Eine Bestandsaufnahme

While my german-speaking followers know this word, the rest of you might wonder what the hell that means.

I love the English language, so much that I'm studying it, but there's no way around the fact that German has much more words to describe stuff.

Bestandsaufnahme basically means inventory or evaluation of a situation.

The last six months were really difficult and it wasn't easy to get back on my feet. But here I am. What I wanna change is my lifestyle. I wanna be healthier and lose weight.

I decided to join Weight Watchers again. It worked well for me the last time and I must admit that it's too difficult for me on my own. I tried and tried, but it never worked. I stopped going, because it's expensive, but now I'll see it as an investment in my health.

I'm gonna try to keep you up to date with my progress. My husband and I will go together to the course.

So, my evaluation for now - I'm too fat and I hate it. I want to change it and I will try my best. For the workout part I will start Blogilates. :)

I hope you join me on my way. :)

Love,
Valerie

"The Fault In Our Stars" and what it thaught me

This is a very personal post, but one I want to put out there in the world for everyone to read. So, if you want to know my story. Go ahead.

I've heard a lot about this book "The Fault In Our Stars" by John Green and since I was looking for a good new book I bought it two days ago.

I try not to spoil anything, most of you will know it anyway, it's about two cancer kids who fall in love. It's such an incredible book, I basically cried the last 100 pages.

I just finished it and it reminded me of so much I had forgotten. I've been struggling with my life now for quite a while, but today I realized how lucky I am and how immensly grateful I am for my life. And I wanna talk about it, tell my story.

I have three chronical illnesses. Epilepsy, depression and a thyroid disfunction. They are a part of me and I'm not ashamed of them, so I don't care who knows that I have these illnesses.

Besides that I spend two years after my 18th birthday mostly in hospital, in a wheelchair and on crutches, cause parts of my bones on my ankles broke and ruined the cartilage. I had two cartilage transplants, one on each ankle and had to learn thrice to walk again. All in all I had four operations, because of that.

I have to take a lot of medicine each day to stay "healthy", although I know I will never be healthy. I will always be sick, but my illnesses are not terminal. I can live a fairly normal life.

This book reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to live my life. To only have to take some pills to keep my brain from disfunctioning and giving me a seizure that could be lethal (worst case scenario) and that stabilize that serotonin disfunction that might crush me and push me into a darkness I can't come back from.

I am so grateful for this medication that allows me to be as close to health as possible. For having a husband that loves me, even though it can be tough and for a loving family. I am grateful for that house we live in and our pets that give us joy.

I just want the world to know that. That I truly am able to see again how lucky I am and that I appreciate my life and don't want it to stop. Thanks to that fictional book about a story that sure happened in reality as well, I feel better than I have in a long time.

Love,
Guinevere

Vegan For Fit Challenge & My Struggles With It And My Weight

I'm sure most of my Austrian and German readers won't need an explanation what Vegan for Fit is, but for all my lovely international readers a short intro.

Attila Hildmann is the author of four cook books, two made him known and the last one "Vegan For Fit" made him famous. This book is about a 30 days challenge with recipes in two categories, Step 1 and Step 2. You can eat breakfast and lunch from the step 2 meals and after 4 pm only step 1 meals are allowed. After 7 pm you're not supposed to eat anything anymore.

Attila is THE face of a new generation of Vegans. Successfully moving the image of the glum do-gooder to a mainstream who just wants to live healthy.

His new book, Vegan For Youth, which isn't even out yet, is already Number 1 on the Amazon cookbooks list! I read today that they currently translating Vegan For Fit and will launch it internationally next year.

So far, so good. I've been a mostly-strict Vegetarian for over a decade now. I don't really like meat, but I did occasionally eat a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets at McDonalds and I never had a problem eating pasta with sauce that originally contained meat. I just gave the meat to my husband.

Nevertheless, for quite a while now I wanted to change my nutrition. I wanted to become a vegan. Not just out of idealism or health reasons. The more I read about the background, from where and at what cost our (vegetarian) food comes from the more I felt the need to change.

I got the two books for christmas and was highly motivated. I bought all the basic ingredients one needs, most of which I never heard of and some cooking tools. I think I spent about 130€ just for that, books not included. Not the cheapest thing to do, but after all it's my health.

