Hvar & Split, Croatia

August 11, 2019August 11, 20191 Comment

I was recently lucky enough to travel to Croatia with one of my closest friends for a beautiful holiday for good food, sunshine and relaxing, and we had SUCH an amazing time!

It seems that this year, Croatia is a very popular destination for tourists, and rightly so, so I thought I’d list the best places we visited both on the island of Hvar and Split, on the mainland.

The food recommendations are primarily places that offer excellent vegan and vegetarian options, but none of them are fully vegan/veggie. I’ve just put them down in the order we visited them 🙂

Zoe and I had an amazing time in Hvar!

Food

Giaxa – When we first arrived in Hvar we headed to Giaxa for a light lunch, upon recommendation that it does great vegan food! It was certainly not a light lunch (we ended up getting a full three courses!) but the food was delicious. You can get everything from mixed veg to full gnocchi and meat, so there’s something for all tastes. The staff are also lovely, and the chef was a vegan Argentinian, which explains the great variety of food!

Lola bar and street food – For a ‘good night’ we were recommended Lola bar and street food. The staff here are the most energetic and smiley waiters I’ve ever seen! Options were good – both the veggie curry and falafel and hummus were great 🙂 If you’re vegetarian go for the veggie burger and don’t forget sweet potato fries (we got 2 portions). These guys also know how to mix drinks. Not sure what to have? Ask them for a recommendation.

Veggie burgers are always a winner. I had the falafel!

Fig restaurants – Fig have restaurants in Stari Grad (Hvar), Hvar Town and also in Split, and you can see why it’s so popular! I was told to book in advance and am glad I did – queues were stretching down the street! Zoe recommends the chicken wrap and I would recommend the roast veg. Apparently brunch is great too! Also, get the sweet potato fries (ask for garlic mayo on the side). Fig in Split (yes we went to both of them) is in a beautiful courtyard and one of the only vegan places there. Head inside and see an ancient drain from the original building – it’s cooler than it sounds!

You can’t go wrong with the food from Fig!

Spice – Final recommendation from Hvar was Spice, a pan asian restaurant situated in the main square. I was worried that it would be over priced, but it wasn’t bad at all. My recommendation would be the veggie pad thai and definitely the spring rolls! If you’re not a fan of Asian cuisine, they also have a ‘western’ menu that you can choose from, so something for all! Excellent service too.

Things to do

Hvar adventure – We were told that one of the best things to do on Hvar was to leave Hvar and visit the nearby islands of Paklinski. Hvar Adventures is a tour company recommended by google and well situated just off the main port. We went on a day tour (9am-3pm) on one of their beautiful yachts (not a massive group party boat!) to visit nearby deserted coves with the most beautiful water you’ll ever see, and go snorkelling and cliff jumping in various places. The day was truly idyllic and if I could repeat it 10 more times I would! They also offer sunset tours and various other adventure options.

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Spanish Fortress – If you get the chance, run (or walk) up to the Spanish Fortress. It’s free to go up and you’ll be greeted with amazing views of the whole town and nearby islands. You can go in the Fortress too, but the views are the same out the front. It’s 50kn to get in.

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Not a bad view to hike/run up to!

Hvar Cathedral – You’ll definitely walk past this if you’re staying around Hvar town, but it is worth stopping and taking a good look at! If you eat at Spice restaurant for dinner you’ll see the sun setting on the cathedral and it’s beautiful!

Split old town – Split is home to one of the best preserved Roman remains in the world, the Diocletian Palace. Wander around dodging tourists and taking in everything that the town has to offer. It’s busy but beautiful, so enjoy!

Look up in Split old town and you’ll see the remnants of the original palace! Spot Zoe!

Marjan Forest Park – If you’re less of a people-person and more of a nature-person (like me), the Marjan Forest Park is perfect.

Drinks

Carpe Diem beach/bar – if you’re into clubbing, head to Carpe Diem nightclub at 12:30am for a night of dancing on the beach. If, like me, you’re more of an evening drinks in the sun kind of a person, take a water taxi over at around 5pm to grab some drinks on the island. Make sure not to leave it too late – the beach shuts at 7pm to turn it into a club for the party-goers later in the evening.

Carpe diem bar is situated on the sea front in Hvar Town. It is picturesque but potentially overpriced for what you get. The island is more unique (although still pricey).

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At the beautiful (but expensive) Carpe Diem nightclub

Beaches

Dobovica – a short bus ride from the centre of town is Dubovica beach, which has a lovely bar (Dubo Beach Bar). Thoroughly recommend for an intimate homemade feeling (not surprising as the owner, Ivek, serves drinks out the front of his house)! This is a really lovely beach which is much less busy than those closer to town. We had an amazing day here! There’s a long, steep path down, so probably not suitable for anyone who may struggle to walk (see pic)

Pokonji Dol – Much closer to the main town is Pokonji Dol, a small beach that is often packed, but still very beautiful. Many people recommended this to us when we went out!

