Eating... My Thoughts

I love eating.

That's a fact. I love, love, love, love, love eating. Eating provides our body with the fuel it needs to sustain itself and do all the extra wonderful things we want it to. Like walking. Talking. Thinking. Studying. Dancing. laughing. Clapping. Exercising.

Food is fuel, nothing more and yet we as a society seem to pin so much more to it. It's a reward. It's a guilty treat. It's a secret binge. It's an off-limits bite. It's an 'allowed' food.

Breakfast should be protein heavy. Minimal fruits. Eaten before a certain time. A portion of this many grams.

Lunch always happens after 12. Lean proteins. Little carbs. Veggies.

Snacks. Only rarely. The right kind. Veg.

Dinner before 6. Light. lightest meal of the day. Not high in fat.

No dessert.

Is this the eating plan we really want to be following for the rest of our lives? I won't lie, it was a similar plan I used to have in my head when I first starting falling into my orthorexia trap and yet it's my eating philosophy now-a-days that I really want to talk about today.

Now-a-days, I eat to my body. Yep, weird sentence. What I mean is, I eat to my bodies desires, it's intentions, it's wants and needs, because who better knows how to feed itself than the thing being fed? And what does that look like?

Breakfast: Whatever time the body hits the hunger mode! Generally large, generally whatever the body feels like. Fruits? Huge fruit smoothie! Protein? Thick, gooey, choc protein oats! Crunchy? Home-made granola! Always full of nutritious, fibrous, body-loving goodness

Lunch: Whatever time the body has finished digesting breakfast and is in need of some more fuel to tackle some more of the day! Maybe that's 12 on the dot. maybe it's more like 11am. perhaps it's not til 1:30pm. And then it's a sandwich. A salad. roast veggies. Soup. Smoothie. Hommus. Beans. You get the drift? Anything!

Sometimes breakfast was so big and filling that all I want for lunch is veg! Roasted potatoes, steamed peas and a stick of celery because I wanted some hydration!

Sometimes it's the simple things that truly hit the spot the best. So why fight it?

Snack: Essential for me to make it through to dinner. Generally fruit because that's what the body craves (natural sugar pick-me-up anyone?) sometimes soy milk and dates, or nuts. Whatever time the hunger hits.

Dinner: Anything. Any time.

I think it's definitely occurred to me a lot more recently that going with what the body wants will leave me feeling so much more satisfied and happy when eating. Even if that means not eating any spinach one day. Or if that means a lunch of steamed potatoes... :)

Sure, the critical, health-conscious, perfectionist part of us look at that and think; that is so unbalanced- waaayyy too many carbs, hardly any protein, no fats- what is this girl thinking! But then the body simply sits back and goes; you know what, this is what I needed right then and there. Nothing more, nothing less.

Dessert:
Happens almost nightly. Not because I have to fit in some certain nutrients, not because I have restricted throughout the day to enjoy that sweet treat after dinner, not because I'm necessarily all that hungry after a beautifully nourishing (both physically and/or mentally & emotionally) dinner, but because it makes me happy to nom on some dark chocolate, or a handful of deliciously creamy cashews, or a mug of sweet ice cold soy milk.

Recently, my eating has been a heck of a lot more focused on simple, minimal ingredients, meals, because that's what the body is telling me it wants. It doesn't follow any rules, time constraints, common held societal ideals. Nope. If I want a big bowl of brown rice, warm chickpeas, avocado and salsa for dinner... than that's what dinner will be:

There will be no questioning the carb content, the limited veggies, the size of the bowl or the time in which it is eaten.

Eating is simple. My body wanted this. My body felt good after eating this. Food that nourishes and feeds the food is not always the same as the 'accepted' meal plans deemed by society.

In conclusion?

Eat for you.

Not for some meal plan guaranteeing the 'perfect body'. Because there is no such thing.

Your turn:
What's your method of eating? Structured? No structure? 
Do you ever fall into the meal time trap? I still struggle with this on the daily; I won't lie, but I have definitely become a lot better at telling myself if I'm hungry the body needs to eat, no matter if lunch was merely an hour ago!
Favourite simple meal? At the moment mine is that rice and bean, avocado, salsa mix, but I'm also a big fan of baked sweet potatoes, or toast with vegemite and avo.

