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Happy Friday! How has your week been? Mine has been good although I’m really ready for the weekend now. I had a weird day yesterday where I ended up doing a lot of deep thinking about things. Do you ever have those day’s where your thoughts are just all over the place? Anyway it’s all good, I’ve had some big realisations and reached some major conclusions that have been a long time coming, onward and upward!

Here’s a recap of my workouts for the week:

• Sunday – 5k relaxed treadmill run, 15 min bike set at random, Kettlebell class
• Monday – 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Tuesday – AM Yoga for Runners 20 min podcast, PM 10 min HIIT cross trainer, 10 min HIIT bike, Body Pump class
• Wednesday – 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Thursday – New yoga class! (1hr 15 min)
• Friday - 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike

I tried out a new yoga class last night and as I suspected it was another slower paced Iyengar class. It actually wasn’t too bad and I did find some of the poses more challenging than I had expected, I certainly got an excellent stretch. I have another class to try on Tuesday and then I’ll probably make a decision about which of them I’ll continue with or if I’ll go for DVD’s and podcasts instead. I’ve also increased my strength workouts this week from two to three which has been great!

Its been a bit of a busy week where I’ve need to start work early so a couple of breakfasts have had to be eaten on the go. For this I’ve been making green smoothies and storing them in a jar in the fridge ready to drink as soon as I get back from the gym. This one contained kale, spring greens, frozen banana, strawberry hemp protein powder, maca powder, ground flax, midori greens, ice and water:

Luckily I did have time to enjoy one in my usual ‘in a bowl’ style. This contained kale, frozen blueberries and strawberries, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, berries powder, maca, ground flax, water, ice topped with Dorset Cereals Simply Muesli and sunflower seed butter:

I’m doing well with not needing to add any additional sweeteners or gums to them at the moment, they are certainly turning out thick enough on their own! I also enjoyed another late breakfast nut butter plate of banana, apple, roast kabocha squash and raw almond butter:

This was eaten later in the morning at work after a green juice first thing. I have to say there’s nothing quite like starting your day with a green juice although I don’t think I’ll be making a regular habit of it, I like my breakfast foods too much!

For lunches I’ve been back on the salads, firstly topped with Gourmet Raw beetroot crisps…

…and then topped with home made high protein hummus:

I also remembered to sprout some alfalfa to add in, I just love hummus topped salads!

Today I made myself some raw wraps by wrapping a mix of grated carrot, raisins and raw tahini in spring green leaves:

So delicious, I haven’t made raw wraps in forever and these tasted wonderful, I’m crazy for the tahini and raisin combo! For dinner the last couple of nights I’ve had a massive portion of veggie chilli with a baked sweet potato and steamed greens:

This has been perfect warming meal, I love that chilli it really is such a simple recipe and so easy to throw together!

For desserts / evening snacks I’ve had big bowls of frozen berries with some home made sunflower seed milk. This bowl had frozen raspberries, apple and some almond butter:

I also treated myself to some sharon fruit the other day and enjoyed a few of them chopped up and accompanied by some raw chocolate covered raisins:

Those raisins are seriously addictive, it took a lot of will power not to eat the entire bag!

Well I’m sitting here feeling nice and relaxed ready to start the weekend. I’m going to make a big bowl of popcorn later as me and James are having a movie night and I can’t wait to enjoy a lie in tomorrow followed by a relaxed breakfast and a giant mug of coffee!

What have you got planned for the weekend? What are your favourite on the go breakfasts? I like smoothies as I can drink them while I’m getting ready, not sure what else I could have for breakfast that is quick to make and eat? I might start experimenting with just having a small snack and then something bigger once I’m at work. Any ideas would be much appreciated! Hope you all have a great weekend whatever your up to! :-)

Hi everyone, hope your having a great week! I can’t believe its Wednesday already. I thought I’d give you another weekend WIAW for a change, these are my eats and goings on from last Sunday.

As always click on the link above to check out all the other WIAW’s and join the party!

