« What would you do If you weren't afraid? »

    

      

 This is the question that echoes inside my head 24/7  in the past two years. All my life I thought " I'm going to finish high school and I'll  get my drivers licence and then I'll go to college and get a degree in Acting and then I'll move to England where I can be really sucessful" ...well, let's just say it didn't turn out so well for me, I didn't move to England, I didn't went to college, still don't have a drivers licence and I barely finished high school. It has definitely been a struggle for me, I had to put my dreams on hold and try to figure out simple fixes to my everyday problems that back when I was 15 I didn't thought I would have. For the past two years I've been trying to get a job, which in this Portuguese economy it's like waking up in the middle of an apocalypse, and since then I discovered that my dream of being an actress it's so far away that honestly I can't even see it that well most of the time, but when I think about being in a tvshow, or online show, or anything at all where I can be an actress it all falls into place ...but in this country you either have a lot of money to invest in a carreer, or you are screwed and thats exactly my case. 

I'm a really proud and stubborn person, I don't want to work in anything at all and I know that it's a problem cause what the employers want it's not the same I want, and in the jobs I wouldn't mind having and working for a while I either need to have experience or some kind of certificate to be able to work in that field, and again...I need money to get those certifications. The person who said Money doesn't bring happiness was probably under the influence of drugs, because I don't have money, I'm a 20 year old woman, and I don't feel happy at all. 

If I knew I would suceed I would've do anything to get to the place where I want to be but the fear of being rejected and unsuccessful in something makes me freeze.  I'm afraid I'll end up like my parents, living in my grandparents house with money that barely lasts all month, my mom works like crazy to get  a bit of extra money, and my dad can't get a steady job because sadly is not properly young and to do his job he has to be younger..I don't want to be on my 50's and not being able to tell my kids " You can be whoever you want to be, I'll help you  get there" like my parents weren't able to tell me...I don't want that snowball effect and I certainly don't want my kids to one day say " Mom I didn't do that because I know you didnt have money to afford it" that would kill me. It's sad that in Portugal you have to be miserable if your parents don't have money because everything is expensive and theres no one to help us. We cant all become what we want to, because no one invests in those fields, so we have to work jobs we don't like untill we have money to take the first step in the direction we want to go and when we have that money...we'll all notice it's to late, because most of us think it's to late to start living our dreams after 30, and in some cases it might be true. 

I'm 20 years old and I can't even dream, because I feel like no one allows me to. When I tell someone " I want to be an actress" they look at me like I was the craziest person in the world, like I was delusional and needed some kind of medication to make me think properly, but I don't ..I wanted to be an actress since I was a kid and my grandpa was in a theathe company and took me to his rehearsals and I would sit there and wish I could do the same one day...but I grew up and realised that my dreams and what I was expected to to where light years appart. 

If you can make your dreams come true, please do , even if they are something really small, if you have the opportunity, do it, when when you do I hope you feel really proud of yourself, cause not everyone can.

Love,
Dani

Being healthy : My experiences and problems

Easy to say, I know that, but after starting it becomes increasingly easy, it's just a matter of habit. I say this from experience. I'm an only child and, as such, my parents always had the tendency to pamper me a lot when I was little, but not with objects or material things because I wasn't a child who was always asking a lot, but what I asked for was food, especially sweets, yes, I have a sweet tooth (Guiltyyyyy). So until I was like 13/14 years old, my body 'swam' in sugar, and was very lucky not to get diabetes since I have many cases of diabetes in the family and, of course, I was chubbier than the other teens that were the same age as me.
But at that age (13/14) I started to care more about my appearance and started looking at the other girls and I started noticing they were thinner and absolutely gorgeous and that made me so jealous and when I looked in the mirror I hated everything I saw: my belly was huge, my arms were too fat and flabby, my legs that I've hated since then and still don't like.

 At that time began a major problem: If I could skip meals , I would. I wouldn't eat lunch: I used to tell my parents I was going to have lunch at school and at school used to say I was going home to have lunch, I wouldn't even have breakfast or some sort of snack , and when somebody asked me why I wasn't eating I used to say "I ate when I left home, I'm not hungry" . At Weekends I only used to have two meals : lunch and dinner, and I barely ate anything . Anyways , that lasted about a year and during that year I was just frustrated , sad, always tired and If I wasn't in school trying to pretend that everything was alright, I was at home in my room closed and I almost never went out with friends ( still don't got out much ) . During that time where I completely messed up my whole body I didn't lost a lot of weight, I only lost about 3 to 4 kg, and because I was 'big' I looked at the mirror and didn't saw any difference. After seeing that nothing had changed and it just became even more depressed and started eating normally (or abnormally) I started to eat all meals and between meals I would drown in junk food and obviously I gained some weight. At this point I was at 16 years old and had just started high school.

