20 obsessions of every girl in her twenties.

Don't lie to me you love them all.

♥ Beards, they make every man beautiful.

♥ Eyebrows, because eyebrows.

♥ The 90's comeback, who didn't love jelly shoes the first time around.

♥ Secret bedroom dancing to our favourite childhood boyband.

♥ Having a mental break down every time we remember we're not eighteen anymore.

♥ Pizza, because pizza won't break my heart.

♥ Quote cushions, they say everything no one wants to admit out loud.

♥ Etsy, every girl needs a £50 handmade tampon holder.

♥ Vodka lime and lemonade, the lime makes it healthy ;)

♥ Bright lipstick.

♥ Smoothies.

♥ The elusive thigh gap.

♥ Travelling.

♥ Wine.

♥ So many bottles of wine just to forget that we're still single.

♥ Unforgiving heels that no one will ever be able to walk in.

♥ Instagram, #nofilter #thereisafilterthough

♥ Sandwiches, because nobody wants to cook.

♥ Pugs. The cutest f*!$ing dogs ever.

♥ Mason jars... because everything looks cute in a mason jar.

Until next time.

R x

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Worth the hype? Seche vite.

Seche Vite has been hyped up by the beauty community for years, after finally finding a bottle I get to see what all the fuss is about.

I was lazy and neglected a base coat. First, I painted my nails with two coats of OPI's 'this gown needs a crown' and finished with a thick coat of seche vite over the wet polish. I have never had a fast drying top coat that actually does what it claims. Seche vite dried my nails in under two minutes! perfect for those of us who don't protect our fresh manicure like it's our only child.

Day one: Unlike most other top coats Seche Vite has kept my manicure looking fresh for 24 hours! usually by now the majority of my nails would either be chipped or completely ruined.

Day two: Today was supposed to be the real test for Seche Vite. When I'm at work my nails get abused, constantly coated in alcohol and harsh cleaning products. Work was depressingly quiet do I can't say yet how Seche Vite holds up against alcohol, however my nails did survive the excessive amount of cleaning I did. By the end of the night there are only two small, vaguely unnoticeable chips.

Day three: So today there are a couple more chips, but they're not really noticeable. Although, I'm putting that down to the distracting sparkly polish. Tonight was a relatively busy night at work and my nails are now chipped like normal. I can see why people love this top coat but for those of us in bar jobs it's not the miracle I was hoping for.

Verdict: If I wasn't working with products that naturally strip nail polish I would agree with everyone else, but it looks like I'm still searching for that miracle top coat that will keep my manicure for more that three days.

Until next time.

R x

Military diet week three & four.

Week three.
I took week three off, only because I was at mum's for the majority of the week and I wasn't going to make her buy a bunch of extra food for me. I'd love to tell you that I made the healthiest choices but I treated myself a tad too much, at least I only gained one pound, which was lost back anyway.

If anyone is interested, you can follow me on myfitnesspal (yourboat23). No matter what I eat, good or bad it gets put in there. Without this app I would be literally be lost, you can set daily reminders to put in your food in and let's you know all the nutritional deets you need to stay successful on your diet.

Week four.
This week my diet days got neglected, life got in the way this week. I still stuck to the food plan, but I drank a lot of alcohol on Monday and then spent most of Tuesday in A&E. Wednesday, was my own fault I forgot to prep my dinner so ended up having to prepare something that didn't need defrosting.
For the most part I did stick to the plane, and even though the meals I ate were not what the diet calls for my calories were in check every day.
This week has made me realise that this diet isn't all about the strictness of what you eat. Over the past few weeks I have learnt to live on a low calorie diet, even on non diet days I just don't find myself craving 'naughty' food. If I do, I have found so many healthy recipes that prove you can still have the naughty foods but still be healthy.

Skinny Sundays.
From now on I'm not going to be giving you guys a run down of diet days, each week I will swap things in and out but the three diet days will always be virtually the same as the last couple of posts. I will check in every Sunday, no matter what the post is about I will just add in my progress for anyone that is interested but for the most part Sunday's will be dieting orientated.

