Feeling full, fresh and fine!

It’s Tuesday today. Specifically the Tuesday after the August Bank Holiday and back to work I went. Today is also my Day 9 of the Body Coach’s 90 Day SSS Plan and I have to say time has flown by!

Despite being completely overwhelmed by the amount of food I need to eat, it has all gone swimmingly so far. Well, except for a couple of turkey and egg muffins doing their best to culture a new type of mould that is! After one big supermarket shop, which included enough tupperware to equip a small army of mums, I was ready to crack on with preparing some of my meals for the week. I spent about 5 hours last Sunday preparing meals for the coming days. Thankfully I quite enjoy cooking, but I was shocked at how many eggs I would have to eat! 9 days in and I have eaten maybe 30 or so! As friends will know, I don’t like eggs. Apparently except for when they’re in a delicious omelette that is…

#Sweaty! But don’t be distracted from all of that yummy food!

The food has been a dream. Admittedly there is a lot of it; 3 large meals and 2 snacks a day. There have been plenty of times I get to 9 or 10pm and realise I haven’t eaten one of my snacks so I’ve scoffed a protein shake. Protein shakes: I never really got on with them in my cycling days. They were always a necessity rather than something tasty. The My Protein ones however are rather tasty. I think it helps that they actually dissolve into the water rather than leaving a powdery residue on your tongue.

The exercise also hasn’t been too challenging (she says). High intensity interval training; it’s quick, creates a killer sweat and leaves me breathless and unable to speak! But I’ve generally recovered well enough. With the exception of one session where I clearly did not warm up/down properly and caused calves so tight I could not walk when I got out of bed or off of a chair!

I generally feel better on this plan. I have more energy, enjoy all of my meals (although that was never a problem). I have not missed sugar or evening snacks. Alcohol was supposed to be cut out, but having only four G&T’s over a Bank Holiday weekend is a success in my book! I also had to replace a couple of meals when i was eating out with work or friends, but I think I made (reasonably) good choices…

Two more days fully on-plan this week, but then I am off to Bingley Music Live. Three days of lots of alcohol and I imagine lots of bad fast food! I’ll do my best to make good choices, but I am just not sure if they will be available! Oh well; I’ll just commit extra hard to those HIIT sessions next week!

Right, time for bed. Up bright and early to cycle to the gym and smash out half an hour on the rowing machine. Wish me luck!

Time to get mean and lean with The Body Coach

It’s August; days should be sunny, warm and spent in the company of good friends. Instead it’s raining, miserable and autumnal. Grrr. It feels like summer has just whizzed by, and that can’t just be because the past 3 weeks have been one grey, drizzly blur. British summer eat your heart out.

I have enjoyed myself way too much over the past few months; the tightness of my jeans tells me so! I am the heaviest I have ever been and probably the most unfit. A lifestyle change is in order. One that brings meaningful exercise back into my life now I have had to give up football due to knee pain. One that allows me to continue to eat delicious, home-cooked meals. One that allows for those days where all you really want is to slob out.

After much stalking on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram I signed up to The Body Coach’s 90 Day SSS Plan. I was totally swayed by the incredible before and after pictures that people had achieved on this plan. And none of them were those false before/after ones that are merely improved with good lighting and a smile. These are serious transformations. I want that level of success.

At nearly £150 for this 3 month plan I will definitely be committed to it. I still can’t quite believe I have spent that amount of money on a personalised lifestyle plan, but if in 90 days time I’m feeling lean and mean then it will be totally worth it. So far I’ve done a food shop which looked like a week’s food for a family, not just for one person. The amount of meat, broccoli and spinach is ridiculous, but luckily I love my greens! I spent this afternoon preparing some of my meals and snacks for the coming days whilst chain-watching Parks and Recreation; multi-tasking at it’s finest.

Preview of tomorrow’s food: spinach and mushroom omelette for breakfast, two turkey “muffins” for a snack, tuna salad for lunch, ranch avocado dip and celery for another snack, a giant turkey burger with smokey sweet potato fries for dinner after I’ve played squash. Seriously, what a yummy menu! Also some vitamins and other supplements. And protein shakes! The delivery of those to the office tomorrow could be a conversation starter!

I’m excited to get going! I’m starting the first “S” of the plan: Shift. So hopefully over the coming 4 weeks I will shift a good few inches! I already know there are days when I will not stick to plan (a boozy music festival to start with), but the beauty of this plan is that it’s a lifestyle; you just jump back on board the next day.

Let me know you’re finding the plan if you’ve started it, or feel free to ask me any questions if you are thinking of joining up.

Snap back to reality

“Oh there goes gravity…”

Wait, this blog post is detouring already (like my thoughts which are now streams of Eminem lyrics)! But, I am back after two wonderful weeks in Vietnam; country number 17 in my quest to visit 30 before I’m 30. I actually landed 6 days ago, but since then I’ve been recovering from the travel and sadly smashed straight back into work. So much so that it doesn’t feel like just a week ago I was in Saigon enjoying my last evening in Vietnam!

It’s frustrating how quickly “real life” can erode the feelings of relaxation, contentment and peace which come from two weeks of travelling. The usual work stresses return, the climate you are in changes back, and you realise your time is no longer 100% your own.

The good news is, that you get to relive that holiday, once you get past the mountain of washing! You get to wax lyrical about the scenery, the food, the people. You get to share photos and anecdotes. You get to give people a small taste of your journey by sharing the gifts you purchased.

