Post sponsored by ProVen

Do you remember recently when I sent my poo through the post?

It wasn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever done to be honest, but it was part of some research looking at how your DNA and your gut bacteria effect your health. Although it didn’t flag any weird diseases or anything, my general gut health was not great. In fact, I only scored 4 out of 10 for my ‘microbiome diversity’.

how to improve microbiome diversity

Oops.

Apparently ‘Diversity indicates the approximate number of bacterial species that live in a person’s gut. Each type has its own functions that are often complementary. A diverse microbiome can perform a broader range of tasks that regulate and compensate, making the whole system more stable. If the community lacks richness, this compensation mechanism may be compromised and cause dysbiosis, a condition known to precede illness.’

And nobody wants THAT do they?

Also, generally I dislike doing badly in tests. It’s not really my THING. It takes me back to being ten years old and being in the team for the inter-school book quiz. We were in the semi-finals, which were being held in the town library in front of an audience of friends and family. We’d been given a book to read, which we were then quizzed on.

The quiz began.

‘We will be asking questions today about ‘Woof”, said the quizmaster.

I panicked.

We hadn’t read ‘Woof’.

It turned out that our teacher, Mrs Bryant, who I already had a bit of a grudge against as she had disagreed in front of the class with my interpretation of some of Romeo and Juliet, (I was a precocious child, but she was wrong), had made us read the book for the FINAL by mistake – ‘The Wolves of Willoughby Chase’. Rather than stand up and say something though, she let us sit through the WHOLE QUIZ getting everything wrong and looking stupid. Needless to say I cried at the end and have never forgiven her.

Anyway.

My gut bacteria. View Post

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God, January is being LOOOOOONG this year isn’t it? It’s so miserable, all the rain and dark mornings.

What you need to to WIN A COMPETITION! How much better would you feel about life if a hamper of cheese turned up on your doorstep?? With this in mind, I asked the super lovely (and lucky) Di Coke to come up with some tips to help you win competitions. Di is something of a comping expert. She’s been winning competitions for twenty years, since the good old days when it was answers on a postcard, and she shares her tips on her own hugely successful blog, Super Lucky.

Here are Di’s seven habits of successful competition winners:

1. Buying random stuff they don’t need

 A successful comper will have cupboards full of toilet roll, toothpaste, tuna and crisps, bought as ‘qualifying’ products for competition entries. But in addition to these useful products, expect to see them stocking up on Tena Lady pads and random baby products too. Because if a competition offers a decent chance of a win, compers will buy the product to enter regardless of whether it’s any use to them. Oh, and they’ll buy in bulk too – just in case the promotional packs disappear off the shelves. Don’t worry though, those 40 packs of sanitary towels will be donated to a local FoodBank or Women’s Refuge once the comp’s over!

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Do you ever get sick of being told to ‘get out of your comfort zone’?

God, it’s relentless isn’t it? Heaven forbid we do a steady job we enjoy, or live in the same house for more than a few years, or avoid extreme sports we hate. Apparently life isn’t worth living unless we are on the edge, continuously pushing ourselves further and further out of our comfort zones.

Well I’ve had enough.

I LIKE my comfort zone thank you very much, especially at this time of the year when outside is so cold and miserable. My comfort zone is COMFORTABLE. That’s the point isn’t it?

Let’s take Monday this week as an example – I pushed myself out of my comfort zone by walking to work in the pouring rain. (‘Embrace the weather! Dance between the raindrops!) It was 1pm before my jeans had dried out properly – just in time to walk home again. Getting back after school, cranking the heating up and peeling off my cold, damp clothes in exchange for warm pyjamas and slippers was wonderful.

Weekend mornings are particularly blissful at the moment. Normally when I first wake up it’s still a little bit dark and when I remember it’s the weekend and I can go back to sleep if I want to, I grin and squirm about a bit in the bed, appreciating how it has somehow arrived overnight at the absolute perfect temperature. My feet are extra warm as I can feel the weight of a cat sat on them. I sit up, and when the cats realise I’m awake they all come up close to my face and start purring. I stroke them for a bit, before going downstairs to make a coffee to bring back to bed. I have a scroll through Instagram or read for a while.

Um, why exactly would I want to leave this?

I wouldn’t.

Fortunately this week is ‘Warmth Week’, created by Vaillant as part of their comfort zone campaign as the antidote to the what is commonly accepted as the bleakest week of the year. It’s the perfect excuse to get snuggly.

To help distract you from the urge to bungee jump or write letters to ex boyfriends or whatever hideous thing Facebook would have you believe you desperately need to do in order to be a leading a fulfilling life, I’ve put together nine top tips to help you stay well and truly INSIDE your comfort zone this winter.

top tips to stay warm in the winter

Pick your spot

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I don’t know about you, but once Christmas has been and gone I feel a powerful urge to get the house tidied up, cupboards organised and my life generally ON POINT.