FAB FIND. 
For anyone who's inner chocoholic will not stay at bay... you need ChocShot in your life! I make it with almond milk, it's amazing!! Whenever I need a chocolate fix I will go straight for cup of this rather than a big ass bar of galaxy. To top it all off there's only 14 calories in each teaspoon!

Weigh in, 21st February.

This week I lost: 1lb.

At least it's a loss! This week has made me realise that I can eat as well as I want but without exercise I'm not going anywhere fast. Next week I'm going ease myself in and aim to go for two short runs and just up the amount each week :)

Until next time.

R x

♥♥♥♥♥

20 things I wish I'd known before I moved out.

Even university halls do not prepare you for life.

♦ Remember bin day!!

♦ Bills.

♦ Electricity bills.

♦ Water bills.

♦ Phone bills.

♦ Rent.

♦ Council tax.

♦ You need to pay your bills on time.

♦ All the nights out sacrificed just to pay the bills.

♦ Just face it, bills come first.

♦ God damn bills.

♦ The oven needs cleaning. Regularly.

♦ That goes for the fridge too.

♦ There's no personal chef to cure that hangover.

♦ There's no maid service either.

♦ Mould is not your friend, Bleach is.

♦ Food is more expensive than you think, but doughnuts.

♦ It's hard to wake yourself up in the morning. I need a better alarm.

♦ Decking will be your own personal ice rink in winter.

♦ Boilers are complicated.

Military diet: four days off.

I realised that it's all well and good sharing my meals for diet days, but I haven't been sharing days off so I thought I'd quickly share with you all the meals I've been having on my four days off.

The aim is to stay under 1500 calories for best results, honestly even I haven't been finding it hard. On average I've been eating about 1350 on my days off.

Breakfast.

Porridge (quaker oats 2 minute sachets).
Boiled egg and soldiers.
Smoothies (recipes coming).
Banana pancakes (Recipe coming).
Scrambled egg 'burrito'.

Lunch.

Cheese toasties.
Almond butter on toast.
Eggs in pita.
Bacon wrap.

Dinner.

Skinny Lizzie 'low everything' sausages (only available at morrisons) & mixed vegetables.
Baked Fish & mixed vegetables.
Chicken & mixed vegetables.
I like to stick to meat and vegetables for dinner it's just so much easier. 

Snacks.

On my diet days I don't snack, so I've been trying to keep snacks to minimum. If I do snack I've been having fruit mostly, the occasionally naughty treat just to keep my inner chocoholic at bay.

Cheats.
I have been allowing myself one cheat meal a week, I usually save this for dinner so I can go out for tea or scoff a pizza ;)

Alcohol.
I wouldn't be surprised if you are wondering how my inner alcoholic is handling this. I don't drink at all on diet days and I have cut down a hell of a lot on alcohol, but I will still have Saturday night pint. If we go on a night out I've been trying to stick to gin and slimline mainly because of it's low calorie content.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Until next time.

R x

My top 10 picks on Netflix.

As a Christmas present to the house I signed up to Netflix and I definitely don't regret it. My poor laptop hasn't been turned off since!! Netflix isn't hard to navigate but sometimes I find myself scrolling though the endless lists of tv shows and movies not fancying anything.

So, not in any particular order here are my current top 10 pick for Netflix February 2015.

1: Grimm.
If you like a good supernatural series this has everything apart from vampires (yet). It's so refreshing to find a supernatural show that doesn't focus on the undead these days. This show is sort of a mixture of Buffy and CSI.

2: Orange is the new black.
Everyone will have recommended this Netflix original but it's definitely worth watching! I finished both seasons in less than 2 weeks.

3: All the Disney movies.
I know this is a bit of a cop out but if I listed all the Disney films on Netflix they would fill this entire list. There are so many on there at the moment, Hercules, Mulan, Aladdin, Pocahontas and soooo many more. If your a Disney junkie Netflix is the place to be.

