Sore Knee but Good Eats

Last night I had a total emotional eating moment. I was feeling a bit low so I raided the cupboards and ate the last of my home mix muesli with some vanilla rice milk and then I had a big chunk of dark chocolate. I knew I was emotionally eating but I still couldn't help myself. I know the muesli and chocolate won't kill me but I need to try and stop this kind of 'mindless' eating before it can get out of control and become a habit again.

Seeing as I have Monday off with the bank holiday I checked the weather forecast and decided that my long distance run would be better done on Monday than today (weather should be nicer, plus I can try a new route out by running to my Parents and then get a lift home afterwards!) So this morning I got up, had a mug of warm water with lemon and a Berry Cheeky Bar to fuel up.

I then decided to do a 6 mile run incorporating a few hills. It was a great run but I started having problems with my right leg. The whole leg started aching and just didn't feel right. I stopped half way to stretch for a bit but it didn't help that much. It doesn't feel like a pulled muscle or anything, it feels more like a trapped nerve. As the days gone on its become more of a pain in the knee area and gets particuarly bad when going down stairs. I've looked in my running book and it sounds like 'runners knee' or patellofemoral pain syndrome. I'm going to spend some time later icying it and I think I'll try using a compression bandage as well as taking a couple of anti inflamatory tablets. I hope it gets sorted as I really want to run on Monday! Anyway, today I did 6.4 miles in exactly 60 minutes. Heres my spilts:

After the run I did some stretching followed by three sets of my usual abs moves. I'm now at the end of my May training plan so I'll be reviewing my progress and setting out a new one for June at some point over the weekend.

Breakfast was lush!. I mixed some natural yoghurt with vanilla whey and served it with warm mixed berries and a crumbled slice of Date, Carrot and Walnut loaf cake. I also had a mug of English Breakfast tea that really hit the spot!

I got myself sorted and then had a quick trip to the shops. I had a look around Marks and Spencers Food (my god I could eat everything in here!) to treat myself to a few yummy bits and pieces for the weekend and Boots to pick up some beauty products I'll be using over the next few weeks to get myself in shape for my holidays (more on that to come!)

Lunch was a home made egg white spelt wrap with caramelised onion hummus, turkey and spinach served with carrot and another dollop of hummus and followed with an orange.

While I was out visiting my friends and family I snacked on an apple.

I also had a couple of savory rice cakes when I got home to hold me over until dinner.

I wanted something a bit special for dinner tonight as the hubby had this mates coming over so I would be able to just cook for myself. After a bit of a think I came up with this:

Lime, Ginger and Honey Salmon Rainbow Stir Fry

• 1 Salmon fillet with the skin removed
• 1 lime
• 2 teaspoons of fresh minced ginger
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• Stir fry oil (or vegetable oil would do)
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 pack of mixed stir fry veggies or you own mix. I picked up this pack in Marks and Spencers which included tenderstem brocolli, carrot, baby corn, pak choy, chinese cabbage, red cabbage, red salad onions and sugar snap peas. 

Slice the salmon into bite size pieces and place in a bowl or container. Add 1 teaspoon of minced ginger, the juice of half the lime and a teaspoon of the honey, mix together and leave in the fridge for a few hours to marinade the salmon. When ready to cook heat a wok to a medium high heat and add a little stir fry oil. Add the marinaded salmon and stir fry until cooked through and browned on all sides. You may get some blackening of the salmon due to the honey caramelising. When the salmon has cooked remove from the pan along with any black bits and set to one side. Then turn the heat up to high, add a little more oil and stir fry the veggies. While the veggies are cooking prepare the sauce by mixing the juice of the other half of the lime, the remaining ginger and honey and the soy sauce together. When the veggies are nearly done return the salmon to the pan, and toss everything together. Pop on to your plate and then cover with the sauce.

Holy Yum! This tasted wonderful, all the flavours worked really well together, the sharpness of the lime againist the sweetness of the honey and heat from the ginger, just spot on!

Desert was some strawberry banana softserve made with some of this juice I also decided to treat myself to from Marks and Spencer!

