'Meh' Days

Today I decided was going to be a productive Sunday. I even had a 'to do' list with several things I was going to work on. These included:

1. Writing a post for this blog on my favourite skincare products of all time.
2. Reading a beauty book which was going to be inspiration for another book myself and a fellow journalist were planning to write.
3. Reading a few chapters of Peter Ackroyd's 'London - The Biography' which will hopefully make me more culturally aware of the city I live in and give me some inspiration for the Epic Novel I'm one day going to write.
4. Writing two short news pieces due in next week.
5. Starting some background reading for my MA course that I'm going to start in a few weeks' time.
6. Going to a Ballates class
7. Tidying my room and de-cluttering my shelves

Needless to say, I've done 0 of these proposed tasks. My actual day has consisted of:

1. Drinking tea
2. Watching the end of Eat, Pray, Love (not a great film, but the scenery/Javier Bardem is nice to look at)
3. Drinking more tea
4. Buying an overpriced aubergine salad
5. Eating nearly a whole packet of cheddar and pistachio biscuits from Ottolenghi
6. Reading all of two pages of Peter Ackroyd's 'London - The Biography' and falling asleep on the sofa.
7. Waking up and making some tea.

Sometimes you can start the day with the best of intentions, but have not one single ounce of motivation whatsoever. And then you spend the rest of the day beating yourself up about being a useless member of society. You desperately try to start tasks then get frustrated and not finish them, in a vain attempt to have done something productive come 9pm. Then you start spiralling into self-doubt 'well, I'm never going to succeed at anything if I don't push myself/spend my days faffing about like this etc, etc.'

This is what I found tricky about being a student, and later being a freelance journalist working from home. But sometimes it's just worth accepting that there will be days where your mind just wants to do naff all, and you'd rather loaf about than try and find a solution for world peace. Yes it's great to have those productive days where you wake up with the sun, head off to that spinning class, get home bright eyed and bushy tailed and spend the rest of the day at a high level of productivity, feeling on top of the world. But sometimes, complete lack of motivation is your mind and body's way of telling you that you need to chill the f*ck out.

You're not an automaton and you sometimes need the lazy, non-productive days to take stock and recharge your batteries. Also some of the best ideas can come about from lazing around - think of Isaac Newton chilling out under that tree and discovering gravity, after an apple hit him on the head... I'm not saying slobbing out on the sofa is going to win me a Nobel prize, but it's healthy to have days where you give your mind and body a break. I think living in a big city and not having children to look after makes you feel pressurised to spend your free time working towards something, or expanding your cultural horizons, or hitting the gym, or socialising.

But in a way, it's like when you can't get to sleep and start panicking about it - the best solution to just lie there/go and watch some dodgy foreign film on TV and not get worked up about it. In the same way, sometimes it's necessary to embrace one's inner slob, make yourself a cup of tea and not feel like a complete failure. Self-love and self-acceptance comes in many guises after all.

Clean and Lean living

Following on from my 48 hours of David Kirsch's pink lemonade-hell, I’ve been loosely following James Duigan’s popular book Clean and Lean. The argument is fairly simple: stick to raw, organic and unprocessed foods wherever possible. Rather than cut out sugar, fat and carbs altogether it’s all about knowing the right types i.e. natural sugars from fruit will sustain energy levels, fats from avocados, nuts and oily fish will provide the body with nutrients and get burned off easily, the same goes for complex carbs (again fruit, seeds, oats, wholegrain bread). Synthetic ‘toxic’ foods can’t be processed by the body -  such as saturated fat, chemicals and refined sugar (any junk food, white bread, chocolate – you get the idea) so they will get stored as fat, not to mention zap your energy and increase your stress levels.

Typical brekkie - eggs & avocados

The main point James wants to hammer home is avoid sugar where you can, which I totally agree with (see my previous post on how sugar ruins your skin. The Guardian also ran an interesting article about how it is as arguably as toxic as cigarettes or cocaine). He argues it’s primarily what makes you fat, not fatty foods  - it toxifies your body, messes up your energy levels and gives you hunger pangs which is why you’re inclined to ‘grazing’ come 4pm. As well as cutting down on sugar, I’ve cut out wheat as well as per the book’s advice, as again it leaves me feeling sluggish – a sign that I’m probably intolerant to it – as many people are. Instead mid-morning and afternoon snacks consist of nuts and fruit. I can’t stick to all of it: only one ‘cheat meal’ a week, no alcohol (!!), cutting down on caffeine, cutting out processed foods altogether proved more than  a little tricky) but I am eating a lot more avocados and making breakfast more of a meal - which the book also advises.

