2014 review

The adjustment after Christmas is the worst! You still find yourself humming Christmas songs, you mourn the last mince pie, the Christmas jumper gets put away for another year (just as it’s actually getting cold enough to warrant wearing it…).

This time of year always makes us look back and take stock of the last 12 months. If someone asked me to describe 2014 in one word, my initial reaction would be “exhaustion”. As years go this has been a hard one. But for all the tough times I've had there have been many points of the other extreme. I may have dealt with severe anaemia and B12 deficiencies; some days I may have lacked the ability to understand the point of getting out of bed; I may have spent times eating 400kcal a day and others stuffing so much food in my stomach it felt like I would explode; I may have felt anxious 24/7 for weeks; work may have pushed me beyond my limits; and I may have realised I don’t even know who I am. But I’ve also travelled to places I could never have dreamed of; moved in with someone I love beyond words; started getting help with my eating; restarted appreciating life’s little moments; readjusted my view of what’s important in life; got promoted; and spent time with people who matter. Those amazing experiences far outweigh those tough times, and the struggles made me appreciate those good times even more.

Bali

Singapore

Buckingham Palace at the Garden Party with my family

The Lake District with all my favourite people - my family and my better half

New flat moving in with the bf (and the best slippers ever!)

Last January I set a whole heap of aims for the year, most of which I didn't achieve. I never ran a half marathon. In fact I didn’t participate in any of the 5 running events I promised myself I'd do. I didn’t overcome my binging (though I have improved so much through the therapy - I think I was being overoptimistic thinking I’d solve it overnight!). And when I set these goals I wasn't expecting to be signed off work for a month, be on iron tablets for the rest of year, and start therapy for my eating problems.

My last iron tablet a couple of days ago :)

I did achieve a few of my goals though: I discovered yoga (how did I survive so long without it?!) and increased my body strength, and I did track more of my runs using my garmin (but not at the times where I just needed to get out and stretch my legs without thinking about time or pace). I’m also pretty good at eating clean…but I do know that I can have treats when I want…hello 80/20. And all this shows the most important thing – how much more balanced I have become. I'm improving my health, but not letting it take over my life.

Run with a hug from a muddy dog

So this year I have learnt so much about health and fitness, and am beginning the journey of learning who I am as a person. I’m so excited to start 2015 with a clean slate of health and fitness and take baby steps to who I’ll be this time next year.

So what goals am I making for 2015? Just the one: maintain balance. I'll be explaining how I'm going to do this in my next blog post, but in the mean time, I hope you all have a fabulous New Year!

E x

Make a new ending

Hi all!

Just wanted to drop in super quickly this Autumnal Friday morning (urgh, dark mornings already) as I'm up early to get out for a quick walk and to get on with packing for the move tomorrow.

There's something about moving that gives a feeling of a fresh start (especially in September!).

I found this quote and it felt so applicable to me right now. All my eating issues have happened, and I have wasted quite a lot of my life as a result of that and the self-esteem issues that we all have. Sometimes it feels like my life will always be defined by these things. However whatever mistakes we've made in the past don't have to be mistakes that we keep on making.

So decide who you want to be, and realise that that CAN be your new ending.

Have a great Friday and an even better weekend lovelies!

What would your ending be?

E xxx

We are mountains

Sometimes (actually, far more regularly than just “sometimes”) my therapist says something that makes me go “woah, YES”. She puts things into a way that I have never comprehended. For that second, life all fits together and I feel STRONG. I can overcome my problems.

There are two related things she’s said recently. The first was that thought patterns and behaviours are just habits, and habits can be changed. The second was that thoughts to us are what weather are to mountains (go with me on this one!).

She’s totally right!

How many of us think changing a bad habit is achievable? Most of us, right? Sure, it’s going to be hard, a long process, and a bit of a pain, but it’s possible! If our eating behaviours are just habits, then we can change these in exactly the same way. For some reason I’d never thought of all of my problems as habits. I saw them as cemented to me and my being, refusing to be moved without completely changing myself. That's so far from the truth.