New school, new friends, new bad habits. I found myself studying in the city (Porto) and that meant easier access to junk food and I used to eat it every single day of the week, every month. At the end of this school year had gained even more weight. I don't think it was too visible for the other people but I could feel it in my body, I could see my clothes, I could even see it when I was at PE and I could run as much as I could at the start of the school year. I started my junior year with 69 Kg and ended it with 75kg.

It was precisely when I saw this weight on the scale that I realized I had to start eating differently, but I soon realized that after 16 years of poor diet, would't be able to change from one moment to another and start to have a completely healthy lifestyle. Lets be honest, at 16 years old the things we care the less is " oh I'm gointg to be healthy" but I looked at myself in the mirror and said "I Have to change, not because of society that 'tells' us we have to be skinny or even because of the looks of despise some people gave me in the street just because I didn't looked as thin as them, but for me and for my health! I want to be healthier and wone day when I'm older I want to thank myself for taking this decision. " and since that day I started doing it .

The day I started School (Junior Year) I started trying to change habits. The 1st thing that changed was starting to reduce, untill I eliminate completely eating fast food and soft drinks. After two months, despite not having lost any weight, I noticed my stomach did not feel so bloated. That made me just get really motivated. I had been trying to change habits until March 2011. At that time I had lost 2 pounds and was at 73kg, but it was also at that time that I started preparing for national exams and I don't know how to cope with stress, I didn't stared eating like crazy again but I gained back the 2kg, and at the end of the exams I had gone back to 75kg and I didn't tell anyone but I started to feel really bad and was frequently calling myself "stupid fatty" because honestly thought I couldn't lose weight.

After the exams kept the 75kg for a year. At the end of the senior year after the exams I decided I really needed to change my habits and so I did it , from July of 2013 I started to feed me more healthily, I eliminated fast- food and fried and stared eating more grilled food, more vegetables, and started drinking lots of water and green tea (in the future I will make a post dedicated only to the benefits that green tea brought to my health)

Now we are in November 2013 , I weight 72kg, would have lost more weight if my metabolism helped but oh well ! (I wrote this and published it in  Portuguese in November, now it's January and I still weight the same)

The message I want you to keep in mind with this (long) post is that it's not worth worrying too much about your weight especially when you are very young because it will bring you so much emotional and physical problems, and if you really want to actually lose weight because don't feel comfortable with the weight you have or you wanna look better or you just wanna be more healthy, simply talk to someone, maybe a doctor, or your parents, grandparents, uncles ... Whoever, just make sure you really trust that person/person.



Take care, kisses xx

Ser saudável: As minhas experiencias e problemas.

É fácil de dizer, eu sei muito bem disso, mas depois de se começar fica cada vez mais fácil, é apenas uma questão de hábito. E digo isto por experiencia própria. Eu sou filha única e , como tal, os meus pai sempre tiveram a tendência para me mimar um bocado quando eu era pequena, mas não com objectos ou coisas materiais (até porque não fui uma criança que estivesse sempre a pedir muitas coisas) mas o que eu pedia muito era comida, principalmente doces, não fosse eu uma viciada em coisas doces (Guiltyyyyy) . Isso fez com que até pelo menos aos 13/14 anos o meu corpo ‘nadasse’ em açúcar, e tive muita sorte em não ficar com diabetes já que tenho muitos casos de diabetes na família e fez com que eu também fosse mais ‘cheiinha’ que as crianças/adolescentes da minha idade.

Mas aos 13/14 anos eu comecei a importar-me mais com a minha aparência e comecei a olhar para as outras raparigas e vê-las mais magras que eu e a ficar com uma certa inveja e achava-as lindíssimas e olhava ao espelho e odiava tudo que via: desde a minha barriga que era enorme, aos meus braços que ficaram muito (mesmo muito) largos e flácidos, as minhas pernas que eu passei a odiar desde então e ainda hoje não gosto. 

Nessa altura começou um grande problema: Se eu pudesse saltar refeições, fazia-o. Não almoçava: dizia aos meus pais que ia almoçar na escola e na escola dizia que ia almoçar em casa; Pequeno-Almoço e lanches nem os ver, dizia que não tinha fome. Aos fins-de-semana só fazia duas refeições: o almoço e o jantar, e pouco comia. Enfim, isto durou cerca de um ano e durante esse ano apenas fiquei frustrada, muito triste, estava sempre cansada e se não estava na escola a fingir que nada se passava, estava em casa fechada no meu quarto, quase nunca saía (Ainda hoje não saio muito). Esse ano em que fiz tanta asneira incrivelmente não perdi muito peso, apenas perdi cerca de 3 ou 4 quilos o que pouco mudava na minha aparência, ao fim desse ano, apos ver que nada mudava e que apenas ficava cada vez mais deprimida, voltei a começar a comer normalmente ( ou anormalmente ) fazia todas as refeições e apos algum tempo ate refeições a mais fazia e , obviamente, engordei mais. Nesta altura estava eu a chegar aos 16 anos, e tinha também começado o ensino secundário. 

