My ever evolving diet and workout routine...

Health update and diet experimenting:

I started this blog to document my commitment to getting my health on track at the start of 2010. I had hormonal issues, IBS, dry, prone to breakout skin, poor circulation and stubborn fat around my butt and legs. I thought a vegan diet and running would be the answer, so I blogged about my commitment to this new way of life. About 8 months into this experiment, my health wasn't much better (I'd lost over 7lb though), and in fact, got worse, and I had to spend a few days in hospital because of pancreatitis. Since then, I've been experimenting. I went to see a dietician, and cut down big time of whole grain foods and pulses, and that helped the IBS for the most part, but I still had dry skin and amenorrhea. In January this year, I added yogurt, eggs and fish back and since then I've been reading a lot about paleo/primal diets and have been gradually aligning my diet along these lines. The thing is, apart from a spell of about a year when I was 19/20, I haven't eaten meat since I was 12. And meat is a big part of the primal/paleo diet...and when you give up rice, bread, wheat etc you need something to fill you up besides lots of veggies...and there's kind of only so much fish and eggs you can eat. So I'm toying with the idea of adding some organic meat in once a week, to mix things up and to up my iron intake, because despite eating brassicas every day, my intake is a little below the RDA and I had low serum ferritin diagnosed a few months back and refused to take the iron tablets. I still have amenorrhea and dry, pale skin so maybe a little iron boost might help. This is all still part of the experimenting to find something that works for me. I will say though that the most amazing transformation in my energy levels has been ditching sugar and grains. I have held on to things like brown rice and the occasional slice of bread but I haven't eaten any grain based foods for 2 weeks now and I now seem to be free of the post prandial bloat and discomfort I would get. I'm still a little constipated but I think that's because I need to ramp up my greens intake some more, but I've been doing this gradually because of my intolerance of some types of fibre. In fact, I eat more vegetables since I started eating eggs and fish than I did when I was vegan! I've also put weight back on on the scales (I'm now 125 lbs) but I'm two inches smaller around the butt than I was when I weiged 117lb!

Here are some of my recent meals:

Still eating yogurt most days: berries and quark for breakfast

Quorn pieces chilli with lots of bell peppers, topped with plain organic yogurt

Experimenting with protein powder: unflavoured whey, cocoa, peanut butter and plain yogurt, I ate some straight up, but the PB made it sickeningly rich, so I baked the rest for 20 mins and it was easier to eat:

Voila- chocolate PB protein cake. I actually find the unflavoured whey quite sweet.

After saturday's run, I breakfasted on a berry, banana and protein shake (just using water) and it was pretty good- not too sweet, thick and really voluminous! Half a banana, half a cup of berries, 30g scoop of powder and a cup of water made 3 cups of shake (that's only 2/3 of the batch in that glass)!

I had the shake because the rest of the week breakfast was usually eggs or fish: lovely but you do need to switch it up a bit.

Saturday lunch: panfried salmon, pesto and 1/2 a cabbage each(!)

So good, the salmon was a beautiful colour

For Mother' Day lunch, I made a provencale prawn stew (red onion, garlic, orange pepper, mushrooms, collards, smoked paprika, herbs de provence, tomato passata, lots of parsley and lemon juice) and fried some organic lamb steaks my Dad got half price. The prawns were a gift from one of my Dad's patients who is a fisherman. I cooked rice for my family too. I had half of one of the steaks, my

first taste of meat in four years(!)

The stew is a bit like paella without the rice.

Last night's dinner: veg omelette (an onion, 1/2 red cabbage, a huuuge courgette, 2 carrots, 6 eggs, smoked paprika and some mature goat's cheese), topped with super hot hot sauce and Quorn sausage.

Monday evening treat: glass of red wine and two squares of dark hazelnutty chocolate (plus some new paleo/primal reading).

Today's breakfast: canteloupe melon, yogurt, half a tin of salmon.

On the workout front:

I'm still a little jaded with running, but I did take MrPeskyRunner out on saturday morning for an easy prebreakfast 5k. He really struggles to have energy without a big dose of carbs so he found this tough but didn't feel too bad after it was over.

On sunday I went for a walk with my sister, and we did 10mins of on/off 30 sec hard running/walking near the end.

