Having Difficulties Living A Healthier Lifestyle

I am the Queen of going back and forth with a new heath regimen. For the past year I’ve been going on these terrible diets eating 3 SMALL meals a day, basically depriving myself from foods I would regular eat, just to lose some weight and slowly start eating what I would regularly eat again. After looking back at my old myfitnesspal diaries, I came to the conclusion that this was my main problem on why I could never continue to live a healthier lifestyle.

My second problem was letting people hype my head up! I’ll lose some weight, flatter stomach, lifted butt and it only takes ONE person to tell me I look good and my head gets big! LOL, Once my head gets big I start going out more, the gym less, more coco loso’s, less water! Then POOF my stomach is saying hello to everyone again!

The past couples of months I learned a lot of valuable information that will hopefully get me back on the road again to lose some weight and tone my body!  Last summer I lost 25 pounds, I gained 15 of those pounds back but I’m proud to say that I actually learned to take care of my body and makes the changes necessary to be a better “Ashley.”

The tips that I have below, may not work for you, your momma, or your grandmother, but I know they work for me. It’s up to you to do trial and error and adjust them according to your body and your own motivation!

1. Eat breakfast; I noticed that I have a lot more energy during the day when I fuel my body first thing in the morning. As of now I’m eating the Fiber One cereal with a cup of REGULAR almond milk or oatmeal with almond milk, raisins and honey. I also like to drink one glass of water and a glass of SIMPLY GRAPEFRUIT JUICE. I heard grapefruit juices aids in weight loss, I’m not sure, I just enjoy drinking grapefruit juice. I also like to pop a B12 pill and a Biotin pill since I’m trying to grow my hair out (different post about that, coming up shortly.)
2. I’m a snacker, so that’s where a lot of calories use to go, now I found some healthier snacks to eat while I’m work, Blue Diamond Caramel Macchiato Flavored Almonds, are the best, they are actually coated with coffee which is another instant  energy boost for the day. If I’m not snacking on almonds, I like to eat apple sauce and fiber one bars!
3. Don’t deprive yourself, just limit yourself. My past diets I was telling myself I couldn’t eat this or couldn’t eat that, which only made me want it more! So instead, if you want something that bad, eat it, but not too much. However if you did eat TOO much of it, you better know that you need to work your ass super hard in the gym! Do an extra 15 minutes on the elliptical, squat 20 more times, even get on the bike for 30 minutes extra! Show your body that you deserved to eat whatever you were craving!
4. Embrace yourself. It took me a while to understand that you don’t lose weight overnight and you can’t love yourself overnight. It truly takes time, but when you don’t love the person that you are, people see that. Others can see that you are self conscious or that you are super aware of your flaws. If you look at my previous posts about loving yourself, you will see that it took me some time to point out what I liked about myself. I continued to tell myself I was beautiful, that I was educated, and that I was a good catch. When you continue to do that you turn into a much happier person and people can see that “Happy Halo” around you! I want you to love yourself so much that you’d do anything to keep yourself healthy, if that means being in the gym 6 days a week so be it!
5. Working out is vital to becoming healthy. I learned that its best for me to go to the gym directly when I get off work because if I go home I lose all motivation to get out of the house again. Therefore I pack a gym bag the night before and go to the gym at 5:30 when I get off, 5 days a week.  Then I go home, eat dinner, socialize, sleep, and do it all again the next day.

I have a lot more tips but I don’t want this post to be to0 lengthy, if you want to know any more information please do not hesitate to email me at ashleywalton2010@gmail.com. I like to know that someone out there is really adamant about what I have to say.

Until next time ladies

XOXO

Brown Smokey Eye

Sometimes but not often, I like to really make up my face! I don’t use a lot of eye shadows whenever I go out but again while shopping at my nearby Target, I saw that they began to sell NYX beauty products. This was like heaven on earth to me because the only place I could get NYX was either from online or ULTA which is almost an hour away from me. And if you don’t know, NYX is super affordable and it’s not cheaply made that’s why it’s so popular.

I’m a huge fan of brown smokey eyes especially the one that Kim Kardashian is always famous for. So I picked up an eye shadow palette from the Love in Rio collection, in the shade “Escape with Rico.” This is a palette that consist of high pigmented dark and sparkly browns.

I can actually say I adore this palette because it’s definitely Woman of Color friendly and it’s basically mistake proof.

I decided to use this palette before going out with a couple of my friends for drinks and the look I wanted to achieve came out perfect.

NYX eye shadows are super pigmented and a little goes a long way.  I used a shadow base so I’m not sure if the shadows would have lasted a long time without it but I can say it lasted throughout the whole night! Definitely will be buying more!

Products Used For Eyes: 

Bare Minerals Eye Shadow Base

NYX Escape With Rico Trio Palette

Maybelline Eye Studio Gel Liner in Black

Rimmel London Scandal Eyes Mascara 

XOXO

Cantu Flat Iron Spray Review

Recently I took a trip to Target on the search for some bath towels and I avertedly ended up in the hair section! I saw a lot of people on instagram raving about the Cantu Flat Iron Spray so I thought “Hey why not give it a shot?”  Virginia weather is like a roller coaster sometimes and my hair loves to draw moisture from the air leaving my once straight and sleek hairstyle into a big poufy mess!