Her second point about us being mountains and our thoughts being the weather started off with a visualisation exercise. I was told to visualise a mountain, strong, unmovable, rooted to the ground. The mountain stands there no matter what the weather throws at it: it's defiant and strong. I then was told to bring the mountain inside of myself, to feel rooted to the ground to see the weather changing around me, just like the thoughts that come and pass over us. Sometimes they’re dark like clouds; sometimes they beat us up like the wind; and sometimes they bring us happiness and warm our souls like the sun. But they always pass and throughout we are the strong, rooted person.

We have to remember that our brains are not static. We learn, we forget, we can change ourselves. We can learn not to think badly about ourselves, we can learn not to mess around with our eating, we can learn to have a good relationship with food. These are all good habits that we can learn and we will also unlearn our bad habits. If we were not capable of this we’d all still be wearing nappies, we'd never would say please and thank you, and we'd never would look before crossing the road.

And whilst we work to try and change our habits, we need to remember that thoughts are only a minor part of us. Our thoughts are fleeting and can go as quickly as they come. Yes they can be painful and cause us damage, but they can equally be uplifting and make us feel thankful to be alive. We have the control as to how much our thoughts affect us:  we can draw our awareness to them and simply watch as they pass on. We do not have to try and bury our thoughts, or dwell on them, or let them dictate our emotion.

We are mountains, and we are strong and unbreakable.

Weekend roundup - can I pack the cat?

Hi all! Hope you had a good weekend and are looking forward to getting your weeks started.

I crammed a lot in to the last couple of days. Priority number one was getting as much of my stuff packed up as possible ready for next weekend's move (the tenancy agreement's all signed and deposit's paid so it's actually happening!). I mostly succeeded, though there's quite a bit still to do.

I'm wondering whether anyone will notice if I sneak the cat in.

Part of packing included me going through my wardrobe to throw out what no longer fits. I cried, alot. It was hard to find that clothes that I'd fitted in to for years now wouldn't do up or squeeze over my thighs. However, something I did do which I've never done before was throw those clothes straight on the "out" pile. Normally they'd have gone in the "keep" pile ready for when I'd slimmed back down. It's finally starting to sink in that that was not my natural size...and I'm never going to be that size again. Such a change in my thought pattern.

Yesterday also consisted of getting my hair cut (for the first time in about 7 months...oh the shame). I kept it safe as it was a new hairdresser, but kinda wished I'd done something a bit different. Next time.

My hair was poker straight when I came out of the hairdresser's. 10 minutes later and it already had kinks in it....

I refuelled with Whole Foods.

Those Rebel Mylk drinks are the shizz. Coconut milk base, sweetened with dates, and totally yum.

On Sunday I managed some form of exercise without too much of a negative impact on my stupid foot injury. I started off with this yoga workout from Tara Lee. It's pretty much the lowest intensity you could ask for, but makes you feel really connected with yourself and surroundings and was exactly what I was needing.

I also went out to the monthly Kew Market and then walked along the river to Richmond. I needed to get away from the house where I'd probably end up mindlessly eating. It was a stunning day and to reward myself for getting out in the beauty I rewarded myself with a Nakd bar and Pret. It was the perfect way to end the weekend.

What was the highlight of your weekend?

E xxx

September goals

How is it September already?!

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I was dreading September. The dark mornings, lack of sunshine, cooler weather, the pressures of every one being back at work after the holidays.

However I've actually really liked the fresh feeling of a new start that September brings. And whilst the Christmas chocolates in the supermarkets are a step too far at this point (seriously Tesco?!), I'm excited for the baggy jumpers, cosy coats, coffee shop dates after work when it's dark, beautiful amber trees...all the lovely things Autumn and Winter bring.

I wanted to set some goals for September. Normally I feel the pressure to do everything all in one go: I'm an all or nothing kind of person. And I used to thrive on that approach (hello successful disordered eating history), but not anymore. Now I'm constantly riddled by the feeling of failure. So let's make some smaller, bite size, achievable goals.

