Hi everyone, I know its suppose to be a bad thing to constantly blog about the weather but I’m sorry, its just been too gorgeous not to mention it!

Driving home in the sun!

I don’t think I could have planned a better week for my Green Smoothie Challenge, they have been the perfect refreshing breakfast for this warm weather! Today I am here for WIAW of course, these are my eats from Monday.

I’ve decided that alongside the green smoothie challenge I’m having a bit of a healthy feasting week as I’m feeling completely caffeine and sugared out. I’m just sticking to simple foods, no coffee, no refined or processed sugars and I’m giving stevia a miss for a while so my taste buds can normalise again. I’m making sure that I’m eating plenty of nuts and fats as I’m not doing this to lose weight, just to try and re-steady my energy levels :-)

I got up, had the usual warm water and lemon and headed to the gym. I did 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer, strength training from Female Body Breakthrough and finished up with HIIT for 10 minutes on the step machine and then 10 minutes on the bike. For breakfast I had a not so green smoothie!

It contained spinach, celery, frozen berries, chocolate hemp protein powder, maca, ground flax, a couple of chlorella tablets, water, ice and then topped with goji berries and pistachios. I also had a green tea. It was like eating a bowl of chocolate berry ice cream! I had some celery in the fridge so decided to add a couple of stalks for extra goodness.

Lunch was a big salad with cos lettuce, red onion, cucumber, basil tofu, olives and lots of green goddess dressing:

I know I love my salads anyway but they’ve been even more enjoyable so far this week. That basil tofu is a real treat for me, its a little expensive to buy all the time so when I have it I really enjoy it!

Mid afternoon I snacked on a few chopped carrots with some mixed nuts and seeds that included sunflower seeds, walnuts and pecans:

I had also brought a nakd bar with me to work for a snack but I wasn’t hugely hungry so didn’t force myself to eat it. I decided to have the raw whole nuts as a change from the usual nut butters as I’m building up quite the stockpile and they need eating up!

For dinner I had some adzuki beans with quinoa and parsley alongside some roasted broccoli and cauliflower in tahini dressing:

I’d had this exact same meal on Sunday evening and enjoyed it so much I repeated it. I had some home cooked adzuki beans in the freezer so it was easy to throw together with the leftover quinoa. I also made a jar of tahini dressing up at the weekend which is delicious, I just blended some garlic, lemon and ume vinegar together with the tahini and it tasted great, it really made the roast veggies pop!

As it was so warm all I was craving after dinner was fresh fruit so I had a sliced Asian pear and two massive pink lady apples:

I also had a sleepytime tea and drank the usual gallons of water and green tea throughout the day.

Green smoothie challenge

How’s everyone coming along with their green smoothie challenge? I seem to be feeling more simple cleansing smoothies than I did the last time I did this – no chocolate peanut butter ones this time around! I’ve also been alerted to the fact that Katherine at the Real Food Runner and Jen at Peanut Butter Runner are also hosting a green smoothie challenge this week, talk about great minds! Check out those links for more great green smoothie recipes and ideas.

Here’s a couple of my green smoothie highlights so far:

Chocolate ginger pear topped with pumpkin seeds, flaked almonds and cacao nibs – I’m going to blog the recipe for this one soon as it has been a favourite of mine for a while now!

Spinach, frozen blueberries, scoop of chocolate amazing grass powder, celery, agave, water, ice topped with coconut and bee pollen

So far I know that Tam, Jemma and Sarah are joining in and have posted about the challenge. I’ll probably do a full round up on Sunday so let me know via comments or email if you’d like to include a link.

If your joining in the challenge, how’s it going?

What’s your favourite way to enjoy warm spring weather? When I still have to keep up my usual daily routine I love driving home from work with my sunnies on, good tunes on the radio and the windows down :-)

Hi everyone hope your week is going well!

I’m back for another WIAW! These are my eats from yesterday. I started the day with my usual warm water and lemon which I sipped on while getting washed and dressed, then I made breakfast! I had a big bowl of strawberries, banana and some cacao chai chia pudding:

I also had a cup of black cinnamon and hazelnut coffee sweetened with stevia:

So glad that the mornings are getting a little lighter now!

