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Hi everyone, hope your all having a brilliant week and enjoying the first day of February! Here I am for yet another WIAW...

These are my eats and goings on from Monday. I had a completely different Monday to usual because I was going to yoga on the evening I didn't hot foot it to the gym first thing as usual. It was nice to be able to have a relaxed morning, plus I had even more time available as we had a planning day for work so I didn't need to be in until 10am. I started off with the usual warm water and lemon then made a big fresh juice:

This is my current favourite blend with beetroot, carrot, choi sum (my green grocer is selling this really cheap right now)cucumber and ginger. I added some matcha to it as well. After getting dressed I made a bowl of porridge:

This was just a simple bowl made with oats and water cooked slowly on the stove top. I added a little stevia and then topped with Clearspring blueberry jam and peanut flour paste. When I added it on top I thought it started to look like a ying and yang symbol so I added the dots, I'm so mature I know ;-)

I also had a lovely coffee:

This was cinnamon and hazelnut and hit the spot!

We had our planning day in the upstairs room of a local restaurant that we usually use for team building days called Oldfields. After a morning of planning we had a delicious lunch. I started with the butterbean hummus and rapeseed oil dipping board:

I had this the last time I was here and it was delicious! For my main I just had a plate made up of various side dishes such as roast root veg, roast new potatoes and greens. I added some of the left over hummus on the side:

For dessert I had an apple and sultana compote:

Yum! After we finished our day I went and got some fruit and veg from my favourite green grocer before coming home. For dinner I made myself a big salad:

This included romaine lettuce, crumbled nori, carrot, avocado, sea veggie sprinkles, pumpkin seeds, olives and braggs liquid aminos.

Then I headed off to my new yoga class! The class was very different to what I was used to, when I have done taught yoga before it has been Ashtanga so quite brisk. This class was much, much slower paced, I didn't break a sweat at all, which I know doesn't have to be the point with yoga, but for me I think I prefer something a bit more challenging. We did do some interesting partner poses, and I did feel extremely relaxed by the end of the class. I also enjoyed this class for being a bit more spiritual. I'm not sure if I'm going to make this a regular thing, at £5 a class its not cheap. I'm thinking I might occasionally visit this class when I feel like I need chilling out!

When I got home it was getting pretty late but I was a bit hungry so I made up a 'vanilla cookie' green smoothie with spinach, romaine, cookies and cream spiru-tein powder, vanilla stevia, water and ice. I also chucked in some maca powder and a couple of chlorella tablets in for good measure:

This was delicious but unfortunately things started to go down hill from there. I ended up in bed at 9pm shivering uncontrollably even when I had a hot water bottle. That was followed by a restless night and waking up yesterday morning feeling like I'd been hit by a bus. I have no idea what it was but I haven't felt that poorly in a long time, I spent most of yesterday unable to get out of bed. Luckily I started to pick up and have been much better today although my manager has just sent me home, I hate being ill!

So I’m thinking I need to look at some other yoga class options to find something that suits me better. I’ve been looking at my gym class time table and I’m thinking of doing more juggling to find classes that will fit in with my schedule. Are you a yoga fan? What kind of yoga do you prefer?

Thanks for the comments to my 2011 Kick Start Plan. It was really interesting reading your thoughts about detoxes. As I said in that post, I guess this is a kind of detox, but its more about making a focused effort to eat better, look after myself and be a little kinder to myself too.

Waking up on New Years Day there was only one thing I was craving - a big super green monster! This one contained leftover spinach, watercress and rocket, 1 frozen banana, 2 ice cubes, almond milk, 2 chopped dates, 1 teaspoon of maca powder, 1 teaspoon of spirulina, 1 teaspoon of ground flax and a few drops of milk thistle tincture. I topped it with some goji berries and also had a small glass of orange juice with echinacea tincture and a mug of detox tea.

After visiting the family we came home and I made a tasty lunch of courgette ‘pasta’ with a tomato, basil, garlic and mushroom sauce.

I also had a fruit salad containing 2 figs, 3 satsumas, 1 plum and a chopped apple.

Mid afternoon I finally got to try out my new juicer! I made a juice with 2 apples, 6 small carrots, 2 handfuls of kale and a chunk of fresh ginger:

It was utterly delicious! I also had my first go at popping corn in the microwave. I managed to get a couple of cupfuls of plain pop corn before I ended up burning the rest and ruining my favourite plastic tub :-( Plain air popped corn is only about 30 calories a cup and contains plenty of fibre so I thought this would make a great snack. I also had a few brazil nuts:

Dinner was some Kabocha Squash and Adzuki Bean Stew with steamed cabbage, mixed seeds and shoyu:

I still really love this dish, its so simple but full of flavour and really good for you.

