Friday Faves

Happy days, it's Friday again already!

 

Here are this week's Friday Faves!

 

 

Nike Kicks

 

I've been torn between getting a wedge shoe for some time. Originally my heart has been set on the Isabel Marant Beckett's, but my budget just couldn't justify it...ever.

So I came across these way more affordable Nike's and I absolutely love them! Teamed with a pair of leggings with leather panels, and a slouchy striped long sleeved tee or white oversized button up - these will be my Winter go-t0

 

 

Game of Thrones

 

Best find of the week by a friend! Being a huge Game of Thrones fan, I need one or possibly more of these awesome figurines in my life to up my nerd status. Top picks - Daenerys and Jon Snow. Ohhh Jon Snow...

 

 

 

www.ebgames.com.au

 

 

Books

 

Looking for a good book to read? Here's a list of the 100 Notable Books of 2013

 

Compiled by the New York Times

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2013.html?_r=1&

 

 

The Best Selfie in the World

 

In case you've been living under a rock this week, can we take a moment to appreciate the best selfie in the world right now.

The selfie that crashed Twitter, taken by Ellen Degeneres at the Oscar's earlier this week has clocked more than 2.4million re-tweets and is the most re-tweeted tweet of all time (say that 3 times really fast).

The previous most re-tweeted record holder, was from President Obama, hugging his wife with the caption "Four more years" after his second inaguration into office. That made the record books back then at 780,000 re-tweets.

 

Sydney Morning Herald Image

 

 

New Things

 

Not sure what I was thinking, but this week I gave Cross Fit a go. Probably not the brightest idea to go with a very fit and toned friend, but if left to my own devices I probably wouldn't have turned up.

Two back to back lunch time sessions, and today I am finally walking like a normal human.

Not yet ready to compete in the Olympics, but a successful attempt because I went back after Day 1, worked up a sweat, and didn't pop any ribs. Winning!

 

Thank you fit friend for giving me the "step outside your comfort zone" guilt trip :)

 

The first image is what I attempted to do on Day 2. Middle image was the closest I could get, but for a newbie I was happy with that. 

 

 

Might just stick to easier self-challenges  though I think...

 

 

 

 

Lorna Jane - March Collection

If I could buy something from Lorna Jane on a weekly basis, I would. I have a few justifications as to why I need this new top in my life, but quite simply its neon and you really can't pass that up!

 

 

 

 

Tycoon Tank $45.99

 

http://www.lornajane.com.au/031498/Tycoon-Tank

 

 

 

 Words: My Own

 



Where to start with healthy habits

These tips and tricks are by no means researched by a professional, but they are helpful ideas that I have self-taught and picked up along the way, when trying to stay on track with healthy eating and healthy habits.

Our lovely bootcamp group commences its' next 8 Week Challenge in one weeks time. General discussions on progress, measurements, most improved etc got me to thinking, that there could be so many of us with great habits, that could also work for a bunch of us, if only we continued to share this info with one another. Why keep your fab tips to yourself, if these could be benefitting others too.

So with this in mind, i'm sharing the love with some habits that work for me.

Hangry

This is a real condition*. It's caused when you become so hungry, that you turn angry - Hulk style. When I start to feel hungry, I try to ask myself, why am I hungry? Am I bored? Do I need something whilst watching TV and/or reading? Or am I legitimately hungry? Drink a glass of water first before you eat something you may regret, it can keep cravings at bay and help you decide whether you actually want that snack or not. Try to drink at least two litres of water a day, and opt for coconut water and herbal teas over sugar-loaded fruit juices and soft drinks.

For those soft drink cravings, I try to get around this by drinking sparkling water, or some soda water and lime juice.

*This is not a real condition. But it should be.

Pinterest

Grocery Shopping

Never, ever go grocery shopping when you are hungry (or hangry). It never ends well. I end up putting so much crap and unnecessary items in my trolley, purely because it's all the items I could consume right then and there. Shopping Lists are handy for multiple reasons:

 1) I get to use my pretty Kikki.K notepaper

2) A well thought out shopping list helps eliminate the aimless wandering of the supermarket aisles because you can't remember what you needed. Ohh how did those Tim Tams get in there?

3) Write your list when you're at home, in front of your fridge and cupboards. The most annoying thing is to come home with that one slightly expensive but healthy item, only to discover you have 2 of them already in the cupboard.

