So... its April 22nd, whats the chat from the year so far?!

Hello my special blog friends (:

So as the title suggests, I have yet again fallen behind on this whole blogging thing and therefore I shall need to catch you up with all those super cool, exciting, once in a life time, change your life things that have happened to me since we last talked… but then that would make for an incredibility boring blog as it would end right here. Nothing has happened that I would say I would slot into any of the categories above… but more dull, mundane stuff has!

First, things first… A little update on this whole losing of the weight situation that I find myself in, I have now lost my 65^th lb (which for anyone working in stones is 4 stones, 7lbs). I know this is probably a disappointing figure for some due to the fact that the last time we talked I was going on about the 60^th lb… but I have to be totally honest with you, I am content enough with the slow weight loss, it was going to happen eventually… you can’t continue to lose the weight as fast as I was in the beginning.

Now, it is yet again that time… its end of the university trimester time. I have to say I feel strangely in control this trimester which makes me a very happy bunny! I passed everything last trimester and so we are on target!!

“Do you have any plans for the summer?”… “Got any holidays booked?” … “Going away anywhere nice?” …. These questions seem to be getting asked ALL the time! I have to be honest with you my little bloggies, I have an AMAZING summer plan… that is if it all works out! I my friends want to do Camp America soooooo much! I have applied, I have been interviewed, I have been police background checked, I have paid a generous sum of money and I am praying I get placed. As of just now my application is in that really, I mean seriously nerve racking stage of RTP, which for anyone that is not obsessed with spending the WHOLE summer in America, meeting new people, working with children and just generally having a B.L.A.S.T, it means Ready To Place. This is something that I think a lot of people are totally unaware of. So you spend ages filling out applications, uploading pictures, creating videos and perfecting essays… and then you get super excited because you are successful and you are getting an interview! You get all dressed up (and if you are anything like me), get there really early … you spend about 1hour being interviewed and then you hear back… you have been SUCCESSFUL! Now by this point you are already researching what to pack, how much spending money to take and the best things to do post camp… and then you realise that no one wants you yet. Now this is not some sort of x-factor sob story, this happens to EVERYONE, but it is still incredibly nerve racking! I have been in the RTP stage for 2 weeks and I can honestly say I check every few hours to see if someone wants to give me a placement. I had a dream last night I got placed in a camp in Michigan… and then my alarm rang and I could have cried! I have worked so far this year to get the grades that I need, to get the money to enable me to do this and I am seriously worried that I won’t get placed… so if I could ask everyone a massive favour? Please cross your fingers for me! PLEASE?!!!

I don’t really know where to go now with this blog as the items listed above have kind of taken over my life in the last couple of months… Weight loss, University and duh duh duh Camp America!

So I am going to make this last paragraph, really unbelievably original… just kidding, I’m going to tell you about what I have done today. Today has been a rather strange day if I am honest! I woke up almost crying over the whole Michigan placement dream… and then realised that I had slept in and that I needed to be dressed and ready to leave in 20mins. This isn’t due to the fact that I have a super early class on a Monday, it’s basically because my parents have lost their minds and have decided to re-decorate the WHOLE house. Today was the start of this transformation and the first thing to hit the Lewis house you may ask? Windows. Yes, today every single window in my house got taken out and replaced. This is something when you think about it, doesn’t seem like that messy a job… believe it is. Thankfully my parents are awesome and got them to do my window first so that I could have my room back to normal ASAP and get back to studying. So what did I do all day, with no university and a whole lot of studying? That’s right I went to Starbucks… And I am talking serious Starbucks time happened. I was there for about 6 hours, drank about 4 grande soy lattes and took advantage of the surprisingly fast free wifi that they provide. (If we are being all technical here… it was actually the shopping centre that Starbucks is located in that has the super fast WIFI… Starbucks wifi was as always a little lack-luster.) About an hour ago, I decided to be a trooper (which is a rather Scottish phrase meaning good person) and head home! I came home to a house in carnage… but my room was done! So I hovered it, moved all my furniture back to the way I like it, opened my laptop and boo… here we are!!

So till next time my special blog buddy…

Love Yasmin Christina

xx

£60… never in my life did I think I would say losing this would make me so happy!

