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Mio Skincare review

I am a low maintenance female when it comes to beauty regimes. I’ll do the basics but when it comes to make-up, cleansing, toning, deep conditioning, face masks, facials…nope.

I got in to a really good routine a few weeks ago of painting my nails, but then that sort of stopped. It’s just so hard to sit still for the time it takes for the nails to dry. No snacking, no fidgeting, nothing! I pluck my eyebrows and straighten my hair – I’d say that they’re my ‘superfluous’ beauty things above and beyond the basics society requires of me. And straightening my hair takes one minute as really is more an OCD thing of neatening things up as my hair is dead straight anyway…it sadly never curls (don’t get me started on blow drying though – takes forever!).

So when Mio Skincare contacted me to review a few items of their range I thought, “Me? Really?”. I had a look on their website and surprisingly wasn’t confused by the different products, which for me is a great start (BB cream anyone? What even is that??), but quite intrigued. This looks like my kinda stuff!

I was sent the Boob Tube+ Multi-Action Bust Firmer, the Workout Wonder Invigorating Muscle Motivating Gel and the Natural Dry Body Brush.

Boob Tube+ Multi-Action Bust Firmer

OK so when I first saw this product I was a bit like “well, this isn’t going to be that useful to me”. I’m not exactly the most blessed of women in that area. Cleavage – what’s that like?? But actually it’s not aimed at big breasted ladies looking for a cheap lift. It’s more to do with the skin quality around your boob-area – as in your chest and neck (décolleté if you will).

That area of the skin is very delicate and usually sees quite a bit of the sun, so wrinkles and lines (especially on the neck) are quite common. This product (from their website), aims to:

  • Keeps lines and crinkles at bay so thin skin stays smooth
  • Visibly healthier, fitter, glowing skin within days
  • Skin brightening actives take years off sun damaged skin

It has a whole bunch of rather impressive ingredients…

Thoughts? It smelt amazing and it absorbed into my skin like a dream. It left my skin feeling lovely and soft. I can’t confirm or deny my boobs are any more perky (I’m 27, small-boobed and have no kids, I can’t say I’ve had any issues in this area) but I do love this. It made me feel like I was doing something good for my skin.

Workout Wonder Invigorating Muscle Motivating Gel

This definitely got me excited. A moisturiser that helped relieve sore muscles?? Sign me up!

The idea is that it cools and ‘revs’ up your muscles, either pre or post workout. It has ingredients such as V-Tonic TM, extracts of Arnica, Horse Chestnut, Murumuru Butter, Spearmint and natural Magnesium to to help increase circulation, reduce inflammation and speed up recovery.

Thoughts? It smells lovely and minty and it definitely feels very cooling when you put it on. My legs were tingling, but in a very pleasant way. Again it absorbs easily without being greasy. I am a big fan of this. I used it after the marathon and it was a dream.

Natural Dry Body Brush

I’m sure all us females have tried using a body brush before in the desperate hopes of reducing/eliminating cellulite. Anyone succeeded? Yeah didn’t think so. Cellulite is the curse of 99% of women, whether it’s a smattering of tiny dimples or the full-blow orange peel, cottage cheese effect. It sucks but it’s life. This body brush is aimed reduce cellulite by helping with lymphatic drainage and removing toxins. It’s also aimed to exfoliate the skin making it softer and smoother.

It’s made of natural boar bristles and has rubber massage nodules so gives a nice feel to the massaging. You can brush dry or wet though I preferred dry, just before I got into the shower.

Thoughts? I liked using it on my legs mainly to get rid of dead skin cells. It left them nice and soft. I had to make sure I moisturised afterwards though as I found it can dry out your skin. As for smoothing…the jury’s out. It did liven up my legs a bit and increase blood flow but as for giving me Victoria Secret-esque worthy legs, doubtful. But it was a nice treat that I’ll probably do it once every week at the weekend to keep myself nice and exfoliated.

Overall, very high-quality feeling products that made me feel like I was treating myself.

What are you absolute musts for your beauty regime?

Would you say your high or low maintenance?

What is your least part of your beauty regime? Mine is blow-drying my hair. I’d happily pay someone to do it for me while I did something else.

