Hi everyone, hope your having a good week! Mine got off to a great start when I went and collected my new little car last night, I’m still buzzing!

Eats have been very tasty as usual. Breakfast on Monday was fresh strawberries, blackberries and blueberries with some Dorset Cereal Tasty Toasted Spelt Muesli and rice milk. I also had a delicious raspberry coffee with sweet freedom and rice milk:

Breakfast this morning was a Butternut Smoothie (roast butternut, frozen banana, ice cubes, vanilla sun warrior, cinnamon, ginger, rice milk, water, xanthan gum) topped with half a bag of Bear Apple Crumble Granola Nibbles:

I haven’t had a squash smoothie in ages and this was divine!

Lunch both days has been a fab salad of romaine, red and yellow pepper, cucumber, sugar snap peas, red onion and spicy roasted chickpeas with Kristen’s Raw 4 ingredient dressing (cashew butter, water, apple cider vinegar and shoyu):

The dressing was delicious! I also had some fruit – an orange and kiwis.

Snackage and pre gym fuel was a lemon kissed cashew hemp bar on Monday:

…and one of my almond cookies and a pink lady apple today:

The lemon bar was gorgeous, I love lemon flavoured stuff and with the sweetness of the dates and the crunchiness of the hemp seeds this hit the spot. It also fuelled me very well for the gym – I had an excellent workout!

Dinner both days has been a Japanese inspired stir fry containing soba noodles, carrot, diakon, Japanese spinach, tender stem broccoli and some Clearspring organic tofu marinated in sesame oil and mirin and fried in coconut oil. I also added some gomasio and shoyu:

This was so so tasty! I was a little disappointed with the Clearspring tofu to begin with, I had been expecting something more like the Cauldron firm tofu, it was certainly described that it could be used that way. This had a more similar texture to mori nu silken tofu. It didn’t absorb the marinade very well but it did fry up excellently – crispy on the outside and soft and silken on the inside!

Dessert last night was two chopped apples and some Plamils Orange and Cranberry dairy free chocolate:

The chocolate was good but very sweet! Its flavour really reminded me of Terry’s chocolate orange.

Dessert this evening was some cookies and cream Spiru-tein protein ice cream (with vanilla rice milk, ice cubes and xanthan and guar gums) topped with cacao nibs:

Yummy!

My workouts so far this week have been excellent - my usual Monday evening spin class was cancelled as the instructor was ill so I did 1 hour of HIITs on the step machine, cross trainer, bike and rowing machine. I usually don’t use the rowing machine – I think I just preferred the other equipment, but I loved it in this workout! I did 1 minute intervals: 1 minute at about 6 on my ‘perceived rate of exertion’ then basically balls to the wall for the other minute and repeated for 15 minutes, I was beat by the end! I then did my usual abs and core.

This morning I did a quick Yoga for Runners podcast for 20 minutes then this evening I was back at Body Pump. Before the class I managed to fit in another 10 minute rowing machine HIIT session, loving it!

Do you have a favourite piece of gym equipment? Why is it your favourite? I love the step machine and cross trainer as I feel like I get a really good workout on them but I can certainly see me making more use of the rowing machine in future!

I’ve also been doing something that I don’t do very often – eating the same thing two days in a row. Usually I don’t like doing this as I like variety but I’m finding it a real time and money saver - Hence why I’m just posting an ‘eats’ type post every two days and starting to move away from posting every single thing I eat as I don’t want things to get boring!

Are you happy to eat the same meals day after day or do you prefer more variety? My hubby eats plain porridge for breakfast every single day and as much as I love porridge that would drive me crazy! However, one thing that I can’t get enough of at the moment is green smoothies – I like that you can make them different with all the various ingredients and toppings available.

What’s the one thing you could eat day after day and never tire of?

Hi everyone, hope Monday has been good to you. I've had a pretty good day for a Monday - I've been powering through my to do list at work!

Breakfast was a wonderful green monster with spinach, frozen banana, unsweetened soy milk, a heaped teaspoon of crunchy peanut butter, 2 tablespoons of oats and a teaspoon of maca powder all topped off with some grape nuts, flaked almonds and goji berries.

