Losing Weight Sensibly.

So it’s 1 Month into 2017 and I’m sure there are lots of people who made it there New Years Resolution to lose a bit of weight…And seeing as I’m sitting in a ‘been there, done that’ kind of position…I thought I’d give you my 5 top tips to losing weight sensibly.

So after you’ve set yourself a goal, here’s what to do next…

1) Choose the right focus.
Being ‘slim,’ isn’t really the right thing to focus on. All these ‘get slimmer, quicker’ diets, or diets that say you can lose ridiculous amounts of weight in only days just aren’t healthy for you and really are just a money ploy. Also, you’re more likely to keep the weight off if you take it slowly…If you’re aim is to become slim, you’re not going to want to take it slowly and you’ll probably end up boomeranging between ‘fat’ and ‘slim’ for a long time to come!

Choose a focus like being a healthy weight, or wanting to get fitter…Focusses like these are more healthy for you and have the added advantage of slimming down in the process! But ‘slim’ isn’t the focus.

People are absolutely right when they say that being too fat isn’t healthy, but neither is being too slim.

2) Find yourself an app to track how much you eat.

This is key to making you realise how much you actually eat, especially if you’re one
who snacks a lot! So set yourself a daily calorie goal and get started! To lose a significant amount of weight you need to cut down on the amount of calories you eat. But I’d suggest cutting down slowly rather than 100’s of calories at once!

Also, don’t get obsessive about it…If you’re going out for a meal, eat extra sensibly on the day of the meal, but don’t worry about logging the actual meal, because by the time you’ve had your starter, main and pudding…You’ve just set yourself up to fail! You are allowed to enjoy yourself too.

3) Cut out your weakness for a short period of time.

So my weakness was chocolate and I gave it up for 3 Months. Not to punish myself or take away something I love…But to prove to myself that I didn’t need it…
Then when I re-introduced it, instead of eating the world’s chocolate supply all at once, I decided I was going to be extra careful about how much chocolate I ate!

 

4) Find healthy alternatives.

So a useful way to stick to your calorie goal is to find healthy alternatives to everyday foods and drinks. For example, almond milk instead of normal milk, brown bread instead of white bread.
The new tastes take a little bit of getting used to, and I definitely wouldn’t drink almond milk on it’s own…But it definitely makes a difference!

 

 

 

5) Start exercising.

It might seem weird that exercise is last on the list…But it doesn’t mean that it’s not important, it just means that changing your diet is the first step, and you can probably lose around half a stone by just changing your diet alone.

When you choose an exercise, choose something you’re going to enjoy. I started off by going to the gym, but I personally soon got bored of that. I’d much rather get outside and go for a run.

If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t stick to it, so finding an exercise which you enjoy is key!
There are far more tips I could give you, but everyone is different and you have to find out what works for you!

Lotsa Love,
Becky. XxX.

 

 

 

 

Embracing 2017!

So here we are, well and truly into the New Year! So I thought it was only right that I sat myself down and wrote my first blog of 2017!

New Years Facebook Fever! 

Facebook was fab on New Years Ever this year. In previous years, people have wished away a whole year, or publicly dreaded the new year before it had even begun. But,not this year…This year they were full of positivity…Well, at least on my timeline they were anyway…My fellow facebookers were positively reflecting on the year gone by and setting goals for the year ahead! So well done Facebook friends!

Of course we’re always going to get those odd few who used their final Facebook post of 2016 as an opportunity to take their hate of all things politics way out of proportion…But we’ll just quickly scroll past those ones…

Becky’s Top Tips For Embracing 2017…

1) Celebrate! 

Whether you win an Oscar, or just about make it to work on time, let’s celebrate all of it! Personally, I have made myself a jar for all good things in 2017…There are 3 different categories…My achievements, nice things I have done, and moments that made me stop and go “wow!”

2017 will be the year when we surprise ourselves in a good way!

2) Choose Happy! 

