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Hi everyone, hope your enjoying yourself this Wednesday!

As always I’m joining in the WIAW party! These are my eats from Monday, I like to try and do different days for WIAW as I tend to eat different things / amounts depending on the day. I thought that since the theme is green this month I’d look at one of my green loves – green tea!

I got up and had my usual mug of warm water with lemon juice then tried to get as organised as possible before going to the gym. Every other week we have a team meeting first thing on a Monday morning so I need to get into work a.s.a.p. I made sure I had my lunch and snacks ready in the fridge and laid out my outfit for the day:

T shirt: Primark (only £3!), black skinny trousers: Gap, white vest: H&M, heart patterned socks: Accessorize, black exposed zip boots: New Look (not pictured)

That’s my current favourite tee, I love the summery print!

Then I headed to the gym. I started a new phase of Female Body Breakthrough starting with 5 minutes warm up on the cross trainer followed by strength training (including planks again!) and finishing with 20 minutes of HIIT on the step machine and bike. As I didn’t have time for a proper breakfast I made a very quick but extremely delicious vanilla protein frappe:

This was just ice, instant coffee, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, a pinch of xanthan gum and water blended up. It was lush, cheaper and more convenient than Starbucks and was enough to satisfy my hunger and get me out the door. Once I was at work I made a big mug of green tea before the team meeting. After the meeting I had breakfast no 2:

A pink lady apple and a Gourmet Raw cacao cocobanana chocolate brownie plus you guessed it, another mug of green tea! I love that I can eat a brownie for breakfast as these are just so healthy. Lunch was a great salad based on my Confetti Quinoa Salad:

I mixed some leftover quinoa with hemp oil, apple cider vinegar, parsley and dried blueberries and added to a salad of cos lettuce, carrot and red cabbage. After lunch I had a green tea with chai.

For my afternoon snack I had brought some carrots and raw almond butter but I was feeling pretty hungry so when I saw a banana going spare in the kitchen I nabbed that too:

I also had yet another green tea!

Dinner was a big stir fry. I had picked up veggies from the green grocer at the weekend including choi sum and diakon. I also added some broccoli, carrot and mange tout to the mix along with a generous amount of the peanut lime sauce I’d made at the weekend and some leftover baked tempeh:

For a delicious dessert I had two plums topped with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter plus a liquorice and cinnamon tea:

They were amazing! That Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter should come with a warning label its so addictive! The one time I don’t drink my green tea is in the evening as it does have a little bit of caffeine in it so I tend to go for my fave herbal blends.

I realised when I looked in my drawer at work that I may have a minor green tea problem:

I have a lot more at home too, at least I won’t be running out of that any time soon!

I started drinking green tea about 4 years ago and as of about 3 years ago I completely swapped my regular milky black tea for green tea. I love my spiced and herbal blends but some times I just want something that tastes neutral and fresh. The benefits of drinking green tea are numerous and include:

• High in catechins which have been shown to halt oxidative damage to cells
• Reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder
• Can improve insulin sensitivity
• Can provide bone density benefits similar to exercise
• Promotes fat loss
• Increases exercise endurance

source

I always feel healthier for drinking green tea! As well as drinking as a tea, brewed and cooled tea makes a great liquid base for smoothies and even as the cooking water for grains like rice and oats to impart a delicate green tea flavour.

My favourite brands are:

• Clipper - my everyday green tea
• Clearspring’s Kuricha – has a lovely roasted taste and is very low in caffeine
• Pukka Green tea with chai
• Twinnings
• We Are Tea
• Cosy Tea jasmine and lemon green teas
• Teavivre loose leaf greens that I’m currently sampling
• Tea Pigs amazing matcha!

Are you a fan of green tea? Do you have a favourite type or brand?

Don’t forget to check out my Chocolate Hemp shake GIVEAWAY!

