What I Ate Wednesday - Rosie

As I've mentioned on here before, I don't really follow a plan, I just try and eat healthily.  I try and eat as much non-processed food as possible and also try not too eat too many carbs.  At the moment I'm trying to fit in lots of protein, fruit and veg instead.

I have no idea what my daily intake would equate to in terms of Weight Watchers - would be interested to know if there's anything that would be a no go or if my day would work out as a good Weight Watchers or Slimming World day as well as being generally healthy.

Without further ado, here is yesterday's day of eating...

Breakfast

Smoothie made with strawberries, bananas, hazelnut soy milk and a spoonful of peanut butter 

Lunch

Salad with eggs, ham, salad leaves, cherry tomatoes and shallot viniagrette

Snacks

Banana and a babybel

Dinner

Bramley apple sausages (grilled), roasted asparagus and sweet potato mash

Drinks

Five mugs of green tea

Two litres of water

What do you think of my What I Ate Wednesday? I must admit I felt mega inspired by Little B's What I Ate Wednesday yesterday too, she eats so much food but it's all amazingly nutritious.  She also referenced a healthy reminder that losing weight doesn't mean not eating, it means eating better.  Something worthwhile to remember!

Running Club

Yesterday was the first day of a little initiative we've started at work - running club.  Three of us that work there are really keen on keeping fit and getting better at running so we decided that on Tuesdays at 4pm we would get into our running gear, head out of the gate and go for a jog around the beautiful surroundings of our workplace.  I must admit, we did have a laugh when my two co-runners emerged from the changing room wearing exactly the same outfit!

I've mentioned on my own blog, but probably not here, that I'm lucky enough to live by the sea and my workplace is perched up on some small cliffs near Christchurch in Dorset.  Our run took us along the seafront and round a Quay.  Dodging beachgoers and people crabbing was interesting! I wore my GPS watch (which I'm going to review at a later date on here) which tells me that we ran 2.3 miles in 26 minutes. Just a little run compared to the five mile run I'll be doing in London on Sunday - eek!

It's actually the first run I've done with other people and I found it so much fun.  It's definitely more motivating than running on your own - no-one wants to be the first to admit they need to do a little walk! Plus it's nice just to have the company - running can get a bit lonely sometimes, especially when doing longer distances.  My favourite bit? When we ran into the sea at the end to have a little paddle and soothe our aching muscles! Cold seawater is absolute heaven on hot calves and shins!  We then trotted back to our cars sans-trainers to cool them off a bit!

On Monday I ran the 3 miles home in a somewhat shabby 35 minutes.  I've been having pains in my calves and shins over the last couple of weeks so it wasn't my best run.  I definitely enjoyed having the support on the run today, even just having someone to ask me if my legs were feeling okay and give me some encouragement made a massive difference!

On a final note, if you're someone who prefers giving support rather than receiving it you could always consider a career in the fitness industry.  If that is something you'd like to explore then Focus Training do some great Personal Training Courses including those for Fitness Instructors.  What I'd really like right about now is for someone to do the Sports Massage course and come round and give my legs some attention - they are sore! (Any takers? Anyone?)

Do you like to exercise in a group or do you prefer a solo approach? Have you ever used a personal trainer?

*post contains a sponsored link

Honey Roasted Butternut Squash & Feta Salad

I'm really getting into making my lunch for work - my favourite way though, is to make something in bulk that will keep me going for a few days. I just can't get motivated to make a salad every night!

At the moment, I'm trying to be super good so I wanted to make something involving butternut squash as it's zero points. My best friend and I were brainstorming salad ideas like the cool kids we are, and we came up with this. It was amazing. It's barely a recipe, really - but it got a lot of interest on Twitter so as promised, up on WAMK it goes!

I made the squash in one go and boxed it into three portions along with a chunk of feta and a segment of lime - come lunchtime, I just grabbed a bag of rocket and dished it up. So many jealous stares at work, and rightly so - bloomin' delicious!