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3 health and fitness goals:

• Get my foot healed and pick back up the running. I'm totally feeling the desire to train for a half marathon again, but let's not get ahead of myself. My injury's put me out of action for some time, so I doubt I'll even be able to run a 5k!
• Eat my 5 a day. I know it's a simple one, but it's something I'm failing miserably at the moment. I've taken eating more as an excuse to eat a lot of crap, which has probably been necessary to get everything I've restricted in the past out in the open, but I'm feeling awful. Give me nutrients!
• Wean myself off the gluten. My dietitian recommended that I get tested for coeliac's on the off chance it had caused my anaemia and B12 deficiency. Unfortunately for that I've had to eat bread for the last few weeks to make sure the antibodies, if I do have coeliac's, are in my blood system. And doing this has given me brain fog, stomach ache, and general feelings of blah. I've got my blood test tomorrow, then just need to wait for the results, but not long til I can ease up on the gluten intake! The problem is that toast is one of my favourite foods, so it's going to be a battle of brain over heart to stop eating as much of it.

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3 life goals:

• Move into the new flat! Me and my boyfriend are moving in together next weekend and I am beyond excited. I'm excited for getting to see him all the time (when I'm not away with work at least), excited for living somewhere we can really make feel like home, and excited for not living in a shoebox. What I'm not excited for is lugging all of our stuff up 3 flights of stairs.
• Walks along the river. We'll be living closer to the Thames in the new flat, and I want to use this an excuse for some after-work and weekend walks as the leaves turn.
• Do daily mindfulness. My therapist got me doing a mountain visualisation (I'll talk about it in a future post) and it is seriously helping me out during tough times. I need to keep practising this daily to make sure the thought patterns involved stick.

What are your goals for September?

E xxx

Those photos

So a few days ago I posted these pictures. When I first saw these each one made me feel a whole wealth of negative emotions. (Please bear in mind this was my "disordered, not seeing my body realistically" head on. I'm not saying people of this weight are in any way "large").

There was disgust, regret, horror, shock, self-hatred…and sorrow that my Mum’s friends would see me and think how their friend’s daughter had piled on some pounds.

This last emotion took me by surprise, I’m not going to lie.

I went through many years of not having photos taken because I didn’t want people to have a reminder of what I looked like. I would detag any photos that were taken and posted on Facebook because I didn’t want anyone to see them. But that was all within my field of friends – people who knew me well, and whose judgements would impact on me directly.

This was something different. My feelings were concern for my Mum: what her friends would think of her family, or rather her daughter. I know how parents are proud of their family, and that to some respect there is competition between friends and acquaintances as to who has the most successful family (just a point: this is not something my Mum has ever made me feel, more that this is something I’ve observed just generally). My brothers have turned out to be very sensible (in most ways), kind and thoughtful (though sometimes not to their big sis) and good looking (who’d have thought?!) individuals. To me the photos showed a happy collection of people, all who have their lives and s*** together…and then there’s me. Someone who is happy to let their figure slip (or so appears) and look a mess. That's how my Mum's friends would perceive me, and I felt that for some reason that would cause them to reflect negatively on my Mum. Ridiculous no?!

Writing Monday’s post helped me sort my head out. It helped me to rationalise my thoughts, remember the bigger picture, and get over myself. Seeing those photos brought a whole host of emotions, and identified new thought patterns for me to work to change. It made me realise how much I want to make my Mum proud. But on reflection I realised the way to make my Mum proud was not through the superficial achievement of being the skinniest daughter amongst her group of friends, but by recovering and leading the life they envisioned me having: a carefree, happy, and healthy life. 

And isn't that the life we should all envision for ourselves?

 

Source

 

E xxx

Restaurant review: RAW at La Suite West

Saturday was mine and my boyfriend’s three year anniversary. It didn’t get off to the best start, when my boyfriend bit into his pain au chocolat that I’d lovingly bought him to find maggots dropping out. Way to say “I love you”.

However the culinary moments of the day definitely ended on a high when I found out he’d booked for us to go to RAW at La Suite West in Bayswater for dinner. He’s made some pretty big sacrifices for me in the past, but coming to a vegan/partly raw restaurant is definitely up amongst them – no nicely cooked steaks here (though there was at least Coca Cola...).