Ahhh. That felt good to get off my chest! Alrighty, have yourself a great day, eat for YOU and only for you, fill your belly with fresh, wholesome, nourishing foods (for the body and the mind!) and tell a loved one that you love them, because I feel that's something we forget do far too often and it's far too important to forget! Bye for now beautiful people!! :D

The Week in Workouts!

Before we get into today's post.. guess what??

My phone apparently ran out of room for photos! Can ya believe it? Well, actually I can, because I take a ridiculous number of photos of my food (like, seriously Steph? 15 photos.. for a smoothie?) and I never seem to delete any of them.

Well, today was a different story and after I reassured myself that all the photos I wanted to keep and look back on were either on this blog or Instagram, that it would be alright to get rid of a fair chunk hanging around on my phone.

I think I deleted around 500!

Anywho, that was just today's little drama. Now I want to broaden this post's horizons with a look at the week in the form of workouts!

As you may have caught in some of my previous posts, I'm back in that season of life where workouts are feeling GREAT! I feel like I'm crushing new goals every single day and I'm pushing myself further than I've ever gone (but feeling good with it, don't worry!!)

Last Saturday's post-long-run-endorphin-filled-hunger-shot :D

So today I wanted to share with you some fitness inspiration/ ideas/ insight into my workout routine, a little break from the food for ya! 

Now, yes, you all know I run. Steph looooves to run. But more recently, Steph loves to do a whole bunch of other stuff to strengthen, tone and awesome-i-fy her body. 

Here's what this past week looked like for my activity:

Sunday:

We'll start at the very beginning with the all-essential rest day! Now I am not going to fake anything on this blog and in all truth and honesty- I hate rest days. I feel lazy, sluggish, tired, not my usual self. There's a hint of guilt, I will admit, whenever I sit down to my usual gigantor sized meal with my brain telling me I don't need that much food on rest days. I practically never sit down on rest days because there's that part of me that says, 'You haven't earned it.' and I try and keep myself as busy and distracted as possible.

Geared up for a walk on the beach... in winter :D

It's a bit sad because I should relish this time of rest and recovery, let my mind rest too, so the following day I can truly enjoy my workout after given my body the time off it needs. I know all this in my heart, but the brain always seems to take over doesn't it?

Anywho, on this particular rest day I went for a beautiful winter's walk on the beach and if I thought the beach was stunning in Summer, a Winters beach is a whole other story!

Monday:

It's mid-year holidays for me (yep, I literally have one more term of highschool left... ever!) so I can enjoy a bit more of a sleep-in (to around 6:30am- the body's natural wake time) before I whip on the workout clothes and smash in a good sweat session!

Monday saw a huge arm session (with some legs and core thrown in for good measure) as I headed into a little make-shift gym at home, picked up the dumbbells and got to work! I spent around 40-45mins in there doing a routine I seem to have downbeat now; involving moves such as bicep curls, shoulder presses, deadlifts (both single and double legged), tricep rows, shoulder hunches (don't even know if some of these names are right! :P) until my arms are jelly and I'm sweating like a pig.

It's workouts like these that don't necessarily leave me completely out of breath (but close to it!) instead making me feel so strong and powerful!) Following this I made sure I got a good amount of protein into me!

Tuesday:

Tuesday was another awesome session- probably the highest intensity, toughest and most exhausting of the week.

I had already planned to do Blogilate's Train Insane HIIT video (my favourite when I want to work up an intense sweat and inability to breath!) and so when I had finished that all flushed and jittery:

I knew the only thing that would calm my shaking and jittery muscles was a bit of a run, just to calm the body down. So, that bit of a run ended up turning into around 5.5km and by the end, I was DONE! So, once again, I fell into a delicious breakfast, caught my breath and felt incredibly strong and capable to achieve anything the day could throw at me!

Breath caught, hair re-brished and ponytailed, shoes on, and out the door!

