I'm so determined to finish off my weight loss project by the end of the summer. So determined that I've actually signed up for a 6 week intensive exercise and diet plan made by a Finnish company called FitFarm.

I obviously can't share too much about this whole thing as it's a paid service and me dishing out the bits of it for free would violate the terms of the "contract". I will however talk about my general progress, how this plan is making me feel and so on. I placed myself in group 2, which is for people looking to lose 10-20kg. I mean I'm not going to be too disappointed if I don't lose all the weight I'm still looking to lose, but even half of it would be absolutely great. I just need that little push to get off this plateau I seem to be stuck at right now.


Taken from my Instagram, prepping the paperwork.

I'm a bit of an obsessive person about certain things, so I've written down the week 1 diet plan on a bit of paper so I can stick it on the fridge. I've also gone to Holland & Barrett to buy all the supplement goodies they recommend to use during the plan + a massive stack of little plastic containers for lunches.


The most difficult part of this whole thing is definitely going to be the eating part. I work really long hours and I don't get to come home during the day (apart from Monday and Friday), so I need to be able to have my lunch in a sealable container. Thankfully Poundland was able to supply me with those, and I am actually going to do a bit of meal prepping for the next six weeks! Thankfully the lunches are perfectly fine cold, so in that sense it won't be an issue at all. I just need to get into the habit of cooking a lot of meat in one batch and then just divide it into enough containers to last me for a week!

And just because the plan isn't a big enough challenge, we are having a team dinner a week into the whole thing! Our department is paying for it all and I'm worried that I'll end up eating and drinking far more than I think I should because I'll know it's free!

I'm actually really excited to get started with this, it'll be something completely new and fresh so I definitely won't be getting bored of it - and only lasting for six weeks and the plans changing every few weeks, how can I?

As I mentioned yesterday, we are moving house soon. Well, it's official now! :) We are looking into moving into the new place by the start of February. This is so very exciting, our first flat together! This does of course mean a tedious trip to Ikea in the near future - I'm really not looking forward to hours of trodding through the maze that is Ikea.

I actually spent a good while listing all the things we need and I was surprised how many bits and pieces we need for our kitchen. I love cooking and having a lot of different equipment and gadgets does make my life so much easier. Being creative with food does require a bit of assistance at times. :)


So what does this mean fitness wise? Well, me being able to go to the gym whenever I want really! No need to rely on buses anymore, I can just do a quick warmup in the form of walking ten minutes to the gym and get started! Very excited to be so close to a gym, I have a feeling it'll be my second home from now on! And as the gym is open 24/7 I can aim for the quiet periods whenever I can.

I've been trying to figure out what kind of a routine to follow at the gym, and I've settled for a modified version of Stronglifts 5x5. I will probably start with lighter weights than it says on the program, as I am still a bit worried about my back playing up if I start too heavy. I'm in no massive rush to hit the heavy weights as I am mainly looking to tone up instead of bulking up.

This blog will start to lean towards a lot of working out again, hooray!

I've kind of had an idea of when I want to reach my target weight by. Ever since I started I had the magical time frame of one and a half years in mind and with my current pace I'm sticking to that target pretty well. Originally I thought that it'd be nice to be done with losing weight by end of June, but now I've got a new date in mind!

A huge chunk of my closest friends live in different countries so I only get to see them once or twice a year when we gather up in either Holland or London. Our latest meetup was last October for my birthday, so it's been a while now! One of my friends messaged me earlier today about wanting to have everyone over for her birthday in May so that's my new target! Looking to fly over on 16th May, so until then I'm going to work my butt off and eat as clean as I possible can. I also placed a bet with my other half because he doesn't think I can stay away from curries for so long - if I don't have any takeaway for seventeen weeks he will give me £20! :D That'll pay for one hell of a takeaway haha!


Oh and things are getting rather exciting in our lives now, as we are looking to move house! The one we have in mind right now is really close to town, which would mean incredibly easy access to my new gym (hopefully I'll manage to arrange a meeting with the gym owner for Wendesday so I can get started) and a swimming pool as well! Was thinking of doing three weight training days and one day of cardio (either at the gym or swimming pool), maybe throw in a few walks as well depending on my schedule.

But yeah, it's all exciting at the moment!

It's done! Magazine done, printed, bound, presented and handed in! You will have to wait until it's been graded to see the final outcome, but I think I could show a few pages of it to you lot. ;) It's been printed on this really beautiful textured paper and I used salmon colour wallpaper as the covers, I'm just so very proud of what I've produced and hopefully it'll come back as something else than a pass. I've just worked way too hard for it to get a pass!

For people who aren't familiar with this project, we were asked to create a magazine about homeless people. It could be for or against homeless people, it could be to raise awareness, it could be something you can actually give to the homeless (like a survival guide etc).. Anything at all. I went for a very typography heavy piece about a person's journey from living the good life to losing it all and recovering again. It's been one hell of a project, I'm very tired and just happy that it's over.



