Towards a stronger, healthier and fitter me

You might have noticed the goal bar on the right column of my blog. This post shall provide an explanation. With this bar I track my weekly progress with biking and keep myself motivated. Each day I update the progress and seeing the progress motivates me to keep going. Knowing that you guys might check my progress every day as well, motivates me too. ;-)

A recent status of my biking progress bar on the right border of my blog

Currently, I am trying to do a lot of sports in order to become more healthy and fit. Of course it is a very nice side effect that the body becomes slimer and more defined as well. There's no doubt that I am enjoying the improvement of my body shape a lot. However, at the moment my focus lies on the health and fitness issue. I want to become stronger and healthier and improve my posture and physical capabilities in general. I have never been a sports enthusiast in my whole life and just focussing on getting a better body with sports has never been enough to keep me motivated on the long term. Maybe it was because my body has never been in a terrible shape anyway. My fitness, however, is in a terrible shape! And it has gotten worse and worse over the last years.

In the last years I have experimented with different kinds of sports: Yoga, weight training @the gym, weight training @home, cycling, running, horseback riding, rock climbing, swimming and aqua running. I have also experimented with different times for the workouts: I tried to do sports in the morning, sports during the lunch break, sport in the evening or somewhen during the day. But I have never been able to keep a regular exercise schedule for a long time. It was rather a discipline issue. I had and still have severe issues with work life balance. Resolving these issues is a challenge for me but I am aware of these issues and I am dealing with them and it gets better and better - very slowly however (like all changes that affect your whole life, i.e. you habits and your belief system). Recently, I have managed to find a way to integrate regular sporting activities into my life, however, and it's working well for a couple of months already. That's longer than ever before. Obviously, the only way to integrate sports into my life that works for me is doing sports on a daily basis. When it becomes an every day routine, it just works without a second thought and I start to really need it and still can focus my mind on other things (because the sports routine does not involve any thinking anymore). If I am not able to do my sport routine, my day just feels incomplete. Additionally, it is important for me to make the time - whatever happens, I have, have, have to do it, unless I am  suffering from a cold or an inflammation. There is no other excuse. There are no deadlines or obligations that are more important than my sports appointments!

For a couple of months now, I cycle on my bicycle ergometer in my bedroom almost every morning immediately after getting up. On average I cycle for about 40 minutes each morning, sometimes less and sometimes a little bit more (since I have my progress bar on my blog it's rather more then less ;-)). Additionally, I also do aqua running once a week for 1 hour - at least during the lecture period of my University since I am attending a course at University. So, in good weeks, my weekly cardio routine has a duration of around 6 hours. Furthermore, I do horseback riding once a week for 1 hour. I also do 1.5 hours of weight training a week but not that regularly, unfortunately. I'd like to do more weight training and some Pilates and Yoga on a regular basis as well and have to find some exercise routine and schedule that's appropriate for me.

In order to motivate myself to keep up with my sporting activities, I'll write a monthly recap post summarizing my sports efforts. Such a recap would also help me to review why my fitness and looks have improved or not improved (either is possible ;-)).

During the last weeks I have managed to loose a bit of weight and my body shape has started to improve a lot. Although I am focusing on health and fitness, the looks of course are not unimportant at all and do count as well. Hence, I really hope to be able to wear some short dresses soon, e.g. the ones shown below are really lovely:

picture & dress are both from COS

picture & dress are both from COS

The fuss with passwords

Passwords are important. We are using them everywhere and all the time, e.g. when using facebook, when shopping online with an own account, when logging into our own computers, etc. We should take the time to think about how we use our passwords since they are one of the most sensitive security breach. One month ago, linkedin has been hacked and 6.5 million passwords have been posted online. Is yours among them? Mine wasn't. Nevertheless, I changed my password and reconsidered my password routine. Fortunately, I haven't reused my password often but sometimes I did. Of course I changed these passwords, too (and don't reuse them anymore).

