coconut - AnnaTheApple

December 11, 2014December 15, 2014

MyProtein Review – take 2

I’ve recently been sent some products from MyProtein to review. I’ve previously done a MyProtein review before (find it HERE) and I quite like the company, hence my willingness to do more product reviews for them. The website has a lot of different products on offer, from supplements, protein powders, nutritional items and accessories all related to fitness and health. I got to choose a few items, so here we go.

Glucosamine Sulphate (find HERE)

This is a supplement you take one of every day and it provides 1000mg of glucosamine sulphate, which is a naturally occurring nutrient that is a major component of our body’s cartilage (it’s basically in the fluid around the joints).

It’s aimed at those who wish to have optimum bone health, especially those who are very active. I’m so hyper aware of my body and any impending injuries or current injuries that this really appealed to me. Anything to help, you know?

It’s quite a large tablet to take but I’m sure you could split it in two to make it easier. I can’t say I’ve felt a difference from taking this (though I have only been taking it for a week or so) but I had no side effects. Also a lot of the reviews on the website profess positive views on it’s ability to help with pain in the joints and “clicky” knees. On further investigation I’ve found it’s actually used as a treatment for osteoarthritis. To be honest, I don’t think I need to take this but I think if you do experience clicky knees or painful joints it might help.

MSM Powder (find HERE)

MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane) is a form of sulphur and provides a flexible bond between the proteins for your hair, skin, joints, tendons and cartilage. This is a bag full of MSM power of which you take 1g daily alongside food.

This is ideal for, again, people who are training long term and to help them get the right balance of nutrients for the body.

I drink it in the morning mixed with squash (yes I’m still addicted) and I can’t taste it at all. Again I have no side effects from taking it but I’ve also not noticed any benefits (but again, I’ve only been taking it for just over a week). Similarly to glucosamine sulphate, it’s used for osteoarthritis and also join inflammation, bursitis, tendonitis…which was all very good news for me with my latest injury woes! Very timely indeed (though I’m pretty sure I don’t have osteoarthritis!!). For £5.99 it’s not a bad price considering you only take 1g a day so it will last a fair while.

ZMA® (find HERE)

This is another tablet-form supplement with a blend of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6. The benefits are that magnesium helps with the body’s electrolyte balance, bone and teeth maintenance along with the supporting of the nervous system, muscles, protein synthesis and helps reduce fatigue. The zinc supports the immune system, metabolism, the maintenance of testosterone levels, it supports your vision, skin, hair, nails and bones. It also has a protective element against oxidative stress. The vitamin B6 helps to regulate your hormones.

I think this is clearly a good supplement for anyone, not just for those with fitness inclinations. I have to say that I’m quite impressed with this product. I read the reviews on the website and found it aligned with what I’d found: very good, deep night’s sleep! Perhaps my opinion was influenced by what I read, either way I’ve been sleeping brilliantly. OK I don’t get up at 5am anymore so that does help too but genuinely my sleep has been pretty damn good. I’m a very light sleeper but I wake up a lot less in the night now. Who knows! It is a more pricey product however at £28.99, though the tablet is a more reasonable size if that’s any consolation…

CoconPure Oil (find HERE)

This is a very large tub (460g) of 100% organic coconut oil, unrefined and non-bleached. Coconut oil is a very healthy oil as it’s rich in lauric acid and medium chain triglycerides, so though it is high in saturated fat most of this is good fat (not the same as that found in chocolate and cake) and is metabolised differently in the body.

Coconut oil can be used in so many different recipes. I often fry my vegetables or eggs in it, or melt a tablespoon of it and toss some roasting vegetables in it. It adds a very subtle coconut flavour to my meals. You can also use it in baking. MyProtein actually has a quite interesting article on the usages and benefits HERE.

For £9.99 I think this is an absolute bargain for the quantity and quality you get. I’m very pleased with it and use it probably every day.

Overall thoughts: As I said, I’m a fan of MyProtein. Though there is a danger of just wanting to buy everything from the website. When you read about the benefits that certain supplements provide you can get carried away wanting to be sure you’re not missing out on some vital vitamin or mineral. I’m sure if you were sensible you could get a lot of these benefits from eating a well varied and balanced diet. However for those who want to be certain and are maybe nervous they’re missing out then it’s ideal, especially for people like me who are injury prone! Anything that could support my body and help me get stronger is something that instantly appeals to me.

If you take supplements, which do you take?

Do you use coconut oil? What’s your favourite use of it?

Have you use MyProtein before?