Holidays become nostalgia all too quickly in the fast-paced world we live in. But they are totally worth it.

My mission this weekend (along with catching up on real life admin) is to curate the photos from my camera, and to write the first installment describing my journey through Vietnam. In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures from my phone to tide you over and summarise my trip. Enjoy!

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life”

I stumbled across this quote by Mark Twain on Goodreads when I was browsing the other day. It’s one which really resonated with me; good friends and good books are two of the most important things in my life. Add good food and travel into the mix and I’d be as happy as a pig in mud.

“Good friends”

My friends are probably the most important thing in my life. The old adage goes “you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends” and is so true. Friends bring an extra layer of joy to every positive experience in life; they make the good things great.

Roast butternut squash with bacon and roast nut topping

Butternut squash is one of my absolute favourite vegetables. It packs such a lot of flavour in its soft, orange flesh and it pairs  well with other flavours I enjoy cooking with; garlic, tomato, coconut, cheeses.

Tonight I cooked as I tend to cook; kind of in a Ready, Steady, Cook fashion. All stack of random ingredients, inspiration and luck. No pre-planned recipe. Usually it works out well and thankfully tonight was one of those occasions!

Heaven’s a Spitfire

Woodsmoke. Barbeque. Meat. The smells that hit you as you walk into Spitfire BBQ are incredible. I visited the restaurant on Bristol’s harbourside for lunch today and was not disappointed!

The lunch menu is incredibly good value at £6.95 for a substantial main course and a soft drink. There is a good selection of options too; pulled pork bun, bbq rib ends, smoky chicken wrap and more. All come with chunky chips or salad too. The lunch menu’s not on their website, but you’ll have to take my word for it!

Today I went for the beef jaffle. “Jaffle? What is that?” I hear you cry! Well it’s a South African toastie made on the BBQ. Sandwiched between two rounds of crispy bread was a delicious mince beef and vegetable filling. It wasn’t spicy but was full of flavour and the beef was cooked to perfection. Spitfire have a few different sauces on the table, and the 10/10 hotness-rated one was a perfect accompaniment to my jaffle.

My colleagues mostly tried the pulled pork bap and were suitably impressed. Everything is cooked in an open plan kitchen where you can see hunks of meat going into the smoky BBQs in the middle. I can’t wait to go back and have the full menu. I feel a rack of ribs calling!

Let’s learn something new: Vietnamese street food

A few weeks ago I booked flights to Vietnam, which will become the 17th country I have visited and I’ll be well on my way to meeting my 30 countries before 30 target. I am so excited! My first time in Asia, my first real backpacking journey and so many things to experience! 

One of the things I am looking forward to the most is the food. Every single thing I read, every person I talk to that has been to Vietnam enthuses about the food. I can’t wait to eat pho every morning, banh mi from the street corners for lunch and whatever else I can find for dinner.

As part of my trip I want to participate in at least one traditional Vietnamese cooking course. Apparently Hoi An is a really good place to do this so I need to scope out a good half day course. Some minor preparation came this evening in Hanoi-esque humid Bristol (ha! Well it was raining and there was crazy traffic!) where I attended Little Kitchen‘s Vietnamese Street food cookery class.

My ABC of Bruges

A is for Architecture.

For me, there is nothing better than the beauty of what occurs naturally in the world; mountains, rivers, open fields. Yet, I was expecting Bruges to be a pretty city and I was not disappointed. The architecture is at times absolutely stunning. I loved the “stepped” nature of the roofs and the grand buildings on Grote Markt were very impressive.

B is for Beer.

Well, obviously. Belgium is well known for the thousands of types of beer you can drink there and I definitely tried a few of them! I enjoyed a beer tasting in my hostel on the first night, but made the mistake of not eating dinner and the effects soon went to my head! Pretty much every beer you can buy (if we exclude the awful lagers on tap) was a minimum of 7% which is what I define as a strong beer in the UK! But they were so tasty. Some of the Trappist beers made in monasteries were some of my favourites.

The Cauliflower Chronicles: Part 2

I’m off on a mini-holiday in a couple of days and so I need to eat my perishables before I leave. One of which was a cauliflower. Now I’ve previously posted about my distaste for the bland, often overcooked and lowly cauliflower. But I’m determined to keep giving it a chance, as I do with most foods I think I don’t like. It’s quite successful so far!

Yesterday I cooked a meal as if I were on Ready, Steady, Cook; a pile of ingredients that I had to make into something delicious without any plan at all! And I declare the experiment an astounding success; so much so that this meal is likely to become a staple of mine! 

The Cauliflower Chronicles: Part 1

In case you hadn’t realised: it’s January. This means its a period of time where a plethora of people commit to changing their lives. Resolutions are made and are almost as swiftly broken. I’ve not made any concrete resolutions other than to read 24 books this year; so far I’ve completed two so I’m ahead of my target! In general I enjoy cooking and like to try and eat a relatively balanced diet; often gin in one hand and chocolate in the other! I also like exploring new foods and experimenting with ingredients to make new dishes.

But, there are some foods I dislike: prawns, cucumber, celery (and so on). Cauliflower is one of those foods I think I don’t like. Unless it’s smothered in cheese of course! I think it stems back from my parents over-cooking vegetables. Is there any worse texture than putting mushy broccoli or cauliflower in your mouth? I think not.