I think my past blogging has been a perfect example of how bad I have been in the past at sticking to my own goals - in other words absolute failure.
Like most people I let my job, social life and love of chocolate rule my week and now I desperately need to do something about it. As most people I am using the start of the New Year to get back on track - but this time it is something I am not going to fall behind on.
I don't know about you but often it feels as though my hobbies - example my YouTube page and this blog end up taking a back seat and also being forgotten as I get overwhelmed with work and commitments. Essentially not spending enough time doing what I love and focusing too much on keep others - colleagues, friends and family happy above myself. So this Year with one week until my 27th birthday I am going to focus on doing the things that make me happy and also prioritise my health and fitness.
My 2017 Goals are:
1) Like most people I hope to lose weight in 2017 - and keep it off. A recent visit to the doctors really opened my eyes and so I have signed up for Slimming World today in order to support this achievement, and I am waiting for the postman to deliver my initial voucher so that I can join.
2) I want to be the healthiest I ever have been. Links of course with the first point but in addition I am going to increase my activities and using my Fitbit I am going to aim to hit at least 10000 steps a day. I am also hoping to improve my skin through a healthy diet.
3) I want to perform on stage - I have a degree in Drama and love performing. I took a year off in 2016 as my workload wouldn't allow it but I am back in my society and ready to get back on stage. I have an audition for an upcoming local production of 'Allo 'Allo that I really hope to be apart of - keep your fingers crossed for me.
4) Finally I want to make sure that when I say I will be blogging again I actually do. I love to write and I enjoy hearing what other people think of something I have tried or might try. I think that the easiest way for me to keep my blog going is to treat it like a diary of my experiences.
So here is to becoming a better me in 2017. I hope you enjoy the read and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
What are your 2017 goals?
Lotsa Luv,
Vikki
VGB
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
Sunday, 7 February 2016
My favourite meal this week: Folded Wrap
This meal comes out at approximately 475 calories.
Ingredients:
1 chilli Tortilla wrap (I used discovery)
a handful of spinach
6 cherry tomatos (halved)
half cup of feta (in chunks)
half a green pepper (chopped how you like - I like strips)
and half a tbsp coconut oil.
Method
take about half a table spoon of coconut oil and heat in a pan with the tomatoes and pepper once they re heated remove from pan and put the tortilla in. leave it on one side for about 30 secs and then turn over and put the spinach, tomatoes and pepper and feta into the centre of the wrap then fold the wrap in half and fry for as long as you want depends how wilted you like your spinach then flip it onto the other side for a moment and serve.
This is quick, easy and super tasty the perfect meal to have after work when you cant honestly be bothered because the next episode of PLL is out and that all you really want to do!
Enjoy - and let me know what you think of it.
*I did have a photo but unfortunately I seem to have accidentally deleted it during an earlier phone purge on the tube this morning!**Sigh**
Ingredients:
1 chilli Tortilla wrap (I used discovery)
a handful of spinach
6 cherry tomatos (halved)
half cup of feta (in chunks)
half a green pepper (chopped how you like - I like strips)
and half a tbsp coconut oil.
Method
take about half a table spoon of coconut oil and heat in a pan with the tomatoes and pepper once they re heated remove from pan and put the tortilla in. leave it on one side for about 30 secs and then turn over and put the spinach, tomatoes and pepper and feta into the centre of the wrap then fold the wrap in half and fry for as long as you want depends how wilted you like your spinach then flip it onto the other side for a moment and serve.
This is quick, easy and super tasty the perfect meal to have after work when you cant honestly be bothered because the next episode of PLL is out and that all you really want to do!
Enjoy - and let me know what you think of it.
*I did have a photo but unfortunately I seem to have accidentally deleted it during an earlier phone purge on the tube this morning!**Sigh**
Saturday, 6 February 2016
Things don’t always go as planned…
So I had planned to start this new regime on Monday 1st. So it’s Sunday, middle of the night and I've found myself hugging the toilet with a stomach bug. not ideal but I guess this was a different way to restart my system (silver linings and all). I was going to simply drink the smoothies for the first week for this purpose but after eating nothing and drinking only water for a day I felt I had paid my dieting penance.
