Like I hinted on Sunday, I've been asked to review a new fitness app called SnapTrack. I've played around with it for a few days now and feel comfortable enough sharing my views!

SnapTrack is a very simple way of tracking your progress through pictures and measurements. It works the same way Instagram does but privately - you just simply open the app, take a picture and it saves in the app database for you to view later. You can add as many pictures as you want per day.

First impressions

I absolutely love the colour theme! Majority of current apps are blue (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper....) so having something so bright and fabulous is so refreshing! SnapTrack is very simple to use and the layout is clean - just what you want in an app. Navigating through the app is very effortless and easy.


After creating an account (or just have a go without one!) you are greeted by an empty home screen. This is where all your images will show up. Tapping on an image will open the "container" for every picture you have taken on that day.

For review purposes I have just taken random pictures of my surroundings + measurements are made up.


When you open a container, you can view all the images you have taken on that day and possible measurements you have added. You can add measurements by tapping on the pen icon at the top. The camera screen is pretty basic, you literally can't go wrong with that one. Just aim and hit the massive button at the bottom.

 
The Add Measurement- screen is amazing. You can track so many things: weight, waist, height, hips, neck, bust, dress size, trouser waist, trouser leg, shirt size, blouse size, bra size, bra cup, t-shirt size, underwear size. I do think it's missing some key measurements though, such as thighs, arms, calves and bust.


Improvements

The app is still very fresh and I'm sure it's going to develop a lot over the next few months and these bits are just mainly things that I was missing during testing. The camera doesn't have a focus function, which does leave the images a bit blurry. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter as much, but as a photographer I do like my pictures sharp. :D

I would also love a separate graph to see your progress in one go. While measurements aren't quite as important to me as pictures, it'd still be quite a cool touch to the app! I was also missing a swipe feature when previewing pictures, it'd make it a bit quicker to go through all your images instead of having to go back to the preview screen every time.

Final verdict

I wish SnapTrack was there when I started last January! It is such a convenient way of tracking your progress - I've always promoted taking pictures to track progress in my blog, so this is definitely a fantastic app for it! You do get quite blind to your progress when you just look at yourself in the mirror, it makes it a lot easier to see your body changing when it's viewed in third person.

I really wish Javilo the best of luck with SnapTrack, it is an incredible app that should be a part of your fitness app repertoire. Making a New Year's resolution that you're going to start losing weight? Definitely download SnapTrack and start tracking!

SnapTrack is available through App Store and Google Play, free of charge.

Oh I am so happy! Two and a half hours of pampering and my hair looks exactly the way I've wanted it for such a long time now.

It's been very consistently gray for a good few days now and of course today wasn't an exception. I really wanted to walk to the hairdresser's as it's only a 15 minute walk from the house, but I'm really not a fan of walking in the windy weather with an umbrella, it just slows me down because I need to struggle with it every time the wind grabs hold of it. So instead I decided to rely on the trusty public transport.


I go to Lotus Styling whenever I can afford it. The staff is incredibly friendly and professional and you're really looked after! I asked for a cup of coffee while I was waiting for the colour to work and I must say, that must've been the best cup of coffee I've ever had!

I had a three colour treatment - two different mixes of the base (a stronger one to cover my blonde roots) and highlights with a lighter shade - and a trim. I was tempted to go for a bob but then again I've been so patient with my hair so I didn't want to cut it too much. It's all even and healthy again though and that's the main point.


My phone camera (and the cloudy weather) really didn't do wonders for the colour, it's a lot brighter in proper light. :) The highlights are very subtle and blend into the base incredibly well, I didn't want them to stick out like a sore thumb and that's exactly what I got. Instead they just give a fantastic detail to the colour and I'm so in love with it. ♥

Like I mentioned a few days ago, my other half got me a foam roller for Christmas. As I didn't really know anything about the brands out there, I let him decide which one he ordered for me. It is a pretty standard roller from 66fit, very firm and feels nice to the touch. Yesterday was the first day I had a chance to actually roll my muscles properly and it definitely was a very eye opening experience!

I decided to roll my muscles after I came home from a run as I figured that it'd go as my cool down. I never realised how many knots and lumps you can have in your muscles!! My calves were an absolute minefield of sore spots, I think I could've easily spent an hour rolling away on it.



And as pet owners might know, you're never alone unless you lock yourself in a room and make sure you have no animals in there with you!! As I was about to do my shoulders Oakley decided to walk in and lie flat on my belly, making it a bit challenging to try and carry on! And of course I was lathered in kisses as well. Adorable but very yucky, I was feeling clammy enough after my run! :D


I've started making my own lunch to work, and I've got to say that it's definitely such a good thing! Now I'm able to know exactly what I'm eating and I get (relatively) fresh food that's not full of packing gases and preservatives. Most of the time I've just had leftovers from dinner the night before with a bit of fresh salad on the side, really fills me up and keeps me going for the rest of the day! And it's so much more satisfying to eat proper and nutritious food instead of relying on the packed lunches you buy from the high street.



