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Thanks for all your comments on my new blog design! Seems that everyone is liking it which is great. I definitely feel its more ‘me’.

This morning I went out for a very tough run. Before I left I ate a chocolate chip Clif Bar.

I had bought this from Whole Foods on my trip to London and it tasted gorgeous!

After the first couple of miles I started to have problems with my right leg, it felt really achy and tight. After my knee injury a few months ago I didn’t want to push it and end up injured again. I considered turning back a few times but I kept going at a pretty slow pace. It was really windy as well which didn’t help! Here’s my splits:

I did 10.2 miles in 1.43. I stopped at mile 6 to eat 4 dates and stretch my leg. I also drank half a bottle of orange Powerade diluted with water in my bottle while I was out. You can see I really just wanted to get home – I ran a pretty fast last full mile!

I refueled with a chocolate and banana smoothie (1 frozen banana, 1 scoop of chocolate whey, oat milk) to which I also added this sachet of this Green Lightening Wholefood powder (kindly sent to me by Sarah a few months ago). I topped it with some raw cacao nibs, goji berries and flaked almonds.

I was still hungry after I’d ate this so I decided to have a small bowl of muesli (Dorsets Cereals Roasted and Toasted mixed with jumbo oats and oat milk) alongside my morning cup of green tea.

After chilling out for a while I started on my day of cooking and baking. First up are some amazing muffins! Thanks to Jo for the recipe for these – see here for the original recipe which I’ve adapted slightly. I’ve also added in the cup conversions from grams as I know I tend to post recipes with cups as this is what I personally find easier:

Banana and Walnut Muffins (makes approximately 15 regular sized muffins)

• 220g / 1 cup wholemeal self raising flour
• 150g / 2/3rds of a cup brown sugar
• teaspoon of baking powder
• teaspoon of baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 120mls / 1/2 cup of veg oil
• 120mls/ 1/2 cup of full fat Greek yoghurt
• teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 3 mashed bananas (I used 2 large extra ripe ones)
• 100g / half a cup of walnuts, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 180c. Combine all the dry ingredients apart from the walnuts in a bowl and then all the wet ingredients apart from the mashed bananas. Mix the wet into the dry and then fold in the mashed bananas followed by the walnuts (reserving some to top each muffin). Spoon the mixture into muffin cases, filling each case 2 / 3rds full. Top each muffin with some of the chopped walnut. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden brown.

These turned out beautifully! You could possibly reduce the amount of oil as I think the full fat yoghurt adds enough fat. You could also add some chopped dates in addition to, or to replace some of the sugar. I ended up with 12 regular sized muffins and 5 smaller ones. I had a muffin with a cup of tea mid morning and it was just delicious! My parents, friends and their kiddies have all tried them today and loved them, the kids were begging for more! Excellent recipe for a healthier muffin without sacrificing any of the taste.

For lunch I had a bowl of freshly made Courgette and Watercress soup.

My two best friends and their kiddies came round for a few hours, it was great to catch up with them. We drank tea and they ate muffins while the kids played. I was exhausted after a few hours with them, I don’t know how people with young children do it!

For dinner I made recipe no 2!

Baked Falafel Bites with Tzatziki Sauce

For the Falafel (makes 8 mini bites)

• 1 tin of cooked chickpeas
• 1 small red onion
• Half a handful of spinach
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
• Half a teaspoon of ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

Pre heat oven to 180c. In a food processor mix all ingredients until well combined. Don’t over process – you still want the mixture to have some texture. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Divide the mixture into 8 small balls and press down to form a mini burger type shape. The mixture may seem a little wet, but don’t worry they turn out perfectly! Bake for approximately 25 – 30 minutes turning half way through using a fish slice (as at this point they will still seem a little ‘wet’).

Serve with the following tzatziki sauce:

Tzatziki Sauce – makes one large serving

• 2 tablespoons of full fat greek yoghurt
• 4 inch long chunk of cucumber with seeds removed and finely chopped
• 1 crushed clove of garlic
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 tablespoon of chopped fresh mint

Combine all ingredients in a little bowl and serve.

I served my baked falafel bites with a big plate of spinach, cos lettuce and red cabbage, the tzatziki sauce and a big tablespoon of caramelised onion hummus.

This tasted out of this world. I’m no falafel expert, but I know they are usually fried. These little baked bites cooked perfectly, are healthier than the fried version, and went so well with the tzatziki and the hummus. You could also serve these in a warm pitta or wrap.

For desert I made myself an epic fruit plate! I have lots of fresh fruit at the moment and something in my body was just craving this. My plate included cantaloupe melon, strawberries, a chopped fig, blackberries, blueberries and a sliced nectarine topped with a sprinkle of chopped mint.

