V is for Vanity

In our quest to beautify ourselves, we often subject ourselves to various forms of torture. From restrictive diets to vigorous exercises and to the more extreme cosmetic surgery, it all involves some form of suffering. After all, the saying goes "no pain, no gain".

Recently a colleague of mine told me that she is on a diet so that she can look great in a two-piece bikini at the beach next month. And another two colleagues are on a "cereals-for-breakfast-and-dinner" diet - one to cut belly flab so that she can fit into her wedding gown, while the other just to trim away spare tyres. An overweight dude sitting behind me at work has also joined a gym and has been counting the calories burned off during his workout at the gym - also all for the sake to lose some flabs to show some abs. I'm not any different from the gang at work with my weekly jogs around the park and weekly upper torso workouts just to have the lean, toned body of an A&F model.

The things we do just to look good. Sometimes I marvel at the aged European tourists on our Malaysian beaches who go about sunbathing in nothing but revealing bathing suits displaying the most grotesque of forms of the human body such as the big bottomed woman with humongous sagging breasts clad in a two-piece bikini, or the old man with a large protruding belly coupled with moobs (man boobs) hiding his package in a teeny speedo.

I will be ending my post here as I will be going out soon to work on my set of push-ups, weight training and abdominal crunches. After all, my nude body will be exposed in full glory for all to see when I visit the onsen in Japan next month.