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!

A new look for the blog again! What do you guys think? :) I really liked the old one, but it was really broken code wise and I couldn't get things to work. This one should also be a bit more user friendly if you're browsing on a tablet / small screen.

I'm really starting to be bad at finding the motivation to go to uni! I mean, I do work at home but showing my face at uni every now and then wouldn't hurt. We've only really got a few weeks left of this year, so I really feel like I can achieve the same things at home I would by going into the studio.


To pump up my energy towards uni work, I wanted to take advantage of the incredible weather and go for a quick walk earlier. I was trying to decide whether or not I should take a hoodie with me, and I'm really glad I did in the end. Despite it being really sunny, the wind at the seafront was awful! Even the seagulls were side stepping to avoid falling over!



My weekend is going to be incredibly busy with work. The resort is having an adult only weekend, meaning late night venues, lots of hen/stag parties and so on. And in turn it means that us photographers need to be present with cameras, capturing all those memories for people. :) Should be a fun weekend! Also going out with the team tomorrow night after work.


Oh and our trip to Holland is fast approaching! Heading over to the land of Dutchies next Friday. :) I'm so excited about this trip, I haven't seen this bunch of people for such a long time (since last October in fact!), it'll be great to get together again and have a fantastic weekend together. These friends really make me feel like I belong to a group of some kind, so I'm determined to make the most of our weekend away.

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.

After a very long soak in the bath earlier tonight I'm feeling human enough to write! It's been a very long day today, but more about that in a bit.

I'm still (getting just a bit annoying now!) recovering from my hip injury, but just couldn't resist going for a walk yesterday. In a way a bad idea as I did feel a bit of a sting every now and then, but on the upside I felt absolutely amazing afterwards. I've really been careful with my hip for weeks now and it was driving me nuts, I just need my exercise to stay happy and alert.

We've had quite a few storm warnings across the country again, and oh my god it really was windy again! I wanted to sit down at the beach for a while and just take the fresh air in, but it was actually so windy that I got cold after a few minutes! Not fair I say.

I've been pretty active with writing articles since being invited to join the Answers.com team, and my third one has been published! This time I wanted to have a bit of a rant about all the weight loss information that's available to us online and in books, you can read the full article here! Time for a creative break now I feel, I'm trying to come up with some unique ideas to write about and it's not easy!

We spent most of today in Brighton to get some footage for our uni projects. I was expecting it to be quite chilly but chilly was an understatement! The wind was so freezing and standing still for ages really made us all freeze up completely. To make things worse, I only slept for roughly three hours last night due to some rather upsetting stuff going through my head. I was far from awake all afternoon and we didn't even stop for lunch during the day. We only had a chance to eat after getting back to uni around 6pm, by that time I was so hungry I probably would've started eating my own fingers if I had to wait for much longer.


And my plan for the rest of the night includes Revenge, Breaking Bad and bed. Had a long soak in the bath as I mentioned, my back really didn't agree with the cold so I've been quite achy since we left Brighton. The warm water really helped my muscles relax, feeling just a bit more human again. :)

It's been a fun few days! We got to mess around with film cameras at uni yesterday (I felt like Chris looked hilarious with it as he's so tiny) and create short intros. The task was to drop something from a height and film it from two angles at the same time, then mash it all up into one seamless intro. The guys actually ended up climbing on a big container and dropping a brick all the way down to the pavement. :D Despite it being freezing outside, it was good fun and it's nice to get the practical work in this early in the project. Gives you freedom and experience with the equipment (even though I don't think I'll end up using video in mine).


As our move in- date gets closer, I'm starting my nesting phase! I've made a long shopping list and I was just going through it last night, making little notes and planning what to get. I was pretty much glued to the Ikea website, as I was trying to find plates and pots I like. I'm even considering getting myself a set of enamel cookware, as I do cook a lot and I think that enamel is far better than any other cookware material out there. And my favourite Italian Gino D'Acampo has released a small set of enamel pots and pans for a very reasonable price, would be silly not to! Before I've only seen Rachael Ray's set that was well over £150 and for my current budget that's just far too much, but Gino's set is a very affordable £40. :)


My blog makes it quite obvious, that I like to cook simple. Unless I've got a lot of time to spare and it's a special occasion, my cooking is very basic. But then again, even simple food can be delicious! Today's lunch consisted of pasta, salmon, peas & sweet corn mix, a dollop of creme fraiche and sweet chilli sauce. It's one of my go to- dishes if I'm out of ideas, just need to replace the white pasta to whole wheat and it'll be completely guilt free. ;)

I will hopefully start posting more recipes in the near future, as I am finally going to invest in a digital food scale! This way I can include all the nutritional information in the recipe, making it easier for all you nutrition conscious people to plan your meals!


