WIAW - AnnaTheApple

April 17, 2013

A busy week = WIAW

Firstly, and most importantly, I want to start this post by saying my heart goes out to all those affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy. When I heard what happened my heart literally stopped. I couldn’t believe something as terrible like that could happen. Obviously as a human being I find this abhorrent, and as a runner I am shocked that any one could target should an event. I can only imagine how horrific it must be to the runners who trained so hard to have their dreams shattered by something so terrible. And not just the runners, but all the other people, spectators and race officials etc., to have to experience such a truly nasty attack.

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I know it feels almost irrelevant and small to think of writing something as trivial as a post on What I Ate Wednesday, so please forgive me for continuing ‘business as usual’.

Thanks to Jenn for hosting as usual

These are my eats from Tuesday. The week has been busy with a new project kick-starting so it’s all go-go-go. I feel a bit stressed out with trying to juggle different things. But hey it keeps life interesting.

Breakfast was my usual oatmeal. The consensus being, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I love it, it works, I have it every day.

(Re-used photo – but seriously, it doesn’t change!)

However, I did make protein flour pancakes with mango topping on Sunday.

They were pretty tasty I must say, and helped reawaken my love for pancakes. And you can’t beat the fresh taste of mango. It’s such a treat for me to get as I can never be bothered to go through the effort of cutting up a mango as it’s so darn messy!

Lunch was my usual salad but livened things up with adding some turkey bacon and regular sliced turkey.

OK I know there looks like just a load of veg there but I assure you there was a good portion of turkey that I put into that beast. You can’t beat a big old salad for lunch. I like food that takes me ages to eat so I can savour the process! I also had a Babybell and fruit salad with Greek yogurt.

(Recycled photo again but essentially identical)

I had some great snacks in between. I’ve been loving my Graze box which honestly is a huge temptation sitting on my desk all day long. The struggle not to eat it all in one sitting is quite strong…

I ate these yesterday when I got peckish some time after lunch. They were Thai crackers with sweet chilli dip. Very yummy. It felt quite novel dunking and crunching at work. Then a banana and apple just before going home.

Dinner was a wing-it meal. But it was pretty tasty if I do say so myself. And thankfully quite quick and easy to throw together when getting in from work later than usual.

I used chicken from the roast chicken at the weekend, fried it with mushrooms and zucchini and BBQ sauce and seriously this was taaaaasty. I had this on salad. The only sad thing is that I used up all my BBQ sauce. I would have the chicken swimming in this stuff if I could! Maybe a good thing it ran out…

Also I have been indulging a bit in eating a few slices of cake now and again in the evenings…

This, if you’d believe it, was a slice of our wedding cake! I have been slowly defrosting and making a dent in the vast amount of cake we have saved (seriously a lot). It was a slice of the lemon flavoured tier. Delicious.

And, erm, yeah some chocolate as well. But they’re only little!!

Not as good as Lindt but yummy none-the-less. Speaking of Lindt…hello offer in Tesco!!

Well, it’s important to have a balance. With running five times a week I need to bump the calories up a bit so I’m happy to fill this need with chocolate and cake. Shhh all you nutritionists out there, I know this isn’t the healthiest way to do it! But I need a bit of fun now and again.

In terms of fitness, I ran on Monday morning and still felt tired. I am so frustrated that my recovery from a tough run takes so long.

OK it wasn’t a rubbish run, I know that. But it felt TOUGH. Really, really hard going. My body just felt tired. I am clearly not superwoman!

However my run last night (Tuesday evening) went better, though it was shorter.

I will be going to the running club on Thursday evening again and I guess I’m thinking of running with the faster guys again but I’m scared. Genuinely scared because of how tough it was last time. I might look into running with them every other week and running with the slower paced guys…I’m a wuss…

And that’s all I have! Not the most exciting eats, I grant, but in this busy week I’m happy with them

How do you cope when you’re busy?

Do you still try to eat well when you’re running out of time?

How quickly do you recover after a tough workout?

April 10, 2013

Trying to mix things up

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Hope you’re week’s going well. I’ve been finding it so much easier to get up in the morning because of the light. Obviously when the alarm goes off I’m not leaping out of bed with a huge smile on my face (who does that??), but it’s easier because I’ve already started to wake up gradually so it’s not as big a shock as it was in the winter. Though at the weekend I have this annoying habit of hiding under the duvets when it starts getting light and then I fall back into a really deep sleep and feel so tired when I pull myself out of bed between 8-9am. I hate sleeping later than 9am as I’m one of those people who feels like the day is wasted otherwise.

