GymShark | My Collection

Hello you lovely lot! Welcome to 2018! As we're now in January we're all now starting to think, if not already started, to lose weight/get in shape. I don't know about you but I feel that a nice gym look makes me more willing to go to the gym. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of the gym, I enjoy working out and I do go a lot to the gym, but having nice clothes to wear definitely makes the experience a heck of a lot more bearable. 

My Reasons for Working Out

Hellooooo! So today we're going fitness-y, with a post all about the reasons I work out! 
So a very obvious reason for working out is to look good, but its not as simple as that, I want to feel good as well as look good. I want more than to look good, I want to feel more comfortable in my own skin, I want to feel stronger and I want to see my body progress and be able to push myself further than I have before. 

- I work out to feel strong
I'm currently on a small "cut" - so basically trying to reduce my body fat percentage for a leaner look overall. Technically I shouldn't be getting stronger whilst cutting but as I'm eating more calories than I originally was back at the start of the year I'm managing to progress a little. 

My back and shoulders have progressed sooo well its unreal, also David says my triceps are bigger than his - I hope hes joking as his arms are huge! lolol
My legs and bum are feeling stronger now too, and the muscles on my legs are definitely getting bigger. 
I'm really excited to see how much more I progress when I start my bulk - basically eating more to feed da muscles. Grow muscles grow!!

- To feel more confidant 
Going back to pole in March gave me so much confidence, and then going regularly to the gym with David in May gave me even more confidence. I never in a million years thought that I'd be going to the gym 5/6 times a week, and I honestly never thought I'd be brave enough or confidant enough to go to the gym by myself lifting all da weights with da guys. 
Bossing the gym like the superwoman I am. 
When I went to Fuerteventura in July I felt amazing, felt so at home in my own skin and even though there could have still been improvement I felt so much happier about myself than I had for a long time. 

- To combat stress
I was near enough crying daily due to stress from my exams, and it was so nice to be able to even just get half an hour to work out. Lifting some heavy ass weights and getting some of my stress out was just what was needed to keep myself a little more grounded. Also if you ever want to sweat it out and burn out ya legs, get yourself on the stairmaster cause o boi! 

- To see how much I improve
See that crazy happy looking girl in the picture above! Yeah that girl never in a million years thought that she'd manage to climb to the top of the pole, seeing yourself improve is such a a huge motivator, be it making it to the top of the pole for the first time or lifting heavier than you had previously. Improvements big or small make my strive to continue working out. 

-Reaching my goals
Hello to boyfriends cute shoulder press face. 
I set myself goals so I have things to strive towards, things to push me forward. My current goal is to get to at least 18% body fat by the end of my cut whilst retaining my strength. 
I know I want to be able to squat my body weight - of which I'm fairly close to managing, then I'd aim for double my weight ect. 
Long term as well, I'd love to take part in a competition as well - at the moment I'm torn between bikini or powerlifting - completely different in ways of training so I'll need to decide what I want to do and start my training for it too. 

Do you work out? What are your reasons for exercising? 

Protein Pick n Mix Haul

I've decided to bulk up over the autumn winter time, so I'm putting on weight but I want to try keep the fat gain as low as possible, but heres the thing, I snack a hella lot. I decided to put a cheeky wee Protein Pick n Mix haul, all da snacks. 

 Snack bars! I got 4 of the Milky Way protein bars, I've tried one of these so far and they are tasty but they don't taste as good as an actual Milky Way - boo! Would recommend though, they weren't too chewy, and tasted pretty good. 
I also got one of the Barbell Cookies and Cream bars, this does not taste like how I expected it. Other Cookies and Cream bars taste amazing but this one tasted a wee bit like coffee... Maybe I just had weird taste buds. 
I got one of the Confetti Cake Crunch My Bars. This was really nice, but a bit chewy. 
I've yet to try this last one but its the Fulfil Cookies and Cream bars. 