My five a day on a single plate!

August Review and September Training Plan

This month I have been focusing on my running as the Great North Run is only a few weeks away!

Here’s what I have achieved this month:

• Increased my longest distance ran from 9.5 miles to 13.5 miles
• Lost 1 pound
• Surprisingly – lost an inch off my hips and waist and 1/2 an inch off my bust!
• Not missed a planned workout and started my speed work running

I love doing my monthly review as sometimes I forget what I have achieved. After all that worrying that I’m eating too much and gaining weight I’ve actually lost weight and inches!

This month its all about the Great North Run on 19th September (three weeks today!) So I’ll be focusing my training on this. The next few weeks I’m going to take a very flexible approach to my training, (which is a first for me since starting this blog!) I’m going to listen to my body and aim to put in my best possible performance at my first ever half marathon. I’ll be aiming to achieve at least 2 strength based workouts which are likely to be DVD’s – I’m thinking Davina Superbody, Super Sculpt Section. At least 2 HIIT cardio sessions of 30 minutes with core and abs work. At least two runs – a longer distance run and a shorter speed work run. I’ll be tapering these runs in the two weeks before the big race. I’ll also be aiming to do yoga for runners twice a week when possible as well as daily stretching and use of my foam roller to keep my legs loose. As my leg is still rather sore I think I’ll be giving the HIITs a miss tomorrow and just doing an hour of relaxed cardio to loosen it up a bit.

Here’s my starting stats for September:

• Weight: 10st
• Bust: 37 inches
• Waist: 28 1/2 inches
• Hips: 35 inches

Can’t believe that in 3 weeks time I’ll be sitting here blogging about the Great North Run!

What have you achieved in August?

I’m very happy that we have a bank holiday in the UK tomorrow. I love being able to relax on a Sunday evening without the thought of work the next day.  Tomorrow I’ll be gyming it and fingers crossed I’ll actually be going to my first barbeque of the summer if the weather holds out. Does anyone have any big plans for the last bank holiday of the year?

Happy weekend blog friends! I am so glad Friday night has finally come around I’ve had an insanely busy week. I have an equally busy weekend ahead too, more on that later!

This morning I hauled myself out of bed and along to the gym. These dark mornings are really starting to kick in and make getting up that much tougher, but as always a good workout was just what I needed. I sweated out 30 minutes of high intensity intervals on the cross trainer, bike and step machine followed by 15 minutes of abs, chest and back exercises using the free weights and stability ball.

I headed home and jumped straight into my breakfast. I had a strange craving for a yoghurt bowl so I mixed brown rice puffs, quinoa flakes and wheat germ (for the chew) with some grape nuts (for crunch), a big serving of Total Greek Yoghurt mixed with some chocolate whey and a sliced pear.

Delicious, the pear was perfectly ripe and sweet.

Lunch at work was a salad beast that included tuna, red onion, green pepper, carrot, cucumber, romaine lettuce, raw kale, a sprinkling of omega seed mix and some red pepper and basil salad dressing left from the little single serving tub I had with lunch yesterday.

This took me forever to eat, but is so good for keeping me nice and full. I also had a sliced peach and two fresh figs.

I’m kind of obsessed with fresh figs at the moment, they just taste so good!

I kept myself going at work with liquorice tea during the afternoon. When I got home I made myself a soy matcha latte. I mixed 1/4 teaspoon of matcha green tea with a little warmed soy milk. I then added the rest of the hot soy milk which I’d frothed up using my little milk whisk along with some agave syrup for sweetness.

Sooo good, my new favourite way of getting my daily green tea fix!

Dinner was a portion of Thai Red Tofu and Veggie curry which I had taken out of the freezer served with cauliflower ‘rice’ and some stir fried kale dressed in soy sauce and freshly grated ginger.

I actually made the cauliflower rice properly in the food processor and it was excellent. After dinner I got my baking groove on and made another batch of banana nut muffins but instead of the nuts I thought I would try using frozen blueberries.

They turned out really well again, perfectly moist. These have been so popular with my family, friends and work colleagues, I think they’ll all be gone pretty quick. I had one muffin fresh out of the oven and then another crumbled on top of a big bowl of sliced strawberries and creamy Greek yoghurt for desert.

