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Victoria has amassed almost 130,000 followers on her Instagram account where the confidence coach and mentor shares her inspiring messages. She discussed her approach to diet and exercise with Express.co.uk and also detailed the morning routine that gets her in the right headspace.

“And I’ll meditate. I was taking myself outside to that. I like to call it nature mornings, just being outside in nature because that makes a really big difference to your mindset. 

“So that is my absolute non-negotiable morning routine.”

She went on: “And the thing with my morning routine is, if you don’t have 30 minutes to read in the morning, it doesn’t need to be 30 minutes, it could be five minutes.

“Journaling can take five minutes, meditation could be five minutes, that could be a solid 15-minute routine that’s going to really raise your energy and your vibe, so you’re going to feel ready for the day.”

What about in the evenings? Before bed, Victoria makes a commitment to pamper herself and treat her skin.

“This is how I show up for myself, because some days I do not want to do my evening skincare routine but I always know I’ll feel so much better if I do.

“My skincare routine is quite a ritual in itself. Then I read for 30 minutes before bed.”

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Victoria trained as a dancer and then a personal trainer, before becoming a confidence coach. After struggling with her own mental health and body image, recovering from an eating disorder, Victoria was inspired to found The Glow Up. Recently, Victoria has teamed up with Skinny Tan in a partnership to empower women to feel confident again after lockdown.

She tells Express.co.uk: “So many people use the term ‘glow up’ to mean an external transformation and that’s incredible if people feel amazing through that external grow up, but I want to create something that empowers women, an internal experience, which, in turn, provides this external glow up that is going last their whole life.”

Victoria uses her skills as a mentor and coach to encourage women to feel more confident by challenging their inner critic.

“The main mission with The Glow Up project is to educate and encourage women to do the work on themselves so they stop projecting all of that negative internal stuff onto their external world,” she said.

“If we can start to heal and I can start to give the tools and the techniques to start working through that, then you’re going to experience the real glow up.”

When it comes to diet and fitness, Victoria comes from a place of self-love first.

She says: “If you loved your body, you would want to move your body in a way that feels empowering for you. I definitely try to get people to see food and exercise as something that can add value to your life

“In a diet culture world we eat less food to feel more confident. We exercise more so we can weigh less to feel more beautiful and feel more confident.”

The mentor shuns this approach. “The way I go about this is, what foods can you start to add into the diet you have that will make you feel better in yourself and your body?

“We’re not trying to take anything out, there’s no point in talking out the foods we like.

“Then when it comes to exercise, how can you move your body in a way that feels genuinely empowering for you? So, it might not look like going to the gym and lifting weights, it might not look like going for a run, but if you feel absolutely fabulous dancing around your kitchen or going for a walk with your friend or going on a hike or doing yoga, whatever feels empowering to you, if you can commit to that you’re creating this really loving relationship with yourself and your body and you’re honouring everything you need.”

She added: “If you’re on a journey where you are wanting to change your appearance, whatever that might be, you need to make sure you’re doing the work on your mind as well.

“You need to make sure that you’re finding this inner happiness and fulfillment and really figuring out who you are making sure that you spend your time with people who actually honor who you are and how are you, and are aligned with your goals, making sure that you’re engaging in habits that feel good for you. And I think if you’re doing that, then going on any kind of journey with your body will feel a lot more empowering, and you’re more guaranteed to, at the end of it, feel happy and actually get out of it what you want.”

Victoria Spence’s self-care tips

Choose to like yourself

“Choose to like yourself, or even better choose to love yourself, make that choice,” Victoria says.

“Would you outright say I’m choosing to dislike myself I’m choosing to hate myself? If you’re not choosing to like yourself, or love yourself, you are choosing to hate yourself. So first, make the choice.”

Show up

Victoria says: “This is where it comes to, what do I want to do? How do I need to show up for myself today?

“I friendships we don’t cancel on them because we love that person. So how can you show up for yourself and not cancel on yourself?

“It might be, you know, going to the gym or committing to some kind of exercise.

“One of my big things is rituals. How I show up for myself on a Thursday night is, I call it my self tan Thursdays. My partner knows not to ask me to cook that night. That’s when I’ve got my Skinny Tan on.

“That’s me showing up for myself because it’s something that I enjoy.”

Check in

“Check in with yourself, just like you would text a friend,” Victoria says.

“The way I ask people to do this is through journaling. I’m really really big on journaling, whether you get a prompt to journal or whether you just come to your notebook, every single day before you pick your phone up first thing in the morning, you sit you check in with yourself because you’re more important than anybody else, you’re the most important person in your world.

“Ask yourself things like, how am I feeling today? What’s one thing that’s bothering me? What’s something I can do to make that thing a little bit better?

“How can I show up today, as like an empowered woman?”

Practice self-compassion

“Be compassionate towards yourself, just like you would a friend,” Victoria says.

Be vulnerable

“Allow yourself to be human, and allow yourself to be messy,” the mentor adds.

“Allow yourself to be tired some days, and then other days, know that you want to be bossing it.

“Allow that human aspect of you to show up in your world.”

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