BEAUTY// SLIMMING MY WORLD

Whatever I do with my day it always makes me happier if I have exercised and eaten as healthily as possible. I may mourn that cake I see some one else eat or miss having cheese with most meals but I genuinely feel more alive without all that. This week I have been 100% on plan with my eating and have really gone out of my way to do as much exercise as I can. Most of all I've found returning to my Slimming World eating has really helped, I'm not going to the club as such as I can't afford that right now but I have all the books and hope I can join a group when I have a bit of cash again.

Feel free to follow my food diary/progress over on my instagram here.

LIFESTYLE// SMALL STEPS WATER

Made a little banner to head my little series on healthy living so if you see this you'll know I'm talking all health and positive changes. Today that change is about my previous post on drinking better. Often brands are considered glamorous or cool, it is how they sell so well, especially when we see our favourite celebrities sipping that sugary pop. In a bid to counter this I've been looking at water bottles, a brilliant alternative to forking out for Evian on a daily basis and adding to the epic recycling issues.

Here are a selection of cuties I found online…

1. Blogilates $16.00 | 2. TK Maxx £7.99 | 3. Paperchase £6.00 | 4. Sports Direct £4.50 |
5. Amazon £8.79 | 6. Amazon £9.81

Do you use a water bottle whilst out and about? Would love some recommendations! I'm particularly fond of the Paperchase one with the little cup section, I'd likely put some snacks in there like fruit or nuts.

LIFESTYLE// SMALL STEPS

As part of my attempt to get healthier I'm making little steps to get changes going that will make a difference.

This post is about my break up with fizzy drinks (soda), a massive vice of mine. It has always been a great treat for parties and meals out, that great feeling of taking your first sip of that ice cold refreshing drink is a tough one to beat. Alas it has to come to an end as I find myself having far too many and not drinking half as much water as I should. It is obvious that too much sugar is bad for you, but there are also lots of chemicals in the diet and sugar free versions so water and the occasional sugar free squash for me.

The steps I am taking are to avoid caffeine most of the time so I don't feel urges to grab a can, when I go shopping I try and take a plastic bottle for water as buying bottled water all the time is bad for the environment. Most of these drinks are giving me the munchies so I just have to give them up!

LIFESTYLE // HEALTH AND FITNESS #1

This post is a little bit different to my usual. In the past I have blogged about fitness (through Tumblr and on my Wordpress blog 'Cardio Cat') but it feels like natural progression to revisit my thoughts and feelings on fitness, almost to remind myself why it is so important to me. Recently I have been letting myself down, eating lots of things that make me feel rubbish after and ruining my hard work from exercise. Unfortunately when I get stressed out I find it difficult to be motivated to work out or prepare healthy food which is ironic as it makes me feel good. So this is ultimately a post to show how far I have come and get motivated to stay on track. 

As a child I was a fairly normal size, I did however develop some fairly unhealthy habits through boredom after friends moved away from my local area and weight gain often led to me being a target for bullies. I spent most of my teen years shrugging it off, thinking I was huge when really I wasn't. Through a comfortable relationship I let my health fall behind, enjoying far too much of the Scottish takeaways and went from roughly 11 stone to nearly 14 stone.

13stone 8lb to 9 stone 11lb.

After my far too comfortable relationship ended I went back to studying and wanted to be part of the fashion world, pretty difficult when you look 3 times the size of most other girls on the course. I took it upon myself in February 2010 to get rid of the overweight tag once and for all. Through healthy eating and changing bus to college into walk to college and home I managed to lose almost 4 stone. It feels so long ago but I am still proud of this and although I have gained about 10lbs since then I really want to get back to the healthy lifestyle. 

Source: Tumblr.

Last year I started to run, wanting to take part in Race For Life, managing to get myself to the point where I can run for about 7k non-stop but now I want to take that further. Me and my sister are doing the Colour Run this Saturday and I am super excited. Having a goal is so important in motivating yourself if you're looking to lose weight or just to be fit and healthy. My goals are; work out at least 3 times a week, drink 8 glasses of water a day and to ditch take out. 

Let's get fit and healthy!

HEALTH&LIFESTYLE // SNACKS NAKD & YO YO BEARS

Eating healthy and finding snacks is difficult, short of eating fruit all the time. So I am always excited to find new treats that feed the sweet tooth but also help me with maintaining a low weight. Here are my little reviews of my old favourite; the nakd bar and also the the yo yo bear which is new to me. 