And holy cow this place was inspiring!

 

From the alcohol-free drinks list (including the RAW smoothie which is THE yummiest drink to ever have graced my lips) to the 50% raw menu, it really highlighted how vegan food (and getting your 5 a day) could not only be downright delicious, but also jaw-droppingly beautiful.

 

 

I had the pumpkin soufflé to start which looked so stunning that I could have forgotten about eating it and just stared at it all night. However, just for the record, it tasted just as good as it looked. The “soufflé” was made of layers of delicate pumpkin and mushroom and was served with a sesame-herb emulsion which was So. Good. My boyfriend had the beetroot falafels with a thai BBQ sauce. These were also ridiculously yummy.

 

 

For main I had the raw zucchini tagliatelli almond and coconut pad-thai. I’m always a bit dubious about how satisfying I’ll find a small dish of raw vegetables, but this was both delicious and filling. What I would do for the recipe for the coconut sauce it was in! It’s not your traditional pad thai, but it was super good. The boyfriend had a mushroom and quinoa burger in a sweet potato bun. The burger was actually basically the same as the falafel (containing beetroot) so was obviously still good but I think he found it a bit repetitive, but the bread was amazing.

 

 

For dessert we shared the raw cacao and ginger cookies. These were good, but probably the only think I felt disappointed by (probably because the rest of the meal had been so insanely good) as they lacked a bit of flavour.

The service was excellent with it being attentive but not obtrusive. The atmosphere was quite subdued, with the restaurant being fairly quiet for a Saturday night. I quite liked it not being so busy but if you like a “buzz” you might have felt something was missing (though I recommend you go at least for the food!). Price-wise the main courses were pretty reasonable (about £12), and the drinks, whilst some were expensive (my smoothie was £6.50), were totally worth the price. The starters (£8-9) and the desserts (£6-8) were a bit more on the pricy side though.

So all in all, I loved this place! Not only was the food great, I left feeling I’d had a truly healthy eating out experience which was great. The restaurant also does an afternoon tea: I’m currently searching for any excuse to give it a go!

It turns out recovery is hard...

My feelings over the last couple of months have gone something like this:

"Oh my God life's freaking awesome and I'm eating and not thinking about calories and wow food and eating is amazing"

to

 

"Yeah so I'm not eating that healthily, and yeah, I'm not as toned as before, but heck, who cares - imperfections make us who we are"

 

to

 

 

"Woah, there nelly, I've got as much blubber as a walrus"

Photos were the catalyst of this last one. I knew I was piling on a bit of extra fat (well, duh, I'm eating more) but my Mum put some photos up on Facebook of some recent family events (just for the record, family events that I LOVED because I was able to join in, not care about eating or drinking, and for once be relaxed and enjoy the event). However the photos made me cry, shudder, and immediately contemplate fasting, juice cleansing, restricting, food group elimination, excessive exercising...the usual.

These were some of the photo culprits:

My initial thoughts on these photos:
Image on the left: Well hello there thunder thighs, and wow your arm's looking chunky
Image on the top right: Your hips are humongous and, erm, are you pregnant?!
Image on the bottom right: Are you hoarding food in those hamster cheeks? Oh, and by the way, your arm's obese.

Talk about some self-loathing.

Let's take another look. Firstly, I AM NOT OBESE. After the initial shock of looking so much bigger than I was, I realised I was not fat. Hell, I know some people work there backsides off to get down to this weight.

Image on the left: this is not a flattering photo. You did not know it was being taken. Those are your muscular runner's legs, those are your legs that can make you feel like you're flying. They're also in jeans that are now too small, and too tight clothes are never looking flattering. Maybe let's splash out on some new clothes to suit my curvier, healthier body yes? Oh, and how about looking at your other arm which is at a slightly less unflattering angle?
Image on the top right: again, that shadowing is not flattering. And yeah, you're tummy's a bit chunkier. But some of that is muscle from all those sit-ups you do. You also messed up your digestion from all that restrictive eating, so sometimes you get bloated. Eating more's the only way to cure this. (And look at that genuinely happy smile on your face - you're loving life right there).
Image on the bottom right: remember those push ups you do every day...that might have something to do with your arm size. Also remember how much you love feeling strong. As for your cheeks, unfortunately you weren't blessed with strong cheek bones and dimples - you're going to have to learn those cheeks.

