Thanks for all your really supportive comments to my last post and my little ‘binge’. I think I needed a reality check to remind me that its ok to over eat a little at Christmas, especially when you eat healthily the rest of the year.

Today I woke up with a full blown cold. I’m trying not to let it get me down though! Breakfast was a big bowl of Dorset Cereal Cherry and Almond muesli with blueberries and vanilla soy milk.

This was a lovely big bowl and I really enjoyed it. I also had a mug of Christmas Coffee.

I pottered about and made this huge pan of ‘fridge’ soup:

This contained 2 onions, 3 garlic cloves, 1 small leek, 4 parsnips, 3 carrots, half a large swede, green beans and savoy cabbage plus vegetable stock. All organic vegetables and stock made with organic vegan bouillon. Just what the doctor ordered! Despite feeling under the weather I knew getting myself to the gym would do me good. I gave the treadmill a miss but did 1 hour of HIITs on the cross trainer, bike and step machine followed by my usual abs.

When I got home I ate two big bowls of my soup followed by a fruit salad containing 2 oranges, blueberries, pomegranate seeds and the scooped out insides of a passionfruit:

My appetite has been in full force again today but I have decided to just go with it. This afternoon I had a couple of sliced apples followed by a bowl of mixed fruit and nuts and a large mug of fresh lemon, ginger and honey.

For dinner I made one of my favourite meals – roasted vegetable and tomato pasta with parmesan cheese:

I roasted a red pepper, orange pepper, red onion and a courgette then mixed with some jarred tomato pasta sauce and some wholemeal penne. I used my vegetarian parmesan style cheese generously!

For dessert I made up a bowl of Chocolate Cherry ‘Ice Cream’ using frozen cherries, ice cubes, cocoa powder, soy milk, Rachel’s Organic Cherry Greek Yoghurt and some agave. This made a giant bowl which I topped with two small squares of Green and Blacks hazelnut and raisin chocolate:

Perfect for my sore throat! I’ll also probably have a glass of red wine before bed :-)

Yesterday I hit the sales and was very happy to pick up some fantastic bargains. I had a mental list of things I could do with including a new pair of boots:

I got these from Dune, reduced from £139 to £91 – they are really good quality leather in a classic design that should last me years.

I also got this coat from Monsoon:

It was reduced from £100 to £50. I really like its touch of military styling and it should go with lots of different outfits.

I also picked up a few random bits and bobs including this dress and top from Topshop:

The dress was reduced from £38 to £15, I thought it was really unusual and funky with its exposed zip at the back. I just loved the top and its draped design on the front, it was reduced from £40 to just £10! I also got a couple of basic vests for £3, a basic grey cardigan reduced from £19.99 to £10 and some leggings from H&M.

While I was out I thought I might was well get some toiletries I needed. I went for some natural and organic products for a change including this Naked shampoo, conditioner and deep conditioner.

I got some of my favourite Korres body wash and lotion in vanilla cinnamon – they smell divine!

I also picked up my favourite Bad Gal Lash mascara from Benefit and some pour minimising cream to try, plus some organic surge cream cleanser and some cream cleanser from Lush.

I like to use a cream cleanser to remove my make up at the end of the day rather than a wash so I thought I’d try these two out to see which is best. The last thing I picked up was this stability ball in Sainsbury’s which was reduced from £8 to £4.

I’m going to start using this in some home workouts.

So I had a very successful shopping trip! Have you been to the sales yet? Did you pick up any bargains?

Hi Everyone, I've just got back from my brilliant week in Majorca! I've definitely missed my blogging and reading all of your blogs too ;-)

My holiday has been great, but my eating has been very naughty! It didn't start very well when I had a major binge session at my parents house the night before we left. I binged on pizza, garlic bread and chocolate digestives. It was ridiculous and I felt really ill because I had ate so much. Its been a very long time since I've had a really bad binge. You would have thought that making myself feel so ill from overeating would ensure that I ate a little more sensibly while away but unfortunately that didn't happen!

We stayed in Cala Bona on the east coast of Majorca in a hotel called the Protur Alicia on a half board basis. The hotel was lovely, and the food was delicious! A typical days eats started with breakfast at the hotel. They had a great selection of foods. I tended to stick to fruit (melon, pineapple, tinned peach and pear), the most wonderful creamy greek yoghurt with honey and banana chips, muesli with all bran and sunflower seeds and skimmed milk and a wholemeal bread roll with butter and jam. A couple of mornings I did treat myself to a croissant with some chocolate hazelnut spread!