Rules of Thumb:

• don't use the same password for several web sites/applications (In case you are an average internet user with 25 accounts, you might need a tool where you can safely store your 25 different passwords, e.g. Keepass or Clipperz, note however that the latter is an online site again that might be hacked as well ...)
• change your password on a regular basis (in an ideal world this would be weekly but in a normal world less is ok too as long as you change it regularly)
• choose secure passwords that are unlikely to be hacked (e.g. not your name or the name of your child attached with the birth year - more inspiration on passwords you shouldn't use can be found among the 25 worst passwords of 2011 ;-))

Below is a nice infographic by Lifehacker visualizing a summary of what you need to know about passwords. It has been posted in this article by Lifehacker which I recommend reading as well since it also provides more advice on passwords.

Skin Analysis (Douglas)

Douglas offers a skin analysis in their stores. I didn't know that before I got this coupon for a free skin analysis with one of my orders at Douglas earlier this year:

I am not sure but I think you can get such a skin analysis also completely for free, i.e. without such a coupon.

At first I doubted that this skin analysis would be useful for me. My odyssey of trying to find out what kind of skin type I have lasts years now. Why should such a skin analysis be more helpful than all the skin tests and skin discussions I had before? I made different tests you can often find in women's magazines (no insights gained - just a lot of additional confusion), I discussed my skin with a MAC employee (he was sure my skin was dehydrated and recommended me Dermalogica products ;-)) and even with a dermatologist (she was sure my skin was normal and did not want to recommend me anything).

My skin is not acne-prone and although it tends a bit to redness, it is also not eczema-prone. I usually do not get any spots and have only very few and small blackheads. As a teenager I also did not have too many spots, just one or two here or there and also the amount and size of my blackheads were rather small. My pores also have always been rather small. But I always had the feeling that my skin was drier than the skin of other people my age. At a very early age, I already discovered a tendency to get wrinkles and I also always had some kind of light redness in my face. Only recently, when I started to use skin care more regularly (i.e. last summer when I decided to use up the huge amount of beauty products I had accumulated in my bathroom), I discovered that my skin redness is associated with skin dryness. When properly cared for, my skin colour is even and radiant and really beautiful.

While last summer I surprisingly was able to get the most beautiful skin of my life with rather light face creams like Weleda Almond Soothing Facial Lotion (in german Weleda Mandel Wohltuende Feuchtigkeitspflege) which targets combination skin - but only after 1 month of regular use (morning and evening), a few applications did not change anything and each time I skipped a treatment, it got worse again -, during last winter I was not able to manage my skin properly at all. It was very dry and sensitive although I used skin care for dry and very dry skin. With the skin care of last summer, it was even worse. Nothing helped my skin to look as great as last summer. So, I was and still am asking myself whether there is something I can do to better soothe my skin in winter too.

My skin also does not like being not cared after at all. It tends to become very dry also in summer and I get wrinkles and redness due to dryness. For the Douglas skin analysis which I did last weekend, I stopped using face cream and makeup for two days in order to get my most natural skin state analyzed. Hence, my skin looked really terrible when I did this test. It was very dry and wrinkly. After the analysis, I hence immediately started using my skin care again (which unfortunately is not a good skin care for my skin but this will be discussed in another post ;-)).

At Douglas, the skin test is performed with a specific kind of small device which is standing on a table. A tube is coming out of the device with a sensor at it's end. This sensor is put your skin and when the test is performed, it feels a bit tingly on the skin. During the test four things are tested: hydration of the skin, fat content of the skin, pigmentation and elasticity of the skin. Afterwards you are given a general recommendation for skin care and sun protection - in my case they didn't give me any product recommendations (as mentioned on the coupon) which I appreciated a lot, however.

