get healthy – Dawn. The Sparkle Diaries.

As usual I’m on my get healthier for the new year, I’m as regular as clockwork on this one. This year however is the first time I have weighed in at two stone over what was my usual weight, TWO STONE!!! 28 LBS!!! I’ve gone way beyond my clothes being a little tight, they just don’t fit at all. Something else I have noticed is that I feel sluggish in myself and running upstairs gets me out of breath. Dancing in the kitchen also puffs me out. Now I’m well aware that as we get older we are not going to be as fit as we were in our twenties, thirties or even forties but there is no reason that we cannot be as fit and healthy as we can be as we are right now, irrespective of age.

I have a few incentives for getting healthier, fitter and a tad trimmer. Healthier so that I have more energy to do the things I want to do, to not feel sluggish and to hopefully live a longer and healthier life. I’m hopefully going to Ibiza in June this year. I say hopefully as this holiday was booked for 2020, postponed to 2021 and postponed again to 2022 so fingers crossed it’s third time lucky. I want to be fitting into my summer clothes for the holiday so June is a huge incentive for me to trim down. I am happy to embrace the curves and be body positive. I also acknowledge that carrying this additional weight is not good for my health and it has affected my confidence. Purely because I am not 100% happy with myself and I know this will prevent me from having the confidence to push the comfort zone and get up on a stage a sing. For me to step on a stage to sing will take a lot of self belief and bravery and I just won’t have that if I don’t feel happy in myself or my clothes.

Lockdown’s, restrictions, celebrations and really any excuse for eating the goodies and drinking prosecco was what I did over the past two years so no wonder I gained the weight. Experiencing burnout last summer meant that I stopped exercising because I just didn’t have the energy to do it, another reason for the weight gain. I got lazy about cooking for myself and relied on pre packed meals and no matter how healthy they appear to be, it’s just not the same as home cooked food. I was out for meals, cocktails, pizza nights, fish and chips and of course Christmas and New Year goodies as we really didn’t have Christmas celebrations in 2020. I’m not making excuses here, I’m holding myself accountable. I enjoyed it all, every single mouthful and I have no regrets. Now is the time though to take control. I have plans, things I want to do and I want to be the best I can be to do them.

With love and sparkles xxx

A beautiful hot, sunny month of July, well mostly hot and sunny, and it was my birthday month and it feels like I celebrated my birthday for most of the month. Perhaps we have all gone a little celebration crazy after all the lockdown birthday’s of the past year or so. I have to say I am so lucky and so blessed that I have such lovely people around me who wanted to meet up, celebrate, talk, laugh, cry and generally re-connect. I have kept my social circle quite small especially as I am supporting himself with his Mom. I don’t want to take any risks with her health. I have my stock of lateral flow tests and anytime I see anyone, I take a test a few days later to protect anyone I may see as well as myself. So far so good, all negative.

Because of my extreme tiredness, all social dates were very well spaced out which is probably why I feel I was celebrating all month long. There was birthday cakes, prosecco, pizza, barbecue’s, prosecco, beautiful cards and gifts, more prosecco…you get the picture. It was just wonderful, all of it, absolutely wonderful and I loved every second and felt very loved by everyone involved in giving me such a fabulous birthday. I am so grateful and blessed, the sparkle was in full sparkle mode.

These are just a few photo’s of my celebrations on various days. The birthday, in the pink manicure, the beautiful blue skies and sunset. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of my five cousins who spoiled me so much as they aren’t on social media at all so I haven’t posted my snaps with them. I probably do enough social media for all of them!

Needless to say, additional weight was gained during this glorious month of celebration and I enjoyed every single mouthful. My clothes are bursting at the seams post lockdown and birthday so time to get my act together regarding goodies and exercise and let’s get this sparkle show back on the road again.