Positive Mindset, Balanced Life..

My Journey to self love. 

I am 28 years old. I have never loved myself. I have been in a constant battle for 28 years with my body, hating it, prodding at parts I can't stand to look at, punishing it for not looking how I wanted it to look, ignoring it and worst of all, harming it. 

Years of overeating, eating too little or sometimes nothing at all led me down a path of severe depression and self harm. Every time I would start a new "diet" in hopes of not being fat anymore, restricting myself, exercising till I threw up, losing 14lbs easily in under a month all to quickly gain it back when I couldn't sustain that lifestyle anymore. I gave myself so many rules, no eating after 4pm, no more than 1,000 calories, no less than 2 hours exercise every day and no rest days. It's truly not a surprise I couldn't last more than a month.

I came across happy but inside I wasn't, I was so sad. Lonely, exhausted. I stayed home everyday because going out would interrupt my food and exercise routine I had created for myself. That carried on for years until I gave up when I was 24. I was tired of yo-yo dieting. So I actually gave up and when I write gave up I mean that I just ate whatever I wanted, still hating myself but using all of my favourite foods for comfort. Second, third and sometimes even fourth helpings of mac and cheese, four packets of crisps (usually mccoys) sharing bars of chocolate, doughnuts and everything else that was bad for me. 

In April 2018 I realised I couldn't do this to myself anymore. My knees were starting to hurt and I had gotten to 314lbs, my blood pressure was high and I was worried for myself. I was shocked. It was truly the kick I needed but I knew I didn't want to diet, I knew I had to develop healthy habits, habits that I could do every day. I needed a healthy relationship with food, with my body. We know our own bodies better than anyone else and we just need to start listening to them, they know what they need. I dug my fitbit out of my underwear drawer where I had hid it away so I didn't have to look at it because it was a constant reminder that I wasn't looking after myself. I downloaded the fitbit app (again) and the my fitness pal app (for the hundredth time) and I started to educate myself a bit more on mindful eating. Taking time to myself to enjoy my food, to slowly eat it with no distractions and learning when I was satisfied. 

I found workouts on Youtube (there are some really good ones on there) or I put music on and dance for 45 minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I have rest days. I write down what I eat on a piece of paper and then I log on my fitness pal at the end of the day and put it all in, I don't spend my days calorie counting although I do like to know how much I have eaten. Usually between 1,500 to 1,900. My fitness pal recommend 2,020 for me. I am currently 291 lbs, I have a long journey ahead of me but I feel like this is my time and I am going to grab it with both hands and go with it. 

Life is too short to spend it hating yourself and not eating foods you love, everything is about balance, moderation. Nourish yourself with foods that make you feel good, exercise to show your body love. I have learnt that my body is strong and resilient and that my mind is a powerful thing. So is yours. I recently read a quote on pinterest that said "You will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself in your head. Be kind to yourself." It is so true. I always speak to myself, now instead of saying hateful stuff I say positive stuff to myself. My body will never again hear that it's not worthy, my bum will never be told to cover up because it's too big. If I can't love myself at my current weight then I won't love myself at my ideal weight. 

I'm not going to just put band aids over my scars, I am going to heal myself, love myself and care for myself. I am my priority and you should be yours. Don't forget about yourself, take time for yourself even if it's just 20 minutes in the bath with a book, 30 minutes yoga in the morning before work, even just a quiet cup of tea with a biscuit or cleansing your face. Take it, take that time for you and don't feel selfish for it. 

Be your own biggest fan, cheer for yourself. Don't waste time wishing you had someone else's boobs, legs. bum or hair. You're just telling yourself you are not good enough and believe me, you are. I am the happiest I have been in a long time, I am not afraid to eat food I just stop when I am satisfied, I take my time, I drink my 2 litres of water a day and believe me it is not a lie when they say it clears up your skin because my skin has never felt or looked better. I am in a really good place mentally because I ditched diets and created a better relationship with food, with myself. If just one person reads this and it makes them feel good or better about themselves then I am happy. I am writing this in perspective of someone that's been there, someone that's still there. Some days I do struggle with my emotions, Anxiety and depression are not easy to shake off but I am working on myself every single day, I'm getting mentally stronger. 

Trust me, find balance and everything else will start to fall into place.

I won't apologise for my thighs that touch and wiggle or my belly that has stretch marks. I won't apologise for loving myself even if you think I shouldn't. I am apologetically me. ME. (I will apologise for the mess in my bathroom...)

