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Hi everyone! How’s things? I’ve had a fabulous day with my Mam shopping! I went for a simple outfit today:

OOTD: Gold necklace: Accessorize, shirt: River Island, belt: Topshop, trousers: Primark, ballet flats: Dorothy Perkins.

I got some great items including these tops from Zara:

I just love Zara, I always find lovely things in there. I also got some random bits and pieces from TKMaxx including some vanilla macadamia flavoured coffee, organic rooibos tea and some pink stackable mixing bowls.

Yesterday I had a busy day sorting things out around the house but managed to fit in a gym workout in line with my monthly plan. I did 1 hour of intervals followed by my abs and core – got my plank up to 2min 15! Today I did Yoga for Runners this morning plus 30 minutes of intervals followed by my body pump class this evening. With being off work I got to the gym early so I decided to squeeze in that extra cardio.

Monday’s breakfast put my latest obsession to good use – a strawberry and peanut butter green smoothie!

This contained spinach, frozen strawberries, 2 tbsp of peanut butter (I used one smooth and one crunchy), water and xanthan and guar gums for thickness. I topped it with half a pack of Tropical Crunch we are bear granola and some freeze dried berries.

For this morning breakfast I had a big bowl of porridge made with 1 tbsp of chia seeds, 1/4 cup of oat bran, 1/4 cup of scottish oats, 1 1/2 cups of water, mixed frozen berries, a chopped apple, walnuts and a drizzle of black strap molasses:

Monday’s lunch was a big leafy salad with leftover roasted veggies and high protein hummus (watered down to make it like a dressing):

Plus a gorgeous persimmon!

Today I treated myself to lunch from Marks and Spencer. I got the Super Whole Food Salad Shaker which I love, and ate it on top of a big carrot and beetroot salad bowl:

Dinner both evenings has been a new recipe, another random creation of my own:

Cheesy Leek and White Bean Bake with Rye Crumb Topping (makes 2 servings, vegan)

• 2 large leeks, washed and sliced
• 1 tin of white beans (I used cannellini)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp of sweet white miso (optional but adds creaminess, add a pinch of salt if not using)
• 4 tbsp of nutritional yeast flakes
• Around 1/2 cup of water or soy milk to thin the sauce
• 1 slice of rye bread

Begin by sautéing the leeks in a little oil over a medium heat until tender. Transfer to a baking dish. Pre heat the oven to 200c. Using a food processor or blender process the rye bread into crumbs and set aside. Then add the drained beans, garlic, miso and nutritional yeast to the processor and blend into a creamy sauce – you will need to add a little water or non dairy milk to get the right consistency, your looking for a smooth pouring sauce. Pour the cheesy white bean sauce over the leeks then top with the bread crumbs. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until warmed through and lightly browned on top.

I made mine in two smaller dishes and served with steamed purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus, green beans and spinach. This was fantastic! The cheesy bean sauce was just perfect with the soft sweet leeks and crunchy bread crumbs, this recipe is definitely a keeper! Oh, and if you leave out the water when making the white bean sauce you get an awesome cheesy low fat dip or spread. It would also go really well as a sauce for pasta.

Dessert yesterday was some plain soy yoghurt with two small chopped cox apples and the other half of the bag of we are bear granola:

I love apple, yoghurt and granola, yum! I have to admit the soy yoghurt is now growing on me. Tonight I made this gigantic bowl of protein ice cream using 1.5 scoops of nutty berry spiru-tein, crushed ice, water, xanthan and guar gums and agave. I topped it with the last of my raw granola:

So amazingly good, I just love all that volume it fills me right up!

I was really happy with how my cheesy leek bake turned out as I don’t often make recipes like this. Do you cook / enjoy these kind of oven baked dishes? I tried to make a pasta bake once and it totally failed so that’s probably why I’ve stayed clear of them. I do love my vegan lentil and swede mash cottage pie though!

Well I’m going to spend the rest of the evening writing up my list of things to take to NYC to make sure I don’t forget anything! Hope you have a great evening!

Hello everyone! Hope you are well and happy that the weekend is here! I’ve had a packed day and therefore have a packed post!

I had a bit of a bad time last night. After I’d posted and thought my snackiness was over I had a total binge fest. I ate Dark Chocolate Dreams straight from the jar, three small bowls of muesli, a frozen chocolate avocado cup, nakd raisins, I just couldn’t stop! I felt so guilty. Then to make matters worse I had my weigh in and unsurprisingly I haven’t lost a single pound of the 5 lbs I gained on my holiday (I’m now 10st 1 / 141lbs). To say I was in a bad mood this morning was an understatement!

I went to the gym and did 30 minutes of intervals followed by abs and upper body weights. While I was at the gym I gained a bit of perspective and started to feel a bit better, I’ve said that 10st is my ‘happy’ weight and I’m only 1 lb over that so it isn’t too bad really.

Breakfast was a bowl of berries and chopped apple with some We Are Bear Coca Cherry Pie Granola and fromage frais mixed with a scoop of Nutty Berry Spiru-tein.



This combo worked really well together, and I love the pink fromage frais!

