Slim Girl Diary

[image: elle.fr]

I was speaking to another French friend of mine about what she does to keep in shape. She’s really lucky because she doesn’t have to work very hard at it! But she did say these things to me:

• Enjoy quality rather than quantity: She makes sure to eat high quality fruits and vegetables, and really tries to get all her food as fresh as possible.
• Eat some of what you enjoy in moderation: There’s no need to starve yourself, because you’ll just be miserable and decide that diets aren’t for you. My friend loves dark chocolate, wine and crisps!
• Try and live a healthy lifestyle: My friend walks to and from work.
• Exercise when you feel uncomfortable with your weight: She does dance and pilates when she feels like she’s put on a few pounds, maybe after New Year’s to get ready for the summer, for example.

Sooo, my friend says she doesn’t do anything special, but I think she’s just living a sensible lifestyle! I’m going to try a diet with these components:

• Eat my biggest meal, including most of my complex carbs in the morning: For example, I’ll oatmeal which releases energy slowly and keeps you full and fulfilled until … it’s time to eat again!!
• Drink lots of water: This is extremely important! Water and green tea are the best drinks to drink (besides red wine )
• Eat a few meals throughout the day. For example, a handful of nuts and some miso soup and veggie sticks in the afternoon.
• Eat my meat at lunch: It’s better if you don’t eat too much meat, especially red meat. I think lunch is a great time for protein, because carbs make you sleepy and you can’t work in the afternoon. Also, you have the rest of the day to digest your  meal.
• Keep dinner light: It’s better if you don’t eat too much when you’re about to go to bed, because you’re not going to use those calories. Basically, keep it light and delicious — soup, more veggies, and maybe a small glass of red wine or some yummy dark chocolate for being so good all day!Elodie

If you’re young, body-consious and living in London, chances are you don’t have enough money to go for regular exercise or dance classes. I love to do contemporary dance, qigong, kundalini yoga, pilates and pop/jazz/hiphop, but I just don’t always have the cash to attend classes regularly.

So, resourceful young woman that I am,  I’ve been looking for classes and courses online that I can do a few days a week, and combine them with walking around my favourite neighborhoods for a free exercise plan.  I’ve found a few things on YouTube that I find promising. The first is Qigong, which is an ancient Chinese form of working with your energy in order to balance it out. I’ve included two great videos below, which give you a pretty good introduction to Qigong. Standing Qigong, which is what this is below, is supposed to be the absolute best kind of Qigong.

Also, there are free yoga classes that I’ve found online here at Yoga Today.  The website is called http://www.yogatoday.com/. You can sign up and sit in on free yoga classes each week, and they also have a YouTube Channel here. One of my favorite classes is the Kundalini Yoga class that I’ve embedded below:

Have fun exploring these videos, and please let me know if you find others that we can all benefit from. I would love to take some pilates classes online.

Paix et amour,
Elodie

I was looking at this website called Break Open the Bally, which is all about different things you can do around London as alternative venues for fun. There’s part of the website that talks about guerilla gardening, which is basically getting together with people from your neighborhood and taking over the dead overgrown spaces to turn them green again. Here are some pics of urban gardens from the website http://www.guerrillagardening.org/.

I was lucky enough to experience it this weekend, in London. I was walking by on my way somewhere, and I saw loads of young people who looked pretty happy digging up this plot of land that previoiusly had been pretty bad looking– overgrown and dead. There was a sign just outside that said “Support Urban Gardening.” So then, when I walked by the outside gate, there was a really nice little lady and a skinny Indian man who invited me in. They said, “we’re all chipping in to get this garden into shape.”

So, the basic idea is the main girl decided that she needed to do something about it, so she got her friends together and got the local council to help out with supplies annd compost and tools, and then she threw a party to keep it fun and everyone was welcome to come and help out.

There was art for sale, there were bags for sale, there were free refreshments, some guys brought a guitar, and we all went to the pub afterwards. I met some amazing people, one guy works just down the street from me! Now I want to get into it more, maybe get an allotment to grow veggies on and definitely to keep our little urban garden going, and get more people involved.   I’m inspired!!!!

Does anyone know of a good detox I can use? i was thinking of using this one from Whole Foods.  It’s called CleanseSmart, and the line has 6 different dextoxes– one for liver, colon, one for heavy metal, one for candida, a 1st time cleanse and this one– the advanced cleanse. I’m thinking of going with the advanced cleanse because it’s supposed to be an all-in-one cleanse and it’s gotten several awards . I’ve been trolling around their website (renewlife.ca), trying to make up my mind about whether I actually NEED a cleanse — I mean, this thing costs £30 and I don’t make that much money!

Basically the way it works is, you take a pill each morning and a pill each evening for 1 month, then you drink many glasses of water throughout the day, as well as cutting unhealthy foods out of your diet, such as red meats, wheat,  processed sugars, etc.

You lose toxins, maybe a little weight, and you get lots of energy from it.

But… What if I just started eating really healthily and stopped drinking beer? I mean… wouldn’t that be a similar thing? I’m confused… If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be very happy to hear them!!!

elodie

Hey world, I was looking online today because I want to maybe do a detox diet.

I was looking at this website: www.puredetoxdiet.com, which basically gives you a good introduction to detoxing your body and why we need to detox twice a year. I was reading more about it, because I think I want to do a month long detox of my body. Living in London is very different to France. Here, people drink so much beer, and there is a big cigarette culture (well, that’s similar to France!) In France, women are very consious of their bodies and we take very good care of ourselves. In England, I feel like no one cares!!!!

So, I am thinking of doing a detox on my body for a month or so and getting all the toxins out, and also maybe losing a bit of weight and that muffin peeking up above my waistband…!

