Joe's Chicken Pie

Good morning everyone!

I've been trying to be a bit more adventurous with food recently - by this I mean trying out some more recipes, not suddenly eating locusts etc....

So I have seen many posts about Joe's Chicken Pie from Joe Wick's Lean in 15 recipe book and I couldn't wait any longer to try it out myself.

It really didn't disappoint!

It was pretty simple to make too, leeks, mushrooms and chicken cooked up in a pan before adding a small amount of double cream, cornflour and some chicken stock and simmering for a while.

Lastly the spinach is added and allowed to wilt into the mixture before adding into a big baking dish and adding the filo pastry sheets to the top. I've never made anything with pastry before and scrunching up the sheets was a new experience for me!

Then you simply drizzle a bit of olive oil on top and put it in the oven for 20 minutes.

The first time I ate the pie I had some parsnips and peas to use up so had those, but the ingredients make four portions so I have also had some roast veg (carrots, courgettes and peppers) and also one of the frozen bags of veg that you microwave (peas, carrots and green beans).

I really enjoyed it and I still have one portion left which I am saving for a rainy day when I feel like I need a filling meal that isn't too stodgy. I added this into My Fitness Pal and each portion was around 400 calories before adding veg, so it's easily a 500 calorie meal.

Have you tried Joe's Chicken Pie? Have you tried any other recipes from the Lean in 15 books?

There are so many I want to try but not enough time!!

L xxx

Fitness Friday: Instagram Inspiration 2

Happy Friday!

So two weeks ago I wrote a post on my favourite fitness related Instagram accounts, you can read that here. I follow a whole lot more than those so here are a few more!

This one is pretty self explanatory - beautiful female six packs.

I must admit sometimes it feels a little weird scrolling through my Instagram feed and seeing lots of half naked women on there, but it does also stop me from chomping my way through whatever I'm snacking on at the time - there's motivation all over this page!

Fitness Page For All  - this is a general fit body page, there are beautiful men to drool over, fit women to motivate you and also some funny quotes to give you a kick up the bum when you need it!

Female Physique - very similar to Female6pack, lots of beautiful bodies and more quotes to keep you motivated, even some from the wonderful Liam Neeson and strange Spongebob.

Healthy Food Advice - a great account showing all sorts of healthy recipes and drool worthy food, there are LOTS of food alternatives on this page, think healthy versions of cinnamon rolls and peanut butter cookies, along side copious meals with vegetables and lean meats. I really want to try out the two below, along with eggs baked in portobello mushrooms and zucchini parmesan crisps!

FastEasyRecipes is another very similar account to the one above, so many pancake recipes and amazing dishes like the wedges one below. They even have sushi recipes and I definitely cannot wait to scroll through them all and make a list of new things to try out!
Everything looks so colourful and enticing, it's hard to not want to eat healthy when you have dishes like this in front of you!

Lastly another girl crush, the Balanced Blonde. Not strictly always a fitness or healthy recipe poster, but she does eat a lot of beautiful food, as seen above with the fruit platter and her own homemade super food salad below looks gorgeous!
She seems to just always be having fun and living life, with a cold pressed juice in hand!

What fitness and healthy food accounts do you follow? Have you got any more suggestions for me as I am always looking for additional motivation!

Do you like the look of the recipes above? Do you follow any of the accounts already?

Let me know!

L xxx

Fitness Friday: Hazel Wallace The Food Medic - Health Happyness and Me

Hi all!

Today's Fitness Friday post is a review of Hazel Wallace's latest ebook. More commonly known as The Food Medic, Hazel is an Irish medical student studying in Cardiff and has a huge passion for food and fitness. She has her own website and blog which you can visit here (Hazel Wallace) and not only details her Sunday Service workout suggestions but also recipes and reviews of foods.

She also has her own ebook called 'Health Happyness and Me' which I purchased a few weeks ago.

It costs £10.99 and has 110 pages in total.

The ebook is full of amazing illustrations which is what attracted me to it most - I'm a sucker for a superhero theme especially when its a female one, who doesn't wish they were like Catwoman or Black Widow?! The book is full of them too, it definitely creates a positive vibe that you can most certainly do anything you put your mind to!


The ebook contains some background to Hazel's life and how she came to be so enthusiastic and passionate about fitness. After this she details how she gets motivated, her nutrition and diet myths, how to plan and prep your way through clean eating, and training. There are also a few recipes at the end of the ebook.

If you've ever seen her instagram it will be enough to motivate you to buy this ebook as she is absolutely beautiful and and her dedication to her workouts is clear.

I loved how easy this ebook was to read - it had some really great advice and would be great for anyone just starting out or someone like me who needed a few new ideas and a bit of motivation.

One thing I absolutely loved was the quotes she used within the text, there are lots of them from many people but one really stood out to me and it was one that Hazel herself created:

'Striving to succeed according to someone else's definition of success will not offer you the personal triumph that you're searching for'

This really struck a chord with me - trying to please everyone else will not make you happy nor will it help you in your own journey in life. It's something that I definitely need to make a bigger effort to do, I'm mostly happy with my life as it is and need to stop comparing myself to other people and their ideals just because they aren't the same.

