Happy Mail

I don't know about any of you but I absolutely love getting packages in the mail, even if I know they are coming.

This morning I received 2 packages. One was from Protein Pick and Mix who I have used before and the other was from Crumpets & Coffee who I had only heard about because they started following me on Twitter. I had a look at their website and their Twitter and decided to give them a follow back.

 They had private messaged me on Twitter, after I favourited one of their tweets, and gave me a code to use to get some money off one of their Fitness boxes. I had a look at those boxes and they come with Quest bars. I was sold and ordered one of the Cookies & Cream boxes immediately.

And these are the little goodies I received. From Protein Pick and Mix I got 3 packets of the protein bakery's chocolate chip cookies and 3 Quest bars Vanilla Almond Crunch, Cookies & Cream and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. From Crumpets & Coffee I got 1 Cookies & Cream Quest bar, a packet of 2 crumpets with 2 little Lurpak Slightly Salted Butters, 2 packs of  Vyomax Nutrition Protein Powder (not pictured) and a wooden butter knife and a serviette.

I just had to try the crumpets out for my afternoon snack and they were absolutely delicious! I cannot remember the last time I had crumpets. 

Is there any online shops you like receiving parcels from? I would love to know.

xoxo

New Recipes

This weekend I have been busy making some new recipes.

I have been looking for more ideas for healthier meals. I follow a lot of different healthy food accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and I decided to give some of them a try.

I've been following Natasha Corrett aka Honestly Healthy for a little while now and I saw a post of hers about her favourite granola a week or so ago and I love to have my granola for breakfast in the mornings. I looked at the recipe and it seemed super easy to make and I decided I would have a go at trying to make myself some.

So yesterday I did and this morning I ate it for breakfast. It is super yummy and I think I am definitely converted to making my own granola from now on.

Ross Dickerson is someone I found on Twitter as well and I found on his website that he has different recipes as well. I found a recipe for Spicy Pork Tenderloin which I just had to try out. It was so delicious and it is also another recipe that I am definitely going to try out again.

I would love to know if you have any new recipes that you've tried out recently.

Hope you all have a happy Monday.

xoxo 

What I Ate Wednesday - Week 2

Hi all,

I know I haven't posted in 5 days but I thought I would come back today and I made sure to document my What I Ate Wednesday.

I was up early today as I've switched up my routine. The Summer holidays may have started but I want to make sure I get my workouts in and if that means doing them first thing in the morning then I will make the effort to wake up early and get them done. No excuses.

I have documented what times I have had my glasses of water and when I ate so here it goes. Bit different from my first one.

5:48 - glass of water [right before I started my workout]

6:34 - glass of water [right after my workout

6:38 - my protein shake. [I used 150ml of koko coconut milk and 1 scoop MyProtein Impact Whey Protein vanilla flavour]

7:40 - My breakfast [50g Sainsbury's honey granola with 50g Fage Total Greek Yogurt 0% and I also had a glass of water]

8:49 - glass of water

9:41 - glass of water

10:42 - we went to meet my friend at Starbucks, so I didn't want to end up eating anything too bad I brought along a snack. So I got an Orange Refresha and I brought along a Quest Nutrition Lemon Cream Pie bar.

12:37 - glass of water

13:06 - Lunch [Sour Cream and Cracked Black Pepper Walkers Sunbites, Fruit Bowl Fruit Flakes Tropical, Mini Babybel Light, 100g Yeo Valley Greek Style Honey Yogurt and a Salad with Half Fat Olive Oil Dressing and Tomato & Basil Croutons and a glass of water]

15:13 - glass of water

16:45 - Dinner [2 grilled pork sausages, sweet potato chips with Heinz reduced salt & sugar tomato ketchup and a glass of water]

17:51 - Dessert [100ml Wheyhey Chocolate ice cream with a glass of water]

And that's it for another What I Ate Wednesday. Hope you all had a fantastic day.

Xoxo

The Protein Works Apple & Cinnamon Protein Muffins

Today I decided to do a bit of baking. I had seen this recipe on The Protein Works Facebook page a while ago and I saved the recipe and decided to try it out.

