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Hi everyone, hope you’ve been having a great weekend! Mine has been a good but strange one, I’ve been all over the place seeing family and friends looking at cars, catching up with work and study!

Breakfast on Saturday was a huge bowl full of strawberries with Dorset Cereal High Fibre Muesli and rice milk:

I also had a gingerbread coffee with sweet freedom and rice milk.

Saturday I was out at my parents and friends and looking at cars (haven’t bought one yet!) most of the day so I just snacked on a 9 Bar and some apples I had in my bag. When I did get home I had some miso soup followed by a big green juice:

This contained cucumber, broccoli, celery, lettuce, pear and ginger.

Dinner both yesterday and this evening featured some of my new home made seitan! Seitan is a vegan protein source made from vital wheat gluten flour. A little while ago I bought some vital wheat gluten from iHerb (can also be purchased in the UK from The Flour Bin) and when I saw this recipe I knew it was time to try it out:

Baked Seitan ‘Sausage’ (makes 3 – 4 servings)

• 1 1/4 cups of vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 cup of gram flour
• 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp of vegan vegetable bouillon powder
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of braggs

Pre heat oven to 160. Combine dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls then add wet to dry. Mix together to combine and kneed for a couple of minutes. Place dough into some foil and roll up into a large sausage shape. Bake in the oven for an hour until golden:

To store wrap tightly in foil and keep in fridge. I’ve tried freezing some too but I won’t know how well this works until I come to defrost it!

Last night I used some finely sliced seitan in cabbage wraps also containing sun dried tomato high protein hummus, alfalfa sprouts, carrot, yellow pepper and fresh basil alongside some parsnip chips seasoned with herbamare and braggs:

These were awesome! The seitan was quite firm and chewy which I really liked. All the wrap ingredients went together so well, these were just super tasty!

Dessert was a bowl of Freedom chocolate ice ‘cream’:

On Sunday I was up nice and early for my run. I fuelled up with my usual orange and dates and set off. I did just over 7 miles in 1hr 08 minutes with an average pace of 9.38. That’s a big improvement on last weeks 9.45 average pace and considering that I ran a more hilly route today, plus it was freezing and windy I’m absolutely over the moon! :-)

Post run breakfast was another wonderful smoothie containing lots of kale, romaine, frozen cherries, 2 pears, rice milk, maca, matcha green tea powder, spirulina, raw cacao and almond butter topped with flaked almonds and half a bag of bear cocoa cherry pie granola:

Today I decided to use up some of my veggies by making a big pan of my favourite lentil and spinach soup. I had a big bowl for lunch followed by some fresh blackberries:

I also had another green juice, same as Saturdays but with apple instead of pear and lemon instead of ginger. It was so good, I heart green juice!

Tonight I made a seitan, veggie and millet pilaf. This contained the seitan, 1/2 cup of cooked millet, onion, swiss chard, carrot, yellow pepper and courgette plus some veg stock, dried basil, shoyu and mixed seeds:

This was such a delicious, healthy and filling meal! Dessert was some raw 75% cacao ginger chocolate and 2 sliced organic pink lady apples:

I bought the chocolate when I was in York last month, I love ginger chocolate!

Have you tried seitan before? What did you think? Obviously its no good if you have any kind of gluten intolerance. I was really impressed with the ease of this recipe, it could be amended to add new flavours and textures. I would love to try and make some spicy seitan sausage! Seitan can also be cooked in a flavoured broth instead of baked, so many ways to try it!

Today I also decided to sign up for the Bupa Great North 10k! Its being held in Gateshead where I was born, and isn’t very far from Durham at all. Its in July and should be great preparation for the Great North Run Half Marathon in September. I’m absolutely buzzing about it! Are you signed up for any races this year? The only race I’ve ever ran was the Great North Run last year (and I’m signed up again for this year, running for Cancer Research UK again too) so I’m really looking forward to running a race with a shorter distance.

Hope you’ve all had a great weekend!

Nude Blazer H&M £24.99

Perfect basic white tee H&M £6.99

Denim Shorts Dorothy Perkins £15

Neon Strawberry Pendant Accessorize £9

Nude Court Shoes New Look £24.99

As I’ve been harping on about recently, I’m really trying to reign in my spending in a big way. I do want to update my wardrobe with a couple of things for spring but I can’t afford to go out and spend a fortune. I’d love a neutral coloured blazer that would go with almost anything – I also love blazers for flattering a curvy figure. I would also like a basic loose fitting white tee for pairing with black trousers and bright accessories for work, or jeans and printed skirts at the weekend. I’m completely obsessed with neon pink right now and I love this cute strawberry pendant – luckily I have an Accessorize gift card from Christmas so I can indulge a little! I also need a new pair of denim shorts as my current pair are getting more than just a little bit snug. It could be that I’m too optimistic about the weather but I’d love to be able to wear those shorts bear legged with ballet pumps and a baggy tee. I’ve been after a pair of nude court shoes for a long time and with all the family parties and weddings I have coming up I know I’d get a lot of wear out of these matching them with any of my various floral printed dresses. I am going to check out EBay and charity shops to see if I can find perhaps a blazer and the shorts, other than that I may have to choose one or two pieces a month to treat myself to.

