Hey dudes and dudettes,

There's nothing healthier, for both body and mind, than doing what you love and doing it a lot.
I've been quite busy the past few weeks, not just with work, but doing more videos as well!

Maybe some of you have noticed, but now there's Part 2 of Hatoful Boyfriend!








It's been loads of fun playing the game and recording it! I'll definitely do more of that, as well as more TAG videos and possibly vlogs too, when I have something fun to share!

Feel free to tag me for anything fun, I'm always up for it

I also had the chance to take part of the Theatrhythm tournament videos at Square Enix Europe. It was really fun (and a bit awkward) filming those, as none of us really had the time to practice a lot. We filmed the videos around 3 weeks before the official release of the game. Here's the result:





Apologies for the video spam!
I had loads of fun being a part of these videos, even though I have a lot to learn about how to behave in front of a camera as well. That's why practice makes perfect! 


Here's the top 5 lessons I learned in my recording experience:
1. Don't be shy. Don't think - just do.
2. Speak out loud! Even with pro mic you have to talk quite loud to sound normal.
3. Be funny and interact with the camera.
4. Move and use your hands, otherwise you just look like a robot.
5. Take breaks - try again.

These are guidelines that I will be using in my future videos as well. It would be great for me to master these things. Especially staying calm. I do get a little bit camera-shy....


Let me know what you guys think of the videos in the comments below!
Criticism is welcome (constructive)


Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Caturday Health: First YouTube Video

Happy Caturday!



I am really happy (and nervous) to announce that I've just published my first ever YouTube video!
It's a video response to Machinima's open question - Are video games TOO SEXIST? I know, I know, THAT question again.... but I've always wanted to put my opinion on it out there, since I've only seen one other person who shares the same opinion and that's a shame.





Please view it here and subscribe, as I'll make sure to make it into an active vlog. Once I get over my camera shyness. It took me 4 hours of shooting to make this 9 minute video. Crazy, right? I was just so shy at the beginning, it was terrible. But it took a lot of tries to get there 

I can talk on this subject for hours and hours, my friends know that all too well, but what I really care about sharing with the internet is that I really wish things were more positive. People like FeministFrequency, being one of the more popular voices on the matter - I understand where they're coming from and I appreciate the try, but this isn't the way if we're thinking about the future generations and making a difference in the actual gender split in the industry, which is where this whole issue is coming from. It's not about pointing out the mistakes that people have done in the past, it's making sure that they have more guidance and don't do them in the future. Let's just all help the internet to be a little bit brighter than usual on this matter. I'm sure it won't hurt anyone 



P.S.: I am still calling this blog post 'Caturday Health' as being positive, even on the internet is healthy! Totally doctor's orders. And it's not even Caturday anymore, but.... ohwell.

Caturday Health: Sugar! And healthy snacks and breakfast!

Happy Caturday dudes and dudettes!


Today I'd like to share some food porn of my favourite healthy snacks and breakfast with you.

I would like to stress out that the fact that I define them as 'healthy' doesn't mean you can go ahead and stuff yourself with that, thinking it's good for you. Know that all things labelled 'healthy' are okay, unless you eat a lot of them. Balance is the key to everything in life, especially food. I've mentioned it before, you can eat almost anything, but not in too big quantities.

So, let's start with my favourite breakfast!


Porridge with Red Berries and Coffee:
1 sachet of porridge, any favourite brand without pre-made dried out fruits or nuts inside.
Please use water to make your porridge, not milk. Reason being it becomes VERY high in calories if you use milk. It's too heavy for a breakfast.
1/2 cup of red berries. Raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries. You can add bananas if you'd like.
1 spoon of honey (optional). Please don't do that every day. I only use the honey on weekends.

The best thing about porridge is that you can customize it however you like. This is my personal preference of perfect yummy porridge, you may do something different. Some people add cinnamon, or just have bananas inside or sometimes add nuts.

Coffee:

Black is best. No added sugar. I have Cappuccino on the photo, but that's once again, not every day. Or Americano with a little bit of milk, if you can't have black coffee. Once again, reason being, this only adds up to the calories you eat per day. Most people just count the big meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. But all these little things like nuts, coffee and snacks count as well and people usually don't realise how much they end up adding on top of the daily meals.

