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Hi everyone hope your week is going well!

I’m back for another WIAW! These are my eats from yesterday. I started the day with my usual warm water and lemon which I sipped on while getting washed and dressed, then I made breakfast! I had a big bowl of strawberries, banana and some cacao chai chia pudding:

I also had a cup of black cinnamon and hazelnut coffee sweetened with stevia:

So glad that the mornings are getting a little lighter now!

Mid morning I had a couple of carrots with some cashew butter for dipping for a snack:

I love carrots with nut butter! I also had this amazing rosehip and cherry tea:

My work colleague had returned from a break in Scotland and brought a few different teas back for me from her hotel. This was so good I might have to track down that brand, it tasted like cherry drop sweeties! Of course I drank a lot of other tea during the day too including green and rooibos.

Lunch was a big salad made from lots of random things from the fridge:

It included spinach, brown rice, marinated tofu, home grown alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, red cabbage, red pepper and some braggs liquid aminos. This was lovely but it reminded me why I usually go easy on the carbs at lunch, I definitely had a mid afternoon slump! To pick me up again I had a snack of a pear, an apple and some salt and pepper Popchips:

I love those those Popchips, they are my favourite flavour and remind me of posh crisps!

As I had my yoga class later that evening I just wanted something light for dinner. I had a bowl of my lentil soup with a big pile of my home made raw curried crackers:

When I got home from yoga I fixed myself a great snack. I had found some of my favourite fresh figs in the reduced section on Monday so had three of them, a chopped apple and some raw tahini and honey along with a kuricha green tea:

That really hit the spot!

I really enjoyed my yoga class last night…

It was a packed class and was really good fun, the teacher used me to demonstrate some of the poses and commented on how good my posture was! I felt a bit embarrassed but simultaneously chuffed that I was doing well. I think I’m starting to embrace the slower more relaxing style of yoga now :-)

Yesterday wasn’t quite as full of greens as my eats usually are, in the lead up to pay day I’m trying to manage on what I have in the fridge, freezer and cupboards as I’m determined to stick within my grocery budget. Fresh veggies are probably the most costly thing I buy so I have to cut back a little. I was able to get a huge bag of spinach which is a good deal for me as I can use in salads, smoothies and cooked meals plus James loves his spinach too. More on healthy eating on the cheap to come tomorrow!

Are you affected by carbs at lunch time? I find that if I have too much, especially bread, rice or pasta I get a bit sleepy later on! Quinoa seems to be ok though, perhaps because it contains more protein? That’s why I tend to just have salads with veggies, protein and fat and save the carbs for later in the day. I know people that are the complete opposite so I guess it just goes to show how different we can all be!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week :-)

Hello, hope you’ve all had a good week and are eagerly awaiting the weekend!

For research from the Library, I’m such a nutrition geek!

I’ve had some very tasty food despite the fact that I’m in the process of eating out my freezer and cupboards to try and save cash! I used up some Linda McCartney vegan sausages to make this delicious Buddha bowl:

Linda McCartney sausages with red onion, mushrooms and barley in a tomato sauce with basil on top of fresh spinach

I’ve also been enjoying the lentil soup I made at the weekend with some home made raw crackers:

This is just the best and most simple lentil soup ever! Its delicious and so filling. I’ve also been eating the roast aubergine hummus I made at the weekend with veggies for snacks and alongside more of those raw crackers for lunch:

I had picked the aubergine up from the reduced bin at the green grocers for just 50p and had roasted it whole before blending the flesh with chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and tahini, it tasted lovely!

Unusual but delicious breakfasts have also been enjoyed:

This was some popped amaranth (you just pop the grains as you would popcorn kernels) with a ‘cream’ made some raw coconut flour and frozen blueberries topped with pecans and maple syrup.