**Full Disclosure: I was sent these products for free in exchange for a review. All thoughts are my own honest ones.**

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Flexitol foot moisturiser review

Hello! I’m back in the UK again now after a fantastic holiday in Iceland. Honestly, I can’t recommend it enough and I’m so glad I got to go out there (all that passport drama was worth it!). I’ll obviously do a full recap but as I only got back last night it’ll have to wait for a bit.

Until then I have a review of a foot care product called Flexitol. They’ve created a range of products that are aimed to treat those dreaded foot issues, such as dry and flaky heels, hard skin and also more serious ailments associated with diabetes.

Now, as a runner my feet are obviously hugely important to me. I need them to be shipshape in order to survive the miles I run on a weekly basis. However, as long as they’re functioning well I tend to ignore their appearance. I will rarely show my feet off or walk around barefooted in front of people. As you can imagine, running doesn’t do much in terms of making my feet look particularly nice. I’ve had my share of black toenails, blisters and dry skin. Aren’t I delight??

My feet don’t usually get the love and attention that they deserve. So when Flexitol sent me their moisturising foot cream to test out, it was quite a novelty for my feet. [Don’t worry, there won’t be any bare foot photos in this post as I’m sure I’m not alone when I say no one wants to see my feet (or feet in general).]

The cream was really quite light and absorbed into my skin easily and quickly. I hate it when a cream leaves you feeling greasy (body butters, I’m looking at you). The cream’s enriched with lots of good stuff:

  • Urea: Helps to increase the amount of water that the skin holds, whilst decreasing the amount of water lost from skin’s surface. It also helps to gently exfoliate rough and dry surface skin
  • Lanolin: Helps to restore and maintain moisture balance
  • Decyl Oleate: Promotes long-lasting softness and smoothness of the skin
  • Vitamin E: Helps the skin to be quickly restored to its silky-smooth and well-nourished, conditioned state

My mum gave the seal of approval as well. Now she is a lady who shows of her feet! She had bunions years ago but underwent a double operation to effectively break her feet back into place. For years she was embarrassed about her feet but now, since the operation, she loves showing them off and getting pedicures. She does have lovely feet – not runner’s feet like me! I let her try a bit of the cream on her feet and she loved it too. She often suffers with very dry heels (probably due to inadequate foot wear at work *cough cough*) and found using the cream helped relieve them and improve the skin quality.

The moisturisers is also good for people who suffer from Eczema and Psoriasis – you just need to use a bit more on those areas.

I definitely recommend it to keep those valuable runner’s assets in tip top condition! And maybe even make my feet a bit more worthy of the light of day…

How do you look after your feet?

Do you moisturise regularly?

**Full disclosure: I was sent the Moisturising Foot Cream for free in exchange of a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

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New Rules of Lifting for Women – Stage 1

I thought I’d do a post covering how I’ve found the New Rules of Lifting for Women as I’ve just completed Stage 1.

Just rolling back before I started this, I was still doing lots of strength work in the gym. I’d found lots of good stuff on RunnersWorld, Kinetic Revolution and other random places. At the start of the year I was focused on getting my heart rate up while also strengthening my body. I was running three times a week low mileage and needed something else to give me that sweaty heart pumping boost. The workouts I did were a combination of HIIT and strength, but ultimately leaning more towards cardio.

That said, I did strengthen my body during this time. I came back from injury stronger and in a better mindset to get running again and training in earnest for the Liverpool marathon. I can, hand on heart, say my knees and hips (which I had problems with last year) haven’t bugged me once this year. My tight IT band grief is a distant memory as my glutes have come into action with my running and I feel strong. My only one bug bear this year is my shin/calf that occasionally likes to niggle (and haunt my dreams with thoughts of stress fractures…).

When my running increased I couldn’t maintain the same enthusiasm at the gym and found myself a bit confused as to what I should be doing. I then found out about the New Rules of Lifting for Women and it caught my interest. I bought the book, read it, agreed with so many of the concepts and points made and decided to start the training plan (not the nutritional plan though – I don’t follow diets/eating plans in books. Just not my thing).

I was surprised at how simple the plan seemed. There are several “Stages”, each lasting 4-8 weeks depending how often you train (I tend to do three sessions a week depending on what my running was doing), and each stage would have two different workouts.

