Overcoming tiredness

I am utterly knackered! Our fifth day in Mexico City and I purposefully didn't book us any tours today which meant we could sleep in and have a really chilled morning without any pressure.

Unfortunately the day didn't start off that we'll as I burst into tears on my boyfriend after having a shower, seeing my reflection in the mirror and realising that in a few months, it will change and I'll get bigger. It might be totally shallow and selfish,  but I don't want to get bigger - I'm really trying hard to be healthy and lose weight and obviously being pregnant won't exactly help with that. Cue me hysterically crying, asking him if he will still find me attractive when I'm bigger....

Thankfully, he knew exactly what to say and suggested that we find a personal trainer who specialises in supporting pregnant women - I may not be able to lose weight per se, but doing exercise throughout and eating healthy means I'm still working towards my goal but not 'dieting' or putting anything at risk.

After I stopped resembling a red faced puff-ball, we headed out and found a lovely cafe for breakfast - A bowl of fruit, yoghurt and granola later and I felt tons  better. We decided to go to the big shopping centre nearby and do a general bit of 'mooching'.

The shopping centre was huge and in the shop called 'Liverpool' (In the UK, think John Lewis / Peter Jones) there was the most amazing sweet section I've ever seen. I managed to buy lots of presents for people but not get anything for myself - Not bad going considering how amazing the chocolate section looked!

We stopped for a cup of tea and headed back after that - It was only 1.30pm but I was knackered! We decided on a local Japanese restaurant for lunch but ordered way too much food as the portion sizes were about 4 times the size of that in the UK - The vegetable tempura plate, whilst being absolutely delicious, was huge! In the end, I didn't finish anything as I was feeling uncomfortably full.

We went back to the hotel and I just wanted to sleep - A feeling of worry came over me as I wasn't sure if I felt tired because of the fact I'd just eaten food, my sleep pattern still isn't great or because I'm growing something inside of me - a lot of women say they are incredibly tired in their first trimester and my body changing and feeling different things just scares me.

So, after I browsed the Internet for a bit, my Boyfriend and I decided to go for a walk around the local area... we grabbed a drink from the local Starbucks and aimed in a general direction. We found a random department store and spent a good 45 minutes just browsing through and finding it funny that all the Christmas decorations were already on display. It's now 18.40ish and I'm back in the hotel not feeling too bad - I think fresh air helped a lot.

An added bonus is I've walked for over 90 minutes today and done over 10k steps so my target has been achieved :-)

Mexico City

Very short blog as having to use my phone for blogging! Finally made it to Mexico City despite a rather horrendous day of jet lag. 

Upgraded meal on BA flight (paid £16 each to do so) wasn't bad, however there wasn't really any healthy option per se.

Breakfast this morning was yoghurt found in a nearby Starbucks and a cup of very milky tea. Lunch was eaten in the National Anthropology museum which was absolutely amazing to walk round. When I ordered food it was all in Spanish so wasn't totally sure what I was getting.  Turned out to be cheese, chorizo and mushrooms with mini tortilla wraps.

After that, we walked round Chapultec castle and then headed to the zoo. Over 6 hours of walking and 25k of steps.. absolutely knackered!

Emotions wise, I still seem to be up and down,  however this is quite a nerve wracking time for me as I keep worrying about miscarriage and the fact I'm abroad. Jet lag doesn't help maters anyway! 

Mexico seems to be an amazing place - Lots of different food to try. Bought some weird looking things that turned out to be giant quavers just without the cheese. I had one, my boyfriend had the rest :-)

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Healthy bolognese with sweet potato and courgette pasta

I'm loving my spiraliser

Tuesday already so today was another working from home day. I seem to be able to easily get up a good hour before I need to log on and start working, so I've been taking advantage of this time and going food shopping. Today, I wanted to try out my new spiraliser that I had bought from Amazon. I decided to buy the Cuisique Premium Spiralizer as it wasn't too expensive (less than £30) and seemed to get really good reviews on Amazon. As such, food shopping mostly consisted of ingredients for tonights meal.