Therefore I have tried instead to incorporate my NutriBullet smoothies into - what I hope is - a normal healthy diet and lifestyle change rather than putting the dieting title on it. Psychologically I have found this immediately makes the "diet" easier to follow.
To help me do this I am keeping a food diary and attempting to measure my portions to ensure I am not over eating and that I'm burning the calories I'm consuming. To help with this I'm using an app called MyNetDiary why this app? well, the basic features are free and it allows you to enter as much or as little information as you wish plus turns I had downloaded this app a long while ago and already had it hidden in a folder on my phone.
So far I have found what I have done to be a fairly easy routine to follow and have managed to keep on track with regards to daily calories and portions - even including the cheeky Nando’s I had for lunch on Thursday!
Therefore I have tried instead to incorporate my NutriBullet smoothies into - what I hope is - a normal healthy diet and lifestyle change rather than putting the dieting title on it. Psychologically I have found this immediately makes the "diet" easier to follow.
To help me do this I am keeping a food diary and attempting to measure my portions to ensure I am not over eating and that I'm burning the calories I'm consuming. To help with this I'm using an app called MyNetDiary why this app? well, the basic features are free and it allows you to enter as much or as little information as you wish plus turns I had downloaded this app a long while ago and already had it hidden in a folder on my phone.
So far I have found what I have done to be a fairly easy routine to follow and have managed to keep on track with regards to daily calories and portions - even including the cheeky Nando’s I had for lunch on Thursday!
Monday, 1 February 2016
What The Next Few Months Are All About
Introduction to my weight loss journey...
I’ve fallen victim to happy. The end of 2015 was a puzzle being completed it was as though suddenly all the pieces seemed to fall into place - mainly I moved in with my boyfriend and I started a new job it was a great end to the year and as we approached 2016 I felt confident and ready. That is to say until I tried on the clothes in my wardrobe which to my dismal had got tighter and stopped fitting properly and I now have to resort to wearing only my "oversize" items which now seem more fitted. I fell into the "happy" trap.
I apologise in advance for the lists of 1) , 2) and 3 you will find below its always easier and tidier to make things a list - am I the only one who feels like this? Anyway I digress..
I tell you now it doesn’t help when your boyfriend wants to gain weight and you want to lose weight – I can admit that this hasn’t helped my case. You also may be wondering why I didn’t start this in January well due to that fact that my birthday is in January and I still have a great deal of food left over from December (Ahh party food in the freezer – I cant resist you) I find it very difficult to implement a diet and fitness plan that I can follow properly. As we approach February 2016 however (can you believe it already!) I've made the decision that it is time to be more realistic face the music and resist the chocolate.
Now when choosing to embark on a new diet plan I have learnt a few things from the past. 1) After trying a number of different "crash" diets I know they don't work and you only end up getting hangry* in most cases. 2) It needs to be realistic with foods that you will still enjoy and 3) It needs to be something that can work around your lifestyle.
If you are feeling the similar tightness why not join me on this journey – I’d love to hear about your experiences and also recommendations and perhaps we can do this together.
When going forward I feel that it is important to set yourself motivating goals mine are:
Holiday to Italy in May – (3 months to lose some weight so I can eat all the guilt free pasta and pizza I want.
2) Clothes shopping – due to the fact that half my wardrobe is currently too tight I have told myself that until the stuff in my wardrobe fits I cannot buy anything else. (Those gift cards from Xmas and Birthday are going to have to wait).
