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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 :-)

Hello everyone, happy weekend! Hope you have had a fantastic week :-) Its been a crazy one for me, I feel like I have so much on my plate at the moment I’m just trying to hold it all together. I find that when I haven’t had my usual weekend to get stuff done I end up playing catch up all week, however I am going to…

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…and get on with what needs to be done!

As I said in my WIAW and Monthly review post, I’m currently focusing in a little on my diet to help me get my sparkle back after feeling a bit under the weather for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been enjoying lots of green smoothies and healthy fats to get that glow and it has been working really well! I have continued having an ACV drink each morning and I’ve also been incorporating in this oil and supplement which I was sent to review from Goodness Direct, for an added boost:

Alongside that I have been avoiding sugar, sweeteners and my beloved shoyu sauce for the last 5 days. The only sweet foods I have had has been in the form of fruit, sweet veggies, the odd bite of raw chocolate (a girl has to live!) and sun warrior protein powder which contains some stevia. I have to say I’ve been amazed at the results! My palate seems to have been refreshed and foods that did not previously taste as sweet now pop with flavour.

Smoothie with kale, blueberries, vanilla sun warrior, coconut oil, maca powder, Viridian skin oil

I’m certainly not about to ditch sugar, sweeteners or salty condiments altogether as I enjoy them too much, however I think I will be trying to be a touch more moderate about how I use them in future. As well as improvements in my sense of taste I also seem to have almost beaten this cold out altogether, my energy levels have been more staple and and I’m sleeping the best I’ve slept in ages! 

Smoothie with romaine, a peach, vanilla sun warrior, two tbsp of tahini, Viridian skin oil, maca powder

This weeks workouts:

• Saturday – At the festival so walking, squatting, walking, walking, squatting, walking
• Sunday – Ditto the above + carrying bags back to car
• Monday – REST - good heavens I needed it!
• Tuesday – 30 minutes cardio on machines in gym, Muscle Mix class
• Wednesday – Hot Yoga at Yogalilies 
• Thursday – Level 2 Full Moon Vinyasa yoga class from Yogaglo 
• Friday – Gym – this strength and HIIT workout with increased weights on some exercises

I can honestly say that using portaloos for 3 days straight does wonders for your quads, I have perfected my squatting technique put it that way ;-) I had thought about hitting the gym when we got back on Monday but that would have been really stupid, that day of complete rest was exactly what my body needed!

I was also super excited when I came back into work on Tuesday and found a few deliveries waiting for me, first up my welcome pack for IIN:

This is wonderful, it contained quite a few resources including a great journal for 3 months that helps you to look at your lifestyle, diet and well pretty much everything. I can’t wait to get started! I also had my first conference call with other IIN students and it was just incredible to hear what an amazing bunch of people I’m learning with!

I’ve also been starting to link with MyProtein. I used to purchase products from MyProtein a lot in the past and since then they have massively widened their product range. I was kindly sent some of their Coconpure oil (organic virgin coconut oil) and Almond butter to try out:

Oh my god, that almond butter! It is a huge bucket full of pure drippy almond butter heaven. No other added ingredients just pure almonds! I had to drive straight in and have some on a sweet potato with broccoli for my usual pre hot yoga meal:

Fab as usual!

A little while ago I was also invited to try out some salad veggies from Good Natured. Unfortunately my local Asda store only had the peppers in stock (the range includes tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines too) so I also bought some strawberries:

The Good Natured range are free from pesticides but not certified organic, which I know for some farmers is a costly process even when they still do not use pesticides. I have to say those peppers tasted are the best I’ve tasted in a long time! I decided to make my Veggie Chilli with them and it was lovely:

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of making a chilli sooner to help fight my cold! I added two cloves of garlic and a tonne of hot chilli powder to this, yum yum!

I’ve also been doing the usual salad thing:

And I’ve been eating a boat load of avocadoes (only 39p each in Aldi right now!) I made an amazing chilled soup, I’m going to perfect the recipe over the weekend and share it with you next week its so good!

On the Love List this week…

A shit load of veggies! (and tahini, going through almost a jar a week)

As I talked about at the top of the post, dialling up the green smoothies and veggies in general this week has been wonderful. I feel like I have a renewed appreciation for them this week as I’ve slowed down and really savoured their taste. Also…

snacking on raw nuts macadamias, walnuts and cashews, nuts have not been safe from me this week! // the home collection at Urban Outfitters, refreshing the decor in our flat is on my list to do soon! // The lovely Christina blogged about clothing brand Olive, so my style and pretty affordable! // just one week until my birthday!

In case you missed it:

• What I got up to at Kendal Calling music festival!
• My review of July and aims for August
• My July faves Vlog

How has this week been for you? What’s on your love list? How often do you stop and really take time to taste your food?