Peaches, pears, greek yoghurt, muesli, sunflower seeds, banana chips, honey

Muesli with sunflower seeds and fruit

Muesli with all bran and skimmed milk, wholemeal bread roll with jam and butter

At the begining of the week breakfast was keeping me really full so I wasn't eating much during the day. This didn't last long as my tummy started playing up so I needed to try and eat more often. I would pop an apple in my bag at breakfast and eat it as a snack mid morning.

I picked up 'Eat, Pray, Love' at the airport as I had read a few different reviews of the book and fancied giving it a try. I haven't finished it yet, but I've enjoyed reading it so far.

I found a great little cafe that would make me up a roast chicken salad. They even served green tea!

I also tried a couple of omelettes -

Cheese omelette with chips and salad (I couldn't resist the chunky chips!)

Spanish Omelette with salad

My other favourite day time treats included -

Gorgeous coffee with fresh cream

Fresh orange juice

Caramel, cookies and cream and chocolate hazelnut ice cream which was amazing!

Evening meals were served buffet style at the hotel, which I have now firmly realised is not good for me as I have no control! I started off really well with a plate from the salad bar that usually included lettuce, carrot, beetroot, onion and tuna topped with a delicious spicy mojo sauce or tzatziki.

Depending on what dishes were available I would then have some grilled fish, turkey or chicken with veggies.

Grilled salmon with veggies and stuffed pepper

Some nights I tried a few other dishes -

Turkey with spring rolls, chilli and rice and peas

Chicken in almond sauce with vegetable rice, brussel sprouts, spinach rolls and lasagne

Then came desert! This is where all my good intentions flew out the window. I would often have two servings of desert which included various ice creams (the coconut flavour was my favourite), fresh pineapple and melon, gorgeous cardamon scented rice pudding, various cakes and trifles and some lovely coconut and strawberry mousse. If I'd eaten ice cream during the day I wouldn't have it again at dinner and instead would have more cake ;-)

Pineapple, melon, bowl of triffle and coconut mousse with crunchy topping, slice of passion fruit cake

Then we would go out for a drink, which for me was cocktails!

During the week I did make an effort to keep active. The weather on the first full day was rainy and cold so we all hit the indoor pool and gym area. I did a quick 20 minute workout on the step machine and spin bike which was brilliant. Luckily that was the only day with poor weather, the rest of the week was hot and sunny! I made sure that I had a good swim in the pool each day (I challenged myself to do 20 lengths), I walked everyday, and each morning I would get up and do 10 - 20 minutes of either abs exercises and push ups / tricep dips etc or a 10 minute cardio workout were I would set the stop watch on my phone and do a different cardio exercise a minute for 10 minutes, such as jogging on the spot, star jumps, shadow boxing etc. I would do this while the hubby was in the shower and it worked really well at waking me up, getting the blood pumping, and hopefully kick starting my metabolism! We even hired a bike one morning and went cycling. Cala Bona has an excellent bike path right through it and on to the neighbouring resort.

I think in terms of my healthy living aims the negatives were eating far too large portions, too much desert (sugar and fat) and too much alcohol! On the positive side I made sure that I stayed active, I always ate at least five fruit and vegetables a day and I ate plenty of beautiful healthy grilled fish, turkey and chicken.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm not going to beat myself up about it, I really enjoyed myself at the end of the day! I'm going to jump on the scales in the morning and see what the damage is (I wouldn't be suprised at a gain of 5 - 7 lbs). I plan to have few weeks of very 'clean' eating and exercise to get myself back on track.

I did bring back some goodies with me! I love looking around supermarkets when I'm abroad and I couldn't resist bringing back -

German chocolate - extra dark, dark with hazelnut, dark peppermint and dark amaretto flavoured

Rye bread - linseed, hazelnut, fruit bread

Italian Amaretto - I love this with orange or cranberry juice!

All in all, we had a fantastic holiday. It was lovely to spend time together as a whole family (my parents, sister, brother in law, nephew and hubby all came along) and although Majorca wouldn't be my usual holiday choice (I prefer somewhere a little less touristy, you didn't really get much of a sense of Spanish culture) the resort was really pleasant with a beautiful beach - I got to swim in the sea which is my favourite!