Here's also my favourite afternoon snack, which is more or less in the same style of my porridge:


Greek Yoghurt with fruits (and optional nuts):
1/2 cup greek style yoghurt, the thicker - the better.
1/4 cup chopped fruits - anything can do, really. I personally like having blueberries, kiwi, apricot, cherries, strawberries. I say 1/4 cup, which is little amount. There should be more yoghurt than fruits. Especially if you put extra fruits in the porridge in the morning, we don't want a sugar overdose.
Chill in the freezer for 10 minutes before eating.
 
I wouldn't have this more than 3 times a week. Keep in mind that bananas are one of the highest in sugar fruits. Here is a very nifty guide of sugar in fruits and daily sugar guide. The 30g per day thing is EXTREMELY low, considering most things we eat have at least 10g sugar in them. Some juices, smoothies and soft drinks have in fact more than 30g sugar in them. Even in small packages.

Optional Nuts: This is only for people who don't eat nuts as snack outside of this snack. Nuts are very good for you and high in fiber, BUT they're also very high in calorie. For someone who's trying to bulk up and gain weight this is wonderful, but for someone who's trying to stay on track and lose weight this means no more than 10 nuts a day, especially if they're walnuts. I personally always have a bag of mixed nuts on my desk and munch every once in a while, but always keep track of how many I have. Don't just pour them down your throat, eat slowly with small breaks and you'll realise that they're actually quite filling. That goes for any food, really. We all have this terrible habit of eating so fast, that we don't realise when we're already full. There's nothing wrong with taking your time to eat your meal. Especially if you eat out quite often, as most portions served in restaurants are in fact more than people should/can eat. Especially in the UK and USA. I always enjoy the few places where they give you a small moderate portion of everything you need. Sadly, usually those places are in fact more expensive. Logic.  

Those are my healthy snacks this Caturday!

I would also like to share with you a 'making of' photos of my newest obsession - NANOBLOCKS

Why hello there, Twitter!

I have to admit, the guide is pretty vague and not very helpful. Or maybe the problem was in me...

Nifty small packages with all the different pieces.

I may or may not have an ocd. Doing this gave me a lot of pleasure.

OMG it's Twitter!!!


Mandatory dramatic shot with Instagram filter.

I actually have a lot of leftover pieces from this bird, which is quite unusual. I guess people assume that I may lose A LOT of pieces while trying to build this. Which I didn't. Thanks to my tidiness. So now I have spare parts to do something with! What should I build next? Feel free to suggest what I should build next in the comments below~

Caturday Health: Importance of good sleep

Happy Caturday dudes and dudettes!


(Cinnamon trying to be omgcat)

I actually had this wonderful idea to make a really long and awesome post about importance of sleep, some haircare tips and summer foods, but Tomodachi Life just came in yesterday and I'll be honest, I'm pretty absorbed in it. If you're interested, feel free to add my Tomodachi to your Island:



I'll start with my favourite general awesome fact of the day:
Adding sugar to your foods and drinks over a long period of time, maybe in fact leads to your body being more exposed to diseases and like any other 'bad stuff' the chance of dying.

What I highly recommend is stopping that delicious sweet sugar in the coffee and tea. It took me about a week to get used to drinking my coffee/tea without sugar and I've found other alternatives such as full fat milk or soya milk (which I am still not convinced is exactly good for you). That also means no syrups, which almost immediately removes Starbucks from your list of places to get your coffee.



Also things like smoothies and summer drinks - they contain more sugar than a whole 8-person cake. I'd rather squeeze my own fruits and make some juice. Tastes better too anyway. I'm still working on buying a juicer - these things are amazing. I do love my pure-lemon-no-sugar juice! What's your favourite juice?

Now, to the point! Sleep. I've noticed a lot of people nowadays just stop paying attention to the importance of sleep. Especially when you're a very busy person with a job that includes many overtime hours. No matter how stressful and impossible your life is - your sleep matters. Especially at university when students find all sorts of (stupid) excuses not to sleep - these days will haunt you later. 

The most common effect of lack of sleep is depression. I believe this one is mostly seen in university students as well. Parents keep assuming they're depressed because they've just gone out in the world on their own. No. It's most likely those sleepless nights trying to do your exams last minute and parties. I'm not saying don't party - I'm saying make sure you get your 8 hours a night. Or at least 7. 5 is not enough, which is what some people claim.

