Starting December right!

Dec 1, 2015Leave a comment

It’s been a pretty positive start to the week and now the month, just what I needed! There’s been some really shitty parts to this year, especially in the last few months so I’m determined to send 2015 off in a positive year and look forward to 2016…even if I am a little bit terrified of it! I wasn’t feeling particularly great about today, I was anxious about my gym class because of the pain I’ve been having but it turns out I didn’t need to be. That said I was already in a good mood from last night after having a long and lovely Skype conversation with Eleanor, it’s hard with her being all the way in New Zealand but we’re making it work.

Of course today is December 1st (I know, how is it December already?!?) so it’s advent calender time but since I haven’t been back home in a while I had no advent calendar this morning…the first time since I was 1. Luckily Mum text me a picture this morning of a maltesers advent calendar all for me, yay! I also picked up Star Wars ones for me and Ali too because IT’S FINALLY STAR WARS MONTH AND MY TICKETS ARE BOOKED, AHHHHHH.

As always I trekked to the hospital for 9am *sob* for my morning gym recovery class. I’d had a rough week last week so I was lucky I could talk to Mum before going and try and get in a good mindset before going in, got mistaken for a student nurse (I wish!) and got told that ‘surely I still have time to grow’ after I complained I was so tiny… the people in the class thought I was in my teens. Of course the real reason I was nervous was pain but I tackled all the machines, including a new one, and I kicked butt! There is no better feeling for me at the moment than coming home covered in sweat and knowing I’ve worked hard to get better, even if I do pay for it later. Oh and because my physio instructor for the gym is amazing I got given a sticker because I worked so hard…being the youngest has its perks!

Another really amazing thing is that as I’ve mentioned before I’ve struggled with the fact I’ve put on weight because of the accident and recovery, as well as the implications of my medication. As I wrote before I won’t mention numbers on here but I can confirm my healthier eating habits and gradually building up movement is working I’m finally losing the weight I gained!! I’m really proud of myself for doing something healthy and my strength in will power!

I ended a good day with a great evening at The Fighting Cocks with Ali, Charlotte, Rhys and later Joe. I got to play in the quiz, laugh a lot, get drawn on and just get out of the house with no expectation to get drunk which was really nice. It also helps that whenever me and Charlotte hang out we can’t stop laughing.

I’m stupidly excited about this start to December and I hope more than anything it carries on!

Getting healthy?

Sep 30, 2014Sep 30, 2014Leave a comment

A healthier lunch than my normal pit stop

I’m not a gym bunny or a healthy eater. The thought of hard exercise makes me feel ill and fruit makes me sick (I can hear the cries from health conscious people, hang on I’m going somewhere), so for me getting my 5 a day is really hard. When I went shopping yesterday I was a little bit more conscious in picking up healthy things. I wanted to start eating a little better for a while now but I wanted to do it for me, quietly and not because of anyone or anything. I wanted to at least try and get 3 of my 5 a day, an achievement for me. I already drink Orange juice, Ali makes me each portions of veg with dinner but I needed something else.

When I was tiny I’d eat everything, my Mum had no trouble with me eating healthy meals. I loved snack time at nursery school and would eat what they told me too. Skip a few years and fruit made me feel sick, something to do with the texture, and I would only eat set vegetables. My parents tried everything but I had a limited amount of fruit and veg that I would eat. The rules soon came in that only fruit could be eaten at break, not my normal cereal bars. It was a long fight and it set me up for the rest of my life.

There was one break through, School Bars real fruit, one of your 5 a day and they didn’t taste too bad. So last night I picked up some more at shopping and thought that’s an extra one a day. Adding my OJ and then some veggies with dinner I start to look, well, healthy. Which for me is terrifying. I’ll say now I’m not doing this to lose weight, I’m not cutting out any foods and it’s not because of negativity. with me the more someone pushes me to do something I don’t want to do the more I’ll resist, when people have tried to make me their ‘project’ in the past I’ve resisted. Similarly in halls I had what I eat questioned, so I either hid when I ate or ate things I knew would piss them off.

Why now? I have no idea. The thought of excercising is because I have a friend who also has knee problems and wants to get into light exercise again and we support each other. I’m kind of also hoping that this could be good for my mental health, that said I needed to get to this point before I could even consider exercise or anything like that. Will it last? No idea. We’ll just have to see and who said students can’t be sensible!

Healthy Body (image) Healthy Mind

Sep 25, 2014Sep 25, 20141 Comment

2 year difference, left me in 2012 and right me in 2014

In my bathroom there is a huge mirror, it stretches across a large portion of the wall above the sink. When I first moved in it really bothered me, wheneverI got undressed for my shower or got out of the shower my body was staring back at me, imperfections and all. I’m not a big girl, but I am curvy, my hips have driven me mad for what seems like eternity (jeans shopping, hell on earth) and I’m quite tiny. Something was different when I had a shower this morning. I looked at myself, really looked. I decided there and then I was done with anything to do with slimming down, I was finally happy with the way I looked after a long time of battling with it. Yes my hips still give me hell when I go shopping but I found positives, above them my waist was almost funnily tiny and I could see the tiniest hint of my ribs, that I didn’t like.

I had a fair bit of puppy fat when I was at school before drastically slimming down when I was 17 to the point where I could fit in to an 8 easily and a 6 at times…I hadn’t fit into a size 6 since I was 12 or 13. I’ve always been self conscious and as with most young girls it changed my eating habits at times, if I felt particularly bad I’d avoid eating, sometimes getting so worked up I’d cry over a chinese. I did want to be thin, I didn’t understand why I had lumps and bumps when my sister, aunt and cousins were all absolutely tiny. My Mum didn’t take and shit ‘it’s your build, the same as me’ at 15 it doesn’t make you feel much better at all. My sister is tiny at at times, although she is 7 years younger than me I was jealous, she had a life time of being able to fit into designer clothes ahead of her while I couldn’t fit into their ‘large’ sizes. Crying in the changing rooms was a regular occurrence and there was nothing I hated more than going shopping. I feel right now that my mother was a saint.

Now I love going shopping, although there are shops I avoid because they make me feel uncomfortable. I haven’t done calorie counting ever (because when people do it I want to batter them with one of the huge bags of pasta from the supermarket), I don’t understand when people go on a zero tolerance to carbs diet either. I understand cutting out white bread if it makes you feel ill, things like that but denying yourself food so you look ‘perfect’ I’ve been there, I’ve done it and I just like the cake better.

Every friend I have both male and female have things they don’t like about their bodies, noses, muscles, bums, boobs, arms, legs everything is on the list! It’s completely normal! I’m not saying this new found revelation is going to make me love every big of my body. I’d like to be more toned on my legs and my tum but I don’t want to obsess over it any more. All this said I have friends who either have or are recovering from eating disorders, it’s not the same thing at all. They’re ill and it takes a long time to get better from an eating disorder, I hope that I can help them feel more positive about at least one part of their bodies.

People will nag at me about what I eat, what I do, what I wear I just want to say IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. I’m going to eat what I enjoy, wear what I feel comfortable. I also make a big deal out of telling people if they look good because it can change someones entire day, it’s not uncommon for me to shout at one of my friends ‘ oh my god your boobs/butt looks great today’ it’s not because I’m gay, it’s because I want people to know that there is always something beautiful about them.

You right there reading this, there is something beautiful about you too, don’t forget it!