I had a nice lie in until 8am and made myself the usual lemon juice and warm water and ate a banana for gym fuel:

I headed to the gym for it opening at 9. I had been planning on running on the treadmill for 30 minutes but after 15 minutes I was losing the will to live so switched it up and did 30 minutes on the bike set to random. Then it was off to Kettle bells! After that I came home, got showered and made an incredible breakfast:

Pancakes! I haven’t made pancakes in ages, these were chocolate protein pancakes with fresh blueberries, peanut flour sauce and maple syrup, holy yum! I made the pancakes with 1/4 cup of chocolate hemp protein powder, 1/4 cup of spelt flour, 1 tsp of baking powder and 3/4 cup of kara coconut milk. They turned out really well although I made them too big so they broke in half while flipping, still they tasted amazing! I also had a cup of amaretto coffee with kara coconut milk and stevia:

After that I was off out to do the rounds – I visited my two best friends where I drank copious amounts of green tea and we had a great catch up it, was so good to see them and we started to make 30th Birthday celebration plans! Then it was off to see my Grandma and then to my Mam and Dad’s before coming home. I was pretty hungry by the time I got back and since I had some veg in the fridge that needed eating up I decided to make an epically massive green smoothie:

This contained kale, spring greens, 1/2 avocado, 1 pink lady apple, strawberry hemp protein powder, maca powder, midori greens, 3 chlorella tablets, matcha green tea, ground flax, water, ice, vanilla stevia and then I went a bit mental with the toppings and added raw shoyu ‘roasted’ almonds, roast salted edamame, raisins, dried mixed berries, goji berries and bee pollen. It was gorgeous and sorted my hunger out a treat.

Later for dinner I had some baked tofu (tofu that had been frozen and defrosted then marinaded in shoyu, maple syrup, mirin, ginger powder and garlic powder) swede chips, roast brussel sprouts, steamed purple sprouting broccoli and ketchup:

That tofu was spot on, I love it baked until crispy like that! Later on I wanted an evening snack / dessert but couldn’t decide what to have so made a mini snacking plate:

A sliced pink lady apple, tahini with thyme honey swirled in, Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and some The Raw Chocolate Company plain raw chocolate plus a Cosy Camomile tea.

All in all a great day of eats!

I was glad I decided to make pancakes again, I used to make protein pancakes on a regular basis when I was eating more eggs but I just got out of the habit. Those turned out so well and are so easy to make I have no excuse not to make them more regularly. How often do you have pancakes? When I was younger we only ever had pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, I think its a shame so many people only have them once a year! What’s your favourite pancake recipe?

A few weeks ago I was sent a couple of products from The Raw Chocolate Company to review:

I received some raw chocolate covered mulberries and some Loaded Plain Dark Chocolate:

The Raw Chocolate Company is a small company based in Brighton that produce a range of raw chocolate made from ingredients that are ethically sourced and mostly organic. They have a fantastic green ethos which extends to every facet of their business including packaging and working towards a zero carbon foot print.

Why raw chocolate?

The cacao that is used to make chocolate is actually chock full of antioxidants and enzymes that are destroyed when they are heated above a certain temperature, as in regular chocolate. Raw chocolate retains these antioxidants and enzymes, as well as usually being free from refined sugars. For me, I love raw chocolate because it not only tastes fab but offers me some nutrition and doesn’t send my blood sugar on a roller coaster ride like some other chocolates.

Raw Chocolate Covered Mulberries

I enjoyed the chocolate covered mulberries on smoothies and my tasty agar agar strawberry pudding:

These are fab! They taste wonderful, the dark rich chocolate is teamed with delicious sweet crunchy mulberries. They are very moreish, so watch out! These would make a great healthier treat any time but are great used as a topping for smoothies and would also work well with porridge or desserts such as ice cream. They also produce raw chocolate covered raisins and goji berries.  100g bags are sold via the website for between £3.76 for the raisins and £4.47 for the gojis.

