The School Tag

So Ellen tagged me to do this and of course, being the tag crazy person that I am, I definitely wanted to participate! I’ve also never seen this one around before but I thought it would be interesting to answer some questions that are different from the tags I’ve already done. =) I’m in university now so I’m going to answer the questions as though I’m a high school student again!

What is your favourite subject in school?
It was definitely Maths. I liked it a lot because there’s always a correct answer whereas in subjects such as English, how well you do depends on who marks your work and that really bothered me!

What is your least favourite subject in school?
I’ve never really absolutely hated a subject but I would probably say geography? I just didn’t really find it fascinating at all. =P

How many detentions have you had?
I’ve never had a proper detention before! I’ve had those minor ones in primary school where if you didn’t read enough books for the week, you’d have to sit in a room with other people during recess LOL.

Are you a class rebel or a teacher’s pet?
I wouldn’t say I’m one or the other. I would put myself in the middle!

What was your favourite year in school?
This is so hard! I really enjoyed most of high school except the final year. I would probably go with year 10? A lot of things happened that year but it was overall just such a fun time with all my friends!

What was your least favourite year in school?
Probably the final year, year 12! It was so stressful preparing for university entrance exams and I cut off a lot of social activities because of it, and I truly regret that so much now!

Who was your first friend in school?
My first friend in primary school was a girl called Uvrashi! She was my best friend at the time before I moved houses and schools. My parents actually told me that one time she bit my arm really hard so they got called in by the principal and my arm was really bruised and purple LOL. I had no idea about this until I was in high school!

Your most vivid school memory?
There’s so so many. I’ve had so many hilarious memories from high school. One memory was when we played ‘Silent Library’ during a photography class (we never did any work in that class haha) but it was the most hilarious thing ever. If you guys haven’t watched it before, definitely YouTube it! Japanese game shows are seriously so hilarious.

Who is your favourite teacher in school?
Our year advisor, Mrs Dickson. She was the biggest sweetheart, always caring and looking out for all of us. She also dedicated a day every month since year 7 (the first year of high school) where she would bake delicious cupcakes for everyone at the end of their birthday month!

Who is your least favourite teacher in school?
I wouldn’t want to say her name because I feel bad but she had a horrible temper. She was always angry and very mean! Everyone was always scared to even be in the same vicinity as her. She eventually left though!

Have you ever skipped class?
Not without my parents knowing! It was mainly on the last day of the term where we wouldn’t have been doing any work anyway.

What’s the biggest fad you’ve had in school?
In the beginning of high school, everyone was obsessed with using bags from Supre and I definitely fell into that fad. I remember buying clothes from the store just so I could get the bag that comes with all purchases!

Worst teacher joke ever?
What do you get when you mix sulfur, tungsten, and silver? SWAG. (Sorry, that was pretty bad…)

Compliments That Aren’t About Physical Appearance

A lot of the time we get complimented on the way we look and we start to think that it’s the most valued quality about ourselves but it’s important to notice how skilled we are and how empowered we are as individuals. I found this list below that has a number of compliments we can start using that focus on how great we are on the inside. I hope that all of you will be able to use these compliments from now on! =)

1. You’re empowering

2. I like your voice

3. You’re strong

4. I think your ideas/beliefs matter

5. I’m so happy you exist

6. More people should be listening to what you have to say

7. You’re a very warm hearted person

8. It’s nice seeing such kindness

9. You’re very down to earth

10. You have a beautiful soul

11. You inspire me to become a better person

12. Our conversations bring me a lot of joy

13. It’s good to see someone care so much

14. You’re so understanding

15. You matter a lot to me

16. You’re important even if you don’t think so

17. You’re intelligent

18. Your passion is contagious

19. Your confidence is refreshing

20. You restore my faith in humanity

21. You’re great at being creative

22. You’re so talented at _____

23. I don’t get tired of you the way I get tired of other people

24. You have great taste in _____

25. I’m happy I stayed alive long enough to meet you

26. I wish more people were like you

27. You’re so good at loving people

I hope you all will go compliment as many people as you can today! =) I pass along all these compliments to all of you that are reading!

How To Stay Awake!