Two days and some Vegan For Fit meals and drinks later I was desperate. I didn't like the taste of soy milk, I found the high praised Matcha green tea powder disgusting and from the raw vegetables, especially the zucchini noodles which I was soooo excited about, I got horrible bellyache. I felt like a complete failure. Everyone was raving about the recipes and how awesome and easy it was and I just found it hard and annoying.

So I quit, a few months later I started Weight Watchers with my "normal" vegetarian nutrition and lost 15 kg. After two good months I left Weight Watchers, cause it was so expensive, I'm not a group therapy person and I thought I can continue the program on my own. Way off the mark! I fell back in my old habits and already gained 5 kg again, yay!....

The thoughts, the wish to become vegan never left my mind though. So, a couple of days ago I decided to try it again. So many people lost weight with it and of course the nutritional change was something I really wanted for myself.

Today was the first day of this new challenge and I already struggle again and I hate myself for it. The meals were good, but my body and mind are so addicted to my old habits and food I never felt truly full (in a good way, not the over-eating thing).

Here's what I ate. It never looked like the pictures in the book, so I made photos of it as well.

Banana pancakes with raspberry ice cream (Step 2), my favorite:

For lunch I had a lentils vegetable thing without the pesto (Step 1), cause we forgot to buy some ingredients.

For dinner I made the pumpkin pepper curry tofu with peanut coconut flakes (Step 1). Mine got a little burned:

I also made some of the desserts, cause I was so desperate for something sweet..

Cashew Panna Cotta (Step 1):

left side: Peanut Chocolate Crunch (Step 2), right side: Cinnamon Bliss Kiss (Step 2)

The chocolates were good, but the cashew panna cotta wasn't my thing.

And here I am, I'm not hungry, but I'm not happy. I basically wanna quit, quite badly actually. The cooking took a long time and I wasn't particularly good at it.

I just want it to be over, I don't wanna fall back into my old habits, the unhealthy addiction to chocolate and the vegetarian junk food, but it's just so exhausting. I don't have the energy for all this. Do you know what I mean?

Guinevere

mymuesli

Lately, I've been so overwhelmed with everything that I stopped watching what I put in my body. Not good! 

What I always hear is that breakfast is important. Sadly, I rarely find time to eat in the morning, but especially the right cereals can give you the perfect start and energy for your day. So I was told. *g* 

I went looking for some healthy cereals, but it was way more difficult than I thought. All the cereals you can buy are full of sugar. After seeing a docu a few weeks ago about the company mymuesli who does custom-mixed cereals I decided to order some from them.

You can mix your own muesli and gosh there are hundreds of possibilites. I decided to go for some already-mixed ones. I ordered the:

Fit For Fun Low Fat Muesli, Kickstart Muesli Woman and the Himbirchler Muesli.

A cool fact when it comes to shipping. You can get them delivered like normal stuff you order or pick it up from a hotspot and save the shipping costs.

In Vienna are two or three hotspots and I got mine from the hotspot Billa at the Ringstraßen Gallerie. This Billa has several of their muesli choices in their permanent range as well.

I've been eating the Kickstart Muesli for a week now and it's really delicious.

Nevertheless, those aren't cheap. One 575g can costs (depending one what you choose) 6,90€ or 7,90€. On the other side it's organic and you know exactly what's inside.

I guess you have to decide for yourself if it's worth it or not. I'm gonna finish mine and look in some health food stores if there are comparable cereals. If not, I will order from mymuesli again. :)

You can buy and mix their mueslis here: http://www.mymuesli.com or purchase some at their hotspots.

Do you know mymuesli? Have you tried one or even mixed one yourself?

Love,
Guinevere

Edinburgh's American Candystore

It's always exciting to see things we don't have and that goes for candy as well. So, we were quite excited when we saw a store full of American candy. It was incredible. Take a look:

It's incredible what you get in the USA. How colourfull and fun looking. The Wonka chocolate!

But I gotta say, as cool as it looks, I'm not surprised that so many people struggle with their weight over there.. All that sugar and fat, it's crazy..