Work went really well and by 10:30 I was quite chuffed at how much I'd actually done in terms of productivity and supporting other people - Not bad considering this is just the start of week 3! Breakfast was a banana and a malt loaf and as I'd got through another loaf, I bought another orange one to ensure I have the 3 different types :-) I think in terms of which one I prefer - I certainly like the 'Fruity five one' the most as it contains cinnamon which I love. It's the least squidgy and the most dry, but I prefer the taste. Then the orange one which is the most 'moist' and sadly, the original one is probably my least favourite but certainly still tasty. I think I might change my breakfast after I get through these three... so I've probably got another 1.5 weeks of malt loaf 'fun' and then I'll find something else to eat.

I wanted a really nice tasting dinner, so decided to actually make my bolognese sauce at lunch time so that it could really 'stew' and the flavours develop (God, kill me now... middle aged MasterChef type!). I think most people know how to make bolognese - I certainly don't usually follow a recipe and just chuck the same things together that I did as a student, plus a small bottle of red wine which I think I added after reading the bolognese recipe from the Hairy Bikers.

Bolognese recipe

500g lean beef mince

2 chopped carrots

1 white onion

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

small bottle of red wine

2 chopped garlic cloves

small pinch of oregano

1 squeeze of tomato puree

Whilst that was all well and good, it was the courgette and sweet potato pasta that I was the most interested in trying - I'm not overly keen on either courgette or aubergine, but I'm certainly coming around to them, as I love sweet potato, I thought I would combine the two and get a really colourful plate!

I managed to use the instructions to work out what I was supposed to do - I think the main learning curve was the fact you can fit the blades in different ways to ensure the spikes of the handle were directly under some of the spikes on the plastic blade.

Then came the fun part! spiralising! :-) As I was doing courgette and sweet potato spirals, I needed to get this courgette into a suitable state to be spiralised...

The instructions told me that I wasn't supposed to put things in that were overly tall, so I decided to chop the courgette up, into 3 pieces..

I was actually quite surprised as to how easy it 'stuck' to the spikes 

I didn't even need to press really hard and at once, I started seeing things happen - One thing I did realise, it wasn't really 'spirals' as more 'half moon' shapes to begin with. I think that was because I had quite a thin ended courgette. 

This was all I had left over after my first attempt - I guess the handle doesn't go all the way down as you'd have spikes on the handle, clashing with the spikes on the blade. So if you've not spiralised before, make sure you have slightly more of the ingredient you want to use as you'll have to throw some bits away.. 

Hey presto! Courgette pasta! I was dead chuffed that I was able to do this on my first ever attempt. 

Next came the sweet potato... 

Getting more confident, I decided 'what the hell?' and stuck the whole thing in as it was quite a small sweet potato in the grand scheme of things :-)

Believe it or not, the sweet potato worked really, really well - check out my spirals! :-)

As I'd never done this before I wasn't entirely sure how long to cook things for, however my Boyfriend suggested we continue to eat bits and work out when they were 'done'.. in the end it took about 8 minutes for them both to be cooked.

And here we have it... this is what we got from one courgette and one small(ish) sweet potato.

So how did it taste? BLOODY AMAZING! I think we were both chuffed at how well it turned out and I'm certainly going to try another recipe tomorrow night. If I can give any advice to spiraliser virgins, it would be to ensure you get all the water off the vegetable spirals before serving. By the time we sat down to eat, there was quite a lot of water at the bottom of our bowls and whilst that didn't stop it tasting brilliant, I think it would be better if it wasn't there - so maybe dry the spirals briefly with some kitchen paper or potentially just drain them better than I did.

Either way... What a fantastic way to be healthy :-)

Healthy fish and chips with only 5 ingredients

I love this recipe

I love fish and chips, however I'm not overly keen on the greasiness, nor what it does for my waist line so I developed a healthier version. It's incredibly simple and as I can be pretty lazy and impatient in the kitchen, works for me really well!

