Bit*h Is Back

I'm sorry I don't even know why that's my title, it's not even funny. 

Basically I haven't wrote a blog post since January, I wasn't going to write another but people have actually been asking me when i'm starting again, which must mean one of two things: People hate fitness just as much as I do OR people are laughing at me. ANYWAY, here I am, i'm back and I thought that for my first blog post i'd write about things that have changed since January:

1. I'm single
2. I've put weight on 
3. I've left uni'

One second I need to learn the barrier between a fitness blog and a Bridget Jones Blog. So off the 'Woe Is Me' thing, things have ACTUALLY changed. I'm going to start with the first thing that i've learnt:

LOW FAT FOOD IS WORSE FOR YOU THAN FULL FAT FOOD. *Faints*

So you know when you get that realisation, that you've spent your whole life buying low fat food only to find out that it is WORSE FOR YOU THAN FULL FAT?? All the tears that you've shed over the dinner table whilst your Grandma pours whole milk into your cup of tea. All the running away from full fat produce, just to have it shoved in your face 22 years later that it is actually very good for you and low fat produce is very bad for you?!

If like me you're having a panic attack over the waste of your life AND money then just stay calm whilst I (attempt) to whittle it down for you:

• Saturated fat - The bad word, the 'He who should not be named', kind of thing... Who now can be named, because he is actually GOOD FOR YOU.
• Avocado's, Nuts, Seeds, Eggs, Coconut Oil, Meat, Cheese 
• All of these are 'Naturally Saturated Fats'
• They don't contain all the sh*t that's bad for you, like... Chemicals (?!)

Okay let me break it down even more:

BUTTER vs MARGARINE:

Margarine 

Made from vegetable oils (You know that substance that we drown our food in every single day when we make 'healthy' stir-frys ETC). Well this is a graph of how vegetable oils are made:

Butter:

That block of yellow stuff that we've avoided for years. Well this is how butters made:

1. Milk cow
2. Let cream separate naturally
3. Skim off the cream
4. Shake until it becomes butter

Verdict:

I'm not even explaining the first table, the words sound minging enough 'Pre bleach' 'Winterisation.'  Margarine isn't the only 'low fat' food that undergoes this process, they all do, they're made with vegetable oils and polyunsaturated fats which our bodies simply cannot deal with and in turn end up storing them instead of using them... As a result we are ACCIDENTALLY PUTTING ON WEIGHT (FFS). 

Solution

Start by swapping your vegetable oil for olive oil. OH and Paleo people are claiming that a high fat/low carb diet is the way to lose weight and (dare I say it) 'Bulk up' or 'Tone Up' if you're a lady like me (lol). They reckon that by eating more fats we can train our body to use it as a primary energy source and in turn when we exercise we burn it away. Read this for a simplified version or alternatively just have a look at the picture at the end if you can't be as*ed reading!

So yeah, i'm really sorry for throwing that all upon you, and well, i'm back!

January Blues

January has the potential to be the worst month of the year, it's a month of being broke and starving yourself to death. You drank and ate all of your money away during the festive period and then bought far too many clothes in the sales - Only to then take them home and realise that none of them fit. As a result you are now on a liquid diet and have joined the gym which you will be 'attending every day for the foreseeable future'/maybe until next week.

E.G - The story of EVERYONE'S life. 

OH and to make matters worse, someone out there has decided that January is the perfect month to enforce a SOBER rule, 'DRY JANUARY'.

1. WHY

2. No.

It's a sad state of affairs when you're asking for sponsorship money in aid of your sober month - You know, that oh so charitable life accomplishment of not allowing an alcoholic beverage pass your lips for one whole month? If this is an achievement for you then i'm guessing that you should be spending your time elsewhere, focusing on this problem, rather than putting your efforts into getting sponsorship money. 

*Cries in pity at society* 

So if you hadn't guessed i'm currently angered at January, i'm distressed that the only thing our society can do for charity is halter their alcoholism and i'm also distressed at having to eat 'diet' food. Because of this i've decided to make healthy versions of my not so healthy favourite meals:

Tortilla Pizza

Ingredients

• 1x Tortilla wrap (They even do wholegrain wraps now).
• Tube of tomato puree (You can get all flavours of tomato puree- Think herb/garlic etc).
• Tomatoes
• Mozzarella (Or your preferred healthy cheese)
• Toppings of your choice.

