Love from, Florence Grace

This week (13th - 20th May 2019) is Mental Health Awareness Week. This year, the theme is Body Image - how we think and feel about our bodies.  Those of you who have followed me for some time will know that for about two years now, if not more, I have been an advocate for body positivity and self love. More recently, you may have seen me featured in a story in The Metro , talking about a body shaming incident I experienced on holiday and how I dealt with it.  There's absolutely no denying that there is a direct correlation between body image and our mental health. I know that personally, when I'm experiencing a "bad body day" and don't feel very positively about my body, for whatever reason, my mental health goes down the drain too. Yet when we feel good about our bodies, this can be reflected in our mental health too.  When I experienced body shaming in my bikini on holiday, I felt the lowest I had in a while. I believed the words I'd heard -...

Out of nothing but boredom, I was scrolling through my 2,400+ followers on Twitter the other day, just having a nosy at who follows me really. I scrolled through every single one, all the way back to the very start of the list. And wow . I mean, really, wow.  There were so many people I missed. So many people I met when I first started my blog, almost five years ago! A naive 18 year old looking to create a life in the media industry for herself, passionate about getting her voice heard and 'becoming famous' and was making a million and one pals along the way. Now, at 23, I look back and wonder where on Earth we all went... because half the people I was looking at weren't bloggers anymore, and the other half were people I don't speak to/don't speak to me.  For a while, I felt sad. Sad that these once exciting friendships built on a shared love and passion for writing and creating content had fizzled out. Sad that there were so many amazing women in the world that...

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will have probably seen my very long, emotional rant via my stories on Saturday night. Following a nasty comment from a stranger who followed me, I wanted to make something abundantly clear. However, since then, it appears that *some* people are even more confused about my content and the messages I share via my social media platforms, and so I wanted to make my stance on some subjects abundantly clear. Let’s start at the beginning (a very good place to start…) when someone slid into my DM’s to try and defend the ‘benefits’ of Slimming World to me. Clearly this person hadn’t followed me for very long as I have repeatedly shared my feelings regarding Slimming World and similar diet groups, and have even written about them on my blog . However, I tolerated the conversation – she asked me reasonable questions, such as why was I so against it and I gave reasonable answers. I was actually quite thrilled I was able to have a civil conversation ...

Every January before this one, I made one of my goals 'Lose weight - at least two stone'. That started when I was 15 and continued for seven years, until I was 22. This year, upon turning 23 and ready to enter 2019, weight loss was a priority thanks to a health warning from my doctor. No set amount, however, and strictly no 'dieting'. Because over the last couple of years, I've become quite "anti diet". I hate the word, what it means and I absolutely despise all the crappy fad diets that entice vulnerable and insecure women into their clutches with promises of extreme weight loss in minimal time. I think - in fact, I know  - that it's possible to lose weight without going on a 'diet' so to speak. Without depriving yourself of your favourite foods, without starving yourself and without living off appetite suppressants and shakes. I know, because I've done it - and so have so many other people. Dieting sucks and if you're consid...

Before we start, please forgive the title image - it's the only photo I have where any of my cellulite is on show! Zoom in and you'll see it better... You may have missed it, but this weekend an Avon advert was brought to our attention – an advert for some kind of ‘solution’ to cellulite. One version of the advert featured a woman sitting down, thighs on show, and read “dimples are cute on your face (not your thighs)”, whilst another variation of the advert ironically read “Every body is beautiful” It was actually the American branch of Avon, Avon Insider , who created the ad and brought it to life. However, after being attacked by Jameela Jamil on Twitter, both Avon and Avon Insider admitted they’d missed the mark with their advert and advised that it would be taken down and wouldn’t be used anymore. As great as that end result is, I just can’t get over that it’s 2019 and this is still a thing – targeting women’s ‘flaws’ in advertising to make...

When Ariana Grande released Thank U, Next it was destined to be a certified banger. Girls all over the world could scream about their exes in the form of a catchy tune all over again - something they hadn't really had the chance to do since Little Mix released Shoutout To My Ex . Despite the song being deliberately catchy and one that I automatically loved, I couldn't help but mock it. If memory serves me well, I even put out a tweet saying how much I loved the song, but that I would never, ever be grateful for my ex. My ex, who physically and emotionally abused me for years. My ex, the drug dealer. My ex, the generally nasty piece of work that he was. He put me through endless hell, cheating on me, lying to me over and over - and I was supposed to feel grateful for that? Nah, you're alright. With that being my initial stance, I enjoyed the song without actually relating to it. However, as time's gone on and I've listened to the song more and more (almost da...

