Hangry Pants!

Hi friends, how are we today?

Good? Good.

As for me?

I'M HUNGRY!

You and I both know I go through stages of extreme hunger and kinda subdued, not really all that hungry but could eat if I had to hunger (which I'm guessing the vast majority of normal people in the world experience).

And yep, you guessed it, I've swung back into the hangry category.

I never know what causes my extreme hunger, or how my body can fit in so much food, but you see, the thing is, I don't care. I care about the types of food I put in my body. I care about where that food comes from, how I can lovingly prepare it so the natural and beautiful flavours remain and I care about making sure I can get the most nutrition out of all of my meals. But as to size- I simply do not care.

 This smoothie consisted of 1 frozen banana + 1 handful frozen zucchini + 1 scoop vanilla protein powder + large soaking of rolled oats in almond milk + 3 big scoops greek yoghurt +1 massive handful of both kale and spinach + 1/2 an avocado + 1 scoop vanilla protein powder + water

 I had to drink the remaining bit that was left in the blender separately because it wouldn't all fit in the jar!

Not being one to have ever count calories in my life, the very idea just seems insane. If my body is telling me it's about to eat the insides of my stomach if I don't eat a relatively calorically dense meal in the next 3.5 seconds then I'm not going to take the extra time to make sure my half an avocado isn't going to push me over my calorie levels for this meal.

I needed a snack. Peanut butter had to be involved. I think the ratio of celery to peanut butter may have been around 1:1000 :D

Now, I completely understand the reason for counting calories in some circumstances. When you've entirely mucked up your metabolism through not eating, or the other extreme of binge eating, it becomes hard to properly interpret your hunger signals and in turn can lead to under/ over consuming a lot more/ a lot less than your body requires. So, by all means, calorie count your way to a restored metabolism and a restored relationship between you, your body and your metabolism, so you can once again trust your hunger signals.

But as for me, if I am hungry I shall eat. I shall eat what I desire in the quantity that I desire because I trust that my body knows and needs this fuel. Sometimes when I don't feel the hungry bug, I have to eat a little more than I feel my body needs because if I'm satisfied after a simple fruit smoothie for breakfast- I know my body requires a heck of a lot more than that to function on a day-to-day basis.

 Let's just appreciate the size of this avocado for a second... it was huge. It was delicious.

Recently I have upped my mileage a bit more, so I'm guessing that could be one of the contributing factors behind this sudden spike in hunger and in all honesty this makes me quite happy. I love that my body is burning through the fuel I feed it on the daily and I love that I've got a well working, efficient machine that enables me to move, run and do everything else with energy and enthusiasm.

No, I do not calorie count. yes I will have that extra piece of dark chocolate after dinner if I'm still hungry and no there will be no guilt felt on my part because I know and trust my body and from past experience this has worked out perfectly!

What about you?
Are you a calorie counter or do you go by the waves of your hunger signals?
Do you sometimes have to make yourself eat a bit more because you know your body needs it?
Favourite post-workout meal?

I hope you all have a lovely day, look after those bodies that do so much for you, do something you love and as always; eat something delicious! Bye for now friends!! :D

A Letter to the Shamers... of the Body Variety

Hello there beautiful people!

Today is Monday and what does one do when one misses pancake Sunday and wakes up Monday morning?

Well, one rolls out of bed, checks the time, sees it is 5:50am, gets a drink, rolls back into bed, realises one is awake, gets out of bed, grabs a full glass of water, puts on workout clothes, goes for an early morning beach run which seemed to get longer and longer because one was feeling rather good on this run, returns home to do a quick Blogilates workout and...

Makes Monday Morning Pancakes!!

See, we got there eventually!

 These were simply a few vanilla protein 'cakes made with spelt/rye flour, rolled oats, vanilla prtoein powder, cinnamon, baking powder and unsweetened almond milk with two chopped dates thrown in there and stirred up until smooth- pan over medium heat with light spray of oil, 2-3 mins each side- et voila!

 Placed on some paper towel and then topped off with either mixed nut and seed spread or home-made peanut butter- these were delightfully delicious!!

 With a side of blueberry fro-yo to serve! Frozen bluebs + 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt- whazzed up in a mini food processor until smooth!
And now some eating shots for your pleasure:

 Onto the topic of today's post! Totally got carried away by my Monday Pancakes!!
Having recently dipped into the world of Instagram it has become even more apparent as to the level of justification and self love we all seek in life (whether it's in our day-today relations or via social media)

P.S. Ronda Rousey is a legend

There doesn't seem to be an end to the amount of workout snaps, recaps of how far someone ran and then how little they ate, a picture of a teeny cookie with a caption like; 'TREAT YOSELF!' and all this through the edited, pretty coloured, perfect world of a phone lens.

I'm not going to lie- I am a big fan of Instagram (even if I've been on it for less than a week) but it just makes it more and more obvious to me how much self justification and self worth is tied through the pictures and thus the likes of each of these pictures.

And I think I know why.

