Around up of 2016

Well what has 2016 entailed for me?

Well I joined slimming world and finally got back to my old weight watchers target of 8st 11. I’ve found slimming world much easier and less restricted than weight watchers and it’s taught me I quite good at making healthier choices if only I can stay clear of the chocolates and desserts! and on our holiday to St Ives I did actually manage to come back and not put any weight on! I no looking forward to maintaining my goal weight into 2017

I joined a gym and got a personal trainer! I have to say the personal trainer is the best money I have ever spent! I managed to achieve so much in a short period of time. Mike is great trainer, he listens to me when I moan about my back hurting and changes things up to accommodate but also pushes me to new levels. I can now deadlift 60KG quite happierly which is more than I weigh. I also now go to a bootcamp every Saturday where the trainers including Mike push us to our limits, it's a great group on Saturday really friendly and we all help to motivate each other

Places we’ve been in 2016:

Lanzorote

St Ives

Crazy Bear Hotel

Woburn Centre Parcs

Premier Inn Tower Bridge

Highlights of 2016

Harry Potter Play

Spending time with my 2 favourite boys 

Spending time with my friends including prosecco Fridays 

Getting the summer house and garden done

Chelsea Flower show

Things I’ve learnt

To sow

How to make macaroons

To let go of things that I can’t control

What lies ahead for 2017?

Well an amazing holiday to Disney Paris and I'm sure a few more things as well.

Heres to letting go a little more, having fun and getting fitter

Slimming world update

Since joining in July I've only managed to lose 8lbs which if I'm honest I'm slightly disappointed with. Losing weight the 3rd time around is so much harder than before. Where I do find slimming world so much easier than weight watches for the long term as I'm not obsessing about food as much as before, I've not 100% following the plan but that's my choice.

But things have changed since July

1. I'm making much better food choices, that was apparent on our recent holiday to St Ives. I was ordering salad or plan veg with my meals rather than the normal chips.
2. I've gone back to the gym again after finding a new liking for it. It might have something to do with getting a personal Trainer. I train with him once a week and in the 1st 4 weeks although I didn't lose any weight I lost some inches. I'm proud of my achievement. He's really starting to push me more now which is good.
3. As well getting a trainer I also now attend a boot camp every Saturday. It's run by my trainer and 2 of his trainer friends! It's brutal there no let up at all and if they catch you slacking they call wild card! After 5 weeks I can say they are getting less hard! The 1st couple of weeks I struggled to jog all the way around the park now I can jog it all and carry a kettle bell for 1/2 of it! I'm still not a fan of burpes.

I know that if I follow the healthy eating guide I can loss weight! I have 6lbs to go to reach my old weight watches goal, ideally I'd like to be a couple of pounds below that but we shall see! 

Will keep u posted

Joining the Dark Side slimming World

Many who know me know I was a weight watchers advocate through and through! You can read my full story here http://two-plus-1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/my-weight-watchers-journey.html?m=1

I lived and breathed weight watchers from 2009 until earlier this year. it did me well, originally helping me loss 6.5 stone then helped me maintain my weight for 2 years, in becoming a leader it distracted me from my crazyness of trying to be come a mother and then helped me loss the 2 stone I gained after having my son.

What I loved about weight watchers was the being strict about pointing and measuring. All was well until February this year (2016) when over a meal out with a friend she challenged me to try slimming world (the dark side) We had a long conversation about it as I wasn't convinced as I had tried and failed to do weight watchers filling and healthy mainly due to it being so restricted! But she talked me into it by saying what had I go loss? 

She lent me her pdf copy of the slimming world plan ( you can actually get a copy here https://slimminghealthandfitness.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/freefoods.pdf) and explained the basics and kindly lent me her log in to the online app, I then had to report back to her after the month. 

I stuck to my promise at although at goal at that time I managed to loss a couple of pounds and I can't believe I am going to say this but actually found it a lot easier than weight watchers especially for me trying to maintain my weight. 

