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Hi guys, happy Friday! Hope you’ve had a fantastic week. I’m flying high as a kite right now as I got this fab delivery of vegan cakes!

Some of you might remember me mentioning that at last weeks tea party the caterers had promised vegan cakes but had let us down. This lunchtime the manager called into our office with this box of vegan treats to say sorry. How sweet is that? They included oatmeal cookies, orange mini cup cakes, almond viennese swirls and a slice of sticky toffee pudding (I’m saving that for later). I shared them with my colleagues and they tasted amazing! What a great treat for a Friday afternoon :-)

I’ve really been enjoying my green smoothie challenge and healthy feasting this week and feel miles better for giving myself a little break from caffeine and refined sugar, at least until those cakes showed up! There have been some delicious salads:

Chickpea and quinoa with veggies and green goddess dressing

Baked tempeh with veggies and tahini dressing

Last night I made a big pan of roasted courgette, pepper and red onion and had that with some of the baked tempeh and tahini dressing:

This was seriously good for such a simple meal! I’ve also been snacking on lots of fresh fruit and nuts as well as coconut butter and tahini to keep those fat levels up. For a snack I made a fab chocolate chia pudding with strawberries for more healthy fat action:

This was 2 tbsp of chia seeds, 1 tbsp of raw cacao powder, water and agave. So good!

I won’t list all of this weeks workouts but its been the usual apart from Tuesday as I was working late and couldn’t make Body Pump I did level 3 of the 30 Day Shred and this challenging 30 minute vinyasa flow which was great!

As I said I’ve been loving the Green Smoothie Challenge. I’m going to save pics for a wrap up in Sunday’s post – I’ve got recipes for Chocolate Ginger Pear, Chocolate Cherry Almond and Strawberry and Peanut Butter smoothies coming up for you, and they are amazing! If anyone has any posts they’d like me to link too leave me a comment or email me :-)

March wrap up

I can’t quite believe that another month is almost over but it really has been a good one. I love doing these little monthly reviews and goal setting as I find it very motivational to focus on what I have achieved and to set my intent for the coming month. In March I have:

• Had my tattoo done
• Enjoyed more yoga at home including trying out some different you tube videos
• Progressed some work towards getting my community business off the ground including scheduling some important meetings.
• Gained a several lbs! 
• Stuck to my new strict grocery budget
• Have given the flat a good de clutter and spring clean (although I’ll be doing more of that this weekend)
• Started doing planks again as part of my workouts and improved my push ups
• Became a member of the Diary Free Dream Team!
• As of today, became the owner of a brand spanking new iPad 3!

My tattoo was the first very early 30th birthday gift to myself, and now I’ve got my iPad! I’ve wanted one forever and had enough saved up already so thought I’d get one now. Makes saving that money on groceries and clothes all worthwhile!

Update on ‘lady problems’

Pinterest, I love you but you but I’ve accepted I ain’t ever going to look like that (source)

I haven’t seen any major improvement in that area but I really feel like the reduction of long periods of intense exercise (running over 4 miles) and my weight gain (I currently weigh over 21lbs more than I did in August last year!) has me on the right track. I know some of you will have noticed that I’ve become much more relaxed around my eating than I used to be. The fear of gaining weight and ballooning up is slowly subsiding as I have started to accept that I’m never going to have that skinny, muscular physique or bikini body and be healthy at the same time.  Some women can look great that way and be perfectly healthy but that just isn’t natural or sustainable for my body. Positive comments from James, my friends and family and you amazing people have really helped me too. It hasn’t been easy though and there has been the weekend evening snackies / overeating stuff to deal with as well as a few tears as I got rid of a lot of clothes now too small for me. However I’m more determined now than ever to try and forget what society dictates is healthy in terms of weight, size and appearance and instead honour my body as best I can. Now that my BMI is over 23 its a case of playing a waiting game hoping that my body will trust me enough to start functioning again as it should. I’m planning some more posts on this as well as how to gain weight in a healthy way as I’ve had some emails requesting them and I think its a really important topic to highlight so stay tuned!

Goals for April

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• Enjoy some baking, cooking new recipes and try my hand at making proper bread with yeast
• Spend lots of time with my family and friends over Easter
• Maintain my current weight
• Get booked on to / do my food hygiene training
• Arrange my first healthy eating workshop with a community group (eeek!)
• Have fun with my iPad!
• Start extending my weekend runs to 10k in anticipation of Great North Run training

This weekend is going to be a baking, cooking and general domestic goddess weekend! I really want to try my hand at baking some bread so fingers crossed it will turn out ok! I’ll also be doing some experimental cooking for Easter that will hopefully result in a couple of new recipes here on the blog. Of course I’d like to maintain my weight while still enjoying a more relaxed attitude to eating. I also need to update my food hygiene training before I can start delivering my healthy eating workshops so I’d love to get that done, and hopefully as a result of linking with some of my contacts I’d like to have my first ever workshop booked in! The final goal is to gradually increase my mileage on my weekend runs. Despite those lady problems I’m registered to do the Great North Run for the third time this year and its something I’d still like to achieve. However I will be taking a much more relaxed approach to training and the race itself, enjoying myself will come before trying to get another PB!