I also made an amazing raw banana split (yes there is a banana under there!) This included raw cacao granola, goji berries, chocolate protein sauce (made from chocolate sun warrior mixed with hemp milk) and a chia pudding made with a couple of tbsp of chia seeds combined with some home made mint choc rooibos hemp milk and left overnight to thicken:

Amazing! That hemp milk was pretty awesome too. I just blended 3 tbsp of hemp seeds that had been soaked for 15 minutes with 3 cups of filtered water and a few tsp of loose leaf mint choc rooibos tea and some sunflower lecithin. It created a wonderful tasty creamy milk. I had some with frozen raspberries and chopped apple as a dessert:

Of course a few green smoothies have been consumed as well:

Spring greens, frozen banana, strawberry hemp protein powder, maca, ground flax, water, ice topped with Kashi Go Lean Crunch and bee pollen

Spinach, frozen cherries, chocolate hemp protein powder, maca, ground flax, water, ice topped with We are bear Coco Cherry Pie Granola

I’ve also continued my love affair with kelp noodles:

I made this as a treat for lunch yesterday when I knew I’d be working late. It also included some raw diakon noodles and a fantastic sauce made with raw almond butter, sweet white miso, soy sauce and a dash of agave plus parsley sprinkles on top. Soooo good!

Earlier this week I received my parcel as part of Jemma’s blog swap! Here’s what I got:

Such a brilliant selection of goodies from the lovely Liz. I love being able to try different products from the US! Her home made vegan mocha muffins were amazing and I’m also looking forward to trying those almond butter cups!

Workouts have been extra fantastic this week…

• Sunday – AM relaxed run without Garmin, about 3-4 miles
• Monday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from ‘Dial it in’ phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Tuesday – AM free style yoga 15 minutes, PM 10 min rowing machine, 10 min treadmill run, 10 min bike, Body Pump class
• Wednesday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from ‘Dial it in’ phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Thursday – AM – This 1 hour power flow yoga workout from You Tube
• Friday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from ‘Dial it in’ phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike

I had a brilliant run on Sunday and then started a new phase of Female Body Breakthrough and my god could I feel it the next day, I had some serious DOMS! The reps have gone from the 12 – 14 range down to 8 so I’m using heavier weights when I can. I also managed to increase my squat weight in Body Pump to 40lbs – that’s probably not much compared to some but for me its great! As I was working on Thursday evening and couldn’t make my usual yoga class I did a brilliant yoga flow from You Tube before before work instead. It was awesome to do some sweaty yoga again!

On my weekend send off love list this week…

Coyo coconut yoghurt in plain and mixed berry varieties

This morning I received these coconut yoghurts from sponsor Coyo to try out, they both look really good and I can’t wait to try them! Also…

Chickpea magazine – an awesome vegan e mag full of fantastic articles, recipes and beautiful photography // making plans for my 30th birthday party in August // thanks to a very kind voucher, booking a spa day deal with Groupon for me and my best friend as part of celebrations for said birthday // looking forward to next weeks vintage themed project celebration at work – I’ll be dressing up 1940’s style!

What are you loving this week?

Not long left to enter my Chocolate Good Hemp Shake GIVEAWAY – check it out if you haven’t already!

Hope you have an amazing weekend!

Happy Wednesday, hope your week is going fabulously! Ready for another veg packed WIAW? These are my eats and happenings from Monday, enjoy!

I’m kind of playing about with my workout schedule at the moment while I’m exploring the yoga class options in my area so instead of going to the gym first thing like I usually do I just got up and did a quick yoga podcast to start the week off right. I did a 20 minute detox challenge flow from Yoga Download which was a great way to start the day. After the usual warm water and lemon I made a very tasty breakfast:

I had some plain tofu cream leftover from making the Spicy Sweet Potato and Almond Butter Gratin (so glad you guys are loving that recipe!) so mixed it with a touch of stevia then combined with a small chopped apple, frozen blueberries, uncooked oats and topped with some bee pollen and pumpkin seeds. It tasted amazing, I am crazy about the multiple uses of silken tofu right now! I also enjoyed an amaretto coffee with kara coconut milk:

Mid morning at work I snacked on some sugar snap peas, sliced red peppers and raw maca dip:

I also had a mug of miso:

I used to drink miso all the time but had fallen out of the habit. On Monday I just fancied something savoury and that did the trick. For lunch I had leftover quinoa with chickpeas, cranberries and parsley on top of a big bowl of mixed salad greens and home sprouted alfalfa:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a couple of pink lady apples:

I can’t get enough of these at the moment!