Escola nova, amigos novos, maus hábitos novos. Dei por mim a estudar no centro da cidade (Porto) e isso significava fácil acesso a comida que eu não devia comer, todos os dias, ou seja o que eu devia fazer no máximo duas vezes por mês, fazia todos os dias da semana, todos os meses, no final desse ano lectivo, tinha engordado muito, não era muito visível, mas eu senti bastante na balança, porque comecei o 10º ano com 69kg e acabei com 75kg.

Foi precisamente quando vi esse peso na balança que ‘caí’ em mim e percebi que tinha de começar a comer de forma diferente, mas também percebi logo que apos 16 anos de má alimentação, não iria conseguir mudar de um momento para o outro e começar a ter um estilo de vida completamente saudável, até porque aos 16 anos, na ‘flor’ da adolescência, o que não se quer ter é uma vida saudável, mas eu olhei-me no espelho e disse “ Eu tenho de mudar não pela sociedade que diz que se ‘tem’ de ser magro, nem pela maneira que algumas pessoas me olham na rua com um certo desprezo por eu ser ‘cheiinha’ (nunca fui muito ‘redonda’ ) mas por mim. Eu quero ser mais saudável e quero um dia quando for mais velha agradecer a mim mesma por ter tomado esta decisão” . Dito e feito :)

No dia em que comecei as aulas do 11º ano comecei também a tentar mudar de hábitos. A 1ª coisa que mudei foi, começar a reduzir, até eliminar completamente, o consumo de fast-food e o consumo de refrigerantes. Ao fim de dois meses, apesar de não ter perdido peso, notei logo algo: não sentia a minha barriga tão inchada. Isso fez-me logo ficar muito motivada. Estive a ‘trocar’ de hábitos até Março de 2011. Nessa altura tinha perdido 2 kilos e estava então nos 73kg, mas foi também nessa altura que me comecei a preparar para os exames nacionais e eu , como não lido muito bem com o stress, apesar de não ter me desleixado na alimentação, ganhei de volta os 2kg, voltando para os 75kg e , eu não dizia a ninguém mas voltei a sentir-me mesmo muito mal e era frequente chamar a mim mesma “ gorda estupida” porque achava sinceramente que não conseguia emagrecer . Após os exames mantive os 75kg durante um ano. No final do 12º ano , depois dos exames decidi que tinha mesmo me mudar de hábitos e assim fiz, a partir de Julho de 2013 passei a alimentar-me de forma mais saudável, voltei a eliminar a fast-food, fritos e assados (com muitas gordura) dando assim lugar a grelhados e cozidos, mais vegetais, e principalmente passei a beber  muita agua e chá verde ( futuramente vou fazer um post apenas dedicado aos benefícios que o chá verde trouxe para a minha saúde ) 

Agora estamos em Novembro de 2013, estou com 72kg, teria perdido mais peso se o meu metabolismo ajudasse mas …enfim! 

A mensagem que eu quero passar com este (longo) post é que, não vale a pena se preocuparem demasiado com o vosso peso principalmente quando são muito jovens porque isso soó vos vai trazer problemas emocionais e físicos, e quando quiserem de facto perder peso porque não se sentem confortáveis com o peso que têm , simplesmente falem com alguém seja um médico, ou os vossos pais, avós, tios…enfim. Seja quem for em quem vocês depositem muita confiança. 

Eu aprendi a gostar de mim, aprendi a gostar do meu corpo, aprendi a olhar no espelho e a ver as minhas qualidades em vez de ver os meus defeitos. Porque no final de contas são apenas as qualidades que importam

Cuidem-se, beijinhos xx

Quick Presentation

Hello blog hearts! 

                                                    (picture taken from weheartit)

I don't know exactly how to start this blog but here it is.
I'm a typical 18 year old girl from Portugal. At the moment I'm looking for a job because I wasn't sure about what to study in university so I decided to stop for a year. For a long time I wanted to start a beauty blog but the time wasn't right I guess ...but now...I have plenty of free time and a lot of ideas and I'm feeling really inspired lately so this couldn't be a better time to start sharing my ideas with all of you!

So...I guess thats all for now! I'll do a 'proper' post really soon! :)

Love,
Dani ♥