I want to lose weight! - Where to start

A lot of people say, that making the decision is the hardest part of the changing process. I don't really agree with it, I remember deciding several times, that I am going to change my lifestyle, but after a couple of weeks I always gave up. Making the decision is still there tho, when you finally start the changes. So here is my list, what helps you to stick with your decision, and get you started.

1. Buy a scale

Yes, weight is not everything, and your body still can transform without losing (or even gaining) any weight. But still, when you have quite a few pounds to lose, it is nice to track your progress. I never owned a scale before, just bought my first one at the age of 27. But hey, gotta start somewhere. I bought a digital one, which shows not just the kilograms but the decimals as well, because you won't really lose a whole kg a day. Also...

2. Weight yourself every day

This is an other thing, that fitness magazines tell you not to do. Because there can be oedema somewhere in your body, yada yada yada. But it helps me, because I can track the effects of my meals from the previous day. And you can discover things, like: if you don't sleep or drink enough, no matter how healthy you ate the previous day, your body won't be able to lose weight properly. I work 12 hour shifts, and when I am working 4 days in a row, I still eat healthy, I bring food in with me, but just because I am on my feet all day and can't drink enough (not to mention the 6 hours of sleep instead of the 9 I usually need), I just don't lose weight as I would expect it. The second I have my day off and have a proper sleep, I see the difference on the scale in the morning. Oh yes, of course, weight yourself the same time every day. I keep my scale in the bathroom, and every morning, right after getting up and running for a pee, I stand on it. Also, make sure you don't have heavy clothes on. I usually just have my underwear on, because your jammies can trick you and make you think you didn't lose any weight, but in fairness you are just wearing your big fluffy heavy Christmas onesie in the middle of June which weighs a ton (happened to a friend, not me of course). 

3. Buy a pretty journal

You can use one of your many unused notebooks if you want to, but it always motivates me, when I buy new stationary. 

I bought mine in Paperchase, and I love it. Every day I record my morning weight, and the meals I have. Even the smallest bites of anything. I also add whether I worked or not, and the workouts as well. I mark those days of the month as well, since your body works differently during your period. In my case I can just grab this journal and bring it to the doctor when I am having an appointment, so I can show her my progress. 

I know, that there are many apps, that you can use instead of writing, but I prefer having this little thing, it is prettier to look at, and I quite enjoy writing, so it works for me. :)

4. Get rid of all the non-healthy food

It is quite a logical saying: if you don't have bad food in your house, you won't eat bad food. Get rid of the chocolate stash, the sugary drinks, everything that you consider not good for your diet. You don't have to bin them, you can give them to a chocolate lover friend, or if you have a lots of ingredients, you can donate them. 

5. Set a reasonable (!) goal

If you have a long way ahead of you, don't start putting pictures up on your inspirational board of models and skinny minnies. Yes, you might end up there at the end of the road, but you should focus on something that is going to come sooner, not in 2 years. It is too far away, won't be motivational enough. Set a goal with your weight, for example: I want to be under 100 kilos by the end of June/winter/whatever. I want to buy size 16 trousers in August. I want to be able to run for 3 minutes straight in 5 weeks. Something you can reach, and you can celebrate soon. Celebrate every good day (not with cake!), if you did well. Pat your shoulders, and keep on doing it. Don't think it as like a long period of torture. You are getting better and better at it day by day, and if you are being consistent, you will reach your goals. All of them.

6. Use social media

Nowadays it is in our everyday life. Why not use it to find motivation? I mostly use instagram for this purpose, I don't like spamming on facebook, but I am happy to post pictures of my meals, and look at others for inspiration, motivation and ideas. Also, Pinterest! That is heaven for everything. honestly. 

7. Take a picture of yourself 

You don't have to show it to anyone, if you feel embarrassed. But weeks later you will think: oh, I wish I had one, so I can see the progress. It is going to feel amazing to see the results of your hard work. 

Two more important things you should keep in mind: Do not bash your bigger self. I hate when I see people posting pictures about themselves, saying: I am such a fat pig, disgusting. It is still you. You have feelings. Don't hurt yourself. Yes, you are healthier and fitter than you used to be, but you still should respect yourself. Also. You are not getting prettier and more beautiful. You are pretty and beautiful. You are just getting healthier. Keep this in mind. Very important.

Same me, new habits

I do apologize for the looong break. I did not really have the motivation to write posts, and I didn't want to start blabbering about random stupid things. :) But now I feel like I am motivated again, and I am going to try and post regularly.