And remember how happy you felt in each and every one of those photos. That's worth every extra inch of fat on your body in those photos.

So yeah, it turns out recovery is hard. But you've just got to remember to dig out that voice of self-love when it gets a bit dark. You're stronger than those negative thoughts.

Wearing a bikini and a new reality

So I did it. I wore a bikini. In front of other people.

I genuinely don't remember the last time I wore a bikini without covering it up with shorts and a t-shirt. Just the thought of showing off every inch of fat on my body filled me with dread. I thought people would scrutinise all the imperfect parts of my body - not just my weight, but my pale skin; my cellulite; my untoned stomach; my poorly done bikini wax; my varicose veins...the list goes on.

I felt like the moment I took off my clothes it was going to be like there a was a massive siren going off accompanied by a big flashing arrow, with everyone turning round to gawp in disgust. I thought my boyfriend would see me and automatically hate me for all of my imperfections. And none of this was because anyone had ever done these things - my boyfriend certainly not, he's amazingly supportive - but that didn't stop my disordered brain thinking disordered things.

I couldn't come on a beach holiday and sit covered up the whole time, so I locked myself in the bathroom for quite some time, gave myself a pep talk, and braved the beach. To my amazement, as I stripped off there was no flashing light or loud sound. Unsurprisingly noone was looking in my direction, nor cared one tiny bit that I was stripping off into my bikini. And, of course, my boyfriend didn't look at me like I was some ugly lump of fat. Which isn't surprising as, not only is it not something he's not seen before, but surely something every boyfriend wants is to spend time with their girlfriend in a bikini?!

So where did I pick up the courage from? After all, I have done zero exercise and eaten poorly for the past few weeks, am almost the heaviest I've been for years, amd am covered in bruises from carrying stuff round at the exhibition...so I'm not exactly in peak condition!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, the last few weeks I've had a new found relaxed attitude to eating. I've no idea where it's come from, but it's given me the head space to look at things in a new way. Before I would have been so caught up in my negative thoughts that I wouldn't have had any time to do anything other than panic. However being more relaxed has given me time to think about the situation I'm in and to look around me. At first I still found myself idolising people with tiny frames...and then once again realised that they were the bodies of teenagers. Which just made me angry with myself - adults are not supposed to look like children! Once I started looking around me at actual adults I saw women of all different shapes and sizes, all wearing bikinis and all looking amazing. No one was looking at them in a negative way at all.

One of the key reasons they looked so amazing was because they were all exuding confidence. I'm not going to pretend I know what was going through their heads (I'm sure they all have body hang-ups) but they were sat there acting like they were loving life, and wearing a bikini was neither here nor there for them. When I looked at them I didn't see their body type, I saw fantastically happy and confident women. And that's how I wanted to feel: happy, confident and carefree! Why should I be the woman sat on the beach covered up because of my own negative thoughts?!

And that's exactly it: we are our own worst enemies. We impose our own views on the world around us - if we think negatively about ourselves then we often think the world thinks the same about us. If we're judging ourselves on our bodies, then we assume everyone else is doing the same. In reality, people are often far too caught up in their own lives to notice other people. And even if they do, and they think something negatively about our bodies, so what? They may have a more toned stomach than you, or a more tanned complexion, but if they're judging us negatively based on our looks then their personality and good nature - the important things in life - don't even come close to yours.

The biggest favour we can do ourselves is to reevaluate the norms we've created for our own individual realities. Do they actually match the norms that really exist? I built myself a reality in which I thought everyone has the perfect bikini body, no one has cellulite, everyone has perfect skin, and everyone judges you based on your looks. In true reality the norms are that hardly anyone is so skinny you can see their ribs, that most women have cellulite and people don't spend their days judging you based on their looks.

