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Hi everyone, hope your having a great week! Here’s a bit of a catch up of some of my eats:

Yesterdays breakfast:

Butternut Smoothie with Vanilla Sun Warrior and Rude Health Granola – oh so good!

Today’s breakfast:

10 grain hot cereal with vanilla rice milk, egg whites, brown rice syrup, cinnamon, two chopped plums and mixed fruit and nuts I’d picked up at Tesco – delicious!

Yesterdays lunch and snacks were just a big tofu salad plus plums and peanut butter hummus with cauliflower and carrot sticks. Last nights dinner was a random but tasty combo:

Egg fried rice with veggies: leftover brown rice with onion, mushrooms, carrot, kale, chard, egg whites, shoyu, mixed toasted seeds and parsley. Yummy big mess!

Today I snacked on some fruity tofu yoghurt I’d whipped up using silken tofu, vanilla extract, brown rice syrup, a pear and some frozen blueberries:

I also had another pumpkin spice cake bar:

I still can’t get over how tasty and moist these are, they’ve kept so well in the freezer.

Lunch was some of my smokey spicy black eye pea and greens soup followed by a couple of satsumas.

For dinner tonight I made myself a Butternut and Quinoa Risotto without the peas and with soymilk instead of the yoghurt (making this vegan) and shallots instead of the onion. I also mashed up some of the roast butternut to make it more creamy. I served it on top of some steamed kale and spring greens.

Absolutely gorgeous, the perfect comfort food for me!

Desert was a frozen chocolate avocado cup nuked for a few seconds until melty and spread on two wholegrain rice cakes along with a sliced organic apple.

I’ve also been keeping up with my training – yesterday I did my Davina Bottom Fit and Top Fit workouts.

Today I was scheduled a 5k run which I usually do on the treadmill including speed intervals. I have a bit of a confession to make – I’m really not feeling the running at the moment. My outdoor run on Sunday felt so slow and difficult. I don’t know why I seem to have lost so much speed since the Great North Run. Every run I do at the moment feels like a struggle. On the way home from work I decided give myself a kick up the arse and just do it. It was a lovely evening (although extremely cold!) so I ran to the gym then did 10 minutes of 30 second sprint intervals for 10 minutes (covering about 1.2 miles) on the tread mill, 10 minutes of intervals on the cross trainer and 10 minutes of intervals on the step machine followed by by abs and core exercises. I then ran home. I didn’t track my run for my times but I mapped it out and I covered 3 miles so in total I ended up running in excess of my 5k target, plus the additional cardio so it wasn’t all bad!

So I’m not sure what to do. For me, I want to enjoy exercise – I don’t think it should ever become a chore. I felt like I ran a lot quicker on the way home when I was really warmed up which makes me think this is a key issue. I wore an extra layer tonight and I already wear gloves (not the best quality) and a wide hand band that covers my ears plus running tights, vest, long sleeve top and hoody. My aims in terms of running at the moment is just to retain a base level of fitness – I’ve been running 15k a week – 5k during the week and a 10k on a weekend more and more of which has been done on the treadmill instead of outdoors. I’m also bored of my outdoor running routes so may need to think of changing them up.

Do you have any advice for me that will help relight my love of running? In terms of retaining fitness do you think that running a total distance over a week (i.e. 3 x 5k runs = 15k a week) or making one a longer run (i.e. 1 x 5k run + 1 x 10k run = 15k) is best? I think doing several shorter runs may make things easier for me but I don’t want to lose the endurance of running constantly for a longer period of time. Any advice would be very much appreciated! 

Just before I go – the lovely Leashieloo tagged me to answer these fun questions:

1) What was your favourite crayon colour as a kid? Orange!

2) What is your favourite TV show? I can’t possibly pick just one! I love Chuck, Fringe, CSI and any cookery shows :-)

3) Do you have any siblings? Yes, I have one younger sister who is pregnant with my second nephew :-)

4) Where do you hope to be in 5 years? In a bigger house with a kiddie running round, perhaps in a job related to health and fitness – but most importantly, happy!

5) What’s your favourite fruit? Apples

6) What’s your favourite scent? Perfume – Lola by Marc Jacobs or freshly cut grass, fresh roses, cinnamon and bonfires :-)

7) Who is your idol? My Nana

8 ) What is your favourite animal? Whales – I loved whales and dolphins when I was little

Catch you all later, have a great evening! :-)