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Hi everyone, happy Friday! I’ve had a jam packed couple of days including some tasty eats and great workouts:

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I kicked off Thursday with a yoga flow from Slim Calm Sexy Yoga. I did the full body toning flow. It only took me 15 minutes and was a great way to start the day. After work I hit the gym for my upper body workout / intervals. I started with a 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer then did the following routine:

• Dumbbell pullover on stability ball x 8 reps with 9kg db
• Chest flye on stability ball x 8 reps with 2 x 6kg db
• Lower back raise on stability ball x 10 reps

x 3 sets

• shoulder press – 6 reps with 2 x 6kg db
• bicep curl – 6 reps with 2 x 6kg db
• lateral raise – 8 reps with x 4kg db

x 3 sets

• tricep dip x 15reps bw
• bent over row – 8 reps with 2 x 8kg db
• upright row – 8 reps with 2 x 6kg db

x 3 sets

• push up on bench x 10 reps bw
• dumbbell wood chop – 10 reps each side with 8kg db

x 3 sets

I finished off with 20 minutes (2 x 10 mins) of HIITs on the step machine and bike. This morning I was back at the gym for a quick 30 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by my abs and core exercises.

Thursdays breakfast was some porridge topped with fresh pineapple and coconut flour sauce. I used 1/2 cup of Rude Health Fruity Date Porridge with 1 teaspoon of chia seeds, water and rice milk:

I love how much coconut sauce you can make from just one teaspoon of coconut flour, it just eats up water!

This mornings breakie was a delicious smoothie containing romaine lettuce, frozen banana, frozen peaches, vanilla sun warrior, spirulina, matcha green tea, mesquite and a generous amount of peanut butter, topped with gojis and cacao nibs:

This was another monster smoothie! I love adding lots and lots of greens (I used almost a full head of lettuce in this) to give plenty of bulk so that I get really filled up. This was the nicest tasting smoothie I’ve had in a while too, got to love that peanut butter!

Lunch has been the same the last two days – a big salad beasty containing lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, red onion, mixed beans, braggs seasoning and some nutritional yeast flakes:

Yesterday I also had some grapes and a nectarine and today I enjoyed a juicy pear and an orange.

Snackies have included the last of my leftover cookies and an apple:

I also tried another Total split pot today, this time the honey variety:

The honey was set which I wasn’t expecting but it still tasted lovely.

Yesterdays dinner was a serving of my Moroccan Tagine with mixed rice and steamed spring greens with shoyu, ume vinegar and mixed seeds:

Loved this! So glad I remembered I had some stashed in the freezer. Last nights dessert was some of my pumpkin protein pudding with graham cracker crumbs and when that didn’t satisfy me I also snacked on a couple of apples and a pear.

Tonight I had a grilled wild garlic tofu fillet in a wholemeal pitta with some of my high protein sundried tomato hummus, lettuce and alfalfa sprouts plus some raw carrot and a side of steamed kale with shoyu:

This was so satisfying, like eating a big burger! I made the hummus using my original high protein hummus recipe but with an added 1/2 cup of sun dried tomatoes in oil drained and with the 2 tbsp of oil left out – I ended up with a huge portion – I’ll be eating hummus for the rest of the week :-) Dessert was two chopped apples and half a bar of conscious raw chocolate:

This variety contained lucuma and yacon root. It tasted ok but not as nice as the other varieties I have tried so far.

As I’ve been working from home today I took advantage of the opportunity to be near the kitchen and baked some bread for James and made some baked Seitan sausage for me! I’ll share the Seitan recipe soon, but wow it looks so good! Seitan is a meat alternative made some gluten flour in case you were wondering - I had no idea what it was when I first heard about it!

I also got my organic veg box delivery today as well as a trip to the farm shop and the supermarket. I think I may have gone a little overboard with the fresh produce yet again:

Includes: swiss chard, kale, cos lettuce, round lettuce, celery, courgettes, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, spinach, spring greens, bananas, apples, pears, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, lemons, broccoli, carrots, beetroot, butternut squash, parsnips, avocado, sugar snap peas.

Its a good job I love my fruits and veggies! I have to say nothing makes me happier than a fridge full of fresh mostly organic produce, I’ll enjoy eating my way through all this over the next week.

I have a very busy weekend ahead, I have to study for my course, catch up with some work, see friends and family, fit in a run and go on the hunt for a new car!