Before we left for the wedding I had a snack of a chopped nectarine and clemintine with a few seeds on top.



I’ve just came home from the wedding (I’ll cover my eats further on in the post) and made myself this gorgeous green monster with loads of spinach, 1 frozen banana, soy milk, maca powder and cinnamon.



Just what I needed!

Outfit of the Day



This is my outfit for the wedding – Dress: Topshop, Black Peep Toe Shoes: Office, Black Satin Bag: Accessorize, Head Band: home made. I also wore a little black blazer.

I went for vintage style make up with black flicked eye liner and neutral eye shadow and my new MAC Russian Red lipstick. I went for a pearl white nail varnish rather than a dark or brighter colour on my nails as I though that might be too much with the red lips. I pined my hair back in a simple bun.

Eddie and Becca’s Wedding

I love weddings and this was a really lovely day. I actually welled up when she walked down the aisle and you could see Eddies face, they were so clearly in love with each other! Here’s a few snap shots from the day:









I decided to have some fun with the snap shots, I quite like the vintage / retro style of these pics!
Do you like weddings? Eddie and Becca make such a lovely couple, and the day was really good fun.

What do you have planned for the weekend? I have quite a busy one! I’m swapping my usual Saturday run to Sunday when I’m going to try and run from my house to my Parents (around 9 – 10 miles). Tomorrow I’ll be cleaning and tidying the flat, doing some cooking and baking and having a trip into town to get some groceries from the market. I can’t wait, I love my grocery shopping! Hope you have all had a great week x

Hi everyone, hope your week is going well! I’m totally high as a kite this morning for some reason, I’ve been listening to Christmas songs on the way to work to get me in the mood! Thanks to everyone that commented on my Monday musings post, such brilliant responses from you all. They have been so helpful and have helped to put my thoughts into perspective.

As it is Wednesday again that can mean only one thing: WIAW!

These are my eats and what I got up to on Monday. I got up, had the usual mug of warm water with lemon then got sorted for the gym. It was so cold, I wore my long sleeved thermal base layer top to stay warm! I did 5 minutes on the cross trainer to warm up followed by 25 minutes of strength training from my current Female Body Breakthrough plan then 20 minutes of HIITs on the treadmill. I do 2 minutes at 6.7mph and then 1 minute at 8.2mph and repeat. It gets me well sweaty!

I came home, showered and then made breakfast. I had a big smoothie with beet greens, frozen blueberries, 2 small raw beets, 1 scoop of Good Hemp Chocolate Fit Shake protein powder, midori greens, berries powder, maca powder, water, ice and gums. I topped it with some Bear Coco Cherry Pie Granola:

I love that granola! I also had a Che Mate Green Tea with ginger in my Starbucks cup to drink on the way to work:

Lunch was a big salad with cos lettuce, red cabbage, carrot, lots of avocado, nutritional yeast and braggs:

For a mid afternoon snack I had some chopped carrot and courgette with home made hummus:

I made the hummus with some chickpeas I’d cooked from scratch, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, hemp oil and some water and it was so good, it reminded me how delicious home made hummus is.

For dinner I used up some things I’d cooked on Sunday and stored in the fridge. I mixed some cooked quinoa, cooked brown rice, chickpeas, roast butternut squash, dried cranberries and parsley and put it on top of some roast broccoli and brussel sprouts that had needed eating up:

So tasty and filling!

I pottered about the kitchen preparing yesterday’s dinner so I wouldn’t have much to cook after Body Pump last night, then I made the most amazing Raw Spiced Almond Milk! I’d soaked 3/4 cup of almonds during the day, drained and rinsed them and then blended them with 3 cups of filtered water. Then I strained the milk using my nut milk bag (and put the pulp into the dehydrator to make raw almond flour) and re blended it with lots of mixed spice, mesquite powder and vanilla stevia:

Oh my word it is so good! I poured some over a bowl of frozen blackberries and raspberries for an evening snack:

How creamy does that look? I love a simple bowl of berries and milk, especially when the milk freezes a bit, really good :-) I also had some of the milk with a mug of cococardio:

The spices and rich chocolate flavours worked together really well, delicious!

Have you tried making your own nut milk before? Any favourite combos? I loved the vanilla and spices in this, it tasted very seasonal! I also love nut milk with raw cacao added and sweetened with coconut nectar, you could even blend fruit right into the milk – I would love to try some strawberry milk some time! What’s the tastiest thing you’ve eaten today?

Hi everyone, you enjoying your week so far? In exactly one week I shall be turning the grand old age of 28. I can’t wait – I love birthdays! More on that later…

For breakfast I made a big green monster with loads of spinach, frozen banana, a chopped peach, maca powder and rice milk. I ate it in a bowl with plenty of Dorset Cereals Roasted and Toasted Muesli.



Check out the greenness! They always seem to be a deeper green when I use the spinach from the market, I’m sure that's because its better quality and locally grown. Adding the peach made it really sweet too.

Mid morning I snacked on some fromage frais with walnuts, goji berries and agave syrup.



