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What a great week its been so far, I’m just loving this spring weather :-)

Breakfast on Monday was a big bowl of fresh mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries) with a huge portion of my home mixed muesli and sesame milk:

This muesli is awesome. I basically mixed together lots of random nuts, seeds and dried fruits that needed to be used up with some jumbo oats. This included: dried figs, dried apricots, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, raisins, dried pineapple, dried cherries, dried strawberries, dried blueberries, dried cranberries, goji berries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and chia seeds. I have a massive jar of this which should last me for a while I hope! The sesame milk is also particularly good, will definitely become a new staple in my diet along with almond milk.

Monday’s lunch was a hummus topped salad containing romaine lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red pepper and yellow pepper then some watered down home made chickpea hummus (I mixed it all in as a dressing) topped with some viva pure spicy pumpkin seeds. I also had two sweet white nectarines:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a lemon cashew hemp bar before hitting the gym. I did my usual 30 minute HIIT session on the cross trainer and step machine plus abs and core and 30 minute spin class.

Dinner was two veggie loaf stuffed baked mushrooms with swede and parsnip mash, raw carrot and steamed savoy cabbage with shoyu:

I still love these stuffed mushrooms, so tasty! Dessert was some healthy heart conscious raw chocolate and two chopped apples:

This chocolate contains maca, vanilla and blue-green algae – I wasn’t sure what to expect taste wise but it was gorgeous as always.

This morning I was up at sun rise to fit in a quick Yoga for Runners podcast. Its so worth getting up a few minutes early to be able to fit this into my day! Breakfast was similar to yesterdays – mixed fresh berries with 2 packs of Bear coco cherry pie granola and sesame milk:

Lunch featured hummus again – this time I made some courgette and carrot veggie noodles plus sliced red and yellow pepper with a hummus and nutritional yeast sauce (hummus, nutritional yeast and water) on top of some spinach:

I also had another two juicy white nectarines.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a Peppermint Stick Luna Bar then hit the gym for Body Pump. I was a little early for my class so I snuck in a quick 10 minute interval session on the cross trainer and 10 minutes steady state on the cross trainer. The class was excellent as usual and left my muscles quivering!

Dinner was inspired by my Sausage and Tomato Rice recipe but morphed into more of a Buddha Bowl: chopped baked seitan sausage with pearl barley in a tomato sauce with onions, garlic, peas, steamed broccoli and fresh basil:

That seitan recipe is so good, this had been defrosted from frozen and still tasted great. It is especially good in recipes like this as it softens and absorbs the liquid, delicious!

Dessert was some protein ice cream made with Fruitein powder, rice milk, ice cubes and xanthan and guar gums topped with goji berries:

Now I’m officially stuffed!

I got some great news yesterday when I received the email to tell me I’d passed my first assignment on my Diet and Nutrition Advisor course. I was chuffed to bits! I’m also really looking forward to my two days off at the end of the week – and pay day! My fridge and cupboards are looking pretty empty, at least by my standards ;-)

I’m still thinking of how tasty my home mixed muesli was. Are you a fan of muesli? I love it so much – it was always my go to ‘binge’ food – I would happily eat three large bowls of it then still go back and eat it straight from the box! Now I have a little more constraint but I still love a full to the brim bowlful! If you could make your own muesli mix what would it include?

Hope you are all enjoying the Jubilee weekend so far! I thought I’d get into the spirit of things and wear my pretty vintage rose print dress:

OOTD: black leather look hooded jacket: Topshop, vintage rose printed dress: Beyond Vintage, bright pink satchel: H&M, black tights: M&S, cream flats: Next, gold cat cocktail ring: Topshop

I thought that since I was having a look round town, meeting the lovely Jess for a coffee (love meeting up with other bloggers, I feel like I could chat to Jess for ages), and then going to a little tea party for my Nephews birthday I’d make an effort!

