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Hi everyone, hope you are having a good week! If you’re in the UK, how lovely has this warm weather been? Gorgeous! Unfortunately I’ve been fighting a bit of a cold / flu type thing that decided to creep up on me, I hate summer viruses!

These are my eats and goings on from yesterday. I didn’t actually feel so bad when I woke up. I had the usual warm water with lemon juice and since I was working from home I decided to treat myself to a nice breakfast. I made a two egg omelette with my local free range eggs and spread some almond butter and sugar free strawberry jam in the middle. I had that with a peach:

I know that combo sounds odd but try it, so delicious! I also had some spinach that needed using up so I made a green smoothie with the spinach blended with a scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water, ice and stevia:

There was also black coffee :-)

I needed to pop out briefly and thought I would try and make a bit of an effort as that usually makes me feel much better, OOTD:

Collar necklace: Topshop, stripy dress: Tu @ Sainsbury’s, wooden and metal bangles: various, tan leather sandals: New Look

After that came home and started operation kick this colds ass, starting with some fresh ginger tea, manuka honey and Ibuprofen for the headache:

I also added a squeeze of lemon juice to that tea as well. A bit later on I decided to make myself another smoothie and my word this was awesome!

Magical Cold Blaster Smoothie (vegan, serves 1 very generously)

• 1 orange
• 200g of mixed frozen berries (or fresh berries)
• 1 slice of fresh ginger (finely chop it if you don’t have a high speed blender)
• 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp of cocoa powder (I used cococardio for an extra kick)
• Ice and water to blend
• Optional add ins – matcha green tea powder, honey, any greens you have lying about – I used some spinach

Blend everything together adding some stevia or agave for sweetness if needed:

This was fantastic! You are getting vitamin C and antioxidants from the orange and berries, the great immune boosting properties of ginger and cayenne pepper and more antioxidants from the cocoa powder. Adding the matcha gives it an extra nutritional kick, and the greens provide more nutrition and are extra hydrating. Honestly, this really did make me feel so much better, it has a serious kick!

A bit later I started to fancy some lunch. I’d already made this thinking I’d be at work otherwise I might have gone with another smoothie! It was good though:

Salad with cos lettuce, cucumber, yellow pepper, chickpeas, olives, avocado and a balsamic hemp oil dressing.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a small pink lady apple with some peanut butter:

There was also lots and lots of this ginger tea brewed alongside a green tea bag in my pot:

Love this tea!

I was feeling so much better by late afternoon I decided to go to the gym for Body Pump. This may or may not have been the right thing to do, but I actually felt really good in the class and great afterwards. For my body at least, some exercise when fighting a cold seems to help. Perhaps its getting the blood circulating that does the trick? 

For dinner I had a baked sweet potato topped with black beans, red onion and vegan cheese:

All served on top of spinach. I love this meal, even though I’m moving away from processed stuff like vegan cheese, it does the trick as comfort food!

After dinner I was craving some fatty goodness so raided my new bag of macadamia nuts:

These are definitely one of my favourite ever nuts, so creamy and delicious! I first got into these when I worked at Millies Cookies during my time at university. They did a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie that was incredible. Perhaps I need to try and recreate a healthier version? I’d also love to try making these into a nut milk!

Then there was more ginger tea and later, my evening smoothie in a bowl:

I blended up frozen cherries, chocolate sun warrior, water and ice. Perfect on a hot evening!

I’m glad that I don’t tend to get ill very often as I try and keep my immune system as healthy as possible through eating a good diet. When I do get poorly I tend to try and fight it as naturally as possible and take it as a sign that I need to slow down a bit and let my body heal, although I have to admit I’m not great at this! I only take medication like Ibuprofen as a last resort when I’m really feeling like crap. Although I still went to the gym, I have tried to relax a bit by taking a few things off my to do list and allowing myself more time to cabbage on the sofa :-)

Even though I’m feeling much better I’m definitely going to be making that smoothie a few times over the next couple of days, so glad that I bought a big piece of fresh ginger at the weekend!

How do you tackle illness? Are you very good at slowing down when illness strikes? Do you use natural remedies? What are your immune boosting tips?