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees.

2. Mix up your tomato puree and tomato's.

3. Spread the mixture over a tortilla wrap

4. Add your toppings of choice - I had mushrooms, red onion and a few slices of pepperoni. 

5. Sprinkle over your cheese. 

6. Pop in oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the wrap looks crispy!

7. Dress it with your favourite salad!

Don't let your diet ruin your life! This pizza tastes just like a normal thin crust pizza and has less than half the calories.

"New Year New Me"

So here I am, back from the dead/3rd Year of Uni... And what better time to come back to my 'fitness' blog than during the 'NEW YEAR NEW ME' season. For the past week Facebook/Twitter has been littered with status' informing us of people's new life decisions; my favourite ones have generally been relating to ex boyfriends, '2013 SAW ME GET RID OF MY CHEATING PATHETIC EX BOYFRIEND CAN'T WAIT TO ENTER 2014 WITHOUT HIM, FRESH SINGLE START' - Lol, so tragic. However for this context I'm going to focus on the fitness related life changing status'.

I know that every year I laugh in the face of the people who set themselves challenges, however this year I've decided to embrace them. Basically I saw this photo of Olympic Medalist Louis Smith and it made me think:

Firstly - Oh my God Louis how has this happened to you, you used to be such a hunk (If you're reading this - I still love you and my contact details are on the right hand side). But secondly it shows that celebrities (even Olympians) are real people, we spend so much time believing that their bodies are inhumane and that they must have some kind of super training (surgery), when in reality they are just working hard whilst we are sat on our arses reading magazines about them working hard. 

*Weeps into the Daily Fail Mail* 

Although this example isn't showing you an amazing body transformation, e.g Vicky from Geordie Shore... It's showing you that bodies can be changed, YES we've all eaten too many mince pies/champagne/yule log/pigs in blankets/stuffing/ferror rochers/I could go on...BUT we need to realise that this doesn't mean that we are destined for obesity, so WHAT if you've put a pound on over Christmas, set yourself a challenge to lose the pound. Once you've lost one pound you'll realise how easy it is to lose another. 

For those of you who are in a pickle about how to actually lose weight, start with the Nike Training App. It's full of workouts to guide you through the gym from quick workouts to interval and weight training. Start with that then come back to me when i'll  (hopefully) by then have many more ways for you to lose weight/tone up.

And before you start thinking it's impossible, please just remember that we've all go to start from somewhere: 

Is thin still 'IN'?!

The year 2009 hit us all with a bang, Victoria Beckham had a breast reduction from a 34DD to a B in a bid to be in Vogue and in the same year Queen Moss declared that absolutely nothing tasted better than being thin, not even a pie and peas. We laughed, we were angered, and then we looked at her...

...And somewhere between gazing at her rib cage and cheek bones, we believed her. 

THIN WAS IN!

Boob jobs were taken off the Christmas list and suddenly celery became a staple meal. The words 'Size Zero' slipped into our vocabulary, quickly followed by  'Size Double Zero.' This was real life, the media were forcing images of stick thin models and gaunt celebrities down our throats. 

4 Years on and thin is still fighting to be 'in', welcome... 'The Thigh Gap.' 

'The Thigh Gap' is exactly what it says on the tin, if you have a gap between your thighs you are welcome in the thin club. If you don't, then see you later. The thigh gap has become the sought after accessory with girls dedicating their lives to the hollow leg look, if you want to follow the craze you can plough through the 100's of Instagram accounts which contain 'Motivational Thigh Gap' images, you can even pick your favourite thigh gap workout from the internet - There are many.  (This link is genuinely Cosmo' as in Cosmopolitan magazine, teaching girls how to get a thigh gap - Yep Sh*t has got real. Apparently Cosmo are promoting fitness not thinspo, they are teaching us how to get toned legs and using the dangerous thigh gap trend to sell themselves -Oh alright that's okay then go ahead) 

But somethings happened and thin is struggling to be IN. Somewhere between being pis*ed off at the thigh gap and pis*ed off at men, women have become empowered to weight train and suddenly THINSPO has become FITSPO. Shopping has been swapped with SQUATTING and instead of hitting the bars on a Friday night we are hitting the barbells in the gym. Girls are proving they can have a thigh gap AND a six pac. 