Wednesday:

I knew I wanted to work on abs today. What I didn't know was that upon waking I'd decide to do Blogilates Extreme Abs. Yep, those insane videos of ab destroying torture. And I purposefully left out the specifics as to which one I did because, I kid you not, I did all. 3. 

Consecutively. 

It hurt.

But was so, so good!

Hello there little baby abs!! Welcome to the world!

If you think you've got pretty good core strength and you've been working on your core for a while; give that challenge a go- super awesome! (that's the key word here, I've been doing blogilates ab workouts for quite a wile now; starting with 1 Extreme Abs video, slowly moving up to 2 and now only just managing to complete 3. It takes time people!)

Thursday:

Thursday= sprint day!

Hill sprint day!

Lose the entirety of your ability to speak, breath and pull acceptable faces when running day!

Just kidding- I love sprint day. I love raising my heart rate that quickly, letting it drop back to normal and then going again. It hurts, sure, but afterwards those endorphins are real!

Yes, my hair will and always be a frizz bomb after exercising- if it isn't, I wasn't working hard enough! :P

My plan with hill sprints is that I give myself the task to complete 10 (a challenge in itself!) and then after I'm done the ten I can do however many I want before I give in and head into the house for brekky!! Today, the body decided to do 15! Happy days!

Brekky following sprint sesh- banana green smoothie (2 frozen bananas, handful frozen zucchini, kale, spinach, greek yoghurt, water- whaz!) with a side of warm, crunchy, home-made cinnamon and peanut butter granola.

Friday:

I knew that after a few days of high intensity, tough workouts, it was time for another slower, strength building session and what better than a few Blogilates videos? Seriously, I am obsessed- the right amount of challenge and fun!

I started off with a quick fat burning cardio video to get the heart pumping (great when you want to strengthen and tone other muscles later on) followed by a calf strengthening video, then an arms video, back video, finishing with a booty video! It may seem like a lot but these were all quite short videos (I think the total workout ended up being around 30 mins?) and I felt really good after it!

Saturday:

Long run day!

After a week of very different, very challenging workouts, I love to round it all out with a nice, long, easy-paced run. I get to think, breath and let my legs go where they will. Long runs can be the worst workouts sometimes. but when you're in that state of simply plodding along, mind drifting to far off places... it's something nothing else in life can really offer me.

This particular Saturday saw 14.3 kilometres and I was quite happy with that for the weekly long run! however with around 4km to go, I started to feel a niggle in the side of my left knee and that continued to grow until the pain got a bit too intense and I cut off the last hill of my run. Hopefully with a nice relaxing rest day tomorrow and plenty of roller-ing throughout the week, it should be good!!

ALWAYS need a good brekky to follow a big run!

Enter banana cinnamon maca steel cut oats, with nut butter dolloped throughout and topped with some fresh banana slices:

Mac does something amazing to oats- it brings this kind of nutty, caramel-y flavour and hey, if it offers some great recovery benefits (hellooo potassium!) then why not add it for a delicious hit to the mug of oats??

And truthfully friends, my procedure with the nut butter is some smooth PB on the bottom, mixed crunchy nut butter in the middle, topping it all off with some more melty, smooth, warm PB. I don't go lightly with the peanut butter folks! #peanutbutteraddict :P

And when you hit that mid-oat nut butter bomb:

It's a beautiful, beautiful moment. :)

Whiccchh brings us all the way back to today; Sunday! And yes, a much needed and highly loved by the body, rest day!

Plans for today? Eat (drink?) a delicious HUGE green smoothie, get some study down (ain't no such thing as holidays for the year 12 student!), spend some time with family playing board games, eat some lunch, read, and just relax. Sounds pretty perfect to me!

Your turn:
What did your weekly workouts look like this week?
Fav workout of the week?
Fav post-workout meal of the week?

I realise this post was very much fitness oriented, but I think as my horizons in my own health and fitness lifestyle broadens, so too will the focus on this blog, so whilst there will still be plenty of food posts with drool worthy recipe ideas and inspiration, there will also be some little dibs and dabs into more fitness based and lifestyle oriented posts too- little bit of everything right?