I had been planning to try to get into the gym Monday night Body Pump class as I had decided to try a new yoga class which is held on a Tuesday evening when I would have went to my usual Body Pump class. Unfortunately the Monday night class had been fully booked and I was on the reserve list but instead of showing up and not getting a place I decided to go with the flow and head home for a DVD workout mash up!

I did 30 Day Shred Level 1, Davina Fit Top fit (minus the warm up and cool down) and half an hour of core conditioning Yogalates:

I’m very glad I have such a varied DVD collection, this was really good fun for a change!

For dinner I just kept it simple with some leftover lentil soup, organic blue corn chips and some steamed broccoli with soy sauce and nutritional yeast:

A bit later in the evening I decided to treat myself for dessert and raided the freezer for a slice of my raw salted caramel pecan cake:

I keep forgetting how truly delicious this is. It tastes so buttery it is amazing!

Before bed I had a mug of spicy liquorice and cinnamon tea:

As usual, throughout the day I drank several cups of green tea, green tea with chai and rooibos.

So most of my eats on Monday were made up of leftovers from the weekend re worked. I used to spend a lot of time making up single serving meals (as James usually eats differently to me) but now I make things with multiple portions and reuse the leftovers in different ways. I find that a grain and protein type meal like the quinoa and chickpeas can be made lunch friendly by throwing on top of salad greens. The leftover tofu cream was easily combined with the oats and fruit just like you would do yoghurt, but could have just as easily been mixed with nutritional yeast, garlic and lemon juice and used as a sauce for veggies. The soup was made into a more substantial meal by adding the blue corn chips and the big bowl of broccoli – I need my green veggies!

What’s your favourite way to re work leftovers?

Don’t forget to enter my lovely House Plant GIVEAWAY if you haven’t checked it out already!

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope your all having a great day, Sunday’s are the best aren’t they :-) I’ve had a really great weekend just so chilled out and relaxed. This morning I got in a great workout at the gym. I hadn’t been looking forward to running on the treadmill (and although it was bright, it was freezing outside!) so I made up a really simple relaxed treadmill workout:

5k treadmill workout

• 0.25 miles: 6.2mph
• 0.25 miles: 6.7mph
• 0.25 miles: 7.2mph
• 0.25 miles: 7.7mph repeat x 3 (to reach 3 miles)
• 0.1 mile sprint: 8.2mph (to reach 5k)

This was a great little run getting in 5k in just under 27 minutes. The regular speed changes stopped me getting bored and the speeds I used challenged me a bit, but left more than enough energy for my 15 min bike and 45 min Kettlebell class afterwards.

Yesterday I didn’t quite end up getting my intended lie in but I did have my lazy breakfast! Usually I know what I’m going to have for breakfast before I get up, but yesterday I decided to just see what I fancied. I really wanted something a bit bready that I could smother in nut butter but we don’t buy bread very often. Instead I decided to make a fat socca bread! I mixed half a cup of gram flour with half a cup of water, cinnamon, vanilla extract and a touch of stevia then fried the batter in coconut oil in my small frying pan. When it was cooked on both sides I topped it with with cashew butter, fresh blueberries and lots of maple syrup:

Perfection! This was just what I had been craving and was absolutely delicious. I decided to stick with the breakfast theme later in the day and made some oats in a jar for a snack after returning home from seeing friends and family:

I needed warming up as we’d been out for a walk and I couldn’t think of anything better than oats! I filled a near empty sunflower seed butter jar with oats cooked with water in the microwave and a heaping tbsp of Clearspring naturally sweetened blueberry jam.

This mornings post workout breakfast was a raw protein buckwheat bowl with vanilla sun warrior, chopped apples, raisins and cinnamon:

Yum! I enjoyed this with an Indian Chai tea with coconut milk, delish!

Other tasty bits and pieces this weekend include my usual weekend green juices, however as I was going out I didn’t think just juice would hold me over so taking inspiration from what I’ve been reading in Crazy Sexy Juices and Smoothies I made a smoothie with cucumber, celery, parsley, basil and orange blended with water, ice, maca powder and a little stevia to sweetened it up, all drank in a pretty mug of course:

This tasted very refreshing and nourishing!