Your five ingredients

And here we go!

1. Cod (or whatever fish you want)

2. A sweet potato (1 per person)

3. A tin of mushy peas (I will eat the whole tin, but depends how much you like them)

4. Olive oil

5. Cajun spice

Preheat oven to about 200c fan / 220c normal oven

1. Peel and chop the sweet potato into chips - You can do wedges, you can do whatever you want, however I've found chips about this size, take about 40 mins in the oven so make sure you know how long they take to cook! 

2. Place chips on baking tray, drizzle a tablespoon of oil... coat the chips in oil and then sprinke approx 2 tablespoons of Cajun spice on the chips. You can do more, you can do less, I'm not keen on spicy things, however this spice really doesn't seem to have a lot of kick in it. If you wanted them plain, then that's cool.. or maybe even try a different spice?

3. Chuck chips in oven for 20 mins.

4. Grab some silver foil (you don't need to do it this way, but I prefer it) and brush some oil on the foil. Place fish in the middle of the foil and close - I tend to make it like a giant silver pasty.. but you can cook the fish how you wish... I just prefer steaming it in the oven in its own juices.

5. After 20 mins, check on the chips and turn them over... (else one side cooks more than the other) 

6. After another 5 minutes place fish in oven

7. After another 15 minutes (so 40 for the chips, 15 minutes for the fish) check on both... they should be ready!

8. Quickly zap the peas in the microwave (if you have a microwave, I'm backward.. so don't!) for a few minutes whilst you're dishing up the rest of the food... and voila!

AWESOME TASTING FISH AND CHIPS :-)

As I'm not a food technician or nutritionist, I'm not entirely sure how many of your five a day this covers, however I'm guessing it's two.... one with the sweet potato and one for the peas? Also.. you've got fish which is low in fat and really good on the protein front, so I think you're hitting a lot of the 'good' foods when you shove this into your gob!

Home made Fajitas

Bank Holiday Weekend Excitement!!!!

2 weeks down already in my new job and I'm loving it. Fridays seem to be so relaxed and as there are very few people in the office, it's really chilled and just... nice, really. My Team seem lovely (Not 'my' team.. just the people I work with, all of whom seem to be older and more experienced than me!) they're very inclusive and seem to just want to do a good job which is a massive breath of fresh air. 

Today started off well as I checked my bank balance and I've been paid my final salary from my old job and also 2 weeks from my new job. This is great as I was very broke last week... I spent way too much when I was gallivanting around the countryside on my month off. Breakfast today was slightly different - as I mentioned before, the bananas I bought yesterday are too green to eat yet, so I had some malt loaf and some prunes. It didn't look overly pleasant, however did taste a lot nicer than it looked. 

Work went pretty well - I've been getting on with quite a few things now and there's definitely enough to keep me busy, which I appreciate. I was actually quite shocked when I looked at the time and realised it was near lunch time. For lunch, I went with one of my team to the canteen and found out that he also does wedding photography (I used to do it... I don't any more) so we spent a good 30 minutes 'nerding out' about cameras... lenses etc. It was really nice to find common ground with him and the photos he's taken of his wife and kids are just absolutely lovely. I had another salad for lunch which was really quite filling - I think I chose pretty healthy.. chicken.. one boiled egg, only a small finger slice of cheese and a lot of chickpeas etc.. I'm not going to lie - I was quite jealous of my colleagues fish, curly fries and beans... but hey :-)

I left ever so slightly early today - 4:50pm.. and the difference 10 minutes made to my journey was amazing. I got back over 30 minutes earlier and am now in my jeans and T shirt, already chilling. Tonight's food will be home made Fajitas. I was going to buy one of those Fajitas kits, however I'm not keen on the salsa as it comes in a packet and isn't overly great, so I thought I'd make use of the peppers I already had in the fridge and the fact I have some Fajita spice I bought ages ago and never used. Added to the fact I already had some grated cheese in the fridge and really, I only had to buy some wraps (which can be used for other things, tomorrow), some chicken and some salsa and we're onto a winner!

