The Princess Diaries

Today marks three weeks since my initial foray into a sugar free life, things always get worse before they get better right? Today’s update is short and sweet, I’m busy turning lemons to lemonade. Days 15-17: All was going well, no weird cravings, and I was completely on track. I was super focused with my eating because I had a big wrestling match on Saturday and I really wanted to look and feel my best. Day 18: Show day! My plan for the weekend was to thrown in a 48hr fast - I hadn’t done more than about 32 hours yet, but during my match I took a fall outside the ring and managed to concuss myself yet again. It’s only mild this time, but in my daze I headed to catering and grabbed all the vegan food I could find. Which ended up being Thai Chilli Doritos, half a bag of Farmbake Peanut Brownies and a couple apples. Fail. Day 19: I have very little recollection of what happened this day. I only remember eating a whole box of Fry’s Vegan Nuggets - which are sugar free! Day ...

Wow, already in week two of this Sugar Free Challenge, who is really surprised that I missed my first week update? But I'm back to fill you in. Sugar, we're going down. Day 1 & 2: I experienced intense stomach cramps around 7.30pm both nights and then around 12-1am found myself wide awake and unable to get back to sleep. Day 3: Today was great, nothing out of the ordinary and managed to get a normal amount of uninterrupted sleep Day 4: Here's where I made my first major mistake, because it turns out that Indian Tonic Water contains sweetener, and I ordered four G&T's thinking that I was doing the right thing. I had thought that because Tonic Water tastes so bad that it was safe. As it turns out, I am in fact an idiot. And I barely slept. Day 5: No energy or focus, didn't make it to the gym. From waking, I was just ravenous all day - direct result of the sweetener in the G&T's, but on the upside, I was also so exhausted I slept like...

Two weeks ago, I experimented with the Ketogenic diet, and whilst pretty difficult, it got me truly thinking about what I was eating on a daily basis. Since then, I've continued a lower carb diet (under 100g per day) and I've been seeing some great results, and have now managed to lose a total of 2 kilo's. Tomorrow is the 1st of August, and I have decided to challenge myself (for the next 31 days) to go sugar free, to see if it is actually as hard as all the articles I have read online say. My goal will be to eliminate all added sugar's from my diet, which includes artificial sweeteners - so no more Monster Ultra Zero's for a month! For the next 4 weeks, I will be documenting my progress and writing about it here, but to start myself off I thought I'd write up a little about what my health is currently like and make some predictions on how I think going sugar free will effect me. Body : I currently have a shoulder injury which impacts the nerves in my r...

The Keto Diet seems to be be the new trend, everyone seems to know somebody who is doing it, or maybe you've even tried it yourself. If you aren't familiar, Keto is a modified style of a low carb, high fat (LCHF) diet in which you aim to consume around 20g of net carbohydrates (or 50g total) while increasing your healthy fat intake to induce Ketosis - a state where your body burns fat for energy instead of carbs. So I tried it. "But wait," I hear you say "aren't you vegan? Doesn't everyone who follows this diet just eat steak slathered in mayonaise??" Yup, I followed the Keto Diet and made it completely vegan. Let me tell you, it was one of the most time consuming things I've ever done. Oh, and I also follow a 16/8 split of intermittent fasting. Day 1 After a very expensive trip to the supermarket because everything in my cupboards were carbs, I started my meal prep. Every article I've read on Vegan/Keto diets recommended lots...

To welcome Amber back from her Hawaiian/LA holiday we headed to the Butcher's Son on Jervois Rd in Ponsonby, who are a fairly new fully plant based eatery. I tried the weekly special Buddha Bowl (Satay Kumara & Tempeh w/ Soba) and a Tropical green smoothie. I was really impressed, tried to make my own at home and it was nowhere near as good, sadly. I will definitely go back again! If you want to check them out you can find more info here: The Butcher's Son 204 Jervois Rd, Herne Bay, Auckland. Instagram: @thebutcherssonnz -Ash.

Some times I wear myself so thin. I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions, like one of those medieval torture racks. Between my 9-5, wrestling and live events, this blog, my podcast Beauty And The Brainbuster (shameless self promo, you can listen  here ,) and spending time with my family (read; boyfriend) I don't get much time to myself. I'm the type of person who has to be alone to relax, and so often this leaves me tense and highly stressed. If you follow me here, you would have noticed the radio silence for quite some time now. The last time I posted regularly was the first week of January. This weekend was Easter, which mean four consecutive days off. So I made a list of things I needed to get done each day, and do you think I got any of it done? Well I got three out of ten.   I listed all my unused things on  Trade Me , I worked with a new photographer and I wrote this post. Today is Monday and it’s looking like not a lot will be ...