Hi guys! I’m currently on my study vacation and I have exams starting on the 17th and finishing on the 26th! I can’t wait to finish so I can post a lot more often like I used to! Now that I’m trying to stay up a little later than usual, I was looking for some tips on how to let myself not sleep so early and I came across this list. =) I hope you’ll be able to use them on times where you really need to stay up a little later than usual to do work!

1. Avoid rooms that are overly heated or warm. Open windows to keep fresh air coming in.

2. Splash cold water onto your face.

3. Physical exercise or warm up. You can do a few jumping jacks every 1 hour or so to keep the blood moving in your body.

4. Listen to music. Boring or overly mundane tasks can cause you to tune out. Hence, listening to music can make your brain more active again.

5. Get a laugh. It wakes up your brain. You could do this by watching something funny on YouTube before you start studying.

6. Draw inspiration from somewhere. Sometimes you feel tired because you lack ideas or interests for an activity. As a result, your brain naturally shuts down to prevent you from wasting energy on something non-rewarding.

7. Bright room can make you feel more alert. However for night owls, bright room might decrease your ability to focus. Hence, use a dim room if you are a night owl.

8. Eat nutritious low carbs snacks such as raspberries, apples, oranges or grapefruits. They are great energy boosters and do not take up energy to digest.

9. Obviously ensure that you have had enough sleep. However, don’t sleep too many hours, because too much sleep can cause you to become even more sleepy.

10. Drink coffee but don’t rely overly too much on it as you can develop dependency.

(Source: Neurolove)

I hope these tips will be able to help you as much as they’ve helped me! Once again, I do have to apologise for not posting very frequently but I definitely will when I find the time again! ♡

How To Improve Your Self-Esteem! ♡

Hi everyone! Today I bring to you another lifestyle related post to help boost up your self-esteem and help you feel more comfortable in your own skin! This was a list I came across via onlinecounsellingcollege so I have to give the credit to them! I always love sharing tips I stumble upon online because I personally relate to them and always feel a lot more reassured when I read them, so I want to pass it along to all of you guys! =)

1. It starts with a decision to be your own person. Don’t live your life to please or to impress someone else.

2. Try and grasp the fact that we’re different and have different goals and values, and don’t be swayed by other people who criticise your dreams.

3. Don’t compare your path or journey to someone else’s journey as we start from different places and face different challenges.

4. Be kind, understanding and patient with yourself. Accept that failures and mistakes are a part of everybody’s life. Also, choose to frame mistakes as learning opportunities.

5. You need to root for yourself and seek to be your own best friend. Don’t denigrate yourself in public or when you’re alone.

6. Remind yourself that a weakness can become a strength in time. It takes patience and effort but eventually things change!

7. Make a list of what you’re good at and keep adding to the list. Also, note the strengths that others see and comment on as well.

8. Treat yourself with respect and praise the things that you do well. Don’t write them off as “nothing” or as being “no big deal”.

9. Find ways to dissipate and channel negative emotions. Don’t allow them to dictate the way you start to see yourself.

10. Spend time with those who like you and can see your worth and value, and ignore those who attack you and would like to see you fail.

11. Choose to stand up for yourself and value being more assertive. Also, decide to start to set and then enforce appropriate, healthy boundaries.

12. Admit your mistakes – then learn to laugh at yourself. It helps remove the pressure and the stress of “being perfect”!

I really hope that you’ll be able to take these on board with you and make you feel better if you’re struggling with self-esteem or confidence issues, or maybe you’re having a rough day and need a few pick me ups! Either way, let me know if these were useful and I can’t wait to share more tips in my future posts! =) ♡

Best Studying Techniques & Tips

Exams and assessments are really stressful so it’s important to know exactly how to make the most out of your time to do well in them! I know that I do get really nervous but doing everything in the list below has helped calm my nerves down before every exam and leaves me feeling completely prepared!

This was a scientific study done by some researchers and they found that the most common ways of studying are actually the least effective out of all.

