On June 8 (this Thursday), Britain has a general election. I care deeply about British politics–I’m doing my PhD at Cambridge. But more importantly, Theresa May’s government has managed the country’s economy and public services with stunning fecklessness, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do my part to point this out.
View original post 1,023 more words
These past few months i have really struggled with some anxiety issues around eating, it is not something that i have spoken openly out about before and up until this point I have always tried to have myself down as making it look easy to have a healthy balanced lifestyle.
I do not find having a balanced lifestyle something easy to come by and although i have always been a huge advocate of the tracking your macros lifestyle due to the flexibility that is available with it, i have found lately that it has been making me feel really restrictive.
I have had a busy first few months of the year with a lot of meals out for birthdays and celebrations and things came to a head earlier this month where i was getting increasing amounts of anxiety when it came to eating out and i was unable to track properly or it was somewhere that wasn’t very easy to make certain choices. I have been feeling a constant panic regarding these situations and i have felt that this increasing anxiety just is not a healthy situation.
I have been trying to have a mini cut for our holidays in a few weeks time and have found this increasingly difficult to adhere to, and have been prone to binging periods because of it.
I decided last week that i was no longer going to track my food.
Myfitnesspal had become such a crutch to me and for a long time now i have no longer listened to my own body regarding what it needs. I know myself what a healthy diet looks like and i am capable of making and eating these, i love eating healthy food and i do not want to give that up however it was coming to a point where my obsession with tracking my food had become unhealthy.
I now want to focus my goal on performance, in the next few weeks I’m going to be switching up my gym routine and stopping tracking i want to become the fittest and healthiest person that i can become, i no longer want to do this for aesthetics like i have been doing for so long now.
I am lucky enough to have an amazing husband, who i know that if i put on weight that it would not make a difference to him, he has loved me when i have been bigger and loved me when i have been smaller and he has loved my when i have had breakdowns over going out to eat pizza with friends and family so this should be a breeze for him..
So from now on I will be documenting the changes i will be making in these senses food is fuel, food is life…
There are few supplements that i believe we actually need, most of them we can get ourselves from our diet, however one supplement that i personally take is vitamin D. I work in healthcare and the amount of people that are prescribed this supplement is continually growing.
So i just thought i would pop on here and explain why it is we may benefit from taking it as a supplement and how it effects your body.
vitamin D helps to regulate the calcium and phosphate in your body and these are needed to help keep you bones and muscles healthy. A lack of vitamin D can result in things such as rickets.
We can all simply get vitamin D from the sun between from April to September but in the winter months we do not get the vitamin D we need from the sunlight.
Even in the summer months people who do not get outside enough, for example the elderly or us with full-time jobs that are constantly inside may not get enough vitamin D from sunlight alone.
Good sources of vitamin D to add to your diet are:
The recommended dose of vitamin D is 10mcg (this is often on the packaging as 400 units).
The department of health in the UK states that because vitamin D is only available in a small number of foods that everyone should consider taking a vitamin D supplement.
I personally take vitamin D as i work indoors a lot in the North west of England, its not often sunny here and i personally believe that i do not get enough vitamin D from the sunlight alone and so i choose to supplement with the recommended dosage about, it is pretty cheap to buy, most supplement places sell it and you can pick it up in most pharmacies.
there has been a lot in the media regarding vitamin D in the last few weeks and when i went to get my usual bottle of vitamin D tablets there were several people crowded round it debating whether to buy it or not, which is what prompted this blog.
It has been hailed as the “sunshine vitamin”, which as a vitamin you can mainly get from the sun i can understand, it has been stated in the media as being able to fight off diseases, depression and boosts your immune system and therefore fights off colds and flu’s. Im not sure that taking this simple vitamin alone will be able to do them things however having a healthier diet and lifestyle that contains vitamin D as suggested by the department of health will contribute to these things, just not taking the supplement alone.
What supplements do you take? And are there any other supplements you would like to know more about?
Last week we had a pretty busy week and I’m not sure about anyone else but as soon as i get super busy and things start getting in the way of my normal routine then thats when i start to go off track with my diet.
This week i new that we would be getting home later than normal on a few days so i pulled out my trusty slow cooker threw my ingredients in and when i got home we had a delicious healthy meal ready and waiting for us.
This was one of those lets throw it all together and see how it goes type of a situation and it turned out pretty damn well and is so super cheap and easy to do.
Ingredients:
chicken breast fillets (approx 300g)
1 x tin of chopped tomatoes
1x chicken stock cube dissolved into 100ml of hot water
1x tsp of chilli powder (add more if you like more spice)
1.5x tsp of cumin
1.5x tsp of ground coriander
0.5 x tsp of garlic granules
salt and pepper to taste
How to:
Pop the tomatoes, stock and spices together to make a sauce for the chicken, add the chicken breast to the sauce in the slow cooker and make sure the sauce is also on top of the chicken. Set the slow cooker to low and leave for 8 hours. When you come home, turn the slow cooker take two forks and pull the chicken apart and “shred” the chicken and mix with the sauce. Put the lid back on while you make the salad, rice or whatever you want to serve with and let it absorb the sauce into it. It’s that simple and its genuinely really tasty! Let me know if you give it a go.