Love, Karlee x

Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith. (Review)

When I first got the book

WRECK THIS JOURNAL- I am absolutely in love with it. I find myself coming home from work, hopping in the shower or bath.. Depending on how hectic my day has been, then making myself a cup of tea and sitting down with pens, glue and glitter at the ready. This book is like some kind of therapy, it gets me writing in it when I'm angry, throwing it, dropping it out of my bedroom window and even poking holes in it. 

I feel like I can be as creative as I want to be with this book and it doesn't even matter if I'm good at art or not, it's still a fun thing to do. I even come up with ideas on what I'm going to do to a certain page at work, then I'll come straight home and write it on a post it note and stick it on the page just so I don't forget. This book has kind of taken over my free time.. I first saw it when I went shopping, I thought it was a normal journal but when I picked it up and realised it wasn't I put it back. Then a few weeks later I'd seen it on good reads, it sounded so interesting, so I typed it in on YouTube and see that Bunny aka grav3yardgirl l was having so much fun with it and I just really regretted not buying it when I had the chance.

So I ordered it from Amazon, I don't think I paid more that £6 including postage, I'm sure it was £5 ish... or definitely around that price. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from it, I thought that I'd soon get bored of it and leave it to gather dust somewhere, but I have had it for over a month now and I'm still not tired of it and I am still thinking of fresh new ideas. I would recommend this book, I love it so much I'm even thinking about buying it for my best friend for his birthday, I definitely think he needs to unlock his creative side a little more and I think that he would have fun with this book. So seriously, if you haven't got this, then get it. It's probably my best buy of 2014. I was so impressed that I've now also ordered Finish this book, also by Keri Smith and I will let you know if I love that or not when it finally arrives. 

But this book gets 5 stars from me because and I say it again, I LOVE THIS BOOK!

P.s. Here are my favourite pages I've done so far..

Thanks for reading, 

Bullying and Self Love

Hello Beautifuls,

 

 

Today's post is about bullying and self love, regardless of your dress size, height, sexual orientation, whether you got long hair or short hair, curly hair or straight hair and anything else in between that. So-called flawless skin or a face adorned with freckles, if you're a man or a woman. So what if you have a slightly bigger nose, does it define you? No. Personally, I have a nose that is slightly turned up at the end, from the side it looks like a little ski slope but from the front, it slightly resembles a pig, but who cares? I like my nose and I wouldn't want to change it.

 

 

I never even took full body pictures of myself.

 

 

I have spent way too many years, hating my body or despising some other part of me and it has taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I have a bigger body than a lot of the women I know but it's my body and it's been through a lot with me, so I'm going to love and respect it. I don't care that not everyone will love my body, as long as I'm comfortable with it, it's all that matters to me. I spent too many years being put down by an uncle and a really nasty step dad and even though both have been out of my life for six years now, up until about a year ago the things they said to me still affected how I felt about myself. When you spend so long hearing people say "Maybe you shouldn't eat that, you're getting really fat." or pretending to joke by asking me, "Are you sure you're gonna fit through that door?" Of course, I laughed it off and ignored it but why should anyone feel like they have the right to say hurtful things like that to people.. Especially to teenage girls who are easily influenced. I spent years with my size fluctuating, I'd starve myself for days and exercised till I vommited. For months, every night I ate four to five chunks of exlax all because I didn't want to be the "fat" girl anymore. I wanted to shut bullies like my Uncle and Step dad up, but all I ended up with was severe hunger pains and cramps that woke me up through the night. They made me feel so low and so bad about myself I didn't realise what I was doing to my body, I felt like I was worthless and that I'd be better off dead. They had so much power over me and it made me feel suffocated. I hated myself, I self harmed and I attempted to take my own life a handful of times and I let them make me feel like that. I didn't stand up to them and I didn't have a voice against them. Bullying doesn't just happen in schools, it happens anywhere, as long as there are ignorant and heartless people in the world, there will always be bullies.

 

 

Who cares if I'm in love with a girl..

 

I've been called names for being overweight, for being "weird" and for loving a girl and if I could say one thing to those people today it would be "I LOVE MYSELF!" I am proud of where I am today because I am better than them people, I would never be mean about someone to make myself better because it won't make me any skinnier or it won't make me prettier, all I'd acheive is hurting someones feelings and I'll look like a total bitch. I've been on the receiving end and even now there's those ignorant people that still love to have an opinion on me, but I have realised that their opinion says a lot about them and nothing whatsoever about me. Nobody has the right to make others feel worthless and you're the only person that can let them make you feel worthless. We are HUMAN, we all have feelings, we all should be a little kinder to people, we all should be a little kinder to ourselves. Sometimes, you truly don't know how you're words affect people whether it be a compliment or an insult, words can be very powerful.

