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

Hello my lovelies! I hope you have all had a happy Christmas and a very peaceful few days in the lead up to the end of the year! And of course, because we’re coming up to the New Year, New Years resolutions are popping up all over the place.

Which brings me to this post. For as long as I can remember, I have made New Years resolutions each year; and EVERY SINGLE ONE has been about how my body looks and my weight. It’s always along the lines of: I will lose weight, I will drop a dress size, I will change my body, I will go to the gym 6 times a week, I will stop eating certain foods etc. etc. etc.

This year I REFUSE to make a resolution about changing my body.

Now, some of you who are subscribed to my blog will know that I have spoken out about my body image issues and having suffered with Anorexia (see my previous post about it here!). Well, this past year I have been lucky enough to get some help and support and I am happy to announce that I am in recovery!

Writing this post came from seeing everyone’s resolutions on social media, with the majority of them being about their bodies and how they want them to look; and before I started my recovery journey, mine would have been like that too. I started thinking about what I want for the new year ahead and for the first time in.. well forever, I don’t know what my resolution should be if it isn’t about my appearance.

Here’s why I’m refusing to make my new years resolutions about my body:

• My body does NOT need to change to be beautiful. It already is.
• Resolving to eat less food/calories is stupid, food is fuel and we need energy to do all the amazing things we want to accomplish.
• Food is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ it’s just food.
• Taking up less space does NOT mean I am a better human being.
• Losing weight does not solve all your problems.
• Spending hours in the gym trying to make my body into something it’s naturally not supposed to be is useless. And boring!

Here’s when it’s okay to make a new years resolution about your body:

• Deciding to get help with a medical condition or something you’ve been struggling with.
• Deciding to love your body.
• Resolving to develop a healthy relationship with food and exercise. And no I don’t mean deciding to go on a so-called ‘healthy’ diet that makes you hate yourself and feel guilty for eating!!

So, because I am not making any resolutions to do with changing my body here are some resolutions that I AM making:

• Riding my bike to work instead of driving so I become more confident in cycling. (I just got my first bike this Christmas!)
• Read more.
• Continue writing my blog, it’s by far one of the best things I decided to do this past year and I absolutely love it!
• Learning to love my body more for everything it is and does.
• Wearing clothes that I feel comfortable and confident in, regardless of what other people think.
• Raise some money for charity. (you can check out my JustGiving page for MIND here if you want to!)

Those are just a few of my many resolutions for the new year; and I just want to share with you how much I truly appreciate every single one of you for reading, commenting, liking and interacting with me on here. You have made my year so happy and I can’t thank you enough for all of your support! What’re your new years resolutions? Let me know if the comments!!

I hope you all have a great New Years Eve and a very Happy New Year! Love,

P.S. Thank you for voting for me and all of the other amazing bloggers nominated in the UKBloggerAwards!!

Finding A Lump.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time. And what better time than than a few weeks before ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Month’ begins. Just warning you now, this might be a bit of a long one, but I think talking about these things more does a lot of good, and if this helps anyone out there then I’ll be happy.

Only a small number of people know this about me, but about 1 1/2 years ago I was doing a quick breast check after reading about boobs in an article (I think it was from somewhere like cosmo?) and I found a lump.

Lucky for me, it ended up being labelled benign which means it’s cancer free and shouldn’t impact me. I recognise that I am incredibly lucky that my lump ended up being benign as not everyone is so lucky.

Let me take you back to when I found this lump, I think I was reading an article about why all boob shapes are beautiful (being a girl just wanting to like her body for what it is and all that.. still working on that now haha) when it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my breasts recently.

So that was when I decided to give my boobs a once over. And that was when I found a pea sized lump towards the bottom left of my left breast. It was like the entire world had stopped when I felt it, then the panic set in. That was when I got my mum to see if they could feel it and that I wasn’t going mad for nothing.

Unfortunately they could feel it too, which meant the next day ringing up the doctors to get an appointment. Sadly my doctors are a bit short staffed without as much people as they probably need for the area I live in, so I had to wait a little while before I could get booked in, but I know that they’re doing everything they can in the current funding situation.

The day of my appointment came and off I went to the doctors absolutely terrified because in the time waiting for my appointment my anxious had wreaked havoc with my head and I had basically come to the conclusion that I was going to have to have surgery or it meant death. Some people may think it’s silly that this is what I was thinking, but that’s the reality of anxiety for you, it’s not rational and you can’t control it.