I have been on the contraceptive pill for as long as I can remember. Actually, I can't remember if I was 15 or 16 when I started taking it, as my memory is sort of hazy, but I think I was 16. Me and my then boyfriend had been having sex for a few months and, after hearing a lot about it from my girlfriends at school, I decided I didn't want to use condoms anymore. I wanted to be on the pill instead. No money spent on condoms? Control over my periods? What wasn't to like?! Oh, naive little me. Fast forward seven years later and there I am, hooked on this tiny little pill that I pop on the regular, despite the fact that it makes me feel like utter shite, all in a bid to make my life 'easier' by not needing to use condoms. Wow. Okay, okay - it's not true I was entirely hooked, because I had previously taken a break . Back in 2016, fresh out of a relationship and not at all interested in having sex with anyone ever again, I had no need for the pill. Add to...

Money makes the world go round, am I right? I've never been great with money. I think it's because I never had much of it growing up, which meant I often couldn't buy the same things my friends were. Once I got a job and started earning my own money, I was a spendaholic. I'm ashamed to say that at 23, I have no savings to speak of. None. Every month, I am fortunate enough to have a lot  of disposable income. More than I could ever have imagined of having at this age. Yet every month, I'm left with nothing by the next pay day. Where the heck is it all going? Now that both Jonny and I have a full time job with an incredible combined income, we want to make 2019 the year we start saving for a house, with a goal of saving at least £12,000 between us by the end of the year. To do that, I'm going to have to get used to having about half of my usual disposable income. But if I currently use up all my disposable income without a second thought, how am I goin...

One of my pet hates, something I absolutely can't stand and really just can not tolerate is wasting food. Throwing food in the bin, buying too much food, not liking something and it getting thrown away... God, it grinds my gears. Unfortunately, Jonny is a big waster of food! I say Jonny and not me, because it's nearly always food he was going to eat and then doesn't that gets thrown away. My biggest bug bear is bread. Jonny is the definition of a bread snob - he won't eat anything other than a fresh loaf of bread and refuses to eat bread more than two days old. He has sandwiches for lunch at work and I don't, which means more often than not, we're throwing away half a loaf of bread a couple of times a week. I shudder as I even write that, and hate to admit it but I've got to be honest! Similarly, baguettes. He likes a baguette every Saturday, but rarely eats the whole thing, leaving the small end that, realistically, he's not going to eat, in...

It's January, and with the start of a new year comes the mindset of a "new me"... which, more often than not, involves losing substantial amounts of weight in order to get "beach body ready" for the summer. As gross as this is, it's sadly nothing new - it happens every year, without fail. But this year, there's been an interesting story that's caught my attention... Over the last two nights, I've seen the same story crop up on ITV Meridian, sharing the dangers of Fitbits and how dangerous counting calories is and how all of this can lead to anorexia, a horrific eating disorder that affects many people, but in particular young women. ITV shared that a special programme had been made about the dangers of calorie counting and Fitbits to help share knowledge and I thought what a good thing it was that rather than just push weight loss in January, a media outlet was also sharing the dangers of losing weight in unhealthy ways. On the same day I...

As a whole, human beings have completely destroyed the planet we call home. We've caused so many irreversible problems, created the extinction of so many animals and cut down more trees than we can ever replace. It's quite heartbreaking to hear about, but as scary as it is, it's all true, and it's something we all need to face up to. We were provided with a rather shocking statistic towards the end of 2018, suddenly being faced with the fact that scientists had decided our planet would be practically unlivable in about 20 years time... unless we made some harsh changes, and made them quickly. The obvious factor that was pointed out was our planets love for meat. The production of meat uses a huge amount of resources and causes so much damage to the atmosphere. Going vegan is an amazing way to help the planet, or even being vegetarian. And it's not just about the meat consumption, but about the use of other animal products too, like dairy, leather and fur.  Of ...