “no.” The only reason I can conjure for this was my understanding that feminists are often viewed, as Watson explained, as man-hating, argumentative and bitter toward the male species.

I’m not entirely sure when our understanding of feminism became misconstrued on such a global scale, but many of us have spent years avoiding the word and the movement altogether as a result.

Through this, our generation has developed a group of “inadvertent feminists.” We have been a part of the equality movement this entire time, but not on the forefront, because we were often shifted into submission by the very cultural connotations that contribute to the gender roles we hope to diminish.

Thankfully, many female role models are breaking down the mold that surrounds modern-day feminism. This is groundbreaking, as we are finally embracing what it means to truly advocate for yourself.

The issue isn’t necessarily just changing gender roles, but also eliminating them entirely and being open to having the conversation and identifying however you, personally, want to identify.

In a culture that strives to micro-analyze every possible trend, behavior and belief, we become susceptible to a “this or that” mindset.

We often strive to fit into a particular, accepted mold and place a great deal of importance on the specifics, which apply to the way we view and develop our individual identities, as well.

When it comes to human nature, we must realize that there is no right or wrong; male or female; black or white. Human nature is about being human, regardless of what this may mean to you.

We all have a right to feel and express our natural identities without the fear of cultural misjudgment.

Feminism isn’t about beating men, and it was never meant to be a war; it is about striking a balance that honors men and women to live their lives, free of prejudice. It is a joint effort with joint effect and, as Watson explained, it needs to be an open conversation and movement.

The issue is not whether or not you identify as a feminist; it’s the ability to ask yourself what equality means to you, what you stand for and how you wish to express your identity.

It’s about compassion, fairness, the desire to advocate for yourself and others and the ability to connect in a mutually beneficial movement toward modern equality. It’s about breaking the gender mold altogether.

As a woman, I believe that women should be able to live their lives in a way that is equal to any man. I believe in my sexual, emotional and professional rights and freedom, just as I believe in them for men.

I believe in the need for human expression, connection and an even playing field. I believe in ambition and strength, for both men and women alike.

More importantly, I believe we have the potential to create a world that is no longer defined or controlled by misconstrued gender roles. We are a generation that thrives on change.

With a collective open mind, we can shift from a generation of inadvertent feminists to one that embraces equality and empowerment, regardless of gender identity.