- Some of you mentioned taking my measurements- its something I've been meaning to do for ages, so I've just taken some now!
- And some of you suggested that I need to eat more calories. I agree and disagree with this. I'm trying to stick to about 1300-1400, but I do occasionally go over this, and so I do go as low as 1200 to counteract this. My average for last week was 1380, which is pretty bang on. I try not to eat back my exercise calories, although saying that I do generally end up eating more on exercise days, purely because I have a pre workout snack to keep me going. Apart from kettlebells, I don't think I burn that many calories in my workouts, probably about 200 at an estimate. When I say I go running for 40 minutes, only about 14 minutes of that is actually running, the rest is walking! I do see where you are coming from, but I have tried eating more before, and I didn't lose anything. I think I will carry on as I'm doing for the next two weeks. I'm away on a course this week, and therefore eating in restaurants, so I know I will naturally be eating more anyway. If things don't improve, then I'll up my calories, but the problem is knowing by how much?!
- Some of you have expressed the opinion that this is probably just a blip in the journey that is weight loss, but the problem is, I've always had crappy results. In the whole of last year I think I lost about 20-22 pounds. That's less than two pounds a month! I have been wondering if there is some sort of medical reason why I find losing weight so hard, but I'm a big baby when it comes to going to the doctors.. does anyone have any experience of this?
- Gaining muscle. This is something I have considered as well, I definitely have increased the amount of muscle I have over the past couple of months. However I'm also aware how hard it is to gain muscle, and I'm sure I read the other day that, as a woman, I would be doing pretty well if I gained 5 pounds worth of muscle in a year. So even though that I know muscle growth might be slowing down my weight loss, I don't think I'm gaining pounds and pounds each month!
So I guess the plan for this week, is just carry on? Do my best with healthy eating while I'm away is the best I can do really!
Last Saturday Iestyn and I spent the day going around Bangor to do some retail therapy. I had a voucher from Christmas that I wanted to use up! We went to the health food shop, as Iestyn had gotten me a voucher as part of my Christmas present: he must know me well!
I bought Buckwheat pasta, Vegan Pesto and Chickpeas.
Pea Protein and Hemp Protein. I wanted a change from the Pulsin Whey Protein, so I got the Hemp protein, and I wanted something that would provide slower release, hence the Pea Protein. However I tried stirring some Pea Protein into my porridge, and was not impressed, and seeing as I thought it was going to be nicer than the hemp, I've been to scared to try the hemp properly after having a sniff! I'm thinking I might give Soya a chance next time, but in the mean time, I need to use this up! I'm thinking that smoothies are going to be the only way, however ideally I'd love using them in baked goods for easy portable breakfasts, so if anyone has a great recipe, point it my way!
The Beond bar was different to what I expected. When I bought the bar I thought it was a Raw chocolate bar such as the Rawr ones. However once I got home and inspected the ingredients list, and didn't see any coconut oil, but instead nuts and dates, I figured it wold be like a Nakd bar. It is pretty similar to a Nakd bar, but the middle seems to be almost bread like, and is more like a brownie if anything! Wasn't sure on the first bite, but by the time I finished the bar I was impressed! I eat one packet of the Booja Booja truffles while watching Harry Potter on Friday evening: divine! They have crunchy bits running through them.
We then went to Holland and Barret's where I bought three Trek bars: I forgot how much I love them! I love the extra protein, and that I can eat half a bar, or a full bar, depending on how much energy I need.
I also bought some Blue tortilla Chips, which I've never had before, but I haven't had a chance to test them yet! Plus Soya Mince to experiment using in burgers, but I haven't used it yet either!
We did the mistake of venturing into town without having lunch, so we stopped into Boots to take advantage of their meal deal. I had soem sort of Mexican Chicken Salad, that was honestly disappointing, but I loved the drink: Cloudy Lemonade is the best! I try and avoid fizzy drinks, but I have noticed that Boots do a nice range of different flavours of diet drinks, which makes a change from diet coke.
I also bought a packet of this Maple flavoured popcorn, which I ended up saving till mid-week, but they were perfect snacky food.