4: Carrie, original and remake.
Netflix doesn't have the best selection of horror films, out of all of them I recommend the recent Carrie revamp. If you haven't seen the original watch it first, but for a remake I really enjoyed this one.

5: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This is my favourite tv show of all time, even though I own the box set it's always helpful to be able to watch it on the go. I've lost count how many time I've re-watched this series. It's nice to see a classic on there.

6: Greek.
I had seen this before but never really got into, after giving it another go I can't stop watching. It's not really for everyone, following the lives of two college students trying to navigate the bitchy world of the greek system. Pretty much all of the plot lines are a tad far fetched but that's what makes it funny.

7: The sweetest thing.
The chick flick for girls who hate chick flicks! If this is you and you haven't seen it, you need to! Otherwise you will never know the joys of Cameron Diaz's hilarious dancing during the best musical number ever. If you do fancy a proper chick flick Netflix also has the classics like clueless and 10 things I hate about you.

8: Never back down.
This is one for those couples that can never agree on a movie. It has all the testosterone to satisfy the boyf and so many topless men any girl would be happy to sit through this movie.

9: The Hobbit series.
Obviously they don't have the most recent release yet, but if you fancy a Tolkien marathon, it's right there at the click of a button.

10: The Undateables.
Best reality dating show ever.
I love this so much, it's so nice to see that there really is someone for everyone.

Until next time.

R x

Military Diet week two.

So this week I decided to try out the suggested substitutions for just about as many of the foods on the diet plan as I could. Firstly, so I don't have to endure plain tuna and cottage cheese! Secondly, to see if it's the combination of foods or just the low calories which are aiding weight loss. And finally, just to mix it up because even though it's only my second week, I get bored very quickly. That's probably the main reason I never follow diets through, at least with this plan I can switch out different foods every week, but still have a semi-strict list of 'allowed' food.

With all my substitutions I have calculated the amounts I can eat by matching each foods calories to suggested calorie count. I have kept some foods only because, I didn't like any of their substitutes and I've separated the fruit and ice cream substitutes usually included into dinner as snacks, just in case I get hungry in between meals.

Day One, 2nd February.

Breakfast.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia.
Half a grapefruit. (no substitutions for grapefruit)
1 slice of wholewheat toast.
2 tablespoons of Almond butter.

Lunch.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia*. (had before work instead)
100g of chicken.
1 wholemeal wrap.

Dinner.
3 Skinny Lizzie sausages.
100g Broccoli.

Snacks.
1 small apple.
1 kiwi.
1 cup of fruit yogurt.

Day Two, 3rd February. 

Breakfast.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia.
2 slices of bacon. (I GET BACON!!)
1 slice of wholewheat toast.
1 kiwi.

Lunch.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia. (had before work instead)
1 cup of plain greek yogurt.
1 hard boiled egg.
5 Ritz crackers

Dinner.
2 Chicken breasts.
1 cup of broccoli.
1/2 cup of carrots.

Snacks.
1 kiwi.
1/2 cup of fruit yogurt.

Day Three, 26th January. 

Breakfast.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia.
1 slice of cheddar cheese.
1 small apple.
5 Ritz crackers.

Lunch.
Black coffee, with 2 teaspoons of stevia.
2 slices of bacon.
1 slice of wholewheat toast.

Dinner.
1 chicken breast.
1 cup pf carrots.

Snacks.
1 kiwi.
1 cup of fruit yogurt.

Weigh in, 7th February.

I'm weighing in a day early this week. Only because I'm going to a gig tonight, then going to mum's on Sunday and my weight won't be accurate if I use different scales.

After three days I lost: 3 lbs

This week in total I lost: 3lbs

Had a few hiccups this week, i couldn't resist the temptation of popcorn :) but hey, at least I didn't gain.

Until next time.

R x