Mid morning I had a couple of carrots with some cashew butter for dipping for a snack:

I love carrots with nut butter! I also had this amazing rosehip and cherry tea:

My work colleague had returned from a break in Scotland and brought a few different teas back for me from her hotel. This was so good I might have to track down that brand, it tasted like cherry drop sweeties! Of course I drank a lot of other tea during the day too including green and rooibos.

Lunch was a big salad made from lots of random things from the fridge:

It included spinach, brown rice, marinated tofu, home grown alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, red cabbage, red pepper and some braggs liquid aminos. This was lovely but it reminded me why I usually go easy on the carbs at lunch, I definitely had a mid afternoon slump! To pick me up again I had a snack of a pear, an apple and some salt and pepper Popchips:

I love those those Popchips, they are my favourite flavour and remind me of posh crisps!

As I had my yoga class later that evening I just wanted something light for dinner. I had a bowl of my lentil soup with a big pile of my home made raw curried crackers:

When I got home from yoga I fixed myself a great snack. I had found some of my favourite fresh figs in the reduced section on Monday so had three of them, a chopped apple and some raw tahini and honey along with a kuricha green tea:

That really hit the spot!

I really enjoyed my yoga class last night…

It was a packed class and was really good fun, the teacher used me to demonstrate some of the poses and commented on how good my posture was! I felt a bit embarrassed but simultaneously chuffed that I was doing well. I think I’m starting to embrace the slower more relaxing style of yoga now :-)

Yesterday wasn’t quite as full of greens as my eats usually are, in the lead up to pay day I’m trying to manage on what I have in the fridge, freezer and cupboards as I’m determined to stick within my grocery budget. Fresh veggies are probably the most costly thing I buy so I have to cut back a little. I was able to get a huge bag of spinach which is a good deal for me as I can use in salads, smoothies and cooked meals plus James loves his spinach too. More on healthy eating on the cheap to come tomorrow!

Are you affected by carbs at lunch time? I find that if I have too much, especially bread, rice or pasta I get a bit sleepy later on! Quinoa seems to be ok though, perhaps because it contains more protein? That’s why I tend to just have salads with veggies, protein and fat and save the carbs for later in the day. I know people that are the complete opposite so I guess it just goes to show how different we can all be!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week :-)

Hi everyone, hope your enjoying yourself this Wednesday!

As always I’m joining in the WIAW party! These are my eats from Monday, I like to try and do different days for WIAW as I tend to eat different things / amounts depending on the day. I thought that since the theme is green this month I’d look at one of my green loves – green tea!

I got up and had my usual mug of warm water with lemon juice then tried to get as organised as possible before going to the gym. Every other week we have a team meeting first thing on a Monday morning so I need to get into work a.s.a.p. I made sure I had my lunch and snacks ready in the fridge and laid out my outfit for the day:

T shirt: Primark (only £3!), black skinny trousers: Gap, white vest: H&M, heart patterned socks: Accessorize, black exposed zip boots: New Look (not pictured)

That’s my current favourite tee, I love the summery print!

Then I headed to the gym. I started a new phase of Female Body Breakthrough starting with 5 minutes warm up on the cross trainer followed by strength training (including planks again!) and finishing with 20 minutes of HIIT on the step machine and bike. As I didn’t have time for a proper breakfast I made a very quick but extremely delicious vanilla protein frappe:

This was just ice, instant coffee, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, a pinch of xanthan gum and water blended up. It was lush, cheaper and more convenient than Starbucks and was enough to satisfy my hunger and get me out the door. Once I was at work I made a big mug of green tea before the team meeting. After the meeting I had breakfast no 2:

A pink lady apple and a Gourmet Raw cacao cocobanana chocolate brownie plus you guessed it, another mug of green tea! I love that I can eat a brownie for breakfast as these are just so healthy. Lunch was a great salad based on my Confetti Quinoa Salad:

I mixed some leftover quinoa with hemp oil, apple cider vinegar, parsley and dried blueberries and added to a salad of cos lettuce, carrot and red cabbage. After lunch I had a green tea with chai.

For my afternoon snack I had brought some carrots and raw almond butter but I was feeling pretty hungry so when I saw a banana going spare in the kitchen I nabbed that too:

I also had yet another green tea!