So far my clean eating plan is going quite smoothly. I told Chris off for wanting McDonalds yesterday after uni (even though I was absolutely starving and would've loved to have a burger!), and so far I've resisted the chocolates! We've got this massive bowl of chocolates in the kitchen that were left over from Christmas (and mum brought some Geisha chocolates over from Finland), and it's screaming my name every time I'm down there! I actually picked one up after lunch and was about to unwrap it, but didn't give into the temptation and put it back in the bowl.


I may have been a bit too hasty, when I said that I'd be writing two articles a month for Answers.com. I've got a lot to say and I couldn't help writing another article! It should be published very shortly, I will of course share the link with you guys again! :)

Getting back to my usual routine has been more than welcome. While I was still working over the Christmas holiday, I always had odd days off so towards the end of the holiday I was just completely mixed up with days and on Sunday I actually thought that it was Thursday..

I did absolutely no uni work over the holidays and I've got so much catching up to do this week. I don't mind though, keeps my mind occupied when I'm not at uni / work. We did get kicked out from our Mac studio for the entire day though and we had to put up with the horrible PCs every other student around the college use every day. Slow and horrible machines and I'm so used to working with Macs, the amount of mini meltdowns we had on the PCs was hilarious.. :D


Really looking forward to tomorrow now, according to the weather forecast it should be another sunny day! It's so nice of the weather to be nice when I've got a day off, I actually get to enjoy it instead of having to admire the amazing weather from behind a computer at uni! Maybe I'll spend a few hours just going through new running / walking routes around town, I just follow the same few routes every time and it's getting a bit dull! I've lived here for nearly four years now, I should be far more familiar with the town than I am.


And now it's time to enjoy some lovely chicken pizza and laugh at silly trolls on the internet. ♥ 

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

This month has dragged so bad weight loss wise. It's been really frustrating to have all these uni committments and work just dragging everything down. I'm just so looking forward to having a break from uni work for the best part of a month (our deadline is Tuesday and we won't start a new project until January), gives me a proper chance to get back into exercising and looking after myself.

And measurements. Not even going to post the pictures as there's absolutely no change at all from last month.

Arms: 30cm (30cm)
Bust: 97,5cm (99cm)
Waist: 72,5cm (72,5cm)
Belly: 91cm (90,5cm)
Thighs: 57cm (57,5cm)
Weight: 71,3kg (72kg)

But on a happier note, I've finished my uni project! Just needs printing out properly at uni but it's done! 

And I have a target for myself: I want to be out of the 70s by my next progress check in January!

It's amazing how everything else gets pushed aside when there's a big deadline coming up. I haven't had the energy for exercise or blogging at all with all my uni stuff lately. Final deadline is on Monday (or Tuesday, that's when we do our evaluations) and I've still got loads to do so this'll be a sweet n short post to let you all know that I'm still alive! :D

It's really coming down to the fine details now. I've been tracing fonts on a separate bit of paper to "create" my own font to use in the final magazine, created tons of mockups of it and now I'm at the stage where I just need to put it all together and print it off. After Monday I can finally breathe and relax again, get back to exercising properly and actually recharge my batteries for the next term.


Right now all I'm hoping is that the project is a pass (our grading system is pass - merit - distinction) as I am just really drained and quite done with this project. For our first project it's just been so much to manage - we've been asked to be an editor, a designer, a photographer, a researcher and a journalist for this project, which just is a bit much in my opinion. Then again this is the very first year of the course I'm on so we are the guinea pigs.

I really stepped out of my comfort zone clothes wise today. I don't think I've ever worn something this short and it really made me feel self conscious all day. I just kept tugging my top down and making sure my shirt wasn't wonky! :D Then again I did quite like it, it's just me not being used to clothing like this at all. I've just never had the body to wear anything like this.

Oh and I do like it how the angle in the picture is making me look waaaay taller than I really am.


I've been meaning to mention this for a while now - new handbag yay! I'm not really bothered with accessorising usually and I use the same bag for everything, so actually buying a new bag just for the fun of it is something very weird of me. My friend introduced me to this second hand vintage shop called Rokit a few weeks ago and I just found this absolute gem in the bag section. Rokit is exactly like any second hand shop really, once you've bought an item it gets removed from the website and nobody else will have the same item (or well, obviously if anyone has kept their old clothes etc they will).

And this is what I found - a very adorable pirate themed bag from Betsey Johnson. I only paid £30 for it, which is an absolute bargain compared to the prices of her new bags!


Oh and last weeks weigh in - huuuge gain because of the night before.. :p Christmas do at a Chinese restaurant, you can just imagine the amount of salt in the food + alcohol. Hah.

