It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It truly is the most wonderful time, everyone is moderately happy and going about their day with a seeming christmas joy in their hearts. Christmas lights are strung every where while joyful music bellows out the speakers of every corner shop in town. However, it's also the trickiest time of the year to those who's metabolisms are not of at 16 year old basketball loving boy. That is me. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have found it increasingly harder and harder to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle. I think part of this is due to my birthday being directly after halloween (gorging on chocolates and copious amounts of alcohol) only to be followed right away by the christmas season (a.k.a. cookies, chocolates, hot cocoa, cakes, specialty baking, sweets, etc.) and the two don't really go great together. 

Within the last couple of days I've been really discouraged about my weight. It's not that I am overweight per-say, more just uncomfortable with my body around others. I don't have masses of weight to lose, maybe just 10 pounds to shed some of that uncomfortableness. Is that even a word? Probably.  I find myself searching the Pinterest boards and pinning all of these inspirational quotes and workout plans that I know deep in my heart I just won't get around to doing. I don't want to be that person! 

I've decided that it's probably time to make a few changes. I've also realized that this is going to be one of the hardest times of year to make those sorts of changes, so I've created a list to navigating through the sugary struggles of christmas. 

1. 6 glasses of water a day - this is 2 less than the encouraged amount, and yet far more that what I normally manage to consume in my average day. Not entirely sure why I struggle to drink a healthy amount of water, but I would like to slowly make my way to changing that. 

2. At least 15 minutes of exercise a day/7 days a week - this again is less than the recommended amount. I wanted to give myself a chance to get used to the idea of it before going full speed ahead. It'll go up to 30 minutes in a couple weeks (hopefully).

3. Only 4 cookies a week, and not all at once - I am not usually a cookie person, but lately I feel as though there has been freshly baked cookies either at my house or my boyfriends every day this week. It's like god is teasing me. Christmas season is the time for baking cookies, and I don't want to completely avoid that, so cookies will be my treat. 

4. Only 2 hot chocolates a week - this can be changed around with my favourite Starbucks drink (minus the whip cream) or kept the way it is. With the cold Canadian weather that's getting worse as the days go by I find myself craving something warm more and more. I think it's better to opt for a guilt-free plain coffee than the 120 calorie hot chocolate. 

5. Less alcohol! - I don't really want to give myself a limit on this because I am a freshly 19 year old girl (legal age in british columbia) and I would like to be able to go out and have some fun with friends, but I think less alcohol is a good idea regardless of watching your weight. It also helps that I'm broke and alcohol is stupidly expensive. 

6. Be happy - this isn't really going to shed any pounds from my body, but I want to keep my peace of mind throughout this process. I think that being happy with who you are and how you look and trying to find things about yourself that you love without being cocky on a daily basis is a very important thing. 

Those are my guidelines for the christmas season! I would love to hear what some of yours are, or if you have any tips and tricks to share. 

Thank you for the read xx

Ways to be Productive

One of the things that I - and i'm sure many others - struggle with is being productive. I understand the need for an occasional down day here and there but there is no reason to be sitting on the couch watching Netflix day after day (I wouldn't complain though). I don't know about you, but I find that I need to complete certain steps and precautions in order to make sure that I'm completing everything that I need to. 

This being said, I figured I would put together a list of things that might help others out there remain or become productive. 

1. Lists. Lists are fantastic, I love lists. You can ask my mother this, she will 100% agree. I'm not sure where I got the particular love for lists from, but it's my life saver. Writing down what you need to do in a list and then checking it off as you go along is a great way to visually see exactly what you're getting done and what you still need to do. 

2. Arrange your days ahead of time. Calendars are great for this (they're great regardless, but especially for this). I personally like to take the month calendar and fill it out with my classes, work, coffee dates, mini trips, etc. It definitely helps when it comes to keeping track of what your day contains and it visually helps to solidify a schedule. 

3. Keep a day planner. This is something that I need to get on. Is it weird that I've wanted to splurge on a gorgeous day planner for myself for ages now? I feel like I'm 28, not 18. This goes with the same idea of arranging your days on a calendar, only this one is portable AND cute. I can't really see where one could go wrong with that. As long as it fits in your purse - or man satchel - you're good to go! 

4. Always keep 'me time' in between. Everyone needs to relax. I would love to keep chugging through the days and be the most productive person ever and solve world hunger and things like that, but let's be honest. Not possible. It's okay to give yourself a break here and there. Schedule it in and make sure that you keep it free for yourself so that you don't feel over worked in the future. 

5. Always be reasonable with what you give yourself. You're not going to be able to get done 20 big things in one day, how about shooting for 2 big things and 5 small things. You can balance this out to your liking, but my point is not to over-do it. 

6. Don't worry if you don't complete everything, just re-assign it. As long as you give yourself time before due dates and such, there's no reason why it should be the end of the world if you don't complete something on the day you've scheduled yourself to finish it. If you've had a hectic day and you've completed as many things as you can and you're going to collapse if you don't hop in the bath with a LUSH bath bomb, give yourself a break and take that bath. Deal with whatever task it is in the morning, or the next afternoon. All will be well. 

7. Lastly, if all else fails, bake cookies! That's technically being productive, right? 

Thanks for the read xx

Haley. 

**Please share your ideas for being productive in the comments below so that I can add to my list and you can give each other ideas that I might not have covered.