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This is going to be a bit of a long post as I just have so much to share from this week!

I couldn’t not show you a picture of that cake! It was a work colleagues birthday so we decided to order something special. She’s gluten and dairy intolerant so we asked for a vegan gluten free cake that we could all enjoy. We ended up with this amazing chocolate cherry almond cake. It was to die for, so moist and the icing on top was deliciously creamy. I need to ask the cafe for the recipe!

As I said I feel like I’ve had too many nice things this week not to share them all so get ready for a bit of a photo dump! First up I had this lovely breakfast on Tuesday:

Teeccino caffeine free amaretto coffee with a slice of Burgens Chia and Sunflower seed bread toasted and spread with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and a big bowl of strawberries, blackberries and a sliced banana

Then yesterday I used up the remaining berries with some cereal:

Dorset Cereals High Fibre Flakes with strawberries, blackberries and kara coconut milk plus a mug of Clippers Indian Chai tea with coconut milk and stevia

I absolutely love that chai tea its delicious! For lunches there has been salads:

Romaine, cucumber, brown rice, black beans, red onion, avocado

Romaine, cucumber, carrot, chickpeas, olives, balsamic and hemp oil dressing

At the weekend I decided to make a batch of my Summer Bean Stew (despite the weather being as far from summery as possible) I added some celery to the recipe and used some home cooked cannellini beans and pinto beans:

I had it with a Raw Health Italian cracker on the side. So tasty!

I’ve also had some amazingly tasty dinners:

Herbed socca fold over with red pepper hummus, baked tofu and spinach served with lots of roast broccoli

Buddha bowl with steamed greens, quinoa, edamame beans, roast red kabocha squash, a peanut sesame miso sauce and parsley on top

Snacks wise I’ve been enjoying lots of nuts, seeds and dried fruit:

Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds and dried figs

Pumpkin seeds and satsumas (good combo for iron absorption – iron in pumpkin seeds and vitamin C in the fruit)

The Raw Chocolate Company chocolate covered goji berries and frozen grapes

And eaten in the car between meetings:

A vegan chocolate chip cookie (from Cat as part of the cookie exchange) and a big pink lady apple

My other meals and snacks may have been good this week but my smoothies have been phenomenal! They’ve all turned out extremely creamy and satisfying:

Kale, mixed frozen berries, half an avocado, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca, water and ice topped with goji berries and hemp seeds

Amazing chocolate chip peanut butter smoothie made with two scoops of spiru-tein peanut butter swirl powder, xanthan gum, water, ice and stevia topped with peanut sauce made from peanut flour and dark chocolate chips on top

Lots of spinach, frozen banana, two scoops of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca, water, ice topped with some coconut and bee pollen (tasted like vanilla ice cream!)

Frozen blueberries, spiru-tein cookies and cream protein powder, water, ice topped with peanut butter & co smooth operator peanut butter and cacao nibs

They were all so delicious, the one with the avocado in was especially good!

Workouts wise I’ve been doing the last week of the Dial It In phase from Female Body Breakthrough (my amended version of it) so I’ve been giving it my all:

• Saturday – REST
• Sunday – 6 mile run (approx)
• Monday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Tuesday – 3 mile run (approx)
• Wednesday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike, PM – Yoga for detox podcast
• Thursday – PM yoga class 1hr 15 
• Friday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Dial it in phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike

I keep a little note book with all of the weights I use and reps for each exercise so I’ve been looking back to see if I have improved. Its really motivational to see how well I’ve progressed. Even though I don’t have any specific aims to increase strength or build muscle, this month I do feel like I’ve started to see some added muscle definition which is always good! I’ve also been continuing to enjoy my yoga classes now that I’ve been going regularly and feel more comfortable in the group. We do a lot of assisted poses (thanks to this post I now get that this is in fact what we are doing!) which are fantastic for really stretching you out.