Other than that, I have been following Bodyrock, usually a day or two behind the schedule as I usually rest on mondays. I've been doing some weight lifting as well.

I'm off work today to go to the opticians and MrPeskyRunner is having dental work done (nothing serious). We're going to go for a nice long walk in the afternoon and then do a bodyrock workout. I did the Abs for Christmas this morning, ouch, lots of squats, but other than that, probably the 'easiest' bodyrock I've done so far (I don't know if you can really use 'easy' and 'bodyrock' in one sentence, haha). In any case, I'm up for yesterday's workout later this afternoon.

That's all for now, folks!

Helloo Vitality

I can't say for certain what it is, but I feel fantastic the last few days. Some of the possible contributing factors:

Setting up a standing workstation (instead of sitting at work)

Doing dead hangs, deep squats and couch stretches (hip flexor) after work

Bodyrock

Not running

Paleo diet (although I'm doing a pescetarian version with a little dairy still everyday)

My cravings seem to be melting away! The first day I was a bit hungry, especially in the afternoon, but my hunger seems much more normal now. I don't crave sugar/dessert after my dinner, I don't stuff breakfast into me if I wake up ravenous, but take time to drink some warm water, and then dabble in the fridge, and just eat to sate me. I started this month giving up refined sugar, and I got hooked- now I've taken it a step further, and I'm committing to a sugar *and* grain free diet for now- I think perhaps going grain free seems a bit radical but my tummy has been so well behaved this week, not a whisper of bloat, gas, discomfort. It's amazing really, that I can eat so much veg and not be full of gas!

Some recent meals:

Last night's dinner and today's lunch (today with grated raw carrot rather than kale)-quorn and pepper coconut curry

Treated myself to dessert to use up some grown rhubarb (stewed with some honey to take the bitterness off), whipped heavy cream

Breakfast- grapefruit, leftover whipped cream, tinned salmon (I ended up keeping the egg for later as I was already full)

Dinner- grated zucchini, sauteed in olive oil, topped with a beaten egg and chilli powder and left it set up in the oven, with my breakfast egg, some mature goat cheese and hot sauce

A bite of 90% choco to finish the day:)

I've been snacking on almonds, berries and the odd banana. My caloric ratios are about 50fat:27carb:23protein (I'd get the carb a bit lower if I ate a little less fruit but I'm rather attached to my breakfast fruit dose and daily banana).

My two most visited sites at the moment:

Bodyrock tv

Mark's Daily Apple

That's all for now folks! I'll keep you updated with my paleo/primal experiment and increasing my bodyrocking instead of running so much.

Pizza fuelled pacing run

Phew, I am tired today. I was back at work after two days off this week, and two last, so lots of catching up and we're short staffed. Not only that, when I got home I was determined to pace myself over 5k. I looped the park around the corner from me twice, exactly 5k and did it in 22:10min, 7:20min/mile pace and it was hard going- I stopped for a bit after the first loop just to let my heart rate drop a wee bit. Into the last kilometer I really struggled to keep the pace up, and I know I started too fast. Next time I pace, I'm going to start much slower! I used a poster tube as a substitute for a foam roller after my run as my calves felt really leaden, and they're fine now. No running tomorrow though, just some light strength training.

I did start my day well though, with a take on Ashley's choc cherry smoothie- mine was a small banana, 1/2 cup frozen cherries, 1 cup unsweetened soya milk, 1T cocoa powder and 1T oat bran.

In MrPeskyRunner's Grand National glass.

I snacked on an apple and a small slice of seeded toast with PB, and lunch was a repeat of yesterday but I hadn't as much rice left. I snacked on a PB stuffed banana in the afternoon, and tonight was a lazy Quorn fillet and a hummus topped baked potato. Oh, and half a jam doughnut...yeh, there was sugar in there. It was a treat from my boyfriend so I didn't want to be rude.

Oh, I forgot to say, we had socca pizza last night- socca baked (lots of oregano in the batter), then flipped onto a baking tray, topped with tomato passta with garlic, Quorn pieces, green pepper and cheddar cheese. Sooo goood. Even nicer with arugula and goat's cheese though.

Well, I am off to my bed!

Pacing

Good afternoon!

