Hello everyone! Although I literally say this all the time, but it really has been a long time since I have blogged and I’ve missed it a lot 😦 There is just a certain type of creativity here that somehow always brings me back to this space. Moving on, the reason for my unannounced hiatus was because I went on holiday! This week’s post is all about my time off and some advice about dieting. Shall we begin? 

Dubai 2019!

The first part of the trip was our short stay in Dubai. We stayed there for 4 days and it honestly was amazing! It felt so good to step into hot weather after being in the cold London winter. On the first evening, we went out to this place called Global Village. Inside there were little marketplaces representing each country in the world and they sold famous things from that specific country. It was quite interesting to go into some of the marketplaces and see the specialities of different countries. I even tried Turkish ice-cream too! Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures from the Global Village that I can share publicly 😦

The second day was actually my favourite. We left early in the morning and took a drive to Abu Dhabi to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and it was a sight to see. In all the mosques I have visited in my life so far this would have to be my favourite. It had this peaceful, serene vibe that made me not want to leave the place. Enjoy a few pictures of the mosque and it is a place that I recommend everyone to go to!

       

Later that night we went to the Dubai Mall and we saw the water fountain show near the Burj Khalifa which was pretty amazing, considering it is my first water fountain show. There was an animated show that played on the Burj Khalifa first and was beautiful seeing the Burj Khalifa light up in different colours! This is a picture I took from the water fountain show.

On the next morning, we took a yacht ride around Dubai and the views were breathtaking. with the sun shining on the blue water as it was sparkling. This is a picture of the view from the yacht.

 

In the afternoon, we went sight seeing to Jumeirah Beach to take pictures near the Burj Al Arab. We didn’t spend very long as we were all tired so we took pictures and we had to go to the Safari desert for dinner. The Safari dinner started off actually really well with a very jumpy ride on the safari desert and to top it off there was dinner and entertainment such as traditional dances and more. The sunset on the safari was something of a painting and although my phone’s camera wasn’t so good I hope I managed to capture a good picture.

 

On the last day we just had lunch and headed to the airport to go home to Pakistan. Pakistan was just really busy and there was literally no room to breathe because there were so many weddings! I won’t share in detail what happened as it was a personal holiday and there was so much that happened that I’ll literally be ending up writing an essay! So that’s all for my holiday for 2019, I hope you enjoyed it and all the pictures, there is more on my highlights on my Instagram! The link should be on the Contact page so you can find that there!

 

How to diet when you’re not on a diet.

Now, if you have read my previous post about diet culture you’ll probably be questioning why I’m writing this post. But, while I can rant about how disgusting the diet culture is I can only offer advice to the people that still choose to diet regardless. If you are a person who likes to diet or even doesn’t like to diet but still wants to have some control over what you eat then be free to read on. I won’t be asking you to follow any of those celebrity-endorsed diets that helps you lose weight but works only for a period of time before you gain weight again. Hopefully, these tips will help you gain healthy eating habits.

1. Cut down on portion sizes: The first step to any kind of diet you want to follow might be cutting down on portion sizes. If you have two slices of bread for breakfast and lunch maybe cutting it down to consuming bread only once in a day.
2. More physical activity: 1 hour of exercise a week may not be enough, maybe completing 2 and a half hours of any kind of physical activity including house chores.
3. More fruit and vegetables: Fruit and vegetable consumption is very low recently and more fruit and vegetables mean more nutrients and fibre in your diet.
4. Eat a balanced diet: Try to balance what’s on your plate between protein, vegetables and some carbohydrate. An example of this could be some rice and chicken with asparagus on the side.
5. Decrease snacking: One of the biggest culprits of gaining weight is snacking. Maybe trying to decrease the number of snacks consumed in a day or even to swap some unhealthy snacks with some healthy ones.

This is all the tips I have for now but starting off with these tips could really lead to a healthier diet.

This is all I had for this week but I hope you enjoyed my post and I can’t wait to see you guys next week! 

 

-Yours Truly Raisa