I've not done it yet, however I will get cracking after I finish this blog. I've got quite a busy weekend planned - Tomorrow I've got my major hair appointment (where I get it chemically straightened) and then I'm seeing my gastric bypass friend. Sunday I'm off to London and Monday I think I'll try and find a really nice place to do a long walk which doesn't sound very busy, but knowing me, I'll find God knows how many things to fit in. My boyfriend is at a 3 day LAN gaming event in Milton Keynes so I won't be seeing him until Tuesday. I have to say, it's weird... we've been together a while but I don't think we've ever been as close or I've been so happy and content - I'm so excited about buying a house with him next year, getting Persian cats and of course, (potentially) having a family.

.. Which technically could happen this month, but I have to wait and see if Aunt Flo will pay me a visit...  :-)

There's a lot of love in the air

I'm loving a lot of things in life at the moment.

Breakfast: Fruit salad
Lunch: Raw pepper, tomatoes and cucumber with Houmous
Dinner: ??????
Snack: 2 slices of malt loaf

I loved the small packet of Maltesers I had yesterday - I genuinely savoured them and oddly, I felt really full after eating them which is certainly different to how I used to be. I could easily eat a 'Family sized' bag which was about 4-5 times the size of a normal portion and eat more afterwards, in fact I thought nothing of eating an entire dinner and then 'snacking' on a large Family sized bag an hour or so afterwards. I enjoyed them, I really did. It won't be a daily thing, not even a weekly thing, but if I want another bag next week... then I need to stop feeling so guilty about it.

So yes, I loved the Maltesers yesterday, I also loved my dinner. I haven't had Turkey in any shape or form since Christmas day, however I saw the 'Paprika turkey breast steaks' and thought they sounded OK, so bought a packet. I cooked both last night and gave one to my Boyfriend when he came round as he's on his Atkins-esque diet so can eat meat. I had my steak with baby roast potatoes and a lot of steamed veg. I thought it would taste OK, it tasted better than OK, it tasted absolutely gorgeous. I'm not keen on hot / spicy things, but it wasn't spicy at all, it was very nice and incredibly filling. As Turkey is even more healthy than chicken, I'd certainly recommend trying turkey, especially if it's marinated in something interesting.

I'll definitely be buying more turkey in the near future - I'm not sure it would go in a salad, but there's only one way to find out! So yes... I've currently got a lot of love for turkey as well as Maltesers.

Breakfast this morning was por... aha! No, it wasn't :-) It wasn't my obligatory porridge at all, it was an amazing fruit salad that I made myself after nipping to Sainsburys with my Boyfriend last night. He wanted to get a bulb from Halfords and as we were out and about, I suggested we nip into the supermarket quickly. As I'm working from home today, I decided I wanted something different to porridge, so thought I'd make a fantastic looking fruit salad. It tasted amazing, however I think if I were to eat it every day, I'd be overdosing slightly on fruit sugar and I'm not sure it would fill me up as much as porridge would - Maybe greek yogurt and less fruit would be better? Either way, I still really loved it.

So yes, love for fruit salad as well :-)

I'm loving the fact I only have ONE MORE DAY at work after today and to celebrate I have bought some 'classy' Prosecco, which I plan to drink when I get back from work on Friday. Not the entire bottle mind you, but sitting on my sofa, with a glass of Prosecco and thinking 'That's it... no more, I'm done' after a number of crappy months at work is something I'm really looking forward to doing. So there's certainly love for my life - and I'm really loving the fact I'll be having 4 weeks garden leave starting on Monday!

