I decided to stock up on some new products and here’s what I’ve been using for the past few weeks (purchased with my own money and not provided to be reviewed on the blog!).  I purchased these for no other reason than they were on offer in Tesco making them half price, but I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you!  Although it doesn’t hurt that they are paraben, silicone, colourant and mineral oil free.I have been religiously cleansing with the cleansing lotion, moisturising twice a day, exfoliating every two to three days and using the Vitamin E Serum once a week.

The results? Ignore the fine lines, it’s what happens when you’re old unfortunately!

Obviously, I’m not wearing any make-up in these photographs – that would be cheating! They were taken in the morning after moisturising.  So far, so good I think.

As well as looking after my skin on the outside, I have also been nourishing it from the inside.  This week the focus is on eating plenty of vegetables, including lots of raw ones. 

To meet this objective I have eaten:

Humongous salads containing lots of different types of vegetables.  For example, this one contained half a head of lettuce, half of three different coloured peppers – red, green and yellow, a small carrot, quarter of a cucumber and half an avocado.  Plenty of nutrients on the plate! 

I’ve stuffed extra veggies into sandwiches – which not only makes a sandwich taste better but it also gives it more bulk.

Eaten them raw as a snack with tasty dips or nut butter.  And microwaved them (ahhh!).  I know microwaving vegetables isn’t necessarily the best way to eat them but you can’t beat an Innocent Veg Pot when you’re in a pinch.  These little pots are tasty, contain three portions of your five a day and take about four minutes to cook.  It’s the lazy girl’s way to eat vegetables. 

If you really want to get the most nutrients out of your vegetables I suggest eating them with a source of healthy fats.  I like to eat mine paired with avocado (technically also a vegetable but it contains a ton of good fats), olive oil, nut butter, oily fish, nuts, seeds, houmous, guacamole, egg or cheese just to name a few.  As a bonus, the good fats will also help to improve skin condition.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was really working but I was told today that I have beautiful skin.  No word of a lie.  As soon as I started taking care of my skin again, I get complimented on it.  It made me feel good and gave me a little boost in the middle of the week.

Firstly, I would like to thank everybody who read my last post.  I thought the comments were great and really thought provoking.  If you haven’t checked out the post (and more importantly, the comments!) then please do and let me know what you think.  I love hearing everyone’s opinions.

Today has been a very stressful day.  I had a job interview, and I really, really dislike job interviews.  The only thing I dislike more, is being interviewed by people that I already work with.  Unfortunately that happened today.

You’d hire me, right?!

Actually, it’s probably best you don’t answer that.  After all, you know my penchant for taking pictures of myself in public restrooms.  Hmmm, moving swiftly along.

I was out of the house bright and early this morning so I didn’t have to sit around worrying.  Instead, I went into town and set up camp in Starbucks for a while with a grande tea (which also contained a shot of caramel syrup and a splash of skimmed milk for flavour).  It was a nice escape and gave me a chance to swot up and prepare!  While I was in Starbucks I also asked for a porridge but unfortunately they didn’t have any.   After I thought about what I wanted for breakfast, the only thing I could come up with was bread.  So, I headed to McDonalds in search of a 99p bagel.  I know it’s not the first place that springs to mind when you want a healthy breakfast but it worked.

I ordered a regular plain bagel and added a sachet of Justin’s Chocolate Peanut Butter (still leftover from my US stash!).  Chocolate for breakfast?  I think it was absolutely necessary!I was in carby, nut butter, chocolate heaven.  It definitely took my mind off of the impending interview.The rest of the morning was dominated by preparing for my interview.  I was desperately trying to think of everything that I do in my current role, so that I was prepared to answer any question they could throw at me. 

Unfortunately for me, my interview was poorly timed.  I mean seriously, who schedules an interview for 12:30pm – 1:30pm?  It cut right across the time I would usually eat lunch.  Obviously I didn’t want a grumbling stomach during the interview, so I munched on a banana and hoped for the best.

The morning just seemed to zip by and before I knew it I had to face the panel.  A panel which consisted of three people that I happen to know really well because I work with them already.  In case you hadn’t realised, the job I was being interviewed for is at the same place that I currently work.  We don’t have a promotions policy, so all jobs are advertised and if you want one you have to apply along with everybody else.  That was my situation today.  It was awkward, nerve wracking and exhilarating all at the same time.

When I left the interview I felt I had a 50/50 chance of getting the job.  Due to the adrenaline and nervous butterflies I wasn’t hungry at all when I left, so I hopped on the bus back into town for a stroll around the shops.  On the way my appetite started to return so I headed straight to Boots for one of their £3.29 meal deals.  In case you hadn’t realised I don’t like to spend a lot of money on eating away from the house.  Besides, healthy eating doesn’t have to cost a lot, it just requires making some good choices.I picked up an ‘I’m Jammin’ organic sandwich, which was feta, roasted butternut squash, roasted red onion and chilli jam on wholemeal bread.  It was actually pretty decent for a packet sandwich.

Along with a lunch dessert of a Cocoa Orange Nakd bar.  I love these – clearly I was so excited to eat it that I didn’t remember to take a picture until I had devoured it.  Hopefully, if I show you the empty wrapper you can use your imagination.  It was delicious! You’ll have to excuse the light bouncing all over the picture but it was really sunny today, so I dined al fresco.

No sooner had I finished eating my lunch I received a phone call.  Guess what?  I got the job!  Hooray!  I am so pleased because although there is absolutely nothing wrong with my current job, I have been doing it for over two years and have pretty much got everything out of it that I can.  Here’s to a new start and a fresh challenge!

