Feeling Stylish

Motivation is one of the things that make people fail at their diets. If you have a bad few days and put on a pound or two then you feel like all is lost. Similarly if you don’t lose anything and stay the same you feel like all your hard work was for nothing.

Short term goals

These are goals that you plan to achieve within the next week or so. Maybe you want to lose five pounds before your friends wedding in two weeks. This is a goal, as you lose, track it tell your friends about it. When you get to that two week mark see if you’ve reached your goal if you see you are 1lb shy don’t despair, go over why you might not have lost that last pound. Then rejoice in the fact that you’ve lost four lbs! These are important to keep you motivated as they keep your mind on the job at hand as your goal date is always quite close.

Medium term goals

These are ones that run over a couple of months. For example, you might want to lose two stone before your birthday which is three months away. Easily achievable, track when you are losing, your start weight, goal weight and what you are doing. If you are nearing your goal try and think about what you’ve been doing right and make sure you continue to do it for your other goals. Doing these medium term goals is important as it shows you that you can lose substantial amounts of weight. If you have six stone to lose overall then you may find that is seems like such a struggle to get through. With your medium term goal you will see that you’ve lost those two stone that’s only four more to go.

Long term goals

These are the goals that will get you to your ideal weight they could be a year in the future and could be to lose over 100 pounds. Pick something achievable and try and find out what your ideal, healthy weight is. (Just search for “ideal weight calculator” and you’ll find loads of resources to calculate a healthy weight for your height and age.)

Other indicators

You shouldn’t just look at your weight to see how you are getting on, also have goals that pertain to other things. Having short, medium and long term goals in other areas will help you to keep focused, you might find that you’ve lost inches but no weight. It’s the funny way in which our bodies work because when you exercise you turn some fat into lean muscle and it weighs more.

Measurements

Make sure you get some good starting measurements, if you want to be thorough then measure your: neck, chest, waist, hips, thigh, calf, forearm and bicep. Look online for tips on how to measure but generally it’s at the widest part of your body part except the waist which should be measured at the slimmest part. Seeing that you’ve lost inches off your waist can spur you on even if you aren’t any lighter. Maybe you have a goal to eventually get your waist size down to 30 inches, track this, measure once a week and be motivated by the inches lost!

BMI

Although your BMI relates to your weight it is a good indicator of where you should be aiming for. Your body mass index is worked out by your weight and height, a good health BMI to aim for is 25. You can find your BMI out online and it will tell you whether you are in the overweight, obese or morbidly obese category.

Clothing

Another goal might be to get into those jeans you bought two months ago that were too tight. Watching your clothes become baggy and having to buy new tighter ones is a great feeling. A long term goal might be that you want to easily fit into a UK size twelve or even wear a size twelve wedding dress!

Health

When exercising you will find that the exercises get easier and you have to do more to stay as active. If you find push ups really hard and can only manage five, the next day you should aim for six and build it slowly from there. Before you know it you will be doing 50 without even thinking about it. This is a good way to keep yourself doing the proper amount of exercise. As your body gets used to something it stops being as effective. It would take about three weeks of the same exercises before your body stopped feeling the benefit. So try to change about what you are doing every two weeks.

Having various different goals all to be achieved at different times can get quite confusing but if you have the organisational skills, or a diary, then you’ll be able to do it. Stick to the goals and reward yourself because doing all of this will help you keep on track to a healthier life style.

I was messing around with pinks and glitter and this is what I came up with.

What I used:

Virgin Vie Mousse Foundation
UDPP
Pink FCUK eyeshadow
Blue Illamasqua eyeshadow (<3 I love this so, so much. Higly pigmented and sexy as hell! Think I have the 'Victim' shade.)
Black Hourglass Glitter Eyeshadow. From the ‘Prism’ eyeshadow duo.
Clinique Lipgloss
MAC Pink Glitter

The reason my lips look so metallic is because I applied lipgloss then dotted them with the MAC glitter. A great look but not the most comfortable. I’d love to know what you think.

Hello Gentleman.

I don’t get the pleasure of talking about men’s clothes very often, it is a shame because I love men’s fashion. It is somewhat an obsession. I am not blessed with a boyfriend who is happy to go shopping on a weekly basis so I can choose his wardrobe, so I am taking on my male readership to help you find a new style. I’ll try and do it all thriftily but I’m not going to be putting you in an outfit that will fall apart whilst you are running around being manly.

I’ll try and put these into full outfits but it might be best to just take this as a list of brilliant pieces that would compliment your wardrobe. Not knowing you exact wardrobe and other details I might be way off the mark with what will fit in but that’s what the comments are for.

£12 from Asos.com

£25 from Asos.com
I love these jeans. They may not be for you if you are particularly skinny and tall (unless you fancy an emo look) but would certainly suit someone of average height and build. They’d also go brilliantly with converse, pointed boots, the above t-shirt and a waist coat (although maybe not all at once.)

£65 from Asos.com
These are gorgeous, made by Superdry, a brand I love. I don’t think you should skimp on jeans, a good pair of jeans will last you years. These are more body shape friendly and will suit almost anyone.

£50 Asos.com
Any man that can pull of pointed boots will certainly turn my head. Any man that can wear electric blue, pointed boots will have me dribbling. These might not be for everyone but the good news is that they do them in black too.

£19 Asos.com
These shirts are so in right now, they look awesome, suit almost everybody and can be worn a number of ways. You can wear a plain t-shirt underneath with the shirt done up partly, or undone or you can wear it as you would a normal shirt. For a sexy cowboy look go for some black pointed boots and ripped jeans.

£23 from Asos.com
Wear a simple black jumper over a plain open necked shirt for a more casual look at work. Suit jackets and ties can sometimes be too much, these jumpers look smart and very stunning.

£425 from Asos.com
More men, especially of the younger generations should wear three piece suits. Go for quality. I can spot a cheap suit from a mile away. This is a stunning set of clothes, men should go out dressed up like this for no reason other than the fact that they look fabulous. If you can afford to have a suit tailored to your measurements do so, however, if you can’t then you should buy a suit and take it to a tailor who can fit it to your body size. Get a suit that fits, you may find the trousers are too long, the jacket is a bit loose, a tailor could sort all this out and more for around £20.

£59.99 from Republic
A nice fitted, smart coat is something I don’t see enough on men. Sure there are other, casual coats out there (one of which I’ve outlined below) but jackets such as this always look good.

£44.99 from Republic
This is a nice, simple jacket. Great to wear when you are heading out clubbing and have to take a jacket for those cold walks between clubs and bars. The collar shape is unusual and that pulls this out from the hundreds of other generic black coats.

£19.99 from Republic
Big, bold stripes. If you are cold wear this over a simple long-sleeved black top.

Well, I’m not going to be doing a burlesque show or anything like that. No my cup of tea, however I will be attempting to dress is something remotely burlesque and full of awesome.

The Outfit:
Black Corset from: www.corsets-uk.com
Purple Skirt from Dorothy Perkins
Pink, net underskirt from Oxfam (89p – bargain)
Black leggings (I’d love to wear stockings but I really don’t think I can pull that off)
Christian Louboutin Rolando shoes.
Mini Tophat from Ann Summers
Sequined Waist Coat from Next
Feather Boa from Yarmouth Indoor Market
Possibly false lashes
Possibly black nail polish

Of course you’ll have all the pictures from the night. With all the outfits, how to recreate them and who was wearing what. Bring on the weekend folksies!