***Full Disclosure: These products were sent to me for free by MyProtein.com but all opinions are my own.***

December 3, 2014January 14, 2015

Rants and Raves #4

Do you know, I think I have a lot more raves than rants today. Surely this can’t be right, I’m British after all 😉 We do love a good moan! But what can be done, eh.

Rave: I’m working from home today which is always nice. Easy access to a fridge full of lovely food, warm house, comfy clothes (dare I say PJs? There’s something so wonderful about showering and then getting into clean, fresh PJs), Alfie and my very own makeshift standing desk.

As I type this I’m standing, not slouching over my computer. I wish I had the nerve to create my own standing desk in the office but it really would look odd with no one else doing it. Ho hum!

Rave: And as you can see above, Ben bought a very jazzy looking Kenwood KMix. This is a very good sign for the possible baking ahead…I am EVER HOPEFUL!

And helps with my standing desk as well obviously 😉

Rave: Coming in to work on Monday to find an advent calendar from my boss! You just can’t beat a chocolate advent calendar. And my lovely mum bought me a new mug as well. But after the drama with my last mug, this one will be safely stowed at home in case it gets snagged.

Rant: Do you know what beats chocolate advent calendars? Better quality ones! Clearly the Hello Kitty was not breaking the bank and consequentially the chocolate is indicative of this.

Rave: Christmas! And Christmas parties and gatherings.

I have quite a few exciting events coming up which I’m looking forward to. Sadly not going to my work’s Christmas do as it’s midweek in London (actually it’s tonight) and it just seemed a bit of a faff. It’s sad because a lot of people have thought the same so not many are going. It’s so different from the other year’s AMAZING trip to Bruges. Well anyway I’m going to Berlin (again) this weekend to meet up with friends and visit the Christmas markets, Ben and me have a few different meals and evenings to go to and well it’s Christmas! Christmas music, food, cheer and festivities! I love it all 🙂

Rave: coconut oil! Having this big tub of it makes me a very happy Anna. This, along with a few other products, were sent to me to review from MyProtein (which will be in a future post).

And spoiler alert: I love it! But then you can’t go much wrong with coconut oil, can you?

Rave: Freebies from friends at work. A guy at work does a lot of cycling and his wife is starting to get into it too. They got some cycling shoes (the special clip-on ones) and they haven’t been working out for her so he gave them to me for free! I have no idea if they’re any good or not but at least they were free.

Just need to get the special pedals (can you tell how much of a cycling dunce/newbie I am? All the gear and no idea…).

And that’s my lot. Obviously I could rant until the cows come home about still not running but I’m in an OK place. I have strength training to be getting on with and with going to Berlin this weekend it’s sort of good timing anyway (can anyone say that an injury is good timing???).

What are your rants and raves this week?

October 13, 2014

Boosts, London and Africa

I used to love thunderstorms. The sound of the rumbling and crashing and the flashes of lightening was always quite exciting. Alfie, however, does not like thunderstorms and as he sleeps in our room, we are fully aware of this. He starts barking at the thunder or running around the room in a panic. Or sitting on our pillows trying to get as close as possible to us. He’s frightened by it I think which is all very sweet. But seriously, Alfie, MAN UP. I need my sleep!!

This weekend, thunderstorms aside, was great. It started Friday night with a great run. I got my new Adidas Boosts delivered to work and was desperate to give them a little trial run (ha!)

I text Ben saying I might go for a run after work in Basingstoke and might be home a little later than usual. He was uber happy about this as he was planning a surprise for me and needed a bit more time. He had told me the night before he was going to put his Friday afternoon off to good use and do something special for me. Well, my curiosity was definitely spiked!

I wore my new Berlin marathon finisher t-shirt and obviously my new Boosts.

Unintentionally colour coordinated!

Having not run for 10 days I was thinking it might feel a bit sluggish. But actually I felt like I was flying. The Boosts felt amazing and my legs felt very fresh. The first mile was downhill but I was very surprised to see a 6.42min/mile! In the end I did 5k in 22.02 minutes. Not too shabby. I probably shouldn’t have gone so fast on my first run but I just felt good and went with it.

When I got home I was welcomed by a very pleased looking Ben and my surprise.

Yep still looking sweaty

A three-layered red velvet cake – all made from scratch. *Swoons*

I was over the moon! What a guy, eh!? And let me tell you, it tastes AMAZING. Cream cheese frosting heaven! He was a bit miffed the sponge didn’t come out that red though, despite using food colouring gel rather than liquid. Bakers, is there a special way to do this?

Saturday morning we got up early to go to London. Ben needed a quick passport change as he’s going to China with work (oooh er!) so we decided to make a day of it.

