Review - AnnaTheApple

May 14, 2015September 18, 2020

Yoga, food and a buff review

The day after the Hackney Half Marathon my legs felt surprisingly OK. I had a strong sense of tiredness and runger which followed me through the day but it was no different really than how I’ve felt any Monday morning after doing a long run on the Sunday.

This is good news! I still took Monday off as a complete rest day though. Let’s not risk anything. I gave Alfie a lovely walk in our local field in the morning before work and in the evening too.

It’s lovely to see him racing around while I can just walk around the field and listen to the radio (I feel old because I now listen to BBC5 Live in the morning – I like keeping up to date with the news and opinions). There’re always the regular dog walkers which is nice as well.

That evening I had a really tasty Hello Fresh meal of quinoa, lentils, feta and chorizo. It did take a while to make (about 30 mins) and created a lot of washing up but the results were fantastic.

Basically it involved cooking the quinoa separately in vegetable stock while frying onions, chorizo and diced peppers and tomatoes. Add pre-cooked lentils (from a tin) and the quinoa with chopped coriander and crumbled feta. Done! It’s the prep that’s the laborious part really.

The next morning I got up at 5am for my usual strength training at the gym. All, except the press-ups, I use weights for these moves:

Squats
Romanian deadlifts
Cross body chop with dumbbell
Walking lunges
Single leg deadlifts
Single leg squats
Hot salsa
Russian twists
Press-ups

I go twice a week now and it’s far more manageable (my second session is more plyometric-based – box jumps, lunge jumps, etc.). I still think it’s important I keep maintaining my strength. To be honest I find it so hard to motivate myself to go (it’s not running is it!) but the fear of injury gets me up in the morning. And strength I’ve found is like most things, you have to consistently do otherwise you’ll lose it.

Tuesday evening I went for an easy run with the running club. I haven’t been to training in ages and it felt good to be back. Though I’m still cautious about it as I want to stick to my (vague) training plan. Otherwise I know I’d happily run silly miles at a silly pace if I went every week and I need to be sensible. After the marathon I’ll be back regularly!

I ran with Mike and Mark and a few others who didn’t want to do the planned hill session that the other guys were doing (hills were not going to happen for me!) and it was lovely. We chatted the whole time and just took things slow – though probably not as slow as we should have but my HR was low and the effort was easy so I was happy. In the end we got 5.5 miles in and I barely felt out of breath.

My running club have started running-focused yoga and Pilates sessions so a few weeks ago I booked myself in for a yoga session after the run as I thought after Hackney it would be ideal. I quickly changed into leggings and got my mat and was good to go. I’ve done yoga before so it was very familiar to me and I felt (for once!) one of the most experience yogis in the room as the majority were all beginners.

In my other yoga classes I’ve been to I was always one of the newbies so this was a nice change for the books! It felt blissful after running as well.

But it did mean that it was past 9pm when I got home and I hadn’t had dinner yet – no chance of that before running when I get home at 6pm, have to walk Alfie and be ready to run at 6.45pm. I inhaled my dinner and wasn’t in bed until 11pm. This is a seriously late night for me considering I’m normally asleep by 10pm!! Luckily dinner was already cooked as I had made two portions of the quinoa meal the day before. It was just a case of reheating and shovelling in.

I must say that as good as I felt after yoga and my run on Tuesday night, I woke up Wednesday with really aching glutes and hamstrings. I’m pretty certain this is from my gym session and not the run! But luckily I’d planned another rest day and some foam rolling in the evening. Then intervals in the morning (which were tough I must say!).

On to a little review…I was kindly sent two buffs from the kind people at Kitshack.com. One buff for me and one buff for Alfie, my dog. Alfie felt very chuffed to be included in a review for once 😉

High UV Protection BUFF® (find HERE)

My buff was from the High UV Protection range that they have. It’s interesting because my first thoughts about wearing buffs are that they are just for winter and to keep you warm. But these buffs are more to protect you from the sun, which is fantastic.

