Springtime (and I feel human again)

I wasn't ever going to blog about how the last post on here was about Christmas, or the fact I've felt like a little shell of myself, the last few months but I've realised I don't care to post content that everyone else wants to see... 

It's funny how winter affects me so much; after the rush towards Christmas, I feel like I just slip further into a hole that is hard to climb back out of. It's not every year it happens, but when it does it catches me so by surprise it knocks the wind out of me - in January I kept thinking I was fighting it off, that I was getting to the gym and being sociable and doing all those things I was taught to do to keep me going, before realising I was finding no joy in them and I ground to a halt.

It's not until the first warm day of spring that I start to feel like me again. Only when the sunlight begins to feel warm again, and I roll my window down on the drive home from work, and I sit outside in my garden on the weekends to eat my lunch and it's okay, cause everything starts to feel okay again. Today felt okay, for the first time in a while. I woke up this morning after a lovely evening with a new friend, I have some things to look forward to, I feel like I'm more solid in my skin and things feel good. This afternoon I sat and watched the blue tits in the garden, did some knitting and drank my coffee with full fat milk, to feel indulgent.

So I guess I'll just sit tight until summer...

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Are you okay? and #WorldSuicidePreventionDay

You may or may not be aware that today is #WorldSuicidePreventionDay. I know the day is almost over, and I wasn't aware that today had this title or of the RUOK? movement.

I get that people don't talk about these things, that sometimes it's easier just to not say anything, and pretend that it will end. Sometimes it feels like days can last for years and winters can last for centuries when things are very dark, it's hard to understand why the world is trying to do this to you. I can offer you a thousand beautiful quotes about sticking around, but this won't shift a crippling mental illness, and I know this, and you know this. What helps are support networks and healthy coping mechanisms, and all those things you know you should be doing, like talking to people, but you keep it quiet, instead.

So please stay, please talk to someone, things can improve if you give it time and if you give it a chance, but more importantly, if you talk to someone.

Are you okay?

And maybe if romantic quotes do work for you, here is a personal favourite, from someone that has come out the other side, and can vouch for things getting better, even when things seem so hopeless...

Maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.

x

from my sick-bed

Well, it's not quite my sick-bed. It's my regular bed, and I'm feeling very sorry for myself, and fancied a bit of a chat with you all.

I went into hospital this Thursday just gone, to have my gallbladder removed. I wasn't that worried about the procedure, until I started thinking about the anaesthetic. I've never had a general one before, and I was worried about all sorts of things, like waking up in the middle of the operation, or not waking up afterwards, or of being sick from it. Anyway, there was a whole host of things running through my mind as I sat in the waiting room, politely smiling as a woman told me about her 'waterworks' problems.

Turns out I was sat in the wrong waiting room (I was told to sit there, mind you) and had to be rushed into theatre last minute. This caused a bit of a flap, you see, as I wasn't mentally prepared, no-one had told me anything, or what was going on. A few shouted words at nurses later (they started it, trust me!) and I'm being whipped off to theatre on a bed by a lovely porter, who did his best to keep me calm. A few mumbled words through an oxygen mask later, and I'm being woken up in the recovery room in an intense amount of pain. I was watching some videos yesterday about where they remove the gallbladder from, and all of them are really ramming the tubes in and out of the individuals stomachs - no wonder I feel like I've been punched in the gut repeatedly! No-one tells you how much a laparoscopic procedure will hurt! A minor operation, pfft. 

Maybe it's minor compared to heart surgery, but considering until then, the most invasive thing I've had done at the hospital was an endoscopy (which was traumatic in itself!), it's quite major. I think to doctors and nurses who see this day in, day out, they become very blase about the whole thing, and they don't understand why people get so panicked. I'd never say I have anxiety, because I've never been diagnosed, but I've suffered some similar mental health problems in the past, and have suffered from panic attacks for a long time - so I know when I'm approaching that state, beyond the usual nervous worries. I think more doctors and nurses need to be aware that for some people, it goes beyond just being a bit nervous, which I get is totally normal.

Anyway, now I've been signed off for two weeks, and I was hoping to go back to work sooner than this, but as I can barely keep awake for most of the day and can't walk more than a few paces without being overwhelmed from the pain... this doesn't seem likely.

So have you got any recommendations of what I watch, read or do whilst I'm confined to my room? I have a stack of books I want to read, some knitting to finish, and Orange is the New Black to get on with, so hopefully these will keep me occupied for a little while?!

