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Hi everyone, happy weekend! I’m so glad it has finally arrived. Here’s a bit of a catch up on yesterday’s eats:

After doing my usual DVD workout I was extremely excited about making myself a giant chocolate cherry green monster. I really can’t go more than a couple of weeks without one of these in my life they just taste so good! It contained the usual spinach, frozen cherries, chocolate whey, soy milk, matcha green tea powder and maca powder. I topped it with half a bag of we are bear coca cherry pie granola.

This was to die for, just the most delicious breakfast. I also enjoyed a cup of tea pigs yerba mate tea to give me a morning boost.

Lunch was one of my home made egg white and spelt wraps filled with turkey slices, lettuce, green pepper, cucumber, red onion and sweet chilli sauce. I also had a large chopped carrot and two little plums.

 

The sweet chilli sauce was amazing, I bought my first bottle a few days ago and I think it will be ending up in allsorts of dishes!

Mid afternoon I snacked on some 2% Greek Yoghurt with walnuts and goji berries.

I had another delightful late night at work so dinner was another quick lazy one: egg and veggie scramble with cheese. I fried up some red onion and red pepper then added some spinach followed by an egg an an egg white. I scrambled it all up then topped with two sliced babybel light.

Quick, easy and delicious.

Desert was two chopped apples and a big square of the wonderfulness that is Lindt Dark Chocolate with sea salt. I saw these in Sainsbury’s on Wednesday (ok, so I was hunting them down) and bought two more bars to add to already large chocolate stash.

On to today…

I fancied treating myself to a lazy breakfast so I made up another egg white and spelt wrap with added mixed seeds and filled it with crunchy peanut butter and a sliced apple. I also had a cup of hazelnut and cinnamon coffee.

Just the perfect breakfast, it kept be full from 7am till 12, not bad going!

Lunch was a salad containing turkey, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, romaine lettuce and a dressing made from two heaped tablespoons of beetroot chutney mixed with some red wine vinegar. I also had a apple, pear and two mini plums.

 

Before hitting the gym I had a Beet It Shot. I did 45 minutes of HITTs on the usual cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by 3 x 15 reps on the chest machine and lat machine and 3 x 20 sit ups on the stability ball.

Today I also got my fruit and vegetable boxes from the food co op. This week I went for the £5 fruit box and the £5 veg box:

 

Still excellent value, I’m so happy that I’m able to take advantage of this scheme. I had lots of fun writing a meal plan to use all this up!

For dinner I wanted to make use of the Butternut squash I got in last weeks box. As the hubby has his mates over on a Friday night I get to make myself a special meal for one (they eat pizza!)

Butternut Squash and Quinoa Risotto (serves 1)

• 1/2 cup of quinoa, rinsed
• 1/3 butternut squash cut into small pieces and roasted
• 1 white onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup of frozen peas
• 1 handful of baby spinach
• 1 cup of vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon of greek yoghurt (I used 2%)
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutritional yeast (or parmesan)

Begin by frying off the onion and garlic in a little oil, once softened and transparent add the quinoa. Then add the vegetable stock and bring the pan to the boil. The quinoa will absorb all the stock after about 15 minutes, but don’t let it become too dry, it should go a nice creamy texture. Then add the peas, butternut squash and spinach. Allow the spinach to wilt down into the pan. In a separate bowl mix together the yoghurt and nutritional yeast / cheese. Lower the heat then gently stir the yoghurt into the quinoa. Serve.

This was bloody gorgeous! Definitely one of my best recipes to date. I’ll be making quinoa risotto all the time now using different veggies. You could double the quantities and make it for two, but I would keep the onion and garlic the same. I just don’t mind eating all that onion!

For desert I made a lovely big bowl of double chocolate protein ice cream with dark chocolate chips.

I also enjoyed 3 sneaky pieces of deliciousness that I had baked. I can’t blog about the recipe yet as it was a practice batch for a blogger cookie exchange I’m taking part in and I don’t want to spoil the surprise for the lovely Tamzin!

Over the last couple of days I have discovered some fantastic cookery blogs:

Stone Soup: has some wonderful and extremely simple recipes made with only 5 ingredients. They even have a free ecookbook which you can download.

Veggie Num Num: A great vegetarian cookery blog with amazing food photography

All Day I Dream About Food: I’ve found several great low carb simple recipes from this blog

Now all I need is more meals in the day when I can eat them!

This weekend I will be running, shopping, seeing friends, watching movies and baking. Sounds pretty perfect to me! What have you all got planned? Whatever your up to hope you have a great weekend! :-)

Kicked off today with a good gym workout. Before I went I stuffed down a cup of green tea and one of my homemade fuel bars.