We did a lot of walking around and saw the classic tourist bits, like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament etc. I’ve seen them before but never actually done this with Ben so it was nice.

Also saw some of the roads I’ll be running along come April next year…how exciting! (Providing I’m not injured – I feel like I have to say this as you know how injury-prone I am)

After getting the passport sorted we went to find some lunch. I tried to tempt Ben into going to Wholefoods for their salad bar but that really didn’t go down well…but he did say we could go and have a look 😉

Before that, we found a lovely South African restaurant called Bbar which took our fancy. There were animal prints and animal pictures everywhere and the waiters were lovely. We went for a pitta and dip board to begin which was a little smaller than I had imagined but all very nice (taramasalata, hummus and baba ganoush dips). And for main I went crazy and had a salad. It’s funny because I didn’t even realise there was avocado in it before I went for a big chunk of what I thought was lettuce – it was so camouflaged! Ben went for an amazing burger which looked huge. There were so many burger options, even buffalo and boar.

After a relaxed lunch we walked to Wholefoods and checked out more sights along the way. We didn’t do much shopping or anything that exciting, it was just nice to walk around London together without any real aim.

Wholefoods was just full of young adults – possibly students and, I guess, people like me.

The cakes looked out of this world

It was just rammed. The salad bar looked good but I’m glad we hadn’t gone for it – the queues were huge and it felt a bit claustrophobic. I know Wholefoods is held on a pedestal for healthy and unusual ingredients but some of the things did make me laugh. A cupcake that was gluten free, diary free, egg free and low fat had the ingredients list that would make a Pop Tart tremble. Seriously, so many chemicals with long and scary names. Fairly ironic.

As we slowly ambled back to Waterlook, fairly pooped now, I kept seeing people with whole coconuts drinking out of them with straws. Then a few minutes later we got to Trafalgar Square and we passed a huge area of tents and festivities. It was called Africa on the Square – which fitted into our theme of the day perfectly 😉 We had a wander around (so many amazing smelling foods and cool music) and I found the coconut tent. For the fairly pricey £4.50 the guy chopped off the end of a coconut, popped some straws in and handed it to me.

It tasted divine. Fresh coconut water! Yum. It disappeared rather quickly! Then we decided to head back to the train before our legs fell off. We both fell asleep on the train we were that tired. And embarrassingly I woke up with my mouth open…classy girl right here 😉

Sunday was supposed to be fairly relaxed until we decided to clear out the Cupboard of Death (under stairs cupboard…*shudders*) and some kitchen cupboards to make space for Ben’s new plaything – a Kmix. He’s really getting into this baking lark and with having Friday afternoons off I think I’m going to be seeing a lot more cakes. Can’t be bad, right? 😀

What are your favourite things to do in London?

Have you ever had a real coconut before?

What trainers do you wear?

September 10, 2014

Nature is out to get me

Last weekend after getting back from our cycle, I took Alfie for a long walk. I didn’t bother showering before I left because it didn’t make sense and Alfie needed a walk. I got back from the walk and experienced something quite horrific.

I got ready to get in the shower. My hair was in plaits so I took them out and ran my fingers through it to untangle it. I felt something stuck in my hair and a sharp sting to my neck. I had already take my contact lenses out so couldn’t really see but when I looked in the mirror there was definitely something in there.

I panicked and shouted to Ben. I flipped my head upside down and yelled that there was something in my hair that had stung me. I was flailing about a bit and he couldn’t quite see through the voluminous mass that is my hair. His demeanour instantly changed as soon as he found what the ‘thing’ was. He started speaking in that calm, slow voice that you use with panicked animals. This freaked me out even more – the thing in my hair must be deadly, must be massive and dangerous.

He grabbed my hairbrush and started whacking at my hair in true Man Style. This scared me even more that he didn’t even want to touch the thing. I started crying and wailing like a lunatic, terrified this giant flesh eating spider was about to crawl up my hair onto my scalp.

Eventually he got it off me. The verdict: it was a wasp. I flopped onto the bed in a heap of emotional drainage.

I know I reacted in a very whimpish way but frankly it terrified me. Though it was quite funny afterwards. All occurred butt naked. Good times 😉

But then, not two days later another attack of nature.

I was drying my hands on our tea towel which was hanging from a hook and suddenly out dropped what I thought was a dead spider. It was all scrunched up and not moving. Then it jumped up after lulling us into a sense of false security. I balked and ran up the stairs, Alfie got the hell out of the kitchen and Ben was left to deal with the fiend. but I’m a bit of a weird one in that I hate killing thing so I made him take it down the road and throw it in a bush – far away from our house. I don’t want that thing making it’s way back to us!

