Happy Wednesday everyone, you ready for another WIAW?

I started my day in the usual way with a mug of warm water and lemon juice then I headed out for my run. As I did my half marathon at the weekend I decided to take it easy and have a recovery run. I did 6.4 miles in 59.25 with an average pace of 9.17. It was a pleasant run but even though the sun was shining it there was a freezing wind! When I got home I did my abs and core exercises then made a giant smoothie for breakfast:

This was delicious! I blended up some kale, cos lettuce, 1/2 avocado, nectarine, frozen strawberries, coconut water, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, spirulina, barley grass powder, maca and the usual gums for thickness. I topped it with goji berries, coconut, pistachios and a little granola. I decided to wear a nice yellow top to match the sunny weather:

Yellow camisole: Old Navy, Black cardigan: M&S, necklace: H&M, gold crown earrings: Accessorize

For lunch I had some wonderful sweet cantaloupe melon followed by a big bowl of my gorgeous Smokey Spicy Black Eye Bean Soup and a couple of Ryvita pumpkin and oat crackers:

 

I was in meetings all afternoon but managed to snack on a peppermint stick Luna bar:

For dinner I had defrosted one of my sweet potato falafel burgers which I baked in the oven and served on top of a big salad of rocket, summer lettuce, cucumber, sugar snaps and red onion alongside some sweet chilli hummus watered down into a sauce:

This was so delicious, the sweet potato falafel burger tasted wonderful and the hummus was lush! I haven’t had shop bought hummus in ages as I’ve been making my own so this was a great change. Dessert was some raw banana goji cake from the freezer:

This was made from sesame seeds, almonds, banana, goji berries and dried cherries, yum!

I was very excited and chuffed to come home to this:

My race pack for the Great North 10K! This is only my second race so I still get really excited about these things!

I’ve also been invited by Alpro Soya to attend the Kendal Calling Festival! I’m a fan of Alpro products and was actually thinking about checking out a smaller festival this summer so I think it must be meant to be. Looking forward to finding out even more about Alpro and their products. I’ll post all the details soon!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten today? Do you run races? Do you still get excited when you receive your race pack?

Hello everyone, thank goodness its Friday! I’ve had what feels like a crazy week with two late night meetings and lots going on at work. I had to get a bit creative with my workouts to be able to fit them in around the extra working hours:

• Monday – AM gym – 5k on treadmill running 0.25 mile intervals, 30 minutes of cardio intervals (total time) on cross trainer, bike and step machine, abs and core
• Tuesday – AM Davina Super Sculpt DVD with extra legs section plus Yoga for Runners
• Wednesday AM – 7 mile hill run in 1hr 03 minutes, abs and core – this was a tough run as my legs felt like lead, I felt like I was a lot slower than I actually ended up being (9.07 pace)
• Thursday AM – Davina Super Sculpt DVD with extra arms section plus MTV Yoga (I so needed that yoga!)
• Friday AM – gym – 40 minutes cardio intervals (total time) on cross trainer, step machine, bike and rowing machine followed by abs and core

It was weird to be doing DVD’s again as I only really need to do them when I’m working late on a Tuesday or Thursday which thankfully hasn’t been in a while! Eats wise, I’ve been craving raw foods and surprisingly, considering the general lack of time, I’ve been quite creative.

I’ve gone with lots of my usual green smoothies and salads, I won’t bore you with loads of photos of them but these have been my faves!

My current favourite green smoothie combo: spinach, frozen banana, 2 scoops of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, maca powder, barley grass, spirulina, ground flax, msm crystals, xanthan and guar gums for thickness, water and ice topped with a sauce made from raw brazil cacao bliss, crumbled raw granola and goji berries. Delicious!

Salad bowl containing romaine lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red onion, red pepper, roast beets, raw sunflower flax crackers and raw green goddess dressing.

Another big salad bowl containing cos lettuce, green pepper, cucumber, sugar snaps, carrots, tahini miso dressing and a Clearspring roasted soya nut and pumpkin seed snack pack.

I find green smoothies a great late night meal for me as they are quite easy to digest. I’ve also had the usual tofu topped salads, I tried some olive tofu and it was yummy.