This is the first time I've tried soy milk. I saw it in the supermarket yesterday and decided to give it a try. I have no idea why I haven't tried it before now. I couldn't really taste it in the smoothie but it did the job!

Mid morning I had fromage frais with some of my orange roasted rhubard and a few flaked almonds.

Lunch was a luke warm bowl of Brocolli, Pea and Mint Soup (I couldn't be bothered to walk back down to the microwave to heat it up more!) and some strawberries.

I had a little home made fuel bar before heading to the gym after work.

I love these chewy fudgey little squares!

I did an hour of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine and bike and then 3 sets of my usual abs moves. I finished off with 10 mins on the bike reading a magazine to cool down seeing as I had time before picking the hubby up. I was shattered! I'm still managing to keep up on the higher resistance levels so I'm happy with that.

For dinner I decided to make a frittata. I used 4 egg whites and 2 eggs with a red onion, a red pepper, a baby courgette and a good bit of grated edam cheese. I had 2 slices with some mixed salad leaves, spinach, cucumber and grated carrot.

Delish!

I've been dying to try out some of my Spirutein protein powder so I decided that desert would be a protein smoothie made with a scoop of Nutty Berry Spirutein, soy milk and some frozen blueberries.

The soy milk is definitely growing on me, this was delicious and really creamy! I also had an apple.

I was very chuffed earlier when I bagged this lovely vintage white cotton blouse on ebay for just £5 including postage!

I'm hoping it will arrive before the end of the week so I can wear it when I go to Brighton. It will look lovely with some skinny jeans and I can wear it in the autumn under a little cardigan. Have you ever bought second hand / vintage clothing? A couple of years ago I had an ebay phase and got a few bits of second hand clothing but most of the items were a bit rubbish once you saw them in the 'flesh'. I hope this is ok when I receive it! I always admire women who can totally work the vintage look. I guess thats what I'm trying to emulate - it can certainly be a bit kinder on the pocket as well as being more environmentally friendly (I cringe when I think of the amount of clothes I've chucked or charity shopped this last year). Buying good second hand and vintage is something I really want to master!

How we all doing this fine Tuesday? I’m having a good week so far!

On Monday morning I had my first taste of hemp milk!

I had it with a big bowl of my home mixed muesli with a chopped apple and blueberries:

I was very pleasantly surprised with the hemp milk, it tasted a lot nicer and creamer than I had been expecting and reminded me of soy milk. A definite regular non dairy milk for me now – as long as Tesco continue to stock it!

Today I had a bowl of Dorset Cereal Low Fat Flakes with chopped plums, pecans, raw unsweetened coconut shreds and hemp milk:

I learned the last time I ate these that a bowl with milk and fruit just wouldn’t see my through to lunch so I added the pecans and coconut for more staying power!

I also tried a raw kale salad for lunch. I have had raw kale salads before but they’d mostly turned out to be a fail. I had a lot of kale to use up so I thought I’d give another one a go. I massaged the kale with 1/2 avocado mashed with lemon juice until it wilted down a bit then added carrot, red pepper, sugar snaps, alfalfa sprouts and some roasted soya nuts for protein and crunch plus some braggs:

This pic doesn’t really do it justice, finally a kale salad that tasted good! I think adding the avocado is the trick with this, it would have also been lovely with spicy roast chickpeas, yum!

Today I scored some more tasty reduced persimmons from Asda – these are so good I’m now addicted to them!

Dinner over the last couple of days has been Italian Leek and Bean Stew:

I served it up with some pearl barley (my favourite grain at the moment) plus some steamed green veggies and shoyu. I love this stew, comforting but not too heavy for this time of year.

I’ve also been doing my usual workouts, intervals on cross trainer and step machine, spin class and abs and core on Monday, we had a new spin instructor and he was excellent, the workout was way tougher than usual, I really got my sweat on! Then today I did Yoga for Runners this morning and Body Pump this evening. Body Pump was the new release and it was awesome – my muscles were trembling at the end! To help my muscles recover after Body Pump I had a lovely Peanut Butter Swirl Spiru-tein protein shake (with ice, hemp milk and xanthan gum) with peanut flour sauce and grape nuts cereal as my dessert:

I love my Spiru-tein shakes, the flavours are fab!