I can’t believe that its Thursday already! This week seems to have flown over, at least it is not long until the weekend :-)

On Wednesday morning I hit the gym before work for one of the toughest workouts I’ve done in ages! I started with 30 minutes on the treadmill:

• 5 min – 6.0mph (warm up)
• 5 min – 6.8 mph
• 5 min – 7.3 mph
• 5 min – 7 mph
• 5 min – 7.5 mph
• 5 min – 30 second intervals 7mph:8mph

I thought I was going to die by the time I got to the 30 second intervals at the end! I followed that with 10 minutes x 3 of intervals on the cross trainer, bike and rowing machine (total 30 minutes) and my abs and core exercises. This was a proper lung busting workout. I always push myself when I workout, but for the majority of workouts its more around level 6 - 8 on my ‘scale of difficulty’ – the treadmill section of this workout was at level 10! What ‘level’ do you perform most of your workouts at?

Today I was up early again for a quick 15 minute yoga flow from Slim Calm Sexy Yoga – I was feeling really tired but once I’d done this I felt much more awake. Tonight I was at the gym for some upper body weights (the same as in this post) and 30 minutes of intervals on the cardio machines.

My eats have been quite lovely as usual! I indulged in another green smoothie yesterday for breakfast:

This contained kale, 2 pears, frozen strawberries and blueberries, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, maca, mesquite, spirulina, water and xanthan and guar gum for thickness. I topped it with some Rude Health granola, pistachios and flaked almonds. Yummy!

This morning I had a porridge craving so I made up some Rude Health Fruity Date porridge (1/2 cup of porridge, 1/2 cup of hemp milk, 1 cup of water on the stove) and added a chopped apple, some black strap molasses, pumpkin seeds and goji berries:

I picked up the jar of molasses (a by product of refining sugar) on offer last week as I had read that it is a good source of iron as well as calcium. Eating it with the apple and goji berries will have also boosted my intake of the iron as eating vitamin C rich foods with iron rich foods supports its absorption. A quick warning though – the molasses have a very strong taste – it was lovely once stirred in with all the other ingredients but on its own = not so nice! Have you tried blackstrap molasses before? What did you think?

Lunches have been the same smoked sesame tofu salad with peanut, lime and soy dressing (peanut flour, lime juice, soy sauce) plus fruit:

Still loving my salad beasts! This dressing would go equally as well with chicken instead of tofu for non veggies.

Dinner both evenings has been roasted beets, sweet potato and broccoli with mixed seeds, parsley and a balsamic mustard dressing on top of a big pile of spinach:

Sometimes I forget how good simple roasted veggies can be, this was absolutely delicious!

I’ve also enjoyed some frozen chocolate peanut butter avocado cups…

…and a carton of vanilla soy milk blended with some mixed frozen berries and xanthan gum to make a lovely dessert:

I saw some little cartons in the health food shop and thought I’d give them a try:

I don’t buy soy milk on a regular basis now as I don’t want to consume too much soy and prefer to eat my soy as tofu, tofu yoghurt and whole soya beans The carton contained 9.5g of protein – so great for after my workout and tasted fab, especially blended with the berries!

At the weekend I decided to place on order with Goodness Direct as they were offering a pretty good discount deal. While the offer was available I thought I might as well stock up on a few of my harder to find favourite items plus a couple of new things:

I stocked up on more coconut flour, tamari and sesame rice cakes x 2, soya sauce ramen noodles x 3, cocoa mint nakd bars x 4, Suma salted organic crunchy peanut butter, Alara in the garden goji and cranberry muesli, Lizzies treacle and pecan granola, organic soya beans x 2, tropical wholefoods apricot kernals, and a free little snack packet of pumpkin seeds. I’ll be doing my Clearspring review soon but as you can see I love the rice cakes and ramen noodles so much I wanted to buy more! I’m also looking forward to trying the muesli and granola as they both sound delicious!

Although my cupboards are very well stocked my fridge is now barren so I can’t wait to make a trip to the shops tomorrow to re stock on fresh fruit and veggies :-)

Hope you have all had a good week, and everyone here in the UK has enjoyed the nice weather!

I’m still pretty buzzing from that ace workout yesterday, and this evenings was pretty tough too! What was the last super tough workout you did? What made it so tough?

…but first I just have to share a couple of tasty eats from over the last couple of days!

Yesterdays breakfast:

Butternut smoothie made with roast and frozen butternut squash blended with vanilla rice milk, cinnamon, ground ginger and a dash of vanilla extract topped with treacle granola, crystallised ginger and almond butter sauce (1 tbsp of almond butter mixed with a little hot water from the kettle until drippy – so good, you get much more nut butter this way and that melty texture). I had so many of these back in autumn, and yes this tasted a little autumnal to be eating in June, but oh so good!

