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This is going to be a bit of a long post as I just have so much to share from this week!

I couldn’t not show you a picture of that cake! It was a work colleagues birthday so we decided to order something special. She’s gluten and dairy intolerant so we asked for a vegan gluten free cake that we could all enjoy. We ended up with this amazing chocolate cherry almond cake. It was to die for, so moist and the icing on top was deliciously creamy. I need to ask the cafe for the recipe!

As I said I feel like I’ve had too many nice things this week not to share them all so get ready for a bit of a photo dump! First up I had this lovely breakfast on Tuesday:

Teeccino caffeine free amaretto coffee with a slice of Burgens Chia and Sunflower seed bread toasted and spread with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and a big bowl of strawberries, blackberries and a sliced banana

Then yesterday I used up the remaining berries with some cereal:

Dorset Cereals High Fibre Flakes with strawberries, blackberries and kara coconut milk plus a mug of Clippers Indian Chai tea with coconut milk and stevia

I absolutely love that chai tea its delicious! For lunches there has been salads:

Romaine, cucumber, brown rice, black beans, red onion, avocado

Romaine, cucumber, carrot, chickpeas, olives, balsamic and hemp oil dressing

At the weekend I decided to make a batch of my Summer Bean Stew (despite the weather being as far from summery as possible) I added some celery to the recipe and used some home cooked cannellini beans and pinto beans:

I had it with a Raw Health Italian cracker on the side. So tasty!

I’ve also had some amazingly tasty dinners:

Herbed socca fold over with red pepper hummus, baked tofu and spinach served with lots of roast broccoli

Buddha bowl with steamed greens, quinoa, edamame beans, roast red kabocha squash, a peanut sesame miso sauce and parsley on top

Snacks wise I’ve been enjoying lots of nuts, seeds and dried fruit:

Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds and dried figs

Pumpkin seeds and satsumas (good combo for iron absorption – iron in pumpkin seeds and vitamin C in the fruit)

The Raw Chocolate Company chocolate covered goji berries and frozen grapes

And eaten in the car between meetings:

A vegan chocolate chip cookie (from Cat as part of the cookie exchange) and a big pink lady apple

My other meals and snacks may have been good this week but my smoothies have been phenomenal! They’ve all turned out extremely creamy and satisfying:

Kale, mixed frozen berries, half an avocado, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca, water and ice topped with goji berries and hemp seeds

Amazing chocolate chip peanut butter smoothie made with two scoops of spiru-tein peanut butter swirl powder, xanthan gum, water, ice and stevia topped with peanut sauce made from peanut flour and dark chocolate chips on top

Lots of spinach, frozen banana, two scoops of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca, water, ice topped with some coconut and bee pollen (tasted like vanilla ice cream!)

Frozen blueberries, spiru-tein cookies and cream protein powder, water, ice topped with peanut butter & co smooth operator peanut butter and cacao nibs

They were all so delicious, the one with the avocado in was especially good!

Workouts wise I’ve been doing the last week of the Dial It In phase from Female Body Breakthrough (my amended version of it) so I’ve been giving it my all:

• Saturday – REST
• Sunday – 6 mile run (approx)
• Monday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Tuesday – 3 mile run (approx)
• Wednesday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike, PM – Yoga for detox podcast
• Thursday – PM yoga class 1hr 15 
• Friday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike

I keep a little note book with all of the weights I use and reps for each exercise so I’ve been looking back to see if I have improved. Its really motivational to see how well I’ve progressed. Even though I don’t have any specific aims to increase strength or build muscle, this month I do feel like I’ve started to see some added muscle definition which is always good! I’ve also been continuing to enjoy my yoga classes now that I’ve been going regularly and feel more comfortable in the group. We do a lot of assisted poses (thanks to this post I now get that this is in fact what we are doing!) which are fantastic for really stretching you out.

On the weekend send off love list this week…

That would be Tesco’s amazing ‘Free From’ range of products including soya yoghurts, desserts and vegan cheeses, also some very Free Range Chickens (although I think those are Cockerels) at my Farm shop

I called into to Tesco and remembered that Jess had mentioned that they did some amazing vegan cheese. I ended up getting some of their soy yoghurt (which doesn’t appear to contain any added sugar like most other brands), vegan cream cheese and vegan mild and medium cheese. The ingredients lists for these look very good with coconut oil being a main component and not a lot of other stuff, I’ll probably do a little review once I’ve tried them. I also paid a visit to my local farm shop to get some veggies and eggs. After I posted about my return to eggs I knew these would be the only eggs I’d feel comfortable eating and I have to say you can’t get much more free range than the chickens I saw, they were literally pottering around the whole farm, I had to make sure I didn’t run any of them over! Also…

Listening to James Brown in the car and having a little funky groove to it // seeing the Avengers movie (which was awesome!) // another brilliant healthy eating session with the young people – this week we made pizza’s on whole wheat muffins and tortillas //making an order with Goodness Direct to stock up on my favourite moisturiser (15% off right now!) and treating myself to some coconut water // knowing that we have a long weekend ahead, and god do I need it!

Do you keep any kind of workout log or note book to record your progress at the gym? Have you had anything particularly delicious this week you’d like to share? What’s on your love list this week?