My Fitness Journey.

Hello my lovelies! How’s everyone doing this week? Are you a lets go splash around in the rain kind of person or are you more of an indoor- let me wrap myself up in a duvet person? I’m a bit of both, but more of the duvet person, because who doesn’t like getting cosy?!

So.. onto this week’s post. This week I’ve finally decided to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard..haha) and tell you about my fitness journey.

This journey is one that I’ve been on for a long time, and I’ve had mixed feelings about posting this purely for the fact that I have a love hate relationship with fitness posts; because they always lean towards the side of “here’s how to change your body”. Which is something I am not about at all, the aim of this post is to simply tell you about my journey with fitness and how I’ve got to a place where I actually look forward to my workouts.

If you’re new here, then you might not know about my history with my body, long story short: I was extremely overweight for my height, I then healthily lost weight and then developed an eating disorder and then I overcame that and have been in recovery for over a year now.

And because of the last few years going through hating to loving to hating my body, it’s safe to assume that I’ve had a pretty complicated relationship with working out and just any exercise in general.

But for the last few months, I have finally found a workout routine that makes me feel amazing and the best thing is that it isn’t all about changing your weight, your appearance and it doesn’t tell you to eat a certain way. It’s all about body-neutrality.

Body-neutrality is not the same as body-positivity. Body-positivity is where you are always being positive about your body. Whereas body-neutrality is where you can sometimes you feel bad about your body and sometimes you feel good about your body but you always respect your body no matter how you’re feeling about it on the day.

The workout routine I’m now doing is called the be.come project. It’s an app, but you can use it on their website too, and I actually found it because of a Buzzfeed video! You can view the video here:

As soon as I finished watching this video I started looking up the be.come project, and after reading what the project was all about and Bethany’s story I was sold! I signed up there and then and couldn’t wait to give this a try.

The project costs around £29 a month which I think equates to $36 per month, which when you think about it it’s around what you could be paying for a gym membership.

Something that I absolutely love about this workout project is that IT’S A NO IMPACT PROJECT!!! That’s right, for all of us out there who can’t do impact exercises for health reasons, Bethany has got you covered! All you need to be able to do is any form of plank and lunge.

The be.come project also doesn’t do before and after photos, so if you were hoping to see some, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed, partly because I didn’t take any and I want to stay true to be.come – sorry not sorry!

So what does the app look like?

• 

• 

You can download the app from the app store here or google play store here! Or you can always go through the be.come website!

Each week you get a workout video to do all week as much or as little as you like and then on Monday it changes and you start to learn another one. It’s really helpful that the workout changes each week because I don’t know about you, but doing the same exercises over and over and over again every single week is so boring!

At the start of the week is when you begin learning the routine and then by the end of the week you’re skipping the tutorial portion of the workout and getting straight down to business. And that’s also when you start to see how much better you’re getting at the routine and how strong you’re be.coming! (see what I did there? Hahaha).

Also, at the start and end of every workout you input what your mood is for the day, which is something I find really helps me reflect on how I’ve been talking to myself and my body that day, sometimes positive, sometimes negative; but after every workout I always feel so positive, strong and energised.

So far I’ve been be.coming for around 10-12 weeks, and I workout around 4 times a week. Every workout is about 25 minutes long which is great if you’re short on time, or just can’t be bothered to do hours on the treadmill.

So, since I’m not sharing before and after photos, I’ve decided to share with you how I feel about my body now compared to before I started this workout routine.

Before starting this process I disliked a lot about my body nearly all the time. I wanted to change so much about myself but I didn’t want to spend hours doing boring workouts so I just decided I wasn’t going to work out really at all, especially because when I did any form of cardio and gym workouts I’d be in a lot of pain because I have muscle skeletal issues.

Since working out with the be.come project I now feel a lot better about my body and I now like my body most of the time and I’ve noticed that my clothes are getting a little looser and my weight has actually increased by a few pounds too.