Or, if you fancy a chat or a gossip - get in contact with me on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or follow on Bloglovin', I need people to keep me occupied so I don't go stir-crazy!

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the sun through the trees - part two

There are some things that feel a little better though, like when the sun breaks from behind the grey clouds, you manage to catch the setting sun in the woods, there is a pinecone in your pocket and some twigs in your hair and everything feels alright again. Sometimes it's really good to get out and get dirty, to cake your boots in mood and run through the frozen over puddles on the ground, feeling the ice crack beneath your unsuitable trainers. You forget what date it is, when the sun gets in your eyes and you feel hot for the first time all day; and on the walk home, the bulbs your mother and father planted are poking out of the ground in the garden, there is a red kite crying, somewhere above your head; you can take a deep breath and say that you'll get through it, because you always do.

part one

the sun through the trees - part one

I find winter a hard time - despite my adoration for the all the things I dream of in a winter, like crisp frosty mornings and brisk weekend walks in the sunshine, it always turns out differently. The crisp frosty mornings are less beautiful when walking to work in the dark at 8AM or scraping the ice from your car until your fingers are blue. The sunny Saturday strolls are few and far between in January and you spend a lot more time indoors, looking out at the rain falling, with the wind trying to get in through the cracks in the house than I do out walking in the sunshine. At times like these it's hard to push through without the lure of Christmas to cheer you on, your only hope is that the solstice has passed and that the days are getting longer again, the sun is lingering that little bit more and that soon it will be spring.

part two tomorrow...

putting your faith in time as a healer...

Since I was a teenager, I've found it hard to switch off my brain and go to sleep, because for the longest time, I've dreaded being alone with my thoughts. When I need to to sleep, my mind decides to replay just about every horrible, shameful, painful, bad and depressing incident in its back catalogue, repeatedly; to the point where I used to be in tears and unable to sleep, staying awake for hours with the TV blaring, just so I didn't have to think about these things. 

I used to think that these things would never change, that I'd never be able to not feel like this, I just assumed that it was how my brain was wired. Therapists gave me endless tips and tricks to dealing with these negative thoughts, but they never seemed to work that well. I was lying in bed last night, trying to will myself to fall asleep, and with a sinking feeling in my stomach, my thoughts drifted to one of these incidents. For some reason, no amount of mindfulness, meditation and rhythmic breathing has ever been able to take my mind off this incident.. 

But there was nothing. There was no deep stomach ache of guilt, the tears never came and I didn't want to vomit or claw my hair out. There was just this hardened little lump in my throat, and then it went away. I was instantly reminded of this quote by Rumi - so much that I got up and went to my notebook and wrote it down several times.

Don't turn away.  Keep your gaze on the bandaged place, that is where the light enters you.

I'm not religious, I believe in people changing things for themselves, to make a difference. Last night when I felt like I was sinking into this horrible place, that would put me in bad mood for days, I realised that something had healed over the wound. There was nothing there except scar tissue, a small something that told me how I used to feel when I revisited that place. No tears, no shame, no guilt, no black rabbit hole... It felt like just a bump in the road, a small skip and then it was gone.

There is little I can attribute this to, except putting my stock in time as healer. That old pithy saying, time heals all wounds, that I've never really believed in, suddenly feels true. I've been working on learning to look after myself, my health, my mental health and suddenly it feels like all my hard work is paying off.

So I just want to let you know that if you're feeling like this: hopefully it will get better. It will all pass one day, and you'll barely notice. You'll be snuggled up in bed on a lazy Saturday morning with it snowing outside, listening to Dusty Springfield with a smile on your face because you know you're getting better.

honesty, advice & integrity whilst blogging

A little while ago I got into a somewhat heated discussion with a couple of other bloggers on Twitter about honesty vs not telling the truth: I was slated for not explicitly telling everyone my mental health history, and in their eyes because of that, I was completely not allowed to talk about it as such. To me, this was ridiculous. I think everyone should talk more about mental health, regardless if you have diagnosed issues or not - this is the only way stigmas will end..
However, these thoughts have stayed with me since then, and now that I've gradually started talking more about ways to look after your mental health on my blog, and felt it was about time to post this disclaimer, even though it's sad that I even have to. 