L e a s t  E f f e c t i v e

1. Highlighting — including underlining textbooks and other materials
2. Rereading
3. Summarisation
4. Keyword mnemonics — the use of keywords and mnemonics to help remind students of course material
5. Imagery use for text learning — creating mental images to remind students of material

M o d e r a t e l y  E f f e c t i v e

1. Elaborative interrogation — uses “why” questions to get students to make connections between new and old material.
2. Self-explanation — prompting students to provide their own explanations for problems while learning material
3. Interleaved practice — mixing different kinds of problems or material in one study session

H i g h l y  E f f e c t i v e

1. Practice testing — any form that allows students to test themselves, including using actual or virtual flashcards, doing problems or questions at the end of textbook chapters, or taking practice tests.
2. Distributed practice — studying material over a number of relatively short sessions. Studying in 30 to 50 minute intervals with 10 minute breaks in between is the most effective way to retain information!

♡ Use page tabs when studying textbooks. This will make it so much more convenient for you to access certain topics and information, especially when it comes to later in a term or semester when you would have covered so much information that you forget where it is in the book!

♡ This may not be for everyone but for me, using colour helps a lot! I like to colour coordinate my notes so that it is more visually appealing to read. If it’s all monochromatic, I find that it looks incredibly boring and I will not want to look at it! =P

♡ Prepare stationery and extra equipment the night before! Make sure you bring extra pens and pencils in case they run out during an exam. A calculator is also a must for certain subjects so make sure you remember to bring it if it’s necessary!

♡ Get a good night’s rest! Your brain actually retains information better during sleep so it’s important that you don’t do an all nighter the day before an exam! Make sure you start studying earlier so you don’t need to and you will be able to sleep better knowing that you’ve prepared in advance

♡ Eat good food during the day leading up to your exam! Your mind needs fuel to function just like the rest of your body does and it’s important to provide your body with the proper nutrients it needs to work at its best!

♡ Don’t cram information into your head right before it’s time to enter an examination room (or even just for studying in general)! It can make you feel even more nervous and can cause doubts that you won’t be able to remember anything during the exam

♡ Take a deep breath and relax! You have studied as hard as you can and that is the best you can do! =)

I hope you found this post helpful! Study hard and ace your assessments!

Things Every Teenager Should Know ♡

I came across this list when I was on Tumblr (via fearlessknightsandfairytales) and I seriously related to absolutely all of them. Below are little bits and pieces of advice that I feel absolutely every single teenager should keep in the back of their minds! It’s actually so eye opening how much every single one of these are relatable!

1. People will promise to never leave you. They will. It’s ok to be sad when they do.

2. It is always ok to cry. Always. Find a bathroom, bury your face in your pillow, and let it out. Cry in the shower. Cry in the car. Cry when you need to.

3. Boys will flirt with you for a while and then ignore you. Then, they will flirt with you some more. It will be confusing. You have every right to stop putting up with it.

4. Pay attention to what people say when they’re angry. When you make up and they tell you they didn’t mean any of it, know that they did. Also know that they wish they didn’t. Forgive them.

5. Never pretend to be someone you’re not. If you don’t like tea and classic novels, don’t act like you do to impress people. If you don’t want to wear leather jackets and combat boots, don’t wear them to please someone else.

6. People will be mean to you; they will spread lies, call you names, and talk about you behind your back. Eventually you will realise that it is petty and stupid and not worth your time. You’ll be alright. Move on with your life.

7. Your friends will not always be there for you. When you really need to talk, they will sometimes not want to hear it. That’s ok. Take a deep breath and remember all the times you felt the same way. Exhale.

8. You will wait and wait and wait for your first kiss and your first date and your first relationship. The anticipation will kill you. You will keep trying to find the right person in everyone you meet. Relax. There’s no rush. The best things happen unplanned.

9. Enjoy being young. Love that everything is spontaneous. As you get older, things become more and more scheduled out. Embrace the fact that you aren’t there yet.

10. Tell people how you feel. It will be terrifying in some cases and gratifying in others. It will create relationships and ruin them. But speak your mind, even if your voice shakes, because your thoughts may never otherwise be heard.

11. Sleep. If you go to bed late, sleep in. If you’re still tired when you wake up, go back to bed. If you can’t stay awake during the day, take a nap. Sleeping is a foolproof way of getting rid of your problems for a little while. Utilise it.

12. Talk to people. Talk to your sister about the guy she likes. Talk to your mum about her childhood. Talk to your dad about his favourite books. Talk to your grandparents about their families. Talk to your friends, talk to your pets, talk to the cute waitress at the restaurant. Learn things from them. Be inspired.

