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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?

Happy Friday everyone, I am so glad the weekend is finally here! I have a few nice recipes for you today too!

I’ll rewind to Thursday morning. I did my yoga and core workout – 5 minutes of cardio (jumping jacks / bum kicks etc), 20 minute Yoga for Runners Download and my core exercises including v ups, side planks etc. It was a great little workout! Breakfast was a new tasty concoction:

Vanilla Chia Wheat Germ Breakfast Pudding (makes 1 serving)

• 2 tablespoons of chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons of wheat germ
• 4 tablespoons of oats or quinoa flakes (I used the quinoa flakes)
• 1 scoop of vanilla flavour protein powder (I used my Sun Warrior)
• 1/2 cup of non diary milk (I used hazelnut and almond rice milk)
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• About 1/2 cup of water

Combine the chia seeds, wheat germ, oats or quinoa flakes and protein powder in a small bowl. Add the milk and cinnamon and mix together. Then add the water. The pudding will thicken up so it should appear quite watery at this stage. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight if possible. Serve cold straight from the fridge, heat in the microwave for a minute, or like me, leave to come up to room temperature:

I served mine with 3 plums and some flaked almonds. This pudding is full of healthy fats and protein and tastes delicious. As the chia seeds absorb the liquid the pudding thickens up and has great volume. This kept me full for over 5 hours!

Lunch was some Lentil and Root Veg Stew from my frozen stash with microwave steamed cabbage and clemintines and grapes on the side:

Mid afternoon I snacked on some cucumber, red pepper and a RAW Italian cracker:

This could have done with some hummus! It was another late one so I snacked on a couple of apples before my meeting. By the time I got home I was starving but didn’t want anything too heavy. I decided to make something I haven’t had in ages:

Carrot Cake Cracker Topper (makes about a 1 cup)

• 2 medium carrots, grated
• 1 tbsp of almond butter (or nut butter of choice)
• 1/2 tbsp of sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tbsp of raisins
• Cinnamon to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and use to top crackers, as a filling in a wholemeal wrap (or even nori rolls), or use to eat as is for a snack! I used mine to top 3 pumpkin seed Ryvitas (great ingredients list of just wholegrain rye flour, oats, pumpkin seeds and salt so fine for my kick start plan) and also added a couple of chopped organic braeburn apples:

This left my tummy very happy and wasn’t too much for me so late at night!

This morning I had a huge bowl of muesli: half mighty muesli and half Dorset cereal high fibre muesli with two chopped pears and hazelnut and almond rice milk:

Lunch was a massive salad containing spinach, lettuce, orange pepper, red onion, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts and roasted soya nuts for protein. I made up a quick dressing with some Cool oil, balsamic vinegar and a little Dijon mustard:

For such a simple salad it was actually really tasty and so filling! I also had three plums and some grapes.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a nakd bar and an apple:

I’m trying to use up these nakd bars as they are out of date! They still taste perfectly fine though :-)

I hit the gym for my strength and HIIT workout. I did exactly the same workout as last week. I decided to keep my reps the same and continue with leaving my cardio until after the strength routine as I felt much better when I did it that way last time.

I headed home to make a tasty dinner:

Simple Lentil Dahl (serves 2)

• 1 tbsp Coconut oil (or oil of choice)
• 2 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, grated
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of red lentils
• 1 1/2 cups of veg stock
• 6 cherry toms, quartered
• handful of spinach

In a large pan heat the coconut oil on a medium heat. Add the garlic, onion and ginger and fry until the onion has softened a little. Add the spices and fry until they become fragrant taking care that they don’t start to burn. Add the carrot and tomatoes followed by the red lentils and vegetable stock. Simmer until all the stock has been absorbed, the lentils are tender and it has reached a thick soup like consistency. Add in the spinach and stir into the Dahl until wilted down. Serve with rice or naan bread:

 

I’ve been wanting to try and make some kind of lentil curry dish / dahl for ages as I love lentils and knew it would be something I would like. I pretty much based this on my Lentil and Spinach Soup recipe but added spices and reduced the liquid. I served this with some steamed swiss chard, brown and wild rice and a few mixed seeds, it tasted utterly delicious and was incredibly straight forward and simple to make – my kind of cooking!

Dessert was some Double Chocolate Protein ‘Ice Cream’ (scoop of chocolate sun warrior, 8 ice cubes, oat milk, 2 tablespoons of raw cacao powder, matcha green tea powder, mesquite, maca, xanthan and guar gums) topped with some Raw Chocolate Company chocolate covered mulberries and a little bit of granola.

The mulberries were lovely, sweet and crunchy but the chocolate gives them a lovely bitter deep flavour. They were very moreish, I could have eaten the whole pack!

This weekend I am planning some serious chill time. I really need a chill day to completely relax. I purchased a couple of new cookery cooks from Amazon:

I have the first Leon Cookbook which I really like so I’m hoping that Leon Naturally Fast Food will be just as good. I’m also very excited to have a good read of Supernatural Cooking as I already love Heidi’s blog 101 Cookbooks.

I also have these books from my local library:

I think I mentioned I was getting interested in raw foods and the lovely Becky recommended that I take a look at the Sally Bee book.

This weekend I’m going to try and do a bit of a deeper detox by mainly eating vegetables, fruits and nuts. I’m planning on having lots of smoothies, fresh juices and raw salads combined with early nights and sitting on my arse reading cookery books – I think its going to do me the world of good!

I love looking through cookery books for inspiration but I’ve been finding that recently I very rarely stick to a recipe 100%. I tend to change things up a bit, adding, taking away or swapping ingredients. Do you experiment with recipes in cookbooks or do you always stick to the recipe exactly?

What’s your favourite way to relax? Although I’m saying I’ll be sitting on my butt most of the weekend I will get to the gym for a workout as I find exercise – especially just steady state cardio, relaxing in an odd kind of way!

This is also your last chance to enter my GIVEAWAY if you haven’t already – it closes at 12am GMT and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

Hope you all have an awesome weekend!