I'm Back

Time has flown since I last blogged! As some of you may know I just recently returned from my trip to Australia! It was one of the most amazing things I've done, but im not gonna go into it too much, so I'm just going to mention my highlight.

Highlight: EVERYTHING. Seriously. But if i had to pick, I think it would be what I managed to do of the gold coast. The beaches are unreal, I really loved Byron Bay & Fraser Island was just beautiful, like nothing i've ever seen. Lake Mckenzie, also a highlight. Ahhh, take me back!

This is me on Bondi Beach abso loving life

I miss all my friends sooooo much! I wish I was still with all you guys. love you all.

But unfortunately all good things must come to an end so i'm straight back into work and the daily grind! It is looking pretty certain that I will be moving to Leeds in August! It wont be the first time I've moved out but it has been a while and long overdue, it will be great to get a bit more independence again. It just means a slightly longer daily commute to work but i reckon its gonna be good for me!

I'm also pretty excited by the fact that Byron Burger has just opened a new restaurant in York. Who'd have thunk it!? Cannot wait to get me a massive fattening Byron Burger! yum yum

I'm rambling.......it's easter! Happy Easter everyone! Come back soon for a proper blog post about something proper :) xxxx

Last minute travelling buys!

....the packing has begun...... I can't believe this is real life!! 4 days to go and whilst packing away, I realised, I hate my sunglasses. Shock horror. They're so boring, unoriginal and uncool, and it just put me in a bad mood (because it is the little things that get to us, after all). I decided to remedy the situation today, with a last minute shopping trip to get me some new sunnies and my last minute travelling essentials!

Firstly, I picked up these really nifty little lip butters from the body shop! I thought they would be perfect for the flight, and I mean who doesn't hate chapped lips at 35'000 feet! The sad reality of it is, that I actually have no life and find pleasure in making my lips smell of coconut. It's bizarre. They were on offer 2 for £5.60 at the body shop, like I said. There's tons of different scents, it would be handy if they actually wrote on the packaging what flavour they are. I got coconut and the other one, I'm not really sure what it is, some sort of nut I think!

As I will be living out of a backpack, due to travelling around a lot, I got some mini toiletries! They always look so cute in miniature version and I always want to buy them just on a normal day but it actually made sense on this trip. Space is limited! I got standard stuff like deodorants, but I also got some st ives scrub which I thought was pretty cool! 3 for £5 at trusty Tesco's. I also got my old faithful suncream. It is just THE best and always leaves me looking lovely and brown! Its Hawaiian Tropic, bloody expensive stuff, at £15 a bottle BUT it makes me smell incred and ensures that I will come back bronzed. I can't believe I forgot suncream until today. I need to get switched on! (also dont panic I have factor 30 for when I'm in Ayers Rock).

Finally, and lastly, its the sunglasses. Ta-dah! These are my new ones. They are Marc Jacobs and they were £50, down from over £100. They are a little odd to look at, and they certainly are different. At first glance they look a bit like ski glasses. But you know what, they are cool, and they go well with my hair cut, and even if I say so myself, I look nice in them. And if I dont get on with them, then I can always stick them on ebay!

Boom! So there we go. Last minute travelling buys DUNZO. I hope you enjoyed reading through all that, maybe its even given you some inspiration! This will probably be the last post I do now before Oz, so it's over and out for now. (hopefully) I will be able to blog whilst I'm over there, I would love too but it just depends on circumanstance. I know I said I was going to do a post about my activities while Im out there, but I decided against that mainly because I wrote it all out and it was really dull, and it actually was a bit all over the place, because not everything is planned to the last detail and it will be more fun to tell you about it afterwards.

xxxx Enjoy your weekend xxxx

So many breakdowns

I'm not really having a breakdown, I just feel like I am because I go away in TEN DAYS. Where the hell have all those months gone!? I just can't believe I'm flying to Aus all on my own. What was I thinking! I have visions of me getting lost in Abu Dhabi airport - keep me in your thoughts!

On wednesday I'll be doing a post about what I'm going to get up to while I'm there, so please come back and read that! This weeks positive news is that I have finally managed to sort my horrible lips out. The days of my cracked and teared lips are gone people, and it's all thanks to this baby:

It's an EOS spherical, medicating lip balm. It was £6 on Ebay (because you cant buy it in stores). I had heard about these, but when my friend who is in america at the moment kept sending me pics of hers, in typical me style I wanted to try for myself. I never expected it to work but it really really does. They come in loads of different flavours, this one is sweet mint. It makes your lips tingle with a kindof burning sensation (good burning not bad) but it's not moisturising, more healing. So happy to have it in my life.

Can you believe I just wrote all that about a lip balm? It must be sunday. This week I also hit 2000 followers on my Instagram account (@itsjambino). In fairness it has taken me a while to reach that, coupled with relentless hash tagging which I know some people must be sick of! I hope my blog picks up too.....I'd really like to hit 1000 views by April!

Enjoy what is left of your weekend people, personally I am going for an Indian tonight, because my Australia diet is going so well :D

And if you believe that, you need to go take a lie down. Have a good one!

xxxx

March on!

