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Thanks for all your lovely comments to my last post! I am still walking around with a huge smile on my face thinking of all the great things we’ll be doing in NYC! I really can not wait to go :-)

As I was working late last night I decided to fit in a workout first thing Thursday morning, thank goodness for DVD’s! To replace my planned upper body weights / interval session I did Davina Fit Top Fit section followed by my MTV Yoga DVD. I had a great workout! For breakfast I really fancied some muesli but didn’t want to open a carton of milk. Instead I made some of my instant coconut milk with added vanilla hemp protein powder (to help with muscle repair after my workout), a mix of Dorset Cereals nutty and high fibre muesli and 2 small chopped jazz apples:

This was delicious and just what I had been craving!

Lunch was leftover sweet potato and black beans with veggies from Wednesday evenings dinner and spinach plus an orange and another amazing persimmon. I snacked on veggies, another couple of apples and an almond honey snack bar before my meeting. When I got home I made myself green smoothie no 7:

Raspberry Carob Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of spring greens with stems removed
• 1 cup of frozen raspberries
• 3 clemintines
• 1 tbsp of toasted carob powder (could also use cocoa powder)
• 1 tbsp of agave syrup
• 1 tsp maca (optional)
• 1 tsp mesquite (optional)
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• xanthan and guar gums (optional but adds thickness)

Toppings:

• Carob flakes
• Granola
• Flaked almonds

This was yummy – I really like carob. Those carob flakes are so addictive too, I was snacking away on them while I was making the smoothie – so good.

Thankfully after my late meetings this week I’ve been able to work from home today to catch up, this meant I could fit in a longer than usual gym session. I had a great 1hr15 minute workout including intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, rowing machine and bike followed by my abs and core. Although I had completed my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge I had an idea for a really delicious combo so I decided to have one more:

‘Bounty’ (chocolate coconut) Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of romaine lettuce and spinach (or whatever greens take your fancy)
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup of frozen peach slices
• 1 small can (160ml) of reduced fat coconut milk (nom!)
• 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (I used sun warrior)
• 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder (could use more if not using protein powder)
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of mesquite (optional)
• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• Xanthan / guar gums (optional but add thickness)

Toppings

• Coconut flour paste
• Cacao nibs
• Desiccated coconut

This was an awesome smoothie! The addition of the coconut milk, even though it was reduced fat added a delicious creaminess. This also kept me full for ages!

For once I didn’t actually have a plan for my meals today. Usually I love my meal planning but I just decided to go with the flow and see what I was craving / what was on offer at the supermarket / what showed up in my organic veg box. As it had been a whole week since I’d had hummus I decided to indulge my addiction and go for a regular favourite for lunch – a giant hummus topped salad:

This contained sweet pea shoots, romaine, carrot, beets, sugar snaps, red onion, alfalfa sprouts and a large serving of my high protein hummus made with added olives and broccoli (great combo!) I also had an orange and two passion fruit.

Mid afternoon I continued to go with my cravings and made myself a big green juice with apple, celery, broccoli stalks, romaine and lemon. I also ended up snacking on several pink lady apples, not because I hadn’t eaten enough, just because they taste bloody lush ;-)

I had lots of veggies available so for dinner I went with a massive veggie filled stir fry containing shredded brussel sprouts, spring greens, courgette, carrot, mushrooms, ginger and baked teriyaki tofu with gomasio and shoyu:

I love defrosted and baked tofu, it gets such a lovely texture. Its been nice to just go with the flow and follow my cravings – I love that I can still meal plan (for saving money and being organised) but incorporate some flexibility to eat what I fancy! What have you been craving recently?

March review and aims for April

I’ve had an amazing March!

