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!

Well this has been another brilliant weekend! Yesterday we got up really early, had a quick breakfast and hit the road to Leeds.

Pink lady apple, Dorset High Fibre Flakes, hemp milk, simple and yum!

We know Leeds reasonably well as my Sis in Law lived there for a couple of years so it was good to be back! James wanted to hit the record stores and I was just happy to have a look around the shops. Before we got stuck in we treated ourselves to a Starbucks:

Grande Vanilla Soy Latte, yes please!

I was really excited when I saw that a vintage fashion fair was taking place at the Leeds Corn Exchange:

I was extra happy as last week I missed the vintage fashion fair that was taking place in Newcastle. The place was packed with stalls:

I saw so many things I wanted to buy but I needed to keep to my budget! James very kindly treated me to this beautiful dress:

I love it! Its slightly big but will look fantastic with a bright belt nipping in the waist.

After hitting the vintage fair we went in search of food! Last week I’d put out a tweet asking for vegan friendly restaurants and cafes and both Sarah and Lauren had recommended Little Tokyo. As soon as I’d checked out their menu online I knew it would be ideal. It was a bit out of James comfort zone but he loves sea food and there was plenty of that on the menu. The restaurant looked fantastic:

I’m not used to having so much choice in a restaurant so it took me ages to decide what to get! I ordered an iced green tea which was sweetened with honey and tasted amazing, then for a starter deep fried bean curd spring rolls:

For my main meal I had the Yaki Soba noodles with veggies and tofu:

The chunks of tofu in this were massive! The meal was delicious and extremely filling, I even managed to eat the whole thing with chopsticks which for me is an achievement! James had some prawn dumplings for his starter and Udon Noodles with seafood for his main. We would both definitely go back again, there’s so much more on the menu that I’d like to try!

As I said I did do some shopping, first of all here’s what I got from Out of This World – and another little health food store:

Dried mulberries, green lentils, quinoa, brown rice, soy chocolate puddings (on offer for 99p) raw cacao and cinnamon kale chips, Maya Gold Green and Blacks mini chocolates, Pukka tea selection, Pukka Vanilla Chai tea, smoked almonds, natural glace cherries, dark chocolate covered coffee beans, tinned kidney beans and chickpeas (on offer)

I needed to stock up on a few grains and beans and decided to treat myself to the rest. I got the dark chocolate Reece’s cups from a speciality sweet shop, I just couldn’t resist them! Fashion wise I went crazy for accessories:

Floral head band (River Island), Jewelled cuff (Miss Selfridge), Feather hair chip (Miss Selfridge), Jewelled and beaded headdress that I intent to wear as a necklace (River Island), and in the background vintage fabric bunting

With festival season coming up I thought I’d get some nice accessories, I adore that headband / necklace! I was over the moon when I saw the bunting on the same stall where I got my vintage dress, its going to be perfect for my Jubilee Party!

The rest of the weekend has been just as enjoyable, I’ve coloured my hair, had a good cook up session making hummus with freshly cooked beans, baked tofu, made a wonderful orange basil salad dressing and a very special sweet treat recipe I’ll be sharing later this week! This morning I also got out for a pleasant but slow 7.5 mile run!

Other tastiness from this weekend has included:

peaches and cream oats with tofu cream

Blueberries and strawberries with tofu cream

Giant green juice made with a massive cucumber, celery, ginger and lemon

My simple dahl with a basic socca and steamed broccoli

The most amazing cherry coconut water slushie! I blended some frozen cherries with plain coconut water, a couple of drops of vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt. Incredible!

Kelp noodles with spiralised courgettes raisins, chickpeas and a tahini miso sauce

My current obsession (thanks to Jess) Lindt 90% dark dipped in hot sweet peppermint tea

I also have this slice of chocolate peanut butter slab for dessert later:

I got this from the counter at Out of This World yesterday but was too stuffed from lunch to eat it, I can’t wait to enjoy this!

We really did have such a lovely time yesterday, it was great to visit somewhere different and it was really good to spend time with James like that. We are definitely planning more mini day’s out back to Leeds, I need to work my way through the menu at Little Tokyo!

How has your weekend been so far? Are you a fan of Japanese food? Have you ever bought any vintage fashion?