This mornings breakfast:

Teeccino Almond Amaretto herbal ‘coffee’ and Peanut butter puffins cereal (both from my iHerb order, more on that in a mo) with strawberries and soy milk. I loved the peanut butter puffins, so delicious paired with the strawberries!

Dinner the last couple of days has been the most gorgeous Sausage and Tomato Rice made with some of my seitan sausage, plus steamed asparagus, spring greens and broccoli:

Last nights dessert was some wonderful carob protein ice cream:

1 scoop of chocolate sun warrior protein powder, vanilla rice milk, 1 tbsp of carob powder, ice, water, stevia, xanthan and guar gums, carob flakes and choc covered sunflower seeds, nom!

Workouts have been the usual stuff, Yoga for Runners again yesterday morning, 3,2,1 gym workout last night and a quick and speedy 45 minute interval and abs and core gym session this morning before work – I love my Friday morning workouts!

Grocery shop round up

As I said a few posts back I thought it might be useful to post the details of some of my grocery shops as I struggle to try and save money. Here’s my grocery shops from this week, plus a few special deliveries!

Monday:

Organic soy milk x 2, happy eggs x 6, romaine, bag of mixed leaves, strawberries, unwaxed lemons, cooked ham, ginger, cucumber, living parsley, courgettes, red onions, white onions, sugar snaps: Total £16.54

Thursday:

Spring greens, mushrooms, organic broccoli, asparagus, romaine lettuce, jazz apples x 2, strawberries, skimmed milk (James is back on the dairy), frozen peas, brita water filter – Total £16.59

Today’s organic veg box:

Bunched onions, summer greens, radishes, little gem lettuce, aubergine, asparagus, tomatoes, apples, nectarines, cantaloupe melon and bag of potatoes and wet garlic (both included for free!): total £16.75 I can’t wait to get cooking with these beautiful organic veggies!

iHerb order:

My first time ordering using the airmail option. I wanted to get more stevia to stock up (addicted to this stuff!), raw crackers as my One Lucky Duck bag is almost empty, Peanut Butter Puffins – I had to try these after seeing them on Nicky’s blog, and some Almond Amaretto Caffeine free Teeccino as I love the Chocolate Mint version I bought in NYC. Total with shipping $28.70 /approx £17.50

Goodness Direct Order:

I decided that I would make good use of the discount code I have available and place an order to stock up on some of my faves and some new stuff. I got Vita Coco 100% Pure Coconut Water x 4, Biona Organic Soya Beans x 3, Dorset Cereals Tasty Low-Fat Flakes Apple Cherry Raspberry & Cranberry, Provamel Organic Natural Yofu x 2, Sojade Natural Soy Yoghurt with Bifidus, Clear Spot Organic Tofu Smokey, Taifun Basil Tofu, Taifun Tofu Rosso, Taifun Beechwood Smoked Tofu, Meridian Organic Cashew Butter, Yogi Tea Green Chai, Yogi Tea Sweet Chilli Mexican Spice, Mapletons Fru Grains, sesame date bar (included free!) Total with discount £33.58    

Not too bad on the money saving front, even though this seems like a lot it will last for a long while. I did make a good saving on the Goodness Direct order which has well and truly stocked my fridge and cupboards, I was also quite happy that the refrigerated stuff has good long use by dates well into July. As I’ve bought a couple of smaller shops nothing has been wasted either. Obviously the iHerb order was a bit of a one off (promise!), at least I saved on the usual DHL shipping and customs charges. My plan for the rest of the month is to use up as much as possible from what I already have, just supplementing with fresh fruit and veggies.

June Sponsors GIVEAWAY!

Keeping Healthy and Getting Stylish June Sponsors Rude Health and Cosy Tea have kindly provided some awesome prizes for my June giveaway!

5 lucky winners will each receive a pack of the new Rude Health Apple and Cinnamon 7 Grain Granola:

This is tasty stuff!

A further 2 winners will receive a full set of the complete Cosy Tea range:

This includes the following varieties:

• Breakfast
• Earl Grey
• Rooibos with Vanilla
• Chamomile
• Lemon Green
• Jasmine Green
• Peppermint
• Blueberry

To enter (each of these counts as a single entry – please leave a separate comment for each one):

• Leave a comment to this post with your favourite flavour tea or favourite flavour granola :-)
• Follow me via Google Friend Connect or ‘like’ my Facebook page (links under the ‘follow me’ section on the right) or follow me on Blog Lovin or Twitter and leave a comment below stating that you have done so
• Tweet about this giveaway mentioning @keephealthstyle and leave a comment below stating you have done so
• Post about this giveaway with a link back to this post on your blog and leave a comment below stating that you have done so

Giveaway open to UK residents only (sorry International friends!) and closes at 12am GMT Friday 17th June 2011, good luck!