First things first, we can all look after ourselves better. I had a little bit of a rocky start to this year, I had some health problems (all of which are being worked on and some are completely under control now) arise and it really taught me how to look after myself better. Looking after yourself seems like such a simple thing to do but in reality it can be tough to do, and at first I didn't really know where to start. I had this image in my head that I did look after myself pretty good but after a little eye-opening experience I realised that I hadn't been in the slightest.


1. Set hours in which you don't work
This one is particularly important for students or those who work from home, personally in revision season I don't work after 9pm so I can have some time to myself, whereas on normal weekdays its 8pm. I also set out hours in which I'll have family time or spend time with my friends. This really motivates me to get my work done and finished so I can have the time to relax and wind down. There sacred to me and they never change.

2. Meditation
Even jut meditating for 5-10 minutes a day can put you in a really good mood and get you ready for the day or even help you get ready for bed. I personally use Headspace (which is amazing and I highly recommend it!) but there are a lot of meditation tips and tricks an tutorials online and on YouTube. Early morning meditation increases my mood and self-awareness whereas meditating at night helps me wind down for bed and relax. Meditating can make you more positive, energetic and happy.

3. Getting enough sleep
This one I struggled with at first. I use Fitbit to help me track my sleep and it helped me to see exactly how much sleep I'm getting at night, and what type of sleep it is (Light, REM, Deep and how much time I spent awake etc.). Meditating really helped me increase how much sleep I'm getting and I've been in a better mood because of it.  More sleep equates to more happiness, better health and improved decision-making and it helps you to detox and recharge.

4. Journaling
Life can be very overwhelming sometimes and I find it helps to get everything your thinking about onto paper. I jot down absolutely anything and everything, from how I feel to to-do lists or ideas I have. It's also really cool to look back on and remember things that happened, it being a good little keepsake.

5. Yoga.
What kind of tips on how to look after yourself better, would this be if it didn't incorporate exercise? I've become a lot more active and I've turned to working out every other day which I never thought would happen. Yoga is one of the easiest ways to reset your mind and body, you can find numerous tutorials on YouTube or an apps such as Nike Training Club.

6. Happiness.
Smile. Smile more. Just do it.

7. Dance like no one's watching.
One of the first things I do when I get home is dance around my room. It helps me de-stress and improves my mood and helps me get out any energy that's going to stop me from doing my work. It can also improve body image, lead to a better outlook and is associated with a lower risk of dementia.

8. Read More.
Reading has been proven to keep the mind sharp as it ages and reading fiction books can increase creativity and a more open mind. It can also increase sleep and make us more empathetic.

9. Laugh.
Ever heard of the phrase 'laughter is the best medicine'? Laughing benefits our mental and physical health, especially when combined with exercise. It can improve our quality of life and help us connect with those we laugh with and help our relationships. I recommend watching Friends.

10. Declutter your life and room.
Did you know that clutter can stress you out? I find it therapeutic to sort through things and get my life organised. Decluttering and organising things can make us more productive, cheerful and calmer.

11. Exercise in general.
We all knew this one was coming after yoga. Exercise is amazing and my new best friend. I love it. It decreases so many things and makes you so much healthier. It's a pretty good mood lift. Exercise goes a long way to reducing stress. Just a small walk will energize you and motivate you for the day ahead.

12. Get off your phone.
In this day and age we use our phones for near enough everything, we always seem to be looking at a screen of some sort, whether that be a tablet, our computer, TV, or our phone. We're living in a virtual world and forgetting what's most important in our lives. Taking a break from social media and our screens can helps us recharge and give our brain the downtime it needs to work at an optimal level.

13. Self-care, self-care, self-care.
We don't tend to set aside times for ourselves in our busy schedules. We tend to forget that we need to look after ourselves too and not just those around us. You can read about my self-care routine here.

Credit: Pinterest

Over the month of August, I did the 30-day water challenge, in aim to keep my hydration levels up and out of pure curiosity, what drinking more water would do for my body and skin. It was hard but it was so worth it at the end. I drank over 4.5 litres a day and I did stick to it after but then I had one crap day and I stopped.

One thing that came out of the challenge, was me becoming more aware of how much water I'm drinking each day, not counting any other form of liquid, such as lemonade, fruit juice, hot chocolate etc. Just pure water.

