wheatgrass - AnnaTheApple

I can’t believe it’s Monday again. Even though I had three days off it seems to have zoomed by. The weather was gorgeous though. Now I know us Britains are going on a bit about the weather (some may say whining…) but seriously, it’s been pretty bad. Yes our summers aren’t amazing, but we usually get some sunshine and warmth. Anyway, rant over. The sun is out…for now.

We had a pretty good weekend. Ben and I drove up to Cardiff to spend the afternoon with our friends. It’s a 2 and a half hour journey so we topped up on some amazing smoothies after breakfast:

Mixed summer berried, cow’s milk and banana on the left for Ben. And another spinach, banana, wheatgrass and almond milk one for me. Nom nom nom.

There’s me, chugging down my green monster as fast as I can. We are always late. It’s always a mad dash around at the last minute (OK taking photos probably didn’t help either…).

We took loads of burgers, sausages and buns. It was perfect weather for a BBQ. However, when I got there my friends looked at my raw food selection quizzically. It wasn’t a BBQ, it was a picnic. I’m not sure how I came round to think we were having a BBQ, especially when it was confirmed several times of it’s picnic status. Hmmm. Well Ben and I bought a little throw-away BBQ and had ourselves a small BBQ while they munched cold selections of finger food (I’m sure they were jealous of our sizzling delights…well I’ll tell myself they were). Note to self: read invitations properly. It was quite funny though…Ben obviously blamed me as well *sighs*.

Regardless of our poor choice of food, it was a great day. Over the weekend I also had a bit of an attack of the Hunger Monster. The Hunger Monster is when you JUST NEED SOMETHING NAUGHTY TO EAT, NOW! We had Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in the freezer. I hate an entire litre of frozen yogurt chocolate brownie. I’m not proud of myself. It wasn’t my finest hour. But it was damn tasty. Ben managed 3/4 of his Oh My Apple Pie. I feel a sense of achievement to have finished a litre. In retrospect I was starting to feel a bit sick towards the end, but I’m no quitter. Stomach of steel.

So this fuelled me nicely for a very warm run on Sunday morning:

I’m really loving running at the moment. I feel myself improving as well which is a great feeling. And I’ve jazzed up my playlist a bit more (which I hadn’t done in ages) and I find this always helps. Ben is coming running with me more which is nice.

Then to finish off the weekend nicely, we had a really tasty meal:

It was a chicken stir-fry with sliced courgette, bell peppers, red onion, cashews and kelp noodles with Chinese Five Spice and soy sauce. Delicious! It took me a while to convince Ben to eat the kelp noodles and also to keep him away from the kitchen while I prepared them as though they looked fine to me, I reckon it might have put Ben off. He’s not big into trying new and ‘strange’ food, especially if it’s healthy food. However, after trying it he proclaimed “Yeah it’s not bad actually”. Success!! Hurrah!

Hope you all had lovely weekends! Was anyone else attacked by the Hunger Monster?

So nice to wake up late Friday morning. I had that lovely experience of naturally waking up when my alarm would have gone off and rolling back over to sleep for a few more hours. Then waking up and feeling like I’d slept forever. I don’t lay in for that long (until 9am really) but it’s so much longer than when I usually get up.

Lo and behold! The sun was shining and it looked like summer. Only downside of that is that it meant my run this morning was a bit tough due to the temperature. But it was nice to get out there anyway.

I went a bit further than my normal weekday runs and chose a different route which mixed things up a bit. I really ached from yesterday’s weights though. I worked on my arms and every time I bounced along the pavement I really felt it.

Here’s my routine for yesterday:

5 sets 12 squats (5kg)
3 sets of 12 bent-over row (5kg)
3 sets of 12 triceps push
3 sets of 12 ‘cleavage creator’ [Not my naming I hasten to add!! It was from a magazine…*mumbles quietly* not blessed in that department…]
1x 1min30sec plank
1x 1min side plank on each side
50 sit-ups
50 cycling sit-ups

I’m really trying to focus on my arms a bit more. But I’m not very good at varying it up. I used to go to Body Pump and I loved it. But I don’t go to a gym anymore so have to make do at home, which is never the same. So I plough the internet for ideas of different exercises. I have some weights but that’s it so I’m limited with equipment. I really miss the gym and the different classes there. Don’t get me wrong, I love running but I miss the choice of doing other things, like the rower or the elliptical machine. I wonder if I should have a look at DVDs…?

On another note, on Friday my package had arrived, which I was quite excited about:

OK, not a massive package but enough to make me happy. I want to get back into making more smoothies so I’d made a couple of purchases from Holland and Barrett’s website to jazz them up a bit. After my run I decided to have a smoothie as it was too late to eat breakfast and too early for lunch. I don’t usually eat anything before runs as it makes me feel quite unwell. So I made my first ever green monster smoothie. I used Angela’s recipe here. I didn’t have any ice which was a bit annoying but I had some frozen banana chunks. And instead of using flax I used a couple of teaspoons of wheatgrass. I used non-sweetened almond milk as my choice of milk:

I was really dubious about what it was going to taste like. But, honestly, it was so yummy! I could have drunk it all day. I got Ben to try a mouthful as I thought he might like it. Nope. Ah well, can’t win ‘em all! He had a banana and fruit smoothie with cow’s milk and seemed quite happy with that.

I can’t wait to make different variations of the smoothie. I want to take it to work but (and I’m ashamed to admit) I’m worried people will look at me strangely. See, I work with a bunch of men who’s vision of ‘healthy’ is choosing a jam donut over a cream cake because the donut has fruit in it. Well, I’ll see. The point is, I need this in my life!!

Also wanted to share my first ever peanut butter-based meal:

Sweet potato and a dollop of crunchy no-added sugar PB and a load of veg. It was so good. Thank you blogging world for opening my eyes to this possibility!

Has anyone else had any new experiences lately?

Tag: wheatgrass

Some new experiences