For starters, I am so very intensely wary about talking about mental health on my blog, incase I say the wrong thing. I am no professional, obviously. I want to give people links here for the Samaritans, the NHS, Childline and the Mental Health Foundation, Time to Change - more links to help pages at the end of this post. When I talk about mental health it is very different to mental illness: to me, mental health is just looking after your general wellbeing, your psychological state of mind, etc, and mental illness will be a condition diagnosed by a GP or other health practitioner.

I touched on the subject in some of my more personal posts and generally in my life, and on my blog, I have never hidden the fact I have suffered from depression in the past; I am quite open about it. If you ask me, I will tell. If I think I can offer advice on the situation as someone who suffered badly when younger, I will. If I think I can help someone from doing something silly, sad, dangerous, or that they might regret, of course I will help. 

Unfortunately, stigmas surrounding mental health do exist, and despite the excellent work of campaigns like Time to Change, people do perceive people with mental health problems as lazy, or crazy, or any number of awful things. I exist in this world (how existential), and have to live with how other people perceive me, which makes me hesitant to present my entire medical history (I know, how surprising..). I'm not putting it all out there online, for future employers, partners, or friends to find out, before I tell them in person.

However, just because I don't share every last detail of my illness, it doesn't mean that I don't care, it doesn't mean that I can't help other people, it doesn't make my opinion invalid, it doesn't mean I cannot offer advice, and most of all, it does not mean that I am being dishonest with you, as readers. This is not an either/or thing, it is not that black and white, there is a whole spectrum of emotions and situations in-between honesty and lying.

The other thing to address is that in a world where impressional people (at any age) are so present online, I am wary of glamourising the illness in any way - there are other internet personalities out there that do this, and I find it highly disturbing. 

Most importantly, I am not trying to shy away from the fact that I have some problems with depression, and if anybody asks me, personally, I will offer advice if I can. I am not ashamed of it. Not in the slightest, I think it has made me a much stronger person. What I'm not going to do, though, is parade about my figurative or physical scars, in a bizarre attempt to convince people of my authenticity.

To summarise; I'm going to talk more about mental health and how to look after your mental health in general, on unciaandtigris.com, but I'm not giving you my life story, I'm not going to tell you the 'gory details' - for lack of a better phrase - but this doesn't make me any less able to talk about it.

Some links that I could find, not an exhaustive list, but hopefully a place to learn more: Samaritans, the NHS, Childline, the Mental Health Foundation, Rethink, the NHS depression help-page, Depression Alliance, Anxiety UK, beat, Bipolar UK, OCD UK, Royal Society of Psychiatrists. 

8 tips for beating january blues

Today is supposedly the day that in the UK, everyone feels the worst, post-Christmas, and has been dubbed 'blue monday'. Whilst this has sort of been exposed as pseudo-science, I understand the theory behind it. All year, I am prone to bouts of depression, and even in the summer I can find myself in a black mood - however January seems to emphasise it, and make it all seem so much worse. Maybe it's the constant wind, the grey starts and dark evenings, or the rain at your window most nights, but somehow, it all conspires to make me feel so awful.

January is a long, dark month, and it seems to never, so you need to take care of yourself and be aware of when your mood might be slipping. Here are my best, tried and tested tips I've learned over the years to try and shift that mid-January-funk.
(Please check the disclaimer at the end of this post for further information and links to mental health websites.)

1. SLEEP WELL: I find that I never get enough sleep, ever, but that is just me. I often beat myself up over sleeping in at the weekends, but that is my body's way of screaming at me to listen to it! It needed that 12 hours! Conversely, if you find yourself sleeping at lot, and are still waking up tired, this can be your body's way of telling you that something isn't right. Be aware of your sleep patterns, practise good sleep hygiene, and hopefully you'll notice an improvement.

2. GET OUTSIDE: Fresh air, sunlight, and Vitamin D do wonders for your body, your mind and your general health. Even if you're just doing an extra five minute walk in the daylight, getting out of your office at lunch and walking once around the block, or to the corner-shop, it really helps. Also, fluorescent light like in offices, etc, and the blue-light from your laptop does something weird to your circadian rhythms and your hypothalamus (the bit of the brain that regulate sleep patterns, melatonin, serotonin levels, other hormones, and all sorts of stuff in your body), so trying to keep them in line with good, natural sunlight is generally not a bad plan.

3. BE SOCIABLE: I find that the best thing to lifting me out of a sharply spiralling mood, are friends. Even just reaching out to them by text or Whatsapp and having a stupid conversation makes me feel miles better. I'm naturally quite an introverted person, and don't like to rely on other people if I can help it, but sometimes, you've got to lean on someone else and admit when you're not coping. 

