Anyone else feeling a bit out of sync after the bank holiday weekend? I do love an extra day off but I don’t know if I’m coming or going at the moment! Thankfully I have the routine of good old WIAW to keep me right…

These are my eats and goings on from yesterday and as the title of this post suggests I feel like I was on the go all day! I got up, had the usual warm water and lemon and headed out for a quick run. I put the Garmin on again to track my distance and pace and did 3 miles in 28.20 with an average pace of 9.26 which was a big improvement from Saturdays run. As I said then, I’m not really that concerned about my pace, I’m no longer going out running and half killing myself in the process. It’s just nice to enjoy running and the weather yesterday morning was lovely too!

For breakfast I’d prepared a big chia pudding made with 1/4 cup of chia seeds, raw cacao powder and stevia mixed with water and left to gel overnight in the fridge. I had that with some semi frozen summer berries and a sprinkle of buckwheaties on top for crunch:

As it was a warm morning I thought I’d follow that up with another icy vanilla protein frappe:

I can’t get enough of these at the moment! I just blended up ice, water, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, instant coffee, stevia and a pinch of xanthan gum for creaminess. So so good.

I had a work meeting not far from where I live later in the afternoon so I was able to work from home for the day. I answered a few work emails and then took some time out for a quick grocery shop. I bought all the ingredients for my healthy eating workshop I ran later in the day, plus this lot for me and James:

The fridge was looking a bit empty so I thought I’d stock up! I bought kale, spinach, cucumbers x 3 (as they were on offer), romaine, lemons, papayas, strawberries, bananas, pumpkin seeds, organic braeburn apples, mushrooms, Italian seasoning, coffee, PJ Tips tea (I got two boxes as they were on offer), sugar, skimmed milk and tomato passata. That should keep us going for a while! I also bought a new coffee press as both of my other ones had cracked, and while I was getting that I noticed this funky teapot for brewing loose leaf tea:

I love making up a big pot of loose leaf tea, especially when I’m working from home so I decided to treat myself. This is so much less messy than using my other tea pot and pouring the tea through a strainer. I made up a pot of Teavivre White Peony Tea (review coming up!) and it was wonderful. I cracked on with some work, hit publish on my Bread Lasagne post and then took a break for lunch:

This salad was quite simply epic. Romaine, spinach, roast red kabocha squash, cooked beets, edamame, half an avocado and some tahini dressing I’d made at the weekend (tahini, apple cider vinegar, tamari, smoked garlic). It was an incredible salad with so much flavour!

After lunch I got ready to go to my meeting. It was just an informal meeting at a cafe close to wear I live so I thought I’d wear in my new jeans:

I got those jeans from Mango at the weekend. They were only £16.99 and have a great zip detail at the ankle. I love them to bits! They fit pretty well although I have been buying things in a size up so that I have some expansion room if I gain a little more weight – I’d rather my clothes be a touch baggy than too tight! I wore them with my Topshop purple tank, gold feather design necklace from Warehouse and my new bag from Accessorize. I’m so into hot / neon pink at the moment and I couldn’t resist this bag with its bright pink zip!

My walk to the cafe was lovely, we actually had some sunshine for a change!

I just had a little pot of green tea:

My meeting was very interesting and productive then I walked home and made myself a snack:

My Cherry, Pear and Almond Smoothie, hits the spot every time! After that I did a bit more work and got ready to make my way to the Community Centre for my healthy eating workshop.

Last night we made some granola, healthy parfaits with fruit, yoghurt, nuts, seeds and some of the granola plus green smoothies at the end. The granola went down very well! I thought I’d just show them a very simple one with oats, natural caster sugar and rapeseed oil with a few nuts and seeds mixed in. I’d also bought a load of fruit and some different yoghurts – natural plain yoghurt, plain fromage frais and some Alpro vanilla yoghurt which I thought would be interesting for them to try – it was their favourite! We layered the fruit, yoghurt, nuts, seeds / granola in plastic cups for healthy parfaits:

I made myself one with strawberries, blueberries, soy yoghurt, pineapple, coconut, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds then ate more pineapple and seeds during the session. I wanted to get a good variety of fruit, nuts and seeds for the young people to try. A lot of them had never tried blueberries before! This was my fourth session and my last for a few weeks so we did some evaluation with them and I made up a few green smoothies for us at the end since they loved them so much the first time. I just blended spinach, banana and orange juice, we all had a couple of cups each and they loved them yet again!

I was so tired by the time I got home, I felt like I’d been on the go all day! The parfait and smoothies had held me over quite well so I just wanted something quick and easy to take the edge off my hunger, enter Oats in jar!

I made up some oats with water on the stove and added some vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt (that was amazing BTW!) and poured into a near empty coconut butter jar. I it topped with a couple of tablespoons of St Dalfour Black Cherry Jam and it was perfect.

