how to *ACTUALLY* glow up: how I had the biggest glow up of my life and tips on how you can too!

so this was me in 2018 and this is me now yep the globe was very real literally when I look at old photos of myself I almost don't even recognize myself I remember at this time I hated my body I was struggling so much with acne I was so insecure of myself I literally didn't even want to go outside and honestly these photos are just proof that if anyone knows anything about glowing up it's your girl in this video I'm going to be sharing all things glowing up basically sharing all my secrets of how I

had the biggest glow up of my life physically mentally emotionally and how you can have the biggest glow transformation too hello my loves if you're new here welcome my name is Lena I have a self-help series here on my channel where we discuss all things becoming your best self so if you're not subscribed already what are you doing okay what are you doing go subscribe right now first glowup tip is to be physically in shape as you can see here before the glow up my face is just very puffy to be fair I was also

30 lbs heavier in this photo but I was also constantly so bloated during this time and especially during my freshman year of college I was really struggling with my weight cuz I was struggling so much mentally I was really depressed and anxious so I would binge eat I had no motivation I didn't know how to even work out at the gym I was really struggling with making friends too so I was really lonely so my mental wasn't doing great and it showed physically so have a consistent workout routine genuinely it changed my life I don't

care what workout it is as long as it's a consistent workout routine that works for you and if you have no idea where to start I have a full video on how to start working out as a beginner I'll have it linked in the description but it could literally be any workout weightlifting Pilates boxes running whatever honestly in my experience working out at the gym it gives you like a nice tone and a nice shape before I was consistent with working out I honestly lacked shape I was the queen of not having a booty and

I'm going to be honest weightlifting gave me the booty so if that's what you're looking for go for it but honestly staying in shape in general doesn't need to be that difficult I'm telling you from experience the key to shedding extra fat effortlessly is Hawk roll walks getting your steps in Daily guys long walks are so underrated I've been working out for the past 4 years and when I finally started shedding that extra layer of fat was not when I was working out 7 days a week grinding super hard at the gym every day fasting

counting every single calorie I genuinely noticed the biggest difference in my body when I started getting my daily steps in I even get comments from you guys like all the time saying you look like you lost weight like wow you look more snatched when I say I literally have not intentionally been trying to lose weight nothing in my routine really changed other than implementing daily walks you know getting 5 to 10K steps in every day like being consistent with your walks is genuinely life-changing and it's such an easy thing to do and Implement and helps

you just be in shape and just look better and over time implementing this in the past year I've noticed a huge difference just in my face and my weight in general I just started to shed weight not even trying working out is genuinely the first thing that ever brought me true confidence physically and mentally because it was the first time I saw discipline in myself and the saying goes discipline is the highest form of self-love this actually leads me to my next point which is learn how to accentuate the features that you were blessed with

let me just say this right now stop trying to be perceived as beautiful by other people and be beautiful to your own standards physical beauty is so subjective I will see the most stunning girl walking across the street and and the person next to me might not think she's the most beautiful which that is okay all the beauty standards you're seeing on social media right now will come and go like that honestly another example of this is the huge butt BBL Trend a few years ago that BBL Trend was massive just a few years ago

and now skinny apparently is back people are getting rid of their bbls all of a sudden I don't really know what's happening with that but also growing up in middle school I would always get made fun of for my small eyes and the mean kids would be like oh like huh stretching their eyes that way and guess what the trend now is to have the fox eye shape or the cat eye shape some girls are even taking pictures like this copying my eye shape so what used to be ugly when I was in Middle School

all of a sudden now it's cute you know the tiny butt and nose is in right now but watch next year the large St and nose is going to be back in and what are you just going to continue trying to follow these beauty trends that never stop changing you all have something unique in your features that are beautiful that God blessed you with you are beautiful you are that girl you believe it and everyone else will too so there's actually something called High visual makeup and low visual makeup shout out Tik Tok for teaching

me this if you have a small face with big features striking and sharp face structure then you're a high visual weight but if you have a big face with small features and they blend in as one very harmonious then you're a low visual weight basically if you're high visual you have a smaller face with big features so big eyes big lips and apparently this Theory says that you'll look better with more glam makeup bold makeup full coverage smokey eyes and low visual is when you have a bigger face with smaller features which that's what I

have and apparently you look better with natural lighter makeup soft girl makeup for me I am definitely low visual okay every single time I've ever gotten my makeup done by a makeup artist it just doesn't look quite right on me like the super heavy look never really looked great on me so you know I work with the features I got so I try to keep things looking more natural you know I did my own research I looked up makeup tutorials that look good with like East Asian eyes and what I do is I like to