Why does it seem to be, these days, that it’s almost considered as normal to choose to do stuff that makes us grumpy. And there are some things which we don’t have a choice over doing, school, work, the washing up…But there are also plenty of things that we do have a choice over…Do I moan there’s nothing on tele, or do I go and do something that I actually enjoy doing!

2017 will be the year where we choose happy!

3) Use social media positively! 

We’ve all done it…Posted a grumpy Facebook status! And I guess one short post every now and again does the world no harm…But for some people, Facebook has become the new Jeremy Kyle…Their whole life displayed for the world to see, every down day, every political decision they disagree with, every single person who has ever annoyed them…If it’s happened to them…Facebook knows about it!

Hopefully you’ll agree with me that social media is a much nicer place to log into when we see these kinds of things…

Photos of people smiling…Posts about people’s progress/achievements, no matter how big or small, posts about campaigns or crazy challenges to help support a charity.

2017 will be the year where social media is a place of positivity!

Reality Check! 

Now I get it…Not everyday can be happy and smiley, not everybody can win an Oscar, and not everything will go as we hoped it would.

But what we can do, is choose to see life from a positive point of view…

Celebrating the good things.  
Doing stuff that makes us happy.
Keeping the negative things far away from social media!

Bring On 2017! 

 

 

All My Memories | EP Blog 4.

This song is very simply my Nana’s Song. When she had a bleed to the brain in October 2015, it’s safe to say it was a massive shock for my family and I. She was always such a healthy woman, and when she died around 2 weeks later it hurt…A lot.

I recognise that all grief is painful and sad and emotional and so this song was my way of finding a light in all of the darkness.

My Nana was an amazing woman. She was beautiful, she was funny, she was quirky, but most of all, she was a child of God…And boy did she let the world know it. She showed me and my brother what it meant to try and live like Jesus. To have love & joy and peace & patience…My Nana lived out ‘the fruits of the spirit’ in every way that she possibly could.

During the time that she was in hospital, and during the time leading upto the funeral after her death, as a family we shared SO many memories together, memories which made us laugh and smile again. People who came to visit and people on social media kept on telling us how wonderful she was, how she had impacted their lives aswell, how she had shown them Jesus too…

So writing this song comforts me, because although she is gone…1) There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that she is partying in heaven right now, 2) I know that I will always have those brilliant memories of her, and 3) I know that she will live on in the hundreds of lives which she impacted.

This song is on my EP because of these lyrics…

“In all the memories
That is where you’ll stay
I’ll let the whole world see you were mine.”

Having ‘All My Memories’ on this EP means I get to show everyone who listens that Nana was mine…And what a privilege that was.

You Can Order My EP Here: http://beckyelliottmusic.wixsite.com/beckyelliott/shop
OR See Me In Person!

Used To Call It Home | EP Blog 3.

If you don’t already know, half of all the proceeds from my EP are being donated to ‘Open Doors UK,’ a charity which supports persecuted Christians worldwide, but is also heavily involved in supporting the refugee crisis…

And the song ‘Used To Call It Home’ is about the refugee crisis. I have to admit, I’m not a massive news watcher, but the news is always on in my house and at the time, the refugee crisis was the main headline, on every night. And the following things really grabbed my attention.

– Pictures of children washed up on the shore, having lost their lives during the brutal escape from Syria…

– Scenes of homeless refugees with nothing to eat or drink because they no longer felt safe in their homeland and simply had to flee.

– Refugees trapped in the Calais ‘jungle,’ being arrested, refused help and refused homes…

And it made me angry…Angry at myself that I had seen this news day after day and had let this horrific tragedy just pass me by, angry at the extremist groups for causing these people to flee for their homes and their country in absolute fear, and angry at the authorities and the social media spammers, who didn’t seem to care about these desperate, homeless, terrified people.