Reflections – Two weeks off the scales

Today marks two weeks since I last had a weigh in. I explain why I ditched the scales in this post. I wanted to write a little piece about how ditching the scales has impacted on me over the last two weeks as I feel it has made such a difference to my life. I had been weighing myself every 2 – 3 days and depending upon what the scale said I would feel completely rubbish or very happy. Since I’ve now reached what I feel is my happy weight my goal is to learn how to maintain this without using the scale. This is what I’ve discovered over the last couple of weeks:

• I feel that I eat in a much more balanced way. If I feel I overeat then I automatically cut back a little and so on. Its almost like I instinctively know when I’ve been eating too heavy for my body.
• I’m kinder to myself. I haven’t really beat myself up when I have succumbed to the snackies, I’ve tried to figure out why I ate but then I’ve moved on and ate a little lighter the next day.
• I’m more aware of portion sizes and have found it easier to keep these under control, mainly around calorie dense foods – I still pile on the veggies!
• I’m more aware of how I feel in my own skin and how my body fits in my clothes.
• Its been a lot easier to live by the ‘eat for health’ mantra when your not worrying about that tablespoon of almond butter or that chocolate avocado mousse showing itself on the scales.

I know I need to see how things turn out at my monthly weigh in to see if I have managed to maintain, and I know this month is a little more difficult to call due to training for the Great North Run but I feel like I’m achieving a good balance :-)

So what’s everyone got planned for the weekend? I have a pretty busy one – more baking and cooking, an 8 mile run, grocery shopping, seeing family and friends, movie night with the hubby and getting some clothes posted up on ebay which I didn’t get done last weekend. Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in some relaxation time too. Hope you’ve had a great week and have a fabulous weekend ahead!

I don’t know what it is but the last 24 hours I have been really enjoying my baking! I cooked up two batches of muffins based on my banana walnut muffin recipe. Last night I made some banana blueberry, then this morning I made up a batch of half plain banana (for fusspot hubby) and the other half I experimented with adding 1/4 cup of oats and a teaspoon of cinnamon with a pecan nut for decoration. I also reduced the amount of oil in this batch and they turned out perfectly.

After a quick trip to the supermarket I came home and made some amazing pancakes for breakfast.

Spelt Choc Chip Pancakes for one

• 1/2 cup of spelt flour
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of total greek yoghurt
• 1/4 cup of soy milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a jug. Heat a frying pan to medium high and coat with spray oil and then pour a third of the mixture into the pan. When bubbles begin to appear on the surface of the batter add a few chocolate chips to the top then flip and cook the other side. Repeat until the batter is used up, keeping the other pancakes warm under the grill. Eat with maple or agave syrup and fresh fruit.

These were so good! I felt very naughty eating chocolate with breakfast but one tablespoon of dark chocolate won’t do any harm. I ate mine with two fresh dates and some strawberries.

I had a busy day out and about planned so I made up a packed lunch to take with me. I made up a big salad including romaine lettuce, spinach, carrot, yellow pepper, cucumber, sugar snap peas, spicy roasted chickpeas, soya beans and a little balsamic dressing. I also took a peach and two apples with me. I only ended up eating one of these apples as I was quite full!

I visited my parents, sister and friends. In the afternoon me and my best friend decided to have a walk up to an area which has a lot of ethnic shops. We had such a great time looking around them and at all the unusual ingredients. I gave myself a £5 budget and came away with this:

Assorted baclava sweet pastries, roasted spicy chickpeas, garam  masala powder and a couple of lemons. This only came to just under £4. Very happy to be able to stock up on spicy roasted chickpeas I love them!

I came home and made a lovely dinner of roasted and mashed butternut squash with a pork and leek sausage (kindly given to me from my manager at work – she got them from an award winning butcher in the Durham Dales) and steamed broccoli, kale and cauliflower. I also made some caramelised red onion gravy.

So completely delicious, I love sausage and mash! For desert I’m having some of this home made frozen yoghurt:

Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt

200g of Total Full Fat Greek Yoghurt

1 cup of fresh strawberries

1 tablespoon of agave syrup

Put the fresh strawberries in a bowl and mash with the back of a fork until you get a mushy consistency. Add the greek yoghurt and agave and mix well. Put into a suitable container (I used a small lunch box) and pop into the freezer. Every hour for 4 hours stir the yoghurt mixture to break up and distribute the ice crystals. Remove from the freezer at least 30 minutes before serving to allow to soften a little.

I’m going to have some of this along with a couple of my sweet baclava pastries, yum!

I’ve been enjoying my baking so much recently that my freezer is full with muffins, breads, soups, curries etc. I spent some time labelling all my freezer bags this morning:

Do you make good use of your freezer? I wish I had a much larger one to fit more goodies in!

Hope you’ve all had a good Saturday, we are going to watch the movie Kick Ass tonight and relax, I’m really looking forward to it. Catch you later! x