Honey Roasted Butternut Squash & Feta Salad

1 Butternut Squash - 0PP

200g Light Feta - 10PP

1 tbsp Honey - 4PP

1 lime

Rocket, to serve.

= 14PP / 5PP per person

Serves 3

1. Preheat the oven to 200c.
2. Pierce your butternut squash randomly all over and then put in the microwave (whole) for 3 minutes.
3. This will make your squash easier to cut and peel. Get it out the microwave, chop off the ends and peel.
4. Chop your squash into fairly small cubes and put in a big bowl.
5. Add a tablespoon of honey to the bowl of squash and use your hands to toss the squash until it's all well covered in the honey.
6. Put your squash in a roasting tin, add a liberal amount of salt and pepper and scatter over some dried rosemary if you fancy, and put in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
7. That's basically it! Serve hot or cold with a handful of salad leaves and a crumbled up chunk of feta. I used 1/3 of a 200g block, 1/4 would have been plenty.
8. Squeeze fresh lime juice over the top... and you're done! SO TASTY.

Aubergine & Halloumi Parmigiana

Welcome to day 2 of my VoucherCodes challenge! (Day one is here) I had various plans with this meal, and then totally changed my mind and went for something entirely different. But it’s really nice, and really low fat. Amazeballs.

I’m calling this Aubergine Parmigiana, but it doesn’t actually have parmesan in it, so the name is totally misleading. I personally feel that parmesan completely disintegrates when used in a bake, and other, more robust cheeses are a better bet. Plus, I had some halloumi in the fridge, and I don’t need much of an excuse to use halloumi. This recipe is incredibly low fat. Weight Watchers-wise, the only pointed thing is the cheese, and it would be tasty without. But, as you know, everything is a little better with cheese.

Okay, a LOT better.

Aubergine & Halloumi Parmigiana
3 x Aubergines - 0PP / 175cal
1 carton Passata - 0PP / 160cal
1 can of carton chopped tomatoes - 0PP / 88cal
1 onion - 0PP / 46cal
1 courgette - 0PP / 18cal
6 mushrooms - 0PP / 20cal
5 garlic cloves - 0PP / 26cal
225g light halloumi - 16PP / 549
75g low fat cheddar - 6PP / 236 cals
100g spinach - 0PP / 23cal
2 tsp artificial sweetener - 0PP / 2cal
Herbs e.g. basil, paprika
20PP / 5PP per person

Serves 4.

Calories: 578cal / 145cal per portion
WW Points: 20PP / 5PP per portion

Total cost: £9.05 (£2.26/portion)
To reduce points - Use less or no cheese.

1. Preheat the oven to 200c
2. Slice the aubergines lengthwise and then griddle a few at a time with a bit of frylight (or dry) until charred both sides. When done, place on a plate.
3. Slice the halloumi and using the same pan, griddle until browned. Set aside.
4. Cook your mushrooms, onions and courgette in a frying pan or wok with the garlic until soft.
5. Add the tomatoes, passata and sweetener and stir well.
6. Add the spinach, and put the lid on for a minute or so until it begins to wilt. Then stir into the sauce.
7. Add a healthy pinch of dried basil and of smoked paprika, if you have any and stir.
8. Leave the sauce to bubble with the lid off on a medium-high heat for 10 minutes or so. The sauce will thicken and reduce.
9. Time to assemble. Spread some of the tomato sauce into an ovenproof dish, then lay some of the aubergine slices over the top.
10. Repeat with a layer of tomato, a layer of aubergines, until everything is in the sauce (I managed three layers of tomatoes, two of aubergines)
11. Scatter the halloumi over the top and then grate the 75g of low fat cheddar over that.
12. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cheese is brown and bubbling.

This is so low that I took it into work for lunch! So tasty, and it reheats beautifully.

Mango Chicken Stirfry

Recently I was challenged by the nice people at VoucherCodes to come up with two recipes that were both low cost and low fat for their £5 under 500 calories project. I’ve again fallen into the habit of making the same things over and over, so it was good to push me out of my comfort zone and force me to try some new things!