But eventually I began to see through my anger, and through all the politics and horrific things that were happening and what I saw were people. Just ordinary people, wanting a better life and wanting to live somewhere where they could be safe and secure…

It made me realise that if these were people that we knew, that we loved, I can’t even imagine the lengths we would go to, to help them in whatever way we could…

Having said all that, I realise that we can’t all go out to these people and physically help them, we can’t all save the world in a single heartbeat, but what we can do, is support the people that can, which is why this EP is raising money for Open Doors UK…This is my way of ‘fighting.’

You Can Order My EP Here: http://beckyelliottmusic.wixsite.com/beckyelliott/shop 

OR See Me In Person!

Love You More | EP Blog 2.

Time for another song-blog! So as you’ll have seen by now, ‘Love You More’ soon became the title of the whole EP. This song stemmed from a couple of bible verses, the first one being James 1:2 which tells to ‘Consider is pure joy when trials come’ and the second one being Nehemiah 8:10 which says ‘The Joy of the Lord is your strength!’

Over the past few years inparticular, there have been some very precious people who have come into my life, and the things they have told me have had a big impact on the person I am today, and a couple of those things went into this song.

Someone once said to me something along the lines of ‘you’ve got a choice, you can either wallow in self-pity, or you can turn to God, because it’s during the tough times that he works in you the most.’ That very same person pointed me towards James 1.

And this song basically says just that…When life gets tough, our human instinct is to enter our own little bubble of self-pity, to eat your favourite unhealthy snack for breakfast, lunch and dinner, to envy the people who at that moment in time have it better than us, better possessions, better clothes…Better lives. But that’s not what God wants. Like the verse says, he wants us to ‘consider it pure joy when trials come.’

In the song, ‘pure joy’ is like a rose between 2 thorns…’To see the roses in full bloom or see the thorn.’ Thorns are sharp and if you’re like me, you’ll quite often find yourself getting your clothes trapped on them and your skin scratched by them…And if I was a rose, I wouldn’t want to grow with that kind of branch surrounding me, yet the rose grows anyway! The same goes for us!

This song says ‘you know what God, I may not have everything I want, my life might be rubbish at times, but no matter what happens, I choose to love you more.’ I choose to be a rose despite the thorns that surround me!

And like the bridge says…

“If I gave it all away you’d still be there,
If I was caught up in a raging storm, I know you’d care.”

God’s love for us will last longer than anything we ever own, or anything bad that happens to us, so let’s choose to be roses, let’s choose his joy, but most importantly, let’s choose to Love God More.

You Can Order My EP Here: http://beckyelliottmusic.wixsite.com/beckyelliott/shop
OR See Me In Person!

FLY | EP Blog 1

Fly was a song which, if I’m honest, I only really wrote because I was bored and felt like doing a bit of songwriting! So in some ways it’s weird that this song has even made it onto the EP…But it hasn’t been until recent months I’ve realised that actually, this song has a lot of ‘me’ in it, as you are about to find out.

The first verse talks of a search for happiness, a search to be liked and loved. Now don’t get me wrong, I come from a loving family, and I’ve always had the best friends I could ever ask for (I’m biassed, I know…But it’s true!), but this came at a time where I was in a good place, but reflecting on a time where I was surrounded by gossipy and unfriendly people and had just moved on to the most amazing internship with the most loving and beautiful people ever.

It made me realise that trust is a massive thing, and it brought to life the sad reality that we have to be careful who we trust. But on a positive note, like I said, at the time I wrote this song, God and I were in a brilliant place, he was using my gifts and talents, he was growing me as a person and he was teaching me not to be afraid of going for it with him…He was helping me learn to trust in him, to put aside these few people I had come across who I couldn’t trust, to leave them in the past and to place my trust in him.

The second verse talks about those times when I’ve been afraid, when things have been hard, during those times, trusting in God feels like something which is just impossible to do. But as someone once told-me, ‘look back at everything that God has done for you so far, he’s brought you through it before and he’ll do it again.’