These are rather expensive but as I had noted in pretty much every review I have done, health conscious, organic and ethical products do tend to cost more due to their higher quality and production.

I would definitely buy these again and will probably be placing an order once I eat down my large chocolate stash. They make a great fun addition to so many meals as well as a great snack in themselves. A bag of these would be great to take to the cinema!

Loaded Plain Dark Chocolate:

My word this chocolate is good! I have tried a few raw chocolates now and most of them have a creamy soft texture. This chocolate is much more like regular chocolate, creamy and crunchy. I absolutely love this stuff!

A 44g bar is sold via the website for £2.93 so again this isn’t cheap. However if you would like to go to chocolate heaven then it is worth it!

As with the raw chocolate covered mulberries I will look to get this chocolate again but may try out one of their other varieties.

Overall I think these are great products made by a company that clearly prides itself on its green and ethical credentials.

Have you tried any products from The Raw Chocolate Company? What did you think?

The weekend has finally arrived! Got much planned? I can’t wait to have a good catch up with my best friends, as well as other things like watching Wimbledon!

Today I started with a new plan at the gym. I’ve changed my interval training up a bit as it had been a couple of months since I last made any changes to my plan and I like to keep challenging myself! I did:

• 10 minutes: cross trainer, 1 minute fast, low resistance, 1 minute slow, high resistance, 30 sec low resistance, going ‘backwards’.
• 10 minutes: step machine, 1 minute low resistance, 1 minute fast high resistance.
• 10 minutes: bike, 30 sec low resistance seated sprint, 30 sec medium resistance seated, 30 sec high resistance standing jog.

I also changed up my abs and core to this routine:

• Push ups to failure – I managed 4 ;-)
• Plank – 2 minutes
• Superman x 20
• Full sit up x 20
• Bicycle crunches x 20
• Side planks – 1 minute each side
• Reverse crunches x 20
• Full sit up x 20
• Bicycle crunches x 20
• Mountain climbers x 20

This was a great workout all done in 45 minutes! Thursday’s workouts included a quick Detox Yoga podcast before work and a 3,2,1 workout at the gym after work.

I’ve also had some delicious eats, especially these breakfasts:

Gooseberry and Clemintine compote (I just cooked some gooseberries and 2 chopped clemintines in a small pan with a splash of water and some agave syrup) with two small chopped apples, Rude Health apple and cinnamon granola and some plain soy yoghurt.

This morning I had some overnight oats in the fridge (made using the wonderful Katie’s method plus chia seeds) which I topped with a punnet of raspberries, soy yoghurt, cashew butter sauce and a little granola:

Lovely stuff, the over night oats were so creamy!

Lunches these last two days have been big salad bowls filled with my Confetti Quinoa Salad made with sugar snaps instead of the red cabbage and hemp oil instead of the olive oil. I had it on top of a huge pile of greens:

I love the sweet / sharpness from the dried apricots and the apple cider vinegar.

I also got to try out one of my Pure Bars from NYC as a pre workout snack:

This was the Cherry Cashew flavour, it was very tasty but not as full of cherry flavour as I was expecting. I did like that it has big chunks of nuts and dried fruit within the bar though.

This evenings dinner was made with some lovely fresh produce from my organic veg box. I just wanted to make something quick and easy so I went with a huge veggie packed stir fry:

This included broccoli, spring greens, mushroom, radish, carrot, sugar snaps, green onion and soya beans with some sweet ginger sesame sauce (ginger, sweet chilli sauce, shoyu and toasted sesame oil). This was wonderful, I haven’t had a big stir fry like this in ages!

Last nights post workout dessert was a big wonderful bowl of protein ice cream made with 2 scoops of peanut butter swirl spiru-tein, water, ice and the usual gums topped with some peanut flour sauce and cacao nibs:

I’ve just ordered another big tub of this stuff from iHerb, I love it!

Tonight I decided to have some of this The Raw Chocolate Company Pitch Dark Chocolate:

I just love this chocolate, such a wonderful deep rich flavour.

