Quitting Sugar... For Reals?!

Oh Heyyy!

Excuse the hiatus...

Life gets in the way sometimes. January was a hectic one for me. I had a besties birthday weekend in Melbourne, a weekend away with my sister and some friends, then I celebrated my 27th birthday!! Super social!
I am also back at work full time. For those of you that don't know me on a personal level, I am a truck driver! and when I say truck, I mean of the Tonka variety. (the height of a two story house) In an open cut mine.

Random job for someone that loves to write about beauty things in her spare time and really only gets to wear makeup on my days off.
Eh! I love it! But, the whole having to get up at 5am to start at 6.30 then working until 5.30pm doesn't really leave a whole lot of minutes left in my day to sit behind the computer screen.

ANYWHO!

After the Christmas feast and my January social calendar, of course the healthy eating and exercise had well and truly gone out the window. I felt pretty bloaty and awful.
Which swayed me to try out the I Quit Sugar 8 Week Program.
I am a massive cookbook hoarder, so of course I have the 2 I Quit Sugar cookbooks by Sarah Wilson. I had made a couple of things from the books but wasn't entirely convinced.
But after seeing the yummy looking food on the website and reading up on some of the benefits of ditching the sweet stuff, I thought I would give it a go.

So far so good!

I am almost onto my 4th week of being sugar free. It was so much easier than I expected! You are warned about the detox headaches and all of the fun stuff that goes along with cutting out sugar, but I haven't had any horrible side affects as yet...

It has also made me SO organised! I absolutely love having my shopping list and food plan all sorted and emailed to me each Thursday. I can then sit down and organise when I'm going to go and do my food shop, or just hop online and get my groceries delivered to my door! (best invention EVER)

The meals are quick and easy and most of all delicious!
I love how each dinner is the next days lunch, which for me is awesome as I have to take my meals to work every day. I don't have the option of buying meals.

When Sunday rolls around it is time for a teensy bit of prep work to make life easier for you throughout the week. This can range from baking a loaf of bread to whipping up a quick basil pesto. Nothing overly strenuous. Just an hour or so out of your Sunday, which for me would probably be spent sitting on the couch procrastinating or looking at all of the housework that needed to be done. Orrrr trawling the internet and bookmarking all of the lovely things that I would like to have in my possession. #dreamer

So far, I have managed to lose 2.4kgs. I am really happy with those results as I am still a little bit in struggle town with the whole exercising everyday thing.
Included in the program is a 'Movement Plan' which I really actually enjoy doing a lot, when I make myself get up and do it.

My goal from here on in is to get out and walk at least 5 times a week (just 30 minutes) and keep on with the movement plan 3 times a week. I would also like to include a beginners yoga session in there for my flexibility as it is virtually non existent at 27! How am I going to be 60??

I think by far my favourite thing from this program to date is how much my tastebuds have changed! I am tasting more sweetness in vegetables that I have never been able to taste before. Caramelised onions are SO deliciously sweet! As are carrots! Who would have thought??

All in all, I am super impressed with this program and think it is definitely money well spent. I would recommend it to anyone looking for an easy way to quit sugar. Not even just that, but for someone busy like me that struggles big time with trying to organise life and was so tired of having to think about what to cook for meals. I think being focused on preparing the yummy fresh foods and looking forward to trying the new meals on the menu has really helped with not missing the sugary sweets.

Check it out yourself if you are interested in learning more. You can find the link here.

P.S This is not a sponsored post. I am just genuinely excited by this program and I think it is well worth looking into if it is something you are interested in! :)

Let me know in the comments if you are living sugar free or share with me some of your favourite healthy recipes!

Xx

Review || Palmers Coconut Oil Formula Deep Conditioning Protein Pack

Hello lovelies!

Today I thought I would do a product review! The Palmers coconut oil formula deep conditioning protein packs. (quite the mouthful)

Palmers has been around in Australia since 1997 with the arrival of the popular Palmers cocoa butter.
Today, there is a whole range of products for the body, face, hair, bath products and something for mother and baby.

I purchased the protein packs a while back on Catch Of The Day, purely because it was around $10 for a box of 10 and I figured they would smell amazing as I love coconut and I love the smell of their cocoa butter.
I wasn't disappointed.

These little morsels of coconutty yums left my hair SOO soft!

It says on the back of the packet it restores hair that has been severely damaged by sun, styling, colouring or processing.
With pure coconut oil and vitamin E this combo penetrates deeper for when you need a little more from your conditioning treatment.

It also claims that because of the small molecular structure of coconut oil, this treatment will be able to penetrate deeper into the hair and strengthen the follicles to protect hair growth.
It replaces the natural proteins that have been stripped from damaged hair and delivers maximum hydration.

MASSIVE ticks in my book.

I have colour treated hair that very rarely gets covered by a hat and also gets the odd heat treatment around once a week, so this really was screaming at me to try it.

So after shampooing the hair and rinsing, you run this goodness all through your luscious locks and leave for 10-20 minutes.
Now normally I ain't got time for thaaaat, so I make sure hair wash is the first thing I do when I get in the shower so the treatment gets a good 5 minutes in my hair to work its magic, otherwise I wait until I feel like a bath then I will let it soak while I catch up on one of my trashy TV shows on my laptop!

Rinse well and voila! You are done and you now own the worlds most softest hair.

Now for the extra details.

These are 60g packets and I definitely suggest using only half of the packet. I used a whole one first up and found it was just way too much.

I didn't find it weighed down my hair at all or left it greasy and the smell lasts for AGES in your hair which I really loved.

It's recommended you use them once a week with the Palmers Coconut Oil Formula Shampoo and Conditioner which you can find here.

I think after using the protein packs I will give the shampoo and conditioner a try. If they smell the same I'll be super happy!

Now, I'm not sure why but I can't seem to find these in store anywhere, but did find an online stockist. If you're interested in trying these out, click here.

Let me know in the comments what your favourite hair mask is!

Until next time.

Xx