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Happy Friday everyone! This Friday comes with an extra bit of happiness for me as I am now on holiday for a week, bring it on! I am pretty ready for the weekend after being ill mid week. Luckily I’m feeling much better but poor James also caught whatever it was so he’s been ill too. Here’s a look at my workouts for the week:

• Sunday – 30 minute treadmill run, 15 minute bike, Kettle bell Class
• Monday – Yoga class 1 hour 30
• Tuesday – Unexpected rest day – ill :-(
• Wednesday – AM gym workout – 5 min warm up cross trainer, strength from Female Body Breakthrough ‘Dial It In’ phase, 20 min HIITs on bike
• Thursday – AM – Yoga for Runners podcast, PM Gym – 321 workout
• Friday - AM gym workout – 5 min warm up cross trainer, strength from Female Body Breakthrough ‘Dial It In’ phase, 20 min HIITs on step machine

Thanks for all your comments about the yoga class. I’ve been looking at what other yoga is being offered in my area and it all seems to be Hatha style yoga which I understand to be pretty slow paced. I don’t mind doing one class like that a week but I couldn’t do two! With that in mind I’m probably going to experiment with a couple of different classes at the gym and some DVD’s and podcasts and then re jig my workout week.

Luckily I’m back to my normal self now but mid week I had very little appetite due to that mystery illness, however chocolate and peanut butter makes everything better:

This was one of the only things I managed to eat on Tuesday, it contained spring greens, banana, lots and lots of peanut butter, water and ice then topped with peanut flour sauce and dark chocolate chips. Also accompanied by several spoons of peanut butter straight up with dark chocolate chips stuck on. Speaking of nut butter and spoons…

My order of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter arrived from iHerb! I did just about manage to eat some of this ;-)

I’ve also continued to enjoy my current favourite snack of almonds and raisins:

These were some extra special almonds that I’d soaked overnight then coated in shoyu and ‘roasted’ in the dehydrator to make raw salted almonds. They are gorgeous, I can’t get enough of the sweet and salty combo! I just had to add some on top of a butternut squash smoothie too:

I decided to get one of these in while I still craved it. This was roast butternut, kara coconut milk, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ginger, cinnamon and ice topped with maple syrup and those almonds all chopped up. Heaven!

I also made a pretty awesome dinner that I had a couple of nights in a row – baked tempeh with stir fried purple sprouting broccoli and greens in a ginger coconut sauce:

I marinaded the tempeh in a mix of shoyu, honey, ground ginger and garlic powder then baked. For the veggies I just stir fried them in a little coconut oil then once they were tender I added about 3/4 cup of full fat coconut milk, fresh minced ginger, shoyu sauce and 1/2 tbsp of coconut flour (to add thickness) then cooked off for a couple of minutes to thicken up even more before serving. I haven’t had full fat coconut milk in ages and it was so good. I was even more surprised when the leftover milk that had been left in the fridge turned into a very thick cream. I had a sudden moment of inspiration and decided to use it to top a gooey baked sweet potato for my lunch today:

I also added some peanut flour sauce for a bit of protein. You can’t tell me that doesn’t look amazing right? I’m a full fat convert now!

Other meals that have helped me get my appetite back include:

Big salad with romaine, red onion, yellow pepper, cucumber, black beans and avocado

Green smoothie with spinach, persimmons x 3, 1/2 banana, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water, ice, maca powder, ground flax topped with Dorset Cereal’s fabulous ‘Simply’ muesli and more sliced persimmon

My obsession continues… four fresh figs topped with tahini (watered down a bit for more pourability), black strap molasses and thyme honey. Can not get enough!

I’ve been loving my fats this week. I used to always go for the low fat versions of everything such as hummus, light coconut milk and yoghurt (when I was eating that). I know that when you are seeking to lose weight reducing fat can be a good strategy, however fats are essential in our diets for so many things including the absorption of some fat soluble vitamins and good skin, hair and nails. I know there are ‘good’ fats (poly unsaturated and mono unsaturated fats) and ‘bad’ fats (saturated and trans fats) but for me I don’t worry too much about that and enjoy plant sources of fats even though coconut milk, butter and oil contains some saturated fat. There is some evidence that the medium chain fatty acids (MCFA’s) present in coconut milk are processed by the body in a different way to saturated fat from other sources and that they can provide energy and help to maintain weight by increasing satiety. As long as its not the nasty trans fats, and that the fat in whatever form is coming from whole unprocessed foods, I’m happy! Are you a low fat or full fat person? I definitely think there’s a balance to be had between the two.

Have you got anything exciting planned for the weekend? Tonight I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do for ages, if it works out ok I’ll share on Sunday! Other than that I think its going to be a pretty chilled weekend just catching up with friends and family, a bit of gym time and of course getting set to travel down to Brighton next week. Hope whatever your up to you have fun, and manage to stay warm!