4) Don't forget said shopping list on pretty notepaper on your desk at work, and turn up to the shops with a blank brain. Thoughtful colleague will only send you a photo of the list after they have defamed it with crude drawings (you know who you are)

Pinterest

Keep Track

It need not be a fancy iPhone app, maybe just a word document on your work PC, or a notebook you keep in your handbag/manbag, but writing down what you eat in a food diary type format could really help you stay on track with your eating habits. I for one am certainly a lot more careful with my week of eating if I can see what i've consumed written in front of me. This can also help tie in with your reasons for eating, in my first point. Did you have it because you were hungry, or bored?

Start to notice patterns, such as the afternoon snack you reached for more often than not, and your portion control that you may not have realised at the time of making it.

Breakfast

If Healthy Harold said it, it must be true...Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Research by Imperial College London shows that people who skip breakfast are more attracted to fatty, unhealthy food in the day - and eat more of it. Try to start your day with something filling, like oats, greek yoghurt and muesli, scrambled eggs on toast etc

The better you eat at breakfast, the longer you remain full, eliminating un-healthy snack cravings, and helping you extend the time frame until lunch time, so you can slowly enjoy your lunch, rather than pushing past people to get to the fridge. 

Emma Dillon

Body Fuel

Keep on track with a food plan that helps eliminate the chances of getting sick. All colourful fruit and vegetables eg oranges, tomatoes, berries, pomegranates are full of nutrients that help your immune system.

The best way to get your quota of this, is a yummy stir-fry, which even the fussy eater in me enjoys!

Support

Talk to friends, ask questions, share information. People might have great tips on how they stay on track, or get back on track after an indulgent weekend or holiday away. Motivate one another and compliment people if you've noticed them working hard and making great progress. A compliment acknowledging someones hard work could make their day, and be the motivation that they need to keep going

Prep

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!

Try to resist waking up every morning and then being productive with your food. It never works. Prepare the night before so you can eliminate that lazy feeling when you've just woken up. I have some fit sista's who are very dedicated with their meal prep, which helps eliminate bad decisions mid-week.

Emma Dillon

Words: My Own

~

Friday Faves

This weeks Friday Faves!
Happy Friday all!

 

 

1. Have you heard of David Thorne? He's the guy behind "that spider email" that went viral, the one where he draws a picture of a spider as payment.

 

Google Images

 

I've spent all week reading other hilarious extracts from his website, and this one is one of my favourites. You probably can relate, if you work with or know of, someone that is so particular about their belongings, and so easy to wind up. Oh wait... I think I'm that person too.
 

An extract:

 

Good morning Simon,
No, I have decided not to do time-sheets anymore. I'm not a robot.I actually missed you while you were away. To counter this, I placed a plank of wood in your chair and wrote ‘Simon’ on it. He said I could use your stuff. Regards, David.

Read more here:

 

http://www.27bslash6.com/timesheets.html

 

2. Tv Series - The Returned (Les Revenants)

 

In a small mountain town, dead people reappear, apparently alive and normal: road accident victim teenager Camille, suicidal bridegroom Simon, a small boy named "Victor", and Serge, a serial killer. They try to resume their lives as strange phenomena occur; amongst recurring power outages, the water level of the reservoir mysteriously lowers, revealing the presence of dead animals and a church steeple, and strange marks appear on the bodies of the living and the dead.

This show was so popular that the US are making their own version

 

* This series is in French, with English subtitles

Google Images

 

 

3. Sweet Stationary

I love cute and fancy stationary, but this one nails it for two reasons... hot pink and mean girls.
Sayings such as "That's so Fetch, Grool, I Know Right, You're Like Really Pretty", and my favourite - "You Go Glen Coco"

Etsy

 

Purchase here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/162266250/mean-girls-assorted-engraved-pencil-set?ref=&sref=


4. Frozen Dough Co Cookies

Run by some local Northern Beaches ladies, these babies come already pre-made, home-made and frozen, for you to pop into the oven and bake at your convenience.
Mouth watering flavour combo's like
- Salted Oatmeal and White Chocolate (my favourite)
- Cocoa, Raspberry and Coconut
- Chocolate, Almonds, Pecan and Whiskey

You can find them and their sweet smelling stall on Friday's at Warriewood Growers Markets, and Saturdays at Bondi Farmers Markets
Online ordering and delivery now available also
http://www.frozendoughco.com.au/
 

 
Frozen Dough Co Facebook

5. Talented Friends

 

My wonderfully talented friend Nadia has come leaps and bounds since starting her blogging career one year ago.

