Heyy my lovies! I thought I’d just drop by and say hello because well..okay, I’m trying everything possible not to be doing any uni work or studying for my driving theory which is not going too well! It’s kinda stopping me from doing my practical test at the moment which I am ready for. I need a kick up the butt, seriously.

So umm what have I been up to? Does anyone else just look through the photos they’ve taken over the course of the week and see how it makes them who they are and how they live? Maybe just me but my photos just say ‘Nicky’ all over them haha!

So you won’t be surprised to know that this is occurring every evening at the moment…

Well, it is kabocha season afterall. Might as well make the most of it! I have been getting a few questions about how I prepare my squash recently. Well here’s kinda how. I use the biggest knife I have (I think it’s supposed to be for meat!) and use a bit of arm strength from weight training and it looks kinda like this I’m not such a big fan of the skin all the time so I cut it off but you can keep it on if you choose.

I’ve got into a..not a rut as such..but I’ve been having this dinner repeatedly throughout the week because it’s just what I crave right now. Not a problem in my books..I can eat what I want, when I want thanks Oh and that would be kabocha, quorn fillets cooked in curry spices and broccoli with coconut oil and garlic mmmm

This would happen quite a few times a day…berries and greek yogurt with pumpkin spice (that I got from NYC!). I’m trying to up my protein big style as well as my protein shake to go with my strength training and I’m already seeing gains in my first week! Feels amazing and my core is getting stronger too woooh!

Also started adding this back into my diet to add protein again but also with added B12 for muscle recovery I used to hate the taste of nutritional yeast a year ago but it has definitely grown on me! Particularly good mixed into salsa I’ll have you know. Oh and check out how much better things look with my new camera haha!

And speaking of all this strength training, I got myself some sexy new gloves! Anyone who does weights will know how it can make your hands hurt and get these lovely patches where the weights have rubbed your skin…given that I have sensitive skin anyway this just wrecked my hands after a day so I got myself some gloves and they work a treat!…as well as showing all the guys you mean business

As per usual, raw food makes an appearance everyday and normally keeps me going through my monotonous uni work…

And on a final and totally random note..I was kind of shocked to already see Christmas lights up in Newcastle this weekend! I mean, we’ve not had Halloween quite yet crikey! I am excited for Christmas of course…it’s just the whole stress of present buying coming up arggh!

Nutritional yeast? Yay or nay?

Are you excited for Christmas or filled with dread over present buying?

I seriously can’t believe we are already coming up to the end of October?! I mean, where the hell are the months going to?! Scary stuff..especially because the start back at university is dawning upon me. I am really taking my year out for granted and before I know it I’m going to become a stress ball eeek! Ah well. I shall take the time to appreciate my current situation and what things are great at the moment…

1. Having time to have a lazy breakfast at 11am. I’m not lazy, honest….

And not just any breakfast. This my friends is the best porridge ever. My love of Perkier started when I saw first them at the FreeFrom show in London earlier in the year and I was instantly attracted not only by their gluten free range, but their porridge because they do an extra special Gingerbread flavour. I used to be in love with the Dorset cereal’s gingerbread porridge before going gluten free but this is about a million times better. Gluten free or not, this beats it hands down, trust me.

I think it’s probably down to the fact that it has much juicer raisins in, but also actual real gluten free gingerbread pieces which I admit I eat straight out of the bag…<3 Just perfect for winter. And no, they aren’t paying me to say this. I’m just in love with this breakfast If you want to get some you can just email them and the owners are really lovely and provide a good personal service which also just makes it extra special.

2. Going to the gym in my own time without time constraints in between lectures. And speaking of going to the gym, I am changing things up as of now.

I’m going to attempt to reduce my body fat percentage by lifting more and so in returns the use of protein powder for me. It has been a while! And for the first time I am using a whey protein now that I am not longer strictly vegan in the form of the PhD Pharma Pure and this is probably the best protein powder I’ve ever tasted – in chocolate orange flavour! <3 Really yummmm. I am drinking this straight up after my weights sessions. I have been lifting for a few months now but not too heavy but even still have noticed a slight change in both my strength but appearance so we’ll see how it goes. I may just give up in a few weeks but I’m quite determined on this one

3. Shopping time. Maaaaybe a little too much…naaaah!

I got myself a new eskimo hat for winter! So cosy and makes me smile heheee

I also got some new workout gear. These are just from H&M, they have some really cool stuff in at the moment in terms of sportswear and together the capris, sports bra and top all came to £30 odd which can be the cost of one item from some brands!