How to improve your sleep? This varies trough people. A lot. Some people like having some scented candles/pillow spray to make them more comfortable, others prefer soft music. Some of the things that are a necessity for everyone:

• make sure you're hydrated, this is good for more or less everything. Water is your friend. 
• don't leave the iPad/3DS/Laptop in bed. I know it's tempting. Just don't.
• go to bed 30min earlier than the time you want to fall asleep. Just to be sure.
• make sure your alarm clock isn't extremely annoying. If you have troubles waking up with a soft tune alarm, then you're not getting enough sleep or you're not sleeping well - check with your doctor.
• don't have a lot of things cramped around your bed. They can all be distractions and cause you bad sleep, as you feel like the space is smaller. Having bigger space makes you sleep better.
• don't drink coffee or tea before sleep. Unless it's a caffeine-free tea. I've seen some claims that tea makes you fall asleep better, but I've seen no actual evidence or proof of this being true, unless there's medicine in the tea, so I wouldn't recommend just making your average cup of tea before bed.

I personally like the scent of lavender and have a night cream with a heavy scent of it that stays on the pillow as well. Also a long warm bubble bath before bed always makes me feel awesome. Recently I've been following cutiepieMarzia's DIY recipe for bubble bath and I'm really happy with it:

What are your favourite things to make you have a nice sleep?


And now, I am going back to Tomodachi Life *whoosh*
have a great weekend!

P.S.: Showing off the new camera Dennis bought!

It's awesome. I'll spam epic pictures very soon~

Caturday Health: Looking younger, oils, meat and more

Happy Caturday everyone!


(What is this 'Lightning' thing, can I eat it?)

For this week's Caturday Health, I thought I'd share a few things that I've been reading a lot on, for what feels like forever... I believe the best introduction would be to show this little study here, which shows the differences in twins over age and more specifically, what some of the twins did, that the other didn't, and it made them look a lot younger. I'm sure you've heard about most of the things, such as smoking gives you wrinkles and sun is bad for you, but I don't think that any of the pop culture nowadays actually stresses out HOW bad they are for you.

Let's stop for a second and think about what the sun is - a giant ball made of stuff that kills more or less everything we know of. Except Superman. It's so powerful and strong it gives us cancer from being hundreds of millions of miles away from us. And this is the way we should think of it, every time we go outside without a sunscreen on. Which should never happen to begin with.

 EVIL  (yet people often put a smiley face on it, why?)

So, after we've established the facts, I can't help but wonder why did people ever create this trend for the 'healthy' and 'beautiful' image of a human being to be this beautiful person with a golden tan. WHY? This is like more or less asking people to go and get wrinkles and cancer. Sometimes (most of the times) Hollywood and stereotype images of 'beauty' really don't make sense to me at all.

With the exception of South Korea. These guys constantly amaze me with how perfect their skin is. You know what a big part of the reason is? They ALWAYS use sunscreen and in their culture it's not normal or attractive (usually) to have a tan. Here's an awesome video with my super favourite Simon and Martina (you should subscribe!) about it:


Summer is coming guys. Brace yourselves. Get those 50 factors, PA+++ and don't forget to put it at least 3 times a day if you're outside, exposed to the sun. Otherwise once in the morning should be enough. I mean it. That's the best advice I've ever given. Now, let's move on to other factors, such as:

• Drinking water - at least 3L a day. 
• Having a good skin: cleansing, putting on moisturiser and spf on your face every time you go out, to protect your skin from the outside world. Unless you live in the mountains where the air is far different than most cities. 
• Don't eat junk food, I mean it when I say this shit is killing you slowly. 
• Try not to smoke. Really. Especially if you're a woman. 
• Lift weights, exercise at least twice a week and count your daily calories. Counting calories, because I just ate a small biscuit, one of those that are sold in a large package of 12, that was 300 calories each and I realised that only after I ate it. That's 2k calories if you eat the whole pack, which is extremely easy to do. And that's more than all of the calories I eat in a whole day. It's VERY easy to eat more calories than you should. Now, this is obviously something that hasn't been proven to extend your life, but it's proven to minimize danger of certain diseases/illnesses. Think of it as the filter to a machine - once the machine is done working, it takes all the bad stuff away and makes sure the machine stays in good condition for as long as possible.

Now let's talk about meat. Check out my chick from last night:

as seen on my Instagram

I would also like to apologise to any vegetarians reading my posts, I accept your views and respect your decision to follow them, I just share a very different perspective. 