After eating my breakfast, I decided I'd be productive by straightening my hair and hoovering the house - it's only a small 2 bedroomed house, so hardly a mansion, but I find it hard to relax unless it's tidy and for the last couple of days, I've noticed 'bits' on the floor which annoys me. 

Despite 'working from home' today, there wasn't any work to do at all, apart from reply to a couple of emails, therefore I spent most of it watching Horror Movies and political dramas (SAW, Sinister, BBC Adaptation of 'The House of cards'), waiting to head off to my friends house as she's having a 'Rock Star' party with a few of her work friends and invited me over as well. I'm not overly bothered about the Rock Star part (PC game, I believe.. like Guitar Hero, never played it as prefer things on the Play station!) but it will be nice catching up with her... She's the friend who is divorcing her nasty Husband and is stupidly shagging a married man at the moment.

Lunch was my usual, with raw pepper, tomatoes and cucumber. However unfortunately Sainsburys seems to be out of 'Moroccan topped houmous' which is frustrating, so I decided to opt for the caramelised onion one instead - more fat, sadly, however I actually enjoy this one as opposed to the 'roasted red pepper one', which I find a bit, 'meh'...  I've actually really enjoyed eating less processed food today, so I'm thinking of continuing this next week. 

I'm off to my friends shortly and have absolutely no idea what she's making for dinner tonight - It may be 'finger food', I'm hoping it's not pizza or takeaway. I don't want to be antisocial, however I'm going to bring a couple of slices of malt loaf and a Bakewell tart nakd bar in case it's all total junk, in which case, I could have a small amount, but eat some more healthy options that I'll keep in my handbag... 

I guess I'll find out soon!

Rain, rain, go away...

How can yesterday be so sunny and today be so rainy?

Breakfast: Steamed kipper, 1 slice of seeded toast, 1 poached egg
Lunch: 1 raw pepper, half a cucumber and a handful of tomatoes with houmous.
Dinner: Pan fried salmon with rosemary roasted new potatoes, sugar snap peas and carrots
Snacks: Small lunch box sized Malt Loaf

Last night my Boyfriend and I had a really lovely evening sitting outside and having a BBQ. We BBQ'd some lamb, after marinading it in some Moroccan spices which gave it a really nice flavour. Now I know that lamb isn't the most healthy thing you can eat, however I really like it - When was the last time I had it? Probably over 2 months ago, so I just ate mindfully, trimmed off all the fat and as it was BBQ'd, a lot of the fat also dripped into the BBQ. When will I eat it again? not for a while, so I don't really see a problem :-) We also BBQ'd a beef tomato that we bought at the Alton Farmers Market yesterday and I had mine with a lot of steamed carrots and peas as well as some rosemary roast new potatoes. As always, it was really, really yummy.

I also remembered to defrost one of the sacred fishies, so I was fortunate to be able to have a delicious kipper for breakfast this morning. However, rather than just have the kipper looking all sad and alone on a plate, I bought some bread yesterday, so transformed my breakfast into a slice of seeded toast, one poached egg and a kipper. As well as it being really filling, I didn't put any butter or spread on my toast as the egg was wet enough for it not to matter - Additionally, there are apparently a number of health benefits to eating kippers, namely:

Benefits to eating kippers

1. Kippers contain phosphorus, potassium, iron, zinc and vitamins B-12, A and E.

2. kippers are high in heart-healthy fatty acids such as omega-3, with about 0.2 to 0.7 grams of omega-3 per serving

3. Kippers are rich in DHA which is a fatty acid essential for the growth and development of brain. Studies show that DHA is most readily absorbed in the morning hours – so perfect for breakfast.

4. Kippers are are low in saturated fat and total calories, so if you're watching calories, you should be watching kippers going into your mouth....  :-)

I appreciate I'm not going to win any awards for food photography, however it tasted a lot better than it looked on my plate and if you mashed the egg up onto the bread, it wasn't dry at all. Once I'd eaten breakfast and had a lovely cup of tea, I headed off to see my sister and my niece and unlike yesterday, I decided to plan my lunch so I didn't need to default to yet, 'more meat'. Whilst my sister lives near Swindon, they have managed to get electricity where they are (I was born in Wiltshire so am taking the mick out of myself, more than anyone else :-)) and as such - I was able to put my houmous and veggies into her fridge.