Now, with that said, have yourself a rockin' Sunday, spend time with friends and family, relax, recover and rejuvenate for the week to come, because I have a feeling it's going to be a good one! Bye for now friendly friends! :D

P.S. EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!!

Sometimes You Have To Make Yourself Eat

Hi friends!

Today's post is a little on the serious side as it is something I know a lot of girls around the world, whoever, wherever and whatever is going on in their lives suffers with. The amazing World Wide Web enables us all to interconnect on a much grander scale than ever before and one of the things I have taken from this is and introduction to just how many people suffer as the result of poor/ inadequate nutrition.

However that's probably too big of a topic for one blog post and so today instead I want to scrap it all down to just one little section of this issue; under-eating. And it most cases; not even realising your doing it!

I've spoken on this before with my own experience, where unhealthy thoughts have entered my mind when I'm making myself a meal, saying ridiculous things like; 'If you don't add lentils to this dish that's a whole pack of food your not consuming... and do you really need to add them anyway? Will they make the dish any better?'

Lentils.

I guess on a more realistic and relatable and regular occurrence level, it would be the unhealthy voices in my mind saying;'No, you don't need to eat, it's only 2pm! You still have 2 hours until your next snack!' When I'm standing in the kitchen ravenously hungry.

But again, this issue I want to talk about is even more specific than that. It is pure and simply, not eating enough. And why sometimes you need to make yourself eat more!

It would probably shock the life out of most teenage girls to tell them to eat more and they will feel 10000x better when all they've been told from a very young age by society is how to lose weight, be skinny and therefore be happy. And thus begins the downsizing of meals, the infrequency of meals, the small, small amount of fuel being given to the body.

Do you know how hard it is to come to school, comfortably full and energised from a big bowl of warm, gooey banana porridge with nut butter and all the other good stuff, to be subjected to watching a friend eat her breakfast of- a slice of plain toast. Or perhaps, an apple. Or an orange. Or a juice. Or a coffee. Or maybe even just a bottle of water. (Whilst morning hydration is essential; so is following it up with a big, hearty, nutritious breakfast!)

Can you understand how painful it is to start digging into a home-prepared, well-sized portion of roasted veggies, spinach, beans, lentils, peas, corn etc. and look over to see a fellow girl-power nibbling on a rice cracker. Slowly crunching through some raw veggie sticks. Or better yet, a salad... made of lettuce.

Is it even legal to then go home and prepare a delicious feast of veggie pizza on a wholegrain pumpkin crust piled high with veggies and homes and nutritional yeast, only to message a friend and find out they've got another salad, or perhaps a boiled egg, or some more toast or maybe even that they're not eating dinner because they're not really hungry at all after a stressful/ bad day at school.

This is the kind of thing I'm faced with on the daily and whilst I'm not sharing this to gain sympathy (which would be rather odd because it would be like asking you to feel bad for me because I'm eating loads of food??) I'm asking you to consider the kinds of messages that are being sent out into the world and the 'normalcy' surrounding meals and eating that has been taken on by many, many girls, young women and women in general... in fact I wouldn't even limit it to women any more, the internet has also provided me with multiple examples of boys, young men and men who restrict their intakes to for an unrealistic image.

If I brought this issue up with a fellow friend who just doesn't seem to eat. At all. The response could well in fact be; 'Well, I'm just not much of an eater. I'm never hungry.' And whilst this seems legitimate, there's also a reason for this lack of hunger and I hate to tell them this, but it's not natural to not feel hunger. Ever. The reason why these girls can wake up and fill their stomachs with a whopping meal of water and then some crackers and lunch, followed by two pieces of buttered toast at dinner (and that's it) is because their body has adapted to the limited supply of energy, nutrients and just plain FOOD in general, that metabolism has slowed to the bare minimum and in all honesty the body is not burning anything anymore- storing what little food it is given is the only way to survive.

Hence the absence of hunger signals.

