Food Prep

Evening all

I thought I'd share what I've spent my evening doing. In 3 weeks time I'll be landing in Cyprus for my brother's wedding so it's time to step up the diet to match the exercise and lose the pooch! I love the quote 'failing to prepare is preparing to fail' I really do think it's true. If you don't have prepare you can be tempted when you're tired in the morning to just grab food in work and after a long day a quick ready meal may be too tempting.

I'm someone who loves cooking and experimenting with food. Lately I tend to go to the supermarket on a Sunday and get my weekly must haves and then see what is reduced and decide from there what I fancy cooking.

For me my essentials for the week are:

• Spinach
• Bananas
• Low Fat Fromage Frais (this has a lot more protein that natural yoghurt)
• Milk (if I've been paid I prefer to go for Almond milk
• Eggs

I'll also grab whatever fruit and veg is on offer for the week.

My favourite thing for breakfast is overnight oats. I tend to make them in batches of two or three as it's easier. I add a handful of oats and then milk and fromage frais. I'm not the type to measure it out but if you a ramekin full of each. These can be topped with anything, I use fruit and peanut butter or add nuts and seeds too. I do also add protein powder to boost my protein intake.

This week I grabbed chicken breast. I made a rub using herbs and spices. I literally just grab random spices out of the cupboard and then fry in a teaspoon of coconut oil. I cook everything with coconut oil now. I have this for lunch then with spinach, red cabbage and cherry tomatoes. If I don't fancy salad I'll grab soup out of my freezer and usually take a boiled egg.

Also reduced this week was beef stock. I decided to make a healthy cottage pie. I fry 4 onions in garlic, salt and pepper and a tea spoon of coconut oil. To that I added 500g of extra lean mince beef and carrots. When the mince had browned I add stock and red cabbage. Whilst this is cooking down I boiled cauliflower and carrots to make mash. I tend to make my mash out of any veg and just boil it down. Swede and parsnip also work. Once it's soft I mash it up and put it over the meet mix and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Today I also made egg fried cauliflower rice. This was the easiest thing to do. Just grate the cauliflower, melt the coconut oil in a frying pan. Then add the cauliflower to it and two eggs and fry. Such a quick tasty meal. I eat this on it's own or it's great for with curries.

I also made muffins from the recipe L posted on Friday. I made mine with lemon and coconut. They are amazing. You can find L's recipe here.

I also made some red cabbage with apple. I cooked an apple in a bit of sugar and reduced it down. I just added this too boiled cabbage and will freeze it. I've got veggie sausages so think it'll be great with them and swede.

Lastly I made sourdough bread. I absolutely love peanut butter and banana on toast so prefer to make my own bread. Sourdough is made from just flour and water so it's too bad for you. I use a mix of normal and wholegrain seeded flour. I also added protein powder this week so I can tell myself it's better for me.

So that's me prepped for the week. What do you eat when trying to be healthy?

Love M

xxx

Fitness Friday: Emily Skye

Hey there, happy Fitness Friday!

A few weeks ago I wrote about my current fitness motivations and inspirations which you can read here.

One of those beautiful people was the lovely Emily Skye of the 30 Day Shred and 30 Day Ab Shred fame. You can see pictures on both of her websites of her previous clients and I hope that one day I can look as good as they do!

I bought the Ab Shred a few weeks ago and have been taking a good look at it. It costs $50 (australian dollars), which converts to £28. I bought it when she had a flash sale and so it cost me £12 which I thought was worth paying out for when I saw how much was in the package and I needed some new ideas.

In the package you get:

• 30 Day beginner Ab workout
• 30 Day advanced Gym workout
• 30 day meal plan
• Full shopping list for each week
• 60+ exercise videos all available to watch online

The meal plan is endorsed by a nutritionist and there are low carb versions available as well as bonus workouts and tips and tricks. 

Once you've paid for the plan you get an email through with your login details. You can access the program online and download it in a PDF form, and the workout videos are all in the same place. 

Not only this but there is also a forum on Facebook for you to join and chat to other members, sharing tips and tricks, asking for help and any time you need a boost of confidence.

So far I haven't stuck to it 100% as I bought it for some food inspiration more than anything else. I have my own routine that I like to stick to but the additional ab workouts have been great to add into my own routine. It was nice to see that I already do a lot of the workouts she recommends but her meal plan is one that i am completely in love with!

The meal plan is amazing, there is no way that you will ever be hungry with 3 meals and 2 snacks every day. If you made each meal as and when you need to eat it then you would probably waste a lot of time and ingredients so because of this preparation is key. Some members spend their sundays prepping food for the week which is what I do a lot of the time anyway.