Once I went in for my appointment the doctor was so lovely and she calmed me right down; she asked me about what I’d felt, where and if I was in any pain. For the record, I’ve suffered with chronic chest pains for about 6 years in the left side of my chest reaching round my entire back and through my shoulder blades (I’ve been back and forth to the doctors for years about it with no avail), so I mentioned this in my appointment to see if this lump could be the cause of the pain if it had trapped a nerve or something, I didn’t know what it could be because I’m not a doctor and no amount of googling was helping me out.

I’ve recently found out the pain is actually coming from a few other conditions which I’ll talk about in another post, but I am okay and getting treatment so it’s now being managed. Right, back to talking about boobs!

After talking about what was going on, then came the examination. It was pretty nerve wracking getting my boobs out for a complete stranger, but it had to be done. She got me to show here where the lump was and then she felt my breasts for lumps. That was when she confirmed to me that I was right and that there is something there.

The doctor did then confirm to me that yes there is a lump, but the good news was that it was very small, around 8mm-1cm big, which meant it was probably benign which is great news. In order to just double check everything from my appointment, I was then given an appointment for an ultrasound so we could actually see what was going on.

The hospital appointment came round about two weeks after my doctors appointment which was pretty fast in my eyes. And I was glad because I just wanted to know what was happening and if I needed to start thinking about how I was going to potentially tackle the big C.

I brought my mum along with me to this appointment because 1.) We love doctor/hospital shows like 24hours in A&E and stuff like that, and 2.) She’s always there to support me in whatever way I need it. Going in for my ultrasound was pretty surreal, I walked into this dark room with 3 medical professionals in it, a load of equipment, a medical bed, 2 chairs and a curtain. My mum stayed with me for the entire thing, which helped a lot with the nerves.

So, I said hello to all of these very welcoming women in this dark room, took my top and bra off and laid down on the medical bed. It’s pretty weird having 3 women that you met 5 seconds ago staring at your boobs I’m not going to lie. The main doctor there did another examination on my breasts and then she put the coldest gel in my boobs I’ve ever felt haha. Then came the ultrasound machine, the doctor pushed it all over my boob until we came across a dark blob on the screen. My lump.

Here came the good bit for me. After a bit of moving around the blob the doctor came to the conclusion that my lump is definitely benign, and that I actually have something called a fibroadenoma. Fibroadenoma’s are a range of solid breast lesions that can feel hard, soft, smooth and rubbery, a bit like a pea, but they can be larger. Fibroadenoma’s are usually painless, but if they are causing significant pain they can sometimes be removed; you should also keep an eye on the lumps and go back to your GP if anything changes.

It’s pretty strange looking at an image of your boob on an ultrasound screen, especially because you only ever see ultrasounds happening to check on pregnancies.

So, once my ultrasound was done, I headed out with a leaflet about fibroadenomas and a huge sense of relief. I was and am incredibly lucky that my lump isn’t anything that serious.

At the beginning of this year, I thought my lump might had gotten bigger; but this was also around the time that I had lost a lot of weight, so I wasn’t sure if maybe I could just feel the lump more. So along came a second round of appointments to the doctors and hospital and lucky for me, nothing had changed other than myself losing weight.

This was great news for me as you can imagine. Some people aren’t as lucky as I am and I will be forever grateful that my lump is nothing serious. I’m still living with my lump at the moment, and it does cause some achiness now and again, but I know things could be so much worse.

What I want everyone to take away from this is to make sure you’re checking your breasts on a regular basis. You never realise how lucky you are until you have a scare like this. Even if you’re a man reading this, check your chest too, because men too can breast cancer. If you’re looking for some more information about what signs to look out for when checking your breasts, you can find that here! You can download a leaflet on what to look out for here!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed finding out a bit more about me and have found this useful; I know it’s been a bit long winded, but it’s an important issue that needs to be spoken about.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! And I also want to say a big thank you to all of my lovely readers for all of your support, and to celebrate my first 100 subscribers and say thank you to you all, stay tuned for a giveaway at the end of the month!!

So that’s it from me for today! Have a great week everyone! Love,

Trying Out Bootea For 14 Days

Since I tried BoomBod for a week about 2 months ago, I’ve been getting lots of requests for more posts like that! So over the past 2 weeks I’ve been trying the oh so famous Bootea! I wanted to see if all of the claims it makes are true or if it’s going to be a similar story to my experience with BoomBod.