Did 15 mins each on the treadmill, cross trainer and step machine of my usual intervals and even managed to keep up with the increases to speed and resistance I made in Mondays workout! I followed that with two sets of my usual abs exercises. The gym staff had faces like smacked bums when I went in, sometimes I think they wish they had no people in at all, its not even as if I bother them for anything! Nevermind, I was smiling, having another good workout under my belt made me feel better about yesterdays excesses!

Breakfast was really delicious, I made some porridge with water, I would usually use skimmed milk but I knew I would be having two other portions of diary today later and didn't want to over do it. Instead I just added a touch of hazelnut and almond rice milk and topped it with a spoonful of smooth peanut butter and a spoonful of some new naturally sweetened strawberry jam I had bought last week. Peanut butter and jam porridge = winning combo!


Had another community coffee morning with work, but no one came so we didn't open the cakes we had bought, glad that any tempation was avoided!

Lunch was a juicy, fragrant nectarine followed by a bowl of my chilli bean soup, it totally hit the spot!


My mid afternoon snack was two babybel lights and a big juicy pear.


For dinner I made up more of my spelt and egg white wraps (1 tablespoon of spelt flour and 3 egg whites, mixed together and fried up like a pancake) filled with a mixture of cottage cheese, spinach and sweet potato.


I wasn't that fussed on this, I can't pin point what it was but I don't think I'll be making these again. Desert was my favourite - frozen raspberries in hazelnut and vanilla rice milk


Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

After I had my tea I put some veggies in the oven to roast for dinner tomorrow night as I'm working late again :-( I also fried off some turkey steak with a little bit of hot chilli powder to have with the roast veggies. I hope they taste nice!

I've had some mad DOMS going on today, my back, legs and backside are bloody killing, but at least I know that I've obviously worked them hard. I also seem to be winning the battle with my evening snackiness this week which I am very happy with! Can't believe that its Wednesday already, this week is flying over! Hope everyones having a good week xxx

Have you been enjoying the fireworks UK readers? The display in Durham has just finished:

Great view isn’t it? They were beautiful, I watched with my window open so I could smell the bonfire. I lay in bed while watching them and had this hot chocolate and cookie:

Bliss! I made the hot chocolate with hazelnut and almond rice milk warmed on the hob and whisked with a few dark chocolate chips and cocoa powder – no need for sweetener with this rice milk either. The cookie was one I received from Tam as part of the cookie exchange that I’d stashed in the freezer.

This morning I was up bright and early as I wanted to get my workout done and dusted before I started my day. I did 15 minutes of my new tougher intervals on the step machine, cross trainer and bike for a total of 45 minutes cardio followed by some core work on the stability ball and some chest and back exercises.

Breakfast was some 2% greek yoghurt mixed with frozen blueberries (I’d mixed this together and left in the fridge while at the gym) on top of a sliced pear and then topped with some Rude Health Granola and some ground flax and nut mix.

Super tasty and filling!

I got sorted and headed over to Newcastle. The little farmers market was great, I had to exercise a lot of restraint and not buy everything in site! I ended up getting a selection of organic veg including carrots, kale, cauliflower, calabrese broccoli and some colourful chard. I also picked up some vegetarian locally made spicy cheese – I’m going to try and keep this for Christmas if I can. I also got some other fruit and veggies from the Grainger Market and picked up some of my favourite flavoured tofu, tofu sausages and some tins of organic black beans from Waitrose.

 

I’m really ramping up the leafy greens this week :-)

While I was out I had a Toffee Nut Soy Latte from Starbucks.

This was ok but I wished I had got the Gingerbread flavour instead!

I also bought my first Christmas present and picked up a couple of purchases for me including this ‘leather’ hooded bomber jacket I had my eye on from Topshop that I blogged about a while ago.

Love this jacket so much! I also got a short coat from H&M, I like it but I’m still wondering if its right for me, I’ll probably post a pic tomorrow.

When I got home I made a delicious lunch – home made spelt and egg white wrap filled with peanut butter and a sliced organic apple then refried like a quesadilla to make it extra toasty. I had loads of organic carrot sticks on the side as they needed eating up, plus a little cucumber and left over apple. Organic carrots and apples just taste amazing.

