WIAW - AnnaTheApple

June 19, 2013

It’s My Birthday!

It’s my birthday! I’ve turned the ripe old age of 25 today. I can now be rounded up to 30. I’m half-way to 50. I’m a quarter of a century old. In my head I’m still 19 though I don’t feel like I should be an adult yet. Do you remember when you were younger and your twenties seemed like the age when you became an Adult. Responsible. Old. Confident. You knew what you were doing.

Hmmm. I’m not quite sure I’m there yet!

Well anyway I’m one year older and I’d like to think one year wiser (ha!). Though I do feel more confident in myself and where my life is going. I’m head of heels in love with my husband, we’re enjoying our life in our little home and I feel happy with where my career is going. So not bad!

And in a nice coincidence it’s What I Ate Wednesday (thanks, Jenn).

Here’s a mix of today’s breakfast and lunch from yesterday and dinner and snacks from the weekend (random I know, but more interesting this way…believe me).

Birthday breakfast: oatmeal…seriously what else would I be eating on my birthday!

This morning Ben had set up a treasure hunt for my presents so I was running all over the house to get my gifts. We decided to do a surprise this year so I had no idea what I was getting. The boy did good though!

For Lunch I went crazy and had something different. Mainly because I was running late and had forgotten to make my lunch the night before but hey ho.

Chicken salad with beetroot that I had from home. With this I also had popcorn and fruit with Greek yogurt (I had just enough time to get those in order – and seriously, I’ll be late for popcorn ). My office is used to the smell of popcorn now…but unfortunately I’m moving into another room as I’m changing teams and so I’ll have to explain my popcorn obsession again to a whole different set of people…

Dinner: on Sunday after the 10k race we had roast chicken.

So, so good. I love the smell of the house as it’s cooking away. So homey.

With this I had roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and watercress (but of course) that we got from the race. And I went back for seconds of the chicken (in fact I’m pretty sure I had a breast, a thigh & a drumstick). It was so good. I obviously had a big dollop of BBQ sauce by the side as well…

Snacks: on Sunday I carved up the beast of a watermelon we had. I can eat a never-ending amount of watermelon. I’ll get full and then 5 minutes later I’m ready for more. It must be the water content. Great for after the race to rehydrate!

Happily I found Ben hates watermelon, which meant more for me!

Running: my running is almost back on form. I ran 4.5miles on Tuesday morning and my leg still didn’t feel completely better. Not painful, just discomfort and it felt like it was holding me back. But I’m continuing to stretch and ice it.

Today’s run (because I have to run on my birthday!) was better but towards the end it became tough. And stretching afterwards felt amazing.

I’m also loving the below yoga moves for helping get back into good shape (read: avoid injuries):

One-legged pigeon pose

Source

This is great for stretching out tight hips and the muscles right near the bum!

Ardha-Matsyendrasana

Source

Good for hips (again), spine, abs and bum, while also stretching outer thigh, back, chest and shoulder. Nice.

Janushirasana

Source

Good circulation stimulator.

Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

Source

Stretches the hamstrings.

So I’m giving those stretches a go when I can and though I’m definitely not looking as good as the pictures in terms of form and position, it does feel good and I swear each time I do them it feels a teeny bit easier (probably psychological…) Seriously though, what kind of names are they!!

Unfortunately this weekend I can’t celebrate my birthday as I’m off tomorrow on a team building event with work. A crazy orienteering/mountain biking/puzzle solving/running around getting lost in Dartmoor thing. Wish me luck. I’m the only girl going!!

My parents should be coming over tonight…potentially with a cake. Hopefully by the end of tonight I won’t look like this:

But let’s be honest, knowing me it’ll be something like that haha

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? We’ve postponed the celebration for a few weeks (as we have friends coming over the next weekend). Our plan is to go for a lovely meal and get a taxi home.

What do you think of yoga? If you’re a runner, does it complement your running?

Do you always have a cake on your birthday? I always try and drop not-so-subtle hints to my parents to get me one…

June 12, 2013

What a surprise…

Howdy people. How’s your week going? Mine has been dampened by the cold weather and some bad running-related news (I’ll get to that in a minute).

But firstly, to pull me out of my dark and shady place (OK, I’m being dramatic), I must share a couple of the new-to-me meals I’ve been having lately. After spotting THIS recipe on Jessie’s blog I knew I had to try it.