Now on to the weekend send of love list…

Reiki stones in my water bottle!

My manager at work is a Reiki Master and has charged some red jasper stones with healing energy for me. She suggested putting them in my water bottle. I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on reiki but it won’t do me any harm! I have to say its pretty awesome to have a Reiki Master as your boss, she gave me a guided meditation this afternoon too, love my job! Also…

This fab new blog discovery Messy Nessy Chic // The weather!!! Its been incredible this week // wearing my new pink sleeveless top from H&M // getting the summer sandals out of the cupboard

What have you been loving this week? How has March been for you? Do you have any goals for April?

I mentioned in last Friday’s post that I’d had one of those days where I’d done a lot of deep thinking. I thought about what my priorities in life are, which direction my life is going in and ultimately what is going to make me happy, you know nice light hearted topics like that ;-)

I’ve found that a couple of times a year I get these occurrences of very intense deep thoughts which at the time can feel quite uncomfortable (usually because I’m facing some home truths), but ultimately are very positive and help me to move my life forward. I have a bad habit of putting big changes into effect and then gradually starting to let them slide, forgetting about them and coasting along until the shit hits the fan.

Strangely enough I’ve had a lot more of these ‘deep thoughts’ since I’ve become more healthy. I think that since I’ve lost weight, improved my diet and achieved things I never thought I’d physically and mentally be able to do, its made me more confident, ambitious and determined to follow my dreams.

Last week I had some major realisations. I won’t bore you by going too in depth into them, but here’s a few things I discovered:

• No matter how much I want to be I am not Super Woman and can’t do everything
• I need to prioritise my time according to what is ultimately going to make me happiest and help me to achieve my goals
• I really need to sort my finances out once and for all
• Deep down, a big part of me is scared I’m just not good enough to achieve my goals
• Deep down, a big part of me is flicking the V’s at the other part of myself that thinks I’m not good enough because I can achieve anything I set my mind to god damn it!

The upshot of much of this is that I’m considering handing back the keys for the allotment because I don’t realistically have the time or money to put into it, cancelling my organic veg box delivery because I can’t afford it, and generally giving myself a kick up the arse when it comes to spending money (ironic I know considering what I spent in Brighton). I’m also determined to make some major progress with my business plan for my holistic health coaching for communities ideas no matter how scared I am that I might ultimately fail, because remember, I can do anything I set my mind to right?

Like I said, although uncomfortable to begin with, I need to have these deep thoughts to push me forward because they help me to focus on following my bliss.

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‘If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time’

I truly believe that by pursuing the things in life that light me up and make me happy I’ll be ok in the end. Sometimes though, you need to be able to identify those things that make you happy. Here’s some things that have helped me:

• Writing this blog!
• Journaling – sometimes I just write. I don’t set out to write about anything in particular I just get a pen and some paper and write whatever comes into my head.
• Using mind maps – I like them to help sort out my thoughts and generally organise myself!
• Yoga – I guess it sounds a bit clichéd that yoga helps with enlightenment but because I’m useless at meditating its one of the only things I can do that helps to quieten my mind.

How good are you at following your bliss? Do you use any tools to help you think?

How we all doing this fine Tuesday? I’m having a good week so far!

On Monday morning I had my first taste of hemp milk!

I had it with a big bowl of my home mixed muesli with a chopped apple and blueberries:

I was very pleasantly surprised with the hemp milk, it tasted a lot nicer and creamer than I had been expecting and reminded me of soy milk. A definite regular non dairy milk for me now – as long as Tesco continue to stock it!

Today I had a bowl of Dorset Cereal Low Fat Flakes with chopped plums, pecans, raw unsweetened coconut shreds and hemp milk:

I learned the last time I ate these that a bowl with milk and fruit just wouldn’t see my through to lunch so I added the pecans and coconut for more staying power!

I also tried a raw kale salad for lunch. I have had raw kale salads before but they’d mostly turned out to be a fail. I had a lot of kale to use up so I thought I’d give another one a go. I massaged the kale with 1/2 avocado mashed with lemon juice until it wilted down a bit then added carrot, red pepper, sugar snaps, alfalfa sprouts and some roasted soya nuts for protein and crunch plus some braggs:

This pic doesn’t really do it justice, finally a kale salad that tasted good! I think adding the avocado is the trick with this, it would have also been lovely with spicy roast chickpeas, yum!

Today I scored some more tasty reduced persimmons from Asda – these are so good I’m now addicted to them!

Dinner over the last couple of days has been Italian Leek and Bean Stew:

I served it up with some pearl barley (my favourite grain at the moment) plus some steamed green veggies and shoyu. I love this stew, comforting but not too heavy for this time of year.

I’ve also been doing my usual workouts, intervals on cross trainer and step machine, spin class and abs and core on Monday, we had a new spin instructor and he was excellent, the workout was way tougher than usual, I really got my sweat on! Then today I did Yoga for Runners this morning and Body Pump this evening. Body Pump was the new release and it was awesome – my muscles were trembling at the end! To help my muscles recover after Body Pump I had a lovely Peanut Butter Swirl Spiru-tein protein shake (with ice, hemp milk and xanthan gum) with peanut flour sauce and grape nuts cereal as my dessert:

I love my Spiru-tein shakes, the flavours are fab!