I was also over the moon today when I received these tubs of Hemp Protein Powder to try out:

These are from the Good Hemp Company. I have the plain hemp and the Strawberry Fit Shake to try. I’m especially looking forward to seeing what the strawberry is like!

How often do you change up your exercise routine?

Hope you all have and awesome weekend and don’t forget to check out my Giveaway!

Hi folks, hope you are having a lovely Sunday. I’ve been enjoying a quiet weekend at home staying wrapped up warm from the cold!

Apart from making a big pan of soup, drinking coffee and pots of green tea and chucking more rubbish ready for project decorate I’ve done bugger all ;-) But saying that, I did go to the gym this morning – and it was a tough one! They have started a new spinning class right before kettlecise and this morning I thought I’d give it a try for a double whammy workout. It was great, I haven’t done spinning in ages and it was fun to change it up!

Before going to the gym this morning I had a fresh cucumber, celery, ginger and lemon juice followed by a coconut oil blended coffee:

I’m still doing the juices on a weekend but just the one juice on a Sunday. Now that the weather is colder I’m not feeling as attracted to juices for obvious reasons but a quick glass on Sunday morning – usually after I’ve indulged a little on the Saturday night – goes down a treat.

For a proper breakfast post workout I made a big smoothie with beet greens (roasting the beets in the oven now!) roast squash, vanilla sun warrior, ice, cinnamon and unsweetened almond milk poured it into a bowl and topped with peanut sauce and a few roast soy beans for crunch:

I also had another coffee, its one of those days!

For breakfast yesterday I made an omelette with 2 eggs filled with peanut butter and strawberry jam:

Followed by a simple green smoothie:

This was just cos lettuce, vanilla sun warrior and almond milk blended up.

For lunch I had some Rude Health corn thins topped with local honey comb, avocado, bee pollen and sea salt:

Absolutely delicious! I also got my russet apple fix :-)

Snacks wise I made a yoghurt bowl with roast squash, full fat Greek yoghurt and peanut sauce:

Heaven in a bowl right there!

Then for dinner I made some perfect tofu with steamed kale from the farmers market and swede chips and ketchup:

Oh my god I just love swede chips, seriously I would pick these over regular chips any day! I just slice up the swede into chips, coat in a little oil and salt and roast at 200 for about 30 – 40 minutes until browned but tender. Perfect dipped in ketchup!

I also had some of my favourite raw mint chocolate:

Followed by copious amounts of popcorn and Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter eaten while watching Sex and the City on Film Four. Good stuff!

These last couple of weeks I’ve really enjoyed making a big Sunday lunch. Now that I’m eating meat again I tend to make something on a Sunday then eat leftovers on Monday and eat vegetarian for the rest of the week. Last week I roasted a chicken, the week before that I made an Italian style beef mince sauce with spaghetti squash and today I made a cottage pie:

I made a big one for James and two little ones for me so I can have one tomorrow. I fried up some onions, mushrooms and grated carrot with organic beef mince, some beef stock and tomato passata then topped my pies with cauliflower mash and James with ‘lazy’ mash – i.e two small potatoes microwaved and then blended into a creamy mash in the Vitamix with butter and milk and then some grated cheese on top. Served with some steamed broccoli it was comfort food at its finest :-)

Do you enjoy a more traditional Sunday lunch? What is your favourite Sunday meal?

Hey everyone, hope you're having a great Wednesday! I’m having a good week so far, I had another great healthy eating workshop at the community centre last night. As its Wednesday that can only mean one thing:

These are my eats and goings on from Sunday. I started the day with a very early run, we wanted to go to the cinema to see the Avengers movie and make the early showing so that meant an early start, no Sunday lie in for me!