The rocky part of Pokonji Dol is a lot less busy, but also somewhat less comfortable!

Kurhotel Skodsborg, Copenhagen

July 17, 2019August 28, 20191 Comment

This trip was gifted by Kurhotel Skødsbørg but as always, all views are my own!

I first visited Denmark a year ago, tagging along to a work trip my boyfriend was on in order to see Copenhagen. At the time I had grand plans to visit other parts of Denmark, as I had heard so much about the stunning countryside and national parks, but it was not to be – there is too much to see in Copenhagen!

Thankfully, I got the chance to return this summer on a family holiday, joining family members in the beautiful countryside and coast of Denmark. After spending a week cycling and trail running my way through the local countryside, Fiann and I headed to Kurhotel Skodsborg, which I had singled out the year earlier and added to my ‘to visit’ list.

Kurhotel Skodsborg is located a quick 20 minutes from Copenhagen and is situated on the sea front, between the ocean and the forest. Its main draw for me were the spa and fitness facilities, both of which it is known for. Booking a room for the night (double rooms start at £190) includes not only breakfast but also access to the most extensive spa facilities I have ever seen. On top of this you have access to the incredibly well stocked gym (better than most gyms I’ve been to) and classes. Most other hotels that have this option charge extra for it, so it was great to see how ingrained in the hotel’s features spa and fitness are.

Not a bad view from the hotel jetty!

Food

Our stay began with an afternoon tea, ‘Tea with Georg’, where my first thought was how healthy most of the options are – aside from the well-stocked bar, the vast majority of afternoon tea options are healthy (including the famous Danish Smørrebrød) and include plenty of options for vegan guests. The hotel has two main places to eat food – The Lobby (a centralised quasi-sitting room with sofas and a relaxed atmosphere) and The Brasserie (at the top of the hotel with a more dressy feel). We enjoyed one dinner and our lunches at The Lobby, and one dinner and our breakfasts at The Brasserie. If you go, ask for the three-course dinner with wine pairing – the food is spectacularly put together, and our waiter deserved a raise for being the most friendly and helpful waiter I’ve ever met! Fiann and I never saw the standard set menu for the wine pairing but received three perfectly formed vegan dishes with various wines to our table – I’m not sure if vegan options are standard on their menu, but they certainly deliver if you ask!

Accommodation

Our room was situated looking over the courtyard inside the horseshoe shaped building, catching sunlight pretty much throughout the day. Thankfully this didn’t affect my sleep thanks to the blackout blinds, and I actually had some of the best sleep of my recent life on the incredibly comfortable bed in the total silence of the area – it makes a nice change from central London where 5 sirens a night is a quiet night! Because the hotel is situated just behind a front line of small houses on the beach front I can’t imagine that many would have a clear view of the sea, but the views we saw from our balcony (a mix of hotel, forest and sea) were perfect. The bathroom was huge, consisting of a free-standing bath-tub, large shower/wet room area and two sinks. It also had underfloor heating which I can imagine in the Danish winter is much appreciated!

Spa

Kurhotel Skødsbørg is known for its spa facilities, which are extensive and comprehensive. Not only can you lounge by the pool or sit in a sauna, the hotel also provides a ‘spa concierge’ service called Skodsborg Flow. This is what the press release has to say: ”Designed for both seasoned spa-goers and first-timers, this new bespoke service guides you through Kurhotel Skodsborg’s eight best hot and cold experiences: maximising each treatment so that – when practiced in sequence – their combined benefits are even more powerful and effective. Think: Nordic stretching, ancient breathing exercises in the salt cave, body scrubs in the steam bath and Kurhotel Skodsborg’s signature SaunaGus led by your very own ‘Mist Master’.” Sound a bit wishy-washy? The sessions are in fact designed to strengthen the immune system, stimulate blood circulation and improve sleep, and many have been used for millennia for these functions – all I know is that they were very enjoyable and relaxing. My favourite was the SaunaGus, which I can only describe as a mix between a sauna, aromatherapy and interpretive dance. After entering a sauna, the ‘Gusmester’ (the leader) infuses the air with essential oils, circulating the heat using a towel (the interpretive dance part of the treatment), before leading the attendees down the the hotel jetty for a dip in the Baltic Sea. It certainly felt Baltic at 11 degrees, but I’m told that in winter the whole area is covered in ice! Thoroughly chilled by the sea, you head back into the sauna for the second instalment of aromatherapy. Not surprisingly the sauna feels much nicer second time round! Even if you just visit the hotel for a day, make sure a couple of hours are spent in the spa – you absolutely won’t regret it.

Fitness

Another of Kurhotel Skodsborg’s specialties is its fitness facilities. With two gyms, a trainer who is the world number 24 in Crossfit and a local national park, Skodsborg is perfect for active people. With the fantastic facilities it’s hard to believe they’d need much more, but Skodsborg also provides a weekly regime of fitness classes open to all abilities. With 1800 members, it’s perhaps not surprising that each fitness class we saw/attended was full, but it’s also testament to the incredible teaching that every class was booked out. Our favourite was the TRX class, done in a crossfit style – both Fiann and I had huge DOMS the next day!