Dessert was an experimental recipe!

Super Charged Nutty Berry ‘Ice Cream’

• 1 cup of mixed  frozen‘black forest’ berries
• 1/2 cup of frozen raspberries
• Non diary milk (I used almond)
• 1/2 cup of fresh orange juice
• 4 ice cubes
• 20mls acai berry juice
• 1 tablespoon of almond butter

Blend all ingredients until smooth, using enough milk / orange juice to get a thick consistency. Serve with flaked almonds:

This tasted wonderful and made a huge bowlful. I can see me eating lots of this over the next few weeks!

Today I had a lovely comforting bowl of porridge for breakfast. I used 1/2 cup of rude health fruity date oats, 1 1/2 cups of water, 1 tablespoon of wheat germ, 1 chopped apple, 1 teaspoon of ground flax and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. I topped my bowl with a spoonful of peanut butter:

I also had a cup of detox tea. The porridge was lovely, it was actually quite nice to have a plainer bowl of oats after all of the crazy toppings I’ve been adding lately (i.e. cookies and sugar stars!) The peanut butter went all melty and was delicious!

I hit the gym when it opened at 10. I did 1 hour of HIITs on the step machine, cross trainer and bike followed by some abs exercises. I’m waiting until I’ve completely recovered from this cold until I start to change up my HIIT routine.

Lunch was leftover Kabocha and Adzuki Bean Stew and cabbage same as last night. I also had a plate of fresh pineapple as I had picked one up from the reduced section and I love fresh pineapple!

Mid afternoon I made myself another juice. This one contained 1 apple, 1 stick of celery, 4 inch chunk of cucumber, 2 handfuls of kale and a piece of fresh ginger:

I also added some spirulina and some milk thistle and echinacea tincture. While me and the hubby watched movies I snacked on a bowl of grapes and had a tea pigs Winter Spiced Tea:

For dinner I had some home made hummus with 2 RAW Italian crackers, carrot sticks and cucumber:

This hummus just tasted divine and reminded me that I should make it myself whenever possible! For dessert I made a smoothie in a bowl using 2 plums, 2 figs, 2 dates, 2 ice cubes and some hazelnut and almond rice milk. I topped it with some granola.

This was lovely!

So there’s my eats from the first two days of 2011, so far so good! Its great to be ramping up the fruit and veggies again, especially in the form of juice. Are you a fan of fresh fruit and veggie juices? Do you own a juicer? What’s your favourite juice blend?

What a wonderful weekend it has been! The weather has been gorgeous and I got to spend some time with my fantastic friends and my cousin. I hadn’t seen them in a couple of weeks and it was just so good to spend a few hours with them chatting and catching up. I also enjoyed a lovely walk around Durham with James enjoying the sunshine:

OOTD: sunglasses: Dorothy Perkins, gold collar necklace: Topshop, denim jacket: New Look, red racer back vest: Miss Selfridge, black floaty wide leg trousers: Topshop, orange bag: Dorothy Perkins, gold sandals: Next, bangles: charity shop and vintage.

Yes that is a Holland and Barrat bag in my hand, gotta love their buy one get one half price sale! I stocked up on my latest addiction – coconut water!

The weekend got off to an awesome start with a super run. I did 9 miles in 1.18 with an average pace of 8.41. I checked my training log on Daily Mile and this my fastest run over the 6 mile distance so far!

A lot of my eats this weekend have featured these:

Giant beets, radishes and carrots from my organic veg box. Those beets were almost the size of my head! They came with a mountain of beet greens attached, which upon a quick Google I discovered were quite edible. I put both the beets and greens to good use in a super post run smoothie:

This was a corker! I blended some spinach, beet greens, raw beet, frozen cherries, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, tbsp of raw cacao, coconut water, mesquite, barley grass, ice and a couple of drops of stevia for sweetness. I topped the smoothie with some almond butter sauce, cacao nibs and flaked almonds. The raw beets worked perfectly in this and gave it a lovely sweetness.

Other beet featuring meals include this delicious herbed socca wrap with sweet chilli hummus, mixed salad leaves, roast beetroot and steamed broccoli and asparagus:

Today I made up a huge jug of super green juice with celery, a whole cucumber, beet greens, radish greens, lemon and ginger:

It was amazing! Green juice sunrise ;-) I felt very hardcore drinking this without any added fruit to sweeten it, but it was actually surprisingly sweet and mild.

