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Hi everyone, so happy that the weekend has come back around again!

I’ve had a pretty busy week at work, so glad that I took the time last weekend to prep some food, it really has saved me a lot of time and stress as well as cash!

Workouts this week have been awesome. I think just doing yoga for a few day’s last week allowed by body to have a good rest. I’ve been following my new plan, and for my Monday and Friday strength workouts I’ve decided to generally follow the plans in Female Body Breakthrough instead of NRoL. This is mainly because I can perform more of the exercises from FBB with the equipment my gym has available, plus the plan includes a couple of moves that I know are really going to benefit me. This includes an exercise called the Partial Co Contraction Lunge which specifically gets the glutes firing – an issue that has contributed to my knee injury issues. This week I just did 2 sets of each move but next week I’ll be bumping it up to the full 3 sets.

For my ‘Anything Goes Thursday’ I fancied doing something different so I tried my first You Tube Vid! I did the POP Pilates Beyonce Booty Workout:

This was a killer! Its only 15 minutes but I was sweating by the end of it. I followed it up with the MTV Power Yoga DVD.

Eats this week have been really good, glad you liked the sound of my Autumn Grain Bowl! I made use of the leftover brown rice and butternut puree for an amazing breakfast:

I warmed the cooked brown rice and butternut puree with some rice milk and cinnamon on the stove top adding a chopped apple, raisins and some almond butter sauce. I enjoyed with a mug of black cinnamon hazelnut coffee sweetened with stevia. This was utterly delicious!

For a tasty lunch I made a big salad with romaine, spinach, carrot, pepper and cucumber topped with some basil, pine nut and hemp pesto, hummus, raw aubergine bacon and some dehydrated cherry tomatoes:

I’m not a massive fan of uncooked tomatoes (except in raw pasta sauce) so I dehydrated the cherry tomatoes to concentrate the flavour. I also loved the pesto mixed with the hummus!

I’ve enjoyed the usual green smoothies too:

This was post strength workout and one of the best I’ve had for ages! It contained spinach, pears, chocolate hemp protein powder, rice milk, mesquite, barley grass, midori greens powder, water, ice and gums topped with hazelnut butter sauce and bee pollen.

I’ve also been enjoying soup as the weather has returned to be more autumnal!

Leek Greens and White Bean Soup with a chopped raw pepper and toasted farmers market rye and fig bread with pure spread which was lovely.

I’ve been continuing to enjoy snacking, but have also been making sure that my evening dessert / snack is something that is meeting my cravings to leave me feeling really satisfied:

Chocolate tasting plate with a square of 100% cacao chocolate topped with peanut butter, RAW Health raw cherry chocolate and Divine Dark Chocolate with Orange and Ginger, fabulous! 

Frozen cherries defrosted with chocolate chia seed pudding and raw almond butter:

I made the pudding with 2 tbsp of chia seeds, water, raw cacao, stevia and almond extract, so good!

Today we had a team building day for work which started with a gingerbread coffee in a cafe followed by a 4-5 mile hike around Durham through woods and by the river followed by lunch at a great restaurant called Oldfields that specialise in local and seasonal menus. I called ahead to request something vegan and got a wonderful butter bean hummus and rapeseed oil dipping plate to start:

The bread was delicious dipped in the oil and hummus! My main was some baked mushrooms with spinach and tomato sauce accompanied by some ‘autumn greens’ and roasted root veg:

I also had a fruit salad as a dessert and a glass of red, it was a wonderful meal! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a lot of planning for the future of our organisation which was exciting!

I’ve enjoyed today so much and have felt very ‘autumny’, especially after a walk through the woods! After the day with work I went and stocked up with cheap seasonal fruit and veggies from the green grocers for the weekend, I can’t wait to cook with them all :-)

Have you done any You Tube workout videos before? Do you have any favourites?

Any big plans for the weekend? I’m probably going to have another chilled out one me thinks! Hope whatever your up to you have a great one :-)