Learning to love me

I’ve spent the last few years fluctuating in weight. I guess my stress levels played a big part in this but the biggest obstacle that stopped me for so long was the fact I had no respect for myself any more. Not for my mind and certainly not for my body.

Many people I know really lose their need for food if they go through rough times. Not me. Fuck no, not me. I wish I did but all I do when I’m struggling is eat and not the right things. If I get sad? Food. Anxious? Food. Excited? Fuck it let’s celebrate, food.

A couple of years ago I peaked at 18 and a half stone. I was seriously depressed, unsettled and very bloody fat. I must have avoided the mirror for a few years because one day I just walked by one and honestly cried. I didn’t even recognise myself anymore. There was no way I had let myself slip that bad. Surely it was all a bad dream. At that point I kind of sat back, listing things down that I had let slip from my normal routine. I wasn’t reading as much, spending time with my family or friends as I was so far away, I had stopped travelling altogether, I hadn’t wrote a single line in a blog or on a piece of paper in years. Something had to give.

I was living in Scotland at the time, I promised myself that I would lose weight and never get back to that weight again. I started back at the gym and went religiously. I would walk, run, swim. Shit, anything to just raise my heart rate a little and get me sweating. I did good. Real good. I was losing the pounds consistently. I got to a better place mentally. I started reading again, I love a good book. I even started writing again. I moved back to Wales to be close to my family and friends, I got my space to work on myself finally. I was in a really good place.

I guess since being home for almost two years I have gotten all too comfortable in not being active again. I mean I’m not anywhere near how bad I was before but I’m definitely on pause and have been for a while. I still have a very long way to go before I can be happy with my body.

I’ve always dreamt of travelling, making documentaries and writing. Not as a job but as my life. That’s what I want to do. It’s not a job when you love it that much. Being on the go, meeting new people, being introduced to new cultures and being able to put those experiences into words is something that gives me an adrenaline rush that I simply can not explain. I’ve put this dream on hold for way too long purely out of fear, especially when I got really overweight because who the hell would want to watch videos of my fat face talking absolute shit with zero motivations. Where do you even start to learn about editing videos, working on the go, where do you start? You start by trying and that’s where I’m at right now. What better way than to lose weight but to use that mission alongside your dream of making videos and blogging. I’m fed up of putting things on hold, my time is now. I’m starting small, just trying to make a little following for now while I spend hours on YouTube, learning how to YouTube. I made an instagram account @chubrubjourney just for short videos and pictures of my journey until I get to where I want to be. I can be really funny sometimes, it’s one of the few things I have been able to keep even when I wasn’t ok, so I’d like to be able to showcase that. I think part of my purpose was to make people happy and bring them joy, now it’s my turn to give that to myself and focus on what I need for a while.

I would really love it if you could come on this journey with me. We can all learn from eachother and support eachother to want better and to be better. Loved ones or even strangers, now is a better time than ever to all come together.

Here’s to the start of a new beginning.

Please follow my instagram and subscribe to my youtube channel @chubrubjourney (Chanty Harris). I plan on making silly videos of workouts, adventures, the ups and most importantly the downs because they are what make us stronger.

I hope to see you all when I am eventually ready to upload my first video.

Much love,

Chanty

love one another

I sat and watched the news before work today and it honestly, for the first time in my life, made me scared of the world we are living in.
The amount of hate-crime, terrorism and natural disasters that unravel around our very lives. Even if we don’t get struck by it first hand, we know hundreds of people else where are having their lives either torn apart or taken away.
But the worst part, in my eyes, is the amount of further blame and confrontation that it causes for innocent people.
Somebody, somewhere feels the need to start a stupid viral rumour… “It’s the Muslims” or “it’s a conspiracy”.
Rather than taking a moment to send hopeful wishes and condolences to people who have lost somebody or something very close to their heart people prefer to cause further aggravation.

PEOPLE ARE HURTING. DYING EVEN.