Love,
Guinevere

Weight Loss Update

Sorry for the silence, but Uni is still eating up all my time.. Can't wait for the christmas holidays. *g*

I just wanted to give you a quick update. I, finally, found my rhythm again and am back on my Weight Watchers diet. In addition, I work out every day on my crosstrainer for about 30 minutes.

I lost 2 more kg by now. I've been slowly trying on clothes I didn't fit in for a long time and so far all of them fit. :-)

Here's a picture of a winter coat I bought about two years ago, but never wore cause it ended up being too tight.

I know, no make up, glasses and a messy room, but at the moment it feels like I'm just running from work to Uni and inbetween I walk Kronos. I'm too tired to care. *gg*

Nevertheless, it feels great to finally fit in this coat and I know there's still a lot to loose, but I'm on my way. :-)

Love,

Guinevere

Food Porn - Rice Edition

I wanted to share my favorite rice dishes. Honey started cooking for us -> vegetarian food!! He's really good and since I'm not that great at doing anything else than my 4 basic dishes, I'm always happy when he does cook. *g*

 I'm a vegetarian, so rice and tofu are regular guests on my diet. All of them are with tofu.

Carotte/champion Risotto:

In german it's called "Reisfleisch", which basically means rice with meat. This is the vegetarian version with tofu. :-)

This is the only risotto I can do and I'm doing the hell of a job. *g* This is parmesan/tomato risotto without tofu.

If you're curious I can share the recipes, but we always make enough for two days in a row. It's handy and we're too lazy to size it down for two people. *gg* 

Do you eat risotto and rice in general? I love it. 

Since I can have a "power food" meal each day, which means I can eat as much as I want of a certain type of food (like rice, noodles, beans, basically everything) I love these dishes. 

Love,

Guinevere

Storing Medication: The Cool Way

This has nothing to do with beauty per se, nevertheless, I wanted to post it, cause it's a topic that's very important for me.

I do have several severe chronical illnesses. They are a part of me and I'm not ashamed of them.

I'm not gonna list what I have today. It's quite difficult, cause it's so much and I'm always worried that people think I just want their pity. It always ends like that, even though it's unmeant. 

I've been looking for a pill box that doesn't look like I'm 80 or in a hospital for ages. A couple of days ago I found it and I wanted to show it to you, cause it's so cool and maybe you're looking for something like that too.

Here it is:

How cool, right? A keyboard!

You can open each day seperately and there's a lot of space!

I do need to take 8 pills each day to stay "healthy", though I'll never be healthy, so let's just say alive. So, you can image that I was worried that all the pills would fit in..

And they did!! How awesome is that?!

So, here we go. The full glory. ;-)

It wasn't a bargain. It cost 9,90€, but I think it's totally worth it. If you need one as well, I bought it at the SCS, on the first floor right at the beginning next to the IKEA entrance on the left side. Pretty cool, right?

Love,
Guinevere

Weight Loss Update

Hey guys,

I'm sure you've been curious about how I'm doing. Only okay, to be honest.

By now, I lost 11 kg and am holding that weight, which isn't bad, but I want to lose more. Life got in the way though..

With the death of our family dog and the black hole I fell in afterwards, I kinda stopped thinking about working out and counting points. I'm finally feeling better and am starting again to work on my body and nutrition.

I told you that I joined Weight Watchers and it really worked great, I constantly lost about a 1 kg a week, but I also payed 20€ a week for going there just to weigh myself..

There is an one hour course each week, but it's like a group therapy with topics such as "Stock your refridgerator right". I'm not the group therapy girl, so I usually skipped these courses and 20€ a week was too much just for using their scale.

I know how the system works, so I thought I can do this myself, but I must admit that as soon as I stopped going, it became much harder. The motivation and the "pressure" to succeed is gone and you get sidetracked way too easily. So in some way, I regret quitting, but as a student it's just so expensive..

It's twice as hard to keep going, but I'm really gonna try again, one just needs willpower and since I'm finally feeling better I'm positive I can do it on my own.

I'd love to copy and upload all the documents you need for using their system so you can try it without spending so much money, but I'm pretty sure I'll get sued by them if I'm doing that..

I decided to show you a picture of myself, not just of my face. It's not easy for me, cause I hate myself, but on the other side I think (or at least my therapist told me - yes I'm in therapy and not ashamed of it) it's important to be proud of each step as well.

