Hello everyone hope you are having a wonderful Sunday! This weekend has been brilliant but a bit weird to say the least, perhaps its because Halloween is approaching…

I couldn’t resist getting a pumpkin to carve! I just went with some simple stars – it looks so pretty :-)

I started my weekend on Friday night. When got home from work I made myself a gorgeous smoothie:

Purple kale, chocolate sun warrior, raw almond butter, raw cacao, water, ice and stevia, it was delicious – I’ve had a few smoothies like that over the weekend using the purple kale. Then I did some tidying up and got ready to go out and see the family, OOTD:

Leather hoody: Topshop, fake fur stole: New Look, loose fit cream jumper: H&M, bag: Oasis, red pants: New Look, ankle boots: New Look

Notice the sun shining through the flat in that pic? Well a few hours later we had this:

That would be snow, and quite a bit of it! I don’t mind snow but it is rather early in the season for me! It continued to snow during the night and there was a white blanket over everything come morning. I had already decided that yesterday was going to be a pyjamas and no make up day so when I eventually got up I thought I’d make some muffins!

I had an idea around flavours so made up a recipe based on my Courgette, Date and Pecan Bread. These turned out very well and in addition to tasting good they are pretty low in calories:

Courgette, cranberry and pistachio ‘skinny’ muffins! Made ‘un skinny’ by loading them up with a mixture of softened butter and maple syrup. Oh yeah. Accompanied by strong black coffee and a large sliced organic apple. Recipe coming up on those babies!

The cooking didn’t stop there as I also boiled some chickpeas and black beans to stock up the freezer, a wonderful soup with the innards of that pumpkin (recipe coming tomorrow!), these sweet and salty pumpkin seeds (I used coconut sugar) and a Thai Red Butternut and Lentil Curry:

I served it with steamed broccoli and a half arsed attempt at cauliflower rice (i.e I couldn’t be bothered to chop it in the food processor so did it by hand instead). It is so tasty! I’ve made that curry a few times in the past and I know some of you have asked for the recipe so consider that one on its way as well!

Alongside bowls of sheep yoghurt (my new love!) with berries and chocolate peanut butter protein ‘ice cream’ I’ve enjoyed some banana cake my best friend and her little girl had made:

She had grated fresh coconut into the cake and in the icing. It was heavenly!

This morning I work up slightly earlier than usual due to the clocks going back so had time for a more decent breakfast before the gym and kettlebells class. I had some plain oats cooked in water topped with tahini and dark chocolate chips:

Then this lunch time I have roasted my first chicken!

I just roasted it plain with some olive oil. James took all the meat off it and the leftovers are simmering into a stock as I type. I had a breast with some thyme honey roasted parsnips, cauliflower mash with butter and steamed broccoli. It was really good! To make the cauliflower I just blended it up with a little almond milk. I honestly think I like it better than mashed potato!

Right now I’m just trying to get my head around the time change, it always leaves me feeling slightly off kilter! Do the clocks going back affect you? How has your weekend been? Do you have any plans for Halloween?

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hope your week is going well. Thank you for all the amazing comments on my last post on my weight loss journey and tips. When people have commented saying I’m an inspiration you really do have no idea how much that means to me, thank you all so much! It was also great to read people’s own stories of weight loss success through eating a healthy whole foods diet!

Well its Wednesday again and that can mean only one thing, WIAW! These are my eats from yesterday.

 

I was off work / working from home again yesterday while I’m recovering from this awful wisdom teeth extraction. I’m sorry for going on about it, hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon. I got up a little later than usual and just did 5 minutes of yoga stretching as I still had DOMS from my Kettlebell class on Sunday!

For breakfast I had prepared a chia seed pudding the night before. I had apples from my organic veg box to use up and of course I can’t chew them normally so I blended two of them up into a raw apple sauce and mixed with 2 heaped tbsp of chia seeds, lemon juice, ground cinnamon and ginger then left in the fridge to thicken overnight:

Not the prettiest meal, but was actually very tasty! I also had an unsweetened vanilla nut teeccino with kara coconut milk. I am slowly reintroducing the stevia after being off it for over a week but I’m still going easy on it, the coconut milk is naturally quite sweet so this was lovely without it. I also took all my vits:

I’m taking a few at the moment I thought it would be interesting to include them. This was 2 chlorella tablets, a vegan multi vitamin, a digestive enzyme, milk thistle capsule and a probiotic. I took another 4 chlorella tablets through the day as per the instructions. I should be some kind of green skinned super woman by the end of the month ;-)

Mid morning I made myself a lovely green smoothie. This contained romaine lettuce, cucumber, an orange, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, coconut water, maca powder, ground flax and ice:

This was so lovely, very hydrating and with a nice mild chocolate orange flavour.

Lunch was a bowl of my Carrot, Ginger and Orange Soup from my frozen stash with some black pepper:

Before heading to the gym I made a smoothie with a frozen banana and half a watermelon:

I had popped to the green grocers on Monday and they had watermelon for just £1.45 so I thought I’d treat myself to a little unseasonal fruity goodness. That smoothie was gorgeous! I also had some matcha:

The Teapigs Matcha Challenge is going well, I’ve been taking some matcha everyday for the last week and especially mid afternoons it has been giving me a bit of a pick me up.

As I was saying at the weekend, I’ve been finding that exercise has actually been making me feel a lot better so I’ve been trying to stick to my usual workout schedule when I can. I popped to the gym and did 30 minutes of cardio on the machines and my Body Pump class. I think it could be that working out takes my mind off things? Either way I felt so much better for it!

For dinner I had mashed sweet potato with home made chickpea hummus and some cauliflower and broccoli mash:

I made the cauliflower and broccoli mash based on Nicole’s recipe – I just steamed some cauliflower and broccoli, chilled it with some cold water and blended with kara coconut milk, sweet white miso and some dried onion granules, warming it back up before serving. It was amazing, I’ll definitely make it again even without teeth problems!

For a little dessert I made a blueberry vanilla green smoothie with spinach, frozen blueberries, vanilla sun warrior protein powder and water topped with a few cacao nibs (to test my chewing a bit) and some coconut:

I went a bit over the top on the buying of the greens at the start of the week so I think I’ll be drinking a couple of green smoothies a day just to use them up before the greens go bad!

Later, I had a cococardio hot chocolate while relaxing before bed:

On the positive side of having the wisdom teeth out, I’ve discovered that my blender is pretty good at blending things other than smoothies (such as the cauli and broc mash) which is great as the food processor is such a faff to clean. I’ve also realised how well I’ve eaten over the last week – around 90% raw some days with lots of fruit and veg and simple foods. I honestly never set out to do such an intense ‘detox’ but I guess that’s how things have worked out!

Have you ever tried blending or mashing veggies other than the usual potato? I love swede and parsnip mash but that broccoli and cauliflower mash was amazing. I also made some with just cauliflower too and added some nutritional yeast for a cheesy taste, yum! Hope you have a great week!