From experience I have learned, that when you trust in God, amazing things happen…It happens throughout the bible, and it has happened and still happens in my life and other people’s lives. When you trust in God, you ‘fly.’

You Can Order My EP Here: http://beckyelliottmusic.wixsite.com/beckyelliott/shop
OR See Me In Person!

The Best Year EVERRR | Intern Life.

So here I am trying to write a blog about the best year of my life…Take 2. The first take just didn’t do it justice. It’s been one heck of an adventure, so I thought it deserved a decent blog! This year, there have been high points, like finding myself at the top of an abseiling tower…And there have been low points, like the many times I have found myself on the ground having fallen over playing stuck in the mud…

But most of all, it’s just been a crazy, super-duper adventure…So here’s my top tips to the best year of your life…

1. Surround yourself with people that love you.
   This has to be one of the biggest factors that have made this year as big a success as it has been. These people know exactly who they are…They’re the people who have hugged me after I have failed miserably at something, and they’re the people who have hugged me again when I have succeeded! They’re the ones who have been there through my best times, and my worst times.
   But the people who have loved me this year have done more than all of that, they have gone the extra mile. There was very little they wouldn’t do for me if it meant I was happier, or if it meant that I would grow in a certain area.
   But most of all, these people have prayed for me and with me none-stop. You guys know exactly who you are…Thank You!
2. Worship like crazy…
   I’ve always had a decent faith, and at the start of this year, I had a pretty strong faith…But my goodness, it has grown like MAD this year…And here’s why…His name’s God…Before this year, I reckon I gave a decent chunk of my life to God…But now, I’m not perfect, but I’ve given him so much more access into my life…I pray heaps more, my bible is open much more, I sing and worship him, just ‘cos I feel like it…He’s put joy in my heart and a smile on my face. And like I say, I’m nowhere near perfect, and life can still be a struggle and can be pretty rubbish at times, but he makes it all so much better. Thankin’ God for his faithfulness!
3. Don’t forget to have fun!
   This year has been stupidly busy, crazy, and has even verged on insanity at times…But it has been a massive amount of fun! I woke-up every morning excited for the day ahead…And having come from a job where I woke-up dreading the day ahead, it was such a massive relief to head out of the house in the knowledge that a fantastic day was ahead!

   So basically…Surround yourself with a God that loves you, people that love you, and things that you love doing…And you’re in for a pretty amazing time of it! I’m not saying it’s always gonna be easy…But life would be boring if everything was simple…Right?!

   This blog still doesn’t quite do this amazing year justice…I still haven’t mentioned the amazing kids and young people I have met, the beautiful friends for life I have made, the amount I have grown in confidence and in self-belief, and the amount of times I have smiled until my jaws ached, laughed until my belly hurt, and stayed out chatting and playing like a child until midnight… It’s been quite a year and I’m super sad that it has come to an end, but super excited (if not rather scared…But in a good way…) for whatever the next adventure holds!

   Praising God and sending everyone
   Loadsa Love!
   Becky. x.
   

Intern Life: The End Of The Chapter.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year and I couldn’t let it pass me by without writing a little blog about how amazing it’s been. So I thought I’d tell you about the 3 main things which have stood out for me this year…

So here goes…

Number 1…

Everyone needs cheerleaders…

Let me take you back to the start of October, a month into the internship and the Discipleship Year were off on our first weekend away together. We headed up North to Birmingham and stayed at the Pioneer Centre, a place where you are guaranteed to have lots of fun!

Anyway, Saturday came along and after some great worshipping and bible teaching, it was activity time! Half an hour in and I find myself at the top of an abseiling tower, harnessed up, and stood at the edge with the instructor. Now, I’m not scared of heights, the instructor even told me so…Oh no, I’m scared of falling. I wasn’t trusting no harness to keep me safe! “There’s a big difference” he said “But it’s okay, I’ll keep you safe” he said…

By this point, I was in tears, really wanting to do it, but had kinda frozen…And the cue at the top of the tower, was now more like a crowd…But one face emerged from the crowd, looked me in the eyes and said “Come On Becky, you can do this. You’ve just gotta get over the edge. Come on everyone, let’s cheer Becky on.”