Nakd bars are a delicious treat, they come in a multitude of flavours; ginger bread, cocoa mint, cocoa delight, cocoa loco, rhubarb & custard, banana bread, berry crunch, cafe mocha and cashew cookie. My personal favourite is cocoa orange, they contain; dates, cashews, raisins, cocoa and a hint of natural orange and chocolate flavouring. With these wonderful natural ingredients they are an excellent sweet treat for some one working on losing or maintaining a healthy weight. They also have a satisfying almost chewy consistency, like a soft chocolate bar. (Roughly 140kcal per pack)

Yo Yo Bears are rolls of fruit lightly baked. I tried them properly for the first time today and honestly I found the consistency a little odd, somewhat 'bitty'. It definitely fulfilled my need for something sweet but I wasn't fond of the strawberry flavour - I did however buy an apple one to try later. Something I did love was the cute little card that came with it, on the reverse were comparisons of human to dinosaur sizes :) great for kids! Once again the ingredients are all natural too. (Roughly 60kcal per pack)

Both of these products may be purchased from Holland and Barrett and many supermarkets.

LIFESTYLE // Propercorn VS Shapers

Let's talk popcorn. Since my introduction to Propercorn I have found it a little difficult some times to find the product in shops, some Tescos have it, others don't. So I have been hunting for possible alternatives in case I ever wanted to treat myself. Today I came across Boots healthy range 'Shapers - Sweet & Salty Popcorn', great a possible alternative! But is it all good I wondered so today I'm breaking down the differences from the nutritional information, to my personal opinion on taste and cost.

Bearing in mind that Shapers is 20 grams a pack and Propercorn is 30 grams a pack there isn't a significant difference in nutritional information, though the ingredients are different.

Flavour

Propercorn uses sea salt and brown sugar where as Shapers uses white sugar and normal table salt. I think this is reflected in flavour.  I found Propercorn to be a better mix of the two flavours as neither over powered the other.

Shapers had a distinct sweetness, which to me is fine as I love sweet things but it didn't match up to the curiously wonderful mixture in Propercorn.

Cost

Shapers was 65p per 20g pack which felt plenty for a snack.

Propercorn was 75p per 30g pack and was sufficient, I felt, for taking to the cinema and enduring throughout a movie.

Not much in it between the two price wise, both are a little expensive compared to buying a chocolate bar, though those are rising in price.

Overall

I feel Propercorn is the better choice, it was very close but the flavouring in Propercorn just felt more of a luxury treat and settled both sweet and savoury cravings. I will definitely purchase both again but I highly recommend you at least try one of these delicious treats.

LIFESTYLE // Healthy Treat Propercorn

Hello my sweets, here is something delicious I wanted to share with those that are unaware of the wonders of Propercorn. Propercorn is a snack product, created by a gentleman that would make popcorn with his father, making lots of new and exciting flavours. Lucky for us he is now sharing some with us! These treats come in a fairly large bag in comparison to your standard crisp packet (potato chips for you exciting American types). The joy is that their ingredients could be counted on the fingers of one hand, very natural and good when trying to avoid lots of nasty E numbers and chemicals.

Sweet and salty comes to just 128 calories per pack! So wholesome ingredients, low in calories and currently on offer in your local Tescos too. Perfect if you want to go to the cinema and make sure you aren't consuming a mountain of sugar and empty calories.

Check them out!

Special thanks to Kelsey for her Awesome August videos displaying this product. Click her name to go to her Youtube where she regularly posts about her workouts/food.

Not So Sunny Sunday

Here is my past week or two; 

1: I started my eat clean, work out hard and look after myself in general plan. These are the shorts I want to be able to button up soon. 

2: I'm sure I'm far from the only woman that has purchased two of the same magazine for these lovely Benefit freebies. I had literally a week ago thought I needed a new Bad Gal mascara and this comes along, sample size for just £2. I also got pore-fessional :). 

3: I've been reading lots of The Song of Ice and Fire series, this is book 4. I love this series and can't recommend it enough to fans of fantasy/medieval style books. 

4: Enjoying the little bit of sunshine with my friends and my boyfriend. This photo was taken by my boyfriend, I'm pulling an odd face but I do like this photo. 

Caption 'Not So Sunny' kind of sums up how the weather has been but also my up and down moments.