I make up a huge batch of quinoa to sort me out for breakfasts and lunches for most of the week and also grill a huge pile of veggies and a few batches of muffins. One of my favourite things that is on the meal plan are the muffins, you can have cake as a snack??! WHAT THE.


Not only that you can have pancakes for breakfast, pizze for tea and the mixture for the muffins actually allows you to have 3 muffins as ONE snack. I'm in love, and I'm never hungry, never run down and never low on energy.

There are so many recipes that I'd love to share with you and might do in future. I think that if you are totally lost in your diet and fitness regime its the perfect antidote. It has structure, guidance and so many helpful tips and tricks to get you to lose those extra stubborn pounds.

I'd fully recommend this is you need the guidance and support of fellow members, Emily Skye herself also comments on lots of posts and her boyfriend can also be very helpful too with helping to fit the regime around your current life. However this plan isn't easy and requires a lot of hard work and preparation, you do need to be motivated and put the effort in and trust me you will definitely see the results!

Check the results out on the links above and you will see what i mean!
I will be taking recipe ideas and ab workout ideas from the program and adding them into my own routine over the next few weeks and fingers crossed I'll see some good results soon.


Would you buy a program like this? Do you want to see some recipes from the program that will help you blast ab fat?

Let me know what fitness programs you've been taking inspiration from recently! I always love finding new ideas and ways to stay fit and healthy.


L xxx

Fitness Fridays: Meal Prep

Hey lovelies!

Hope you're looking forward to the weekend, I'm out for a birthday meal with some friends and then spending mother's day with my mum, 2 aunties and my nan for a shopping trip, the best kind of mother's day!

This week's Fitness Friday post is dedicated to Meal Preparation.

Again, I'm no nutritionist or dietitian but I do believe I eat a healthy and balanced diet. One of the main things that my work colleagues always say to me is 'how do you make lunch like that in the morning?' 'how do you have the time?' and then rattle off excuses of like 'it's hard to keep fresh ingredients in the house' etc etc etc.

There are SO many ways you can still eat healthily and really it is a poor excuse to say that you don't have time and can't keep fresh food in the house, and I'm hoping this will show you how.

1) Make better use of your freezer. I know that most fruits and vegetables are better fresh, but you can buy bags of frozen berries for smoothies, sweetcorn and soya beans for salads, and peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc for evening meals.

There is no way you can't find room in your freezer for a variety of these bags of fruit and veg and incorporate them into meals and snacks. Apart from if you've done the next step....

2) Choose and prepare your meals in advance. 

I know those days that you don't know what you want to eat, you've had a long day and want something comforting. 

I do live at home with my parents currently (just can't seem to get away!) so I'm lucky that my mum prepares amazing food. But when I lived out I spent 1 day a week making up meals for the week and separating them into portions. I'd refrigerate some and freeze the others, taking out a meal in the morning from the freezer when I needed to. 

It's the easiest way to have some 'fast food' knowing that you only have to cook some potato, rice, pasta etc and knowing that what you're eating is healthy and nutritious. It is hard work to do it this way, but being organised is the only way I can guarantee that I won't eat rubbish and fall off the wagon.

You can buy plastic tupperware to put meals into from places like asda or Tesco, or you can have one last Chinese/Indian takeaway and keep all of the plastic pots from that ;)




3) Make use of your cupboards and have tinned food at the ready. Tinned food always has a super long use by date.
In my cupboard we have tuna, chick peas, mixed bean salad and a fair few varieties of other beans.
All of these can be added to lunches and salads and doesn't need any special treatment for storing, and if you're running low on meat, chickpeas etc can be added to pasta, chilli and casserole dishes to bulk it out with protein and make it feel more filling.



I also have plenty of pasta, rice, noodles, cous cous and quinoa (wholegrain varieties of course!) in the cupboard and these can be added to the meals that you can heat up whenever you require.

It is a pain, there's no doubt about that, but its cheaper, less wasteful and guarantees you a decent meal that's going to fill you up and satisfy your cravings and hunger without sacrificing your hard work at the gym.



4) Spare some room in your fridge with easy foods that you can grab and go. Packets of chicken, pots of cottage cheese, even babybel for an easy bit of protein. I personally rarely eat cheese from cows milk as I'm dairy intolerant but I do love feta and mozzarella on occasion. Boiled eggs can also be kept in your fridge for a good amount of time and they're easy to snack on and add to salads with tuna and chicken.



Tomatoes and bags of salad leaves and spinach are also easy to grab to add to lunches.
When I make my lunch I honestly pour in chicken or tuna, grab tomatoes and sweetcorn/soya beans from the freezer, fill the rest of the lunch box with leaves and put salt and pepper on. Lunch sorted in 2 mins flat!


Do you follow a similar sort of thing to this for your meal plans? Do you pack your lunch the night before and prepare your meals on weekends?

L xxx