About

Hello and welcome I have been writing this blog on and off for four years now, I absolutely love it, and I hope you will love it too!

I'm  an artist, photographer, foodie, juicer, traveler and all round nutter from Bournemouth, UK. 

This blog isn't for the faint hearted. Its full of truths, and swear words. 

I started this blog as a way to document my travels. I didn't keep a blog while travelling, I kept a hand written journal. My plan was to write up all my scribbles here. It didn't quite happen like that. Life happened and the blog got forgotten about.  I was ill, slept a lot, and just didn't have the energy, or the concentration to write my blog every day.

After almost a year of travelling Australia and South east Asia I returned home very very ill. I had dengue fever. That little bastard mosquito was going to change the rest of my life. 

April 2011.

 

I had been travelling south east Asia and Australia for months. In Thailand I was bitten by a mosquito that carried dengue fever, once I reached Penang about a week later I was extremely weak and turning grey. After a few days of staying at a lovely home stay with a lovely lady sitting with me 24 hours a day I was taken and admitted into Penang Hospital. Within a few hours I was diagnosed with Dengue fever. They told me there was no quick cure, just a lot of rest and water. A week or so later I cut my trip short and flew home. I was wheeled through to my mum and dad in a wheelchair and looked like death. I didn't look happy and healthy, how I should of looked after being out in the sun for so long.

Time went on at home and I seemed to be getting better until august 2011.

I woke up with the most awful headache. I just thought it was a normal headache and would bugger off. I was doing Mudeford arts festival so headed down the quay and attempted to set up my Gazebo with mum and all my art. I couldn't do anything. My body was just useless, my left arm and leg had dropped and were completely numb. Throughout the festival I had the most awful headache and just sat down a lot. I went to the doctors on Monday and they just said I had a head ache and everything was fine.

The headaches carried on for a few more months, I was always going to the doctors but had no joy. By now my left arm was extremely weak and just kind of hung by the side of my body. I was too scared to use it because I couldn't grip anything and was dropping things.

I started getting pain all over my left arm and leg, in the left side of my chest and in the left side of my face. Everything was the left side. I saw endless doctors, chiropractors, neurologists etc. I just kept on getting poo pood until one doctor said Fibromyalgia. I went home and did my research and noticed all my other weird symptoms linked up. I had this Fibromyalgia thing.

I found a few 'support' ( ha ha bloody ha) pages on Facebook but found them extremely negative. Ladies on their basically told me to give up on life and be in a wheelchair. 
That was that, I was told I had Fibromyalgia, nothing else, no information or support given, and to just get on with my life. It was only in late 2014, that I finally started to get a little bit of help. 

I carried on travelling I went to Jordan and Israel for a few months. It was full of highs and lows, mentally and physically. Some days I had endless energy and would be jumping in the sea, partying, and exploring markets, other days I'd be as low as I could be, suffering really badly mentally and sleeping loads.

I didn't once link together that when my mental health dropped, my body also gave up. Its only been recently I put the two together. 

Things went on, life went on, the pain and the fatigue went on. I moved to Amsterdam, partied a lot, had a lot of fun, my health deteriorated so I returned home.  I just slept all the time. The fatigue was out of control. I went to turkey to stay with friends for a month or so to chill out, get some sunshine and relax. Sunshine is meant to be good for fibromyalgia.

While in Fetiyeh, with my friend, I noticed I was really out of breath. Over the last two months I had gained a lot of weight, very fast. It was August 2013. I became out of breath but I just put it down to being fat.  I was really struggling to breath, but as I have a minor heart condition, I thought it was just due to the humidity and the weight gain. Little did I know. I went onto Istanbul. I started a small project helping the Syrian refugees, read more here.
I returned home and still complained of being out of breath. In the November I finally went to the doctor and said I'm out of breath, whats up doc. My oxygen levels were taken and were really low. I was taken to hospital and soon told I was in heart failure. Hence the weight gain.

The heart failure went on for the best part of a year. In that year I didn't give up, I didn't want to give in.The small  organisation I had set up in Istanbul, just before I was told I had heart failure, went on. I organised some fundraising events between hospital events, raised a lot of money and I flew to turkey with my Mum with 15 suitcases full of clothes.

 I had a heart attack on the plane. A bloody heart attack.

Life went on.

(More about all of this in the blog, of course ! I cant just say THAT and leave you wondering!)

I started taking pills for the Fibromyalgia. They didn't work. Nothing worked. I wasn't really offered any medical help other than here, pop a few pills and be on your merry way.

Christmas 2014 I was given a juicer and the Jason vale 7lb in 7 days book.

I started looking into more holistic ways to treat my Fibromyalgia.

Everything pointed towards juicing, raw diet, vegan diet, no sugar, no gluten, no caffeine etc.

To do that, you have to be determined and be strong.

I am a foodie. I'm not going to lie. I can be a bit of a snob about food, you'll never find me in a harvester or Nandos ! My love for food has also caused me some major issues for the last ten years. I became obsessed with food at the age of 14, when I was being bullied badly at school, and started using food as a way to control my life. For years I have suffered with binge eating episodes, and now in 2015, I'm finally starting to battle them and move my life on to a road of recovery with a healthy attitude to food.


I need to make some drastic changes in improving my life. I'm slowly working towards living a healthier life, I'm juicing, which is a wonderful way to get so much nutrition, fruit and veggies into me. I have always loved veggies. Well, carrots and broccoli. Okay, I liked two veggies. Now the amount of fruit and veg I juice is incredible, I eat all vegetables now. Or I drink them, so to say. Fibromyalgia feeds on sugar. I have a terrible coke addiction. The brown stuff, not the white stuff, so I'm slowly working on getting that out of my life. Coke is bad people. 

I'm no stranger to mental health. I talk openly about it in my day to day life, throughout my blog and Facebook page and try to break the stigma of mental health as much as possible ! I suffer with anxiety, panic  attacks, severe depression and crazy highs. 

More than anything, I want to inspire people. People with life changing illnesses, Fibromyalgia, ME, POTS, and so on as well as mental health issues. I want to inspire people to see the world, get fit and strong, love your body, understand your crazy little mind and improve your life. I want to prove that you dont need to live a life on 60 pills a day, I want my journey to be successful, for me of course, but also for others. Watch this space!

I have a real passion for exploring the world, learning new cultures and languages, and getting to know the locals. I have been travelling as much as I can solo since my first backpacking trip, in between being ill, being skint, working, and, being ill and suffering extreme chronic fatigue and pain. I still wanted to see the world, and sometimes traveled when I really should have been at home, in bed.

My travel trips haven't been straight forward, I have a lot of scary stories to tell, beautiful photos to share, amazing memories to write about, lots of tips and a crazy amount of food / restaurant reviews to share with you all.  

Here at the Fat Juicer you will be following my battles with food, mental health issues, my weight loss journey, improving my life living with fibromyalgia,  my crazy travels, and the dramas. Of course, the dramas. Travel isn't all about pretty rainbows and unicorns. There's also the bad times, real bad times and I'll sharing them with you all.

Keep up with my journey, keep popping back, enjoy the good times, the bad times, and the success stories in turning my life around by being healthy !