This ebook was a really good read and I've come away with a few new suggestions for workouts and slight changes in my diet. I am yet to try any of the recipes as I've been away with work but they look really yummy and are clean versions of food that many people will eat.

If I'm being picky I would have liked to have seen more recipes and also a few days of workout plans. I know that she is neither a personal trainer nor a nutritionist but any more meals or workout ideas I can get to keep my body guessing and keep me motivated would be great.
She also has a lot of recipes on her blog so it seems a shame to only have a few in the ebook when they could all be in one place together. There is a separate ebook for recipes alone which I don't own and maybe all of them are in there, I just think having them all in one document makes it easier to manage, but that may just be me. Some of the meal ideas sound amazing!

I've previously bought other plans such as Emily Skye's 28 Day Shred so I guess I'm comparing the two plans but Hazel Wallace is a normal person with normal struggles just like everyone else and this makes her a lot more relatable. 

I'd definitely recommend this ebook if you're looking for some motivation and if you need some tips to help you get started on your fitness journey. It's something you can refer back to when you need some help changing an aspect of your eating or exercising and I will be using it over the next few months to make sure I'm getting the most out of my workouts,

Have you heard of Hazel Wallace or The Food Medic? Do you like reading ebooks from normal people who have a passion for fitness?

You should visit her website and try out some of her meals and workouts - the smoked paprika and chorizo burgers just sound divine!

L xxx

Fitness Friday: Houmous

Hey lovelies!

I'v definitely got that Friday feeling today and cannot wait for the weekend to begin! I've been getting into baking recently and I'm a bit of an amateur so have been picking simple things that I eat on a regular basis and trying to make them from scratch by myself rather than buying them in. This saves money and also my body from preservatives, salts, sugars and other unnecessary ingredients.

My latest venture has been to create houmous. I love eating houmous but after a quick chat with a few colleagues the amount of sugar, salt and fats in shop bought houmous surprised me and I vowed to try and make my own. I've also been trying to get more veg as opposed to fruit in my diet and this was the perfect opportunity!

My mum is a slimming world member and showed me this recipe full of simple natural ingredients and I couldn't wait to try it.

All you need is a tin of chick peas, a red pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, some lemon juice, salt, water and one calorie spray.

First you need to slice up the pepper and roast it in the oven until it's soft. After slicing it and spraying it with the one cal spray this took about 10/15 mins.

Look how lush they look! The smell in my kitchen was amazing at this point, it was hard not to tuck into it on its own as i love red peppers!

Whilst they were in the oven I got everything else ready and it's so simple!

Just add the chickpeas and crushed garlic into a mixer, along with a tablespoon of lemon juice. I'm a bit of a haphazard cook and I like to just throw things in, so I was a rebel and just squeezed half of a real lemon into the mix and hoped for the best. It was actually perfect so I was pleased it wasn't too much!

Once the red pepper has been roasted and cooled down just add it to the mix and give it a whizz...

You can add water to loosen the mixture to your desired consistency throughout the blending. Don't forget to stop it and scoop everything into the middle and make sure its mixed and blended as much as possible. Then just add salt to taste.

Super easy and create a bigger amount of houmous than you would normally buy in a pot from the supermarket. It actually created more than shown in the bowl below but I'm afraid taste testing purposed meant that I'd taken a fair few spoonfuls of it 'just to check it' by the time I remembered to take a photo....

This was seriously yummy and I could honestly never buy shop bought again!

I think I'm going to be more adventurous next time and try adding caramelised onions to the mixture or maybe more lemon. The only thing I'd change about this is possibly only use one clove of garlic and although I love garlic my work colleagues probably won't appreciate me stinking of it all day!

Definitely try this out though! do you have any houmous recipes I can try? What vegetables have you added to it?

L xxx

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Fitness Friday: Let's Eat Cake

Good afternoon!

I hope you're all excited for the impending weekend.....M has finally finished her exams so we are both going out for the first time in months!

Lots of fake tan and make up headed our way for a night of drinking and dancing and I cannot wait!

First things first though, i need to share this recipe with you. I've been changing my diet and lifestyle over the last few years and have mostly kicked the bad habits to the kerb. I no longer drink diet coke, I rarely have takeaways (in fact i made it until May 10th without one this year!) and sugary snacks I don't even think about. However.....I have an extremely large achilles heel in the form of cake.

My mum is an amazing cook and has always provided some form of cake the rest of my family. I'm talking muffins, flapjack, traybakes, loaf cakes and sponges. None of which are particularly bad for you as my mum is health conscious....but they're not exactly the nutritious snacks or desserts that I normally have.

So you can imagine my surprise and delight at finding a recipe on Emily Skye's 30 Day ab shred that produced muffins! I was over the moon and it was the first thing that I made sure I had the ingredients for. Muffins on an ab shred that genuinely works, and a quick check of the forum told me that although the ingredients made 2 snacks...it actually made around 6 muffins. 3 muffins as a snack?! It was love.


I've made them a few times since and have changed the recipe around a few times trying different things so I will share my tips and tricks with you as we go!





