Hi everyone, hope you’ve all had a good weekend! Mine has mostly been very good…

Today I went out and attempted my first outdoor run in over a week but my knee was having none of it! I was planning on 6 miles but had to cut it short at 4.5 miles (38.07, average pace 8.37) It seems that running on any kind of incline sets it off. As I could run ok on the treadmill mid week I’m hoping that I may be able to get some mileage in that way. It has been very painful today though. I popped to the gym hoping for an hours workout but it was so sore I had to leave it after 30 minutes on the bike :-( I’m trying to stay as positive as possible though!

Apart from that I’ve had an awesome weekend! Breakfast on Saturday was a much anticipated giant Oats in a Jar:

I have been waiting to finish this big jar of peanut butter just to be able to make this! I cooked some voluminous oats with 1/4 cup scottish oats, 1/4 cup oat bran and 2.5 cups of water in the microwave and added some vanilla stevia, frozen berries and a chopped peach. Delish!

OOTD: Faux leather hooded jacket: Topshop, anchor diamante earrings: Accessorize, striped tee: Zara, black cross body bag: H&M, floral skirt: Dorothy Perkins off eBay, tights: M&S, black faux leather boots: M&S

After a monster shopping trip in Newcastle, I came home and made a truly wonderful salad:

This contained kale, cos lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red pepper, sugar snaps, RAW Health crackers, some of my raw cheesy crumbles and hemp seeds. I massaged the kale with a dressing made from hemp oil, braggs, coconut nectar, dijion mustard and vinegar. I think I have discovered that the packs of kale from Waitrose are much better than the packs from Sainsbury's as they contain a lot less stalk!

For dinner last night I made a fantastic Mexican Tofu and Black Bean Scramble served on garlic sautéed greens:

I love my scrambled tofu recipe and the curried version I created a couple of weeks ago and this was just as good! This was also very filling, no doubt because it was protein packed!

For dinner today I made some Spiced Orange Pan Fried Tofu inspired by this recipe and served with a millet and veggie pilaf containing onion, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli and finished with a sprinkle of parsley:

This was amazing, I’m going to have to try and remember what I included in the marinade so I can post it as a recipe! It almost tasted like sticky ginger infused marmalade, yum!

I’ve had a pretty busy weekend in the kitchen making raw cheesy kale chips that taste exactly like Brad’s, raw candied cinnamon pumpkin seeds and some raw cheesy pumpkin seeds all in the dehydrator and so much cheaper than if I’d bought them! I also made some roasted pepper hummus which I ate with a load of veggies and raw juice pulp crackers for lunch:

I just made some standard hummus with chickpeas, tahini and garlic then about 2/3 of a jar of roasted peppers. It tasted wonderful!

Of course no post of mine would be complete without a green smoothie! I had his one for breakfast containing cos lettuce, 2 pears, vanilla sun warrior, maca powder, spirulina, msm crystals, stevia, water, ice, xanthan and guar gums for thickness and topped with some Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter sauce and granola:

I got 8 pears for £1 at the market and they were on their way out so I’m drying some in the dehydrator and used a couple of them again to make a Chocolate Pear smoothie for dessert:

Two pears, raw cacao, ice, water, xanthan and guar gum and stevia topped with some of my raw candied cinnamon pumpkin seeds, delicious!  

As mentioned above I had an awesome shopping trip! I had some gift cards from my birthday to spend so I thought I’d get some clothes for the new season! First up, these gorgeous skinny burgundy trousers from Warehouse:

I’ve been lusting after some pants in this colour for ages! I also got lots of knit ware and a necklace from New Look:

I love my knits, I can’t wait to cosy up in that mustard yellow number! The necklace was actually free as I’d spent over £30 :-) I also picked up this dress in the Warehouse sale:

I love the colours in this and will layer it up with leggings / jeans, cardies and belts over the autumn. I also hit H&M and got this basic tee:

Plus a couple of basic cardies and black leggings. I also got some yoga pants for chilling round the house, a water bottle and some vanilla coffee from TK Maxx as well as stocking up with flavoured tofu, tempeh and other bits and bobs from the health food store. I also got three bags full of fruit and veggies from the market for just £11. I shopped till I dropped!

How has your weekend been? If your in the UK do you have any bank holiday plans? As the gym doesn’t open till 10, and as my knee is still very sore I’m thinking of doing a home based workout first thing and then chilling out for the rest of the day. I’m actually looking forward to doing my own thing at home and have downloaded the Gym Boss app for my phone so I can get some intervals in! Have you ever had to deal with an injury? I’m actually amazed at how calm I am about the whole thing, when I got injured last year there were a lot of tears and tandrums!