We have been enjoying our day off. We've spent the time tidying the house and taking advantage of the time to make lots of nutritious food. We have been doing a little experimenting with our diets and we're tracking our intake (by putting everything into NutritionData at the end of the day) for a couple of days to check for any obvious deficiencies/excesses and then tweak accordingly. I'll post about the results, but so far my Vitamin E seems to come out rather low, and we're both eating more carbs than we though, even though we're trying to eat more protein.

Today's run was to determine MrPeskyRunner's pace for the 10k we're doing in April. We ran exactly 10k in 59:50 so he is hoping to maintain this and keep his time around an hour for the race on April 10. I am still aiming for sub-45; going on last year's results, this will probably mean I'll finish in the top 20 women! I only have two proper week's of training left, the week of the race I'm just going to do a bit of aquajogging. I'll probably run another 3 times this week and 3 times next week, with plenty of pacing work and two long slows.

Today's munches:

Breakfast- banana stuffed with PB, set yogurt with oat bran and cinnamon. + coffee, obvs.

Lunch- leftover brown rice with Quorn, spinach, pepper and a few olives, a spoonful of yogurt. I mixed it all up to eat. Mr PeskyRunner had extra rice, some mango chutney and a slice of bread with sunflower spread.

Afternoon snack: low fat plain yogurt, 1/2 cup raspberries, 1 T cocoa powder. So yummy! I love cocoa powder:D I only really started eating with without sweetener this month. I'm quite happy with sugar free eating and don't think it should be too hard to keep it quite occasional in my diet. I'm going to treat myself to a bucket of ice-cream if I finish in the top 20 women on April 10 though!

I'm away to do the last of the tidying, maybe some Bodyrock (although I don't know if I can be bothered with a second shower) and then fix dinner. I'm thinking socca pizza...

First Snuffles of the Winter

I thought I'd got through all this winter without a cold! But a sore throat started on monday, hung out in my chest and now I'm a bit bunged up. I have a really chesty cough which sounds dreadful, but I haven't been feeling too awful- I've been going about my normal routine. I did find my HIIT session today a bit tougher than normal though. I haven't taken anything for it other than hot lemon water first thing in the morning, and upped my daily water intake by an extra 500ml.

After my HIIT aquajogging (15 min at my 'running effort', 15 mins of alternating 30 sec high intensity, 30 sec recovery, then another 15 min 'running effort'), I had a quick brekkie of pear, yogurt and some muesli. I then spent the morning tidying up and trying to get my wireless router sorted! I didn't actually manage to get it sorted until this evening. After my toings and froings I stepped out into the lovely day to meet up with my friend. We had lunch her parents then spent the afternoon hanging out at a coffee shop. The only thing was, by the time we were leaving, the streets were teeming with gangs of drunken people! It was actually a little scary...but I got home ok!

I had some veggie sausages and stirfry for dinner, before I broke out the sweet potato 'brownies'. They are very moist, so much so that I don't think they'll keep very long. Not going to be a problem, since I've already eaten half the batch:D

With some pear and set yogurt tonight.

Last night I made Gena's lovely foolproof tofu burgers for dinner- I love coating them in oats. I also add a good handful into the mix. This version was simply a block of tofu, leftover grated carrot and pepper, curry powder and oats. I didn't bother with tahini, nooch or soy sauce this time, and they were lovely just as they were:) I ate mine with crispy socca and a heap of spinach.

I am really enjoying eating less sugar. I prefer my own simple treats:) I intend to keep this diet 'challenge' going after March (although that was always the long term intention) and introduce a few more little tweaks next month. This will mostly centre around coordinating my workouts and meals to get into really good shape (I want to decrease BF and increase my lean mass).

Back to work tomorrow, but only for a day, then I'm off again until next wednesday! Just what I need to get well again.

Healthy Baking and Craving Busters

Although I am doing a sugar free month, straight up sugar has no appeal to me, so sweets/candies aren't something I've tried to find a healthy solution for, I normally go for fruit or dried fruit when I need a 'kick'.

What I do love, though, is cake. Mmm, mm! Especially warm. The thing is, cake is basically sugar, other refined carbs and (usually saturated, or worse, trans) fat. The fat+refined carb combo is impossible to resist for a lot of people, and I am one of them! So when I want a treat, I want cake, but I want it healthy.