The following part might seem like a bit TMI, but I always used to be like this, I don't mind speaking about topics others might find inappropriate. 2 months ago I was diagnosed with PCOS. For those who don't know what it is: my ovaries are basically not functioning properly, every time it is time for an ovulation, it won't happen, and they end up having dozens of cysts in them. This condition is not curable at the moment, but one can try and make it better. The happy news is, that I don't have insulin resistance, which commonly walks hand in hand with the cysts. The main thing is, that I needed to change a lot in my life. We would like to start a family in the next 2 years, and the most important thing is for that is to have functioning ovaries of course. 

So after a couple of very emotional days I came out of my puddle of depression and tears, and decided to take action and be positive about it. I always procrastinated healthy eating and working out. At first I always said, oh I am getting into shape when I am preparing for my wedding, but I felt good in my skin anyway, and didn't want to make extreme changes for the big day. I think my problem was, that my weight never really stopped me from doing anything I wanted, so I was just relaxed and fine, there was no motivation for the big change. Now I know, that if I want to have kids in the future, I HAVE TO change. This was a kick up my ass, and got me motivated. I have a pretty good reason to change. So here it goes. 

I started eating healthy about 2 months ago. And by healthy I do not mean that I became a health freak idiot, who hates all processed food and everyone who goes in to McDonald's every month or so. I do think, that if you want to change your whole way of living, you cannot just exclude everything that is considered bad. I am a hedonist, I like my food, and I am not going to give up chocolate, or the occasional pudding. So what I do, I just think twice before eating. I eat a bit of a chocolate once a month or so, if I feel like I need it. I am not going to say no to ice cream, I am just having one scoop, not 3. I am eating hamburgers, but I try and make it bunless, or choose the healthiest option. I do go to Burger King once or twice a month, but I order a salad or the veggie wrap. I add salad as a side next to everything. I always reach for my small plates, so every meal my plate looks full, tricking my mind I have a full big meal, but I have half of the portion I used to eat earlier. Pizza is fine, 2 slices, with a massive amount of salad. Yada yada yada, I could go on for ages, but hopefully you get what I mean. 

Oh and also, I started running 2 weeks ago. I did home exercises before, but I never really liked jumping up and down like an idiot in front of the telly, and the dog always tried to hump me while I was on the ground. :D I tried running years ago, before our wedding, but I just jumped at it, without thinking, an of course it was a failure. Now I started running with the NHS app Couch to 5K, which tells you when to run and walk, so you slowly, week by week run a bit more, and walk a bit less, reaching your goal without pushing too hard. I can say that I started enjoying running, tho it is still not my favourite, but I prefer it over the home jumping. 

So yes, this is happening now, and I am going to try and post regularly, about my progress, recipes maybe, motivation and stuff. Tell me if there is a topic you want me to write more about, and I'll try my best to deliver. :)

Butterbeer cupcake

I always thought, that cupcakes are prettier than tasty, but I guess this was because I only encountered not too good ones in the past. :) I never made cupcakes before this one, but I have the confidence when it comes to cooking or baking, so I was not worried about making them for a party without trying them out first. I am happy to say, that it was a success, and I am going to try and make some more in the future. 

I had to change a couple of ingredients from the original recipe, as it is from an American blog, and we don't have the same things here in Scotland, but it turned out fantastic anyway, so I am going to share my version with you.

Ingredients

Cupcake:

2 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup of soft butter

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

1/2 cup of brown sugar

3 large eggs

1,5 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of buttermilk

1/2 cup of cream soda

Filling:

1/2 cup of butterscotch sauce

1 cup of extra thick cream

Icing:

1/2 cup of soft butter

1/3 cup of the filling you made

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

pinch of salt

450 g icing sugar (or the amount you need to reach the desired consistency)

Preheat the oven to 170 °C. Combine the flour, the baking powder and salt. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla flavouring, the buttermilk, and the cream soda. If you can't buy buttermilk, mix regular milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice, and tadaa! :) Add dry ingredients, mix well. Bake for 15-17 minutes, check with a knife to see whether they are ready. This cupcake "dough" was enough for 20 cupcakes.

For the filling, just mix the butterscotch sauce with the cream. Wait for the cupcakes to cool down, then insert the filling to the centres of each cupcake with a cupcake filler (or a big syringe). Don't worry if it comes out a bit. :) 

For the icing, cream butter until light and fluffy. Add the filling you saved earlier, the vanilla extract, and the salt. Beat in icing sugar, one cup at a time, until desired consistency. 