I’m searching for a new car to replace my little 8 year old Ford Ka, I’m just looking for another small, economical and environmentally friendly run around. Do you drive? What kind of car do you own? Any favourite models? I quite like the Peugeot 107:

Fingers crossed I find something that doesn’t cost a bomb!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend planned! :-)

Had to drag my lazy self out of bed at 6 am this morning, the first day back at work after time off is a bummer! After my usual mug of hot water I chopped up an unripe pear and nuked it in the microwave to soften it up. I then added some agave syrup, cinnamon, oats and natural yoghurt, it was just what I needed to start the day!
I had about 90 emails to go through when I got into work, and my to do list is huge. I can see plenty of over time coming up this week. Mid morning I had some cottage cheese and raisins. Totally loving this combo at the moment! Lunch was an apple followed by a bowl of my vegetable and lentil soup that I made over the weekend.


I worked solid (only stopping to have a bit read of blogs on my breaks!) till 4 then had a fudge baby and a cup of green tea to set me up ready for the gym.

I really need to give my training plan a total overhall and set myself some clear goals (was very inspired after reading Laura's post) but as this week is going to be so hectic I think I'll do my usual and start with a fresh plan next week. So the gym workout consisted of my usual cardio with intervals (treadmill, cross trainer, step machine, rower) and my usual abs sets.

Tonight we have house guests! My sister in law Katy and her friend Rachel are up from Leeds and stopping the night as she has a meeting up here tomorrow. Hubby and the rest of them have ordered a take away, but I have resisted the temptation and stuck to my ultra healthy home made bean burger with tons of salad and a little tomato sauce.


Followed by a bowl of frozen raspberries and vanilla rice milk.


I'm getting some seriously dodgy looks right now. I don't think they can understand that I actually prefer the bean burger to the greasy, fatty take away. I'm all for balance but I don't think a take away is a good Monday night meal. Nevermind, some people just don't get it!

Drinks - Water, green tea, decaf tea
Exercise - gym cardio workout with intervals and abs sets

Does anyone else have difficulty getting their family and friends to understand why they prefer a healthy diet?

Hope everyones Monday has been good! x

Happy Halloween! Hope you are all doing well and enjoying your day. I love Halloween but don’t really have much opportunity to celebrate it, we don’t even get trick or treaters where we live! :-(

Last night I made a delicious autumnal vegan dinner:

Vegan Lentil and Swede Cottage Pie (serves 1):

• 1/2 cup of brown lentils, rinsed
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1/2 onion, finely diced
• Vegetable stock
• 1/2 large swede, diced
• 1 tsp of pure sunflower spread
• 1 tablespoon of soy milk

Begin by frying the onion and carrot in a little oil in a small pan. When the onion becomes transparent and the carrot has softened a little add the lentils and enough vegetable stock to cover everything. Simmer, topping up the pan with more stock as required until the lentils are cooked (about 20 minutes). While the lentils are simmering steam the swede until tender then mash together with the pure spread and soy milk until creamy. In an individual sized oven dish pour the lentils in and then top with the swede mash. Bake in a 200c oven for around 10 minutes until warmed through. Serve with steamed greens.

 

This was so delicious! I made the hubby a traditional version with beef mince and potato mash and I think mine was far more flavourful. This was extremely filling too, especially as I piled on the swede! I served mine with some steamed red russian kale and broccoli.

Desert was some RAW zesty orange chocolate and an unpictured russet apple.

This morning I made a quick smoothie in a bowl using some frozen fruit salad mix, soy milk, agave syrup and ground flax and nut mix topped with granola.

I headed to the gym and ran 10k on the treadmill – the first 5k I ran 0.5 mile speed intervals between 6 – 7.5 mph then for the second 5k I did 0.5 mile hill intervals with a 2% incline. Great workout! I finished off with 10 minutes on the step machine.

When I got back I had a slice of toasted soda bread with peanut butter and black cherry fruit sweetened jam.

I also had two unpictured russet apples. Lunch was another bowl of roast tomato and red pepper soup, same as yesterday along with a satsuma.

For dinner I made a Roast Butternut, Radicchio and Goats Cheese Salad. Basically some romaine lettuce, one head of chopped radicchio, about a cup of roast butternut squash topped with organic goats cheese, balsamic vinegar and some toasted seeds.

Very seasonal and very delicious!