Happy Wednesday! Hope your having a great week. I’m back for WIAW as usual, interesting challenge this month although I think I get more than my fair share of veggies! I thought I’d give you my eats from last Sunday for a change, not loads of veggies but still a good few…

After a short lie in I got up and had the usual warm water with lemon then ate a lovely banana for some gym fuel:

I headed to the gym and did 4 miles on the treadmill (3 miles of my usual interval style workout and then 1 mile cool down) 20 minutes on the cross trainer and then my Kettlebell class. The class was an absolute killer! Our instructor usually gives us a couple of breaks but we had to go the whole way through and it was tough!

After the gym I fixed myself a little brunch starting with a vanilla protein frappuccino made with 1 scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, instant coffee, water and ice:

It was delicious! I also had a couple of slices of my wholemeal bread toasted with cashew butter and fresh strawberries:

Love nut butter and strawberries on toast for a fresh twist on PB&J!

After that I just chilled out watching Dexter with James (we watched the whole of season 3 over the weekend!) then made myself my regular weekend green juice:

This was 1 cucumber, some celery, a pear and ginger with a little bit of raw apple cider vinegar added for good measure. I usually don’t add fruit to my green juices but I had some pears that were going bad and needed using up, it added a nice sweetness to the juice.

Then I decided to make one of my favourite ever soups, Pea, Broccoli and Pesto! I made a huge pan of it and had a big bowl for a late lunch alongside a pile of my raw juice and nut pulp crackers:

I just love how spring like that soup tastes and the raw crackers were delicious too. I’d flavoured them with dried rosemary again, so good.

A little later I felt a bit snacky so ate an apple:

Then I started to make my cookies for Tam’s Cookie Exchange! Cat, my exchange partner is gluten intolerant so I had to get my thinking cap on for what I could make her. I decided to go with one of my favourite flavour combinations – Banana, Coconut and Chocolate:

• 1 cup gluten free buckwheat and rice flakes (I used Sainsbury’s brand, you could sub with gluten free oats)
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
• 1/3 cup of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup dark choc chips
• 1/4 cup rapeseed oil
• 2 large mashed bananas (equal to one cup once mashed)
• 1/4 cup apple sauce

Pre heat the oven to 180. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl then take heaped tablespoons of the dough, roll and press down on to a greased baking sheet (should make 12 – 14 cookies) Cook for 20-25 minutes until browned and firm to the touch. Leave to cool on a baking rack (they will firm up more as they cool). Devour! 

These taste awesome, dense sweet chewy goodness! I let them cool and then packaged up to send to Cat, along with a card and the recipe. Hope she enjoys them!

For dinner I steam fried some carrot, red pepper and spring greens and added a lazy peanut ginger garlic sauce (peanut flour, soy sauce, ground ginger, garlic granules) and topped with some pan fried tofu that I’d pressed and marinated earlier:

I just love crispy tofu! The lazy peanut sauce was excellent too, I called it lazy cause I just used the dry spices rather than preparing the fresh ones! For dessert I just had to have one of those cookies for taste testing purposes of course ;-) I also had some leftover strawberries and a pink lady apple:

So all in all a great day of eats!

I love that I have the time to make a fresh juice at the weekend, they are a great way to add extra veggies to your diet.

What’s your favourite way to sneak in additional veggies?

Anyone else feeling a bit out of sync after the bank holiday weekend? I do love an extra day off but I don’t know if I’m coming or going at the moment! Thankfully I have the routine of good old WIAW to keep me right…

These are my eats and goings on from yesterday and as the title of this post suggests I feel like I was on the go all day! I got up, had the usual warm water and lemon and headed out for a quick run. I put the Garmin on again to track my distance and pace and did 3 miles in 28.20 with an average pace of 9.26 which was a big improvement from Saturdays run. As I said then, I’m not really that concerned about my pace, I’m no longer going out running and half killing myself in the process. It’s just nice to enjoy running and the weather yesterday morning was lovely too!