Hello world, 

It was been a strangely long time since I have updated you on my life and for that I shall apologise. I had an awesome Christmas period and hope you did too (: 

At the end of January I went to Amsterdam for the weekend with my best friend and that to be honest has been the only interesting thing to happen since the last time we spoke!

Well… that and the fact that I have now officially (as of yesterday) lost 60lbs. I know I did a little play on worlds in the title but I can honestly say that I am ridiculously proud of myself! As with all mile-stones in my weightloss so far I wouldn’t say that I really felt anything extremely uplifting when I stepped on those scales and seen that number that I have been longing for. I think that when you are heavy and looking to lose those extra lbs you have this idea that when you stand in that scale and reach a mile-stone there will be a random outburst of music and disco lights and party poppers but that doesn’t happen. You get back of the scale (and in my case head down the stairs to make yourself a lovely bowl of dairy free porridge) and everything feels the exact same, for a little while, and then all of a sudden you get this amazing feeling coming over you that you actually did it! Like 100% have done what you thought, quite frankly, was impossible. I know I am probably rambling but I just want people to know that losing those lbs doesn’t have the same reaction in real life as it does in those crazy weightloss shows, people don’t jump up and down, bring gifts of flowers and give you free things… when you do it on your own, it really is just that sense of pride that you feel (that and the fact that I now wear much smaller jeans). 

Now I know that 60lbs sounds like a lot of weight but I unfortunately do have a rather long way to go. I am to lose 100lbs but my 21^st Birthday… that means I have 8 months to loss 40lbs. I sometimes get this feeling inside that I cannot help but think “I’m not sure if I can do this for another 8 months… im not sure if I can last without a sandwich or some cheese for another 8 months” but all I do is look back at old pictures, look and see how round my face was, now large my belly was and I realise that I would last 8 years without a sandwich and some cheese if I can on my 21^st birthday stand in a beautiful dress (from the likes of French connection) and feel happy and totally proud of myself that I may have been that chubby child, that curvy young teenager, that heavy 20 year old but now I am that pretty 21 year old… and I realise it will all be worth it! 

Until next time…

Love Yasmin Christina

xx

Faking it?

Bonjour bloggies!! 

So, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I made a blog post and as usual I have no reasonable excuse but I was channel flicking this evening and I came across a show all about plus size women attempting to win a beauty pageant. Now this is someone I would always of flicked passed because the thought of watching it would maybe bring up feelings that are a little too close to home but tonight instead of doing that I made myself sit and watch it, I allowed myself to feel those things and I feel that was exactly what I needed.

This week I have lost 3lbs, therefore my overall weight loss is sitting at 46lbs, which I am so proud of myself for but for some reason this past week my heart has just not been in it. I have only been to the gym once but that has been because of how much university work that I have to do and also the amount of extra hours that I have been undertaking at work. 

I can honestly say that I have not been slacking on my eating, I haven’t had anything dairy, any carbs or anything remotely unhealthy but I just haven’t felt the passion. However I think that watching this programme has given me my confidence back. 

Tonight I watched these women, these beautiful women, in my opinion lie to themselves. I understand that they wish to feel confidant and feel pride in themselves, but I notice those little things that I do to hide my body and they are all still doing it. Those little pull down of the tops so they cover their bottom, those dresses that show far too much “boobige” to draw eyes away from the parts of their body that they do not like, those little jackets or cardigans that cover their arms because they hate them. 

Even the way that they talked about men, there was only one woman that actually seemed happy with her relationship status. I can totally understand them because I am one of them, I have never had a boyfriend and I do totally think that is to do with the way I look at myself. I judge myself. I hate myself. And I feel that watching this programme has brought back that fight. I don’t want to exude fake confidence. I want to have that day where I love myself enough to have true confidence and my blog friends there is something that I can promise right now… I will be at my target weight by my 21^st birthday. I will exude that real confidence. I will love myself. 

Until next time … 

Love Yasmin Christina 

xx

whats that? You want to know 10 random facts about me? Okay...