For those more interested in a low impact fitness regime, the hotel also provides Aqua Fitness classes (aquarobics) in their cooler ‘sports pool’ and Nordic stretching, a yoga-like stretching class aiding concentration and, of course, flexibility.

Sustainability

One think I have started to pick up on when visiting hotels are the sustainability aspects of each. As we become more and more aware of the impact we have on the world, I think it’s important for the hospitality world to keep up. In general, especially thanks to the fact that plastic bottles are obsolete in Denmark because you can drink the water, Skodsborg seemed quite sustainability-focussed. Many of the dishes were vegetable based, with plenty of plant-based options available. However, I would make some suggestions about housekeeping, e.g. not changing towels everyday, our soaps were taken each day and replaced with a new one wrapped in plastic, providing reusable rather than disposable slippers etc. Many of these changes would be easy to make, and would have a large positive impact on both the energy consumption of the hotel and other sustainability aspects.

Spot the swift photo bombing me!

Local area

Skodsborg is situated in North Zealand, the wealthiest part of Copenhagen. Not only is the area peaceful and beautiful, it is also home to Dyrehaven, the most beautiful park and UNESCO Heritage nature reserve. If you’re in the area, make sure to walk around the forest – keep an eye out of any one of the three types of deer that live there. The forest was breathtaking and I feel like I could have spent another week wandering through!

TL;DR

Would you recommend Kurhotel Skodsborg? Absolutely, especially for those fitness-obsessed or who appreciate a really good spa.

Cost: A double room starts at £190 including breakfast and full access to spa and fitness facilities. You can book here.

Highlights: The incredible gym (a rarity), excellent vegan food (also a rarity) and the local forest.

What I’d improve: I would prefer a larger focus on sustainability.

We had a great time at the hotel and are so grateful for our stay!

A trip to Fes – Riad Fes & Hotel Sahrai

June 5, 2019June 5, 20192 Comments

Recently I was lucky enough to be taken on a press trip to Fes, Morocco’s second largest city, to review two sister hotels in the area. Having been to Marrakech twice, I was excited to visit somewhere new in Morocco and with its rich and interesting history, Fes seemed like the perfect choice!

Some background: Fes was founded in the 8^thCentury and for a while was one of the largest cities in the world. Now, with a population of 1.2 million, Fes is known for its medina, probably the largest pedestrianised site in the world, and its university, the University of Al Quaraouiyine which was founded in 859 and the oldest continuously functioning university in the world.

This trip was gifted but as always all views are my own! We flew directly from Gatwick with Air Arabia. All images by the incredibly talented Tamsin Hurrell. Follow her on Instagram!

Riad Fes

We arrived late in the evening to Fes airport, and after a short drive arrived at our first hotel, Riad Fes. Despite being late, after a short walk down a dark alleyway, we found ourselves in the most spectacular courtyard. We later discovered that the Riad had previously been someone’s home, and the original architecture had been painstakingly removed, cleaned and replaced, each tile by hand!

Our room was beautiful and overlooked the pool (a rare feature for hotels within or surrounding the medina). When the hotel had been bought, the surrounding houses were purchased too, making the hotel significantly larger (and maze-like!) than a traditional riad. If you ever visit Riad Fes you will be blown away by the architecture – I know I was!

Breakfast buffet

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty buffet breakfast, we headed into the medina for a 3h tour of the sights. The first thing I noticed was the number of chickens for sale on every corner – meat eating in Morocco is very much a matter of pointing at the one you want to eat and then taking it home with you. Being vegan this was quite tough to watch, but I also noted that the chickens all seemed in much better shape than any commercially raised chicken I’ve seen in the UK. The reality of eating meat may be tough to witness for some, but the same thing happens here in the UK, only under much more intensive (and often cruel) production methods, out of sight.

Walking round the medina was incredible – having visited Marrakech’s medina multiple times, I was blown away by the size of Fes. One of our first rules was ‘if you get lost, stay where you are. If you move, you will only get more lost’. Needless to say, I stuck to the group closely! Within the medina are thousands of stalls, run by locals selling all sorts of products, much the same as Marrakech. However, each city has its speciality – a key product to trade between cities (and now around the world). In Fes, it is the tanneries, producing leather that is now exported across the world.

The tanneries operate in much the same way as they did when they were first built in the early centuries. Stone wells contain liquids designed to strip hides of fur and flesh, before being softened in ammonia (which I am told is bird poo!) and dyed. They’re visually appealing for sure, although perhaps not for everyone.