So it’s What I Ate Wednesday. Check out Jenn’s blog to get involved!

I’ve been really trying to do new recipes more often as I’m participating in Megan’s So Fresh So Clean Challenge. Basically it’s a challenge to see if you can refresh your food and fitness routine a bit.

I wanted to take part in this because honestly I am such a routine-orientated person and can get so stuck in food ruts (see below: oatmeal every single morning). It’s really helping to push me to try new recipes and mix up my routine a bit. I love trying new recipes but can find it a bit of an effort at times…So this challenge has helped motivate me that little bit more!

I know I need to work on switching up my breakfast but at the moment I haven’t quite managed that…it’s still oatmeal with almond milk *hides in shame*.

But honestly, this weekend I really want to try mixing it up. I’m more inclined to experiment with breakfast at the weekend as I have an irrational fear that nothing else will fill me up and I’ll be at work STARVING. Yes a little over-dramatic. So maybe this weekend I’ll step outside my safety oatmeal bubble.

Lunch at the weekend and lunch in the week are obviously going to be different for me as I work in an office during the week and I’m limited by what I can bring or buy. And I hate buying lunch as it’s just so expensive.

Yesterday it was a sandwich with sliced turkey and cream cheese with a side salad.

I had this with some slice melon and Greek yogurt.

Throughout the day I also snack on my Graze box.

The bottom left-hand section were oatcakes with an onion marmalade and let me tell you, they were AMAZING. I opened them fully with the intention to snack on a couple and then save for later. Oh they did not stand a chance. Those babies were gone within minutes.

I also have my usual apple and banana towards the end of the day to stop me keeling over mid-commute back home. Also prevents me from eating the first thing I see when I get home…

Lunch this weekend was something I’ve been meaning to try for yonks.

Sweet potato roasted in the oven with a blob of cream cheese with two fried eggs (and a side portion of Brussels’s sprouts obviously…) I wasn’t sure about mixing eggs and sweet potato but it went so well together.

I made dinner for Tuesday night on Tuesday morning as I was planning to go to running club literally just after I got back from work and really didn’t fancy making anything when I got back at like 8.30pm. Plus who knows what sort of thing Ben would have made himself?? Dangerous to give him so much freedom He’d have cheese on cheese with a side portion of cheese if he could.

So I made One-Pot Moroccan chicken.

I used THIS recipe. The only thing I changed was instead of honey (of which I had none) I used some regular sugar. Probably missed some of the depth of the honey flavour but I wasn’t too bothered. It was an easy recipe to whip up in the morning and then reheat in the evening.

It was quite spicy, but had lots of bold flavour and was definitely very filling with the chicken and chickpeas. Couscous would probably work well this (though I was a bit couscous’ed out from the weekend).

However, I never made it to running club. I found out it was a timed mile (for progress monitoring) and then some intervals. I really wasn’t up for that. Don’t get me wrong, I love running with other people but I didn’t fancy just doing a mile and the intervals. I know I’m being such a picky runner but I want to just run. Anyway, Thursdays are more for ‘normal’ running so I’m going then instead.

I decided to do a quick 3 miles when I got home anyway as I didn’t want to miss a run. I really wasn’t up for it so as soon as I started in my head I was just like “get this done as quick as possible and then you can have dinner”. This was a BRILLIANT motivator

When I first started I was finding it so tough and when I looked at my Garmin I couldn’t believe my pace! No wonder I was dying. I am so pleased with this run. I couldn’t have maintained it for long though – I was already slowing down considerably on the last mile.

So I’ve mixed up my fitness a bit by not always running in the stupid hours of the morning. And I’ve also been managing to use my foam roller after runs (OK some runs…not all. Work in progress).

I have a love-hate relationship with the foam roller. I like following THIS helpful guide of the exercises to do. To be honest, I never do all of them… but the one I always do because it always hurts to do it (so by that perverse logical I know it’s working) is this one:

Sweet, sweet pain.

And I’m trying to do more planks again. Ahh, back in the day I could do 3 minute long planks, but after such a break since I focused mainly on running I’m struggling to go for a minute a half. Again, work in progress

So the challenge is helping me – small steps, granted. But it’s always nice to have that extra motivation!

How do you mix things up when you get into a rut? Fitness or food-related?

What new recipes have you been loving lately?

Do you foam roll?