I'm not going to cite my so beloved science, but facts are that meat contains vitamins and most importantly proteins that you need in your daily diet. I PERSONALLY don't think anyone can be healthy without eating meat and veggies every day. I will just leave this picture here, as my proof:

Which reminds me of a whole different topic about how usless detox diets are, unless you're a model and need to look like a skeleton for this one show next month. Any effect or hard work during the 'detox' period is completely nullified once you go back to eating normally. 

And my final topic for today - OILS! Oils are awesome, for so many different reasons and in many different appliances, EXCEPT using it when you go to the beach/outside on the sun. Don't fry your skin, reasons mentioned above. Sun and oil on skin should never be done, ever. 

However, oil and skin should meet on a daily basis on one of the best things ever - Oil Cleansing. It's by far the most efficient way of cleaning your skin, while moisturizing and removing all the dirt and make-up way better than any other makeup removers. Here's a really nifty tutorial, thanks to /r/skincareaddiction about how to cleanse using any kind of oil from your average supermarket cooking oil to fancy aroma therapy oils.

It's not only a super effective way, but it's cheap as well. I personally use coconut oil and it works great for me. I bought it for £5 in The Body Shop and moisturise after cleansing with olive oil. Coconut oil specifically is very good for hair masks as well, deep conditioning and the whole body (before bed). Smells amazing too. 

Oil is also essential in food! Of course not in excess amounts - nothing is ever good when it's too much. I always use extra virgin olive oil in my salads and cooking olive oil for my tasty roast chicken. 

Enjoy your weekends guys and enjoy the sun, with your sunblock! 

Please feel free to ask me anything ! If you have any questions or would like some recommendations for products - I've tried a lot of stuff (wasting money). 

I also apologise if I've offended anyone with different views in my post. I'm fully aware that not everyone has the same lifestyle and I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong. 

Caturday Health: How to replace bad foods tips!

Happy Caturday Everyone! 



I wasn't really sure where to start with my 'health' edition, so it took some time to get this blog up 

The first step of starting a healthy lifestyle is the mindset, then research! People usually assume they should stop eating something or stop doing something they enjoy completely. That's the case one and only if you survive on junk food 24/7 - I know you know it, but that shit is gonna kill you. 

When people say thing are 'bad' for you, I don't think they really stress out HOW bad. When I started looking into things and changing my entire lifestyle I realised we do so many things thinking 'yeah it's bad, but it can't be that bad, right?' that later on we have pay a dear price for. I think if all people on earth aimed towards a healthy lifestyle and put some effort in, the average life expectancy would be significantly higher (or at least you'd spend less money on healthcare bills at a later stage in life).

My general advice, from what I've learned and researched, would be that nothing is really that bad in moderation. Balance is the key to everything. And that can be used for anything in our lives - not just the food we eat. You can have all that guilty pleasure food and sugar and chocolate, but very highly moderated. You have to be aware of exactly what you're putting in your system every single day.

1. Sugar. We all know it's bad. Just to clarify - this includes FRUIT SUGAR as well. I wouldn't recommend eating more than 3 fruits a day. Dark chocolate is your friend, don't forget to check the sugar on yoghurts, as some of them run really high and yes - you can eat normal chocolate, I personally treat myself to a small box of Leonidas once in a month or so.

2. Fried food. I always try and replace fries with mashed potatoes whenever I can. I know fries are awesome and delicious, but they're absolutely terrible. They literally have nothing good in them. Fried chicken is more or less what you do to a nice piece of chicken when you want to destroy all the goodness of it. Try and stay away from anything fried as much as possible. This was the hardest step for me personally.

3. Replacement foods. This is quite important, as almost any food you have cravings for and is a 'guilty pleasure' can be replaced with something else. It's something that varies around people, but here's what I've done:
Fries -> Mash
Sweet stuff -> Yoghurt with fruits (+spoon of honey, but not too often)
Bread/wheat -> Carrots, salads, whatever vegetable you like

4. You can never have too many veggies. They're simply that good for you. So if you're someone who likes veggies - lucky you! If you're someone like me who hates 99% of greens and a lot of veggies... uh oh. You'll have to start drinking that disgusting green juice at the store or buy a powder shake with wheatgrass. It's terrible, but you can drink it quickly and you need it on your daily 'diet'.

I hope this was helpful, I will try to cover more ground in the next edition of Caturday Health.

I hope you're having a great weekend!