I don’t know what’s been up with me over the past few days but my appetite has been completely random. Usually I know when I’m going to start feeling hungry but over the last few days I have had either no appetite or I’ve been ravenous (please note that what I’ve posted above is not everything I’ve eaten – I’m just posting the tastiest stuff!) I have been eating even when not hungry (after I’ve waited a couple of hours for hunger to kick in and it hasn’t) as I know that I need to be getting food in me to fuel my workouts and especially after I burned 900 calories on Sunday with my run! I also hate to waste food. Then on the other hand when I do start eating its hard to stop! I’m hoping my appetite will get back to normal as I find it very odd. Anyone else have a random appetite?

I also just wanted to share this random little snippet I came across on Crazy Sexy Life today:

‘What makes up the quality of your life is your daily existence, not only the peak experiences or significant epiphanies’

For some reason this really struck a cord with me – I used to really struggle with living in the ‘present’ - my mind would always be miles ahead thinking about how life would be different when I moved house, started a family, got a new job etc. Recently I have found a greater level of contentment and happiness in just living in the now and enjoying the amazing things I have been blessed with :-) I still think of the good things to come in the future but I feel I have a better balance now.

Do you feel that you ‘live in the now’ or do you focus on things to come in the future?

Things I did this weekend…

Woke up before 5am on Saturday and this morning (WTF!) But at least I had a nice sunrise to welcome me and encourage me to…

…run for 3.5 miles at 5.30 am and enjoy it! Not my planned 10 miles but I have a lot more to say on that in a mo…

Ate kabocha squash…

Roast squash with courgette noodles and tahini sauce

…lots of it…

Vanilla kabocha smoothie topped with peanut butter and cinnamon

Chopped up a pair of old jeans into shorts ready for Kendal Calling next month…

Baked some courgette, date and pecan bread…

fat free, sugar free, sticky deliciousness! Recipe to come.

Enjoyed strawberry, basil and coconut milkshakes…

Inspired by Lara :-)

Got dressed up just to go to Sainsbury’s…

OOTD: leather hooded jacket: Topshop, loose sweater: H&M, floral dress: Vintage, grey tights: Accessorize, black boots: New Look, necklace: Warehouse, rings: Topshop and Primark, bracelets and bangles: various, watch: stolen from James (love men’s watches!)

…then spent the rest of the weekend in sweat pants.

Drank iced coffee constantly…

Made some vanilla roasted salted sunflower seed and cashew butter…

Looks like cement, tastes like heaven, especially spread on that courgette bread!

Had some major realisations and made some big decisions…

Just to warn you this bit is extremely long and wordy so feel free to skip if its not your thing!

In January I blogged about my ‘lady problems’ which most of you will have guessed is Amenorrhea, or loss of periods. Its been almost a year since my last period. As I said in January’s post, I have never been an underweight BMI, but what the amenorrhea has made me realise is that I was clearly demonstrating unhealthy habits and my weight was too low for my body. I have been checked out at the doctors and my hormone levels are all normal and an ultrasound has shown no signs of poly cystic ovaries. I’m guessing that what I have is Hypothalamic Amenorrhea based on the causes and the fact that nothing else appears to be wrong. Weight gain and exercise reduction tends to be the best treatment for this, and from the research I have done, women that have previously been overweight like me, generally have to gain more back than someone who was not previously overweight. In January I changed my workouts to be less cardio focused and I’ve gained around 17lbs on my weight since this time last year, so quite a considerable amount. 

However, over the last few months I have gradually increased my running as I have the Great North Run Half Marathon coming up in September, a race I have already ran twice. I want to run the race again this year as I enjoyed it so much the last two times and it is the Olympic year so extra special. I told myself that I would not be focusing on improving my performance and just wanted to train injury free and enjoy the race itself. As I have discussed, my training has been difficult and now that I’m up to longer distances in excess of 6 miles it has been tough. I have purposely not trained in the same way I did for the last two years to try and not ‘set myself back’ when it comes to healing my amenorrhea, but I have still been running – and although it has been slow and fairly relaxed, it has been very difficult when compared to previous years.

All of these things came to a head for me this last week. First of all I have had to admit to myself that I am just not enjoying running like I used to. 3-4 mile runs are absolutely fine (I loved my run yesterday morning), but I’ve started to hate longer runs and I don’t enjoy them one bit. I have tried to power through and see if it was just a motivation issue or because the weather has been so poor but I think its deeper than that. Reading my recent posts I think its clear where my exercise passions now lie – hot yoga, classes like Body Pump and strength training.

In addition to this I’ve also been doing a lot of pondering about life in general and where I’m going. I think its something to do with approaching 30 ;-) I have some ambitions when it comes to the future, including a slight career change – I want to be a health coach working with individuals and community groups, at least part time, and I’m committed to pursuing this, but over all its about being happy and healthy.