Here's what I've found:

• You won't miss sugar if there's plenty of flavour going on; think vanilla extract, citrus juices/zests, peppermint or other extracts, coffee, coconut, fruit, COCOA!
• You can add bulk and sweetness with fruit- notably apple and banana, but also coconut (as flour, or you can mill shredded stuff a bit finer, half way to homemade coconut butter), squash and sweet potato.
• 
• Nuts are a good sub for flour too- ground almonds or even other nuts. It's usually easier to chop the nuts up a bit first, then add to the food processor, unless you've got a Vitamix.
• Plenty of fibre will replace the satiety you would have got from the fat- oats, oat bran, nuts again, coconut, and any of the carby fruits or vegetables mentioned above (banana, sweet potato).
• Cocoa powder in baked goods is so rich and flavourful, I find when baked there's no real need for chocolate chips.
• Eggs and protein powder are another great way to add satiety and body to sugar free/refined carb free desserts.

Of course, if you have no time to bake, look no further than the humble banana when you are desperate for a fix:

Stuffed with PB, this simple combo constantly amazes me with its tastiness and craving quashing superpowers.

Banana softserve for ice-cream cravings (pink variety pictured, but I know other people have found it good with nut butter, coconut and cocoa)

What if you don't like banana?

A really lovely apple with PB or just straight up is a good way to hold off cravings.

If it has to be warm, a small bowl of oat bran or oatmeal is a great way to snack if you are peckish before bedtime, right Heather?

Not to everyone's tastes, but I find strained yogurt or cottage cheese a very filling and satisfying treat. Especially with a teaspoon of cocoa powder and/or a sliced banana.

And of course, last but not least, you can't beat a smoothie. Try adding guar and xanthan gums for a creamier drink.

Recipes to try:

Dainty Pig's Rice Cooker Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Pure2Raw's Lemon Coconut Bars

A Spoonful of Sugar Free's Grain Free Bitter Chocolate Cake

I doubled the recipe as I had a whole sweet potato and two eggs to use, I add a teaspoon of orange extract.

Look at the lovely silky batter:

Before going into the oven:

After:

One little cake:

Chocolate Covered Katie's High Protein Chocolate Cake

Thyme Bombe's Raw Vegan Orange Pistachio Bars

Chiliflake's WILD Blueberry Chocolate Cake

Heather Eats Almond Butter's Compendium of Sugar Free Chocolate Delights

My low sugar rhubarb crumble (contains honey)

I am off today, woohoo! And again tomorrow for St Patrick's Day. I'm waiting for my dip station to be delivered then it's out into the lovely clear sunny day for a run.

I made 'nutella' for my oatbran this morning (1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts, 1 T coconut oil, 1/4 cup cocoa, splash of hazelnut liquer). Much better than the original, although it could have done with more coconut or hazelnut oil as it's a bit thick. But it has a wonderful intense flavour. Actually it was a bit rich for me, even at 9:30 in the morning. My boyfriend loved it on toast though:)

Today I learned...

...that hand whisking socca batter after Bodyrock and then another 40 min of weights is not very easy! I gave up and got out the stick blender, haha.

I threw a handful of oats into the socca batter to give it a bit more body and a little sweetness.

Topped with a heap of spinach, chopped wheaty sausages and very spicey passata, yum!

I did the You Push Me workout, with the beginner variation for the reptile push up and I did knee raises holding the couch and the radiator while I wait for my dip station to arrive, excited! Yes, I ordered a pull up bar, dip station and Gymboss! When I was doing this workout, the clock I had propped up on the mantelpiece fell over and broke...can't wait for my Gymboss to make Bodyrockin' easier and I can't wait to use it for HIIT running and aquajogging (in a waterproof case of course). The workout was great, tough but not impossible with the variations. My left arm is a lot weaker than my right so I find full push ups impossible. I am doing more reps on the left arm when I lift to try and equalise things. After a 5 minute cool down, I did stability ball chest flies, LOADS of sit ups, stability ball push ups, bicep curls and lunges and squats with the dumbells, as well as mixing it up with high knees and sumo squats, about 40 mins of that. Swwwweatee!

The no sugar challenge is going well, banana stuffed with PB is my saviour snack when I'm craving something sweet!