For breakfast I’d prepared a big chia pudding made with 1/4 cup of chia seeds, raw cacao powder and stevia mixed with water and left to gel overnight in the fridge. I had that with some semi frozen summer berries and a sprinkle of buckwheaties on top for crunch:

As it was a warm morning I thought I’d follow that up with another icy vanilla protein frappe:

I can’t get enough of these at the moment! I just blended up ice, water, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, instant coffee, stevia and a pinch of xanthan gum for creaminess. So so good.

I had a work meeting not far from where I live later in the afternoon so I was able to work from home for the day. I answered a few work emails and then took some time out for a quick grocery shop. I bought all the ingredients for my healthy eating workshop I ran later in the day, plus this lot for me and James:

The fridge was looking a bit empty so I thought I’d stock up! I bought kale, spinach, cucumbers x 3 (as they were on offer), romaine, lemons, papayas, strawberries, bananas, pumpkin seeds, organic braeburn apples, mushrooms, Italian seasoning, coffee, PJ Tips tea (I got two boxes as they were on offer), sugar, skimmed milk and tomato passata. That should keep us going for a while! I also bought a new coffee press as both of my other ones had cracked, and while I was getting that I noticed this funky teapot for brewing loose leaf tea:

I love making up a big pot of loose leaf tea, especially when I’m working from home so I decided to treat myself. This is so much less messy than using my other tea pot and pouring the tea through a strainer. I made up a pot of Teavivre White Peony Tea (review coming up!) and it was wonderful. I cracked on with some work, hit publish on my Bread Lasagne post and then took a break for lunch:

This salad was quite simply epic. Romaine, spinach, roast red kabocha squash, cooked beets, edamame, half an avocado and some tahini dressing I’d made at the weekend (tahini, apple cider vinegar, tamari, smoked garlic). It was an incredible salad with so much flavour!

After lunch I got ready to go to my meeting. It was just an informal meeting at a cafe close to wear I live so I thought I’d wear in my new jeans:

I got those jeans from Mango at the weekend. They were only £16.99 and have a great zip detail at the ankle. I love them to bits! They fit pretty well although I have been buying things in a size up so that I have some expansion room if I gain a little more weight – I’d rather my clothes be a touch baggy than too tight! I wore them with my Topshop purple tank, gold feather design necklace from Warehouse and my new bag from Accessorize. I’m so into hot / neon pink at the moment and I couldn’t resist this bag with its bright pink zip!

My walk to the cafe was lovely, we actually had some sunshine for a change!

I just had a little pot of green tea:

My meeting was very interesting and productive then I walked home and made myself a snack:

My Cherry, Pear and Almond Smoothie, hits the spot every time! After that I did a bit more work and got ready to make my way to the Community Centre for my healthy eating workshop.

Last night we made some granola, healthy parfaits with fruit, yoghurt, nuts, seeds and some of the granola plus green smoothies at the end. The granola went down very well! I thought I’d just show them a very simple one with oats, natural caster sugar and rapeseed oil with a few nuts and seeds mixed in. I’d also bought a load of fruit and some different yoghurts – natural plain yoghurt, plain fromage frais and some Alpro vanilla yoghurt which I thought would be interesting for them to try – it was their favourite! We layered the fruit, yoghurt, nuts, seeds / granola in plastic cups for healthy parfaits:

I made myself one with strawberries, blueberries, soy yoghurt, pineapple, coconut, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds then ate more pineapple and seeds during the session. I wanted to get a good variety of fruit, nuts and seeds for the young people to try. A lot of them had never tried blueberries before! This was my fourth session and my last for a few weeks so we did some evaluation with them and I made up a few green smoothies for us at the end since they loved them so much the first time. I just blended spinach, banana and orange juice, we all had a couple of cups each and they loved them yet again!

I was so tired by the time I got home, I felt like I’d been on the go all day! The parfait and smoothies had held me over quite well so I just wanted something quick and easy to take the edge off my hunger, enter Oats in jar!

I made up some oats with water on the stove and added some vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt (that was amazing BTW!) and poured into a near empty coconut butter jar. I it topped with a couple of tablespoons of St Dalfour Black Cherry Jam and it was perfect.

