So in my previous post I said that I didn't have any dumbbells for home workouts. Well, my new set of weights arrived the other day! I was meant to post about them the day they arrived, but it just never happened.

I didn't want to spend an absolute fortune on a set of dumbbells, and ended up going for a pretty neoprene set by Palm Springs. Quite affordable and comes with a plastic stand, so overall I'm quite happy. :) The coating of the dumbbells is neoprene, you get a really nice and firm grip for some extreme workouts, hah. ;D

The 1kg dumbbells are absolutely tiny - even my pixie sized hands are touching the sides!

So far I haven't actually had the chance to give them a go, but hopefully I'll have a bit of downtime towards the end of the week.

I also stumbled upon an eyelash serum! I was actually reading a blog post about it not too long ago, and the amount of positive comments about the serum really made me curious. My lashes have never been really that long, and instead of curving up they just tend to stick outwards. I suppose that's what you get for being from a Nordic background with blonde hair and fair skin.

The serum is rather pricey, I spent £22.40 on this one. It's called RapidLash Eyelash Enhancing Serum and available on Amazon for anyone interested. It's really quite simple to use - you just apply it above your eyelash line before you go to bed every night (on clean and makeup free skin), and the serum will work its magic while you get your beauty sleep in.

They recommend you to use the serum for eight weeks to see good results, so I'm hoping that one bottle will last that long (it is the same size as any mascara). If it works, it'll definitely be a very cheap alternative to having fake eyelashes done every few months!




Oh and one last thing! :) I got caught up in a bit of Throwback Thursday feeling last week and started digging up some old pictures of myself. Have a good rest of the week everyone!

Well, today didn't quite pan out the way I thought! Woke up feeling like death so decided that it was best to stay home and rest instead of going to uni for the day. My morning started with three episodes of The 4400 (amazing supernatural drama, I highly recommend it!) and now that I feel human enough to crawl out of bed, I feet like talking about yesterday and going through the first "phase" of my biotin experiment!

I really wasn't looking forward to our Ikea trip yesterday. I just dislike shopping in general, I'd order absolutely everything online if I could! Furniture and cookware just are things that I want to see before buying them, so off to Ikea we went!

And just to show off my gorgeous new tights a bit! New Look had a 3 for 2 offer the other day when I went to buy new shoes and tights, so grabbed these as the free pair. I had no idea what they'd be like, but I really love them! Sexy and quite "safe" at the same time. Paired them up with this outfit, my leather jacket and a gray/white scarf. Felt surprisingly confident walking around in that outfit! :)


It was actually really manic in Southampton, we must've waited for a good half an hour to even get to the Ikea carpark! I was hoping for a quiet Sunday but no such luck of course! I had my list all ready to go, so we'd be out of there as soon as possible. We still ended up missing a few bits and pieces, but the plan is to spend a day this week to go get them, so we can start settling in finally. :) We got our sofa and bed from Dfs instead of Ikea, as my bad back really needs a good bed and I've never been a big fan of the Ikea sofa designs. They'll still take 4-6 weeks to arrive, going to buy a new mattress for the bed this week so we might sleep on the floor for a while haha!

We unloaded all the bags at the flat last night, but I was missing scissors and dish washing liquid so couldn't do everything I wanted! Every bit of cookware I got that wasn't fully wrapped has to be washed properly before I even think about using them, I've got no idea of knowing who's touched it and what kind of bugs they've been carrying on them at the time. Just the thought of stirring some bugs in my dinner makes me shiver.


Right, it's been a month now since I started taking biotin. There's a big difference already, but let the pictures speak for themselves!

Nail casualties since start: 12.
I had no roots showing at the start of the experiment, I had literally just coloured my hair the week before. And it's worth mentioning that normally my hair growth is very slow, it's usually about 0,5cm a month.



While my nails have snapped several times, they look far healthier than they did. The skin around my nails is a lot better as well, however I'm not sure if that's actually related to taking biotin or not. I no longer get visible layering on my nails, either.


While the growth at this stage isn't madly visible, I can see a huge difference in the ends of my hair. They're not as frizzy as they were a month ago and I have less split ends to worry about. I've really struggled with my ends, as I'd get a lot of L- shaped angles that made my hair look like such a mess.

And on a slightly unrelated note, a comparison picture! I found this picture of myself the other day, it was taken in March last year. Felt like taking a picture in a similar pose was in order to see how much my face has changed, and holy cow it really has! I've still got some loose skin / fat under my skin, but thank goodness it doesn't fold quite that much anymore!

To start off my week I managed to injure my hip somehow! I've got absolutely no clue of how I managed that but since Monday my hip has been incredibly sore and walking causes very nasty stinging pain all across my left hip. Hooray for feeling old and fragile.

And I think I managed to make it worse yesterday. I didn't feel any kind of pain so I thought that I'll go for a walk for the first time all week. Baaaad idea. I came back home with a bucketful of pain and I'm back to limping again.