My results were as follows:

• Hydration: the device measured 50% to 60% which is not much hydrated but kind of okayish - at least it is not dry either. Interestingly, my skin on the forehead was a bit drier than on the cheeks. Hence, I seem to not have a typical t-zone of combination skin. 
• Fat Content: this was my worst result. The device measured nearly nothing at all anywhere in my face. The employee asked me even whether I had put some powder on but I hadn't. As mentioned above, I hadn't used any skin care and any makeup for 2 whole days before that test. Finally she said I should have used skin care in the morning but I think that this would have measured the effect of the skin care and not the basic state of my skin itself. What do you think? This result however shows that my skin seems to not be able to protect itself even in summer (and it's really warm at the moment). How vulnerable must it be in winter? :-/
• Pigmentation: I am not very pigmented and need very light foundations anyway, so it is no wonder that the device recommended me an SPF of 40. The employee suggested to use something between SPF 30 and SPF 40.
• Skin Elasticity: This was my best result. On very dry areas like the forehead it was a bit more than 70% and on a bit less dry areas it was 80%. The employee said that this is a great result. I don't know whether this is true since I don't have a clue how the device works. The employee was not able to explain it herself either but I guess she compared my result with the results of her other customers. I wonder whether there is a correlation between dryness and elasticity. Do you happen to know whether dry skin is also less elastic? 

I might do this test soon again with skin care applied in the morning - just to see whether the result changes - and I also plan to do this test in Winter again, because my winter skin is incredibly dry and I just cannot get it in proper shape, i.e. healthy glowing without any redness and dryness. As mentioned above, in summer, my skin is much easier to manage.

Have you already done such a Douglas skin analysis? What were your results?

The face mapping approach by Dermalogica seems to be interesting as well (see more information here), but do they explain the results in way that does not depend on Dermalogica products? Do you happen to know whether there are other, possibly better skin tests available that reveal much deeper insights about our skin (independent from product recommendations)? The Douglas skin analysis helped me a lot to gain more information about my skin but I'd like to learn even more about it. If you know about better skin tests, I'd appreciate it a lot if you would share that information.

Summer body lotion recommendation

My body lotion recommendation for this summer is Blütenzauber by Dove. I bought this body lotion in June (note that although the Haul has been mentioned on my blog only end of June, I bought it in the middle of June and have experimented with it sporadically for about 2 weeks now) and I am using it currently all the time. Usually I don't like Dove as a company and try to rather buy organic body lotions but for this one I made an exception and I am happy that I did. 

It is a light body lotion that is quickly absorbed by the skin but still nurtures it properly. Dove calls this hydrating effect "Deep care complex" and it indeed provides some kind of deep care. For summer, this nurturing effect is about perfect. And there is no shimmer or colour whatsoever in this body lotion either. I don't like shimmery or coloured body lotions at all - in December last year I pushed myself to use up a really terrible shimmery body lotion by Dove; since then I forgo products by Dove and especially try to avoid shimmery body lotions in general.

The greatest thing about this body lotion, however, is that it is vitalizing and stimulating (in german it's called "belebend" as you can see on the back of the bottle). This enliving effect holds for at least half of the day, actually even more. The skin is cooled and the blood circulation is enhanced. This effect is not too strong, however, it's just perfect and it feels great in summer. On cold days or in offices with air condition I cannot recommend it since you are freezing more with it. This body lotion is a pure summer body lotion for warm weather and a warm environment - but for such kinds of environments it is really great!

Have a look at pictures of the product below. On the second picture you can also see the ingredients. Try it and tell me how you like it! :-)

Front of the Dove body lotion "Blütenzauber"

Back of the Dove "Blütenzauber" body lotion

Beauty Empties June

Last month, I emptied 25 products. Well, six of them are makeup products that haven't been emptied completely but makeup products are not that easy to empty. In case I don't like them I also prefer to not torture myself and hence also don't empty them completely. Furthermore, two of the emptied products are for the teeth and I repurchase these products regularly anyway. I only wanted to include them this time in order to share them with you. Next time, I don't think I'll include them again since I don't tend to collect teeth products (and don't have to use them up in order to gain space again - which I obviously have to do with a couple of beauty product categories ;-)) and also don't change them often.
Nevertheless, I am very surprised that I managed to empty/get rid of 25 products last month. The amount of products is even bigger than in May and I've been so proud of myself in May. ;-) I am really curious what the next month will bring ... However, I prefer to not expect too much and hence might be surprised again. Let's see.

