It's surprisingly hard to grab hold of a hobby once you've had to stop for a while. For me it's both the blog and gym that have been missing for a while now. And I really think that the guilty feeling over losing the connection with both hobbies is making it even more difficult to get back into them.

Since I started having issues with sleeping, I've stopped going to the gym. I've also tried several different things in order to try and figure out, why I've been sleeping so poorly. And right now it feels like it was just a combination of stress over uni and then putting a bit too much pressure on my body on top of that. I'm hopefully getting started with gym again this week, I do really miss it!


And in a way I feel like I've let both myself and all of my readers down lately because of all the stress. Describing my diet as poor is an absolute understatement - takeaways, sweets, chocolate, alcohol.. I've also only been having one Vi shake a day for the past week now, I've just been craving all sorts of different foods all week and it's really destroying my good progress.

But on a happier note, I've got a job as a photographer now! :) I had my interview last Saturday and they got back to me about it yesterday. I'm very excited to actually do something I really enjoy doing. It's going to be such a welcome change to my life, photography has always been so close to my heart and actually getting to do it for a living is incredible.

Uni project finished and handed in! I've been under so much stress the past week, so it really felt like someone just pushed those 12,000 words and several experiments off my shoulders when I pressed "Submit" on Turnitin last night.

A very relieved student.

The stress really hit me in the way I didn't want it to - stress eating. The amount of chocolate and junk I've been having has actually making me feel really ill. My body has been screaming at me and telling me to stop, but my brain had dibs on decision making..

This means that there's only one project to go before summer. We are making a music video for a local band, which should be quite an interesting experience. Still involves a lot of filming, which really isn't my thing. I've never been into film, even back in college it was the thing I absolutely hated. Oh well, hopefully we won't be doing this project individually.

Oh and our sofas finally arrived yesterday! They've been a constant source of stress and worry for a while, as they were meant to arrive a week ago but never did. We are having a housewarming party this Saturday and I was getting to the stage where I wanted to pull my hair out over the sofas not being here! Wouldn't be much of a housewarming, if we all had to sit on the floor!



The armchair is actually 90cm wide, as the model could come with a bed. It feels very odd sitting in such a wide chair, when you only cover roughly half of it! I suppose it could work as a two seater sofa, hah.

I am really looking forward to Saturday, as on top of our housewarming I've got a very cool meeting in the morning. I'll tell you guys about it all later, I'm keeping it a secret for now. :) Oh, and it's my friend's birthday on Saturday as well! It'll be such an epic night.

I'm a sucker for a nice banana cake, and we happened to have a few incredibly ripe bananas hanging around. As I'm a part of alldishes.co.uk now, I decided to treat you guys a little bit!


I've modified a basic banana cake recipe to a healthier one. I've substituted caster sugar with honey, and used wholemeal flour instead of white. I also threw in two scoops of Vi Shape nutritional shake mix for the extra protein, but the flavour isn't strong at all.

Gooey banana cake


125g margarine
100g honey
1 small egg
2 ripe bananas
190g wholemeal self-raising flour
50ml milk
2 scoops Vi Shape nutritional shake mix - optional
30g dark chocolate - optional

Preheat your oven to 170C (150C fan). Grease a tin - a loaf tin is ideal, but any cake tin will do - and set it aside.


In a small saucepan, combine the margarine and honey. Melt the mixture over medium heat and remove from heat. While the margarine mix cools down, mash the bananas in a separate bowl. You can use a blender or a bit of elbow grease with this one.

Once the margarine mix has cooled down enough, pour it over the mashed bananas. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Remember to be careful with the egg - you don't want the margarine mix to be too hot, or the egg will start cooking and scramble!


Pour the mix in a tin and add the chocolate (if using). The buttons I used melted just enough for them to still stay in their original form, but make them spread when touching them with a spoon. Cook for 30-35 minutes, depending on desired gooeyness.



This recipe makes eight servings. The nutritional values for one serving are as follows (using soya milk):

227 kcal
34g carbs (15g sugar)
8g fat
6g protein

Enjoy!