When I arrived, my niece was having a nap - I took the chance to catch up with my sister which seems like something I could do every time I see her, however it seems to be the case that when you have small children, you spend 99% of your time focussed on them, so talking to each other becomes a lot harder. By 12:30, my niece had finally gotten up - It was nice to see her and she decided it wasn't too bad seeing me either, showing me her pink watering can and preferring to water the patio than any of the plants.

Unfortunately the weather in Swindon was utterly dire - we were planning on going to a local park, however it mostly rained all afternoon so instead we just drank a lot of tea on the sofa and played all kinds of games with my niece including 'multicoloured worm' with a coloured tunnel and 'let's name all the fossils', which involved my niece showing me, my sisters fossil collection and naming all of them.

Unfortunately Aunt Flow also decided to make an appearance 2 days late, so I'm writing this with rather bad stomach cramps, even though I've taken ibruprofen and am feeling really sorry for myself. Driving back along the M4 was pretty bad and it took me quite a lot longer than it took me to drive down there as it was 40mph for most of the way. After I got back, I made myself another couple of tea and settled down on the sofa with a hot water bottle and watched a couple of episodes of 'Whitechapel' which I'm really getting into at the moment. God knows what I'll watch when this is over, it's hard to find any horror / murder / thriller things on TV.

Dinner was another fish dish - pan fried salmon with rosemary roasted potatoes, carrots and a new addition - sugar snap peas! I got them in my latest Riverford delivery and unlike the greens or the lettuce, they've lasted a couple of days which is awesome as I've run out of frozen peas and couldn't be bothered to buy any more. In a weeks time, I'll be able to go food shopping whenever I want to :-) It was nice, but I now feel stuffed... I really do think I'm doing too much, even though a lot of it is just vegetables.. 

Tonight I'm off to see my lovely work friend - It seems we're spending a lot of time together at the moment, I guess it's kinda like 'hysterical bonding'? We know things will change in a week, so we're making the most of it. I know she'll still be in my life, however I won't see her every day like normal. 

However - not all change is bad. I'm still motivated to change my lifestyle and to see my body change.. so will be keeping up the motivation for next week - MY FINAL WEEK AT WORK!!!!! 

Mediterranean vegetables with lamb

The evening has finished really nicely with a culinary success!

This has been a truly awesome day. It continued being awesome this evening as well. I decided to try and get over my aversion to courgettes, despite not liking them my entire life. So I decided to make the BBC Good Food's recipe of 'Mediterranean vegetables with lamb' as it's both low in fat, and calories and serve it with some couscous. Usually I get the whole-wheat couscous from Sainsburys, however unfortunately they seemed to be sold out, so decided to go crazy and buy some random Ainsley Harriot stuff. I thought this might work well, despite the crazy photo of Ainsley on the front of it!

The recipe says it cooks in 30 minutes, however I decided to make the most of the fact I was still on holiday by chucking it all in the slow cooker at 1pm and letting it cook for 5 hours, 30 minutes before I saw my boyfriend in the evening. 

The house smelt amazing and I have to say, it was a total success - it looked a bit odd in the slow cooker, but it smelt and tasted fantastic and I'd certainly do it again. 192 calories and 9g of fat per portion? (more, if you serve with couscous) sounds pretty damn good to me!

After a very nice dinner, we headed to the pub - I had a glass of red wine which much be the first alcohol I've had in over a month. It was actually really nice, however I stopped at one glass as I know that when I'm drunk or even mildly inebriated, my willpower quickly decreases and I eat ANYTHING. I don't mind getting the munchies occasionally, but I don't want to do it on a regular basis, so settled at one glass and headed back after a nice hour, chatting.