With these alternating body images in mind we don't know where to go, do we want to be Skinny Sue or Body Building Betty. FITSPO or THINSPO!? IS THIN IN?!?! 

I'm going to be post a poll on my Facebook Page to see whether people prefer, thin or fit. Please fill it in as i'm interested in whether thin really is going OUT and whether FIT is sneaking IN.

(Long live Kate Moss)

October

So the clocks have gone back, the nights are going dark and (apparently) around 160,000 people have quit smoking. October is an influential month for more reasons than one.

STOPTOBER - Somebody in the Government woke up one morning and combined the words STOP with OCTOBER, this play on words created enough ammo to make a stop smoking scheme; a month whereby people would quit smoking because they were so drawn in by the pun itself.

During STOPTOBER you can order a Stoptober Pack containing information/help/advice/charts/ideas based on quitting smoking - I don't think the kit contains actual 'Stop Smoking' produce like NiQuitin Patches but clearly it contains enough to stop 160,000 people smoking!

Hands up to everyone who quit smoking through Stoptober, for the others who 'accidentally' missed it, you can get the same kit (for free) on this website at anytime of the year. If it's a pun that you need to motivate yourself then why not formulate:

NO-VEMBER (No Smoking November) 

DITCHCEMBER (Ditch It December)

... Okay i'm kidding my puns were awful and I'm not about to set up a Stop Smoking Campaign and make an artificial deadline, if you want to stop smoking you will. 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month -  Breast Cancer Care chose October to be the month of awareness, the month which pushes everything pink and educates people about the awful disease that is Breast Cancer. You've probably seen groups of women wearing pink, selling pink cupcakes and talking about boobs - Yes this may be the norm for some women, pink/cupcakes/boobs (how stereotypical) but for the others they are campaigning for a cure.

I wanted to think of a way I could support Breast Cancer on my blog, without having to upload a photo of myself head to toe in pink (i'm not a pink person). So I decided to make a pink healthy recipe that's perfect for Autumn.

Clean Healthy Raspberry and Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 9 TBSP of Oat Flour
• 1 1/2 TSP of Baking Powder
• 1 TSP of Ground Cinnamon
• 3 TBSP of Sweetener (I used Stevia- Use whatever you want and sweeten it to your own preference)
• Pinch of Salt
• 2 Ripe Bananas
• Handful of Raspberries 
• 3 Eggs (2 full eggs and 1 for egg whites)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200c

2. Make the Oat Flour by blending up porridge oats.

3. Combine dry ingredients through a sieve and mix together.
4. In a separate bowl, mash raspberries and bananas (minus 1/4 of a banana- Keep this to the side) and whisk the eggs in using 1 egg white and 2 full eggs.
5. Mix all ingredients together.
6. Add to bread tin - Cut up the 1/4 banana you left to the side and place the pieces on top of the mixture (Simply for cute decoration).
 7. Put in the oven for 30-40 minutes - I wasn't 100% sure of the time so just keep an eye on the bread - You can check if it's done by putting a knife in the centre, if it comes out clean then the bread is ready.

As you can see I didn't own a rectangle bread tin, so I made a bread bun.

The recipe may not scream pink but I don't think anything bright pink looks particularly healthy. This banana bread defines 'clean eating' and is perfect for a quick breakfast fix or a healthy dessert.

NOW FOR HALLOWEEN AND BONFIRE NIGHT! Bring on the fake blood and the Bonfire lollies. 

If it's Green it's Good

I've been receiving some lovely messages and feedback about my blog, with one message in particular being repeated - What health product would I recommend - As I couldn't answer this question I took it upon myself to test out a few products - Human Guinea Pig style. Some of them were crappy and some were amazing. So for today I've decided to give you an amazing product.

Wheatgrass Powder.

I've known about this superfood for over a year now but I'd never really got around to trying it  (Something to do with it being bright green and made of grass). Anyway, on my hunt for health products I found myself in a 'Smoothie & Healthy Fast Food Bar' called 'The Shambles Kitchen' formerly known as 'Xing.' This bar is the best healthy-food-place you'll find in York; the menu boasts detoxing smoothies and juices as well as nourishing meals. On this particular day I was looking for a pick-me-up and the man in the shop suggested a shot of Spirulina or Wheatgrass - Having never declined a shot before in my life, I felt obliged to go with his decision. Here's what I got:

Yep that bright green unappealing looking substance is Wheatgrass. I also took a sample of a Banana smoothie to help the taste go down...