 Next up we have the My Muscle Mug Mug cake - this one is Red Velvet. I've not tried it yet but I've seen a few people on Instagram talk about this one and they had only good things to say about it. 
I also got a Swolesome foods cookie - this was amazing, it had a surprise jammy filling inside it. If you were looking for a decent macro treat that actually tastes amazing then this is the treat for you.

 Jim Buddy's Donuts are heavenly. Actual heaven in a plastic tub. The Chocolate Orange one was the better of the two but they were both outstanding. You need to eat them pretty quickly though thats the only thing, I think they say to eat within 5 days. 

 GRENADE SHAKES ARE AMAZING! Ok, these taste amazing, all the flavours are beaut (although don't tell the others but White Chocolate is my fave). I got a set of 6 as they were better priced when you bought more. As a post workout these are great, I also though have one if I'm running late and dont have time for breakfast. 

 I also got two of the PEScience Select Proteins, I got them in Snickerdoodle and Cookies and Cream. I actually only got these cause a fitness Instagrammer I love was using these to make cake. And I like cake so it seemed to make sense. 

Final two products are Kodiak Cakes Flapjack and Waffle mix - I've used this before and love it so this is just a repurchase, I use it along with protein powder to make pancakes. I also got the Nuts'n More Hazelnut Spread, still need to try it so I'll update you on my twitter about the taste if you fancy knowing how it is. 

Thats all for my Protein Pick n Mix haul, is there anything you like the look of here or anything you think I should try soon? 

A weight loss journey of sorts | losing 25lb in 6 months

Ok, so this is going to be a bit of a different post from usual, as its a health and weightloss related one, but I've come along way in a short space and I wanted to share how I've done it with you all! 
2016 saw me put on a fair bit of weight and for the life of my I could not shift it, I did the healthy eating thing - tracked what I ate, cut out snacks ect and although I lost some weight it was only about 3/4 lb. I yo yo'd between 135 and 137lb for about half a year, for reference I'm just a wee thing at 5'2 high, so this weight did make me look a bit on the chunkier side and I just wasn't happy. My confidence was at an all time low and even though I had a boyfriend at the time I just felt like utter shite, I'm really good at hiding how I feel and putting on a front but honest to god I felt worthless, I was all sunshine and daisies on the outside - but on the inside it was a completely different story. 

The picture above is from June just after I started trying to lose weight, I'm by no means huge or anything, but for someone my height it was too big for me. 
When I started back at uni in September, my friend Jennifer, had told me she was doing weight watchers with her mum. To help her along and to see what it was like I joined with her - both making smart choices in and out of university. 
Weight watchers wasn't actually hard to stick to at all, I could still more or less eat whatever I wanted. The weight fell off me though, and every week I was losing at least 1lb. Up until Christmas I was also doing spinfit like once or twice a week. Even without the exercise though I was still shedding some weight. 
The absolute low of my self worth and confidence came when Connor and I broke up, I'd rather not dwell on the past though as, just over two months on though and I am actually glad for it, because I've come so far since then. And I think a lot of it has to do with joining back at pole fitness, changing my diet even more and realising just how far I've come in such a short space of time. In a year I lost at least 8cm from every part of my body, unfortunately I lost 10cm from my bum, and I'd quite like to get that back. Cause who dont want a peachy bum?
Weight watchers is only one of the two big things that I think helped me get to my goal weight - and actually I surpassed my goal, woo - Protein World is the other thing that I strongly and whole heartily believe that helped me out. I started just by using their chocolate slender blend as a meal replacement as I literally never have time for breakfast. I'd much rather an extra 10 mins in bed than a proper meal. After using that for awhile I decided to try a bunch of their other products, and have so far tried (and loved) the chocolate porridge, fat metabolises, carb blocker and recently the vanilla slender blend. I've recently been trying loads of the recipes they have on their site and have fallen in love with so many of them! They are delicious, fairly low calorie, high in protein and brilliantly low in carbs. 

