Everything I’m doing to feel my best for summer

With summer around the corner, I want to feel my best, as I’m sure a lot of you do! I am not aiming to lose or gain weight, or look a certain way, my aim is to feel my best from the inside out! So here’s everything I’m doing to feel my best for summer!

1. Drink more water

I have been massively slacking on my water intake and I know that when I do consistently drink more water, I feel better!

There are so many benefits to drinking more water, to name a few:

• Improves your physical performance. Physically, I want to feel my best during summer. I want to have energy to workout and walk around cities! Being dehydrated can make you feel tired and lethargic! I also find when I don’t drink any water I get a bad head, and if I want the best summer of my life, I definitely want to be drinking water!
• It boosts skin health! If you want your skin to be glowing and hydrated – you definitely don’t want to miss out!
• Helps you stay less bloated. Your digestive system depends on you drinking water which helps flush everything out! The last thing I want is to feel uncomfortable, especially when I’m wearing less clothing.

2. Stop being lazy

I am guilty of taking the quick route, or feeling like I can’t be bothered to spend a little extra time walking, and I often end up just going home or change my plans.

Since being at uni, which I have hated may I add, I am finding it very hard to motivate myself to go in, never mind take the stairs.

But being more active makes me feel like I am actually taking the time to better myself. An active body is a happy body.

Since not being the biggest fan of my uni, I tend to rush places so I can go home quicker. But ever since I have been taking the little extra time to use the stairs, or walk a bit further to take in the scenery that I always overlook, I feel happier.

Ways to be more active:

• I now get off a stop earlier, because it is a 5 minute extra walk.
• Take the stairs (depending on what floor and how many bags I’m carrying lol)
• Going on more walks.
• Stretching after I’ve been sitting for a while.

3. Doing exercises I enjoy / cycle syncing

For the longest time, I was trying to do a workout program that was really draining me, and that I wasn’t enjoying anymore.

So I changed it to a workout plan I actually enjoyed. It isn’t even really a plan, it’s just exercising intuitively!

Why are we still forcing ourselves to do exercise that we hate?

I have a whole post on cycle syncing (http://bigsisterera.com/how-to-use-cycle-syncing-to-get-rid-of-your-acne-in-4-months/), but it has massively helped my energy levels, my mental health, it has improved my enjoyment for working out, and it makes me feel less pressure to workout, which makes me enjoy every workout.

Doing exercises that you like, will mean you stick to it more. And it’s not about sticking to it so you lose weight. It’s about sticking to it meaning you will constantly be getting physically healthier and stronger!

Here’s some examples of cycle syncing your exercises to your cycle:

4. Lowering my cortisol levels

This is basically just lowering my stress levels.

I get anxiety and stress over the smallest things, and I don’t want to be doing that, because I know that’s definitely not going to make me feel the best!

Lowering your cortisol levels has so many benefits!!! Here’s a few:

• Help with acne
• Help you lose weight
• Help you gain weight
• Helps lower swelling and inflammation
• Balance your hormones

So how am I lowering my cortisol levels:

• Deep breathing / meditation. I feel like this one is self explanatory. Meditation and deep breathing have immediate effects, especially if you’re feeling overly stressed or anxious.
• Doing things that bring me joy everyday. This can range from
  • Reading – books allow me to escape reality and relax
  • Journaling – getting everything out feels so good! (More info on how I journal: http://bigsisterera.com/how-to-journal-journaling-)
  • Exercising – always makes me feel better afterwards!
  • Spending time with my loved ones – I am so lucky to have people that make me feel like I have no problems in the world
  • Eating food I love
  • Having a slow morning where I can read and workout before going where I need to go
  • Painting my nails
  • Listening to music
  • Cuddling my dog
• Taking away all guilt surrounding food. I don’t know if you’re similar, (hopefully not) but eating always brought me a lot of stress and anxiety.

5. Following people who inspire me and deleting people who make me feel bad about myself

This is an important one because of how present social media is in our lives.

The urge to constantly compare myself has led me to feeling self conscious about myself and sometimes wishing I didn’t look like myself.

Obviously if you are unhappy within yourself, there are things to do to change that, whether it’s internally or externally. However, if we are always comparing ourselves to people, (that we will never look like because that’s impossible) then we will never be happy in ourselves.

Who you choose to follow and unfollow will be based on your mindset and your current situation.

Maybe you are wanting to get out of constantly thinking you need to be on a diet, and you follow tons of intuitive eating content. Maybe you want to follow people who are on a certain diet.

Whatever is making you think negatively about yourself. Unfollow them. Why are we allowing ourselves to consume content everyday that make us feel negatively about ourselves?

A lot of the time, I follow people whose body I want to have. And sometimes that is motivating, but the constant comparison of their body to mine is very negative and leads to me putting myself down.

I’m sure a lot of people are similar, so I encourage you, with me, to unfollow anyone who’s content is making you think negatively about yourself, and focus on everything you love about your body.

6. Getting enough sleep

Sleep is so important, and something I am definitely not skipping out on, especially when I want to have the best summer ever!

Benefits of enough sleep:

• Improves your mental health
• You’re more productive
• Gives you better recovery after exercise
• reduces stress and anxiety
• Sleeping strengthens your memory and gives you better brain function
• It’s proven to make you live longer
• Gives you more energy throughout the day

7. Building up my summer wardrobe

I am very guilty of buying summer clothes that I save to wear for when I look a certain way.

Reality check. I am wasting money and time.

Buy clothes that you would wear now and would feel confident in NOW.

Last summer, I bought loads of tighter fitting clothing. And while I did love them, I felt very self conscious the whole time, because I was breathing in, and constantly checking what I looked like.

For this summer, I am focusing on buying clothes that I would feel confident in now, so that I don’t have to worry, and I can actually live in the present moment.

Realising that the clothes should fit you, not you need to fit into the clothes has been a game changer. Why are we wasting our money and telling ourselves we can only wear something nice if we look a certain way or lose a certain amount of weight?!

8. Eating balanced meals

l am not one for diets, and I am definitely not going to encourage you to diet.

I started intuitive eating a while ago, and it has been one of the best things for me.

Being able to heal my relationship with food, honour my cravings, enjoy meals out with friends and family and so much more, has been amazing.

Some benefits of intuitive eating:

• food freedom
• Honour your cravings
• Lower cortisol levels
• More energy
• Listening to what your body
• It gets rid of the toxic diet culture mindset
• Heal your relationship with food
• It’s sustainable
• It helps balance your hormones

I have a whole blog post explaining why I love intuitive eating which you should definitely read if you are wanting more information on it, or are wondering whether to start! http://bigsisterera.com/heres-the-top-reasons-you-should-be-intuitive-eating/

Especially for summer, I don’t want to be constantly worrying about sticking to a certain diet, or fearing foods because I am in less clothing.

Life is too short to be doing that.

I have done that for a large portion of my life, and trust me, it’s not worth it.

There are so many times I look back on and think ‘I wish I had some of that birthday cake, or pizza with my friends’. Because looking back now, what difference would that cake of made to my body? No difference!!

How can I make my meals balanced?

So I make sure I have a carb, protein, and fats in my meal. This will make you fuller and more satisfied for longer! And it’s just overall good for you and is healthy!

Thank you for reading <3

I hope this post was helpful in some way, and gave you some tips on how to make you feel your best for the summer!

You are doing amazing. Have an amazing day!