I was never one to restrict any of my meals or anything as a girl but even looking back at my 6-7-8-9 year old self who would wake up and have a bowl of cereal, then a cookie at recess, a vegemite sandwich on white bread at lunch and some rice and meat (pre-vego) for dinner, if I ate that now-a-days? I would be a screaming, hanger monster. That wouldn't even make up half the kilojoules I consume now! And what's even better? My body burns that energy I feed it now and I've never been stronger, fitter, more toned (similar lean-ness, I've never really been 'big' before) than ever. With probably 3x the amount of fuel!

So what would be my advice to these girls? Firstly, start slowly. Add in extra foods and kilojoules slowly and regularly to each meal. Not a big breakfast eater? Start with a home-made granola bar, or a small smoothie, or some fruit with nut butter. Then after a bit, add in a small bowl of oats, a piece of wholegrain toast with a delicious topping, add more fibre and protein to the smoothie. Slowly and slowly the hunger will creep in. You'll start to wake up with an appetite. Until eventually you're like me and a hungry monster after a night of fasting! The same goes for lunches and dinner. Slowly but surely (and regularly) add in another nutritious food, whether it be some avocado, pumpkin seeds, quinoa, sweet potato, chia seeds, homes, greek yoghurt, tahini- you name it!

You know when I mentioned my smoothies are always suuuuper huge and there's a good amount left in the blender after filling my smoothie jar?
Well, here's the remainder: Eaten with a spoon straight from the blender! :) NOM!

To kick-start a healthy metabolism and regular hunger signals, you need to gain your body's trust again, and whilst it may be uncomfortable or scaring or just plain unwanted (t's not that fun not being remotely hungry and forcing yourself to eat something) in the long-run your body will be an efficient, fuel burning, powerhouse that runs so well and doesn't store 100% of the food you eat because it knows there will be more (and a good amount) soon!

I won't lie, I've struggled with non-hunger before (see here, here and here) but in my case, this has never stopped me eating a meal, or dramatically downsizing portions etc. Instead it's made me aware that I still need to fuel my body even when it's not particularly hungry (especially if it's been over 4 hours!) because not only am I a growing teenage girl, with increased iron needs and calcium and protein etc. I'm also a runner, lover of HIIT, fitness addict, who loves to work up a sweat. So if I've worked up a sweat that day, I know I need to work up a good amount of food!

Pre-hill-sprint sesh leg shot:

Post hill-sprint sesh leg-shot:

Followed by the refuelling nature of post-fasted-workout breakfast:
This is a great example of a not-so-hungry Steph meal, that tasted delicious I might add, which was my breakfast of choc protein oats with nut butter and banana:

I'd just done a sprint session and needed to refuel, so I whipped up my regular (huge) amount of oats

and dug in:

When i got to about here, I could have comfortably stopped 9though I'm sure I would've been ravenous an hour later)

So this was one of those times when I had to tell myself my body requires more fuel than a few bites of oatmeal in the morning and continued to enjoy my creamy, rich, chocolate oats:

And enjoy them I did!

One last note on this; I really struggle with proper feeling on rest days and my short answer to myself and anyone else suffering with this mentality? This is when the changes happen, when your muscles rest and relax- so why deprive them of the fuel they need?? (I will do a more in depth post on this topic because I feel it is quite important!)

Your turn:
Do you struggle with feeling your body properly?
Ever have to make yourself eat because you know your body needs the fuel?
Favourite oatmeal combo at the moment? Kind of hooked on chocolate at the minute to be quite honest!!

I hope you take what I've said today and really consider the foods you are eating and if it is enough to sustain your day-to-day life. Enjoy your day, do something you love and as always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS! Bye for now friends!! :D

A Fantastic Friday :D (RECIPE!!)

Hide ho there friendly friends and happy, happy FRIDAY!!

Always love a good Friday and everyone just seems to be that little bit more chipper and optimistic (stark contrast to Mondays!!) So, yes, I do love my Fridays and do you know what makes this particular Friday even better?? It's the first day of my mid-year holidays!

It feels like an eternity since I've been on holidays and the past term at school feels like it was two separate terms with the exam break in the middle. I will be honest here, I definitely burnt myself out over this last term and these holidays couldn't have come fast enough to help rejuvenate my mind, body and emotions!!