I also made a tasty salad with spinach, mixed leaves, more roasted beetroot, radish, avocado, mixed seeds and a quick dressing made with blueberry balsamic, hemp oil and Dijon mustard:

The rest of the avocado featured in this lovely lunch:

Toasted farmers market rye bread with mashed avocado and nutritional yeast, carrots, red pepper and sugar snaps with more avo mash for dipping and two small apples

I’ve also been taking advantage of lots of lovely cheap berries:

Huge fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries, nectarine, clemintine and organic red currants topped with soy yoghurt.

This mornings breakfast was enjoyed al fresco:

Random combo of strawberries, blueberries and red currants mixed with 1/2 cup of oats, 1 cup of freshly made almond milk, ground flax, peanut flour, treacle granola and a chopped dark chocolate Adora calcium disc plus a cup of coffee sweetened with vanilla stevia. We don’t have a garden as such – just a raised grassed communal area, but I decided to sit out at the back door and enjoy the early morning sunshine. It was blissful :-)

This evenings dinner was a quick and easy, but surprisingly good meal:

Moroccan themed chickpea couscous made by combining chickpeas, peas, barley couscous, tomato passata and ground cumin all on top of a big pile of summer lettuce. It took a few minutes to make and tasted fab!

I’ve had a really fun day of pottering about in the kitchen, I’ve experimented and made some Almond Oatmeal Coconut Cookies (some with chocolate chips!) and some beetroot tahini dip / dressing, I’ll be sharing these recipes soon as they are both awesome!

Have you been enjoying the weather where you are? How often do you get to eat outdoors? I think I’ll be trying to make a more regular habit of enjoying the early morning sun at my door whenever we get it! This time next week I’ll be in Brighton and hopefully enjoying even more al fresco dining :-)

Hope you’ve had a great weekend! – don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

Happy Wednesday everyone! How’s your week going so far? Mine has been pretty good, its been nice to start getting back into my usual work / life routine again. For some reason I’m feeling particularly good at the moment – like I have an extra sparkle! I’m also being super productive which is always good, lets hope it lasts!

These are my eats and whatnot from yesterday. I started out the day with Yoga for Runners. when I’m not heading to the gym early its so nice to do a bit of yoga, it really wakes me up and only takes 20 minutes. I feel like I’m starting the day off right!

Gorgeous sunrise

For breakfast I decided to make use of the beetroot in the fridge and make up some of my current favourite juice blend:

This was beetroot, carrot, cucumber and ginger with some Pukka Aloe Vera juice added, its so sweet and yummy. I also had a handful of raw cacao granola with home made sunflower seed milk (sweetened with dates) and a teapigs matcha green tea:

I adore that granola, its Living Intentions and I get it from Viva Pure, its lush. It was my first try of making sunflower seed milk and I was pleasantly surprised, very mild and sweet. Mid morning I snacked on some raw carrot, ginger and sunflower seed dip with green pepper and cucumber:

The dip was super easy to make, after making the sunflower seed milk (by soaking, draining and rinsing 1/2 cup of seeds then blending with 2 cups of water + 2 dates and straining) I dumped the seed meal back into my blender with two carrots, grated ginger root and a little coconut aminos (soy sauce would also work) plus water and blended till smooth. You could also make without making the milk first and just using the whole soaked seeds.

Lunch was a massive bowl of ‘Boot Camp’ soup with some home made raw rosemary and almond crackers:

This soup is fab. I made a massive pan of it based on this recipe (I just added some garlic and used cos lettuce instead of iceberg) it is so filling, probably because I ate a massive portion of it ;-) I’ve eaten it three days in a row now, perfect for these cold days!

Late afternoon I snacked on these funky little cookies:

I’d made these with some almond pulp leftover from making milk, coconut, ground flax, agave and matcha green tea powder then dehydrated to make Raw Almond Coconut Matcha Cookies! These are probably more biscuit like than cookie, they are crispy – almost like a sweet cracker.

After work I headed to the gym for the usual cardio followed by Body Pump, I really need to try and increase my weights on some of the tracks next week I think!

Dinner was an absolutely gorgeous tofu scramble. This contained red onion, red pepper, tofu, black beans, brown rice, tomato puree, nutritional yeast, cayenne pepper and shoyu served on top of spinach:

I had it on Monday evening too, it reminded me how simple and delicious tofu scrambles are, must make them more often!

A bit later I made a protein smoothie for post Body Pump recovery. This was 1 scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, frozen blueberries and strawberries, maca, ice and water topped with a few gojis and cacao nibs:

I finished the day with a sleepy time tea:

I love this tea for chilling out before bed.

