IM BACK!

Okay so I took a longer break that originally planned but I am super excited to get my teeth back into blogging and sharing my own journey based around, healthy eating, fitness, and lifestyle.

Where have I been hiding?!

This past year has been really full on due to it being my last year of my degree and therefore I wanted to put all my head strength into achieving my original goal I set at the beginning of my degree and that was to achieve a first-class degree. All the head strength paid off and I have now gained a shiny new qualification; A First Glass degree in Graphic Design.

I could not be happier with the outcome of my 3 years hard work and I cannot wait to get back into my blogging journey and make StudentVsFitness a frequent blogging platform, continuing to follow my own journey to a healthier lifestyle and a fitter future.

The future of StudentVsFitness

So now I am a graduate and no longer a student I thought about changing the name of my blog but I then thought the whole reason I started this blog was to encourage other students how to eat healthy on a budget, give tips on how to help the dreaded hangover with natural nutrients and how to stay active during tough times with exam stress and coursework deadlines. So I have decided to keep the name the same and continue my blogging journey through the eyes if a student/recent graduate.

I am SO excited to get back into blogging and sharing my experiences through my blog and hopefully starting to network with other similar bloggers to me and work together to inspire other students to take their own journey to a living a healthier lifestyle and working towards a fitter future (all within a student budget!)

Little Update!

4/5 months slightly over due but I have finally organised myself into a routine to get back into what I do best and that is blogging! The past 4/5 months have been super full on with uni and a ton of other stuff which I know is no excuse to have such a long ‘break’ from blogging.

Now work load is starting to calm down with at uni I will have a lot more time to focus on the content of my blog and improving my communications with my audience.

In the essence of health and fitness, I plucked up the courage to join Coventry Uni Hockey Club and couldn’t be happier with the pals I have gained as well as being part of a team of crazy and ever so slightly alcoholic girls. Training every Monday helps to keep on top of my fitness as well as going to the gym throughout the week. I am glad I have kept to an active regime and not just packed it in since moving back to uni.

On the other hand I am not being as strict as I was over the summer with my diet. I am a lot more lenient with what I eat, not in the sense of stuffing my face with shitty foods but after spending the months from April 2015 to September 2015 with no carbohydrates or very little, I have reintroduced certain carbohydrates into my diet these include; whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread and the usual sweet potato that I love, I had to do this due to training for hockey and playing matches, I needed to re think my diet for energy levels in sport.

I still go to the gym when I can each week which is usually 2-3 times because it helps a lot with letting out stress from uni work as well as keeping the weight I have worked hard to lose, off.

I have a whole list of blog posts that I want to write each week to keep my blog active for my audience and keep my motivations going on my own journey to improving and maintaining my health and fitness. 

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.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

This is a superrrrr way to re gain your energy after a workout as a post workout snack or just a small snack in-between meals. It takes 5 ingredients to create these balls of energy and goodness.

Below are the ingredients you will need with a jolly simple and easy method. 

• You can use any nut butter, I just prefer almond butter to peanut butter.

• You could also use agave nectar instead of honey. 

• I used double chocolate whey protein powder from My Protein 

• Put all the ingredients into one bowl and mix together until the mixture starts to stick together.
• Grab some mixture and roll into small balls, they don't need to be super big because they're just little snacks, but you can roll them whichever size you would like.
•  This mixture made about 15 balls that were quite small. 

• I like to put the protein balls in the fridge or freezer after just to keep them cool and less sticky. I have heard they can last months if you keep them in the freezer, I haven't tried that yet but mine normally last 1-2 weeks in a fridge for post workout energy or snacks.

Happy Energy Snacking!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

So It is August 1st 2015 and last night whilst watching Pretty Little Liars (My reward from me to me as long as I have worked out during the day. It works.) I was listing ideas that I could incorporate into my blog as permanent fixtures throughout this journey to a healthier lifestyle and a fitter future and to make this blog a little more 'alive'. 

The first idea that I came up with is 'Monthly Motives' ( some fine alliteration there, Shan.) the whole idea around this is to get back into setting regular reachable goals at the beginning of every month. Since being home from uni I have admittedly slacked on the mentality side of my journey. At uni I used to set reachable goals each week whilst in the gym of what I wanted that week. Some of the goals included things such as not allowing myself to leave the gym unless I have worked out for at least an hour each day or No snacking between meals, substitute with water, making sure I am asleep by 10:30pm to get the most out of a sleep ready for a workout in the morning...you get the idea. These are the kind of goals I set myself every week when I first started this journey to force myself and push me into a strict routine (I needed to do be this strict for it to work).

Since being home although I haven't given up on eating clean or working out everyday ( I never will, I love it too much). I feel I have really lacked in keeping my mentality in shape. My motto is 'Mentality Over Physicality' because I believe your body will do anything you push it to do, its the mentality you have that will make or break your dreams (cheesy but true).

So this is where Monthly Motives come in. At the beginning of each month I will be setting 3 new goals for myself one for fitness one for health and one for lifestyle. Then at the end of every month I will be looking at how I did, focusing on whether I carried it out for a month, if I didn't, WHY? and if I did, what I did well and what the next steps/goals are.

So here goes...

