30 Chic Days - last days and review

Days 29 & 30 (Saturday and Sunday)

Outfit - day 29

Outfit - day 30

Above, you can see the last two outfits from my 30 Chic Days challenge. Click on the link if you want more information about being chic and to read Fiona's great posts. You can also check out Juhli's blog to see how she got on during her 30 Chic Days.

Fiona's goal is to live a more chic, healthy and elegant life, which was the raison d'être behind me deciding to try my own 30 Chic Days. I gave a bit more thought to the outfits I wore each day, trying to look as chic and elegant as possible rather than grabbing the first clothes that came to hand. I'm not saying that I succeeded in looking as chic as the average Frenchwoman, however I think I raised my game a bit. I was looking for flattering colours, combining tops and bottoms to create better outfits, plus the addition of accessories to complete my look,

The healthy part of my 30 days consisted of becoming more aware of what I was eating and how I was moving. One of the most important lessons that I learnt from reading Fiona's blog was to think about portion size rather than going on a restrictive diet. We are lucky enough to be able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables that are grown locally, as well as fresh fish caught in the Mediterranean, extra virgin olive oil produced in the town where we live, plus the red wine for which Jumilla is renowned. Mediterranean diet anyone? When we decide occasionally to eat ready meals, we go for healthier choices, however my aim is to find more recipes for meals that can be prepared in a flash, apart from omelettes or tortillas!

We live on the edge of a small Spanish town and don't have a car, so we walk a lot. Even so, trying to reach my target of 10,000 steps a day wasn't always easy, especially at weekends when we didn't go shopping or on days when we didn't meet friends for coffee. We have a dog Lisa (photobombing me in the photo on day 30) who is taken for walks several times a day, but in the hot weather she isn't so keen on long walks. It was helpful to keep an eye on my number of steps to make sure I reached my target and, if necessary, take Lisa for an extra walk. My daily average over the last week was 10,971 steps.

The BBC website has an interesting article about getting rid of belly fat. You can read it here. The reason I am linking to this is because the most successful dieters didn't make many changes to their diets: they just watched their portion sizes, cut out snacks between meals and tried to make healthy choices.

They also kept active, but without doing sit-ups or fad exercises. Does this sound familiar? Many blogs and books written about how Frenchwomen keep slim mention that they seldom go to the gym but they walk a lot, including having to use the stairs, as many Parisian apartment blocks don't have lifts. I must stick to my resolve to keep using the stairs unless I have heavy shopping or luggage.

I didn't do as much reading as I had planned, spending too much time on blogging or reading other blogs. I now have a pile of books, magazine and newspapers to read for the rest of the month as my aim is to spend less time on my computer.

Finally, it definitely helps to have a focus, which in my case was to eat more healthily while cutting down my portion sizes. Although I wasn't dieting I did lose 1.7 kilos (3.7 lbs) without even trying. The secret being, as already mentioned, a combination of eating in a healthy, mindful way as well as gentle, regular exercise.

I also focused on creating a more cohesive wardrobe using my 33 items of clothing. Looking critically at the outfits I wore over the 30 days, there were a few that didn't really flatter me. Wearing a light top with dark bottoms, cutting me in half at my widest point, isn't a good look. Culottes on short women? Don't go there!

My final words should come from Fiona, who told me 30 Chic Days is meant to be fun and enjoyable, not stressful. I definitely enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot from taking part. Why not join me the next time I give it a go?