Weight training?

Hey there everyone! It's Saturday (insert happy dance)!!

I have an interesting topic to discuss today and it all came about as a result of a bit of an achy hip. (yep, I know, I'm a grandma.)

In all seriousness though, I knew that something just wasn't quite right with my hip and my every-second-day running did not seem to be helping.

I felt a little dis-heartened at first because I (like I'm sure many other people can relate) suffer from the inability to truly listen and honour my body when it comes to exercising. Food, not a problem- if I'm hungry I will fill the tank! If my leg hurts and it's run day... chances are I'll still try to run.

However I've come a long way in this aspect of my life which is why I only felt a little bit disheartened when the pain just wasn't budging (warning sign for an on-coming injury people!). The majority of me started to feel a little tug of...excitement?

Strange, you may say? Well let me just back track a little. I'd always admired those blogs with women who did crazy bad-ass stunts in their cross-fit training, or lifted heavy weights with ease. To me they were strong and powerful and fierce. So when I woke up Tuesday morning of last week, I brought up a website with some weight lifting instructions, exercises and repetitions and gave it a go!

All up I think I spent around 30-40 mins with 4.6kg dumbbells doing bicep curls, shoulder presses, bench presses, kneeling one arm row, squats etc. By the third round of 8-10 reps of each, my arms were jelly!

It felt awesome though!

The day after my muscles did ache but I felt good (and so did my hip!) and I can't wait to add another weights day into my routine soon!

Something else I noticed from this adventure? My hunger was in full swing for the rest of that day and also the following days to come. I don't know if it was simply a coincidence or the weight exercises, but I was hungry and needed to add an extra scoop of nut butter/ hommus/ veggie here and there to tame the beast!

2 days later and this was my gigantor breakfast to try and quieten the hanger:

A big bowl of blueberry cheesecake rolled oats topped (and swirled throughout) with crunchy peanut butter with WATER! (I generally seem to wake up ridiculously thirsty)

I'm not gonna lie to you. When I finished this bowl I was still hungry.

I decided to let my stomach settle though, as I had inhaled the bowl, and after a while it seemed pretty content. :)

This morning my legs were feeling pretty good, so I hopped on the treadmill with my trusty blogger friends blog posts for entertainment (read: not dying of boredom on the treadmill) and ran my little heart out for 30mins until I was nice and sweaty and smelly and gorgeous. You can read more about the glamorous-ness that is running in this post- hilarious!

Following this... well you guessed it- I was STARVING! I was also in the mood for something smooth, creamy, refreshing and yet also some crunch.

You know what I'm talking about.

Tropical green smoothie:

Frozen mango + frozen pineapple + spinach + greek yoghurt + water

Topped with granola:

 

 = Smoothie bowl!

Y.U.M

And that's pretty much been life a la exercise and food!

Your turn:
Do you do weight training?
If so, do you also include running in the mix?
Favourite foods to eat when hangry? Mine has to be full of healthy fats and delicious, or else it will not satisfy!

I hope you all have a fabulous day, enjoy your weekend and hopefully free time, relax, eat something delicious and SMILE! bye for now friends!! :D

Thinking Out Loud- bad bread, toasted sandwiches and papples!

Hello there lovely lovelies!

It is finally here! Yipeeeeee!

What is finally here you ask? Half yearly break!! My brain is fried, my body is exhausted and I am ready for rejuvenation.

Weeelll, not quite. I feel like I've got a little left in the noggin for some Thinking Out Loud Thursday! Thanks as always to the wonderful Spoons for hosting this awesome weekly link-up where the ramblings of the bloggers can be read by other bloggers and people to  determine your sanity (or lack thereof ;)

What an interesting intro Steph, pat on the back for you! (I really need a holiday, huh?)

1. The last time I went to the bread shop I got two big bags of spelt bread flour, one spelt/ rye mix (that I've loved before- it's the usual) and one wholemeal spelt mix that I hadn't ever tried before. After a few weeks of my beloved spelt/ rye, I inevitably ran out and moved on to the new spelt mix.

3 hours later and....
I was left with a teeny little heavy rock.
It hadn't risen at all and was literally a solid block of rock hard... flour.