You are offered mint to smell as you head up to the tanneries

Hotel Sahrai

Following our tour of the medina, including the oldest continually running university in the world, we headed back to the Riad to be transported to our second hotel, Hotel Sahrai. Both hotels are owned by the same group, but they couldn’t have been more different! Where Riad Fes is traditional and cosy, Hotel Sahrai is expansive and modern. Situated on a hillside outside the medina, the views are also amazing, looking out onto the huge city of Fes.

We were lucky enough to be able to try their Namaste yoga package, providing yoga sessions morning and evening for hotel guests – the best way to wake up and warm up into the day! I’m not an avid yoga fan but when it’s on the roof terrace of a gorgeous hotel in the early Moroccan sun I can make exceptions!

Here are some pics from around the gorgeous hotel – you can see why I loved it so much 🙂

The pool overlooks the medina

Enjoying the second, smaller pool with Tamsin

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Have you ever visited Fes? Comment below or head over to my Instagram!

6 runners you should follow

February 22, 2019Leave a comment

… On Instagram! (Please not in real life). I know that a lot of you are really enjoying my marathon training content, and with that in mind I thought I’d share with you some of the people who inspire me with my training. Give them all a follow – I promise you won’t regret it!

Holly Rush (@rushbynature)

An advocate of trail running here – Holly is one badass woman. I first heard about her whilst watching Asics’ coast to coast Dubai – Oman video as she was one of the 5 Asics frontrunners taking part. Follow for long(ish) captions and thoughts on running and races. She also ran the Tokyo marathon last year so I’ve been pestering her for tips!

Adrienne Herbert (@adrienne_LDN)

If you’re looking for motivation in all aspects of your life, look no further. The amazing Adrienne practically oozes motivation in every Instagram story. She is the co-founder of ‘Get To Know’ (a community of creative women), host of Power Hour podcast, with guests such as Fearne Cotton, AJ Odudu and Deliciously Ella and a mum! Somehow in between all the other things she does she has time to run, showing us that time doesn’t have to be a barrier to staying healthy.

Tashi Skervin-Clarke (@tashi_skervinclarke)

I first met Tashi around 3y ago and have followed her running journey since. She is a personal trainer and running coach and writes amazing captions about running and the effect it can have on us. Follow for a balanced approach to running and strength training. Running faster is not just about running more!

Latoya Shauntay Snell (@Iamlshauntay)

I think I can across Latoya on twitter after someone shared a blog post she wrote on fat shaming. Shauntay doesn’t look like what you’d probably think of when I say ‘badass marathoner’, but marathoner she is, and badass she definitelyis. Her highlight ‘Who’s Latoya’ explains her journey but in all honesty I’m just amazed at anyone who can run as many marathons as she does. An inspiration.

Max Wilkocks (@maxwilko)

As the co-founder of the Track Life podcast, Max talks a lot about running. In fact there’s very little else he talks about or does. Summers and winters are spent racing around the track and on disgustingly long races (although he insists 10k is his favourite). Follow for beautiful pictures and the sort of complaining about running only a runner could do.

Rory Southworth (@rorysouthworth)

If you’re more a fan of the mountains than road running, Rory is the man to follow. Epic pictures of scrambles up rocks combined with shoe reviews (he’s sponsored by Salomon) means this account never gets boring. This will make you want to get out of the city and to any one of the locations he travels to!

For the love of veganism…

February 11, 2019February 11, 20191 Comment

Please can we stop getting at people for doing the right thing in the wrong way? I’ve been seeing reports on social media of people getting told that they’re not doing veganism right, not doing sustainability right, not being the right kind of feminist. Quite frankly, it makes me want to hide the fact that I’m plant based, hide that I love trying to be more sustainable and stop talking about feminist issues, and obviously that’s not the way it should be.

Don’t get me wrong, where is a time and place for calling people out on hypocrisy and certainly times when virtue signalling and moral licencing can get irritating. We could all almost certainly do a lot more to be better people, and it’s always good to question our own actions. However, I would argue that over social media is not the right place to do it for a number of reasons:

Meaning gets lost over text, and even well intentioned constructive criticism can end up sounding bitchy or self-congratulatory.
Social media is so often a one-way conversation, not allowing for nuance and discussion. Since the purpose of calling out someone’s actions is hopefully to discuss with them the best way to rectify the situation or simply have them better understand your point of view, social media really isn’t the best place for this.
You (probably) don’t know the person you’re questioning, however much you think you might, and they almost certainly won’t know you. Similar to point number one, that probably means that any good intentions will be lost. Influencers receive hundreds (if not thousands) of comments, remarks and questions each week, and unfortunately it is easy to miss good intentions when being called out every single day for a different assumed wrongdoing. In addition, because you don’t know them personally you don’t know their full story. Often they will be doing much more than they show on their page, and you just have to assume they have a reason for doing what they are doing.
Even if they see your comment and understand it, it’s hard to trust people over the internet. ‘Advice’ over the internet is rarely well received, and the way it comes across is ‘you’re not enough, you should be doing more, and I’m going to tell you how you can be perfect just like me’. Almost no matter how it’s phrased, that’s how it’ll read at a glance. Since telling someone they are wrong is almost the worst way of changing someone’s mind, it’s a bit of a token gesture trying to change the way someone lives their life over the internet. Why should they listen to you? Frustrating though that can be, there are plenty of better ways to make the world a better place, and it might be worth spending efforts in those areas instead.

