Gym Clothing Haul - H&M and Primark

After wearing the same tired old gym leggings for the last couple of years and probably not washing them as often as I should, I decided to treat myself to some new gym gear. The phrase 'All the gear. No idea' comes to mind here!

I like a good bargain and probably get 80% of my clothing from Primark (don't judge me!) so that was my first port of call. I actually found that quite a lot of their active range was sold out/only had the massive and tiny sizes left so only got a pair of black plain gym leggings I managed to find in my size. I COULD NOT resist these ridiculous blue leggings and I not sure if I'm brave enough to let my butt jiggle in them at the gym yet! I will just enjoy looking stupid in them at home and will ignore my boyfriend when he inevitably tells me to take them off.

Trippy blue oil affect leggings - Primark - £6

Black full length leggings with blue highlight
Primark - £9

I couldn't find any gym-type tops so just got some basic T-Shirts in black and grey and a polka dot vest. You can't leave Primark with just one or two (or several) items anyway! As long as I'm sort of comfortable at the gym and I don't look like an over stuffed sausage I'm happy so these tops are pretty good for that!

Grey Speckled and Black Pocket T-Shirts
Primark - £4 and £2.50

I then wondered into H&M which is where I got my last pair of gym leggings from so I had high hopes for another win. I got one top from their active section which fits really well and another couple of basic vests to pad my gym top selection out a bit.

Polka dot vest - Primark - £3.50
Black and turquoise vests - H&M - £1.99
Green vest - H&M Active - £7.99 

H&M had a good selection of different types of gym bottoms but I stuck to what I knew and got another pair of leggings from the same brand as my existing pair. 

The H&M pair feel slightly more comfortable than the Primark ones and I think look more professional with the different paneling and zips at the back of the ankle but I guess you get what you pay for. As long as you can't see my pants when I'm bending over I'll be alright!

Black full length leggings with reflective
orange highlight - H&M Active - £24.99

I haven't been shopping in quite a while so this was a nice treat and also gives me more incentive to go to the gym!

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CP

Diets, Diets and MORE DIETS!

I think I have spent most of my life from my late teens up until now consciously thinking about my weight and how I look as most girls/women do! CW and I spent many a time at university trying out new things at the gym, doing Davina workouts in the living room to hilarious effect and attempting to be healthy food-wise but nothing ever really stuck. Although spending most weekday evenings out at the union bar doing shots and living opposite a corner shop in our final year probably wasn't the biggest help! At one point we were having a chocolate bar a day which I would like to blame on one of our friends for starting as she is one of those lucky people who doesn't seem to gain weight! Anyway, we seemed to be constantly trying new things including some rather scary diets that, looking back on them, were mental! One of them had me only eating 500 calories a day and taking a herbal spray (what was I thinking...). They all seemed to work at the time but none were something I could stick to in the long run and the weight slowly sneaked back on. My love of food was too great to deny eating a whole bag of chocolate raisins!

The latest tipping point was when I met up with CW and some of our other uni housemates a few months ago and we all decided it would be a good idea to weigh ourselves. OH GOOD LORD. I nearly cried! CW had been trying out this snazzy new diet called the 5:2 diet which is basically 2 fasting/500 cal days a week and then 5 days of normal eating. This went well for a while until I thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of chocolate on my fast day and then be really hungry the next day because my body hadn't got the goods it wanted. I would end up demolishing even more food than I normally would.

Then a few weeks ago, CW spotted a girl on Instagram who had an amazing body AND got to eat loads of food every day. We were sold at 'food'! Since then we have been eating whole/'clean' foods (raw foods, as they are or put into a meal) and trying to include weights into our exercise routine. I have to admit I live with a guy whose whole family run off this WOL (way of life) (minus the exercise) and not a single one is fat! I don't know why I didn't start doing this earlier?! Since starting this, CW and I have constantly been messaging each other with recipes and a LOT of photo's of our food/meals which I think has really helped us stay on track. 

Dinner tonight - Tomato and Red Pepper Omelette with Courgette

In summary, fad diets do not work as a long term lifestyle. All you need to do is eat the foods your body loves (no your body does not want a whole family sized bag of Malteasers) and get moving!

Some of the good points I have noticed since starting are:
- Increased energy levels
- Rarely hungry
- The bloated/food baby/stomach pooch has gone down
- We have lost weight without really thinking about it
- My skin is looking better (I think this might be the reduced amount of sugar in my diet)
- I look forward to going to the gym - WHAT?

I think the only downside is that you will end up buying more fresh produce which is more expensive than canned/processed stuff and the time you have to put into the meal prep but I think we secretly enjoy that, right CW? Sunday = Meal Prep Day = Yay! PLUS, once you have done all your meal prep you don't have to think about it for the rest of the week!