I know this shouldn't have been such a revelation to me, but it was. As a result it gave me the confidence to sit on that beach, knowing I wasn't perfect, and not care. Being surrounded by women in bikinis, appreciating every woman for her own shape and size, made me realise how uptight and unrealistic I was being. And by being that way, not just in terms of wearing a bikini, but in every aspect of my life, from eating, to relationships, to work, I was denying myself the space to be truly happily and live my life to the fullest. Living your life terrified of other people's judgements, and your own self-judgements, is a half life. Recognise reality for what it is, and then be present in it - wear a bikini, eat chips, and smile :)

When you're too busy to worry about food

Oh how I’ve missed blog time. I’ve missed it so so much! Unfortunately, the last few weeks were absolutely crazy, and as my life and income didn’t depend on the blog, that was the one thing that had to take a back seat. There were so many times I wanted to just put some thoughts on a page though!

The last few months I’ve been organising my company’s involvement in a large conference, including running a fringe event and an exhibition stand…and last week it took place! It was pretty much non-stop 24/7 for that and the preceding week, and to top it all off I had a job interview to turn my graduate position into a permanent position in the same week. I was running a fringe event at 7am in the morning, packing up the exhibition and event until early afternoon and then quick-stepped it onto a train to Woking from the south coast to just make it to the interview on time. I was running on my last bit of adrenaline at this point.

But everything was so worth it – the conference was a success (albeit not up to my perfectionist standards!) and the interview went well enough for me to get one of the jobs J

I stupidly thought this week would be nice and relaxed as a result. How wrong I was! I ended up travelling from the South coast up to Manchester for a new project on Monday and then was commuting the 2 hours from my parents’ house up to the office for a couple of days. It’s always so exciting when you start a new project, but also equally exhausting as you try and learn everything you need. With that and trying to wrap up everything from the conference and get everything sorted out for when I was out of office I’m pretty sleep-deprived!

I was hoping to spend some quality time with my family whilst I’d been staying at home this week, but it just didn’t happen which I’m annoyed at myself for. It was one of the few times that me, my brothers and parents were all in the same place. I did take yesterday off for brother’s graduation – I was one super-duper proud sister (though I can’t believe he’s old enough to have gone through uni already!), but I really had such little energy to participate. Still, an amazing day that I was so grateful to be there to celebrate!

However, the two most remarkable things that have happened these last few weeks were body image-related.

The first is that I could barely tell you how many calories I’ve eaten each day (but it’s been a lot). And I’ve just not had the time to be concerned with what I’m eating – I’ve had to grab food when I can and it’s often been additive-ridden supermarket cheese sandwiches full of fat and sugar and calories. This isn’t a diet that I would advocate(!) but to be relaxed enough to allow myself to do this is quite an achievement. I’m not saying there wasn’t any guilt, and yes there were times when I thought about restricting to compensate, but I talked myself round and compared to normal it’s been a total transformation.

The second thing is that I have done basically no planned exercise. In the last 2 weeks I’ve been on one run and done about 10 minutes of yoga. Sleep just had to take priority. I definitely wouldn’t say I’ve enjoyed not being active, but it’s because I’ve missed the feeling of exercise, not because I’m panicking about weight gain.

Like I’ve said, this is not a lifestyle I advocate: exercise and eating well is fundamental to our wellbeing, but we shouldn’t be uptight about it. Why add extra stress into our lives? Sometimes we can’t eat perfectly and we just have to eat what we can in those circumstances, and a few weeks of fewer good eats is not going to kill us.

I’m off on holiday today to Singapore and then Bali (I was dreading a 12+ hour flight, but now I’m seeing it as an excellent opportunity to catch up with some sleep!) which I’m super excited about. There are things that fill me with dread: wearing a bikini (I don’t remember the last time I did that – even at my thinnest I was too self-conscious); eating out all the time; having a sudden outburst of all the disgust that I’ve so far avoided feeling from the last few weeks. I just want to maintain that relaxed attitude that I have for the last couple of weeks. I want to enjoy my holiday and relax and be a normal human being.

