Bikini Series Challenge – Week 1

Hello!

Oh wow, I have only been following the Bikini Series meal plan for 1 and a half weeks and I feel so much better already. No more bloating, feel leaner and happier and my nails seem to be in better condition. I haven’t been bored with the meals – in face, they have all been really tasty. Even Jim is loving them!

This was my favourite breakfast! 3 scrambled eggs, mushrooms, peppers and salsa in tortilla wraps!

I kept up with the exercise plan on the first week, but this week I have caught the beginnings of a chest infection/flu so have been taking it easy to recover (in time for my hen do on Saturday ah!).

There were a lot of chia puddings, black beans and protein blueberry muffins and all so yummy.

Coconut and Macadamia Crusted Fish

All the girls on the TIU Team are so supportive to each other, which makes the plan even easier. Looking forward to getting back into the exercise – the new HIIT routine looks really effective!

Have a good week!

Toni

I’ll never forget the kindness of strangers.

As a society, most of us are typically very private people, not accustomed to prying or interfering and I am here to challenge my readers, but I’ll get to that soon…

 

I read a story a few days ago that really touched me, a lady boarded the tube in London, sat down and burst into tears. She cried into her hands for a good ten or so minutes and the people that surrounded her looked up once and then carried on reading their paper, or checking their phone or just casually looked away and out of the window (I’m not going to harp on that that is a bad thing to do, because it isn’t, so bear with me and keep on reading)

A man, probably feeling very nervous or apprehensive, stood up and went over to her, he sat with her and asked what was wrong. She didn’t say anything for a while and he gently prodded and coaxed her. She sighed a deep breath and told him quietly that her cancer had spread and it was terminal, she was undoubtedly heartbroken by the news. He sat with her for the rest of the journey and listened to her tell him about her family, her friends, her wishes and dreams. 

 

I know that this blog post has little to do with body acceptance or confidence, but I felt it was an important message. Each of us have our own story, lead our own lives, and that’s the key word here ‘’own’’, and I challenge you; if you see someone upset, reach out to them, your small act of kindness could be their saving grace. Bless you all.  

 

“When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us to develop inner happiness and peace.” – the 14th Dalai Lama 

Have any of you had an experience like the one above? Please share 🙂

Single-schmingle

This post isn’t about body acceptance, but more about confidence. I was in a relationship with my ex-partner for 8 years, to begin with it was everything that was missing from my life, he was in all intents and purposes, the one, I felt it in my bones. We had a good 5 years together, but after the death of my father we both hit the wall head on and it became difficult. A lot of personal issues began to surface and I think we both went into deep denial until the point that we were both spending time apart, only really talking to each other when we went to bed, or left in the morning for work. We were both miserable and so did the decent thing, we split up. I won’t lie, it was a mixture of heartbreak and relief, but mostly relief. What transpired after the breakup was a huge turning point for me, I hadn’t been single for 8 and a half years, it was a frightening prospect to have the security and safety of someone suddenly taken away. Thankfully I had tremendously loving friends (the beautiful Toni, co-author of this blog) who took care of me, put a roof over my head and gave me a safe and warm place to sleep at night. That poor girl put up with me for 6 months and I soon got my own place. Anyway, I digress, being single for the first time in years was a strange experience, I didn’t have much practise before in approaching men and flirting with them (and still don’t to be fair) but I didn’t seem to have many problems attracting the odd man (odd being an understatement!) and since November 2013 I have been with a string of diverse men, but never really reaching it off the ground. The most recent bloke in my life completely knocked me for six, he was pretty much everything I’ve been looking for in a man wrapped up in a six foot two package, but as ever, life enjoys pulling the carpet from under my feet and I’ve been treated pretty damn poorly in my opinion.  It started off so well, so much potential but the calls started to stop, the messages ceased to exist and I’ve not heard a peep out of him for about two weeks now. It got me thinking, was I doing something wrong? Why couldn’t I keep someone interested? And it dawned on me, it’s not my fault, it’s not his fault either. Sometimes things just fall apart, it’s not nice to deal with the fallout of failure, but you just have to try and accept that it is beyond your control, learn what you can, and put all of that towards the next adventure in your life. I kept thinking that I was missing out, I would see all of my friends coupled up and strangers holding hands and I’d get a yearning and longing; but it’s just not my time right now. I don’t necessarily believe in religion or ‘God’, but I do believe in serendipity and fate. I’ll wait patiently for my Mark Darcy and filter out the Daniel Cleavers, and in the meanwhile, I will enjoy being by myself, following my own pursuits and dreams. There is nothing to be afraid of being by yourself, have faith and confidence, shine brightly and enjoy being YOU. It’s taken me a long time to finally realise that being single isn’t a bad thing, you’re not deemed a social outcast because you can’t scare up a date last minute for an event, or an outing with friends. My date is me, doing what I want and wearing the best make up of all, confidence. 

 

And besides, there is so much to enjoy being single;

 

Travelling to any destination in the world, on a whim (and within budget obvs) just imagine waking up, shoving all of your clothes inside a suitcase and just taking off for a long weekend. You’ve always wanted to see the sunsets in Ibiza, or the northern lights in Norway. Go! Nothing’s holding you back.

 

That double bed in your room? How nice is it to stretch out like a starfish, well, when it’s not being taken up by the hoard of clothes, laptop and pizza boxes ;D 

 

And talking of Pizza, I’ll order myself a mega meaty feast, sit down sans pants and inhale it like a duck, spread out on the living room floor watching my favourite programme on the junkbox. 