Then this is what I heard next…The whole crowd chanting “Becky, Becky, Becky…” and that continued until I found myself dangling over the edge of a stupidly high tower with what felt like a few bits of string stopping me from falling a rather long way…

That is a moment I will never EVER forget. And it’s been the running theme throughout this year. Sometimes, God places us in scary situations, and there have been plenty of them this year! But he doesn’t just leave us there alone, not only is he always there, but he’s got some great cheerleaders out there ready to cheer you on just as you’re about to give-up!

Here’s a cheer to all of the cheerleaders in my life, you know who you are!

God loves a whirlwind…

Sometimes, life can feel absolutely crazy, infact 90% of the time, life does and will feel absolutely crazy…No Time. No Energy. And Emotions flying around everywhere. That’s Life, right?!…Not! Life’s what you make of it…And for me, there have been plenty of up and down moments this year…Now I don’t believe in a God that enjoys our down moments, but I do believe in a God that brings the best out in us during those moments…

Without a doubt, the toughest part of this internship was my Nana dying at the end of October 2015. It was horrible and it was devastating, but out of those dark couple of weeks came a few amazing things…An inner strength which I never knew I had, people like to say it was fight/flight mode, but during the time she was in hospital, I managed to keep going with all the kids/youth clubs I was doing for my internship, prepare and perform a set for a live lounge at a youth event aswell as visiting her most evenings and making sure my Mum and Grandad were okay and had everything they needed…

I don’t call that fight or flight mode, I call that God at work.

Those few weeks were definitely a life changing whirlwind for me and my family and I miss my Nana all the time but my faith in God is all the stronger for going through that dark time with him at my side.

Love sends you soaring, and activity instructors push you over…

Having just talked about the worst part of the year, I thought I’d talk about the BEST part of this year…Love…Nooo…Not kissy kissy kinda love…Nope. But the kinda love that have been shown through these kinda things…

– People praying for me and constantly re-assuring me of their prayers and asking me what else they can pray about for me.

– Encouragements from people when I’ve been doing something scary or challenging.

– People re-affirming me in my gifts and talents.

– Hugs! – And lots of them!

– People making me belly laugh even when I’m feeling grumpy! (Young People are very good at this one…) 🙂

– Friends who have sorted out problems for me, no questions asked!

It has been this kind of love which have made this year life-changing for me and I am so grateful to every single person who has played some part in my journey and internship this year…Even the activity instructors…Who I am sure you’re wondering about by now…

So back to the Pioneer Centre…And having completed the stupid abseiling tower…”The dangerous bit,” I decided that it was time to do something “safer…” The inflatable obstacle course…

Safer my foot! “What could possibly be so dangerous about an inflatable obstacle course?” I hear you asking. Well…You see the obstacle course is designed as a race against you and another person, and as part of this race, there is a mini bouncy slide which you have to climb to the top of and then slide down the other side…Easy right?! Oh No…The activity instructors are sat at the top and push you off, sending me flying to the ground…So not only did I lose the race, I got a nasty bit of friction burn to go with it…Ouch! I still have the scar now…

So here’s the message in that mini rant…Love does indeed send you soaring…And sometimes you’ll fall down and feel like a failure, but love picks you back up again and sends you further than you’ve ever been before…Love from humans…Yeah…But most importantly…Love from Love Himself…Jesus.

Deep Right?!

Phewf!

What a year it has been!

Lotsa Love!
Becky. X.

Being A Somebody.

So this week I was reminded of something which one of my school teachers used to say all the time…

“If everybody was somebody then nobody would be anybody.”

And I guess it never dawned on me just how true that was until now. We live in a world where impressing other people seems to be our top priority, where being recognised is vital and being the best is a long fought competition which absolutely must be won, or else failure awaits.