Several mornings a week i like to get up and do some cardio, obviously for health and cardiovascular benefits but mainly to catch up on my favourite YouTubers.
Here’s my top picks but please comment before some of yours for me to check out.
!!WARNING this blog has zero health content!!
Las Vegas is a total foodies paradise, yes i know that isn’t what it gets its usual reputation as but honestly we didn’t eat a single bad thing there. you can walk into any hotel and decide what kind of food you’re after and they will more than likely have it there, don’t have a big budget? That’s fine they cater for that, want the most expensive meal you’ve ever had? they cater for that to.
No matter what kind of food you want or like and no matter what your budget there will be something there for you. I promise.
So i thought i would give you a run down on some of the best food that we had while we were there
First on the list is the amazing buffets that they have there. We were lucky enough to be staying in the encore and had the Wynn buffet paid for every morning for us.It was pretty pricey at $52 for 2 every morning but if you can get a deal like we did where it was already pre-paid it was so worth it. There was literally everything you could imagine: yoghurt, fruit, oatmeal, pastries, eggs, meats, sausages, eggs Benedict, pancakes made to order, omelette made to order, curry, spring rolls, sushi, fresh fish, bagels and then two rows of desserts. I apologise for the lack of photos but each day i had a three course breakfast consisting of mainly : egg whites, either smoked salmon or chicken sausages and some veggies, then some greek yoghurt with granola or oatmeal and some fruit and then i would pick one or two desserts so i tried them all while we were there. This may sound like a lot but honestly we were being conservative compared to the other people around us…
The best burger:
This was from Wolfgang pucks in the MGM grand and it was amazing, brioche bun, steak burger with american slaw inside and to start these were crisps with a blue cheese sauce with were epic. Wolfgang has quite a few restaurants in Vegas and ive never had a bad meal from one of his resturants, our best meal was in the venetian at his steak house, they even brought the steaks out to us before cooking them to show us the quality of meat, unfortunately there are no photos as i felt it was far to posh of an establishment for me to be taking photos of their food…haha.
The best tacos:
These fish tacos were amazing they were from the mandarin bay hotel which all the food is also amazing at, i cant remember the places name but these were delicious.
The best dessert
The Wynn has a cocktail and dessert bar that overlooks its lake of dreams and so we felt we had to go and sample one of these, this was its coffee and donut dessert which was huge. It was coffee ice cream, with coffe flavour brownie bits, and topped with cream and the stick were donught bits.
The best cocktails / milkshakes:
In the cosmopolitan there is a place called holstons shakes and buns and we got these incredible milk shakes mine was the smores flavour, which was vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, crushed graham crackers, cream, marshmallows. The other two are the fat lad and the cookies and cream shake, these are also all alcoholic but I couldn’t taste any alcohol in them.
The best experience:
We went to a tepynyaki restaurant in the Wynn, which is something that i have never done before and it was amazing, the cost included 4 different courses and you just had to pick which meat you wanted and which carb, either rice or noodles.
The best chain:
CHIPOTLE!! we are a little deprived back at home and do not have one that is less than 2.5 hours away so we had to try it, we went a couple of times trying a burritos first and then this burrito bowl the second time and we loved it!
The best of the rest:
From Jardin at the Wynn
Goats cheese, honey and bruchetta starter.
The cupcake ATM at the Linq hotel promenade
Reeces peanut butter pie at the airport!
It has been what feels like forever since i have written a blog post, well 6 weeks to be exact. I have been super busy doing a few little things like getting married, going on my honeymoon and then coming back to study for my exam and pass it!!
Which only means one thing, i now have more spare time than ever…(i still feel like i have no time just like everyone else).
So i thought just to get me back into the swing of things i would post a little update and show you my results from my cut for my wedding.
My aim was to be in the best shape of my life and i most defiantly was, I felt totally amazing on the wedding day and I love every single photo that i have seen which was all that i wanted.
My results were that i lost around 10lbs over 6 months through a steady cut. I have talked a few times now about what sort of routine i was following and it was hard work, i was working out A LOT and the plan isn’t sustainable for me to keep doing forever and that fine it was just something that i was working with to get these results.
Here are some shots from the day:
I don’t think that i have ever actually realised how tiny i am until i saw these pictures, because i have always been still that big girl in my head. As crazy as that sounds that is the truth that i still always feel big and that is something that i now need to work on for myself.
I honestly had the most fantastic day with the people i love most in the world, everything was perfect and can’t thank the people enough that did my cake, flowers and dress
The only thing left to say is what are now my new goals?
Well as hard as it is for me i am now going to be going on a bulk, my fantastic hubby has written me a new strength training plan focussing on the main big lifts, dead lift, bench press and squat where I’m hoping ill be able to improve a lot on in the nest few months.
I have been dieting for about 9 months of this year and my body and mind really does need a break from it so hopefully an increase in food with mean an increase in my lifts.