put a couple lash extensions some eyeliner in my inner Corner maybe a little bit of a wing some blush a natural lip and that's it and I found personally that's what looks best on me because whenever I do heavy makeup I feel like my features just get kind of washed out so figure out what visual you are and do your makeup to accentuate the features that you have for example if you have beautiful big eyes accentuate it with some mascara don't put like thick clumpy false lashes that are going to cover your beautiful big eyes

if you have a nice lip shape you can line your lips accentuate the lip shape if you have big cheeks like me you can make it look cute with a little bit of blush but you know you just got to love what you got and work with what you were blessed with have facial symmetry listen I did not make this up facial symmetry was actually scientifically proven to make you more attractive Tik Tok actually has a feature where you can see your face in reverse that filter very humbling okay very humbling because you can see

how symmetrical your face actually is and the best way I found to have the most symmetrical face shape is from your brows so your brows frame your face so I actually got my eyebrows microbladed best decision I've ever made in my life you guys because before I did that my brows were so uneven and also basically non-existing and by the way you do not need to get the microbladed if you are blessed with beautiful brows I jealous of you you can just go to a good brow threading place by the way make sure you check

those reviews okay make sure they're good and I noticed that the girls that do threading are always the best at making sure that they're the most symmetrical and they're going to just shape your brows to be way more even and your face is just going to look more symmetrical also bonus tip sleep on your back apparently studies showed that side sleeping actually causes facial imbalancing next is skincare there's honestly nothing that beats just healthy glowing skin in I'm actually struggling with a few breakouts right now but it's all good I'm still out here filming when

I was like 18 19 I was struggling with acne there was like two reasons for this one I have very very sensitive skin and at the time I was trying all these new skincare products that these influencers Tik tokers they were convincing me to get and acne would bof blow up on my face I realized that I just need to keep my skinc care simple a simple toner some serum moisturizer and sunscreen okay make sure you're wearing your sunscreen every single day it's very important for anti-aging and if you're not convinced yet here's a photo

that convinced my boyfriend to finally start wearing sunscreen it's this woman who only wore sunscreen on her face but not her neck and I hope that convinces you second reason my birth control was actually causing all of my acne because my hormones were all over the place so once I stopped taking birth control I noticed my skin was way better as someone who struggled with acne before I know how hard it is to look past and just ignore my acne like it's not there so if you're struggling with acne right now I completely understand how

you feel there are so many celebrities and influencers out there that struggle with with acne just like you and me acne does not make you any less beautiful okay even now whenever I have breakouts I have to remind myself like girl acne does not change who you are and you are beautiful with or without your acne So speaking of hormonal imbalances as women we need to make sure that our hormones are balanced if you didn't know hormonal imbalances has a bunch of negative effects weight gain insomnia acne irregular Cycles fatigue so these are a few

things I do that really help and it's drinking spearmint tea studies showed that spearmint tea helps women with PCOS and hormone Al imbalance I drink spearmint tea pretty much every single day and movement and exercising regularly really helps too also taking care of your gut health you know making sure things are moving smoothly also this means not drinking multiple cups of coffee throughout the day drinking coffee on an empty stomach eating tons of processed foods and just trying to eat healthy in general is a great glowup tip honestly because it will not only keep you

physically in shape but you will just feel so much better when you're eating less processed foods and foods that genuinely make you feel good and also here's your reminder to not restrict yourself okay I love my desserts I have dessert pretty much every single night and it's just important that you eat in moderation and not restrict yourself completely work on your fashion elevating your fashion will elevate your confidence okay when I tell you my fashion senses were slacking I am not exaggerating okay it was atrocious what you wear has a direct impact on how you

feel I used to be a sweatpants every single day type of girl don't get me wrong IED still love my sweatpants to lounge around in but nothing beats a good fit that you feel confident in everyone has their own fashion sense and what works for them so you just got to figure out what you like so literally this past year I went on Pinterest and I created a Pinterest board of clothes that I liked because I no longer wanted to be that person with zero fashion sense and I wanted to go for a more classy

clean look having that physical inspiration is really helpful when you have to go shopping or go thrifting and you have reference of what you need to get and another thing with fashion is wearing colors that look good on you and actually when I last visited Korea I did like a color analysis test and they showed me that these are the colors that look good on me and these are the colors that didn't look good on me literally went through my closet and took out any colors that don't look good on me and I went shopping

and I bought clothes with colors that suited me the best another tip is monochrome outfits I'm the self-proclaimed queen of matching sets I'm literally wearing one right now something about a matching set just makes you feel like you put way more effort and you just look way more put together but I love a good matching set whether it's athleisure or more fancy clothes another tip is to have good quality Basics they honestly have really good ones on Amazon don't sleep on Amazon you guys they have a ton of good quality like basic tops and Basics