Perhaps I’m being naïve and viewing people as better than they are. Perhaps the majority of people who talk about issues such as veganism, sustainability and feminism are virtue signalling. However it’s in my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt, and from reading a number of articles on the psychology of getting people to change their minds (from politics to veganism), I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how honest your intentions are, telling someone that they should be doing better over the internet is unlikely to get them to be a better person.

So what can we do? There are a number of ways you can spread the message you want to spread without a) insulting anyone and b) your message being badly received and experiencing the backfire effect (i.e. someone doubling down on their beliefs after someone else tries to change them).

In my experience, conclusions are best arrived at through a person’s own thought process (e.g. telling them to have a different opinion is not going to get them to change their opinion). Raising important questions with allows them to think through the topic at hand an come to their own conclusions. Whether those conclusions are the same as yours or not, it’s better than being uninformed. E.g the reason I started to eat a vegan diet was because I studied environmental biology at university and was given a bunch of facts (in a non-partisan way) to do with what I liked. I started to eat vegan because of those facts, whereas others didn’t, and that’s OK.
Since advice is better received from people we know, instead of advising people over the internet to be better, why not try starting a discussion with your friends about these topics? Even if you disagree, it’s interesting to hear others’ opinions on the subject matter, as well as sharing your own. Even without openly discussing certain topics, simply living your life by certain values can have a positive impact on those around you.
Use your own page to spread the message you want. Sure, targeting individuals might have a more forceful effect, but for all the reasons above, it’s probably not the best way to change people’s minds. Instead, educate through your own platform. That way, people can come to their own conclusions from the information you give them, and by actively choosing to read your page the advice you give is not unsolicited.
Focus on your own self-improvement. I think sometimes we can spend so long pointing out others’ inadequacies that we forget to look within at the places we could improve. If your desire really is to make the world a better place, this is a good place to start.

It’s frustrating when you truly believe that your way of doing things is the best way to not have everyone immediately see that you are right. It’s annoying because you think that if only everyone lived the way you think they should, the world would be a better place. I get that, and I often think the same (if ONLY everyone in the world stopped eating meat). However, if the goal is make real change (as opposed to just wanting to show everyone that you’re right), then I think we could all do better than to tell people over social media that they’re not good enough. After all, we could probably allbe doing more.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this piece, and if you’d like to read more in a more digestible format, head to my highlights and watch the ‘vegan debate’ and ‘unsolicited advice’ ones. Many thoughts in there (both my own and my followers’). Tell me what you think!

Being busy – #goals or self sabotage?

February 7, 2019February 7, 20192 Comments

NOTHING….is becoming rare and precious. Everything is hype, noise, desire, desperation, speed and greed. We in the modern world are good at ‘doing,’ but anemic at ‘being.’ Entertainment, busy-ness, texting while walking or even driving…’Efficiency’ is an addictive myth based on our fidgety fear of opening up. We can not ‘do’ properly until we can, first, ‘be’ fully. Practice doing nothing – then – we can accomplish…ANYTHING. — Project Happiness

I have a habit of being deeply aware of my feelings and questioning why I feel a particular way in any given moment. I think it’s a way of processing emotions constructively, although it also inevitably leads to overthinking from time to time, but that’s another blog post. It occurred to me whilst walking down the road the other day that I was feeling guilty for not working. Despite starting work at 6:30am (as I often do), after finishing at 3pm I immediately felt lazy for not going back to work. The problem has always been present – during holiday at school and university, in my gap year, straight after I finished university – I have always felt the need to be busy. And if not actually busy, to the average onlooker I need to appear busy, because I equate busyness (and often stress) with success. And I’m not alone.

“We think that the shift from leisure-as-status to busyness-as-status may be linked to the development of knowledge-intensive economies. In such economies, individuals who possess the human capital characteristics that employers or clients value (e.g., competence and ambition) are expected to be in high demand and short supply on the job market. Thus, by telling others that we are busy and working all the time, we are implicitly suggesting that we are sought after, which enhances our perceived status.” – Harvard Business Review.

As a society we believe that people who are the most busy are also the most important – it’s so ingrained into our psyche that it’s almost inevitable that when you ask a work colleague how they are, the response might be ‘busy, but good’. The ‘busy’ response is a signal – I’m being successful and getting things done. But does busyness equate to success? The research suggests not.

Being busy often instead equates to being stressed, anxious, sleep deprived and less productive, meaning that if that’s your permanent state, you’re unlikely to be as healthy as you could be. The reduction in productivity is because of multiple factors. Being busy often means multitasking, and according to research there is no such thing as a good multitasker.

