“He told me I was ugly” – Melissa’s Story

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Today’s blogpost is an interview with one of my good friends Melissa. I met Melissa in 2014 in Albania when we were both on a Mission Trip and we remained friends from there. We’ve travelled to Thailand together and I’ve seen Melissa overcame challenges such as a jungle trek in the pouring rain and climbing a rocky mountain in sandals and I’ve seen her grow in strength and confidence. Melissa was bullied during secondary school and this has had a big impact on her self-confidence and life in general. Hearing Melissa tell me her story saddened me because it’s simply not fair that she had to go through this but I’m glad and proud that she has taken the opportunity to talk about it so that she can inspire others.

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Social Media – The Ugly Truth

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Hey everyone! It’s been a WHILE I know but I’m back and hopefully here to stay. Life was crazy for a year or so, still sometimes is, and I just wasn’t inspired to write sadly. I literally could not pour from an empty cup and I look forward to sharing that testimony some day (still waiting for the rainbow, pray for a sister) but for today’s post I want to talk about social media and the lies behind it. This topic is honestly nothing new and hopefully you will know most of this already but a little reinforcement never hurt nobody!

 

Social media has crept up and suddenly consumed us. I mean, networking sites have been around for a while, shout out Bebo, Hi 5 and Myspace (Are those top friends still even your friends now?) but with the development in technology things have changed a lot. Back in the day when we didn’t have internet on our phones; if you wanted that sparkly Hello Kitty wallpaper that your cool mate had you had to hold your phones together and trust in the power of infrared but now a man in Fiji can say something offensive and within three minutes he has been turned into a meme, blasted by twitter, fired from work and if he’s lucky he’ll even get a cheeky Channel 4 segment. Times have really changed.

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I’m Not Summer Body Ready

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I am not summer body ready. I’m not even spring body ready because these arms have seen better days and shaving my legs requires so much effort. I’m not in the best shape I’ve been in, especially compared to last year and for the first year in a while I don’t have a holiday booked. For the past few years, I’ve been motivated by the sunshine to get into shape so that I can walk around my chosen destination with confidence. I’m not the crop top type of girl and I only started wearing sleeveless tops about two years ago but hating your body whilst on holiday is one of the worst feelings ever so before my recent travels I worked hard to make sure I felt great bopping along the beach and skipping through the markets. But this year it’s a different story.

 

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3 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Confidence

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I don’t know if I’ll ever be the most confident girl in the room but I’ve come a long way. I still have days where I panic over what to wear and feel like I look the size of a killer whale but I’m getting there. I used to think that once I lose weight I’d immediately have loads of confidence and basically feel like Beyoncé but I didn’t. The weight loss did help but ultimately I had to change the way I thought. Confidence is not a physical thing; it is all in the mind and sadly like myself many women let the voices in their head and pressures from other people and the media doubt their capabilities. I mean, it took a lot for me to even post a photo of myself in this blog post and for what reason? My silly doubts, criticisms and what-if’s. I’m still growing and learning and here are three things that I’ve learnt along the way that have shaped me so far that I hope can help you.

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What I ate in Thailand: The Vegan Edition

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Hi guys!

So, it’s been a little while since I’ve posted but I’m back. I recently went on holiday to Thailand with my friends and I had an amazing time; great activities, sun and really fun memories. If you’re thinking about going to Thailand, go!

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Now onto the food! In January 2016, I decided to become a plant-based Vegan and so far it’s been pretty easy for me but I did wonder how I would manage abroad. Before flying out I researched a bit about the Thai culture and food and read some posts from fellow Vegans and it seemed that I wouldn’t have a huge problem finding food so I wasn’t worried. I’m not a particularly fussy eater or even a huge foodie; I don’t mind settling for ‘just chips’  or ‘rice’ when I can’t be catered for and so this probably made things a lot easier for me. Looking back, I can’t say I had the most amazing food experience as there were limitations to what I could try but I can say that I tried a fair amount of local food and enjoyed what I had.

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Feeding my fellow Vegan – If they can survive on plants then so can I!

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Beneath Your Beautiful Photos

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On April 9th 2016, Love Your Temple Ministries held the ‘Beneath Your Beautiful’ event. This event was about looking at women and self confidence through God’s eyes and how we can display our beauty and confidence through our appearance.

The event went really well! We had a discussion, some amazing speakers and the lovely ladies in the audience made great contributions. Thank you so much to all of the speakers and the host and also to everyone who came and supported. Subscribe to this blog to keep updated with the next Love Your Temple event. Here are some photos from the day:

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Vegbar Brixton – A Restaurant Review

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I’ve been to a few vegan restaurants in my time but I’ve never talked about them on my blog. So far I’ve eaten at 222 Veggie Vegan, Greenz, Loving Hut, Cook Daily, Tibits and Vegbar and after turning vegan after 4 years of vegetarianism it’s great to open a menu and know you can order absolutely anything. Most restaurants have a few vegan options nowadays but there’s only so many bean burgers and falafel a girl can take! Vegetarian and vegan food is becoming much more accessible which is great; it’s nice to know that I don’t have to worry if restaurants can cater for my dietary choice or that it’s not a must for me to pack snacks everywhere I go. Wait, who am I kidding? There’s always food in my bag.

I visited Vegbar recently and thought it would be good to do a short review. You’ll have to excuse my photo quality though – I’m no professional blogger and definitely not a food photographer. Canon what? I’ll get there.

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My Top 10 Weight-Loss Tips

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So we’re done with January; how did it go for you? Are you part of the ‘New Year, New Me’ crew? Did you tell yourself (and everybody else) that this year would be YOUR year? THE year of change and growth? Growth everywhere except the hips right? An increase in your finances and a decrease in the gut? Those health and weight related goals you made; how are they going? Still staying strong? If you’ve already fallen off of the bandwagon and found yourself swapping your cute packed tupperware lunch for a cheeseburger or forgotten your gym entry code then this post might be for you. In a world full of healthy living tips, forbidden foods and before and after photos, here are ten things that I recommend you start doing to find a healthier you.

Images in this post are not my own

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