are amazing because you could dress them up dress them down mix and match wear it with jeans dress pants whatever and the secret to elevate the basics is to accessorize so you know get some cute jewelry some cute earrings rings necklaces it's honestly crazy how jewelry and accessories can really just completely elevate your outfit my signature jewelry is my Hoops I literally wear Hoops every single day they're like my go-to fashion doesn't need to be this crazy thing as long as you got your good Basics and some jewelry you are good to go always have

your nails done if you were to tell me this a few years ago I would be like best see nails are not in the budget but don't worry I got you okay these are $9 press on from CVS I am on that press on Wave you guys because I am just way too destructive to have real nails they will literally break after a few days of having them I feel 10 times more confident when I have my nails done you just look way more like put together also having your hands nice and moisturized very important

I always keep a hand Moisturizer in my purse wherever I go and speaking of that your body care is so crucial so this means exfoliate and moisturize nothing beats soft glow glowing skin you guys see these exfoliating gloves okay you do not even know how many people I put exfoliating gloves on if you know you know I'm going to have it linked in my description but yeah these babies right here it's going to get all that dead skin and that Gunk off and it's going to leave your skin glowing also fun fact I have exma

and something called KP if you don't know what that is it's like having like little bumps on your arms so I actually take cod liver oil for my ecma which I've already noticed a huge difference I also use this for my KP it's the KP smoothing body lotion from first aid Beauty this is the lotion and the exfoliator I just use it a few times a week and I've noticed a huge difference in the bumps on my skin and my go-to moisturizer is nothing fancy okay it is cocoa butter the value size I literally use

this every single day after I shower and it is by far the most moisturizing body lotion ever it's so thick and creamy and it just smells so good cocoa butter never fails so smell good feel good I love to smell good at all points in time wherever I am I do not care if I'm going to the grocery store the gym the club I always have a scent on all right I'm about to share with you guys my go-to signature scent and you you watching this right now I'm sharing it with you because I love

you and I trust that you're going to keep this secret okay so this is my go-to you guys have definitely heard of this before it is the Brazilian Crush pistachio and salted caramel perfume this is my go-to body mist as you can see this is probably my sixth bottle like it's ridiculous it smells like heaven okay and I always stack this with this perfume right here and out of all of the perfumes that I have which I have a lot I have genuinely never got more compliments than when I wear this perfume and it's honestly

the most random perfume too so this is the Ariana Grande Cloud perfume and it's in this blue bottle so yeah think me later okay this is all you need to get all the compliments that you smell amazing another tip to get the glowing skin is using a body oil this is the latan I'm definitely saying that wrong I'm sorry Supple skin oil I know it looks new but it's actually my second bottle this stuff smells delectable and my skin literally looks like a glowing goddess after I use this and it doesn't feel gross so greasy

it literally soaks into your skin and it just just stuff amazing have healthy hair I'm in desperate need for a trim I know okay don't tell me I know already but yeah having healthy shiny hair is just Chef kiss so the secret to healthy shiny hair is hair oil so this is the one that I use it's the myel Rosemary mint scalp and hair strengthening oil every time before I wash my hair I take a few drops and I massage it into my scalp and I leave it in for about like 10 minutes and then

I wash it out but yeah rosemary oil is amazing for hair growth and hair thi thickness I also really try to limit using heat on my hair once maybe twice a week if you can avoid heat on your hair completely that is ideal cuz obviously heat is going to really damage your hair so when you do use heat on your hair make sure you're using a heat protectant okay this is the one that I use this is the Tres heat protection spray it's super cheap from Target use any type of heat protectant spray okay so

here is where the mental glow up comes in sit down y'all okay because there's going to be a nice little pep talk you can do all of the physical things that I mentioned but if you are not confident on the inside it will always show on the outside so if you don't have a strong sense of self and a sense of confidence in yourself the minute someone points out something they don't like about you your confidence will literally be destroyed and I'm talking from experience growing up I was never considered the pretty friend okay you

know what I mean by the pretty friend yeah that was not me I was the funny friend and I remember I would always look at my other friends or other girls in my class and I would be like if I just look like them I would be so confident now confidence is a mindset you can be 10 out of 10 drop dead gorgeous and still lack confidence this actually reminds me of a scene I watched in Euphoria with Maddie that really stuck with me I feel stupid what everyone feels stupid you feel stupid yeah I

did and then I just chose not to feel stupid basically she was putting makeup on her friend and her friend was like oh I feel stupid and she goes everyone feels stupid I just chose not to feel stupid and that is facts our insecurities are in our own heads your insecurities are a choice choose not to feel stupid and you won't choose not to feel insecure about it and you won't I actually remember this one comment from this guy back in freshman year he basically told his friend that I had a big forehead and at