It’s made with a wicking fabric which helps suck the moisture away from your skin quickly. It can be worn as a neckerchief, headband, wristband, mask, hair-band, balaclava, scarf, scrunchie, saharaine, pirate cap, beanie or bandana…personally I like the sound of the pirate cap 😉 It’s also treated with Polygiene so will remain fresh as the silver ions prevent the build up of bacteria in the fabric. There are also no seams or hems to irritate your skin. And it has the UV protection obviously.

Thoughts? I love the colour! They have a whole range of different patterns and colours which is great if you like matching things, like me. Initially I was confused what to do with it and how to wear it but it was fun to experiment. The video HERE’s is definitely worth a watch as honestly I wouldn’t have had a clue otherwise and there are so many different ways to wear it – it’s very multi-functional. For example…

Cycling – use over your mouth if it’s cold or there’s lots of pollution, or under your helmet.
Running – use it like a scarf it’s cold or as a sweat band.
Long walks – protects my scalp from burning.

It’s very soft and comfy to wear and I quite like wearing it as a headband to keep my hair out of my eyes. I’d probably wear it more often in the winter for running and more as a headband when walking or going to the gym.

Terrible photo but it was the best angle I could do I’m afraid!

Don’t wear it like this though unless you’re hiding from someone:

Having fun while trying the different ways to wear it

Dog BUFF®

I’m sorry but this just tickled me that Alfie could wear one of these too – how cute. They have a range of coloured patterns and are available in two sizes: standard (which fits most medium to larger breeds) and small (for terriers and smaller dogs like Alfie).

It has a handy Scotchlight reflective strip which offers retro-reflective visibility from a distance of 150 metres and is made from the same stretchy material as the, er, human buffs.

As happy as Alfie was to be part of this review, he’s not very good at staying still for a photo!!

Thoughts? Alfie thought he looked cool in it 😉 I quite like that it has the reflective bit so in dark evenings or mornings he’d be easier to spot – and to be honest the colour makes him easier to spot as well when he’s off his lead. I’m not sure how comfortable he’d be with it over his head though like in the picture below.

All in all I am a fan of the buffs! They look cool, they’re multi-functional and Alfie and me can match 😉

Have you ever worn a buff to run/walk/cycle in?

Do you do yoga or Pilates?

How much effort do you spend on your evening meal?

**Full Disclosure: I was sent the buffs for free to review. All opinions are Alfie’s and my own.**

April 23, 2015September 18, 2020

Two Chicks Review

I haven’t really done a blog post about my recent eats for a while now. Mainly because it used to be exceptionally dull. I’d eat the same rota of meals week in and week out.

Since getting Hello Fresh (a delivery box system sending out ingredients and recipes – check out my review if you’re interested) things are a lot more exciting. I’m cooking for just me now (no pity please) so having Hello Fresh every two weeks, which is six meals, works out really nicely for me at the moment. It also means that there are quite a few meals that I just have to microwave as I cooked the entire meal the day before.

I think the biggest benefit is that it encourages me to eat more balanced meals. I have been known to overeat vegetables and go a bit salad crazy…this isn’t always a good thing, especially when marathon training. The below meal is a meal I often have for lunch at the weekend. It’s just a mix of stir-fry veg with cream cheese (such a good easy sauce!) with either fish, chickpeas or some other protein.

I would never normally buy potatoes as I find them quite dull (sweet potatoes are different, I could just eat them plain) but often the Hello Fresh recipes call for mash potatoes, roasted wedges or new potatoes and I’m actually really enjoying them. And even RICE [immediately makes me think of running injuries when capitalised…]. I’m not a rice fan, but when the recipe was jambalaya you can’t do much substitution on that front. I hadn’t swapped the meals in time and I’m not about to waste it!

It was very tasty and very filling. It contained prawns and chorizo and was just heavenly. I’m still not going to leap to Tesco and buy a kilogram of rice but it was a nice change.