I will state now though, that these posts aren’t sponsored and that these are just my personal experiences and reviews with these products and how I found them to work! So even if something doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work for other people.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I ordered:

(You can buy the two week teatox here!)

So, it is claimed that this teatox “will leave you feeling energized and motivated to reach all of your fitness goals. Beat the bloat and feel better than ever with our two-week programme, complete with Daytime and Bedtime tea bags to keep you on track” – Bootea 14 Day teatox description.

Well, I’m here to put this to the test.. and see if it would do anything for me without changing my lifestyle. Just for the record, I currently work out regularly between 4-6 times a week and have a healthy diet, so whatever happens should be from the teatox.

With the teatox you’re supposed to drink the day tea first thing in the morning and then the night tea every other evening before you go to bed. So if you order it and are wondering why there’s half the night teabags, that’s why.

Right, on with the review! I’ll give you a rundown of how my two weeks went and then show you my photos from throughout the week! First off, here’s what the tea looks like, yes it looks like pee when made, so don’t be alarmed when I goes a yellowy colour!

Day 1 – 3

Thoughts: If this does anything I’ll be impressed, especially because it’s just a cup of tea in the morning and every other night. Taste wise these are okay, the morning tea tastes like a variation of green tea to me; which I personally don’t mind. The night tea however tastes like peppermint tea, which I haven’t ever had before so we’ll see if I end up liking it by the end of this.

Thoughts at the end of day 3: This seems very easy compared to Boombod, and since I love a good cup of tea, this is pretty good if it does anything!

Day 4 – 7

Thoughts: So far I’m not seeing any results, but I am finding that the peppermint night tea helps me fall asleep a bit better than without it. I think I’m starting to get used to the taste of it too which is good. I have found that the morning tea keeps me fuller for longer and I’m finding that I don’t need anything after breakfast to tide me over until lunchtime.

End of day 7 thoughts: I quite like this teatox, but there doesn’t really appear to be any visible results as of yet.

Day 8 – 11

Thoughts: Today I feel like I’m starting to see a little more definition in my stomach, but my stomach still looks bloated in my opinion. At least this is a simple teatox rather than something that’s a hassle to make up every time. One thing I have noticed is that I’ve started looking forward to the teas in the morning and especially in the evenings. I’ve been trying to be mindful as I’m having my tea first thing, which has been quite a good de-stressor for me, so that’s good.

End of day 11 thoughts: I wonder if this would make a difference if I started exercising even more and eating healthier? But then the results could just be from upping my exercise routine and changing my lifestyle further.

Day 12 – 14

Thoughts: I think I might actually re-buy this teatox, purely because I like the taste of it, not because it’s done anything physically. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’ve actually enjoyed this teatox is because I’m a bit of a tea addict, and love a good cuppa to wake up with first thing in the morning, and throughout the day t be honest..haha. These two weeks have gone fast, and I think the only difference physically is very minimal between the start and now, so I do wonder what this tea is actually supposed to do.

End of the 2 weeks thoughts: When I started this I thought that the only thing these teas could possibly do was make you need the loo more, which I doesn’t anymore than normal green tea. And I didn’t expect the tea to do much else, which I have to admit I was right in my opinion.

Here’s my before, during and afters! And as you know by now, I like being real with you on here, so here you’ll get to witness me in my very unsexy pants and pyjamas because I’m not going to dress up and be fake to you guys, this is me (I took these first thing in the morning half asleep!) and what the teatox actually did..haha!

On the left is day 1 of my Bootea journey and the right is after 4 days of the teas.

Here’s what was going on after an entire week of Bootea and then here I am after 11 days of the Teatox.

On the left is before Bootea and the right is after the 2 week Teatox.

What I would take away from this is that if you’re looking for a quick fix to lose weight, this isn’t the answer; sorry, I know for a lot of us we wish it is, but the sad reality is that working hard and eating right is the healthy way to do that.

What I will say is that I have decided to order another batch of Bootea, purely because I like how it tastes and I’m curious to see if doing it for another 2 weeks will make any difference. But don’t worry, I’ll do a follow up in another 2 weeks time if anything has changed after doing this for longer!(nothing changed! Surprise..surprise..)

My final thoughts on the Bootea 14 Day Teatox are that for me it didn’t really change anything physically. However, I have noticed that I feel more confident in my appearance due to drinking the teas and feeling like they could be helping me feel a tiny bit less bloated; but I think the reality is that it’s the placebo affect.