Last night’s dinner was based on my Roast Broccoli, Brussels and Chickpea and Cranberry Couscous recipe – I roasted some broccoli, and for the first time some savoy cabbage (delish by the way) in coconut oil and then topped with the chickpea and cranberries but made with quinoa instead of couscous:

For dessert I tried one of my new chocolate almond puddings on top of frozen cherries with some peanut flour sauce swirled on top:

Heaven in my mouth!

This afternoon I’ve been having a party in my kitchen, I’ve had the radio blasting while I’ve been cooking and doing the laundry and I’ve even had a bit of a dance ;-) I’ve cooked up some brown rice for the week, made a special dish (which if it works will be incredible – will blog the recipe) and a giant pan of Lentil soup – based loosely on this recipe but I added some celery and left out the spinach because I didn’t have any. I had a huge bowl with some organic blue corn chips on the side for lunch:

Proper lush, I dipped the chips in the soup for extra noms :-)

Please don’t tell me I’m the only one that dances in my kitchen? Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and have a great week ahead!

I wasn't going to post a pic of what I ate last night after work but it was so yummy I thought I would! I crushed some strawberries with a fork and mixed with greek style yoghurt and granola.


Extremely tasty! Crushing the strawberries made them all juicy, I bet that crushed strawberries mixed with yoghurt and then frozen would make a great ice cream! I also snacked on some cucumber sticks with sweet chilli dipping sauce and a few squares of cheese from the buffet at the event I was working at and I ate an extra apple after my strawberries and granola too.


This morning I made a fab bowl of fruity oats. I started with some chia seed porridge (jumbo porridge oats, 1/2 tablespoon of chia seeds and some water and hazelnut and almond rice milk mircowaved for a few minutes) then mixed in some chopped apple and blackberries and topped with a shake of cinnamon and some almond butter.


Well tasty!

Mid morning I snacked on more veggies and hummus.


Lunch was Lentil and Spinach Soup followed by some strawberries.


On my way to the gym I snacked on some Orange Nakd Raisins for some energy.


I only did a short gym workout as I didn't want to overload myself, plus I wanted to be able to fit in some yoga. I don't want to risk running with my knee so it looks like I might have to just go with running once a week and focusing on distance. I'll end up doing the Great North Run with a crap time but at least I will finish it! At the gym I warmed up for 5 minutes on the cross trainer then did 10 minutes of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by three sets of my abs exercises. I did a quick mid week grocery shop then came home to do 20 minutes Yoga for Runners, free from Yoga Download. It was so hot in my living room it was like doing a hot yoga class, I was pouring of sweat! I really enjoyed the session, my body feels so stretched out!

Dinner was a chicken salad with spinach, mixed salad leaves, red and white cabbage, carrot, cucumber, red and yellow pepper and spring onion with a couple of tablespoons of spicy peri peri dressing.


Total salad beast!

Desert was a new recipe -

Lemon Tofu Pudding (makes 2 servings)

1 package of Mori nu silken tofu
Juice and Zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons of agave (or to desired sweetness)

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Pour into bowls and chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.


This pudding is wonderfully creamy, sweet and lemony. Perfect for a quick summer desert!

I also had a golden delicious apple.


I've been buying a few varieties of apples as I'm eating so many of them at the moment in my bid to not eat as much sugary fruit. I have pink lady, golden delicious and granny smith in the fridge at the moment. Whats your favourite variety of apple? I love crunchy golden delicious! Apparently apples make a brilliant snack if your having cravings as they are low in calories and sugar and high in fibre which keeps you full. Sounds good to me!

Today I made a start on getting the things on my wishlist before my challenge starts tomorrow. I love internet shopping but it is far too easy to add other things to your shopping basket, I popped a spiraliser (a kitchen device that cuts veggies into spirals like pasta or noodles) in there while I was on Amazon as I've been dying to try one out. I also picked up my River Cottage Cookbook as it was cheaper in Sainsbury's. I've had a flick through and the recipes are amazing (and the food photography), and many of them are very healthy too. I can't wait to try them out!

I'm going to do a proper post tomorrow on my Big Challenge, I'm really pumped up for it! I'm also working on my protein powder post. Hope you guys are having a good week, I can't wait for the weekend I just hope it continues to be lovely and sunny! x