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Hi everyone! Hope you are all having a great weekend so far. I’ve had a lovely relaxed day getting myself ready for the Great North Run tomorrow! My kit bag is all packed, my running gear is all laid out ready, I have safety pins, timing chip, powerade, tissues, a big bag of dried dates, my stop watch and my fully loaded iPod shuffle (I’m not taking my iPhone in case it rains!)

This morning I was up and off to Sainburys for it opening to stock up on fruits and veggies. When I got home I enjoyed a lovely big breakfast of Dorset Cereal Really Nutty Muesli with a chopped apple, some fresh raspberries and soy milk.

This may just be my favourite muesli out of all the Dorset Cereal muesli I’ve been sampling. Its packed with big chunks of almonds, brazil nuts, cashew nuts, hazelnuts and big fat raisins, dates and pieces of dried apricots.

For lunch I toasted a thick slice of my home made soda bread and smothered it with proper butter (got to love buttered toast!) I also had an omelette made with 1 egg, 2 egg whites and filled with two sliced babybel light. I also had some sugar snap peas on the side.

I then made myself a berry smoothie using frozen strawberries, frozen mixed berries, a heaped tablespoon of Greek yoghurt, soy milk and a couple of ice cubes. I topped the smoothie with another big spoonful of yoghurt, some agave syrup and a few fresh raspberries.

Just delicious!

Mid afternoon I had a mug of teapigs chocolate flake tea along with a mystery flavoured Nakd bar!

Oh my this was good! I wish I could tell you what flavour it was but basically its one of my favourite flavour combos and it was everything I was hoping it would be. I can see me bulk buying some of these when they come out, delish!

Dinner was of course, pasta! I made up some wholemeal pasta and added some sautéed courgette, spinach and red pepper along with some chopped basil and tomato, beef mince and mushroom sauce which I’d had stored in the freezer. I also had a salad of cos lettuce and sugar snap peas that I couldn’t finish from lunch.

For desert I made my now ritual pre long distance run favourite of banana softserve made with two frozen bananas, soy milk, 2 ice cubes, some matcha green tea powder and 3 chopped dates all blended up and topped with a further two chopped dates.

Rocket fuel! I’m now pretty stuffed :-)

Thanks for all your well wishes and advice to yesterdays post. I really feel I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. The plan tomorrow is to be up bright and early, breakfast on porridge with banana then make my way to my parents house who will drop us at the metro station so we can make our way to the starting line. My hubby and parents are going to meet me at the finish line and one of my friends is coming to cheer me on – I just hope I spot her! After the race we are all going out to my parents favourite Italian restaurant for a meal. I think the thought of a proper Italian thin crust veggie topped pizza will be more than enough to get me through the race!

I’d forgot to mention this before but if anyone is interested in sponsoring me here is my Just Giving Page. I’m running for Cancer Research UK, a cause very close to my heart as we lost the Hubby’s Mum to cancer 3 years ago (she was only in her Forties). I’ve also lost a good friend to breast cancer. Right now my cousin is fighting Lymphoma – she’s only 29 years old. I’m honoured to be running in memory and in celebration of these people.

Completing the Great North Run is not only achieving one of my ‘life goals’ but its almost the culmination of my healthy living journey so far. I never dreamt I’d be fit enough to run 13.1 miles. I know I’m certainly not the fastest runner, and never will be (lets just say I don’t have a typical runners figure!) but just getting to that finish line will be a huge achievement for me. Like I said yesterday I’m not going out with any target time in mind as I just want to enjoy the day. I’ll save setting my PB for another race…oh my god I just said another race! I think I may be hooked on this running thing ;-)

Good night everyone, wish me luck x

We had a great time last night seeing Joe Bonnamassa, he put on a really great show and his guitar playing is amazing. We had a Subway and a coffee while we waited for the gig to start.