Firstly cover your muffin tin in coconut oil so the cake batter doesn't stick. I love coconut oil for its many health benefits and its the best one to use in all cooking and baking as its treated by the body as a carb and so is burned off rather than stored. I've previously written a post about it here.

Secondly, get all your dried ingredients together:




This was one of my many batches so I've cheated here and varied it from the original recipe. you'll need 1.5 cups of almond meal, 1-2 tablespoons of stevia and 2 scoops of protein powder.

I ran out of almond meal so have been using quinoa flour and oatmeal for a similar effect. Quinoa flour has also been amazing because its gluten/fat/cholesterol etc etc free so would be a good substitute but generally i use whatever is available. I still can't find stevia so have been using demerara sugar; i know its not as good as stevia but it's better than refined sugar!

Mix all of these together in a bowl with a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.



My protein powder is also chocolate flavoured....my unflavoured hasn't turned up yet but I figured it was only going to help the taste!

Next up you need to crack the two eggs into a bowl and whisk them together before adding to the mixture with a tablespoon of honey.





The original recipe is for apple and cinnamon muffins. For this you will need one apple, peeled and grated, and 1-2 tablespoons of cinnamon. The cinnamon you can add as much or as little as you like, I find 1 is enough for me but you might be a cinnamon fiend so throw in as much as you want!



I've also made coconut and cranberry muffins with the same recipe too, just substituted the cinnamon and apple for 2 tablespoons each of the dried cranberries and dessicated coconut. These taste so sweet, I love cranberries in baked goods! I'm sure there are plenty of others you can also try too, some with nuts in and other fruits would be great but try and steer clear of the chocolate....

Mix up all of the ingredients together in the bowl and hopefully you will have a fairly runny batter. I've found depending whether I've used oatmeal, almond meal or quinoa flour the mixture can be quite thick and nothing like how a normal muffin batter is.

I made them following the recipe and instructions and unfortunately ended up with some quite dry muffins that tasted fine but definitely required a cup of tea or two to wash it down with! So i would definitely recommend that you add some almond milk to the mixture to loosen it enough so that it is runny. Hopefully you'll know what i mean but as an extremely novice baker my technical terms are somewhat ridiculous!

After that simply spoon them into the tins and pop them in the over for 15 mins on Gas mark 6. As long as the tops are slightly spongey and bounce back after you give them a prod then they're done! Here's my latest double batch cooking away...





On the left are the coconut and cranberry, and on the right are the cinnamon and apple. Again, according to the meal plan I got the recipe from this make 2 servings, so three muffins for a snack! This is delightful news for me but i have managed to keep control of myself so far and have had one in the morning with my cup of tea on my work break. However on particularly hungry days i know that i can have another without any problem at all and its knowing this that makes these taste even sweeter!

I tend to make a double batch like these, pick 3/4 to keep in a container on the side of my kitchen and freeze the rest. Then when i run out I just need to take out whichever flavour I want that day and it defrosts in my lunch bag by my 11am break, perfect!

Have you tried baking without using flour before?

Almond meal is a great alternative but can be expensive for small bags. I've found quinoa flour to be better value and is still has so many health benefits.

Will you be trying these muffins? What would your recipe suggestions be?

L 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

Banana Protein Pancakes

Hey All

A double post from me today. L's being sharing some tasty healthy treats and tips lately so I thought I'd share one I did at the weekend. We are both pancake fans. I love american style fluffy pancakes covered in all sorts of treats. One weekend at L's after a night out we used some of her brothers protein pancake mix (post here) and they were amazing so I decided it was time to try and make the banana pancakes I've seen everywhere!

These literally need 2 ingredients though from L's recommendation I added a third. You need 1 ripe banana, 1 egg and I used one scoop of chocolate whey protein (you could use 1 tablespoon of oat flour - just grind oats in a food blender, or even normal flour). L had warned me the mixture was a little wet using just a banana and egg.

I was sceptical as to how good these would be as they are so basic. This weekend I decided to give them a go. They are the easiest thing to make too. All you need to do is mash up a banana (this is where having a ripe banana really helps, mine wasn't ripe enough, mashing was hard work so I used to my hands to mush it!).

To the mashed up banana crack the egg and mix.

Then add the scoop of protein powder, oat flour or normal flour. 

Mix all the ingredients well and heat oil of choice in a fry pan over a medium heat. I used coconut oil (to my South Wales bloggers the health food shop in the arcade with Wally's sells it for a bargain £6.99 for 500g!).

When the oil of choice has melted add a scoop of pancake mix. I found using my 1/3 cup measure with this mixture got me three pancakes.

I left then for about 90 seconds. You can see as the mixture starts to set. Flip over and leave for about 60 seconds and serve.

How quick and easy. They were so light, fluffy and tasty. I covered mine in peanut butter (in the same health food shop you can get 1kg of 100% peanuts peanut butter for £5.99!!) and a small amount of maple syrup. They can literally be topped with anything. I'd usually go for Greek yoghurt and berries!

Will be trying these as a healthy weekend treat. Let me know how you get on!

Love M

xxx