Since it takes the human brain around 25 minutes to focus on a task at hand, choosing to flit between multiple tasks can mean that we never actually focus properly on anything with a work day or even week. These distractions can come in all sorts of forms, but emails and phones are especially bad, as they disrupt work flow and take up important mental bandwidth. Switching from one task to the next means it takes us around 25% longer to do things i.e. you are not being more productive!

Attempting to pack full your schedule – which, let’s be honest, with work, meetings, work events, social events, workouts and fitting in family time, is not hard – means you are unlikely to be working as efficiently as possible. Back in 1930, the average working week was around 50h, and it was expected that by now, due to technological advances, this would have reduced to around 15h. However, in the UK we work on average around 42.8h per week, which is longer that the averages around Europe, despite the UK being significantly less productive than comparative countries. Is this lack of productivity despite our long hours, or is it because of them?

The issue starts from the top – there is no real limit on the amount of work you are expected to do, and it’s easy to feel like putting in extra hours (and being seen to be doing it) could push you ahead. Since the 2008 financial crisis, UK employees are working longer hours for lower pay, because job security is low and competition is high. Bosses would rather see tired employees sit at their desks and be unproductive than go home, recharge mentally and physically and work harder tomorrow. In the UK (as well as many other countries) there’s no mechanism by which employers start to measure productivity rather than hours, and therein lies the problem. You sit at your desk longer, or rush around looking busy and productive and you’re seen as more important and a better employee, over the person who sticks to their hours and gets more done.

As someone at the beginning of her career, I am concerned by these statistics. I know how to be productive, and the vast majority of the time it doesn’t involve working long hours or sitting at my desk for long periods of time. Being freelance you might think the issue is better and in theory, I do have more freedom to change my hours. However, in the gig economy today, it’s pretty much impossible to stop without feeling like someone else could be taking such needed work that could be yours.

Just remember this: talking about all the things you’re going to do actually makes you less likely to do them. The chat makes you feel good enough about yourself that you actually become less motivated to do what needs to be done. Since so much of being busy is talking about how busy we are, a good step to being productive and taking more time off is to do your work with your head down and stop when you’re done. And stop telling everyone how busy you are, it’s making the problem worse.

When you stop trying to be ‘busy’ all the time, you free up space to become something better than busy. You become more effective, happier, more relaxed and, probably, the envy of all those ‘busy’ people.

Shop the bodysuit

Images by Caylee Hankins.

Running essentials – supplements

January 24, 2019January 23, 20192 Comments

Supplements are a bit of a contested issue, thanks to the flogging of many, many supplements that have no evidence of improving anything. Because supplements aren’t registered as drugs, they are often allowed to be sold even when they do not have any strong evidence of their effects, and are only removed if deemed unsafe. However, there are a few supplements (especially if you include sports supplements) that have some proven benefits, and others that are strongly recommended for certain groups of people. I try to stick with supplements that have proven benefits, although with sports supplements the evidence is usually a bit mixed, if if you’re looking to take something new make sure you’ve done your research!

Some supplements are necessary if you live a certain lifestyle. Pic by Caylee Hankins.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is produced in our bodies when our skin is exposed to sunlight, but sometimes in northern latitudes (hello UK) the amount we can get during the day is not sufficient to keep reserves topped up. It is recommended that everyone in the UK (or further north) takes vitamin D to contribute to bone and muscle health. The darker your skin and the less sunlight your country gets, the more likely you are to be deficient in vitamin D. Supplements are not strictly necessary if you have a varied diet, but for me I find vitamin D supplement helpful, especially in winter! I also have a sun lamp that I use to work under in the morning. Don’t fancy supplements? Beanies have produced a coffee with vitamin D in it! Liquid sunshine 🙂

Iron

Iron supplements have been recommended for people who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet, especially women. It is possible to get all the iron you need from these diets, but a supplement can help, especially if you are prone to anaemia. Foods such as pulses, nuts, left green vegetables, wholegrains and fortified cereals are high in iron. Even though I have a varied diet I find it helpful to take iron supplements to support my very active lifestyle.

B12

Vitamin B12 is a little contentious in the vegan community with some saying it can be found in adequate amounts in foods such as seaweed, and others saying vegans should definitely supplement their diets. Even according to the Vegan Society, “The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements”. Since the effects of chronic B12 deficiency are so severe (e.g. irreparable nervous system damage), I find it helpful to supplement with B12. Some plant based milks and cereals are fortified, but I’d rather be safe than sorry!

Beta-alanine

Not a vitamin supplement but a sport performance booster. Purported benefits include improving exercise capacity, building lean muscle mass and improving physical functions in the elderly. I swear by beta alanine in my shorter distance races and strength-based exercises, but only take it very infrequently. Read my post on sports supplements and the evidence behind them if you’re looking to try any!