This outfit is a big deal for me. You can't see it well, but I'm wearing trousers, something I haven't done for over a year, if not longer. My old one didn't fit anymore and now it does again. I'm also wearing this lovely coat I bought in Edinburgh which then only barely fit me, now it does. 

What do you think? Do you like me? 

Kronos does or I guess he's wondering why the hell I'm (for once) not focusing on him. Such a poor dog.. Maybe someone should call animal protection.. ;-)

Love,

Guinevere

Weight Loss Journey - My Background

This is the first post about the long journey I'm currently making. Before we go to the present, I thought it might be interesting to know the background. Especially, since mine is a quite unusual one.

I've never been one of those lucky girls who is naturally thin. It always was hard work. 

Ever since I can remember I wanted to dance and sing. The first time I saw the musical "Elisabeth" (I was 6) , I knew this is what I wanted to do. I started working for this dream and I think I did well. 

With 12 I really started to focus on my dancing skills and started taking classes. I went four times a week and with 16, I joined a musical company for teenagers. Ballet was my passion and my talent, after two years I already started dancing on pointe shoes. :-) On the other side I sucked at Hip Hop.. *gg*

My body was lovely, I found a picture which shows it best. It's from our school ball: 

I started taking singing lessons and everything I focused on was this future. Everything I did was for this dream and I loved it, but then all those plans were destroyed - just when I was about to start auditioning for the schools.

It started with a stinging pain in my ankles, it didn't get better so we went to the hospital and I got a horrifying diagnosis. Parts of my ankle splintered off and destroyed the cartilage, on both sides.

I was told I was the only person worldwide who has that kind of damage on both sides and I had two choices - operations or never doing any kind of sports again. I was 18, so the second option wasn't an option and so the journey started..

I had four big operations. The first one was to remove the splintered bones and take some cartilage for growing it in a laboratory if the pain wouldn't go away. Of course it didn't, so I had to get cartilage transplantations, on each side. I had one on each side with a 7 month break inbetween and the last one was to remove the screws.

Three times, I had to learn to walk again and had crutches and a wheelchair. 

All in all, this nightmare lasted two years.

Needless to say you gain weight when you're not allowed to move. I fell in a huge dark hole as well and since my fiancée ate crappy fast food all the time I joined him in doing so and I just had other problems than watching my figure.

After three years I was officially allowed to start doing sports again, but I was too scared. 

6 months ago, I started again. I tried dancing on a much lower level, but had to stop after two lessons. It broke my heart, after all, being able to dance again was what kept me alive during those times in the hospital and rehab. I tried horse-riding again (another hobby I had), but it didn't work out as well. 

I started with Power Plate and using my parents Crosstrainer. So far, my feet are okay with that. When summer really hits us, which it will do soon, I'll start swimming as well. 

So this is it. My background. Not a happy one, but it made me the person I am today. It makes you appreciate even the little things. The first time I was able to use the bathroom on my own again without a nurse was incredible.

Next time I'm gonna talk about my nutrition and what changed since I joined Weight Watchers.

Love,

Guinevere

My Weight Loss Journey, wanna come with??

Morning Lovelies,

In some way this has to do with beauty, so I thought you might be interested.

I recently started seriously trying to loose weight and get into my old shape. Quite a long way, but I already lost 4 kg/8 pounds on my own and three weeks ago I joined Weight Watchers and since then I lost an additional 3,40 kg/ about 6 pounds.

What I wanted to ask you: would you be interested in accompanying me on this journey?

It would mean I'd post weekly updates and tell you about my prehistory (which is quite a unique one), how I'm doing and so on. I'd like to share this with you, but I don't wanna bore you either.

So, let me know in the comments, okay?

And now to a totally random picture that we took this morning:

Most of you already know my cats - this is Chloe and she loves doing that.. Sometimes while I'm holding her (she actually seems to think she's a baby, not a cat..) she sneaks up on my shoulders.. *gg*

She loves being carried aroung and this viewpoint is one of her favorite ones, even though she's too large for it.. lol Obviously, she doesn't care. I love her so much!

Love,
Guinevere