Mid afternoon I had a mug of miso soup to keep me going before I made dinner. I roasted some squash – one was definitely a kabocha but I’m not sure what variety the other was. I then mixed the roast chopped squash with a can of adzuki beans and a little vegetable stock to make a stew like dish inspired by the Kabocha Squash and Adzuki Bean recipe from The Kind Diet. I served it with some diakon, cabbage, kale and leek stir fried in coconut oil and topped with soy sauce, ginger and ume vinegar plus a good sprinkling of toasted mixed seeds and fresh coriander and parsley.

Oh my word this tasted good, I can’t believe that something so simple could taste so amazing! Coconut oil where have you been all my life? I loved the slight coconut taste it added to the stir fried veggies. The simple combination of the squash and beans was just divine too, so glad I have left overs for tomorrow!

As well as my hot chocolate and cookie I think I’ll probably have a sliced russet apple with cinnamon later on as well.

Have your ever been to a farmers market? What kind of produce did you buy?

This morning, after watching a bit of the election 'results' (I did vote, for what it was worth!) I headed to the gym for my first proper strength routine using the gym's facilities instead of doing something at home.

I started with some cardio to warm up - 10 mins of 1 minute intervals on both the cross trainer and step machine. I then hit the little free weights section! I did my strength routine as detailed in my May Training Plan. It felt good to do my deadlifts and lunges with a proper barbell. I also got to try out using the stablity ball for some sit ups, it made a huge difference, my abs started to feel it much quicker than usual! When I had written my training plan I had aimed for two sets of my choosen exercises but after doing them today I think I could easily fit in three. So I'm going to change it up a bit and try super setting them instead. I've made amendments to my training plan so I shall see how I get on next week!

As my gym doesn't open till 7am, a morning workout leaves me having to rush about to make sure that I get to work for 9. I decided to make myself a chocolate cherry green monster (loads of spinach, frozen cherries, scoop of chocolate whey, hazelnut and almond rice milk and water) in my shaker cup so I could drink breakie while I was getting ready.


As usual this tasted wonderful, was sorry that I didn't have the time to sit and really enjoy it!

I zoomed into work as I had a full morning meeting that I needed to help get things set up for. Luckily that meeting went very well and flew over.

Lunch was from the buffet at the meeting - I had started off with good intentions of just eating the fresh fruit (a lovely platter of fresh pineapple, melon, plums, kiwi and strawberries) but then I had about 5 spring rolls, three tandorri chicken sticks, a couple of mini pizzas, a square of chocolate mousse cake and a big dollop of fresh cream. A bit of an indulgence, and I definitely overate but you have to treat yourself sometimes! I guess I could call this carb loading for tomorrows run? ;-) Unfortunately I didn't get any pics as there were some big wigs at the meeting, shame as you all would have been drooling over that chocolate mousse cake!

I spent the afternoon feeling bloated with my food baby after eating all those greasy spring rolls and that heavy cream so I filled up on the water and green tea to try and make me feel better.

Dinner was actually what I had planned on eating for lunch (if I hadn't given in to the delights of the buffet!) - an experimental Bang Bang Chicken egg white and spelt wrap. Ages ago I had a sandwich which was called bang bang chicken and was basically shredded chicken in a yoghurty sauce with spring onions and salted peanuts. It was very tasty. I don't think this is anything like the proper spicy bang bang chicken but this is my version of that sandwich I had many months ago.

Bang Bang Chicken Spelt Egg Wrap

Shredded small chicken breast
two tablespoons of natural yoghurt
1 heaped teaspoon of crunchy peanut butter
3 chopped spring onions
Salt and pepper to taste
1 egg white and spelt wrap (3 egg whites, two tablespoons of wholemeal spelt flour mixed to a batter and fried like a pancake)
Small handful of spinach leaves

Mix the bang bang chicken ingredients together. Make wrap and allow to cool. Add spinach leaves with bang bang chicken mixture on the top then roll.


I served mine with some roast brocolli. Protein packed, very tasty and extremely filling!

While I was waiting for my brocolli to roast I snacked on a few lentil and bean sprouts. They taste lovely and nutty.


Desert was going to be some dark chocolate but due to earlier indulgences I decided to go with a slightly less calorific option of frozen raspberries and a chopped peach with hazelnut and almond rice milk, followed by an apple.


Drinks - water, green tea

I'm very chuffed this evening as I have won my first ever blog competition! I have won a magic bullet blender from a competition on JAG's blog. So excited! Big thanks to JAG for hosting the competition. Speaking of competition's this is your last chance to enter my Nakd Bar and Pamper treats GIVEAWAY. I'll be selecting the winners at random tomorrow, so if you haven't already entered get your socks on!
I also had my weekly weigh in this morning - 10st 1 so thats a pound on but I'm not stressing about it, I did enjoy my cheese scones with butter at the weekend, they were more than worth it!