Whew. Jeeeze. Nature is a bitch.

In other news. Alfie has been keeping a keen eye on my foam rolling lately. I’ve been using a tennis ball on my calves to help loosen them up. Sadly for him I’m using his ball. He used to get exciting but now he realises that ‘catch’ is no longer what’s about to happen.

And again, where are his paws???

And on a random note, I found one of these at a petrol station.

It tasted amazing and was very refreshing. I’m quite impressed how mainstream coconut products are becoming!

What are you scared of?

How do you get rid of spiders?

What’s your favourite coconut product?

February 26, 2014

Let’s talk about food

Hey, hey, hey. So I know it’s been a lot about running lately. So I thought I’d talk about one of my other loves (no, not cake today). FOOD.

So I thought I’d join in with WIAW this week to liven things up (check Jenn’s blog out for more info).

I’ve been really loving using my slow cooker lately. OK yes it does involve a little forethought and preparation to get things going but once you’ve mastered the planning, it’s a dream. I love coming in at night from work and smelling a meal already on the way.

Bless Ben, I love him to be bits, but he doesn’t cook (beyond scrambled eggs or pasta with ready-made sauce). I don’t mind at all because I love cooking and, though I hate the term ‘housewife’, I love the idea that I’m fulfilling an ancient wifely duty of making a meal for my man. Plus I can bribe Ben with meals 😉

First up is a meal which is a firm favourite.

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken (Serves 2)

Two chicken breasts
One jar of salsa (I used Discovery)
Tin of adzuki beans (I’ve also used borlotti as well – any works)
Extra seasoning and spices
Optional toppings: cheese, sliced avocado, crumbled tortilla chips

– Put everything in the slow cooker.

– Cook on LOW for 7-8 hours.

Yep that’s it. Embarrassingly easy really. I suppose you could make your own salsa but this is simply an easy weekday meal if you know you’re going to be rushed. As you can see, I served mine with roast butternut squash and, er, a lot of broad beans. Ben grated cheddar over his.

My next successful slow cooker meal that I’ve recently tried was also very simple (why make things complicated on a weekday?)

Slow Cooker Tandoori Turkey (Serves 2)

One turkey leg (remove skin if desired)
One white onion, chopped (not diced)
Tandoori spice blend (I used the one in the photo but you can use any or THIS recipe)
Juice from a lemon

– I removed the turkey’s skin as we’re not fans. Mix the lemon juice with your tandoori spice blend so it becomes a paste that you can spread evenly over the turkey.

– Put the onions at the bottom of the slow cooker, place the turkey on top. This helps it stop sticking and you get some lovely juicy onions to go with your turkey.

– Cook on LOW for 7-8 hours.

**Word of warning: don’t then go to your personal training appointment (at 6.15am) straight afterwards. You will smell of Indian spices. It takes a while to stop smelling that way!**

– Remove turkey when done and basically the meat should fall off the bone. Remove any small bones.

Ben had his with onion rings and vegetables, while I threw mine in a monster salad.

The photo is dreadful. I’m sorry. It’s also in a salad bowl if you can’t tell. *Hangs blogger head in shame*

Side note: can you believe I ate an entire turkey leg on our honeymoon?

Though not something particularly to be proud of…I do see this as an achievement.

And on a non-cooking note…The other week my work friends and I went out at lunch for Thai food. I went for fisherman’s soup to start (which was basically like a broth with seafood in it) and a spicy beef salad with crackers for my main.

Well, the soup blew my head off. It was so spicy. My mouth was on fire and my eyes started to run. But I persevered!

Then the main came. My poor taste buds were inflamed once again. This meal was literally the hottest meal I’ve ever had. My mouth was burning. My eyes were running. I was sweating. I had to order a glass of milk. I kid you not. I felt sick by the end. It was nice, in a perverse “I’ll never taste anything again” way but seriously, 10 minutes later and I was still suffering. Everyone thought it was oh so hilarious.

Snacking-wise both Ben and I have been loving the Cocofina coconut and date bars that I won from lovely Lauren’s blog.

When I get that drop in energy mid-afternoon at work I have one of these bad boys and it helps perk me up. Very tasty.

This weekend, after Reading half, can you guess where we’re going to eat? My favourite restaurant of all time…Jamie’s Italian. And can you guess what I’m going to have? I’m so predictable. I swear if they don’t have the Turkey Milanese I will cry. It’s the best meal in the world (in my humble opinion). Happy days.

What’s your favourite restaurant? And favourite meal?

What have you been snacking on lately?

Do you use a slow cooker?