As usual I had my warm water and lemon then got all suited and booted for some where around 6 miles of horribly cold and windy running. Even though I had two pairs of gloves on my fingers were numb and ached. I can’t say I enjoyed the run much but the hot shower afterwards was great! For breakfast I decided to indulge in a slightly unseasonal squash smoothie:

This is quite an autumn / winter type smoothie but considering the weather we’ve been having you wouldn’t guess it was May! I had a bag of roast kabocha squash in the freezer that needed using up so I’d defrosted it overnight and blended it with ice, two scoops of vanilla sun warrior, ground flax, cinnamon, ginger and a little vanilla stevia. Then I topped it with some of my raw tamari ‘roasted’ almonds, dried cherries, dried pear and maple syrup. It was divine! Then I needed coffee:

I had that mug x 2. It was the last of my vanilla coffee and I must buy some more, its Wednesday and I’m already having coffee withdrawals!

I thought I’d save some money on the expensive cinema snacks by taking my own. I had two large chopped carrots, home air popped popcorn, pretzels and some dried mulberries plus a bottle of water:

Those snacks kept me going nicely! The movie was awesome, James is a self confessed Marvel fan and it was geekasms all round! Once we got home I was pretty hungry so grabbed some rice cakes and topped them with red pepper hummus. I also had a pink lady apple:

A little later on I would have usually made myself a green juice but I have to admit I just couldn’t be bothered to clean up the juicer afterwards. I also felt like I needed something a bit more substantial so I made a basic green smoothie instead:

Spinach, banana, water and stevia. Quick and easy and hit the spot! I had two big mugs full.

Dinner was absolutely fantastic! I just had a couple of slices of baked marinated tofu, half a giant baked sweet potato topped with almond butter and lots of steamed broccoli with soy sauce:

For something pretty simple it tasted so good! Then for dessert I decided to treat myself to a bar of Raw Dark Mint Chocolate from The Raw Chocolate Company:

This chocolate is the bomb! I put it in the freezer for 20 minutes so it was hard and crunchy, very good indeed! After that I made myself a hot chocolate:

This was 1 1/2 scoops of cococardio with water and stevia. It was perfect for such a cold and blustery evening!

I’m pretty happy with my eats but I feel like I should have probably ate a bit more after running that morning. It is good to notice some different habits are forming though. Usually I would have just had one scoop of protein powder in my smoothie but after seeing how low the calories would have been I made sure I added the extra scoop and additional almonds on top to give it more saying power. I would also never ever have eaten a full bar of chocolate like that either. Even though those are small bars, I would have only allowed myself half. Boy did I enjoy eating the full thing! I think this shows me the difference between eating to lose weight and eating to maintain weight, and how for a long time I didn’t make that shift.

What’s your favourite cinema snack? Do you take your own or buy it at the theatre?

I absolutely loved that tofu, broccoli and sweet potato dinner! What’s your favourite simple but really tasty meal?

Is it bad that its Monday and I’m already wishing it was the weekend? I’m not unhappy, its more the fact that I have to work late two nights this week and feel like I have no spare time to speak of!

I did find time to sit down for 5 minutes over breakfast this morning: a slice of quinoa and amaranth bread lightly toasted with sunflower seed butter and a sliced apple plus a mug of detox tea:

Loving the new sunflower seed butter!

Mid morning I had some miso soup with ginger. Lunch was a bowl of leek, white bean and greens soup followed by a bowl of cherries:

I know the food miles will be astronomical with the cherries but I couldn’t resist them being on offer. I really need to start focusing on eating more locally again!

Mid afternoon I snacked on two cherry bakewell babies and a pear:

I hit up the gym for my usual Monday evening workout of 40 minutes HIITs, 30 minute spin class and abs and core work. I managed to hold my planks for 70 seconds, up from 60 seconds last week, yey!

Dinner consisted of a raw salad including romaine lettuce, watercress, rocket, peppers, cucumber, carrot and alfalfa sprouts topped with a roasted veggie and sunflower seed patty, parsley and some new beetroot sauce I made at the weekend:

Beetroot sauce (makes around 2 cups) inspired by Choosing Raw

• 2 medium beetroots, roasted
• 2 tablespoons of oil (I used my cool oil)
• 5 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of tahini
• pinch of salt
• Water to thin as desired

Basically whack everything into a food processor and blend the hell out of it. I ended up having to add quite a bit of water to get it to a consistency I liked. I was actually trying to go for more of a dressing like consistency but it just wasn’t going to become any smoother. I really liked the sauce, its sweet, tangy and creamy, yum!