• Put on weight! (I’ll explain why I see this as an achievement in a mo)
• Ran outdoors each week and vastly improved my average pace (total outdoor mileage this month 30 miles, fastest average pace 8.54)
• Got my maximum plank hold time up to 2 minutes 10 seconds (full plank) and 50 seconds (side planks)
• Started to meditate each morning and do more yoga
• Did my green smoothie challenge ;-)
• Made the decision to eat an almost completely vegan diet – but not getting overly hung up on labelling myself

Most of these are in line with the goals that I set for myself at the start of the month. In case any of you are new readers I have recently been having problems maintaining my weight (I’ve actually been losing more weight and getting close to the underweight BMI – see the posts I’ve linked to here – particularly the finding balance post). This month I have gained a pound! It may not seem like much but after 6 months of consistently losing weight it shows that I am on the right track. I also didn’t freak out about the gain as I was worried I would, I think my mind set is really starting to improve. I feel like I may not even need to weigh myself anymore – before I got on the scales I asked myself – am I happy with my body? Yes - I am happy with my body at the moment, I feel great and very healthy so what difference should a number on the scale make?

In terms of next months training I’m looking at pretty much the same as last month, although I’ll be continuing to take a flexible approach, changing up workouts due to the bank holidays / work commitments etc:

• Monday – gym workout: 30 min HIITs, 30 min spin, abs and core
• Tuesday – AM – Yoga Podcast (20 min), PM - Body Pump 50 min
• Wednesday – gym workout: 30 min speed work on treadmill, 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Thursday – AM – Yoga flow from Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga (20 min), PM gym upper body dumbbell workout, 20 minutes HIITs
• Friday – AM – gym workout 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Weekend – Long outdoor run – working up from current 8 miles to 10 miles, one week to run 10k to see what pace is like for my 10k race /optional yoga DVD workout / REST DAY

I don’t want to add in other run quite yet – I need to sort out some new running shoes before I significantly increase my weekly mileage (don’t want to risk injury). I did get Run Less Run Faster from the library and I plan on taking some tips from this to improve my treadmill speed intervals for this month and then eventually a proper half marathon training plan to start in May. Although the structure of my training is staying the same I’m going to change up my interval sessions at the gym (perhaps moving from 1 minute intervals to 30 sec intervals) and the exercises I do for my abs and core to keep my body guessing. Now that I have reached my plank goal I will try out some variations on the plank exercise such as adding in an arm / leg raise. I also need to get back to trying to achieve a full push up!

Aims for April

• Continue to work on having a healthy attitude to fuelling myself properly / focusing on health over weight or size
• Continue to work towards my overall 2011 goals (I think I’m on the way to meeting the travel goal with our trip to NYC!)
• Re focus on my push up aim
• Keep up the running – in particular making progress on my speed
• Make good progress on my Diet and Nutrition Advisor Course
• Keep up the yoga and meditation
• Get ready for NYC in May!

How was March for you? Have you set yourself any goals for April?

Last week I shared with you my love of green smoothies and my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge. See that post for more info on how to construct a fab green smoothie and the reasons why I love them so!

Each day last week I ate a delicious smoothie containing a large amount of green veggies along with different combos of fruit and other add ins and toppings. I enjoyed them so much I ended up continuing the challenge for an extra day!

I thought it would be good to round up all of the tasty green smoothie recipes I created for the challenge:

Apple Pie Green Smoothie

Tropical Green Smoothie

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Green Smoothie

Chocolate Cherry Beet Green Smoothie

Carrot Cake Green Smoothie

Nutty Berry Green Smoothie

Raspberry Carob Green Smoothie

‘Bounty’ (chocolate coconut) Green Smoothie

I thoroughly enjoyed making and eating all of these! Big thanks to Jessica and Jemma who have been following the challenge along with me – and any of you guys that have been doing it on the quiet. Check out their blogs for some more fab variations including Jemma’s Strawberries and Cream and Jess’s Terry’s Chocolate Orange!

Interestingly I noticed that my energy levels have been very good this week despite having a bit of a stressful time at work. I’ve also found that it has been easier to focus at work. I do feel that my increased intake of raw food, green veggies, protein and ‘super’ foods via these green smoothies has contributed to this, of course it could just be psychosomatic! I particularly think that adding maca powder to my smoothies has been useful due to its support of the adrenals (linked to supporting stress).

Have I convinced any green smoothie virgins to give them a try? If your already a green smoothie lover what’s your favourite combo? Which of the green smoothies above look the best to you? I loved them all but if I had to choose I’d go for the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup!