So, it all of a sudden dawned on me that I am actually a rather strange person with  a lot of random things that you my bloggies do not know about and I decided that seen as I have discuss a lot of important stuff with you recently I would take a little break from the super heartfelt malarkey and do something totally un-original and do the “10 random facts tag” …. Enjoy!

Fact numero Uno – I sometimes like to use some random French (which I do not have any formal qualifications or knowledge about) in my day to day life, especially around my sister… Yip, she is also a weirdo (:

Fact 2 – I have a beautiful guitar sitting in one of the corners of my bedroom that I have never, not even once, played. To be totally honest with you I don’t even know if its in tune … but I think it looks pretty and makes me seem super artistic and musical (basically everything I am not) so its staying.

Fact 3 – I have this really strange habit of calling my Dad “papa smurf”. I really don’t know why I do this, he looks absolutely nothing like a smurf, he does not have blue skin or grey hair and beard but for some reason I do it all the time. It’s now gotten to the point where if I am talking about him at work or with friends I accidently refer to him as Papa Smirf #awkward 

Fact 4 – I HATE cloudy apple juice. This really is random because I genuinely enjoy the taste of the clear concentrated apple juice and I enjoy the occasional glass of cloudy lemonade but even just the thought of cloudy apple juice makes me feel a little ill.

Fact 5 –It took me 5 times to pass my driving test … awkward I know but that’s the truth. I absolutely hated learning how to drive. I disliked my instructor, I hated the early morning lessons and learning about things I will never, ever do again… hello reverse parking.

Fact 6 – I have a seriously bad addiction to pepsi max… like LOVE the stuff. 

Fact 7 – I can’t turn my light off in my bedroom when I am about to go to sleep until both my feet are off the ground. Once the light is off I can get back up again but for some reason I feel really uneasy about going to bed and turning the light off while standing up or sitting down but with my feet on the ground. 

Fact 8 – I always used to wish I had a brother. I’m not really sure why because myself and my sister have always gotten on really well, but I always dreamed of having a “cool” older brother that would bring all his “hot” friends round and they would all talk to me… Yep, I know a little strange.

Fact 9 – I am a procrastinator. I doesn’t matter if I have known that my essay is due in for months and months I will be sitting there at 7am the day its due trying to make sure it all makes sense. But one thing that I do not do is all nighters… I would rather go to bed and get up super early than stay up late and not sleep at all.

Finally… fact  10 – One time when I was in high school someone let me borrow there OC box set, so I pretended to be ill and got sent home and then spent the next 24 hours, literally didn’t sleep or anything, watching the first season… majorly obsessed.

So, internet that is me, Yasmin Christina. You probably know far too much about my life but if you feel like you could like to know more, please stick around and I will keep you updates on my life very soon.

Love Yasmin Christina

xx

Happy half way through November … is that even a thing?

So, it’s a Sunday morning and I treated myself this morning to something a little bit special! I made pancakes, shocking I know. Now, I am using the word pancake very loosely as it was to be honest probably the healthiest pancake recipe known to man! I made banana oat pancakes and the recipe came from a blog called “cookieandkate”… and before you wonder, I have never met cookie or kate before I just found it though google. I do have to admit however that it’s a pretty decent whole food kind of blog. Lots of pretty cool and interesting looking recipes (most of which I can’t really create or enjoy because they contain… dairy or wheat or flour or anything delicious!) but you should totally check it out… even if it’s just for a wee nosy. 

 