Before all of that I had got up early to get my run in. I have to admit it took every single bit of my will power to get out there, the weather wasn’t exactly great and bed was so nice and warm! I was glad I did it though, 8.5 miles done and dusted. When I have difficulty motivating myself to run I always think about how awesome I will feel when I’m finished. Its a fantastic feeling knowing that you have achieved something and that and you have the rest of the weekend to chill!

After my run I made a gorgeous breakfast:

This was a smoothie made with papaya, full fat coconut milk, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water and ice topped with Kashi Almond Honey Flax Crunch. This was fantastic and extremely creamy, I’ve been enjoying my full fat coconut milk this weekend! I also had some in my Thai Red Soya Bean Noodle Bowl with Kabocha (this recipe but with Thai Red Curry paste instead of green):

I had roasted up a massive kabocha and it was so good to make this again! I also had the kabocha in one of my other favourite meals with raw courgette noodles featuring this beautiful veggie:

I got this sunny yellow courgette from the green grocers and spiralised half of it with a regular courgette, topped with roasted kabocha and drizzled with some sauce made with sunflower seed butter and sweet white miso:

I know squash isn’t that seasonal right now but I just never get sick of that stuff! I had the other half of the courgette in a big salad topped with hummus for lunch today:

I’ve been loving hummus topped salads recently!

I decided to freeze the leftover coconut milk as I had a few ideas about how I could use it in this way:

I thought that it would be really good just melted into a hot bowl of oats and I was right! I made some slow cooked oats on the stove top mixed with mashed banana, vanilla stevia (would also work with vanilla extract and some sweetener) and a pinch of sea salt. Then I added one of the coconut milk ice cubes on top along with a sprinkling of coconut palm sugar:

I had bought a bag of The Raw Chocolate Company coconut sugar ages ago to experiment with, it was fabulous! It melted on top, almost like caramel. I’m think those coconut milk ice cubes will be great added to coffee or a smoothie and are an excellent way to use leftover canned coconut milk. After the hot oats I cooled off with a peanut butter frappe:

This was another experiment, I blended chilled coffee, rice milk, peanut flour (peanut butter would also work) and ice with a little bit of vanilla stevia. Utterly delish!

Other tastiness was this big smoothie topped with pretzels and chocolate chips:

I had a bit of a random day of eats yesterday after eating lunch late at the tea party. By the time dinner came around all I really fancied was another smoothie! This was spinach, mixed berries and chocolate sun warrior, ice cream heaven in a bowl :-)

I’ve also been getting my bake on this weekend:

I had a couple of brown bananas needing to be used so decided to make up a new recipe. Let me tell you these are damn good! I made these especially for James featuring two of his favourite flavours: Cherry and Almond. Will share the recipe soon!

Other than that I’ve been getting prepared for my little Jubilee get together tomorrow. Its going to be tasty and just a little bit boozy, just how I like it!

How has your weekend been so far? Are you a fan of coconut milk? If you are in the UK are you doing anything to celebrate the Jubilee?

I’m not going to mention too much more about the snow even though I could fill a whole post! Its still here, its still very thick and deep but luckily I have managed to get out and about so I don’t end up with cabin fever!

Yesterday I was super happy that my gym was open. So happy that I walked up there in the bitterly (and I mean bitterly) cold to get in a good workout. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill: first 5 minutes at 6mph, next 5 at 6.5mph then next 5 at 7mph, then repeated. I then did 20 minutes on the step machine, cross trainer and bike for a total 1hr 30 minute cardio workout. I felt great afterwards – more just for getting out of the flat! Today has been a rest day then tomorrow I’m heading back for a good HIIT workout followed by some weights and core work on the stability ball.

Thanks for the comments with links to at home workouts, even thought I didn’t have to use them I now have some great ideas for home workouts if I fancy a change from doing DVD’s. Here’s the links to the resources. Thanks to Alison, Laura and Jo for pointing me in the right direction!

Body Rock TV – great body inspiration!

Ross Training – ideas for home work outs and DIY equipment

Figure Athlete – Rachel Cosgrove Metabolic workout

Food has been really tasty these past few days. I think I’ve been a little more creative than usual with being at home.

