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Thanks for all your lovely comments to my last post! I am still walking around with a huge smile on my face thinking of all the great things we’ll be doing in NYC! I really can not wait to go :-)

As I was working late last night I decided to fit in a workout first thing Thursday morning, thank goodness for DVD’s! To replace my planned upper body weights / interval session I did Davina Fit Top Fit section followed by my MTV Yoga DVD. I had a great workout! For breakfast I really fancied some muesli but didn’t want to open a carton of milk. Instead I made some of my instant coconut milk with added vanilla hemp protein powder (to help with muscle repair after my workout), a mix of Dorset Cereals nutty and high fibre muesli and 2 small chopped jazz apples:

This was delicious and just what I had been craving!

Lunch was leftover sweet potato and black beans with veggies from Wednesday evenings dinner and spinach plus an orange and another amazing persimmon. I snacked on veggies, another couple of apples and an almond honey snack bar before my meeting. When I got home I made myself green smoothie no 7:

Raspberry Carob Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of spring greens with stems removed
• 1 cup of frozen raspberries
• 3 clemintines
• 1 tbsp of toasted carob powder (could also use cocoa powder)
• 1 tbsp of agave syrup
• 1 tsp maca (optional)
• 1 tsp mesquite (optional)
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• xanthan and guar gums (optional but adds thickness)

Toppings:

• Carob flakes
• Granola
• Flaked almonds

This was yummy – I really like carob. Those carob flakes are so addictive too, I was snacking away on them while I was making the smoothie – so good.

Thankfully after my late meetings this week I’ve been able to work from home today to catch up, this meant I could fit in a longer than usual gym session. I had a great 1hr15 minute workout including intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, rowing machine and bike followed by my abs and core. Although I had completed my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge I had an idea for a really delicious combo so I decided to have one more:

‘Bounty’ (chocolate coconut) Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of romaine lettuce and spinach (or whatever greens take your fancy)
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup of frozen peach slices
• 1 small can (160ml) of reduced fat coconut milk (nom!)
• 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (I used sun warrior)
• 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder (could use more if not using protein powder)
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of mesquite (optional)
• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• Xanthan / guar gums (optional but add thickness)

Toppings

• Coconut flour paste
• Cacao nibs
• Desiccated coconut

This was an awesome smoothie! The addition of the coconut milk, even though it was reduced fat added a delicious creaminess. This also kept me full for ages!

For once I didn’t actually have a plan for my meals today. Usually I love my meal planning but I just decided to go with the flow and see what I was craving / what was on offer at the supermarket / what showed up in my organic veg box. As it had been a whole week since I’d had hummus I decided to indulge my addiction and go for a regular favourite for lunch – a giant hummus topped salad:

This contained sweet pea shoots, romaine, carrot, beets, sugar snaps, red onion, alfalfa sprouts and a large serving of my high protein hummus made with added olives and broccoli (great combo!) I also had an orange and two passion fruit.

Mid afternoon I continued to go with my cravings and made myself a big green juice with apple, celery, broccoli stalks, romaine and lemon. I also ended up snacking on several pink lady apples, not because I hadn’t eaten enough, just because they taste bloody lush ;-)

I had lots of veggies available so for dinner I went with a massive veggie filled stir fry containing shredded brussel sprouts, spring greens, courgette, carrot, mushrooms, ginger and baked teriyaki tofu with gomasio and shoyu:

I love defrosted and baked tofu, it gets such a lovely texture. Its been nice to just go with the flow and follow my cravings – I love that I can still meal plan (for saving money and being organised) but incorporate some flexibility to eat what I fancy! What have you been craving recently?

March review and aims for April

I’ve had an amazing March!

• Put on weight! (I’ll explain why I see this as an achievement in a mo)
• Ran outdoors each week and vastly improved my average pace (total outdoor mileage this month 30 miles, fastest average pace 8.54)
• Got my maximum plank hold time up to 2 minutes 10 seconds (full plank) and 50 seconds (side planks)
• Started to meditate each morning and do more yoga
• Did my green smoothie challenge ;-)
• Made the decision to eat an almost completely vegan diet – but not getting overly hung up on labelling myself

Most of these are in line with the goals that I set for myself at the start of the month. In case any of you are new readers I have recently been having problems maintaining my weight (I’ve actually been losing more weight and getting close to the underweight BMI – see the posts I’ve linked to here – particularly the finding balance post). This month I have gained a pound! It may not seem like much but after 6 months of consistently losing weight it shows that I am on the right track. I also didn’t freak out about the gain as I was worried I would, I think my mind set is really starting to improve. I feel like I may not even need to weigh myself anymore – before I got on the scales I asked myself – am I happy with my body? Yes - I am happy with my body at the moment, I feel great and very healthy so what difference should a number on the scale make?

In terms of next months training I’m looking at pretty much the same as last month, although I’ll be continuing to take a flexible approach, changing up workouts due to the bank holidays / work commitments etc:

• Monday – gym workout: 30 min HIITs, 30 min spin, abs and core
• Tuesday – AM – Yoga Podcast (20 min), PM - Body Pump 50 min
• Wednesday – gym workout: 30 min speed work on treadmill, 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Thursday – AM – Yoga flow from Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga (20 min), PM gym upper body dumbbell workout, 20 minutes HIITs
• Friday – AM – gym workout 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Weekend – Long outdoor run – working up from current 8 miles to 10 miles, one week to run 10k to see what pace is like for my 10k race /optional yoga DVD workout / REST DAY

I don’t want to add in other run quite yet – I need to sort out some new running shoes before I significantly increase my weekly mileage (don’t want to risk injury). I did get Run Less Run Faster from the library and I plan on taking some tips from this to improve my treadmill speed intervals for this month and then eventually a proper half marathon training plan to start in May. Although the structure of my training is staying the same I’m going to change up my interval sessions at the gym (perhaps moving from 1 minute intervals to 30 sec intervals) and the exercises I do for my abs and core to keep my body guessing. Now that I have reached my plank goal I will try out some variations on the plank exercise such as adding in an arm / leg raise. I also need to get back to trying to achieve a full push up!

Aims for April

• Continue to work on having a healthy attitude to fuelling myself properly / focusing on health over weight or size
• Continue to work towards my overall 2011 goals (I think I’m on the way to meeting the travel goal with our trip to NYC!)
• Re focus on my push up aim
• Keep up the running – in particular making progress on my speed
• Make good progress on my Diet and Nutrition Advisor Course
• Keep up the yoga and meditation
• Get ready for NYC in May!

How was March for you? Have you set yourself any goals for April?