The book doesn’t tell you how much to lift but it does tell you how many reps and sets and the rest in between. The number of reps was vastly different to what I was doing before. Whereas before I’d be squatting 30 times, this specified 15, decreasing as the weeks went on until eventually eight. The point being that the weight you choose should be tough for those limited reps.

Stage 1

I really enjoyed both the routines. Yes it got samey doing the same two workouts, but at 5.30am going into the gym with a no-nonsense plan I was familiar with was fabulous.

  • Workout A: Squats, press-ups, seated rows, step ups, prone jackknifes
  • Workout B: Deadlifts, dumbbell shoulder presses, wide-grip lateral pull-downs, lunges, Swiss ball crunches

I won’t go into all the weights I lifted but just to give you an idea…in January I was squatting 20kg (for around 30 reps). I can now squat 50kg for eight squats. And proper full, deep squats. That might not sound amazing to all those warrior lifters out there, but to me this is huge! And I know I can continue to increase.

The progress I was able to make and the confidence it gave me was fantastic. I stepped away from my ‘safe area’ in the gym and moved into the ‘male section’. There would have been no way I could have lifted a barbell to my shoulders to squat if I hadn’t have used the squat rack.

I’m also hugely pleased with the progress I’ve made to my deadlifts. Again, similar numbers to my squats.

What I also enjoyed was that it made me work on my upper body. In my family we seem to be blessed with naturally toned arms (check out the picture of my sister in previous posts – she hasn’t worked out in years *cough* so may say ever…and yet her arms are lovely and toned) so I would always neglect my upper body as I didn’t “need” to do it. But after Cheddar Gorge marathon and the next day my arms ached it further verified that your upper body is really important in running for maintaining good form and helping you push up hills.

I still included some of my ‘essential’ running-specific moves as well – but increased the weights and decreased the reps (things like single leg squats/deadlifts, Russian twists, box jumps, etc.). Since January my single-leg squat has gone from bodyweight to 20kg!

Not the most happy of faces so early in the gym!

Results: There’s a big fear of “omg bulking up” when women lift weights. I can safely say I haven’t bulked up at all. I have more defined muscles, yes, but I’m not the hulk (or at last, I don’t think I am!). I feel stronger when I run and have a better “kick” at the end. And the proof is in the pudding: I’ve been injury-free for the entire year (TOUCH WOOD, TOUCH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!).

Who says girls can’t lift?

What’s next? Stage 2! New workouts and moves to get to grips with (no pun intended). I’m keen to continue with increasing my strength on the squat and deadlift moves as well so will probably go back to them frequently. They’re perfect full body moves that compliment any type of fitness. Though looking at Stage 2 workouts the deadlift move is going to be ‘upgraded’ so that works nicely.

All in all, I’m hugely impressed with NRLW and hope to continue the stages until the end. Obviously my running is the priority so the workouts will always come second best, but the time it takes to get through the stages doesn’t bother me. It just gives me a good focus on how to further strengthen my body to be a good marathon runner.

Do you lift weights?

How do you remain injury-free for running?

Do you like to do the same thing at the gym or do you mix it up?

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Gel Glorify and Luminus – Pound The Road, Not Your Feet

A few weeks ago I was sent two pairs of trainers and some items of running gear from the guys at The Running Bug in connection with ASICS and Intersport (where the trainers are exclusively stocked).

I’m fully aware that this is a dream come true scenario for any runner to be given items of clothing and trainers so I was obviously very happy to try them out. However, I do always feel slightly cautious with trying new trainers because: hello I’m injury prone.

That said, by their description the trainers sounded right up my alley. They’re part of the new gel collection which stresses the concept of “pound the road, not your feet”, especially with long distances. OK, I’m on board so far. So what were the trainers and what were they like?

Gel-Glorify

The Glorify trainer is similar to the ASICS Nimbus model. They have gel cushioning in the front and back as well as a “FluidRide” midsole so keep things nice and bouncy (good “bounce back”). They’re aimed at longer distance running (10k onwards) and were designed to give you a comfy spring in your run. They also have a “Full Length Guidance Line” which is aimed to keep your foot stable during the gait cycle even when you’re fatigued.