M&S Nutty Super Wholefood Salad with chicken (lunch of the gods ...) 

So rather than a croissant grabbed from Pret on the hoof, it’s gluten-free toast with some avocado on top – and unusually for me, I’m not scratching at the door come lunch time. And for lunch I’ve swapped my carb-laden sandwich for an M&S Nutty Super Wholefood Salad (nuts, quinoa, broccoli, green beans, almonds and pistachios). While for tea it’s homemade guacamole (gotta love those avocados) some chicken or salmon, houmous and salad. I still eat out a few times a week, so my once-weekly ‘cheat meal’ turns into ‘thrice-weekly’ – still not sure how to get around that one. But hopefully it’s balanced out by the other stuff.  I’ve definitely noticed a difference already, people have remarked I ‘look well’ and have ‘lost weight’. As a diehard carb-lover and the world's least successful dieter, I may not be the perfect ‘Clean and Lean’ candidate, but I’m getting there - one avocado at a time.

'Sh*t - I'm nearly 30' Skincare Wisdom ... (Part 1)

When you get past the 25 mark, your face starts to look a little ... different. Lines start to appear on your forehead that weren't previously there. A night on the town is like an anti-facial, you wake the next morning and look like you've been hit with a shovel. Pores get larger and more obvious - cue a whole host of blackheads swarming in like the plague. Eyelids get slightly baggier, dark circles more pronounced ... you get the picture.

I've started looking at girls in their early 20s and marvelling at their gorgeous, peachy skin (I missed most of the dialogue of Silver Linings Playbook - so entranced was I with Jennifer Lawrence's porcelain complexion, damn her). Then there's sales assistant Corina who works in Rachel Vosper's beautiful candle emporium in Belgravia  - which I was lucky enough to visit yesterday - who has the kind of flawless skin you only see in magazines. (I kept talking to her just to gaze and gaze ...)

Yes it's all very well for me to sit here at say how I'm glad to be out of my 20s (more life skills, less naive, better pay cheque yada yada yada) and I certainly am. But the one thing those girls in their early 20s have over us is bloody brilliant skin - effortlessly brilliant I might add. Seriously - at 21, once those teenage hormones have calmed down, I was left with the best skin of my life (sigh!).

My skin isn't looking too bad these days but I have to work at it a little more (with the addition of a flattering Instagram filter). And I imagine, in ten years' time, I'll have to work even harder. So what have I done?

Water = good; sugar = bad
The most important thing you need to know? Your skin loves water and hates sugar. So you best start chugging that H20 (sorry, in the middle of a Breaking Bad marathon ...) like a bloody pilgrim in the desert. Have a hot water with lemon in the morning and eight glasses for the rest of the day after that. It flushes out those toxins and keeps skin plump and hydrated. I've also cut out sugar wherever possible (it's a long story, but trust me - it's your skin's arch-enemy and will give you spots and wrinkles. ELLE wrote a good piece on it recently here).

Facial Massage 
I've been massaging my mush day and night to boost circulation, firm up the jaw line and prevent dreaded 'Churchill Dog' jowls (oh, no no no no....) I'm a big fan of SUQQU's Gankin Massage - and you can follow these handy instructions to learn how to do it. Another technique I'm fond of is to get your index fingers under one cheekbone and rotate them around each other (as if you were motioning to someone to 'wind it up'). It's also super de-stressing, which brings me onto ...

Stop Whining and GO TO SLEEP
Few things (aside from UV exposure) pile on the years as much as stress does. Aside from causing tension and frown-lines, it's all down to telomeres - found on the end of our chromosomes - which are responsible for cells (e.g. skin cells) reproducing healthily. These deplete with stress - which means our skin will look the worse for it. Some good de-stressing techniques I've found so far include yoga, decluttering, running, positive thinking, cutting 'toxic' people out of your life (think I might have to dedicate a whole separate post to this one later on). And of course getting a decent eight hours' sleep speaks for itself - nothing makes your skin less hydrated and more spotty than a bad night's kip. (Calling all insomniacs - a great book I've come across recently is called The Sleep Book - which tells you everything you need to know about getting some shut eye).

Hope this advice proves useful - more to come ...