Breakfasts:

  Mixed berry cinnamon oats in a jar followed by a vanilla chai coffee

Dorset Cereals Toasted Spelt Muesli with mixed frozen fruits and a chopped apple with soy milk

Yesterdays and today’s lunch has been this salad beast:

I wasn’t kidding when I said I have been craving raw veggies! Salad contained watercress, spinach, carrot, red cabbage, cucumber, green chilli, red onion, raw cauliflower topped with Jalapeño hummus. So good and amazingly filling – I was left with a serious food baby after eating these! I also enjoyed the heat from the chilli in the salad, great way of eating something fresh but still getting some of that cold weather comfort. I’ve followed lunch with plenty of fresh fruit like this orange and sliced apple:

I had a very tasty mid afternoon snack: Rachel’s Organic Greek Yoghurt with flaked almonds and honey:

Last nights dinner was some Lentil and Root Veg Stew with roast brussels and some steamed cavolo nero plus two plums:

Tonight I made some Kabocha and Adzuki bean stew and served it with some steamed broccoli and cavolo nero, toasted seeds and parsley.

I love this simple dish. Kabocha squash is so delicious, when I saw it in Waitrose last week I bought it even though I knew I would have to lug it around with me for two hours while I shopped! I have loads left over so I’m going to try making a simple soup and a twist on my Butternut Smoothie.

Tonight’s desert was some tofutti vanilla ice cream with one of Tam’s cherry chocolate chip cookies from the cookie exchange out of the freezer:

So yummy!

I have my lovely hubby off for the weekend so earlier we had a drive to my parents to help them put their Christmas tree up, that’s my Dad and little nephew:

I felt really festive! Next weekend is going to be a bit of a baking weekend. I’ve been asked to make some low carb / sugar baked treats for my Grandma who is diabetic. I’m also going to make some vegan almond and quinoa muffins for James as he loves anything almond flavoured, and some gingerbread cookies. I can’t wait!

I’ve also been looking at turkey alternatives for Christmas lunch. If your a vegetarian or vegan what is your favourite turkey replacement for Christmas lunch? I’m thinking either lentil loaf, seitan (I still have the vital wheat gluten I ordered from the states) or some kind of legume and grain cutlets.

Today I seem to have beaten the caffeine / refined sugar withdrawal head ache I’ve had for the last couple of days. Apart from my lingering cold I’m feeling really good eating all of this healthy food! I also took all the Christmas decorations down which left me feeling sad,the room looked so empty. Its back to work for me tomorrow too – I’ve definitely got the post holiday blues!

Today’s breakfast was a big bowl of Mighty Muesli with fresh blueberries and almond milk:

It was lovely and filling and I’m still loving the almond milk (will be trying to make my own soon!)

I headed to the gym for a big cardio fest. The gym was packed – I guess everyone’s on the January health kick. I found it a bit of a pain as I had to wait for machines to become available. I did 35 min on the treadmill (running 5 minute speed intervals), 15 min on the bike, 23 min on the step machine and 20 min on the cross trainer all at a constant rate.

Lunch was a salad beast – spinach, red onion, cucumber, green pepper, carrot, alfalfa sprouts topped with home made hummus and some ground chilli and pepper:

This was wonderful, I love my hummus topped salads. I also had some fresh pineapple and some leftover blueberries:

I spent the afternoon pottering about making up some brown and wild rice and a salad dressing for next weeks lunches plus a batch of my Cherry Bakewell Babies. Instead of using cocktail cherries I used  Nakd cherry flavoured raisins. I snacked on one of these little treasures when they were done:

Yum!

I was feeling a bit stiff after this mornings workout so I decided to do a quick yoga download (Yoga for Runners) which made me feel loads better. My level 2 yoga class starts next week and I can’t wait to get back to it. Having done a proper class makes doing the podcasts much better as I know so much more about how I should be positioned within each posture.