13. Always bring a sweater. Even if you think it won’t be cold.

14. Try new things. Eat a new food, try a new kind of juice, switch up the way you dress. You never know what you might end up loving. Life can get boring. Mix it up a bit.

15. Take care of yourself. Wash your hair with that good smelling soap you love. Eat fruits and vegetables. Drink lots of water. Go for long walks in pretty parks.

16. School is important. Try your hardest. If you don’t get something, ask for help. Do your homework. Show your teachers that you’re willing to work hard, and when it comes time to apply to colleges, you’ll be glad you did.

17. There will always be someone prettier, smarter, funnier, or more popular than you. The beauty of it is that it isn’t a competition.

I hope this list makes a lot of you feel reassured! I know that there are people of different ages reading my blog so I would love to know if any of you relate to these too! I’m nearing the end of my teenage life in a couple of months and I really do wish I read these when I was younger. I hope that at least one person out there feels less stressed and more reassured after reading this! =) ♡

My Typical Daily Food Plan ♡

Thank you all so much for the amazing support and comments on my previous health and fitness journey post. I was really overwhelmed by how much you all said it was inspiring and motivating, and that was exactly what I was aiming to do! Also, I’d like to thank Talking About Beauty for requesting to see this post! I thought it would be a great idea because it’s the perfect follow-up from my previous post. =) I believe in eating a well balanced and nutritious diet that incorporates all three macronutrients – carbohydrates, proteins and fats as well as . I don’t believe in deprivation of any of those and although eating junk food is definitely 100% fine in moderation, I don’t get cravings to eat them so I only will on special occasions such as birthdays (where there will be cake hehe, and I don’t want to be rude rejecting a slice)!

B r e a k f a s t

My breakfast is the absolute same every single day. To me, oatmeal is like dessert and I actually look forward to waking up just so I can eat it LOL. My oatmeal consists of:

♡ ½ cup of rolled oats
♡ ¾ cup of skim milk
♡ 1 tsp of chia seeds
♡ ½ tbsp of honey
♡ 1 sliced banana

It is really simple and quick to prepare in the mornings. I just add the milk into the oatmeal in a bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes then add the rest of the ingredients. Of course, it can be cooked on a stovetop but I find that it adds time to the whole process and there would be more washing up to do! I really dislike my oatmeal in a porridge texture because I like a bit of crunch so I never buy quick oats or anything like that!

L u n c h

For lunch, I will usually have leftovers from the night before but if I don’t then I will grab something quick on campus or I really enjoy buying SumoSalads if I’m eating locally on-the-go.

♡ Meat and vegetables from dinner the night before
♡ Campus food (typically a sourdough quinoa grain long roll with ham, fennel, sundried tomatoes and some cheese)
♡ SumoSalad (I always get a medium mix of two different salads. My favourite combination is the free range pesto chicken and fresh avocado with the sweet roasted pumpkin and chickpea leafy salads)

S n a c k s

Snacking is where I mostly get my fats in for the day. I’m usually very hungry when I get home from university at around 4:00pm so I always want to eat something. Depending on how much energy I will need in the evening (if I’m running or going to the gym), I will eat more or less but my typical go-to snacks are:

♡ Unsalted peanuts
♡ Unsalted roasted almonds
♡ Pitted dates
♡ Fresh fruit (usually an apple, peach or a plum)
♡ Freshly pressed green juices (once a week my Mum likes to prepare green juices that contain kale, apples, carrots, pears and sometimes grapes for added sweetness)

➳ Tip: If you’re a big snacker like me, a good way to prevent overeating is to not eat straight out of the packet. Take a handful and put it into another bowl or plate and walk away! It means you’ll just be eating only what’s there and won’t be excessively eating.

D i n n e r

In my household, dinner varies every single day but it will typically consist of a main carbohydrate and then a selection of meats and vegetables. Once or twice a week, we go outside traditional Chinese meals and we will have steak with vegetables and pasta. A typical dinner for me consists of:

♡ Brown rice
♡ Meat (either chicken breast or red meats such as beef, lamb or even pork)
♡ Vegetables (varies everyday but my top favourites are spinach, sweet potato and broccoli)
♡ Freshly squeezed orange juice

P o s t – D i n n e r

Depending on how late I eat dinner (I usually eat at 7:00pm), I will have something else to eat at around 9:00pm. I know people say that you shouldn’t eat after a certain time but I haven’t had an issue with this at all and I think as long as you’re not having another whole entire meal then it is perfectly fine!

