Love from, Florence Grace

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...

Last weekend, my boyfriend and I were invited to spend the night at The Manor Country House and Hotel . The hotel is located in Oxfordshire, just a short drive away from Bicester Village, which is pretty handy if you're looking for a mini weekend break that involves luxury shopping and  a luxury stay! I was incredibly  excited to have been asked along to do a review- it's probably one of the most exciting opportunities to have come out of my blog and is definitely not something I'd done before. Prior to our arrival we were told we'd be staying in the Chapel Suite and be receiving a complimentary dinner and breakfast. I honestly couldn't wait.  I suppose from the name 'The Manor', and from the brief look at the website, we should have known how posh the hotel would be, but I'm honestly not sure anything could have really prepared us. As we drove up the long, tree lined gravel drive towards what looked like a miniature stone castle, we honestl...

In keeping with yesterday's body positive post, I thought I'd write about food today. More specifically, about eating exactly what you like, when you want to. (Also it's #worldpastaday so a good time to write about food, right?) Too often, people go on diets that starve them of food. Usually, it's carbs and sugar and fat. People think the only way to be healthy is to live solely off of vegetables and fruit, but they're wrong. There are different food groups for a reason; your body needs a healthy  balance of them all in order to function properly. On top of your fruit and veg you need protein, you need carbs, you need fats and sugars. The key to eating anything you want and maintaining a healthy body is to eat your favourite foods in moderation . Me, I could eat a share bag of dorito's to myself every day, easy peasy. Crisps are my weakness! But I know that I shouldn't- and therefore, I don't. Okay, okay, one in a blue moon I might treat ...

I am sure you will have heard this one thousand times before but breakfast is genuinely one of the most important meals of the day, with research suggesting that your breakfast should be around 400 to 500 calories. The food you eat first thing in the morning is so important as this is what fuels you throughout your entire day. More studies have shown those students who eat breakfast perform better in the classroom and in exams than those who don't. So stop making excuses as to why you can't have breakfast before school and have a read of some of these ideas that will help you to start your day right- they're all quick, easy and all very tasty! Scrambled egg.  Use two medium sized eggs for your scrambled egg and have it on either one or two buttered pieces of toast. You can change this breakfast dish up pretty easily by adding different things to your eggs, such as herbs, pancetta and different spices. Quick, easy and filling! Boiled eggs Boiled eggs take...

So for about a month now I've been doing this 'healthy living' thing. I was vegan for a short time, I've cut out sweets, chocolate and crisps from my diet considerably, I use vitamin supplements and protein shakes and I eat some form of salad almost every single day. I'm not exercising anywhere near as much as I should be, and this is the next thing for me to work on. But what has happened as a result of this? Let me tell you. I've lost just over half an inch from my stomach's widest point and have lost an inch from my waist. I have lost not one but two  inches from my thigh. And, according to my dad's scales, I have lost a stone! I'm thrilled, of course. However, I know my dad's scales have been a little unreliable in the past so while I'm not sure of my actual weight, I do know that whatever I did weigh, I know I now weigh a stone less than that. Amazing, right?! I'm so happy!  People have begun to notice too. When I sa...

A week ago today I started my vegan diet. I had been to the shops and spent £20 on free from food, from snacks such as crisps and sesame seed bites, to more essential items such as tofu and falafel to replace meat and soya cheese. Having watched Cowspiracy on Netflix, I was ready to try and be a better person by cutting out all animal products from my life. It would obviously be a challenge, but challenges don't phase me. I was happy enough to try. Three days in, I was already struggling. I already knew I wouldn't be able to go 'full' vegan straight away, as I still live at home and have family dinners. With everyone else being meat eaters, I had decided to make their life easy; I would have a vegan breakfast and lunch and then I would eat whatever was made for the family for dinner. It seemed like a good enough compromise to me. But half way through the week I was beginning to miss things. Hard boiled eggs, for instance, that I had been having on almost a daily...

