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!