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.

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A Pompous Porridge Brekkie

This is a quick and easy brekkie for all you students that have woke up late and only have 20 minutes before your lecture starts...

Ingredients:

• Grab some rolled porridge oats
• Pour 300ml of milk
• Slice a banana 
• Grab a handful of Blueberries
• Sprinkle that cinnamon 

1. Throw ( not literally) the porridge oats and milk into a sauce pan and bring to the boil on the hob and keep stirring until a thick consistency ( or however you like your porridge).
2. Pour into a bowl and chuck your banana and blueberries on top, sprinkle that cinnamon and get eating!

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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!

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How To: The Glorious Green Smoothie

Check out the video below on how to make my Glorious Green Smoothie!

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Healthy Ice Cream For Breakfast?!

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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!

Granola Galore!

Recently I have become a very big fan of having granola for breakfast because of the energy that the nuts and fruit give. So I thought I would give a home-made granola recipe a go that has a lot less refined sugar and other nasty's in, that some of the shop bought brands have in them.

If you want to try out this recipe its super easy to make and will normally last for about 1 week/2 weeks if put it into a airtight sealed container. 

Ingredients:

2.5 Cups of Rolled Oats

3/4 Cup of Honey

1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil or Coconut Oil

1/2 Teaspoon of ground Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract 

45g Brown sugar

Mixed dried Fruit and Nut - however much you prefer to put in

1.Preheat oven to 180ºC (356ºF)

2. Mix the rolled oats and Brown sugar in a mixing bowl and add the Honey, Vegetable/Coconut Oil, Vanilla extract and Cinnamon into the mix and stir all the ingredient together.

3.Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread the oat mix evenly over the baking tray.

4. Put in the oven for 15 mins

5. Chop the dried fruit and nuts into your required size and mix together in a bowl

6. Take the oats out the oven and mix the fruit into the oats on the tray

7.Put back into the oven for another 20-25 mins but stir occasionally to prevent the top burning.

8.When the oats are golden brown take out the oven and allow to cool for an hour, they may still feel soft when you first take them out but when they cool they will harden into a granola type texture. 

9.Seal the granola into an airtight container.

The fruit and nuts I put into my Granola were:

Raisins 

Currants

Apricots

Chopped walnuts

flaked almonds

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!

Lunch And Dinner Routine

So for lunch and dinner I tend to swap the norm routine of having a quick small lunch and a meal for dinner, I like to have a meal for lunch and a small dinner because I sleep better when I don’t have a really full stomach from a meal and I feel less bloated.

Today for lunch I am having a portion of white rice and chilli with a mixed salad.

I found this image that probably best describes how I eat my meals from the dude in the green. It goes with the saying “eat like a king at breakfast, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.”

Mid Morning Smoothie Recipie

1 handful of ice 
1 handful of strawberries 
1 banana 
1 handful of frozen blackberries 
Adding water is optional for a smoother blend

Take A Break And Eat Lunch!

I see so many students walking around campus eating their lunch on the go, it’s so worth taking 15 mins out of your working day to just sit and eat lunch. It’ll sit better in your stomach because your body can digest it easier and it gives your body a quick rest before an afternoon of work.

Breakfast Option

I like to mix it up a little bit and change up how I eat what my body needs so I decided to warm my blueberries up to make like a blueberry coulée that I put on top of natural yoghurt and a banana.

Saturday Morning Breakfast

So the gym opens a little later on a Saturday which means I get a lay in and can spend more time on my breakfast.
Today I’ve put together:
1 poached egg
2 slices of roasted sweet potato
½ an avocado and ½ a tomato mashed together
Handful of spinach

A lot of people have bread instead of sweet potato but because I’ve totally cut bread out my daily diet I didn’t have any so I opted for sweet potato which works just as well

Pre gym breakfast:

Sainsbury’s own blueberry whole grain wheats
Sainsbury’s own Greek yoghurt
1 banana
Handful of blue berries
Honey.

If I don’t have all these ingredients I’ll just have the blueberry whole grain wheats with skimmed milk 

Different Meals and Juices I have within my own diet.