Have you bought anything for the new season yet? I’m all ready to embrace Autumn, its my favourite season, and I can’t wait to get the boots and cosy jumpers on! Hope you have a great Monday whatever your up to :-)

Happy WIAW! Today I have been waiting for my new bed and mattress to arrive from Ikea so I have been working from home! I love being able to work from home sometimes as I can be so much more productive.

I kicked off my day with a super workout. I decided to test out my dodgy knee with a treadmill run. I was very happy to be able to do my usual 5k speed interval workout with only a small amount of discomfort! I followed that up with 3 x 10 minutes of intervals on the step machine, bike and rowing machine plus my abs and core exercises.

After swinging by the shops for a few groceries I came home and made this wonderful antioxidant packed smoothie:

This included kale, cucumber, apple, frozen blueberries, scoop of chocolate sun warrior, spirulina, maca, purple corn powder, msm, stevia, ice and water and topped with some creamy cashew butter sauce and a sprinkle of Alara in the garden muesli. With working from home I also had the time to brew up a mug of my favourite Hazelnut and Cinnamon Coffee:

I drank this black and sweetened with stevia, delicious and perfect for a bright but chilly morning!

Lunch was a salad beast using up the last of my soy bean and veggie mix with some more damson balsamic dressing and a juicy peach:

Mid afternoon I made myself a snacky plate with lots of carrot, cucumber and sugar snaps plus some of my raw juice pulp crackers topped with sauerkraut:

These crackers were flavoured with lots of herbs and tasted so lovely, not bad for something that would have ended up in the bin!

As I’m still in ‘use up as much from the cupboards’ mode I decided to try out this jar of seitan in tamari:

I thought I’d serve it up with some stir fried veggies including spring greens, carrot, courgette, red pepper, mushrooms and radish. I made a quick sauce with the tamari, red chilli and fresh minced ginger:

Its been ages since I’ve had a veggie packed stir fry and this was delish! The seitan was really good too, it had a lovely chewy texture.

For a sweet end to the day I had some of this gorgeous blueberry and lavender dark chocolate with a big mug of Yogi Sweet Chai tea:

Yum! I’m slowly but surely working my way through my huge chocolate stash!

Do you ever work from home? I love being able to get on with work without the phone ringing every 5 minutes. Its also lovely having my all my home comforts handy such as my tea pot and blender! I love to sit and listen to BBC 6 Music on my digital radio station and today I’ve also been listening to Jillian Michaels Podcasts! Hope you’ve had a great Wednesday!

Hi folks, hope you are having a super week! I’m having a really good week so far but I am looking forward to the weekend already, I need some serious chill time! Anyhoo, its Wednesday and time for WIAW! I do still love joining in and sharing a full day of eats, my blog started as a daily food diary and I think its fun to look at the way people eat on a day to day basis rather than just seeing the ‘highlights’ when they post recipes or weekly round ups.

As my post title suggests, these are my eats from last Friday! I had warm water with a squeeze of lemon, water and apple cider vinegar and then went to the gym. I did 5 minutes on the cross trainer to warm up, my strength plan which I will be sharing more on soon, and then 10 minutes of HIIT on the bike.

Before I’d left for the gym I’d made a pot of coffee and left it to cool so as soon as I got home I poured it over ice, added some vanilla stevia and a drop of unsweetened almond milk:

I drank that while I got showered and dressed and then made a green smoothie:

Its been ages since I had a green smoothie in a bowl like this for breakfast. At one time I used to eat a smoothie like this every day but recently I’ve been preferring them more basic and from a smoothie cup. This one contained kale, two apples, vanilla sun warrior, maca powder, omega oil, stevia, water and ice. I topped it with some Dorset Cereals High Fibre Flakes.

For lunch I had a bowl of my amazing chilled Pea, Avocado and Mint Soup with some home made raw juice pulp crackers on the side:

For a mid afternoon snack I had half a melon stuffed with a few of my raw almond, date and coconut balls plus a green tea:

I had the most amazing meal for dinner! In my Infinity Foods haul Birthday gift from my Aunt and Uncle, I’d received some Rose Harissa paste. I’d never tried it before but I opened the jar and had a smell and knew immediately that I would love it! I needed to use up some things from the fridge so I sautéed 2 big courgettes with some garlic in coconut oil then added half a tin of chickpeas and the harissa paste. I served that on top of some steamed greens and then added a drizzle of lemon tahini sauce:

To make the sauce I just combined some tahini, lemon juice and water. This meal was so delicious and took no time at all to make. Harissa will definitely be a regular in my kitchen from now on!