I had been hoping on making a pumpkin pie for Halloween but the Graham Cracker pie crust I bought a couple of weeks ago had crumbled in its packaging. Instead I made a Pumpkin Pie Smoothie based on Mama Peas recipe (without the nutmeg or garam masala) – poured it into a bowl and topped with the Graham Cracker crumbs, maple syrup and some mixed seeds.

Yum!

October Review

October has been one hell of a month for me! I feel like I’ve really being under going a lot of change – from my new vegetarian diet to getting all my hair cut off!

This month I have:

• Kept up with my weekly spinning and yoga classes
• Ran 15k each week (split between a 5k during the week and 10k on a weekend)
• Lost 4lbs and half an inch off my hips

Just the same as last month, the weight loss has really surprised me. I have lost a startling 9lbs since I did the Great North Run in the middle of September. I certainly don’t feel like I need to lose any more weight and I’m completely happy with my body and feel that I’m eating enough. I never feel starving and I haven’t had a bingeing episode in a long time. I guess that may be why I have lost weight. At the moment I’m really happy with what I’m eating although I plan to include more whole grains so this may help to balance things out for next month. I’m also happy with how I’m exercising so I’m going to just continue weighting myself once a month and see how things continue. If I’m still at a low weight (for me) after Christmas I will have to think about trying to gain (can not believe I just typed that!) I like to have a few curves! Ultra slim would just not suit me.

I’m very happy that I have achieved everything I wanted to this month. I’m also doing well trying to focus on being healthy rather than slim. I used to beat myself up if I ate an extra snack – but now as long as its something that’s going to nourish my body I let that guilt go.

Goals for November:

• Continue with spinning and yoga classes
• Continue to run at least 15k a week
• Increase some of my resistance levels / change up my HIIT sessions a bit so they are more challenging
• In line with my thoughts in this post, continue to try and eat a varied plant based vegetarian diet including more whole grains and organic foods and reducing diary products
• Continue with my basic training plan structure but change DVD to Davina McCall Davina Fit DVD - Top fit and Bottom fit workouts (both on a Tuesday, Top fit on a Thursday)

Current stats:

• Weight 9st 5lbs
• Waist: 27 inches
• Bust: 35.5 inches
• Hips: 34.5 inches

What have you achieved this month? Do you have any goals for November?

Thanks for all your lovely comments to my last post! I am still walking around with a huge smile on my face thinking of all the great things we’ll be doing in NYC! I really can not wait to go :-)

As I was working late last night I decided to fit in a workout first thing Thursday morning, thank goodness for DVD’s! To replace my planned upper body weights / interval session I did Davina Fit Top Fit section followed by my MTV Yoga DVD. I had a great workout! For breakfast I really fancied some muesli but didn’t want to open a carton of milk. Instead I made some of my instant coconut milk with added vanilla hemp protein powder (to help with muscle repair after my workout), a mix of Dorset Cereals nutty and high fibre muesli and 2 small chopped jazz apples:

This was delicious and just what I had been craving!

Lunch was leftover sweet potato and black beans with veggies from Wednesday evenings dinner and spinach plus an orange and another amazing persimmon. I snacked on veggies, another couple of apples and an almond honey snack bar before my meeting. When I got home I made myself green smoothie no 7:

Raspberry Carob Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of spring greens with stems removed
• 1 cup of frozen raspberries
• 3 clemintines
• 1 tbsp of toasted carob powder (could also use cocoa powder)
• 1 tbsp of agave syrup
• 1 tsp maca (optional)
• 1 tsp mesquite (optional)
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• xanthan and guar gums (optional but adds thickness)

Toppings:

• Carob flakes
• Granola
• Flaked almonds

This was yummy – I really like carob. Those carob flakes are so addictive too, I was snacking away on them while I was making the smoothie – so good.

Thankfully after my late meetings this week I’ve been able to work from home today to catch up, this meant I could fit in a longer than usual gym session. I had a great 1hr15 minute workout including intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, rowing machine and bike followed by my abs and core. Although I had completed my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge I had an idea for a really delicious combo so I decided to have one more:

‘Bounty’ (chocolate coconut) Green Smoothie (makes one large serving)

• 3 cups of romaine lettuce and spinach (or whatever greens take your fancy)
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup of frozen peach slices
• 1 small can (160ml) of reduced fat coconut milk (nom!)
• 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (I used sun warrior)
• 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder (could use more if not using protein powder)
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of mesquite (optional)
• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut
• Water / milk – to desired consistency
• Xanthan / guar gums (optional but add thickness)

Toppings

• Coconut flour paste
• Cacao nibs
• Desiccated coconut

This was an awesome smoothie! The addition of the coconut milk, even though it was reduced fat added a delicious creaminess. This also kept me full for ages!