As I'm getting so much time to myself for a few weeks, I've decided to be nice to myself and really enjoy it. There's a few things I really want to do and maybe I'll have the time to try something new as well. :)

I want to read more. I figured out that I can download the Kindle app on my tablet and even download my Kindle library on it so I've rediscovered my love for reading! And what makes things even better is that Robert Fabbri's next book about Vespasian (Rome's Fallen Eagle) came out not so long ago (even though the release date is 2nd January I was still able to download it) and I've been burning to get into it properly, but with the deadline I've just had to put it off. Looking forward to late nights snuggled in bed with a book!


Go running. I got to a nice start a few weeks ago and then I had to drop everything in order to get my uni stuff done. I really miss going for a long walk or run, it's just one of those things that clears my head and gets rid of so much stress.

Get back into an exercise routine. I'm talking about resistance training now. I don't quite know what yet, maybe start going to the gym again or maybe do stuff at home. I just need to get back into it desperately as I know my core muscle strength is getting worse.

Sleep! I'm just going to have late mornings and let my body recover.

And of course, might do a bit of shopping as well to treat myself. :) I'm quite getting into the idea of wearing skirts and dresses on a daily basis now, just need to fill my wardrobe with some first! And I definitely need new shoes since I've had to give up on wearing heels, I need some pretty flats to replace all my heels.


And just to try and spread a bit of holiday cheer, a picture my other half took yesterday. I think this will be the amount of holiday spirit I can manage. :D

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 was going to post a separate weigh in rant but as I only lost 100g it would've just contained swear words and such. So yeah, thought that it's better to wait a bit and post other stuff in the same thing. :)

At least I'm in even figures now - 12kg lost. I keep saying that I will get back on top of it but now that it's the end of my half term and the winter term is starting tomorrow, I'm actually going to draft a plan for myself for the rest of the year and stick to it, no matter what. It'll go on the wall next to my computer, so it'll stare at me all the time when I'm doing something.

Someone moved my coffee table! I haven't posted any exercise outfit pics for ages (mainly because I haven't had the need to wear any...) and now that I actually went for a long, fast paced walk and wore the approriate clothing, the coffee table was gone! It is in the lounge but I'm too weak to move it to it's original place, so you'll just have to put up with this temporarily.


The weather was so odd today. It was pretty windy and chilly, but when I hit a sunny patch it was so warm that I wanted to take my hoodie off. Then again I've been feeling a bit under the weather for a few days so I could've just made it worse by taking it off.



And now to the exciting bit! THOOOOOOOOOR! I've been so excited about this film for ages! Tom Hiddleston and Kat Dennings are some of my favourite actors and as I am a geek, all kinds of superheroes are exactly my kind of thing. ;) When I watch Marvel's films I keep thinking that I should start reading the comics to really get into the lore of it all. That's what I really love about fantasy / sci-fi, there's just so much room for history, small details and other things you just can't come up with when dealing with real stuff.

Sometimes I do come up with short background stories for characters, but I never end up writing them down. I think I'd have about a book's worth of characters written down by now if I did. Well, maybe not a book. But just for my own entertainment and something to read back to when I'm bored.


Ok I'm just going to stop letting the geek out and start planning this exercise schedule. ;)

It's been a good day today! Got up relatively early and headed out pretty much first thing this morning. We actually had an appointment with a mortgage advisor, just talking through our options and so on. :)

The other half also decided to treat me to lunch after our appointment so we went to Subway. I really fell in love with their mango chicken a while ago so went for that again on honey oat bread and a bunch of veg. While it's probably one of the "best" takeaways you could have, I did feel a small guilty sting after.


And that kinda brings us to the post title. I didn't want to end up just sitting indoors all day despite the weather being miserable outside, so I decided to defy the elements and go for a walk in the rain! I really want tomorrow's weigh in to be good and this walk definitely made me feel a bit better about myself. I know I've lost weight this week, I just want to make sure any possible water weight doesn't creep up because of lunch (yes, I'm getting that paranoid about it!!).

And it's handy to know that my waterproof makeup really is waterproof! No smears, no panda eyes, yay!


Oh and to add up to the happiness, I got a job interview! Perfect location, perfect hours. Fingers crossed.

Let's start this post with a nice little update: the silly 900g gain yesterday is all gone already, which just proves my theory of my body just being in a bit of a shock from the increased amount of exercise. :)


Right. I'm getting on with my UP really nicely already. It's barely noticable when you're getting on with your business (apart from when typing on the computer as you do need to rest your wrist on the desk) and didn't have any issues with it last night when I was trying to settle down and sleep. Unfortunately I had to wait until 6pm to sync my data with the app as my other half was working all day, but here's the stats from last night and today!