I've got the next three days off from work and I am looking forward to it! I'm finally getting my hair done tomorrow and I've made plans with a dear friend to catch up over lunch as well, and then of course there's New Year's eve! I'm probably not doing much as none of my friends have made any plans (or mentioned them to me, hah) so I'm probably doing my usual of staying at home and watching the fireworks from our office window. :)

Oh and I've been asked to review a fitness app! More on that in a few days once I've had a play around on it, stay tuned!

Oops! :D Hello Christmas weight! I know a lot of that is just water weight so I'm not too bothered, I just wanted to relax a bit over the holidays and I think I relaxed just a bit too much. Oh well, it'll only give me more motivation to exercise next week - the January progress check is just around the corner and I want to stick to my plan of being out of the 70s by then.

I hope you've all had a lovely day today (and yesterday for everyone outside the UK)!

We definitely had quite a different Christmas to what I'm used to. While I'm used to opening presents on Christmas day instead of Christmas eve, the way the rest of the day went was such a nice change to previous years!

I didn't ask for anything (like I haven't done for years now), my other half insisted on getting me little bits and pieces and my brother sent me two presents a few weeks ago as well. I got a foam roller and a handheld massager from my other half and these two babies from my brother! He just knows me way too well. ♥ WoW Monopoly and the Grumpy Cat book, they just scream "NERD!!" to me! :D Put a smile on my face for sure.

And can't wait to be able to test my foam roller as well, I've already looked up some exercise videos on Youtube and I'm just waiting to get half an hour to myself this week so I can start rolling. :)


I tried so hard to eat as little as possible during the morning as I knew we'd be eating loads during dinner, but of course I couldn't resist the chocolates and crisps we had in the kitchen. I do think I was quite good compared to last year, but still could've kept my hands off the stuff! I'm not feeling too bad about it as my overall diet is in check, it's OK to enjoy some junk every now and then. ;)

It hit me as well that it's exactly two years since I started losing weight. If I didn't hit my back and gain all the weight I had lost after the Christmas of 2011, I'd be so skinny and fit by now. Oh well, life's a bitch.



We went for something completely different today and I loved it! We usually have the traditional roast dinner (or if I'm home, the Finnish Christmas meal), but we all wanted to avoid all the hassle and stress it brings and went for Indian! Our local Indian restaurant had a 5-course meal for £17.95 offer and oh my gosh was it worth it!

The meal included a starter, curry, rice, bread and a side. It was a lot of food and none of us actually managed to finish everything! When we order in we never have the starter and we just split one naan bread, now we had one each and we suffered! :D It was so incredibly delicious though, I had a sag roll for starter and chom chom chicken with pilau rice and a peshwari naan as my main. I decided not to order a side as I knew I couldn't finish it at all, so I just ended up pincing a few potatoes from the sag aloo my other half ordered.



It was such a relaxing meal, we had a great time and just talked. It's nice to be able to just sit down and not worry about cooking and clearing up, made us feel like we weren't in a rush at all because there was someone else looking after it all.

Our day did also include visiting my other half's grandparents after dinner, so it's been a very low key Christmas! Exactly what I wanted as I'm not too big on Christmas.

And of course we did need to whip out the Monopoly tonight, would've been a crime not to! Even though three out of people around the game board did struggle a bit with the property names and chance / treasure chest cards, it was just like normal Monopoly. We must've spent at least a good two hours playing, just having a laugh and trying to haggle our way out of deals. ;)



I think the dogs do sum up how we were all feeling by 11pm, it's been a day full of food and laughter and it has worn everyone out pretty well. :) Good night!

I officially started my Christmas holiday on Friday (from uni, I'm working all the way through the holidays). And what a way to start it as well! I met up with a very dear friend in London and it was such a brilliant day. The first thing we did was head out for lunch, and I took him to the Juicy Bastard Burger Kitchen run by The Green Man Inn (I went there in October). And I'm pretty happy to say that it was just as delicious as I remembered. It was really busy this time, the pub was filled with workmen and footie parties and at times I could barely hear my friend talking!

There was one thing I noticed though. I actually struggled to finish my burger this time! I've reduced my portion sizes a lot since October so my stomach must've shrunk a bit, but I really didn't want to leave this deliciousness on the plate.


We headed over to Westfields after lunch and oh my god how busy it was! I mean yeah it's the week before Christmas so people are getting their shopping out of the way, but it still amazes me how people just seem to leave it to the last minute every single year.