A can of this flat iron spray was under 5 bucks so if it didn’t work on my hair I didn’t really lose much. This spray claims to condition and add shine to your hair while also reduce frizz and produce a light hold. They also stressed that you must use it on dry hair and I will tell you why when you keep reading!

After I blow dried my hair completely I sprayed the product all over my strands! My hair instantly became stiff and that’s when I looked at the ingredients and saw that it contains ALCOHOL! My hair hates alcohol; it literally acts like a snail with salt on it! I was not going to wait for my hair to become stiff as a brick so I began to brush the product out to help coat it all over and not just the spots that I sprayed! Some of my strands still felt hard but I wanted to have faith that this product would help my hair!

I guess I ended up spraying majority of the product at the top of my hair because when my flat iron slid through those tresses, they instantly became CRISPY-FEELING! WHAT A BIG NO-NO! I ended up finishing my hair not satisfied that I obviously sprayed too much at the top of my hair because the bottom had lots of body but the top was like a dead person – UNMOVING!

Overall I will try this product again but definitely use much less and spray much farther away from my hair this time! My hair is actually still holding, I haven’t used any heat on it since I did this which is great, I also liked that my hair does have a nice sheen going on.

Pros:

Cheap

Makes straighten hair last

Produces a nice natural shine to hair.

Cons:

ALCOHOL is its main ingredient which dries your hair out

Hair gets hard

After flat ironing hair was crispy

It’s easy to use too much of this product

Any of you used this product before? Love it or Hate it?

XOXO

Oh, How I Love Shoedazzle!

If you ladies have been following me since previous years you would know I have a slight obsession with shoes, especially heels! However being a penny-hugging college student, I have to fight my craving of buying every pair of 6 inch heels I see.

However since May 2013, Shoedazzle has been feeding my appetite for new shoes while also helping me save money in the bank for college expenses.

How Shoedazzle works:

When you sign up for Shoedazzle you have to take a style test where they ask you your preference of heel heights, styles, and colors. Once you complete that task, they give you your very own personal showroom of shoes that you might possibly like! You have the option to “favorite” any pair of shoes you see on the site, which eventually helps the stylist pick shoes similar to your likings each month.

I highly recommend if you sign up for Shoedazzle that you become a VIP customer because it had a lot of great perks. Not only do you save 10% to 30% off of regular priced items but it’s also like a mini shoe savings account. Each month you pay $9.95, which you can either use to purchase a shoe or do like I do which is let my $9.95 accumulate until I basically can afford to pay for a shoe using just that! Shoedazzle also gives you $10 worth of VIP dollars that you can use towards any of your purchases as well! Another plus of the VIP account is the free shipping, which is totally convenient when you purchase a pair of shoes 1 day, then a couple days later find another pair that like! Being a VIP member also gives you first dibs on sales and new items!

Pros of Shoedazzle:

Great selection of heels, wedges, flats and sandals.

VIP account is very affordable.

Shipping is fast.

Free returns.

They also sell jewelry and handbags.

Gather enough style Points for free shoes. 

Cons of Shoedazzle:

Sometimes your personal “Style Room” is a hit or miss.

Size 8 ½ sells out pretty quickly.

Quality of shoes are different from each shoe.

Some shoes can be pricey.

Overall, I have completely fallen in love with Shoedazzle, the last couple pair of shoes I have purchased have all been from them! I even found the perfect pair of black sparkly high heels shoes that I plan to wear at my Hampton University Opening Convocation for only 5 bucks on Shoedazzle! What a steal!

If any of you are interested in signing up Shoedazzle, do not hesitate to do so, do it now and let them know I, ashleywalton2010@gmail.com, referred you!

recent purchase for 5 bucks! So comfortable for a lot of walking!

Do any of you ladies use Shoedazzle how do you like it?

XOXO

FYI - Dont Give Up On Your Hair Routine

This will be a very short post to show you something pretty awesome! Yesterday i was going through my pictures on my IPhone to delete a few and i found the pic when i first started my hair journey back in December 2012. I had chopped a lot of my hair off and it was so short! Any-who i kept going and i saw a picture from February, i noticed my hair had grew from the first pic, then i found another pic from May and saw that my bang had grew all the way out!

So I made a simple pic collage to show you how just using coconut oil daily and scalp massages really promotes hair growth! 

In July i decided to trim my hair up a little more to slowly get my relaxed pieces out of my hair and i took a pic a few days ago and my hair is definitely still growing! And this is just from me continuing to use coconut oil and adding avocado oil and Castor oil, i bought some Jamaican Black Castor Oil last night as well to use! I really want my hair to be long, healthy and thick by Christmas! We will see ladies!

Terrible quality July 10, 2013 - August 27, 2013

Moral of this post: Continue to take care of your hair, it will not grow over night, but if you really treat it right, it will do what you want it to do!

P.S Have any of you researched the benefits of avacodo oil for your hair! Its awesome, look it up 

Until next time ladies XOXO!