 

I had a small turkey sub with lettuce, cucumber, green pepper, red onion and sweet chilli sauce on wheat bread and a massive skinny gingerbread latte from Costa. The coffee was delicious but perhaps a little too sweet. My outfit for the night:

Hat: Accessorize, Blazer: Topshop, Jeweled Bib Necklace: Topshop, Black T Shirt: Gap, Skinny Jeans: Topshop, Bag: H&M, Boots: Peacocks

For breakfast I had a bowl of Dorset Cereal Fruit and Fibre with a chopped nectarine, teaspoon of ground flax mix and some soy milk.

Really tasty and totally hit the spot. Mid morning I snacked on some hummus with carrot and cucumber for dipping.

This was the hummus I bought from the deli in Durham and it was delicious, the best I’ve tasted I think.

Lunch was some chickpea and olive salad followed by an orange.

 

Before I left work for the gym I had a some pieces of dried pineapple and a few almonds.

I had my usual Monday night gym workout of 30 minutes of HIITs, abs exercises and 30 minute spinning class which exhausted me!

For dinner I had half a large sweet potato with cottage cheese mixed with cucumber and spring onion plus some spinach on the side.

I really love this combo, sweet potatoes are the best! Desert was a smoothie in a bowl made with a scoop of nutty berry spirutein powder, soy milk and ice cubes topped with some coconut and a sliced braeburn apple.

Yesterday before the gig I had a bit of a mooch around Newcastle including calling into Fenwick the department store to tease myself in the food hall. I got so excited when I spotted these:

Canned pumpkin! I have only seen these available on the web for £3.99 a tin, these where £1.99 each and I bought three. I also got a graham cracker crumb crust. I’m thinking of trying to make a pumpkin pie!

I also bought the jumper dress I’d seen in Miss Selfridge on Saturday :-)

Today I received a little parcel of goodies from Goodness Direct:

RAW Spicy Orange Chocolate bar, dried figs and a mango and brazil bar. Can’t wait to try all of these. I really like Goodness Direct, they have a fantastic range. Once I’ve started to work on my stock pile of healthy goodies I’ll be placing an order.

Have you had canned pumpkin before? I can’t wait to try out some different recipes: pumpkin porridge, pumpkin yoghurt, pumpkin bread the list goes on! I still have my big pumpkin to eat first though :-)

It was a perfect autumn morning when I woke up – bright but chilly and fresh. I’m so happy that its now officially autumn!

I started my day with a speedy run on the treadmill at the gym. I did:

0 – 0.5 miles – 6mph

0.5 – 1 miles – 6.5mph

1 – 1.5 miles – 7mph

1.5 – 2 miles – 6.5 with 30 sec sprints to 7.5mph

2 – 2.5 miles – 6.2mph

2.5 – 3 miles – 6.7mph

3 – 3.5 miles – 7.2mph

3.5 – 4 miles – 6.7 with 30 sec sprints at 7.7mph

I knocked that out in just under 36 minutes. I was really happy that I managed to increase my speeds in the 2nd half. I headed home and then stretched with some Yoga for Runners.

I was working late tonight so I decided to start work a little later than usual which meant I could enjoy a lazy breakfast. I made a wonderful smoothie -

Laura’s Supercharged Smoothie (serves one hungry person)

• 1 ripe banana
• Handful of spinach
• 1 1/2 cups of mixed frozen berries
• 1 large tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter
• 1 small pot of Total 0% fat Greek Yoghurt
• Splash of soy milk

Optional supercharged ingredients -

• 1 tablespoon of wheat germ (for more info on wheat germ see here)
• 1/4 teaspoon of matcha green tea powder

For topping: (optional)

• 1/2 teaspoon of raw cacao powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of desicated coconut
• drizzle of maple syrup

Put all the ingredients in a blender and wizz until smooth, serve in a bowl with toppings. Devour!

This was exactly what I needed after my run, perfect for refueling as it contains a great mix of carbs, protein and healthy fats plus antioxidants and vitamins.

For lunch I had some leftovers from last nights dinner: Stir Fried Cauliflower with Tahini Sauce with mixed salad.

I also had three fresh figs

Mid afternoon I snacked on two sliced jazz apples sprinkled with cinnamon and maca powder.