Nevertheless I would suggest giving this a go if you’re generally curious or wanting to try out some new teas. The only reason for saying give this a go if you’re curious is due to the fact that It’s surprisingly cheap considering the reputation they have with celebrities promoting it and stuff. I bought my pack whilst it was on offer for £12.45, so it didn’t feel like a waste of money giving this a go and not seeing results.

At the end of the day though, this experience has been a reminder of how we should all learn to love ourselves as we are, with no ideal body types, shapes, sizes or colours in mind; because we’re all beautiful no matter what. One thing I did notice was how Bootea did say on their website that they do not promote a certain body ideal, which I do appreciate. But I think that celebrities and influencers should take care in what they promote, because you never know how their messages can effect someone.

I hope this helps out any of you looking to try out Bootea! And remember, you’re perfect as you are and the only thing you need to do is realise that! Have a great weekend lovelies! Love,

How I Lost 42lbs

You might be wondering why I’m writing this post? Well because I get asked this question pretty often when people find out I used to be very overweight and unhealthy. Before I get started I would like to point out that although I lost a lot of weight in a healthy manner, it’s important to be aware that whilst losing weight I was healthy and it was only after I had lost the weight that I realised that I’d developed an eating disorder. By following what I did to lose weigh should not cause you to develop an eating disorder; for me, I’ve always struggled with my weight and food so it was just one of those things that happened to me. I would also like to point out that I am not a professional and I am not a nutritionist, dietitian or in any medical profession; I am simply sharing my story. If you are planning to change your lifestyle then I suggest you visit your GP and discuss it with them first.

Also, I would like to say that being bigger is not a bad thing. And neither is being smaller. All that’s important is that you love your bodies because they’re all beautiful in different ways. They carry us through all walks of life and keep us alive. After all, you only get one body so it’s a good idea to love it!!

So, with all that out of the way, lets start at the beginning.

“Why did you want to lose weight?”

Well for me, I have struggled with my body image and size for a long time, when I was younger and carefree I loved it. But as I got older, not so much. I never truly liked how I looked, and I was very unhealthy.

Something people are probably wondering is – “Well, were you always fat?”.

Short answer – no. Well, I didn’t think I was, I have always been pretty short and my posture wasn’t great so I did look a bit plumper when I were younger. Here’s some old photos of me that I’ve dug out so you can have a look for yourself! If I’m completely honest, I think my weight gain started when I was getting to the end of secondary school. Being able to buy and make my own food didn’t help, especially since I’m a naturally fussy eater. I think my weight rapidly went up over the course of a few years from about 2012-2017, which funnily enough was round about when I got into my relationship with my boyfriend, Matt. (Here we are on my birthday).

“Did getting into my relationship cause me to gain weight?”

Well, yes and no. I think this one is something that happened partly from going out to dinner probably too often and we’re both fussy eaters (me more than him). But I do think that during our time together I started working so I had my own income which I would spend the majority of it on takeaways. Sometimes I’d have 2 takeaways in a day everyday for a week!!! So, although I’m in a relationship, I don’t think that’s really to blame as much as my own lifestyle choices at that time. Also I would like to put right here that Matt has been a true gem through it all, and even on my bad body image days he still tells me I’m beautiful, and that he thought I was when I were bigger too and just as much now that I’m smaller. (he’s a keeper I know).

“When did you decide you were going to lose weight?”

This one was something I’ve thought about for a while and to be honest, I constantly wanted to lose the weight over the course of about 5 years. But it wasn’t until I woke up one morning that something must’ve gone off in my head like a lightbulb that was just like ‘that’s it, from today I cannot be like this anymore. I will change and I will love myself again’. And if I’m being frank, I had sort of decided that if I couldn’t lose the weight and be healthier this time then I would just give up trying.

So, the all important how? How did I lose 42lbs and how long did it take?

Well for starters it took from the 8th July 2017 – January 2018. I know what you’re thinking if you’ve been in the same boat I was in, that’s not long at all! You must’ve starved yourself! How did you lose weight at Christmas?! Well you’d be surprised at how quickly the time actually went once the pounds started coming off. And something you’ll be happy to know if you’re not a big fan of exercise is that when I was actually losing weight, I did little to no exercise at all outside of walking(which was all done at work as I worked in a shop and did around 10,000 – 20,000 steps a day).