4. BUY A NEW LIGHT: I've never tried these, but I know several people swear by clocks that wake you up with daylight-level artificial light and lamps that use daylight-bulbs, which helps boost those chemical levels we were talking about earlier. I have no experience of this, so I don't really like to comment, but if you're working in an indoor environment, travelling to and from work in the dark, this could be the way to boost your daylight levels.

5. FIND A ROUTINE: I find that I work best when I'm going to bed at a reasonable hour, waking at a good time and getting into a little routine when I get home from work. It takes the guesswork out of the evening if I know what I'm having for dinner, what time I need to get up and do things. At the weekends, I try to get up at a reasonable hour and make the most of the daylight. Make a schedule, if you need to, but I find if I'm sitting about at the weekends, wondering if I'll do something, I get really stressed that I won't see the sun for a whole week, so schedule things in.

6. COMFORT FOOD VS HEALTHY FOOD: I think in January, you shouldn't be super strict on yourself and force yourself to detox with weird all green spinach and kale juices (though this is proven to be a load of nonsense) that suck the last remaining joy (eating all your Christmas chocolate and the leftover cheese you found at the back of the fridge) by eating very little. However, getting your vitamins is important, so make sure you up your fruit and vegetable intake, and screw it, eat that cheese, go for Nando's or pizza with your mates if you want, cook a giant lasagne, if you want. Who am I tell you what to eat?! Just find a balance that suits you.

7. MAKE PLANS: Having things to look forward to is a great idea, even if it's just a day out or doing something that you enjoy. I am a firm believer of spending time alone, so try and schedule something you really love, maybe a day out to an exhibition or a museum trip, or having a little day out at the weekend, just to have something to look forward to that you really enjoy to help recharge your batteries, and remind you of the good stuff in life. 

8. BE KIND TO YOURSELF: I said it before, but be kind to yourself, look after yourself. If you're feeling rubbish, make friends and family aware, because they do care about you, even if your brain might be telling you otherwise. Don't strip all the joy from your life, make time to recharge, do things you really love, sleep in at the weekend, eat chocolate in bed... February is a short month, and then it's easter, and then it's basically summer, so you'll make it, don't worry. 

If you do get very low in the winter months, you may want to consider that you could have seasonal-affective-disorder, which is a medical condition characterised by depression, generally thought to be caused by a lack of sunlight in the winter. Just something to consider though, if you get very bad every year.

Obviously, I am not a professional, or a doctor or anything like that. These are just my tips after having suffered from depression for many years now. For more information on depression and mental health, please check some of these links out, as they give better advice than nearly anyone ever could: Samaritans, the NHS, Childline and the Mental Health Foundation. (I don't really rate Mind after they endorsed some problematic stuff, but they do have some good advice on the matter.) Also, if you are worried about anything else to do with your mental health, please seek the advice of a GP.

winter walks

The weekend we found out that my grandmother wasn't going to get any better, I dragged myself out for a brisk walk around the lake. Looking back now, it was probably the last good autumn day we had, right before the quick descent into frosty mornings, dark evenings and wet afternoons. 

I never thought I would be one of those people that looks forward to exercise. What I didn't know as a chubby thirteen-year-old is that just because I didn't enjoy rounders in my PE kit, meant that I would hate all exercise, ever; really, I just hadn't found the thing I did enjoy. After a sad weekend cooped up in a car and feeling useless about things, I just knew I needed to do something. 

Maybe it is something to do with my need for control, but I felt like things were more manageable after getting air in my lungs. Maybe it's that when everything feels out of my hands, I can go and do something that I have decided on. Maybe, it is just that the ache in my limbs means I sleep more soundly, but whatever it is, it works, and I'm okay with that. It's hard to drag myself to a gym, at 5pm after work on a Monday night when it's icy cold, wet and rainy, but I am so much happier when I've been and I need to keep telling myself that. 

on losing weight: fashion + clothes (etc)

What I want to talk about today is clothes. I used to post a bit of fashion-related stuff on my blog, back in the day, but as I've got older, I've found that I care less about what I wear, in general, as long as it's clean..

Finding clothes to fit me is something I think I'll always struggle with - as I'm not your average size, height-wise. I was talking to my brothers girlfriend recently, she's much slimmer than me, but we're about the same height, and she struggles to find trousers to fit her properly, so much so that she makes her own. So, I can't see my struggles improving in that department...

