Tag Archives: motivation

Breakfast Club

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Breakfast – the most important meal of the day. It’s the one I most struggle with. I’m one of those people who would prefer an extra 15 minutes in bed than get up and make a good breakfast and sit and eat it. So previously I’ve just grabbed something out of the cupboard and eaten it at work.

Now, however, I have found something thats quick to make (either at home or at work) and doesn’t require me to sit down and eat it like a Full English.

Here’s how to make it…

Tablespoon of Hemp seeds.Add half a cup of chocolate soya milk. Top it up with hazelnut milk and give it a stir. Cover with a layer of flax seeds. ‘Decorate’ with strawberries.

Voila! A seedy, chocolatey, nutty and fruity breakfast. It is much more filling than you may believe. Try it and see what you think!

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Another Beginning?

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1new-beginnings

I don’t know about you but it’s nearly June and I am -100000 steps where I wanted to be at this point in the year. Forget summer body ready, hell I am winter body ready…again. So, here I am again writing yet another blog post on ‘it’s been a while but I am back’. Only this time, I have no excuses not to be officially back.

I recieved an email this morning from WordPress saying that today is my 4 year anniversary with them. Looking back, I have achieved a lot and so little at the same time. The first year blogging on here I lost around 4 stone. A year later, I started university and managed to put on half of what I lost over those three years. You could literally use my chins as a hiding place in hide and seek. Today not only marks 4 years on here but also my first day of freedom from univeristy. IT IS OVER! I start my new job in a month and have June to do whatever I want – cheaply. This means that I have the next month to get my body and my brain back into gear and overcome the barrier of starting again.

Not only has my weight increased drastically but I have found that my mental health is starting to become effected aswell. My anxiety levels are through the roof. I don’t want to see family members or friends that I haven’t seen in a while as I know they’ll comment on my weight gain. I feel hatred towards myself for allowing it to happen. All very unhealthy stuff and I do not want it to spiral any further. I have a lot of social events coming up in June and over the summer, all of which I am excited for but also dreading so I really need to stop whining and feeling sorry for myself and actually do something about it.

Today, I took my verys first step – I went for a run. It was only two miles but it was a run. I haven’t been for one in a couple of weeks what with placement and exams (usual excuses). It felt like absolute hell I am not going to lie. 2 miles? More like sodding 10. My shins felt like snapping, my ankles felt like they were going to pop, my back felt like it was going to break, everytime I swallowed my saliva it felt like I was suffocating, my head felt like it was a tonne. I got home and needed a good amount of time sprawled across the garden floor trying my best to gain my breathe back and not to vom. Recovered, I felt a sense of hope. I did in no ways feel good, just glad that the very very first step was now over. I have booked another half marathon in October which I hope will push me to continue with my running along with maintaining some what of a healthy diet as I do not want to injure my knees like last year.

I’m not going to promise to do x amount of runs a week or two stick to a certain diet or even to write a blog post daily/weekly. All I am going to do is to try to stick with it.

So, here are to new beginnings no matter how many you may have. Be proud to keep having to start over – at least we haven’t completely given up just yet.

S.

 

Curbing The Sick Feeling

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Here are 5 tips for trying to curb that horrible sick feeling when you’re trying to cut down your food intake.

  1. EAT! If you’re that hungry that you feel sick- eat. However, don’t stuff your face with whatever you find in the fridge or cupboard, instead make the sensible choice of fruit, nuts, veg  or meat. Or if your next meal isn’t for a while, have a small meal now and then again later.
  2. Drink water. A big glass of cold water will fill you up no end and keep you going until your next meal. 
  3. Brush your teeth and tongue. The minty taste will satisfy your body for a while.
  4. Chew sugar free gum if you are out and can’t brush your teeth. I do this all the time and has helped me stop snacking throughout the day when at work or uni.
  5. Keep yourself busy. If you feeling nauseous because you’re hungry and  can’t do my if the above or want to… start a task and don’t stop until you’re finished. Keeping occupied will take your mind off of feeling hungry. 

Does anyone else have any other tips they use to curb the sicky hunger feeling? Post in the comments! 

S 🙂 

On A More Serious Note…

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In most of my posts, I make a joke about my weight and constant struggles lowering it. This post, however, is just something a bit more serious that I would like to share with you all.

Of course, I would like to lose weight to enable me to feel good about myself. Be able to look in a mirror without utter disgust. Be able to look good in clothes that are a bit skimpier than a bin bag. The main reason I would like to lose weight, however, is to improve my health. Here are some of the observations that I have made recently with my rising BMI:

Mind:

Hardly exercising, drinking and eating constant crap is really having a detrimental effect on my mind. The main thing it is playing on is my anxiety. I have not been going with my family to see other family members because of my anxiety. Worrying about what they will think/say about my increasing weight – how disappointed they will be in me. Not only family members, but cancelling on friends too for the same reasons.

I have also noticed myself growing more and more depressed. I, honestly, have no nice things to say about myself. I can not look at myself in the mirror at all. A constant feeling of tiredness accompanies my little to no drive.

Hair:

My hair is ridiculously thin, constantly breaking and falling out quicker than North&South Korea.