As I said I’ve been getting a bit creative with things, first up I took a shot at a semi raw hummus:

I made this with 2 courgettes, lemon juice, tahini, hemp oil and garlic. It was ok but I think it needed more tahini! I ate this with piles of chopped veggies. I’ve also been eating raw kale chips, lots of fruit and this great little chocolate chia seed pudding in a jar:

2 tbsp of chia seeds, water, 1 tbsp of raw cacao and stevia in a near empty raw brazil nut bliss jar. This was fab – so thick and creamy! It made the perfect take to work snack. I think I’ll be making these more often!

I also tried this Blueberry Pure bar from my NYC stash:

It was very tasty, and had much more blueberry flavour than the cherry cashew version I had tried which wasn’t that cherry flavoured!

Along side the green smoothies I’ve enjoyed some amazing raw breakfasts:

Chocolate protein chia seed pudding (2 tbsp of chia seeds, 1 scoop of chocolate sun warrior protein powder, hemp milk) with strawberries and blackberries. This was so tasty and amazingly filling, it kept me going for hours!

Utterly wonderful banana split breakfast inspired by Jess, this included one large banana, crumbled raw granola, strawberries and vanilla almond protein sauce (1 tbsp of raw almond butter mixed 1 scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder and water). That was the first time I’ve tried a nut butter protein sauce and it was the bomb! I can’t wait to try it over cereal.

When I have been at home for dinner I’ve gone for a good old Buddha bowl meal:

Kidney beans, quinoa, raw courgette, basil and parsley with spinach, roast beets and roast acorn squash plus the last of my green goddess dressing mixed with more tahini and sweet white miso. I have to say I’m not a huge fan of the acorn squash, not enough sweetness or flavour compared to butternut or kabocha :-(

Today I’ve been able to work from home so decided to get creative with my lunch:

Raw courgette noodles with a raw sauce made from cherry tomatoes, red pepper, garlic granules, onion powder and italian seasoning topped with nutritional yeast. Enjoyed with some tasty raw crackers. I still can’t get over how satisfying this is!

For this evenings dinner I thought I would try out the tempeh I bought a few weeks ago. I baked it in some Clearspring teriyaki sauce and served with a baked sweet potato with coconut butter and some veg box fresh steamed chard and broccoli with ginger and shoyu:

The tempeh turned out lovely, its definitely growing on me. I also loved the coconut butter on the sweet potato, might try almond butter next time!

I’ve also had some tasty desserts:

Pink lady apple with Artisana Cacao bliss. This stuff is heavenly! I also went back to my nut butter box (yes, I have a box full of nut butters, don’t judge me) and had a couple of spoonful's of Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter and my god that stuff is amazing!

Slice of raw banana sesame goji and dried cherry cake from the freezer. The last time I posted this I got loads of requests for the recipe, basically its just 1 cup of sesame seeds soaked and blended with a small banana then mixed with gojis and dried cherries pressed into a lunch box, frozen and sliced up! Nom!

Just to add to the general rawness of my week, this morning I received this great selection of products from RAW Health to review:

I have some of their newest products to try: agave nectar, raw kalamata olives, lemon chia energy balls and cacao truffles, plus some of my old favourites: raw crackers and raw chocolate. Looking forward to enjoying these!

In even more raw news I ordered a dehydrator today! I decided that I would use my birthday money (coming up in August) to buy a dehydrator. I’ve gone for the best model I can afford, the Excalibur and I can not wait to start experimenting! I don’t think I’m about to turn into a total raw foodist, but I have really been enjoying how eating more raw food makes me feel :-)

After that busy week I could have done with a quiet weekend but no such luck! I’ll be off to town to see Harry Potter, visiting friends and family, fitting in a long run, studying and buying some camping gear ready for next weekend’s Kendal Calling Festival where I’ll be blogging with Alpro Soya! I can’t wait.

Have you ever experimented with raw foods? How did they make you feel? Any must try dehydrator recipes I should take a look at?

Oh, and a quick question for you: how do you guys feel about the Intense Debate commenting system? I always try and reply to my comments but I realise that a lot of people probably don’t come back and check. At least with that system I can reply to specific comments which will notify you with an email but I don’t want to install it if it puts you off commenting! Let me know what you think!