I’m hoping to do some blogging whilst I’m away so hopefully I’ll get some blog posts up over the next week and a half. I imagine there’ll be some thoughts to share on bikini wearing…

I’ll also be around on Twitter and Instagram for those of you who like a good photo or two…

Have a fabulous weekend…see you in Singapore!

Meals and gratitude #21

I am in a ridiculously good mood!

As soon as I packed up my stuff at work I was literally skipping out of the door!

Maybe it's all the good food I've had?

Breakfast: unpictured cherries and nuts - unpictured because I was all over the place with meetings, people stealing my desk...

Lunch: a repeat of yesterday but with popcorn (although I ended up having this as an afternoon snack) - salad, houmous, spanish omelette. Good combo if you ask me. It felt like a whooooole lotta food though.

If someone tells me how to rotate an image in Blogger, I'll be your biggest fan.

Dinner: A rice, aubergine and lentil salad which was possibly one of the most garlicky things I've ever eaten. Just as well I'm eating alone tonight...and I love garlic. And I also had some more strawberries. THIS ADDICTION HAS TO STOP.

 

 

Gratitude:

- I imagine a lot of my good mood was due to the beautiful surroundings. I sometimes honestly can't believe how stunning this place is. It just makes me completely forget any troubles I have and feel like the luckiest gal alive. Plus I get to run along that - that makes one happy runner.

- Ed Sheeran's new album. Love. Love. Love.

- A productive work meeting this morning.

What was the highlight of your day?

E x

Meals and gratitiude #20

Hi guys!

Am just dropping in for a really quick post whilst I eat my dinner and watch Wimbledon. I always feel there's a lack of womble presence at the tournament. I want more wombles.

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Meals today have been:

Breakfast: rye bread peanut butter sandwich and frozen raspberries which were super mushed and difficult to eat by the time I got to eating them on the train.

Lunch: I used an M&S santini tomato salad as a base and then added a bit of their spanish omelette and a good dose of houmous. Really wanted some olives to go with but they're coated in lots of crazy preservatives. Not. A. Fan.

 

Afternoon snack: Some antioxidant-rich blueberries. Nom nom nom. In fact I nommed them too quick to take a photo.

Dinner: My fave nutty wholegrain salad from M&S packed with lots of protein. Plus strawberries so I can pretend I'm physically at Wimbledon. I'm becoming ridiculously obsessed with strawberries, and it needs to stop...they're so much more expensive than the good old reliable apple!

Gratitude:

- I got a new laptop at work! My last one was ooooold: it took more than 30 minutes to boost up, constantly froze, was impossibly slow to do ANYTHING, sounded like it was about to take off, was always super overheating... This one whizzes along like noone's business and it's all brand new. And it felt good that the company was willing to invest in new technology for me :)

- THE WEATHER! I could have totally done with my factor 50 sun cream today. I sat outside at lunch for 5 minutes and my cheeks have gone pink. Not good.

- A dark and dismal hotel room. Yes, it's dark and dismal, but that means the sun hasn't been beating down on it all day so must be a hell of a lot cooler than the other rooms. That's not saying it's cool - my yoga session was practically done bikram styley...

- Meeting my colleagues wife. She's moved over from Burma, and I've heard a lot about her, so it was lovely to meet her and fully understand just how friendly and amazing she is

- Brothers dressed in matching outfits. Isn't that the cutest?!

- A food and drink festival on in the town centre. The food looks amazing (one day I will be comfortable enough to throw caution to the calorie wind and go grab something yummy from one of the stalls...) as does the things they're selling it from. Yes, that's a double decker bus.

Monday motivation #7

Hi guys!

This is going to be a long week for me. It starts off with the exam today, I have a heap of work to do, I've got not only my therapy appointment on Thursday but a dietician appointment this evening, and I have to do a job application for Friday to allow me to stay at my current company...

So my blog posts might be a bit on the light side this week - I apologise now. I'll try and keep up with my daily round-up, and will of course be on Twitter and Instagram!

However I still wanted to provide you guys with some motivation this Monday morning (and I sure need it too!)

