Personal

Reintroducing Myself

charlottedebsLeave a comment

So because I haven’t been overly active on this blog for a while. I kind of want to re introduce myself and share some things that’ll allow anyone new here to get to know me.

I realise this isn’t the most, I guess, original post but I do think it’s kind of important. If you’ve been here a while, you may think,

“Oh I know all this”

“She’s done similar posts before”

That maybe so, but people grow, people change etc so give it a chance yeah.

Here’s some facts about me 🙂

  1. My real name is Charlotte Louise not Charlotte Debs
  2. I’m 27 years old
  3. My birthday is April 24th, so I’m a Taurus.
  4. I was born quite prematurely so spent some time in the Special Care Baby Unit.
  5. I was born and raised in Cornwall, Uk 🇬🇧 This touristy county is home sweet home and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
  6. Despite living in a place world famous for surfing. I’ve literally been probably only a handful of times throughout my life.
  7. I don’t really drink alcohol anymore and haven’t done since 2014
  8. I love tattoos and would love to get more.
  9. Despite having piercings, I’ve always been a tattoo person.
  10. I’m the oldest and only have brothers.
  11. Despite being the oldest I’m the only one without kids.
  12. I’m an auntie to 5 wonderful boys and 2 pretty little girls.
  13. I can’t drive and it’s something I really wish I could do.
  14. I struggle daily with chronic pain and fatigue.
  15. Although I originally started blogging in 2014. I definitely at this current time see myself as more of a live streamer.
  16. I genuinely feel like social media has helped me through some of my hardest days.
  17. I really hope through sharing my life and story online, that I help or inspire at least one person.
  18. My Favourite film is Beauty & The Beast. The original. Although I guess the live action version is pretty cool too.
  19. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 15.
  20. I’ve had the same 3 closest friends since I was 16.
  21. I could live in pyjamas
  22. Or leggings.
  23. For the last couple of years I’ve cared for my grandparents.
  24. I could live of cups of hot tea but the amount of sugar Id consume would be crazy sooooo.
  25. I’m a big lover of Monster Energy Drinks.
  26. I collect Trainers / Sneakers but I’m selling a lot of them on Depop soooo https://www.depop.com/c_debs/
  27. I’m 6 months into a fitness journey
  28. I’m a HELL NO CARDIO kinda girl 😂
  29. I don’t feel like myself if my nails aren’t painted.
  30. I’m a total girly girl despite growing up what I’d consider a tomboy.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about me. Anything we have in common?

Love Charlotte

xxx

Fitness

My Favourite Smoothie

charlottedebsLeave a comment

Christmas 2015 I received the wonderful gift of a NutriBullet. The juicing / smoothie hype / trend was real back then and after being ill, I thought it’d be a good way of managing to squeeze some more calories, fruit and veg etc.

In general I’ve heard lots of advice and info given from trainers about how bad it is to drink your calories. Over all though, the truth is, as long your consuming at a calorie deficit, no matter their form, you’re going to lose weight.

Recently as I’ve over hauled my diet, I’ve re discovered my love for smoothies and my faithful NutriBullet. So today I’m going to a favourite recipe combination that I’ve been loving lately.

250 – 300ml Almond Milk

1 Medium Banana

40g Peanut Butter

1 Tablespoon Cacao Powder

This came to 446 calories.

Admittedly that’s a high calorie smoothie. Realistically though I’d never drink a glass of milk or eat a banana so it helps to get init my diet some vital goodness it’d otherwise miss out on.

It’s also super filling. ( I don’t tend to drink mine all in one go)

Top tip: Be careful with nut butters. It’s super easy to under estimate exactly how much your really consuming. Lots of people think they’re being healthy adding a tablespoon of peanut butter, weigh it out to avoid your smoothie yumminess causing weight gain.

Follow me on Instagram to see more food and fitness content. www.instagram.com/charlottedebs

Love Charlotte

xxx

chronic illness

Illness shouldn’t be competition

charlottedebsLeave a comment

Originally, back in 2014, I got into blogging and social media as a way to share my experiences around living with chronic pain and fatigue. To, I guess relieve some of the loneliness and isolation I felt because of these things. Did it work? Did it help? Yeah of course. I suspect there are thousands who use the internet every day for those very same reasons.

The world of social media can be very simply put, split into different groups of categories/ communities. The fitness community, chronic illness community, beauty community etc

Today I want to focus on the chronic illness world.

Compared to other internet sub groups. There are some real problems within our community that you don’t really see anywhere else. For example I’ve never seen those in the beauty world exclude others for doing well in life. Yet that’s exactly what happens in the chronic illness world.

Hey you managed to go to the gym, to school, work etc. You didn’t have surgery or take a certain medication. Well, you’re not really sick then. Bye.

It’s absolute madness.

Everyone seems to forget that we’re all on different paths in life. We all have different definitions of normal, different goals etc. My normal could be another persons worst day. Similarly my worst day could be someone else’s normal.