This is my first recipe, and my second one will be up tomorrow. This recipe is something I’ve been meaning to try for ages – my best friend makes the sauce a lot and absolutely raves about it, and I found it kind of unbelievable that I’ve been doing Weight Watchers since January and haven’t made one stirfry yet – it was always my diet staple dinner!

Chicken Mango Stirfry

340g bag Lakeland frozen cooked chicken strips - 9PP / 394cal

600g Amoy Medium Straight to Wok Noodles 22PP / 828cal

Soy sauce - 1PP / 10cal

1 onion - 0PP / 46cal

1 pepper - 0PP / 16cal

6 mushrooms - 0PP / 20cal

200g spinach - 0PP / 46cal

1 knob ginger - 0PP / 5cal

5 garlic cloves - 0PP / 26cal

1-2 ripe mangoes - 0PP / 150cal

1 lime - 0PP / 16cal

Fresh coriander - 0PP / 15cal

1 small red chilli, deseeded - 0PP / 18cal

Serves 4.

Calories: 1545cal / 386cal per portion

WW Points: 32PP / 8PP per portion

Total cost: £12.67 (£3.17/portion)

To reduce points/calories - Use less noodles, less chicken.

1. Add your chicken strips to the wok along with a little water or FryLight to thaw and cook through
2. I chose to chop the strips in half with a pair of scissors to make go further, but this is optional
3. Chop up your onion, pepper and mushrooms and throw in. Pop the lid on so everything softens quickly.
4. Whilst these are cooking, prepare your sauce, Chop up your mango/mangoes into small pieces and add to a bowl
5. Grate in your ginger and crush in your garlic cloves
6. Cut the lime in half and squeeze into the bowl too
7. Add a small slug of soy sauce then chop up a healthy bunch of coriander and add
8. Chop up your chilli, ensuring all seeds are removed, and add to the bowl
9. Stir until well combined. You can also blitz this in a food processor if you’d rather.
10. Add your spinach and bean sprouts to your vegetables until the spinach wilts, then stir in the noodles.
11. When everything is well combined and soft, pour in the mango mixture and stir well.
12. Add anything you choose to taste, such as more soy sauce, sweet chilli, etc.
13. Serve with a bunch of fresh coriander!

Panache sports bra review

Sports bras are important for women who exercise, no matter what bust size you are. With any bra you need support and comfort and with exercising you need it even more. I had been using the cheapest sports bra I could find that came in my size (which happened to be from M&S) it was adequate for a low impact gym workout but I wanted to start running outdoors and not just on the pavement so I was keen to try out the sports bra by Panache which offers a little more support.

Panache is a British brand that specialises in lingerie for bigger cup sizes, and they've recently applied their fuller bust fit to sports bras. It claims to reduce bounce by 83% which is great news for runners out there. I have already written about Panache bras on my other blog and I've been a long time fan of the brand so I had high hopes for this one.

Currently, most sports bras for larger cup sizes rely on compression to reduce bounce which results in that horrid uni-boob look  Panache bras support each breast separately with under wire and a moulded cup which gives a much more flattering shape under clothes. I found the bra very comfortable, the straps are padded and there is padding along the under wire so this sits nice under your bust rather than digging in. The are three hooks on the back which give a nice, firm support and the neckline isn't too high so doesn't show under my vests and t-shirts. I also wore this bra to a sleepover and kept it on all night (worry about falling out in my sleep, lame) and it felt like I didn't have a bra on.

I can't say if the bra reduced bounce by 83% but it's the best supporting bra I own and I may purchase this in another colour. This bra would be great for those who work out and do yoga with a little cropped top on because you could wear this on its own.

Panache provided the bra for review purposes but also sent a little running kit. I'm sporting the bumbag (I'm calling it that but apparently it's a running belt), pedometer and reflective arm band in the photos above. I've always just hit the pavement with my iPod and not much else. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to running so it was great to get some kit that ensures I'm safe and hydrated when I'm out for a run.

What are you essential items for running? Have you tried the Panache sports bra?