Currently

I'm sorry that posts are so erratic at the moment. Work has really limited my free time but yesterday was my last session for the exam season, so I'm hoping things will get back to normal now. Well, once I've fully recovered from the small people germies that is. In the meantime, here's a bit of a general ramble about what's been keeping me entertained and catching my eye.

Watching...Wallander. I watched the English version with Kenneth Brannagh first and was so taken with it, I had to watch all of the Swedish series too. I have two more episodes from Season 2 left to watch and I suspect I'm going to have to read some of the Henning Mankell books once I've finished. I have surprised myself by picking up quite a variety of Swedish words with all my recent viewing. I do have a habit of homing in on the swear words for some reason...

Buying...clothes. Clothes shopping is most definitely NOT my favourite pastime but I need to find an outfit for a baptism I'll be attending this weekend. I managed to find lots of lovely Lazy Lu cardigans and tops on sale which will be great for updating my wardrobe generally, but I still need to find a pair of smart trousers. I anticipate I will be tearing my hair out over trousers by tomorrow evening!

Pondering...what makeup to take with me for my weekend away. I feel fairly certain taupe will be involved but I've yet to decide which one.

Source

Lusting after...these beautiful gunmetal high tops from Ash. I blame Kat from Does my bum look 40 in this? for this current obsession. I live in my Converse trainers and these look so comfy. It's probably a good job they're sold out everywhere, as I'd be coming up with excuses to wear them in church for the baptism.

Celebrating...the fact that I've stuck to the Couch to 5k running programme and I'm about start the 9th (and final) week. Not feeling well has prevented me going out for the last couple of days but I've been regularly going out and jogging for 25+ minutes for the last few weeks. Although I still don't feel like a natural at running, I do get a real buzz from completing each session.

Looking forward to...the end of the month and therefore reaching the end of my eyeshadow and nail polish no-buy. I've toyed with the idea of extending my ban, as it has helped curb my spending but I honestly don't think I can face it. You can look forward to splurges on Burberry and Chantecaille in the near future.

Products I'm loving...Zelens skincare, NARS Pure Radiant tinted moisturiser and Sephora Waterproof Jumbo Liner pencil in taupe. I'm poised to review the Zelens products* but I'm not sure if I'll get opportunity to write it before the weekend. I've been using the Radiance Cleanser, 3t Complex Face Cream and Triple Action Eye Cream and they all get a big thumbs up on texture and results. The NARS tinted moisturiser and Sephora pencil were surprise gifts from a very kind friend and I've been using both constantly since they arrived last week. The Sephora pencil in particular is a wonder. Waterproof taupe that you can use on its own or as a base? Genius!

What have you been up to recently?

* PR Samples

Stuff

I thought it would be nice to have a general catch up today. I spent a huge amount of time battling with technology yesterday (I won on most fronts with the exception of our home phone line) so I lost quite a bit of swatching time. I'm not sure I'll get much opportunity to catch up today either.

Last weekend I caved and finally bought myself a Kindle. In all honesty, I bought it because I'm impatient and I desperately wanted to read some of the books that were recommended to me as a result of this post. I'd finished Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult with only an hour left before the shops shut and somehow buying a Kindle seemed the most sensible solution. I don't regret it at all. Granted, it's not the same as reading a book but it is very convenient. I've already finished The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (excellent once you get past the strange choice of tense) and I'm currently catching up on some Tempe Brennan.

In an even more unusual turn for me, I've bought some running shoes. I gave them their first outing yesterday, I ache a bit today but it was nowhere near as hard as I expected. I'm using the NHS Couch to 5K podcasts to get me started. I've no end in mind, I just want to improve my fitness and lose some weight.

I'm normally quite reserved about sharing products before rigorous testing but I'm afraid I couldn't contain myself in this case. I'm especially excited about to show you colours from the Lancôme Rouge in Love* and Vernis in Love* collection, hence the sneaky peek above. Skincare wise, I have some items from Ormorvicza* and Perricone MD* to try, so you can expect reviews in due course. As an aside, I spotted that Cult Beauty have a lovely GWP with any Ormorvicza orders over £30 from today which is worth a look if you're interested in the line.

I bought some lovely Antipodes products whilst I was on holiday (I'm a sucker for the GWPs!), I tried the Aura Manuka Honey mask last night and I really like it. I actually wished I'd bought their night cream too as it felt beautiful and I suspect that will niggle away until make a purchase.