She is now in the process of finalising the release of her first e-book.

Check out her fantastic blog if you have the chance, and also go into the running to win a copy of one of her e-books by following the steps below

 

Entries are open until midnight on Monday 10th March 2014 AEDST and the winners will be announced via Instagram

 

Mum and Daughter Blog



Words: My Own



One Day Juice Cleanse

Towards the end of January, I was starting to consistently feel sluggish, tired, bloated as soon as I ate food, and that really irritating balance of being so tired for bed, but so alert you can't switch off.

Christmas and New Years festivities weren't really horrible to me. I didn't really over indulge or go from one extreme to the other, but I was starting to think lazy thoughts regarding my eating and it's prep so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to do a juice cleanse. 

Why just one day? This is a safe space, we're all friends here, so let me divulge. When the Lemon Detox Diet first came out, I was on it like white on rice. Ordered, received, bought my lemons, bought my cayenne pepper (hated normal pepper but whatevs im sure this was going to be soooo different) bought my fancy little container to keep it in. 5 Days detox come at me! I lasted half a day until I power walked up the road at lunch to get the honey chicken with fried rice combo. No joke.

So let's be realistic, if you're going to do a juice cleanse, the price adds up. I know myself well enough to get that no matter how good my intentions, anything longer than a day was going to be painful not only for myself, but for those around me.

So one day it was!

I did a bit of research prior to purchasing the juices, and while you may read so many reviews of reasons for and against certain brands and completely disagree with me, my criteria was:

* Online is easy, but it would be nice to sample a few flavours first, so i'm not spending up to $9 a bottle on fancy swamp moss. Look for a company that has a store, pop-up store, or distributor close to me to sample

* The option to mix and match flavours, a good balance of green juices alongside some sweeter fruit/smoothie based ones

*Lets be honest, pretty packaging is important

*Use by date - when I purchase at my convenience, how long will they last for before I need to drink them? 

*Pricing - is there an option to do just a one day and select the flavours that you know you can drink? I scrapped places that only gave 3 day or 5 day options (refer to Lemon Detox Diet story as to why this was a no-go)

Own Image

In the end I went with Pressed Juices, located in Mosman. I took my roomie and live-in Personal Trainer (so handy, but it's all fun and games until you want a Tim Tam) who was super helpful in explaining which juices would be better for what I was trying to achieve. We opted to stay away from the majority of sweet fruit juices, even though natural sugars, the content would still be quite high, and I really wanted a detox-flush out type cleanse.

There was no real rule on when I had to drink one or the other, the website was also really helpful in explaining that the idea was to continuously sip on the juices throughout the day.

Flavours I went with:

GREENS: greens 2 (x2)

apple, celery, cucumber, kale, lemon, lettuce, parsley and spinach

ZING: zing 2

apple, lime, cinnamon, ginger

EARTH: earth 4

apple, carrot, ginger

SMOOTHIE: smooth vitality

banana, blueberry, chia seeds, coconut water, mesclun, mint, strawberry and raspberry

MYLKS: espresso almond mylk *by far the yummiest!*

almonds, dates, filtered water, sea salt, vanilla bean, espresso

By lunch time, I was contemplating eating my own hand. The smell of my friends toasted sandwich was doing things to me. I was prepared to go Hunger Games on him. But by the afternoon things started to improve, as I sip-sipped away on my juices. 

I had bootcamp that afternoon, which accompanied my headache nicely. A positive of training whilst on the cleanse was that instead of burning off the food and energy from food  I would have normally consumed, my body was instead burning stored fat and digging deeper for that energy.

I struggled a bit with my energy levels, but I did feel lighter and less sluggish. That night I had one of the best nights sleep in a long time.

When I woke up, I went back to the healthy eating and controlled portions that I was starting to get lazy with, however after just one day without this, I started to crave it.

The cleanse gave me the desired outcome I was hoping for. A boost back on track with my healthy eating and food prep, and it had me missing my way of healthy eating, with less thoughts of things that aren't great for me.