I now go to pole twice a week and I'm trying for the gym for weights and stuff at least twice a week along side pole. My aim now is to try and tone up and gain some muscle, I know my weight will go up a bit as I put on muscle, so as long as I'm happy with what I see in the mirror then the number on the scale wont really matter. I'm also attempting intermittent fasting to see if it can shift some of the stubborn fat thats been hanging on to me. Pole has given me so much confidence its unreal, I've gotten stronger from it too! Sorting my diet and going to the gym is hopefully going to improve my muscle tone and build my strength a bit more. 
This was quite a wordy post, so apologies, but I don't have loads of pictures from my journey and unfortunately I've no up to date ones. Pole ones are the best I can do, if you're interested in pole fitness then be sure to check out my instagram cause I post a fair few videos of it there! I've still a fair bit to go in my wee journey but I've come so far to only think of how far I've left to go. 

Pole Fitness | My experience

Staying fit is hard work, but its so much easier to exercise if what your doing is fun! I decided to do a pole fitness class and see how I got on. After trying stretch classes with Suzi i decided on joining her pole fitness place - West end Pole. 
Myself and a friend from work went along for the 4 week absolute beginners classes. The classes are small, so you get the best experience and our whole time there was just me and my friend in the class.
The classes were so much fun, but dont get me wrong they were challenging! My body hurt in places I didn't think it was possible to hurt on. Work the day after my first class was a challenge. I genuinely really enjoyed the 4 weeks i spent at West End Pole, I've done moves I didn't think my body was capable of doing and I've been suprised at what i can do. 
Its the most fun ive ever had whilst exercising and I'm really hoping that after university starts back I'll be able to go along to more classes. 

Have you ever tried pole fitness? What do you think of it? Is it something you would try? 

Health and Fitness

At the start of the year I was doing so so so well with exercising and avoiding junk foods, for the last two or three months though I've been so far from eating healthily and exercising moving that its untrue. Since university finished in May I've basically become a couch potato. I've gone from walking 3 or 4 miles a day to being lucky if I even do 1 mile.
I decided recently that I absolutely had to get back into the way of movement as not only if my overall fitness suffering but so is my skin and the amount of sleep I get. On an average night I'll be awake well into the wee hours, usually I fall asleep around 3am - its currently 1am and I'm not even a little bit tired.
To kick start my body into functioning properly I've been following a 10 day plan that I got on Tumblr. It has quite a strict meal plan and a few easy (Jesus these are not easy for me) to do exercises to do daily. I've been on it for almost a week so I'll update you at the end of it with how I did on it. The meal plan is basically just eggs, poultry, fish (not a fan), fruit and veggies ( also not a huge veggie lover). Oh what have I got myself in for?
I think most of my days are going to be spent eating turkey bacon and boiled eggs with me chocking down greens.

Along with this I'm going to try drinking protein shakes and a detoxing tea. Recently I've been spending quite a bit of money in Holland and Barret - for someone that has no form of income I spend waaaay to much money in there. But anyway, I love going in and having a wee look around at snacks and such like that I can eat instead of devouring packets of crisps and bars of chocolate. I'm currently loving their own brand flapjacks.
Hopefully by exercising and eating better my skin will stop being such a disgusting mess - face and back (anyone know how to get rid of back acne?) and fingers crossed I can fall asleep quicker than usual.

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#BloggersWLW | Inspiration and Motivation

So again I forgot to take pictures of my meals - so this is a very last minute post. I basically just decided that for this post I would put up a few pictures that help motivate me or that I like? Ok so here goes.

I think the first picture is something you should try to keep in mind when working out - your not going to see results over night, it takes time and hard work so don't give up.
I plan on trying to do some Yoga over the next few weeks to increase my flexibility - if I could be as bendy as the girl in the picture then I would be more than happy.
Squats. Ah, the maker of a beautiful bum. Recently I've neglected doing my daily squats becuase I've been trying out the 30 Day Fat Burn workouts. They are quite the work out and only take 10 minutes. I've been doing them recently as my cardio, its not a huge amount but its better than I was doing. The first video, which I'm planning on doing for 6 days, leaves your legs feeling sore and like you've had a really good work out.
I'm starting the gym on Monday so my cardio will be increased dramatically. Wish me luck.

