Surprise Sunday: 5 Tips to Stay Fit and Healthy at University!

Keeping fit and healthy is another passion of mine. I love coming up with healthy recipes as well as doing regular exercise; whether that's going to my local gym or simply going for a long walk. I am also a second year uni student and thought I would share with you how I keep fit and healthy. These tips will be useful whether you are currently at uni or are starting later this year and what to avoid the dreaded Freshers Fifteen!

It doesn't have to cost a lot as you don't have to buy over priced health food or join an expensive gym, there are plenty of free ways to exercise and cheap shopping hacks that I have learnt to do. If I can manage it and I'm on a student budget, then you can too. So let's get started...

Tip #1 

My first tip would be to meal plan. You don't have to plan everything you will be eating from breakfast to dinner and snacks. I just plan my dinners and have some ideas for my lunches, and I pretty much eat the same breakfast everyday anyway. By knowing the meals I will be cooking means that I know exactly what I need to buy when I go shopping which saves money. It also means I have a healthy meal every night of the week and won't be reaching for takeaways and convince foods all the time.

Tip #2

This tip almost links with my first tip and that is to meal prep. By this I mean cook a big batch of food enough for a whole family, and then freeze the leftovers into separate portions. I love doing this as on days when I am too busy to cook, I can take out a meal from the freezer, let it defrost in the day. Then when it comes to dinnertime I have a healthy meal already made for me.

Tip #3

Write a shopping list. I know this sounds so simple but so many of my friends at uni don't do this. If I don't have a list I would go into the supermarket and buy so much stuff I don't need and just pick up what I fancy. If you write a list and meal plan then you only will buy what you need which will keep your food shopping bills down too.

Tip #4

Take part in regular or daily exercise. Now I am a member of my university gym and I take part in a variety of the exercise classes. I would totally recommend doing this as I love it, it doesn't cost that much as it is a uni gym, but other gyms also have student prices. I love going to the gym not only to keep myself fit but also for stress, it's great for my mental health during exam periods or if I have a lot of deadlines due in. If you don't have the finance or if gyms aren't for you then there are other ways you can exercise, you can walk, run, use Youtube to find free workouts to do in your room, I love HIIT workouts. You can even get a house mate or friend to join in with you, which will make it more fun. If you have a workout buddy you will probably be more inclined to workout and you can keep each other motivated.

Tip #5

Obviously uni is about going out, having fun and making amazing memories and friends. But try and keep nights out to once a week. Firstly, this will be cheaper and also better for your health, and will ensure you will get good night sleep other times during the week; which is important for your body and brain. I'm not saying not go out, as it is a big part of uni and remember university is only short term and will be over before we know it. Also, by going out once a week will mean you have plenty of time for assignments, haha. Then when it comes to going out it will be a nice treat and something to look forward to.

xoxo

Connie 

Surprise Sunday: Birthday MAC Makeover

On Friday it was my 16th birthday and as a birthday treat, my best friend and I went to MAC for a makeover. We travelled to Plymouth with no-makeup on, which is quite a big deal for us. When it was my appointment I was asked so many questions about what look I wanted, what colours, what skin type I had etc. I chose to have a purple smokey eye as purple is my favourite and my friend also chose a smokey eye but wanted berry colours. We were taught about what products we should use and how to use them and we learnt a lot from our makeover. When it was done we had £30 to spend on products but I ended up going over by £26... oops. But there was so much choice. 

Here are the products that I chose...

Mineralize Blush in Gentle

Mineralize Skinfinish in Soft & Gentle

Hidden Motive Eyeshadow

xoxo

Connie

Surprise Sunday: Lush Brightside Bubble Bar Review

A few weeks ago I picked up a couple of products from Lush that I have been dying to try for ages. One of the products was the Brightside Bubble Bar. I've always loved the bubble bars from Lush and I would choose them over the bath bombs. I picked up this one purely because of the smell, it smells amazing. It smells really strong of oranges and reminds me of orange starbursts and fanta. 

It contains tangerine oil, bergamot oil and garenia extract and altogether it creates a beautiful summer time scent. After my bath the whole bathroom smelt amazing and I could still smell it on my skin and my skin felt really silky soft and smooth and I didn't feel like I need to moisturize after.

I put off buying this bubble bar for ages because of the price as it was quite expensive for what it is. However I figured that I could section it off and get a few baths out of it, so therefor it works out to be quite good value. It says that you can get 2 baths out of it but I think I could maybe get 3 or 4.

I crumbled it under the running taps and almost instantly the water was changing colour. The water turned a amazing bright orange colour. 

Like all Lush bath products it left the water feeling really silky and soft which is what I love about Lush products and I didn't want to get out of the bath after. 

There was lots of bubbles in my bath which I was really impressed about and considering I only used a small amount of the bubble bar too, that's pretty good. 

Overall I really liked this bubble bar and it may be one of my favourites and the best thing is I still have more than half of the bubble bar left so I can enjoy plenty more bubble baths.

xoxo 

Connie 

Surprise Sunday: Baking Cupcakes

Hey guys, I did a little bit of baking yesterday and I made some marshmallow fluff cupcakes. The recipe wasn't my own it was this one- bbcgoodfood-link. It was my first time making them and the actual cakes turned out really well but the icing ended up being a bit too runny. 

Here's are all the ingredients... 

Here's what they looked like before they went in the oven...

And here they are out of the oven and before they have been decorated... 

I decorated them with a marshmallow fluff butter cream icing and I made my own icing bag. But because the icing was a little bit too runny I found that it didn't work that well. I then used some sweets to decorate them as I didn't have any sprinkles.

That's it.

xoxo

Connie 

Surprise Sunday: Afternoon Tea Anyone?

Coming from a family of tea lovers, I never really liked tea all that much for along time. But recently I have been really getting into it and I'm even starting to crave the stuff, I swear it's some kind of drug. We went out for afternoon tea to this local Vineyard as it was my grandparents anniversary. And I had what the place called a 'Tadpole' which consists of tea with 1 scone with jam and clotted cream. 

The tea didn't come in it's normal form, the tea bag, it came loose. I'd never really had loose tea before and I didn't even know that tea came loose. So there was no hope in me knowing what a tea strainer was, but thankfully I do know now. We had a little cup and saucer which we were to drink our tea from and the tea strainer was really cute, it was in a little tea pot shape. I've always thought tea tastes nicer in a cup than a mug, is that just me? And also, now I've tried loose tea, it tastes 10x better than tea from a bag. I know, I'm sounding old.

What I love about the place is that it is so quirky and nothing matches. Everyone has a different cup and saucer, everyone has a different plate and everyone even has a different chair. It has their personal touch that everyone will remember. 

Of course I was going to have a scone, who wouldn't. I just had a plain scone but I could of had a cheese or a fruit scone. It came with jam and clotted cream which is an absoloute treat as I never normally have that. It was absoloutely to die for as the scones were homemade, and you could even see in the kitchen where they made them. The clotted cream and jam were also local produce from the area. It was proberly one of the best scones I have had for a long time and I'm craving one now as I'm typing this. Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Connie