But recently since I've been losing weight, I've started caring again about what I wear. I'm not going to go crazy and buy all the clothes you see in Topshop because I'm really not that 'on trend', but I've got really into basics (exciting, I know). For example, I never used to wear jeans, now I'm on the hunt for a really good pair of them. (I was so pissed when I found out Topshop had replaced GAP in my local mall!)

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. I thought I'd talk about the pros and cons of finding clothes to wear - post-weight-loss.

THE BAD:

• Buying clothes in the middle of your weight-loss journey is an awkward one. Back in May/June I bought a lot of new clothes. I'd lost a lot of weight, it was my birthday, I want to look nice, etc. I got several pairs of new jeans, a few dresses.. I'm now almost 40lbs lighter. Just over a month ago, I got a new pair of jeans (a cheap pair from F+F as I'd learnt my lesson this time around) and, you've guessed it, they're too big now. I mean thats exciting, but it's not cheap. Be smart, if you think you're going to be losing more weight, wait. It'll save you money in the long run. 
• Finding your current wardrobe doesn't suit you anymore is tricky, too. I used to be a fan of oversized baggy everything, hiding all my stomach and my arms and my thighs and anything that I didn't like. Now that I'm a bit more confident, all those clothes swamp me, and I look the same size I did before. It's a shame, one of my old-favourite shirts is just unwearable because it's too big now.
• On a similar theme, re-learning my ~personal style~ is something I am still doing. I used to try and cover up everything I hated, but now I am happy wearing things a bit more close-fitting, but I'm not really sure what. I can't give you many pointers here, because I'm still in the midst of it, but I'm hoping that I'll get better along the way.

THE GOOD:

• Finding little things about your new body that look good in clothes, is one of my recent favourite things. After trying on thousands of pairs of jeans, I've found that some make my bum look pretty good. And then I stop and think about that thought, that shit, my bum can look good in jeans. 
• Whilst trying to figure out your new style is difficult, it can also be really fun. Clothes that you thought weren't options for you are now suddenly available, which is really fucking fun. I've been trying on all manner of random clothes when I go out shopping these days, to get an idea of what I like and what I don't like.
• It's really amazing to be able to walk into a regular clothing store and know you'll find your size. (Well, most of the time that is. I was in a New Look the other week and found they didn't stock in-store above a size 12, what the fuck is that about, New Look?) 
• Feeling more confident, generally. I spend a lot less time worrying about whether my shirt is too tight and clinging to bits I don't want, etc, because theres less bits that I don't want on show. It's exhausting, worrying about things like that constantly, and it's mad how much energy it takes up. 
• Caring less generally, about what people think of my fashion choices, too. I used to worry that people were thinking if I wore a certain item of clothing (how dare that fat girl wear leggings, leggings are not for fat people, for example, is something I overheard once). I think this comes with growing up and giving zero fucks about life, also.

This doesn't mean that I don't have tantrums about clothes not fitting, like any other human being (well, mostly the women, I suppose) out there but things are improving for me..

All other On Losing Weight articles can be found here!

on losing weight: compliments, self worth + other people

Listening to others is hard, generally, but harder when you're trying to do something for yourself, and for you only. When people compliment me on my weight-loss, I face a tricky dilemma, because on one hand, I want to take their compliments and show them off to everyone like a shiny little badge of honour - when someone tells me I look like I've lost weight I want to jump up and down, sometimes, I want to shout to everyone "LOOK, LOOK AT ME, I CAN DO THIS!"

But then I have a little think, a split second to remember that this is exactly what causes the problem anyway, this problem of worrying what other people think, I've placed too much importance on what every passing stranger thinks.

So, internally, I am trying to get away from that happiness that is caused by other peoples compliments (and in turn, their insults). In my head, in these situations, you have two choices; engage, or disengage.

Disengaging yourself from the conversation is a tricky one. There are situations where it's awkward to bluntly lay it out, like, "This is none of your business." At work, for example, you might have to see people all the time, so you can't tell them to fuck off, no matter how much you may want to! A polite smile, nod, and a change of conversation is generally the best course of action, in my book. I am well practised these days at the fine art of changing the subject, and evading the question, but if it keeps my health (physically and mentally) intact, I'm not afraid to do it.