This has really pushed me back as I was hoping to be really active this week to make up for the lack of exercise and eating out last weekend. And in a way Christmas is still haunting me, this is not the start to the year I was after!

On another note, I've been keeping an eye on my muscle growth recently. Walking / running is still my main form of exercise and it's really started to show recently. I've always struggled finding boots that actually fit me but now it's starting to get near impossible! My tibialis anterior muscle (or in common terms, the muscle on top of your shin bone) has grown so much that it's insanely visible when I tense my leg now. In a way I'm really happy that my progress is so visible, but then again I really don't need the extra challenge with shoes! I've also been considering buying a pair of skinny jeans but how on earth am I meant to fit these legs into skinnies?



Now that my hip isn't feeling great, I'm getting quite lazy with things. I usually spend 10ish minutes with my makeup but the thought of standing up for that long really isn't appealing right now. Off to uni with a natural look it is!


Oh and I found this on my other half's phone a while back, this was taken at a Volbeat gig in late 2011. Scary, isn't it?

I was meant to say this a few days ago but I kept forgetting! My blog had it's 1st birthday on Saturday, thank you everyone who's been a part of my journey so far! I'm definitely going to keep it up this year and hopefully give you guys even more content.

Anyways, the important bit of this post! January 2013 to January 2014.



The pictures on the left really make me want to cry. I keep asking myself how I let myself get that bad before it finally hit me like a brick? I am by no means perfect and thin and healthy yet, but at least I'm getting there and working my ass off to achieve it.

Bikini season 2014 here I come!

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. ;)

My two month plan is in full swing already! I came up with a very quick plan last night and it is something that I should be able to stick to, no matter what my schedule is like during the week. Until the Christmas holidays I've divided my week into two rest days, two resistance training days and three walks. This way I get all my muscle groups working and also get the cardio in. When we finish uni for the year on 20th December I'm probably going to be working until we go back start of January, so I have left those weeks open for now.

I'm going to use Body Revolution for the resistance training. While I'm not doing a full week of BR, I'm using the same pattern with it - a separate day for front and back muscles and swap the workouts every two weeks. I'm hoping that this way I won't plateau during these two months. I'm obviously going to carry on after this plan comes to an end, but I don't like planning too far ahead. :)


And as diet is a huge part of weight loss, I am going to try my hardest to stick to a clean diet. I have been having way too many takeaways for the past month and it's time to stop it. I actually got to test my will power today when I went for lunch with my uni friends, I had a vegetable burger instead of the high fat options on the menu. And my friends being typical guys, I instantly got the "Oh my god you gone vegetarian now?!" treatment when the food arrived... :D

I think I really overdid my walk on Sunday, as my left ankle has been playing up since yesterday. It just aches and stings every time I move my foot or put any weight on the ankle. Argh. I actually skipped my workout yesterday because of it as I was worried that I'll just make it worse by jumping around, but I was just so full of energy tonight that I wanted to do something. I decided to stick to my plan and did a back workout tonight and I'm just going to replace tomorrow's walk with the front workout.

As you all probably know by now, I love posting before & after pictures every now and then. I've nearly been on this journey for a year now and I think it's a good time to compare some pictures! :) So close to the finish line now.

I've wanted to lose weight since I was 13-14 years old. I had always been very concious of the fact that I wasn't thin, and a big part of the boys in my class sure did remind me about it on a regular basis. That kind of comments really hit you hard at that age and it did destroy me mentally.

Anyways. I've always wondered that why I didn't actually do it back then. Why didn't I just go up to my mum and tell her that I wan't to lose some weight and ask for her help. Instead I put up with the nasty comments from people at school for all those years.

I had done so much research about it all, I had such a good base for losing weight. But I just never got started. And it really kept bugging me because I just couldn't place it - why didn't I just start?! Then it hit me last night when I was watching Biggest Loser. One of their nutritionists said this:

"This is what you will eat for the rest of your life."

I realised how scary that sounds to someone who's only starting to drop weight and trying to live a bit healthier. I realised how that thought held me back all those years. Then I started thinking back to all those internet articles I read through as a kid and that same phrase keeps popping up. You must do this for the rest of your life, you must live like this for the rest of your life, this and that for the rest of your life. For a teenager that really sounds very frightening - and it still does now. You can't really grasp the concept of something that long term. You feel like you don't want to plan that far ahead because it restricts you in so many ways. 

When I help people with all this, I just ask them to change their lifestyle. It doesn't sound quite as permanent but it does give the feeling of stability. No point trying to scare people really.

And just to finish off my post, some progress pics, yay! Quite a short comparison time though, the pics on the left are from July and pics on the right from yesterday. I am quite happy though, my arms are way more toned and you can tell that my legs are getting rid of more fat as well (not that there was much of it left down there..).

More about the title in a bit. Just getting the daily food post out of the way first. :) As it's been quite obvious lately in my posts, I'm trying to reduce my carbs and then two weeks before going to Finland I'm going low carb. At the moment I'm trying to have one low carb and one high carb meal. I tried going cold turkey with it a year ago and it just failed miserably, I was just craving carbs 24/7. Maybe being smart about it this time makes it a bit easier..