For once I didn’t actually have a plan for my meals today. Usually I love my meal planning but I just decided to go with the flow and see what I was craving / what was on offer at the supermarket / what showed up in my organic veg box. As it had been a whole week since I’d had hummus I decided to indulge my addiction and go for a regular favourite for lunch – a giant hummus topped salad:

This contained sweet pea shoots, romaine, carrot, beets, sugar snaps, red onion, alfalfa sprouts and a large serving of my high protein hummus made with added olives and broccoli (great combo!) I also had an orange and two passion fruit.

Mid afternoon I continued to go with my cravings and made myself a big green juice with apple, celery, broccoli stalks, romaine and lemon. I also ended up snacking on several pink lady apples, not because I hadn’t eaten enough, just because they taste bloody lush ;-)

I had lots of veggies available so for dinner I went with a massive veggie filled stir fry containing shredded brussel sprouts, spring greens, courgette, carrot, mushrooms, ginger and baked teriyaki tofu with gomasio and shoyu:

I love defrosted and baked tofu, it gets such a lovely texture. Its been nice to just go with the flow and follow my cravings – I love that I can still meal plan (for saving money and being organised) but incorporate some flexibility to eat what I fancy! What have you been craving recently?

March review and aims for April

I’ve had an amazing March!

• Put on weight! (I’ll explain why I see this as an achievement in a mo)
• Ran outdoors each week and vastly improved my average pace (total outdoor mileage this month 30 miles, fastest average pace 8.54)
• Got my maximum plank hold time up to 2 minutes 10 seconds (full plank) and 50 seconds (side planks)
• Started to meditate each morning and do more yoga
• Did my green smoothie challenge ;-)
• Made the decision to eat an almost completely vegan diet – but not getting overly hung up on labelling myself

Most of these are in line with the goals that I set for myself at the start of the month. In case any of you are new readers I have recently been having problems maintaining my weight (I’ve actually been losing more weight and getting close to the underweight BMI – see the posts I’ve linked to here – particularly the finding balance post). This month I have gained a pound! It may not seem like much but after 6 months of consistently losing weight it shows that I am on the right track. I also didn’t freak out about the gain as I was worried I would, I think my mind set is really starting to improve. I feel like I may not even need to weigh myself anymore – before I got on the scales I asked myself – am I happy with my body? Yes - I am happy with my body at the moment, I feel great and very healthy so what difference should a number on the scale make?

In terms of next months training I’m looking at pretty much the same as last month, although I’ll be continuing to take a flexible approach, changing up workouts due to the bank holidays / work commitments etc:

• Monday – gym workout: 30 min HIITs, 30 min spin, abs and core
• Tuesday – AM – Yoga Podcast (20 min), PM - Body Pump 50 min
• Wednesday – gym workout: 30 min speed work on treadmill, 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Thursday – AM – Yoga flow from Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga (20 min), PM gym upper body dumbbell workout, 20 minutes HIITs
• Friday – AM – gym workout 30 min HIITs, abs and core
• Weekend – Long outdoor run – working up from current 8 miles to 10 miles, one week to run 10k to see what pace is like for my 10k race /optional yoga DVD workout / REST DAY

I don’t want to add in other run quite yet – I need to sort out some new running shoes before I significantly increase my weekly mileage (don’t want to risk injury). I did get Run Less Run Faster from the library and I plan on taking some tips from this to improve my treadmill speed intervals for this month and then eventually a proper half marathon training plan to start in May. Although the structure of my training is staying the same I’m going to change up my interval sessions at the gym (perhaps moving from 1 minute intervals to 30 sec intervals) and the exercises I do for my abs and core to keep my body guessing. Now that I have reached my plank goal I will try out some variations on the plank exercise such as adding in an arm / leg raise. I also need to get back to trying to achieve a full push up!

Aims for April

• Continue to work on having a healthy attitude to fuelling myself properly / focusing on health over weight or size
• Continue to work towards my overall 2011 goals (I think I’m on the way to meeting the travel goal with our trip to NYC!)
• Re focus on my push up aim
• Keep up the running – in particular making progress on my speed
• Make good progress on my Diet and Nutrition Advisor Course
• Keep up the yoga and meditation
• Get ready for NYC in May!