Happy 2018! Welcome to a New Year! It's still me, your favorite Princess, just slightly jazzed up. Last Saturday marked my first PWE Women's Championship Title defence of 2018, I had the pleasure of wrestling Grace Lightning.  Grace has been through some tough times in the last year, and I know that wrestling in front of a live audience is one of the things she's been itching to do the most, so I'm so happy I finally got to get in the ring with her and give her that experience. I've wrestled her once before at a secret student show back in October '17 and the change in her in ring work and presence has improved so much since, I'm really proud of how far she has come and cant wait to see her in more shows. It was also my boyfriend's first ever match outside of our home promotion and thanks to a Roaring Elbow that he took half way through the match, we are now nick named Concussion Couple (or CC for short), which is a vast improveme...

Going to stay in a smaller city can be sort of daunting if you are Vegan, because you don't really know where you will actually be able to eat (without having to do a whole grocery shop and cook from scratch) unless you have other Vegan friends in the area - which I don't. There is always  Happy Cow , but for Rotorua there weren't many entries and most of those were just Vegetarian. So here are a few places I discovered in Rotorua that were Vegan friendly. Night Markets Rotorua Night Markets run on Thursdays from 5pm, I found three different stalls selling Vegan food which was pretty surprising as I was not expecting there to be more than one! I had Seitan Nuggets (called Wicked Nippers) and a pulled pork style Vege Burger from a food truck called  Mr. Jacksons  which travels from Tauranga each week. Another option was El Cartel Mexicano who advertised Vegan options with there usual offerrings of quesadillas, burritos, nachos and tacos. ...

My favourite thing about Rotorua is how close you are to nature.  On Boxing Day I went to The Redwoods National Park (Whakarewarewa Forest) to hike and spend some time in nature - it's only 10 minutes from my parents house.  I spent around 2 hours exploring the tracks, stopping in the Nursery Road area to have a snack and take some pictures from the look out. Of course I also got some typical white girl pictures, though if you are going to do this, I recommend wearing sunblock because I forgot and now my shoulders and back are burnt as f*ck. After the hike, I met my family back at Blue lake for another turn at paddle boarding before heading home (and grabbing some Pita Pit on the way). If you are planning on heading to Rotorua here are a few other interesting things you could try:  The Polynesian Spa Redwoods Tree Walk aMAZEme Rotorua Night Markets (thursday nights) Skyline Luge/Gondola's If you have a favourite spot in Rotorua th...

Everyone has different traditions for Christmas, for me it's all about family. This year our family Christmas was held at my parents new house in Rotorua, after we had our immediate family's gift exchange the food preparations begin for the huge family lunch that we have with all my Aunts, Uncles & Cousins. Of course I snuck in lots of accidentally vegan things into the shared table including garlic bread and a Chocolate Hazelnut & Boysenberry cake that I made myself. I used The Caker's mix for my base, they no longer stock the Chocolate Hazelnut mix but have other options in their online  store . I've also tried the Raspberry & Coconut mix, and the Lemon & Plum - which was my fave! The best part about these mixes is most of them are easily made vegan (I think only one mix includes dairy milk chocolate.) I decided to add boysenberries to make it more Christmas-y, so divided it into two layers and filled with a boysenberry sauce which I whippe...

"love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind..." Last week I was fortunate enough to be gifted tickets to the Pop Up Globe's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Right after Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer is my favourite Shakespeare play - though I hadn't read it again since high school when my English class studied it. It was awesome to see it reenacted with a Kiwi twist. Spoiler Alert: The Fairies in this version all speak Te Reo, so brush up before you go. " Oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, four lovers escape a death sentence by fleeing to an ancient forest. Elsewhere in the woods, a group of tradies secretly meet to indulge their love of amateur drama. But there’re more than just trees in this forest. Ancient creatures of myth and legend haunt the dark corners of the woods, and they love nothing more than causing trouble… " The artwork on the roof of the stage.  The Globe itself has an open roof, so as the n...

This past weekend was full of firsts for me, which is why today, I need a coffee I.V! On Saturday, I had my first alcoholic beverage of the year, made my first beach trip of the summer, I went to town for the first time in over a year, had my first donut from the new Tart Bakery at St Kevin’s arcade, first Karaoke, and had my first yelling match on Queen Street (oops). Saturday was the Unofficial IPW end of year gathering, which is why I broke my dry spell and had alcohol for the first time this calendar year. Steph and Leilani came to chill at my house prior for girl time and pre-drinks, we headed out to mission bay in our bikini’s (but forgot towels, so didn’t swim) and took a stroll along the beach. We then went to St Kevin’s arcade on Karangahape Road to try the fresh fruit icecream that Tart Bakery had been advertising, unfortunately the shop had over heated and the machine wasn’t working! (We’ll go back another time).Instead...