Hope everyone is having a good weekend! I’ve had one of those lovely weekends of not doing much except pottering about. Its been so cold outside we haven’t felt like doing much other than sitting on the sofa in our hoodies watching TV! We did make a trip out for groceries and since I feel like I haven’t dressed properly for a week (due to being off work and recovering from my wisdom teeth extraction if your catching up) I decided to make a bit of an effort, OOTD:

 Grey beanie hat: Topshop, Stag necklace: Primark, Navy Coat: New Look, striped t shirt: H&M, pink cardigan: H&M, floral print midi skirt: Dorothy Perkins, woven belt: Miss Selfridge, black ribbed leggings: Primark, Brown leather boots: New Look

I really like mixing prints sometimes, especially stripes and florals. I’m definitely starting to feel like my usual self again, if still a little puffy in the face!

I had a totally gorgeous breakfast yesterday morning:

This was pumpkin spice oats made with 1/2 cup oats, water, canned pumpkin, vanilla stevia, cinnamon and ground ginger topped with the most amazing tofu ‘cream’. I wanted to make some of my tofu yoghurt but had no apple sauce so I just blended some silken tofu in the blender (rather than the food processor as usual) with water and vanilla stevia to create a ‘whipped cream’ type consistency. Honestly this was lush, it actually reminded me of 2% fat greek yoghurt!

After going out for the shopping I really needed to warm up! I made a lovely latte with kara coconut milk and tea pigs matcha green tea powder:

Hit the spot!

Last night for dinner I had some Dahl I’d made based on my Simple Red Lentil Dahl recipe that I’d made on Friday night:

I had it with some brown rice and steamed broccoli with shoyu. Was so good to be able to chew!

I continued celebrating being able to chew more with a dessert of chopped pears, pink lady apples and some Conscious raw chocolate:

It felt so good to eat those crunchy apples!

I still have been eating a few smoothies though, this was lovely and tasted like vanilla ice cream:

Spinach, two big courgettes, 2 scoops of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca powder, midori greens, ice and water topped with hemp seeds, freeze dried berries and bee pollen. I really like using courgettes and extra protein powder to make them extra creamy.

This was beet greens, raw beetroot, frozen blueberries and strawberries, strawberry hemp protein powder, ground flax, maca powder, berries powder, ice and water topped with goji berries, cacao nibs and pistachios:

I’m still laying off the gums since my smoothies have been continuing to turn out so nice and thick on their own. I’ve also had some of my usual green juice:

Cucumber, celery, parsley, ginger and lemon, so good!

Exercise wise I’ve had some great workouts. Last week I was sent Zumba Exhilarate to review for the blog. Its a full programme of DVD’s with toning sticks and even meal plans and recipes. I’m a sucker for nice packaging and loved the way its presented:

I did the first DVD which just shows you the basic moves. I’m very uncoordinated, but found most of the moves easy enough to follow. Full review to come! Today I headed to the gym for a treadmill run (5.2 miles in 45 min) followed by my Kettlebell class which I am loving! It was my longest run for a couple of weeks but felt comfortable enough, it was good to feel that burn I only ever seem to feel when running :-)

We also decided to sign up for Netflix. So far we have been really impressed, we can stream everything via James Playstation and the picture quality is fantastic. We are currently watching the first season of Dexter! The blog was also featured in a great article from More Magazine online called Keep On Running with a selection of websites to keep you fit – I was really honoured to be picked amongst such great sites, check it out! Also thanks again for all the lovely comments about me passing my course, I’m over the moon!

How has your weekend been? Have you had any particularly good workouts recently? Anyone else tried Netflix?

Hi everyone, hope you’ve had a good week! I’m buzzing as I am now off work for the week :-)

Yesterday morning I got up and did my usual yoga podcast. This time I decided to try something new and did the Yoga Sculpt workout which uses weights. I just used my smallest hand weights but my word this was tough! I really enjoyed it though, using the weights really took it to the next level!

Breakfast was a big bowl of cherry coconut porridge (1/2 cup of scottish oats, 2 tbsp of 10 grain hot cereal, 2.5 cups of water cooked in microwave) with ground flax, 2 punnets of fresh cherries (yes it took me forever to de pit these but so worth it!), coconut extract, sweet freedom sweetener, lots of coconut butter and desiccated coconut:

Absolutely delicious, coconut and cherry flavours go together so well!