Dessert was a strawberry and peach smoothie I whipped up with frozen strawberries, frozen peaches, kara coconut milk, acai juice and matcha green tea powder plus a little xanthan and guar gums for thickness and topped with gojis:

Delicious, kicks my ice cream craving right in to touch!

January Kick Start Plan

I have now been on my January Kick Start Plan for a little over two weeks and I thought it would be good to sum up how I’ve been getting on since I started it.

• Eating a vegan diet

I have to say I’m feeling great, I’ve found eating a vegan diet very easy and the increase in fresh fruit and vegetable juices and nuts seem to be doing me the world of good.

• Caffeine

Although I’ve never been a huge caffeine drinker I did get a withdrawal headache in the first couple of days which cleared up very quickly. I haven’t been abstaining from caffeine altogether as I have still be drinking green tea and yerba mate which do have a small amount of caffeine in them. I have to say I am looking forward to being able to enjoy a cup of my flavoured coffees again come February!

• Refined sugars and processed foods

I’ve done well avoiding any refined sugars and processed foods although I think I may have eaten some pasta sauce from a jar which had added sugar and the couscous salad I had yesterday had a little added sugar but I’m certainly not stressing about that.

I am enjoying including the occasional nakd bar, trek bar, bear granola nibbles and raw chocolate as although these come in a packet and not from my own kitchen they have no added sugar and are completely natural.

• Limiting soy

I’ve done well here, no soy milk and I’ve only eaten tofu twice, both of which has been organic

• Skin care and beauty regime

A week ago my skin started breaking out with spots around my chin and temples but these have now cleared up and my skin is looking pretty clear. I have been trying to remember to dry skin brush every day and I have been using a mud mask each week which I think helped with the spots!

Overall

I think that I am achieving what I set out to do with this plan: kick start my healthy living into 2011, experiment with new foods and recipes and see how I get on eating vegan. On the whole vegan front I can honestly say I’m surprised at how easy I have found it, and at times I have found myself seriously considering becoming a vegan permanently. I’m feeling really good in myself, my energy levels are excellent and I’m sleeping much better. However, on reflection I think that I would find a vegan diet a little too restrictive at this stage in my life and I would like a little bit of flexibility.

At the moment I think that come February I will be eating very little dairy, and what I do eat I will try and ensure is organic and from local sources if possible (which I’ve been doing anyway). I think I will be happy eating eggs via my organic veg box delivery scheme or my local farm shop as I trust that these are coming from a reputable source. I’ll be careful eating animal product containing foods such as baked goods – I’d much prefer to either make them at home myself with good dairy or make my own vegan versions. Again, this is just what I feel is right for me – I truly believe that we are all different and I completely respect everyone’s individual choices when it comes to their own diet.

One thing that the kick start plan has done is spark a new interest in raw foods, and particularly raw chocolate, I just can’t get enough of the stuff! I love that it doesn’t play havoc with my blood sugar levels like some other chocolates and actually gives me some antioxidants. Speaking of which I received several packages of raw chocolate as well as some diary free chocolate to sample and review:

Conscious Chocolate:

The Raw Chocolate Company:

Plamil Foods:

I’m looking forward to reviewing these products and in particular comparing the raw chocolates to each other as I have found that the raw chocolates I have tried so far all have their own unique taste and texture. I’m also looking forward to trying the dairy and sugar free vegan Plamil range as even chocolate like Green and Blacks 70% contains diary which really surprised me! I’m going to have to buy some Plamil’s chocolate chips for my vegan baking.

I’m really chuffed that I managed to increase my plank hold time today and that my January kick start plan is going well. I’m even thinking about doing a bit of a raw food / juice detox this weekend. If you set yourself goals for January, how are you getting on?