So, yes, this Friday I woke up to the sound of not-an-alarm-at-5:45am, instead waking up at a luxurious 6:11am, before making my way downstairs to grab my iPad, back to my cosy bed, blog scrolling and then up and at-em' for a quick tempo run followed by some quick Blogilates workouts (obliques and arms and back and butt). Following this... I did have to go back into school because I forgot to grab half of my school books for revision over the holidays... but after that? Well, I was in for a treat! And now you are too:

 That, my friends, was this morning's first-day-of-holidays breakfast celebration! And let me tell you, it was better than as good-as-it-looks!

Warm, home-made, crunchy, golden, cinnamon nut butter granola over the top of some creamy, plain greek yoghurt, sweet, perfectly ripe banana slices scattered throughout and a pour of ice-cold almond milk to finish it all off.... food heaven:

 This is one of those moments where the foodie in me comes out and appreciates all the different textures (smooth, creamy, crunchy, chewy) flavours (rich, refreshing, sweet, nutty) and gives myself a little pat on the back for gifting my tastebuds and stomach with such yumminess.

 Now, if you're still following, or maybe even perhaps drooling? (I only ask because I know I am... and I only ate this around an hour ago :P) I'm sure you're are itching for the recipe because you should most definitely make yourself a bowl of this yum! (if you follow me on Instagram; @steph2chef, you would have been the lucky receiver of the recipe practically as I was eating it!)

 Now, onto the recipe!

Nutty Cinnamon Granola Yoghurt and Fruit Bowl

Ingredients:
1/2 cup natural muesli
2 heaped tablespoons rolled oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I probably added way more :P)
1 handful wholegrain cheerios
1 HEAPED tablespoon- 2 regular tablespoons of nut butter (I used an LSA peanut butter mix- so good!)
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
greek yoghurt (as much as you want in your yoghurt bowl- I probably used around a cup)
1 banana, sliced
Extra almond milk to drizzle over when serving!

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a small tray with baking paper
2. Place the muesli, oats, cinnamon and cheerios in a bowl and stir to combine
3. Place the nut butter and almond milk in a small bowl and microwave/ heat on stove until warmed through (I don't mix together generally because they will get mixed into muesli)
4. Add heated nut butter and almond milk to dry muesli mix and stir to combine (should be quite sticky)
5. Spread out evenly on baking tray and bake in the oven for around 15-20 mins until golden and crunchy on top (I like the extra crispy bits so I leave it in for the longer time!)
6. Leave to cool for 5 mins, then start layering your bowl; greek yoghurt, banana slices, granola, banana slices, granola, banana slices, granola, banana slices- drizzle over almond milk- EAT!!

Nom.

This breakfast is so delicious, comforting and extremely filling (thank you healthy fats from the nut butter and protein from the nuts and greek yoghurt) so you definitely won't hit a sugar slump from the regular bowl of sugary cereal! No way this bowl of 'cereal' is packed full of nutrients and will do your body so many favours!

Now go make it!

Your turn:
What did you have for breakfast today?
Favourite granola flavour/ add-ins? (I love adding in wholegrain cheerios- I did it once and have never looked back! Cinnamon also seems to be a must for me!)
Best breakfast you've eaten recently?

With that I hope you all have a truly fabulous Friday, relax for the weekend, unwind, relax and do something you love. And, as always, EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS! (But that's for any day of the week really :). Bye for now friends! :D

Choc Protein Granola Bowl!!

Hi there friendly friends! Are you happy today? Are you feeling super pumped and excited and ready to tackle whatever the day throws at you??

Yes? Brilliant!

And if you answered no, worry not! For I have the solution to put you in the best possible mood to tackle your day and feel strong, powerful and extremely happy throughout the entire day! And yes, of course it involves food!

So this brekky idea came to me as per usual; whilst I was just drifting off to sleep and my mind was thinking about all the randomness of the world and then BOOM. This amazing breakfast idea. Looks at time... great, only like 10 hours until I get to create and then EAT this amazing breakfast! (anyone else have these feels when they're really excited about breakfast but it's all the way on the other side of sleep!?!) I quickly willed myself to drift off so the time machine to breakfast could do it's thang and do its thang it did!

