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…but first I just have to share a couple of tasty eats from over the last couple of days!

Yesterdays breakfast:

Butternut smoothie made with roast and frozen butternut squash blended with vanilla rice milk, cinnamon, ground ginger and a dash of vanilla extract topped with treacle granola, crystallised ginger and almond butter sauce (1 tbsp of almond butter mixed with a little hot water from the kettle until drippy – so good, you get much more nut butter this way and that melty texture). I had so many of these back in autumn, and yes this tasted a little autumnal to be eating in June, but oh so good!

This mornings breakfast:

Teeccino Almond Amaretto herbal ‘coffee’ and Peanut butter puffins cereal (both from my iHerb order, more on that in a mo) with strawberries and soy milk. I loved the peanut butter puffins, so delicious paired with the strawberries!

Dinner the last couple of days has been the most gorgeous Sausage and Tomato Rice made with some of my seitan sausage, plus steamed asparagus, spring greens and broccoli:

Last nights dessert was some wonderful carob protein ice cream:

1 scoop of chocolate sun warrior protein powder, vanilla rice milk, 1 tbsp of carob powder, ice, water, stevia, xanthan and guar gums, carob flakes and choc covered sunflower seeds, nom!

Workouts have been the usual stuff, Yoga for Runners again yesterday morning, 3,2,1 gym workout last night and a quick and speedy 45 minute interval and abs and core gym session this morning before work – I love my Friday morning workouts!

Grocery shop round up

As I said a few posts back I thought it might be useful to post the details of some of my grocery shops as I struggle to try and save money. Here’s my grocery shops from this week, plus a few special deliveries!

Monday:

Organic soy milk x 2, happy eggs x 6, romaine, bag of mixed leaves, strawberries, unwaxed lemons, cooked ham, ginger, cucumber, living parsley, courgettes, red onions, white onions, sugar snaps: Total £16.54

Thursday:

Spring greens, mushrooms, organic broccoli, asparagus, romaine lettuce, jazz apples x 2, strawberries, skimmed milk (James is back on the dairy), frozen peas, brita water filter – Total £16.59

Today’s organic veg box:

Bunched onions, summer greens, radishes, little gem lettuce, aubergine, asparagus, tomatoes, apples, nectarines, cantaloupe melon and bag of potatoes and wet garlic (both included for free!): total £16.75 I can’t wait to get cooking with these beautiful organic veggies!

iHerb order:

My first time ordering using the airmail option. I wanted to get more stevia to stock up (addicted to this stuff!), raw crackers as my One Lucky Duck bag is almost empty, Peanut Butter Puffins – I had to try these after seeing them on Nicky’s blog, and some Almond Amaretto Caffeine free Teeccino as I love the Chocolate Mint version I bought in NYC. Total with shipping $28.70 /approx £17.50

Goodness Direct Order:

I decided that I would make good use of the discount code I have available and place an order to stock up on some of my faves and some new stuff. I got Vita Coco 100% Pure Coconut Water x 4, Biona Organic Soya Beans x 3, Dorset Cereals Tasty Low-Fat Flakes Apple Cherry Raspberry & Cranberry, Provamel Organic Natural Yofu x 2, Sojade Natural Soy Yoghurt with Bifidus, Clear Spot Organic Tofu Smokey, Taifun Basil Tofu, Taifun Tofu Rosso, Taifun Beechwood Smoked Tofu, Meridian Organic Cashew Butter, Yogi Tea Green Chai, Yogi Tea Sweet Chilli Mexican Spice, Mapletons Fru Grains, sesame date bar (included free!) Total with discount £33.58    

Not too bad on the money saving front, even though this seems like a lot it will last for a long while. I did make a good saving on the Goodness Direct order which has well and truly stocked my fridge and cupboards, I was also quite happy that the refrigerated stuff has good long use by dates well into July. As I’ve bought a couple of smaller shops nothing has been wasted either. Obviously the iHerb order was a bit of a one off (promise!), at least I saved on the usual DHL shipping and customs charges. My plan for the rest of the month is to use up as much as possible from what I already have, just supplementing with fresh fruit and veggies.

June Sponsors GIVEAWAY!

Keeping Healthy and Getting Stylish June Sponsors Rude Health and Cosy Tea have kindly provided some awesome prizes for my June giveaway!

5 lucky winners will each receive a pack of the new Rude Health Apple and Cinnamon 7 Grain Granola:

This is tasty stuff!