I lost the weight through using slimming worlds methods but with my own twists. And I will admit, when I went through the doors to sign up to slimming world I actually felt a bit of shame. Maybe that’s weird, maybe that’s normal for people going there for the first time, I don’t know. But I think the reason I felt shame was because I was basically admitting that I can’t do it on my own, that I’d failed. But in actual fact, even though I’d turned to help for losing weight, they didn’t make me lose the weight. I did that myself, with determination, will power, and A LOT of meal prep. And I mean A LOT.

Does trying to lose weight mean you can’t ever eat treats? No. I allocated myself a treat day every week (usually my weigh in day) where I would typically go to Cineworld for a huge ice cream sundae and/or have a Chinese takeaway. It’s weird, but Cineworld actually have the best ice cream flavours out there and certainly stopped my sugar cravings! Here’s me taking my little sister for ice cream and slushies!!

What could I eat? Where there any rules or restrictions?

I generally went by the rule that if I’ve made it from scratch, it’s usually okay to eat. Slimming world goes by these rules:

• Free food.

Free food is unlimited. Free foods are fruits and vegetables, meats cooked without oil or butter(or I cooked them with fry-light), dried rice, pasta, lentils, eggs, fat free yoghurts and other things like cooking with spices, and drinks with water like tea and coffee.

• Healthy Extras.

You tend to get a ‘Healthy A’ and a ‘Healthy B’. You are allowed one of each a day. Your ‘Healthy A’ is things with a high amount of calcium in, like milk, cheese (yes, you can have cheese still!!!). A ‘Healthy B’ choice is food that is high in fibre, so things like dried porridge oats, wholemeal breads and certain cereals. I would like to note, with these I had to measure them out. I’ll list a few typical meals I had in a week for you and a week menu for you to try out a little further below!

• Syns.

If you have been to slimming world before, or know someone who has or is going to slimming world, you’ll know about syns. Syns are things that are usually processed in some form. These are things like chocolate (obviously duh!), crisps, ready meals, butters, sauces, pre-made pasta sauces and basically anything you haven’t cooked yourself in my eyes. It might seem doom and gloom at this point but it really isn’t that bad, with syns you’re allowed 5-15syns per day, and this is because if you deprive yourself too much you’ll just binge. And no one wants that. I know what you’re thinking, but we don’t know how many syns are in everything?! My answer to that is to google it because someone somewhere will have put it online, also I go by the rule that if its something small and in moderation, it won’t be too bad. And anything that is ‘low fat’ will generally not do too much harm. My personal favourite treats were ‘Metcalfes skinny sweet & salty popcorn’ (half of a big bag is around 7.5 syns from memory) and any of the ‘Halo Top’ or ‘Breyers’ ice creams. The ‘Halo Top cinnamon bun’ ice cream is literally liquid heaven (and it’s only 360 calories for the ENTIRE tub). Virtually guilt free!!

So what sort of things did I eat in a week?

Let’s give you a run down of breakfasts:

• Strawberries with Tesco healthy living fat free fromage frias (with some low calorie non aspartame sweetener in) with 1/3 cup of porridge oats, I would usually add cinnamon in the oats and on the strawberries which made breakfast taste like a dessert. (I would pour it all in a bowl or make these insta worthy pots shown below!)
• Simple marmite on toast with 4 teaspoons (they’re smaller than you think when you use measuring spoons! haha) of Tesco’s butter me up low fat spread on two small wholemeal slice of bread. For the small loaves of bread I’d recommend the Tesco ones (they seem like bigger or thicker slices?)
• Quaker oats big bowl of porridge original with semi-skimmed milk.
• Sweet French toast with strawberries and 2 teaspoons of sugar. (let me know if you want a recipe post!)
• 2 Weetabix with semi skimmed milk and 2 teaspoons of sugar.
• 2 Weetabix with fat free yoghurt on top and sliced fruit. (it is a bit like how you’d prepare a crisp bread? Warning- it gets messy when you eat it but tastes really good!)
• 2 Scrambled eggs on 2 slices of small wholemeal toast.

Lunch and dinners can be difficult for some people to eat healthy as you’re not always at home to make it, so I’ll write down a list of at home and work lunches for you! I will suggest now that meal prep will likely be needed so get yourself some value tubs for storage!!)