Fast forward to the end of June and what with one thing and another and an all inclusive holiday in between I am now at least a stone up from my original weight watchers goal weight. On return from the holiday took the plunge and went down to my local slimming group to sign up officially! In the 1st week I lost 4 lbs , then the last 2 weeks I have stayed the same but that was ok as I'd had a weekend away in London. Unfortunately I'm missing next weeks weigh in as I'd booked a hair but but fingers crossed the week after will be a loss.

It is all about being in the right head space, once again I'm already finding myself making those wiser heather food choices. But I do have a few devil foods that I need to deal with these are:

1) sweet treats esp when I'm out with others like family or friends 

2) wine! 

3) Bread

And I need to find a way of not being lead astray by what other people have. 

So from being a weight watchers through and through and saying I've never join the dark side, I am now a slimming world convert! I am actually slightly swayed by the fact I know more people doing slimming world now, it's funning bumping into old friends from weight watchers at the slimming world class. Oh and a slight thing that one of my closest friends is currently their food editor on the magazine! 

Not that I'm byast but I do prefer their magazine! I am more convinced that slimming world is more maintainable long term. Like any healthy eating plan of you look there is a wealth of information, blogs, posts, I love Pinterest for great recipe ideas. 

I will keep you posted on my progress

Making some right decisions in my life

Being a working mum is hard, I have a busy sometimes stressful full time job as well as being a mum to a 3 year old and a wife to my wonderful husband. But I do tend to forget about me sometimes.

Weekends are a mix of essential things like food shopping and then family things but recently I feel like some things are getting forgotten about and me and the husband have a great big list of jobs to to some little and some big, this is on top of the normal things like washing, ironing,cleaning etc. It makes me wonder how everyone actually manages to do it all?

Prior to our recent holiday I started to think more about me and how I was feeling. If you've read previous posts you know I have suffered from depression in the past, if I'm honest I think I always will I just find different ways of either coping with it or hinding it. Anyway though my journey of self discover ( which I'm only just embarking on) I found this lady called Nic from Stronger her. If I had the money I would defiantly invest what she has to offer. But being such a nice Lady she has a private Facebook group where she encourages you to question certain things

The 1st one being  5 things I don't want in my life:

So here go this is my list

1. stress

2. A unhealthy bmi

3. Clutter

4. A unhealthy lifestyle 

5. To be unhappy

So the question is how can I achieve those.

1. Sometimes this is unavoidable but I do want to start maybe looking for a new job.

2. Well this is achievable. What I've not told may people is that I have actually converted to the dark side slimming world early days still I will write another post about that

3. Clutter - relooking at this I think what do I mean by clutter? Is this clutter is my life? Clutter in the house or clutter in my mind. Maybe it's all 3! Defiantly on my list of jobs should be to decluttet the house! I have a few piles that need sorting out. Clutter in my life well I think I need to stop trying to do too much then that will also help the clutter in my mind.

4) this goes with number 2, the unhealthy bmi, the plan is 1: try and be more active every day, I have a iwatch so I want to ensure I hit the 3 goals daily which should  be achievable and also back dependant I want to go back to the gym. I swapped my membership so that I joined a gym near work meaning I could go straight from work prior to collecting my son but actually I've not been since May! But the plan is that I'm going to get back into it very soon.

5. To be unhappy well I think if I work on the above and start writing this blog again I hope they will all help to stop me being unhappy! 1st step a me day at Nirvana spa including a massage and a class! 

Summer house Part 3

When I was looking for ideas for the summer house I stumbled across these funky storage boxes which I decided would be perfect for the summer house. 

They were pretty simple to make, the unit is the kallax shelving unit,  I brought most of the boxes from IKEA then followed this blog post http://sugartotdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/superhero-bins-tutorial-and-printable.html?m=1 on how to make the simple box. I did ask J what boxes he wanted. I then googled the logo and planned which felt I needed to buy. Total cost was about £15 (excluding the storage unit)

Me and J are super happy with the results. I would say if J was older I would have got him to help me.

Next project was the cushions, I started with the simple 50x50 ones. I say simple but I did end up having a private sewing lesson and had to buy a sewing machine.