If they push, have a well rehearsed answer. I get the "So how did you do it?" quite a lot, and its human curiosity (and stupidity?), I suppose. If they are that awful kind of person that won't take a hint (we all know one of those) then don't be afraid to say, "Sorry, I'd rather not talk about it." There is a woman I work with who brings up "just how fat I was" everytime I bump into her. It's a shitty thing for her to do, but she's a shitty person. I'm getting better with the sarcastic comebacks, as apparently, it's how she gets a fucking clue.

There are also those people that make comments on what you're eating/your weight/whatever they feel like taking shots at that day. As a rule, I don't ever engage with these people. I think they're dicks, straight up. Generally, it is never your place to comment on how much or how little someone is eating, as you don't know their personal situation and you're probably not their doctor - if this is you, stop it! I'm still pretty overweight, yes, but occasionally I allow myself treats, it's not a criminal act, but you wouldn't know it from the looks I got digging into a burger and chips in Bill's the other week..

On the other hand, engaging is a can of worms in itself, but I have a few main questions I ask myself, when someone says, "Wow, have you lost some weight?"

Do I trust them? Generally, this is my first thought. A starting point, a place to work from is your relationship with that person in the first place. I have a list of people in my head (lol, issues, I know) of people I know I can talk to about my weight loss. They might not be the best of friends, or people that I've known for that long (or they might be) - some of them are family, and some of those people I definitely don't trust are family. You know, deep down, whether you can have a frank conversation about the struggles of losing weight, or whether you think a compliment is genuine, or not, so trust that gut instinct.

Am I in the right place mentally to discuss this today? The second thing I have to consider is my general mood. Some days, I just cannot entertain that conversation, simply put. I might have lost two pounds that week, and still not be in a good place to discuss it. If I am feeling like this, you have to have the strength to just shut that conversation down. On one of my darker days (weeks/months!) I cannot talk about it. I might still have gone to the gym that day or eaten healthily, but regardless, I cannot look outside that bubble I'm in to see my progress, and having to fake-smile a way through a conversation about 'how good you look, now' is a hard thing to do. I'll obsess over the details, like if they said now, what does that mean? Like I looked shit before? It's just asking for trouble, in my book.

What are my boundaries? This is obviously different for everyone, and even for me, they differ from person to person that I know. With most people, I cannot talk numbers. I can say I've lost five and half stone, but I can't say what my highest weight is, or where I want to be - mostly because these are triggers for me, so I steer clear of talking about that with pretty much anyone.

Obviously, this could all seem very over the top for people that don't have these kind of mental triggers - but even if you don't I hope you understand where I'm coming from! Everything is a learning curve, but I am slowly learning to separate my self-worth from other peoples opinions of me. I don't want a bad day to be because some random fucking person thought I looked fat. I don't want to cause a binge because someone thought I ate too much. On the flipside of that, I also don't want to only feel good about myself when someone tosses me a compliment like a scrap to a dog - I don't think that is a healthy way to live!

All other On Losing Weight articles can be found here!

on losing weight: workout clothes

I was going to write about maintaining momentum with your weight loss journey - about ways to keep you motivated. However, sometimes when you start writing, you realise that's not what your brain wants to write about, today.

So, workout gear. Obviously, you can go to to the gym in anything you want as long as it makes you go: sweats and t-shirts are just as good as the fanciest things you can buy - but in my experience, if you buy yourself some nice clothes or fancy trainers, it gives you a reason to go. Back in January I got myself some decent yoga pants (not the creepy see-through kind) and a fairly decent sports bra, I already had some trainers, but I felt like these were the important things. Everything else could wait, I thought, to see how well I'd stick this out. Over the last eight months, I have built up a collection of things that I thought I would talk about here...

Trainers: After six months of going to the gym at least four days a week I decided to treat myself to some proper trainers. I got myself some Nike Free Runs - which probably aren't necessary, considering what I use them for.. However, they stop me from turning my ankles over as much, and because they're cushioned, they're so comfortable. Plus, they're bright blue and fluorescent yellow. This shouldn't be a factor, but I basically live in an all black uniform, so injecting colour with shoes like this makes me happy. 

Leggings: Personally, I don't like wearing the super skinny kind of leggings, as I'm pretty tall and find that they're never long enough. I actually managed to find a pair similar to these from H+M, which I really love: they're long enough (which being almost five eleven is a difficult ask!) and fit really well around the waist and are made of a nice material. As a bigger girl, I know how hard it is to find comfortable trousers to fit you, so I would try anywhere and everywhere - I've found nice ones in Tesco, Marks & Spencers, TK Maxx, Decathlon, H+M, often in places that I wouldn't normally shop. Websites aimed at plus-size women actually have a pretty poor selection, I've found.