A new find…Smashbox is a brand that specialises in makeup for photoshoots, originally from the US but now available in Boots. I have never used a primer before but after trying this, I realised what a difference it makes to the finish of your foundation. It looks and feels a lot smoother and just gives you a nice even finish, no wonder they use it for photoshoots! I got a small tube to start off with for testing as they have different types for different skin types but I will definitely buy a bigger tube next time.

4. Taking time to practice with my camera and appreciate nature

Enough said really…

5. Exploring new raw foods

I’ve been looking around the net for raw foods around the world recently and have made a few orders. I have definitely fallen in love with raw food at this stage of my life and on the odd day have even eaten 100% raw by complete accident!

6.  Being able to do my work in my own time

Yep, the sketchbook work starts once again *sigh* I do like just doing it in my own time as opposed to doing it in the studio at uni though.

What have you appreciated in life recently?

Any goals/plans for November?

First of all I just want to say a huge big thankyou to all my readers who left lovely comments on my last post. You have no idea how much they mean and also how much they remind me that even when times are hard, that blogging really can pick you up, not just by writing out your thoughts but by all the wonderful support out there.

I wish I could start off on a good note but I suppose I’ll get the bad out there first. To top me off recently, this evening my bike was also destroyed. Now, whilst I’m pissed off that my bike was destroyed, it was more the way that it was done.

My poor baby…

My bike was locked up next to my apartment in a safe complex but when football and alcohol is involved, I guess things are never safe. A bunch of drunkard lads (who had been to the Newcastle football surprise surprise…) had decided to hack my bike lock off, take it up the lift in our apartment block and throw it off the top balcony. Now who could seriously think of that being a fun thing to do except a bunch of fucking idiots?! Excuse my french but it is necessary. I had only been out in the courtyard into which is was thrown 5 minutes before, what if I or someone else had happened to have stepped out of their apartment into the courtyard, and from the top you can’t see people coming out. It could have landed onto me, or someone else, and either seriously hurt someone or even killed them. It actually sickens me. I have just been with the police and they will be doing fingerprints tomorrow and I hope whoever these twats were, they get some sort of punishment for their utter stupidity.

Okay rant over. Onto some nicer stuff

This week has actually been pretty good. I’ve been chilling out, started some uni work (boo..) but kept it balanced with gymming (I have been obsessed with spinning this week..my poor bum!) and shopping. Last weekend I also purchased a new toy for me to play with…

A new camera! And ever since I’ve been having a good old play which has been really fun! Hopefully my photos will look a little bit better on the blog soon…although I do love a good bit of instagram Today was a beautiful day so I decided to go test it out around where I live.

For a city, Newcastle is definitely beautiful and easy to fall in love with…:)

I also baked earlier this week for the first time (apart from a small batch of cookies) in like a million years! I just haven’t been in the mood but I decided to make a little purchase of an ingredient to inspire me…

And of course I just had to make my good old favorite – muffins!

I made these Cinnamon Pumpkin Muffins but obviously had to add in chocolate chips because ummm..you NEED chocolate chips!

They didn’t last long surprisingly

Another thing to cheer me up this week was that I received my Vegan Food Swap parcel from the lovely Gayle. She did a great job of not only accommodating my gluten free needs but also giving me a good mix of sweet and savoury which I do love

On the sweet side I got:

Gingerbread Nakd bar, White chocolate macadamia nut Clif bar (not gluten free but may have to stomach this one because it’s amazing..), gluten free lemon wafers, Lucy’s Chocolate Chip cookies (LOVE these!)

And on the savoury:

Poppadums, Thai Green curry kit, Henderson’s Relish, Spicy Lemon Tagine Paste

I was especially excited about the Henderson’s Relish because it comes from my hometown of Sheffield. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it is a vegan version of Worcester Sauce and this was always a staple ingredient in my mum’s house! She would add it to literally everything to give it a kick! I was definitely brought up on the spicy stuff

So a big thankyou to Gayle for being so thoughtful and if you want to join in the Vegan Food Swap you can go here!