While finishing off the washing up and folding laundry I sipped on a mug of delicious Pukka Licorice and Cinnamon tea:

Lovely end to a busy day!

I’m actually really pleased I managed to eat so well considering how crazy yesterday was. I think having a few things prepped and then having good choices available really helps. I did miss my veggies though but at least I got a good portion of them in my lunch time salad. I’m also just so so happy with how well the healthy eating workshops have been going, last nights activity was fantastic and I really feel like I’ve introduced some of those young people (and a couple of parents) to how tasty healthy minimally processed foods can be.

I know I’ve blogged about this before, but how do you keep on top of healthy habits when you have busy days? I’m now quite used to getting up at 6am, working out, working most of the day and not stopping till gone 9 or 10pm, but I do have to make that extra effort to eat well. How do you approach it?

Hello everyone, hope you are having a brilliant week! I thought it would be fun to switch it up and do a completely different WIAW day for a change. These are my eats and goings on from last Friday which as it turned out, was a pretty awesome day :-)

I’d booked the day off work a few weeks earlier as I try and schedule in a ‘me day’ every so often when I can. For some this might seem pretty extravagant, but setting aside a day to just chill is really important to me and helps makes me feel a bit more balanced. It didn’t quite turn out to be a ‘me’ day entirely as James decided to take the day off too ;-)

I got up, had my warm water with a squeeze of lemon and then popped to the gym. My workout for the day was:

• 10 min on the treadmill
• 10 min on the stationary bike
• 10 min on the cross trainer
• Body weight circuit: incline push ups, tricep dips, squats, sit ups x 20 reps x 3 sets

I’m really just going with the flow at the moment and doing what I feel like doing in my workouts. I kept it relaxed and really enjoyed just getting my body moving without doing anything too intense.

After the gym I wolfed down a banana and a cup of green tea while I was getting dressed:

Then we drove through to Newcastle and headed straight to our favourite cafe for breakfast:

We went to the lovely Olive and Bean. I had muesli with fresh berries and soy milk plus a coffee, James had the continental platter. All delicious as usual! Then me and James split up so we could cover more shopping ground ;-)

I had a look around the farmers market which was disappointing to be honest – there only seems to be fruit and vegetable sellers in the autumn months. Thankfully the indoor market didn’t let me down:

I bought some raspberries, strawberries, doughnut peaches, dates, carrots, persimmon, pineapple, ginger, huge bunch of fresh parsley and some cooked beetroot.

I also got a few treats for myself:

‘Martha’ straight leg jeans from Topshop, pink and diamante necklace from H&M, gold ring from Topshop, Pink Essie nail polish and Rimmel clear top coat, Stila BB cream and some orangey, almondy, rooibos loose leaf tea from Olive and Bean. The jeans and ring were both in the sale and I’ve been looking for a good BB cream for a while. I’ve been very impressed with the Stila BB cream so far, makes my completion and skin tone look much more even!

For lunch I made myself a big salad:

This was delicious :-) Lots of romaine lettuce, cucumber, red onion, carrot and beetroot with avocado, hummus watered down into a dressing, and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.

Having a fridge full of amazing fresh fruit (I also had more before I hit up the market!) meant I was craving a big bowl full, so mid afternoon I had a couple of nectarines, strawberries and blueberries with Tesco plain soya yoghurt:

That was so good! A bit later I really fancied a frappe so I whipped one up:

This was vanilla almond made with crushed ice, vanilla protein powder, xanthan gum, instant coffee, stevia and almond extract. I ended up with about 2 cups full!

We spent the afternoon just chilling out watching the tennis on TV and blogging. The weather was horrendous so we made the living room nice and cosy and it was very relaxing!

For dinner I made a Thai Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry with full fat coconut milk served with some steamed broccoli:

That curry is amazing! I’ve made it before with a tomato base rather than the coconut milk, in fact its a pretty customisable recipe – I plan to blog it soon! I know that probably doesn’t look like such a big portion, but that bowl is actually a serving size bowl, pictures can be deceptive sometimes!