3) For personal comfort – probably most importantly. I want to be clear that I’m not preaching happiness comes from loosing weight – that is certainly not the case – I’ve always had pretty significant curves and learnt to embrace them - most often sitting comfortably between a size 12 and 14. However recently I am discovering some discomfort from the extra weight I have gained and it is more difficult to achieve some of the dance moves I rocked before!
so I've got my reasons for doing this next is to decide where we are going to begin. Due to the fact that I love fruit and veggies and I got a Nutribullet end of last year I am going to try my own variation of the Nutribullet smoothie diet. I will preface this by saying that I am in no way a nutritionist or perfect and I am adapting what I have read across a number of websites to suit myself - I don’t believe in trying to set myself silly goals that I know I will fail or just leave me annoyed. There are a couple of reasons that I am choosing to do this kind of diet 1) I suffer from IBS so I feel that the cleansing nature of this will do my digestion some good and give it a wake up call 2) I’m looking for something that will act quickly (I only have 3 months for my first target) but unlike a crash diet is something that I can continue to adapt and bring into my normal diet.
Here are the rules:
Eat as many variations of fruit and veggies as you like but more veggies than fruit as fruit contains a lot of natural sugars.
Must drink filtered water approx. 8 glasses a day (chemicals present in tap water)
Green tea is allowed but no caffeine aka coffee, tea, fizzy drinks.
Moderate exercise 15 minutes a day and intense exercise 2-3 times a week
All smoothies must be 50% green leaves (Kale / Spinach / Swiss Chard)
NO:
Alcohol
Fast food
Fried foods
fatty / red meats
Plus:
Limit intake of dairy products (if you have any)
Limit intake of lean meat products (if you have any)
No dairy / Meat in the first 7 days either.
Of course I will allow the occasional cheat day very occasionally as I believe this helps willpower and suits social life but I will try to stick to low calorie alcohol and make sensible choices when out.
How I imagine a typical day will look:
Morning – breakfast style smoothie.
Mid-morning snack – veggie sticks
Lunch – Smoothie
Mid-afternoon snack – nuts
Dinner – light meal consisting of fresh veggies (after first 7 days you can intriduce light dair and lean meat if you want to).
Please note: I haven’t tried this out before so this / results might vary – I will regularly post recipes I am using and food diaries.
I will also share with you the exercises that I am doing and when and also bring back my “move of the week”.
Well I think that is a good overview for now so I’ll let you take that in and catch you in the next one,
Lotsa luv,
Vikki
* Anger which somes from being hungry.
I’ve fallen victim to happy. The end of 2015 was a puzzle being completed it was as though suddenly all the pieces seemed to fall into place - mainly I moved in with my boyfriend and I started a new job it was a great end to the year and as we approached 2016 I felt confident and ready. That is to say until I tried on the clothes in my wardrobe which to my dismal had got tighter and stopped fitting properly and I now have to resort to wearing only my "oversize" items which now seem more fitted. I fell into the "happy" trap.
I apologise in advance for the lists of 1) , 2) and 3 you will find below its always easier and tidier to make things a list - am I the only one who feels like this? Anyway I digress..
I tell you now it doesn’t help when your boyfriend wants to gain weight and you want to lose weight – I can admit that this hasn’t helped my case. You also may be wondering why I didn’t start this in January well due to that fact that my birthday is in January and I still have a great deal of food left over from December (Ahh party food in the freezer – I cant resist you) I find it very difficult to implement a diet and fitness plan that I can follow properly. As we approach February 2016 however (can you believe it already!) I've made the decision that it is time to be more realistic face the music and resist the chocolate.
Now when choosing to embark on a new diet plan I have learnt a few things from the past. 1) After trying a number of different "crash" diets I know they don't work and you only end up getting hangry* in most cases. 2) It needs to be realistic with foods that you will still enjoy and 3) It needs to be something that can work around your lifestyle.
If you are feeling the similar tightness why not join me on this journey – I’d love to hear about your experiences and also recommendations and perhaps we can do this together.
When going forward I feel that it is important to set yourself motivating goals mine are:
Holiday to Italy in May – (3 months to lose some weight so I can eat all the guilt free pasta and pizza I want.
2) Clothes shopping – due to the fact that half my wardrobe is currently too tight I have told myself that until the stuff in my wardrobe fits I cannot buy anything else. (Those gift cards from Xmas and Birthday are going to have to wait).