I’ve been reading some of the excellent resources on The Art of Non Conformity and I came across a paragraph in A Brief Guide to World Domination that really struck a cord with me. It said you should be living your life now in a way that is conductive to achieving the future you want to create. I realised then that I’ve been kidding myself for a while. I want to be happy and healthy yet I am training for this race, putting in hard workouts which I do not enjoy at all, and that are probably not good for my health right now, doh!

I had a chat with James, my Mam and my best friend about this and I they all made me realise a few things; I am a stubborn cow, I care too much about what other people may think (in this case that I am a failure and a quitter) and I judge myself far too harshly.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that I’m not going to force myself to train for this race. I’m not saying I’m not going to do it, but I’m taking that pressure off myself. I need to start living in a way that is conductive to the future I want; to be happy and healthy. I need to get back to where I was in January, reducing tough workouts and possibly gaining more weight. I need to be focusing my energies on the things I enjoy the most – following my bliss in the most literal sense.

The plan from here regarding workouts is to go with the flow, I think I’ll be continuing to do the workouts I enjoy that aren’t extremely strenuous like yoga and hot yoga, strength training, classes, gentle cardio and possibly some short, slow runs if the fancy takes me. I’m also going to keep on eating as I have, including lots of healthy fats (and not so healthy sometimes!) and continue with that for a few months to see how I go, reducing workouts further if needs be. The reason I’m not stopping working out altogether is because I know my mental health would suffer, and I believe that would have a worse impact on my body than continuing some lighter exercise, at least in the shorter term.

As I’ve said before, reducing workouts and gaining weight especially being part of the healthy living blog community, is really bloody hard. I would love to eat clean and train dirty but that just isn’t good for me right now and I have to accept that. I’ve allowed myself to become defined by my weight loss and exercise regime (in my own eyes) when I am much, much more than that. I may not be able to kick ass in the gym, but by God I’ll be kicking ass in other areas of my life!

With that in mind I have also made a pretty huge decision. I’m going to sign up with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and become a certified health coach! I’ll talk more about this soon as this post is already long enough!

I always want to be as honest as I can be on this blog, its not always unicorns and rainbows and I think its important that you get the real picture, too many bloggers seem to have perfect lives when that simply isn’t true. However, I strongly believe that its not what happens to you that makes you happy, its your perspective. As Kris Carr said in a recent newsletter you have a choice and you know what? I choose to be positive and I really do love my life!

If you’re still reading after all that thank you!

Wow, I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders! Have you ever had to take a hard look at how you are treating your body? What’s the last big decision you made for you future?

I’ll be back tomorrow with my usual month recap and another vlog! Hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday :-)

I’ve recently had a lot of emails from readers asking me about how I lost weight and if I have any weight loss tips to help them get started this year. Although I’ve posted bits about this before I’ve never put it all down in one post, so here it goes!

 Sept 2008

I started my weight loss journey in January 2009. I had tried to lose weight several times in the past but had always gained it back. I had reached a point of just feeling sick and tired of being sick and tired! I saw a photo of myself at a friends party and it really made me realise just how big I had become. I was almost 15st (210lbs) at that point. I started exercising and just cutting down what I ate to start with. The first stone came off really quickly, then I joined a gym again and just continued to watch what I ate without following any set plans or thinking much about nutrition. Later that year I reached a bit of a plateaux and had came across a book called The New York Body Plan that advocated a low carb diet. I didn’t follow that plan exactly, but it inspired me to try protein shakes and strength training and I lost more weight.

Jan 2010

In Jan 2010 I discovered healthy living blogs via an online forum and I shortly started my own blog to keep me on track and document my food and exercise. As I got more into blogs I learned more about nutrition and gradually moved away from processed foods to whole foods, high protein to more carbs and eventually became vegetarian. I lost even more weight then and progressed to an almost vegan diet which I enjoy now. My weight has gone down and then back up in the last year, and without weighing myself (I decided to ditch the scales and go off the fit of my clothes a month ago) I seem to be maintaining a weight loss of about 5st 7lbs (77lbs). I’ve never calorie counted or did any kind of plan like Weight Watchers or Slimming World.

  At my lowest weight – July 2011, I felt a bit too skinny at this point. I’m a good 10lbs heavier now I think, and I feel better for it :-)

I think one of the main reasons I’ve managed to keep the weight off this time is that all other areas of my life have been pretty stable – my relationships and job etc, where as in the past as soon as I faced any kind of upheaval – a new job or moving house, my healthy intentions went out the window. I’ve had enough time to develop all those healthy choices into die hard habits. I really can’t imagine not having green smoothies and salads in my life now. My husband James has also been very supportive – and even lost 2st himself. He eats a very different diet from me, but has vastly improved what he eats compared to what he used to eat. My palate has completely changed as well, the idea of McDonalds and Greggs pasties makes me feel sick – I’d much prefer a crispy pink lady apple!