Review - I'm not going to lie, it isn't pleasant. It tastes like grass mixed with grit, normally I'd put anyone off anything that tastes like grassy grit but not this. Within 5-10 minutes of shotting the Wheatgrass I immediately felt better, from feeling groggy and ill I became livelier and headache-free. Unsure whether this miracle-effect was a one off I bought myself a bag of Wheatgrass Powder from Holland & Barrett to put it to test at home...

It's £7.99 for 200g at Holland & B however when I bought it, it was 2-4-1 so I got it with a friend and paid half price (Watch out for the H&B sales you can get some cheap buys from time to time)! My first taste at home was a shot of Wheatgrass and water - I nearly died in my kitchen - Seriously do not attempt it on it's own, it's so rank. I also tried it mixed into a smoothie but I wasn't a fan, it overpowers the smoothie's taste. 

Through testing (and vomming) different concoctions I've found the answer:

- 2 x Teaspoons of Wheatgrass Powder mixed with a dash of water and a cordial of your choice. It takes the flavour away completely.

Oh yeah and now for the quick de-brief into why it makes you feel better - I'm not going to give you the health jargon and list of individual minerals and vitamins because i'm pretty sure that nobody even knows (or cares) what they do (including me):

Basically... 3.5g of Wheatgrass Powder is equivalent to 50g of spinach. It boosts the immune system, contains all 9 essential amino acids AND contains an array of vitamins - These are just SOME of the health benefits, there's soooo many more. 

My tip for winter - Stock up on Wheatgrass Powder.

The Porridge Tub Trend

So the British weather has taken a turn for the worst; it is freezing. For weeks i've been looking for an excuse to wear my new winter coat and now that I finally have one, I don't even want to wear it -It's been one of those days.

Anyway, at some point today I came across the fact that it is 'National Porridge Day,' (Who the hell makes this sh*t up). So I thought, why wouldn't I do a blog post on my childhood nightmare. 

Porridge... I'm not sure how people feel about it. Some people have fond porridge memories, sat in a cosy house, eating porridge which has been cooked on the AGA and drizzled with honey. For the Oliver Twist's amongst us it's a stomach turner, porridge is associated with slop and thick gloop...Then there's the modernista's; somewhere, somehow, porridge has become cool. We've fallen into this huge commercial trap of eating it because it comes in cute little tubs that edit well on Instragram:

Hats off to Quaker Oats for charging £1.50 (at least) for a single tub of porridge, a tub which contains sugar, skimmed milk powder and porridge oats - Around 35 measly grams of porridge oats.

Lets just talk about SKIMMED MILK POWDER, as appealing as skimmed milk powder sounds, I don't think i'm in any rush to buy it. In fact, i'm not going to buy it at all, these tubs of porridge can be easily replicated without the skimmed milk powder and without the ridiculous price. A 1kg bag of porridge oats from Tesco costs 75p; that singular bag would make 28 porridge tubs at 2.7p a tub. 

If you're a busy lady whose life has been changed by the miracle that is porridge in a tub, then let me take this opportunity to introduce you to tupperware, it's a modern day miracle, you can fill your tupperware tub with porridge oats the night before and even fill another tub with milk; then when you're ready to eat you can pop them all together in a microwave and Bob's your uncle. If you're particularly picky and only have a kettle to hand during the day then that is also fine, porridge works just as well with water, you might need to add a little extra flavour. 

Porridge should be the go-to breakfast for anyone living an active lifestyle. The slow releasing complex carbs found in the oats leave you feeling fuller for longer. Not like the breakfast 'biscuit' advert, the one  saying how you'll feel full after 1 'biscuit' (it's a lie, they aren't biscuits and they don't even hit the sides). Porridge genuinely fills you up and heats you up. It's also full of fibre and protein, as well as vitamins and minerals, plus it goes with pretty much anything so you can make it as healthy as you want. 

For those of you still wincing at the thought of porridge, why not spice things up, literally... Add some cinnamon, maybe brown sugar, fruit, peanut butter, swap your milk for almond milk or coconut milk, i've even heard of people having marmite on their porridge (vom), whatever your taste, give it a shot.

Here was my porridge this morning:

Coconut, fig and dark chocolate - Delicious.