the Nina skirt and my secret!

As I’ve told you before the Nina is a two-in-one pattern. Today I’m showing you the most basic option af the pattern. The A-line skirt with an invisible zipper at the side. This skirt is lined but of course you can’t tell from the pictures! :)

For big and beautiful prints like this one, I still love a basic A-line skirt. I can totally understand why people often make a skirt like this as their very first selfish sewing project. I did too!

In comparison to more basic A-lines, this one has a lightly curved side seam to compensate our hips! :) So it’s a basic pattern, but I wanted to have this one more then perfect to start from. At the time I’ve sewn this skirt (7weeks before the photoshoot) the fits was perfect for me. But as you know I lost a lot of weight so for this photoshoot I had to cheat a bit. I lost 7,5cm at my waist, so that’s almost 2 sizes! :)

I get a lot of requests on social media to reveal my secret to loose weight this fast. We’ll this is basically what I did: first of all I went to a dietitian. I know a lot about food and I was eating healthy already, but this time she helped to completely stay away from sugar. So I stopped eating sweets and biscuits in general, but I also tried to avoid carbohydrates like in white bread, white paste, white rice and stopped eating potatoes. I replaced those ingredients by quinoa, lentils, sweet potatoes,… Much healthier alternatives. Of course I also avoid fat food like french fries, crisps, … But to be honest: I didn’t really ate those a lot before. And no alcohol anymore. I started eating even more vegetables and fruit. I’m making myself one glass of fresh orange juice everyday now. The alternative for sweets is dried fruit, nuts,… When you don’t eat a lot of sugar anymore, these are super sweet. Have you ever tried a fig? The best taste ever…

I started realising that I was addicted to sugar. The food industry turns us into sugar addicts in a very clever way. We all just crack, don’t we? The first 3 weeks I had a terrible headache. My god. I could hardly concentrate on my work. But after this stage I really started feeling better. When I saw people eating an ice-cream (or anything else sweet), I could only think: what a bad thing to do! Strange thoughts because I love(d) sweets a lot! Sugar in not only making us fat, but also fastens the process of ageing. If you ever want to read something on this topic I can recommend you ‘de voedselzandloper’. Amazing book that makes you stop eating sugar straight away.

After 7 weeks I stopped loosing weight this fast. I didn’t sport during this period but at the moment I’m running and swimming again. Once a week I swim 1km and 3 times a week I go running for half an hour. I feel amazing now. I’m still not super slim but I will never be. I was not born to become a super model! ;) I do eat sugar again from time to time (a glass of alcohol) but I do notice that it makes me wanna eat more, so I tried to do this only at really special occasions. My body kind of warns me when I’m eating in a less strict way: I can feel really bad when I eat potatoes now or when I drink a glass of wine. Then I get the idea of being punished.

When you ever have any questions about my ‘diet’, feel free to leave a comment. I can surely recommend you to visit a dietician. She (or he) will not only analyse your eating habits, help you with tips and tricks, but just the idea of having to weight myself every time gives me the energy to keep going for  a good result. I hope that tomorrow (next check-up) I did loose a bit of fat (I didn’t loose a lot of weight) and gained some muscles! Fingers crossed.

I hope to have a stable weight soon, because I have no clothes to wear anymore at the moment. Everything is way too big  and I don’t want to start sewing new skirt or dresses yet, since I don’t know where this adventure will end…. I think after the Nina release I will already that sewing some t-shirts, tops,… My upper body is not changing a lot anymore. Which are your favourite patterns? I need to sew a lot! I’m glad that I already bought a big pile of fabrics (knits) in Paris. Now it’s just matter of time.