On the weekend send off love list this week…

That would be Tesco’s amazing ‘Free From’ range of products including soya yoghurts, desserts and vegan cheeses, also some very Free Range Chickens (although I think those are Cockerels) at my Farm shop

I called into to Tesco and remembered that Jess had mentioned that they did some amazing vegan cheese. I ended up getting some of their soy yoghurt (which doesn’t appear to contain any added sugar like most other brands), vegan cream cheese and vegan mild and medium cheese. The ingredients lists for these look very good with coconut oil being a main component and not a lot of other stuff, I’ll probably do a little review once I’ve tried them. I also paid a visit to my local farm shop to get some veggies and eggs. After I posted about my return to eggs I knew these would be the only eggs I’d feel comfortable eating and I have to say you can’t get much more free range than the chickens I saw, they were literally pottering around the whole farm, I had to make sure I didn’t run any of them over! Also…

Listening to James Brown in the car and having a little funky groove to it // seeing the Avengers movie (which was awesome!) // another brilliant healthy eating session with the young people – this week we made pizza’s on whole wheat muffins and tortillas //making an order with Goodness Direct to stock up on my favourite moisturiser (15% off right now!) and treating myself to some coconut water // knowing that we have a long weekend ahead, and god do I need it!

Do you keep any kind of workout log or note book to record your progress at the gym? Have you had anything particularly delicious this week you’d like to share? What’s on your love list this week?

Thanks for your comments to yesterdays post about how you deal with stress. It was really interesting hearing about the different ways that stress effects our eating. Apart from a few spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt before bed time I avoided any major blow outs. I also got my work done and was happy to hit the ‘submit’ button this morning!

Before I went to work I headed to the gym for a quick workout – 30 minutes of HIITs with a 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by some sit ups on the stability ball and a plank and side planks.

For breakfast I had some chopped melon topped with 0% Total Greek Yoghurt and some of my new Dorset Cereals Tasty Toasted Spelt Muesli.

I really liked this muesli, it seemed a lot less ‘dense’ than other muesli as the spelt flakes were very light. It was also packed with dried fruit, nuts and seeds including yummy dried pineapple chunks.

It was a busy morning as we were preparing for our big event to celebrate our organisations 10th Birthday. I snacked on an unpictured apple as I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be hitting the buffet starving as this would usually lead to me making some less than healthy choices! As it turned out the buffet was pretty healthy anyway. I had 3 small wholemeal wraps, 2 with smoked salmon and cream cheese and one with tuna. I also had a small wholemeal ham sandwich and lots of hummus with cucumber, carrot and pepper for dipping.

I also had a glass of watered down orange juice. The event went very well, we had an amazing group of young people perform as the entertainment – they were incredibly talented! The event was a great celebration of the 10 years of work my charity has done with the community and was such good fun!

Mid afternoon I had some of the birthday cake with strawberries.

I had this little bite sized slice x 2 plus more strawberries.

Unfortunately all the refined sugar in the cake gave me a crazy sugar high and then left me crashing and completely starving by 5pm. I came home and instead of waiting to have dinner I just made it straight away. I had some of my Summer Bean Stew that had been defrosted from my frozen stash with a little added tomato sauce, some kallo rosemary crackers and a few spicy roasted chickpeas thrown on top.

I’d picked the spicy roasted chickpeas up from a market stall last week and they were gorgeous added to the bean stew.

I then had another apple, chopped and sprinkled with cinnamon.

I had to really stop myself snacking on anything else as I was just ravenous. I managed to hold off until 7pm then made myself this energy giving green monster. I’m planning a big run in the morning so I decided to fill it full of energy giving ingredients:

Energising Green Monster (makes 1 big serving)

• 1 frozen banana
• handful of spinach
• 4 chopped dates
• Soy milk (or any other milk)
• 1 tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
• 3 ice cubes
• 2 tablespoons of muesli as a topping (or your choice of topping)
• 1 tablespoon of wheat germ (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of maca powder (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon of matcha green tea (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum (optional)

Chuck all the ingredients in a blender and wizz till smooth. Top with the muesli.

A bowl full of green goodness, I didn’t want it to end! In case anyone was wondering, the reason why I eat my smoothies in a bowl is firstly because I like them extra thick, and secondly because it takes me longer to eat them that way and makes them feel more filling. I have a tendency to just knock back smoothies in a glass in 10 seconds!  While I’ve been training I’ve really found that bananas and dates are my super fuel and eating them the night before a long run tends to do the trick, so I’m hoping that this smoothie will leave me well charged up in the morning.