Sleep supplement

After a busy day and late events, I often (always) find it very difficult to switch off and go to sleep. Even knowing I have to get up early doesn’t always deter me from staying up late. I started taking Motion Nutrition’s ‘Unplug’ supplement a couple of months ago and found a marked difference when taking it around 30 – 45 minutes before I wanted to sleep. I go into the ingredients and how they could be helpful in this post if you want to read up on the science behind it.

Knowledge is power.

Vegan Gingerbread

December 16, 2018December 16, 20183 Comments

This recipe is perfect for Christmas (and honestly any time of year yes please), and is just so easy to make! This makes so many biscuits and they’re perfect for storing and having as a mid-morning snack. Let me know if you make these – I’d love to see your creations!

Ingredients:

1tbsp chia seeds
300g plain flour
100g coconut flour
1/2tsp baking powder
150g muscovado sugar
2tbsp ginger
1/2tbsp cinnamon
Sprinkle of ground cloves
100g coconut oil
100g dairy free margarine
50ml dairy free milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Mix the chia seeds with 3tbsp water and leave to thicken
Mix together the flour, coconut flour, baking powder, sugar and spices in a mixing bowl
Heat the margarine and coconut oil and mix together. Mix in the chia seed mix with a fork until incorporated
Pour oils into the dry mixture and mix.
Add the milk slowly and mix in until the mix is holding together
Leave to thicken before rolling out on top of clingfilm (it will be easier to do in 2 batches)
Cut out whatever shapes you like and place on a tray with baking parchment (or foil)
Place in the oven and cook until browning at the edges, 10-15 minutes (depending how soft you like them)
Let cool and ice (or not) as desired!

Top 8 eco-influencers

December 12, 20181 Comment

This post was originally written for Freda, a brand I’ve been working with for the past month or so. Freda is a sustainable menstrual product subscription service that allows you to choose exactly what you want/need and get it delivered through your letterbox for exactly when you need it. The eco-credentials are amazing, and the brand also works with UK-based period poverty initiatives to provide menstrual products to those who can’t afford them, from school girls, to refugees, to homeless people. An amazing brand with amazing values. Give them a follow!

I’ve always preached supporting the people who you want to see grow. Whether that means sharing their pages, spreading their message or buying their products and services – it all helps! So I thought I’d share some of my favourite eco influencers, big and small. These are the people making waves. Share share share!

Venetia Falconer – @venetiafalconer

Producer and presenter Venetia Falconer is queen of sustainability and eco-friendly living, from food to fashion. Her captions are educational , funny and relatable, which is something we should all be looking for a little more on Instagram. Follow for sustainable outfit ideas, vegan food and a little thought-provoking education. Want more? Subscribe to her podcast, Talking Tastebuds.

Natalie Glaze – @natalieglaze

Natalie is a model and founder of the eco brand Stay Wild Swim. She always promotes reusing clothes for as long as possible, as well as buying from charity shops. What I love about Natalie is that she’s balanced – for the vast majority of us, a zero waste lifestyle where we live off only what we already have is not possible, but Natalie shows us how to live that little bit more sustainably in everything we do. Follow for beautiful fashion, lots of plants and travel.

Kate Arnell – @kate_arnell

Zero waste eco blogger and YouTuber Kate posts about all things eco, especially in the fashion industry. She promotes repairing clothes and purchasing on the basis of ‘cost per wear’ – expensive clothes are worth buying if you’re going to love and wear them for decades to come! She provides links and recommendations of plastic-free alternatives to some things you wouldn’t even thing are very damaging to our planet, including chewing gum and plastic toothbrushes. Well worth a follow.

Clare Press – @mrspress

Clare Press is the sustainability editor of Vogue Australia but based in the UK, where she hosts her podcast, Wardrobe Crisis. She is passionate about conscious living, and being aware of what goes on behind fast fashion. She has also published multiple books on the topic of fast fashion, ethical clothing and issues within the supply chain. Well worth a follow as someone who really knows her stuff both in terms of sustainability and ethics in the fashion world.

Immy Lucas – @sustainably_vegan

Immy first started her account to talk about living a zero waste lifestyle and veganism. Since then, she’s founded Low Impact Movement, an educational platform that uses social media to help reduce person waste and raise awareness of the issues surrounding our intrinsically wasteful lifestyles. Both pages are worth a follow, and if you like it, you can find her blog and YouTube too.

Jo Becker – @treesnpeace

“You have two homes, the earth and your body. Take care of them”. You can find this quote in Jo’s Instagram bio, and it summarises nicely what she stands for. Jo actively campaigns for living more sustainably, including calling for a reduction in unnecessary plastic packaging in supermarkets. Did you know that UK supermarkets generate 59 BILLION pieces of plastic annually? This is just one of the many pieces of information you can learn on Jo’s page. Support her work by supporting her pages.