 

I’m not idealising single-hood, or putting a downer on being coupled up. I am just expressing the fact that it’s perfectly okay to be on your own, and when the time is right, s/he will come into your life, whisk you off your feet and you can both chow down some mien and watch silly cartoons all day. It’s all about perspective 🙂

Sugar

I’ve stupidly binged on sugar the last couple of days. I feel bloated and sluggish and horrible. However, I know the feeling won’t last long. I am gearing up to follow the ‘I Quit Sugar 8 Week Programme’ by Sarah Wilson.

You can find this on sale on The Book People website for a fiver, or Tesco are apparently selling it for £7 at the moment (so they end up costing the same if ordered from The Book People which includes a delivery charge).

I heard about this book a while ago but at the time I think I was in denial mode and wasn’t ready to try it (give up dried dates <i>and</i> honey – I don’t think so!).

Now, I am ready. I’m fed up of craving something sweet for breakfast, snacks and after meals and it needs to stop. On the plus side, I can eat loads of eggs and meat and cheese and veg and meat and avocado, so it’s not all bad.

I’m only doing this plan to stop relying on sugar and any weight loss is just a bonus.
<i>Side note: if you are trying to lose weight, DEFINITELY take before and regular progress pictures. I just did this for the Tone It Up Love Your Body 2015 series and you notice the changes far more in the pictures than you do in the mirror.</i>

The not so good thing is that I’ve been a bit uncontrollable around sugar for the past couple of days. I had a mahoosive chocolate and peanut butter milkshake after my mahoosive main of burger and fries at Blues Bar in Camden. It was soooo tasty I couldn’t stop drinking it and I ended up getting stomach pains and feeling like shit. Today, I’ve had cupcakes/mini eggs/cornflake cakes at work even though I already felt bloated. Why Toni, why?!

My control will come back though and I will keep you all posted on my progress!

Have a good valentines weekend, lovebirds!

Toni

Tone It Up 5 Day Slim Down

Hey guys!

So I know this blog is about body love and acceptance, so posting about a meal plan for 5 days isn’t exactly expected. However, my reason for doing this is that although I am happy with my current figure right now, I have noticed too many bad foods slipping back in to my diet and I don’t want to gain any more weight (Can’t afford the new clothes!). So, I want to honour and respect my body by putting healthy and nutritious food back in to it.

I am following the Tone It Up 5 Day Slim Down. I like this plan as you can still eat a lot of food but it’s all good stuff – salads, fruit, smoothies, vegetables. Mmm mmm.

Here is my plan for the next 5 days. I am looking forward to it! Will keep you posted with what I eat and if my exercise plan changes. Keeping it fun and varied.

Have a good weekend! Toni

Toni’s Story

First post (aaah!). I’ll start off by saying that in no way, shape or form Bee or myself are qualified nutrition experts/life coaches/fitness trainers etc etc. My reason for blogging about all this healthy living stuff is simply because I can’t stand everyone around me talking about their weight, discussing the amount of calories in EVERYTHING they eat constantly and worrying if what goes into their bodies will instantly turn them morbidly obese.

I used to be one of those people. If I could go back to that Toni, I’d tell myself to shut the fuck up and just eat that damn pudding.

I first put on a load of weight in college. I guess the excitement of being treated so much more adult than you are in school made me pick all the nice things I could eat, whenever I wanted. I got carried away.

Eventually I lost that weight, although I didn’t go back to my original size. I tried for years, which was stupid because obviously I grew baby bearing hips since being a teenager.

Then I got my first office job and the weight piled on again. When I remember what I used to eat, blo*dy hell I was unhealthy. Cereal at home, fried potato cubes and chicken nuggets once or twice a week from the working lunches van (before lunch and after my breakfast at home….), cookies and biscuits, cakes, lots of bread and pastry….

I lost it again eventually after yo-yoing for a while.

I can’t remember dieting again until I joined Weight Watchers in 2011 I think. Clothes were getting tighter….I enjoyed the diet for a while, hit goal, maintained for a year and then went on holiday. I couldn’t get back into it after that, especially when I started to like nuts and avocado. WW are very clever, making you feel guilty for eating high pointed healthy food. Then you’d buy the WW brand bars and snacks as they are only 1 or 2 points, and it didn’t matter what was in the ingredient list. If you read it you will see how flippin’ processed that ‘food’ is. At the time you just think “if it makes me lose weight, it’s okay.”

I started gaining weight last year after following Tone It Up workouts. The exercise and healthy eating made me feel good and my measurements were going down. But I still felt bad about myself as soon as I saw what the scales told me. Enough is enough, If I am being healthy and feeling good, who cares what my weight is.

I don’t look at people and the first thing I think of is to guess their weight, so no one is doing that to me either! There was a time in between the diets where I was not thinking about my figure at all. Yeah I had a bit of a belly but at least I enjoyed life and didn’t feel guilty from eating chocolate or drinking alcohol. No matter how much I have weighed, I’ve had fantastic nights out and weekends away, my friends have stuck by me as well as my crazy fiancé (yeah, I’m getting married even though the scales say 10 stone-ish!). Just goes to show that WEIGHT. DOES. NOT. MATTER.

Now, I just eat the food I love (yeah, that does include salads) and am satisfied all the time. It’s a great feeling. Why don’t you join me?