This particular day was a full rest day after a completely exhausting, (both mentally and physically) week of 5 exams a row, with a workout on every single one of those days and just no time to breathe. So to say I was in the happiest of states when I woke up this Monday morning (no exam!!), simply sauntered down to the kitchen, got me a glass of water, grabbed my iPad, plodded back up the stairs to my cosy bed, read some blog posts whilst sipping water and waking up for the day and then fully awake; jumping down the stairs to make my dreamed-up creation!!

And create I did!
That my friends is a ginormous high protein bowl of greek yoghurt, home-made, warm choc granola made with natural muesli, nut butter and protein powder, cooked in the oven until crisp on the outside and golden, with sliced banana scattered throughout for creamy, sweetness to break up the rich flavours of the granola and the tart-ness of the greek yoghurt... it really was the perfect mix of flavours and textures and kept me full FOR HOURRRRSS! So if you're one to struggle with mid-morning snacking because you are utterly ravenous- this is your answer; I wasn't even all that hungry for lunch 5 hours later!!

Ok, enough chit chat- onto the recipe!!

Choc Protein Granola Bowl:

Ingredients:
Granola:
2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter (or any nut butter you desire!)
1/2 cup natural, untoasted muesli
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 scoop choc protein powder (I use the Sunwarrior brand- which is vegan)
1 handful wholegrain sugar-free cheerios (so obsessed with cheerios!!)
3/4 cup almond milk
Other ingredients:
1/2-3/4 cup greek yoghurt (as much as you want with your granola)
1 banana, sliced
1/4 cup extra ice cold almond milk- drizzle over at end :)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius, line a baking tray with baking paper
2. Place oats, muesli, cheerios, protein powder and cinnamon in a bowl and stir to combine
3. Place nut butter and almond milk in a small bowl and heat in the microwave until warmed through (alternatively heat on stove in small saucepan- no need to stir; just heat through)
4. Add to dry mix and stir until combined (add water if too dry/ crumbly)
5. Scatter over baking tray, pop in oven and bake for 15-20 mins until crisp on outside, smelling amazing and lightly golden, leave to cool out of tray
6. Place greek yoghurt in a bowl, top with some banana slices, add a sprinkling of granola, more banana slices, granola, banana, granola, etc. until all used up!
7. Pour over some extra almond milk and then dig in!!

I just love the richness of the chocolate granola and paired with the creaminess of the greek yoghurt and sweetness of banana; gah- I want this NOW!!

I also love how the dried fruit in the muesli becomes slightly caramelised and gets this incredible flavour and extra chewiness- just adding to the perfection:

And honestly, it may not look like much; granola and yoghurt with some fruit, but this high protein, filled with good-fats, screaming deliciousness bowl literally kept me full for so long- and that's saying something for me; I'm a pretty ravenous creature majority of the time. Come lunch time I was like; 'Well, I could eat but I'd be perfectly fine not to..'

My stomach was probably too busy happily daydreaming about the breakfast to be thinking about next meal :P

So, yes, make this, eat this, savour this and I promise your body will thank you for it!

I see this in my future. Many, many times.

Stir around a little to coat some of that crunchy granola, mix up those flavours and you get a very tasty granola yoghurt bowl. Why would you ever go out and buy one of these again when you can make one this good at home with simple ingredients??

OK, I need to stop looking at all these pictures of this breakfast; getting hungry and longing for this bowl. Must stop. Don't want to. Need help :P

Ha ha, just kidding. But seriously. This breakfast is addicting!

Your turn:
What has been the best breakfast you've eaten of recent?
Favourite granola bowl flavours?
Breakfast you could eat everyday and never get sick of? That one's a hard one for me because I go through phases; you know, oatmeal, granola, toast etc. Right now I'm on an epic smoothie ride!!

Alrighty that's it from me today folks; I hope you have a fabulous day, do one thing you absolutely love, give someone you love a hug and as always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friends! :D

:)