My life has turned upside down lately! I started a new job roughly three weeks ago now and it's kept me incredibly busy. Having loads of new information thrown at me has really hit my energy levels, so all I've managed to do after work is cook dinner and flop on the sofa for the rest of the night.

My job required me to travel to Birmingham for training for two days before I actually started in the store. It was madly intense and drained me so much that I felt like I wouldn't make it through!! I know it is actually designed to be demanding so the trainers get a chance to see how well people perform under pressure when they're tired.

The train up to London was rather cosy. Luckily my local station is the starting point to the route so I got a seat.

I really enjoyed being up in Birmingham despite it being so manic. If only I knew that there was a 24/7 gym downstairs to my hotel, I would've packed my gym kit! It never even crossed my mind, all I looked at was if the hotel itself had a gym! Lesson learned for next time eh?


Exercise wise it's all been going pretty well! Depending on work I'm hitting the gym twice a week and then try to top it up with long walks whenever I don't feel like absolute death when I get home. ;) But in all honesty my prep for the rowing competition is going really well, my times on the erg are improving every week and I'm going to have some outside help for resistance training soon! It's great having support from a professional when training towards something so demanding, but I'll write about that later on.




Currently I train on the erg once a week, with aiming to do 5k in 30 minutes every time. The difference in my stamina is absolutely insane, and as the photos below show I'm rowing further in the half an hour I set myself! The photo on the left was my second training session, the one on the right my third. I actually hit 5k at 28 minutes last week, so the 200 extra metres was just a chilled stroll to reward myself haha! Gotta enjoy the achievements.


And no post is complete without food! I have to admit, I have had a few too many cheat meals over the past three weeks. Adjusting to a full working week after only working 20 or so hours a week and then having a few weeks off in between jobs has eaten up loads of energy, so the motivation to cook all my meals has been quite low. It's surprisingly stressful starting a new job, trying to do well right from the start and learn everything as quickly as possible and not make mistakes!

Time to crack the whip on myself again!

For several months now I've felt trapped. Trapped doing something I hated more and more by the day. I struggled to find motivation to carry on, but I refused to give up. This spring has dragged on beyond belief. And today was the day when I could finally breathe out and think to myself, that I'm free of it all.

I wrote quite a long post about the wrong "career" choice a while ago. A post about me feeling like I want to help people achieve their fitness related goals, make the world a healthier place one person at a time. A post about how I ended up studying graphic design because it was the convenient choice for me and my back at the time, but now I couldn't be happier to be done with the course.


I was actually scrolling through some recent posts where I've mentioned studying, and the amount of stress I've spoken about is scary. No wonder I've put on weight since Easter, I've just felt really awful about being on this course. I've let myself fall back into bad habits diet wise, I've stopped going to the gym due to lack of energy and I've just not been happy about it at all.

The final deadline for our last project is in a few hours, but I managed to finish everything by about 3pm. I only had a few little bits to do and the thought of having the entire day for it just made it worse! I procrastinated like a king for a while, doing a small section of work and then going back to browsing YouTube or any other website that would take my mind off the work.


And guess what the first thing I did was after submitting? Go for a very long walk. The feeling of being in no rush after such a long time was refreshing. Actually walked the route I used to walk back when I was only in the beginning of my weight loss journey, I went through this long journey in my head and just felt proud of myself, in so many ways at the same time. I went through one of the most difficult years in my life, still managed to drop all this weight (despite gaining a bit back since Easter) and finally found a job I really enjoy.

People are wondering what I'm doing next. Well, quite simple - I'm going to carry on working to save money for a PT course, but that's still at least a year away. Thankfully the shifts I've been given for most of July are mostly split shifts, giving me the opportunity to get back into going to the gym! All these gaps in my shifts are perfect for a quick workout. I really can't wait!