♡ Low fat vanilla yoghurt with a handful of frozen berries along with fresh strawberries and blueberries (sometimes a bit of mango too)
♡ Freshly brewed green tea (my favourite is organic Japanese matcha green tea powder)

➳ Tip: Greek yoghurt is probably one of the best choices for yoghurt but I don’t enjoy the taste of it so I opt for yoghurts that have the least amount of sugar in my supermarket aisle. Don’t fall into the ‘low fat’ trap – remember to always read the nutrition label to make sure the fat isn’t just completely replaced with sugars!

I hope you all enjoyed reading about what I typically eat everyday. I’m someone who doesn’t mind not having variety. If I like the taste of something, I can eat it all day everyday! =)

My Dream Wedding Day ♡

I was approached by Lover.ly to participate in this challenge and I thought it was a fabulous idea! I’m certain that all young girls have pictured the day that they would get married and I, for one, occasionally do think about what my actual dream wedding day would be like! I know I hear all the time that planning the day is incredibly stressful but everyone says that it’s the most special day of our lives so I say it is most worth it!

A part of the challenge was to pick out which of the following venues your dream wedding would be located: an elegant estate, secret garden or rustic winery! I wanted my wedding to be at a traditional church when I was younger but as I’ve grown up now, I now think that a secret garden would be so romantic and beautiful. There’s just something so ethereal and serene about being surrounded by nature!

Going onto the wedding dress shop on the website is so overwhelming, but I mean that in a good way of course! Wedding dresses in general are just so breathtakingly beautiful and after browsing through the pages and seeing the hundreds of stunning styles, it became increasingly difficult to pinpoint what my perfect wedding dress would be. However, I was immediately drawn to the designs by Maggie Sottero! Her dresses all have a feminine and classic feel to them, very much like my personal style. I have always envisioned my wedding dress to have lace detailing and a long trail. I want to look and feel like a princess on the special day! =) I guess I won’t know what my perfect dress would be until I’m preparing for my actual wedding and I’m going around different stores trying to find the perfect one! But there are definitely two particular styles that catch my eye every time:

♡ Form fitting lace dress with a low back, long trail and a bow at the back
♡ Bigger, princess-like dress with lace detailing

① Lucinda Dress

② Lauralee Dress

I definitely think that for the particular venue, I would want something more softer material wise. I definitely also think that these dresses are more classic rather than trendy because I don’t ever want to look back one day at my wedding photos and regret my choice! =P

I remember being so obsessed with the planning of Chriselle Lim’s wedding and I completely fell in love with the shoes she wore on her special day. I absolutely adore the embellishments on the front T-straps and I feel that they are the most perfect shoes. They would be such a splurge but I know that I would be able to get good use out of them after the wedding too, especially for other more special and glam night occasions. =)

I would choose a veil similar to that shown in my first dress choice. However, if I was wearing the second dress, I would probably opt for something a little more toned down and go for a jewelled head piece such as the one I showed. I think it suits the venue perfectly!

Of course I can’t complete my post without including what sort of makeup and hair I would choose for the special day! For makeup, I would most definitely go for a more natural glam makeup look that is classic. I wouldn’t dare to play around with any trendy looks just because, as I said before, I don’t want to look back and wonder what I was thinking!

I’m not someone who really likes their hair all the way up so I would love to have my hair curled in a half-up half-down sort of style. I really adore softer and natural looking curls so I would want my hair to be curled like the picture above and pinned back (minus the hairpiece).

That completes my dream wedding day! I really enjoyed this challenge, it was so much fun to put together. I can’t wait to look back to this post when I’m actually planning on getting married and see how my tastes will (or won’t) change! If you’re looking for some bridal inspiration, definitely check out Lover.ly!

My Top Favourite Fitness YouTubers & Workouts

Before I started going to the gym or when I wanted to do some extra exercise, I was working out at home using YouTube videos. They are perfect because you can access them anytime and anywhere! I’m someone who doesn’t like working out by myself but when I watch videos, I feel as though I’m working out with someone else and it’s convenient because you just follow along with the exercises they’re doing!