Hope your having a great weekend!

Happy Friday everyone! Hope the first week of 2012 has been good for you :-) My week hasn’t gone to badly:

• Monday – gym – 5 min treadmill warm up, 20 minutes strength (just some random stuff) 15 min HIITs on bike, 10 minutes freestyle yoga before bed
• Tuesday – am - yoga detox challenge flow, pm – gym, 30 min cardio (HIITs and steady state) Body Pump
• Wednesday – am – gym – 5k speed intervals treadmill, 30 min HIITs on step machine, cross trainer and bike, 5 mins meditation before bed
• Thursday – am – 30 Day Shred level 2, yoga for runners
• Friday – pm – ‘The Core Workout’ Pilates Core Workout DVD (review to come) freestyle yoga

Some tasty eats from the first half of the week:

My Carrot, Ginger and Orange Soup with some delicious raw almond and rosemary crackers I knocked up at the weekend

 Raw courgette 'noodles covered in lots of my Green Goddess dressing

Fruit plate with 2 sliced persimmons, pink lady apple and goji berries

Hot mint chocolate made with home made almond milk and Mint Chocolate caffeine free Teeccino

My first Matcha shot as part of the Tea Pigs Matcha Challenge!

Yesterday morning I went in to have my wisdom teeth taken out. I was sedated (which is awesome by the way – I couldn’t remember a thing!) for the operation but after 3 failed attempts at finding a vein in my arm for the injection and the surgeon having to drill into my jaw bone because they were both compacted I’ve been left feeling pretty sore and swollen.

I took plenty of painkillers yesterday but I woke up feeling ok so I’m going to see how I go with more natural remedies. I’ve been careful to include a few specific foods to help my condition such as lots of ginger as its an anti inflammatory, some manuka honey which has antiseptic properties and coconut water to flush out the chemicals from the anaesthetic. I’ve been adding ginger to my juices and tea, sucking on a spoonful of honey and adding the coconut water to my smoothies.

The idea of eating anything even remotely solid is laughable and the idea of soups just doesn’t appeal so I’ve basically ended up doing an almost raw smoothie and juice cleanse! Before I went to the dentist I needed to have a light meal so for breakfast I had a chopped banana with buckwheaties and pecans covered in a cup of homemade almond milk mixed with half a scoop of chocolate sun warrior:

This was delicious and so creamy, I love home made almond milk!

My lovely Mam accompanied me to the dentist and looked after me all day. She even did my ironing while we watched all three Back to the Future movies! I eventually felt like eating something mid afternoon and made this delicious smoothie. This is one of my faves for sure, I made it a while back and just had to include it as a recipe!

Cherry, Pear and Almond Smoothie (serves 1, vegan)

• 1 ripe pear
• 1 cup of frozen cherries
• 2 tbsp of almond butter
• Pinch of salt (if almond butter not salted)
• Water to blend

Add everything to blender and blend well, serve and enjoy!

After that, and throughout today I’ve just been managing on smoothies and fresh juices. Here’s a few of my faves:

My standard green juice combo – cucumber, celery, parsley, lemon, ginger

Kale, frozen blueberries, half an orange, strawberry hemp protein powder, cashews (soaked), coconut water, ground flax, berries powder 

Simple luscious green smoothie – spinach, frozen avocado, 2 nectarines, coconut water, coconut nectar

Carrot, beetroot, cucumber, ginger juice – so delicious and so pretty!

A version of my ‘Bounty’ smoothie – spinach, frozen banana, thai young coconut (I defrosted a pack that I bought from an Oriental supermarket – utterly amazing btw!) chocolate sun warrior, midori greens, maca, water

I’m actually really enjoying just the smoothies and juices for now so I’m going to just go with it. I’m trying to make sure I add lots of avocado, coconut and nuts to get the calories in as I’m concerned that I won’t be getting enough! I’m hoping that my gums won’t feel so delicate so I can start eating more solid foods as soon as possible.

Have you had your wisdom teeth out or been under sedation before? Are you a fan of juices and if so what’s your favourite?