Dinner was a big stir fry. I had picked up veggies from the green grocer at the weekend including choi sum and diakon. I also added some broccoli, carrot and mange tout to the mix along with a generous amount of the peanut lime sauce I’d made at the weekend and some leftover baked tempeh:

For a delicious dessert I had two plums topped with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter plus a liquorice and cinnamon tea:

They were amazing! That Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter should come with a warning label its so addictive! The one time I don’t drink my green tea is in the evening as it does have a little bit of caffeine in it so I tend to go for my fave herbal blends.

I realised when I looked in my drawer at work that I may have a minor green tea problem:

I have a lot more at home too, at least I won’t be running out of that any time soon!

I started drinking green tea about 4 years ago and as of about 3 years ago I completely swapped my regular milky black tea for green tea. I love my spiced and herbal blends but some times I just want something that tastes neutral and fresh. The benefits of drinking green tea are numerous and include:

• High in catechins which have been shown to halt oxidative damage to cells
• Reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder
• Can improve insulin sensitivity
• Can provide bone density benefits similar to exercise
• Promotes fat loss
• Increases exercise endurance

source

I always feel healthier for drinking green tea! As well as drinking as a tea, brewed and cooled tea makes a great liquid base for smoothies and even as the cooking water for grains like rice and oats to impart a delicate green tea flavour.

My favourite brands are:

• Clipper - my everyday green tea
• Clearspring’s Kuricha – has a lovely roasted taste and is very low in caffeine
• Pukka Green tea with chai
• Twinnings
• We Are Tea
• Cosy Tea jasmine and lemon green teas
• Teavivre loose leaf greens that I’m currently sampling
• Tea Pigs amazing matcha!

Are you a fan of green tea? Do you have a favourite type or brand?

Don’t forget to check out my Chocolate Hemp shake GIVEAWAY!

Happy Wednesday everyone, hope your week is going very well!

I’ve decided to show you my eats from last Friday as I remembered to take pics of almost everything, plus my eats fitted in nicely with this months WIAW theme of greens! I started the day with a mug of warm water and the juice from half a lemon plus an orange as a pre gym snack:

I headed to the gym and did a 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer followed by a Base phase workout from Female Body Breakthrough and 20 minutes of HIIT on the step machine and bike. I came home and got ready for work then made some breakfast. I’d been feeling a bit tired the last few days and wanted to make sure I was eating plenty of iron so I made an ‘iron bomb’ smoothie:

This contained kale, 2 nectarines, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior, 1 tbsp of black strap molasses (for added iron), maca powder, ground flax, water and ice then topped with a chopped dried fig (for more iron), hemp seeds and goji berries (goji berries are high in vitamin C which supports iron absorption). I had that bowl plus another half a bowl full! I also made a cup of Bi Luo Chun green tea, kindly sent to me from my sponsors Teavivre:

This has a lovely deep almost smokey taste and its the most beautiful loose leaf tea that looks almost like moss! I know that tea and coffee can hinder the absorption of iron but I’m never sure if that’s the same with green tea – will have to check that one out!

We had decided to set a day aside at work to have a good spring clean of the office which meant that we could all come in our scruffs. I wore my boyfriend jeans and fave Converse!

For lunch I had a big salad of romaine, green pepper, red cabbage and carrot topped with some of my leftover Magic Mix crumbled on top:

I got 6 meals out of that recipe and it kept very well in the fridge all week! Mid afternoon I stopped for a snack of roast salted soya nuts and a pink lady apple:

Once the office was all organised and the bags of rubbish and recycling sorted out I headed into town to stock up on fruit and veggies for the weekend. I went to my favourite green grocers, they have a brilliant selection of fruit and vegetables for excellent prices:

I actually didn’t get those blueberries in the end but got a box of strawberries for 99p instead! Here’s my haul:

All of this for £12! It included:

• bananas
• 6 pink lady apples
• 4 coxes apples
• a huge piece of fresh ginger root
• bunch of beetroot
• cauliflower
• box of strawberries
• broccoli
• celery
• cucumber
• a head of kale
• spring greens
• romaine
• large bunch of parsley
• big savoy cabbage

Of course my haul included a lot of greens! I decided to make use of the kale in my dinner, I ate it raw and just massaged it with a dressing made from sweet white miso and hemp oil. To go with it I roasted some butternut squash, cooked some millet and rescued some chickpeas from the freezer mixed them all together and added some dried cranberries and parsley to the mix:

It tasted wonderful! For dessert I had two sliced persimmon, a chopped apple and half a bar of conscious orange raw chocolate:

I also snacked on several un pictured apples while watching New Girl and reading my book!