ASICS Glorify trainers, socks, shorts and T-shirt

My thoughts? I found them very comfortable and bouncy. I’ve said this previously, but they reminded me a bit of Adidas Boosts but not quite as light. That’s not to say they feel like a heavy shoe, they don’t. But Boosts are more short distance racing shoes, whereas these are in it for the long haul. And for me, this is important in my marathon training. They’re a neutral shoe so ideal for those who don’t have serious pronation problems. Unfortunately I do but I slipped in my insoles into them and they still feel great (I do the same with my Boost neutral trainers). I found them really good for tempo runs when I needed a quick leg turnover but still have a good level of comfort.

Gel-Luminus

The Luminus is similar to the ASICS Kayano model. Again they have a lightweight cushioning and are more of a structured shoe to help stabilise the heel and midfoot. They also have a good amount of room in the forefoot.

My thoughts? These were my favourite out of the two. They’re a structured cushioned shoe and are ideal for my over-pronation. I’ll never feel entirely comfortable in racing flats of minimalist shoes. I’m a runner who needs support and feels more confident when I have it. These didn’t feel like big heavy support shoes, they felt light-weight and my runs felt nice and smooth. What I really liked was that there was a good amount of room in the front compartment: no black toenails for me!

Additional note: I also really like that both trainers have normal length laces. Mizuno drive me mad with their stupidly long laces – why!?

ASICS Apparel

Along with the trainers, I was sent an ASICs technical T-shirt, shorts and socks.

The T-shirt and shorts are really good quality. The T-shirt is lovely and lightweight and nicely fitted.  It also has reflective strips.

The shorts are fantastic. So much so I wore them for my Cheddar Gorge marathon. They’re so comfy, no chafing, have a handy zip back pocket and were lovely and breezy for the run.

The socks are soft and haven’t given me blisters, but I do prefer the shorter “trainer socks”. But that’s merely an aesthetics point!

I like ASICS as you know where you stand with them. They products are good functional and quality goods. The trainers are available exclusively at InterSport so check out their website to find where you can purchase them from.

Do you like ASICS?

What brand of trainer are you currently using?

Do you prefer cushioning and support or more minimalistic trainers?

**Full Disclosure: I was sent these products for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

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One Year to Go – Fitness First #EverydayWinners

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to an event in London to celebrate that August 4th was one year until the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics. The event last week was hosted by Fitness First, the official fitness partner of Team GB.

The event was at a Fitness First gym in Bishopsgate in London with workshops run by Team GB coaches.

This sounded amazing and I was keen to get involved. The workshops including Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, and Psychology. And there would be Olympians just casually strolling about as well, such as Jason Kenny and Keri-Anne Payne.

I was also pleased that someone else I knew had been invited too, Mary (the ultra running superwoman – she’s just smashed a 70 mile trail race. Yep.). Going to London for me is always a bit of a faff so it was nice knowing Mary was going too.

Anyway the morning started quite badly when, as per standard procedure in my life, I only gave myself just enough time to get to the station within minutes of the train arriving. No contingency time for a) paying for parking and b) getting my ticket from the machine. I didn’t think I had any change for the parking machine so I automatically rang the number on the side of the machine to pay that way (I’ve done this before, it’s very handy). Like the genius I am not, I decided it would be quicker to multi-task and do the train ticket at the same time. This involved me managing somehow to crash the ticket machine and mess up my parking on the phone. So I had to go into the station and get my ticket that way. Then run like a mad person to get onto the train, while still trying to sort my parking out.

In the end it took about five phone calls (let’s not forget how intermittent signal is on the train – another genius Anna move) and two car parking payments as I got the registration number of my own car wrong the first time. I was sweating with nerves and stress by the time I finally sat down on the train. As I put my payment card away I noticed I did indeed have the three sodding pounds to pay for the parking. GARGHH.

Thankfully I got to London and successfully met Mary at Liverpool Street station. There ensued a rather comical amount of time for us attempting to find the gym. We walked up and down one road about four times trying to follow Mary’s printed map (very organised, you can tell she’s a teacher) and Google Maps on my phone. We asked random passerby’s as we started to get desperate and each person told us a completely different direction. Finally we found where we were meant to go. Only about a five minute walk from the station we started at. *Sighs* Mary and me are clearly not natural Londoners!

When we arrived we met up with other fellow bloggers, Helen, Emma and Christine, and a few others I didn’t know.