Below are a list of the brands I researched. A few friends have done cleanses from some of these reputable brands with great results!

Urban Remedy

http://www.urbanremedy.com.au/

Orchard Street

http://www.orchardstreet.com.au/cleanse-options/

Prodjuice - Northern Beaches based - support your local community!

http://www.prodjuice.com.au/

Pressed Juices

http://www.pressedjuices.com.au/index.php/

Lucky You Cleanse

http://www.luckyyoucleanse.com.au/

Words: My Own

*This was not a sponsored post*

Friday Faves

Introducing a new series every Friday which I have cleverly titled... Friday Faves!

A list of some of my favourite things I've come across during the week.

PANDORA

Have you heard of this app? Best idea ever. 

Pandora Internet Radio is a music streaming and automated music recommendation service. Working alongside your Wifi it streams music "radio" that you have selected. By artist selection or similar genre's. 

I feel it's like the audio version of Facebook stalking, you start somewhere and just never 

know where you will end up!

Apple Store

READ OF THE WEEK

In the Blood by Lisa Unger

Lana Granger lives a life of lies. She has told so many lies about where she comes from and who she is that the truth is like a cloudy nightmare she can’t quite recall. Lana will do anything to hide the truth, but it might not be enough to keep her ominous secrets buried: someone else knows about Lana’s lies. And he’s dying to tell.

The twist will keep you guessing until the end!

Google Images

SHAKE YO' ASS

If, like me, you're that person out at night, that hears a song and yells "OMG I LOVE THIS SONG!" ... to every song, then keep reading. If you like RnB, the mixing genius of Girl Talk and something to bust a move to, you need to check out the Soundcloud account of the incredibly talented DJ Tubz. Super long mixes that help the day pass, with so many songs that are blasts from the past, or reminders of how much you LOVE THIS SONG!

Ch-ch-ch-check it out:

https://soundcloud.com/dj_tubz

DESK YOGA

For the all-day desk workers, some simple yoga steps courtesy of the Move Nourish Believe website, you can do at your desk to help alleviate back pain and stiff joints. Note to self - probably don't do #5 on the days I wear dresses.

Always remember to take the time to get up and walk around, get the blood flowing, refill your water bottle.

Obviously we can't all wear lycra and runners to work though. But damn wouldn't that be nice. Can you downward dog in Prada?
 

Move Nourish Believe Website

INSPIRATION

I've been all about getting the inspiration back this week, this one's a short and simple one. An image of what I find an inspiring, fresh workspace. A reminder to de-clutter your surroundings to help the productivity and creativity have room to flow. Or in some people's cases - less obstacles to spill your coffee on.

Pinterest

Words: My Own

Why Not

Images: Pinterest | They All Hate Us | Google Images

Goal Visibility

I've previously posted about setting Goals, which you can read about here

 

After last nights thought provoking Yoga class, I realised that aside from the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of this year, along the path that has led me to February, I have picked up certain other goals that I'd like to complete.

 

These goals are slightly different for me, as they don't necessarily require my standard, favourite method of goal setting. No bullet points required, no mantra's or manifesto's to go hand in hand with these goals, but quite simply a visual image.

 

The goal came about as I attended yoga and thought to myself, I can really improve on this, and I want to, because there will be a huge sense of accomplishment if I practise at this, and can pull it off.

 

Part of the motivation for this has been following health and fitness accounts on Instagram, where you can see various fit females doing dancer's pose on top of a cliff, a perfectly performed plank on the beach etc

 

While many of us stay away from these accounts because of the "unattainable" nature they posses, I like to think of them differently... as proof that the unattainable is actually quite attainable.

If you set your mind to it, practise and enjoy the process, why shouldn't it be possible for you too?

 

So with that in mind, here is my visual goal.

My aim:

 

 

 

First attempt:

 

 

 

As you can see, I don't completely suck at the first attempt. But my aim is to perfect this, so that it becomes effortless, enjoyable and so that the perfectionist in me can be satisfied.

 

* I practise this during my Yoga sessions with a qualified and amazing yoga teacher. Practise in your living room at your own risk... for fear it leads to last weeks breakdancing catastrophe

Which you can also laugh about here

 

 

Words: My Own

Images: My Own | Google Images