And now, to the actual thing I wanted to talk about. It basically boils down to feeling way more confident than I used to before starting my weight loss journey. It's very noticable in clothing alone. I used to wear dark clothes, I barely had any colour in my wardrobe. I never actually paid that much attention to it until recently when I actually opened my drawers and saw the increase in colour. I just automatically go for the bright coloured clothing now when I'm shopping, I can't even remember the last black / dark top I've bought. It's not a concious decision really, I just seem to prefer all the cute colours nowadays.



Oh and I can't wait to be able to buy all those skin hugging dresses, pretty skirts and tops. I just seem to be having this eternity project with my thighs at the moment! It is so very painful to be out on a hot day when wearing a skirt and your thighs rub against each other.. On the joys of sweat rash. I made that mistake last week actually, had to walk so much that day and it really backfired. :( Still got the marks on my thighs from that! Oh well, I've got these shaper shorts (pretty similar to these) I bought last year when we went to Rome purely for that purpose, I'll just be rocking those hotties again this summer. :D

I was not expecting -1.6kg!! My weight has been hovering around 78kg the entire week (last week's WI was 77.8kg) so wasn't really thinking that I'd lose that much. Last night before bed the scales gave me 77.1kg and expected that to be the final reading for this week but holy crap, 76.2kg! Such a fantastic result, so happy!

And this month's measurements:

Arms: 32,5cm (33,5cm)
Bust: 99,5cm (102cm)
Waist: 75cm (75cm)
Belly: 95,5cm (95cm)
Thighs: 59,5cm (60,5cm)
Weight: 76,2kg (78,1kg)

I'm still quite fresh out of the operation so I'm guessing the small gain around my belly is just swelling from the op.

And pics. :) To avoid getting a mile long picture in the end I've just put the starting picture, last month and today in this one. Old ones can obviously still be found in the blog.

I think that going through your past is quite important when losing weight. It kinda helps you recognise where it had gone too far, why all this had happened and so on. So here's a small collection of pictures from 2011 to now.

2011

The first two pictures are from February 2011. I was in the middle of college, I think this is the time where I started gaining a lot of weight and fast. I spent the February half term in Finland, I remember getting one of those "You've gained a bit of weight" comments from my mum during this trip. In my eyes I had stayed the same I always had been, but people who don't see you every day pick up on these things so easily.

College was definitely bad for my weight. I'd never take my own lunch to college but instead I'd just buy something from the shop every day. It was never a healthy option, instead I'd go for the white bread and fatty fillings. And crisps. And cookies. And soda. You get the picture.



And this is what it had done to me by Christmas 2011. My weight was around 82kg when these pictures were taken. This is also when I realised that I really need to lose weight. In a way I'm glad that these pictures were taken, otherwise I never would've seen it. It gave me the push I had always needed. I've always been a bit bigger than I should but I never really had the motivation to do something about it.


 2012

By July 2012 I had dropped down to about 73kg. I had a very physical job as a cleaner, I was on my feet 8 hours a day and also cycled to and from work. This paired up with WeightWatchers meant that I was dropping the weight quite fast. I know I wasn't eating enough but I never really was hungry. I'd start my day at 6am, have breakfast at 9.30am and then go through the rest of the workday without eating. Dinner would be between 6pm and 7pm. It did work though and I felt really good about it.


Unfortunately hitting my back at work soon after this picture was taken meant that I had to quit my job. As I was in a lot of pain most of the time I did very little exercise and started eating out of pure boredom. I'd spend most of my days indoors, just sitting on the computer or watching TV. My good eating habits flew out of the window and not working meant that I could no longer subscribe to WeightWatchers either. And so the weight started coming back... The picture below is from August 2012, you can see it so clearly that the fat was making it's way back to my body. 


December 2012. I had hit 84kg at this point. I felt incredibly miserable about losing control over my weight loss. It had been an incredibly difficult year. Going from finishing college, getting a job and losing a lot of weight to losing it all in such a short period of time just crushed my confidence. I just wasn't happy in my body. At all. I was gaining so much weight that some of my favourite clothes didn't fit me anymore. This was the point where I thought that I can't keep living like this, if I gain more weight I will get more and more back issues and the thought of diabetes running in the family just made me stop eating all those Christmas treats. I started losing weight the same day my mum and brother flew back to Finland.

This time I just simply used all the knowledge I had about losing weight instead of signing up for any weight loss programs. And it really worked. I bought Body Revolution mid January, started walking, went swimming.. I also stopped eating all of the junk that we have in the house (crisps, cakes, ice cream and so on). Since then I have allowed myself that occasional treat, as I see little point in depriving myself from all the good stuff.



2013

This picture was taken in April 2013. I was feeling more confident than ever, I had lost quite a bit of weight by April and I dared to wear more skin hugging clothing. Sure, I still had extra weight but I just felt amazing. It was so good to see my friends notice the change.