But that makes me kinda sad…Why should our lives be spent constantly trying to impress, to be considered as ‘somebody’ to the world, as opposed to a ‘nobody?!’ Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right. Life is for living, for spending time with those close to you, for smiling and laughing amongst all the hard work. Since when did life have to be such a fierce competition to be the best?

Then I was reminded of the story where Jesus turns water into wine. Water can be pretty dull when you think about it can’t it?! It looks a bit boring, and yeah it tastes alright…But it’s not exactly the most exciting drink in the world is it?!

And then there’s the wine, the more tasty drink that Jesus turns the water into. The drink that some people turn to at the end of a long day in order to relax, the drink with far more to it than just bland old water.

So what’s the point of this story?!
That Jesus turned something bland and boring into something spectacular. And he can do the same, and does do the same for us today.

Jesus isn’t looking for the ‘somebody’s’ of this world, he chose fishermen for his 12 Disciples, he went to tea with Zacchaeus the dodgy tax collector. He himself was born in a dirty and probably very smelly stable. Jesus hung around with nobodies, and he turned them into something spectacular.

So why should we spend all of our time and energy trying to be a ‘somebody,’ when the person’s opinion who matters the most, wants to use us as nobodies?!

Jesus wants to take our brokenness, our failures, and the things we do that go unrecognised, and he wants to use them, and turn them into something spectacular, something as spectacular as water being turned into wine, as 5 Loaves and 2 Fishes feeding 5000 People, something as spectacular as Jesus dying on the cross, coming back to life and then going back to heaven so that we could have a relationship with God.

So let me remind you of the quote that I started with…

“If everybody was somebody then nobody would be anybody.”

You’re Beautiful!

Now, those of you who know me well will know that the word ‘beautiful’ isn’t a word that I use too often…But for this blog post it is totally relevant…And let’s be honest, it’s not a word that we should just chuck around anyway, it’s a word that we should only use when we absolutely mean it.

So I really felt like I needed to write a blog post to convince ourselves, especially us girls, that we are truly beautiful.

I see so many girls these days plastering their faces in make-up. – Now, although I don’t wear make-up, I’m not totally against it…But when it reaches a point where you don’t feel comfortable meeting certain people, or even leaving the house without make-up on, then we have a problem. Make-up should enhance your natural beauty, not cover it up. Your natural beauty is what makes you unique, it’s what makes you shine, let’s not forget that.

Another thing I see a lot of is people posting a selfie on social media and then confessing to ‘looking awful’ just incase someone judges them for it, when in reality, they don’t look awful at all! – Putting yourself down is bad enough, but on a public platform? Surely this means 2 things, 1) That one day, someone is going to agree with you, tell you so, and upset you. OR 2) That people will disagree with you and tell you that you look amazing to make you feel better, which, if we’re being honest, is the whole reason we confess to looking awful in the first place…So that someone else can tell us how amazing we really look…But why should we have to resort to that? Convince Yourself That You’re Beautiful Even On Your Worst Day.

And the final thing which we’re all guilty of is filtering and editing pictures of ourselves. – Why do we do it?! We do it in a desperate attempt to make ourselves look acceptable to social media because we don’t think we will match-up if we don’t. I always used to hate-it in art lessons at school when the art teacher would draw all over your masterpiece in an attempt to improve it…Why?! Because they didn’t think it was good enough as it was, they wanted to change-it, to improve it’s original design. But You’re beauty doesn’t need to be filtered through some editing software, for you were made by a perfect creator God, who made no mistakes when he created you to be you. Let’s not be the art teacher, drawing over someone else’s (God’s) masterpiece. Let’s accept that God loves and is proud of his creation. God thinks you are beautiful!

You Are ‘Fearfully And Wonderfully Made.’ – Psalm 139. 

Don’t You Ever Forget That You Are Beautiful.

Lotsa Love!
Becky. x.