I can't believe we are 3 days into March already! Wasn't it Christmas last week?!? This month is going to be a significant one for me - I go away on what I hope is going to the trip of a lifetime. In just over 2 weeks I will be heading off to Australia!

I'm flying solo on this one, but meeting a group of friends out there including one of my best friends (who is currently travelling). I can't explain how anxious/excited I am getting. It feels like so long ago when it was October and I was booking it & now the reality is upon me!

I think I am pretty prepared - I'm gonna do a proper post about this closer to the time going into a bit more detail about what I'm gonna be doing etc so look out for that! Going off topic now, I'm going to talk about the contact lenses I've been trying recently because I get a lot of interest in them, people asking me where I get them etc so I thought I would blog properly about them!

If you follow my instagram you may or may not have noticed that I have a colourful array of contacts at the moment and currently I've got Blue, Green and Honey coloured ones. I first got started wearing them a good while ago when I was buying halloween lenses and saw some blue ones and was like I really want to see what I look like with blue eyes! I got them and I just loved them. Unfortunately I got frustrated with them one day and threw them in a bag and wrecked them which was stupid and when I went to replace them they weren't being sold anymore....which was kind of weird.

Anyway I got my current ones from a company called Beautifeye (http://www.beautifeye.co.uk) and they are priced at £14.99. You get a free case and bottle of solution for that price which I think is pretty decent. I should point out that they are only 3 month ones, the yearly ones are slightly more expensive. So below is before and after pictures of my natural eyes and then with the blue contacts in. I think these blue contacts are much more natural than the other lenses I had. It's funny how they seem to change my whole complexion and make me seem lighter/whiter. (i'm sorry about how rough i look)

 

Then below is a picture of the Honey ones. I was gonna miss them out to be honest because they are pretty shit. They just look so fake and like a monster? They're meant to be natural and they just aren't. They're a bit weird and I wont ever wear them to be honest!

I look like edward cullen. They are just freaky looking! Not feeling them at all! But the blue ones are brilliant and the company that sells them were so efficient, they came in a matter of days with good packaging so I would highly recommend them. As for comfort....they are genuinely really easy to wear. I sometimes forget I have the blue ones in because they get so comfy. I'm like a pro at getting them in now as well, It used to take me like half an hour, now they are in after about 30 seconds!

So thats it, if you want to know which exact ones I have, just get in contact with me, I'm going to be putting a contact/email button at the top with my other buttons so feel free to get in touch!

xxx    Have a good week!    xxx

yes, I'm still alive

As the title says - yeah, it feels like I kinda dissappeared for a while. Last week was one of those annoying weeks where I wasnt necessarily in a bad mood, I was just feeling a bit cba, but nevertheless I did manage to get out and about a bit!

Last weekend I took a trip to Birmingham - It was random but there was meaning to it, my friend used to live there and we thought it would be something fun and different to do! Birmingham wasnt at all what I expected, its a lot older than I imagined. I have been twice before but it wasn't how I remembered!

On the Saturday we went to an area in the city centre but not smack bang in the middle, which housed a few vintage shops and unique little shops and boutiques. Unfortunately, I'd have to resort to selling myself to afford to buy anything at the moment. My Australia trip has really wiped me out, but it's gonna be so worth it! I had a mosey in selfridges (fun story on that later) and then we got changed and headed out for dinner.

We had dinner at Zizzi, this was because despite the best efforts of Mr Naggy (aka ME) we failed to get a good reservation due to it being valentines. However that being said, I had a lovely meal and we followed this with a few drinks which led to an impromptu night out!! Birmingham didn't let me down, the nightlife is good and I had a really fun time. The hangover the next day certainly wasn't fun - hit by a bus doesn't do it justice! Somehow I managed to recover just before we had to check out - which by the way, when I asked the receptionist if we could check out, she looked at me as though I'd just asked her the square root of 56748567. Is that not a normal request working in a hotel......?



That afternoon we went to Selly Oak, and had a beautiful sunday lunch, before we headed home.



So this week nothing of note really occured im afraid, hence my awkward silence. Oh, apart from mid week when I get a call from my bank saying theyve frozen my account because someone was using my card in selfridges in Birmingham. Yeah......that was definitely me. But I can see why it would look suspicious - when have I ever bought anything from selfridges! Answer: never.

I went out in Leeds over the weekend, but haunted by my hangover of last Sunday I felt compelled slash terrified to NOT drink heavily, so I kept it pretty low key. This weekend - Newcastle road trip, cannot wait! I'm totally gonna be like "i'mmm baaaaack" when we get there. It's been too long!

Hope you all have a fun filled week, you never know what could happen! Catch you on the flipside ;)

xxxx

Moving on...

Sorry for not blogging - I've been really busy of late, with lots of plans and work and just no time to dedicate to a post! Hopefully now I will have more time to think of new and exciting posts :)

 

So as the title says - moving on. Yeah....I didn't think I would be doing that again so soon. It gets kind of frustrating when absolutely nothing works out in the way you'd hope. I'm not going to go into it but I keep hoping that something is going to go right for me eventually. And until then I suppose I will keep on trying because what would be the point in giving up.