I also got to see this cutie yesterday…

Emma’s little Leo! He is so gorgeous and was a good boy yesterday whilst coming to Newcastle for the first time! I’m very proud of mummy Emma and Leo and can’t believe he’s already been in the world a whole month!!

What’s been good in your week?

Did you have an ingredient that was always in your home growing up?

Why haiiiii there, I am still alive!

So what is my excuse for going disappearing again? Well, I do love blogging I really do. But I guess I haven’t been in the right mindframe. I can remember there was a time when I used to force myself to bang out posts every couple of days but now I just feel like doing it when it feels right. I guess life lately whilst has not been terrible, has been a little harder in some ways. I feel stressed mentally for a number of reasons from body image, to stomach problems continuing, to my brother starting to suffer with his health to my recent failure from my last sketchbook which I genuinely thought I’d excelled in and done the best work I’ve ever done which has therefore just made me despise my course even more than I previously done and have no heart in the work I am doing at the moment.

I’d say my number one right now is my body image. It really is starting to take over in a negative way again. I am really not comfortable with who I am although I have maintained this weight for 11 months now. I am not on the lower end of healthy, I am more in the middle, and I admit, a part of me struggles with this. I am jealous of some people, I know I am. There is still a part of me that wants to be thinner and I honestly do not know why. I hate having to buy bigger sizes in clothes, I hate how I don’t feel comfortable in anything I wear anymore and I really feel like I want to lose weight and I’ll admit that I have tried. I tried to restrict, I even tried fat metabolisers and yet neither have worked. I remain the same. And it does feel like my mind is torturing me at the moment every single day. I can’t remember the last time where I thought I looked good. My skin is appalling at the moment, I feel like my thighs are tree trunks, I feel like my arms are bigger than they’ve ever been and I’ve never been the one to have big arms and there’s not a single part of me that I actually like. I don’t know what the answer is and when I will feel moderately happy but what I do know is that my body is obviously happy at this weight as it has remained stable all this year despite having periods of not exercising, periods of over-eating, periods of under-eating and at this weight my body functions. What I also know is that despite my mental battles with body image, I am happy with how I live and my way of dealing with these problems is to continue to live in a healthy way; feeding myself well and exercising moderately whilst having a social life and balanced life full of friends and family.

I don’t feel compelled to overexercise and even exercise more than 5 times a week. I have got into a routine of doing half an hour cardio with up to half an hour of weight with the odd spinning or zumba class thrown in. And that’s what I’m comfortable with..I don’t like pushing myself too much anymore because it never makes me happier. I do not feel compelled to do anorexic things, I am more free with my food. I am no longer vegan and that’s okay because I don’t feel the need to be a label that I thought was best for my health. Currently I am also gluten free due to my intolerance so this added more of a restriction on my diet and made my diet very unvaried and eating out very difficult. Being vegan was for my time in recovery and definitely helped me more than I and many other people who saw it as restriction imagined. It made me face my fear of fats but I don’t have that fear at all anymore, I love fats and I love raw food which is full of it!

Addicted much?

So recently it has meant I have been comfortable with eating dairy again and I have to admit, I think I’m a little bit obsessed with it at the moment!

Part of my lunch everyday at the moment consists of a salad with full fat cottage cheese (Longley Farm’s is the best by the way…)

I’ve also gone back to eating Babybels for snacks. I don’t think the kid in me will ever go

And of course you can’t beat a good bit of Fage greek yogurt. In this case mixed with peanut flour and stevia.

And a more recent add in has been quorn. I have kinda missed quorn from a vegan diet and was happy to add this back in! Lots of protein and tastes good so win win I have to be careful as some of their products do have gluten in though but there are still some to choose from.

Another newbie in my diet, not necessarily anything to do with adding dairy, but has been figs!

These used to be one of the very few fruits I just didn’t like and now my tastes this year have suddenly changed to like them! Yay!

However I will forever love vegan food. It will always be a passion of mine aswell as raw food and it will always be part of my diet.

Obsessed with these. Totally. Obsessed.

I’ve found it interesting how some bloggers have started to realise what works for them recently and have started to adjust their diets accordingly. I think it’s so positive to see because why should we all follow trends in belief that it will work for us and make us get the body we imagine? We are all individuals with individual mental and physical requirements with different bodies and lifestyles. I just hope that we can all find what works for us and be happy with it because it makes us happy and healthy.

Have you changed your diet recently? Why?