I'll leave you with a few more pics, including one of me in a bikini! I can't believe I'd ever feel comfortable enough in myself to post a photo like that on the internet! I would still like to work on my tummy and legs but I like my curvy figure and compared to photos of me in a bikini a few years ago I think I don't look to bad!

I feel really refreshed and re-motivated from the holiday, I can't wait to get back into my running, fitness and healthy eats! Hope you have all had a good week, looking forward to catching up with you all! xxxxx

First of all, big thanks to all your lovely comments yesterday! I’m feeling a bit worse for wear today and my knee is a little swollen where I fell, but apart from that I’m still feeling on top of the world!

I’ve mentioned for a while that I wanted to do a post on my thoughts around the excessive snackiness I’ve been experiencing lately. I apologise in advance as this is a very  long and wordy post! I’m going to be talking about some of my issues with food so if your suffering from an eating disorder and feel any of this could be triggering or if your just not interested ;-) then it may be best to skip this post.

I’m just going to do a very quick summary of my ‘healthy living’ journey so far for any new readers. A few years ago I was almost 15 stone, 206lbs, and fed up of being bigger – I was very unhappy with myself and didn’t have a lot of confidence. I’d dieted before but had always regained the weight. Something just seemed to stick with me this time round and through generally eating better and exercising, I lost weight and got to about 10 stone, 140lbs, when I started blogging. Since I started the blog and reading more blogs my diet has changed dramatically. I’ve gone from an omnivore to a ‘mostly’ vegan and I enjoy my food more than ever before. I’m also the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life :-) Clearly I’ve been influenced by blogs, but I feel that the changes in my diet have came about organically as I’ve learned more about nutrition and more importantly, more about my own body.

I’ve also lost more weight, to the point of being close to, but never within, the unhealthy BMI range. I’ve started getting a few comments from friends and family about this too. As I’ve been saying for a while now I really wanted to stop losing weight and at least maintain or preferably gain more weight. I recognised that this was not healthy and that I had developed some unhealthy thought patterns that needed to be addressed, and after a lifetime of trying to lose weight, naturally its going to take some time to reverse those ingrained habits. I’m not perfect and I am on a journey to learn more about myself and my body and clearly I’m going to have slip ups on the way. I have posted a couple of times on this – see my vegan for a month and finding balance posts for more background.

I’d also like to state that I have never had an eating disorder or have one now. That would be a pure insult to anyone that has suffered with what is a truly horrendous disease. What I have struggled with is a complicated relationship with food.

Its only been recently that I’ve started to feel like I’m really getting to know my own body. I’ve developed a love of exercise – and I exercise because I enjoy it, not in order to maintain or lose weight. I’ve also developed a love of certain foods – including green smoothies and big salads, which I never dreamed I would enjoy as much as I do! Its at the point now that my body craves green smoothies when it would usually have craved a takeaway! With this change in diet I have also been left very sensitive to sugar. I’ve always been sensitive to sugar but now if I go even slightly over board on it I can really feel it, I even wake up with a sugar hangover! I tend to feel ‘sugared out’ very easily, and when I eat a lot more processed foods or caffeine I feel a natural urge to eat better for a while.

I know that my diet could be described as extremely healthy and ‘clean’ (although I despise that word) but you know what I mean – very unprocessed, not very sugary etc. I eat this way because I love those foods and they make me feel fantastic. However I do want to make it clear that I also have no problem with drinking chemically coloured cocktails, knocking back shots and hammering the Chinese buffet on occasion too! Life is too short not to enjoy ‘unhealthy’ foods some times – take yesterday for example, I loved every single bite of that cinder toffee!

What I have recently been experiencing is excessive snackiness that seems to happen on an evening. I’ve really been going for sugary nut butters (hello PB&Co I’m looking at you!) and chocolate. When this first started I had no problem with it and really enjoyed it! However it got to the point that it was happening each evening and I was eating until I felt physically sick, and because I’m so sensitive to sugar, I felt really poorly too! This is not healthy for me. I was waking up feeling uncomfortably full and not looking forward to breakfast – my favourite meal, the horror! Its not that I have an issue with indulging every now and then – I was over the moon that I had the appetite to enjoy such snacks to begin with, but then it seemed to get out of hand and has just left me feeling blah.