Hey all, thank you for being so patient with this small break I've been having blogging wise. I am getting lots of rest and just having a small creative break from most things, and right now my head is near exploding with ideas to share with you all!

So what's coming up in the next week or so? Well, I'm glad you asked! I'm getting closer and closer to the one month mark of my Body By Vi challenge! I'm so excited to see how well I've done during the first 30 days, how much weight I've lost and how different my 'before' and 'after' pictures will look like!

I've also been invited to join alldishes.co.uk, so I will be sharing a lot more recipes over here than I have so far. I will probably give video blogging a go in that area, as personally I love watching other people cook and listen to them as they go on.

And on a slightly unrelated note, I've got two big events coming up! I am flying to Holland for my friend's birthday in May (remember me setting my goal date?) and my brother is coming over in June! We are planning on going to Download for two days, so be prepared for the biggest fan girl post you've ever seen. I've never been to a big festival before, and getting to share the experience with the best big brother in the world is going to be so incredibly amazing. ♥

There's so much more I want to talk to you guys about, but that'll stay as a secret until I publish it! I love getting quite philosophical about things, so it'll be a long post about opinions, personalities and so on. Stay tuned lovelies!


I was actually going to do this as a video post, and I even filmed all the material this morning. I just don't have the patience to edit it all, haha!

Like I mentioned earlier this week, I've really struggled getting out of bed since Wednesday. I really can't figure out what's causing it, and it's starting to bug me. I go to bed usual time (between 11 and 12), but I just can't seem to be able to find the energy to get out of bed after eight hours of sleep. Am I sleeping too much or too little? Is it just stress I'm not aware of? Am I not eating enough?

If this carries on I'm probably going to start eliminating one possible factor at a time. The clocks going forward tonight really won't help!

I'll be back to my normal rhythm of blogging once this sluggish mood lifts off my shoulders! Also got a project deadline coming up in two weeks, so that'll probably munch up a bit of my spare time.

Well, this post is rather late! I was going to post this recipe yesterday, but I just had one of those days when I didn't feel like doing much!


Ok, so! The original recipe is by The Good Morning, this incredible Finnish foodie blog I've followed for a while now. Thank you Kaisa for making it public, the pie was amazing!

Simple & healthy chicken pie

400-600g chicken fillets
2-3 bits of garlic
seasoning to taste

250g quark or natural yoghurt (I used soya yoghurt)
1 egg
1tsp baking powder
1tsp salt
1dl (~ half a cup) flour of choice - go for the healthier options if you can!



Fry the chicken and season to taste. While waiting, simply mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and pour them in a cake tin or brownie tray. Once the chicken is cooked, carefully place the meat over the base. There might be some liquid on the pan from the meat, so be careful not to pour that all over the base! Cook for 30 mins in 200 celcius and you're good to go!

 
You can pimp it up any way you feel like - add peppers, tomatoes, feta cheese, goats cheese.. Absolutely anything you fancy! I used green peppers, and I'm already planning the next version of this! Maybe some sesame seeds, chillies... Yum!

I've struggled with gym motivation this week. My messed up schedule last week has really affected my mood all week, and I nearly had to force myself to the gym today. Instead of getting up early and getting ready to go to before nine, I just kept hitting the snooze on my phone over and over and over again. I did the same yesterday, and then didn't have time to go before work.

It's funny how your entire mood changes, when you do actually get to the gym. I was so full of energy and in such a positive headspace once I started my workout. I was really curious about adding some weight to my lat pulldown sets as well, and it was so obvious how unbalanced my muscles are. I usually do three sets of 21kg, and now I increased the last set to 28kg. I get the bar all the way down to my chest when I do it with 21kg, but with the 28kg set my left arm just started saying no. I got the bar down to my chin, and that was all my left arm could do. The right side would've happily gone lower, but no point trying to force it and injure myself. I've always known that my left arm is the weaker one, but I didn't think the difference would be that big.

Feeling like Popeye, yarr!