Now, I have been on my healthy eating plan for 10 weeks and I have lost a grand total of 40lbs, that’s 2st 12lbs to people who work in the good old fashioned matrix that is stones. Now, 40lbs in 10 weeks on paper is a huge amount of weight and people around me seen to agree that I look like I have lost a load of weight and that I am continuously improving and continuing to lose but for some reason this week has been a real challenge for me. I would like to highlight by challenge I don’t mean I didn’t go to the gym and ate burgers and chips because I can inform you that’s not what I mean. I mean more I have only lost 2lbs this week (which I know is a lot) and I am feeling a little down about it. I haven’t really hit a weight loss block like this before and I am just feeling a little down about it. I am still totally on this, I went to the gym three times last week and I have eaten really well and even my first treat in the whole 10 weeks I have been on this I can say was totally a healthy choice but I just feel a bit blahh ( I know blahh isn’t a word but I can’t really think of the correct world to say). It’s difficult when you are being super healthy and not eating anything bad for you, not going out drinking with the girls because you don’t want to have too many grams of sugar because cocktails are full of them, when you go to Costa coffee instead of a hot chocolate and a muffin you are having a bottle of diet coke (which I know isn’t good for you, but is still totally 100% my weakness) and a small tea with soya milk when the person  you are with is having a large coffee and a biscuit… these things are all really hard and just become harder when you are not feeling the benefits, when you stand on those scales and the number is the exact same as it was a few days ago, when those jeans are still that little bit too tight and when you look in the mirror and just wish it would all change overnight but I doesn’t and I know this but sometimes, no matter who you are, where you are from, what age you may be or how much you want to lose these situations can be a little bit disheartening.  

Having said all this I refuse to let this get the better of me!! I will continue to close weight and I will slowly begin to like myself a little more, I would just like this to start happening a little sooner rather than later, if that would be ok world. 

This week while having a little look through pintrest I found this quote and this is what I know have as the background picture of my phone, what I look at every day and I feel this sums up what I want to be able to say to people when I have reached my goal… I want to be able to say I lost 100lbs and when they ask how I got the motivation and when I decided to make the changes to my lift I want to say to them “Actually, I just woke up one day and decided I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, or ever again, so I changed. Just like that”

Love Yasmin Christina 

xx 

happy?

Ok, so normally I make a genuine effort to make my blog posts a little light hearted and a little bubbly... a bit like my personality but I should warn you today isn't really a normal day. 

Lets start at the beginning shall we...

At the beginning of last week, I noticed that something didn't feel "normal" on the right breast... it wasn’t a lump or anything but it just didnt feel the way it normally did. I mentioned it to my mum on sunday and she very calmly said that I should just go to the doctors and get them to make sure that its nothing too serious. Now at this point I should make it very aware that there is a seriously long family history of cancer on my dads side and even more importantly there is a long history of breast cancer. 

So, on Monday morning I called and made an appointment at my doctors (a place where I haven't been for a number of years) and luckily managed to get one for 10 to 5 that evening. Now I am at uni on a Monday so I didn't really have much time to think about it, thankfully. So, me being me (and by that I mean the kind of person that will turn up for lunch 30mins late but will turn up for work, uni and when i used to attend school about 20 mins early) I got there about half past 4. So I went in and the receptionist informed me that the doctor I was going to see was running about 15mins late. So, I happily picked a seat and sat down to wait. 

After about 10 minutes of playing with my phone, checking facebook, twitter and instagram, pinning a few things on pintrest and checking sky news, I found myself thinking about what I could soon be told. 

I don't often allow myself to evaluate my life for a couple of reasons, one being that I am still so young and haven't lived a very long life that there would be no point because a lot was yet to happen but on this occasion I did allow myself and I got thinking about everything. 

I have always been the kind of person that is a little bit whacky but doesn't really jump into things. I have always really wanted a tattoo, I have wanted one for years but I have always been to scared in case I made a mistake and ended up not liking it. I have for years wanted to be slimmer (something which I began to tackle about 10 weeks ago) and ultimately I just want to be a little happier than I am just now.

As I sat in the waiting room, I began to ask myself... if what I was about to find out was bad news, would I be happy at the way I have lived my life? and I sadly realised that the answer was no. I would be annoyed at myself that I have disliked my body for so many years but hadn't done anything about it. I would be frustrated that I hadn't just gotten that tattoo, if I like it when I get it should be all that really matters. I would be so angry that I didn't make more of an effort to make myself happy and to ensure that everything I wanted I got. 

"Yasmin Christina..." and I realised that the doctor was calling my name. 

For now the answer for the different feeling of my breast is a little unknown but she did give me the news that I was praying to hear... it wasn't anything to worry about. 

So, as I walked out that doctors surgery with a little bounce in my step I realised that I had the time and ability to make sure that everything I was so disheartened by I changed, everything I wanted I accomplished and most importantly, everything that I was unhappy about I became happy with. 

Love Yasmin Christina 

xx