I do indeed hope you have a nice day :)

When I saw this on pinterest this weekend it instantly made me think. We never see the negative things we say to ourselves as "nasty". But sometimes we can be ridiculously nasty to ourselves. How about we try and stop all that negativity and tell ourselves how fantastic we are?! Because we are ALL absolutely amazing and unique and each and every one of us can be a gift to this world if we realise this :)

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Pretty much 24/7 the air has been filled with the smells of BBQs this weekend. I'm not gonna lie, I LOVE the smell of BBQs. I know I shouldn't: as a veggie/almost vegan the smell of cooking meat should repulse me, but it really doesn't! I was going to post some amazing image of a vegan BBQ, but then I saw THIS! Healthy fruit can just look so darn pretty.

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How amazing is that?! If anyone has a go at recreating this then pleeeease send me photos - it looks so much fun :)

Hope that's left you feeling motivated for the week. Have a great Monday!

E x

Weekend round-up: revision - it's not fayre

Hi everyone!

I hope you have had wonderful weekends. The weather here has been so wonderful!

I've done something crazy this weekend - I've not calorie-counted! Yesterday it was more just because it wasn't practical, today it was a conscious decision. I wanted to really focus on plain old clean eating. And that's exactly what I've done :)

There were some dubious cakes and biscuits yesterday, and a few too many tortilla chips, but I also had good balanced meals of blueberries and yoghurt and big Pizza Express salad.

It was a local summer fayre yesterday which I went along to with the bf. I LOVE country fayres, they're just so cute. There were horse shows, dog shows (sooo cute), lots of food stalls, a fun fayre. I'm not a big fan of rides (nor am I sure that either of us would have fit in any of the seats - they were very kid orientated!), however the 2p and 10p slot machines...well that's a different kettle of fish!

We did pretty well, keeping going for a good half hour with just a couple of pounds (and at the rate we were shoving the coins in that's not bad!). We didn't get the £5 note though :(

We went to our usual Pizza Express for lunch, and then to a Sugarpova. This is a sweet shop owned by Maria Sharapova, selling some very brightly coloured sweets!

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 I'm so excited for Wimbledon starting tomorrow! The sweets looked like quite good high-end sweets, however obviously full of a lot of rubbish. And quite pricey at £4 a bag! I didn't try one, but the smell of watermelon coming from one of the sweets my boyfriend tried was amazing, so I'm sure they're worth the price for a special Wimbledon-themed party or the like if you're fancying a treat :)

Yesterday evening I had the flat to myself, and in the Wimbledon spirit I had some frozen strawberries and...well, ok, yoghurt. I flavoured it with vanilla extract and agave and added some nuts to add a bit of extra yumminess.

Ate that whilst watching Celebrity Masterchef, and looking at new flats for when I have to move out. I also did some summer clothes shopping because the flights to Bali are officially sorted! I can't believe it's happening - I've never been somewhere quite as exotic as this so I'm ridiculously excited :)

Today started off in the most amazing way possible. Got up early and headed out for a short run. I decided to mix it up a bit and run a different route, mostly making it up as I went along. However it got to the point where I was going to turn off the Thames path to head home, and I just didn't want to. The weather was gorgeous, I was feeling ok, and so I kept on going. In the end I did 10k with 14 minutes of walking in there, and there were points I felt on top of the world. Such a great way to start my Sunday morning :)

I also refuelled with this beauty of a breakfast (and a lot of H2O since I'd not taken a water bottle with me on the run). Just the cooling meal I needed: frozen banana and raspberries with chia seed and peanut butter, and some rye bread with coconut oil on the side.

Today I had to do some revision for a project management exam I have tomorrow. Definitely not as fun as being out in the sun at a fun fayre! Made sure I rewarded myself with lots of dates dipped in peanut butter, and made this yummy salad for lunch.

I also nipped out for a wander to stretch my legs and picked up this coconut water. Perfect post-run refuel.

After lunch I don't know what happened but I couldn't keep my eyes open so had a bit of a siesta before cracking on with revision with this to keep me going.

I've now off to go and make myself a nice dinner :)

What have you been up to this weekend?

Do you like the slot machines?

Do you watch Wimbledon?

E x