 

All that matters is that I'm happy.

 

So yes, we do need to love ourselves and embrace our flaws, that's what makes you, you. The opinion of one person or even a select few people shouldn't affect how far you hold your head up. Flaws are what make you beautifully imperfect and not to mention, human. We all have something we would probably change about ourselves if we ever got the chance, but if we were all perfect we wouldn't differ from each other. So, next time someone calls you a fat cow or a skinny bitch, tells you that you shouldn't love someone that's the same gender as you, or your nose is too big or that it resembles a pig.. Stick your middle finger up, hold your head high and show them that you're comfortable in your own skin and that you're not going to let small minded people keep you down anymore.

 

Thank you for reading..

 

Much Love, Karlee x

 

 

 

 

 

Plus Size OOTD: Day at the beach.

Hello Beautifuls.

It seems like it's been forever since I've blogged and I've missed it so much! Thought that I'd start with an OOTD. 

Now I have a new laptop I will be able to blog a lot more often and I'm excited about that. 

Anyways, I had a good day out on Saturday, 7th September and took some pictures of what I wore, obviously.. Otherwise it wouldn't be an OOTD. 

The top and jeans were both from Newlook, the top was arounf £15 and the jeans were on sale for £8. I also wore cross earrings that cost me £3 in asda. 

My makeup was pretty neutral, my hair was a mess, I wore converse on my feet and a help the heroes bracelet on my arm. 

It's quite boyish, but I loved it. I felt comfortable in it and the shirt also comes in red which I really must buy. 

Hope you enjoyed my OOTD, feels good to be back! 

Fifty shades of what?

Hello Beautifuls.

*If you haven't read Fifty Shades and you are planning too, please don't read this blog post as it may contain some spoilers.*

Having heard about the hype surrounding the Fifty Shades trilogy, around six weeks ago I decided to give it a read myself. Downloading it to my kindle, I was pretty excited to give these books a read. Almost everyone I knew was saying how much they loved it, even the people that never usually read books were singing its praises. I also loved the price of it, at £1.90 something for the kindle version, it was a lot cheaper then what it had been selling for. 

As I settled down in bed that night with a nice cup of tea, I turned on my kindle and started to read. 

For me, it wasn't one of those books where I was completely hooked. When I read hunger games for the first time, I literally could not put my kindle down for five minutes. With fifty shades, I mainly just picked up my kindle when I was bored. The story line felt a bit ridiculous, Anastasia Steele, (main female character) just completely accepts how Christian Grey (main male character) treats her. Christian is an obsessive stalker, anyone in the real world would be receiving psychiatric help if they seriously behaved like that. He has ways of knowing where she is at all times, he finds out where she works, where she lives. I know E.L. James created this book because it was a fantasy of hers, but it would have made a better read if it was more realistic. 

In my opinion the books are poorly written, the sex scenes are repetitive and EVERYTIME they have sex James describes Christian opening the condom wrapper as "the tell tale tearing of the foil packet." It drives me nuts. Anastasia comes across as pretty much inhuman in the books, there never comes a time when she's just like "Christian, you've had you're wicked way too much, I'm sore. I want to sleep!" Instead, she's turned on 24/7, even just thinking of Christian Grey gets her inner goddess excited. 

“My inner goddess has her sequins on and is warming up to

dance the rumba.” 

-E.L James, Fifty Shades Freed.

I would just love to know what the purpose of the inner goddess is in this story, I don't get it? Within five minutes, Ana goes from innocent virgin to complete sex addict, all with a little bit of help from her inner goddess. 

At the end of the first book, Ana leaves Christian for hitting her with a belt, but within months, as you read the beginning of the third book, they're married. Christian is violent and controlling, he seems to dismiss his behaviour to the fact that he was abused physically as a child, by his "Crack-whore mother and her boyfriend." 

Then there is Mrs Robinson, who is actually called Elena Lincoln, the woman who introduced Christian in to the world of BDSM when he was just FIFTEEN! Seriously? James could have made him older when this happened, instead of making one of her characters a paedophile. 

In every other page someone seems to smirk, or Ana starts biting her lip, rolling her eyes and sighing. Her vagina is described as her sex, it just doesn't sound right and I occasionally found my self replacing the word with something that made more sense to me. They always argue about the same thing, usually Ana not doing as she is asked, then they have this absolutely amazing make up sex. Ana never has a crap orgasm, she always "explodes around him" because he is the greatest lover in the world, clearly. I'm sure many women would be happy if they had their very own Mr. Grey, but it's just not real. 