This additional snackiness possibly combined with not running as much this month has led to me gaining 3 lbs, and I’m completely ok with that. I’m a healthy size 8-10 but would be equally happy with a few more curves! What I’m not ok with is feeling like crap. In all my musings on this I have reached the following conclusions:

• Stress can cause me to eat to excess (i.e. to the point of feeling sick rather than my natural fullness)
• Falling out of my routine throws my appetite off
• I’m probably not eating enough through the day
• I may be missing some nutrients (macro or micro) that is leading to me getting cravings

As I said, I really love the food I eat! I would normally crave healthier foods and I love that. What I do need to look at is making sure that I’m eating enough of the healthy stuff that I love and making sure that I’m getting the nutrients and fuel that I need. I feel like I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks with regards  to listening to my body, I’ve been ignoring my hunger too much and then when I’ve been stressed recently I haven’t had the will power to ignore that hunger any more, which was ok to begin with but has got a little out of control. What I need to work on now is balancing out that ‘control’ and knowing when to relax.

With that in mind I am making a few changes to my diet, including having more snacks during the day so that I don’t feel as hungry later at night. If I still have a few snacks after dinner then that’s ok too, as long as its not the entire contents of a nut butter jar ;-) I may also calorie count a couple of days just for a while to make sure that I’m eating enough. This may lead to me gaining more weight and I’m fine with that. I know when I reach the right weight for my body it will settle down. I’m also still planning on having a bit of a detox, and yes, a detox is what it will be! I’m not ashamed of saying that, I feel like doing one, I’m going to be sensible and listen to my body, make sure I’m still eating plenty and I’m doing it to feel rebalanced and because I genuinely feel that my body and mind will benefit from it. 

We are all different with different bodies, different needs and different interests. What is classed as ‘healthy’ for one person may not be healthy for another. I personally feel that these differences should be respected and celebrated, particularly in the realm of healthy living blogs. I read the blogs that I am interested in, including blogs that focus on raw and vegan food because I personally enjoy those foods. Would I ever go completely raw or even completely vegan? (I still eat a few things with trace dairy sometimes like chocolate, I eat honey, and I’ve always maintained that I would eat animal products again if it was right for me) No! But do I think these people are wrong for eating in a way that makes them feel their best, or even worse, that they have an eating disorder because of this? Of course not!

I guess I’m saying this as there’s been a few very thought provoking blog posts around on this topic and I wanted to say how I feel about it. I love that what I eat makes me feel great, helps me to feel balanced most of the time, and connects me to the environment and the earth. What I choose to eat is right for me. Do I think everyone should eat or live like me? No! I said in a recent post I want to work with young people and community groups and the kind of healthy living approach I’d be advocating for them is far different to what I feel is right for me.

I think of it like a scale – we all need to find the right balance on the scale for us. For some people its right at the far end eating a high raw diet, for others its just a case of making sure they are getting their 5 fruit and veggies a day! Both can be healthy in their own way…

For me, healthy is doing whatever makes me feel my best physically and mentally. Despite a few little issues, I feel awesome!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! I know a lot of you commented that you have also been experiencing excessive snackiness. What is healthy for you? Why do you read the ‘healthy living’ blogs you read?

Hope that’s not too heavy going, usual service will be resumed tomorrow with a recipe book review and giveaway! Hope you have a great day!

Happy Friday everyone, so glad that the weekend is here!

I’ve been liberating my wardrobe again!

 Yellow cardigan: H&M, grey jersey dress: Villa, skinny tan leather belt: Topshop, black tights: M&S, brogues: Topshop

This is a bit of an autumnal look, but considering the weather right now I’m all ready to bust out the jumpers and knee high boots! I decided to keep the accessories minimal with this outfit. I love the combo of yellow and grey and though it looked good kept simple.

Yesterday morning I kicked off my day with a challenge detox yoga flow podcast from Yoga Download. Breakfast was some buckwheaties, strawberries and vanilla home made almond milk:

Such a delicious, and surprisingly filling raw breakfast!

Yesterday’s lunch was a blended salad soup with a slice of my raw sunflower seed and onion bread and a jazz apple:

The soup was leftover from Wednesday and after not being that impressed by it I decided to give it another try. It was ok, but I can’t see myself making it again!

As a snack before the gym I had a couple of these wonderful raw cookies:

I made these using this recipe and they turned out wonderfully. I took some into work and they went down very well, in fact I have none left now!