Basically I’m eating more carbs. I’m not a fan of low-carb diets or anything like that, I just genuinely prefer to have more meat on my plate than things like bread, potatoes, rice or pasta. But I’m a realist and know I need to fuel appropriately for my mileage! It’s just to me meat (and protein in general) is more tasty and exciting.

And this segues nicely to a new snack I’ve been having lately. The cool people at Two Chicks sent me some of their new snacks to review, called Chirps. You might know Two Chicks from their liquid egg whites (I’ve had this before and really liked the concept of bulking out omelettes or what-have-you with more protein. I’d never forgo the yolk as hello that’s the best part but to beef out an egg meal it’s brilliant – or I guess if you need egg whites for baking).

So what are Chirps then? They’re basically high protein ‘crisps’ made from egg whites (“egg white bites”). They’re low in carbohydrates and fat and come in three flavours: Sour Cream & Onion, Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper and Smokey Jalapeno. Also:

They contain no GMO
Have 15% off your daily protein intake per bag (e.g. one pack contains approx 9g of protein)
Are low in sugar
Contain 50% less fat than standard crisps
Contain 30% less calories than other crisps

My thoughts: Now I’m a big fan of Snack a Jacks (especially the Sour Cream flavoured ones) so I was already liking the sound of these snacks, and I liked that they contained more protein and less sugar so would be more of a filling snack (Snack a Jacks aren’t filling at all, I just like how they taste).

I really, really liked these. I loved the Sour Cream & Onion flavour the most. It was very moreish. What’s also great is there seems to be a lot in a packet as the ‘crisp’ pieces are quite small. There’s LOADS of flavour to them as well. No they don’t taste like crisps or rice snacks, you can tell there’s something different to them, but it’s not unpleasant at all. Just different.

Smokey Jalapeno Chirps – loads of flavour

I’ll warn you though, the Smokey Jalapeno Chirps are quite hot! But for me it was a pleasant heat, but more sensitive palates might want to avoid this flavour.

I mentioned these snacks at work and I got a lot of interest. I gave a few packets out to colleagues so they could try them too and the feedback was very, very positive. They all really enjoyed them and were fascinated by them.

The Chirps not gluten free or suitable for vegans (obviously) and the ingredients list doesn’t look horrific but it’s not as ‘clean’ as it could be. Annoyingly they’re also only sold in selected stores and online at the moment, so I hope they pick up popularity and become more mainstream as they could easily replace my Snack a Jack love. Big thumbs up from me!

Do you enjoy snacking on crisp or rice crackers?

What do you look for in a snack: high protein, low sugar, filling, taste, etc.?

Do you like to vary your meals in the week or do you have a set rota?

***Full Disclaimer: I was sent the Chirps snacks for free to review. All opinions are my own honest ones.***

April 2, 2015March 30, 2017

Jabra Sport Rox Ear Buds Review

I first heard about the Jabra ear bud range on the MarathonTalk podcast. I was instantly intrigued. They sounded amazing (especially the heart rate monitoring ones). So naturally I was over the moon to get to test out a pair from their range for a review. Sadly not the heart rate ones, but sport-focused ones nonetheless: the Jabra Sport Rox Wireless ones.

Perhaps I’m not a ‘proper’ runner because I like to listen to music during races or speedy training runs and podcasts during my long runs. For me the two go hand in hand. That’s not to say I can’t run if I’m not listening to something as I often do races where ear phones are not allowed or sometimes just fancy a run where I just hear the world around me. It’s just I prefer to have something going on. In hard races it can take the pain away, when I’m de-motivated a good song can power me back up again, and on long runs I can get lost in a funny anecdote and I’m entertained.

They come in a very nifty, minimalistic little box

In the pack you get the ear buds (obviously), an instruction manual, a charging cable, an armband for your mp3 device of choice, and several choices for the actual buds (“ear gels”) that go into your ear and ‘wings’ that help with stability of the buds.