I’m still feeling extremely snacky – I’ve just stood in the kitchen and ate more muesli straight from the box with a spoon! I’m not going to be too hard on myself as I haven’t had a snack attack like this for a while, and at least I should be able to burn some of it off with my run tomorrow.

Yesterday I mentioned that I had been sent some more goodies to sample:

Beet It Organic Stamina Shots – kindly sent to me by James White Drinks. This is an unusual product and I’m really looking forward to trying it. Basically these are small shots of pure concentrated organic beetroot juice cut with some lemon juice. Beetroots are naturally high in nitric oxide (NO). Here’s some info from the website:

So what does NO do?

• regulator of blood pressure;
• a gatekeeper of blood flow to certain organs;
• a stamina enhancer via oxygen usage efficiency;
• a weapon against infection;
• a signal molecule in the nervous system.

‘The Beet It shot version is an organic concentrated beetroot 7cl bottle that delivers a comparable dose of dietary nitrate as a 25cl Beet It organic beetroot juice. It is cut with lemon juice to  reduce the sweetness of the beetroot and actually does not taste of beetroot (unlike the Beet It juice). So it is a quick easy dose for people that do not like beetroot juice!  We have only just launched it but the UK elites sports teams (UK athletics team took them to the July European Championships and both the England and Welsh rugby teams have been trialling them) are very interested’

I’m going to be trying these out before my gym workouts and seeing how I go. Each shot is one of your 5 a day too. I also have 2 shots to add to my big GIVEAWAY prize coming soon.

What’s your favourite exercise fuel? Alongside the bananas and dates I love my natural bars such as Nakd and 9 bars and any kind of dried fruit seems to work well for me too. Do you always fuel for a workout or do you ever workout without eating at all? I’m interested to see how the Beet It Shots will work as workout fuel for me.

So glad we’ve hit the weekend! What does everyone have planned? As I mentioned earlier I’m planning on running 13 miles in the morning as my final really long run before the Great North Run (only 2 weeks away!) I’m also planning more cooking and baking, cleaning and tidying, grocery shopping and sorting out some old autumn / winter clothing for ebay. Hopefully some chill time too! Hope you all have a fantastic weekend whatever your up to x

Hi Everyone, I’m super happy tonight as I am now officially finished work for the weekend!
This morning I got up, did my Davina Top Fit DVD and made a luscious breakfast – Chocolate Cherry Green Monster (loads of spinach, frozen cherries, chocolate whey, soy milk, maca powder) topped with Dorset Cereals Berries and Cherries Muesli and some cacao nibs.



This was just perfect, so thick and creamy and the muesli and nibs gave some great crunch and chew.

Lunch was another serving of last nights Chilli Turkey Salad followed by the most juicy nectarine and a large clemintine.




Mid afternoon I snacked on a large apple and two babybel light.



My snackiness has continued, throughout the day I have snacked on about 4 or 5 fun sized apples (I lost count!) and a couple of handfuls of these roasted soya nuts I picked up on my break.




I really like these soya nuts, they aren’t too bad for calories and fat and have a really good amount of protein. I think I’ll try adding these to salads in the future. I’m beginning to think that today’s snackiness has been down to the fact that the food was ‘just there’. I think if it hadn’t been available to eat I would have been fine! At least all of these snacks have been very healthy.
I had an early evening meeting then rushed home to make this creation:

Mediterranean Summer Bean Stew (inspired by this recipe) makes 4 servings

• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• 2 small courgettes chopped
• 1 yellow pepper chopped
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• 1 small tin (300g) of haricot beans
• 1 small tin (300g) of cannellini beans
• 1 small tin (300g) of pinto beans
• 1 handful of baby spinach
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon of dried basil
• 300 ml Vegetable Stock

Sauté the onion and garlic in a little oil until onion becomes translucent. Add the chopped courgette and pepper to the pan and continue to fry for a couple of minutes until slightly softened. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, beans and vegetable stock. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes on a low heat until the courgette and pepper are cooked and the beans have warmed through. Add the herbs and spinach and cook for another 30 seconds until the spinach has wilted. Serve.




