A personal update from me
It has been a while since I wrote a personal post so I thought I should give all my lovely loyal followers an update from me. I want to share the good and bad of life and everything in between.
When I first started blogging almost 7 years ago I wanted it to be more personal than a recipe site with a cookbook and always honest.
So here I am with the good and the bad, moving house, weight and diet, family life and my mental health!
Moving house
I am sure you will have seen me post on social media or mention it in other articles, but earlier this year we moved house. Of course, moving house is stressful, we still have things we have not unpacked in the garage but mostly we are all moved in now.
I love the new house, one picture below of the outside before we had the front garden done (pictures here of the new garden). This photo was taken on the day we got the keys so we have changed a lot inside too and I need to take lots more pictures and share those soon.
It would be after a cleaning day though that I take the pictures if I took photos now you would see all sorts of random clutter dotted around!
I love being in the new house, we have more space than we did before, I have my own office to work from and I have loved the fresh start a new house brings.
Family life
Someone asked me the other day if I was still with Stuart and it occurred to me that I don’t talk about him often. There is no real reason as to why I don’t, it is just the way things happen but yes we are still together and really happy.
Fathers’ day yesterday was a lovely family day. I always find it hard as never had a relationship with my dad and am not massively close to my stepdad. This year Ben chose Stuart some presents himself and wrote his own card etc. This hilarious mug was one of Ben’s choices!
We had a few days away at Wembley for football – the less said about that the better, they lost!
Ben has recently finished his GCSE exams which I am so proud of. He has autism and has always struggled a lot and I never imagined he would be able to sit any GCSEs but he works and tries so hard and has sat 3 subjects, now keep your fingers crossed for results day!
Mini update from me after publishing this – Ben got a grade 3 and two grade 4’s so we are very proud of him!
My weight and diet
The picture above leads me on to talk about my weight and diet! The elephant in the room, I run a healthy eating website but I am not healthy at the moment!
As you can see I am not skinny anymore. I have put weight on over the last few years or so and I am back to having two chins (maybe more) and flabby arms.
I know that I need to lose weight again for my health. Also, I know that I would like to be slimmer again.
That said, I have struggled mentally a lot lately and that has put me off starting. I feel like I need to take control and start afresh but not get as obsessed as I did previously.
Today I have weighed myself and it isn’t pretty, but hopefully, now it is only going to go down from here. I am initially going to start by just eating more healthily and starting gently then I think I will start a plan.
I am undecided about which one yet! I am also very aware that my mental health is a pivotal part of this and I need to keep working on that too.
My mental health
I should also give you an update from me about my mental health. I have struggled on and off with my mental health for a lot of my life. With the help of counselling and support from Stuart and friends, I have started to really understand myself a lot more over recent months.
I have come to accept the things I have suffered from over the years and that they are not my fault and also accept that as a result of these I have PTSD and other ongoing issues. That said I am also at a point now where I feel I am learning to accept it more and live alongside these issues rather than try to bury them or cure them, neither of which is really possible.
Whilst my mental health has most definitely affected my weight I can not honestly say it is the only cause. The main cause of my weight gain is sheer greed! I like food and I like unhealthy foods! Whilst I don’t aim to stop them completely I do hope I can reduce the quantity of them and have a bit more restraint!
I am working on doing more for myself and reading more, finding things to do that I enjoy and loving my body more. When I am depressed I struggle to look after myself and sometimes wash my hair less frequently etc so this is something I am going to really work on.
I have also made myself an Amazon wishlist and whenever I feel down and like treating myself to chocolate or similar I will buy myself something off that! Of course, feel free to have a nosey, I got a little carried away when building it!