After I decorated my cupcakes with the icing, I used the remaining butterscotch sauce on top. to make it more prettier and tastier. :) Also, it is easier to eat, if you use silicone cupcake/muffin cases. Once the cupcakes cooled down, I removed them from the silicone ones, then used paper cases to make them pretty (and colour coordinated them for the four Hogwarts houses). This way it is easy to eat them, you won't waste half of the cupcake, because it won't be stuck on the paper. But they are still pretty and cupcake looking. 

I hope you will try the recipe out. It takes some time to make them, but it well worth the effort, and it is not hard at all, just time-consuming. 

Our Harry Potter Marathon Party

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I kinda have an obsession with Harry Potter. We also had a party 2 weeks ago, where we watched all the Harry Potter films, and had some fun. I thought (and you guys requested it as well) I am going to tell you about the party. :) 

I love hosting dinner parties, I love having friend over, cooking for them, and stuff. I had many gatherings like this before, but this party was my first themed one. Not the last though, loved all the preparations and brainstorming around it, so we will definitely have an other marathon/themed party in the future. Since there are 8 films, and all together they are almost 20 hours long, I figured it should be a whole weekend, and we broke it into 2 parts, first 4 films on Saturday, the other 4 on Sunday. Finding a weekend which was good for everyone was the hardest bit, since even though we are wand-waving toddlers inside, outside we tend to be adults, who work. After the date was set, we had time to brainstorm and have fun while doing the preparations. 

The first thing I was sure of: we need wands. I know you can buy wands on-line, and they sell it in the Harry Potter studios, but I really like to DIY, and there is nothing really cheaper than that. So I asked my old friend for advice (Pinterest), and she did not disappoint. 

Making the wands was fun and absolutely easy. If you want me to do a tutorial on them let me know, I still have all the ingredients needed, so I can make step-by-step pictures as well. It is quite straight forward though, all you need is chopsticks, a hot glue gun, some beads and paint. And your imagination of course. 

I like to cook and bake, so I also made some butterbeer (was not too keen on it thought, too sweet for my taste) and butterbeer cupcakes. Now these were ah-ma-zing, I will share the recipe with you for sure! This was my first try with cupcakes, they are a bit complicated, but not hard at all, and they tasted like heaven. I also made some cinnamon scones, and for a bit of savoury, I made witches hats from puff pastry, some garlicy tomato sauce and cheese. And we needed to have jelly beans of course. 

Since we like to go full out, we dressed Panda as Dobby. She didn't really mind her pillow case outfit. No socks though, she is still our elf. :)

Our friends brought some food as well, we had lovely jalapeño burgers for dinner, and when we got hungry later on, we went to the nearby 24 hour bakery for some goodies. :)

And of course, the most important, the films. I loved, that everyone had their wand with them for the entire weekend, and when Professor Flitwick was teaching the little guys Wingardium Leviosa, all of us did the movements. And we also sent Lumos up for Dumbledore at the end of the 6th film. I love my friends, it is so nice to be nerdy with them. :) I loved all the conversations throughout the films, about the mistakes (it was always better in the books!), the fun facts, and everything.

It was a really nice and fun weekend, and I literally felt depressed when it was over. We planned it so much, and it was so good to be together and watch all the films, that I never wanted it to be over. 

If you would like to have any of the recipes, or want me to do a tutorial on the wands, let me know! :) Also, if you have any suggestions for marathons like this, feel free to recommend!

My first tattoo

If you follow me on Instagram, you might already know, that I had my first tattoo done last Wednesday. Also you might noticed, that I have a slight obsession with Harry Potter (prepare for some Harry Potter related posts in the following days). Yep, these two are related, my tattoo is the sign of the Deathly Hallows. 

People always say, that you need to think a lot, before deciding on a tattoo, because it is going to stay there for the rest of your life. I agree with this, what I don't like is, when they say you should not get one done, because you are going to look stupid when you grow old. I am going to look stupid anyway, so who cares about the extra ink on my skin. Anyway, I was debating a lot about the placement of the tattoo. I really like them on the wrist and arm, but since I would like to work for NHS, I didn't want to make it unhideable. I decided on my back, even though I can't see it there, it is still a place which I can show without being totally inappropriate, and I can hide it with a uniform if I need to.

I got it done at the Rock 'N' Roll Studio in Dundee. I researched for quite a while, because I didn't want to end up at a crappy place. This stays on me forever, and wanted to make sure, that I am going to be in the best hands possible. I booked my appointment almost 3 weeks prior the session, and the place was really nice and welcoming, I didn't freak out even for a second. So yeah, I recommend it to everyone, they explained everything and answered all my stupid questions. :)

My artist was Piotr, and I am very glad I got him. I felt a bit weird when entering the studio, because I was freaking out a little, didn't know what to expect, but I felt silly at the same time, because I went in for a small tattoo, and the other two guys who were already there under the needle, had so much bigger things painted on them. The guy next to me was really nice, when we started he reached his hand out for me to hold onto it. :) I liked how welcoming even the clients were. 