I actually did a quick full body workout tonight while the other half was watching football. Bicep curls, lat raises, basic crunches, chest flies, dead lifts and squats, followed by a very thorough rolling session with my beloved foam roller (my brother actually fell in love with that thing when he was over!). Somehow I've just found all this energy to use up - maybe the stress of my course has actually been making me really passive lately? I don't know. I'm just really happy that energy is there again.


Oh and I'm completely in love with my hair right now! It is the result of a lot of patience and a bit of bleach, hair colour and silver shampoo. It's nice to be blonde again after such a long time, and this time I've almost managed to get to my natural colour! Hooray!

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.

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'm hoping you're all enjoying the new layout I installed (and sorry for anyone who got caught in the middle of it, when I was still tweaking things around)! I felt like I needed a complete change to the feel of the blog after the name change, and this is definitely a breath of fresh air! All the different follow- buttons are in one handy place now. And did you notice, you can also find me on Twitter now!


Thursday, upper body day! I actually really loved the set I planned last week, so apart from one change I ended up going for the same workout. I was going to plan a new one, but when I actually realised I didn't plan one it was already late and I just couldn't be bothered.

While my muscle mass hasn't grown that much since the start of this month, I just wanted to have a look at how I'm doing. You can actually see the player of fat slowly making it's way out of my body! My arms are starting to slim down quite nicely, and that makes me so happy! Still got a little remain of a bingo wing right by my armpit but I'll make sure it won't hang around for too long.



I'm feeling really confident about being beach ready by end of May! I might not actually hit the magical 64kg if I carry on the way I have been at the gym, but that really doesn't bother me at this point. :) I can see my body change for the better on a daily basis, and as long as those inches melt away I'll be more than pleased.

Do you guys ever have days, when you just feel so euphoric and happy? My incredible mood was fully down to to going to the gym in the morning, but oh my god how good I felt afterwards! More on that in a bit. ;)

I found a nice recipe for non-bake brownies (Finnish only) a while back, and I've been dying to try them ever since! I finally got most of the ingredients last night, so decided to give it a go! I forgot to get some honey and because I didn't look properly, bought two lots of chocolate instead of chocolate and cocoa powder (because you know, I figured that the stuff in the tube would've been cocoa powder but guess I was wrong). Also forgot to get honey so used a tablespoon of sugar, plus didn't get any Kalahari salt because I have no clue where to get any. The chocolate used in the original recipe is "raw" chocolate as well, I just used roughly 50g of normal chocolate meant for baking and a tablespoon of sugar.

Anyways! Here's the original recipe shown in the blog (1dl equals roughly half a cup):
2dl walnuts
1dl cashews
1dl almonds (pre soaked)
10 dates
1dl coconut flakes
1tsp Kalahari salt
30g cocoa butter, 30g cocoa mass and 1tsp honey melted together

These amounts are rough estimates, but it seemed to work for my trial batch. 

 
You really don't need to be a genius to figure this one out. You get a food processor, grind up all the nuts and then throw in the dates (I left the nuts a bit chunky, but you could literally just grind the entire thing to a paste). After you've melted the chocolate, you simply mix the nuts and chocolate together and spread the mix onto a baking tray. Stick it in the freezer to set for a while and you're done!

I was definitely missing the sweetness you'd get from honey and the coconut flakes. Now it's pretty much just nut mix with some chocolate. :D They were really good, though! A great little post-workout snack. My first lot really looked nothing like the stuff I saw on the blog, but nevermind! It'll go down the same way. And I've got enough nuts and dates for at least one more go, maybe I'll fine tune the recipe a bit and see what happens.


But yeah, back to feeling amazing! I had a bit of a lay in today, and once I managed to drag myself out of bed I headed straight for the gym to get the workout out of the way I had planned for last Friday. It's really odd how addicted to working out I'm getting now, maybe it's my Body By Vi shakes providing an incredible side effect or something!