• Total of 8hr 38min in bed
• Fell asleep in 16min
• Light sleep 4hr 50min
• Deep sleep 3hr 32min
• According to UP I didn't wake up at all during the night, but I do remember doing so a few times
• Didn't get to test the alarm system as I kept waking up all morning :D

And by 6pm I had done 7,841 steps. :) I went for a short walk in the afternoon and done a bit of housework around the house. Hitting 10k is a lot easier than you'd think! I bet a lot of people just see a big number and think that there's no way you can reach it, but it only really takes roughly an hour of walking and then doing stuff around the house.

Today was meant to be a gym day but my other half had quite a long day at work and lots of driving there and back so we decided to postpone gymming til tomorrow evening. I did kinda see it coming so I planned a quick leg workout for myself. Just a simple, basic workout with dumbbells for some extra resistance. The workout itself was about 15 minutes, but I got insane burn in my legs in that time. Didn't want a long workout anyways at it was getting quite late.

And just to test out my new camera's video function, here's screen caps of my workout! :) I probably won't be doing a lot of this at the gym as I do feel a bit silly taking pictures / video of myself in front of people but I'll post my home workouts on my blog whenever I happen to do them. Blurry images but can't do much about it as they are just still images of the video. :p And no tripod yet so had to rely on a drawer, will have a better angle for future snaps.

1. Squat and press

I love days like today. It really takes a while for a person to notice their weight loss, in fact it wasn't long ago when I even mentioned it in the blog (the video post). Well that's finally changed! I happened to walk past a mirror after I took a shower this morning and for the first time I just went "Oh my god I can see the difference!" to myself. It really made my day start off brilliantly, still in a really good mood about it.

Lunch was a nice mix of my favourite things. Pasta, salmon, sweetcorn, peas, beetroot and a bit of grated parmesan. Very simple, very quick to make and really healthy (pasta was wholewheat + a small handful of normal pasta to top it up, didn't have enough wholewheat pasta in the cupboards! :( ).



I really like the top I was wearing today. However, it is slightly seethrough so I need to wear another top under it. HUGE mistake... It turned out to be very hot outside despite it not really looking like it (lots of clouds when I left, windy etc..) so wearing two tops really made me sweat like a little pig. And I couldn't really take the pink top off and just finish my walk in the white top as it's slightly seethrough as well (as in, you could see my pink sports bra through it and bras showing through tops is something I can't stand). Need to buy a skin coloured sports bra so I get rid of that problem.. :D







I can never get fed up with the fact of how wonderful dogs are. They are always so happy to see me come home, doesn't matter if I'm out for 10 minutes or all day. I always have three happy dog faces greeting me when I come home. Especially the younger ones just split in half because they're so happy that someone's home.


I was talking to a friend about my weight loss so far and how much I've still got to lose. He was so impressed that I've lost 8kg already, to me it's always been "oh I'm slow, couldv'e done better". In all fairness I am more than happy with what I've managed to achieve so far and will be over the moon if I manage to drop another 8kg by the end of the year. :) That'd bring me below 70kg, can't even remember the last time I've been below that number.

Right, this post is going to be full of other people's pictures as these are things I've never had the chance to go and see. :) Please note that I do not own these pictures, all the copyright details will be at the end of the post.

These are the competetive sports I'd love to do once I'm out of surgery, fully recovered and done losing weight. At the moment they're just all dreams and plans, we'll see if any of these things will ever materialise.

Roller derby


I used to watch this TV show Rollergirls a few years back and I got into the idea of roller derby straight away. I don't quite have a single reason why I liked the thought of it - just the adrenaline rush, an all girl sport and the outfits just made me go "wow". And I've never been scared of getting bruised (growing up on a farm, always climbing in trees etc).



Pole dancing (not the slutty strip club kind!)


I have so much respect for these women. The control they have over their bodies, their flexibility and grace is just so admirable.. I'd say Oona Kivelä, the World Champion of poledancing is my inspiration with all this. Just look at that. She has incredibly amounts of strength without looking like the Hulk. How can you not want to be able to do stuff like that?

And of course this is a highly sexy sport.



Bikini fitness


The only downside to bikini fitness is the fact that so many girls get fake boobs. I understand that you do lose your chest when you try to get rid of all your bodyfat, but I just dislike the look of fake boobs when you can tell that they're fake. You just can't hide the edges of the implants when there's next to no fat on your body. But out of all the fitness categories I feel like bikini fitness would be my thing, as I don't really want to have visible muscles. I'm aiming more towards having lean muscle.

I'm so glad I've got something to work towards. I haven't quite decided what I want to do or if I even get to do any of this on a professional level. Only time will tell.

Sources:
Mike Rowe (licence)
Alex Thompson (licence)
Marko Vallius (licence)