I opted for the John Lewis JL110 as I preferred it to the hobby craft ones. 

I decided that I wanted zipped cushions 

Material wise I brought the purple from my local fabric shop, it pretty much matches the lilac of the summer house. The cost was about £3 a meter and I brought 3 meters. The Zips I got off eBay for about £3 for 10.

And then 2 statement ones, fabric was from John Lewis and rather expensive.

Next was the hula play tent. I found this post https://bluehousejoys.com/hula-hoop-tent-tutorial/and decided it was pretty simple idea. 

For the top bit I followed this post

http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2015/05/hula-hoop-tent-tutorial.html#_a5y_p=3768182

I brought the curtain from IKEA £15, the hula for a toy shop £2. The fabric from my local fabric shop, 2 meters was about enough £4.44 For my 1st attempt I'm happy with it. Approx £22 though I did re do the top tent bit. I tied the hula on with ribbon I already had.

J seems happy with the result. I already had the cusions at home.

Last task was the bench cusions. You can buy the bench pad from IKEA that sits on top of the boxes but I decided I wanted mine thicker and a differs pattern.  The cushions all match the summer house. I brought the foam from eBay, cut to measure worked out maybe slightly more than I wanted at £15 each. Fabric after a lot of searching I brought that from eBay too and then got the Velcro from my local fabric shop. Total cost was probably £25 each one.

I followed this post mostly for the main cushion https://campervanconverts.com/2012/03/11/how-to-sew-fabulous-seat-cushions-even-if-youre-a-complete-beginner-part-2/

And then this for the velco http://centsationalgirl.com/2012/10/simple-sew-box-cushion-cover/ 

There are a couple of things I changed between making the 1st one and the 2nd one, also the velco bit wasn't perfect.

Overall I am happy with the results. 

For all the sewing projects I made templates before I cut any of my material. I would recommend this for anyone.

I still have to make the blind at some point.

Summer house project part 2

Once the summer house was built it was then time to start painting, due to an great offer from Dunster we brought the summer house during their sale ( please note they have sales every couple of months)  but it meant it came and had to be painted within a couple of weeks as the wood is untreated. After looking at all the paint options I decided to buy the protek paint which was most recommend . I found that Gardenstreet.co.uk seemed to be the cheapest. You can order paint sample from Protek them selves.

I picked China clay as the main colour. I brought 10 litres which did all of the outside 2 coats and 1 coat inside the summer house. French lilac for the summer house door and Windows, I ordered 2.5 litres but probably only needed 1litres.

2 days of painting later and the outside was all done. With the paint you have to paint both coats within about 4 hours.

We added guttering ourselves.

The plan was always for the summer house somewhere where I could spend time in the summer with J and then as he grows up somewhere he can go with friends to play. 

If you've not discovered Pinterest yet you so need to, I got loads of ideas from there and will do another post about the bits I made, from that I had pretty much decided on what furniture I wanted. 

Storage wise we brought the an IKEA kallax shelving unit, 2 X stuva storage storage boxes. We already had the big Bertha bean bag.

Overall result is I'm very pleased with the result. Now we just need to finish the garden.

Summer House Project part 1

When we moved into our house over 3 yrs ago at the end of the garden was this horrible garage. 3 years of discussions with the hubby later we finally agree to replace it. 

We took various trips out to an assaultmant of garden centres to look at our best option as I wanted a summer house and hubby needed somewhere to store his motorbike. No where actually did the whole solution we wanted so with a some help from a builder we finally came up with a solution that would suit both of us.

I know that originally hubby wanted to take on the project himself but with J things get harder and harder as he just wants to help us do everything, that would be fine if I was happy to wait 3 yr's for it to be done.

Once everything was ordered the 1st part of the project was to get the builder to rip down the garage and make the concrete base bigger. 

Then came the fun of the massive jigsaw puzzle.

In the end we brought a 3x3 Avon summer house from Dunster House and the billy oh bike shed from garden buildings direct. We had to get our builder to turn the bike shed around so it would sit on the left of the summer house as it wasn't originally designed to be that way around.

2 days later the summer house and bike shed were built