Let’s move on to typical lunches and dinners:

• Plain rice or egg fried rice with stir fried bean sprouts, broccoli, baby corn and pak choi in soy sauce. (you can make prep the veggies in the morning or night before and use microwavable rice for in the office).
• Homemade chips (fry-light cooked) with a chicken breast (add spices here so it’s less boring) and veggies or salad.
• Jacket potato with tuna, cheese, butter and salad. (jacket potatoes are great if you’re eating out!)
• Pasta with tuna (or you can use homemade pasta sauce) and veggies.
• Roast dinner. Which is my absolute favourite! I’m a northern girl so gravy, yorkshire puddings, roasties (fry-light obvs), meat and veggies is absolute heaven!
• Cod or fish cooked with mash or chips and peas. (if you go out for dinner you can have fish and chips and by not eating the batter, it makes it free, and then you’re only having syns for your chips!)
• Roasted new potatoes with steak and veggies.
• Wholemeal sandwich with low fat spread, wafer thin turkey and lettuce.
• Roasted new potatoes with chicken and salad.

That’s just a handful of meals that I would eat in a week. If you’d like to try a meal plan you can download it here! For snacking, I would have loads of fruit, fat free yoghurts, cereal bars (generally the healthy living or brands own healthy ones as the big branded ones are usually worse than a bar of chocolate!) and things like cooked meats and small bags of popcorn.

It’s important to note that things will not happen overnight. I’ve learnt this the hard way. I would recommend weighing yourself ONCE and only ONCE a week, at the same time. Weighing yourself everyday will not do you any good mentally trust me, I know!). You might be thinking, but how much weight did I lose in the first week? For me it was 4.5lbs, and there on out it was around 1-3lbs per week pretty steadily. Here’s some photos I took along the way. (It took a lot to post these but I hope they help some of you out for visualising transformations!)

I’d definitely recommend taking photos, when I had a bad day it’s easy to forget how far you’ve come, so looking back it’s a great feeling. Also, find the worst photo of yourself for your before. It sound’s silly I know, but for me, it just gave me more motivation and was a great reminder. I thought it was important to add in a bikini photo because I never wore bikinis before, and taking that photo was a big thing for me to do. So here’s my before and afters:

Losing weight is a hard thing to do. So never tell yourself that you’re a failure if you slip up at any point. I slipped up several times and a still do now! But you can easily get back on track, just start as soon as you realise you’ve gone off track rather than saying ‘Oh, I’ll start again on Monday’.

Finally for me, this wasn’t a diet. Diets restrict everything whereas this didn’t take anything away I just had to eat smarter. And I would definitely recommend you keep checking up on your own mental health and attitudes towards food if you’re going through a transformation, it’s easy to get lost in it all like I have!! (See my ‘What happens when you realise you’ve developed an Eating disorder’ post). I would also like to point out that what you eat should not make you feel guilty, and by doing this method of eating shouldn’t. I know that that sounds a bit like a contradiction because I suffer with an eating disorder now, but that is due to myself having problems with food throughout most of my life. And whilst eating like this I’ve actually nourished my body the best it has ever been in my entire life.

I’ll leave you with this. If you’re trying to lose weight, make sure that it’s for the right reasons. For yourself, to be healthy. NOT because you feel like you need to in order to fit in. Because you’re beautiful no matter what a number says on the scale, and that number is unique to you. Everyone is built differently. And we’re all perfectly imperfect!

If you’re going to try any of this then please let me know!! And if you do try any of my meals then let me know what happened and how you found it!! And remember; everyone transforms at their own pace, so don’t compare yourself to others and their transformations. For me, it took around 6 months give or take a few; but for someone else it may take a year or two. Your own journey is valid and you should be proud of any victories, big or small.

I hope you have a great bank holiday weekend my lovelies! I’m off walking in Wales with the bf and can’t wait, fingers crossed it’s sunny!

Love,

What happens when you realise you’re developing an Eating Disorder

*disclaimer – this could contain trigger warnings*

If you’re wondering why I’m writing this post, it’s because it’s something that I relate to a lot. If you’ve read my about me page or my previous blog post – Anxiety, Body Image Issues and Me you’ll know that I struggle with my body image and food. And this past week I finally went to my doctor to talk about it.. Which I will tell you right now, was terrifying.

So, what happens when you’re developing an eating disorder.. Well it’s not something you decide one day, like deciding you want to go for a bicycle ride. It’s something that happens over time, and often you don’t realise what is happening until it’s already developed.