Before I’d put the dinner on I had mixed the last of a tub of full fat Greek yoghurt with a little almond milk to thin and some frozen blueberries. I’d left it in the freezer to chill, then took it out for a little dessert topped with sunbutter:

A bit later in the evening I was feeling peckish again so made a bowl of chocolate protein ice cream topped with raw cacao nibs and raw chocolate covered mulberries:

Hits the spot every time, I enjoyed that while James and I lay on a duvet on our living room floor watching movies :-)

Protein ice cream used to be a Friday night regular for me, I know some people that always have pizza on a Friday, something I think I need to start joining in on, although I did used to love a Friday night curry as well! Do you have a Friday night favourite meal or dessert?

Hi everyone, happy Wednesday! I want to start buy saying a huge thank you to everyone that commented on my Monday Musing post this week about my snackiness and general thoughts on what is healthy. I’m so glad that so many of you found it an interesting read. I loved all of the thoughtful comments you left!

For WIAW this week I’m doing my eats and happenings from yesterday! Thanks again to Jen for hosting the party!

I was still feeling pretty stiff from the Great North Run on Sunday when I got up so I did a quick yoga podcast to stretch out, it really helped my poor legs! For breakfast I had 3 chopped plums with some Alara Maca Muesli and vanilla rice milk:

It was a pretty chilly morning so I busted out my favourite mittens!

I love these stripy purple ones from Accessorize, especially as they have the fingerless option too, very useful for when you need to find your keys! You just flip over the mitten bit when you need to. I also wrapped up with my chunky scarf too :-)

Mid morning I snacked on a couple of chopped carrots, an apple, some of my delicious home made sun dried tomato and flax raw crackers and a mug of brown rice miso:

I’ve been making myself a mug of unpasteurised miso at work every few days. It makes a nice change from tea and does my tummy good :-)

For lunch I had a big salad containing cos lettuce, shredded savoy cabbage, courgette, cucumber, red pepper and radish with half a tin of mixed beans and a dressing made with hemp oil and blueberry balsamic vinegar. I also had two tangerines:

I love that blueberry balsamic, it goes so well with beans! Just a quick thought – I was reading this great post at Bonzai Aphrodite (one of my fave blogs) and she was saying how misleading photos can be in terms of portion sizes. My salads always contain at least a full head of cos lettuce and that bowl is the size of a serving bowl, a total salad beast!

Mid afternoon I ate one of my raw choc chip cookie dough bars:

I headed to the gym after work and did 30 minutes of intervals on the machines before my Body Pump class. We did the new release tonight, I quite enjoyed it and found it rather tough, although it could be because I’m still quite knackered from Sunday! I did drop my weights for the back track to give myself a break! Anyone else done Body Pump 79 (I think its that one)yet? What do you think?

For dinner I pan fried some Taifun Smoked Almond Sesame Tofu and had it with some spicy peanut sauce (peanut flour, lime juice, red chilli, shoyu), brown rice and broccoli and cauliflower roasted in coconut oil:

I usually just eat that tofu uncooked but I decided to try it fried and it was delicious. The roast cauliflower in particular was wonderful, the best I’ve ever tasted! For dessert I made a big bowl of protein ice cream with a scoop of chocolate sun warrior protein powder, some frozen blackberries, ice, water, stevia and xanthan and guar gums topped with cacao nibs:

I finished up with a lovely mug of Madre Labs CocoCardio with stevia:

I have to say I really am in love with this stuff, it has a lovely deep chocolately taste and a beautiful red brown colour from the beet powder and hibiscus! It kind of reminds me of the Options low calorie hot chocolate powders but without all the chemicals!

Before bed I was feeling a bit snacky so I just went with it. I ate a couple of plums, some frozen grapes, dried cherries, nut butter and 2 pieces of my fave Lindt 90% dark chocolate. I didn’t over stuff myself and went to bed with a happy tummy!

How are you this Wednesday? I’m glad we are over half way through the week already! Are you starting to feel the autumn chill where you are yet? I have to admit I’m more than happy to be wrapping up warm with my favourite woolies!

Don’t forget to check out my wonderful international GIVEAWAY for a chance to win the amazing vegan Blissful Bites cook book!