WE ARE SURROUNDED BY HATE.
WE DO NOT NEED TO SPREAD MORE FEAR, LIES OR NEGATIVE VIBES AT SUCH A CRUCIAL TIME.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER REGARDLESS OF RACE, GENDER, SKIN COLOUR OR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. BECAUSE IT IS TIMES LIKE THESE WHERE WE SHOULD RECOGNISE WE ARE ALL ONE. ON ONE PLANET. WITH ONE GOAL. WHICH IS TO SURVIVE.

SO WHO ARE YOU TO TAKE THE FOCUS AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T SURVIVE?

PLEASE APPRECIATE THE LIFE YOU HAVE AND THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU WHILE YOU STILL HAVE THAT OPTION.

ALWAYS LOVE ONE ANOTHER xxxx

and if you’re going to take to social media please make sure you know facts and have a bit of respect for the grieving.

Sending the most hopeful prayer to all of you brave people across the world xxx

#prayforparis #prayforjapan

Lucy lives on

Today is definitely one of the biggest days of the year for me and a lot of my friends. 3 years ago today I lost my bestfriend, and you know when people say they feel like they’ve lost a leg? Well for the first time in my life I felt like I had actually lost my heart.
My friends knocked on my door with the biggest pain in their eyes that I can still remember now… and i just knew. 

My heart just paused for a few seconds and I felt this pain. Physically a pain in my chest. A pain that I’ve never really understood but one that has remained inside me every single day since. 
One of the first things I thought was “If we feel this amount of pain, how the hell must her family be coping with a pain 10000 times bigger?” And the thought of their heart break breaks my heart so much. 
Lucy has this family that no words can combine to explain just how much love they carry between themselves. They’re the sort of family you’d see on a TV show that hand out love to everybody they meet just because they can and want to. 

I met them all through the start of my charity experiences, they literally changed my life. Especially Lucy and her twin Hannah. We traveled to Sierra Leone in Africa and my whole life flipped and I started to make improvements in myself from that moment on. 

We shared an experience that will forever be in my heart. I wrote a diary the whole journey which includes funny stories with luc. Like how she squeezed my hand so tight all of the way on the plane that I thought it was going to fall off. 
One of the hardest things I have had to do in my life was to try and let go of a person who literally changed my life. 

Lucy had this thing about her that was just so beautiful. In fact everything about her was beautiful. She was just the most selfless, respectful person I have ever met in my 21 years of breathing. She built an amazing charity out of nothing which is still ongoing and growing every day.(which she would be very proud about) and her whole life was dedicated to helping others. 

Every person she met, whether it be for a minute, a year, or 10 years, she just touched such a special place in their hearts. 
I shared so many brilliant, funny memories with Lucy. She used to have passing conversations with our laminator in the office and also once with a stapler and even after she realised it was a stapler she said something along the lines of “oh shit sorry you’re a stapler I’m really sorry”. 

She did this thing to me EVERY DAY (which at the time I hated) but I can now look back on and laugh… Before I would arrive at the office she would print out pictures of rotten toes and post them all over my desk and it made me cry a lot, because toes were at the time my biggest fear. So disgusting and unusual. But I would get my own back by hiding sticky notes all over the office with the words “moist, tip & shaft” on. Because she absolutely hated those words more than I can describe but it was hilarious because every now and again you’d hear a squeal and “CHANTY WARRIOR I’M GOING TO GET YOU BACK”. 

 

 She was the type of person that you would sit with in silence but she would somehow put a smile on your face. It was priceless. 
What I would do for all of us to be sat in a room together again. 

I kind of just wanted to share the love today and I knew you liked to read my blogs so I wanted to let you know that we all still think about you every day. 
Your legacy will forever live on Lucy Dickenson. 

I am, AND WILL ALWAYS be so proud of you and the things you achieved. 
Rest peacefully angel. 
We all love you tremendous amounts xxxxxx