I won’t lie, it took me a good while to work out which buds fitted my ears best. When I thought I had it figured out one fell out just as I started to run, which was frustrating. What I will say is take your time when choosing and working out what works best. One of my ears is clearly different to the other so required a different ‘setting’ and the wings took a bit of fiddling with to see out how they worked. There’s a video online you can watch which is referenced in the instruction manual. It’s funny because when I read that before I had attempted wearing them I laughed and thought “who the hell needs help with putting in ear phones??”…yes that would be me it turned out.

But when you have the correct fit, those bad boys aren’t going anywhere. I’ve run in them for fast 5k parkruns and steady long miles over an hour and a half long. I forget they’re there.

The short cable just sits nicely behind your head

What’s very handy is they’re Bluetooth so they connect wirelessly to your device, in my case my iPhone. It is very easy to connect (take it from me, a technologically challenged individual). The short cable just sits behind your head nicely (there’s a little grip thing that can shorten the length of the cable to keep things tidy and stops cable flapping).

On the cable there’s a handy control where you can increase/decrease volume, skip songs and even answer phone calls. This is so much easier for me than faffing about with my iPhone in it’s armband when I’m running!

Handily as well the two ear buds are magnetic so if you want to take them out and let them hang round your neck, they’ll connect together creating a loop. This also pauses the music! I always rip my ear phones out as soon as I finish parkrun so this is great.

Charging the earphones is very easy as you just connect one of the ear buds to charging cable and then connect that to a USB port, like you PC or a corresponding plug.

My PC is resting on my make-shift standing desk

They’re built with solid steel and are waterproof (apparently built to US Military rain, shock, sand, and dust standards!), which was fairly handy for my windy and wet 13 miler last Sunday. The sound quality is brilliant. Very clear and immersive. My only sadness is that to enhance the sound quality with Dolby you must install the Jabra app (this is fine, it’s very easy and comes with the product so it’s free). But this will only work with music on your phone/device, not music you’re streaming. I use Spotify for my music and it doesn’t support this 🙁 That being said, I actually didn’t realise this until recently and I honestly think the quality is fabulous without the app anyway.

Thoughts? I love them. The ease of wearing them and not having a long cable flying about my arms and body is such a relief. Not having to faff with my phone to skip a song or pause is also brilliant. The quality is great and though I had a few bumps wearing them at the start, they now they fit like a glove (in my ear? Weird).

On the website (find them HERE) they cost £129. Yes that’s expensive but it’s an investment in a good, durable product. For me as a runner who loves music and podcasts (and not just running, walking and going to the gym – especially on the rower!!), these are perfect.

Now I’m just desperate to try the Sport Pulse Wireless earbuds… heart rate monitoring without a horrible strap!!! I mean these guys are good!

Do you listen to music when you workout?

Have you ever tried wireless earphones?

Gadget junkies, if you had to run without a watch or music what would you choose?

***Full Disclosure: I was sent the Jabra ear buds for free to review. All opinions are my own honest ones.***

March 26, 2015March 30, 2017

Finding the small things

I don’t know about you but when I get stressed, or angry, or sad sometimes I can find myself wallowing in the emotion. This isn’t good to do for long periods of time obviously. It’s not good for your mind, your health or you spirit.

Pardon my French, but when the shit hits the fan I just want to run away and hide. I want to moan, cry and beat my fists: “why me?”. But what good does this do really? OK sometimes it’s very cathartic and I’m not saying to have a good cry is wrong from time to time. But you still have your life to live and things to get done. So when I’m feeling this way I try and find stuff to keep me smiling and make me happy.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love reading. I’m a self-confessed book worm and I am not ashamed! After the very sad death of Terry Pratchett I realised I hadn’t actually read many of his books (possibly just one, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents which was one of his younger books). My dad is a huge Terry Pratchett fan so I asked his advice about where to start because the Discworld (where most of the books are set) is massive. I was slightly dubious as I’m not that into fantasy but I thought I’d give it a crack. My dad leant me Going Postal and I’m hooked.