Hi Everyone, hope you’ve had a good weekend! I’ve had such a lovely one! After NYC last weekend I was really looking forward to catching up with my friends and family and just pottering around at home.

Yesterday I saw my parents, sister, nephews, grandma and two best friends – it was wonderful! I also decided to get my long run out of the way. I did 10 miles in 1hr 37 with an average pace of 9.40. A lot slower than I have been recently but I think this could be down to a couple of factors, a) the horrendous wind and b) that I probably haven’t been as well fuelled as I could have been due to reigning things in a bit post holiday indulgence. Anyway, the way I tend to look at things is its a win just getting out of bed and getting myself out there even if the run isn’t that great.

Today I decided to squeeze in a quick 3,2,1 workout at the gym – I love that I can be in and out of the gym in 1 hour knowing I have had a great all round workout.

Eats have been pretty great too! Yesterday’s breakfast was a really simple combo of chopped plums, blueberries, home made sesame milk and mixed nuts (walnuts, brazils, apricot kernals, hazelnuts and raw coconut shreds):

I’ve also been enjoying my smoothies as usual:

This was the first time I’ve used avocado in a smoothie and it was wonderful! It contained romaine lettuce, 1 small avocado, frozen blueberries, peach coconut water, scoop of vanilla sun warrior, ice, maca, mesquite, the gums and was topped with raw granola, goji berries and sunflower seeds. I served it in one of my new mixing bowls – yes it was that big! More like a smoothie in a bucket than a bowl :-P

Today I had a chocolate cherry green smoothie containing spring greens, frozen cherries, an apple, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, sesame milk, maca, mesquite, cacao, ice and gums topped with flaked almonds and drizzle of almond butter sauce (1 tbsp of almond butter combined with 1 tbsp of warm water to make it extra drippy):

Both of these were so good and mega filling!

I’ve also enjoyed more greens in the form of fresh juices and salads:

This was cucumber, celery, lemon, ginger, basil and parsley, so good!

Today I had a salad beast containing romaine lettuce, mixed leaves, carrot, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, sugar snaps, radish, raw rosemary crackers and some of Gena’s courgette dressing:

This dressing is wonderful – I followed Gena’s recipe but left out the mustard, dates and ground coriander and subbed apple cider vinegar for some of the lemon juice, delish.

Last night I made a wonderful meal of veggies stir fried in coconut oil with shoyu and ginger topped with sprouted beans plus some coconut ginger quinoa inspired by Emilias recipe – I used 1/4 cup of uncooked rinsed quinoa with 3/4 cup of water, 1 heaped tsp of coconut flour and a few drops of shoyu simmered until all the coconut stock is absorbed then added some fresh grated ginger:

The coconut ginger quinoa was amazing – so creamy!

Tonight I made another stir fry – more veggies on top of raw courgette noodles with Cauldon marinated tofu, shoyu, ginger, chilli and gomasio:

Last nights dessert was gorgeous – raw sesame almond banana cake!

I just combined the leftover almond and sesame pulp from milk making with two small mashed bananas then added some goji berries and dried cherries and transferred the mixture to a cling film lined lunch box, smoothed down and froze until semi frozen before cutting into squares, wrapping in foil and returning to the freezer. I simply took this out half an hour before eating along with a few frozen raspberries, delicious!

So much fruit and vegetables have been consumed this weekend! I had been trying to reduce the amount of really sugary fruit I eat as I was starting to feel a bit sugared out but I can feel a bit of a cold coming on so I’m piling them in as I feel like I need all the vitamins I can get! My portion sizes have seemed to have increased over the last couple of months – not that I see that as a problem at the moment as they tend to be made up of not so calorie dense fruit and veggies – even the giant smoothies are mainly fruit and greens. Do you eat for volume? Do you exercise portion control? Does anyone ever comment on your portion sizes? The only time I measure out a portion is with oil, grains or things like granola, although I’m not very good at measuring out muesli – I just pack the bowl out! I’ve also had a fair few raised eyebrows at the size of my salads!

Thanks for everyone who’s entered my May Sponsors Giveaway and tweeted or blogged about it. If you haven’t entered yet please take a look! Its open for entries until Friday!