One of the crazy things we were talking about was having kids. It honestly feels like our entire relationship is reversed - he's the calm one, not phased about the idea of being a parent and I'm totally freaking out about the idea. It's something I've wanted for the past few years, but actually, now the possibility is here and he's like 'it's cool, let's just go for it if you want', I'm like 'OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE WE'RE GROWN UPS AND I COULD GET PREGNANT AND IT'S COMMITMENT'.

You wouldn't believe I'm 33 and we've been together for a really long time, would you? If I was going to have kids, it would be with him as he's truly the most amazing man I've ever met, however I think I'm going to need a few months just to get used to the idea of actually trying for a child and also taking care of myself and continuing my healthy eating - if we do try for a child, I'd like my body to be as fit and as healthy as possible.

Work tomorrow, which is a shame.. but thankfully it's only 3 days!

'Take care of yourself'

People are always saying 'You should take care of yourself' but what does it actually mean?

As much as I'd like to live in a forest or near a beach, doing yoga once a day and eating nothing but healthy food, my lifestyle wouldn't accommodate that and to be perfectly honest, neither would my bank balance. I do think that I've been guilty of neglecting myself however, sometimes due to commitments to friends and family and sometimes because it's 'easier' to neglect myself and ignore the fact that I'm not respecting my body or even my mind.

The more I'm trying to change my lifestyle and mindset and not do another 'diet', the more I'm realising that it's going to fail if I don't focus on me sometimes and actually do what I want to do. 

I'm such a busy person - Work during the day, see my boyfriend, my friends, my family after work. There are very few nights when I'm on my own and even fewer days at the weekend. Sometimes it feels as if the world is getting on top of me and it's times like these when I feel really stressed and turn to food as a comfort. 

So today, I'm going to the Spa - It's something I do a few times a year, however even then I've been known to bring my boyfriend or a friend so it's not been a total 'me' time. It's lovely spending time with people, but I think I need to be a bit more disciplined about not spending time with people and thinking about what's best for me. 

Due to work being so crazy, I think it will do me good to take a step back and actually think about things - It sounds stupid as we think all the time, right? However actually think about stuff - Where I want to go, how I want to handle things and also, how I'm feeling about my healthy eating and reaffirm why I'm doing this - and be happy with the fact I'm not losing loads of weight per week, but it's coming off slowly.

Do you take care of yourself?

Do you actually do things for you, as opposed to others?

What does that look like? If there was noone else in the world right now.. what would you choose to do?

Another awesome use of Quorn

Salads don't have to be boring

Sometimes I really don't want to cook for hours on end, but don't really want to have a ready meal either. No matter how 'good' the ready meals are, they still don't seem to taster as good as a meal I've prepared myself.

So what's the compromise? Well, tonight I made a salad, but didn't really fancy putting chicken or meat with it, so decided to try one of the new Quorn products. 

This looked a little bit more interesting than the normal Quorn and I'm partial to anything that has the words 'Southern Fried' in it - especially when those words aren't accompanied by massive amounts of fat or calories!

It was a basic salad - beetroot, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce with some croutons and a small amount of cheddar cheese. I then popped the Quorn in the oven for 18 minutes (it said 12, however I had frozen them beforehand for 6 weeks - they were absolutely fine to freeze and defrost) and chopped it up to put over the salad.

I'm not really keen on most salad dressings, they're either too vinegary or too creamy and if they're creamy, you can guarantee that you've 'undone' all the good you're planning on doing to your body with vitamins if you're going to shove lots of full-fat dressing in your mouth as well. Well, worry not - Hey presto, this stuff is brilliant!

Less than 0.5g of fat per 15ml serving and only 42 calories. It's so much lighter than other dressings and tastes really, really nice.

The entire salad was rather yummy and took less than 20 minutes to prepare, including oven baking the Quorn. My boyfriend didn't even realise it was Quorn until I said something!