Yummy, healthy Sunday Brunch

I've just stumbled across a taste sensation I just had to share! I was having a bit of a panic because I needed to eat before I go to Waitrose and I didn't have a lot left in so I decided to see what I could make from the remnants of my fridge.

First I mashed an avocado with some diced onion and red chilli, drizzled in a bit of olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. I then steamed some spinach and poached 3 eggs before adding on top the last bit of smoked salmon I had left in the fridge. I seasoned with salt and pepper and voila...a healthy, tasty Sunday brunch.

I'm going to be enjoying this again and again from now on!

Day Three...First Wobble!

I am now 3 days into the detox and today I've had my first test of resilience.  The first two days I have breezed through it, the food has not left me hungry and I have not been too tempted by coffee and 'naughty' foods because I have locked myself away in my classroom and avoided the canteen and coffee shop.  This morning I awoke with some muscle aches but nothing on the scale of when I've had PT sessions and it's taken me three days to be able to sit down.

This afternoon however, I had a particularly stressful time at work and this is where I really could have been persuaded to join some of my colleagues in the pub for a couple of jars.  Instead, I got the husband to pick me up and take me to Waitrose to stock up...although having to follow him around the bread/bagel/cheese aisles whilst he got himself some food in was torture and by the time I got home I felt quite faint.  I pushed through though and the protein shake helped me through the particularly arduous tabata training.  Doing 20 secs on 10 seconds off of burpees/tricep dips and low raised planks/jumping squats for eight minutes does not sound like a long, hard workout but believe me by the end of it my thighs were sore!

For dinner I had a load of stirfry veg (pak choi/broccoli/green beans/chilli) with prawns and smoked mackeral.  I cooked it in coconut oil with garlic and ginger and it was not only really tasty but filling as well.  So now I feel satisfied and ready to sleep in preparation for the 17 hour fast I am about to encounter.  By midday tomorrow I will probably be pretty hungry, I just hope I have enough energy to push me through seeing 40 sets of parents in 3.5 hours at parents evening tomorrow night!

I have a feeling that over the next few days the intensity of the programme is about to ramp up and things will go from erring on the side of pleasant to hardly bearable.  I hope I have the mental strength to handle it on top of the stress I have at work, but as I've said before this is as much a mental challenge for me as it is about losing weight and I need to prove to myself I can do it! 

Day 1

I have made it through my first day of the detox.

Despite being woken up twice during the night by a resident of Richmond Hill's car alarm going off (it sounded like someone was blowing a horn in my ear, my whole room was shaking!), I was up at 05.45 to start the detox routine.

I started the day with some Glutamine in water followed by some more water with some Bicarbonate of Soda in water.  I packed up my bag with everything I needed and headed to the gym to do the heavier of the two daily workouts.  Then it was off to work for a long 12 hour day.

For breakfast I had 2 boiled eggs, smoked salmon, a bit of avocado, watercress rocket and spinach salad and some quinoa.  A strange concoction I know but I had to have the palm full of carbs after the weights workout and this is what I had prepared.

As caffeine is banned on the plan I had a liquorice tea at breaktime.  I'm hoping it is a grower as I was not overly keen but I was more than happy replacing my afternoon coffee fix with a peppermint tea.  For lunch I had trout fillet salad which was tasty and I did not feel hungry at any point in the day which was a bonus.

The hardest part of the day was between 16:00 - 19:00 where I was struggling to sit through a long winded CPD session (my attention span is like a gnat at the best of times) and to top it all I had a banging headache. It also did not help that everyone around me were scoffing home-made brownies the school chef had made to ease the pain of a three hour training session after a long day!

I headed home at 19:30 and got straight into the other workout of the day which involved 7 rounds of burpee intervals.  I pushed myself to not fall under 10 burpees in 30 seconds and felt pretty tired by the end!

For dinner I had salmon with broccoli and kale.  

I've actually found the food quite tasty and I had a handful of almonds during the training session which I think I really ate more as a psychological need than a physical one.  The thing I struggled most with was not having a coffee and a brownie during the meeting but I took out my 'thinspiration' photo on my phone and used it to stem off any temptation!