Side note – I can’t believe I’ve even written that I’ve gained weight for you all to see because that’s something I’ve feared for so long, but it doesn’t scare me anymore because I know why I’ve gained weight; it’s because I’ve built up muscles. Muscles that were hardly there before.

I can see such a difference in myself mentally and physically, so I’m not about to stop working out with the be.come project now!

I now use my workout time like you would a meditation session, I spend the whole workout focusing solely on each muscle I’m working and just being in the moment for the entire 25 minutes.

If you’re interested in checking out the be.come project’s social media, here’s Bethany’s Instagram! Each post is motivational, real and just makes you smile. Plus, Bethany posts informative videos so you can make sure you have the correct form when you’re working out too!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by the be.come project (@thebecomeproject)

And that’s about it for my fitness journey with the be.come project! I’ve never stuck to a workout/fitness routine for more than a 2 weeks due to just hating every minute of it, but Bethany has made working out something to look forward to and enjoyable.

Well, that’s all for today my lovelies! If you’re into yoga, dance or pilates I recommend trying this! I often get asked about my workout routine, so I hope this answers most of your questions! The most important thing I’ve learn’t from this experience is that it’s okay to not love every aspect of your body everyday, what’s important is that you give your body respect for everything it does for you. – I sound a bit like a motivational wall decal right now but I don’t care.. haha it’s true!

What’s your workout routine look like? Do you go to a gym, or do you like working out at home? Let me know in the comments!

Have a great weekend! Love,

My 5 Favourite Storytime Posts.

Happy Saturday everyone! This week I’ve been busy journaling, catching up with friends and family and I’ve been practicing some selfcare. And speaking of journaling and selfcare; this week I’m going to share with you my top 5 favourite storytime posts I’ve written.

So, onto my top 5 posts! Let’s get into it!

1 . I Found Out My Ancestry With 23 and Me.

I loved writing this post. For ages I wanted to find out my ancestry and I still go back to look at my 23 and me profile regularly to see that I’ve got more and more DNA relatives!

2 . I Hate My Belly, So I Got My Belly Button Pierced.

This post will always hold a special place in my heart. For as long as I can remember I’ve hated my stomach, and that all changed when I wrote this post. I think it’s the furthest I’ve ever pushed myself out of my comfort zone as an experiment and I have stopped hating on my stomach every since. I mean, I still have other parts of my body I like more, but I’m a long way away from hate.

3 . Why I’m Refusing To Make New Years Resolutions About My Body.

I got a lot of responses from this post. And I think it’s because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any posts like this about new years resolutions. And I’m happy to say that this one will always be a favourite of mine because I think it raised an important point for lots of people who weren’t a fan of themselves, and why they should learn to love themselves and spent their time on better things than self-hatred.

4 . Learning To Play An Instrument.

I am still so so happy that I wrote this post, and it partly came with my new years resolutions and it’s been a dream of mine since I was a little girl to play the piano. And guess what?! I’ve kept up my learning since this post and I’m not about to stop now! I can’t believe how far my learning has come and I can now play a few beautiful songs from memory and read sheet music!

5 . Being An Apprentice.

This post was one I had wanted to write for a really long time, and it’s a post all about my job, why I decided to become an apprentice in my 20s and why it’s important to celebrate your successes, no matter how big or small they are!

So those are my top 5 favourite storytime posts from this year! It’s amazing to me that we’re already 3/4’s of the year through and that I’ve had my blog for over a year and a half!

Have you got a favourite post of mine? I like writing these posts every few weeks as it’s a great way to reflect over what’s been happening and what my favourite topics are to write about!

And that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed today’s post, it’s always great fun writing about my life, interests, hobbies and being creative in general; coming up with new ideas and posts for you is something I always try to do, and if you’ve got any ideas for posts you want to see from me, let me know in the comments below!

Have a great weekend everybody! Love,