A further 2 winners will receive a full set of the complete Cosy Tea range:

This includes the following varieties:

• Breakfast
• Earl Grey
• Rooibos with Vanilla
• Chamomile
• Lemon Green
• Jasmine Green
• Peppermint
• Blueberry

To enter (each of these counts as a single entry – please leave a separate comment for each one):

• Leave a comment to this post with your favourite flavour tea or favourite flavour granola :-)
• Follow me via Google Friend Connect or ‘like’ my Facebook page (links under the ‘follow me’ section on the right) or follow me on Blog Lovin or Twitter and leave a comment below stating that you have done so
• Tweet about this giveaway mentioning @keephealthstyle and leave a comment below stating you have done so
• Post about this giveaway with a link back to this post on your blog and leave a comment below stating that you have done so

Giveaway open to UK residents only (sorry International friends!) and closes at 12am GMT Friday 17th June 2011, good luck!

Going back to work this morning after a week off was tough, but at least I had coffee to help me ease back into it!

Breakfast of vanilla coffee with agave and almond milk, bowl of Dorset Cereal’s Cherry, Cranberry and Almond Muesli with small chopped apple, blueberries and almond milk. I made this batch of almond milk with some agave for a little sweetness and it tastes amazing!

Lunch was a big salad containing cos and romaine lettuce, spinach, carrot, red cabbage, red pepper and cucumber topped with some of my high protein hummus:

I also had some grapes and the most beautiful blood orange:

Mid afternoon I snacked on one of my almond oatmeal raisin cookies:

My afternoon meeting finished early so I got to the gym with plenty of time to spare before my spin class. I ended up doing 20 minutes of HIITs on the step machine, 20 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer and 15 minutes on the rowing machine at a medium intensity pace. I did my abs and core exercises – 1 minute 25 second plank (yey!), 20 full sit ups, 20 bicycle crunches, 20 crunches, 20 side reaches and 20 reverse curls x 2 sets then my 30 minute spin class. I was ravenous after this monster workout!

For dinner I made a great sausage and tomato rice dish. I wasn’t going to post this as a recipe but it was so damn good I decided I wanted to!

Sausage with tomato rice (vegan or meat option, makes 2 servings)

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup of frozen peas
• 1 cup of cooked brown rice (I used a brown and wild rice mix)
• 1/2 cup of tomato passata
• 4 sausages, cooked and chopped into bite size pieces (I used tofu sausages)

Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Once softened add the peas and sausages and continue to fry until the peas are defrosted and the sausages are warmed through. Add the brown rice and tomato sauce and stir well until warmed through, serve:

I had mine with steamed purple kale, spring greens and shoyu. This was so so good! I made a version for James (more on that in a moment) with pork sausages and he really liked it.

Dessert was a nutty berry spiru-tein shake in a bowl made with almond milk, ice cubes and peanut butter for added staying power:

I’ve missed my Monday night spiru-tein smoothies!

When I returned to work this morning I was super excited to see that I had received a package from Cosy Tea full of several boxes to try out and review:

These are all organic, fair trade, vegetarian society and viva vegan approved. Obviously I am tea obsessed so I can’t wait to try all these out, the blueberry and green varieties in particular are calling my name!

My lovely hubby started his new job today! Its going to be all change for us as he’s going from working all hours in a job in retail to a week day 9-5 office based job. Its really going to have a huge impact on us, we will actually be able to do things together on weekends! One big difference is going to be eating more meals together. I have a fun post planned looking at how I’m going to tackle the task of feeding a carnivore fuss pot (him) and a vegetarian foodie (me), wish me luck!

Hope your week is off to a great start!

I kicked off Tuesday with a new strength routine! Last month I went from doing my strength training in the form of DVD workouts to using free weights and doing my own routine. I have really enjoyed it and have seen good results so I’ve decided to continue with my own routine but change up some of the exercises now that I have progressed (but are stuck with my set weight home dumbbells). Thanks again to the brilliant Alison for the advice and guidance!