I ended up eating kale twice that day which is fine by me as I love it so much! As someone that eats a mostly vegan diet I like to have at least one serving of leafy greens a day to ensure I’m getting plenty of calcium and iron. My favourite way to eat my greens are:

• Green smoothies of course!
• Steamed and sprinkled with soy sauce
• Juiced up with lemon and ginger
• Raw with some kind of nut or seed based dressing like tahini
• Stir fried – my current favourite being stir fried and then simmered in full fat coconut milk with ginger and spices

As someone who needs a lot of volume in what they eat to feel satisfied, greens are perfect for adding to meals for additional fibre and satiety for not too many calories. I just can’t get enough of my greens!

What’s your favourite green veggie?

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 ;-)

Happy Wednesday, hope your week is going fabulously! Ready for another veg packed WIAW? These are my eats and happenings from Monday, enjoy!

I’m kind of playing about with my workout schedule at the moment while I’m exploring the yoga class options in my area so instead of going to the gym first thing like I usually do I just got up and did a quick yoga podcast to start the week off right. I did a 20 minute detox challenge flow from Yoga Download which was a great way to start the day. After the usual warm water and lemon I made a very tasty breakfast:

I had some plain tofu cream leftover from making the Spicy Sweet Potato and Almond Butter Gratin (so glad you guys are loving that recipe!) so mixed it with a touch of stevia then combined with a small chopped apple, frozen blueberries, uncooked oats and topped with some bee pollen and pumpkin seeds. It tasted amazing, I am crazy about the multiple uses of silken tofu right now! I also enjoyed an amaretto coffee with kara coconut milk:

Mid morning at work I snacked on some sugar snap peas, sliced red peppers and raw maca dip:

I also had a mug of miso:

I used to drink miso all the time but had fallen out of the habit. On Monday I just fancied something savoury and that did the trick. For lunch I had leftover quinoa with chickpeas, cranberries and parsley on top of a big bowl of mixed salad greens and home sprouted alfalfa:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a couple of pink lady apples:

I can’t get enough of these at the moment!

I had been planning to try to get into the gym Monday night Body Pump class as I had decided to try a new yoga class which is held on a Tuesday evening when I would have went to my usual Body Pump class. Unfortunately the Monday night class had been fully booked and I was on the reserve list but instead of showing up and not getting a place I decided to go with the flow and head home for a DVD workout mash up!

I did 30 Day Shred Level 1, Davina Fit Top fit (minus the warm up and cool down) and half an hour of core conditioning Yogalates:

I’m very glad I have such a varied DVD collection, this was really good fun for a change!

For dinner I just kept it simple with some leftover lentil soup, organic blue corn chips and some steamed broccoli with soy sauce and nutritional yeast:

A bit later in the evening I decided to treat myself for dessert and raided the freezer for a slice of my raw salted caramel pecan cake:

I keep forgetting how truly delicious this is. It tastes so buttery it is amazing!

Before bed I had a mug of spicy liquorice and cinnamon tea:

As usual, throughout the day I drank several cups of green tea, green tea with chai and rooibos.

So most of my eats on Monday were made up of leftovers from the weekend re worked. I used to spend a lot of time making up single serving meals (as James usually eats differently to me) but now I make things with multiple portions and reuse the leftovers in different ways. I find that a grain and protein type meal like the quinoa and chickpeas can be made lunch friendly by throwing on top of salad greens. The leftover tofu cream was easily combined with the oats and fruit just like you would do yoghurt, but could have just as easily been mixed with nutritional yeast, garlic and lemon juice and used as a sauce for veggies. The soup was made into a more substantial meal by adding the blue corn chips and the big bowl of broccoli – I need my green veggies!

What’s your favourite way to re work leftovers?

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