While finishing off the washing up and folding laundry I sipped on a mug of delicious Pukka Licorice and Cinnamon tea:

Lovely end to a busy day!

I’m actually really pleased I managed to eat so well considering how crazy yesterday was. I think having a few things prepped and then having good choices available really helps. I did miss my veggies though but at least I got a good portion of them in my lunch time salad. I’m also just so so happy with how well the healthy eating workshops have been going, last nights activity was fantastic and I really feel like I’ve introduced some of those young people (and a couple of parents) to how tasty healthy minimally processed foods can be.

I know I’ve blogged about this before, but how do you keep on top of healthy habits when you have busy days? I’m now quite used to getting up at 6am, working out, working most of the day and not stopping till gone 9 or 10pm, but I do have to make that extra effort to eat well. How do you approach it?

Happy Friday everyone! Hope the first week of 2012 has been good for you :-) My week hasn’t gone to badly:

• Monday – gym – 5 min treadmill warm up, 20 minutes strength (just some random stuff) 15 min HIITs on bike, 10 minutes freestyle yoga before bed
• Tuesday – am - yoga detox challenge flow, pm – gym, 30 min cardio (HIITs and steady state) Body Pump
• Wednesday – am – gym – 5k speed intervals treadmill, 30 min HIITs on step machine, cross trainer and bike, 5 mins meditation before bed
• Thursday – am – 30 Day Shred level 2, yoga for runners
• Friday – pm – ‘The Core Workout’ Pilates Core Workout DVD (review to come) freestyle yoga

Some tasty eats from the first half of the week:

My Carrot, Ginger and Orange Soup with some delicious raw almond and rosemary crackers I knocked up at the weekend

 Raw courgette 'noodles covered in lots of my Green Goddess dressing

Fruit plate with 2 sliced persimmons, pink lady apple and goji berries

Hot mint chocolate made with home made almond milk and Mint Chocolate caffeine free Teeccino

My first Matcha shot as part of the Tea Pigs Matcha Challenge!

Yesterday morning I went in to have my wisdom teeth taken out. I was sedated (which is awesome by the way – I couldn’t remember a thing!) for the operation but after 3 failed attempts at finding a vein in my arm for the injection and the surgeon having to drill into my jaw bone because they were both compacted I’ve been left feeling pretty sore and swollen.

I took plenty of painkillers yesterday but I woke up feeling ok so I’m going to see how I go with more natural remedies. I’ve been careful to include a few specific foods to help my condition such as lots of ginger as its an anti inflammatory, some manuka honey which has antiseptic properties and coconut water to flush out the chemicals from the anaesthetic. I’ve been adding ginger to my juices and tea, sucking on a spoonful of honey and adding the coconut water to my smoothies.

The idea of eating anything even remotely solid is laughable and the idea of soups just doesn’t appeal so I’ve basically ended up doing an almost raw smoothie and juice cleanse! Before I went to the dentist I needed to have a light meal so for breakfast I had a chopped banana with buckwheaties and pecans covered in a cup of homemade almond milk mixed with half a scoop of chocolate sun warrior:

This was delicious and so creamy, I love home made almond milk!

My lovely Mam accompanied me to the dentist and looked after me all day. She even did my ironing while we watched all three Back to the Future movies! I eventually felt like eating something mid afternoon and made this delicious smoothie. This is one of my faves for sure, I made it a while back and just had to include it as a recipe!

Cherry, Pear and Almond Smoothie (serves 1, vegan)

• 1 ripe pear
• 1 cup of frozen cherries
• 2 tbsp of almond butter
• Pinch of salt (if almond butter not salted)
• Water to blend

Add everything to blender and blend well, serve and enjoy!

After that, and throughout today I’ve just been managing on smoothies and fresh juices. Here’s a few of my faves:

My standard green juice combo – cucumber, celery, parsley, lemon, ginger

Kale, frozen blueberries, half an orange, strawberry hemp protein powder, cashews (soaked), coconut water, ground flax, berries powder 

Simple luscious green smoothie – spinach, frozen avocado, 2 nectarines, coconut water, coconut nectar

Carrot, beetroot, cucumber, ginger juice – so delicious and so pretty!

A version of my ‘Bounty’ smoothie – spinach, frozen banana, thai young coconut (I defrosted a pack that I bought from an Oriental supermarket – utterly amazing btw!) chocolate sun warrior, midori greens, maca, water

I’m actually really enjoying just the smoothies and juices for now so I’m going to just go with it. I’m trying to make sure I add lots of avocado, coconut and nuts to get the calories in as I’m concerned that I won’t be getting enough! I’m hoping that my gums won’t feel so delicate so I can start eating more solid foods as soon as possible.

Have you had your wisdom teeth out or been under sedation before? Are you a fan of juices and if so what’s your favourite?