If you need some peanut butter in your life then get yourselves these new flavours from hognuts 😍😍😍
Say hello to the BRAND NEW mouthwatering Hognuts Butters flavours! 😀
They’ve seriously spoilt us this time with not one, two or three, but four totally unique brand new peanut butters!
CHOCOLATE TIFFIN
PEANUT BRITTLE
COOKIES & CREAM
SUPERSEED
Click here to experience some serious peanut butter porn 😉
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ-2dmijB6m/?taken-by=veesfitnessfood
You can drool over them for yourself before choosing which to try first 😉
Before you ask, you can order them;
Use ‘VIANHOGNUTS15’ for 15% off 🙂
or
2. From Cardiff Sports Nutrition; https://www.cardiffsportsnutrition.co.uk/index.php?route=product%2Fsearch&search=hognuts+
Use ‘VIAN10’ for discount 🙂
Now… let’s get to the macros and taste review!
Peanut Brittle
Macros (per 100g):
586 Cal
30g P
42g F
26g C
Yep, mind-blowing right? High protein, low fat, low carb and only 3g of naturally occurring sugars. This flavour is also gluten free!
I adored this one! Smooth creamy butter, subtle hints of toffee and super…
View original post 363 more words
OK – so first of all this is probably a little bit of a controversial post and i have been contemplating writing it for some time now. I first saw the subject brought up on Instagram over six months ago and unfortunately i cannot remember by whom to give them the credit for it.
Low carb diets have got a he interest at the moment and seem to be the in thing and are giving amazing results. Heck until January this year i was one of these people on the low carb band wagon shouting from the roof tops that low carb was amazing and helped you to shed undated fat very easily.
But the reason why a diet works, the reason why you loose weight and unwanted fat is down to simply science:
CALORIES IN VS CALORIES OUT
If you are eating more food then you are burning in calories then you will but on weight and if you are consuming less food than you are burning then you will loose weight.
So why do so many people see such amazing results on a low carb diet? I have been thinking about this for a while and when you think about it as a society we eat a lot of carbs. If you take the average persons meals for the day a normal diet would be something like:
Cereal or toast for breakfast
Sandwich for lunch
Meat, veg and rice/pasta/potatoes for Tea
Snacks – biscuits, crips, fruit ect…
And whats the common theme there? CARBS.
Yes this is very generalised but i personally know so many people that eat the about day in day out. So when they start a diet what do they normally do, especially if they have been told to eat more protein and fats and less carbs. They would normally start eating something like this:
Breakfast: fruit and greek yoghurt/ porridge / scrambled eggs
Lunch: chicken salad
Tea: meat and vegtables
Snacks: fruit / protein bars / greek yoghurt.
The reason why a low carb diet works is that its pretty easy to take away the carbs from your daily diet, even if a person just did this for their main meal at night if they just ate the meat and the vegetables and got rid of this nightly portion of rice then that would save them around 180 calories and that for a measured 125g portion and how many people just have that amount?
So if you’re taking this amount away thats a simple 200 calories to get rid of a day, if you take the bread away from your sandwich at lunch and just had a simple salad and chicken instead of it in bread that would be another 200 calories saved.
Basically when most people do a ow carb diet they just get rid of the carbs and they don’t replace the carbs they have taken away with fat, if they did this then i suspect they would see no difference in their weight.
If someone told you to do a high carb diet and to get rid of the fats that is a much more difficult thing to do. There is not vey often a single fat source on your plate at a meal, of course you can choose leaner cuts of meat and stop adding fatty sauced to dishes but how many of the British population eat a handful of almonds with their meals or half an avocado?
I just wanted to show you that low carb doesn’t have to be the only way. This year I have seen my best results yet and its all been done on high carbs. I have felt so much better for it, of course that isn’t going to work for everyone so get to know your own body first and see what it works best on. You don’t need to fear carbs and not all carb sources are unhealthy ones there are plenty of great healthy carb sources out there to help fuel your body and fuel your workouts.
Now everyone loves a brownie even us “healthy eaters” so have have been trying to find a great healthy alternative for a brownie. These have amazing macros with them and they are just so fudgy and yummy. I have added some Lindt dark chocolate into them which are included in the macros but if you left this out they would be even less calories or you could also add in come nuts if your macros allow for it.
They contain a healthy ingredient that some people might not think they would like in a brownie but honestly try them first as you can taste it at all.
Ingredients:
1 scoop of beef protein from myprotein
1 scoop of chocolate cake flavour whey from myprotein
150g of cooked beetroot
25g of sukrin almond flour
10g of sukrin peanut flour
3 tbsp of coco powder
1 tsp of baking powder
90ml of egg whites
100ml of milk i used koko coconut milk for this recipe
20g of lindt dark chocolate with cherry and almond (any dark chocolate can be used here or left out)
Pre-heat the oven to 180 Simply add all the ingredients apart from the chocolate to a blender and mix together then stir in the chocolate broken up into small pieces and then pour into a baking tray lined with baking paper. Then pop in the over for 15-20 minutes. They don’t take long to cook and the mixture is thinner.
I made 8 largish squares which worked out at a mere 73 calories per slice, 4.7 carbs, 2.1 fat and 9.1 protein.
macromckenzie 