the time since I didn't have a strong sense of self it destroyed me I wasn't insecure about it before but after I heard that he said that comment about me I would look in the mirror and just stare at my forehead like oh my gosh it is massive and now I look back and I'm like I did not even have that big of a forehead but even if I did guess who else has a big forehead Rihanna and do you think that stops her from slaying do you think that makes her any less beautiful no

if you could see yourself the way your best friend sees you your mom sees you your significant other the way I see you you would not even think about being insecure about yourself ever again growing up I would always get made fun of for my small eyes my flat butt my ezema and even when I started making Fitness content on YouTube I would always get comments from people like oh you're not even that fit you're fat you have no tone when I had really bad acne and I was filming myself people would always point out

my acne and you know I could have let these comments hurt me and destroy me and prevent me from being on YouTube and I wouldn't have the life that I have now I made the conscious choice to not believe them and guess what that takes away their power they have no power over me stop scrolling on Instagram and wishing that you look like someone else you are who you are God Made You the Way You Are For a Reason stop giving people the power to decide that for you move like you are that girl because

you are and not that it's about other people but genuinely other people see that you are confident and they respond to that confidence they're either going to be drawn to you or be jealous of you I went to this one influencer event and let me just say it was not the vibe okay it was like walking into a Mean Girls High School situation these girls were in their like little clicks and I saw that as soon as anyone walked in they would literally give the little like up down like look and I was like what

are you doing so I didn't know everybody was bringing their own little crew so I went alone to this event and I remember I made it a point when I walked in I would just smile and I smiled at this one group and straight up these girls were like and just like looked away giving very much High School clicky mean girl Vibes and I not about that I could have been intimidated by their looks I could have been intimidated by the fact that I was alone and be shy but no I walked in and I

kept my shin up I had my shoulders back and I walked in and I smiled and I had a very inviting energy and since the event was not the vibe I decided I wanted to bring the Vibes I know that me walking in confident and with a confident mindset was enough for them to feel some type of way when I smiled at them and had to remind myself I am not there to impress these random girls that I don't even know who they are I'm there to make the most of it and have a good

time myself the sun is like blasting in out of nowhere I'm sorry about that I'm confident in who I am as a person cuz I go based on how I feel not how others perceive me so let go of trying to be accepted understood obsessed by others be your own cheerleader and last but not least 2024 is the year that we all become emotionally mature stop the toxic relationships okay they're not cute stop the gossip stop giving your time and energy to negative things there is nothing less attractive than a hateful bitter jealous person and

I will fully admit that when I was at my most insecure that's also when I was the most emotionally immature and jealous and hateful I participated in so much gossip back then because it made my super insecure self feel better I was so jealous I would constantly compare myself to every single person everybody was competition I would almost feel so jealous of other people because it felt like they were taking something from me and that's why I didn't have it truly confident people can admire someone's Beauty someone's success someone's confidence because they understand that it

doesn't take away from themselves there is enough success Beauty everything to go around now that I have true confidence I see a beautiful girl and I'm like she is stunning I see someone killing it on social media I'm like they are killing it that is amazing I know someone out there needs to hear this right now you are in your own lane stop seeing everyone else's competition be your own competition be better than who you were yesterday and strive day by day to be the best version of you respect yourself so others will too this

could be a whole other video topic because I was a former people pleaser and one of my biggest glow-ups was becoming a woman with boundaries you cannot wonder why people are constantly disrespecting you using you crossing boundaries when you don't show that respect to yourself stop begging people to treat you the way that you deserve and do not be afraid to set the boundary this is my problem and if it does not fix I'm out I always see these like tips and tricks videos like how to get him obsessed with you how to get people

to like you etc etc how about we learn how to love ourselves enough to not let people overstep our boundaries and disrespect us I stopped being friends with my core group of college friends a few years ago because I constantly let them disrespect me many times and I let them because I let my deep rooted insecurity of being alone stopped me from being friends with them when I knew I should stop being friends with them and since I ended the friendship I genuinely have no beef with them now like I genuinely wish them the best

and the day I stopped being friends with them I let them know these boundaries were C and I refuse to allow this friendship to continue so yeah being emotionally mature and setting boundaries is true confidence I really really hope that was helpful but yeah comment down below any glowup tips that you have or if you want to be on your glowup journey you know so I can hype you up go check the comments I read all my comments go ahead and follow me on Instagram if you're a real one I love you guys so so

much and I hope to catch you in my next video bye [Music] guys oh H I'm taking a right to Jo a [Music] so