End of semester

Over the past month or so I havent had much of a chance to write any posts but now my exams are finally over and I have more time on my hands again which is great! Although I havent gotten any results back yet I am confident that they will be fine! I worked really hard and I prepared myself for them as best as I possibly could have so no matter what happens,  I can be proud of that.

Although I did get anxious and stressed at times, I think I coped with my exams relatively well. It really helped having my wonderful boyfriend there for support and also keeping a healthy balance by getting some exercise everyday helped me too. At times though I know I got stressed and wasnt great company for my boyfriend to be around, but I am thankful he didnt take it personally and was surprised by just how understanding he was.

Now My exams are over, I am looking forward to doing some extra shifts at work (so i can hopefully save a bit of money as I am very broke at the moment). I am also excited to now have more time to dedicate to growing my herbalife business. Herbalife is something I am so incredibly passionate about and of I can build a career for myself through helping others feel fantastic 24 hours a day, 7 days oer week, then that will be a dream come true.

I am in the midst of starting up a fit club which is super exciting and I cant wait to see what else the future holds! The weather is finally starting to warm up now that summer is approaching as well which is another added bonus! This summer is going to be the first summer in a long time that I have had a really good relationship with food as well as good self confidence so I am really looking forward to it!

Im just about to make myself a herbalife cookies and cream frappe for dessert and then I will probably just snuggle into bed and watch some telly for the rest of the night. It feels so good to do this now after not having had the time for so long! I hope everyone is really well. Please let me know if you have any specific post topic requests or any questions you would like answered.

My Herbalife Program

I thought I would do a post about my Herbalife program for anyone who may be interested :) all of the products are herbal and therfore safe to use by children, adults, pregnant and breastfeeding mums. Although daily dosages are recommended, you cant over dose on the products. They are literally just like food but in another form.

Firstly, the two core products are the f1 nutritional shake mix and the f2 multivitamin. I have either 1 or 2 shakes per day as well as a multivitamin with each main meal. The shakes come in lots of flavours but my favourite is vanilla. As well as providing all of the nutrients and minerals your body needs each day in perfect balance, these products also work to cleanse the villi in your intestines so that you can properly absorb all of the nutrients you consume throughout the day.

I also use a supplement called cell-u-loss which helps your body and cells to maintain perfect water balance. This therefore reduces unhelthy water retention and keeps your kigneys functioning optimally. Another product I take twise daily is, NRG or Natures Raw Gurana. This supplement helps enormously with energy levels as well as alertness and concentration so I have found it very helpful whilst studying at university. I also take a probiotic complex which helps to restore and maintain the perfect balance of healthy bacteria in the gut.

I use both Mango and mandarin Aloe concentrates which literally cleanse your insides and assist in digestion as well as drink up to 5 cups of peach herbal tea most days which is full of antioxidants, gives me energy and keeps my metabolism running FAST! There is also a apple flavoured active fibre complex which I have occasionally to keep me regular and to keep my digestive system functioning optimally. Lift off is another great product I use which is like a caffeinated powder that you add to water to make an energy boosting delicious fizzy drink.

Two other supplements which arent includes in my ultimate program but that I opt to take anyway are joint support and tang kuei plus. I find the joint support really minimises my joint pain sue to my ligamentous laxity and the Tang Kuei Plus is a wonderful relaxant which helps me to destress and also sleep.

Finally I also use products from the sports range. The f1 sports nutritional mix can be used to make shakes prior to exercise instead of the regular f1, which substitutes a couple of ingredients with others that better prepare your body for exercise and activity. CR7 drive is a delicious tangy guava powder that I add to water for better performance and endurance whilst working out and rebuild strength is another chocolate favoured shake mix which I have after I have a strength training class as it helps my muscles to recover and repair.

I have found my recovery has come so far since I started these products and after abusing my body for so many years, it feels so good to know that I am now providing my body with all the nutrition and energy it needs to function optimally! I have so much energy now and am so thankful that I am now able to experience dynamic health, every single day!