3) For personal comfort – probably most importantly. I want to be clear that I’m not preaching happiness comes from loosing weight – that is certainly not the case – I’ve always had pretty significant curves and learnt to embrace them - most often sitting comfortably between a size 12 and 14. However recently I am discovering some discomfort from the extra weight I have gained and it is more difficult to achieve some of the dance moves I rocked before!
so I've got my reasons for doing this next is to decide where we are going to begin. Due to the fact that I love fruit and veggies and I got a Nutribullet end of last year I am going to try my own variation of the Nutribullet smoothie diet. I will preface this by saying that I am in no way a nutritionist or perfect and I am adapting what I have read across a number of websites to suit myself - I don’t believe in trying to set myself silly goals that I know I will fail or just leave me annoyed. There are a couple of reasons that I am choosing to do this kind of diet 1) I suffer from IBS so I feel that the cleansing nature of this will do my digestion some good and give it a wake up call 2) I’m looking for something that will act quickly (I only have 3 months for my first target) but unlike a crash diet is something that I can continue to adapt and bring into my normal diet.
Here are the rules:
Eat as many variations of fruit and veggies as you like but more veggies than fruit as fruit contains a lot of natural sugars.
Must drink filtered water approx. 8 glasses a day (chemicals present in tap water)
Green tea is allowed but no caffeine aka coffee, tea, fizzy drinks.
Moderate exercise 15 minutes a day and intense exercise 2-3 times a week
All smoothies must be 50% green leaves (Kale / Spinach / Swiss Chard)
NO:
Alcohol
Fast food
Fried foods
fatty / red meats
Plus:
Limit intake of dairy products (if you have any)
Limit intake of lean meat products (if you have any)
No dairy / Meat in the first 7 days either.
Of course I will allow the occasional cheat day very occasionally as I believe this helps willpower and suits social life but I will try to stick to low calorie alcohol and make sensible choices when out.
How I imagine a typical day will look:
Morning – breakfast style smoothie.
Mid-morning snack – veggie sticks
Lunch – Smoothie
Mid-afternoon snack – nuts
Dinner – light meal consisting of fresh veggies (after first 7 days you can intriduce light dair and lean meat if you want to).
Please note: I haven’t tried this out before so this / results might vary – I will regularly post recipes I am using and food diaries.
I will also share with you the exercises that I am doing and when and also bring back my “move of the week”.
Well I think that is a good overview for now so I’ll let you take that in and catch you in the next one,
Lotsa luv,
Vikki
* Anger which somes from being hungry.
Sunday, 31 January 2016
VGB Is Back And Blogging
Hello old friend – sorry it has been so long but I’m back!
Apologies that I have entirely neglected my blog page for over a year! I wont bore you with the various things that kept me from keeping this page going but I hope that you will come and join me as I start this up again.
I am returning with new posts relating to lifestyle and beauty, particularly my weight loss journey as well as trying out different diets, supplements and various other products that I will guinea pig for you. I look forward to getting to know you all again and hopefully meeting some new friends. As always please don’t hesitate to comment below and let me know what you would like me to try out too.
Well for now I would like to say a massive thank you for showing your face here and hello again!
Lotsa Luv,
Vikki
Apologies that I have entirely neglected my blog page for over a year! I wont bore you with the various things that kept me from keeping this page going but I hope that you will come and join me as I start this up again.
I am returning with new posts relating to lifestyle and beauty, particularly my weight loss journey as well as trying out different diets, supplements and various other products that I will guinea pig for you. I look forward to getting to know you all again and hopefully meeting some new friends. As always please don’t hesitate to comment below and let me know what you would like me to try out too.
Well for now I would like to say a massive thank you for showing your face here and hello again!
Lotsa Luv,
Vikki
Friday, 18 July 2014
Looking for my Inner Me...
No this is not a deep discussion about who I am and my place here in this expanse of universe, it's about the new supplements Inner Me! Have you heard of them? I hadn't. I first heard about these supplements in a Holland and Barrett mail and thought I just have to try these... I promise it wasn't just because I really like the artwork on the packaging! I am a serious supplement fiend and always looking for something new to try to try and perfect my body inside and out.