This month I have not emptied any products for feet. It's because I have often used my body butters for my feet as well. Since the body butters I used in May have been very nurturing, my feet didn't need any extra attention.

Here is a picture of all products emptied in June:

A short summary and my thoughts about the products, I emptied in June:

• Shower Gel & Shampoo
• Fa SPORT Double Power Körper & Haar: this was in my Pink Box of June. At first I hated it (this is also why I immediately started using it - I just wanted to get rid of it). But it's ok; it is refreshing; you can use it for hair and body yielding a reduction of the amount of products standing in your shower which I experienced as pretty relieving. The scent is not worth mentioning since it's nothing special. It's not among my favourites - it's just a useful and somewhat convenient product (because it's for body & hair). Nothing more and nothing less. I doubt that I'll purchase it soon again. But you never know. Some day I might repurchase it nevertheless since it's cheap, convenient and fastly emptied. Let's see. 
• Some Hotel Shower & Bath Gel (30ml): This is a shower & bath gel, I got at my hotel during my short trip last month. It was a noname hotel and the product is a noname product. It was ok, nothing special and I don't miss it. Wouldn't repurchase it - but I can't repurchase it anyway. ;-)
• Alterra Blaubeere & Vanille shower gel: This is a limited edition shower gel by Alterra from last summer. It was ok, I liked the scent in the beginning a lot but in the end it was too strong for me and the last times I used it I found it even pretty annoying. This is why I haven't bought another limited edition summer shower gel by Alterra yet and don't think I will.
• pure Hair Products (see above products that can be used for hair & body at the same time)
• Alverde Feuchtigkeits Haarkur Aloe Vera Hibiskus: this is a conditioner by Alverde. I like it. It's a very nice product. It nurtures the hair and it is easy to use. I think I will repurchase it.
• Alterra Feuchtigkeitsspülung Granatapfel & Aloe Vera: this is a conditioner by Alterra and also a very nice product which I liked using. However I don't like the packaging Alterra provides to its products. Products with thicker consistencies cannot be emptied that easily in such a packaging. I have to cut the bottle open on the side in order to get to the amount for the last one or two applications of product. In my opinion this is too unhandy. Hence, I don't think I'll buy it again although I like the product. The packaging is just a pain in the ass.
• Some Hotel Shampoo (30ml): This is also a noname shampoo, I got at my noname hotel during my short trip last month. It was ok, nothing special and I don't miss it. Wouldn't repurchase it - but I can't repurchase it anyway. ;-)
• Anne Semonin Shampoo: It belongs to the body lotion by Anne Semonin mentioned below. Didn't like it though because it dried my hair. The scent however was as divine as the one of the beloved body lotion as mentioned in a previous blog post.

• Body Lotions and body butters
• 2 pots of Alverde Körperbutter Verveine, once full-sized and once as a 30ml sample: This is a limited edition for this summer by Alverde. It's a very nurturing body butter since it's for very dry skin. I liked it except for the scent. It smelled a little bit like citrus cleaning products. Hence, I won't repurchase it!
• Lait Corps Hydratant (verveine exotique) by Anne Semonin: This is a product I got during my stay at one the Radisson (Blu) Hotels during my short trip last month. I love, love, love this body lotion. It's refreshing and quickly absorbed by the skin. The skin feels great after application. I even wrote a blog post about it and I am looking very much forward to my next stay at Radisson Blu. ;-)  
• Bioturm Body Butter Rose: Very nurturing body butter which has come with my Pink box of June. I didn't like the scent that much (too organic for my taste) but it was ok. It has been absorbed by the skin very slowly which is a sign for a very skin nurturing product which it is indeed. The consistency is like a mousse and not like a body butter. Alltogether, the product is not bad and I might consider repurchasing it some day.
• Weleda Granatapfel Regenerierende Bodylotion (20ml Sample): This has been a nice body lotion. I don't like this specific scent that much, but it's nevertheless a nice product. It is also very convenient for summer since it is very quickly absorbed by the skin. It's very light. Nevertheless, I won't repurchase it, but maybe another one from the body lotion line of Weleda.

