3 Lunch/Dinner Ideas For A Student On A Budget!

Tomato Lentil Pasta

Tin of green lentils - 60p

Italian Passata - 70p

Whole wheat Pasta - £1.20

=£2.50

1. Boil the pasta in a sauce pan of water until soft.
2. Drain the lentils from the water in the tin and cook in a saucepan for 5 minutes.
3. Add the passata to the lentils and leave to simmer for 5 minutes on a low heat.
4. Serve together whilst still hot.

Tortilla Pizza

Wholemeal Tortilla Wrap - £1.00 (pack)

2 Tomato - 65p (pack)

Italian Passata - 70p

Spinach - £1.00

Mozzarella - 50p

=£3.85

1. Chop up one tomato and blend in a food blender, transfer the blended tomato mixture into a saucepan and simmer on a low heat with one table spoon of passata. (if you don't have a food blender, chop the tomato up small and bring to a simmer, take a fork and break it down into a paste type mix)
2. Once the tomato mixture has thickened on a low simmer, spread onto tortilla wrap.
3. Add the toppings you wish onto the top and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees.

Fish Pie

Sweet Potato - £1.50 (pack)

Red onion - 80p (3 pack)

Tinned Tuna in spring water - £1.00

=£3.30

1. Peel, cube, boil then mash the sweet potato.
2. Cut the onion to your choice of size.
3. Drain the spring water from the tuna and mix the chopped onion with the tuna.
4. Layer in an oven proof dish with the mashed sweet potato spread on top.
5. You can add any toppings like grated cheese or herbs to add more flavour.
6. Chuck it in the oven ( not literally) for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

 

 

(All the ingredients I used and bought were based on prices at the supermarket Sainsbury's)

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Confidence Is Key.

Confidence plays a rather large part in everyone's everyday life.
Got an interview? Make sure you're confident.
Meeting some one new? Just be confident.
Starting a new job/new uni/new school? Let your confidence shine through!
Peeling a potato? Let your confidence lead th ....Wait, what?

I feel like from past failed experiences of changing my lifestyle and fitness it has mostly always been about 'you must lose weight to fit in' or 'Don't be the fat friend in the group' and when I researched into a ton of fad diets and pointless easy exit ways to try and lose weight it just focused on ' lose your weight and workout and life will be just dandy' and although that is slightly true because my life has become a lot 'dandier' since I have started this journey and lost  a lot of weight and become a lot healthier and fitter, I feel like the other factors that you gain from the journey of weight loss and fitness get undermined.

This is where confidence comes in.
Now this time last year, even thinking about stepping outside my comfort zone scared the crap out of me.I had no confidence in anything like talking to new people, making new friends, expressing my opinions, nothing. Nada. I just wouldn't put myself through it. I was probably at my worst during 2011-2013 in the view of my diet, lifestyle and fitness. I was very overweight for my age and that is when my confidence took a very harsh drop ( although I could talk for hours to people I already knew, but that's about how far it went.)

I can hand on heart say that starting this fitness, health and lifestyle journey that I decided to embark on at the beginning of the year has been the best thing I have ever done. Physically, mentally, personally and emotionally it has made my confidence blossom. This summer, that is coming to an end ( super sad, its been rad) has been the best summer for me to prove to myself my confidence has improved. On a recent trip to Devon I decided before we went I was determined to go surfing. no matter what. I had never done it as much as I love water sports and being in the water ( yes, I was definitely a mermaid in my past life) in the past my confidence had held me back greatly and the thought of getting in a wetsuit surrounded by beach goers didn't sound appetising to me, but this summer I wanted to do a ton of stuff I had never done before SO, I got my wetsuit, I got my surfboard and headed out to my favourite place in the world, the ocean. I spent about 4 hours non stop in the water working on my surfing on one of the days and LOVED every minute of it.

I'm not saying that if you eat a salad here and there or go to the gym once in a blue moon (is the moon actually blue though?) that your confidence will come flooding back, that's not how it works. I have been working on my confidence now for the best part of a year in my health, fitness and lifestyle as well as my everyday personal life. Its all one big journey/adventure that I am loving!