I would watch the movie, but I don't think I'll be reading the books again. Maybe if I'm bored and on a long journey or something, but other then that they'll just be taking up memory in my kindle. I know I may sound harsh or bitchy, I don't mean to. There's just many things that bugged me about the books. It's my blog and my personal opinion, I know there are many people that are in love with the books, I'm just not one of them.

As the film goes, I will watch it, mainly to see how much of the story line they have actually kept. As for who should play Christian Grey, I don't know but I do think Ian Somerhalder is a great option for him. 

Ian Somerhalder.

Thanks for reading! 

Laters, baby.

Superdrug Mini Haul.

Hello Beautifuls,

I'm finally all moved and pretty much unpacked!! :) Well the internet got reconnected on Monday and I was just so happy to be able to blog again.

I've not had any time to do makeup looks but I have been to Superdrug recently and picked up a few things. So, just thought I'd start with a little mini haul. 

From Left to right: Black multi glitter, Teal, Silvery lilac and Bright red. 

I got Teal, Silvery lilac and bright red as part of a 3 for 2 deal they had on last week, if you love Barry M nail paints and you don't have Teal, you need it! Honestly, it's one of my favourite colours, it looks stunning. These Barry M nail paints retail at £2.99. 

From left to right: Retro Red, Cappuccino and Spring Green. 

So, this week I went back to Superdrug and they had a different deal for Barry M cosmetics. If you spend £6 on Barry M, you get a free retro nail paint, in pink, blue or red. I got spring green, cappuccino and black multi glitter and then I got retro red for free and it is such a gorgeous red! If you want to get your hands on one or all of the retro nail paints then you should get yourself down to superdrug because I think that they're limited edition, but I'm not sure. Again, these retail at £2.99. 

 From L to R: Head in the clouds, I can't remember the middle one, heart of the carnival, maybe? and the last one is heart on your sleave. 

I've just ran out of my batiste, wild dry shampoo and I did originally take a trip to Superdrug to buy some more, but then I came across these! The reason they caught my eye was because the deal was buy one get two FREE! So I just threw them in my basket and didn't bother smelling them because for £1.99 I just wanted to grab them, but now I wish I'd bought six of them because they smell really nice and in my opinion works just as well as Batiste so I'm really happy and I would recommend these if you're looking for another dry shampoo to try. 

Then, I picked up some more St Ives apricot scrub and simple replenishing moisturiser, because again, I'd run out of both. 

Thanks for reading, new make up looks will be blogged about soon! Thinking I might do Vanity next? 

My Dog, Molly.

Hello Beautifuls,


This is a little bit of a random blogpost today. I was just thinking about the day I got my dog, Molly. Since then, it's been 6 years and she is a huge part of my life. When I wake up in the morning, she runs up and greets me, with a wagging tail and doggy kisses. I find it strange how such a little thing, that can't even speak can impact people's lives in such a big way. Sometimes I look at her and I feel like my heart is actually gonna just EXPLODE with the amount of love I have for her. Even as I write this post, she's sat snuggled up next to me, resting her head on my foot. I'm definitely a dog person, this may be a little biased because I don't have a cat, but my aunt has cats, I just think dogs are much better, For me. For the type of person I am. 

I love how, she loves me. No matter how I look, I could be sitting around in my comfy clothes, with my hair up in a high bun and no make up on at all and she still loves me. Dogs are just uncomplicated. I prefer animals compared to humans for that reason. You know where you stand with an animal. With humans, there's always things said that have completely different meanings, humans have the capability to fake love and friendship. While, I am completely happily in love with my girlfriend, she's the only person I can spend a long amount of time around, without feeling trapped, and unsociable. I'm just not really a people person, and I don't mind that. I'd much rather be on my own, with, however sad it sounds, a dog for a best friend. I'm sure I'm not the only person like this, I know a few people that can relate better with animals then with people. 

Molly when she was 10 weeks old. 

I'm planning to get a bunny next, I'm not sure how Molly will react with a bunny, so I have to be careful. Even if I don't get a bunny, I'd be just as happy with just Molly, she's just so loving and she does the cutest things. I'm sure sometimes she gets annoyed that I'm often sticking a camera in her face! I just can't help it, if she is doing something cute, I have to capture it. 

Molly all grown up now.

Molly looking all cute and clueless.

Anyway, hope you all had a great Easter, Molly did, with her little doggy Easter egg. Wish I'd taken a picture now!