Too many people are worried about the shamers. The shamers of this world who seek to bring people down. Who see any flaw and will make a comment. Who have only a negative mindset. Who judge before judgement is valid. Who comment before comment is required. Who cause so many of us (particularly young girls/ women) to ultra-beautify and edit our lives so as to receive praise and self-worth.

#gymselfie #naughtydessert #ideserveit...

It's these people who judge without any background knowledge or respect that cause so many people to develop eating disorders. To cut down the amount of food they eat until they reach a 'perfect amount' by what society deems as acceptable. Who abuse fitness, or even become addicted to working out because then the shamers can't get to them.

But I think the worst thing about shamers is the fact that the worst shamers of all out there in this world... are us. Us onto ourselves. And the real reason we do the extreme things we do isn't because of a fear necessarily over what someone else might think, but is actually an internal battle between ourselves and our minds who judge and spread negative thoughts and escalate our morals and values into obsessions that slowly but surely become extremely unhealthy.

So, here's to the silencing of the shamers. The external shamers and the internal shamers. You do you. Listen to your body and do what it pleads for. If you are hungry eat. If you are tired rest. If you are buzzing with energy jump up and down like a mad thing whilst spinning in circles (always a fun pass time of mine! ;). If you want to spread your nut buter on thick- spread it on thick:

 I know I do!

If you want a little something after dinner, have a little something after dinner- your body or even just the wellbeing of your mind will thank you for it:

Dark choc and soy milk... Happy days!

If you need a lie in, in the morning, don't force yourself to complete your 10+km run. Take the lie in and skip the awful feeling you'll now associate with running and the likelihood of injury caused by over training.

If you need to exercise to free your mind of stress, anxiety or just a heap of energy- go out and MOVE!

This be me after running on the beach and Blogilate-ing it up- feeling AWESOME!

Most of all, just love yourself. Flaws and all. Because the one guaranteed way to get rid of all shamers, both external and internal, once and for all is to show them that you know you're awesome and there's nothing anyone can say that could sway you otherwise!

Also, get yourself a shirt that has your daily slogan on it. Because then you will fell great :D

If you suffer with shamers (whether it's extrenal people, your own inner thoughts or a combination of the two) I really truly hope you take some of these messages away and just know that the real you is so much cooler than anything a shamer can understand, so you just gotta show as best you can just how amazing you are!

Your turn:
Do you battle with external/internal shamers?
Have you felt the same sort of vibe on Instagram?
What did you have for breakfast this morning?

 I hope you all have a truly lovely day, do something you love doing, be kind to yourself and as always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friendly friends! :D

Life Recently...!

Hello there beautiful food-lovin' people!!

I hope you're all having a fabulous day, doing something you love (even if it's just five minutes with yourself and a cookie... do it!) and making time to smiiillleee.

I realised that we haven't had a good ol' sit down and chat for a while and you're probably very un-up-to-date on my life! GASP!! So I decided to fill you in on Life Currently: Steph-style!

Life wouldn't be life for me without a current food obsession whereby every second day or so I eat said obsession. In the past we have had white sweet potato (that one never truly goes away, I just stop buying white sweet potato), which moved onto smoothie bowls, swinging into a cookie obsession (healthy, muesli, brekky cookies!) and now? Now we've moved onto creamy green substances with fudge-y, nutty, warm granola straight out of the oven:

It's become quite the obsession recently whereby every other day will be something else I haven't made in a while (pancakes, toasties, oatmeal) and falling back to green smoothie/ fro-yo/ 'ice cream' with granola.

This particular breakfast was a creamy mango smoothie with mixed nut butter granola and peanut butter granola:

 Obviously I hated it:

And then I changed things up!!!

Look at that! That's not a smoothie- that's creamy green 'nice-cream'! Frozen banana + frozen zuchini + spinach, all whazzed up together in the Vitamix until smooth :)

 The granola was simply peanut butter granola. But how can I say simply? This warm, fudge-y peanut butter granola is out of this world delicious and deserves so much more love and recognition!

Peanut butter warmed up with almond milk, stirred into around 3/4 cup natural muesli with ground cinnamon- into the oven at 180 degrees celsius for 15-20 mins until golden and fragrant- eat pretty soon afterwards for optimal enjoyment!!

 Pop a few on top of the ice cream and you have one delicious breakfast!

 My theory for my food obsessions is why I force myself to eat something else when I will absolutely love to eat the same thing and will enjoy eating the same thing more?

 It's all about one's happiness people :D

 Ok, so that's the food side- onto fitness!

You may remember my most recent posts about fitness are actually quite a few months old and discuss my decrease in mileage and increase in strength training/ Blogilates videos (HIIT type stuff, or if you're a Blogilates girl, PITT)

Well, it's been quite similar, however I have upped the mileage/ training- a lot more hill sprints and simple sprints around the park, mixed with 1 or 2 long runs in the week and some ab/ leg/ arm workouts (mainly Blogilates) on the off-days. There's also rest-days thrown in where I might just do an easy stretching/ workout video.