Strawberry and Banana Softserve with antioxidant juice

• 2 frozen bananas
• 200g of fresh strawberries
• splash of vanilla rice milk
• big glug of an antioxidant mix style juice 

Pop all ingredients in a blender and blend together. Pour into bowl and either serve imediately or leave to harden a bit in the freezer.

Just look at the creaminess!

Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

I really hope that my knee gets better, I enjoy my runs so much now I would be gutted if I have to take a break from it. Send me healing vibes!

Hope your all enjoying your weekends, I guess both us in the UK and the US have long weekends ahead which is great. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, I've booked tickets for me and my two best friends to see SATC tomorrow night, I can't wait! Well I'm off to have some quality chill time, and finish that bowl of amazing softserve! x

Keep sakes and yummy eats

Last night when me and the hubby sat down to watch the last Ashes to Ashes (anyone else been watching? I was happy with the way they ended it, but I am so going to miss the Gene Genie!) I attacked my chocolate stash and had the last of my Hazelnut and Raisin Green and Blacks chocolate which was amazing. I then had 9 dates, 5 of them stuffed with a little almond. I told myself I was 'carb loading' for todays run! ;-)

I got up really early as I knew it was going to be warm today so I wanted to get out on my run as soon as possible. I fueled up with a 9 bar original.

My bloody RunKeeper App failed on me and couldn't find a GPS signal so I just gave up on it and decided to run without it. I did the same route as last week so I knew I would be covering just over 11 miles. I really enjoyed the run, my legs held up much better than last week. The two big hills towards the end were tough but I just attacked them at a nice steady pace. It did get uncomfortably hot in the last couple of miles and my water ran out so I was gagging for a drink when I got home. I calculated that I did just over 11 miles in 1hr45, thats a couple of minutes faster than last week. I think my average pace was about 9.50 a mile so I'm fairly happy with that as the mile with the hills would have slowed me down.

When I got home I stretched, showered and then made the most amazing breakfast ever!

Chocolate Protein Pancakes with Grilled Pears and Peanut Sauce

For the pancakes:
3 egg whites
1 scoop of chocolate whey powder
2 tablespoons of apple sauce
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

2 desert pears
Agave syrup or honey

For the peanut sauce:
3 heaped teaspoons of smooth peanut butter
3 tablespoons of non diary milk

Start by making the peanut sauce, mix together the peanut butter and non diary milk. I used this new coconut milk which I had seen in the shops a few times and then on Stella's blog so decided to give it ago.

Pop in a microwavable dish and nuke for a couple of minutes until the peanut butter and milk has combined into a creamy sauce. Add a splash more milk if needed.

Then wash and quarter the pears, removing the core. Mine weren't ripe yet so I microwaved them for a couple of minutes until they had softened. Place on a plate or tray and drizzle with the agave or honey and pop under a medium grill until they have slightly browned.

To make the pancakes mix all the pancake ingredients together well and spoon on to a medium hot frying pan (I use spray oil when making pancakes). When the surface starts to bubble its time to flip. This mixture made 3 medium sized pancakes. I keep the ones that have been done warm under a low grill until its all ready to plate up. Devour!

This tasted amazingly good, the peanut sauce was something really special and the pancakes were light and fluffy. I love the combination of pear and chocolate, but this would also go very well with fresh strawberries. Total foodgasm! I enjoyed these with a cup of Tea Pigs Chocolate Flake Tea, the flavours go together so well. The hubby is starting to make fun of me as he says I've started matching my flavoured teas to my meals like you would with wine! I don't care as it really does make a difference, for example my fruity Mao Feng Green tea would have totally clashed with this.

I had a lovely lazy morning and then headed through to my parents house. They had my little Nephew with them as well so it was great to see him. I just parked myself in their back garden with a pile of magazines and enjoyed the sunshine! I took a packed lunch though with me - a Mozzerella and Tomato salad made with fresh mozzerella pulled into pieces, a chopped vine tomato, cucumber, red onion, spinach leaves and a few chopped mint leaves. I also had a big bunch of red grapes.

A perfect sunny day lunch!

During the afternoon I grazed on this pile of fruit - grapes, strawberries and tangerines and then I had a lovely crunchy apple when I got home.