On Saturday night, I watched popular documentary 'Cowspiracy'. On Saturday night, I decided to become a vegan. Yep, can you believe it! I love cheese! I love eggs! I love prawns ! How could I possibly go vegan? To be honest, I really, really don't know. But after I watched that documentary, I knew I couldn't go on eating animal products. Not only does meat consumption contribute towards the majority of global warming, the way animals are treated is horrendous. Of course, I was aware of this before. I always knew this, I'm not stupid. But something about the documentary made me think differently. It's now Monday and it's day two of my 'vegan diet'. I am already struggling. I knew straight off I wouldn't be able to jump right in to being a full on vegan for numerous reasons. Firstly, I had no vegan food in my house. Secondly, none of my friends or family are vegan. So I had already decided to wean myself into the diet. On Sunday, I ...

Yes, it's true. I have been considering becoming a vegetarian. (Gasp, shock, horror I know!) I have been a meat eater for my entire life. It's how I was raised, I eat it almost every day, I adore bacon sandwiches and cheeseburgers, and I have never felt the urge to be a vegetarian. I have had to have a partial vegetarian diet in the past, due to the fact a guy I was dating and his family were vegetarian. I was over at his house almost every day sometimes, and it meant eating vegetable pizzas, having quorn mince instead of beef mince- and having lots and lots of cheese. Eventually, though, he started to eat meat and we didn't have to do this anymore.  Now I've started this new healthy eating 'phase', I am eating salad, fruit and vegetable's almost every day. I have some animal products, such as some ham in my wrap, or a hard boiled egg for protein, but I'm wondering if I could cut these out for good?  I don't think I'd m...

It's been one week since I started my new 'diet' of eating healthy foods that I actually enjoy...and boy am I enjoying it! Who would have though that I would ever enjoy eating healthy foods, and yet here I am, having eaten more fruit and vegetables in the last week than I have done in the last, I don't know, six years or so! Anyway, as it's been one week, I thought I'd share my food diary with you so you could see what's been going on... Monday. Breakfast: Bowl of Coco Pops, glass of water.  Lunch: 4 cream crackers with low fat margarine and ham, a handful of button mushrooms and some prawns with two glasses of water. Dinner: Pitta Pizzas (one pitta bread with tomato pizza base sauce, three slices of mozzarella and three slices of pepperoni), two spoonfuls of home made potato salad and some ordinary salad consisting of lettuce, pepper, spring onions and cucumber. No chips!  I also had one glass of a tropical fizzy drink from the fridge as ...

Guys! You're going to kill me because yet again  I am writing about my (failing) diet and my weight loss attempts.  So I guess the good news is that I haven't gained any weight...but the bad news is that I haven't lost any either.  I had wanted to lose a stone in July. Now, half way through the month, I'm kind of guessing that's not going to happen. So I started having a read of some blogs and a watch of some videos to see if there was any  way that I could really get inspired and try harder than ever before to lose the small amount of weight that I want to shift!  It wasn't until I watched Velvet Gh0st's latest video about healthy snacks that I realised where the problem lied. It wasn't that I didn't want to eat healthily. It wasn't that I couldn't eat healthily. It was that I didn't like  eating healthily. My mum makes healthy meals full of vegetables, but I don't like vegetables, so I don't always enj...

"Flo, you should come to the gym with us" Chloe from work said.  It's not the first time someone has invited me to the gym, and it's not the first time I have declined either. I know I need to lose some weight- just a stone- to be what my doctor will consider "healthy", but I just feel too embarrassed to go to the gym, even with friends.  Initially, this is why I had joined Katie Hopkins' "Fat Club" on Facebook. The motto of the group is "Eat less, move more", and that's exactly what they all do. I've seen some amazing transformations, people who are shedding weight like nobodies business simply by walking 10,000 steps a day and eating a little less junk food than they did before. It seems so easy, so why am I still unable to do this? I've tried diets, work out DVD's, more recently I've taken to running...yet nothing seems to work. And I think it's because of this; I have an unhealthy relatio...