If you have any questions on how/what we are doing, feel free to comment below!

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CP

Free Weights Section Virginity

When psyching myself up to try out the free weights section for the first time yesterday, my thought process went something like this:

'I'm just about the go into the gym and I'm really nervous! I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing!'

4 minutes later...

'Why do men have to take over the whole weights arena?! I wish I could go to the gym with CW and then we could tackle the weights at the same time and look clueless together!'

20 minutes after sitting on a bike still deciding what to do I brave it into the machine weights section (or whatever those machines are called that you do weight exercises on) which is next to the free weights are...

'There are so many boys/men in here... I swear it's all men!!'

2 minutes after fannying around on one of the arm machines that I don't know the name of...

'Why do they (the men) all look at each other at the gym?! Just keep your eyes on the floor! Waaa I am so scared to try and get a bench!!'

I stand up and look over to the free weights section to not find a free bench in site. After all that panicking/worrying/procrastinating, I can't even use the man area if I wanted to (which I secretly didn't)! I resided to the usual floor space which only seems to have the odd man in and always has space on the floor for me feeling very annoyed with myself! Darn it! I was so sure I was going to do it! I explained to CW what had happened and she told me that her boyfriend had just had a really good Intro/Personal Training session at his gym which was the same chain as mine. YES! What a great idea! Someone can help me not look like an idiot and as a bonus I can rope in a girl from work to come with me and look silly with me too! Hurrah! So this time next week I will be a pro! :D

Until then I have my circuit that I am loving at the moment (apart from the final move that make me lie face down and look like I've had a few too many glasses of wine!) - http://www.fitsugar.com/Full-Body-Circuit-Workout-Dumbbells-2825394



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CP

CW's Meal Plan and Food Prep Week Two

Wow, meal plan looks good! Now all we have to do is…. Do it!!! Here’s mine for the week…. 

As u can see I have 2(ish) fast days, (a review on the 5:2 diet coming soon....) but if this week goes well I may reduce down to one! Also I’ve got a busy weekend which often proves problematic as I eat the world! Hopefully I can control my urges as I will have been eating high protein food and snacking, unlike usual where I’ll starve so I can eat the entire world at the weekend!

Meal plan and meal prep for some items!

Protein bar - http://toneitup.com/blog.php?ToneItUpand-039-s-Homemade-Protein-Bars-27

Overnight porridge - www.laurenconrad.com

Breakfast Smoothie (Peanut Butter and Banana) - http://www.self.com/fooddiet/2012/05/healthy-breakfast-ideas-slideshow?mbid=enws_row0430#slide=1

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CW

Introduction

You may be wondering why we have started a blog (that is, if anyone is even reading it… it’s prob just you and me CP! ha). Well I, (and I think CP) have tried loads of faddy diets and I have never lost any weight and kept it off… not that I was fat to start with, I just would rather lose a bit of the excess, as I’m sure practically every girl would like to!

After scouring (lurking’s what we do best) the internet/pinterest for fun and diet-related things, we discovered that the girls that look best (in our opinion,) are those that are toned and not too skinny! We also found that these girls are ones that eat a high protein, low carb, (not no carb) diet and incorporate weight training in their work outs. So we started browsing recipes and getting ideas etc. 

The reasons we love this wol (way of life, a cringey term…) are:

1. You get to eat quite a lot and there is always a yummy snack juist round the corner to look forward to in a few hours!
2. Eating ‘clean’ feels really good. (God, I hate the phrase ‘clean’ but basically I think it means the less processed food the better!)
3. Making all the food/smoothies/sharing recipes with CP is really fun.
4. We are looking forward to the progress we are (hopefully) going to make, whether that be just having a healthier life style, or whether it also helps us lose a bit of weight/get toned! 

We are also trying to up our exercise and have found that there are loadsssss of weight training exercises/routines for people out there (www.bodybuilding.com) that are for beginners too. As we have only just started our new WOL we haven’t quite managed to get the weight training routine down, but as soon as we do we will share it with you. At the moment I am just trying to do as much exercise - mostly running with a bit of weights at the gym - as time allows.

The other girls that write these types of blogs already look amazing, which, in my opinion, is a bit disheartening as I feel like I will never get there. We are just two, ordinary looking girls trying to balance fitness and healthy eating whilst still enjoying busy lives.

We LOVE food, but want to feel good whilst being able to actually eat more than one lettuce leaf a day! The aim of this blog is to feel healthy, happy and more toned. If we lose weight along the way then that is a bonus and we are just beginners in this, who find all this really interesting so hopefully you can follow our journey with us!

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CW