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 ;-)

Hi everyone, so happy that the weekend has come back around again!

I’ve had a pretty busy week at work, so glad that I took the time last weekend to prep some food, it really has saved me a lot of time and stress as well as cash!

Workouts this week have been awesome. I think just doing yoga for a few day’s last week allowed by body to have a good rest. I’ve been following my new plan, and for my Monday and Friday strength workouts I’ve decided to generally follow the plans in Female Body Breakthrough instead of NRoL. This is mainly because I can perform more of the exercises from FBB with the equipment my gym has available, plus the plan includes a couple of moves that I know are really going to benefit me. This includes an exercise called the Partial Co Contraction Lunge which specifically gets the glutes firing – an issue that has contributed to my knee injury issues. This week I just did 2 sets of each move but next week I’ll be bumping it up to the full 3 sets.

For my ‘Anything Goes Thursday’ I fancied doing something different so I tried my first You Tube Vid! I did the POP Pilates Beyonce Booty Workout:

This was a killer! Its only 15 minutes but I was sweating by the end of it. I followed it up with the MTV Power Yoga DVD.

Eats this week have been really good, glad you liked the sound of my Autumn Grain Bowl! I made use of the leftover brown rice and butternut puree for an amazing breakfast:

I warmed the cooked brown rice and butternut puree with some rice milk and cinnamon on the stove top adding a chopped apple, raisins and some almond butter sauce. I enjoyed with a mug of black cinnamon hazelnut coffee sweetened with stevia. This was utterly delicious!

For a tasty lunch I made a big salad with romaine, spinach, carrot, pepper and cucumber topped with some basil, pine nut and hemp pesto, hummus, raw aubergine bacon and some dehydrated cherry tomatoes:

I’m not a massive fan of uncooked tomatoes (except in raw pasta sauce) so I dehydrated the cherry tomatoes to concentrate the flavour. I also loved the pesto mixed with the hummus!

I’ve enjoyed the usual green smoothies too:

This was post strength workout and one of the best I’ve had for ages! It contained spinach, pears, chocolate hemp protein powder, rice milk, mesquite, barley grass, midori greens powder, water, ice and gums topped with hazelnut butter sauce and bee pollen.

I’ve also been enjoying soup as the weather has returned to be more autumnal!

Leek Greens and White Bean Soup with a chopped raw pepper and toasted farmers market rye and fig bread with pure spread which was lovely.

I’ve been continuing to enjoy snacking, but have also been making sure that my evening dessert / snack is something that is meeting my cravings to leave me feeling really satisfied:

Chocolate tasting plate with a square of 100% cacao chocolate topped with peanut butter, RAW Health raw cherry chocolate and Divine Dark Chocolate with Orange and Ginger, fabulous! 

Frozen cherries defrosted with chocolate chia seed pudding and raw almond butter:

I made the pudding with 2 tbsp of chia seeds, water, raw cacao, stevia and almond extract, so good!

Today we had a team building day for work which started with a gingerbread coffee in a cafe followed by a 4-5 mile hike around Durham through woods and by the river followed by lunch at a great restaurant called Oldfields that specialise in local and seasonal menus. I called ahead to request something vegan and got a wonderful butter bean hummus and rapeseed oil dipping plate to start:

The bread was delicious dipped in the oil and hummus! My main was some baked mushrooms with spinach and tomato sauce accompanied by some ‘autumn greens’ and roasted root veg:

I also had a fruit salad as a dessert and a glass of red, it was a wonderful meal! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a lot of planning for the future of our organisation which was exciting!

I’ve enjoyed today so much and have felt very ‘autumny’, especially after a walk through the woods! After the day with work I went and stocked up with cheap seasonal fruit and veggies from the green grocers for the weekend, I can’t wait to cook with them all :-)

Have you done any You Tube workout videos before? Do you have any favourites?

Any big plans for the weekend? I’m probably going to have another chilled out one me thinks! Hope whatever your up to you have a great one :-)