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Happy Friday everyone, so glad that the weekend is here!

I’ve been liberating my wardrobe again!

 Yellow cardigan: H&M, grey jersey dress: Villa, skinny tan leather belt: Topshop, black tights: M&S, brogues: Topshop

This is a bit of an autumnal look, but considering the weather right now I’m all ready to bust out the jumpers and knee high boots! I decided to keep the accessories minimal with this outfit. I love the combo of yellow and grey and though it looked good kept simple.

Yesterday morning I kicked off my day with a challenge detox yoga flow podcast from Yoga Download. Breakfast was some buckwheaties, strawberries and vanilla home made almond milk:

Such a delicious, and surprisingly filling raw breakfast!

Yesterday’s lunch was a blended salad soup with a slice of my raw sunflower seed and onion bread and a jazz apple:

The soup was leftover from Wednesday and after not being that impressed by it I decided to give it another try. It was ok, but I can’t see myself making it again!

As a snack before the gym I had a couple of these wonderful raw cookies:

I made these using this recipe and they turned out wonderfully. I took some into work and they went down very well, in fact I have none left now!

At the gym I did a simple workout of 10 minutes of high intensity intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rower followed by my usual abs and core exercises for nice 50 minute workout.

In more raw food experimentation dinners have included my first attempt at sprouting! I sprouted some quinoa and mixed it with edamame beans and chopped courgette. I served it Buddha bowl style with some roasted kabocha squash I’ve been saving in the freezer and some spinach and braggs liquid aminos:

Sprouting the quinoa was extremely simple and resulted in a more crunchy, nutty flavour. All I did was rinse and soak the quinoa for 4 hours then left in a sieve over a bowl to drain. I gave it a quick rinse every couple of hours and it sprouted really quickly, I love the little tails!

I have to say that I’ve been surprised by the simplicity of a lot of the raw food techniques I’ve experimented with recently, I had expected them to be a lot more complex than they have been. The cheesecakes from yesterday and this sprouted quinoa are great examples of simple recipes with great tasting results!

The process of sprouting makes the grain (or in the case of quinoa, seed) edible raw, but the process of germination also begins to convert some of the starches in the grain to simple sugars which are easier to digest. I’ll definitely be experimenting with sprouting a lot more from now on!

Dessert was some chocolate protein ice cream with freeze dried berries:

Last night I had a little bit of a overeating episode. I’m reluctant to call it a binge, but for me, that’s what it felt like. Basically I just couldn’t stop eating. I ate several dried apricots, handfuls of raisins, frozen grapes, roasted soy nuts, chocolate, handfuls of muesli and finally I hit the nut butters. I haven’t had an overeating episode like this for a while (although I have had similar ones recently when I was in Brighton, Kendal Calling and also when I hit the nut butters on my Birthday this Wednesday).

I’m certainly not wanting to be over dramatic but I did want to mention this as I think its important to share this stuff, I am not a perfect eater. I also know that we will all hit those bumps in the road of our healthy living journeys – and that’s exactly what they are, a journey rather than a destination. Although I know a few extra calories from what was all essentially healthy stuff isn’t going to do me any harm, the fact that I just couldn’t stop myself and that I woke up this morning feeling as sick as a dog, are signs that its not good for my body to let this kind of eating pattern continue.

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I’ve tried very hard not to feel too guilty over it and to try and look at it objectively to see why I may have acted this way when for so long I’ve been fine. To be honest, I’m really not sure. I’m still finding my food satisfying and filling, I think it could have been a case of my mind just saying f**k it, and once I start then its a case of ‘well you might as well enjoy it now and get back on track tomorrow’. I’m going to just try and move on from it but monitor things as I don’t want to fall back into old patterns.

This morning I still went to the gym despite feeling ill! I did my amended NRoL workout and felt much better after it! Breakfast was a restorative green smoothie:

This looks a horrid colour but tasted good I promise! It included kale, cucumber, frozen berries, apple, strawberry hemp protein powder, maca, mesquite, purple corn powder, barley grass powder, ground flax, msm crystals, stevia for sweetness, water, ice and the gums for thickness with gojis and coconut on top.

I love that green smoothies can be made to be more cleansing like this one or indulgent like my birthday cake green smoothie!

I’ve drank lots of water and rooibos tea plus snacked on lots of fruit during the day to feel better too. Lunch was a slice of my raw sunflower and onion bread with sabra hummus and veggies and a peach:

I can not get enough of that raw bread and hummus combo right now, so good! The raw bread has also kept very well in the fridge for 5 days, I’m definitely going to be making it on a regular basis now!

Dinner was more of the sprouted quinoa Buddha bowl and as a sweet end to the day I made a big mug of mint chocolate teecino with almond milk and stevia:

I definitely feel a lot more ‘balanced’ after eating better today!