First thought was the yeast. I hadn't bought fresh yeast in a while, so maybe the one I was using is losing it's yeasty-powers.

New yeast + bread mix =

Little rock of unhappiness.

Ok, not the yeast. I also ruled out the water and oil. Bread mix, I'm looking at you.

So I purchased another bread mix (a seeded spelt mix) and voila!

 It puffed up.. so much so it seems it was trying to make up for the other two disasters. It was soooo tall! I'm not complaining though, the bigger the better!

And just check out that fluffy seedy goodness:

2. Because, on that note, the bigger the sandwich the more stuff you can fill it with!

 Especially when it comes to my favourite breakfast toasted sandwich!

All the more peanut butter and banana for me... as well as delicious mango fro-yo (frozen mango and greek yoghurt whazzed together in a food processor)

 3. And of course, whenever I bake bread I have to make my favourite savoury toasted sandwich (gotta balance out the savoury and the sweet)

 Hommus, grilled pumpkin, eggplant, zucchini, mushroom, capsicum, veggie burger, spinach and breeaadd!

 Grilled in a sandwich press until golden and toasty.

 And this is why bread exists.

4. I also am back in a stage where I want all the veggies. Ever.

 Last night's stir-fry with ginger, garlic, olive oil, capsicum, corn, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, sauteed up for a few minutes until golden brown and delicious!

 Throw some brown rice in there with some spinach for around 30 seconds to mix up all the tasty-ness and you have one heck-of-a-lot  of awesome tasting veggies in one meal!

4. Completely random ending comment:

 This pear!

 Seriously though, it was a mix between a pear and an apple and might just have been one of the best fruits I have ever tried (I am both a huge apple and pear fan, so I guess that plays a part). It was sweet and yet so tangy and sort of sour and ahhhhh so good! Just had to let that be known to the world!

So that's what has been traveling around my head for the past week. Your welcome.

Your turn:
Do you bake your own bread? What type do you bake? It is time consuming but I feel like nothing compares to freshly baked bread!
Are you a fan of raw sandwiches (couldn't think of a better word) or toasted sandwiches? I think I lean more towards the toasted- the flavour!
Ever tried a papple (pear/ apple)?

If you want to check out what everyone else is thinking about this Thursday, head on over to Spoons!

Have yourself a brilliant day, do something you love and enjoy the little things- so often we simply let them fly past without acknowledging them! Bye for now friends! :D

WIAW #63 Dutch cinnamon, persimmons and bread

Happy Wednesday Lovelies!!
This week has been a mish-mash of good/not-so-good/ confusing/ funny/ all the emotions in one and so it's safe to say that I'm a little exhausted! It is the last week of school for this term which is lovely (even though they decided to stretch out this term to be an 11 week-er)

Decision making is one thing I suck at. I hate it and it makes me feel squirmy inside. The decisions/ confusion I'm experiencing at the moment is definitely not big by any means or one that you would find particularly fascinating but let me just say that I can't wait for the next couple of weeks to be OVER so I can get back to a simpler version of life (if that is even possible as a 16-year-old senior school student)

In saying all that, decision making consumes lots of energy, resulting in my hunger levels picking up and because it is Wednesday let's take a look at a full day of eats- WIAW style!! Thanks as always to Peas and Crayons for this awesome link-up!!

Breakfast: 7:25 am
This day featured Tuesday's eats where I woke up bundling with energy, did two Purely Twin's workouts and then scuttled into the kitchen for breakfast! (I feel like you might be envisioning me as a squirrel... I am not a squirrel ;)

Grocery shopping last week found me parked in the spice section of the story glancing between two jars of cinnamon. One held a fairly minuscule amount and the other was the great big tub you see before you (any guesses which one I bought? ;) Any who, the price of the small one as ridiculous compared to the rice of that mega tub (why had I bought it for so long??) so now I have come to my senses and have a huge pot of Dutch ground cinnamon (tastes exactly the same as regular ground cinnamon) for a fraction of the price.

Cool story huh?

