Pulling sweet teeth: The week I tried to kick my sugar habit

Unless you actually are Candice Swanepoel, an evening of back-to-back Victoria’s Secret shows does not make for easy viewing, I can assure you. However, after watching the 6ft angels at work, I decided to kick my bad habits and dare I say it, acquire a ‘bikini bod’ in time for summer. Or at least, try.

I’ve watched the interviews with Miranda Kerr and heard her waxing healthy about the benefits of ruddy quinoa and coconut milk – and as much as it’s lost on me, I can’t deny the woman looks good. I know what my downfall is; sugar. What I have is a genuine, all-consuming craving for sweets. Not just idle ’I fancy a Percy Pig’ thoughts - I’m talking choking on Haribo because you’ve just poured the whole bag into your mouth. I react like a rabid dog if someone asks for a Minstrel from my ‘Bag to Share!’ 

So I knew what I had to do: cut out sugar.

Bella Blissett in her article ‘Sweet Freedom’ in the May issue of Elle magazine, assures me that within about a week, my cravings will diminish and eventually cease. So it is with this hope that I push my trolley around the supermarket, walking straight past the cherry bakewells, to the fruit and veg. And eight portions of fresh food later, not to mention some oily fish, rice, lemon juice and several other healthy looking foodstuffs, my new life as a lean mean six-pack machine begins.

Day one, and it’s all going swimmingly. Yoga before a breakfast of muesli, lunch of a Waldorf salad, and a dinner of salmon and vegetables. And then I steal one of my housemate’s chocolate digestives because I figure it’s unrealistic to go cold turkey straight away. Jeez, I’m not Gwyneth Paltrow.

Unfortunately by day three, all the digestives have gone and sorry, a carrot doesn’t cut the craving. I just want a Fruit Pastille, for God’s sake. Maybe a Tooty Fruity.

For work on day four, I forgo an inevitably wilted salad and plump for a Mediterranean tuna bagel. But unfortunately I overfill it, and all the tuna comes out. The tomato salsa makes my lunchbox look like a crime scene and it stinks to high heaven so I abandon it and eat some sesame seeds. So very hungry.

By the weekend I’m going to the cinema, and you physically cannot watch a film without pick ‘n’ mix, so I load up on cherry cola bottles – they’re gone before film starts.

Throughout the next few days, I try to be as creative as possible – honey glazes for salmon, banana splits, sweet potato mash, endless endless seeds. But the difficult thing is, I don’t feel any better for it. I’m still tired, and grumpy, except now I don’t have Jelly Babies for company. I know I hit a low point when I shakily text my boyfriend around 11pm, ‘Please. Just get me a f***ing cookie.’

Yesterday, whilst desperately eating teaspoons of dry hot chocolate powder out of the tub, I realise, this is what addiction feels like. Eventually I figure inhaling/eating powder is never a good destination, so I go and I get a Caramac, and feel great.

I’m not knocking the healthy lifestyle – I have a new-found love for salmon salads, and I do really like vegetables. And if other women can survive sugar-free, well done them; they are stronger and inevitably healthier people than me. But as a contract with Victoria’s Secret really isn’t on the cards for me, I can’t justify being miserable for the sake of a few inches of thigh-squidge. I don’t drink, smoke, eat fried food or much dairy. Just for Heaven’s sake – let me eat cake.

Have you ever tried to cut down on sugar? How did it go? Hints and tips gratefully received in the comments section.

Instagram envy is ruining my life – but I just can’t quit

With more and more of us communicating visually, I find myself checking Instagram for updates far more than I check Facebook. So, I ask, who needs words when you’ve got heavily edited pictures?

In the days of yore before I got myself an iPhone, I envied the Instagrammers. The members of Instagram, the photo sharing website and app, seemed to live in a perpetual summer, where it was acceptable to post daily pictures of your healthy breakfast simply because it’s such a damn nice photo. In fact, not  just acceptable, but you get likes from other users to reaffirm your choice of smoothie, and can give your brekkie a self-congratulatory hashtag like #bodyisatemple to boot.

But then I got an Instagram account myself and I realised even the best filter (I’m saying Earlybird – what are you saying?) does not make my life cool. I’ve uploaded pictures of my dad’s 60^th birthday cake, a book, my shoes, Elle magazine…all for the sole purpose of saying, ‘this is how I’m living my life’, which would all be very well and good, if it were not cruelly juxtaposed with the way others were living their lives. And when you’re following the likes of Alexa Chung, Miranda Kerr, Chiara Ferragni and Poppy Delevingne, no amount of sepia tone can make a shot of my Primark boots compare to those model beauties with their perfect Insta-lives.

The problem is that Instagram feeds you two kinds of lies:

1. Life is idyllic. All the time. By making an otherwise mediocre photo (I’m no Annie Leibovitz) appear as if it were taken in the 1970′s, what is actually happening in real life is as idyllic as on the screen. Thus you look back at the memory, thinking, ‘my, that Kerouac-esque road trip we went on to Tesco sure was fun.’