I’d just like to say a big thank you for all your comments on my ‘Evolution of my diet’ post it has been really interesting reading all of your individual stories and I am utterly honoured that so many of you have found my journey inspirational and helpful for you in your own situations. You all reminded me exactly why and write this blog and why I’m pursuing a career in healthy living – to make a difference and inspire and empower others, thank you! :-)

Of course today is time for WIAW! These are my eats and goings on from Monday. I would usually have gone to the gym on a Monday morning but I had an early team meeting and I have a few late night meetings this week, so my usual schedule was all over the place. Instead I enjoyed a relaxed morning getting ready and a lovely breakfast. I had some warm water with lemon juice while I had a shower then made a green smoothie. Again, I was about to put some fruit into the smoothie but it was just so delicious on its own I had it separately:

For the smoothie I just blended up spinach, chocolate sun warrior, water, ice and stevia. I had some beautiful sweet pineapple and delicious blackberries on the side. I also had a tbsp of bee pollen:

I saw the bee pollen in the cupboard and just really fancied some straight up! While I was eating that I brewed some coffee and added vanilla stevia and a cube of full fat coconut milk for extra healthy fats and flavour:

So good, although it might have been better blended up more. I have plans for experimenting with a vegan bulletproof coffee – watch this space!

The sun was actually shining for a change so I decided to dress quite light, OOTD:

Wrap around scarf: Topshop, striped vest: French Connection, long cardigan: Zara, bag: Accessorize, black slim leg trousers: Gap, gold sandals: Next

After our team meeting I was getting hungry so snacked on a couple of chopped carrots with hummus:

I got another pot for 50p at Tesco, bargain!

For lunch I had a bowl of my Raw Thai Carrot soup accompanied by some of my home made raw flax and juice pulp crackers that I’d made in the dehydrator at the weekend:

Still so good, the coconut butter in this just makes it so creamy!

Mid afternoon I snacked on a pink lady apple and a gingerbread nakd bar:

Those bars are fantastic, I love the gingerbread flavour :-)

On the way home I called into Aldi for some cheap fruit and veg:

Pretty much the usual stuff for me right now – cucumbers, carrots, peppers, sweet potatoes, avocado, broccoli and sugar snap peas. Got a grocery shopping and staple ingredients post coming up for you tomorrow!

As I was saying, this weeks schedule is all over the place so I didn’t do the usual Monday morning gym workout, instead I wanted to do just what I felt like and what I felt like was yoga!

I had came across Yogaglo a while ago and decided to sign up for their free 15 day trial. The way the videos are set out is that it is an actual taught class with other people filmed, so you feel like you are taking part. There seems to be hundreds of classes available of all different styles, levels and lengths of time. I opted to do a 60 minute, level 2, Constant Vinyasa Flow:

I didn’t do the minimal headstands ;-) It was fantastic! I’ve done podcasts, DVD’s and YouTube videos but this was by far my favourite and so much more like a true class experience. I got a good sweat on – I certainly found my glo! After that I spent 5 minutes practicing my plough pose. Once the 15 day trial it is up it is $18 a month membership. I have to admit I’m tempted but I already spend money on my hot yoga classes twice a month. I think I’m going to have to weigh up the benefits!

For dinner I made up a big Buddha Bowl. I had steamed greens with shoyu topped with brown rice, black beans, red onion and coriander plus half an avocado:

I love avocado in meals like this it just really adds so much flavour. After I’d done the dishes I had a couple of pieces of home made raw salted almond and raisin chocolate bark:

There are no words for how good this is! Very glad that I’ve just received a fresh block of cacao butter so I can make some more!

Monday also signalled the start of my IIN course. The first module was released so I spent some time listening to the sound bites and watching the videos. Later I went and made the usual evening smoothie bowl:

Mixed frozen berries, 1/4 cup of peanut flour, ice, water and stevia – extra smooth courtesy of the Vitamix :-)

I spent the rest of the evening relaxing with a herbal chai tea, I even tried a 10 minute ‘before bed’ meditation from Yogaglo too!

A lovely day indeed with delicious food! Enjoying lots of fats at the moment: full fat coconut milk in my coffee, hummus, coconut butter in the soup, avocado and raw cacao butter – I definitely feel better for it. I’m also looking forward to experimenting with more classes from Yogaglo before my free trial runs out. As I’ve said before I don’t think there’s any substitute for an actual class but Yogaglo comes very close!

Have you tried anything similar to Yogaglo before? What’s your current favourite fat?