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Hi everyone, hope you are all feeling awesome! I’ve had a busy couple of days and have a busy week ahead ending in an exciting trip to London! More on that in a moment…

I started Monday morning with a bowl of granola, fresh blueberries, chopped pear and home made almond milk.

I used two bags of Bear granola. This was a lovely breakfast, it was nice to eat a full bowl of granola as I usually only use it as a topping.

Mid morning I had a mug of miso soup. Lunch was another nori cashew ginger wrap with carrot and cucumber. I just cut the wrap in half instead of making ‘sushi’ so it was easier to take it to work without falling apart. I also had some more carrot sticks on the side and some pomegranate and passion fruit.

Mid afternoon I snacked on two cherry bakewell babies and an orange.

I headed to the gym after work and did 40 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer and step machine. I changed up my HIITs from the 3 x 30 sec intervals (medium, medium hard, hard intensities) to 1 minute medium intensity / 1 minute hard intensity, increasing the resistance levels and speeds accordingly. I then did my first spin class of the year! It was awesome as usual. I finished off with my abs and core moves including my plank which still remains at 1 minute – didn’t feel like trying to push my time after that workout!

Dinner was a tasty combo of roasted veggies (parsnip, brussels, red onion and broccoli) and millet on top of some rocket, lambs lettuce and little gem. I added some balsamic mustard dressing and a sprinkling of seeds.

So satisfying! I’m loving the roast veg and salad green combo at the moment. I also really liked the millet, it was my first time trying this little grain (technically a seed I think) and it was delicious.

Dessert was 2 chopped apples (which actually turned into several apples!) and fresh blueberries.

This morning I was up early for my strength workout. I did exactly the same as last week but on the advice of the lovely Alison I moved my push ups to the front of the circuit and the chest fly to the back. This is because I really want to improve my push ups and if I’m doing them at the end of the circuit I could be too tried to make a real difference.

The workout was awesome and I was sweating buckets by the end! I refuelled with a tasty breakfast: Vanilla Blueberry Green Smoothie. This contained a multitude of ingredients – spring cabbage leaves, frozen blueberries, vanilla sun warrior, spirulina, matcha green tea powder, acai juice, milk thistle and echinacea tincture and oat milk. I topped it with some goji berries and granola.

Lunch was leftover roast veggies, millet and salad, same as last night and two pears. Mid afternoon I snacked on the most delicious hummus with carrot and cucumber for dipping:

Spiced Broccoli, Courgette and Olive Hummus (inspired by recipe from Choosing Raw)

• 1 small head of broccoli, roughly chopped
• 1 medium courgette, roughly chopped
• 1/3 cup of tahini
• 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
• 10 – 15 pitted olives (I used some marinated Greek olives)

Begin by finely chopping the broccoli and courgette in a food processor. Then add the remaining ingredients and blend. I found that the courgette adds enough moisture to give the perfect creamy consistency but you could add water to thin it out.

This tastes just amazing – It makes a good amount and as it doesn’t contain oil or more calorie dense beans you can have a bigger portion (not that oil in hummus has ever stopped me having a bigger portion!)

I snacked on an orange before I headed to my new Yoga class. You may recall I did a beginners Yoga course at the end of last year at Newcastle Buddhist Centre. Tonight I started the level 2 course which luckily for me is being held in Durham so closer to home.

It was really tough. I felt like everyone else in the class was a lot more experienced than me. The tutor had to keep coming and correcting my posture as we were doing poses I’ve never tried before. I know I’ll get better in time, and although I felt a little out of my depth I still really enjoyed it. I don’t care if anyone else in the class thought I was rubbish, I gave it my best shot!

After my class I had a small bowl of Leek and Greens soup followed by two chopped apples.

My first bloggers event!

On Friday I will be hopping on the train down to London. I have been invited by the people behind Kellogg's Special K to come and find out more about their new website: www.myspecialk.co.uk. This is the first ‘bloggers event’ I’ve ever been to and I’m very excited. I have to say I did have a long think about whether I should accept the invitation as Special K as a product is not really something I would have in my diet. I much prefer eating unprocessed whole foods and Special K is not in line with this. However, I am interested in finding out more about the website and how that could help people lose or maintain their weight. I’m also looking forward to meeting other bloggers! As always I will be giving you my honest opinion of what I see and hear on the day.

As blog readers and bloggers how do you feel about the blogger / product / advertising / PR relationship? I know that the fashion and beauty blogs I read seem to be more into this. My feelings are that I’m more than happy to directly promote and advertise products that are relevant to the blog and that I personally use or believe in, whether that’s their company ethos or the quality of their product. That’s why I was so torn about going to this event. However, I can’t honestly say that I’m very well informed regarding Special K or the website so I have lots of questions to ask – then I can make a more informed opinion to share with you.

Have you ever been to a fitness / exercise class and felt like you were behind everyone else? How did you handle it?

On another note, this weekend its my Blogiversary! The blog will officially be 1 year old and I’m planning an awesome GIVEAWAY to celebrate so keep reading!