How was March for you? Have you set yourself any goals for April?

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!

April has been a pretty good month, I have:

• Really focused on my running training including improving my speed and increasing my mileage from 8 miles to 10.5 miles
• Changed up my speeds and resistance levels for my cardio intervals on the gym equipment
• Maintained my weight
• Continued to focus on having a healthy mind set around fuelling myself properly

To be honest I think this month has been very much a case of things just ‘ticking along’ nicely which is always good. What I did plan to do this month and kind of failed on was refocusing on my push up goal and make good progress on my diet and nutrition advisor course. I did get one assignment completed but I really need to be doing more. 

Thoughts on weight maintenance

I wanted to write a little bit about the whole weight maintenance thing. I won’t go over the whole story in detail but for any new readers: I was over weight, I lost weight, I reached a plateau and was happy enough at that weight. Then I started loosing more, went vegetarian and lost even more and now I’m trying to maintain my weight without actually getting any smaller! Just for background info I’m 5’6 and a UK size 8 – 10, I do not want to get any smaller than this, as for me I feel I look scrawny and still want to hang on to a few curves! However that is where the fun starts, after literally years of dieting I have struggled with getting out of the ‘weight loss’ mind set and moving into the weight management / eating for optimum health mind set.

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This month I have maintained my weight and have only weighed myself once so I feel like I’m making good progress. I feel like I’ve been fuelling myself better and my general approach to eating for health rather than skinniness has really improved. I have a much more relaxed attitude to eating when I am hungry although I am still struggling with some demons that come out when I worry that I’m eating too much and will put weight on but I really feel that I’m better able to silence them. Overall I feel like I’m going in the right direction! I think that having more awareness of calories although without actually calorie counting every day has helped me to ensure that I’m eating enough. I’m tending to shoot for around 2000 cals a day as this seems to be right for my size and activity levels.

Goals for May

• Have an awesome time in NYC!
• Complete at least 4 assignments for my course
• Increase my maximum running distance from 10.5 miles to 12 miles
• Continue to work on my speed
• Work on my push up goal
• Stick to my new training plan:

Monday – AM gym based workout – speed intervals on treadmill 15 min, cardio intervals on gym equipment – 45 min (sticking at current levels), abs and core plus push up practice

Tuesday – AM Yoga, PM Body Pump class (if working late then 30 Day Shred DVD and Yoga before work)

Wednesday – AM run – around 6 miles / 10k mix of speed work, hills, recovery run depending on how I feel, abs and core

Thursday – AM – Yoga, PM gym based workout – 3,2,1, system for 1 hour including push up practice (if working late then 30 Day Shred DVD and Yoga before work)

Friday – AM gym workout – 3,2,1 system (working alternate muscles from Thursday workout) for 45 minutes OR at home yoga DVD

Weekend – REST DAY / Long run

Running training

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I’m going to start taking a more structured approach to my running as detailed above – 3 runs a week consisting of a short treadmill run working on speed, a mid distance run working on speed, hills or a recovery run and a long distance run. I have the Great North 10K in July and the Great North Run Half in September. I’m really aware of not wanting to aggravate my old knee problem which came up about this time in my training last year so I will be making sure I take it easy when needed, doing lots of stretching and yoga!

May Obsessions

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I am currently obsessed by Pinterest which I discovered via Sofia’s blog. For visual inspiration seekers like me it is amazing! Here’s my Pinterest page check it out!

I also spent some time today sorting through my old magazines, now that is an obsession! I love my magazines :-) I like to go through old ones and tear out pages with recipes, workouts, style ideas or anything inspirational. I have 4 files full now!

Loving this Orange Blossom Flower water too:

I added it to yoghurt for breakfast the other day and I’ve been popping a few drops in glasses of plain iced water for a little flavour, so good!

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I am crazy about strawberries right now! I can’t help buying up several boxes when they are on offer they are just delicious. One of my most vibrant food memories is going strawberry picking with my aunt and uncle down south and eating sun warmed strawberries straight from the plant, fabulous!

…and obviously:

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5 days and counting!

May Sponsors

Just a quick shout out to my May Sponsors, Viva Pure, Nakd and The Raw Chocolate Company. I have an awesome May Sponsor giveaway coming up so keep checking out the blog for more details to come! I have sponsors lined up for June but anyone interested in becoming a blog sponsor for July drop me an email at laura@keepinghealthygettingstylish.com

Have you had a good April? What are your goals for May? Any current obsessions you’d like to share?