I was heading into my local H&B, for some nuts and seeds, yes I am that exciting (my boss calls it my rabbit food) any way, I suddenly remembered that I had seen the mail about Inner Me and after making my mum search the shelves like pirates after gold, I decided to ask for some help. One warning I would like to emphasises here, if you ask for assistance, make sure that you speak really slowly while asking "excuse me do you have any Inner Me please" I was met with a face of bewilderment and confusion, suffice it to say it took 5, yes 5 attempts to get this across, the poor man looked terrified. After rummaging around the back room somewhere he produced the two supplements I wanted to try, phew!
I opted to use 'beautify me' which is for your skin and 'lustrous locks' for hair. Supplements I think are a pretty tricky thing to review as the effect builds so slowly throughout the process that you don't notice so much the overall effect. I bought the two boxes (which contain a 2 week supply each) because they were on a '2for' offer so I figured why not...
What is Inner Me?
You can see meow about them on their website:http://www.innerme.co.uk
Inner Me supplements combine the best ingredients possible to make them of the finest quality. This is simply our commitment to you, your health and wellbeing. They are presented in nice clear packaging and also labelled inside to make taking them easy and straightforward.
The science bit..
The 'beautify supplements are a combination of Vitamin C, MSM, Silica, Marine Collagen, Biotin, Zinc, Selenium, Copper & Iodine. Protecting your skin against free radicals that damage the collagen in our skin, reducing its elasticity and firmness leading to ageing and wrinkling. Biotin and Selenium contribute to the health of normal hair, skin and nails by promoting cell growth, so taken all together, Beautify Me Pro Skin is a little helping hand for your complexion.
The 'lustrous locks' supplements combines MSM (methyl-sulphonyl-methane), Vitamin C, Silica, the super antioxidant N-Acetyl Cysteine, Biotin, Zinc, Selenium, Iron and Copper. MSM is a nutritional form of sulphur, an essential component in the formation of collagen, elastin, cartilage and keratin, perfect for producing mineral-rich hair. Silica proactively repairs not just hair but tissue, bone and skin too, helping maintain a youthful vigour.
The inner me ranges launched in 2012, and after being turned down by the dragons and developing a new website 2014 has proved to be a big year for Inner Me with a new stockist in the form of Holland and Barrett, which is why I'm here writing this...
My results:
Using them was really easy you take two a day with or directly after eating - I had mine with breakfast as this is the easiest time I find to remember these things. The packaging is lovely they are in quite slim boxes that are pretty discreet and each of the pills was labelled with a day of the week - which made taking them even easier.
Overall I'm not sure they had the life changing effects that I was hoping for (my skin particularly is breaking out so badly at the moment) however I do feel that they made a small change especially the one for hair - my hair is quite fine and breaks a lot with many many many knots but I noticed that it felt stronger and was not getting as knotty which was a big bonus for me I can tell you. The 'beautify me' had a less noticeable effect. However I was focused on the skin on my face which honestly is going through some kind or rebellion at the moment and cannot be dealt so now I'm playing the ignore it and it will go away game... That said I have had my sister comment that my skin (on my arms) was very soft so not sure if perhaps this was in part down to the supplement (I do have quite soft skin, my friends as school said it was because I was made of pasta, when it's cooked and soft obviously not the dried stuff, that would just be weird! I have seen that they have some other supplement packages which I may try out soon.
In conclusion:
It's very hard to say but I think I would definitely try the one for hair again perhaps not the skin one as I did not feel it made a difference in the way I wanted it to. Also I feel I must mention that both the supplements smelt a little funky... Which was slightly off putting, you know when you smell something but then you can almost taste it because it's so strong? Well it was a little like that, not the most pleasant of experiences but one, for the sake of healthier hair I would go through again.
I hope you enjoyed this, as always please join me on youtube, facebook and twitter and I'll catch you here soon!