On average, I drink around 2-2.5 litres a day. After a little bit of research recently and a little consultation with my doctor, I found out that I should be drinking around 5 litres a day, 5.3 litres to be exact. And that's a lot of water.
This month I wanted to partake in the challenge again, drinking just water, for 30 days. This time around I'm challenging myself to hit the 4.5 litre mark every day, yet again. Which acquaints to 135 litres of water at the end of the month. Now, that is a lot of water.

What is the 30-day water challenge?

The aim of the challenge is to drink between 64-150 ounces of water, per day. This equates to between 1.8-4.2 litres.

How do you do it?

You can start the challenge at any time, but personally I think it's best to start it at the beginning of a month as it helps you to keep track and stay on target. Before beginning the challenge, I'd measure how much water you drink daily, over the course of a week, to find out your average intake. If your drinking about 2 litres a day, like I was, then I would recommend trying to drink around 3-4 litres per day, during the challenge.


What are the benefits of drinking more water?

Just to name a few:
- Increase in energy and relieves fatigue
- weight loss
- flushes out toxins
- improves skin complexion
- maintains regularity with digestion
- headache remedy
- boosts immune system
- prevents cramps and sprains
- mood booster
- prevents cancer
- less joint paint
- helps maintain the balance of body fluids
- helps to control calories
- energizes muscles
- helps your kidneys

Before and after results (from when I did it in August)

Like I mentioned earlier, I first did this challenge over the summer in August. I first started noticing results 3 days in to the challenge, my skin cleared up and became smoother and I was generally feeling much more energized than I was before the challenge, when I was drinking around 2 litres a day.

I have sometimes problematic combination skin, with dry spots prone to eczema, especially in the colder months of winter, whereas in the summer it becomes very oily. After the challenge, my skin was very smooth, and I no longer had any trace of eczema and/or dry spots on my chin, around my eyes and cheeks.

Not once over the course of the month did I have a headache, which was very rare for me. I normally get at least one or two when I'm stressed. In addition to this, I was more energized, I was waking up earlier naturally, and I was getting through the day with less sleep, and I had never felt better.

One of the things that attracts people to this challenge is the benefit of weight loss. Yes, this did happen to me, but it wasn't my reason for doing the challenge. The reason for weight loss when you begin drinking more water, is because sometimes your body is unable to tell the difference between hunger and thirst. Drinking more water makes you less hungry, your appetite goes down significantly. I lost five pounds over the month, with no increase in exercise, purely from drinking water and as a result eating less.

I would recommend this challenge to anyone, especially if they were wanting to drink more water. Obviously, not everyone will be able to consume over 4 litres per day, every day, due to a lot of factors, so please don't feel pressured to try and do so. Start drinking a little bit more every day to help you ease yourself into it, it helps I promise.
I shall be back at the end of the month to update you all on doing this the second time around and to see if there were any more changes in my body.

Hello!! I wanted to write a blog post on a topic that I know near enough everyone has suffered from at some point. Stress. I'm very stress and a lot of people I know are too, some even more than me. It comes in all different shapes and forms and can really affect our mental state.

My exams are approaching closer and closer by the day and I know how stressful the approaching time of year can be. I really wanted to write a blog post on how I personally deal with stress and how I try and prevent it.

When the tiniest bit of stress occurs for me, I try and identify the source and find a solution to the problem. However, this isn't always possible to do, this is where I then turn to other sources of relief.


Be active-

I know that I won't get rid of the stress but it will help to reduce some of the emotional intensity that you could be feeling. Exercise is a stress eliminator and is great for releasing endorphins. During my GCSE's last year, when I was feeling particularly stressed I would take a short walk around the nearest neighbourhood to distract myself from revision and providing myself with a distraction. Walking helps so much to clear my thoughts and feelings and helps me to re-focus in on the task at hand.



Take control-

There is always a solution to the problem. Not doing anything about a problem can sometimes make it worse, increasing the intensity of stress. The act of taking control is empowering and helps to combat the problem and increase productivity.



Chatting to friends-

Having a good support system around you is crucial. Friend and family provide a lot of help when it comes to those problems that you need to take control of in order to de-stress. Connecting with people is vital for when you need to turn to someone and let it all out and find a solution. I'm so relaxed when I'm with my friends and family and I spend the majority of my time laughing- which is another awesome stress reliever.



'Me' Time-

I know how stressful school and work can be and how little time we actually spend looking after ourselves. I always leave Sundays completely free so I can relax and do things that I love without having to worry about school or anything else. The same applies to my evenings after I have done all my schoolwork.