 

Not sad, just mad.

 

And in summary:

 

 

 

Peace x

Weight Loss: My Story

Losing weight isn't something i've always felt comfortable talking about: I get asked quite often about my weight loss, what I did and how I did it. The attention can be nice, but at the same time, I think it's important to talk about all the baggage that comes with it, often it is not as great as it seems. After posting a flashback photo on Instagram the other day, I decided it would be worthwhile for me and anyone reading this, to talk all about it.

My weight loss journey began in March 2011, at the age of 20. At 5ft 11inches and weighing 15.5 stone (217 pounds). On the BMI scale that gave me a score of 30.2, which is classed as just "obese". Firstly let me state: Yes i was fat, but obese - no. I find the BMI scale a bit silly, I'm not saying it isn't useful, as I'm far from academic enough to rubbish it. I had high blood pressure, I was inactive but overwhelmingly - I didn't care. I genuinely thought I was ok, I knew I was fat, but I thought I was just normal. I wore XL clothes, with a waist of around 36 inches, and by March 2011 I noticed that the XL clothes were starting to get "snug".

After recieving some bad personal news on a day in March, I had a "I hate myself" moment where I looked in the mirror and thought jesus, what a state. (awful but true!). With the help of my mum, I decided to give the atkins a go. I decided on a diet of two omlettes a day, with a chicken and vegetable tea and snacks of cheese strings, and chicken pieces throughout the day. Immediately it worked, and within 2 weeks I'd lost 9 pounds, within a month well over a stone. I set myself targets, and near enough killed myself with workouts on the crosstrainer everyday, desperately trying to lose more and more. By the end of summer, I'd lost 3 stone, weighing in at 12.5 stone (175 pounds).

When I returned to University after the summer, the compliments only helped to push me further. Whilst I was happy with my new found appearance, and fitting into a size medium now, I still wanted more & kept the diet steady, ate healthily and by christmas had lost another stone, weighing 11.5 stone (161 pounds). I looked great at this weight, and was so so happy with myself. This was probably one of my happiest christmases ever. Because I was so happy, I did what most weigh losers do and forgot about being good, and just went for it. By the end of christmas I got weighed to find I'd put on half a stone.

I cant explain in words the panic that this caused. Losing weight gives you a new lease of life, and the scales that day made me feel like I was losing my grip of what I had achieved. I think for me this was the moment I went wrong, instead of not panicking and just keeping up my good healthy eating, I went into a full scale mission to lose weight. From that day on I let negative thoughts take over, I told myself I was ugly and fat and beat myself up about it every single day. At first I cut down what I ate in half, any meal I had I would eat only half of it. I would walk everywhere during the day, killing myself on the cross trainer at night.

By February 2012, I had stopped eating enough food to function. I was surviving on a diet of diet coke, weight watches crisps, fat free jelly pots and slices of toast. I had also started obsessively weighing myself, at least 5 times a day, sometimes up to 10 times a day. I began going to weigh houses at the market and getting weighed a few times a week, obsessed with getting tinier. Shopping for food was a nightmare, I found myself feeling full of anxiety and checking the calories on every single thing I bought. Things only got worse and some days I would eat little more than half a sandwich, or a bowl of cereal a day.

In under a year, I'd lost 6 stone, weighing a frail 9.5 stone (133 pounds), far too skinny for my 5ft 11 frame and giving me a BMI of 18.5, which is classed as a healthy weight. Yet another reason why I think it is a ludicrous scale. My bones and ribs jutted out, I looked emaciated and felt faint and dizzy most of the day.

I truly believe that without the kind words and support of one of my best friends, things would have only got worse, and I would have spiralled out of control. I slowly, through encouragement from my friend, began eating more day by day, and never looked back. Since then, I've put on a stone and a half and weigh a healthy 11 stone (154 pounds). I am truly happy with myself now and would never ever go back to the ways of when I was fat, or when I was skinny.

This is my true weight loss story. It is not fabricated & not many people know the extent of what actually happened and why. In some respects I do think I had a an eating disorder, but in others I don't, as I think it would be wrong for me to pretend I was as ill as some people with serious problems. In summary, what I was trying to say by posting this was that whilst weight loss is great, and has made me a better person than I was, it also caused me some of the worst times of my life. To anyone reading this I would say - if you aren't absolutely desperate, do not do a crash diet. I really believe that they cause negative/bad thoughts and habits and caused me to lose control of my own body. To anyone going through a similar thing and not lucky enough to have a caring best friend like I did - just tell anybody. It's the first step to regaining control.

I am a shining example of the benefits and losses of weight loss and it has made me who I am today in so many ways. Weight loss isn't all about the before and after pictures. It's about the story behind it. Good luck to anyone in your own weight loss journeys, and I hope you enjoyed reading about mine and take something from it, as it wasn't the easiest thing to share.

Take care xxxx