Dealing with Weight Gain | 2016 Fitness Goals

Weight gain is often a taboo subject - you can't really go up to someone and ask them how they're feeling about the fact that they've put on a few pounds. But, I want to talk about my own experience over the last few months, and how I've kept myself from falling into a pit of self hatred and despair, as I've done when I've gained a bit of weight in the past.
So, here's what happened really. After I graduated I worked in a pub over summer and joined a gym. Although I was on my feet for at least seven hours five days a week and going to the gym at least once a week I was also eating pub food every day, aka a recipe for disaster. I usually like to cook my own meals, and had been going dairy free, so this obviously had a fairly large impact upon my body (get the pun?). 
In October however I got a new job, one behind a desk. At the same time my gym membership ran out and I didn't renew it. I also managed to convince myself that my five minute bike ride to and from work basically was the same as the amount of exercise I was doing at the pub, so I could afford to eat what I wanted (note to self, this is a lie!). Snacking is a major issue at work when I'm sat in front of a computer all day, and there's a vending machine upstairs, and things may have gotten a little out of hand - two chocolate bars every day is not a thing I should be partaking in. 
Despite actually getting a new gym membership I was unable to use it for five weeks as our car broke down and we couldn't physically get to the gym. This was incredibly frustrating and I may or may not have used it as an excuse not to bother even exercising at home.
So where did it all come to a head? Well, my clothes stopped fitting. If you've ever tried on a dress that fit a few weeks before and the zip will no longer go all the way up, you probably know the feeling of absolute self-loathing that I did as I stood in tears glaring at the mirror. What's even worse is when clothes that you used to have for your "fat days" when you were feeling super bloated and hadn't been eating right for a couple of weeks stop fitting. I'm currently down to one pair of jeans and zero dresses, and nothing is okay about that. Things got truly awful when I was late to work because I bent down in my work trousers and they just completely split open and I had to go back to the house and get changed. Believe me, explaining to your manager that you were late because of your weight gain is not exactly confidence boosting.
However, I have managed not to let it get me down completely, and here's why:
- I've remembered that perhaps over eating isn't the worst habit I could have fallen into considering how hard a year I've had. Despite the weight gain getting me down I know that it's temporary, and I want to lose it in a healthy rather than drastic way as I've done in the past.
- Buy new clothes. Don't pine after the old ones too much! In the end, trying to squeeze into jeans that simply don't do up at the top, or tops that show off all your lumps and bumps is going to make you unhappy everyday. On the other hand, having a few new pretty clothes is going to boost your confidence when it's at its lowest.
- I've made sure that I don't completely forget to eat healthy foods. I believe that what you eat has a massive effect on your mental state, which is partly why we all find it so hard to pick ourselves out of the weight gain slump. I've started making sure that I have hot honey and lemon water to start my day off right in the mornings, and remember to eat plenty of fruit and at least two vegetables per day. I've only started doing this in the past couple of weeks and the effects on how I felt about myself were astonishing. 
- Make an action plan. As soon as I head back up to my house in Leamington after the Christmas period I'm going to start going to the gym again as the car is (finally) fixed, wahoo! Me and my boyfriend are lucky enough to be heading skiing at the beginning of January so I'll be getting a rapid introduction to the notion of exercising every day (Lord, help me!). I'm hoping that after this I'm going to head to the gym twice a week and do a daily yoga session at home. Last year I did Yoga with Adriene's 30 days of yoga twice and the flexibility gains I made were amazing! I'm determined to nail crow by the end of this year, as well as being able to hold a non wobbly plank for a decent amount of time. Dinner, breakfast and lunch are going to be a feature of my life every day, and will enhance my strength and ability to perform longer and better workouts. I'm going to be moving away from cardio and towards weights and full body exercises in the gym
I hope you find this helpful! Do you have any 2016 fitness goals?

White Musk Gift Set | Evening Scent

I love a good ol' bit of Body Shop skin care loving and fragrance, but this probably wouldn't make it onto my favourite everyday wears. The white musk perfume in this little gift set is one of The Body Shop's signature scents, but I would suggest that it is better for an evening out as it is quite a heavy one. My boyfriend, knowing that I love The Body Shop, tried his best to remember what I liked, but kind of got half way there (hey, we all know we need to tell our other halves exactly what we want - I'm a nightmare at buying him stuff too!). 

The shower gel and body lotion have been great if only for their size. These cute little bottles fit perfectly into my gym bag so that I don't have to lug round full size ones with me. Plus, the scent is very potently girly, and after heading to an intense gym session it's always great to be reminded that you can actually smell nice again!

What do you think of this range?

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Five

Yes, there was no Day Four post. I fell off of my detox bandwagon a bit and wanted to secure today's health before writing a blog post. Today was really a day for hitting things hard and boy am I exhausted. Currently fighting the urge to write this in a foetal position under my favourite fleece blanket is a challenge.

I am loving how vibrant my fruit bowls are at the moment. I have a major sweet tooth, so fruit really helps me manage to stay off of the artificial sugars and forms a fairly large part of my diet. I have at least three portions of it in my morning smoothie and will most days have a fruit bowl like the one above.