Zanna Van Dijk – @zannavandijk

Zanna has recently co-founded the Stay Wild Swimwear range with fellow top eco-influencer, Natalie Glaze. Zanna is vegan and regularly donates part of the profits from other collaborations to charities invested in helping the environment. It’s great to see people with larger followings maintaining an eco-friendly lifestyle. Follow for workout ideas, recipes and information about how we can all help save our oceans.

Gemita Samarra – @gemitasamarra

Gemita is one of those girls that just does it all. Stunt performer, documentary film maker and founder of the My Name Is Human project, she appears to be superhuman. Gemita works tirelessly to help refugees and homeless people, and acts as a voice for both, in between campaigning for everybody to live more consciously. There are some hard hitting truths on Gemita’s page, but unfortunately that’s the reality of caring about the plight of the environment and people less fortunate than ourselves. Follow and learn.

How I keep motivated

August 13, 2018August 13, 20182 Comments

It’s a question I get asked time and time again – just HOW do I keep motivated? Mostly it’s in reference to fitness, but we require motivation in all walks of life, from work, to household chores, to the gym.

I don’t believe there’s any secret to motivation – it all comes from practise, prioritising and learning to do what you love and love what you do. Regardless, here are my top tips for staying motivated day to day.

Learn to love what you do

Easy to say, harder to do. But when you love what you do, motivation to do it comes easily, 75% of the time. The reason I didn’t say ‘do what you love’ is because I know it’s not feasible for people to constantly be doing things they enjoy – if we did, no one would have issues with motivation. The trick here is finding things you love about what you do. Finding meaning in your work has been shown to lead to the highest levels of job satisfaction, whether you find meaning in helping other people (customer services, doctors), teaching the next generation or earning money to help support your family. The same goes for exercise – if you don’t particularly enjoy the gym but have no alternative way of exercising at this time, think of the specific benefits of what you are doing. I love doing mobility work because I know it’s going to help me move long into my old age. Find meaning in your workouts, and change your mindset from ‘I have to go to the gym’ to ‘I get to go to the gym’, rather than ‘I haveto go t the gym’. No one has to go to the gym, it’s a choice that’ll make you feel good. If it doesn’t make you feel good, really question why you’re doing it and think about looking for other alternatives.

Get into a habit

Habitually doing something means that your brain doesn’t have to make the decision to do it everyday, it’s just habit. That makes it so much easier, because it’s just the status quo. Of course, forming the habit in the first place is harder, but use the other tips on this page to get started. You won’t regret it!

Find a friend

You become the average of the closest people to you – a cliché but 100% true. We adopt habits and lifestyles of those closest to us, which is why a toxic friend can be so damaging. Try to surround yourself with people who are also trying to better themselves, whether that’s working hard at work, eating a healthy diet or heading to the gym everyday. In those days you lack motivation, just hearing that your friend is going to the gym after work can be enough to motivate you to head there too, even if just for a short session. Since hanging out with my fitness-focussed friends in London, I’ve taken up several new sports, have been eating healthier and I also now drink less!

Rest up

Motivation can be hard to come by when you’re utterly exhausted and/or burned out! You can love something and still not be motivated to do it if you’re too tired, and for that reason I would really recommend incorporating rest into your routine. Whether that’s a mental break from your job or a physical break from exercise, rest is equally as important as working out itself! Realising the difference between being physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted is also of utmost importance. If you’re not going to the gym because you’re too tired after work, chances are you’re mentally drained, not physically drained. Tired from a toxic colleague? You’re probably emotionally exhausted, and no amount of coffee is going to sort that. In these situations, working out can be one of the best things you can do, as it gives your brain a total rest from the day. Realising the difference between these three types of tiredness really helped my motivation to do things. It’s sometimes as simple as realising that you’re actually not tired, you’re just fed up!

Discipline

A lot of ‘motivation’ is actually discipline. The above tips help a lot when it comes to actually wanting to do something, but discipline makes up the other proportion of getting things done. People who make real progress are those disciplined enough to get into good habits. I will never say that discipline should come at the expense of enjoyment, but it takes some trial and error to realise that sometimes it takes doing something you don’t want to do now to be happier later. Discipline also makes the rewards of doing boring/painful things so much better! Seeing progress after working hard for something is a feeling far better than lying in bed everyday rather than gymming (obviously there is a time for this too!).

Forgiveness

We all lack motivation from time to time. In reality, whatever you see on Instagram, I am not always motivated, and although I find it relatively easy to get myself to the gym, other work (such as writing blog posts and editing YouTubes) requires huge amounts of motivation to get myself to do. I started this post about 6 weeks ago, for example – we’re definitely not all perfect, and forgiving yourself for that is SO important for your long-term happiness.

As with everything, motivation is about the fine balance between doing what you want to do now and remembering what you want to happen later. The great thing is that it can be practised and improved, so no need to worry if you feel like you lack motivation! The above tips will hopefully help you find something that it’s easy to be motivated to do, and then progress will come 🙂

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Tag: lifestyle