When I first read the article I was appalled and immediately rallied round the mentioned bloggers to show my support.  I was upset and angry that someone had attacked a community that I found to be positive and inspiring.  I showed the article to my husband and I was not ready for his response – he completely agreed with it.  This took me aback but it also made me realise that, as with most things, it is all a matter of perspective.  For me – someone who was already obsessed with food, exercise and body image – I didn’t see anything abnormal in posting a daily food and exercise diary.  In all honesty I needed to hear what these women had to say about food because my relationship with it was a bit skewed.  I liked the fact that they ate a seemingly normal amount because it meant that I was not abnormal for having an appetite.  But it should always be remembered that it is a very insular society; the people in it are not the ones who are equipped to determine whether the behaviour exhibited is normal.  Firstly, there is a natural bias – a tendency to defend things that you put time and effort into.  Secondly, the people who write and read these blogs most likely don’t have a normal relationship with food because if they did they probably wouldn’t be reading blogs. 

As an outsider, my husband was able to see that blogging about everything you eat and posting it for the world to see – and comment on – is not normal behaviour.  Whether any bloggers have an eating disorder is not for anyone to say, and from what I have seen of the so-called ‘Big Six’ I would conclude they probably don’t.  That isn’t to say though that their blogs and others don’t exhibit disordered behaviour; taking pictures of your food is in itself not normal and implies an unhealthy obsession with what you are eating.  Since the article was written it is like I have had the blinkers removed and I can suddenly see things that I couldn’t see before – the repetitive meals comprised of practically the same things every day, the small serving plates, talk of binges and an ‘out of control’ sweet tooth, eating half of a dessert, eating only the frosting from cake, taking ‘bites’ of unhealthy food, food sabotage, eating small meals when they haven’t exercised that day……the list goes on.  Is this disordered eating?  Amazing willpower?  Orthorexia?  And what about me?  Am I a failure then if I eat a variety of foods week in and week out, or if I eat the entire cupcake and not just the frosting?  Am I less healthy?  Should I try harder?  These are the questions that are raised in my mind by reading these blogs, so I think it is safe to say that reading things like this over and over again can in fact be triggering. 

Apparently this is where ‘reader responsibility’ comes in.  If I am triggered by these blogs I am supposed to just delete them from my Google Reader and move on.  However, things aren’t that simple.  What if I don’t know I am being triggered by them?  Let’s not forget that they are packaged as being all about healthy living, so if I don’t read them any more doesn’t that mean I am giving up on being healthy?  I think this is where the line is blurred and why it isn’t always easy to just give up reading blogs.  Placing the emphasis on the reader is also kind of lazy.  The blogger then has free rein to talk about anything they wish without giving a second thought to the audience and how it might affect them.  Surely, the responsibility should at least be shared?

I think the line is further blurred when bloggers become brands, who are endorsed by companies and offered book deals.  Not only does this place greater pressure on them to be healthy but it must also, in their own minds and in the minds of their readers, link being healthy and slim with success.

Do you want to know another conclusion I have reached about healthy living blogs?  The message portrayed is actually exactly the same as that of the magazines – that being slim equals being happy.  Think about it, how many blogs feature an ‘About’ page that details the bloggers’ weight-loss journey?  They say how they were overweight and unhappy, lost some weight and now being slim and healthy is the best thing they ever did and they are so much happier than they were before.  Isn’t the thin equals happy message the exact one that magazines try to promote?  Magazines may post a brief article featuring a low calorie diet and exercise regime to ‘Get the Body of Your Dreams’, but blogs do exactly the same thing.  In fact blogs take it one step further, listing everything that is eaten and all exercise that is done over the course of a long period of time, with multiple postings per day.  The underlying message on blogs is that if you do as I do, you will look as I look.  In most cases, and most certainly with the ‘Big Six’, this is slim.

In summary, I don’t think that healthy living blogs are necessarily healthy or unhealthy.  However, I do think it is important that as readers we are careful about the media that we consume and don’t go into anything blindly.  It was only after reading the article that I was able to look more objectively at blogs.

I am aware that my last blog post mentioned that I did some exercise and ate a salad, so I would just like to put that into context because I wouldn’t want anyone who reads my blog to be given an unfair impression of what I do and how I eat.  Firstly, although it may seem like a lot of exercise it actually equated to only one hour – twenty minutes running and forty minutes cycling, with a rest in between for breakfast.  I think this is a fairly typical amount for someone to do in a day.  For transparency, I will also happily tell you that during the course of the day I ate a mixture of healthy and unhealthy food which included:

• Porridge with rice milk, banana and hazelnut butter.
• Tuna, houmous, red pepper and carrot sandwich followed by a TREK Cocoa Brownie wholefoods bar.
• Two Milk Chocolate Hob Nob biscuits.
• The salad in Saturday’s post.
• Natural yoghurt (not a zero fat variety) with a chopped apple, strawberries, cinnamon and a squirt of Sweet Freedom.
• Three Rice Cakes with a different nut butter on each (one hazelnut, one cashew nut and one White Chocolate Dreams peanut butter).
• Another Hob Nob biscuit.

I listened to my body and ate when I was hungry.

Total (estimated) calories: 2100

Sorry for the long post but I really needed to get this off my chest.  Please feel free to agree, disagree or never read my blog again!  I can only approach things as I see them and if you feel differently then please feel free to chime in.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting a discussion going.  Sometimes I think the healthy living community can be a bit too nice, and nobody wants to offend anybody else.  However, we are all different and have different perspectives based on our own experiences.  So, what do you think?  Did the Marie Claire article raise any good points?  Is there a downside to blogging?  Do you care?