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Hi Everyone, huge thank you to those that commented on yesterday’s post, thankfully I’m feeling completely back to my old self!

Today kicked off with Level 3 of the 30 Day Shred. I’ll be changing up my DVD’s for next month so this was my last shredding session for a while. I can’t say I’m going to miss it!

For breakfast I decided to make some super creamy pumpkin porridge on the stove. I used the same ingredients as the last time I made it but used plain scottish oats instead of the Rude Health Fruity Date and added a huge tablespoon of full fat greek yoghurt. I topped this bowl with two chopped dried figs and some flaked almonds. I also made a cup of my gingerbread coffee.

Such a great breakfast, the porridge was amazingly creamy but the coffee wasn’t as gingerbready as I’d hoped. I think I need to use a little more ground coffee to my cafetiere and add some agave to bring out the sweetness.

Lunch was some of my Chickpea and Vegetable Curry from the freezer served with some spinach and steamed cabbage with a little soy sauce. I also had a pear.

Mid afternoon I snacked on some hummus with carrot and seeded crackers plus a jazz apple.

I headed off to my yoga class which was brilliant again, we did a mix of standing and sitting postures and ended with a shoulder stand which I was really chuffed I could manage.

After yoga I went to Costas but since I had drank coffee this morning (and I knew anymore coffee would keep me awake until who knows when) I went for a green tea to drink along with the slice of apple and parsnip bread and jazz apple I’d brought with me.

Earlier today my iHerb order arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas! This is what I ordered:

Sun Warrior Raw Vegan Protein Powder in Chocolate and Vanilla flavour, Bob’s Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten, Guar Gum and 10 Grain Hot Cereal, Spiru-tein Fruitein Rainbow Protein Powder, Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Eden Foods Ume Plum Vinegar, Luna Chocolate Peppermint Stick Bars, Lundburg Sweet Dreams Organic Brown Rice Syrup.

Ok, this cost a bloody fortune, however (I’m only justifying this spending to myself by the way) I had the money available, I’m selling my old stock of processed whey powder to my sis in law, and above all else - this makes me happy! Some people are into keeping horses, others are into motorbikes, this is my little hobby and its cheaper than either of those!  Ok justification over ;-)

I’ve always wanted to try Sun Warrior and as I’m trying to clean up my eats alongside eating a more plant based diet so I though protein powders would be a good place to start. This is made from brown rice protein, has an amazingly short ingredients list and is vegan. Yes, this is a lot more expensive than my usual whey but I’m planning on eating it in moderation anyway.

With the Bob’s Red Mill products I plan to try making my own Seitan with the vital wheat gluten, using the guar gum in my beloved protein ice creams (guar gum adds creaminess) and basically the hot cereal seemed pretty cheap and tasty!

As for the Fruitein powder, I had tried a sachet a few months ago and thought it was delicious. It’s still processed and not vegan (it contains bee pollen) but the nutritional stats are very impressive and it tastes lovely.

I’ve read about coconut oil across the blog world pretty much since I started blogging and I basically want to see what the fuss is about! I certainly plan to try making homemade chocolate with it!

The Ume Vinegar is an ingredient I read about in The Kind Diet and fancied giving it a try, along with the brown rice syrup which you in the same way as agave or maple syrup.

I’ve also wanted to try Luna bars for ages and the chocolate peppermint stick flavour sounded right up my street!

So with all of this stuff my kitchen is in serious need of re organisation. I’ll be spending the weekend doing a Monica from Friends impression. I’ll also report back as and when I try these products out.

I’m off out tomorrow night (yey!) with my sis in law so I’m going to take the night off from the blog. But hope you check back over the weekend as I have loads to blog about including my first organic veg box delivery, a new haircut (I’m still on the fence about going for a big change!) and I might even show you the state of my kitchen cupboards! Hope you have a great weekend :-)

Yesterday I finally found a 3 foot Christmas tree to stand on our side board as we don’t have the space for a full size tree. The best thing? It only cost £1!

Not bad eh? It was Asda Smart Price reduced from £3 to £1. I was a bit worried it would look like a toilet brush but once I’d dressed it up I think it looks pretty good! The lights were also just £1! I feel much better having a tree. The vase with snowy twigs has been relegated to the hall way.