I am now absolutely shattered and I am just waiting for the dishwasher to finish so that I can repack up all my lunch boxes and have clean protein shakers ready for Day 2.

I'm hoping the headaches will subside in the couple of days once the caffeine and sugar have left my body and I am sure that my muscles will ache a little in the morning!!

The Night Before!

Tomorrow is Day 1 of my long anticipated 19 Day Detox.  I have taken my measurements and my 'before' photos and weighed myself (something which has reminded me as to why it is I am doing this!) and I have enjoyed my last weekend with friends up in Liverpool before locking myself away and becoming a social recluse for 3 weeks.  By coincidence, I am back up in Liverpool in 3 weeks time and so will be able to celebrate my sobriety and dedication to the cause whilst hopefully looking and feeling a lot healthier than I do at this present moment in time.

A lot of people fail to understand why I am doing this 19 detox and have brushed it off as silly, stupid and pointless but, having followed Mark Raynsford both on his blog and on Twitter for the past 2 years, I am confident in my choice at participating and don't feel that it will be a waste of my money.

I have eagerly devoured the reading Mark has sent in preparation of the 19 days and I am aware that it is not going to be a walk in the park.  As well as twice daily workouts, the programme cuts out sugar, wheat, pasta, glucose, dairy and processed foods.  It also involves periods of fasting, which some people have raised eyebrow at but, having read some of the science behind it and, because I am following it within a programme devised by a professional, I feel that that there is justification and sense behind it.

A bag of cooked quinoa ready to serve with my food on 'feeds' when I am allowed some carbohydrates.

The reason this 19 Day Body has appealed to me is not just because I want to lose some weight.  It is true that I am currently weighing 10lbs heavier than when I moved to London 5 months ago and I would like to get this off quickly so that I can pick up where I left off with my health and fitness regime before the upheaval of the last few months.  I am settled into my new job and lifestyle now and have found a routine which will allow me to maintain my weight once I have lost those extra pounds. 

There is another reason that I have been attracted to the 19 Day Body Programme though and that is to change my attitiude and views towards eating.  I am capable of eating healthy and I am quite educated when it comes to food and nutrition as I was bought up by a health obsessive who controls their diet strictly (my Mother) but I have always used food as a psychological dependency.  I do not smoke or take drugs but I am addicted to food.  I spend way too much time thinking about eating and use it to control my moods and feelings.  I eat when I am not hungry and I eat whatever is infront of me.  It is this which I am hoping to address by participating in this detox.  I am hoping to reprogramme my mind to have a more sensible approach to what and when I eat.  I am hoping that by doing this I can maybe drop a few extra pounds once the programme has finished. 

Trout and Salmon with garlic and chilli ready for the next couple of days.

I am not going to lie, I am quite nervous about what lies ahead.  The exercise is not a problem, I workout regularly in the same way that the workouts are focused in this programme (interval training and circuits, kettlebells, hand weights, squats, lunges etc. are all already incorporated into my workout routines).  I am nervous about trying to find the time to fit in the two daily workouts, especially as I have to be in work by 8.00 am and I have an INSET and Parents Evening this week which both go on until 7.30 so it is going to be a long week in that sense.  I am nervous about my willpower, I really don't want to fail this and I put a lot of pressure on myself with things like this which can often have a negative psychological effect on me.



Nuts to snack on


 

I am also a little nervous about being able to resist the alcohol.  I am not someone who needs a drink but I do enjoy it and, although I don't always drink on every social occasion (and I have cleared my diary of those for the next 19 days anyway), I think 19 days is probably the longest I will have gone without a drink since I was 15 (I don't know what that says about me)!!!

I cannot promise I will have the time to update everyday but I hope that you will follow me on this journey, I am interested to see where it will lead but I am confident I have some exciting (and probably horrific) times ahead!

La Duree

Unfortunately I had to have a little break from the diet yesterday as the husband and I headed into Covent Garden to see a friend.