That tofu scramble was fabulous. I’ll definitely be trying to eat more of them, it only took me 10 minutes to throw together and you can pretty much add in whatever veggies you have to hand – perfect weekday dinner. Are you a fan of scrambles – tofu or egg? What’s your favourite ingredients in a scramble?

Don’t forget to check out my Big Blog Birthday International GIVEAWAY!

I’m currently sitting exhausted on the sofa after what has been a great weekend so far! I feel like I’ve managed to fit a lot in so that the rest of today and tomorrow can be spent relaxing. Although I’ve been busy, I did treat myself to a lovely bath last night:

I even lit a candle and everything ;-) I had a nice soak, shaped my nails, slopped on a mud face mask, exfoliated and then slathered myself in coconut oil. It was very pleasant and I went to bed smelling like a coconut! I actually had all my scented candles lit around the flat yesterday, the whole place smelled delicious!

Yesterday morning I thought I’d kick off the weekend with a run. For the first time in months I put my Garmin on to track my distance and pace. I didn’t look at it until the end of the run – I did 6.5 miles in 1.04 with an average pace of about 9.51. So much slower than I was last year, but I averaged under 10 minute miles so I’ll happily take it!

I had big plans for breakfast involving a chocolate protein socca wrap stuffed with cherries and almond butter. Unfortunately the socca was a fail, but I ate it anyway:

Looked a mess but tasted great!

For lunch I decided to bite the bullet and make some eggs:

I used the very happy free range eggs from my farm shop, poaching them and serving with a slice of Burgen Sunflower and Chia Seed bread toasted with vegan spread, spinach sautéed with smoked garlic (which I’d also picked up from the farm shop), soy sauce and some raw carrots on the side. I thought I’d feel really weird eating the eggs but I didn’t. They tasted delicious!

I spent the afternoon cleaning and took a break to make a smoothie:

This was amazing and so good I have to share the recipe!

Blueberry, Vanilla, Citrus, Chai Smoothie (serves 1, vegan if using vegan protein powder)

• 200g of blueberries (I used frozen)
• 2 satsumas (an orange would also work)
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder of choice (I used sun warrior of course)
• 1 cup of chilled chai tea (I used Pukka Vanilla Chai)
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• Ice (if not using frozen fruit)
• Approx 1 cup of water or non dairy milk

Add all ingredients to a blender and process till smooth, enjoy! The unique flavours in this taste so good!

I also made myself a green juice:

Cucumber, celery and fresh mint. Simple and delish!

For dinner I made a huge veggie stir fry with tempeh:

This was a repeat from Friday evening – I used loads of veggies including swiss chard, spring greens, broccoli, carrot, asparagus and courgette with a ginger, chilli, soy and agave sauce. The tempeh was just stir fried with a little soy sauce. Very yum.

I got my chocolate fix with some orange flavoured raw chocolate (the whole bar again!):

Then for a bed time snack I had a bowl of Poppin cereal – aka plain popcorn with a chocolate protein smoothie poured on top:

I just blended up some Vega Choc a lot protein powder with water to use like milk, I love snacking on stuff like this, especially on weekends!

This morning I had a perfect bowl of oats:

Half a cup of oats cooked with water on the stove top plus a chopped pear, a few drops of vanilla stevia and 2 tbsp of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. You can’t get much better than that!

I decided to head to the gym today instead of tomorrow so rather than my usual strength / HIIT workout I put my name down for the Kettlebell class. I did a bit of cardio on the machines before hand then the 45 minute class. It was so tough! To refuel afterwards I made a gorgeous Protein Frappe:

I blended ice, vanilla sun warrior, kara coconut milk, instant coffee and stevia with a touch of xanthan gum to thicken it up. Absolute heaven!

I got myself ready and we headed out for lunch at my parents:

OOTD: denim jacket: New Look, anchor necklace: Accessorize, white racer back vest: Miss Selfridge, tan cross body bag: Mango, tan woven belt: Zara, black maxi skirt: Primark, trainers: Converse, bracelets and bangles: selection

The weather was actually nice for a change so I busted out my new maxi skirt :-) I went to lunch prepared with a wonderful couscous, roasted vegetable and chickpea salad:

Then finished up with lots of strawberries, raspberries and fresh pineapple. After my parents we went to the Metro Centre for a look around and I’ve treated myself to a few more goodies including a new pair of heels that are like stilts, I’m going to have to practice walking in them!

Pampering, good food, great workouts, shopping and fantastic company, what more could I ask for!

How has your weekend been? If your off for the bank holiday tomorrow do you have any plans? I might even have another bath! Do you ever take the time to have a nice soak in the bath and a bit of pampering? What’s your ultimate pamper products? I don’t feel like I’m having a real pamper session without scented candles!

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone :-)