Real world

Insta-world

2. Celebrities are your friends. Much like Twitter, Insta-follows do not equate to actual friendship. This is all the more galling when you’re scrolling through your feed, and in amongst your friend’s dog, friend’s nail varnish, friend and boyfriend, there’s supermodels Karlie Kloss in New York. Like the luckiest, richest most annoyingly successful friend in the world.

And, yes, I admit, all this institutionalised jealousy is my own doing. I decided to follow exclusively supermodels and actresses, and I choose to relentlessly refresh to get another toxic hit of a beach, a red carpet, a catwalk. Worryingly, I feel myself changing as a result; last week I went to Instagram the floor of my hairdressers to tell everyone I was getting a haircut. I plan nights out with my best friends on the promise of some flattering, hipster photos gracing the internet the next day. I no longer consider a photo to be ‘good’ unless it’s had the Instagram treatment.

All this has culminated in my general avoidance of mirrors, lest they should show me how my face looks in real life. It’s a tough life, but here’s hoping that one day I get to actually go to Coachella like the rest of my celeb pals, instead of photographing my back garden and putting it through the Nashville filter.

Giles Deacon Goes Libertine (Not inspired by Pete Doherty)

Katie and I spent last night at the Ivy.  I know, I know, sounds like we live lives full of canapés and car service, wearing curb to cab heels sometimes, doesn’t it? Well guess what! My night of glamour was put in rather stark contrast when I ran for the number 8 bus home.  But what were we doing there, you might ask?  Well, it was actually all in aid of potentially meeting one of Britain’s most renowned designers, Mr Giles Deacon.  Now I’ve been a fan of Giles ever since Pinterest made private pin boards where I could stash all my Abbey Clancy wedding dress images so we thought we would go and check out what the craic was regarding his new collaboration with QVC.  Yes, you read right.  The duo have joined forces to create a designer jewellery range and rumour is Giles will even be appearing on the shopping channel this week (according to a little tweety bird I heard). 

The collection itself is entitled ‘Libertine’ and thankfully was not inspired by Pete Doherty, but encapsulates quirky design which goes against the grain of the mainstream, using bold colours and unusual elements to create pieces that talk:

Oh yeah, and we weren’t sure if this ^^^ was Miranda Kerr’s twin?  Either way she could pull off a Morticia Adams dress so well it made me jelly.  The collection seems overall extremely fresh and right up the Style & Then Some’s (jewellery) street.  With the trend for original and talking-point jewellery still going strong, it’s a no brainer that this designer collaboration will do well.  With prices starting at £14 to £70, it won’t break your bank manager’s heart too much either.

(He said he wouldn’t make my wedding dress)

Victoria’s Not so Secret Secrets…

Don’t panic, this wont be (much) of a feminist rant regarding the infamous Victoria’s Secret show.  I am actually a fan of the brand, and an avid ‘avoider’ of the new Bond Street store (check out our Jo’s review of it here) lest I spend my last pennies on pants instead of bus fare.  However, I do have a few bejeweled bones to pick with the annual pre-holiday extravaganza.  I am wholly aware it is all supposed to be seen as ‘good old fun’, but seriously, it must take a strong woman to watch that show and not feel completely awful about herself for about 5 minutes afterwards.  Perhaps I am alone here, but being stupidly impressionable until my early twenties, watching YouTube videos of the Angels strutting their underwired goodies down the catwalk didn’t do much for my self-esteem.  Now, I frankly don’t give one as I have understood I am not blessed, and never will be, with Alessandra Ambrosio’s legs and neither are a lot of other people.  So I thought I would list a few issues with the show to make any other impressionos think twice:

1. The Diet:

It is nothing short of horrific.  The models, this year including the likes of Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn, Karlie Kloss and Miranda Kerr among other names I won’t ever remember, are put through a ‘pre-season’ diet regime where drinking a gallon of water is the norm, exercising twice a day for roughly 3 months is key, and waving ‘bye-bye’ to solids (mmmmm them protein shakes are mighty tasty!) for nine days before hand.  I think I’ll stick to my crumpets for breakfast instead of this:

1. The grooming:

We all love getting our hair, nails and make up done by a professional, but come on, there wasn’t a pube in sight.  Being waxed to within an inch of your life must have caused some angel tears pre-show.  I’m sure Adriana Lima, an OAP of the show at 30 years of age, would have been dishing out the E45 cream to the first timers…

1. The Women:

I do hold the belief these women are actually just freaks of nature.  Who has a baby and looks like Miranda Kerr?  No matter how many crunches you do, most of our stomachs wont resemble Candice Swanepoel’s concave abs.   And maybe that’s a good thing after the immense press backlash she is currently receiving for supposedly taking the VS diet (if possible) that one step too far…