In this spirit, I gave my coat cupboard a bit of a makeover last weekend, which involved putting up some new hooks and corner shelves. It’s hard in my house, because the walls are so solid and I’m not that strong. I have to put my whole weight behind the drill, and sometimes it’s still not enough, so I have quite a few abandoned holes.* Also I’m a bit slapdash with DIY generally, and I decided to do the corner shelves just by eye. It’s best we don’t talk about those I think. Or try to store anything round on them.

So.

Let’s draw attention AWAY from the shelves and TOWARDS this shiny new competition, where you can win a selection of lovely stuff from JML that promises to be far more useful around the house than me:

JML free stuff competition

Thanks to Belle for making this cool image and to JML for donating the prize.

This PRIZE OF A LIFETIME includes:

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I have one New Year’s resolution this year – to wear more things with cats on.

I don’t mean actual cats – ALL of my clothes are covered in cat hair already – I mean pictures of cats.

This GENIUS idea came to me on New Year’s Day, when I happened to be wearing this cat print dress from a vintage clothing company called Joanie.

cat print dress

Joanie sells all kinds of cool, vintage style dresses, tops and skirts, in sizes 8-22. They offer free returns too, so you can try things on and not have to worry in case you accidentally look like a heffalump. (Except who would ever worry about that when you are wearing a cat dress?)

Joanie sent me a few pieces to try before Christmas, and I really loved all of them, so I thought I’d have a rummage through their sale and pick you out a few options.

You’re welcome. View Post

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Actual LIFE guys.

As far as gifts go, it doesn’t get much better than that does it? Imagine yourself having a post-Christmas gloat:

‘So what did you get people for Christmas this year?’

‘Oh I got my mum some M&S vouchers.’

‘That’s cool. I helped a woman who has been trying for a family for twenty years to have twins.’

Boom. You win.

Egg donation is actually something I’ve considered myself in the past, (before I got too old), and I came very close to doing it. It was only because Bee felt uncomfortable about the idea of having a potential unknown sibling in the world that I didn’t go through with it. In theory though, I know it’s an amazing gift to be able to give someone.

This was bought home to me recently when I spoke to Sarah* about her experiences of trying to have a baby with CARE Fertility.

Sarah is one of those people whose story just blows you away. She has been through so much on her fertility journey and yet she was so upbeat and positive, despite clearly having struggled hugely. Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any harder surely?’ she’d casually drop in another tragic twist to her tale. Afterwards I felt properly humbled. Like I couldn’t believe I’d ever had the nerve to complain about things like the council forgetting to collect my mattress. It gave me such a sense of perspective.

egg donation with CARE Fertility View Post

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Last week I wrote about the One4All gift card and told you all about what a good idea it is as you can use it in so many different places.

To illustrate the point, One4All asked me if I’d have a day out, to showcase some the huge range of retailers. I had to think about it for a while obviously. ‘Hmmm, let me see, do I want to go shopping, buy myself treats, and drink cocktails?’

I decided that yes, in the name of research for YOU GUYS, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

I had a think before I started about what makes a good shopping day out. It’s not actually often nowadays that I would spend a whole day just mooching around the shops. I might go out in my lunch break, or go somewhere with Belle and be made to look in half a dozen different make-up shops, but I don’t often spend an entire day on my own just BUYING stuff.

I used to do it a lot as a teenager of course – Saturdays going ‘into town’ or, if I was feeling flush, getting the bus to Exeter or Bristol. The trouble as a teenager though is that you don’t actually have any money to spend, and so there’s never a lot of action on the actual shopping side of things. I’d normally go out with £10 if I was lucky, and so by the time you’d paid for the bus, and lunch in McDonalds, you’d have about £2.50 left to splurge in Superdrug.

There are some high street shops that I would always go in as a teenager – Boots for a look at the nail varnishes, River Island, New Look and Topshop to look at the clothes I would buy when I was a grown up and had INCOME, and WH Smiths to look at the magazines and pencil cases.

Well good news folks – ALL of those shops take the One4All gift card, plus lots more besides. The scene was set.

Obviously I can drive now, so no bus to Bristol needed for me. (Good job, as buses make me feel VERY sick. When I was pregnant with Bee, and actually too young to drive – scary thought – I once got a bus to Exeter to go to Mothercare and had to throw up in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag on the way home.)

I decided to ease myself in gently by getting myself some supplies for a day out in December. My main annoyance walking around town in the winter is having to take my gloves off to do Instagram stories, (not an issue when I was a teenager), so I went into Carphone Warehouse, who have recently joined the One4All scheme, and got myself some touch screen gloves and a pair of fluffy ear muffs that double as headphones.

Get me, warm AND looking super fly.