Finally, I wanted to share something that my husband will probably kill me for posting. He was away for a conference this week and returned home, to much ribbing, with this...

Apparently that bit at the top that looks like a lump of coal is a Blue John crystal. As much as I made fun of the award, I'm rather proud of my geeky husband for winning a prize. I think he was pretty chuffed with the £100 cheque too.

What have you been up to over the past week? Do you have any exciting news to share?


Disclosure: The items marked with * are PR samples.

Thinking Slimmer: The Beginning

I've put off writing about this for a couple of weeks. Partly because I'm nervous about how it will be received and also because it can difficult to expose yourself for fear you might not succeed. But share I will and if you're not interested in chatter about weight loss, I will forgive you if you choose not to read on. There will be more makeup talk very soon, I promise.

I have done a lot of diets in my life. Some have been successful and some have not. I find that some diets suit me more than others; I have returned to Slimming World many times as it tends to give me steady, sustainable weight loss. I tried the Dukan diet earlier this year and it did indeed work. The weight came off quickly but the diet itself was punishing and didn't fit in with my lifestyle or my mostly meat-free eating habits! Needless to say the weight went back on. No matter how good a diet is, the key to whether it works for me is whether or not I'm in the right place mentally to commit to it and I had been struggling with that a lot recently.

Now, I know that the way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. I am a woman of science and logic so I'm not blind to the fact that if I eat more calories than I burn then I'm going to put weight on. I do think it's very easy to say it's simple if you're someone who has never had issues with weight or an emotional attachment to food. No matter how much I want to lose weight and know how to do it, I often find that I will sabotage my own efforts when I reach for food as comfort or a reward.

I first heard about Thinking Slimmer on Twitter. I thought it sounded interesting so did a little investigating. Thinking Slimmer is a system for weight loss that uses the power of the mind rather than traditional calorie counting. Having tried to explain it to people I know it can provoke quizzical looks. Use the expression Wordweaving and you can sound a bit like you've embraced a new cult! I don't really think it's as strange an idea as it may first sound though. I know that my bad eating habits are probably psychological and so tackling my response to food and my behaviour towards it seems to make sense.

Anyway, I'll hurry it along now as I'm starting to ramble. Thinking Slimmer uses what they call Slimpods to help you lose weight. Slimpods are voice recordings which you listen to each evening (you can listen on your iPod, hence the name) and use unconscious persuasion techniques to retune the way you feel about food. Basically, these recordings are retraining my mind to think of food as fuel and not a way to reward myself or cheer myself up. I have been listening to my Slimpod daily for 18 days now and whilst I haven't registered a loss on the scales yet (not helped by the fact that I didn't buy a pair of scales until after I started), I have noticed some major changes in my habits.

My motivational images

The things that have changed so far:
I don't really think about food between meals, so I've not been snacking.
I'm reaching for better food without really thinking about it.
I'm not obsessing about food - something I always do on a diet.
I often feel full before I've finished what's on my plate and I won't feel I have to keep on eating.
I actually feel hungry at meal times. I'm ashamed to admit that I would eat at meal times whether hungry or not.

But the one change that I really want to make a song and dance about is that I am exercising again. Regularly. I have been making excuses not to do my exercise videos for about 8-9 years. In fact, it's so long since I've done any formal exercise that my videos really are videos! I've had to plug in a VCR specially just to watch them. I've done exercise in the evening, I've done it in the day, I've even done it barefoot as I don't want to let the excuse of having no trainers stop me! So, although the scales says nothing has changed yet, my body feels different and I know if I keep up the exercise big things will change. I'm actually wondering if I should set my myself a specific challenge so that I can motivate myself even more with the exercise. Buying some DVDs would probably be a start.....

Even my exercise videos are vintage!

It's hard to say whether all of this is unconscious change or whether some of it is conscious. I feel like it might actually be a mixture of the two. Certainly the Thinking Slimmer team suggest that it works better if you believe it will work. I shall leave it at that for today and I will keep you updated with how I get on over the next couple of months. In the meantime, if you would like more information about the system I can recommend browsing the Thinking Slimmer website. I'm happy to chat about it in the comments or via email or Twitter if you have any specific questions you want to ask me.


Disclosure: I received the Slimpod recordings without charge. The opinions in this post are entirely my own and the links are provided for information only.