Hi Everyone! Hope your having a great Saturday!

This morning I was up and out again for my Saturday run. I wasn’t that hungry when I woke up so I went out on an empty stomach. I did 6.5 miles in 60 minutes and was really happy with my time. It was a beautiful autumn morning, but my hands were freezing again. I made sure to pick up some gloves today! When I got home I made myself this lovely smoothie:

Butternut Squash Smoothie (based on Gena’s recipe)

• 1/2 cup of roast butternut squash
• 4 ice cubes
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder
• 1 cup of soy milk
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

Blend all ingredients and serve. I topped mine with a tablespoon of muesli and a good drizzle of maple syrup.

When Gena said this smoothie was to die for she wasn’t kidding. This was delicious! The cinnamon and ginger flavours with the sweet butternut tasted wonderful.

I spent the rest of the morning in Newcastle. I few days ago I bought a mug and loose leaf tea infuser on sale in Sainsbury’s for just £3, so I went to my favourite Deli and picked up some Amaretto loose leaf tea. This smells amazing! While I was there I got the most yummy almond chai mocha skinny latte. Officially my new favourite hot drink! I also went to a couple of shops in the market. I got more loose leaf tea, this time some Japanese Cherry Sencha Green tea. I also got some olives and a chipotle Chile Ketchup which should taste great with bean burgers.

After town I popped to my best friends for a cuppa. She had made me a jar of green tomato chutney, I can’t wait to try it!

While I was in Newcastle I also hit TK Maxx and H&M and had a bit of a naughty spending spree! I’ll post what I got tomorrow as I found loads of things, although I probably shouldn’t have spent so much I’m really chuffed with what I got!

September Review and October Plans

What I achieved in September:

• Completed the Great North Run!
• Ditched the scales
• Did my first spinning class
• Signed up for my first yoga class
• Lost 5lbs (more on this in a mo)
• Lost 1.5 inches from my waist and bust

Wow, this has been one hell of an eventful month!

A month ago I blogged about how I would be ditching the scales and not weighing myself every week. I did say I would weigh in once a month until I was confident I was balancing things out. I was shocked when I got weighed to see that I had dropped that much weight without even trying. Before I jumped on the scales I had said to myself that it didn’t really matter what number came up as I was feeling ok about myself and my body, my clothes have been fitting well etc. I was certainly not expecting a 5lb loss. On one hand this is ok as it gives me room for any eating out / over eating related weight gain that may come up, but at the same time I really don’t want to get any smaller. I think I need to see how I go next month, as due to the half marathon training, this month was always going to be a bit of an odd one.

I’m also really happy that I’ve continued running. I was a bit worried that after completing the GNR I wouldn’t have the motivation to continue to run but I’m glad to say that I still really enjoy it!

Now that the GNR is all done and dusted (for this year at least) I have a new set of goals and a new training plan:

Goals:

• Continue running – at least 15k (cause 15k sounds more than 9 miles ;-) a week either outdoors or on the treadmill
• Improve my strength and flexibility with my new yoga class
• Continue to attend spinning class once a week
• Think about other measures of ‘healthy’ rather than just weight / size

Current Stats:

• Weight – 9st 9lbs
• Hips –35 inches
• Waist – 27 inches
• Bust – 35.5 inches

My outline weekly plan will be:

• Monday – Gym – 30 mins high intensity intervals, 30 mins spin class, abs and core exercises
• Tuesday – DVD including strength work – for this month the 30 Day Shred Levels 1 and 2 back to back
• Wednesday – 3k run on the treadmill at gym followed by abs and core exercises
• Thursday – DVD including strength work – 30 Day Shred Level 3, Yoga Class
• Friday – Gym – 45 mins high intensity intervals, 15 minutes of strength and core exercises
• Sat / Sun – 10k outdoor or treadmill run / Rest Day

I also want to think about other ways I can measure health rather than just by weight or size. Here’s my first thoughts:

• How am I feeling in myself? Am I feeling tired / rundown / depressed or my usual cheerful self? :-)
• What’s my skin, hair and nails like? Is my skin blemish free? Are my nails strong and is my hair shiny?
• What’s my energy levels like?
• Do I have any aches and pains?

As I am looking to move away from focusing on weight and size as an indication of health I think I will find looking at these other things useful. What other indicators of health could I add to my list?