Info all Articles

Hi everyone, I know its suppose to be a bad thing to constantly blog about the weather but I’m sorry, its just been too gorgeous not to mention it!

Driving home in the sun!

I don’t think I could have planned a better week for my Green Smoothie Challenge, they have been the perfect refreshing breakfast for this warm weather! Today I am here for WIAW of course, these are my eats from Monday.

I’ve decided that alongside the green smoothie challenge I’m having a bit of a healthy feasting week as I’m feeling completely caffeine and sugared out. I’m just sticking to simple foods, no coffee, no refined or processed sugars and I’m giving stevia a miss for a while so my taste buds can normalise again. I’m making sure that I’m eating plenty of nuts and fats as I’m not doing this to lose weight, just to try and re-steady my energy levels :-)

I got up, had the usual warm water and lemon and headed to the gym. I did 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer, strength training from Female Body Breakthrough and finished up with HIIT for 10 minutes on the step machine and then 10 minutes on the bike. For breakfast I had a not so green smoothie!

It contained spinach, celery, frozen berries, chocolate hemp protein powder, maca, ground flax, a couple of chlorella tablets, water, ice and then topped with goji berries and pistachios. I also had a green tea. It was like eating a bowl of chocolate berry ice cream! I had some celery in the fridge so decided to add a couple of stalks for extra goodness.

Lunch was a big salad with cos lettuce, red onion, cucumber, basil tofu, olives and lots of green goddess dressing:

I know I love my salads anyway but they’ve been even more enjoyable so far this week. That basil tofu is a real treat for me, its a little expensive to buy all the time so when I have it I really enjoy it!

Mid afternoon I snacked on a few chopped carrots with some mixed nuts and seeds that included sunflower seeds, walnuts and pecans:

I had also brought a nakd bar with me to work for a snack but I wasn’t hugely hungry so didn’t force myself to eat it. I decided to have the raw whole nuts as a change from the usual nut butters as I’m building up quite the stockpile and they need eating up!

For dinner I had some adzuki beans with quinoa and parsley alongside some roasted broccoli and cauliflower in tahini dressing:

I’d had this exact same meal on Sunday evening and enjoyed it so much I repeated it. I had some home cooked adzuki beans in the freezer so it was easy to throw together with the leftover quinoa. I also made a jar of tahini dressing up at the weekend which is delicious, I just blended some garlic, lemon and ume vinegar together with the tahini and it tasted great, it really made the roast veggies pop!

As it was so warm all I was craving after dinner was fresh fruit so I had a sliced Asian pear and two massive pink lady apples:

I also had a sleepytime tea and drank the usual gallons of water and green tea throughout the day.

Green smoothie challenge

How’s everyone coming along with their green smoothie challenge? I seem to be feeling more simple cleansing smoothies than I did the last time I did this – no chocolate peanut butter ones this time around! I’ve also been alerted to the fact that Katherine at the Real Food Runner and Jen at Peanut Butter Runner are also hosting a green smoothie challenge this week, talk about great minds! Check out those links for more great green smoothie recipes and ideas.

Here’s a couple of my green smoothie highlights so far:

Chocolate ginger pear topped with pumpkin seeds, flaked almonds and cacao nibs – I’m going to blog the recipe for this one soon as it has been a favourite of mine for a while now!

Spinach, frozen blueberries, scoop of chocolate amazing grass powder, celery, agave, water, ice topped with coconut and bee pollen

So far I know that Tam, Jemma and Sarah are joining in and have posted about the challenge. I’ll probably do a full round up on Sunday so let me know via comments or email if you’d like to include a link.

If your joining in the challenge, how’s it going?

What’s your favourite way to enjoy warm spring weather? When I still have to keep up my usual daily routine I love driving home from work with my sunnies on, good tunes on the radio and the windows down :-)