What a totally amazing chilled out day I've had!

I think the clocks going forward must have left me feeling a bit weird as I woke up at midnight and could not sleep. I ended up having to take some herbal sleeping tablets. They worked but when I woke up my head felt really fuzzy. I did something I haven't done in ages and had breakfast in bed while watching the Australian Grand Prix (go Button!). I had a mug of warm water then some home made muesli mix containing puffed brown rice, jumbo oats, quinoa flakes, ground flax and grape nuts with skimmed milk and some red grapes for sweetness.

I pottered about a bit then got on with my workout - 20 mins of Davina Body Kick Fit section followed by my weights routine as laid out in my March training plan. After I'd done that I had a serious craving for a green monster so I blended up a load of spinach with a frozen banana, vanilla rice milk, a scoop of vanilla whey, a spoonful of peanut butter and a bit of water. It was absolutely yummy!

I then started on my cooking. Firstly I made some Courgette and Watercress Soup, taken from Sophie Dahls cookbook, Miss Dahls Voluptuous Delights. 

3 Courgettes, chopped
Bag of watercress
1 large white onion, chopped
Veg Stock
Olive oil

I fried off the onion in a little olive oil on a meduim heat until translucent, then added the chopped courgette followed by the veg stock. I let it simmer for 10 mins then added the watercress and let it simmer for another 5 minutes. I let it cool, then used a hand blender to blend till smooth.

This is slightly different to the original recipe as that included cream which certainly isn't in my fridge! For something so simple, this tastes really lovely, like spring in a bowl! This recipe made 4 portions. I'm going to freeze two and have the other two during the week.

The second thing I made was some Veggie Burgers (more on that in a mo). After I'd cleaned up the kitchen I went and did 45mins of my Yogalates DVD, I had planned on doing the full hour but my mind was just drifting on to lunch. I made myself an amazing salad of spinach, little gem lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot, red onion, roast red pepper, beetroot, and feta cheese. It was quite possibly the best salad I've ever had!

I also had a couple of little chopped apples.

After chilling out in front of the TV some more, I got on to making some Cherry Bakewell Babies! I had some cocktail cherries to use up after I made my Chocolate Mousse with Cherry Compote a couple of weeks ago. I was inspired by both Chocolate Covered Katie's fudge babies and Averies Oat and Raisin raw cookies and I came up with this.

Cherry Bakewell Babies

1/2 cup of porridge oats
1/4 cup of dates
1/4 cup of whole almonds
1 tablespoon of raisins
6 Cocktail Cherries

I started by blending the oats in the food processor to a semi fine powder. I then added the dates, almonds and cherries and blended some more until the mixture started to clump together. I then added in the raisins and blended some more. I rolled the mixture into balls and popped into cupcake cases.

These are far too tasty! They taste just like cherry bakewells! I know that cocktail cherries aren't the healthiest ingredient, but theres not much of them in this and they give a wonderful flavour. I'm sure that dried cherries would also work well. I ate two of these with a cup of green tea as a mid afternoon snack (plus some of the mixture out of the food processor and another 6 cocktail cherries may have found their way into my mouth in the process!). I also had a bowl of red grapes.

For dinner I had one of the Veggie Burgers I'd made earlier using a recipe inspired by Angela at Oh She Glows. I used:

1 tin of chick peas
1 small red pepper, roughly chopped
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
1 small carrot, roughly chopped
a handful of spinach
3 garlic cloves crushed
1 teaspoon of hot chilli powder
Wholemeal spelt flour
1 tbsp of pumkin seeds
1 tbsp of sunflower seeds

I basically whacked all the ingredients, except the flour and seeds, in my food processor and blended till smooth. I then added the seeds and mixed in flour gradually until the mixture reached a thick consistency. I got 4 burgers out of this mix, I wrapped the rest in clingfilm and popped them in the freezer. I fried mine in a hot pan till browned and cooked through then served it with some steamed brocolli and brussel sprouts.

I followed that with an orange.

Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

The weekend has flown over again, I can't believe its back to work tomorrow. At least its a short week, I'm really looking forward to Easter this year. I'm expecting a bit of a blow out food wise next weekend so I think I'll be trying to be as healthy as possible this week in preparation! I think that I saw a Lindt Dark Chocolate Bunny at my Mam and Dads yesterday and I know that J has a secret stash of Cadbury's Creme Eggs somewhere. Whats your favourite Easter treat? Hope you have all had a lovely weekend x

My word my legs are aching today! I don't know what it's been as I don't really feel like I've done anything out of the ordinary exercise wise. I practically hobbled into the shower but I bit of warm water and stretching really helped them.
Breakfast was a pear yoghurt mess (and it really did look a mess today!) containing some of my new maca powder, ground flax, quinoa flakes, grape nuts, raisins, flaked almonds, greek yoghurt and one chopped pear. It doesn't look very attractive it but tasted lovely I promise!

I could really taste the maca in it, it has a slighly malty taste which was quite nice.

Mid morning I had some hummus with carrot and cucumber for dipping.

Lunch was a big salad containing mixed salad leaves, spinach, carrot, red onion, cucumber, turkey slices cut into ribbons and mixed with light mayo and in the spirit of trying new things in my salads some alfalfa sprouts that I picked up in the shops yesterday. I didn't know how much flavour these would add but I could taste them, they added a nice crunchy freshness as well as loads of nutrients.

I followed my giant salad with two oranges.

Before leaving work for the gym I snacked on half a large sized Berry Cheeky Nakd bar for some energy.

This was my first gym based fitness session in a week, and I wanted to start with my increased speeds and resistance levels as detailed in my April Training Plan. I managed to do all of the planned increases as well as my new abs exercises which included the plank. I managed to run for 1 minute at 7mph on the treadmill for the first time too, and considering that my legs had still been achey I was really chuffed with that!

For dinner I fried up one of my homemade veggie bean burgers and served it with loads of salad and a little ketchup.

For desert I mixed up some chocolate protein goo and added some natural peppermint flavour to make it chocy minty, yum!

Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

I spent a little bit of time today looking at different recipes that I would like to try out next week and seeing how I could fit them into a meal plan. I try to plan as many meals in advance, mainly to save on waste, to try and make sure that I'm eating a good range of foods and to ensure that I'm making something that the Hubby can have too. What's your thoughts on meal planning? Do you plan or do you just go with the flow?  

Well this is just going to be a quickie post, I'm going to watch the footy on the TV whilst doing a bit of blog reading in bed. I feel really exhausted from that workout now! Hope you have all had a great day! x