After dinner I ran myself a bath and relaxed with a mug of my new tea:

I made some up in my space age tea pot, it is a wonderful flavour! I soaked in the bath for half an hour with that tea and some music on, it was bliss.

We decided we would finish the day with a movie and some wine:

I pulled out a bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon for us to share and made myself a tasty movie snack:

Pretzels and melted chocolate for dipping, yes please! We watched The Ugly Truth, I laughed my head off but I can’t be sure if that was because the movie was really funny or because the 2 glasses of wine I drank had me tipsy. I kid you not, two glasses and I’m away ;-) I even had to start the next day with a green juice rather than a normal breakfast just to make me feel better!

Do you ever have ‘me’ days? I think part of being healthy is just as much about looking after your mental wellbeing as it is about what you eat and how you exercise. Taking a bit of time for myself, or in the case of Friday spending time with James, makes me happier all round which impacts on everything else in my life I think! What is your favourite way to relax?

I was up with the larks this morning for my regular Saturday distance run. I fueled up with a 9 Bar Nutty and a cup of green tea.


I love 9 Bars but have only tried the original variety. This nutty one was lovely as well. It made perfect pre workout fuel.

Then I set off for my run. There was a really strong wind blowing and I found the first mile really tough. I did set off on the run with the idea of following Laura's plan which is a warm up mile, then fast, then one at pace, then a slow etc, but after the first mile I just wanted to do the distance as best I could. I actually ended up doing my best run yet! The wind was still really strong but my times turned out very good (for me): I did 10.06 miles in 1hr 35
So this is the first time I've ran into double figures! I felt wonderful when I got home, can't believe that only a couple of months ago the most I could do was 3 miles! I made myself a recovery smoothie inspired by a recipe I'd seen on JAG's blog in the comments for her magic bullet giveaway. I blended some skimmed milk with a scoop of vanilla whey, a teaspoon of instant decaf coffee and four ice cubes to make a frappuccino style drink.


This was delicious and perfect for post workout! I stretched and had a hot and cold shower then headed to the shops for my groceries. I usually go on a Sunday but as the hubby is off tomorrow I thought I'd get it out of the way today.

Once I got home I did a bit of half arsed cleaning and tidying up before making a huge bowl of slow cooked porridge. I used some jumbo oats, quinoa flakes and regular oats and slow cooked on the hob (I never cooked my porridge on the hob, I usually do my porridge in the microwave so this is another first) in water until it was thick and creamy. I added a chopped apple, cinnamon and maca powder plus a big spoonful of hazelnut nut butter.


Just what I needed to re fuel after my epic run! I also had a mug of tea pigs mao feng green tea.

I spend the rest of the day being very self indulgent lying on the sofa reading the Saturday papers and some magazines - total relaxation. I even treated myself to a bath in the middle of the day, it was great!

Later in the afternoon I had a bowl of Lentil and Spinach Soup followed by two oranges.


My best friend Charlie called round in the late afternoon with her little girl Hannah and we had a good chat over a nice cuppa.

For dinner I decided to make a veggie filled omelette with 1 egg and 2 egg whites, half a courgette, half a red pepper, half a red onion and a few mushrooms plus some edam cheese. I fried off the veggies in some oil with a little garlic then added the eggs and topped with the grated edam. I served it with some steamed asparagus dressed in a little garlic olive oil.


I also have this bowl of heaven sitting in the freezer waiting to be devoured later tonight: softserve made with a blended frozen banana, frozen strawberries, fresh strawberries, vanilla rice milk and cocoa powder.


Yum!

Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

Congratulations to the winners of my first ever GIVEAWAY, TOTkat, Moo and Michelle. Well I'm going to shoot off, that softserve is calling my name and we have loads of TV on the Sky Player to catch up on. I hope you've all had a great day! x