Based on my personal experience, here’s a few tips for anyone embarking on a weight loss journey:

• Eat whole foods – whether your going high protein, low GI or whatever, always base your diet on whole real foods. Ditching the processed crap was the best thing I ever did! Processed sugar is particularly nasty. Switch to unrefined carbs like brown rice and pasta rather than their white versions.
• Drink water and green or herbal teas – stop drinking your calories and ditch the diet coke and milky tea. This made a big difference for me, milky tea just made me want to eat biscuits and diet coke left me feeling bloated. Try and reduce your consumption of alcohol too, it really is just empty calories! Drinking lots of water and green and herbal teas actually makes me feel healthier and I’m more likely to match my healthy drinks with healthy foods.
• Eat loads of veggies – veggies are full of fibre and nutrition, a win win when your seeking to lose weight. They fill you up for little calories, help to balance out your blood sugar levels and provide your body with nutrients. I try and fill half my plate at every meal with either veggies or fruit. Green smoothies and big salads are excellent ways to get those veggies in.
• Make small changes – Instead of having to make lots of changes at once, try making small changes and developing them into habits. One week you could try drinking more water, next week adding an extra vegetable to your plate, the week after adding in a workout and so on. Try and keep at it, it may be difficult to begin with but after a few weeks these things will start to become habits, your palate will change so that healthier foods taste better, and things will get much easier.
• Get rid of ‘trigger’ foods – I had certain ‘trigger’ foods that I could just not resist if they were in the house. Mine included muesli, chocolate and ice cream. It might be best to keep them out of the house until your healthy habits have become ingrained and you can enjoy these things in moderation.
• Don’t diet – Remove the word ‘diet’ from your vocabulary. Diets don’t work, you have to make lifestyle changes, i.e. changes that last a lifetime, not just until you’ve reached your goal weight! I eventually found that focusing on my health was a much better approach than focusing on being skinny.
• Meal plan / keep a food diary – This has really helped me stay organised and therefore have healthy meals prepared, stopping me from falling back on unhealthy processed convenience foods. I just use a simple word document on my laptop that I update, but use whatever works for you such as a note book or planner 
• Discover your motivation and inspiration – Isolate what it is that is motivating you to lose weight. I have always loved clothes so being able to wear things from my favourite shops was a huge motivation for me. Now my motivation is about being healthy and happy and feeling vibrant. I make inspiration boards (see below) to inspire me and set it as my desktop back ground on my laptop to keep me focused. Try it! I also do visualisation exercises where I create images in my head of the person I want to become, then I can focus on that goal.
• Experiment with what works for you – At the end of the day we are all different and different approaches will work for different people. I’ve lost weight on both high protein diets, and eating more carbs on a vegetarian diet. When it comes down to it whatever approach you choose, to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories than you are expending. Its as simple as that. All the different approaches out there – paleo, vegan, high protein, low GI – are more about fine tuning an eating style that works for you and makes you feel your healthiest, so experiment and see what you feel drawn to.

My current inspiration board!

I really hope that helps! I know how tough losing weight can be, especially if you feel you have a lot to lose. If I can do it, you can do it. Believe in yourself and know that you are worth it! No more excuses, be the person you want to be!

Are you currently trying to lose weight? How are things going for you? If you’ve lost weight before, what would be your top tip?

It’s been a little while since I’ve done one of my wordy posts so I thought I was probably over due giving you a more in depth update on things going on with me!

*this is a very wordy post and I will be talking about some topics which could be sensitive for those suffering from an ED, if you feel like this might affect you negatively please reconsider reading :-)

I always really enjoy writing these posts as I often discover so much just through the process of getting it all out of my head. I’ve come to realise that the process of self reflection is very important for me. I also like to share because I know that so many of you can relate to different aspects of what I’ve been experiencing.

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First of all I thought it might be useful to link to a few of my other wordy posts in chronological order in case any of you are catching up:

• Feeling snacky and what is healthy
• Where I am now and a bit of a rant
• Changes
• Health Weight Gain
• Another Honest Blog Post
• The Evolution of my Diet

I have to admit its rather interesting reading these posts back – the scary thing is that I’ve thought I was on the right lines many times before so now it’s back to the drawing board!

My Body

I sit here today, about 4 stone (56lbs) less than I was 4 years ago, but about 17lbs more than I was at this point last year. I can hand on heart say I am probably the happiest in terms of my how my body looks now than I have ever been at any point in my life. Just writing that has made me smile! I’ve been on every diet under the sun, I’ve been obese, very slim and now I finally feel like I’m actually around about the right size for me. Although I have felt that way before when I have been thinner, I think that as I have been there and back again and because I have tackled some disordered thought patterns, this time the words really reflect how I feel inside. I do have some loose skin, stretch marks and a slight muffin top but I also have my breasts back, a cracking pair of legs and a fab waist. I’m never going to have a ‘perfect’ body whatever that may be, but I’m damn grateful for what I’ve got. Personally I love having some curves along with a bit of muscle as I feel it suits my frame and I feel strong and confident :-)

My Diet

I was tracking my calories for a while to make sure that I was eating enough (ironic considering I was once so overweight!) to make sure that I was progressing with tackling my amenorrhea situation. It worked really well at helping me maintain my weight and stop binging, particularly while I was running. Over the last couple of months I’ve stopped calorie counting and have been trying to eat more intuitively. I’ve also stopped weighing myself. I know I have gained weight as a result of the indulgences of the music festival and my birthday as well as lots of going out in between, but as I have said above, while I can look at myself naked in the mirror and feel pretty happy with what I see I couldn’t give a toss what the number on the scale says. And I actually mean it this time!