Speaking of Body By Vi, I'm really seeing results already! Maybe it's just the decrease in carbs I'm eating over the day, but my tummy has gone down slightly! Even if it's just water and general bloating leaving my system, I'm not complaining! I'm quite looking forward to my weigh in next Sunday, see how well I've done so far! :)


As I was feeling so great, I figured that I'll slip into my fabulously pink jeans before heading out for a family dinner. These jeans are by far my favourites, but they really need a day when I'm feeling super positive and confident or I'll feel really awkward. I mean, they're not the most discreet pair of jeans around, are they? :D

Being able to wear these jeans is such an achievement for me both physically and mentally. I'm the lightest I have been since I was 17, and that is giving me such a confidence boost. And I look far better than I did back then, I'm actually in the process of toning up instead of slowly gaining weight.


It's the last day of my half term today. In a way I'm glad I'm heading back to uni, as I've really felt isolated this week. Apart from my other half and people at work I've barely spent any time with people or even spoken to anyone properly. Felt a bit like an outsider this week.

I've been feeling really under the weather all day. Some kind of a bug has made it's way into my system, and that's just put a stop to everything today. I've felt really rotten, weak and achy, so my workout had to be pushed to the weekend. Really annoyed about that, I have such a nice workout planned and I wanted to go and do it today! Nevermind, I'll probably do it Sunday morning.

Yesterday.

I really got into a nice rhythm at the gym yesterday, and I'm still quite hyped up about it. I planned a very simple lower body workout for myself, but I'm still feeling it when I sit down haha! Like I said I would, I bumped up the weight on the leg press by 10kg (went for 52-52-61). While it felt a lot harder than last time, I reckon I could increase the weight to 70ish next week. Just to think that I'm going to be able to press my own bodyweight soon - so proud of myself!

It's really great to see progress every single week. Even if I don't increase weights, I see the definition in my muscles more and more. While it's not quite flex worthy yet, my quads are really starting to "stick out" from underneath my skin (and I'm loving it!). My other half constantly tells me to stop admiring myself, hah! My muscles are really getting to the stage I'm happy with, all I need now is to lose the fat covering them up! 

Made the mistake of buying normal yoghurt and then had some - my stomach wasn't best pleased yesterday..

As I've been feeling ill today, my day really hasn't been that productive. I've rediscovered my love for League of Legends, and happily spent my day playing and messing around. This actually got me thinking about the stereotypes attached to gaming. We can all probably agree on the stereotypical gamer - overweight, neglects personal hygiene, lives with their mum til late 20s and so on. But over the years I've played online games I've noticed that the majority of the people I know are not like this at all. And even if some people are, does it matter? Sure, it worries me if people literally spend all day sitting down and eating junk, but it's not my place to judge people and tell them what to do. I almost got to that stage myself a few years back when I isolated myself from the world, but I'm just glad my mum always cooked healthy meals and we didn't really have anything that unhealthy around the house. Thanks mum. ♥


I've really started taking advantage of leftovers. We had some nice chicken in a tomato & basil sauce with rice yesterday, and I just ended up heating up the leftover chicken with roast potatoes and red onions for dinner today. I try not to leave the leftovers in the fridge for too long, so it doesn't go bad and end up in the bin. It's easy to save money when you think ahead with cooking. Luckily the supermarket industry over in England is so competetive, that you get food really cheap in any shop you go to. In comparison Finland only really has two different chains and food is really expensive in both of them. Lidl has pushed it's way in but I don't think it's really doing that well over there.

Chicken in a tomato & garlic sauce with roast potatoes and red onions (they're not burn, I promise! :D).

Hope you all have a great weekend! Mine will be filled with work and a family dinner on Sunday, can't wait!

I'm so in love with the fact, that it only takes me 5ish minutes to get to the gym now. Just the thought of getting out of bed in the morning, finding my gym kit and walking to the gym is pure gold! ♥ I love going to the gym enough as it is, and actually having it so close is making me go a bit nuts!

