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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?

Hello everyone, hope your Tuesday has been a good one! I’ve had a couple of stressful days – it just feels like I have so much to do right now!

I have to say that exercise for me is such a great stress reliever. Monday morning I was up bright and early to hit the gym. I did my tread mill speed interval workout – 5k in just under 27 minutes. I followed that with 30 minutes of sweaty high intensity intervals on the cross trainer, step machine and bike. I also did my usual core and abs work to finish off! Today I did my Yoga for Runners podcast first thing, it really did make me feel a lot better. I find that when I have a lot on my mind I lose my balance a lot more in the poses, but I just try and focus on my breathing which helps calm me down.

Quick OOTD: cream cardigan: Florence and Fred Tesco, ivory style collar necklace: French Connection, blue bird print camisole: Forever 21, multiple charm bracelets: various, black harem style trousers: Zara, cream ballet flats: Next

This evening I had my beloved Body Pump class preceded by 30 minutes of cardio on the machines in the gym, loved getting my sweat on! I even increased my weights for the chest and bicep tracks. While I was in the gym I was approached by a girl who I’ve always though of as probably the fittest member – you know, the girl who is always there, appears slightly aloof, is really slim and fit etc, she asked me how I lost so much weight and how I got so toned. She asked if I followed any plan and that my arms were amazing! I was totally gobsmacked! I was truly amazed to receive such a lovely complement, especially from her! It really made my day :-)

I’ve noticed that over the last couple of days I have been loving the healthy fats in my meals. I needed Monday’s breakfast to be quick and easy to prepare so on Sunday night I made up a quick Vanilla Chia Quinoa pudding and left it in the fridge. Post gym I just added a chopped pink lady apple and some frozen blueberries:

I really do love chia puddings, chia seeds are such a great source of healthy fats and this pudding kept me nice and full till lunch.

This morning I used my last Mountain Corn Bread Wrap and filled it with strawberries and lots of almond butter for more healthy fat action. I had even more fat in the form of a smoothie containing strawberries, half a frozen avocado, coconut water and pumpkin seeds then topped with more pumpkin seeds:

The avocado made the smoothie extra thick and creamy and the pumpkin seeds gave it a great nutty taste.

Lunches have been the same very tasty salad:

This contained romaine lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red onion, yellow pepper, olives, hemp seeds, avocado and a big drizzle of cashew mayo. I went for quadruple good fat action with this: cashew mayo containing cashews and olive oil, hemp seeds, olives and more avocado. So satisfying!

Dinners have seen more raw experimentation, this time with sprouted wheat berries. I mixed the wheat berries with some green lentils, chopped carrot and fresh basil and some of my citrus dressing from this recipe. I served up with a pile of steamed greens and broccoli:

This was absolutely delicious, I love chewy wheat berries – they pair very well with the citrus flavour. I also got in my healthy fat action with the hemp oil in the dressing, yum yum!

Desserts have included Easter Sunshine Conscious Raw Chocolate and some orange:

The raw chocolate contained sunflower seeds (more fat!) and dried mango, delicious!

I’ve also enjoyed snacking on lots of delicious fruit, veggies and my garden pate (more sunflower seeds and hemp oil) and a Raw Chocolate Brownie:

I adore these brownies and this reminded me I need to make some more of my own! This contains almonds for even more yummy fat.

Wow, until I actually thought about it I didn’t realise how much healthy fats I’ve been eating! I really do love my healthy fats, my current favourites being avocados, nut butters (obviously!) and hemp oil. They have been a great healthy source of fat and additional calories while I’m training, and I think my skin, hair and nails have been thanking me for it!

Healthy fats such as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat are great for the body – they aren’t called essential fatty acids for nothing! Our body can’t produce them so we need them from our diet. They help us to absorb fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K, they support brain and nerve function and help to keep our skin, hair and nails healthy. Even if your trying to lose weight, a lot of research has shown that eating a moderate amount of the right fats can support weight loss.

What’s your favourite healthy fat? How do you incorporate healthy fats into your diet?