I also thought I’d share a couple of pics of what I bought on Monday:

Thermal base layers and ski gloves from TK Maxx. I wore one of the black tops to the gym and it was very successful at keeping me at just the right temperature while working out. I love the gloves too, the crazy low temperatures have left me with serious pain in my hands and fingers when wearing regular gloves. These are well padded and soft – great for keeping me warm when I’m de icing the car!

I also got these two Barry M Nail paints in Red Black and Raspberry:

I love wearing these colours at this time of year and plan to make a special effort to keep my finger nails painted throughout the festive season!

I’ve been in serious need of knit ware so got this slash neck jumper from Next (£14):

I love that purple colour. I also got a couple of basic long cardies for layering from Zara (£19.99):

I got them in a neutral grey and beige colour so that I can wear them with various other brighter colours and patterns.

Yesterday I did my Davina DVD in the morning and today I hit the gym for 30 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the step machine and abs and core work. Eats have been pretty tasty have just been whatever's most convenient! Breakfasts have included:

Kabocha Squash smoothie topped with Rude Health Granola and goji berries:

Chocolate pear and hazelnut porridge made with raw cacao powder, agave syrup, vanilla rice milk and Power Porridge mix (so tasty!) I also had a Starbucks VIA Coffee with vanilla rice milk and agave:

Lunches have been soup and fruit. Carrot, ginger and orange soup with kiwi and satsuma:

Leek, greens and white bean soup with two satsumas:

Snacks of 2 red chief apples with spicy lentil dip and carrot sticks – I get the lentil dip from Sainsbury’s but I’m going to try and recreate it myself sometime!

Blended silken tofu pudding – Vanilla and cinnamon flavour with a little honey:

Last nights dinner was some Chickpea and Vegetable Curry with spinach:

I also had an apple with some amaretto chocolate:

I was so hungry last night for some reason so I ended up eating another 2 apples, 3 satsumas and a bite of a blueberry and banana muffin!

Tonight I had a small baked sweet potato with spinach and cos lettuce topped with a mix of haricot beans, olives, red onion, carrot and cucumber:

For a little desert I had a bowl of frozen raspberries and mixed fruits with kara coconut milk:

I don’t know about you but I’m starting to feel the pressure of Christmas – I seem to have very little time but a million things to do! I have a huge to do list for the weekend and next weeks shaping up to be a crazy one with 2 late nights at work including our big Christmas awards event plus our staff Christmas night out. Are you feeling the pressure of getting sorted for Christmas?

Well I’m off to make a cup of tea, I’m sitting here shivering! Hope your having a great week!

Hi Everyone, this is a bit of a monster post so please bear with me! Hope you’ve all had a great weekend so far. Saturday morning I was up bright and early for my first run since last weeks Great North Run. I have to admit when I looked out the window and saw the howling wind I very nearly decided to just leave it and go to the gym instead. I stuck at it, fuelled up with some orange nakd raisins and went out and did 6.66 miles in 1hr03.

It was so cold my fingers were actually really sore and aching. It was not the most pleasant run but I’m glad I didn’t let the weather stop me! I think I’m going to continue running shorter distances (4 – 9 miles) and doing speed work on the treadmill at the gym over the winter to keep my fitness level up. I came home and did 15 minutes of yoga stretch (from a Davina DVD) then made breakfast. I had some delicious protein pancakes made with egg whites, cookies and cream spiru-tein, baking powder, soy milk and apple and berry fruit puree. These didn’t cook properly for some reason but I covered them with hot berries and almond butter sauce and they still tasted great!

Lunch was a salad with cos lettuce, spinach, cucumber, red onion, carrot, green pepper, 2 goats cheese babybel and some balsamic dressing. I also had a 2 small chopped apples and a sliced pear with cinnamon.

I had an afternoon of catching up with the family then hit the town for some shopping. I picked up some goodies from Waitrose:

I was chuffed that I managed to find some of the 2% Total Greek Yoghurt to try and some of the Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt (more on that in a mo). I also got some organic brown pitta breads to pop in the freezer and two packs each of basil tofu, sesame almond tofu and some tofu sausages that I fancied trying out. I also picked up some natural almond flavouring.