We then headed to one of the Sports shops, because I wanted to size up some running leggings. Now that I'm exercising more, I need more clothes (thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it...). I've been wanting some long leggings, but was concerned that due to the fact I'm short, they would be too long.
My suspicions were confirmed! I don't think running with rolled up leggings would be the best look?
I found these which seemed fine, if not very unflattering, however I was put of by the price tag!
I've looked on a few websites, but am yet to purchase anything. I'm going to wait and see if I get a chance to shop while in Cardiff!
That Saturday I spent what felt like forever making Homemade Falafel Burgers from a cookbook Iestyn got me for Christmas. They tasted really good, but did contain quite a lot of oil and Gram Flour, so in the end they weren't the healthiest! Plus they needed to be cooked twice! They did taste nice, quite a lot of flavour and they had a good consistency. Iestyn eat two, so they must of been good! We had them along with some sliced potatoes which Iestyn was in charge of, he sprinkled some sort of spice on them, and they were goooood!
On the Sunday I didn't get up to much except for hanging around my Dad's house, and food shopping!
I did get to go on a run, my made to measure Week 3.5! Note that I don't put make up purposely to exercise, but if its already on I won't bother taking it off as I'm lazy! This back fired on Tuesday when I set off on my run looking like this:
And returned like this:
Damn rain. Good thing it was dark!
This weekend I really haven't been up to much at all! Iestyn went to Liverpool to visit his friends, but I forgot that he was going, so I hadn't arranged anything specific, and to be honest I was in a pretty unsociable mood! Friday evening I watched Harry Potter and Black Swan, while eating Booja Booja truffles: bliss!
On Saturday I had quite a bit of a lie in, tidied my room, washed a load of clothes, went into town to buy buttons, only to realise they close early on a Saturday, went to buy some toiletries, and bought this:
Chocolate and Peanut Butter, I really couldn't resist! I enjoyed it, but the PB was super sweet, and I would prefer if the bar was a bit smaller cos 200+ calories of chocolate is more than I can handle these days!
I then went on a run! I was really cool and wore a New Moon t-shirt.
( This mirror is in my sisters room, I should really get her to clean it! Hi Beti!)
I did my Week 3.5 again, and I do think I'm ready to move on to the next week, although I might adapt it a bit and make the walking intervals slightly longer. I've just been holding back due to my knees not being 100%, and I have been running more regularly, so I don't want to increase my mileage too fast! Currently I am out for about 40 minutes, which includes a five minute warm up and a a slightly longer cool down, and I cover about 2.5 miles. However I should note that a Kit Kat Chunky was not the best pre run snack, as I had stomach cramps for the first time!
When I got in I changed into my onesie ready for an evening relaxing!
I then made some Dinner. I followed a recipie for Moroccan Fish Stew, with a few changes: I used Agave instead of honey, I added some chopped up Apricots, used half the amount of Fish, but the same amount of everything else, and made two meals out of it instead of four.
I really enjoyed this. I don't really cook much with Fish, I tend to just pop it under the grill, maybe adding some soy sauce and honey when I'm feeling adventurous. I would really like to try some more fish recipes!
Served with veg and pure spread.
Yesterday I was lucky enough to receive a parcel from Sarah! She offered to send me some Gingerbread porridge after she read I was having issues tracking some down!
It was a no brainer deciding what I was having for breakfast this morning!
Super yum! although I think I cooked mine for a bit too long, I like mine runny! I also had a chance to try out the Bear Granola, which I've never actually had before. I sprinkled it on top of an Alpro Soya Caramel Dessert, and it was good, not as sweet as I expected, which is a good thing! Not had a chance to try the green tea, but I'm looking forward to it, thanks a lot Sarah!
I better be off, I have a busy few days on a course in Cardiff, with two tiring train trips either end! I'm a bit sad that I will be missing out on yoga tomorrow, I might try doing some in the hotel room!
Whats your favourite porridge add ins?
If you had a weekend to yourself, what would you do?
What was the last film you watched?
Enjoy your week!
