Fitness Friday: Writing a Diary

Hi there!

This week's Fitness Friday is all about accountability. I've never been one to write a diary but this year I really wanted to start writing one and noting down my meals, as well as attendance at any classes and any subsequent improvements I've made to show my progress in that respect.

My plan is to write out the following:

1) my meals and snacks each day - even when I've gone way over what I should have eaten. I don't count calories but occasionally I do add my food into an app like My Fitness Pal to calculate my calorie intake and see if I need to increase or decrease my intake of total calories, proteins, fats and carbs.

2) my exercises, classes, run distances and times, weights used, reps increased - basically anything that I've done. I know that I've improved over time but I would have liked to have seen the improvements over the months and years if I had written them down initially. It's greatfor giving you a boost when you're having a bad gym day and can't even do one rep.

3) quotes - Pinterest, instagram and any fitness type of person on twitter will guaranteed have a few quotes up their sleeves. Motivational, inspirational and pretty much anything to get you up and moving and not giving up. I've got tonnes of screenshots on my phone of these, they're really helpful on some days when you need a bit more to get you through. At the back of my diary there's a notes section with a lot of spare pages; I fill these with any kind of quote that inspires me.

I might go days without seeing anything new that makes me want to push harder and then come across 12 quotes that relate to me and my journey perfectly. So I scribble them all down for when I'm at a low point and I need them.

I've never been one for consistency when writing a diary. But I've begun to find it quite therapeutic to end each day writing down my food and fitness accomplishments for the day, plus anything that's inspired me. As well as the quotes in the back I also try and tie in any lapses in my food/exercise with work or social arrangements rather than leave it blank so I know in future what to fix when things start to go wrong.

So how has it been going since January the 1st?

I've had a few bad days of not writing things down but to be honest it's not a big deal; I know if I've eaten badly and when I need to cut back. I think the food part for me will probably be intermittent, when I've been slacking off and cheating a few times a week and need to reel in my snacking, or if I've been out a lot with friends for food and drinks and want the next week to try and make up for it.

What I really want is to create consistency in my plan and show myself my progress when I feel like throwing the towel in.

What I'll need is quotes to keep me going and inspire me.

I am looking into getting a fitness tracker in the next month or so but I do love the manual writing out of progress, and the Alice in Wonderland diary was just too cute to ignore!

What do you think of writing out your own progress? Would you write a diary to help you on your way and keep you focused? If not, how do you keep yourself on track over the long term?

L xxx

Make Up Revolution Ultra Professional Blush Palette in Hot Spice

Happy hump day!

Today's post is a review on something that I have been trying to get my hands on for MONTHS!

I was initially really disappointed as I went to Superdrug in Cardiff (both stores) to pick up this palette so many times and the stands were always empty. And I mean ransacked, covered in make up and with broken bits hanging off. I did tweet them and they responded saying they would speak to their store.
Eventually I went in and found one of these palettes but it was a lucky shot - the rest of the stand was still empty.

I was also disappointed that most of the boxes and general packaging were damaged for all of the products. I opened up a few of the boxes to make sure the one I bought wasn't broken inside (always suspicious!) and a lot of the palettes inside were cracked and scratched. It's just a bit disappointing to have to buy something that is already broken....

Nevertheless I managed to get one and was quite excited to get it home and photographed so I could use it.

The Ultra Blush Palette in Hot Spice contains a variety of 6 blushers in corally orange tones and 2 highlighters, as shown in the pictures below. It's probably a picky thing but I wish they had names, they don't even have numbers so it's a bit hard to refer to each one individually.

With all of my negativity so far, this was one palette I could not stop taking photos of. Look at how beautiful it is! The colours and finishes are perfect:

So how do they swatch? Is the pigmentation any good?

Here's the top row swatched without and then with flash:

These are all extremely wearable shades especially for me and my pale skin. You can see that there is a slight shimmer to the blushes but by no means is it glittery, this makes them great for day time as they give your skin a bit of a glow finish but nothing over the top. These are also really buildable so it's easy to layer on the colours for a variety of definition on your face.

The second row is as follows, without and then with flash:

Again, really wearable and suit my skin tone. I'm really pleased with the palette, especially for £6 as this means it has cost less than £1 for each one and that's pretty amazing.

If I'm honest although the colours vary when swatched on my face there isn't much variation. The highlighters are both flattering and not glittery at all, they seem to be really finely milled so they just have a shimmer.

The darker blushes are clearly darker but overall the variation doesn't show up too much but that's ok as the colour range is exactly what I look for so all of them will be used I'm 100% sure of it.

On my face, here's a few snaps:

These were all different blushes and the 2 different highlighters but this doesn't show at all! It's not a problem for me but may be if you are expecting a big difference. I just love the coral shade of things and couldn't care less - they're all beautiful!

So overall, what are my thoughts?

If you can get your hands on them, do! I've really enjoyed using this; the colour range is perfect, the pigmentation is great and the prices are CHEAP. I love that the palettes are in colour families, maybe in future they will have a combination palette for those who like to change up their blush colour all the time and create a NARS Virtual Domination type one as I'm sure it would be a best seller. Though having said that you could buy all six of their current blush, bronze and highlighter palettes for less than the NARS one!

I am really impressed with this palette as my first ever product from Make Up Revolution. I've got my eye on getting the Golden Sugar Blush and Contour palette whenever I can as it is beautiful and I'd love to try more from MUR.

Fingers crossed my Cardiff store will be better stocked next time I go in as there's so much I'd like to try and would have by now if I could!

What do you think of MUR? Do you love a blush palette? What else would you recommend from MUR?

I've recently added 21 blushes to my collection recently which is mildly obscene....let's not tell anyone else about them yeah?! Whoops!

L xxx

Barry M Gelly High Shine Prickly Pear

Hey All

As this goes live I'll be on my last day in Iceland. Recently I've stopped biting my nails so I decided to treat myself to some new polishes. I find if my nails are painted I don't bite them as much. I've heard so much about the Gelly High Shine range I couldn't wait to try them and at £3.99 each they are very reasonable and I got them when they were buy one get one half price.

Prickly pear I thought would be a pretty every day colour. They are quite a thick polish which I guess helps with the gel like finish. Due to the thickness of the polish I find it's best to do two thin coats of polish or it doesn't dry as well. The colour is opaque in two coats and dries quickly.

As for longevity I find not many polishes last well on me. I do seem to get some tip wear after two days but the shine on the polish does really last well and my mum had assumed I had gel nails applied.

So far I love these polishes. Quick and easy to apply and look shiny. They have some great colours in the range. What would you recommend?

Love M

xxx

Happy 3rd Birthday to Us!

Hi all!

Just a quick post to say it was our third blog birthday on the 14th of January - we have both been so busy in our new jobs after Christmas that we completely forgot about it!

It's been a great three years and we've had lots of fun writing posts and sharing our lives with you. It seems like 2015 will see some changes in our blog as our lives have changed drastically since we started writing as students in 2012 but fingers crossed you will still find posts and reviews enjoyable to read. I'm sure it won't be changing too much!

Picture from Pinterest - Outsidevoice.net

So thank you so much to all of our readers for coming back again and again, raving about the same products, sharing our frustrations with life and generally working harder to get where we all want to be in life.

Hopefully this next year will be better than ever!

Lots of love

L and M xxx