Love from, Florence Grace

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...

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...

July 7th was World Chocolate Day, and while I somehow managed to miss that (honestly, how?), the team over at Ombar were kind enough to send me some of their products so that I could still participate in the celebrations, even if I was a little late to the party. Let me tell you from the get go that Ombar chocolate is no ordinary chocolate. Ombar chocolate is, to put it simply, healthy chocolate . For real! While the company use raw cacao in all of their products to ensure that the nutritional benefits of cocoa are preserved within the product, the chocolate is also all: Dairy free Gluten free Refined sugar free Organic Vegan Honestly, what more could you ask of a mere chocolate bar?! As mentioned above, Ombar leave a high percentage of raw cacao in all of their products and there are a lot of health benefits to them doing this; for example, enhanced memory performance, improved focus, verbal fluency and a better working memory in elderly people and also a posit...

We all know the story of the hare and the tortoise like the back of our hands, right? The annoying fable that taught us all as children that "slow and steady wins the race". Adult life has taught me that this is in fact true. A similar quote that I love is "A little progress each day adds up". Because it's true. Life so far has taught me that rather than rushing right into things, expecting brilliant results straight away, it is better to work hard on something for a long period of time to obtain even better  results. Baby steps really do add up to something greater in the long run, and this was proven to me with my school work and exams, in running my business, and now in my weight loss too. Although I'd like for there to be, I don't think there ever will be a time where I'm not in some kind of infuriating conflict about my body and how I look. I love myself, but at the same time I want to alter so many things. How is that even possible? It'...

As always, my first New Year's Resolution for 2017 was to lose weight/get fit. I always find it quite hard to talk about my personal relationship with my body and weight because I'm such a strong advocate of body positivity and I feel that by talking about dieting I'm going against everything I believe in. I think everyone should embrace the body they're in, as long as they're happy and healthy. Whilst I am definitely a lot happier and healthier than I used to be, I'm still not fully happy and healthy, and that's why I'm trying to lose weight. However, it's not just about the weight for me; I want to get fitter too! Just because it would be nice to walk up the stairs without getting out of breath, you know? Anyway. Whenever I lose weight, I change my eating habits accordingly and eat a lot more 'good' food and a lot less 'bad' food (although I do still indulge in treats like pizza and crisps every now and again!) but the one thing...

This could be the last blog post I ever write- ever . Okay, it probably won't be but I am genuinely scared of dying in my sleep tonight. I'm not even doing anything drastic haha, I am literally trying a night time throat spray. Let me explain... Since pretty much birth I have had problems breathing through my nose. Crazy, right? It's not that I can't do it; I definitely can. However, I can't do it easily . If I need to breathe through my nose, I have to honestly sit and really force my body to do it. It comes naturally to me to just breathe through my mouth and essentially, forget I even have a nose to use for breathing. It's never really been a problem for me; sometimes my family and my friends complain that my breathing is slightly louder than they would like as we try and watch a film together, but other than that, it doesn't really affect me and people don't really notice. One thing it does affect is my sleeping. As a child I was such a heavy b...

Today is a big day. A life changing  day. A momentous occasion.  Today, I didn't open a packet of contraceptive pills to protect me for the next twenty one days of my cycle. Today, I will not be taking a pill that contributes towards a fake period, mood swings, headaches and - worst of all, for me- weight gain.  Yep, it's been five, almost six, long years but it's over. On Sunday the 23rd of October I took my last pill and for the first Monday in forever I will not be starting a new packet. It's been a hard decision to make, because the pill is so...so, convenient. I can skip periods if I have an event or holiday coming up, it eases tummy cramps and so on.  But it's time for a break. I had no idea that periods on the pill weren't 'real' so to speak, until about a year ago (I know, stupid me right?). Also, it's not recommended to be on the pill for more than five years, so my time is up. And also, over the last year I have heard not...

Weight is something I struggle with a lot . If you are a regular reader of my blog, or even just my social media, you'll know my relationship with food and my weight is a constant battle and I have good days and bad days and some really  bad days.  Recently, I've been losing weight. As always, it's been fluctuating a lot but I've been losing, and any loss is a loss which is obviously way better than a gain in my case. However, while I haven't noticed much weight change myself, other people have been commenting over the last few weeks over my weight loss and change in body shape, which has obviously made me feel far happier with myself and a lot more confident.  Which is why today, I wanted to talk to you guys about clothes. More specifically, the sizes of clothes.  I can confidently say I am a size 12. On good days, I am a size 10. On bad days (aka when I'm in H & M) I can sometimes be a 14. *Note I say bad day: bad for me as that's bi...

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...

I think there must  be something wrong with me, because this evening I had the urge to go for a run. Like, I actually wanted  to go running! How weird, right?  But you know, because I'm doing this whole get fit, get healthier thing, I made sure that I went. I got my work done, got into my Ivy Park gear and then went for it. I really, really went for it. Normally on my runs, I run and walk and run and walk and run and walk, using lamp posts as markers to stop and start at. However, today, I ran and walked and then ran. Yep, I only stopped once!  I ran faster than normal too, really pushing myself. I put on some really fast, upbeat music, focused on the horizon and really sprinted- I have always been more of a short distance runner than a long distance one and I find sprinting so much easier.  I also took a bottle of water along with me, something I don't normally do, and I'm wondering if keeping hydrated throughout the run actually helped 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 ...

So yesterday I told you guys how I was trying out a new way of thinking about food, improving my eating habits in an attempt to help my weight loss plateau. I feel like today has gone pretty well, so thought I'd share how it went with you guys!  (P.S I know this is the third time round I've done this on my blog, I'm so sorry if you're bored!) Breakfast.  Small bowl of coco pops (I hadn't been healthy food shopping yet!) and a glass of water.  Walk to work, shopping, walk back from work- did around 3,500 steps.  Lunch. 4 cream crackers with butter, one slice of ham shredded across the four crackers, a handful of button mushrooms and some prawns. Lunch came to around 300 calories, which isn't bad at all! I also had 2 glasses of water.  Went on a Pokemon walk with my sister for around 45 minutes, taking my steps up to just over 9,000.  Dinner. Pitta Pizzas- pitta bread with pizza topping sauce, some mozarella cheese, and ...

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...

TW: This post contains material relating to weight loss, weight gain and eating disorders.  Today I went to the doctors to pick up my next prescription of contraceptive pills. As per the norm, they made me weigh myself on the scales and made note of my height. This is a process that I absolutely despise, because no matter how my weight has changed since the previous visit, I'm always told that I'm 'overweight'. I expected much the same today, and was surprised not to receive it.  What I received was, in fact, worse.  Despite having lost weight since my last visit, and having remained the same height as the last visit, I had somehow been moved up into the 'obese' category. Obese! Obese! I genuinely couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was being told that I had lost weight but that I had gone up a weight category according to the BMI charts provided by the NHS- how the heck is that possible?! I was even told that if I didn't lose weigh...