*** Also don’t forget to enter my giveaway – open only to US residents, sorry non-US readers***

April 3, 2013April 3, 2013

A few firsts

Well, my post for today was going to be very different from this one! It was going to be my standard WIAW post, but something a bit out of the ordinary happened.

Yesterday (Tuesday morning) I woke up, got up out of bed and headed to the other bathroom (which is just down the hall) while Ben was just finishing his shower in the en suite. The next thing I know I’m lying in a heap at the top of the stairs and Ben is shouting at me to wake up. I’d collapsed and fallen (part-way, thankfully) down the stairs! [Before I go on, I am fine and this story has a happy ending]

You can see the knock in the wall where I hit my head. Apparently I was lying face up and out cold. Ben had heard a bang and rushed out of the bathroom to find me in a bit of a crumpled heap. I woke up very confused and very dizzy, my vision all starry and feeling extremely sick. Ben called an ambulance and I went and sat on the bed. They were round in minutes – I am so impressed.

I’ve never fainted or been unconscious before. And I’ve never had an ambulance called for me before (thank goodness). It was all very dramatic!

The paramedics were amazing – I am so thankful for how quickly they got round and helped me. Because I had pain in my back, they got me onto a stretcher and took me downstairs to the ambulance. [I bet my neighbours loved this]. Then I had an ECG to check my heart, which was thankfully fine, and my blood pressure. My blood pressure is normally quite low but apparently it was very low.

Then we dashed off to hospital. At this point, Ben had rung my parents and my dad was on the way (my mum was already at work – she’s a nurse incidentally, but at a different hospital). And then the waiting game ensued. I’m honestly so grateful for all the hard work doctors and nurses and other hospital staff do, but honestly, the waiting does suck.

We soon found that essentially, I was OK. My back was just a bit sore, no x-ray needed, and I wasn’t critically ill. Whew. But they wanted to run some tests and ‘run some fluid through me’ to give me a bit of an MOT…their words not mine haha.

[Yep I am still in PJs!]

As you can see, by this point the panic was over and we were just waiting around to find out what had caused me to faint. Ben and my dad were playing on their Iphone games and I was just feeling a bit queasy from the concussion.

I was a bit excited by the fact that I had a drip. I asked the nurse if it was full of a magical powerhouse of ingredients to make me feel better. Nope, just saline solution. Clearly I don’t watch enough ER or Grey’s Anatomy.

[You can see my boredom from the random photos I was taking…]

In the end, the doctor concluded that I had simply woken up dehydrated and stood up too quickly and due to my low blood pressure, fainted and unfortunately fell down the stairs and hit my head. So essentially, I’m fine. If not a little on the pathetically weak side. To be honest, I think the wall got the raw end of the deal.

There’s a fun job for Ben at some point

On to less dramatic but more fun things…food!

I won’t do much of a meal recap as I’ve blathered on a bit long already. So my WIAW post will be a bit disappointing on the food side I’m afraid.

On Monday night I finally made a recipe that I’ve had earmarked for ages ever since seeing it on Chelsey’s blog.

I made chicken pot pie calzones (originally based on THIS recipe). I followed the recipe pretty much exactly but left out the celery. I made the pizza dough using a simple recipe I had to hand but unfortunately ran out of normal flour and had to use half chickpea flour which incidentally worked very well.

I might have also been a bit greedy on the filling side and had to have a spill-over into some ramekins.

But it was very good none-the-less!

Snacks have obviously included a lot of this…

And a little of this…

Delicious frozen fruit. It’s nice to have frozen fruit for a change as I don’t tend to gobble it up quite as quickly.

Apologies for the abnormal WIAW, but I didn’t want to miss out completely! I’m feeling much better now, if not a little stiff. Obviously I haven’t been running!

Have you ever been to hospital? I hope for nothing serious!

What’s your favourite calzone flavour? I’ve never had calzone before but this was a great introduction.

What Easter egg(s) did you get this year? Normally I have a milk egg but I’ve been loving dark chocolate lately so this was a wonderful change.

March 27, 2013

Busy times and a new addition – WIAW

Whoops, I apologise for the delay between posts. Things have been crazy busy! I have some very exciting news (which I will get to shortly), a weekend catch-up with What I ate Wednesday. Whew, better get started.

Friday night Ben and me decided to treat ourselves to a take-away Indian meal. Honestly, I was so excited about it. We haven’t had one in ages. We have a lovely local Indian restaurant/take-away and it’s just brilliant. I had a starter of chicken tandoori:

Yum! This is basically a piece of chicken covered with yogurt and spices and cooked in the clay tandoor oven.