The reference this has to breakfast is that I scooped about a teaspoon of the cinnamon into my favourite bowl of vanilla steel cut oats for a warm, gooey, vanilla-y bowl of happiness.

Topped (and folded throughout) with home-made cashew butter for extra happy.

Snack: 11:00 am

Snack as per usual featured a little pot of peas- delish!

Lunch: 1:40 pm
Created this morning to bring to school was a big ol' salad with spinach, carrot, cucumber, capsicum, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin and corn falafel and lemon juice.

Exactly what I felt like

So much veggie love <3
Snack: 4:00 pm
After school I always look forward to a sweet snack of fresh fruit with soy milk. Always. Very rarely do I change this up because it's just so gosh darn good!

Tuesday was no different!
A beautifully ripe persimmon with a mug of soy milk- perfect afternoon energy booster! I still can't believe that I ever though persimmons were gross. madness.

Dinner: 6:45 pm
As dinner time started to tick round, I could feel the stomach starting to discuss some things with me, so I mentally worked out what to feed it and though some coconut oil roasted pumpkin and steamed greens sounded particularly appetising in that moment. I kind of also wanted some boiled eggs.

What was strange was that I hadn't had many grains that day and yet I had no desire for them at all! (I generally crave all the whole grains and carbs if I haven't had many previously in the day) I decided to toast up the last end bit of my seedy rye bread anyone to make into toast soldiers as I was having boiled eggs anyway... but I seriously didn't feel the need at all.

Topped with hommus because rye toast topped with hommus is right.

In the end, the bread was a good choice and added to the tastiness of the meal.

And coconut oil roasted pumpkin is simply too good for words.

I was fairly full after that tasty dinner so simply rinsed my plate, brushed my teeth, got into comfy, warm clothes (Winter in Aus :) and snuggled up in front of Masterchef for the night. Happy days.

Aaaand that's what I ate!

What about you?
Do you have a secret brand of cinnamon (or other spices for that mater) that is 10 x cheaper than the popular brands?
Fan of persimmons? Any creative ways to use them (other than eating them, which is all I can come up with!)?
Do you go through periods of simply not wanting to eat grains?

That's it from me this fine Wednesday, if you're still hungry for more though, be sure t head over to Peas and Crayons to see what everyone else is nom-ing on! Bye for now friends!

Pasta! ... Almost ;)

So my post on Monday seemed to spark something in me.

I actually got a bit creative at dinner time (yep, dinner time!!) and decided to whip up something kinda different for once!

As the title suggests, it was a pasta dish... almost ;)

Almost, you ask?

Weeeelll, I figure calling something a 'pasta' dish would actually entail the addition of pasta, which this dish does not. Instead it's basically one big bowl of veg! I ain't complaining though- veggies never tasted so good!

Don't worry buddy, you won't even miss it!

You know what I'm talking about. It's a thing.

Yep, zucchini pasta/ noodles/ zoodles :)

Unfortunately I do not have that whaz-bang machine that spiralizes the zucchini into curly ribbons of noodles, but in all honesty, it's not even that necessary! Grab a peeler and a knife and you're good to go!

So that's what I did! (after I chopped up some pumpkin to roast in the oven for 45 mins at 180 degrees celsius :)
I peeled half a medium zucchini and half a carrot, cut them into slim strips and popped them in a bowl for a quick blanching later on!

I also made a tasty 'sauce'

Char-grilled eggplant, capsicum and cherry tomatoes, brown onion + handful spinach, whazzed until combined:

Into a saucepan of boiling water went the zucchini and carrot 'pasta' for around 3-4 mins (you don't want it too soft or the zucchini will just disappear!) and then drained and popped back in the pot:

Quickest cooking pasta I've ever seen (looking at you high protein pasta)

I then threw in the sauce and the roast pumpkin, some garlic tofu and stirred until combined.
Next came glorious-ness in a bowl:

This was incredibly tasty, filling and down right happiness inducing.

Happy days.

Your turn:
Are you a zoodles fan?
Could you ever give up pasta? I don't think I could. It's too beautiful!
Do you find your creativity in the kitchen dwindle or prosper come dinner time? Definitely dwindling for me!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day, as always- eat something delicious! Bye!! :D