The foods I eat have also changed rather dramatically and I think they will change even more in the coming months. After being mostly vegan for a little over a year I have started adding dairy and eggs back into my diet. I have also increased the amount of fat and protein I eat. Anything low fat does not go into my trolley, I’m full fat all the way! Tinned full fat coconut milk, full fat Greek yoghurt and full fat goats cheese are staples for me now. Don’t get me wrong, for a long time I felt the best I ever had eating a vegan diet and it may be in time that I return to it, however I feel like to need to have come full circle with my diet and re educate myself on what is best for my body by listening to it rather than just doing what the books or research tells me.

I did mention in my September goals that I was going to do a lot of self reflection and experimentation in these next few months and my diet is a big part of this. To be honest I’m worried that past decisions I have made to become vegetarian and then vegan were actually done for the right reasons. I do worry how much influence reading blogs may have had, take the current Paleo trend for example. I have nothing against anyone trying it out, but I have felt a strange urge to try it even after not eating meat for the last two years! I now feel that I am in a place where I do not want to label myself or my diet in any way and just see what works by starting again from scratch based on what I believe in and what feels right.

Doing my training with IIN has made me take a totally fresh look at all of this and I have spent a lot of time thinking about my own dietary philosophy and approach that I would like to base my health coaching practice on. I have so much to share with you on this, but the basic premise is that different diets work for different people – we are all unique individuals and it makes perfect sense to me that not one way of eating will ever be right for everyone of us. I want to help people to cut through the crap to find out what works for them! Going through that process myself is the first step.

My Exercise

After being a committed runner for two years I packed in running once I’d realised it was not doing me any good mentally or physically. I haven’t ran in over two months. I still workout, but no where near as hard as I used to. My workouts are challenging but not punishing and I actually enjoy them. I have two rest days a week instead of one, and at least one workout a week is yoga. Speaking of which I’ve just fallen head over heels for yoga, especially hot yoga. It’s a great form of exercise for my current situation. I also love strength training – and I know it has been lifting weights that has helped me build more muscle to give that extra padding a bit of scaffolding to hold it in place!

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So that is kind of where things are with me. Still no sign of my period at the moment but I continue to feel confident its just a matter of time until it comes back. I may have to consider cutting back on exercise a bit more especially as my time becomes even more precious in the months to come. I’m currently working full time, studying, writing this blog and setting up two businesses as well as trying to be the best wife, friend, daughter, sister and auntie I can be. Its crazy times! I love everything I have going on, I just need to remind myself to deal with any stress when it arises. I’m journaling every day and my weekend of Reiki has given me some new tools to help as well!

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Basically I feel like over the last couple of months I have become so much more relaxed around food and exercise. This has resulted me getting slightly bigger, but the trade off is a happier me all round and a better over all quality of life!

If you are still reading after all of that, thank you!

Have you ever questioned your actions or looked critically at why you eat a certain way? Do you do much self reflection? Have you ever felt influenced to adopt a certain diet? Do you label your diet?

Hi everyone, hope Monday is treating you well! I thought I’d subject you all to another one of my wordy posts since you all gave me such good feedback on my last one!

Today I would like to share some thoughts on my diet as the way I eat has changed dramatically over the last few years. Before I lost weight I was obviously eating a pretty poor diet with too much processed food. Even while I was losing weight I was doing so by eating a lot of ‘diet foods’ like cuppa soups and ready meals. I was also using protein shakes as meal replacements and eating a lot of animal protein. It wasn’t until I really found blogs and started to learn more about nutrition that I made the changes that have lead me to where I am today. I went vegetarian in Oct 2010 and started to eat a mostly vegan diet in early 2011. I’ve never been a fully fledged vegan, I’ve still eaten honey and have not avoided foodstuffs with trace amounts of animal products in them. I also ate local free range eggs in April, but haven’t felt the need since. Last year, my diet also became filled with a lot of raw foods as I became more inspired by raw foods recipes. Looking back, between September 2010 and September 2011 I was unconsciously under eating and over training which I believe has created my current predicament. I don’t blame vegetarianism, veganism or raw foodism for that, I just think that I genuinely did not have a full understanding of how much I needed to be taking in to sustain my activity level at the time, and as plant foods tend to be less energy dense I was simply not eating enough. I also had an intense fear of gaining weight.

As of last September when I realised I had a problem I have slowly been increasing the amount I eat, mainly on purpose and partially because I had started binge eating (my bodies response to the prior months of depravation I believe). I’ve gained 17lbs since then. In March I started calorie counting to help me understand my energy requirements and although I get that there are inherent issues with this approach, it has been working extremely well for me. I have not binged once since I have become more aware of my needs, and I can eat what seems to me to be a substantial amount, guilt free. I am going to be moving away from regular calorie counting in the coming weeks now I have a better handle on things. I’ve mentioned within my WIAW posts that I’ve established a new eating pattern where I am eating 6-7 times a day, and always a later evening snack. I had resisted this style of eating before because I had read that ‘you should not eat 3 hours before bed’ and that eating later in the day ‘leads to weight gain’. What a load of bollocks!

