The Next Great Adventure
Life is one big learning curve, one great adventure but adventures can be difficult sometimes, things trip you up or knock you down and this blog is a way of helping me pick myself up. If you have any interest in reading the ramblings of an Irish girl in her mid twenties then please feel free to browse...you never know what you might find here on The Next Great Adventure!😊
Monday, 4 December 2017
Glorious and fat!
Now obviously this massively changes your body in many ways. It goes through so many changes it can kind of make your head spin.
I, personally loved my pregnant shape and I love my post partum shape but there’s one particular area that I struggle to love. You see just above my bum there’s this extra curve and I just wish sometimes that it wasn’t there. It ruins the line of dresses and often is the reason I wear longer cardigans or cover ups. When I lose weight it shrinks massively. When I gain weight (because both happen due to life...sometimes I’m busy I lose some weight sometimes I gain some weight) it becomes even more prominent.
I still, unfortunately, sometimes find myself comparing myself to girls with shapes like mine and wishing I just had a smooth back down to my bum. I always try to banish the thoughts but sometimes they get in.
Something I haven’t taked about much is my binge eating disorder. When I found body positivity I finally found myself for the first time in my life able to step away from diet culture. To stop obsessing about food and to maintain a fairly stable weight without trying.
When I was younger my family put me into a weekly clinic. I lost five stone rapidly over the space of a year and then left and gained it back. I was worse than ever before and for a good option of those two years was also bulimic. The clinic which recalled low calorie diets hadn't helped me develop "life skills to maintain a low weight" as it had claimed, it had just made me more obsessive and informed about calories and portions and made the obsession that much worse.
I got to my lowest weight and was so disillusioned by the fact that I wasn’t magically happy that I gained back all the weight plus more in two or years. I then found body positivity and actually started to hold a stable weight. Not on purpose but just because my new healthier mental attitude helped me to stop focusing on food and start focusing on loving my body as it was.
I know it doesn’t work this way for everyone but it helped me so much. When I got pregnant my diet changed without me having much of a choice. I pretty much didn’t eat for six months cause of sickness and then focused on just eating..no matter what my cravings were just so if actually be eating. And then I had Molly. I was so excited about being able to eat whatever again that I did just that. Whatever took my fancy I ate. I don’t weigh myself but I imagine I’ve gained weight the last six weeks. Not enough to be put of my size 26 range but definitely some. I didn’t care. As I said I go up and down within a certain range. However yesterday I looked in the mirror and saw the bump de bump had gotten bigger and my heart just dropped. I panicked a bit and I felt a massive loss of control about my body.
So much has been out of my control about my body that apparently this was the step too far. I felt old habits had crept back in and I noticed a binge pattern the last few weeks that gave me a fright. For my health and the sake of future pregnancies I have to try and lose some weight..I don't advocate weight loss or anything, you do you. But, despite having no desire to change my body it’s a fact of my life that I have to because of blood pressure. And I was worried I’d slipped back into an old pattern I didn’t like.
I do not restrict my diet by any means..I like to cook and bake and I eat what I want when I want it but I don’t want to slip into binge habits again because mentally it’s bad for me. But this isn’t about that although it seems to be. Last night I was angry and tetchy. I fought with Paul’s, got irrationally angry because the bread was gone stale, instead of eating a dinner I binged in bursts throughout the day and I stressed and panicked about my weight and health. And then I caught myself and I said “take a deep breath, relax and think about your body”. I thought about all that I loved about my body.
My curves and my long legs and my bum and all the things I’ve learned to love over the last three years.. my gorgeous stomach and my perfect arms...my cellulite and my stretch marks. I look at my body most days and revel in the celebration that it is!
It created my beautiful baby..it carries me through life and it’s strong and sexy and as I thought these wonderful thoughts I started to think kindly on my back fat and how it’s all just part of my unique make up. It’s beautiful and it’s mine. I felt the anxiety that had tightened it’s grip on my heart subside and I felt my love for my body outweigh any panic and my head slowly stepped away from food obsessing and I fell asleep happy.
I woke up with a new found love towards my bumps and lumps. I can’t guarantee I'll love it completely instantaneously but I felt so much kinder towards it and myself. Both food and weight have been controlling centres in my life for so long slipping back into panic mode can almost be like putting on some old, extremely worn, uncomfortable shoes but like shoes I can choose to put it back in the closet if I want. I don’t think I'll ever be able to escape it fully but I always have the comfort of loving my body to draw me back to solid ground.