Basil Avocado Chicken

I changed it slightly as I added in a load of random veg with the chicken and I also added a big dollop of Philadelphia cream cheese (because, let’s be honest, everything tastes amazing with cream cheese). Also, being lazy and reluctant to do more washing up than strictly necessary, I didn’t food process the avocado. I just chopped everything up, fried it until it all became melted and then threw in the cream cheese.

I loved it. It was nice to have smooth avocado bits and chunks of unmelted avocados randomly throughout. I don’t eat avocado that much (mainly because Ben ~~runs screaming from it~~ hates it) so this was such a nice change. Basil and avocado are a great combo.

Salads have been a regular meal as well when the weather was sunny.

This was a citrus themed salad. Chicken with goat’s cheese and loads of different veggies and chunks of orange drizzled in lemon juice and olive oil. Fresh and zingy.

And just to throw this one in there…Cake of the week (though strictly speaking there were two cakes of the week, but this one ROCKED – no pun intended): rock buns. I’m loving how ‘non-artificial’ this brand is. Let’s be honest, cake will never be classed as a superfood (I know, it’s upsetting) but having a ‘clean’ cake is surely the closest thing to it.

I have never had a rock bun before but when I saw them in the shop they looked like giant cookies so I was sold. And honestly the jokes are endless

Surprisingly they weren’t rock hard. They were soft in the middle. Like oh-my-god-this-is-amazing-soft-in-the-middle. With raisins, sugar dusting and a hint of cinnamon. I’m going to aim to not buy these every week but seriously it will be hard.

This is yesterday’s outfit. I’m not a massive fan of the selfie photo but when I feel particularly happy with an outfit I feel the need to share because most of the time I don’t have much style. Though arguable the below picture doesn’t prove otherwise

Tops from New Look, Owl necklace from Mango, Jeans from Topshop, Shoes from Tesco

Loving the peep toe shoes: let’s pretend it’s summer. And gotta love the photo bomber having a good old stretch there.

In terms of running…ack. Surprise surprise I have acquired a small injury. I knew this would happen – and I’m sure you’re not surprised if you’ve been following my huge running obsession lately. Serves me right for running so many damn races. I could feel something wasn’t quite right last week (hence the sports massage I had). It was fine during the runs at the weekend but afterwards my right thigh was really painful when I went up and down stairs. I thought it was fine but when I went for a run Tuesday morning within minutes I was in pain and it just wasn’t happening. So I turned round and went home. There’s a way to ruin your day before 7am.

I did a bit of Googling (as you do) and worked out it was my IT band.

So I booked in with the physio (again) and managed to swag an appointment that day. She confirmed it was my IT band and that I needed to take five days off of running. FIVE days. She did some ultrasound and acupuncture on me and gave me some stretches to do at home. She’s a great physio but I couldn’t help but be miserable. But I’m going to be sensible. Five days ~~is a lifetime~~ isn’t that long and it’s not worth risking a serious injury and being out of the game for weeks or even months.

Even if I start twitching…

I’m not ~~bitter~~ that bitter. I didn’t glare at Ben as he went for a run this morning…much. I’m going to try to use my time productively. In effort to be a better, healthier runner it’s time to get back into the strength training groove. Woo, woo, party on. So instead of running this week I’m working on my strength training. Joy of joys.

For all the you gym bunnies and proper strength training experts, I know this looks pathetic. Humour me.

So at the moment it’s nothing leg-focused as I want to fully heal. I want to start working on my core again. After reading a ~~gazillion~~ few running articles on injury prevention I realise I’m definitely not being a smart runner. I need to be more balanced and not just run, run, run. So I’ll be aiming to do this at least once a week to begin with. When my leg is better then I’ll add things like squats and lunges, etc.

I can hardly contain my excitement. Not

Make sure to check out Peas and Crayons for the What I Ate Wednesday link-up!

Pssst, also check out Jemma’s great Simply Bridal giveaway – click HERE.

Have you had an injury before? Did you cope well with resting? I’m just feeling all annoyed that I let this happen and that it’s stopped me just as I was feeling like a superstar. But I guess that’s just it really, never take it for granted and let your ego take over. Don’t be stupid: stretch, foam roll, listen to your body.