Since I’ve started to listen to my body properly this time (in the past I had honestly believed I was listening to my body but that clearly wasn’t the case) I’ve discovered how much happier I am following my bodies needs and not overly concerning myself what I ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be eating.

A few of the things I have discovered recently include:

• I seem to do best when eating plenty of fat and protein and going easy on carbs / sugar
• I prefer getting my carbs from fruit and vegetables including sweet potatoes
• I still love raw foods but I’m not as ‘structured’ with them as I used to be
• Processed foods, especially those with sugar, don’t make me feel good
• I sometimes worry I rely too much on tofu and powders for my protein needs
• A lot of ‘vegan foods’ like soy yoghurt contain added sugar which I don’t think agrees with me
• I love coffee!

Signing up for the Health Coaching course with IIN has also made me take a more critical look at my diet. I love IIN’s bio individuality theory – that not one way of eating suits everyone and that you should use your body as a laboratory, experimenting with what works best for you.

Now that my body is used to mostly whole, healthy foods I can trust it enough to listen to it. I think its an important point to make that ‘listening to your body’ may not be suitable for everyone. If you are currently eating a diet with a lot of processed foods and sugar, are overtraining or have other food issues, then you may not be able to trust your bodies signals. If I’d listened to my body 3 years ago I would have happily been reaching for another chocolate bar as all my natural cravings would have been over ridden by the amount of nutritionally devoid foods I was eating. Before you can really start to trust it, I think you first need to get yourself to a place where you are eating a mostly wholefoods diet and see where you go from there. Just my opinion of course!

With all that in mind I am going to be doing more experimenting with my diet. I 100% believe that veganism is ethically superior in this age of factory farming processes, but right now I think what is best for me is to not label my diet too much and just see where I end up. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat meat or fish again, the idea of eating flesh makes my skin crawl! However I do think I might be looking at eggs and dairy – but if I do I will be striving for free range, organic and local when possible.

With regards to the processed foods I do eat I think I’ll be moving away from products like Spiru-tein protein powders, soy yoghurt, cereals, chocolate soya desserts, dairy free cheese etc. I have a few things to use up but after they are gone I don’t think I’ll be getting them again, or if I do it will be on rare occasion.

Right now I am just in love with simple whole foods especially sweet potatoes and squash, avocados, full fat coconut milk, dried dates and figs, rich nut butter, strong dark raw chocolate and deep dark coffee. I know that too much caffeine isn’t suppose to be good for us but I truly believe the joy I get from a good cup of coffee makes up for that! I’m also still a big fan of raw foods. I no longer feel the need to eat a 100% raw meal, I just know I feel better when incorporating raw foods in general and eating semi raw / cooked meals like my favourite courgette noodles with roast squash.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m throwing out the ‘rule book’ I previously lived by. I truly believe that our own individual needs change over time. I was never a perfect vegan or could ever hope to be, all I want to do is live according to my own beliefs as best I can and be happy and healthy in the process :-)

How has the way you eat evolved over time? Do you think your body works best on a certain mix of carbs, proteins and fats? Do you have any ‘food rules’?

I’ve got a follow up to this post looking at my new grocery staples and budgeting coming up soon so stay tuned!

Wonderful lyrics courtesy of Lady GaGa

*this is another of my wordy posts where I discuss topics that may be triggering if you have an eating disorder, if you feel this could affect you negatively then you may want to skip this post

Last time we had one of these chats I was feeling pretty happy with my body, in a good groove with my workout routine and was continuing to experiment with my diet after being vegan for about a year and a half.

I’m still feeling pretty happy with my body, but after my holiday in Brighton where I indulged rather a lot, I had piled on some additional weight (ahem 7lbs) which if I’m completely honest I didn’t feel comfortable with. However I have found that since coming back and resuming my regular eating pattern, most of that weight has dropped off. There are positives and negatives around that, as on one hand the weight coming off quite easily demonstrates that my metabolism is functioning well, but then any weight I had gained could have been useful in tackling my amenorrhea. Either way, I feel more comfortable now and less stressed about it.

I’ve also come to an overarching conclusion – I’m just not a naturally skinny person. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’m fat right now, or anything even close to that. And god knows one thing that used to piss me right off when I was bigger were women who were a size 12 or less describing themselves as curvy or voluptuous. However, because I’ve experienced both extremes – being a UK size 18 and also a UK size 8, I do feel nicely ‘curvy’ now at a size 10/12 (mostly a 12) in comparison to being at my thinnest. I can say that I will never ever see a size 8 label again in my life and be able to call myself healthy. I’m just not made to be that size. I know some people might disagree with me, but I feel I look a million times better now than I did back then. To quote Lady Gaga, ‘baby I was born this way’, and embracing that has been a very important process for me.