Carphone Warehouse One4AAll gift card View Post

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VIPoo toilet spray review Airwick

There are some brand partnerships where you know that if they dropped in your inbox, you’d be ALL OVER IT. Like if Colin Firth got in touch to say they were remaking Love Actually, and would I take on the role of the Prime Minister’s secretary and blog about it.

There are others where you’re not so sure.

I have to confess that when the offer to work with VIPoo arrived, I wasn’t quite as excited as I would be to star opposite Hugh Grant in the best Christmas film of all time hands down.

And then I thought about it, and thought ‘what exactly am I worried about? We ALL POOP right?’

So here I am, talking to you about VIPoo.

Because as much as we might not like to think about it, or talk about it, everybody poops. It’s a fact of life. No matter how well put together your outfit might be, no matter how on point your make-up, (me), at some point you will poo and it will not be fragrant. Fact.

Unfortunately, a lot of us aren’t quite at that point where we’ll happily chat to thousands of people about pooping, and there is still a lot of embarrassment attached to poo, especially if you find yourself having to poo in a public or shared toilet.

That’s where VIPoo from Airwick comes in. Perhaps you’ve seen the TV ad already? View Post

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It’s a pillow, but not as you know it.

The Simba Hybrid pillow calls itself ‘the pillow redefined.’ It offers adjustable height, (madness!), and OUTLAST®technology, developed for NASA, which ensures you’re never too hot or cold. This is great for me as I get REALLY hot overnight, and I’m normally forever waking up and turning my pillow over to get a cooler side.

As far as pillows go, it doesn’t get better than this.

I can vouch for the Simba Hybrid pillow with added OUTLAST® and down as I’ve been sleeping on it for a couple of weeks now. Pillows have always been one of those things that fall to the bottom of my shopping list, which is ridiculous given how much time you spend lying on them – why is it that we neglect things like pillows? Given that I recently got a new Simba Hybrid mattress though, it seemed only right that I get the pillows to match.

(Don’t forget if you want to buy your own Simba Hybrid mattress you can get £50 off with my exclusive discount code.)

Just like the Simba Hybrid mattress, the Simba Hybrid pillow uses different layers to create the perfect pillow.

Simba Hybrid pillow competition discount View Post

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We’ve got a family WhatsApp group for adults only this year. (Nothing saucy.) Mainly it’s my mum and my sister saying things like ‘What can I get for Bee??’ or ‘I still need something for Belle, what does she even like??’

It’s funny because I actually find them both really easy to buy for, to the point where I’ve bought them things before they even know they want them. Belle and I went in Poundland yesterday for example, and I asked her to let me know if there were any little things she’d like in her Christmas stocking. She came back with a packet of Reese’s Pieces.

‘Not those,’ I said.

‘What??’ she huffed. ‘Why can’t I have those?’ (She’s a bit slow sometimes.)

‘Just not those,’ I said.

“But I really like them!’ she said.

‘I KNOW!’ I said, staring hard at her.

‘Oh.’

She went off again and came back with some sour strawberry lace things.

‘Not those,’ I said.

And so it continued.

I do appreciate though that not everyone finds people as easy to buy gifts for. Even if you admit defeat and decide on gift vouchers, you’ve then got the dilemma of ‘what shop??’ It’s a minefield. You don’t want to be THAT PERSON who gets someone vouchers for a shop they never go in, meaning they have them sat in their purse for two years, taunting them until they expire.

So what to do?

You need a One4All gift card. View Post

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Do you remember a while ago I told you about how I’d had to spit in a tube and take a sample of my own poo?

It wasn’t one of the most GLAMOROUS things I’ve ever done in the name of blogging, but I was promised all kinds of interesting insights into my DNA and the workings of my gut, and I was kind of intrigued, so I thought I’d go for it.

A couple of weeks ago I got the results back on both tests and Atlas Biomed were right, I DID learn some interesting things about myself.

My original post talked a bit about how you collect your samples, so I won’t traumatise you with that again. Once your samples have been processed, you’re sent an email to let you know that your results are available online. You then log on and you get a dashboard full of information about different aspects of your health and diet.

Atlas Biomed DNA tests

Initially my recommendations were based just on my DNA and microbiome tests, but there is also the option to improve the accuracy of your results by completing a short questionnaire about your lifestyle and diet.

The stand out piece of information for me was a warning to follow up one of the results with a GP. Apparently I am a carrier of a disease called Haemochromatosis, which effects how the body absorbs iron. Atlas suggested I speak to a GP to find out more about the risks of passing on the faulty gene before I thought about having children.

Hmmm. View Post

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Post in association with Bupa

Bupa health assessment

 

Is a Bupa health assessment really worth it?

Yes.

That’s my short, honest, answer. Totally worth it.

Convinced? Excellent, off you go and book now. My work here is done.

If however you don’t yet trust me quite enough to put your health totally in my hands, read on and I will explain why I think a Bupa health assessment is great value for money and important for anyone who wants to stop taking their everyday health for granted and make positive changes in their life. View Post

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