Tops: Like I said above, I used to just go in a t-shirt, most of the time, which I think is more than fine. As I've got a bit thinner, though, I've been enjoying more fitted, lycra vests, usually in bright colours or with bright trim. I also am guilty of wearing a thin vest over a brightly coloured crop top. This is where you can have more fun and pick really bright things, if you like that, or stick to tried-and-true black.

Sports bras: This is more of a tricky one to advise you on - as it's a personal thing about what kind of bra you need. I have fairly average size boobs for my frame, but that's still pretty big (a D cup) so I need something with a lot of support. I like buying those flimsy little brightly coloured crop-tops, but they don't have anywhere near enough support, so I would probably wear my regular sports bra underneath. John Lewis have a good selection of high impact sports bras, I know Bravissimo have them for the larger chested lady, and M&S have good affordable options.

Water bottle: A friend of my mothers jokingly made fun of me for having a 'fashionable' water bottle - but she is a serious-cyclist. I, however, am not. Going to the gym once a day doesn't require a fancy water bottle, but I do like to have a big one, as I get dehydrated easily. I like the Aladdin reusable bottles that you can find in places like Tesco (or sometimes TK Maxx) because they have the little fabric handle that is very convenient.


That turned into a long post! If you have any tips, feel free to share down below, I love finding new things.
For more weight-loss related posts, be sure to follow on Bloglovin, or check out my previous post on the subject here.

down, but not out

I'm afraid there is no Weekend Wanderings post from me today (though some of the old ones are good ones!), as I've done a few of those kind of link-up posts this week - here are some autumn good autumnal recipes and some activities I want to do before the season is up if you fancy having a look!

I'm also going to be honest today and say that I'm really not in the best shape for blogging today, and this week has been a tough one. I don't want to force happiness or falseness in my blog if I'm not feeling well. My mood has not been the best, and it's unfortunate at this time of year, one that I really love, that my depression always descends again, and I really struggle with day-to-day living. 

A few things are changing in my life, too, which is making things feel even more turbulent: I've recently found a full-time job, but obviously with that comes some changes that I need to adjust to, so blogging may be a little sporadic over the coming weeks.. But, stay with me, and hopefully I'll be back on track as soon as possible.. (: 

on losing weight

I've been mulling over the decision to talk about my weight-loss on U+T. I've mentioned it here and there, and have had a few questions about it on Twitter, so thought I would write a bit of an introduction. I guess it's mostly for myself, but I want to write more about this part of my life on my blog, and I wanted to make it clear that this hasn't been an easy ride. I think a lot of the blogs and articles I read want everything to look like some beautifully curated Pinterest photos of healthy food (I admit, I'm guilty of that too) - but mental illness and struggles with food can often go hand in hand, and although the extreme end of eating disorders (like anorexia and bulimia) are often talked about, other kinds of eating problems are glossed over (particularly if you are anything but underweight). I still walk a fine line between happy and depressed, between obsessing over food and being aware that you need to eat healthily, and that's something I'll always have to deal with.
So that all said, take everything I say from here out with a big pinch of salt - I am no expert, obviously.. I'd also like to ask you to be respectful in the comments (if you decide to read this mammoth post and comment) as I know weight can upset people easily.

+ + +

I think in order to understand how I got to be the weight that I was, I have to explain that I've always had a strange relationship with my body. It's always been an other to me. It was something other people talked about, made fun of, or touched (whether I wanted them to, or not) and I just never felt like it was a part of me. When you are a young teenager and you are very sad all of the time, you spend a lot of time with other people discussing you as though you're not there. Your body and your mind become this thing that is everyone's business and suddenly the only thing you will always have, your body, becomes something public, that doesn't belong to you any longer. Because you are so young and desperately sad, your choices are taken away from you, and you don't get to have a say in it anymore, because other people know what is best for you. (It's not that I regret the things other people decided for me, I can definitively say that I would not be here today if it wasn't for the actions of my parents and doctors - however, these are thing you only appreciate in hindsight, ten years later.)