There are several different types of eating disorders out there, and no two are the same. The most common ones you hear about are:

• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa
• Binge Eating Disorder

Although the above three are most commonly spoken about, the other eating disorders although spoken about less, are equally as important and common among people. The other eating disorders are:

• OSFED
• Orthorexia
• Pica
• Avoidant or Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

The first time I realised that something wasn’t quite right was just before Christmas 2017, it was cold outside, I was 7 pounds away from what I had decided was my ‘goal weight’ of 9 stone 7 pounds. I think it was the week before Christmas and one morning out shopping I realised that I was extremely anxious about having Christmas dinner. Anyone that knows me, knows I would happily live off roast dinners, and that Christmas dinner was what I looked forward to the most. So naturally, suddenly worrying about my favourite meal of the year sort of hit home that something was not quite right.

Here I am in one of my old t-shirts in November 2017, before I knew what was happening!

I think part of the reason I was anxious about eating Christmas dinner was because I didn’t have any control over what was in the food. Before I lost a load of weight I wouldn’t give a monkeys about what was in it so long as it tastes nice. Because I didn’t have control over what was going in the food I was worrying about how much fat, oil and what I considered ‘bad’ food I would be eating.

I think I was a little in denial about what was going on at this point, I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I refused to admit that to anyone.. Including myself. So, Christmas finished, I ate hardly any Christmas dinner (and I basically only ate the vegetables and about 2 roast potatoes!!) than I would normally would, and worked out to try and burn the food off.

When I eventually admitted to myself that my relationship with my weight, body image and food was not good, I spoke about it with my family, friends and work family and they all were very understanding and supportive with what was going on with me.

Some of the symptoms of eating disorders I was demonstrating were the following:

• Religiously counting calories and ‘syns’
• Binge eating and then feeling incredibly guilty
• Excessive exercising to deal with the guilt of eating
• Restricting what foods I do eat (images below are what I typically eat in a day)
• Feeling guilty for eating
• Immense fear of gaining weigh and not continuing to lose it
• Obsessive with making my own food
• Constantly looking at workouts, low calorie recipes
• Denial of hunger
• Starving myself in the evenings so I would weigh less the next day
• Weighing myself continuously, every morning, sometimes evening and sometimes even more than twice a day!
• Fatigue
• Obsessively checking how fat and unattractive I felt I looked
• Anxiety around meal times
• Distorted body image (this one is a weird one for me to write because I know I must have it, but I just don’t see how my body image is distorted because fat is just how I see myself)
• Seeing certain foods as ‘bad’ and ‘good’
• Feeling of having no control or complete control around food.

It’s a long list I know!! But the thing is, all of these things don’t just happen over night.. They develop over time. Now, although it’s a long list, a lot of these things overlap within each other, and the good thing is that I’ve realised that these behaviours are not healthy. Below is what I would eat in a typical day, and it’s not great, and by realising this, I know taking the first step to getting better is the right thing to do; which is why I am now getting help.

Small bowl of porridge with 1 strawberry and a small banana.

Pear with Strawberries and Fat Free Yoghurt.

Wholemeal Toast with Scrambled Eggs.

 

It was not easy asking for help. It was in fact incredibly nerve racking and it felt so weird talking about what was going on in my head. I felt ashamed and strangely guilty of my eating/weighing/body image problems, but after talking to my GP, family and friends, I felt much less ashamed, guilty and alone.

The thing with getting help for eating disorders is that you assume you have to visually look like you’ve got an eating disorder and have a BMI extremely low; but that isn’t always the case. I have now been referred over to a service for young adults with the hopes that I will be able to get some help and potentially see a dietitian in the future if wanted.

If you ever think that you might have an eating disorder you should always go to your GP and ask for help!

You may be wondering what happens when you go to the doctors about potentially having an eating disorder. Well, when I did go to my GP for an appointment I was asked to tell my story of what has been happening to begin with, after that, I let the doctor know what symptoms of eating disorders I was suffering with (I took a list of what I wanted to mention in with me so I didn’t forget, my lovely co-worker suggested that and it definitely helped!), then we checked my oxygen levels, temperature, weight, BMI and I have been booked in for some blood tests to see if I have as a result of my eating habits, become deficient in anything. After going through all of that we decided that it would be a good idea to be referred to a mental health service for young adults (I’m 22).

Once I came out of the appointment I felt so much better knowing that I was going to get the help I needed I would highly recommend it to anyone worrying about any aspect of their mental health.

Anyway, that’s enough jabbering!! I’ll do a follow up post when I am in treatment for my own issues and keep you all updated with what’s happening!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead everyone!

Love,

Anxiety, Eating, Body Image Issues and ME

Something you’ll find out about me sooner or later is that I suffer with a few mental health problems, so just putting them out there now, I suffer with anxiety, I’ve got OCD tendencies when it comes to food and I also have body image, weight and eating issues.

