Sorry I haven’t posted for a while – I’ve been relaxing with as little brain work as possible and I really needed it! I think I was really run down and it’s only been the past couple of days that I’ve been bouncing out of bed and feeling more like my usual self 🙂 I start back at uni next week (boo…) so study is happening again, but I’ve been treating myself to some lovely healthy treats and trying a few different recipes that I couldn’t usually try whilst at uni (due to lack of utensils/time etc).
My current home page for my iphone is this:
Make it yours! I hate when I have ‘blah’ days (which I’ve had a lot of recently) and by the end of the day I feel like I’ve totally wasted it. Just the smallest action or interaction can make any day amazing 🙂
Current motivation: Dianna Dahlgren
Ok so I’ve been very slack with my training and healthy eating over the past few weeks. I haven’t been feeling very well – extremely run down, easily hurting my muscles, just lacking motivation – so I took some time off. I don’t know if it’s just a mental thing, but I feel like I don’t look anywhere near as good and so I’m finally feeling well enough and I’m pumped up to start knuckling down again!! Sometimes a break is so needed, but it always feels great to get back into the swing of things. Not only physically rewarding, but also mentally.
I’ve taken some ‘before’ pictures and done some measurements, so now I’m going to get back in the mindset of pushing the weights and eating as clean as I can. I’m striving for a goal, and it feels great to be doing so!! Summer is just around the corner, so the thought of strutting around in a bikini is what is going to keep me going :).
I haven’t been bulk cooking because I’m back at home on the farm with my family over the holidays and it’s nice to eat fresh meals when I have the time. My mum also likes me to eat whatever she cooks, so she’s making an effort to cook low carb, clean meals (she’s usually pretty good anyway), which is lovely of her! However, here is a rough meal plan of what I’ve been eating – however my dinner has been different every night (thanks to Mum!).
Meal 1/Breakfast:
Blueberry pancakes!! 🙂 However, the other day I was at my boyfriend’s house and decided to cook an omelette and I threw in some leftover roast lamb, sweet potato, mushrooms, and low fat cheddar with my egg whites – YUM!
We’ve also grown some delicious grapefruit at home, and I’ve read that it’s great to eat half a grapefruit for breakfast, so I’ve been having that every couple of mornings as well. Grapefruit is extremely high in Vitamin C, which is especially important in the colder months when more people are prone to developing the common cold.
Meal 2:
Ok so I have a few recipes to throw at you here.
Salada with cottage cheese, avocado and tomato (and cracked pepper) is surprisingly nice.
Nutritional info: per 1 topped salada
Calories: 92
Total fat: 2.9g
Total carbs: 8.8g
Sugar: 1.9g
Protein: 7.6g
Blueberry protein muffins (from http://www.littlebshealthyhabits.com – I’ve done these before but it was my 2nd post so decided to rewrite it – they’re quite yummy!)
Serves 12
1&1/2 cups oat flour
3 scoops protein powder (I use Optimum Nutrition 100% Gold Standard Vanilla Icecream)
1 tsp baking soda
12 serves Stevia
2 egg whites
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup no fat Greek yoghurt
1/2 cup blueberries
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients. Add in the wet ingredients (except the blueberries) and mix well. Lastly, fold in the blueberries. Spray a muffin pan with oil, and fill each 3/4 full with the batter. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until just firm on top and a toothpick comes out clean. Careful not to over-bake!
To make them taste fresh out of the oven again, microwave each muffin for 15-20 seconds.
Vanilla and Cinnamon Protein Cake (from http://www.proteinpow.com). This was really tasty, but it didn’t quite cook right :S the top when extremely crispy, but the middle was a bit uncooked… I had to preheat my oven to 180 degrees (due to the settings on the microwave oven) so maybe that’s why? Not sure. The flavour and texture (of the properly cooked parts) is awesome though!
Serves 6 (I sliced it into 8 though)
1 cup oat flour
2 egg whites
2/3 cup oat milk (I subbed almond milk)
2&1/2 cups vanilla whey protein
1 tbsp ground almond
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp chiaseeds (this can be omitted)
2 tbsp Stevia
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
Mix all ingredients in a bowl – the batter is very wet (add a little more milk if still too thick).
Pour the batter into an oven-safe dish (or a muffin tin) and sprinkle with cinnamon.
Bake for 20-25 minutes in an oven at 175 degrees (less time for muffins).
Meal 3/Lunch:Â
I’ve been cooking grilled chicken/salmon with salad for lunch, because I absolutely love it! My favourite salad to have is made up of:
Mixed lettuce leaves
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumber
Carrot
Avocado
Low fat fetta cheese
Toasted pine nuts
Lemon juice (as dressing)
Meal 4:
I just made these today and they are so yummy! From http://www.proteinpow.com/ again – A Dark Chocolate, Oat, and Almond Protein Bar.
Serves 6
1 cup ground oats
1/2 cup whey (again I used my vanilla whey protein, but I would have preferred to use my chocolate protein if I’d had it with me)
2 tbsp almond butter (NEW OBSESSION! So so yummy!)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup hulled hemp seeds
1 tbsp 100% cocoa
1/2 tbsp pea protein or coconut flour – I didn’t have either of these and instead rolled the mixture in dessicated coconut in an attempt to dry the mixture up a bit
Mix everything and shape into 6 rectangular bars.
Melt 60g of dark chocolate (the darkest I could find was 85%) in a bain marie and coat the bars in the melted chocolate. Mine were too sloppy to ‘dunk’ them in the chocolate, so I had to settle with coating only one side of the bars.
Once coated, freeze the bars for an hour or so, until the chocolate has hardened.
Meal 5/Dinner:
As I mentioned before, dinner has been different every night as I’m eating with my family, but has varied from chow mien, to cauliflower soup (sounds gross, but is really YUM! I’m probably going to make some to take back for uni) to spaghetti bolognese (minus the spaghetti).
Meal 6:
I tried something a bit different – a low carb pancake. Essentially the same as my blueberry pancakes but I subbed ground almonds for the ground oats, and left out the blueberries. It’s pretty nice!
1/2 cup egg whites
1/3 cup ground almond
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
Mix, cook, eat! I squeezed some lemon juice over them to add a bit extra and it was nice 🙂
I took a trip to the health food store (and supermarket) this morning and came back with some goodies –
Unfortunately the stores around here are no longer supplying unsweetened applesauce (go figure…) so my Mum suggested that I buy tinned apples and just mash them! I don’t have time to prepare applesauce from scratch but this process turned out pretty well! A bit chunkier but I prefer it to the sweetened applesauce. Also, I’m super excited to try out this brownie mixture – just add low fat ricotta cheese, lite sour cream, egg whites and vanilla extract!! I’ve never tried carob or hulled hemp seeds either, so I’m looking forward to experimenting with them a bit :).
Try not to let the comfort foods of winter put you off target – but at the same time, don’t be afraid to accept that your body needs a break; a week (or 2!) off gym is not going to lose you any of that hard-earned muscle.
Lift heavy, eat clean, and smile 🙂 xx
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