I am now thinking bring on the weekend! I actually have another quiet one planned, me and James are going to spend the whole weekend together as a late birthday thing. We are going to have a movie fest and I’m going to make us a tasty Italian meal and crack open a bottle of red! What do you have planned?

Before I go I’d like to welcome my second blogger sponsor this month, the delightful Sarah from Sweet Potato Sarah!

She’s a student on a healthy eating journey – check out her wonderful blog! If you have any festivals to attend this summer you must check out her festival survival guide, I found it very helpful when I went to Kendal Calling!

I hope you don’t mind me sharing my thoughts on my overeating episode. Have you ever struggled with overeating or binging episodes? How do you deal with them?

Happy Friday folks, hope you’ve had a great week! Mine has been good but I’m happy that the weekend has arrived. I can’t quite believe that the Great North Run is on Sunday, eeek! But more on that after some great food…

Yesterday I had my sports massage booked for the afternoon so I knew that my usual Thursday evening gym session would be off the cards. Instead I worked out at home in the morning. I did Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred levels 1&3 back to back followed by the yoga stretch section of the Davina Fit DVD. The shred absolutely kicked my arse, I love that DVD! For a tasty breakfast I made this very autumnal Sweet Potato Smoothie:

I made this with half a baked sweet potato that I’d had stashed away in the freezer, a frozen banana, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior, 1 tbsp of mesquite, cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice, stevia sweetener, water, ice, xanthan and guar gums and topped with some Rude Health Apple and Cinnamon granola. It tasted fabulous! I can’t wait to start having Butternut smoothies again and I have some squash in the freezer ready and waiting :-)

For lunch I had a great snack plate:

This included a slice of my raw juice pulp and brazil nut bread with some sunflower seed butter (this was so so good!) chopped veggies (times this amount by 3, I had more in my lunch box!), two tangerines and a nectarine.

This morning I had to be in work super early so I took breakfast with me. I made a Coconut Lemon Chia Pudding with 2 tbsp of chia seeds, 2 tbsp of coconut flour, juice from half a lemon, stevia and water. I served it on top of a sliced nectarine and some frozen raspberries topped with coconut shreds:

It didn’t look all that appetising but it tasted great! After popping home mid morning for a delivery I headed to the gym and did 15 minutes of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rowing machine for a total 1 hour session followed by some abs and core exercises. For lunch I had a usual big salad with cos lettuce, carrot, red cabbage, cucumber, radish, spicy chickpeas and braggs:

For snacks these last few days I’ve been going for little pots of dried fruit and nuts like this accompanied by apples and tangerines galore:

4 dried organic apricots, some of my home dried pear (best dried fruit I’ve ever tasted, so sweet!) and some walnuts. As I was working from home this afternoon and had lots of spinach on its last legs I made a simple green smoothie as a big snack:

This was just spinach, 1 frozen banana, water, ice, stevia and xanthan and guar gums with some bee pollen on top. I love how much banana flavour comes through when the other ingredients are kept simple. 

For dinners I’ve been enjoying one of my favourite Buddha Bowl combos:

Organic adzuki beans and millet with parsley, roast squash in coconut oil, steamed spring greens with shoyu. I have no idea what variety of squash that was but it was amazing, it tasted almost buttery, delicious!

For dessert I whipped up a bowl of Peanut Butter Mousse by combining in the food processor: 1 pack of mori nu silken tofu, 4 tbsp of peanut flour, some water and 1 pack of stevia powder. I used it to top 2 chopped apples:

This just about met my nut butter craving, so wonderfully creamy!

Earlier this week I also received this package of goodies from the guys at iHerb:

These are all Madre Labs products including Coco Cardio, Midori Greens and Eureka Berries Blend. These are all supplements that contain a range of powdered ‘super foods’. I’ve been sent these to review for the blog and when I’m done I’ll be holding an international giveaway! I tried the Coco Cardio which is a combination of cacao, powdered beetroot and hibiscus. It is designed to be mixed with hot water to make a drink. I added some stevia and it was amazing – a really delicious hot chocolate for only 30 calories plus all the benefits of the ingredients. I was very surprised and impressed!

So this is it, the final count down to the Great North Run. I can’t believe its only two days away! I have to admit I’m pretty apprehensive about it, especially after my knee injury. To be honest, my aim for the race is no longer to try and do it in under two hours but just to enjoy the whole atmosphere and actually finish it! I have a quiet day planned for tomorrow which includes making a trip into town just so I can buy the ‘good’ dates! I can’t run without my favourite fuel! I’m also going to do some batch cooking – I got my organic veg box today and I’m going to make a soup, curry and pasta sauce with the ingredients and get the freezer stocked up :-)

So the next time I’ll be blogging will be my race recap, scary! I need you all to send me lots of positive vibes for the race!

Hope that whatever you are up to, you have a great one!