① X H I T  D a i l y

This was the first fitness YouTube channel I got into when I first started out. Unfortunately, they no longer upload new videos (they have been re-uploading their old videos) but their previous videos are still available and they are great nonetheless. They have a wide range of workouts available! I especially adore the workouts by Kelsey Lee and Rebecca-Louise (pictured above). They’ve moved on to make other workout videos so if you like them as much as I do then you can YouTube their names for more updated videos!

My favourite workouts:

♡ Feel the Burn Cardio
♡ How to Get Toned Arms
♡ 7 Minute Abs
♡ Olivia Wilde Sexy Abs Workout
♡ Miranda Kerr Butt Workout

② F i t n e s s  B l e n d e r

I really enjoy Fitness Blender for their more longer workouts, but of course they have a wide range of shorter workouts too if you don’t have a lot of time. A lot of them also include a warm-up and a cool-down so you can get right into it without doing anything extra. Not only do they upload workout routines, they also have some nutritional informative videos for a lot of frequently asked questions people want answers for when it comes to health that are well worth checking out!

My favourite workouts:

♡ Freeze & Squeeze Bodyweight Bootcamp
♡ When I Say Jump HIIT Cardio
♡ Insane Cardio Workout Challenge (Climbing the Mountain)
♡ Total Body HIIT & Cardio Kickboxing
♡ Legs on Fire

③ B l o g i l a t e s

Blogilates is probably one of the most popular fitness YouTubers and when you give her workouts a try, you can definitely see why she is such a great personal trainer. She also has some quick, cheap and simple recipes on her channel that you can try out. Her workouts are very intense and they seriously burn. If you’re short on time but you want extremely effective workouts, Cassey is someone you seriously need to check out!

My favourite workouts:

♡ Extreme Abs Workout
♡ ABC Abs
♡ The Bold & The Bootiful
♡ Victoria’s Secret Bombshell Butt Workout
♡ Intense Inner Thigh Challenge

If you are just getting into fitness or just really dislike going to a conventional gym, YouTube is a great source to look for different workouts that suit your own needs. What sort of workouts do you all do and where do you do them? I would love to know! =)

My Health & Fitness Journey (Text Heavy! =P)

Before I go into more specific posts on health and fitness, I wanted to share my journey along with all the past life experiences and steps I’ve taken to get to where I am today! This is a journey that I’ve never really talked about before but I thought it would be appropriate to share it with you all so you won’t make the same mistakes I did when I first got into the whole “dieting” fad. Bare in mind that I am in no way a health professional and this is just my own personal experience so if you have plans to become more healthy and fit, please take into consideration your own bodily needs! Please also don’t mind that this post will have no images and will be really text heavy so if this isn’t something you’re not interested in reading about, of course I’m completely fine with that and you can skip this post! =)

To start things off, I have to say that I was overweight for a majority of my life. I was definitely by no means morbidly obese but I was overweight to the point where I was ridiculed by other people at a young age, just because I was larger than an average child. Thankfully at the time I had really thick skin and I didn’t take anything negative anyone said to heart because they were just telling me things I already knew, and I didn’t want to give them the reaction or response they were looking for. I was happy with myself at the time and I had no concerns with body image so I went on with my daily life with no worries about life in general.

I didn’t have an interest in becoming “skinny” until about 8th grade. It didn’t last long at all but at the time I was skipping breakfast and didn’t eat meat at all. Please bare in mind that I had no knowledge at all about health and nutrition at the time, so for me I was under the impression that anything that wasn’t a fruit or a vegetable was bad for the body. I was doing no exercise at all, apart from PE in school and I definitely did lose some weight but it was completely unhealthy and I gained it back almost immediately after I started to eat normally again. I would never recommend anyone to do this regardless of your health and fitness goals. It’s always important to eat a balanced diet that incorporates all three macronutrients – carbohydrates, proteins and fats!