It only took about 30 minutes, and I was really surprised, it didn't hurt at all. Ok I am lying now, it was a bit sore, but nothing major, kinda like a mosquito bite. It was louder than sore, really. 

2 minutes after it was done, still in the studio.

They explained everything about the aftercare, what should and shouldn't I do with it. I am not going into details about this, because every artist swears on different methods, and you are doing the best if you are listening to the one you got your tattoo with. But yeah, my baby is a week old now, and it was not red or sore or anything abnormal at all. I am applying the cream on it every couple of hours, and it is getting smooth now. Bit dry, but no scabs, no sore bits. I am really pleased with the result. 

1 day old. 

Sorry about the crappy pictures by the way, we had a busy weekend and didn't take pictures of it with our proper camera. 

And what they say is totally true, now that I have one I am hooked, already thinking about the next one, argh, it is addictive. :)

Do you have any tattoos? Are you thinking about getting one?

Collection Eyes Uncovered: Nude Palette

I wanted to buy a good everyday nude palette for a while now. I was always eyeing the Urban Decay Naked palette, especially since there are a lot of versions out, but I never really went to the UD counter and tried them. I just don't really want to spend a lot of money on a palette. Maybe later. :) Anyway, nude is really in now, so thank goodness everyone is trying to come out with a palette, so there are plenty of brands to choose from. 

This palette is not my first purchase from Collection, I love the lasting perfection concealer. They are totally affordable, and have good quality. This palette is a bargain for £3.99, and they have 3 versions: nude, nude grey, and nude bronze. I went for the plain nude, as it looked like suits my skin colour the most. 

The packaging is quite light, and small enough to fit in a make-up bag, if you are on the go. It is easy to open, thanks to the magnets, I hate when palettes are so hard to open they actually mess up your nails. This won't do it. :)

The colours are perfect for an everyday nude make-up, most of them are quite pale, they are brilliant for my skin tone, but if you are a bit darker, look for the other two options. All colours but the darkest have shimmer in them, but it is more like a sheen than a glitter, so it is not too much at all. They are quite creamy for a cheap palette, they don't make a mess under your eye area, and easy to blend.

I am very impressed with this palette, the darkest colour can even be used as a brow powder. I don't like to hoard, so I am not planning on buying the other 2 versions of the line, but I will definitely check them out the next time I am in Superdrug. Just to see the colours. :)

What is your favourite nude palette?

Fleur De Force: The Glam Guide - Review

I watch Fleur's Youtube channel for quite a while now. She is one of the few, who I am still subscribed to, since most of the gurus I watched previously had become annoying, dishonest, or just simply not fun to watch. I can relate to her in many ways, and even though she is very popular now, she still managed to stay the same girl she was, when she first started Youtube. 

Anyhow, I was very excited, when she announced her upcoming book last year. My sister is a blogger herself, who happened to write her first book in 2013, so I know exactly, how much work and excitement it is. 

I really loved, that Fleur asked her audience about the book, even considered minor changes, while it was still in progress. She vlogged throughout the writing, and listened to criticism. First, I wanted to pre-order the book, but then I realized, that I love going to book stores, so I decided to wait for the release, and buy and smell it myself. :)

The Glam Guide came out on the 12th of February, and I binged myself through it in 2 days. First, it is lovely to look at it. I like the colours, the font, the whole design of it. If you watch Fleur, you know, that it screams her name, which is always handy, when you happen to have a book. :) Second, I really like the structure. She discusses several topics, from make-up to recipes, workout tips, fashion ideas, and even some relationship and blogger/youtube tips. She starts from the beginning, explaining everything, but also keeps mentioning, that not everything is set in stone, you can do whatever you feel like doing. 

The book is basically a mix of her videos in print, I almost heard her voice, while I was reading it. As I mentioned, I watch her videos for years now, and it was really nice to notice, that almost all of the pictures were taken at their house, I recognized outfits from her previous haul videos, you can see her puppies, her husband on the pictures, everything mentioned or photographed is real, hers, not just some stock something. 

The drawings in the book are fantastic, I loved every page, and the watercolour accents are really cute too. 

What I think is important to say, that this book is not a bible, it won't really change your life, if you already are into fashion and make-up, but it definitely is a lovely read, and Fleur didn't really promise anything life-changing anyway. She just made her life and videos into a book, and it turned out to be fantastic. Congratulations to her. :) 

Have you read it? Are you planning on buying it?