I figured I'd round off the year with a selection of my favourite pictures from this years' posts. I've loved my year of blogging, and it's brought me so many opportunities, which is why I'm looking forward to it simply getting bigger and better in 2016. I'm sure all us bloggers around about now are thinking about what we hope will happen for us and our blogs in the coming year, so I thought I'd start a discussion with you all about our dreams.
What do I want? Well, my main goal for this year is to effectively monetize my blog (in boring terms), aka I'd love to be able to go part time, with my blog making up the rest of my monthly paycheck. This would mean I could put more time into blog, pay more attention to my fitness, and spend more time with the little fluffs - Ted the bunny and Hammy & Jeff the dwarf hamsters. Plus, I could take even prettier photos to share with you all in my posts (hello extra daylight hours!)
I would love to work with more brands in the coming year, especially beauty ones. Nourish ME is all about caring for yourself and I really love letting people know about new products that will help you nourish yourself, whether it be mentally or physically.
Finally, at the moment instagram is my most successful social media platform. I'd love to get to 5k followers in the next year (as I'm just over 1k at the moment). My twitter would ideally hit 1000 and my bloglovin and Facebook page at least 500.
What are your blogging goals in the coming year?
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?
I'm not sure how, or why, putting pretty colours on my fingernails has such a massive effect on my self esteem, but as soon as my bare nails are no longer visible, I seem to gain an ounce or two of sass. So, I thought I'd share with you the ones I've been loving in the lead up to Christmas.
Maybelline's Dr Rescue has provided me with the perfect base and top layer. It keeps my nail paint from chipping way more than just letting it be does (I'm slightly ham-fisted so it usually disintegrates in about an hour!)
Deep reds, glitter and dark shades have been my go-to this entire season, and the Barry M Black Pistachio Gelly Hi-Shine has been top of the list. Not only is it super glossy, but it is a deliciously festive shade, and I think it would look amazing with some deep red dots on it.
The reds I've fallen in love with this season include Revlon's new Colorstay gel envy in Queen of Hearts. This was the deepest red I've used. Alongside this, my Maybelline Color Show Nail Lacquer in Paint the Town, with a hint of Daring Graffiti on top.
Finally, for all the purple fans out there, I loved Maybelline's Deep in Violet nail lacquer, especially for evening events I've been headed to!
What shades have been your go-to this season?