After wandering around for a while we actually found a shop called The Christmas Cracker Shop. It literally sold what it says on the tin! It was just incredible, we actually found some crackers that cost £100 (and the majority were well over £30). We really wondered who on earth buys that stuff, if I bought crackers worth that much I wouldn't even want to open them!!

The shop was full of fun little knick knacks and accessories too, such as these funky sunglasses! :D Not quite my style, but they were so sparkly and glittery and cute haha! They had some very cool masquerade style masks as well, I was quite tempted to buy one but it was covered in glitter so decided to pass. I've got nothing but bad experiences with glittery clothes and accessories, people can tell where you've been that day because the glitter just rubs off on everything.


Westfield had one amazing thing though - their Christmas lights! They made the supporting beams look like trees and oh my god it was stunning! I can only imagine what it looks like when it's dark. And you can also see an ice rink down there, I really wanted to go skating but my friend wussied out. ;p


Since Friday the weather has truely been quite nasty - strong winds and heavy rain has made it not so pleasant to be outdoors! I dislike rain as I'm rarely fully prepared for it, but it doesn't stop me from going places if I need to. I must say that walking to work in nothing but pumps was rather interesting on Saturday, as my feet got completely soaking wet! I spent my lunch break sitting by a radiator, trying to dry up and keep warm so I don't get ill.

It's getting quite hectic at work now because of Christmas and I find myself running up and down the shop most of the day. It definitely counts as exercise in my books haha! I do enjoy it a lot, it's nice to be the friendly and happy face at the shop and help people make their shopping a bit easier. And as a result I am completely exhausted in the evenings when I get home, I haven't had the energy to do anything in the evenings! I've just curled up with my book lately and have early nights all weekend. 




I decided to defy the elements this morning before work and went for a run. Thankfully the rain wasn't too bad in the morning so I didn't get too wet this time! It did definitely make me go a bit quicker though, I didn't want to get caught by the rain like I did last time I ventured out for a walk in iffy weather.

I'm really looking forward to the day when I can run the entire distance without having to slow down to rest my muscles and catch my breath. I think I can manage about a third to half of the way now, I split the distance into little chunks of running (walk for one song, run for one and so on) so I don't absolutely kill myself. I want to be careful with the amount of stress I put on my body right now, as I'm still only a beginner with running and too much could hurt my back or ankles.

Slowly but surely as they say. :)

Well that was a very pleasant surprise this morning! Was about time for the fat to start shifting again. Nearly out of the 70s now!

I'll have a proper post coming up soonish, it's been quite hectic weekend so haven't had the time (or energy!) to write. :)

I made a post on my Facebook last night about this, and I wanted to expand on it over this side. Here's what I posted:

"Change is difficult. It's easy to be set in your ways because you know it's safe and comfortable. While you know that making a change or two could improve your life dramatically, you still want to hold on to the old habits. It definitely took me a while to change all these bad habits into something better.

2013 has been one hell of a year for me. 13 kilos lighter (still 7kg to go to my ultimate goal), feeling more confident than ever and in general just so much happier with my life. All it took was a few lifestyle changes. I went from having insane back pain nearly every day to being able to run as exercise just because im such a stubborn mule that once I start something, I don't want to give up.

Thank you everyone who has given me their support over the past year, it's definitely helped! x"

It took me a very long time to get used to my new lifestyle. I still have the occasional takeaway dinner or sweets, as I think that you should have treats in moderation to keep yourself going! As long as my overall diet is filled with healthy foods, I really don't see the issue with having some junk a few times a month. And in general I really feel like all these people going on fad diets fail for that very reason - the diet says that every single "bad" food is off limits and you're only allowed to eat leaves and drink water. In the long run this makes you crave everything you're not "allowed" to eat and you fall off the wagon. 

And you know what - I actually crave the veggie dishes when I go out for dinner! In the beginning I felt insane amounts of guilt when I went out and ordered the greasy burgers, but lately I've started going for the veggie options more and more. I guess it's just my brain finally being programmed to want the things that will be better for the body.


Looking at these two pictures I really can tell the difference both mentally and physically. Feeling proud of myself affects my overall mood so much, I'm so much happier in my own skin and it transfers to everything I do. I laugh more, I enjoy socialising and the most important thing is, I actually have the confidence to say that I'm good at things now. It's quite a Finnish thing to be very modest and in a way beat yourself down, it's kinda seen as a bad trait to thingk you're good at something (I mean how dare you be so selfish and cocky?!).