Instead of excluding others and constantly judging. I think we really need to be more encouraging. Congratulate the person who managed to get out of bed and meet their friends today. If anything surely others struggling with illness, know how difficult something so seemingly simple can be.

Be kind. We’ve all fighting our own battles.

Charlotte

xxx

chronic illness · Fitness · Uncategorized

Going To The Gym With Chronic Pain.

charlottedebs1 Comment

At the end of March I started getting serious about my fitness journey. It was something I’d talked about probably for the last 6 months. I just hadn’t got round to doing it. Honestly I think it was fear that put me off. The fear of hurting myself and ending up adding to my existing pain.

That hasn’t been the case though and I’ve enjoyed every gym session. Even the ones where I’ve felt like shite and dragging myself to a workout has been the last thing I wanna do. Don’t get me wrong it’s not been easy, but investing in a personal trainer and a gym membership has definitely been a worthwhile investment.

I’m still very early into my training programme and have been sharing my journey so far across social media, mainly for myself, as a way of holding myself accountable and keeping a visual diary of any progress.

Mentioning the decision to get fit online was really fucking scary. I’d be a liar if I said all the feedback has been positive but judging by my inbox several people have been ‘inspired’. (I’m no inspiration believe me) I hope this post helps in some way based on my experience so far.

Getting started on your fitness journey first of all requires some brutal honesty with yourself, mainly are you really ready? Whilst there’s no doubt that exercise can be helpful at any point in your chronic pain journey, jumping in full force only a few weeks after diagnosis sounds like it could only end badly. My personal belief is that you need to have already grieved for your past life and accepted your condition and limitations BEFORE making the decision to ‘get fit’.

This leads to my next point about being somewhat stable. Working out requires being able to tell the difference between what is your ‘normal’ pain that you can push past, (I hate the term normal but can’t think of another way to word this) acute pain that means something’s wrong / you need to stop and finally the good pain associated with a good training session. Yeah I know, believe it or not there is a ‘good’ type of pain, who’d of thought?

You need to be able to commit. Ready to commit. This whole journey has been outrageously frustrating at times. There’s been tears more times than I’d like to admit. There’s been a lot of laughs too though. You can’t just give up at the first hurdle. Unfortunately you’ve just gotta accept it’s gonna be hard at times.

Be open minded and flexible. Originally my goal was to just be able to get out of bed, show up and survive a training session. Now we’re coming into October and my goal has changed. Not every day or session is gonna be easy. Life gets in the way, health gets in the way. Accept that this is a journey and sometimes there’s going to be bumps in the road.

Take things one day at a time and try not to get discouraged. That’s my plan anyway.

You can follow and keep up with my journey on Instagram.

Charlotte

xxx

Personal

Things Change…

charlottedebs1 Comment

I can’t explain how much has changed since the last time I wrote a blog post. I almost don’t really know where to start.

I kind of lost my passion for writing and have been focused on caring for my grandparents. It’s been hard and over the last few years and more intensely in the last few months, I’ve felt like I’ve not really done a lot for myself. I feel a little lost in life and unsure of who I am and what I want.

As my living / family/ personal situation has changed. I’m slowly starting to focus on me again, what I enjoy and what I want to do. Just typing this feels amazing. Blogging has always been such a love of mine.

I’ve thrown myself into a fitness journey over the last couple of months. (You’ll already know this if you follow me on Instagram). Originally, just getting there for an hour a week and surviving was an achievement. Now I’ve more time, I’m really upping my game and hoping to share the results. Getting into an exercise regime with chronic pain and fatigue is certainly difficult but it’s not impossible. I really want to inspire at least one person through sharing my story. If I can do it I honestly believe anyone can.

I’m still live-streaming most days and hoping to grow my audience even more. I love sitting and chatting to everyone raw and unedited. I like to think people appreciate how open I am about my life and struggles. Occasionally I’m funny too, so I’ve been told.

Health wise I very much, like I always have, take things day by day and one step at a time. My health is a blog post in itself mind so I don’t really want to say too much on the subject here. Maybe I could talk about at some point in…….. BLOGTOBER

Yep you read that right. I’m doing BLOGTOBER again this year. I gave it a go in 2017 and really enjoyed it. I’ve been thinking about it over the last week or so and think it would be a great way of kick starting this site again 🙂

Maybe a post every day for a month will make up for what an appalling blogger I’ve been the rest of 2018 lol

So if you’re new here, hit the follow button so you don’t miss a thing.

I’ve missed you all. I’ve missed this site.

Charlotte xxx

Follow me over on Instagram

www.instagram.com/charlottedebs

Uncategorized

Primark, Palettes & Apps – April Favourites

charlottedebsLeave a comment

I missed doing a March favourites due to technology fails. April is one of my favourite months of the year though, and I couldn’t wait to share some of the things I’ve been loving.

