To Breathe or Eat?

I'm going to Hong Kong next week for one of my best friend's wedding. I think I really made an effort to go to the gym and eat healthier (somewhat) these past few months, but I don't think it made as much of a difference as it used to when I was < age 25. I guess at my age I have to work harder to get the same results. I have to fit into the very tight fitting waist-up bridesmaid dress. The tailor assured me that the dress stretches after I wear it for awhile. So I am sitting here in my room, in my dress, hoping that it will stretch as I breathe. I have noticed that it's not as tight when I try it on first thing in the morning, and that after a very full meal it takes 3 people to zip me up and I hyperventilate from the lack of oxygen. Because it's so tight waist up (the tailor said it has to be tight for it to look right, I don't know, I'd kind of prefer to eat) all of the fat in my stomach is accentuated below my ribs which makes me look like I'm pregnant. Sigh.

The bridal industry is such a huge money making business. As soon as one mentions the word 'wedding', all prices double. The bridesmaid dresses have awful sizing charts, at least in my opinion, unless I am just completely disproportionate. My waist size is three times my bust / hip sizes according to the size chart. So of course I have to buy the size that can accommodate my largest feature, which apparently is my waist, lol, go figure. But when the dress came, it was way too big, so then we had to spend $100 to get the dresses tailored. It's like, they purposely make the dresses oddly sized so we have to get them tailored.

By the way, I thought I was being healthy last week by going to a vegetarian restaurant. I ordered this dish with seitan and mushrooms. I had no clue what seitan was, but my friend said it's a substitute for meat so I figured it's probably healthy, like tofu or something. The fact that the word seitan sounds like satan should have been a warning for me to stay away, but I wanted to try something new. Ironically, the 'healthy' meat alternative made me sick for 2-3 days. It made me bloated, gaseous, nauseated, and messed up my digestive system. When my sister and I figured out that it was this seitan that was not agreeing with my body, we looked it up to see what it's actually made of. It's wheat gluten and it doesn't seem very healthy, it doesn't have a lot of calories but one serving of it has like 80% of one's daily value of protein. I think I had an overdose of protein or something. I always thought protein is supposed to make you gain weight. But how can something with that much protein have so few calories? Perhaps protein alone can't make you gain weight, it just helps you build muscle if you lift weights? Anyway, stay away from seitan. You've been warned.