I think that because I went through a hard time when I was a young teenager - in the years when you begin to understand things about yourself - that gave me a strange relationship with food, and eating. When I was younger and some difficult things happened - I thought it was because I was too fat, that those things might not have happened if I were thinner. I stopped eating for periods (a very, very, very stupid thing to do) and would binge on junk-food when I was alone - like it made it okay if no-one else saw me do it. I did a lot of silly things at that time of my life: to put it simply, I could control what went in and out of my mouth and I could control pain, when I couldn't control anything else around me.

I got a bit better, mentally, after a few long and hard years, and my eating returned to 'normal'. It wasn't healthy eating, but I didn't really care, because I was having fun, being at art college and in my first year of university where everyone was sort of crazy anyway so I didn't feel so singled out. It wasn't my little sixth-form where everyone knew everyone and everyone knew me as the girl that cried all the time. And at that time, I wasn't in full-time therapy, I was off-meds for some of it, and I sort of didn't give a shit. I lost a bit of weight at first, but then I began to go the other way, embracing the fact I was bigger, starting not giving a fuck and following all sorts of amazing bloggers, like Gabifresh, Franceta Johnson and Nicolette Mason, fell head over heels for the body-positive movement that was happening.

Then things began to sort of fall apart at university, realising that I hadn't put my trust in the wrong people, I did stupid things again, I needed therapy again, I was on medication again.. After a particular horrible incident - when I was crying over the fact a pathetic man had called me fat - I realised that I was okay with being fat; I even blogged about it. I wasn't upset because he thought I was fat, I was upset that fat was the insult he was attempting to degrade me with - not unintelligent or shallow or arrogant or anything that I would've been more insulted to be called. But fat - like the most insulting thing is how much I weigh, not what I am like as a person. It was just, pathetic, pretty much, and that is still what I think about people that use that as an insult.

That was such a pivotal moment: it was like thinking for my entire life that being skinny would be the thing that would make me a better person, that being thinner would somehow cure all the emotional baggage I had, hoped it would cure my depression. In the back of my head I would always hear a voice saying: that boy did those horrible things because you're fat, you didn't get that job because you're fat, you failed those exams because you're fat. It's vicious, and horrible, and I know everyone feels like this occasionally, but this was like a mantra that I lived by until suddenly, one morning in a quite art studio at university, I realised that nothing I thought about being fat was true.

So for a while after university, I completely stopped caring. I was fat, and so what, I still got shit done and lived my life. It was like, the biggest weight (haha) lifted from my shoulders: this giant self-conscious thing I had been dragging about behind me for twenty years had suddenly had gone and I realised that this was really what it was like to give zero fucks. It feels really good. I urge you to try and get to that place, mentally, if you aren't already there.

This Christmas, though, I realised that I would like to be healthier. Healthier, not skinnier, that was the key. It was putting health before looks, how I felt over what I looked like: I just wanted to be able to run up the three flights of stairs and not feel out of breath, to be able to do more. And so gradually, over about eight months, I've lost five stone.

I'm not thin; I'm not even really that healthy, but I'm a lot better than I was. I can't run a marathon, but I can look in the mirror for probably them first time in my life and not shy away from what I see. It's helping in other aspects of my life, too, with friends and the relationships in my life. I know this statement is potentially problematic, but I really feel like it is true for me: you cannot love someone until you love yourself. How can you really care for other people when you spend 90% of your waking time thinking about how much you hate yourself, and obsessing over what you look like?

It has taken me nearly a decade to get to a place where I want to reclaim my own body. I know I've barely scratched the surface on this journey, but at least I've made a little progress. I'm not saying the way that I've gone about things is the best way, God, no. I have a few really amazing friends and a surprisingly supportive family that have helped along the way but I know that I have done a lot of the hard work myself. The hard work being all that thinking that comes with this kind of stuff, fighting the deluge of internal insults and assaults on your self-confidence that everyone deals with daily. But it's nice to feel like I occupy a bit less space, and a lot more of my body, these days.

black days

It's no secret on this blog that I have had struggles with depression, and today has been what I affectionately call 'black days'. They are days I just write off, essentially. They're the days where I lie in bed and cry for two hours straight or feel sick to my stomach about my life, and I know there are other people out there that feel like this, too. I know that it's not normal to want to ruin everything I've worked really hard for just because today is really hard. So this just a reminder, a placeholder on my blog for future black days, because there will be many. That just because today sucks, tomorrow might be bit brighter. It might be - but it might not be.. sometimes things get better before they get worse. Either way, be strong and good luck if you're suffering from black days or grey days.