I feel like this has been a brilliant 'blog' week, I've had my GIVEAWAY going on, I'm reader of the week in Health and Fitness Magazine, I got my new kitchen trolley and I've won my first ever blog competition! Not bad eh! Hope you all have a fab weekend lined up whatever your up to xx

For the last few days I’ve been feeling a little bit run down. I didn’t think much of it but then last night my throat started feeling a little sore and I was really tired. I think that may be why I succumbed to the snackies the other night. I can not be coming down with a cold this close to the Great North Run. Let operation Fighting Fit commence!

I started my morning with my usual mug of warm water and lemon juice but added a some chopped fresh ginger. I love fresh ginger in general but its excellent for helping to stave off a cold. I decided I would still do my Davina DVD. I always feel better after some exercise and I think sweating it out does me some good. Breakfast was Rude Health Fruity Date porridge made up with water and a scoop of chocolate whey mixed in then topped with mixed frozen berries, Greek yoghurt and grape nuts cereal.

I love the hot / cold combo with the porridge and still slightly frozen fruit, yum!

I popped out to the chemist before my lunch and bought some Berroca tablets. I don’t usually take any vitamins but I thought that drinking a glass of water with a Berroca tablet in to top up my vitamin levels won’t do any harm.

For lunch I had some of my favourite soup – Lentil and Spinach along with a nectarine and two plums.

This soup is wonderful if your fighting a cold as it contains ginger and chilli and is so warming.

Mid afternoon I snacked on some Total Greek Yoghurt with pear puree and honey.

For dinner I made up a big raw veggie filled salad including spicy roasted chickpeas, spinach, cos lettuce, carrot, yellow pepper and cucumber. I added a tablespoon of spicy peri peri dressing too.

Delicious, and all those raw veggies are going to support my immune system to fight off this cold. Peppers are an excellent source of vitamin C too.

I also made myself a high protein egg white spelt wrap (3 egg whites, 2 tablespoons of spelt flour, combined and fried like a large pancake on both sides) to which I added a tablespoon of mixed seeds to make it a seeded wrap.

Adding the seeds worked really well! I filled it with lots of smooth peanut butter and a sliced golden delicious apple.

 

This was just so good, the peanut butter went all melty in the warm wrap – I think I’ve found a new favourite! This wrap is an excellent mix of high protein, complex carbs and good fats so would also be good for breakfast.

I was still feeling a bit snacky and fancied some fruit, but then I had the idea for making an immune boosting smoothie:

Laura’s Cold Killer Smoothie

• 1/2 cup of goji berries soaked in 1 cup of water for at least 1 hour (Vitamin C)
• Mixed frozen berries and strawberries
• 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon of fresh grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of chilli
• 1 heaped teaspoon of raw cacao powder or cocoa powder

Add all ingredients (the gojis and the water they’ve been soaking in) to your blender and wizz.

This actually tasted a lot nicer than I was expecting. It really tastes healthy and fresh and the raw cacao and strawberry with hint of chilli and ginger goes so well together.

I’ve also been drinking plenty of green and herbal tea throughout the day so hopefully I have kicked that cold out!

Tomorrow I’m going to start doing a bit of carb loading in preparation for The Great North Run. I’m already feeling pretty hungry due to this cold so as long as I’m eating healthy unrefined carbs such wholemeal bread, pasta, fruit etc I’m going to give my hunger free reign for a change, I see a few bowls of muesli in my future!

Plus Size Models – what’s your thoughts?

Today the first ever plus size fashion show was held during New York Fashion Week. I have a bit of difficulty with the whole ‘plus size’ model thing. Why does it always have to be one of two extremes? Its either size 0 or size 16 why can’t we have models that are in a more healthy range? Some times I wonder if promoting plus size models is just as unhealthy as promoting size 0 models. The model in the article I have linked to above looks amazing and at 5’11 and 12st 7 probably is more of a healthy range and shouldn’t even be labelled as plus size. What’s your thoughts on this? By promoting plus size models are we promoting being unhealthily overweight, just as we are when promoting size 0 models at the other end of the scale? As a lover of fashion I wish clothes could be shown on healthy models (I also believe some women can be naturally really skinny or naturally bigger and still be healthy) of all shapes and sizes rather than really skinny or plus size. These are just some of my thoughts, I certainly don’t want to offend anyone but I think this is an interesting debate – I’m really interested to know what you think!