Source

It’s exactly what I need right now – a story about a world far enough from reality that I can forget any problems I have and just sink into the story. For me reading is a brilliant escape and perfect to help you relax just before you go to bed (that terrible time when the demons always appear).

And in daily life seeing the hints of spring always makes me feel good. Knowing that better weather is round the corner, lighter evenings, lighter mornings and wearing less layers.

Let’s not think about losing an hour this weekend though! Meaning my 5am gym wake-ups might feel like 4am for a bit. Dear lord.

And spring time means my motivation to walk Alfie is far higher. It’s no longer a trudge through the cold, but sometimes the sun is shining and it’s just perfect. I know I keep going on about them, but the Jabra ear buds are also making walks with Alfie easier.

Having a dog lead and ear phone cables to contend with makes things a bit stressful and occasionally I’ll accidentally catch the cable and yank one from my ear, which is always painful. But as the Jabra ones are wireless it means just one thing to contend with – Alfie…who’s hard enough on his own with chasing birds and pooing in bushes!

Obviously running makes me happy and is a fabulous escape and refresher of the mind. I’ve been running the same very hilly 10k(ish) route every week around Basingstoke where I work before I go home on a Wednesday night. Strava is brilliant because it let’s me compare runs when I do the same route. I’ve now done this route five times and so far I’ve just kept improving slightly.

To be honest though I don’t think I can continue this trend. It is a hard run and I’m not sure how much faster I can do it. But it’s not necessarily just about the speed for the run – it’s about those horrific hills and the strength I’m hoping I’m building up in my legs.

There’s no point just running easy flat routes all the time. Make your training hard to make racing easy is my plan. Though always remember to make it easy when your body tells you to – we’re not superheroes!

As I run from work on a Wednesday night it means I’m not going to get dinner until I get home. So by the time I’m home and dinner is prepared it can be at least an hour and a half later. I do need something to refuel me to make the next day not feel like hell. The people from Upbeat sent me some protein smoothies to review for my blog.

So I’ve been taking them to work and having them post-run on a Wednesday night when I drive back home. Luckily we have a fridge at work so I just grab it as soon as I’ve finished my run and drink while I do some stretching in the mini work gym.

Post run stretch and refuel

Upbeat drinks are dairy protein drinks. They’re high in protein (20g per bottle – and this comes from whey protein from the milk), low in fat and relatively lower in sugar than most smoothies. Each bottle also has less than 150 calories. The available flavours are Strawberry, Blueberry & Raspberry and Mango & Passion Fruit. The ingredients list reads very nicely without any crazy artificial flavourings or chemicals.

My thoughts? I actually really enjoyed these, which I was surprised about as I thought “ooh whey protein and a smoothie? Hmm”. The consistency was fairly thick (like a smoothie) but lovely and, well, smooth. I definitely felt like I was being filled up when I drank it. It didn’t feel like “empty calories”. I never want actual food straight after a run but the length of time between running and dinner is too long to not have something and this fits the bill perfectly.

They also sent me a lovely material bag for life and notepad as well, which just made me smile. Maybe I’m not feeling that upbeat right now, but it helps to have a reminder to at least try!

And if all else fails, just have a bit of what you fancy. I don’t believe you should eat for your moods all the time but I do believe sometimes you just bloody well need chocolate.

How good does that sound?? Salted fudge! It’s currently sat in my fridge just waiting…I’ll crack into it soon (no pun intended…) but just knowing it’s there like an old friend ready to help me when I most need it is just wonderful.

How do you get yourself out of dark moods?

What is making you smile lately?

What is your perfect East egg?

***Full Disclosure: I was sent the Upbeat protein smoothies for free to review. All opinions are my own honest ones.***

March 19, 2015March 30, 2017

Hello tasty food – Hello Fresh Review

This post has been a long time coming.

[I have not been compensated for this review. I just fancied doing it.]