Here’s a few of my favourite spring looks from my Pinterest Style Board that I’ll be using for inspiration:

1, 2, 3, 4

What’s on your spring fashion wish list? If you could buy just one thing what would it be?

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

source

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! :-)

Hello everyone, hope your enjoying your weekend! I don’t know where last weeks sunshine has gone, its been a bit bleak and grey these last two days. Anyway, I have had plenty of lovely things to keep me cheerful, this mornings pancakes being number one:

Vegan chocolate protein pancakes with strawberries, cashew butter and maple syrup. Absolutely delicious!

Number two would be this bowl of oats with pears topped with Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter and buckwheaties for crunch:

That finished off my jar of crack for now, must reorder some from iHerb!

I’ve also enjoyed this gorgeous Butternut Cherry Bomb smoothie inspired by Laura from Sprint 2 the Table:

This was spinach, roast butternut, frozen cherries, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, cinnamon, ground flax, maca, water and ice topped with lemon salted roast almonds, dried cherries and raw granola. It was fantastic and the toppings really worked well together too, I’ll be having the almonds and dried cherries together again soon!

Last night I had a craving for some British style comfort food so I made my version of a ‘Sunday Dinner’ with stuffed seitan roll, cauliflower mash, roast broccoli and gravy:

It hit the spot! For dessert I had a big bowl of frozen blueberries, a chopped pear, peanut sauce made from peanut flour and maple syrup plus cacao nibs:

I also ended up devouring a couple of bowls of millet puffs and chopped apple with extra maple peanut sauce too because it was so good as well as a couple of these home made raw chocolates:

I’d bought some cacao butter ages ago and finally got round to making my own raw chocolate! I used this recipe but halved it and added some lucuma powder, chopped pecans and sea salt. This made 6 little chocolates that taste absolutely heavenly!

For lunch today I’ve just had this gorgeous Warm Butternut, Lentil and Fig Salad:

I left off the pine nuts and added some simple tahini miso dressing instead. So so good, perfect salad for this time of year!

Something lovely happened at the gym this morning. I’d just done my gym workout (30 minute treadmill run, 15 minutes cross trainer) and was waiting for my kettlebell class to start when I bumped into a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a while. She commented on how good I was looking since I’d gained some weight and that she was actually worried about me when I’d been thinner. It meant so much to me to hear her say that. I am trying to deal with this weight gain thing and its not easy but every time some one says something like that it makes me feel a million times better. At the moment I’m just trying to relax into things to see where my weight naturally stabilises eating and exercising as I am now although I am expecting that I’ll continue to gain for a while. I’ve started to think that experiencing both ends of the spectrum – being overweight and then underweight (for my own body) are just things that I’ve had to go through in order for me to grow as a person and hopefully help others in my future :-) 

I also went to the tattooist yesterday and managed to get booked in for a 2 hour session on Wednesday if I can get the time off work! So incredibly excited, as well as being a little nervous of the pain but I know it will be worth it. Looking forward to sharing the tattoo with you once it’s done!

What lovely things have you enjoyed this weekend?

I’ve been feeling exceptionally spring like this week, we have been enjoying some amazing weather. All of a sudden I’ve started craving things like crisp green apples, refreshing smoothies (well I kind of always crave those), strawberries and asparagus. I can’t wait for the spring to really kick in!

Pretty sunrise!

This has been a good workout week:

• Sunday – AM outdoor run approx 3.5 – 4.5 miles, 30 minute power yoga flow
• Monday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Tuesday – AM free style yoga, PM 20 min HIIT, Body Pump
• Wednesday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout A from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike
• Thursday – PM Yoga class
• Friday – AM 5 min cross trainer warm up, strength workout B from Base phase of Female Body Breakthrough, 10 min HIIT step machine, 10 min HIIT bike

My yoga class last night was really good, we did some tougher poses that really challenged me and left me feeling really stretched! Food wise I’ve been using up that magic mixture all week, firstly spread inside a herbed socca served with lettuce and alfalfa sprouts:

I also had some spread on home made raw juice pulp crackers with a pile of veggies for lunch:

I’ve also been using up some tins of Amy’s soup I’d been sent ages ago for review:

This was the vegetable and barley soup topped with sprouts and alongside some Lydia’s raw crackers. I also had a tin of the lentil and vegetable soup with blue corn chips on the side for dinner last night:

Both were pretty good for a tinned soup! Of course no week of mine would be complete without a green smoothie or two! I had a massive craving for one yesterday morning so made a light one in a glass to accompany my raw granola and coffee:

The smoothie contained spinach, alfalfa sprouts, a pear and a nectarine blended with water and a few drops of vanilla stevia. I had it along with a bowl of Living Intentions raw cacao granola and some home made almond milk. I also had a green smoothie post workout, a chocolate pear and ginger one made with the amazing new stevia sweetened Chocolate Hemp protein powder from Good Hemp, spinach, sprouts, pear, fresh ginger and topped with dried pear, buckwheaties and bee pollen:

Snacks wise I’ve been enjoying apple and carrot with raw tahini for dipping…

…nectarine and frozen raspberries with home made almond milk…

…and persimmons with raw matcha green tea cookies and a glass of almond milk:

The best raw milk and cookies ever!

Oh and I have to give a special mention to this amazing Gourmet Raw brownie I tried:

This is the Carob Hazelnut and it is amazing, tastes like Nutella in a bar!

On my weekend send off Love List this week…

Popchips! I loved these when I visited NYC and they are now available here in the UK. I was very kindly sent these to review and can’t wait to try all the varieties. They are available from these retailers. Also…

March arriving – and seeing the light at the end of winter // Pinterest – I’ve become even more obsessed this week! //Having a spring clean in my work office and feeling organised!

What have you been loving this week? Are you feeling full of the joys of spring yet?

Hi guys, hope your having a great Wednesday and a great week!

I had been planning on posting my eats from Monday but I ended up having a total stress day. Things were going a bit crazy at work, I had to work on something once I got home in the evening and I ended up forgetting to take pictures, stress eating carrots dipped in tahini dressing plus bowls full of raisins, cacao nibs and roast salted almonds. I guess it could have been a lot worse and I managed to chill myself out later on in the evening but it just reminded me how awful I feel when I let stress get to me. Anyway these are my eats and goings on from Tuesday!

I started the day with some yoga. I didn’t follow a podcast or anything I just did a quick 10 minutes of sun salutations, tree pose, boat pose and finishing in child’s pose, I felt a million times better after that. I had the usual hot lemon and warm water then made breakfast:

I had some leftover brown rice in the fridge so decided to make some grain porridge. I didn’t have any milk open so I just added 2 tbsp of coconut flour with some water to a pan and warmed through then added a mashed banana and half a scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder. I topped it with some coconut butter and almond butter. Absolutely lovely, I love the texture of brown rice porridge for something a bit different. I also had a cup of cinnamon and hazelnut coffee sweetened with stevia.

I decided to face the day ahead with red lipstick, my statement necklace from Topshop and my favourite striped tee:

I feel like I can handle anything when armed with red lipstick! Luckily work was much calmer than it had been on Monday.

Mid morning I stopped for a snack of cucumber with some spicy chickpeas:

Those are some very spicy chickpeas they nearly blew my head off!

Lunch was a salad with lettuce, carrot, red cabbage and home sprouted alfalfa topped with some of my Magic Mixture baked lentil balls and tahini dressing:

This was delicious, the magic mix baked into the balls very well and tasted gorgeous with the tahini dressing, almost like falafel.

Before leaving work for the gym I snacked on 3 dates stuffed with a raw savoury ‘roasted’ almond:

Sweet and salty combo never fails!

At the gym I did 10 min HIITs on the cross trainer, 10 min HIITs on the bike and my Body Pump class which was great as always. Those planks at the end are killers through, I’m looking forward to getting a stronger plank in March!

For dinner I stir fried some spring greens and broccoli with ginger, soy sauce and gomasio and topped with some maple ginger garlic baked tempeh:

I’m still not sick of tempeh, it tastes so good when baked like that. This I had actually baked on Monday so I just had to warm it back up. Of course I just had to have a big bowl of my favourite greens along side it!

Dessert was a scoop of cookies and cream spiru-tein protein powder made into a thick smoothie with water and ice and mixed with some peanut sauce made from peanut flour, sea salt and stevia then with a few cacao nibs on top for added crunch:

Love these smoothie bowls especially when peanut sauce is involved :-) Later on in the evening I relaxed with a mint chocolate rooibos tea while reading Eat Pray Love:

I actually started reading that book while on holiday almost two years ago! I decided it was about time I finished it but I thought it would be worth re reading from the beginning. The chapters in Italy always remind me of my wedding (which was in Italy) and all the amazing food we ate while we were there!

What makes you feel like you can handle anything? Yoga + red lipstick + killer outfit + coffee = my magic combo ;-)