AUGUST FITNESS:

The motive I want to set for this month is to work on my running pace to improve my running time and distance. Running outside and not on  treadmill is a lot harder because your legs have to do more work to keep pushing you along whereas on a treadmill the floor moves and your legs just go with it. I find when I run I rush, I become very impatient and try and power through the run all the way although this can be a plus because it makes me do a high intensity interval run, I want to work on my running distance and time to improve my long distance running. I was reading an article the other day on About Health on '13 Tips for Running Farther' and one of them stood out to me which is: Run at a Conversational Pace. I d never heard this before and thought it was such a good way to put it. So this is how I am going to judge my pace, if I can talk and hold a conversation easily without being out of breath my pace is good, even if it is at slightly slow pace I will be building up over 4 weeks. 

AUGUST HEALTH:

For my health motive I am going to make sure I have at least 1 glass of water as soon as I wake up. Before I have a morning coffee, my breakfast or anything else. I am following the well loved saying 'Hydrate before you caffienate' 

AUGUST LIFESTYLE:

This is a kind of big one, cutting the alcohol. Now I'm not a massive drinker I don't go on a 'mad one' every weekend but lately ive been drinking almost every weekend due to going to festivals and going out for birthdays so ive decided im going August with absolutely no alcohol intake. This is also mainly because I will be moving back up to uni at the beginning of Septmeber and although I have pretty good will power and self control, trying to go through freshers week without some alcohol induced nights out just wouldn't be the same( the excuses of a student everybody).

So... the 3 goals above will be my monthly motives... the laws of august...the great goals! that I will be working towards,at and with throughout the month of august. On August 31st I will be doing a follow up blog post to update on how I did and continue through to September 1st to set 3 new goals!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Healthy Ice Cream For Breakfast?!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

This is a suuuuper easy recipe to change up your normal breakfast especially as it is summer now (yes, English weather it's summer, do what you gotta do!) so ice cream for breakfast sounds pretty fab if you like ice cream!
This is not my original recipe but it's just ideas pulled from other recipes and made into a quick and easy recipe I use for breakfast

 You'll need: 

•  2 chopped bananas (or 1 depending on how much ice cream you want)
•  A choice of your own ingredient, I have used frozen raspberries but you can use anything to add flavour like cinnamon, Cacao powder or another type of fruit, anything! 
• Some toppings (nuts, dried fruit) 

 How to: 

• Chop the bananas before you go to bed and put in a freezer bag in the freezer for the night
•  In the morning whack out the food blender, and put your frozen bananas in with the other flavouring ( I used frozen raspberries)
•  Blend it all up, it takes a while to go into an ice cream like consistency, just leave it blending while your sort out your topping
• Once it's in a smooth consistency put it into a bowl and chuck your toppings on, and yes mine is ever so slightly 'Instagram ready' ( slight perfectionist) but it's just as good to chuck them on top
• Finally, grab a spoon, a glass of water and dig in!

My Food Shopping Habits.

When I moved out my accommodation a few weeks ago I found all my food shopping receipts from the first half of the year at uni and my gosh it was horrendous what I was eating! ranging from buying big packets of crisps to 3 packets of biscuits and numerous ready meals and fizzy drinks. yikes what was I thinking?!

So I now do a food shop for all my long lasting foods every 3/4 weeks. e.g. sweet potatoes, tins of tuna, rice, quinoa, pasta and so on... which would be an online shop because being at uni without a car makes it difficult to get 3/4 weeks of shopping in 2 hands whilst walking home, so that's done online and then every 2 weeks ill do a fresh food shop that I do myself in the supermarket (im super picky on the state of my veggies and fruits when I buy them). A lot of people think doing 2 types of separate food shops would amount to a lot of spending, when if you do it properly it definitely doesn't amount to a lot of spending.

Before I started my huge lifestyle change I made myself cut a lot of shit out of my diet which then led to me spending less money on food shops, and it was easier that I thought it would be, not having the rubbish foods in my cupboard because I cut them completely out of my shopping lists made it a lot easier to just forget about them and not be tempted by them.
The main foods that I have cut out my regular diet are:
Bread/doughy type products.
Chocolate
Sweets/sugary treats
Crisps
Fizzy drinks.

So how do I make my fresh food last 2 weeks?
Your freezer is your new best friend.
I know buying frozen vegetables wont be as fresh and as fabulous as fresh vegetables but we are students paying £9000+ a year for Uni so buying frozen veg will be a lot cheaper and will last longer in your freezer than buying a ton of fresh veg that will probably go out of date before you can eat all of it! So most of my veg is frozen, apart from spinach and the odd salad veg that I buy. I buy fresh spinach because I love spinach cooked and uncooked, however I do eat spinach like there is no tomorrow so I don't have much of a problem with it going out of date quickly.

Another tip: if you're buying fresh veg, look at the back of the product section. Whilst working in Tesco for a bit as an online shopper I HAD to pick from the back because that is where the product with the furthest away used by date is, meaning you'll most of the time get a product with a longer used by date. Don't grab from the front they are normally nearing the end of their used by date.

My fruit that I buy varies from frozen to fresh, I buy frozen fruit for my smoothies and breakfast, like blueberries and other berries because they last for agessss! and then fresh fruit for eating on a daily basis, I do keep a lot of my fruit in the fridge as I find that normally keeps it fresh for quite a while I mainly get fruits such as apples and bananas because I find they last longer than maybe a mango would.

Top Tip On Fruit: Buying un-ripe fruits, like slightly green bananas, these will slowly ripen over time meaning they will generally last longer than buying ripe or over ripe bananas which will go squashy and gross in a shorter time!

When I am fresh food shopping I often go for the supermarkets own brand purely because of money and it is often cheaper, it may seem like an effort at the time but spending more time on comparing prices of fruit and looking for longer used by dates of the fruit will definitely be worth it in the long run.

Happy Shopping!