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Hello everyone, hope you are having a brilliant week! I thought it would be fun to switch it up and do a completely different WIAW day for a change. These are my eats and goings on from last Friday which as it turned out, was a pretty awesome day :-)

I’d booked the day off work a few weeks earlier as I try and schedule in a ‘me day’ every so often when I can. For some this might seem pretty extravagant, but setting aside a day to just chill is really important to me and helps makes me feel a bit more balanced. It didn’t quite turn out to be a ‘me’ day entirely as James decided to take the day off too ;-)

I got up, had my warm water with a squeeze of lemon and then popped to the gym. My workout for the day was:

• 10 min on the treadmill
• 10 min on the stationary bike
• 10 min on the cross trainer
• Body weight circuit: incline push ups, tricep dips, squats, sit ups x 20 reps x 3 sets

I’m really just going with the flow at the moment and doing what I feel like doing in my workouts. I kept it relaxed and really enjoyed just getting my body moving without doing anything too intense.

After the gym I wolfed down a banana and a cup of green tea while I was getting dressed:

Then we drove through to Newcastle and headed straight to our favourite cafe for breakfast:

We went to the lovely Olive and Bean. I had muesli with fresh berries and soy milk plus a coffee, James had the continental platter. All delicious as usual! Then me and James split up so we could cover more shopping ground ;-)

I had a look around the farmers market which was disappointing to be honest – there only seems to be fruit and vegetable sellers in the autumn months. Thankfully the indoor market didn’t let me down:

I bought some raspberries, strawberries, doughnut peaches, dates, carrots, persimmon, pineapple, ginger, huge bunch of fresh parsley and some cooked beetroot.

I also got a few treats for myself:

‘Martha’ straight leg jeans from Topshop, pink and diamante necklace from H&M, gold ring from Topshop, Pink Essie nail polish and Rimmel clear top coat, Stila BB cream and some orangey, almondy, rooibos loose leaf tea from Olive and Bean. The jeans and ring were both in the sale and I’ve been looking for a good BB cream for a while. I’ve been very impressed with the Stila BB cream so far, makes my completion and skin tone look much more even!

For lunch I made myself a big salad:

This was delicious :-) Lots of romaine lettuce, cucumber, red onion, carrot and beetroot with avocado, hummus watered down into a dressing, and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.

Having a fridge full of amazing fresh fruit (I also had more before I hit up the market!) meant I was craving a big bowl full, so mid afternoon I had a couple of nectarines, strawberries and blueberries with Tesco plain soya yoghurt:

That was so good! A bit later I really fancied a frappe so I whipped one up:

This was vanilla almond made with crushed ice, vanilla protein powder, xanthan gum, instant coffee, stevia and almond extract. I ended up with about 2 cups full!

We spent the afternoon just chilling out watching the tennis on TV and blogging. The weather was horrendous so we made the living room nice and cosy and it was very relaxing!

For dinner I made a Thai Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry with full fat coconut milk served with some steamed broccoli:

That curry is amazing! I’ve made it before with a tomato base rather than the coconut milk, in fact its a pretty customisable recipe – I plan to blog it soon! I know that probably doesn’t look like such a big portion, but that bowl is actually a serving size bowl, pictures can be deceptive sometimes!

After dinner I ran myself a bath and relaxed with a mug of my new tea:

I made some up in my space age tea pot, it is a wonderful flavour! I soaked in the bath for half an hour with that tea and some music on, it was bliss.

We decided we would finish the day with a movie and some wine:

I pulled out a bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon for us to share and made myself a tasty movie snack:

Pretzels and melted chocolate for dipping, yes please! We watched The Ugly Truth, I laughed my head off but I can’t be sure if that was because the movie was really funny or because the 2 glasses of wine I drank had me tipsy. I kid you not, two glasses and I’m away ;-) I even had to start the next day with a green juice rather than a normal breakfast just to make me feel better!

Do you ever have ‘me’ days? I think part of being healthy is just as much about looking after your mental wellbeing as it is about what you eat and how you exercise. Taking a bit of time for myself, or in the case of Friday spending time with James, makes me happier all round which impacts on everything else in my life I think! What is your favourite way to relax?