After yoga I made another tasty juice. This one was a direct recipe from the Leon Cookbook – Allegra's Beautiful Juice. It contained carrot, ginger, orange and almond milk – an odd combo with the almond milk but it tasted fab:

Dinner was a big bowl of Kabocha soup made by blending leftover roast squash with veg stock, a teaspoon of sweet white miso and some parsley.

This was delicious, I love the velvety texture of squash soup! A little later I’m planning on having a few chopped apples topped with cinnamon and maca powder:

Last night after I posted I had the snackies so ate more grapes and apples. I’m really just going with the flow when it comes to my hunger at the moment and trying not to beat myself up if I end up eating a lot more. I had a sneaky weigh in this morning and I’ve actually lost that 4 lbs I put on over Christmas already! I now want to focus on maintaining this weight, not losing weight.

Hope you’ve all had a great Christmas and New Year break if you’ve had the time off. Anyone else got post holiday blues? In some ways I’m looking forward to getting back into a regular routine, I barely even know what day it is!

Welcome to the new look Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish! I decided to have a bit of a makeover yesterday, I hope you like it! I’ve tried to make it a bit more streamlined and pretty! I’ve updated my About and Recipes pages as well as adding some links to posts featuring OOTD’s, Workouts, What I Ate Wednesday posts, Green Smoothies and my Weight Loss tips down on the left. I would really love to know what you think!

Other than teaching myself how to use html and Photoshop (I knew my Art degree would come in useful one day!), this weekend has been pretty relaxed. I’ve been back on the coffee big time:

I added a cube of frozen full fat coconut milk which worked well to cool the coffee down a touch. It did add a bit of an oil slick on top, but it tasted great and I love me some healthy coconut fats!

Along with that coffee for breakfast, yesterday I had a simple bowl of oats with vanilla stevia, sea salt and topped with melty coconut sugar. I also had a big bowl of the most delicious sweet mango and blueberries:

For lunch I had a big salad:

Absolute gorgeousness! This included romaine, spinach, cucumber, carrot, red onion, chickpeas, avocado, fresh apricots and balsamic vinegar.

For dinner last night I made a socca fold over stuffed with mashed avocado and some leftover tempeh that I’d baked on Friday night:

Plus a big pile of broccoli of course!

Yesterday we decided to have a little trip out to the shops. I keeping saying I’m not going to buy anything but I actually found a few good bargains:

I got a pair of bright orange cloth shoes from Topshop which I got reduced because they had a tiny mark on them (£9), a spiky necklace also from Topshop (just £3.50) a little charity bracelet for £2, some great yoga pants from TK Maxx, The Maccabees and the best of The Smiths albums (2 for £10) and more of my favourite Ultrabland. I was really chuffed with those purchases!

This morning I was up for my long run, just under 9.5 miles! It was a nice relaxed and enjoyable run. I’m really chuffed with how I’m managing the increase in distance each week. I was a hungry beast when I got home and only pancakes would do! I made my chocolate hemp protein pancakes with banana, strawberries and maple peanut sauce:

Absolute heaven!

My stash of home cooked frozen beans was running low so I decided to cook up a big pan. I had been meaning to make more chickpeas but I was all out so I used the last of my dried black beans. I used a cup of the freshly cooked beans to make some black bean hummus (1 cup of black beans, 1 clove of garlic, juice from half a lemon, 2 tbsp tahini, 1 tbsp of olive oil, pinch of salt). I had some for lunch on rice cakes with avocado and veggies:

Not the most appetising colour, but tasty non the less! Other than that there has been the usual smoothies, green juice made with lots of added lime juice, some dark chocolate covered coffee beans and this grape juice slushie:

I blended some ice with grape juice and a pinch of salt (to help rehydrate me after the run). Lovely :-) Currently I am enjoying one of these:

My home made protein vanilla and grape juice ice lollies! They aren’t perfect - the protein powder separated but I do like the stripes! They taste wonderful! I just blended vanilla sun warrior with grape juice and froze in ice pop moulds.