We went to La Duree and shared a selection of their cakes. It was like having a little bit of Paris in London.

We sat under the heaters on the terrace upstairs and it was fabulous!

Definitely a once in a while treat but absolutely worth it!

Pollen Street Social Club

I've been a little quiet on my blog of late for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have been working pretty long hours and so have not had time to write about much and secondly, because I have been working such long hours I have not really been doing anything interesting to write about. My husband and I have also decided it is about time we should start thinking about getting on the property ladder and so have been trying to save rather than splurge, easier said than done when you live somewhere with so much choice in terms of places to shop, eat, drink and entertain oneself!

We did however have the chance a couple of weeks ago to meet some friends for dinner at the Pollen Street Social Club just off Regent's Street in Mayfair. For any foodies out there, Pollen Street Social Club is the flagship restaurant of leading chef Jason Atherton, the ex-Gordon Ramsey employee who oversaw the opening of Maze and his restuarant offers an exclusive à la carte dining experience at equally exclusive prices.

Of course, a new dress had to be on the menu in order to enjoy our evening out and, having spent the last few weeks eyeing up the dresses in the window of Cop Copine on Richmond Hill every evening on the way home from work, I thought a new LBD would be perfect for a night out dining in Mayfair.  As I have previously mentioned (I cannot remember whether on here or Twitter), I have been really impressed by the quality of material and cut of the clothes I have seen and their French/Japanese influences are pretty evident when you see the quality and structure of their clothes.  I tried on a few dresses but decided on one with a halter neck detail that went over the body of the dress and would do a good job of carefully disguising any bloating that may occur after enjoying a large meal and a few glasses of champagne! 



Dress: Cop Copine / Necklace and Earrings: Maje / Opaque Cashmere Tights: Marks and Spencers / Rings: From Qatar’s Souk / Bracelet: H&M / Watch: Gucci / Shoes: Christian Louboutin Bianca’s



I teamed the dress with some Maje jewellery, which I am still so glad I purchased in Lille earlier this year and my wedding shoes as I don’t have many an opportunity to wear them at the moment. I absolutely loved the outfit and I think I will wear the same for a press launch I am attending next week, although I may swap the Loubs for my Jeffrey Campbell sparkle boots.





The dinner at The Pollen Street Social Club was delicious.  Unfortunately for my figure I can never resist homemade bread and butter which were served before the starter, for which I had Cornish crab salad, avocado, wood sorrel ice, crab toastie.  It was a taste sensation, the ‘wood sorrel ice’ gave the avocado an unusual texture as it was so cold but it totally worked.  If you’ve ever had a meal where weeks later you are still thinking about the taste of something then you know it is good! For main I went for the roasted red mullet with Spanish prawn rice, cockles and samphire.  I had never tried red mullet before and it is quite a strong flavour but the Spanish prawn rice complimented it nicely.  My husband and his friend shared the 1kg of beef with duck fat chips and his wife decided on the roasted sea bass with celeriac truffle.

1kg of beef with duck fat chips

After the main courses were finished we were invited over to the bar for dessert where we were given a number of tasters to try, from lime cheesecake sorbet to little petit fours straight out of the oven.  I shared the cheese board for dessert whilst the other couple shared the 70% chocolate ganache.  We were then invited for a tour of the kitchen which, whilst spotlessly clean was ridiculously hot and I didn’t want to risk my makeup melting on my face so made a pretty hasty exit.  Not before being shown a truffle the size of a small rock but worth over £600!  It never ceases to amaze me how something which is grated over your food can cost the same as a precious metal, but people are obviously willing to pay for it!!



Red Mullet with Prawn and Cockles

I think, possibly the best thing about moving to London so far has been the fantastic choice of restaurants here that come in all shapes and sizes and for all budgets.  Although The Pollen Street Social Club definitely would be classed as a rare treat for us, next week we are trying out somewhere with a fantastic reputation at a price that won’t break the bank.  I’ll blog about it once we’ve been so watch this space.