Have you ever had an issue with your IT band? I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t know what the IT band was before this…

What’s your favourite avocado recipe?

Have you tried rock buns before? Because you should. Like now.

May 22, 2013

What I Ate at the Weekend

Hi lovely people! Thanks for your nice comments regarding my last post. I really do worry too much about the most stupid things, don’t I? In the great scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter!

And it’s WIAW already. Unbelievable. Check out Jenn’s blog Peas and Crayons to get involved or just for a nosey about.

Here’s some bits and pieces of what I ate over the weekend.

Breakfast (*sighs* fat lot of good that did me on Saturday…) was my standard oatmeal and almond milk:

I had this both Saturday morning and Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday lunch were exactly the same as for some reason we had an overload of eggs in the house. I personally blame the husband for he did the food shop…

Saturday, I made kind of a frittata/omelette.

I used tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, onions and three eggs and then big blobs of cream cheese. With this I had Brussels, a bit of lettuce and beets.

On Sunday Ben and me had to rush back after our 10k race and eat lunch super fast to go out and meet our friends. So this happened:

Not nearly as pretty. It sort of failed – flopped if you will. But the taste was absolutely fine. That’s all that matters…right??

We had a great afternoon then hanging out with my friends at a local country park where there was a farm you could look around.

We had a lovely time waking round looking at all the animals. And we saw a sheep being sheered as well. The sheep was seriously not happy. To be fair, nor would I be. It’s not that warm at the moment…And it looked naked afterwards!

And we saw some ducklings and chicks. One of them we named the Smurf Chick because it was blue!! Apparently its dye marking had run a bit. Awww.

We even got to try milking a cow! The farmer said we could try our hands at milking Buttercup the cow, who I must say was very accommodating. Then they got the machine and showed us how they machine milk a cow.

Buttercup can produce 40 pints a day. Jeeze. The farm can’t sell the milk as it hasn’t been pasteurised (so it’s raw milk) and you need a special licence. The staff there can drink it and use it themselves but they can’t let anyone else try it or have any. The farm try and use as much as they can with making cheese, cream and lots of puddings during their lunch and dinner breaks and also feeding other animals but unfortunately a lot has to be wasted. Such a shame.

Dinner on Saturday night was two tortilla pizzas:

Times by two

Lots of veggies, chicken and BBQ sauce and a bit of goat’s cheese. Perfect. I’m all about the toppings for pizza. We were going to buy some make-your-pizzas from Sainsbury’s (as is our post-race standard dinner) but we were so busy we never got to the shop so we had to make do with a proper DIY version. Still good in my book!

Dinner on Sunday was a meal out with the friends after the farm visit. We went to our local Harvester. Though the Harvester chain isn’t going to win any awards any time soon for inventive cooking or fine dining, it was pretty good for an inexpensive relaxed meal.

And an all you can eat salad bar?? Amazing. And when I ordered a Diet Coke the barmaid then pointed to the refill machine and I, embarrassingly, got overly excited by this prospect – free refills?? It’s been a while…I was significantly caffeined up that evening

As soon as I saw BBQ ribs on the menu I was set.

And alongside this there was a corn on the cob. Yum!! We had such a laugh with our friends it was a great end to the weekend.

Ben and I were shattered when we got home. Such a busy weekend of running, fun times and good food. Just the way I like it!

For me weekends are all about enjoying good food. I quite like going out for dinner or lunch one day (though we don’t always manage it). I also like to spend the time on a Saturday night making a good recipe that I wouldn’t get the chance to make during the busy week because it takes a bit longer. Weekends are also about enjoying some less healthy snacks, like slices of cake, a good pudding or ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, these things can appear during the week but it’s not always possible and it’s nice to really appreciate it when watching a good film or spending some fun times with your friends.

Do you eat differently at the weekend?

Raw milk: would you ever try it? I was disappointed we didn’t get to try it but understood the reasoning behind. From what the man said to us, it sounded like it was quite heavy and creamy.

What’s your favourite meal? I think BBQ ribs are definitely one of my favourites.

What’s your favourite way to eat eggs? I do like fried eggs but as a meal I like omelettes or scrambled egg with loads of added extras. I’m all about variety!

May 1, 2013

Hello May!