Hope you’re having a good Sunday! Do you like the new look and what do you think of the updated About and Recipes page designs?

As I mentioned in my last post I had myself a bit of a soup making day yesterday. I said I post the recipe for this lovely soup:

Leek Potato and Bean Soup (based on a recipe in the Holford Low GL Diet Cookbook) makes 4 servings

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil or butter
• 3 leeks washed, trimmed and sliced
• 8 new potatoes, scrubbed and chopped
• 1 tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• Enough hot vegetable stock to cover the veggies

Sauté the leeks in the oil or butter on a medium heat until they have softened. Add the potatoes and veg stock and simmer until the potatoes have softened. Add the beans and simmer for another few minutes. Blend and serve.

I used new potatoes and white beans in this soup in place of regular potatoes to reduce the amount of carbs as regular potatoes never seem to fill me up. This was so lovely for dinner on a cold and windy day!

Desert was a sliced peach and pear topped with some Almond Custard made with another recipe from The Holford Low GL Diet Cookbook.

This worked wonderfully – so easy to make and very tasty! I also tried out a new to me ingredient – Xylitol. Its a naturally derived sugar alternative which like agave syrup doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels as much as regular sugar. It comes in granulated form. Has anyone used it before? What did you think?

I’m going to do a full post on the Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load really soon. This cookbook is full of some fantastic recipes and as they are all designed to balance sugar and carbs they are right up my street. They are also really simple and straightforward. My kind of cooking! The book itself is kind of laid out as a diet plan but I ignored that bit and just looked at the recipes ;-)

On to today’s eats! I made a lovely bowl of porridge using 1/2 cup Rude Health’s Fruity Date Porridge Mix made with 1/2 cup of soy milk and 1/2 cup of water. I topped it with some of my Pecan Plum Crunch Topping (2 chopped plums, 1 tablespoon of grape nuts cereal, 1 tablespoon of chopped pecans, cinnamon and agave syrup to taste)

This was delicious and tasted very seasonal!

Mid morning I snacked on some hummus with carrot and raw cauliflower for dipping.

Who knew raw cauliflower would taste so good?

Lunch was a bowl of Chilli Bean Soup I also made yesterday:

Chilli Bean Soup

• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1 chopped white onion
• 2 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 chopped carrot
• 1 chopped pepper (I used half a green pepper and a full yellow pepper)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin of kidney beans drained and rinsed
• 1 teaspoon of hot chilli powder (or to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• 2 vegetable stock cubes (I use two teaspoons of vegetable bouillon powder)
• Hot water

Begin by frying the onion and garlic in the oil over a medium heat. Once softened add the carrots and pepper. Continue to fry the veggies for a few minutes then add the beans followed by the chopped tomatoes. Keep the empty tin from the tomatoes and fill up with hot water (be careful not to burn yourself like I did!) and add two tinfuls to the pan. Add your veggie stock cubes, spices and tomato puree. Let the soup simmer for ten minutes or until the veggies have softened then serve.

I also had a couple of juicy pears with my soup.

Before leaving work for the gym I drank a Beet It Shot. Tonight was my first spinning class in about two years! I started in the gym and did 30 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer and step machine followed by some abs exercises then I went into the class. I really enjoyed it! It was a great workout and I think having the variety of a class as part of my routine is going to be great. I’m all booked in ready for next week!

For my dinner I mixed roast veggies from yesterday with some basil tofu and warmed it up in the microwave then served it on top of some spinach and cos lettuce.

Desert was defrosted mixed berries with half a tub of cottage cheese, agave syrup and cinnamon.

I can’t believe how dark and cold it has been today. I think I’ll be eating a lot of soup over the colder months! Now that I have my new blender I’m going to try and make some vegetable and fruit juices so that I’m still getting plenty of raw food in my diet. Over the summer I was eating lots of raw fruit and vegetables in salads and I feel great for it, I want to be able to keep it up as much as possible!

Do you make an effort to eat raw fruits and vegetables? What do you do in the winter to keep this up when salads don’t seem so appealing?