Lunch yesterday and repeated today, was a big salad with mixed lettuce, pepper, carrot, cucumber, tofu rosso and braggs plus lots of un pictured fruit:

First try of the Taifun Tofu Rosso and it was gorgeous!

Also had my first try of a carrot cake Lara Bar:

This was lovely with a slight hint of pineapple and it had big chunks of almonds in it :-)

I’ve made a big change to my usual workout routine this week, instead of doing a 3,2,1 workout on Thursday evenings I’ve tinkered with my schedule and did some weights this morning instead. Last night I still went to the gym but did my usual Friday morning workout instead (40 minutes of cardio intervals and abs and core).

I decided to switch up my weights to a Friday morning as my gym only has a very small weights section which usually gets too busy on a Thursday evening. This way I can have it all to myself! I decided to go with a modified version of a workout from The New Rules of Lifting For Women (I was inspired to get this after reading Amanda and Emma’s reviews). I won’t be starting the full plan yet as I still want to incorporate my Body Pump and obviously my focus on running. Here’s what I did:

5 minute warm up – treadmill 6.0mph

A Wide grip dead lift x 10 x 2 sets

B Alternating set x 2

• Bulgarian split squat with plate x 10
• Lat machine x 10

C Alternating set x 2

• Reverse lunge with forward reach x 10
• Dumbbell prone cuban snatch x 10

D Alternating set x 2

• sit ups on stability ball with medicine ball x 10
• Captains chair leg raises x 10
• Hanna side flexion x 10

E – prone cobra x 10 x 2 sets

15 minutes cardio intervals on bike, 1 minute hard, 2 minutes recovery

This workout was fantastic, I felt like I had really worked hard. Even better, it was all done in 45 minutes!

Today’s breakfast was a blueberry cookie dough smoothie:

I made this by mixing 1/3 cup of oats with 1 tbsp of chia seeds and 1.5 cups of water overnight. Then this morning I added that to the blender with a sachet of blueberries and cream spiru-tein protein powder, frozen blueberries, 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast, ice, water and xanthan gum for thickness. I then topped with a crumbled almond oatmeal raisin cookie and more blueberries! So tasty, the blueberries and cream spiru-tein was lovely.

Tonight I had a fancy for a curry so I made my Simple Red Lentil Dahl and served with brown rice, some gorgeous reduced price organic tenderstem broccoli and steamed kale sprinkled with coriander and mixed seeds:

This was just perfect, I haven’t had dahl in far too long! Of course there has been more of the usual sweet treats:

Chocolate carob protein ice cream (1.5 scoops of chocolate sun warrior, 1 tbsp of carob powder, ice, water, stevia) topped with dark choc chips and freeze dried berries. Nom! Tonight I indulged my sweet tooth with some soya milk chocolate:

I’d picked this chocolate up from a health food store on a trip to York a few months back. I’ve already eaten the green tea bar and this soya bar was absolutely amazing, so rich and creamy with a wonderful crunchy smooth texture. I really need to see if I can get my hands on another bar!

I also need to announce the winner of this months sponsor giveaway for 1 months supply of Total Greek Yoghurt! The winner is:

The lovely Bronagh! Congrats! Please email me with your address :-)

Does everyone have a nice weekend planned? I’ll be getting myself sorted for going away tomorrow – we leave for Brighton very early on Sunday morning to miss the traffic. I am a bit sad as James isn’t coming down (he’s just started his new job he didn’t want to take time off) but I’m going with my Mam and Dad and looking forward to having lots of me time instead, and a couple of exciting blog meet ups!

Before I go I just have to briefly mention this post over at Choosing Raw. This post is part of Gena’s Green Recovery series looking at how a plant based diet has supported recovery from disordered eating. I found this post very moving as Laura’s story really resonated with me and reminded me of many of the issues I had growing up and some of the issues I’ve been dealing with recently. I really loved her thoughts on not seeing things as black and white, that no one is perfect, and her beautifully expressed thoughts on how a plant based diet makes her feel – I could have written those words myself! We are all a work in progress, all of our bodies are different and no one is perfect. One size does not fit all, one way of eating may be right for one person and not for another, we are all so wonderfully different and unique! That’s one of the things I love about the blogging community – the wonderful variety of people within it :-)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!