My updated 101 in 1001

'I thought that this was a fantastic idea as I believe the best way to actually get things done is to write them down and set yourself a time frame to complete them in. I got the idea to do this from Izzy's blog and have decided that I will also add the list to my pages so that I can cross the things off as I do them and show you my progress.'

1. Travel outside the country for the first time
2. Make a full recovery from anorexia
3. Meet Anna, a girl I started talking to through my blog who also lives in Tasmania
4. Do a fun run for a charity
5. Eat pannacotta
6. Make some new friends
7. Find myself a boyfriend
8. Reach 100 000 page views on my blog
9. Publish 1000  blog posts
10. Help someone  make a full recover from anorexia
11. Stop counting calories all together
12. Learn how to listen to my body and eat intuitively
13. Reach my bodies natural set point weight
14. Eat food from 5 different fast food Places
15. Go to the Taylor Swift concert in Melbourne with My dad and Amy
17. Drive in the city of Hobart
18. Learn to love my body the way it is supposed to naturally be
19. Raise money/awareness for eating disorders
20. Explore some more of Tasmania
21. Go on a week long camping trip
22. Eat a chicken Parmiagana meal at a pub
23. Fully complete a crossword without usng the internet to cheat
24. Develop a good relationship with my mum
25. Try to find way to show Dad and Amy how much they mean to me
26. Get a horse
28. Help my mum to get better
29. To get my hair back to being naturally curly, like it was before I got sick
30. Read 10 books
31. Get healthy and clear skin
32. Eat a delicious dessert at a restaurant without feeling guilty or anxious
33. Go to a gold class cinema
34. Go surfing
35. Sleep under the stars
36. Sleep in until after 12
37. Paint Tess's dog kennel pink
38. Climb a mountain
39. Have a ski lesson in the snow
40. Get contact lenses
41. Meet a famous person
42. Overcome my anxiety so that I do not need to take anxiety medication
43. Try Ben and Jerrys icecream
44. Eat a krispy Kreme donut
45. Find a brand new hobby
46. Eat a big slice of my nans home made christmas pudding
47. Feel comfortable in a bikini
48. Go snorkeling on a reef
49. Eat popcorn at the movies
50. Make a snowman
51. Do a huge jigsaw and frame it for my wall
52. Cook and eat every recipe that I wrote down in my 'favourite recipes' book
53. Spend some more time on our farm with my dad
54. Keep improving my blog, as I learn more and more about effective blogging
55. Send a parcel of Australian goodies to a reader in another country
56. Get more involved in my local community
57. Buy some presents and place them under the giving tree this christmas
58. Always be there for Amy throughout her teenage years for support
59. Develop a closer relationship with my brothers
60. Make more of an effort to visit the nan who I do not see very often
61. Watch 5 north Melbourne football games live with my dad
62. To actually go swimming when I take my sister to the beach/river in summer
63. Eat a cooked breakfast in a cafe
64. Eat real pizza from a Pizza restaurant
65. To comfortably have drinks with calories in them, just because I am thirsty
66. To make a christmas Gingerbread house
67. To stay out with friends so late that we watch the sun rise
68. Get fit
69. compete my traineeship at the bank (but keep working there)
70. Take Amy on a special weekend away
71. Grow my own Strawberries
72. Make homemade jam
73. Not weigh myself for 2 months
74. Go ice skating
75. Eat only unprocessed foods for 1 week straight
76. See fireworks on New Years
77. Do the mud run
78. Become an organ donor
79. Go for 1 week without watching tv
80. Stop picking at imperfections on my skin so that I stop scarring
81. Watch the news everynight for two weeks
82. To not feel any guilt, after being unable to exercise all day
83. To be able to accept a compliment from another person
84. Try every type of magnum icecream available
85. Eat two courses at a resaurant without feeling anxious
86. To eat less tinned/ packaged foods and to start making them myself from scratch
87. See dolphins/whales in the wild
88. Find a brand new form of exercise that I enjoy
89. Spend less time inside and more time outside (especially in summer)
90. Make it through a whole summer without getting sunburnt
91. See something that makes me believe in magic
92. Run 10 kilometers along a beach
93. Make 10 new friends in one day
94. Get a tattoo that symbolises my recovery
95. Eat pancakes with icecream for breakfast
96. Eat icecream from the tub with a good friend
97. Laugh so hard that I cry (I did this all the time once, but I havent for a long time)
98. Maintain my weight/not lose weight for 1 year
99. Do a colour run
100. Donate blood