This passed Saturday I did one of my longest runs in a while- and I felt good. It just shows the ups and downs and changes of seasons in one's life and I sort of new the day would come where my body would once again love a nice, easy, slow run.

 An hour long run whereby an interesting, funny podcast got me through!

I've found that this combo of cross-training with strength workouts, HIIT and sprint workouts mixed with long runs has toned my body and left me feeling strong and healthy and ready to tackle the world! Or something along those lines!

Something un-health related? My hair's gronw pretty long over the past few moths and I'm kind of excited to have my long thick hair for the up-coming Winter- bring it on cold weather!

In all honesty, this is also a post whereby I try to make the blog a tad more personal with some pics of me- which I sort of cringe at sharing but know that I want you guys to know me better! So.. yep!

Your turn:
What's your current food/ breakfast obsession? How long has it been going for?
Green smoothie fan?
Current fitness favs?

That's it from me today folks (got a bit lengthier than anticipated!) I hope you all have a fabulous day, again- do something you love, and a s always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friends! :D

Blogger Recipe Love!!

Hi friends!
Do you know what I love possibly even more than creating up recipes on my own? Trying out new, fandangle, awesome-ly awesome recipes of other bloggers and being blown away by their creativity!

In all honesty, time hasn’t really been on my side lately, so all the recipes I’ve been hankering to have a crack at, seem to journey to the back of my mind, or wait patiently at the side of my computer cut and pasted onto a yellow sticky note, reminding me that I have dreams of delicious foods that need to be created!

Well, this past week has seen me get my but back into cooking action try out a few of my saved recipes that I've had my eye on for months and months now- and the results were awesome!!

My first saved recipe that I've seen countless beautiful images of, that has intrigued me to the point of not believing the recipe to work....

Are the famous Blogilates' Banana Pancakes!

Cassey's recipe simply calls for two ingredients:
2 eggs
1 ripe banana
- Mash it all together et voila! Pancake batter!

I was a little skeptical about this at first, so my very first trial of this recipe involved 2 eggs, 1 ripe banana, a scoop of vanilla protein powder and a dash of almond milk:

Popped into a mini food processor and blended until smoothy smooth!

Next I heated up a non-stick fry pan, sprayed a little extra-virgin coconut oil on top and poured in half the mixture with the help of a measuring jug:

Cooking away... dum dee dum dee dahhh:

Little bubbles started appearing, I flipped em' over, cooked a little more, popped on some paper towel, a little more spray, rest of batter, cookidee cook and BOOM! Flourless, protein-packed banana pancakes!

I topped mine off with ALL the nut butter! Almond butter and crunchy PB.

On the side I had a sort of icee type thing; frozen rock melon/ cantaloupe chunks whazzed up in the mini food-processor until combined (sort of like a solid slushi- super good!

I was truly impressed by these 'cakes- especially the fact that they are flourless and probably the most natural pancakes ever!

Taste great too!

So that was a winning blogger recipe dish! What's next!?!

And now onto the savoury section of today's Blogger Recipe Shout Outs!

Arman; creator of The Big Man's World, and fellow Australian now living in America is also the creator of this recipe:

How could I go past something labelled as THE BEST vegan chili? So, with the knowledge that I wouldn't get home from my Sunday shift at the bakery until after 7:30pm and knowing I wouldn't want to cook anything upon my return.... a pre-made bowl of comforting chili sounded very appealing indeedy!!

So I browned off some onions in a saucepan with olive oil and garlic as the recipe told me, added in chopped red peppers and eggplant (eggplant was my addition- you know how I am with my added veggies!), spooned in half a tin of tomatoes, added some fresh tomatoes, water, curry powder, cayenne pepper, cracked black pepper and a 125g tin of mixed four beans and bubbled away for a good 30-40 mins:

Little bit of kale torn it at the end (again, I couldn't resist- iron for the win!)

The result?

 A beautiful bowl of flavourful vegan chili filled with spice, awesome textures and nutrition to boot!

 This was the perfect hearty meal to lift my spirits and comfort my soul and it was so gosh darn easy that makes me wonder why I'm always so hesitant to make things like curries or stews or chili's. Generally I just feel like I have no knowledge of spices/ flavour combinations but really it's basic, known spices that produce such a flavourful result!

 Little bit of rye flat bread on the side and I was one happy (albeit quite tired from working 6 and a half hours) satisfied, tummy-filled Steph :)

 Nom.

So there you go- one sweet breakfast and one savoury dinner recipe from two absolutely awesome, amazing bloggers who create delicious recipes and post on such interesting topics. If you don't read either of these guy's blogs I would definitely recommend you check em' out and specifically Blogilates for her workout videos- she's so positive, bubbly and motivating that you forget you're even working out (and you're muscles are dying) when she's right there on your screen doing it with you!

What's the best blogger recipe you've ever re-created and that you would recommend me to try out next?

I hope you all have a great day! Do something you love, have fun and as always; eat something delightfully delicious!! Bye for now friendly friends! :D