I then had a chicken tikka main (which is essentially very similar to my starter but chunks of chicken rather than an actual leg etc. – what can I say, I love this meal!). I had it with the ludicrously coloured yogurt side-sauce it comes with.

I had both starter and main with the salad garnish you get free with the starter and an onion salad as well. I love the onion salads but it pretty much kills any romance haha. Normally I don’t have any poppadums but I really fancied them so stole a fair few from Ben (Alfie loves them too…I know this is naughty!). We then watched Argo. Brilliant film, such a good story. But SO tense.

Saturday morning we got up early and Ben went for a 6 mile run and I went for a 9 mile run (we ran separately as we had different routes and different paces). The weather was pretty rubbish: cold and wet. And unfortunately on mile 3 when turning round a corner I slipped straight over and landed on the side of my thigh. Seriously painful. A woman passing her car stopped and helped me. She was very nice and offered to drive me home but I told her it was fine. She warned me not to run anymore…She clearly doesn’t understand the running mentality. I’m a third of the way in! No backing out now. I did have a bit of a rest but then carried on. What was great was as I fell I stopped my Garmin – runner’s mentality again haha.

Yeah so carrying on running was a bit painful but my own fault obviously for continuing so what can you do!

After the run I showered and made my usual breakfast of oatmeal and almond milk. So good after a run.

Then I was on fire and cleaned the bathrooms, hoovered, did the washing, ironed, put away laundry, and then walked Alfie. Super Anna! I then crashed haha.

For lunch I made a yummy sweet potato soup based on THIS recipe. It was lovely and warming and quite spicy. I used chickpeas instead of black beans though. And I sadly used all my nutritional yeast up *sobs*. It was another annoying meal that required grating sweet potato though.

Then Ben and I collapsed onto the sofa and watched three episodes back-to-back of Game of Thrones series 2. AMAZING.

For dinner I tried another new recipe. Prepare yourself, because this is something amazing.

Chicken Parmigiana (based on THIS recipe) serves 2

2 chicken breast
1 egg, beaten
40g breadcrumbs
40g parmesan, grated (split into half)
Garlic clove, diced
1/2 can passata/chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried oregano
½ ball light mozzarella, torn

– Mix 20g of the parmesan with the breadcrums.

– Dip the chicken in the egg, and then the breadcrumb mixture to coat the chicken (I double-dunked back in the egg and breadcrumbs to ensure maximum yumminess).

– Grill the chicken on both sides until golden and crispy.

– While the chicken is grilling, fry the garlic in a saucepan, then add the passata with the sugar and oregano until bubbling.

– In a shallow baking dish, add the chicken and the pour over the passata, place the torn mozzarella over the chicken and around it, then dust everything with the remaining parmesan (the pièce de résistance). Grill for 5 mins (until all is melted and gooey like the photo).

This was phenomenally tasty. The best part was when I served it Ben he had no idea really what it was apart from being a ‘cheesy tomato chicken thing’ (this is how I sold it to him). He had no idea the chicken was breaded. He said it literally made the meal and was possibly the best meal I’d ever made. These are CRAZY words. I almost cried

Sunday was supposed to be a relaxed day but something exciting happened that no one was expecting so soon…

My sister gave birth, six weeks early, to little Megan. It was always planned that Rachel would have a planned caesarean because of the baby’s position, but this was to be closer to the due date. So obviously this was quite a surprise for everyone, mainly the now very proud parents. She’s a little on the small side (as to be expected) but she is very well and so is Rachel thankfully.

She’s currently going to be spending the next two weeks in hospital just to make sure everything is perfect and then she can go home and join her sister, Ellie.

So Ben and I went to visit them on Sunday after dashing quickly into town to buy some pressies. And then we got to see mum and baby. Rachel was understandably very tired and Megan was fast asleep. But I did get to rest my hand, very gently, on her back. We couldn’t hold her as she needs to be kept as germ-free as possible. But it was just a beautiful experience. I’m always so awe-struck by how tiny and delicate and soft new borns are (I’ve only seen two – Ellie & Megan). And my sister is literally made to be a mum – she fits so naturally into the role.

How very exciting! Big congratulations to Rachel and Nick, my brother-in-law

Do you have any little ones in your family? Our family is very small so Ellie and Megan are the only ‘little people’ we have.

Have you ever fallen when running? It was more embarrassing than anything, but I do have a HUGE bruise on my leg now. I guess that’s one good thing that it’s still trouser weather.

What’s your favourite take-away/take-out?