101. To be proud of what I manage to achieve and who I am 

Accepting weight gain in recovery

I think that one of the most difficult and triggering things about recovery from anorexia can be seeing your weight increase, both on the scale and as your body gets bigger too. I guess the reson it is so hard is that anorexics practically dedicate their lives to preventing weight gain and just because they make a committment to recovery, does not mean this fear or pattern of thinking that is so deeply instilled in them instantly goes away.

There is no way of avoiding it, the fact of the matter is if you want to make a full recovery from anorexia, you will need to get to a healthy weight. Telling yourself anything different will mean you are only setting yourself up for failure and more pain in the future. Your body and mind simply wont work properly whilst you are underweight and you will therefore never be able to get rid of your anorexic thoughts all together or make a full physical recovery either.

Whilst I was gaining weight, I remember feeling a mixture of emotions everytime I stood on the scale. If I had failed to gain any weight, the part of me that wanted to recover woukd be dissapointed but at the same time, the anorexic part of me would be overjoyed. Getting these types of anorexic thoughts at stsges throughout your recovery are completely normal and nothing you should be ashaimed of. Alk that matters is that you do not change your behaviors based on these thoughts. Accept that they are there but chose to ignore them.

Similarily, everytime I stepped on the scale and saw that I had gained weight the part of me that was dedicated to recovery was glad but the anorexic part of me was furious. I believe thst in order to stay on track in recovery as you experience weight gain, is that you need to want recovery, more than anything else in the world. Before I began my 'true' recovery, I reached a point whereby I was completely fed up and miserable with my anorexic life. I started wanting a recovered life, more than anything wlse in the world. It was only then that I was able to find the strength I needed to fight my anorexia and make actual recovery progress.

An important thing lto remember is that as you continue gaining weight, it does get easier. So dont think that the anxiety and pain you experience the first time you realise you have gained weight will persist through your entire weight restoration phase of recovery. I think a big part of the reason that it gets easier is because as your weight increases, your brain chemistry normalises too. This means that your thinking becomes more rational and some of your biggest fears like gaining will therefore lose some of their significsnce. 

I am a huge believer that the only way to overcome a fear is to face it, so by gaining weight and doing the exact thing you fear, it will slowly become less scary. No matter how hard it may seem you just need to remind yourself of how much you want recovery and the fact that you will not recover if you dont gain weight. The reason I was able to push through the fear and anxiety if weight gain is that I wanted recovery so badly, more than anything else in the world. 

My weekend

I hope that like myself, you all had a fantastic weekend and that you are all pumped and energised for the week ahead! :) 

On Sunday I had my Herbalife shake party/wellness day which was a truly great day. Now that I have become a senior consult with Herbalife, not only do I get to live the incredible Herba-life-style myself but I can also help others around me to reach their health and wellness goals too. So my wellness day was a bit of an introduction to some people who have shown interest in my Herbalife and an opportunity for them to become my clients. I am so so excited to be coaching and supporting others to become healthier versions of themselves as this is something I am very passionate about. I have already got two new clients and I cant wat to continue to change the lives of more and more people in the future, just as my own life has been changed for the better!

Everyone who came to my shake party

Some of the snacks at my party

HERBALIFE chocolate which I made with cookies and cream shake mix and coconut oil. I even added sultanas and almonds to make a fruit and nut chocolate which was delicious!