Hi guys, we made it to Wednesday and May amazingly enough! Actually this week hasn’t been that much of a drag for me. The sun has been shining and work has been good. Aaaaaaand we booked a holiday! I am so excited about this. We are going to…*drum roll* Mexico! We’re heading for 10 days all-inclusive to a resort in Playacar for September of this year to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. I’ve never been to an all-inclusive so this is rather exciting for me.

Usually I’m not a beach fan as I get bored. There’s only so much lounging around I can do. But with this resort they have loads of planned activities, sight-seeing opportunities and water sports. It’s a compromise between Ben and me as Ben likes holidays where he does nothing (bless him he could have two weeks off just playing the Xbox I imagine) but I need something to do. So this works out well!

Right, enough of that. It’s time for What I ate Wednesday.

Thanks Jenn!

Soo this is what I had yesterday.

Breakfast has been the usual business. Oatmeal, almond milk. Fabulously filling though, yes, predictable….

Boring maybe, delicious definitely.

Lunch has been my usual salad. With tuna and lots of veggies.

Next I had popcorn, which I currently have a huge obsession for at the moment.

I prefer it salted for lunch, though I do love sweet popcorn too. Or a mixture…yum.

And then for afters (do people still say that??) I had Greek yogurt with organic strawberries. Oooh err.

I thought I’d go crazy and push the boat out and have some organic strawberries as they weren’t that much more expensive than the normal ones (and, if you caught one of my previous posts, I’ve been doing some thinking about organic). It’s crazy that alongside the British strawberries you can buy Spanish ones cheaper. What a way to make people buy locally sourced! Ha. Come on, Britain, get behind your farmers.

An honourable mention needs to be made to lunch on Sunday though as it rocked my world.

Roast chicken, roasted butternut squash and broad beans…with of course:

BBQ sauce! I didn’t actually use any of the apple and fig chutney as the BBQ sauce stole my heart. Though the chutney has been a star in many salads. Both are keepers. Yum.

Work snackages have been in the form of my Graze boxes…

In the box I got mini banana cake with an ‘afternoon infusion’ teabag, some pretzelly things, crackers with a salsa dip and some Japanese crackers. Fabulously tasty.

Dinner last night was a new-to-me recipe. I was inspired by Jess’s recipe HERE.

I really enjoyed these stuffed peppers. I filled them with lean beef mince cooked in chopped tomatoes, herbs and some crumbled beef stock cubes. I ten added a big tablespoon of cream cheese just because

Then I popped the mince in the peppers and oven cooked them for about 15 mins. I love this photo of the peppers in the oven. Bless Alfie for photo bombing.

I popped the peppers in a muffin tray to make sure they didn’t fall over and it worked well! Ben and I had two of these bad boys each.

I had mine with broad beans. Really enjoyed this meal.

Evening snackages come in the form of some chocolate that really needed eating (doesn’t it all…?)

These were from a box of truffles that we’ve had loafing around for ages. I’m forcing myself to use up all our chocolate supplies before allowing myself to buy any more (specifically Lindt). Otherwise we just get backlogged with chocolate we’re not going to eat because there’s always the better Lindt option. *sighs* It’s a hard life I know

I snack on other stuff during the day (fruit & Snack a Jacks) but it’s all fairly standard and boring!

Fitness-wise, it’s been my standard running. Last week I managed to get my mileage up to 32.5miles!

Monday: 6 miles tempo
Tuesday: 3 miles interval
Wednesday: 5.5 miles no particular goal
Thursday: 8 mile with the running club
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10 mile long run
Sunday: rest

I’ve been loving it! My body seems to be copying well, no twinges, no aches, no nothing! Though I have been gently increasing my mileage to help prevent any shocks to the system.

I love the variety I have as well. Monday and Tuesday are solo runs stupidly early in the morning (but lovely and light now thankfully). Wednesday is a lunch-time run usually with guys from work. Thursday is my running club and Saturday is my favourite long run listening to a good podcast.

And here’s what I wore:

The dress is one of the ones I got from Camden market, belt and necklace are from Accessorize, leggings and cardigan from New Look

Nothing else to report. Did I mention I’ve booked a holiday to Mexico…? Shoot, I already did? Whoops I promise I won’t go on about it hehe.

Runners out there, what kind of mileage do you like to hit during a week?

Do you, like me, hate wasting food? The chocolate truffles are no where near as good as Lindt but I can’t throw them away. I hate throwing food away!!