I didn’t get home until 7.30 so I just warmed up some soup for dinner – Courgette and Watercress. I couldn’t even be bothered to put it in a proper bowl!

I then had a couple of frozen chocolate avocado cups sprinkled with coconut for desert.

I’ve also just had another apple to try and fill me up!

Yesterday I was very excited to receive this amazing selection of Dorsets Cereals goodies. I have muesli:

And cereals:

I can not wait to try these varieties out! I’m already a big fan of the Berries and Cherries and Roasted and Toasted muesli. As usual I’ll review as I go then a box of whichever variety is my favourite shall find its way into my big GIVEAWAY prize!

So autumn is here! I love autumn, its pretty much my favourite season. Here is why:

Bright, fresh mornings:

The colours:

 

The fashion:

 

Fruit crumbles (yum!):

Halloween:

Bonfire Night:

 

All images from www.weheartit.com

What’s your favourite thing about autumn?

Thanks for your comments to yesterdays post about how you deal with stress. It was really interesting hearing about the different ways that stress effects our eating. Apart from a few spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt before bed time I avoided any major blow outs. I also got my work done and was happy to hit the ‘submit’ button this morning!

Before I went to work I headed to the gym for a quick workout – 30 minutes of HIITs with a 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by some sit ups on the stability ball and a plank and side planks.

For breakfast I had some chopped melon topped with 0% Total Greek Yoghurt and some of my new Dorset Cereals Tasty Toasted Spelt Muesli.

I really liked this muesli, it seemed a lot less ‘dense’ than other muesli as the spelt flakes were very light. It was also packed with dried fruit, nuts and seeds including yummy dried pineapple chunks.

It was a busy morning as we were preparing for our big event to celebrate our organisations 10th Birthday. I snacked on an unpictured apple as I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be hitting the buffet starving as this would usually lead to me making some less than healthy choices! As it turned out the buffet was pretty healthy anyway. I had 3 small wholemeal wraps, 2 with smoked salmon and cream cheese and one with tuna. I also had a small wholemeal ham sandwich and lots of hummus with cucumber, carrot and pepper for dipping.

I also had a glass of watered down orange juice. The event went very well, we had an amazing group of young people perform as the entertainment – they were incredibly talented! The event was a great celebration of the 10 years of work my charity has done with the community and was such good fun!

Mid afternoon I had some of the birthday cake with strawberries.

I had this little bite sized slice x 2 plus more strawberries.

Unfortunately all the refined sugar in the cake gave me a crazy sugar high and then left me crashing and completely starving by 5pm. I came home and instead of waiting to have dinner I just made it straight away. I had some of my Summer Bean Stew that had been defrosted from my frozen stash with a little added tomato sauce, some kallo rosemary crackers and a few spicy roasted chickpeas thrown on top.

I’d picked the spicy roasted chickpeas up from a market stall last week and they were gorgeous added to the bean stew.

I then had another apple, chopped and sprinkled with cinnamon.

I had to really stop myself snacking on anything else as I was just ravenous. I managed to hold off until 7pm then made myself this energy giving green monster. I’m planning a big run in the morning so I decided to fill it full of energy giving ingredients:

Energising Green Monster (makes 1 big serving)

• 1 frozen banana
• handful of spinach
• 4 chopped dates
• Soy milk (or any other milk)
• 1 tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
• 3 ice cubes
• 2 tablespoons of muesli as a topping (or your choice of topping)
• 1 tablespoon of wheat germ (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of maca powder (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon of matcha green tea (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum (optional)

Chuck all the ingredients in a blender and wizz till smooth. Top with the muesli.

A bowl full of green goodness, I didn’t want it to end! In case anyone was wondering, the reason why I eat my smoothies in a bowl is firstly because I like them extra thick, and secondly because it takes me longer to eat them that way and makes them feel more filling. I have a tendency to just knock back smoothies in a glass in 10 seconds!  While I’ve been training I’ve really found that bananas and dates are my super fuel and eating them the night before a long run tends to do the trick, so I’m hoping that this smoothie will leave me well charged up in the morning.