My lunch from today; wholegrain toast topped with baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, scrambled eggs and tomato sauce plus vanilla yoghurt with strawberries

My instagram facebook picture post from this morning :) 

Food diary

I Herbalife shake made with 250mL lite Soy milk, 1 banana, 3 strawberries, 6 ice cubes, 2 scoops of vanilla nutritional mix and 1 dash of cinnamon

2 portions of honey roasted nut oats made with 125mL soy milk, 250mL water, 1 scoop Herbalife personalised protein powder, 1 tsp vanilla essence

Baby spinach, cherry tomatoes and scrambled eggs (2 eggs, 1/4 c soy milk) on two slices of wholegrain toast and topped with tomato relish + 1 small cookies and cream protein bar

1 packet of salt and vinegar Mini rice cakes, 1 apple and 1 Chobani Strawberry yoghurt

Beef cannelloni with boiled veggies (sweet potato, carrot, broccoli and peas)

Herbalife microwave mug cake (1 egg, 1/4 cup of milk, 1 tbs protein powder, 2 tbs cookies and cream nutritional shake mix) topped with natural greek yogurt

Throughout the day I also make sure I stay hydrated with plenty of water,  herbalife peach tea and herbalife Aloe concentrate I also take 4 different supplements, 3 times per day :)

Birthday weekend and booty lifestyle 4 week Challenge

Hi everyone :) I hope that like me you had a fantastic weekend and are now feeling pumped and ready to start a brand new week! Since it was such a busy week last week at uni with tests and assignments, it was so nice just to have a celebratory weekend where I could just let loose with friends and have fun. I asked one of my good friends from Hobart to come up to Launceston for the weekend so that we could go out with some of my other friends for a birthday dinner on Saturday night. It didnt really feel like my birthday dinner as it was almost a week after my actual birthday but we still had a great time. 

On Saturday morning my boyfriend, my cousin and my friend from hobart all went to the christmas hills raspberry farm for brunch and it was delicious. I had full intentions of treating myself to something sweet like pancakes however when we arrived, I started craving something savoury so I ended up getting a fetta and leak tart with pumpkin salad and it was truly delicious. I also had a raspberry herbal tea and indulged in some chocolate coated raspberries for dessert. 

We then dropped my boyfriend back off at our place and us three girls headed into town to do some shopping. I as hoping to find something new to wear and eneded up getting a simple little jumpsuit which I planned to wear with some white heals. I then picked up two more friends and we all headed back to my place to have a few drinks and to socialise, before heading out for dinner. We arrived at the restaurant at about 7:45 where we met two more friends so there were 9 of us in total. I had never been to the restaurant we went to before but the food was incredible and it wasnt that expensive either. 

I had a dish called frenched chicken which was like a stuffed chicken that came served on a bed of sweet potato mash with steamed greens and a delicious sauce. It was one of the most delicious meals I have eaten for as long as I can rememeber and I scraped the plate clean. Luckily I still had just enough room for dessert so I had a banana split which came served with incredible caramel icecream as well as chocolate pieces and caramel popcorn. 

After dinner, we went out to a couple of bars where we danced and drank a little too, before heading home at about 1am. It was a great night and I had so much fun with all my closest friends! The following day I met two of the girls who had celebrated with me the night before and we went for a walk around the Cataract Gorge. It was really nice to get out in the fresh air and was a great way to end a wonderful weekend. I also spent some time doing a little study and preparing for the upcoming week at university.

Today I am starting a 4 week Herbalife Booty Lifestyle Wellness Challenge which I am quite excited about. Not only is the nutrition side of Herbalife incredible, but the community is amazing too. We all work together to motivate and inspire one another ti achieve our goals, no matter what they may be. For me, my goals are to continue improving my mindset, to nurture my body with the food, nutrition and exercise it deserves and to get stronger and gain muscle. 

I had to take some before pictures so that I can see the  physical progress I make over the next four weeks and when I compared them to the 'before picture' I took when I started my Herbalife program (almost 2 months ago) I was really surprised to see the transformation in my body. As well as gaining a kilogram I have become noticeaby stronger in my legs and arms and I am even starting to get a booty which I love! I am happy to post the progress pictures over the last two months if you like, just let me know!

I better leave this post here and go and get some study done. I have already been to the gym today so am feeling totally energetic and ready for the long day at uni I have ahea. I am also trying to take photos if everything I eat today so that I can do a photo food diary for the day xo stay tuned for that!:)