Lotsa luv,
Vikki
Source: http://www.innerme.co.uk/why-choose-inner-me.htm
Disclaimer - this is not an endorsed post it is all my own thoughts and opinions.
Tuesday, 15 July 2014
Super Smoothie / Juicing Sunday
On Sunday you may have seen my social media was plastered with pictures of some juices I've made.
I bought a juicer a while ago from amazon in an effort to make more juices at home rather than spend money on the ready-to-drink ones, plus I prefer knowing exactly what has gone into my food, well as much as I can. Please see this link to the juicer I have - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Russell-Hobbs-20360-Desire-Juicer/dp/B00D3K79N0
Honestly though, this is the first time I've plucked up the courage to use it. When I first put a piece of orange into the tube and pushed it down the almighty crushing sound that resonated through the room scared me, I'm not going to lie I thought the end was nigh! But once I got used to the noise it was actually quite fun and the juice I saw pouring out of the spout and into the jug was super satisfying. And I know everyone complains about cleaning but I actually didn't find it to laborious. In fact my juicer comes apart quite easily which really helped when it came to cleaning. I also couldn't believe the amount of pulp left over and now our tomatoes in the garden have some tasty food.
I decided to start with some easier recipes that I knew were flavours I liked already. First I made an orange juice.
Ingredients for orange juice (for me this made 5 servings):
4 oranges,
10 carrots (some were quite small so this is a little bit of your judgement also)
and I used about an inch of ginger (this is actually quite hot so again make this to your taste and judgement you can always add more but your can't take it out) I'd say half an inch would be fine.
This is so simple as you just push these through your juicer one after the other until you've juiced it all! (please make sure you have the container you are using to collect your juice in the right place as I learnt it can miss and spill - as we know I'm a bit of a clutz so this comes as no surprise- trust me though you'll only miss once, no one wants to waste any of the great fresh flavour.)
This orange, carrot and ginger juice has 2 main benefits that make it a great part of a balanced diet.
Firstly it supports the immune system due to its supply of vitamin A and C. Vit A particularly is good for bone marrow and stem cells supporting the white blood cells (the chaps who fight disease!).
Secondly this juice is also great for healthy skin! Yes indeed, the vitamin C helps support collagen production which keeps your skin strong and supports wound healing. It also serves as a source of vitamin E an antioxidant that provides natural protection from the suns harmful rays (but you should still wear your SPF!) please note excessive consumption could leave you glowing like a carrot, however if you are drinking this as part of a balanced and varied diet you should not turn orange!
The other drink I made is a super healthy green smoothie (ok I know this is not technically a juice and no I did not make this with the juicer I used a blender but that is because this contains banana which is not recommended for use with juicers) I will be making a variation soon with the juicer.
Ingredients for this green smoothie are:
2 handfuls of spinach leaves
1 & 1/2 bananas
Half a tin of chopped pineapple this is about a cup (fresh is better but does require a lot of preparation so I use tinned)
1 cup chopped cucumber
2 large stalks celery
2 teaspoons of wheatgrass powder
Coconut water to loosen the consistency (your judgement)
1 cm ginger
Please note this makes (3 large servings or 5 small servings) feel free to adjust the ingredients to suit your needs:
The benefits of this juice are incredibly varied due to a range of ingredients. This is loaded with energy plus potassium boosting bananas, which are needed for hormone secretion (eg it gets rid of stress yay!) and iron packed spinach which supports your blood cells. In addition the wheatgrass is very high in chlorophyll - essential for eliminating toxins, increasing bodies production of red blood cells, helps the body use and transport oxygen effectively. Cucumber, celery and spinach also contain chlorophyll.
The pineapple sweetens it slightly so it tastes less like green and is easier on the palate.
I have been drinking the green smoothie for breakfast and sipping the ginger, orange and carrot juice throughout the day. I hope you enjoyed this and if you would like to see more recipes for juices that I am making please leave me a comment below.
Lots luv,
Vikki
Source www.livestrong.com/article/255587-benefits-of-fresh-ginger-carrot-juice/
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