Recently I’ve also been having a few epiphanies when it comes to diet and nutrition. Now of course this is just my opinion and observations, but I can’t believe the number of people that go around touting their way of eating as something that will work for everyone and promising perfect health. Its just bollocks. We are all different, there is no way that eating a certain diet will work the same for everyone. The more I learn and the more I read it becomes clearer – some people thrive on certain diets where others don’t. The bottom line for me is whole unprocessed foods. Simple as that. I think that if there is one common ‘right’ way of doing things it is to eat whole foods as much as possible and then experiment with the levels of sugar / protein / fat / fibre / animal products within that frame work. Of course it’s more complex than that (personal ethics and particular medical conditions for example), but I do believe that’s the crux of it really. Studying holistic nutrition with IIN is one of the best things I’ve ever done for developing a more balanced yet all encompassing view of a healthy diet.

Last week I ate some wild salmon, and I am planning to try some red meat soon. I’ve had the strangest craving for it over the last month. I wish I could be at my healthiest eating a vegan diet but the bottom line is I am still not where I need to be health wise. I am going to eat some animal flesh again, but like eggs and dairy I will be striving for free range / organic and local if possible. I can’t see me eating it a lot, mainly because I couldn’t afford it, but also because I still love my veggie centric meals too much.

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I truly feel like I have come full circle, I was reading some posts from my first year of blogging when I was an omnivore – I was also the same weight I am now and happy with my body so what the hell went wrong? I could point fingers at several things, including blogging and reading blogs if I’m brutally honest, however I would not change it for anything. My experience of being at a lower weight, having some particularly disordered thoughts and feelings, and ultimately the process of gaining weight, has been a valuable learning experience and one which I believe will make me a better health coach in the long run.

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I also have to keep reminding myself that my achievement in losing weight, and keeping that weight off for over 3 years, is not diminished because I’ve also gained weight as part of that process.

Well there’s a bit of a ramble of some things that have been doing the rounds in my head these last few weeks! Has anyone else experienced changing their diets and coming full circle in the same way I have? Do you feel you have a natural healthy size for your body and do you ever feel at odds with that?

I really enjoyed sharing my Monday musings last week so I thought I’d bore you all with more of them this Monday! Hope you don’t mind ;-)

This morning I was up nice and early for my usual Monday workout. I’m usually able to start work a bit later on a Monday so I can get to the gym for it opening at 7am, have my workout, get home, showered and dressed and then have a little time to relax while eating breakfast before making my way to work.

This morning we had a team meeting at 9 so I had to try and figure out how to fit it all in! As it was actually a pleasant morning for a change I headed to the gym at 6.30, parked the car up and ran a loop doing some speed intervals which got me back to the gym just as it opened. That way I ended up doing my usual treadmill speed work outside, and got finished at the gym 30 minutes earlier than usual, cue dashing home for shower and inhaling a ready to eat overnight chia pud for breakfast!

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That might all sound a little bit like too much of a faff, but the way my days are scheduled (trying to work a little overtime too) it was easier doing it that way than moving my workout to this evening, plus I really love running before work! This made me think about how much I have to juggle my time to be able to fit in working out.

I also sometimes wonder how the hell we are suppose to factor in all the different kinds of exercise we hear is good for us into such tight schedules. Cardio intervals, strength and resistance training, steady state cardio, yoga / Pilates, stretching, core exercises, the list could go on! I have trouble fitting it all in and I don’t even have children or other caring responsibilities like some others.

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I workout 6 days out of 7, not because I feel like I have to, but because I enjoy it: working out makes me feel good both physically and mentally. Sometimes I do worry if I have the right balance between strength training, yoga and cardio etc.

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The way I’m managing things now is that my focus is on running (as I’m training for the Great North Run), but I recognise the important of cross training for my overall fitness and wellbeing. I tend to do 2 strength workouts (that also incorporate some cardio intervals) in the form of my Body Pump class and 3,2,1 workouts. I do quick 20 minute yoga podcasts twice a week for stretching and strengthening and a long run once a week (which I kind of count as my steady state cardio). I also do 3 cardio focused workouts with additional abs and core work, 2 of which also include an aspect of running, either on the treadmill or outside (for a total of 3 running sessions a week).

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Its actually quite amazing how much I manage to fit in when I work full time! I do have to do quite a bit of juggling, and I am very lucky that my job allows me to work flexible hours. This amount of training does seems to suit me quite well, I feel healthy and balanced and have no injuries so I don’t feel like I’m over training. I see exercise as my ‘me’ time so I guess that helps! Sometimes it has just become too much, for example I used to try and fit in a yoga class and when I recognised that it was just one workout too many, I took a flexible approach and decided to ditch it.

Wish I had more time to use my foam roller!

I just sometimes wonder of I’m missing out on a particular form of exercise or approach like using a bosu ball, trying Pilates or PHA training. I always wish I had more time for yoga and strength training but I love my cardio and running so much too!

How do you ‘fit it all in’ when it comes to exercise?

Do you follow a specific plan?

Do you try and incorporate different forms of training?

Which form of exercise do you wish you had more time for?