At the gym I did a simple workout of 10 minutes of high intensity intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rower followed by my usual abs and core exercises for nice 50 minute workout.

In more raw food experimentation dinners have included my first attempt at sprouting! I sprouted some quinoa and mixed it with edamame beans and chopped courgette. I served it Buddha bowl style with some roasted kabocha squash I’ve been saving in the freezer and some spinach and braggs liquid aminos:

Sprouting the quinoa was extremely simple and resulted in a more crunchy, nutty flavour. All I did was rinse and soak the quinoa for 4 hours then left in a sieve over a bowl to drain. I gave it a quick rinse every couple of hours and it sprouted really quickly, I love the little tails!

I have to say that I’ve been surprised by the simplicity of a lot of the raw food techniques I’ve experimented with recently, I had expected them to be a lot more complex than they have been. The cheesecakes from yesterday and this sprouted quinoa are great examples of simple recipes with great tasting results!

The process of sprouting makes the grain (or in the case of quinoa, seed) edible raw, but the process of germination also begins to convert some of the starches in the grain to simple sugars which are easier to digest. I’ll definitely be experimenting with sprouting a lot more from now on!

Dessert was some chocolate protein ice cream with freeze dried berries:

Last night I had a little bit of a overeating episode. I’m reluctant to call it a binge, but for me, that’s what it felt like. Basically I just couldn’t stop eating. I ate several dried apricots, handfuls of raisins, frozen grapes, roasted soy nuts, chocolate, handfuls of muesli and finally I hit the nut butters. I haven’t had an overeating episode like this for a while (although I have had similar ones recently when I was in Brighton, Kendal Calling and also when I hit the nut butters on my Birthday this Wednesday).

I’m certainly not wanting to be over dramatic but I did want to mention this as I think its important to share this stuff, I am not a perfect eater. I also know that we will all hit those bumps in the road of our healthy living journeys – and that’s exactly what they are, a journey rather than a destination. Although I know a few extra calories from what was all essentially healthy stuff isn’t going to do me any harm, the fact that I just couldn’t stop myself and that I woke up this morning feeling as sick as a dog, are signs that its not good for my body to let this kind of eating pattern continue.

source

I’ve tried very hard not to feel too guilty over it and to try and look at it objectively to see why I may have acted this way when for so long I’ve been fine. To be honest, I’m really not sure. I’m still finding my food satisfying and filling, I think it could have been a case of my mind just saying f**k it, and once I start then its a case of ‘well you might as well enjoy it now and get back on track tomorrow’. I’m going to just try and move on from it but monitor things as I don’t want to fall back into old patterns.

This morning I still went to the gym despite feeling ill! I did my amended NRoL workout and felt much better after it! Breakfast was a restorative green smoothie:

This looks a horrid colour but tasted good I promise! It included kale, cucumber, frozen berries, apple, strawberry hemp protein powder, maca, mesquite, purple corn powder, barley grass powder, ground flax, msm crystals, stevia for sweetness, water, ice and the gums for thickness with gojis and coconut on top.

I love that green smoothies can be made to be more cleansing like this one or indulgent like my birthday cake green smoothie!

I’ve drank lots of water and rooibos tea plus snacked on lots of fruit during the day to feel better too. Lunch was a slice of my raw sunflower and onion bread with sabra hummus and veggies and a peach:

I can not get enough of that raw bread and hummus combo right now, so good! The raw bread has also kept very well in the fridge for 5 days, I’m definitely going to be making it on a regular basis now!

Dinner was more of the sprouted quinoa Buddha bowl and as a sweet end to the day I made a big mug of mint chocolate teecino with almond milk and stevia:

I definitely feel a lot more ‘balanced’ after eating better today!

I am now thinking bring on the weekend! I actually have another quiet one planned, me and James are going to spend the whole weekend together as a late birthday thing. We are going to have a movie fest and I’m going to make us a tasty Italian meal and crack open a bottle of red! What do you have planned?

Before I go I’d like to welcome my second blogger sponsor this month, the delightful Sarah from Sweet Potato Sarah!

She’s a student on a healthy eating journey – check out her wonderful blog! If you have any festivals to attend this summer you must check out her festival survival guide, I found it very helpful when I went to Kendal Calling!

I hope you don’t mind me sharing my thoughts on my overeating episode. Have you ever struggled with overeating or binging episodes? How do you deal with them?