These problems or challenges as I’ve tried to think of them as, developed at different points in my life; when I was diagnosed with anxiety (several years ago now), I can’t say I was surprised. I had always been quiet as a child and was often forgotten to even be in the room because I never really spoke.

Every single parents evening at school I would be told the exact same thing – “Victoria is getting good grades and always listens to what’s being said but she needs to put her hand up and participate more”. Something that I never understood was that if my grades are up then why did they always want me to put my hand up more? I always did the work and homework and never misbehaved. But hey, I guess they just thought it’d help my confidence. I would turn red in the face just having to say yes to during the register.

Sometimes it felt like it’d never get easier for me to speak up and that’s probably due to the anxiety, I have a deep fear of making a fool of myself, disappointing people and just generally talking to people I don’t know very well.

Here’s the thing with my anxiety, as I’ve gotten older I’ve learnt to hide it (with lots of practice), so it’s not always obvious that I suffer with it. If you saw me with people I’m close to then you’d think there’s nothing wrong with me. If I’m comfortable with you I’ll just say whatever comes into my head. I suppose my anxiety around talking to people has got a little better over time, but I do know that I’m a better listener than when it comes to talking. (I can see I’m starting to rabbit on a bit about this now so I’ll move on..)

When it comes to my OCD tendencies and my eating/body issues, these are much more recent things in my life. You see, this time last year I was a size 18 girl who was going on 13stone+. I absolutely hated myself and how I looked then, and I’d tried all different diets and fads out there to try and lose weight. Long story short – nothing worked for me. I’d always wished that I could love my body and props to all the men and women out there who do love themselves, you’re an inspiration!

So for me I was in denial about how I felt about my image, I’d tell myself that I liked how I looked and I liked my size, but deep down I couldn’t stand to look at myself. Then one day came along and I decided to try the one thing I hadn’t yet done, Slimming World. I started Slimming World in July last year, and since then I’ve lost 3 stone and 2 pounds and am now a size 10. It’s taken loads of hard work and perseverance and I was lucky to have the support from my family, friends and lovely boyfriend. Now, as proud of myself as I am and that I do like how I look more than I did; I still hate seeing how wide my body is in the mirror(somethings never change I guess!).

Here I am in one of my old t-shirts. You could use it as a tent!!

For me, going to slimming world has had positive and negative affects on my life. Positives are that I now eat a lot healthier, I work out 3-5 times a week, my weight is now healthy for my height (still think bmi is a load of rubbish though), I can share clothes with my mum and sister(big pros for when any of us are off out!) and I’m more confident in public.

The negatives that Slimming World has had on me are something I’m working on getting better. So although I have more of an awareness of what I’m eating – which is good to a certain extent – I now obsess over every little thing I consume, syn counting (a Slimming World method of counting ‘unhealthy food’ – like weight watchers points) has kind of taken over my life to the point where I can’t control myself when eating as all I think of is the amount on syns in food and I start freaking out when I don’t know what’s in food. I now feel guilty for every single bite of food I eat and feel the need to workout compensate for any food eaten, and I still see myself as that size 18 girl. I have an immense fear of putting all of the weight on, and I have to weigh myself every morning and see the number on the scale going down or I’ll beat myself up. Luckily I’ve got great support from my family, friends and boyfriends so I’m slowly getting a better mind-set towards food again.

Even though I’ve got all of these issues now I’ve lost weight, that’s not to say that if I had the choice to do it all over again that I wouldn’t go to slimming world, because I would. The good things for me have certainly outweighed some of the bad in my mind, and I’m trying to think of these bad things as challenges to overcome rather than just bad consequences of weight loss.

After all, I’m a lot healthier physically now than what I was, and that’s good; my mental health will always be a work in progress and that’s ok. I would say though, I feel like weight loss groups should have more of an after care for when people have lost lots of weight to tackle potentially developing things like eating disorders and body image issues. For now, I’ve decided to stop going to slimming world, and instead I’m focusing on staying healthy in my body and working on my mind-set towards food, and treating it like fuel to keep my body running.

I do just want to say that if you’re suffering with anything remotely like an eating disorder or other mental health issues then definitely go to your GP or a mental health service for some help and support, it’s totally worth the initial anxiety of talking about it.

Anyway, enough of my blabbering! That’s it for me about all of those things for now, I’ll maybe do a before and after post in the weeks to come… But we’ll see what happens. Thanks for reading and have lovely rest of the weekend!!

Love