These last 2 weeks I've been trying to get used to my clean lifestyle. It's not easy - especially the exercise part because with my commute to work I have a lot less time on my hands. Silver lining is that if I can pick up the good habits now, life can't get much busier...for now anyway!
Sunday has been transformed to food prep day once again, I've signed up to a gym (although so far I've made solid use of the steam rooms and not much else), I'm eating lots of delicious and nutritious foods once again and I'm already starting to feel better about myself.
(Vegan chilli ingredients which I had for lunch last week with some brown rice)
Last year I took wheatgrass powder most days but decided to up the content with this beauty which contains spirinula, barley grass, chlorella and wheat grass. I've read about and watched documentaries which argue that most peoples diets are acidic and that having our bodies in this acidic state makes them prone to cancer. (If you're interested in such things you can watch TED talks 'chew on this' which is available on netflix but also probably YouTube). I was watching one on my iPad and print screened this graph which I found to be pretty shocking.
Acid forming foods tend to be processed foods but also meat, oats, nuts and other nutritional foods can be acid forming. Most leafy greens are strong alkaline forming foods - unfortunately I don't much like leafy greens but will happily endure 10 seconds a day of drinking this. Super greens can count towards your 5 a day as well as stablise the acidic levels in your body.
So. I've been making some delicious smoothies with all my new goodies. This weekend I had a favourite of mine: banana chocolate shake
Last week I discovered alpro hazelnut milk. And my god it's delicious.
I really don't know why I didn't try it sooner! It goes perfectly with cacao, it's like drinking chocolate milk but without all of the nasties.
Ingredients
250ml hazelnut milk
1 banana
1 tsp of organic raw cacao
2 tsps heaped pea protein
Hulled hemp seeds to sprinkle on top
Blend, and enjoy!
I like having smoothies like this for breakfast as I do have a sweet tooth and it's pretty good at curbing cravings. But then, so are pancakes!
Coconut & Banana pancakes
I LOVE these 😍😍😍 AND they're easier to make than real pancakes.
Ingredients
1 egg
1/2 banana
A little desiccated coconut
Coconut oil (to cook)
To make these I simply mash the banana with a fork, then crack in the egg and whisk together with a fork. Chuck in a bit of desiccated coconut, I only ever use about a tablespoon, if that. Mix it in and then get your pan ready with a little coconut oil. Pour in the pancakes to the size you want them, let cook on a medium heat, then carefully flip over. These are not easy to flip!
In this case I saved the other half of the banana to eat on the side and drizzled over a teeny bit of maple syrup.
One of the best things about getting back into clean eating is that my boyfriend has started experimenting with it too. We'll both be whipping these up at the weekends - only he has modified his pancakes to be higher in protein, they're so delicious...
Dans protein pancakes
Ingredients
1 banana
2 eggs
1 tbsp peanut butter
Lemon juice to taste (optional)
Greek yoghurt to serve
Blend the banana, eggs, peanut butter in a blender until smooth. Add lemon juice if desired and cook as above. Serve with Greek yoghurt.
We both put the coconut flour to use and experimented with some protein cookies. He recently pointed me in the direction of protein pow which is an amazing website! I can't wait to get making some of their protein bars. Mmm...
Making protein cookies, yum!
I only tried half of one of these because I'm not doing enough at the gym to warrant eating these bad boys. Check out the nutritional content and ingredients here: http://proteinpow.com/2013/12/santas-chocolate-chip-protein-cookies.html
As these are too much for me right now I experimented with making my own snack.
Salt & vinegar nuts
I usually prefer to eat sweet things but sometimes savery calls and when it does, these hit the spot! I'm sure you can probably buy these but I wanted to know the only ingredients were those I chose to put in!
Ingredients
3/4 cups nuts of your choice
1 cup white wine vinegar
Salt
I used cashews and almonds. Start by putting the vinegar and nuts in a pot and let them boil for about 20 minutes (unless your vinegar evaporates quicker than this, keep an eye on it). Then turn the heat off, cover the pot with a lid and leave them to infuse for a couple of hours. Then drain the nuts and place them on a baking sheet, sprinkle with sea salt and stick them in the oven. I baked mine at around 200' and it really didn't take long before they started to brown up. Again, use your judgement.
At the moment I'm really enjoying not worrying about quantities or macros. I'm just easing myself back into clean eating and getting to the gym. I'm considering embarking on a pretty strict 12 week plan which I may start in march so am making the most of having fun in the kitchen now!
And that means eating all the fruit I want and not giving a damn!
So lastly I present to you my new favourite ever smoothie.
Strawberry cheesecake smoothie
Ingredients
1 banana
1 small handful strawberries & raspberries
250ml almond milk
0.5 tbsp almond butter
1 heaped tsp pea protein powder
1 tsps chia seeds
Cacao nibs to serve
Blend everything together and sprinkle over cacao nibs for a little crunch! I put all the ingredients together the night before the first time I made this (berries, almond butter, protein and chia seeds) and I think this made a difference to the taste somehow. Regardless, it's delicious!
I'm having a lot of fun getting back into this and am so excited to get set up properly at the gym. At the moment I'm struggling to decide what my actual goal is which a massive error on my part. That's my task for this week! Pick a goal and plan how I'm going to get there.
Wish me luck!
Minnie
Xxx