I stopped by Holland and Barrat for some nuts and nut butter:

Walnuts, brazil nuts, raisins, ground almonds, cashew butter, almond butter and some sprouted wheat bread that I’ve been dying to try. Its high in protein and only has one single ingredient – spouted wheat, sounds good!

I looked about for other items from my wish list but just couldn’t seem to find anything. I ended up in Peacocks and was very surprised to find these:

Grey flat studded ankle boots, charcoal grey skinny trousers and some soft and oh so comfy hareem style belted pants that I’ll be wearing round the house with big jumpers, so cosy! I just wanted some cheap boots and skinny trousers that I can sling on when its raining outside (hate wet trouser bottoms!) and that will do for work too, these seemed to fit the bill.

I also picked up my new blender!

Isn’t it pretty? I know its no Vita Mix but hopefully it should do me for a while.

After meeting up with the hubby and snacking on some dried apricots to keep me going, we came home and I made my first ever curry without using a pre made curry paste. I was very proud of myself :-)

Chickpea and Vegetable Curry (makes 4 portions)

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 3 finely chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 inch piece of ginger root peeled and grated
• 1 tsp of garam masala
• 1 tsp of hot chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp of ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp of ground coriander
• 1/2 an aubergine
• 1 small sweet potato
• 4 runner beans, chopped
• 1 tin of chickpeas
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin of light coconut milk

Start by chopping the aubergine into bite size pieces and lightly stir frying in some olive oil for a few minutes until browned. Set to one side. To speed things up I also cheated a bit by microwaving the sweet potato for 3 minutes so that it was semi cooked. Chop the sweet potato into bite size pieces and set to one side with the aubergine. In a heavy bottomed pan (or frying pan – I actually just used my big wok) heat the oil over a medium heat. Fry the onions for a few minutes until translucent, then add the garlic and ginger, followed by the spices. Fry together for a few minutes taking care not to let them burn. Add the aubergine, sweet potatoes and chopped beans and fry for a minutes before adding the drained and rinsed chickpeas followed by the chopped tomatoes and coconut milk. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes then serve.

I served mine with some cauliflower ‘rice’ (cauliflower put through the food processor and them steamed) and a drizzle of soy sauce. It was delicious and so good for you! The beauty of this is that you could add any veggies you have hanging about in place of the aubergine, beans and sweet potato.

For desert I had some of my strawberry frozen yoghurt topped with agave syrup and flaked almonds.

This has kept so well in the freezer, such a great alternative to regular ice cream. I also couldn’t resist trying a square of the Lindt Sea Salt Chocolate.

Oh. my. god. This is the best chocolate I have ever tasted. I was divine. It took all my will powder not to eat the whole bar there and then. I love the sweet and salty combo and this is a perfect example of that. Yum! I’ll be stock piling bars of this every time I’m at Waitrose.

This morning I had a bowl of Dorset Cereal Fruit and Fibre style cereal with a chopped apple and some soy milk.

Was nice to have some cereal for a change, very tasty!

Mid morning I was just itching to try out my blender so I made a strawberry and mint smoothie using frozen strawberries, skimmed milk and a few fresh mint leaves.

The blender worked really well and the smoothie was delicious and refreshing.

I roasted a huge tin of veggies (broccoli, sweet potato, red pepper, red onion, aubergine, runner beans) to last me for a couple of days. For lunch I made a spelt wrap and filled it with hummus and some of the roast veggies.

I love roast veggies and hummus in wrap, perhaps my favourite filling! I also ended up making myself a big bowl of vanilla and matcha green tea protein ice cream topped with coconut and agave syrup.

I wanted to be sure the blender could handle the ice cubes and I’m very pleased to say that this bowl was perfect – no lumpy bits at all!

I’ve had a bit of a soup making day, I have a big pan of low carb Leek, Potato and Bean Soup on the stove right now. I’ll post the recipe up tomorrow or this will end up being the longest post ever!

Have you had a good weekend? What’s your favourite soup? I’ll be a soup making machine this autumn and winter – it makes the perfect healthy lunch when the weather is cold! I like to add beans to my soups to make them more filling too.

Oh, and in case you missed it yesterday I posted Part 1 of what I learned doing my Big Budget Challenge. Check it out!