 So I am still out on a limb.  While I enjoy a good browse in store, and find Victoria’s Secrets do some of the most comfortable knickers you can buy, the show itself should be seen as an outdated concept, up there with Miss World.  Instead, it is regarded as one of the most anticipated ( I wont go in to the obvious ‘whys’ here) shows in the fashion calendar, despite the models barely being able to walk properly under the weight of those ridiculous wings.  So tell me, do you agree with the show or have any objections to it? It would be good to get some opinions… 

Get Fit at Victoria’s Secret

Although it opened back in August, it’s taken me a while to traipse over to New Bond Street and sample a bit of deluxe lingerie shopping in the shape of Victoria’s Secret.  We’d all like to look like Miranda Kerr (obvs) but, being the cynic I am, feel it may take a tad more rigour than buying some new pants.

In all honesty I probably wouldn’t have ever ventured to the disco-balled, multi-floored, shopping extravaganza had I not been on a work comp-shop.  It is most definitely aimed at tourists and teenagers so in their defence, I’m neither.

The store feels a bit Hollister with lots of black surfaces but thankfully better viewing light and more ambient music.  You’re hit with lots of pink and sparkle and some of the styles can look a bit chav-tastic en masse (although the buyers probably call the collection: ‘fun & flirty’).  Mannequins wear costumes from the high-profile Victoria’s Secret shows which, we all know, look utterly spectacular on the actual supermodel, however the mannequin versions look like cheaply made fancy-dress costumes.  Note to visual merchandisers: it really doesn’t translate well.  I’d go as far as to say they look nylon-y and a bit creepy.

 

Staff (and security) are plentiful and eager to help at just a hint of a glance in their direction.  Customer service has obviously been established as priority one which (although totally, like…American) is refreshing as unlike a clothes emporium, lingerie is more technical and requires additional guidance. Staff are armed with a measuring tape poised to perform a swift-bra-fitting right there on the shop-floor for ladies on-the-go.

I opted for the fitting room, one-to-one consultation.  You’re assigned a ‘store associate’ (who wear head-to-toe black and come fully equipped with a headset) to measure you up and then give you some demo-bras to try on and check the fit.  Despite the waiting list being busy, my name (which was exotically pronounced Johanna) reached the top in super-quick time.  There are enough staff to allocate one per fitting room so there’s no-one outside shouting ‘who needed the 38DD in the soft beige’, everything is slick and quick and you don’t have to awkwardly peer out with the curtain around your head to get someone’s attention. 

I was worried my store associate, Lauren, might ignore my rather bland requests and perhaps come back with some oversized wings and a diamante tanga thong.  To my relief, she returned with 5 styles, all of which fitted me and my criteria.  Your preferences are then noted on a ‘Your perfect Fit’ card and you’re free to explore the store with your card on-hand to choose your selected styles in the ocean of colours provided. Lauren (now we’re mates an all…) even wrote which floor I could find each style on.  Too easy.

 

Although with this uber-service comes some American ‘have a great day’ clichés and a compulsory interactive experience, we seem to need it, as many of us walk around wearing ill-fitting bras.  The Starbucks style over-use of your first name took some getting used to but the service was quick and the staff are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

Had I not gone in for the fitting service, I would never have purchased anything as where would one start?  I like to think I’m an experienced, savvy shopper, but the sheer scale of choice is enough to make you walk out again.  With literally thousands of bra options, this scale of service is essential for a place like Victoria’s Secrets and I can see it catching on, even amongst the Brits.

Follow me @joanna_knowles

The annual boob-off is back | Victoria’s Secret Catwalk Show 2011

It costs over £7 million to stage and boasts of the finest models in the industry. This year’s performers have an impressive 17 Grammies between them and the most expensive item of clothing on show includes a $2.5 million diamond bra.

Not bad going, considering Victoria’s Secret was originally invented in 1970s to save men embarrassment of openly buying sexy undies for their wives.

Well, thanks to the lavish affair that is their annual catwalk show, it’s quite easy to forget the brand’s humble beginnings. Indeed, some of the costumes have been considered so raunchy that critics have labeled the show pornographic and demeaning to women – an extreme opinion and one that I don’t personally subscribe to.

No, what really matters to me is what lies beneath all that glitter and gloss. Previously only available in the United States, Victoria’s Secret announced back in August that it was set to open its first UK flagship store on New Bond Street in 2012. Having blogged on here before about the problems faced by the fuller-chested woman, I’m keen to see if their products stand-up to all the hype.

In the meantime, though, I will be channelling my inner Gisele as I tune in to the annual boob-off. Do drop us a line if you’ll be watching it too, or to let us know what you thought of all the catwalk looks.

The Victoria’s Secret fashion show 2011 takes place on 9 November and is broadcast on 29 November. The clock is counting down on the Victoria’s Secret website.