Warm up – jumping jacks, bum kicks, running on the spot, skipping (5 minutes)

• Traveling Kneeling push ups (15 reps body weight)
• Single leg deadlift (10 reps each leg with 2 x 4.5kg db)
• Lateral raise with squat (15 reps with 2 x 2.3kg db)
• Bent over row (15 reps with 2 x 4.5kg db)
• Forward lunges with twist (10 x each leg with 1 x 4.5kg db)
• Backwards lunges with bicep curl (10 x each leg with 2 x 2.3kg db)
• Tricep dip (15 reps body weight)
• Upright row with sumo squat (15 reps with 2 x 4.5kg db)
• Woodchop (10 reps each side with 1 x 4.5kg db)
• Dumbbell pullover on stability ball (15 reps with 4.5kg db)
• Cardio interval – jumping jacks, bum kicks, running on the spot, skipping (2 minutes)

x 3 sets – no rest between exercises or sets

This was an excellent workout it really challenged me – I was sweating buckets by the end! Breakfast was a big smoothie in a bowl containing purple kale, 1/2 banana, frozen cherries and mixed berries, soy milk, tbsp of coconut flour, ground flax, spirulina, matcha green tea powder and maca powder:

I topped it with goji berries and granola and also enjoyed a delicious blueberry cosy tea (really loving these teas by the way).

Lunch was leftover tofu sausage and tomato rice with lots of spinach and a bowl of cherries:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a large portion of high protein hummus with a raw cracker and veggies for dipping:

Pre yoga snack was two cookie dough balls:

My yoga class was not held last week which handily coincided with my week off work but I was glad to get back to it tonight. The instructor said that we would be trying a forearm stand at the end, so throughout the session we did postures to really work our arms, shoulders and back. There was no way I was going to be able to manage the forearm stand but practicing some postures like Dolphin Pose left me knackered and has given me some serious DOMS today! 

When I got home I decided a bowl of porridge was in order. I used 1/2 cup of oats, tablespoon of oat bran, 2 cups of water and slow cooked on the stove. I then decided to add a tablespoon of my new vanilla hemp protein powder. On one hand I couldn’t taste it, however it did make the porridge go a very unappetising colour! I also added agave for sweetness and a big tablespoon of raw brazil cacao bliss. I had two chopped pink lady apples (went back for another after this one):

Despite the colour the porridge tasted great!

This morning I made up a big bowl of 10 grain hot cereal with soy milk and water then added agave, two chopped plums and a big tablespoon of hazelnut butter:

I also had a cup of black maple walnut coffee sweetened with agave. The hot cereal was gorgeous, the hazelnut butter went very melty, so good!

Lunch was an attempted recreation of my meal last week at the scrumpy willow and singing kettle:

Quinoa, grape and walnut salad (vegan, makes two large servings)

• 1 cup of quinoa, rinsed
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• 1/2 small red cabbage finely sliced
• 6 spring onions finely chopped
• Large handful of parsley, finely chopped
• 1 cup of grapes, chopped in half
• 1/4 cup of walnuts, chopped

Dressing:

• 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil (I used my cool oil)
• 1 tsp of Dijon mustard
• 3 tbsp of apple cider vinegar

Cook the quinoa in the vegetable stock until all the stock has been absorbed. Allow to cool. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Add the dressing ingredients to a bowl or screw top jar and whisk or shake to combine. Pour over the quinoa and mix well:

I had mine on top of a big pile of lettuce. Such a tasty and filling salad, all the ingredients worked together really well. I also had an orange and sliced kiwi:

Mid afternoon snack was a peanut butter Clif bar:

I hadn’t had this flavour Clif bar before and it tasted fab! Next time I have enough money for an iHerb or wiggle order I’ll be getting more of these!

I ended up getting stuck late back at work so made the decision to cut my planned gym workout short. I think I made the right decision as once I got to the gym I had some serious DOMS in my butt, shoulders, back and triceps. I did 30 minutes of HIITS on the step machine, cross trainer and bike followed by my abs and core exercises. I left out my usual 30 minute treadmill run and plank holds (my triceps would not have managed them at all!) My plan is to do my run and planks tomorrow instead. The DOMS have left my muscles feeling really weak so I know I made the right decision to take it a little easier and make it up tomorrow instead.

Dinner was stir fried leek, red cabbage, carrot, mushroom, red pepper and spring greens with adzuki beans, ginger, soy sauce and gomasio:

Sometimes a big plate of stir fried veggies is just spot on! Dessert was The Raw Chocolate Company Seriously Dark Loaded Raw Chocolate and 2 sliced pink lady apples:

This chocolate tasted immense! Definitely the most like regular chocolate out of all the raw chocolates I have tasted. It has a lovely crunchy texture and creamy intense taste, gorgeous!

So glad I decided to take it a bit easier tonight and not rush through my workout. Do you stick to your training plan no matter what or are you happy change things when your not feeling it? Its actually quite a big deal for me to change a workout, usually I stick to my training plan no matter what which probably isn’t the best attitude to have!

Well I am going to spend some time with my foam roller now me thinks! Hope your having a great week!