Avoiding unhealthy habits-

Relying on alcohol, caffeine and smoking to cope does a lot more damage then it does good. Instead, relying on your friends for support is both healthier and is long-term relief. Drinking and smoking as well as relying on caffeine will only provide you with temporary relief and will lead you to putting off the problem for longer and making your stress worse. Deal with it sooner rather than later.



Work smarter not harder-

Prioritizing on tasks that are the most important are key. Concentrate on the ones that need the most attention first and the ones that require the least amount of attention last. Also, don't expect to get everything done that you wanted to in the day, we can't predict what life is going to throw at us and on the other hand getting everything done in one day may not be an option or easy to do.



Accept things that you cannot change-

Changing a difficult situation isn't always the outcome or the best option. Concentrate on the things that you know that you are in control of. Accepting the secure outcome is the better option when it comes to stress instead of dwelling on something that is out of your control.



Don't sweat the small things-

It's easier said then done and I know you have heard it a million times before. It works though. Sometimes we all need to take a step back from the situation and re-assess everything that we are doing and everything that is currently happening. If it's not going to be around in a months time or even longer down the road then is it worth stressing over. We have to put life into perspective  and realise that the small problems aren't worth stressing over.



Toxic people-

Negative people are never good news, especially if they make you anxious, stressed or try and put you down. If there is someone like that in your life, its in your own best interest to take yourself out of the situation and re-evaluate those in your life. People are nasty, negative and try and put their stress on you and you need to prevent these types of people from entering and staying in your life or at least keep them at an arms length. I experienced this myself not that long ago, and I took a step back from that situation and immediately knew that some people were never truly my friends and didn't care about myself or my wellbeing. To cut it short I removed those people from my life as best as I could and I'm now much happier and content with my life and myself and no where near as stressed as I was in that point of my life.



Organization-

Organizing helps to abolish stress in general and makes life a lot easier. I become very easily stressed if I don't know what's happening or when things are due in, because of the lack of time to plan everything for my own piece of mind. As my mum says, a organised life leads to an organised mind.



Don't be hard on yourself-

Someone always has it worse off then you do, don't put the weight of the world on your shoulders because you will only be putting more stress on yourself that you don't need. You can always get through anything that life throws at you. Remember that so far you have survived 100% of your worst days and you are still breathing and living.

When I first started working out and trying to loose weight, I was under the impression that I couldn't eat any of the junk food that I did at the time. That I had to eat healthy all of the time in order to loose weight. Boy, was I wrong. Looking back on that time when I started to really care about my health and what I was putting in my body, its safe to say that I didn't really have a clue, I'd never been taught that you could still eat the food that you wanted while working out, you just needed to cut down on how much you consumed.

Now, you're probably thinking, what even is the 80/20 rule that you mentioned in the title of this very blog post?

Well.. the 80/20 rule is all to do with balanced eating. To put it simply, the majority of the time, the 80%, you eat healthy, while the other 20% you eat can indulge in as much chocolate, cake and other  food as you'd like. You're not on a diet because you're not cutting anything out, instead just making a healthy habit.

For me personally, I try and eat healthy Monday-Friday and then over the weekend I indulge.

When I first started I counted every calorie, after working out what my daily intake should be, and it made the process a whole lot more stressful than it should've been. You want to make loosing weight fun and enjoy it, not see it as a chore as I originally did. It's not healthy to obsess into great detail about how many calories you are consuming and where those calories are coming through.

I cut everything considered 'bad' food out of my diet within a couple of days, declining chocolate which I LOVE to say the least and it sent my body into a state of shock. Instead of loosing weight, It stayed on despite working out and eating healthy simply because my body didn't know what I was doing or what to do. However, once I had the tiniest bit of chocolate, something clicked inside of me and I started loosing weight at a very healthy pace and within the recommend time period.

I thought that by consuming anything that wasn't meat, fruit or veg, everything I was doing in terms of fitness would go to waste and that I would've ruined anything that I had done since I made the commitment.

I wanted to loose weight the healthiest way possible, but what I was doing wasn't healthy until I introduced the foods I loved back into my diet in smaller portions. I was very aware before I even started working out that quick-fixes wouldn't work and I wanted to loose weight in a time span that was flexible and adaptable for me and one in which that was recommend to be the safest and healthiest way.

I didn't think about cheat days or cheat meals once when I first started. I did when the cravings began after around two weeks of being healthy and not even touching any food that I knew I wasn't supposed to indulge in because I didn't want to lose the progress I had made and how far I had already come.