I've started stocking up on Eat Natural bars, so I have something nice to have as a snack. My other half likes to eat crisps and cakes, and as he does a really physical job, he can get away with it. But if I have all that stuff as snacks on a daily basis, I'd start gaining weight again. The dark chocolate & cranberry one is by far my favourite, blueberry & cashew being a very close second. They're just sweet enough to keep me happy, without being too filling. Accompanied by a big cup of coffee, couldn't ask for a better afternoon treat. ;)


I took part in a raffle run by Steffit a while back, and for once luck was on my side! I won three packs of Elovena snack bars, and thankfully they agreed to send them over to England! I mainly know Elovena from their oatmeal, it was always the brand my mum would buy. Just seeing the pack it all came in made me so nostalgic and very homesick, it's so nice to get these small pieces of home every now and then. And my mum also sent me a parcel a few days ago, with woolen socks and tea towels she had made herself. It all just makes me feel so proud of my heritage.

Sometimes you hear Finnish girls being referred as the 'Elovena girl'. Blonde hair, big smile and red cheeks. The typical Finnish look. I actually used to look exactly like that as a kid, before I started colouring my hair. I do miss my incredibly blonde hair sometimes, but I just know it's not my thing. :)

Dark chocolate, oat & lingonberry and oat-cinnamon.

Anyways! I've got thirty snack bars sitting on my dining table now. It'll definitely take me a good while to get through these, hah! Maybe I'll slip a few of these in my handbag tonight before heading out, I've actually been invited to an Ann Summers party tonight! That'll be a fun experience, never been to one before! Also going to try out a new recipe for dinner, more about that tomorrow.

I had such a bizarre craving for a milkshake tonight, and after dinner I finally gave in and made one! I just had no idea what to make it from, but thankfully we still had some strawberries in the fridge. Then again, I already tried a plain strawberry shake the other day, so wanted to add something else into it. I had a small chunk of plain chocolate left in the cupboard, but then again I really liked the thought of adding a dollop of lemon curd in there.. The choice was tough, but went for chocolate in the end!


Strawberry & choc chip Vi-shake

250ml milk of choice
45g plain chocolate
3 big strawberries
2 scoops of Vi Shape nutritional shake


Throw all the chocolate in a food processor and grind away! Leave the chocolate a bit chunky to get the choc chip texture. You will also get fine bits of chocolate in there, so it mixes in with the milk and creates a very delicious chocolatey flavour. Throw in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.


I've got to say, it really tasted a lot better than I even thought! On hindsight though, this one really needs a straw. Trying to fish out the chocolate bits from the bottom of the glass with a spoon isn't quite as glamorous.

It's that time of the year again - first Tuesday of March! This means Pancake day! I really love pancakes, and I've posted about them a few times before.. :) Today was actually a double pancake day in a way, hah.

This time I wanted to try something slightly different with the batter. Instead of going for my usual recipe, I decided to try the very simple '1 part flour, 1 part milk, 1 egg + sugar & salt' method. I did actually use a bit more milk, because the batter was just so thick that it would've made the American style pancakes instead of crepes. I also finally got around to trying them with wholemeal flour as well! I wanted to throw in some of my Vi-shape powder as well, but my other half wasn't too keen on the idea.

Even with a weird recipe and different flour, they were absolutely delicious! I topped mine with honey and strawberries, instead of my usual blueberries and maple syrup. There's so many different toppings I'd love to try eventually, and that'll naturally mean more pancake posts, eh. ;)


And for dinner we had a different kind of pancake - fajitas! My other half had been asking for fajitas for several days now, and me making them tonight was pure coincidence! It's nice how things work out sometimes, though. 


I'm finally starting to get to the stage, where our flat is starting to feel really homely. I'm in the process of designing a painting to hang on the lounge wall, but other than that I'm starting to be really happy with all the things I've found to put on the walls. Our little nerd cave is so incredibly cool right now, and once our sofas arrive our TV area will be perfect.


As the flat itself is quite bland with cream coloured walls, I really wanted to find something really colourful and detailed to go on the walls. The Big Bang Theory poster was an absolute find, I spotted it at work when we were clearing stock and knew instantly, that it belongs on our walls!