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Fitness Fridays #3 #BloggerWLW

Sorry for the use of the same picture in all of these posts - I'm really just too lazy to make my own or find other pictures. So this week hasn't been great in terms of exercising - but it hasn't been awful either. I've managed to stick to some kind of routine - that I plan on making harder as I move on.
Basically this is just going to be a quick run down of the exercise I have done this week. So lets get onto it. I'm starting this on Saturday, since these posts go up on Fridays - my exercise week can be considered Saturday to Fridays.

Saturday 4th
I started Carly Rowena's 30 day arms challenge - oh my word. I didn't quite realise how weak my little arms were.

I hope Carly doesn't mind me putting this here - I took it straight from her Facebook page. I printed this one off for myself and saved it on my phone to ensure I did this every day. Push ups were done the girly way on my knees - I will work up to doing them the proper way. 30 second forearm plank had me shaking like a leaf trying to hold on to a tree during a tornado. Chair dips are fairly easy - but you can totally feel it down the back and insides of your arms - bicep curls and the cobra I didn't find overly hard. But when your arms are just really tired they do seem harder than they actually are. 

I also did 30 squats, and took my dog for a couple of walks. Squat wise, I did 3 sets of 10 and every other day I'm going to add 5 more into the mix - need to get that bubble bum. 

Sunday 5th

Again I took my dog out for a walk in the evening - nothing overly long she's old so doesn't need as much as she used to. 35 squats were done today, easy. 2 sets of 10 and one of 15. I feel like I should up the amount of squats per set? 

I did Carly's arm challenge again - I was surprised that I did, especially considering how sore my arms were from yesterday. I'm not sure if its normal, but the tops of my arms and my shoulders felt the sorest... I'll have to ask Carly about that.... The forearm plank didn't have me shaking as much today though - success!

Monday 6th

Went to the shops with my mum - there and back was well over 25 minutes and then straight after we got back I took my dog out for around 15-20 minutes.  As with yesterday, I did my 35 squats - tomorrow I have 40 to do, I think I'll do 2 sets of 20 for that. 

3rd day of Carly's Arm Challenge. Arms definitely don't feel as sore as yesterday - still can't do proper push ups. Tried to do it - thought I was going to pass out/ throw up/ arms give out and hit my face off the ground. Maybe all three of those things would have happened? I also almost toppled over my chair doing the dips - my bad. 

The other day Carly uploaded the first of her Bootcamp series - I was rather under the weather when she posted it so I couldn't do it, but today I decided to do it. 8 minutes of exercise that left my whole body feeling like jelly after it. I can only imagine how I'm going to feel tomorrow. I seriously recommend checking out her channel and blog if you want some really good exercises!

p.s If it isn't overly windy or pouring down tomorrow then I think I'll take my bike and go for a cycle - I like cycling. Note to self: buy a helmet for use of bike. 

p.s. Arms don't look to have gone all Hulk like - resting my nerves. If anything my arms look smaller? They really do look like they have become more streamline. 

Tuesday 7th

40 Squats. Done. Did 2 sets of 20, felt it a lot more in my legs - could also be due to Carly's bootcamp yesterday. 

4th day of the 30 Day Arm Challenge, I thought my arms were getting stronger - since they didn't seem overly bothered by the exercises. But today, my oh my. My little arms shook and ached. 

Wedneday 8th

Yesterday I felt unbelievably ill - I usually do my exercise at night as I feel most energetic then and waiting until 9pm(ish) helps me sleep. But today since I was feeling a little under the weather I didn't get to do all my exercise as I was unbelievably tired. 

I did do 15 squats - I was 35 short. The ones I didn't do will be added onto the ones I've to do tomorrow. I also only managed half of the 30 day arm challenge: 10 push ups, 20 chair dips, 30 dicep curls. Not great, but its better than nothing. 

Thursday 9th

Today I got up late so I havn't actually had 3 proper meals. But look at my brunch!!!