Our first workshop was run by Dr. Duncan French, a leading strength and conditioning expert with 11 year’s experience as a coach. He’s looked after Olympic, World Championship and Commonwealth Games medal holding athletes and a current world record holder.

This session involved Duncan going through several fairly complicated strength moves using a light bar. It wasn’t about the weight of the bar nor our personal strength. It was about our coordination and form.

We started with a fairly simple move of a squat, which then progressed further and further into a jump, snatch, squat routine which really did involve my head more than my body as you had to get the order of it all correct as well as the form perfect.

It was like I was back at school because I found myself glowing with pride when Duncan complimented my “hip mobility”. Though he did point out an improvement I could make and then made me repeat it with everyone watching. Oh the pressure… 😉

The next session was led by James Collins, a leading expert sports and exercise nutritionist, who was heavily involved in advising Team GB Olympic teams and individuals in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, and now towards Rio 2016.

This was probably the weakest of the workshops. Understandably nutrition is such a vast area and the amount of time he was given to go talk to us was short and I think he tried to cover too many areas as it was a bit vague and textbook.

It was interesting though. He talked about how different athletes need different and specific diets because they have very different needs. And that this also changed throughout the year as their individual training peaks and declines depending on what they have going on. He also mentioned how he helps coach athletes with regards to living in the Olympic Village because the sheer amount of food available to them is vast. They need strategies to ‘cope’ and to make the sensible options for their bodies in order to perform at their best. This is especially true for those athletes that need to carefully monitor their weight, such as judo players and boxers.

The third workshop was led by Sarah Cecil, a technical lead sport psychologist at the English Institute of Sport. She has over 10 years of experience working with a vast variety of different athletes and worked with Team GB athletes across both the Olympic and Paralympic Programmes in London 2012.

Her session was by far the most interesting and enlightening. She talked about how she helps athletes cope with the pressures of the ‘big day’ and facing crowds of thousands of spectators. She went through a psychological theory (which I believe is the Triune Brain Theory though she never said – but I’ve since Googled) that our brains are broken into three areas: one being very primal focused purely on survival, the second area more emotional and to do with innate motivations, and the third is where reason, knowledge and rationalisation comes into play.

I’ll probably do a poor job of explaining it here, apologies, but the theory is that if we we overload our more rational side, then the less rational and more emotional side with take over and see a situation in terms of it being a threat rather than an opportunity. This can easily be extrapolated to Olympians just about to compete. They over-think the situation and then panic. She works with them to make sure that they see the situation in terms of an opportunity, and that nothing has changed from when they were training. Basically it’s a choice you can make to take a sep back, breathe, and then take charge of your emotions and perform better.

It’s funny because when preparing for smaller events she says she always tells her athletes she hopes everything will go wrong, so then they can deal with it and then for the more important events they know they can cope.

I found this so interesting! And Sarah was very personable, friendly and knowledgeable. All three workshops were interesting, but they could have been longer to be honest, but I think this was more the style of the event.

The Fitness First gym was fantastic and we were allowed to use it after the event. As I wasn’t really in the mood and I had intervals planned for the evening I declined. But there was a cool running strip, loads of amazing looking machines, weights and other cross-fit style equipment. There was also a huge TV screen on the wall demonstrating loads of different exercises (I got distracted by this several times).

After the event, Mary, Helen and I headed to find some lunch. Thankfully Helen is more London-savvy and took us to a great little spot called O-Food, a Nordic sandwich bar.

The menu was really good and I could have had anything to be honest. I went for a smoked mackerel salad with a side of roasted potato wedges with a sour cream dip. Oh it was divine!

They also served water with cucumber slices in it for free which was fantastic too.

It was lovely chatting to Mary and Helen, discussing racing (Helen was a fellow Cakeathonner!), bogging and what we’ve reviewed on our blogs in the past. Perhaps the event wasn’t as long as it could have been (and the goodie bag could have been better!!) but I did enjoy the day, especially the lunch and chatting 😉

How do you find getting to and being in London?

What great little food places have you found in London?

And just for fun, Team GB have created a questionnaire you can fill in to see what sport your most suited to HERE. I’m a footballer apparently!

**Full Disclaimer: I was invited to the event for free but paid for all my own transport and food. All opinions are my own honest ones.**