The incredibly beautiful Nebula- poster has been on my wishlist for probably over a year now, so it was such a no-brainer for me. Just the colours of it are breathtaking, couldn't of wished for a better poster to hang up.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
- Albert Einstein

I've been a huge fan of Banksy for absolutely ages now, and I wanted to get one of his pieces to go on our TV area wall. There's just something about his work that really speaks to me. The simplicity of them, the sarcasm, the hard hitting truth. The Balloon Girl has always been one of my favourites, and it'll just tie up with everything else I've got planned for that part of the lounge. Can't wait to have all the final pieces to complete it all.


All of these posters are available on Amazon: BBT, Nebula, Balloon Girl.

Time really flies! Only one more month left of my biotin experiment.

The change in my hair is really obvious now. It's a lot easier to detangle, my ends look so much better and my hair has grown quite a bit! It is however a bit harder to see the roots coming through now, as the brown colour is starting to be quite washed out and getting closer to my own colour. I can also feel loads of new hair pushing through, and that is really great. I've always had a lot of hair, but the quality of it is typically Scandinavian (really fair). I keep spotting individual hairs, that are three times as thick as the rest, so hopefully that is what my hair will be like in the future!

I'm in the 60s!! What an amazing feeling! There's been massive progress both on the scales and off. :) I kid you not, I had a few checks on the scales during the week and my weight did not move even 100g in one way or another, I was worried that I had hit another plateau, hah!

I've really caught up with being injured pretty much the entire January, really pleased with how well I've done. Gives me so much more motivation to keep pushing for results.

Weight: 69,9kg (71,0kg)
Arms: 30cm (30,5cm)
Bust: 95cm (96,5cm)
Waist: 71cm (71cm)
Belly: 89cm (90,5cm)
Thighs: 55cm (56cm)

I've been looking to get a new leather jacket for a while now. The one I've been using is just simply starting to be far too big, I can actually grab both sides with my hands without touching any skin! Well fitting clothes are so important to me now that I've actually got a nice figure, it really got to the point where I didn't even want to pull the zip up on my jacket because it would just hide everything I've been working so hard for!

Leather really seems to be THE thing at the moment with jackets. New Look had quite a few nice options, but I ended up going for this gorgeous brown suedette jacket. It's just absolutely perfect, I couldn't be happier! The fabric feels so silky smooth and the material is so thin, that I can wear it in the summer as well without feeling like I'm going to die of a heat stroke.



The top I'm wearing underneath is new as well! I was looking for something with long sleeves, and this really cute navy themed top caught my eye. I'm not a massively girly person, so I tend to keep all this cute stuff to the minimum. It's nice in small details, but I'd never wear something so... cute if the shirt was covered in the flower detail. Now all I'd really need is a pair of skinny jeans and I'd have quite a nice look going.



And I did actually try some skinnies on today as well. Baaaad mistake!! :D I really just need to give up on skinny jeans, my legs just aren't designed for them. My calves are just far too big for something like that, I really struggled to get the jeans off! I had to pull them down inch by inch by my calves, not exactly something I'd look forward to doing on a daily basis.. They fit really well everywhere else, but I think I'm just going to stick to the bootcuts. Hah.

I had a bit of spare time during lunch today, so I figured that I'll give my Body By Vi shake a bit of a twist today. We bought some strawberries last night, and they're really not in season so eating them straight from the pack isn't really the best idea. I mean, they're nice, but nowhere near as juicy as they are in the summer.


All you need for this is two scoops of the Vi Shape nutritional shake mix, 250ml of milk of choice and strawberries. I used five big ones, and they really gave the shake such a delicious flavour! Just mix it all up in a food processor or blender and you're all done! It's a brilliant way of getting your fruit and calcium every day, and I have a feeling that I'm going to start making all sorts of different shakes for breakfast from now on.

I left my shake quite chunky, but if you prefer a fully smooth shake, just keep blitzing the mix until there's no lumps. Strawberries do have small seeds, so if that's something you don't like, just drain it all throuh a sieve before serving.



Now for a bit of downtime before heading to work for the afternoon. Have a great weekend all! ♥