I’m still feeling extremely snacky – I’ve just stood in the kitchen and ate more muesli straight from the box with a spoon! I’m not going to be too hard on myself as I haven’t had a snack attack like this for a while, and at least I should be able to burn some of it off with my run tomorrow.

Yesterday I mentioned that I had been sent some more goodies to sample:

Beet It Organic Stamina Shots – kindly sent to me by James White Drinks. This is an unusual product and I’m really looking forward to trying it. Basically these are small shots of pure concentrated organic beetroot juice cut with some lemon juice. 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’

I’m going to be trying these out before my gym workouts and seeing how I go. Each shot is one of your 5 a day too. I also have 2 shots to add to my big GIVEAWAY prize coming soon.

What’s your favourite exercise fuel? Alongside the bananas and dates I love my natural bars such as Nakd and 9 bars and any kind of dried fruit seems to work well for me too. Do you always fuel for a workout or do you ever workout without eating at all? I’m interested to see how the Beet It Shots will work as workout fuel for me.

So glad we’ve hit the weekend! What does everyone have planned? As I mentioned earlier I’m planning on running 13 miles in the morning as my final really long run before the Great North Run (only 2 weeks away!) I’m also planning more cooking and baking, cleaning and tidying, grocery shopping and sorting out some old autumn / winter clothing for ebay. Hopefully some chill time too! Hope you all have a fantastic weekend whatever your up to x

Can’t believe that Monday has come round so quick again, hope you’ve all had a good day!

First of all I’d like to thank everyone who has left a comment on my GIVEAWAY post, its so lovely and interesting to hear what it is that you like about the blog. The GIVEAWAY is open until Friday so go and check it out if you haven’t already :-)

Breakfast was a bowl of Dorset Cereals High Fibre Muesli with strawberries and soy milk.

Mid morning I snacked on half a tub of cottage cheese with goji berries and mixed seeds.

Lunch was a delicious bowl of my Chilli Bean Soup along with a few juicy plums.

I also had a Beet It Shot before heading to the gym after work.

I did my scheduled 30 minutes of HIITs on the step machine and cross trainer and then some abs and core exercises before heading into my spinning class. It was great! I increased the resistance a bit more than last week and I ended up with a great workout. I’m so glad I got over my little bit of nervousness about attending classes. I also wore the new leggings I blogged out at the weekend. They were so comfortable, I love them! The brand name on them is Central Park, they were only £9.99 in TK Maxx in case anyone wants to check them out!

Dinner was something I haven’t had in ages that used to be an old favourite – baked sweet potato topped with cottage cheese. I mixed some finely chopped cucumber and red onion into the cottage cheese and also had some spinach on the side.

It was so tasty and satisfying, I love the hot sweet baked potato and the cool savoury cottage cheese, mmm!

For desert I needed to use up the last of the strawberries as they were definitely on the turn so I blended them with some ice cubes, soy milk and agave syrup to make a smoothie and then added two crumbled apple, blueberry and cinnamon protein muffins.

Like strawberry soup with muffin croutons!

Do you have any ‘old favourite’ meals that you haven’t had in ages? Back when I used to eat the same thing over and over baked potatoes were my thing. I’m glad I get a lot more variety in my eats now, although sometimes its good to enjoy your favourites!

I’ve had a day of deep thinking about the whole blogging thing, partly due to the shocking Marie Clare article about some of the healthy living bloggers in the US. I guess I just realised how much blogging has affected my life and how much I value being able to share my passions for food, fitness, fashion and health as well as the enormous amount of inspiration I’ve gained from reading other blogs. Sometimes I also worry whether my blog content is the best it can be, is blogging daily eats the right format, should I be doing reviews etc but at the end of the day everyone has their own blogging style and this is mine, I guess you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t like it!

So, thank you everyone who reads, you have no idea how much I value your comments and being able to share my passions with you!

Right, I’m off for a cuppa, I have a fancy for a tea pigs popcorn tea! Catch you later :-)