OK, so I was researching different kinds of detox diets, and I read that if you believe you have something called adrenal fatigue, you shouldn’t do a detox until you take care of that. Adrenal fatigue has these symptoms (I got these from www.drlam.com):

• Tendency to gain weight and unable to loose it, especially around the waist.
• High frequency of getting the flu and other respiratory diseases and these symptoms tend to last longer than usual.
• Tendency to tremble when under pressure.
• Reduced sex drive.
• Lightheaded when rising from a laying down position.
• Unable to remember things.
• Lack of energy in the mornings and also in the afternoon between 3 to 5 pm.
• Feel better suddenly for a brief period after a meal.
• Often feel tired betweeen 9 – 10 pm, but resist going to bed.
• Need coffee or stimulants to get going in the morning.
• Crave for salty, fatty, and high protein food such as meat and cheese.
• Increase symptoms of PMS for women; period are heavy and then stop, or almost stopped on the 4th day, only to start flow again on the 5th or 6th day.
• Pain in the upper back or neck with no apparent reasons.
• Feels better when stress is relieved, such as on a vacation.
• Difficulties in getting up in the morning
• Lightheaded
• Mild depression
• Food and or inhalant allergies
• Lethargy and lack of energy
• Increased effort to perform daily tasks
• Decreased ability to handle stress
• Dry and thin skin
• Hypoglycemia
• Low Body Temperature
• Nervousness
• Palpitation
• Unexplained hair loss
• Alternating constipation and diarrhea
• Dyspepsia

My goodness, I have so many of these symptoms! And moving to London is probably the stress that caused it all. I know it’s not good to diagnose yourself over the internet, but I feel like I have so so so many of these symptoms… I used to think I had chronic fatigue syndrome or low blood pressure or something like that, but maybe this is what I have… …

Well, OK let me tell you what it means to have Adrenal Fatigue — it basically means your adrenal glands are tired and they can’t produce enough hormones like cortisone, which is the hormone that we secrete in response to stress. A lot of places online say that it’s not a specific medical condition, but also they say that the treatment of adrenal fatigue is really mild. Basically, you need to change your lifestyle and get more vitamins.

I was reading project-aware.org and it said of course, make sure that you get enough rest (sleep till 9am if you can) and make some lifestyle changes. It also said that you should eat MORE salt, MORE protein and FEWER carbohydrates. They also listed some vitamins and supplements that might help.

VITAMINS

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin B complex
• Niacin (125-150 mg/day)
• B-6 (150 mg/day)
• Pantothenic acid (1200-1500 mg/day)
• Magnesium citrate (400-1200 mg)
• Liquid trace minerals (zinc, manganese, selenium, chromium, molybdenum, copper, iodine)
• SAM.e (200 mg)
• DL-Phenylalanine (500 mg)

HERBS

• Licorice
• Ashwagandha
• Maca
• Siberian Ginseng
• Korean Ginseng

This is just something that I think is interesting; you definitely have to make your own decisions and talk to your doctor about things if you need to. But my gosh!!!!!!  If taking good supplements will make you feel better, and getting more rest, and eating more protein and salt, then I’m definitely gonna try it.  The detox I was going to get cost 30 pounds, so I’m saving money anyways.

love, Elodie

I work as a runner in a media company. I absoltutely love what the company does, but I don’t do what the company does! My job consists of:

1. Dropping off packages
2. Making coffee for clients
3. Answering Phones
4. Picking up lunch
5. Taking turns with the other runners helping out on shoots, where my job is to:
A. Drop off packages
B. Make coffee
C. Man the cell phones
D. Pick up lunch.

Whenever I tell people where I work, they are all really really impressed, but my God! I want to get in there and DO something constructive. And because I’ve just started, everyone sends me on the jobs that no one else wants to do!!!!

I suppose I can’t be too upset, I get to be there while some amazing pieces of media are being constructed. And, I get to have a go on the equipment when everyone else is out of the office (Read: Sunday night!). And, if you know anything about media, you know that most people start out doing the grunt work. In fact, in most industries, you have to start out doing the grunt work.

But, it’s just such a transition from my studies– in my final year, I got to use all the latest technologies, I was the creative director, and my work was featured for our university (maybe I’ll show you dear readers some of it later!

I was really excited to get this position, but now I’m just eager for more. Ah well!!! What is it they say about those who wait?

–Slim Girl xoxoxo

OMG! The Goverment has a heatwave plan to deal with the soaring temperatures in Britain. Last week was the hottest day of the year (apparently!) with a record temperature of…only 32°C. Snigger. Seriously I’m sorry to laugh but 32°C is not that hot. Having been brought up in the South of France, I am no stranger to heat waves and heat, and 32°C is not a heat wave. 32°C is summer time. And summer time in the South of France means water shortages and no rain for months, EVERY summer! I understand that heat is a foreign concept in England (well you have radiators), but surely the Government shouldn’t be acting as if World War 3 has broken out! The problem is that heat and sun do occur in England, but usually only one day amongst many rubbish ones. Consequently, the British know this may be their only chance to get a tan so they all run out to the nearest park and turn into lobsters.

But now that the heat is here for a while, everyone panics. Staying out in the sun is no longer the done thing. What should we do!!!???, people cry. And the Government comes up with a heat wave plan. Even the news was giving me advice about what to eat when it’s hot. Surely it’s obvious??? I mostly live on salads and ice cream during the summer as anything cooked is a)too much effort in the heat and b)warms your body. Common sense people. You do have it. And you don’t need the Government to be your Mum. People still complain about the Nanny state, but as soon as something slightly different happens, everyone panics and turns to the Goverment for answers. Grow up and turn to the Mediterranean way of life- siesta, swimming and suncream! …But try to ditch the socks and sandals. Way too British.

Newer Entries »