Lunch was a bowl of my Summer Bean Stew followed by a couple of very ripe chopped nectarines and blueberries.




I’m actually a little obsessed with fresh blueberries at the moment, they just taste so amazing!

Before I left work for the gym I had this bag of We Are Bear Fruit Nibbles: dried Pineapple and Mango pieces. I’ve tried these before and loved them – they are so tasty and make perfect workout fuel.



I did my planned cardio interval, abs and mini upper body workout which was pretty tiring. I still have some DOMS going on in my legs from Sundays run which made my workout that little bit more tough!

For dinner I made myself and the hubby omelettes – ham, cheese and mushroom for him made with 4 eggs. Courgette, red pepper, red onion, mushroom and cheese made with 1 egg and 2 egg whites for me! Both served with a big salad of little gem lettuce, cucumber and beetroot plus the hubby had a baked potato. Here's my lovely omelette, it kind of fell apart due to all the veggies! –



Perfect quick and healthy dinner!

For desert I wizzed up a protein shake using this sachet of ‘Rainbow’ ‘Fruit-tein’ I picked up from Whole Foods in London along with some hazelnut and almond rice milk and a couple of ice cubes.



This is full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals from loads of fruit and veggie extracts which is great as I’ve been feeling a little lacking in energy the last couple of days. To begin with I thought it tasted a little artificial tasting but by the end of the glass I thought it tasted delicious. Will definitely be ordering this flavour again! I also had this apple.



So it is my Birthday next week, I can’t believe I’m going to be another year older, yet in the best shape of my life! I don’t mind ageing – I think (or I hope) I’m one of these people who just gets better with age. I actually can’t wait till I reach 30, I think some women really come into their own in their 30’s.

I have my Birthday off from work and I’m planning on spending most of it on my own. That got me thinking about how much I value and appreciate spending time by myself doing the things that I enjoy. I sometimes worry that I like it too much and that perhaps I should want to do more with other people! Not that I’m a total loner or anything – obviously I spend a lot of time with my Husband who I consider a best friend, my family, my 2 best mates and other friends that I catch up with every once in a while, but I still really enjoy doing things by myself. Do you enjoy spending time alone? What’s your favourite things to do with your ‘me’ time?

A couple of months ago the lovely guys at We Are Bear sent me a few goodies to review.

We are Bear products are all 100% natural with no added sugar or preservatives. There are three main categories of products:

Fruit Yoyos

 

These come in raspberry, strawberry and peach flavours and each one counts as one of your five a day. Each pack is around 50 calories. I loved these, they reminded me of retro sweets you would get in a pick and mix when you were little (but way healthier of course!) I used these as snacks and as a fuel for short workouts. I liked the fact that they were only 50 calories, and as they are so chewy you feel like your getting more than 50 calories worth. The packaging is lovely and you also get a little fun card inside each pack. Obviously these would be great for kids. Purchasing them in bulk from the website would work out at 49p per yoyo which may be a little on the expensive side. Personally I think these are a great fun product but they are not really something I would purchase in bulk. If I was hungry for a snack and saw them in a shop (I’ve noticed Boots the Chemist stocking the Fruit Nibbles, not sure on the Yoyos) I would pick them over more calorific packs of dried fruit which would probably have oils and sulphites added to them.

Granola Nibbles - 

I actually purchased a load of these Granola Nibbles myself, when I received them I was really shocked at how big the packs are! Each pack is under 100 calories and gives you a serving of whole grains. They come in three varieties – Cherry Coca Pie (my favourite), Apple Crumble and Tropical Crunch. I’ve mainly been using these to add to yoghurt for breakfast or snacks. I really like knowing that I as long as I stick to one pack I can’t go over 100 calories so these make perfect unplanned snacking material (I should really make better use of them in this way!)  Like the yoyos the packing is great too. These work out at 69p a pack when bought in bulk from the website, which considering the quality of the product, the packaging and the convenience of having the granola in handy packs of 100 calories I think is ok. As I said, I actually bought a big haul of these for myself – the website and delivery service was spot on.

Fruit Nibbles

These are individually packaged selections of dried fruit that come in two varieties - Mango and Pineapple or Cherries and Berries. I loved these for pre workout fuel. Both varieties tasted great and each pack I sampled had a good mix of all the ingredients, for example I didn’t have a pack with all just dried mango and the pineapple missing. These are also under 100 calories a pack and provide one of your 5 a day servings of fruit and vegetables. They also workout at 69p a pack when purchased in bulk from the website.

Overall

I would certainly recommend these products to anyone looking for healthy and convenient snacks that are pre calorie counted, completely free from artificial nasties and give you either one of your 5 a day or a whole grain serving. They are a little on the pricey side, but if its convenience your after these are great. Its good to see them in Boots and Waitrose but I still think they are a little difficult to get hold of. Bearing that in mind the fun website is probably the most cost effective way of purchasing them anyway, and the service is very good.

GIVEAWAY – a pack of each variety of the granola nibbles has been added to my big blog GIVEAWAY which will be coming soon – watch this space!

Have you tried any of these We are Bear products? What did you think?