• Antiperspirants
• 2 bottles of Balea Deospray Sensitive 48 hours (both sample sized): The scent is awfull and I am happy that it's finally emptied and I can finally throw it away. Will never repurchase and don't know how I was able to end up with 2 (!!) bottles. Fortunately, they are both empty now! Even my mother said that it stinks like hell when I visited her last time and used it there. :-)
• Tooth products:
• Dontodent Intensive Clean toothpaste: My favourite toothpaste. In my opinion, it cleans the teeth better than all other toothpastes I ever tried. Will definitely repurchase. 
• Listerine Cool Citrus Antibakterielle Mundspülung: This is a mouth wash product that can be used after cleaning the teeth. I like it; it's among my favourite products for the teeth and I repurchase it regularly.
• Make up remover
• Rival de Loop Augenmakeup Entferner Pads: These are oily eye makeup remover pads that can also be used for waterproof eye makeup. I like these eye makeup removers a lot. It's a solid product. Will definitely repurchase.
• 2 packages of Boots Moisturizing Nail Polish Remover Pads: These are pretty old. I bought them years ago at Boots in Ireland. I had a huge amount of backups. But now with these two packages, I managed to use them all up. The scent is nice and they remove nail polish fastly. I don't know whether Boots still sells them. If these are still available, I might repurchase them.  

• Makeup:
• Rival de Loop Aqua Face Powder: This powder has been sold last summer as a limited edition and has been recommended as a dupe to the MAC magically cool liquid powder. I haven't tried the MAC powder, so I cannot say anything about powders with water but this one was awfull. It made my face chalky and the cooling effekt disappears within minutes after application. Hence I don't see any sense in the cooling effect aynway. I really tried to empty this powder but in the end I was so fed up with it that I threw the rest into the bin. I like to keep the package though. 
• H&M lip gloss cherry and H&M lip gloss apple: These lip glosses have been very drying my lips unfortunately. I have not emptied them completely since I did not like them at all. They were very uncomfortable to wear and after extensive experiments with them I decided to get rid of them. I still have an orange lip gloss by H&M from this series in use which I still want to keep for further experiments - but I doubt that it will survive the next month. ;-) I love the packages though and will of course keep them. The cute little apple, cherry and orange will provide very nice storage for little things. :-)
• P2 Colourtouch eye pencil: Not my colour. I don't like to wear greens often and already own a couple of green eye shadows I use very seldomly but which I like much more. This one was very bright on my eyes and the colour just popped too much for my taste. It was a present that came with another product I recently bought. Since it didn't cost me anything and I didn't like it either, I decided very fastly to get rid of it. And I feel incredibly relieved without it! ;-)
• Alterra Volume Mascara: Similar to the Alterra Mascara I got rid of in May, this one has been burning in my eyes, too. Furthermore it has not created any impressive lashes either. Especially compared with my current favourite mascara, this one hasn't really been a good mascara. Hence, I decided to throw it away.
• Astor Quick & Go 45 sec nail polish in colour 07: I don't like this nail polish. It is okayish when you apply only one thin coat. As soon as you apply 2 coats it looks streamy. My version also has dried out a bit yielding an even more difficult application. I used it a couple of times but now I am fed up with it and since I have much nicer nude nail polishes, I decided to get rid of this one.