Other sugar free desserts:

Toast topped with cocoa powder blended with PB:

Fage yogurt, banana and cocoa powder:

I am loving cocoa powder right now:)

I had this yummy breakfast at the weekend:

Sugar free cereal soaked in OJ, a clementine, a banana and a heap of set yogurt. *Love* banana+orange.

I will be a better blogger with week because I'm off tomorrow and thursday. I intend to bake grain free bitter chocolate cake with a sweet potato I baked on sunday night and also the Twins Lemon Coconut bar.

Sugar free sweet potato muffins

1 very large or 2 medium sweet potatoes, baked, peeled and pureed

2 eggs

1/3 cup plain yogurt

Blend. Then:

1 cup flour of your choice (wholemeal self raising for me although you could use buckwheat, oat flour, almond meal etc)

1 tsp baking powder if your flour has no raising agents

1 tbsp butter/vegan margarine/coconut oil/sunflower oil

3 tsp mixed spice (I used Steenberg's pumpkin pie spice)

Rub the fat into the flour and spice. Then add in the sweet potato mixture.

1/3 cup dried fruit (I used chopped dried figs)

Mix into the batter, I added a handful of rolled oats at this stage too.

Spoon into a greased muffin tray and bake at 180C for 25 minutes.

Very yucky dark photo of the muffins. I put 6 in a box and froze the other four.

Note the week's supply of bananas (15!) and my drink stash in the background (Calvados and Frangelico, so yummy)

Today's frozen berry/yogurt/muesli mess aka breakfast:

Dinner: wakame brown rice noodles, Quorn pieces, savoy cabbage, creme fraiche, garlic, onion, thyme and smoked paprika

Lunch was Ashley's mayo-less egg salad with mixed leaves and I snacked on bananas, apple and an oat/apricot bar.

Two observations:

I am in a breakfast rut. I'm ditching yogurt and muesli for the next few mornings. Smoothies perhaps? I am soaking oatbran overnight for tomorrow.

I am using Quorn too much, it's so damn easy to prepare as it can go from freezer to pan to table in about 15 minutes- since I started buying it again my boyfriend won't eat lentil/nut burgers and he won't eat fish so I am a bit stuck for dense protein that suits us both. I am avoiding pulses because they definitely trigger my IBS:( I have some tofu in the fridge that I will have to do something interesting with.

Are you making pancakes tomorrow? I will probably make a plain batch so we can customise to our tastes- I am thinking banana and coconut for moi, MrPeskyRunner will definitely be having sugar in some shape or form.

Sugar free rhubarb crumble

Today I made some sugarless dessert!

I cooked the first batch of homegrown rhubarb in orange juice and added some golden raisins. On its own, rhubarb would be just too tart, even for my tastes. I stewed 6 stalks of rhubarb with a 1/3 cup each of raisins and orange juice, approximately. I only used some of it for me, I made a standard white flour and sugar crumble for my family.

I topped mine with a mix of a handful each of rolled oats and sugar free nutty muesli and rubbed in a tablespoon of butter.

Look at the cute ramekin I found in my mum's kitchen! It's a Le Creuset one. That's before it went in the oven.

I certainly worked up an appetite for dessert- after a bowl of Fage yogurt and grapefruit, I let it settle, then busted out my fastest 6 mile run (that I've timed anyway)- in 44 minutes (7:18min/mile). It started off really hard, then I checked my watch about a quarter of the way into my return leg and I knew I was doing pretty well, so I just gave it my all. I had a short stops to wait for traffic, adjust my ipod, that sort of thing so hopefully I can knock another minute or two off for my 10k in April. At least I know now I don't have any more work to do to sub-45 min in the race, just keep doing what I'm doing! I know I'll be tempted to try and better it, but I'm not going to be silly and get myself injured.

About an hour after coming back from my run I was pretty hungry so grabbed a small banana and spread it with some peanut butter. So delicious, my fave snack besides a Fage yogurt. I snacked again an hour later on some crackers and cheese before having my crumble with some whipped cream with a little vanilla extract.

A couple of hours later I got peckish again and had cheese and salad on toast and two oatcakes topped with peanut butter and a square of 90% chocolate split between them.

I had the oven on baking a giant sweet potato so I stuck my oatcakes in to melt the chocolate for a minute, mmm. So much better when it melts.

Off to my bed to get a good night's sleep before another busy week kicks off...