I stayed out in the sun for a good few hours, it kept clouding over but it was still really warm and I managed to burn my legs! I'm such an idiot, I never think that my legs will burn, I always worry more about my face and shoulders so I forgot to put sun screen on them.

For dinner I decided to try out this new tofu I picked up from Waitrose last week.

I stir fried it in oil and a little soy sauce then stir fried some veggies to go with it - brocolli, asparagus, red pepper, carrot, a little bit of courgette and some red onion, plus more soy sauce.

I decided to eat the whole block of tofu to fill me right up. It was delicious, I had a taste of it before I stir fried it and it will be perfect in salads. I'll definitely be buying more of this! For desert all I wanted was something ice cream like! I made a big bowl of chocolate raspberry sorbet.

Drinks - water, a lot of it! Green tea, chocolate flake tea, decaf tea, decaf coffee.

While I was at my parents my Mam asked me to go through a box of my old things to see what needed to be chucked out, I found some brilliant photos from a girly holiday I had to Cyprus with my best friend Charlie a few years ago. I popped these photos and some other bits and bobs I found in my Keep Sake box.

Do you have a keep sake box? What kind of things do you have in it? I keep old tickets from gigs, Airplane tickets, other holiday stuff  and old note books and journals.

This is definitely one of the things I'd try and save in a fire, it feels like so much of my life is in there!

Well, I have had a fantastic chilled out day. The weather has been amazing, and when you get weather like that in the UK you have to make the most of it! Hope you have all had a great day whatever you've been up to! x

Making up for yesterdays snackies

After yesterday's evening snack fest I was determined to have a day of clean and healthy eats. We didn't book breakfast in the hotel as it was so expensive so we decided to stop at a service station on the way home instead. As I had my snack bag with me I decided to have something small before we left to kick start my metabolism so I had a mug of green tea with an apple and a bag of Bear Tropical Crunch Granola Nibbles.

As the driver it was my choice which service station we stopped at so I made sure we stopped at one with a Marks and Spencer Food so I could have a healthy breakfast. I had a melon and grape fruit salad, a pot of natural yoghurt with some black cherry compote and a super berry smoothie.

I drank half the bottle of smoothie and saved the rest for later. This made a lovely healthy breakie.

The drive home was a long one and my legs were really sore by the time we got back, but I was determined to get my scheduled run in. I did a new route which I looped twice. The route included a couple of challenging big hills as well. I did 4.81 miles in 43.53. Heres my splits:

When I got back I did 3 sets of my usual abs exercises and some stretching.

I didn't fuel up before I went out as I thought I would probably have enough energy in me from all the carbs last night! After the run I decided to try out the carton of Vita Coco Coconut Water to rehydrate myself as it had been such a hot run. This tasted pleasant enough, but I would only really drink this again for the nutritional benefits rather than the taste.

I also made myself a plate of carrot sticks and cucumber to get some veggie goodness in me and a protein smoothie made with a scoop of chocolate whey, a frozen banana and some hazelnut and almond rice milk.

I'd never made a smoothie with just the chocolate whey, banana and milk and it tasted amazing! Just like chocolate banana ice cream and so creamy.

After that I popped to the shops to re stock the fridge and then got on with sorting a few things out round the flat as well as writing my blog post for yesterday's adventures!

For dinner I decided to try something new and make a veggie and egg mess. I stir fried some brocolli, asparagus, red pepper, courgette, mushrooms, carrot and red onion with a little garlic and then scrambled in an egg and 1 egg white. I served it with a bit of spinach and some soy sauce.

It was really good, lots of veggie goodness and some protein from the eggs. I'll be making this a lot more in the future, especially when I forget to defrost some chicken! (which I usually have in stir fries)

Desert was a smal bowl of frozen raspberries with hazelnut and almond rice milk.

Drinks - water, green tea

So I think I have successfully managed to have a day of good healthy and tasty eats to get me back on track and I feel much better for it.

Now I'm going to try and spend some time catching up on blogs and catching up on TV. I'm going to find going back to work tomorrow really hard after this lovely little break me thinks! Hope you have all had a good week so far, at least we are now over half way! x