I promote healthy eating as much as I can, as much as I promote indulging every now and again in the foods that aren't *healthy*.

Why you should give up on dieting-

Most people who start I diet, fail in the long haul. They're not realistic, sustainable and are not customised to an individual person, instead based on someone's idea of what a diet should include. Being based on restriction and denying yourself, punishing yourself to say the least, of your favourite foods. If you're anything like me then you don't want to being following a fad idea decided by someone sat behind a desk or being decided by the health and fitness industry.

You want to work on yourself with the intentions of sticking to healthy eating and living for the long haul not for a month or two. Listening to your body will be the biggest help you could ever find for this.

I have always loved fruit and veg, having it everyday either as a snack or most commonly with my dinner. Yes, there are fruits and veg that I don't particularly like but I stick to what I know both myself and my body likes and I always feel better afterwards.

I don't think I've ever had a McDonalds or some other form of takeaway and have felt good afterwards. I always feel a bit sluggish and worn down and a bit tired, and I now know that's because I'm not giving my the body the nutrition in which it needs.

I'm not saying you have to have a salad for every meal you ever have for the rest of your life! I'm saying that you need to make sure your plate holds everything your body needs in order to be healthy. You can still have a McDonalds, but if you have it more than once a week, cut it down to having it only on a Friday night for example, and then start cutting it down even more so as time goes on and you get more comfortable with everything that you are doing.
The best example I could provide of this would be whenever you are next at a restaurant order the healthier option and see how you feel afterwards and then compare it to what you felt like after having something that was so high in calories.

If you give up on dieting and focus on building a healthy lifestyle you will get where you want to be, a faster pace in most cases-which is the better and healthier way might I add.
Your body will adjust over time to what you put in it, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be for me to cut out things like sweets and cookies at the beginning. Once you start eating more protein, nutrients, vitamins, veggies etc. and start feeling more energized, it changes your everyday life and it makes working out less of a chore to be doing, because it isn't.

The indulgences you have are allowing yourself to still have the food that you love without feeling guilty about it because you've earned it. I don't feel bad if I decide to have a Chinese on a Friday night at the end of my week because after all we only have one life.


Why indulgences are important and key-

No one is perfect. No one. You have to accept it.

Aiming to eat 100% perfect all of the time is a ridiculous idea because only a select few of people will actually stick to that plan. You need to allow room for indulgence and the sugary tasting things in life. You need to expect that at some point you're going to need the indulgence in order to keep progressing with your workout plan and general health.

By indulging on the weekends you're less likely to binge eat away everything you've done and increasing your chances of keeping all the weight off.

Perfection makes people go off course and eat everything that comes in sight of them because they've been restricting themselves of the things they've loved for days on end. Don't aim to be perfect, aim to be the best version of yourself.

Cheat day-

Having a cheat meal/day isn't going to kill you. It helps a lot especially when you first start trying to loose weight and begin working out and you develop the cravings of the foods you love. It's approaching Easter and all of the Easter eggs have begun lining the shelves of all the local supermarkets. My family brought a couple of Easter eggs and I indulged in beginning to eat one of them, a quarter of one to be precise. I didn't feel bad about it at all because I eat healthy 80% of the time.

The media doesn't help to fight the stigma surrounding the 80/20 rule, but the best way to get past it all is remembering that social media in most cases only shows the best parts of someone's day- some being incredibly staged and planned and oh so perfect.

Don't deprive yourself, it only makes it harder and you're not dooming yourself by indulging every now and again.

Balance, balance, balance-

It took me a while to find my balance, everyone is different. Life is about balance. Work is about balance. School is about balance. Everything and anything is about balance. You need to find what works for you.

Yes, you want to be able to live a strong and healthy life and be able to eat healthy every second of every minute of every day for the rest of your life, you want to be able to actually, you know... live.
That means having that entire pizza to yourself  (come one we've all done it at least once or twice).

That is after all, what the 80/20 rule is about and what it allows you to do.

Aiming to be healthy 80% of the time gives you the room to enjoy yourself that little bit more and still be sane at the end of the day. It allows you to be adventurous and try new things and not get bored of the same old same old while aspiring to be perfect-which I've already mentioned, no one is.

Once you stop obsessing over every little detail, loosing weight actually becomes fun and enjoyable (I know for a fact that there is someone reading this thinking 'how can loosing weight be fun', that's for another blog post my friend). Enjoying life is about freedom and that's what this rule gives you.