Primark

Primark has been killing it lately and I’m sure every Disney fan has been loving it. The Disney collaboration has no doubt been something I’ve been fan girling over. I’m a massive fan of Beauty and the Beast after all. The Rose makeup brush I’ve included a pic of is just beautiful. The slip on sneakers are of course right up my streetIt’s the children’s clothing though that I’ve been really impressed with. I don’t have my own kids but I’m an auntie who absolutely loves to spoil my nieces and nephews. They just have the cutest collection to choose from. All great quality and for the price you can really go on a bit of a spree. Also great when you consider how fast kids grow.

Palettes

The Sweet Peach palette by too faced has become a staple in my collection, which honestly I’m surprised by, considering I wasn’t totally sold on buying it in the first place.

In general I prefer fairly natural looks but I’ve been trying to be more adventurous with my makeup lately. The colours in this palette have allowed me to, I guess take baby steps towards more out there and creative looks. The pigmentation is great and the smell, just like most too faced palettes is amazing.

I’m no beauty guru so I find makeup is hard for me to review. Sorry.

Epsom Salts

Epsom salts are something I’ve read about many times in the chronic pain community. Hailed as an all natural, all rounder product with more benefits than I can name. It’s been something I’ve been meaning to try for a while but never got round to.

Well over the last month I finally gave them a go. Admittedly I only tried possibly the cheapest, most generic tub I could get, (£1.50 from Tesco if you’re interested) but It’s turned out to be love at first sight. Relaxing in a nice hot bath of them, has really made a difference to some of the muscular tightness and pain I struggle with. Especially after gym workouts.

Even when my facial pain has flared, a pain I can’t soak in the bath. I found them to help me relax more than other bath soaks, it seemed to also help reduce some of the general puffiness I’ve been experiencing. Plus my skin felt stupidly soft afterwards.

I’d be interested in testing out some more expensive brands.

Sweatcoin

So in some sort of attempt to encourage myself to walk outside more, I downloaded the sweatcoin app upon recommendation of a relative.

In absolute basic terms it pays you for walking outside. You can then get free products, use what you earn towards gift vouchers and even save up for larger things like phones, TVs etc.

Here’s a snapshot of my earnings over the last 2 weeks. Believe me I hardly walk anywhere.

Click here to download.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about a few of my favourites. I’d be interested to know your thoughts. Let me know if you’ve tried Epsom salts and be sure to tweet me and let me know how you get on if you choose to download sweatcoin.

Twitter

Instagram

Love Charlotte

xxx

Uncategorized

27 Things

charlottedebs2 Comments

In case you didn’t know (I mean why would you?) I celebrated my 27th birthday this week. Yay!!

In honour of reaching this glorious milestone, because honestly there’s been plenty of times I thought I wouldn’t.

Let me jump straight into this totally unoriginal idea of a blog post.

27 Things I’ve Learnt in 27 Years

  • You can’t rely on other people to determine your happiness, that’s up to you and you only.
  • Nothing is more important than your health.
  • Not just your physical health, your mental health is pretty damn important too.
  • Life is about balance, you can’t work yourself into the ground, you probably shouldn’t party yourself into the ground either.
  • You can’t do everything at once.
  • It’s ok to make mistakes, everyone does.
  • It’s important to learn from your mistakes. Was it really even a mistake if you learnt from it and did it better next time?
  • Life gets tough at times and unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do about it. Everyone goes through tough times. Hang in there.
  • Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom in order to work yourself up.
  • You need to stop comparing yourself to others.
  • Life’s not a competition, we’re all in a different race.
  • Buy the right size clothing. No matter what size you are, you’ll look a hell of a lot better when your clothing fits.
  • Accept you can’t make everyone like you.
  • Save money, when you can.
  • Remember to treat yourself. You only live once after all.
  • Challenge yourself in life. Whether it’s doing something that scares you. Something that you won’t find easy. It could be anything. Imagine how accomplished you’ll feel afterwards.
  • It’s never too late for education and you’re never too old to learn.
  • Exercise!!
  • Know your self worth.
  • You need to love and respect yourself before you can expect others too.
  • Be kind to others.
  • Be kind to yourself.
  • Don’t be afraid to think for yourself. At the end of the day you’re the one who has to live with your decision.
  • Accept help and advice. Especially from professionals and loved ones.
  • Don’t have regrets.
  • Accept you can’t change the past.
  • Be present. There are times it’s great to just be there. Living in the moment, The there and now, not focusing on a phone / screen of some sort.
  • I’m absolutely positive a lot of these points won’t be new to a lot of you. To me though, they’re truly some of the most important lessons I’ve learnt over the last 27 years.

Hope you enjoyed this post and feel free to hit me up and let me know something important you’ve learnt in life.Love Charlotte xxxIncluded a few pics from Birthday celebrations. Follow me on Instagram for more 🙂