Favourite sauce – ketchup? BBQ? Mustard?

Have you ever been on an all-inclusive holiday?

April 24, 2013April 24, 2013

Small meals and big meals

Hello sunshine! Ahh I think we finally are experiencing spring. We’ve had several consecutive sunny days, hurrah.

Sunshine just makes everything better. Waking up in the morning, driving home from work (wearing sunglasses!!)…

(This was before I started driving! Don’t use your phone while driving!)

Taking Alfie for a walk…

…and even being at work and looking out of the window.

Even my parent’s constant Facebook updates on their holiday in Barbados is bearable. (Seriously though, how many “just sitting in the hot sunshine drinking cocktails” can I take before I crack?)

It’s Wednesday, meaning What I ate Wednesday. Pop over to Jenn’s blog to check out what’s happening.

So this week has been a lot easier than last week as I’m time-managing a bit better. This tends to mean:

Getting up a bit earlier,
Running in the morning rather than the evening,
Preparing meals in advance.

Life is much less stressful when you’re prepared for anything!

In the morning I go into what my dear husband calls Efficient Anna Mode. I am on a mission. I get up, walk Alf, go running if it’s not a rest day and shower. Then have a moment of slowness where I gaze uninspiringly at my wardrobe to decide what to wear…

Finally get dressed…

Then speed around tidying, which is an essential morning activity which literally is me doing stupid stuff like sweeping, putting last night’s washing up away…just odds and ends really, and then make breakfast.

But I tend to do all this in like a little bubble of non-communication and rushing around in a controlled, efficient manner (in my eyes)…in Ben’s eyes I am a moody wife who refuses to swap pleasantries.

Lunch hasn’t really changed this week, just my usual beast of a salad (as someone at work called it…cue cringe moment).

I’ve been seeing some great salads about the blogging world with nuts, cheese, avocado, sundried tomatoes. So I really need to start mixing things up (<—hello broken record??)

For my lunch I always like a big salad (lots of variety, yum) but I also like bits of the side, like my Babybels:

Or what I had yesterday, popcorn from my Graze box…

And my (frozen) fruit salad with lots of Greek yogurt.

If I just have a sandwich or a more ‘proper’ meal, I feel a bit cheated. I guess it’s because I’m a grazer and I like to stretch my meal out for a nice lengthy period of time and have individual bits and pieces to munch my way through. Also because I make my lunch to take to work I am somewhat limited by what I can bring.

And I like to have my snacks throughout the day as well. Whether that’s carrots…

Or nuts…

Or nibbles from my Graze box…

I guess what is clear in the way I eat is that I like to eat little and often throughout the day. My lunch may not seem huge in it’s pieces but in it’s entirety I am definitely satisfied. And then a few hours later I’m eating again! It’s just how I roll. I’m not one of those people who can eat lunch and then eat nothing until dinner.

Dinner however is a whole different ball game. I like a BIG meal. I know they say you’re supposed to eat your smallest meal of the day in the evening but that’s not my style. It’s not like I’m eating supersized burgers and fries every night, obviously, but I do like BIG healthy meals. Here are some of my favourite meals:

Cottage Pie with Cauliflower Mash

Chicken Caprese with Cauliflower mash and Roasted Veg

Paprika Sweet Potato Chicken

Last night was fajitas:

This was delicious. I used the Discovery Fajitas spice mix and sauce and it was perfect. I don’t usually buy jars of sauces but this one I love. The main ingredient isn’t sugar, which is what I try to be careful about. OK, that’s a little bit of a lie, when it comes to certain sauces I’m careful. BBQ sauce is a different story. I’m pretty sure the one I have has the second ingredient being sugar…but I like it that way

And the snacking doesn’t stop during the day. After dinner I always need that post-dinner pre-bedtime snack. Usually a packet of Snack a Jacks and a hot chocolate. Heaven.

OK, maybe some chocolate too

I usually have one or two of these mini-chocs in the evening. As good as they are, they’re not as good as Lindt I must say…

So I’m a grazer through the day, a big meal eater at night, and a snacker in the evening. I’m good with that!

Have a great week

How would you describe your eating patterns? Big meals? Mini meals? Lots of snacks?

What’s your favourite evening snack? Healthy or naughty!

How do you time-manage?