I'm finally getting into the final design of our first project. I was really struggling with ideas for such a long time and the stuff I came up with was so boring, that I was ready to give up. Then it just kinda hit me when I was playing games one night (see, it's not a bad hobby!) - I want to make a journal of someone's journey from having it all, slowly losing it, facing the reality of thousands of homeless people and then working their way out of it with the help of a charity worker.

And this idea came from Alice: Madness Returns. It's a really funky version of Alice in Wonderland, basically Alice lost her family in a fire and created Wonderland to keep herself sane. Something is corrputing Wonderland and making it a very f'd up place, getting more and more insane as the story goes on. In the end Alice finds the thing corrupting Wonderland and gets rid of it - maybe the person writing this journal will also discover something similar? Maybe money and luxury isn't what keeps people happy?

I want to make this magazine / booklet as shocking as it can be. It will be aimed at people who think they are safe behind all their money and luxuries, but don't realise how fragile that safety net really is. I'm hoping that it will have a big impact on everyone who reads it.

And as it's a journal, I actually bought a nice journal yesterday so I can completely destroy it and make it look like it's been on the streets for a while (I can then scan it in and retouch it with Photoshop etc). I've done so much to it today - burn it, throw it in dirt, pour tea and coffee all over it, tear the pages, crunch it up, bend the covers, squish some leaves between the pages.... Such a fun thing to do. And a result the pages started looking like a Flake. :D

... it's a bit worrying how I connect something so random to chocolate.




I also noticed a funny thing when I was going out for a walk this morning. My body shape is really starting to change now that I've lost so much weight. I've always been a very curvy hourglass, but lately it looks like I'm turning into a pear. I don't really mind it as I do quite like the pear shape, but then again I wouldn't mind staying an hourglass either. Oh well, it's a win win situation in a way, hah.

My face was far from photogenic in the left side picture, ignore the scribble. ;)


I've recently started following Fitspiration on Facebook. They posted this amazing quote earlier today and it really made me appreciate Jennifer Lawrence even more. As an actress she's quite unknown to me, I don't think I've seen any of her films apart from X-Men: First Class. But as a person she's always fascinated me, she's so down to earth and doesn't make a massive deal out of being famous. But the fact that she wants to be a healthy role model to young girls is just incredible. This is definitely the kind of thin I want to be like - have my head screwed on instead of going absolutely mental and try to achieve the size 0. Looking healthy beats looking skinny any day. Virtual high five Jennifer!

It's been an oddly active weekend for me! I really don't do much in the evenings, I'm just one of those people who likes to stay at home and watch TV or play games most of the time. More about that in a bit though. :)

I really love Fridays at uni as it's our photography day. We look into different graphic designers and photographers, what their work is like and think about the relevance of their work to our own project. This week we got to create a graffiti wall to use in our magazines and it was so much fun! Just going nuts with a bit of paint, spray cans, stencils, tape and photos to create something like this was just brilliant.

This was really a team work exercise as well, as there was five of us working on this. :) I really love my group, the guys are amazing! I think that's a really good thing about having such a small group, you just get to know each other a lot faster than you would if there was 20+ of us.

Hooray, after a week of waiting my jeans are finally here! I ordered one pair of jeans and then these very old school corduroy trousers (I do kinda call them jeans though, no clue why). The trousers are just a tiny bit too small for me at the moment but that's fine, just something else to work towards. ;) The jeans are lovely though, I really like the quality of the fabric H&M produces.


I said this like six months ago, but I'm going to say it again. Why the hell are my feet so pale?! They're blending in with our carpets, seriously... :D I look like I've got no feet in the picture on the right. Wonder if I should get spray tan just for my feet haha!

We had an employability / business event today instead of a normal uni day. In a way a bit annoying as we had to be in by 8.45 instead of our usual 13.15 start on Thursdays. I was really expecting it to be a very specific graphics oriented event, but turned out that it was for the entire higher education group (probably 10 or so different groups?). While I was really annoyed that it wasn't really focused on what we are doing, it was quite a nice opportunity to get to know new people. :)

We had to come up with a solution to a modern day problem, try and sell it to potential customers and then do a presentation around the idea. My group came up with Text-a-lyser, a phone app that stops you from drunk texting / calling. We did actually win with our idea, got £10 each for it and all! :D And with that money I got dinner for me and a friend, hah.


And yay outfit pictures! I've had this dress for yeaaaars! It's just always been one of those things that I haven't really been able to wear as it's quite skin hugging, just never really had the figure for it (and I don't really think I do now either, but had a little help from my tights to suck it all in! :D). Think I've worn it about three or four times since I bought it.

It's the same with my coat really, love it to death but I just go too big for it at some point and had to abandon it. It actually got to the point where the buttons kept falling off and I had to replace all of them eventually! Just happy to be able to wear old clothes again, makes all the hard work worth it. :)