I want to carry on stepping outside of my comfort zone fitness and lifestyle wise. One thing that I want to pursue also is to get on the university hockey team. I have a big love for hockey and was always on the teams in my early high school life but it kind of faded due to my drop in confidence, and just didn't think it was 'cool' at the time. (very regretful that I even made this an excuse back then) I have been umming and ahhing all summer about joining because my confidence in my fitness is still growing and although I now have a pretty good fitness level, my critical self still compares myself to others and makes me worry that I wont be able to keep up. But I really want to push myself that bit further even if it is a challenge and I hate it sometimes, I know I will regret it if I don't sign up and challenge myself.

Keep working hard, dreaming big and being positive. Your confidence will soon come flooding in.

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This is a pretty simple recipe that can be 'sassed' up by any other ingredients of your choice but for the main dish ingredients I have put together a little recipe for you. 

AND 

2 chicken breasts

1. So the first step is to peel and chop your sweet potato into cubes, not too small but not too big, then put them onto boil. Just to make them softer before adding it to the rest of the dish
2. Chop up the rest of the ingredients and dice the chicken. 
3. Using oil, (I used coconut oil but you can use any type of oil) fry the onion and pepper al dente (oh fancy vocab shan) then add the chicken and fry until the chicken is cooked throughout. 
4. Take your peas and broccoli and put them onto boil for around 5 minutes. (until starting to soften)
5. when the chicken is cooked through, add your quinoa with 1 -2 cups of water to the chicken and let it simmer until the quinoa is cooked. 
6. The 5th step can be quite tricky to work the quinoa:water ratio so if you don't want to do it that way, cook the quinoa in a separate pan, drain it, then add it to the chicken, onion and pepper mix.
7. Next, add your sweet potato, broccoli, spinach, peas and kale into the mix and let it simmer away for 10 minutes on a low heat. 
8. Serve it up still hot and enjoy!

You can literally add any vegetables you want into this dish, and also you can use vegetable stock for the quinoa to simmer in for extra flavour. 

This dish works perfectly with frozen vegetables which means can easily be affordable us students out there because most of the time frozen veg is cheaper than fresh veg, but can be just as nutritional! ( its just the quinoa that can be a tad pricey, well for a students budget anyway...) 

This amount lasted me for 4 meals, I just dished it into tuppa wear and put it in the fridge for the next couple of days.

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Its September and its nearly time to get back into my routines for fitting my workouts and healthy eating around going to uni! So here are 3 new motives that I will be working on for this month.

SEPTEMBER FITNESS:
So I am moving back to uni, into my new student house after, in my opinion, a pretty rad summer that was slightly too long maybe. I'm super excited to get back to the city and get straight down to... yep you guessed it, the gym to renew that membership! After using the outdoors as my gym for the past 3 months to save money and enjoy the countryside a bit more, I have decided to make my workouts my focus of this month. My motive is to make sure I go to the gym 6 times a week, using Sunday as my rest day. I want to make sure I have a solid, good quality month of workouts and clean eating before uni starts at the end of September and the flood gates open and mountains of work come flying my way.

SEPTEMBER HEALTH:
This motive is because I have been slacking on this for the whole of summer, the last term of uni I was super strict with not eating after 7pm, but its fizzled a bit and I want to get back into the swing of things. so NO FOOD AFTER 7PM. 

SEPTEMBER LIFESTYLE:
Sleep is definitely one of my favourite things to do but not if I get too much or too little. I have a little thing that I only like to have 8 hours each night, don't ask why I am so specific because I don't actually know, but I would say a big reason is how I feel. If I get too much sleep, I feel sluggish and lazy for the whole day and if I get too little sleep, I am super cranky. (yeah I am one of those people that do not do well on little sleep). So September is about focusing on my sleeping pattern, but also on my quality of sleep. I want to use my phone less before I sleep, it is so tempting to get into bed and just scroll through social media and pointless crap. I am either going to meditate for 20 mins before sleep or read a book for 20 mins before sleep. 

3, 2, 1 ...GO!  




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