Finally, I hit the gym for probably the longest time ever today. Let's pray that I don't have to walk anywhere tomorrow. The fact that the only bathrooms in my student house are upstairs is probably going to result in me crawling around pathetically. Anyway, the second picture is a couple of gym essentials for me: my water, shower gel & body spray and spare socks (hey, no one wants to be re-using after a hard workout am I right?!).

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day One

Recently I've been falling away from my clean eats diet, and I've started to notice the effect it's having on both my physical and mental health. My sleeping pattern in particular has been all over the place. So, this week I'm going to be posting every day as I attempt to get back to basics, and remind myself why I started this journey. 

So, I've started off the week with a glorious trip to Wholefoods (honestly, I could spend hours in there). This is just a very small sample of some snack-type foods I picked up for when I feel like eating something really bad so that I don't do exactly that. Plus I've been hunting for Himalayan pink salt and wholegrain penne for just about forever, so my little beady eyes lit up with joy when I spotted these. 

As I sit here sipping on my Clipper's organic detox tea, which btw is a million times nicer than any other I've tried so far, I realise that I feel fulfilled about how I've spent my day for the first time in a couple of weeks. I hit the gym super hard for the first time in forever, and you can see the massive smile it put on my face in the top picture. 

Hope you all have a healthy, fulfilled week - what are your plans to improve your wellbeing?

Love and Light

Steph

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are such a great alternative to white potatoes. I try to avoid white potatoes as much as possible, and the nutritional benefits that sweet ones offer means that they're a pretty good option. They're a fab source of potassium, magnesium, iron and a multitude of vitamins. So, why not make the switch? This stuffed potato has a whole variety of flavours which make it much more interesting!

Ingredients (makes 1 serving):

1 sweet potato

1 turkey breast

4 baby plum tomatoes

30g chorizo

50g spinach

Ground black pepper

Basil

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (fan 160). Wash the potato in warm water and prick a couple of times with a fork. Pop in the microwave for 3 and a 1/2 minutes. Place in the oven to cook for 45 minutes. Tip: I used a white flesh sweet potato because they aren't quite as sweet.

2.) After 25 minutes of cooking, season the turkey breast with olive oil, black pepper and basil. Place under the grill and cook for 15 minutes.

3.)  Slice the chorizo and cut the tomatoes in half. Place in the oven for 15 minutes.

3.) When there are only ten minutes to go, boil the kettle and put the spinach on. Cook for six minutes and drain.

4.) Chop up the turkey breast and chorizo.

(these really aren't the prettiest photos in the world, sorry!)

5.) Take the potato out of the oven, and slice it in half. Scoop out the innards and mix with the chorizo, turkey breast, spinach and tomatoes. Place (or 'stuff') back in the potato and enjoy!

Love and Light

Steph

150 Followers Giveaway | New Years Resolutions & Looking Back

(This looks half empty, but it's not! Body butter always shifts to one side whenever you want it to just stay flat, urgh!)

Full Bloom Lavender Round Essential Body Kit (inc. flannel, bath cream, bath crystals) |

Soap and Glory 250ml The Righteous Butter |

Boots Extracts 50ml Cocoa Butter Body Butter |

LUSH Think Pink Bath Ballistic Bomb |

So as I've reached 150 followers, I've decided to offer you guys the chance to win these goodies as a token of my gratitude! I've really enjoyed creating and improving this blog over the past four or five months and am so looking forward to the next year of more improvements and blogging! Scroll down and you'll see how to enter - UK ONLY, sorry. I will be checking to make sure that you've actually done them!

I created this blog because I believe that what you eat, and the way you treat your body has an incredible impact on your mentality. I find that on days, or weeks, when I eat junk food and don't exercise I lose motivation for uni work, looking good, socialising, and focusing on general life admin (ugh) which I really ought to keep up with. Hence "Nourish ME": to nourish oneself, in my opinion, is to give your body the ability to perform well both physically and mentally. Thus, when I started clean eating I also developed a good skincare regime (which I will get round to blogging about one day, I swear!), regularly moisturising, and switching to products that were a lot less harsh for my skin and hair. Since then, my nails have been growing like crazy, and everyone keeps commenting on how long and thick my hair has gotten! 

So, this year I really want it to get bigger and better, and to keep the goals I set up when I started blogging. I think this is the first time that I've ever made any New Years resolutions, so here goes:

1.) Keep up with regular blogging, and make a list of new recipes!

2.) Go to the gym two times a week, and exercise at home on my new yoga mat on the other days - it really gives you a lot more energy to get on with other week.

3.) Actually keep up with the reading for the final half of the final year of my English Lit degree (this one makes me chuckle thinking about it)

4.) Tackle my problems rather than avoiding them. Work on my experience and endeavour to secure a job in publishing by Summer.

5.) Avoid dairy! Being intolerant to it helps, but boy do I let myself in for it sometimes out of lack of willpower/negligence for what's good for me.

6.) Meal prep - I am so bad at this, so at the end of a long uni day I always end up on the junk trail, but NO MORE. 

What are your New Years Resolutions?

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