I had Scrambled eggs on toasted granary bread, with fried mushrooms, spinach and peppers - I didn't like the peppers though. Next time I'm definitely going to make more of the fried spinach and mushrooms. Not sure what other veggies to add in though - I'm not a lover of le veggies. I made the eggs in the frying pan - my mum told me how to make them in the microwave,  but they definitely taste better in the pan. 

I took a brisk 25 minute walk with my mum, she wanted me to walk her to her slimming world class - bless her. I even decided to jog the last bit home - it was so so so cold. 

To make up for my lack of squats yesterday I did the scheduled 45 along with another 25 more. My legs and bum kind of hate me. 

I also did the 30 day arm challenge - I did all of it today. So today is the 6th day of it. Still can't do proper push ups. I'm not bothered though since I'm not even half way through it. I'd hope they by at most day 20 that I could do it properly. 

Today I also found out that I've lost 4lb since just before Christmas, since I ate a lot, and loads of chocolate I know that its only been recently that I've lost that weight. 

Friday 10th

I spent the Majority of the day building flatpack IKEA furniture. My arms got so sore, but the 30 day arms challenge needed to be done! 

Along with 45 squats - cause y'know I'm still waiting on my bum getting round and amazing. 

I also did Carly's week 1 Bootcamp - its my second time doing it and even though week two comes out tomorrow I'm going to do week 1 again before Monday. 

Next week would you like a food diary? 

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Weightloss Wednesdays on a Friday?

So about a week ago Jennifer from Barely There Beauty sent out a tweet that she was wanting to start up a Weightloss blogger group. I decided the motivation and support from other bloggers to keep me going would be a great thing - so I joined up!
Here is the link to her post about this group. There are going to be weekly posts on Thurdays at 8pm, and today being the first post. I'm not going to be doing weight loss Wednesdays though - like everyone else - I'm going to be doing my posts on Fridays, as Fitness Fridays. If you want to follow the posts from us bloggers taking part then you can use the hashtag #bloggersWLW and that way you can see the chat and the posts we're all doing.
I did a post at the end of last week - it was already typed up and set to go before I noticed how similar the topic for this week and that post were. So I'll just do a quick run through:

• I'm not really wanting to lose weight as such, a few pounds would be nice
• I'd like to tone up and just get generally healthier

I plan on doing cardio 2-3 times a week for at least 30 minutes. On top of this, I'm going to give myself a small daily workout that is quick and easy to fit into my day. For example, doing 30 squats, a little hula hoop and some other small moves.

 I want a bubble butt, so I will be doing squats and lunges and other bum related exercises. I'll start with 30 squats a day and go up in 5's, maybe 10, every other day.

Lets get fit for 2014! 

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Fitness Fridays #2

I wrote my first post of this quite a while ago - I think it was about a month ago? And if I'm being honest - since then I went out for one run and did a little skipping and some HIIT. Not a lot though. I've also been eating so so so badly recently - it is the Christmas period after all, so its okay.
I thought I would do a quick(ish) post on my reasons/goals for wanting to exercise.

• I really want to take part in a Colour Run this year. Last year it came no where near Glasgow - but hopefully this year it does, cause I really want to take part in that - so obviously I need to get fitter for that. 
• Next up is just for becoming healthier - I just want to be healthy. This could include: not feeling as tired, looking less bloated and not getting out of breath as easily. Why would you not want to be healthy? 
• I might (fingers crossed) be going on my first ever abroad holiday. Planes, sun, sea! Its only natural that I'd want to get fitter for that, and tone up a bit so that I can look suppa hot in a bikini - also so I can have the confidence to actually wear a bikini. 
• Like I said in my previous point - I want to be more toned! There is absolutely nothing wrong with my wanting to tone up and gain a little muscle to stop jiggly bits from swaying. My main toning areas are my arms and my tummy. I'd also like to tone my thighs and perk up my boobies - yep I did just say that. I have recently lost a little bit of weight - no idea how - but my bust has became slightly smaller and this has resulted in le boobies going slightly south. I will combat this one way or another! 

So thats my little fitness goals post - next one will either be a work out for the week post or a work out playlist - we'll just have to wait and see how lazy I am next week. 

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