I don’t know what’s been up with me over the past few days but my appetite has been completely random. Usually I know when I’m going to start feeling hungry but over the last few days I have had either no appetite or I’ve been ravenous (please note that what I’ve posted above is not everything I’ve eaten – I’m just posting the tastiest stuff!) I have been eating even when not hungry (after I’ve waited a couple of hours for hunger to kick in and it hasn’t) as I know that I need to be getting food in me to fuel my workouts and especially after I burned 900 calories on Sunday with my run! I also hate to waste food. Then on the other hand when I do start eating its hard to stop! I’m hoping my appetite will get back to normal as I find it very odd. Anyone else have a random appetite?

I also just wanted to share this random little snippet I came across on Crazy Sexy Life today:

‘What makes up the quality of your life is your daily existence, not only the peak experiences or significant epiphanies’

For some reason this really struck a cord with me – I used to really struggle with living in the ‘present’ - my mind would always be miles ahead thinking about how life would be different when I moved house, started a family, got a new job etc. Recently I have found a greater level of contentment and happiness in just living in the now and enjoying the amazing things I have been blessed with :-) I still think of the good things to come in the future but I feel I have a better balance now.

Do you feel that you ‘live in the now’ or do you focus on things to come in the future?

I’m having a bit of a stressful day, I thought a piece of work had a deadline for two weeks and it actually has to be submitted by tomorrow! I freaked when I realised this. Luckily my manager said I could come home to work on it. I was debating whether or not to even do a post tonight but I actually find writing my blog posts (along with a quick twitter fix every half an hour) relaxing so I thought I’d give myself a break.

I started the day with a 45 minute strength workout (the usual Davina DVD with added upper body) and then made a beautiful breakfast, Chocolate Raspberry Oats. I can’t believe I haven’t done the chocolate raspberry combo with porridge before now! I made up some of my Rude Health Fruity Date porridge (1/2 cup of porridge mix and 1 cup of water) then added a scoop of chocolate whey (you could use cocoa powder instead if you don’t have chocolate protein powder) a teaspoon of raw cacao powder for extra chocolate flavour then mixed in some defrosted frozen raspberries, topped with a big dollop of Total full fat Greek yoghurt and more raspberries.

 

Yum!

Lunch was a bowl of Courgette and Watercress Soup followed by half a melon which I just ate with a spoon.

 

Mid afternoon I realised my deadline was tomorrow so I got myself home and ate my snack before chaining myself to the computer – carrot, cucumber, sugar snaps and chopped apple with almond butter for dipping.

I also had an additional apple – solely down to stress induced hunger monster. I was proud of myself for not sitting with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon so I’m not going to sweat about eating an additional apple!

For dinner I already had something lined up in order to use up old veggies and the small amount of cooking it required was lovely and relaxing. Love a bit of chopping and stirring to chill me out! I sautéed some courgette and red pepper with a crushed garlic clove and mixed with some tomato pasta sauce, spinach and a few chopped basil leaves. I served it with two slices of olive, pepper and feta bread that I’d had stashed in my freezer which I’d warmed through in the oven.

So delicious – I love it when a random meal tastes so good. As a little desert I made up a Cookies and Cream Spiru tein shake with ice cubes, soymilk, some of my matcha green powder and a little xanthan gum for thickness then topped with cacao nibs.

 

I’m still loving the Xanthan gum for adding volume to my smoothies. I picked mine up from the gluten free section at the supermarket. If your like me and love thick smoothies in a bowl pick some up and try it out! I feel really full from that smoothie.

How do you deal with stressful situations? Do you turn to food or are you the opposite and have no appetite? I could have easily stuffed my face as I really do suffer from stress related bingeing so I’m very happy I managed to just keep it to one extra crunchy apple! Fingers crossed I can continue like this for the rest of the evening.

Tomorrow I have a big day at work as it is the AGM and 10th Birthday celebration of the charity that I work for. I’m looking forward to a nice buffet and some cake! I’ve also had another package of goodies delivered for me to sample for the blog. I know I’ve had quite a lot sent to me this past couple of weeks but I love sharing my experiences of these products with you, and as always they are all going to end up in my mega GIVEAWAY coming soon. This new product is quite unusual (for me anyway) so I’m looking forward to sharing the details with you all. Catch you tomorrow! x