I had mine with half a RAW cracker crumbled on top. This was fab! I was actually surprised how good this tasted, really filling and full of flavour, gorgeous!

For desert I whizzed up some frozen strawberries, a heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder and soy milk to make chocolate strawberry soft serve. I popped it in the freezer to firm up a bit before eating as I had to add a fair bit of soy milk to get the strawberries to blend.



Tomorrow we are off to the hubby’s cousins wedding. As I’m on my Big Budget Challenge I decided to make myself a head band / fascinator. I found two pieces of black ribbon in my sewing box and managed to come up with this design.




What do you think? (please excuse the dodgy photo of me, and obviously I’ll be wearing my hair a bit nicer!) I don’t think its too bad for half an hours sewing and the fact that it cost nothing! I quite like the simple design too.

I’m looking forward to the wedding, especially the meal! ;-) I shall be back tomorrow with a full run down and a pic of my outfit!

I was also happy today to receive this box of goodies from 9 Bar.


I will be reviewing each type of bar and then including some of them in my mega Giveaway at the end of my Big Budget Challenge.

Well I’m off to do my nails ready for the wedding, hope you all have a great Friday! x

Hi everyone, you enjoying your week so far? In exactly one week I shall be turning the grand old age of 28. I can’t wait – I love birthdays! More on that later…

For breakfast I made a big green monster with loads of spinach, frozen banana, a chopped peach, maca powder and rice milk. I ate it in a bowl with plenty of Dorset Cereals Roasted and Toasted Muesli.



Check out the greenness! They always seem to be a deeper green when I use the spinach from the market, I’m sure that's because its better quality and locally grown. Adding the peach made it really sweet too.

Mid morning I snacked on some fromage frais with walnuts, goji berries and agave syrup.



Lunch was a bowl of my Summer Bean Stew followed by a couple of very ripe chopped nectarines and blueberries.




I’m actually a little obsessed with fresh blueberries at the moment, they just taste so amazing!

Before I left work for the gym I had this bag of We Are Bear Fruit Nibbles: dried Pineapple and Mango pieces. I’ve tried these before and loved them – they are so tasty and make perfect workout fuel.



I did my planned cardio interval, abs and mini upper body workout which was pretty tiring. I still have some DOMS going on in my legs from Sundays run which made my workout that little bit more tough!

For dinner I made myself and the hubby omelettes – ham, cheese and mushroom for him made with 4 eggs. Courgette, red pepper, red onion, mushroom and cheese made with 1 egg and 2 egg whites for me! Both served with a big salad of little gem lettuce, cucumber and beetroot plus the hubby had a baked potato. Here's my lovely omelette, it kind of fell apart due to all the veggies! –



Perfect quick and healthy dinner!

For desert I wizzed up a protein shake using this sachet of ‘Rainbow’ ‘Fruit-tein’ I picked up from Whole Foods in London along with some hazelnut and almond rice milk and a couple of ice cubes.



This is full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals from loads of fruit and veggie extracts which is great as I’ve been feeling a little lacking in energy the last couple of days. To begin with I thought it tasted a little artificial tasting but by the end of the glass I thought it tasted delicious. Will definitely be ordering this flavour again! I also had this apple.



So it is my Birthday next week, I can’t believe I’m going to be another year older, yet in the best shape of my life! I don’t mind ageing – I think (or I hope) I’m one of these people who just gets better with age. I actually can’t wait till I reach 30, I think some women really come into their own in their 30’s.

I have my Birthday off from work and I’m planning on spending most of it on my own. That got me thinking about how much I value and appreciate spending time by myself doing the things that I enjoy. I sometimes worry that I like it too much and that perhaps I should want to do more with other people! Not that I’m a total loner or anything – obviously I spend a lot of time with my Husband who I consider a best friend, my family, my 2 best mates and other friends that I catch up with every once in a while, but I still really enjoy doing things by myself. Do you enjoy spending time alone? What’s your favourite things to do with your ‘me’ time?