Apple & Cinnamon Protein Muffins

Ingredients - makes 10

• 1 Apple, peeled and chopped
• 1 Egg
• 170g Natural Yogurt
• 90g Porridge Oats
• 60g Apple Cinnamon Swirl Whey Protein 80
• 60ml Cartoned Coconut Milk
• 1.5tsp Raw Honey
• 1tsp Cinnamon
• 1tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2tsp Baking Powder
• Peanut Butter or Almond Butter filling

Macros - for the ingredients I used per muffin
Calories - 109kcal
Fat - 3.2g
Carbs - 12g
Protein - 8g

[I realise I accidentally put in my coconut oil in there, I didn't use it in the mix]

If you want to add some icing on top, which I didn't do, the ingredients for that are :

• 5tbsp Extra Light Cream Cheese, at room temperature
• 1tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1tbsp Honey 

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 5, then line a muffin tray with 10 cases
2. Mix together all of the dry ingredients (oats, whey, cinnamon, etc.)
3. In a separate bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients (yogurt, milk, etc.)
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, then stir until combined
5. Gently fold in the apple, but don't over mix
6. Spoon mixture into muffin cases & bake for around 17 minutes
7. Once they're out of the oven, inject with optional nut butter

These were so yummy, I feel I may have over baked them as to me they didn't look ready when my timer went off so I left them in for an extra 5 minutes. Even still, I think they tasted very nice, if just a touch dry because of leaving them in a bit too long.

Please let me know if you try these and let me know how they turn out.

Happy baking :)

xoxo

What I Ate Wednesday

Today I have decided I would do a What I Ate Wednesday.

For breakfast I had Sainsbury's Raisin, Honey and Nut Granola with Alpro Unsweetened Almond Milk and a glass of water.

I met a friend for coffee at Starbucks but I completely forgot to take a picture of what I had. I ended up having an Orange Refresha and a Sausage Buttie with Heinz Tomato Ketchup. Afterwards I did buy myself a bottle of water. 

For my lunch I had a Mini Light Babybel, Yeo Valley Greek Style Yogurt with Honey, a packet of Walkers Sunbites Sun Ripened Sweet Chilli flavour, Fruit Bowl Fruit Flakes Tropical flavour and a Waitrose Sweet Salad with Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Sea Salt & Cracked Black Pepper Croutons and Waitrose Rich & Smooth Olive Oil Dressing half fat version.

For dinner I had Sainsbury's 5% fat Beef Mince with Old El Paso Taco Seasoning and Sainsbury's Wholegrain Brown Rice.

Dessert was a Granny Smith Apple with Fage Total Authentic Greek Yogurt, Myprotein Vanilla Impact Whey Protein and ground Cinnamon 

After my workout I like to have a protein shake. So I tend to have Alpro Unsweetened Almond Milk with Myprotein Vanilla Impact Whey Protein. And I love to drink it out of my SmartShake Shaker.

Hope you have all had an awesome Wednesday. 

Xoxo

New Week, New You

Every Monday I feel as though it is a clean slate. Wipe off everything from last week, especially if you had some bad days, and start anew.

I had a few hiccups last week and I definitely ate badly and didn't quite workout as much as I should have. Today that changes! Today is the start of a brand new week and instead of having the Monday Blues I prefer to make a new start. 

I've tried doing the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 over the last few weeks but I haven't particularly stuck with it. Today I decided that I would start from the beginning again. 

I'm going to record my progress with it on here but I'm going to try doing the DVD 5 days a week and have 1 day off and 1 day where I do my Pilates. 

So this is where I'm starting at. Excuse the dishevelled look this was after my workout. 

Hope you are all having an awesome Monday.

xoxo

Relaxed Sunday

On Sundays we all like to chill out. I can't honestly be the only one?

So I have decided that on Sunday's my workout of choice will be Pilates or Yoga. As I made you aware of in my first post, I'm not able to get to a gym, which also means I'm not able to get to any classes. I'm a full time Mummy and I can't always get a babysitter when I would like. SO for me, to do these workouts, I normally buy myself the DVDs.

I have accumulated quite a few of these, and luckily for me I do actually have a box set of Pilates DVDs I bought a while back which includes a beginners Pilates DVD. It is the 10 Minute Solution - The Pilates Collection so tonight, when the girls have gone to bed, I am going to try it out.

Wish me luck and I hope you all have an awesome Sunday. Let me know if there are any particular workouts that you like to do which helps you relax.

xoxo

Introduction

Hi All,

This is my new blog. I've tried blogging a few times in the past and to be honest I never really stuck with it. I'm hoping to turn that all around.

This is me, I'm the one on the left.

My name is Claire and I am 24 years young. I am a single mum to the 2 most beautiful girls in the world!

Alice is 3 and Megan is 18months. They are my world and I wouldn't have them any other way.

I am starting this because I want to document my life, my challenges and most of all my journey towards being healthy and fit for my girls.

I have never been hugely overweight, I have just constantly been eating the wrong things. I'm getting better at eating healthy but I need to try and incorporate it into my girls diet as well, which is a challenge when I know what they will eat and it's easier to give them something they will eat rather than something that I know will cause a huge fuss.

Anyway, I am going to document recipes, exercise DVDs [as I don't have time or the money to get to a gym] and anything else that helps me along in my journey of getting healthy and happy.

I know I probably won't get many followers but if you do come along, please say hi as I'm always happy to make new friends.

xoxo