Often people accuse fat people of trying to glorify obesity. I would like to point out that I, for one, am not out there trying to force feed my friends or tell them to gain weight. I just want to live in my body and be happy. That’s it. No master plan or dare I say, agenda, here.
I’m trying to be glorious and obese not glorify it! And I would like to point out my psychological spiral here. I panicked about gaining weight and my reaction was to binge eat. I sat around all day obsessively thinking about food and going around in horrible circles so much that I was in a nightmare mood by the end of the night. When I sat back and thought lovingly about my body I relaxed and happily slipped out of binge eating habits. I can only attest for myself but I just feel that loving your body and feeling happy in your skin can’t be this bad thing that some people seem to feel it is, if and only if, you are fat
. As long as I’m not personally harming you I feel like maybe you should just let me be me and let me revel in my sexy, beautiful, strong, fat body and if you don’t like it..i really, really do not care! Not even a little bit, not even at all.
Saturday, 14 January 2017
Velvet and leather
We all know January sales are fantastic and while I wasn't going over board in the sales I definitely snagged a few bargains, mainly from New Look.
I had been oogling this beautiful wine dress on New Looks website for weeks and when I saw it in my local store for €15 I knew I had to have it. I do feel like I should possibly have sized down as it has structured cups and they are slightly floating around up there..even with my ample ladies.
So long story short if your looking to feel like a queen and velvet is your fabric of choice you won't got wrong swinging by New Looks sale section right now!
Happy shopping lovelies!
Monday, 28 November 2016
Affordable make up review -
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Autumn is my damned favourite
Complete stop
Thursday, 29 September 2016
And on the 7th day I was shrouded in mist.
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Day 6. My life is an explosion
Everything in my life is changing. Dramatically. Well maybe not that dramatically but after a year of relative stability I feel like everything is suddenly happening all at once. As it likes to do.
We have moved house and while we're so sad to leave our last place our new house is adorable and cosy and it makes it easier. My boyfriend just started a new job so all of a sudden we have this new schedule to keep. I have cut back my work hours and now after two years working with the same family I am moving on to a new job. My boyfriend has started a new online course and I am starting a new photography course next month. It's wonderful but it's hectic. My living room currently looks like a bomb and I can't find any of my clothes but I'm happy to have change. I'm also rocking some very Halloween socks..anyone else as excited for Halloween as I am??
I have been loving blogging more these last few days and I hope to keep it up which is why I challenged myself to blog everyday for 30 days. So far I haven't always been bang on time but as I said life is pretty much eating/sleeping/moving at the moment. Adding in getting up at 6:30 to take pics every morning and you've got a recipe for a girl who falls asleep in the middle of star trek every.damn.evening. Honestly..someone rang my boyfriend at 9:40 pm last night and I'd already been asleep for half an hour!
So I did get up again this morning and something I'm realising is that each night I'm half tempted to turn off my alarm and just sleep in but each morning I'm waking before my alarm, alert and ready to go look at more clouds again. At least that's what it feels like! Of the five mornings I've done this there has been one proper sunrise! But it's a little insight into professional photographers lives..a very little one. You get all your gear..you get prepared and then the sun doesn't even put on a show. It's not all that frustrating so far though..I'd rather be out there then miss a beautiful sky!
I thought today was a repeat of the last few mornings and I was happily snapping on the beach. I had just decided it was time to go home when the sun decided to give me a wonderful treat. The clouds parted and the sun, already well on its journey through the sky lit up the whole world, or at least it felt like that to me. The mist over the sand dunes turned golden and ethereal and the waves were tipped with golden surf. It was breath taking. It was worth two dud mornings and more. I just stood there and marvelled at its gorgeousness and eventually I had to tear myself away..almost late to bring my boyfriend to work!
Today I wore some black shiny leggings that just wrecked my head all day. They were constantly slipping down and getting wrinkles in them that made my knees look elephant skin-ish. I'm also stepping away from my usual grey to wear...wait for it...black. or rather it used to be silver but life has taken away it's shimmer (how sad) but it has now been transformed into a glittery black number so it's cool!
I chose a classic red lipstick to contrast my all black outfit and I remembering my original love was red lippy and thinking maybe I should purchase a few new ones! Any excuse to buy more make up eh?
Sit back and enjoy the adventure, it's well worth the ride!