I mentioned a while ago that I caved into the pressure of a door-to-door salesman touting a Hello Fresh subscription discount. I was that sucker. What’s the one thing they say? Never buy or sign up to someone knocking at your door.

But it did sound very good to me (I hear your thoughts: of course it would). I signed up to the three meals for two people. My discount took £20 off for two boxes and then I could cancel my subscription or continue on at £39 per box. Note how I say per box not per week. You can decide how often you want the box delivered – whether that’s once a week or once a month or whatever.

But what actually is it? Well, it’s a food and recipe delivery service. In each box I receive the ingredients for three meals and the three recipes to go with it. The only thing you need to have is oil/butter, salt and pepper. If the recipe calls for a tablespoon of cornflour then Hello Fresh have made sure to give you a tiny container with exactly that amount. Even teeny tiny bottles of soy sauce or sesame oil. Everything is provided for in the exact amount you need.

The meat is ethically reared, the vegetables are seasonal and fresh and the fish is coastal fresh, line-caught and free from any artificial preservatives. And so far all the ingredients have been in great condition and delicious.

Also, all the packaging and the box are recyclable and you can send back (for free) the cooling wool lining (used to wrap the meats and fridge products) back to Hello Fresh so they can recycle it there.

The meals are well balanced and the portions are brilliant – and considering this is me we’re talking about (the girl with a tiny T-rex inside her) this is something.

Every meal we’ve had so far I’ve enjoyed. There was one meal, a prawn and Serrano ham linguine, that I changed slightly for me (but kept the same for Ben) as I really don’t enjoy pasta. So I served it up with roasted sweet potato fries instead and it worked perfectly.

These aren’t super fast meals though. It takes me roughly 30-40 minutes to have it cooked and on the table (though the recipes are very clear and easy to follow).

Pork loin with leek mash and onion gravy

And the meals often require more pans than I’m used to, meaning lots more washing up. However, I love cooking. I find it a great way to de-stress from work and my long commute. I make sure I read the recipe at work so I know what I’m going to do and then when I get home I just get going. I know I already have everything at hand for the meal.

Pork loin with leek mash and onion gravy

I’m also learning how to cook better. I’ve never made onion gravy from scratch before or cooked certain cuts of meat so I feel like my culinary skills are broadening and my cooking CV expanding.

Things like the above photo: I’ve never beat down a chicken breast before to make it thinner and quicker to cook (we have since bought a rolling pin rather than using a tin of chickpeas…).

Pan-fried chicken and tarragon sauce

All the meals come with their nutritional information and are around 400-800 calories per meal. They’re very balanced in protein, carbs and fat and I’m always left satisfied.

Pan-fried tilapia with chorizo roasted potatoes

At the end of the week Hello Fresh ask for feedback for the meal and you can say whether you would want it again or not. So if you didn’t enjoy a meal for whatever reason you don’t have to have it again. You can give feedback as well if there was something about the meal you didn’t like or didn’t work for you. You can also see the meals coming up for the next week and you’re able to swap a meal with two other options (I’ve now do this with pasta meals).

Pan-fried tilapia with chorizo roasted potatoes

As you can see above, I sometimes add some more veggies (broccoli in this case) to some of the meals as I can’t help myself. Not because the meals aren’t filling (as Ben never needs anything more) but because I just love my veg!

Chicken Shawarma

All in all, we’re big fans. It makes life so much easier to just know what you’re going to have for three meals in the week. You know they’re going to be filling, nutritious and tasty. It’s definitely something we’re going to continue on.

There are several options of boxes to choose from at Hello Fresh: bigger family boxes, vegetarian ones and the classic one that we have. I think it’s a good value for money for quality, delicious food.

If you’re interested, you can use this code ZVUM4A to get £20 off your first two boxes too. It’s my own referral code (I would then get £12 off my own subscription – just so you’re aware).

Do you have any questions?

Do you subscribe to any weekly or monthly boxes?

Do you enjoy cooking meals from scratch?