As it's Wednesday, it was my cardio day. 25 minutes on the treadmill followed by a few core exercises and 15 minutes on the elliptical. I really should try rowing and cycling as well, but I'm just a bit worried that they'll put too much pressure on my back and I'll end up getting injured again. Better to play it safe for now and see how things evolve in the next few months.


My stomach really didn't react well to half a litre of milk yesterday, so popped into the shop on my way home from the gym and got some soya milk. I did mention my potential lactose intolerance not so long ago, but never got around to getting myself tested and all the symptoms vanished for a while so I forgot about it. But now that I'm actively drinking milk again, all the symptoms came back and I figured that it's better to give soya milk a go and see how my stomach handles it.

I've gotta say, the soya has really helped! On top of making my stomach calm down, the shake mix doesn't taste quite as sickly sweet as it did with milk. Think this is my choice of milk from now on! I can't really even taste the difference between normal milk and the soya version, so in the long run it doesn't even matter that much. The soya milk is obviously more expensive, but I think I'd rather pay a bit extra for it than suffer with stomach pains every day for the next three months.


My lunch today was literally a chocolate explosion! I decided to try the chocolate flavouring with my shake and also grabbed one of the chocolate chip cookies haha! The chocolate flavouring isn't as strong as the strawberry one, and my shake didn't really taste that different to the normal version.


I've actually got a massive craving for brownies right now, and I'd have the perfect healthy recipe for them. Just not quite sure if Tesco Express stocks the ingredients I need to make them. Hmm. Worth walking down the road to check? My cravings are saying hell yes, but my legs are sore from earlier!

Some of you guys might have noticed it already, but the blog has changed it's name! I've wanted to rename my blog for such a long time now, and originally I was going to wait until I'm done with losing weight. I just got rather impatient and went ahead with it already, so welcome to RiaFit! :) You can access the blog through riafit.co.uk now, but the original Blogger address will work just fine as well.

I know it's the first day of my challenge, but I'm feeling great! My energy levels have been stable throughout the day and I'm really enjoying the shakes as well. The basic shake mix tastes exactly like Fox's Golden Crunch biscuits, which is absolutely amazing to say the least! The shake is quite sweet, and for someone who really doesn't have that much sugar, it's going to take some getting used to. I don't really mind it, it'll settle my sweet tooth for sure.


On top of my two shakes, I've had one of the cookies that came with the kit, a vanilla crown, a few cups of coffee, dinner and a 10kcal pot of jelly. I did feel a bit hungry in the morning between the shakes, but having the two snacks settled my tummy enough to last til the next meal.

Gotta say, the peanut butter cookies didn't quite convince me. To me a cookie has to be sweet, so the salty taste of peanuts did ruin it a bit for me. Don't get me wrong, it was still really nice and the crunchy & chewy texture was scrummy, but don't think that I'll be stocking my shelves with peanut butter cookies anytime soon! ;)

On top of the two supplements I'm still taking my biotin every day - that makes it three pills to take in the morning (+ another fish oil after dinner)! The fish oil is absolutely enormous - I'm really not a big fan of taking any pills, so it does kinda make me feel a bit nervous. I'm just scared of the fact that it might get stuck in my throat, hah!


And just to track my progress during the challenge, some pics! My weight this morning was 71,5kg, I'm really hoping to get as close to the 64kg mark as possible during the next three months. Fingers crossed! I'm looking to stick to my three gym days a week and chilled walks when I feel like it. I do quite a bit of walking around and heavy lifting at work, so all of this combined should give me a nice balance.


We've been quite busy cleaning up at the flat today. We had a massive pile of cardboard boxes and general rubbish in the lounge, and I was pretty desperate to get rid of it. The entire flat just looks more homely without it all in the way, you know? And now I won't feel bad about inviting friends over, I won't feel like we are living in the boxes!

Outfit of the day.

Last night's dinner: sweet potato, chickpeaas, ground beef, tomatoes and salad.

Spicy chicken pizza and lots of salad on the side - yum!

Ready for the challenge? You can join me by heading over to the Body By Vi website!