What a great week its been so far, I’m just loving this spring weather :-)

Breakfast on Monday was a big bowl of fresh mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries) with a huge portion of my home mixed muesli and sesame milk:

This muesli is awesome. I basically mixed together lots of random nuts, seeds and dried fruits that needed to be used up with some jumbo oats. This included: dried figs, dried apricots, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, raisins, dried pineapple, dried cherries, dried strawberries, dried blueberries, dried cranberries, goji berries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and chia seeds. I have a massive jar of this which should last me for a while I hope! The sesame milk is also particularly good, will definitely become a new staple in my diet along with almond milk.

Monday’s lunch was a hummus topped salad containing romaine lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red pepper and yellow pepper then some watered down home made chickpea hummus (I mixed it all in as a dressing) topped with some viva pure spicy pumpkin seeds. I also had two sweet white nectarines:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a lemon cashew hemp bar before hitting the gym. I did my usual 30 minute HIIT session on the cross trainer and step machine plus abs and core and 30 minute spin class.

Dinner was two veggie loaf stuffed baked mushrooms with swede and parsnip mash, raw carrot and steamed savoy cabbage with shoyu:

I still love these stuffed mushrooms, so tasty! Dessert was some healthy heart conscious raw chocolate and two chopped apples:

This chocolate contains maca, vanilla and blue-green algae – I wasn’t sure what to expect taste wise but it was gorgeous as always.

This morning I was up at sun rise to fit in a quick Yoga for Runners podcast. Its so worth getting up a few minutes early to be able to fit this into my day! Breakfast was similar to yesterdays – mixed fresh berries with 2 packs of Bear coco cherry pie granola and sesame milk:

Lunch featured hummus again – this time I made some courgette and carrot veggie noodles plus sliced red and yellow pepper with a hummus and nutritional yeast sauce (hummus, nutritional yeast and water) on top of some spinach:

I also had another two juicy white nectarines.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a Peppermint Stick Luna Bar then hit the gym for Body Pump. I was a little early for my class so I snuck in a quick 10 minute interval session on the cross trainer and 10 minutes steady state on the cross trainer. The class was excellent as usual and left my muscles quivering!

Dinner was inspired by my Sausage and Tomato Rice recipe but morphed into more of a Buddha Bowl: chopped baked seitan sausage with pearl barley in a tomato sauce with onions, garlic, peas, steamed broccoli and fresh basil:

That seitan recipe is so good, this had been defrosted from frozen and still tasted great. It is especially good in recipes like this as it softens and absorbs the liquid, delicious!

Dessert was some protein ice cream made with Fruitein powder, rice milk, ice cubes and xanthan and guar gums topped with goji berries:

Now I’m officially stuffed!

I got some great news yesterday when I received the email to tell me I’d passed my first assignment on my Diet and Nutrition Advisor course. I was chuffed to bits! I’m also really looking forward to my two days off at the end of the week – and pay day! My fridge and cupboards are looking pretty empty, at least by my standards ;-)

I’m still thinking of how tasty my home mixed muesli was. Are you a fan of muesli? I love it so much – it was always my go to ‘binge’ food – I would happily eat three large bowls of it then still go back and eat it straight from the box! Now I have a little more constraint but I still love a full to the brim bowlful! If you could make your own muesli mix what would it include?

I was up bright and early this morning to get ready and go out for my run. Before I left I had a cup of green tea and a coco loco nakd bar for energy.

I got myself all suited and booted with my new running trainers and socks and my HRM. The run was brilliant! Perfect weather again, however my technology let me down! My HRM was quite frankly crap. I think I might try and re sell it on ebay. It just wouldn't take my heart rate, however it was handy that I had it as my other piece of technology failed on me too. The hubby called me while I was running and this caused the Runkeeper app on my phone to pause. I ran for 10 minutes before I realised and restarted it. I was really frustrated as I had to try and think how much distance I had covered in that period and then add it on to what the app was telling me I had done. Thankfully the stop watch on my HRM was on, and that put me 10 mins in front of the time on Runkeeper. From that I could sumise that I had done perhaps just over a mile while the app was paused. I had also tracked out my route beforehand so I knew I would be covering over 6.5 miles but I like being able to look at my phone and see my exact distance and time. Anyway, I know that I definitely covered over 6.5 miles (maybe closer to 7) in around about 1hr10mins. This is the furthest I've ever ran, I still can't believe that I've actually ran that far. I was always last in the cross country at school, the worst at P.E, the fattest kid in the class and here I am running 6.5 miles and training for a half marathon! It means so much to me to be able to achieve this, I guess thats part of the reason for wanting to do the Great North Run and do it well, to prove to myself that I can do it.

I was high as a kite when I got home from my run! After stretching and a shower including dousing my legs in cold water, I made myself another amazing breakfast -

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pancakes with Strawberries

3 egg whites
Scoop of chocolate whey
Tablespoon of spelt flour
Tablespoon of applesauce

Tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
Chopped fresh strawberries

Mix togther the first four ingredients and fry off in a hot frying pan, making two pancakes. Spread each pancake with peanut butter and serve with the fresh chopped strawberries.

I know I have a slight obession with chocolate and peanut butter, but seriously there are no words to describe how good this tasted. My favourite breakfast ever. The only thing that could improve this would be the addition of chocolate chips to the pancake batter. Bloody amazing.

I've spent the rest of the morning watching Saturday Kitchen and chilling out drinking lots of tea. Lunch was a lovely bowl of sweet potato, potato and leek soup with cucumber and carrot sticks on the side followed by a 2 chopped pears.

I'm posting early today as I'm out tonight at my friends for a get together and a drink. I'm taking this bottle of red and fresh salsa and tortilla chips along.

Goodness knows what else I'll be eating and drinking! Will report back tomorrow. I'm going to sleep over at my parents as they live closer to save on taxi fare so I'm taking a few bits and pieces with me for possible midnight snackies and breakfast.

Two apples, a pear, two plums, nakd bar and a bag of home made muesli (see below). I'm sure my parents will have fruit in the house, however I feel a bit more prepared when I know I don't have to fish about for something appropriate to eat while I'm there.

As I was wanting to take some home made muesli along for my breakfast in the morning I thought I might was well mix up a box of my 'everything in the cupboard' muesli so that it doesn't take 10 minutes to put it together every time I fancy it. I have avoided this in the past as I usually can't trust myself with a box of prepared muesli as I used to binge eat it, having 3 or 4 huge bowls at a time. I feel like I'm in a really good place with regards to the snackies at the moment (even though this week I've been eating loads of plums before bed and last night I had a chunk of dark chocolate bunny, but I'm not stressing about those) so I feel I can trust myself. In the mix was - jumbo porridge oats, brown rice puffs, quinoa flakes, chopped dates, dried sour cherries, raisins, flaked and whole almonds, pecans, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and desicated coconut.

So just a few things then! Looking forward to having a bowl of this with loads of chopped fruit in the morning, I just hope I'm not nursing a hangover!

Well I've decided that I'm going to chill out for the rest of the afternoon before I head through to my friends. We have a walk round her local park planned before we head to our other friends house for the drinks! The cleaning is going to have to just wait until tomorrow!

Hope your all having a fab day, catch you tomorrow!