I’ve had another day working from home so have been beavering away with the odd twitter and blog break since 7.15. I was up early to do Level 3 of the 30 Day Shred then had a really gorgeous breakfast. I made a chocolate cherry green monster smoothie (spinach, frozen cherries, chocolate whey, soy milk, matcha green tea powder and maca powder) and topped it with one of Tam’s crumbled dark chocolate cherry cookies.

It was just perfect, the cookie went so well with the smoothie, out of this world delicious!

Mid morning I snacked on an un pictured russet apple. For lunch I had some Chickpea, sweet potato, aubergine and green bean curry from my frozen stash served with spinach followed by an orange.

 

The curry tasted amazing, much better than it did on the day I made it. I almost couldn’t believe I’d made it myself!

Mid afternoon I had a bowl of vanilla tofu with apple, raspberry, goji berry and cinnamon compote and some We are bear apple crumble granola.

Such a lovely filling snack!

I’m off to yoga tonight (and a trip to Starbucks hopefully, yey!) so I shall leave you with a bit of a (wordy) review!

Beet It Shot Review

A couple of months ago I was sent a pack of Beet It Shots from James White Drinks to test out and review.

The shots are basically small bottles of concentrated organic beetroot juice with a little lemon juice added.

Beetroots are naturally high in nitric oxide (NO). Here’s some info from the website:

So what does NO do?

• regulator of blood pressure;
• a gatekeeper of blood flow to certain organs;
• a stamina enhancer via oxygen usage efficiency;
• a weapon against infection;
• a signal molecule in the nervous system.

‘The Beet It shot version is an organic concentrated beetroot 7cl bottle that delivers a comparable dose of dietary nitrate as a 25cl Beet It organic beetroot juice. It is cut with lemon juice to  reduce the sweetness of the beetroot and actually does not taste of beetroot (unlike the Beet It juice). So it is a quick easy dose for people that do not like beetroot juice!  We have only just launched it but the UK elites sports teams (UK athletics team took them to the July European Championships and both the England and Welsh rugby teams have been trialling them) are very interested’

For more info on the research behind NO see here.

How I used it

I used the Beet It Shots as my pre work out snack so I would drink one about an hour before hitting the gym. Obviously this was not a proper research trial but I can’t say I noticed a huge difference between how well I worked out when using the Beet It Shots in comparison to other pre workout snacks such as dried fruit and nuts.

Pro’s

• These are a great way of getting in one of your 5 a day which is organic and fairly low calorie for a juice (71 cals for a shot).
• High quality, organic product made with British ingredients
• Convenient – handy little bottle which you can easily carry around with you.
• The shot didn’t cause me any digestive problems.
• The shot will also give you a great hit of antioxidants.
• These could be good if you work out first thing and can’t stomach food before working out. I found that they provided just enough of an energy boost to make a difference.
• Great health claims backed up by some convincing research.

Con’s

• Cost – these are not cheap. They are sold in Holland and Barratt for £1.79 a little bottle.
• Taste – I love beetroot and these still sometimes tasted a bit too sweet for me (although they don’t particularly taste of beetroot, weird I know).
• Although I didn’t have any digestive problems these did turn my pee pink, which personally I found a little disconcerting!

My overall verdict

Personally I wouldn’t purchase these again on a regular basis. If they were a little cheaper that would be better but I wouldn’t want to see any reduction in the quality of the product (i.e. British sourced beetroot and organic). I would perhaps buy them if I was feeling a bit under the weather and wanted a boost, as while taking these I did feel really healthy, but I can’t say that was just down to the shots! I would also consider buying these again if I was training for an event as I found them useful while training for the Great North Run and even downed one before the big race! If you are looking for a convenient liquid snack before working out or a handy way to increase your consumption of antioxidants and vegetables then these could be really good for you. If your training hard for an event or have a high blood pressure it could be worth trying these out for yourself as the research to support the shots around helping in these areas is very good.

James White Drinks also sell a full sized bottle of beetroot juice, as well as a great range of fresh veggie and fruit juices. As beetroots are often used to add sweetness in healthy chocolate cakes and brownies I would love to try it in a chocolate smoothie some time!

Have you tried Beet It Shots before? What was your opinion of the product? Is this something you would try?