And speaking of Finnish things, look what I found today!! I've always loved rye crispbread, it's one of the things I've missed about Finland. We were just randomly walking around at Tesco today and when we got to the cracker section the word "Finn" just caught my eye. I nearly yelled "Hapankorppuja!!" (Crispbread!) in the middle of a packed Tesco but I managed to hold it in. :D Crispbread and salami is a perfect combination, you can probably guess what I had for lunch today. The best thing is, it's actually made in Finland and shipped over instead of it being a German product (I've noticed that all the normal rye bread around here is from Germany - not a bad thing of course!).

I've got a Finnish friend who lives up in Scotland, I just had to report my findings to her and she was more than happy with this information haha!


To end this post I really want to add a comment I got from a friend yesterday. I really felt like I help others change for the better and I just couldn't stop going "Awwwww!!" for a good ten minutes last night!

I ordered a few bits and pieces from Sports Direct last week and my parcel finally arrived!

I've been looking for proper running shoes for ages now and I finally found the perfect pair! I seem to be so attracted to bright colours when it comes to exercise clothes and these shoes definitely weren't an exception.

These shoes are the Adidas Kanadia 5 Ladies Trail running shoes. I was looking for "off road" shoes for a reason, as I know these shoes will travel with me to Finland (dirt roads) on a regular basis. My other pair of trainers are very slippery when the tarmac is a bit wet so that's also why I wanted shoes that will really dig into the surface - and they really didn't disappoint me! I took them for a little test run earlier today and they really are a sturdy pair of shoes so to speak. I was out for far too long though, it's never a good idea to go for a 1hr walk/run when you're wearing a brand new pair of shoes..


I was only going to buy the trainers, but then I realised that my exercise trousers won't match with the shoes! First world problems eh? But then again, I'd rather spend my money on exercise clothes than everyday clothes, I just feel far more comfortable when I don't have to wear jeans.

The trousers I bought are the same type of USA Pro trousers I've bought before, although the material seems to be a bit thinner than in the other ones. They've both got a really nice blue waistband and reflectors by the calves, and obviously they look really nice.


As I mentioned a few posts ago, I was also lacking some sort of a thin exercise jacket I could wear when it's not too cold. I found this really nice USA Pro jacket with adorable thumb holes, I think that was the main reason I bought it! :D It was warm enough in the current weather (+10, slightly windy) and I really liked the fact that it's got pockets in it. It seems like such an obvious thing to have but none of my exercise trousers actually have pockets big enough for my keys and phone!


This'll keep me going for a while! :)

No loss again. Getting a bit annoyed now.

And on other news, avoiding milk really sucks. EVERYTHING in this country seems to have milk in it. I really hope the test comes back negative for both intolerance and allergy when I get it done next week.

I know the post title is a bit irrelevant but just ignore that.. :D



I absolutely loved The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. I've waited for it ever since I saw the first film, they're really doing the book justice despite adding some very odd strands of storyline here and there. They didn't ruin the film in any way, it was just odd to go "oh wait a minute, this wasn't in the book.." a few times over the duration of the film.


As we don't really go to the cinema a lot, we do treat ourselves to the VIP box when a really good film comes out. We've gone for the VIP seats with Avengers, the first Hobbit film and another one I can't remember for the life of me! My back does appreciate the better seats and better leg room, not to mention the separate sound system and 12 seat boxes! You do also get "room service" but we pretty much get all we need before the film starts so we haven't actually taken advantage of that service yet.



There was one downside to this film - the cliffhanger was aaaawful! I mean I know what happens as I've read the book but it's still horrible when they decide to just cut it at the most exciting bit! I'm sure a film like Hobbit doesn't really need cliffhangers, people will go see the next one anyways... :p

And so begins the year long wait for the final film. Argh!

I really can't say this enough - taking pictures of my progress has been one of the best things I've done this year. When I feel like I'm hitting a wall on the scales, looking back to last spring really makes me feel happier about myself and my progress. I just keep telling myself that there's absolutely no point giving up, I've come way too far to throw it all away.

And the thought of wearing a bikini next summer does kinda keep me going too. :D


These pictures were taken 2nd April. Such an insane difference, isn't it? Especially the difference in my face and neck, I actually have clear definition now instead of just one straight line from ears to shoulders!


It's funny how I really miss having red hair. It just keeps popping up every few weeks, I either look at old pictures of myself or just see an advert with the most stunning red hair colour. I've actually made myself a promise - I'm going to get my hair done properly at a hairdressers before the end of the year. I've been trimming and colouring my own hair for absolutely ages now, I just can't really afford the luxury of getting my hair done every month or two. I think it's actually been about one and a half years since I've been to my hairdressers. Oh my.


I've already decided what kind of red I'm going for and what to do with the cut, but you'll just have to wait and see. ;)