Fast forward three years, I decided to take health more seriously than I did before and started to exercise with a goal to become more fit overall. I started to count my calories using the MyFitnessPal app and I incorporated really basic bodyweight exercises into my routine before I went to bed at night. I was doing minimal sets of various crunches and squats. In the beginning, I was eating an avocado on a multigrain toast every morning but eventually I stopped enjoying the taste of it so I started to make my own berry smoothie using a handful of frozen mixed berries, skim milk, some low-fat vanilla yogurt and a few ice cubes to top it all off. I was eating at a calorie deficit of about 1,200 calories with an aim to reach 50kg (I was around 62kg at the time and I was 15 years old). I was dropping weight fast because I transitioned from eating all kinds of unhealthy food to completely eliminating anything that was fried or sugary. Anything that would be classified as junk or unhealthy, I did not eat at all. It definitely took a lot of willpower but I have to say that after two weeks, it was easy for me because I developed the habit. I no longer craved eating unhealthy food and I started enjoying eating more healthy. I think my friends started to get annoyed at me at this point because every time they tried to feed me something unhealthy, I would refuse to eat it. =P I did get really skinny to the point where my family and friends were commenting on it but because the weight dropped really fast, this meant that it gained back fast too. I was back to my original weight within no time at all, especially since I stopped exercising in my final year of high school so I could focus on solely studying.

I didn’t start being more informed and become more health conscious until 2013 where I got into weightlifting at the gym. I stopped weighing myself because this was the time when my fitness goal was just to become stronger. It was no longer about wanting to be “skinny” but to build muscle and recompose my body fat and muscle ratio. I was doing both dumbbell and barbell work, doing full body workouts. In 2014, I started the StrongLifts 5×5 program. It incorporates the three big lifts – the bench press, the barbell squat and the barbell deadlift as well as a few other compound lifts. It is a great beginners program that I would recommend for everyone. The website explains everything perfectly and clearly so if you are interested, please do check it out! I know a lot of other people recommend the program too. Even until now, I still incorporate the exercises into my gym regime and I am as strong as I ever have been – and continuing to get stronger! I visit the gym three times a week and alternate between two different workouts. I’ve also taken up running every Mondays doing 7km at a pace of roughly 5.30min/km. Until the start of 2015, I was also doing a combination further cardio (mainly HIIT) and pilates on my rest days for an hour in the evenings. I was following YouTube workouts such as FitnessBlender and Blogilates, which are both fantastic by the way and I will do a post on my favourite fitness YouTubers! But now I’ve decided to focus on building numbers in my lifts so I have decided to use my rest days as actual rest days.

I’m definitely really proud of my progress but I’m still dreaming big and I want to continually get stronger and stronger. Several years ago I never would have thought I would be able to finally be reasonably content with the way my body looks but now I am able to say that I am. Any sort of health or fitness journey requires commitment and consistency. There is just no way that your body will transform overnight. It takes time but the results are so worth it! =)

The lessons learned in my experience that I want to pass onto anyone who wants to achieve their own fitness goals:

♡ Start slow! If exercise is new to you, there is no need to go out and do anything excessive. Your body needs to adjust to the pressure and changes that occur with exercise so take it easy! Everyone starts somewhere and it’s all about the baby steps. Any sort of dramatic and fast weight loss is unhealthy and means that it will pack back on really easily.

♡ Don’t bother weighing yourself, measure yourself using a measuring tape instead. I spent the longest time believing that weight loss meant fat loss and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Weight can be composed of fat, muscle, water or anything else within your body. A good way to effectively note your progress is to take pictures of yourself and continue to at the end of each week. You can see your body change visually – it’s never about the numbers on the scale!

♡ EAT! Don’t deprive your body of food. You need food to survive and function properly and a good diet is necessary for you to actually exercise! A lot of diets involving eating ridiculously little are ineffective because they cause yo-yo diets where once you start eating properly again, the weight will add back on within days.

♡ For the girlies – don’t be afraid of weights! You will not get bulky and it requires a very high calorie surplus to do so. Strength training is one of the most effective ways to burn body fat but increase muscle mass at the same time. The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you can naturally burn everyday too!

I hope you enjoyed my post! I know it was so long but I wanted to share absolutely everything about my journey. I will be uploading a post tomorrow on a few of my favourite fitness YouTubers so I hope you look forward to that! =) Please do share your health and fitness journeys with me too if you want to!