Periods:

As some of you who have followed this blog from the beginning will know, I have Poly-cystic Ovaries. Before I lost weight a few years ago, I hadn’t had a period in over a year. When I lost the weight, my periods came back to being monthly and light. However, since gaining back the pounds I have noticed my monthly periods becoming less regular and even skipping months. This is not something that I would like to start happening again as it effects so much more than just my menstrual cycle.

Skin:

My skin is growing whiter by the day, massive circles around my eyes and I look generally unwell all of the time. I believe this is due to not having the right amount of vitamins through not eating properly and not exercising regularly.

General Health:

I’m not going to lie, in the past two months I have been seriously worried that I was going to have a heart attack – on more than one occasion! I have been feeling tight chest pains, unusual heart rhythms/flutters and experiencing very high blood pressure, something that I NEVER get. I have caught a bad bad cold more times in the past six months than ever before and I find it hard to breathe if I lay on my back due to my neck fat and humongous boobs crushing down on my trachea.

So there you have it folks, these are the main reasons why I am incredibly focused in losing the weight that I have accumulated and put back on over the past year or two and even more if I can. It’s not about how you look it’s all about health. I don’t want to get diabetes or risk dying young all for the sake of a few precious moments with some chicken nuggets, pizzas and chocolate etc.  I want to live life and live life full. As Renton said in Trainspotting “I choose Life”.

S.

Park Life

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(Picture found at: http://howtostartaffiliatemarketing.info/the-journey-start/).

So, Thursday marked day 1 of my half marathon training. Luckily I have a friend to occasionally run with me. We decided to start with 3 miles around the local area and go on a bit of an adventure down streets we had never been before. It was going swimmingly untill we realised that the steep hill we were running up literally was never ending! We did have to stop and walk half way as we both were on the verge of dying (no I am not exaggerating). We finally discovered when we got to the top that we had in fact climbed to the top of Highgate mountain and found ourselves in a wind swept sweaty state walking through the insanely beautiful and posh streets of Highgate. We decided to put our best foot forward and escape all of the immaculate people and started legging it out of the village where we were rewarded for our efforts….a lovely downhill stretch. We ran all the way back down and along the flats until the end of our route. Perfect.

Yesterday morning wasn’t quite as perfect though. I woke up stiff as bricks (not in a morning glory type way) and could only just manage to get out of bed. Luckily, I had a study day and so instead of going for a run I decided to keep my achey body moving by going for a walk around Hampstead Heath. I did 5 miles up and down the hills and around Kenwood House. It was truly lovely…see pics.

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I can not tell you how lucky I am to live right next to Hampstead Heath. If it wasn’t for that I think I would have gone insane by the mad, stressfull rush of London life. Don’t get me wrong, the city is a great big, bustling playground but after a while, I’d like to be able to have enough room to swing my arms about and to walk at my own pace without being pushed and shoved by people who never stop to see the world around them. Not only is the Heath beautiful with lots of great running routes but also home to Parakeets and you get to meet the cutest dogs in the world (most of them look better than you and are wearing 10 x more expensive clothes than you). It is undoubtedly my favourite place in London.
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Have a fabulous weekend all!

Warning! This is not a drill.

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This is what I have been up to.

Hello dear fitness world.

My how I have missed you. Has it truly been 8 months since my last post? You know what that also means? 8 months of slacking. S-L-A-C-K-I-N-G! Yes I admit it, I have been slothing around horrendously, working out every now and again, binge eating then crash dieting and not to mention drinking excessively. I knew exactly what I was doing at the time I was doing it and the repercussions of those actions (mainly being added weeks/months of grueling workouts). Yet I chose to ignore those thoughts and carried on abusing my body. I feel like I have just been experiencing my fitness ‘teenage years’ in 8 months. Rebelling against my own ‘sensible’ self.

You know where these 8 months of rebelling have got me? 1 stone heavier and back to square 2 (not quite square 1) with my running. 3 miles seems like pure hell on Earth and half of my energy that I should be using to run is wasted on expressing my emotions using only uterrly foul language. I even think I have made up some new ones in the process.

Thankfully, my brain kicked in and decided enough is enough. It told me the only way I could overcome this turbulent phase was to do something drastic; a real kick up the arse. So I did just that. I signed up for a half marathon. This may not seem much to those of you who run more marathons than have showers but to me, this was the best, most achievable yet challenging goal I could aim towards. After all, the most I have ever ran is 6miles. Signing up for the half marathon has helped me regain focus and direction. I have something I HAVE to work towards. If I am to run 13 miles, I will run the whole thing not just jogging a bit then walking the rest. Signing up for the half marathon also forces me to make healthier choices in regards to my eating habbits. There is no way that my knees would be able to endure running with my current weight for the bus let alone 13 miles.

I don’t know about how you are in regards to healthy eating and general fitness but the only way I have found that I can suceed is by ‘forcing’ myself to do/eat things that I genuinely do not want to. I have to get way out of my comfort zone and in the end I start to enjoy aspects that otherwise used to repel me. Heck, I came so far so why can’t I finally finish my weightloss journey this time? Maybe these past 8 months were a long, unintenional rest that I needed to finish what I set out to initially achieve. The process is going to be damn right challenging and will sometimes seem impossible but I reackon I have now regained the midset to accomplish my goal.

Currently, I am back in London at uni. Exams are over and we are back at placement. There is tonnes of work that I have to do but I am no longer using that as an excuse and I shall be back blogging more regularly once again. Watch this space!

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My waistline will be this small again.