March 20, 2013

A bits and bobs post

Firstly, thank you for all your kind words about Sunday’s half marathon. It made my day I’ve literally been floating along with happiness since then. What was also nice was everyone at work was so lovely about it and there was a lot of banter as there were about four other guys from work who did it too (I beat all but one! One guy did it in 1hour 36mins wowza).

This week has been crazy busy. And what makes it worse is I think I’m one day ahead…Friday is going to be painful. Because of the half marathon on Sunday it’s just skewed my perception of the week as the race took the entire day and I was so tired afterwards it didn’t feel like a proper weekend!

Anyway it’s Wednesday so we’re not too far off from the weekend. And it’s What I ate Wednesday link up.

I’ll show you a random selection of eats as it’s been a bit of a random week.

Breakfast is the standard oatmeal with almond milk. No changes there I’m afraid. Still as satisfying.

Lunch this week has been a mixture of my usual salads as I’ve missed them and they’re also so easy to throw together the night before (whereas my sandwiches don’t tend to be as nice if I make them the night before). I tend to make two lots of salads at the same time on Sunday night and then that means I can have a more relaxed mornings. Monday morning I was shattered and didn’t set my alarm till 7am which was heaven (usually I get up anywhere from 5.45 to 6.15am).

And with this I have a fruit salad with Greek yogurt and a Babybel.

But! This morning because I’m off to Cambridge (a two hour journey) a bit later for a FIFTEEN MINUTE presentation I didn’t know what was going to happen with lunch. I couldn’t realistically bring in a massive box of salad and I don’t know if I can buy lunch there or en route. And I’m not sure we’ll even get a proper time for lunch so I basically packed a stupid amount of snacks that I can discreetly eat at any point.

This is rye bread with peanut butter smeared onto it which I’ve sandwiched together. A bit more discreet than a ‘proper’ sandwich I hope…and I’ve got a Babybel, a packet of Snack a Jacks, an apple and these:

Which I got in my swag bag from the half marathon.

I think I’m sorted!! I hate not knowing what’s happening with lunch and like to be prepared.

Dinners have been a lot more interesting. On Monday night Ben and me had one of our usual easy go-to meals: salad with grilled halloumi. Normally I roast a lot of veggies to go with this to make it more filling (butternut squash, sweet potato, zucchini, peppers, etc.) But I had the leftovers from that side salad I had at Jamie’s Italian on Sunday that needed using up.

It’s basically bulgur wheat and quinoa mix. Ben looked extremely sceptical about it. I had to convince him it was basically like couscous. And…he loved it! In fact he’s requested I attempt to recreate it. Win!

Last night I tried my hand at moussaka again (which I got wrong in the previous post by saying moussaka is usually made with pasta – it’s actually potato. Apologies, I should have done my research!)

This time though as I wanted a more quick mid-week meal, I left out the eggplant as that’s what took ages last time (salting, frying etc.). I basically just fried a small onion, lean beef mince, crumbled in a beef stock cube, added Worcestershire sauce, passata and herbs and let it reduce a bit while I made the top sauce. This was using one egg, a good few dollops of Greek yogurt and a tablespoon of parmesan. I put the mince mixture in an oven dish and poured the sauce on top and then grilled for about 10 mins. Perfect!

I did miss the eggplant but it was still very yummy and definitely filled me up nicely.

In terms of running. My legs have been aching hugely since Sunday. I was hobbling like an old lady on Monday. On Tuesday though I thought I’d venture out for a very easy run just to shake myself out. Plus, I am pleased to say that Ben has been inspired to get back into running! So we went out together and I stuck with him the entire time to force myself from not trying to go too fast (though I doubt I could have as it was so tough). So we kept at a nice 10min/mile pace for 3 miles.

Ben has decided to give up alcohol for the next 8 weeks and to get back into running as we’ve both signed up for a 10k race in May (in 8 weeks time). I’m so proud of him! It’ll be lovely to do a race together as it’ll be nice to talk to someone after the race specifically about different parts that you know they’ll have experienced, you know?

My next run will be tomorrow and I’m just going to see how I feel. I don’t want to push myself and be silly as I need to recover properly, but at the same time I’m desperate to get back out and run again. So easy pace, no more than 5 miles.

And that’s all I’ve got. Like I said, it’s all a bit busy and crazy with work which isn’t ideal as I just wanted an easy week this week! But such is life.

Hope you have a great week!

Do you run/workout with your partner?

What do you do if you don’t know what’s happening with lunch at work? I think I’ve over-prepared!