Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 8

November 23, 2014

I’m back! … back to doing the Kayla Itsines workouts, that is 🙂

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 8

After last week’s hectic schedule, this week seemed utterly boring and felt like it was dragging on SO slowly. The only particularly interesting thing I did this week was have a lovely baking filled night with a good friend of mine at her place in Santa Clara on Saturday night. Everything else was very mundane and underwhelming (think class, work and the library) although I was presented with a big, fat bill on Friday after getting my car serviced. Just what every student needs!

However, I was very excited to see my first ‘published’ piece up on Fiterazzi.com. Click here to read my post – hint, it’s about organic foods 😉 (update: sadly, the site has gone offline and with it, my article. Let me know if you want me to send it to you!).

Workouts

My poor legs. After a week of not being worked out they received a crazy and plyo heavy leg workout this week and it seriously took me about x days to feel normal again. The arms and abs, and abs and cardio workouts went pretty well. I was a little slower than I would’ve like in my arm workout as I only managed to do about 1 and a half circuits for each round. All in all a very challenging week of workouts as usual, although the leg workout was particularly brutal. Watch out for it, ladies!

Nutrition

Nutrition-wise, I did well although I definitely ate a bit more than normal for two reasons. A) The temperature really dropped this week in San Francisco due to the rain we’ve had and B) It’s that time of the month 🙂 I’ve still been eating a variety of healthy foods but have added in more carbohydrates and fruits. Although Saturday night was kind of naughty and not particularly healthy hehehe. But it’s all about balance; find your healthy lifestyle balance and you’ll be happier from it.

That’s all from me! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. My lovely boyfriend will be flying into the city on Wednesday night which I am verrry excited for and we will be spending Thanksgiving with his parents. And I will continue to do the workouts, and I hope you continue to workout too! Don’t let the holidays stop your progress. Just alter what you do to fit around this busy and wonderful holiday.

What are your Thanksgiving plans? For my non-Americans, how do you deal with working out and eating healthy during the holidays?

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare, Health

Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie Bowl

November 22, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating! Ever since I had my first real experience of Thanksgiving just a few short years ago (Brit’s don’t celebrate it!), it has fast become one of my favorite holidays. I can’t pinpoint exactly why; I love the food involved (PUMPKIN), the focus on being grateful and spending time with people you love. To show you all my appreciation, I thought I’d give you all a fun new recipe to try that is healthy yet tastes like a delicious dessert … Mint chocolate chip smoothie bowl!

Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie Bowl

The inspiration for this recipe came from supermodel Cindy Crawford. She talked about a smoothie she made and so of course I HAD to make it too, but with a few alterations. I used cow’s milk instead of almond milk for more protein and instead of carob chips, I used Dang’s dark chocolate covered (coconut) chips instead. This smoothie features mint, which is something I have never used in a smoothie before. Mint is extremely low in calories and is a vitamin and mineral powerhouse. The mint you tend to find in supermarkets is spearmint, which has a significant amount of vitamin A which has been said to promote healthy skin and support your immune system. Perfect for this dry and cold winter weather! It also provides a good source of iron, which is good for your blood, and manganese, which supports healthy brain function and aids the production of sex hormones hehe.

[Tweet “Superfood mint chocolate chip smoothie inspired by Cindy Crawford”]

Recipe

Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie Bowl

Alice Williams

A healthy smoothie bowl that is easy to make and tastes just like mint chocolate chip ice-cream!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Servings 1

Ingredients

1 C frozen spinach
1 C cow's milk I used 2%
1 frozen banana - sliced
1/4 cup fresh mint
1 tbsp Dang dark chocolate covered chips
Optional: 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
Optional toppings: chia seeds fresh mint, sliced banana (any fruit)

Instructions

Blend the above ingredients together in a blender until smooth.
Serve cold and enjoy!

Notes

Cow's milk can be subbed for milk of choice (almond, coconut, soy, etc).
Dang dark chocolate covered chips can be subbed for carob chips.

Adapted from Neka Pasquale

I found that adding both frozen banana and spinach makes for a deliciously creamy smoothie bowl with a texture close to that of soft serve. So good and healthy! I love having it for a nutrient-rich and protein packed breakfast before a workout or as a sweet dessert before bed. Let me know what you think of it and if you do share your recreation, please tag #HFMCCsmoothiebowl

Will you be indulging over the holiday season? What foods are you most looking forward too?

Honestly yours,
Alice

Blogs I love, Fitness, Health, Sunday Summary

Tea, Healthy Treats & Recovery

November 16, 2014

Despite having a day off of work (but not uni work) due to Veterans Day, this week was busy and jam-packed full of uni, work and social related events.

On Thursday night, the communication studies department at SF State held a talk with Abdur Chowdhury, former Twitter chief scientist and former chief architect at AOL. Needless to say I was extremely excited to attend the talk and hear what he had to say about social media, coming from the father of hashtags himself. It was a really interesting talk with so much cool information. Although it was all interesting stuff, his discussion of the minimization of social networks was particularly interesting. Check out his app ‘Steven’ to understand a little more of where he is going with that idea.

Social events wise, I attended a fun event at Lorna Jane on Saturday, attended the San Francisco international tea festival this morning, and will dine at Le Cheval in Walnut Creek tonight to celebrate my dear friend Alyssa’s birthday.

Lorna Jane SF

Okay so, the event at Lorna Jane featured Lauren Shaber, a Bay Area healthy living blogger, who was there to share her healthy meal planning tips and to give out samples of healthy treats. The healthy treats were so good and I wish I had taken photos so I could show you all; there were chocolate stuffed raspberries, PB&J power balls (my personal fave) and chocolate peanut butter cookies … mmmmm. It was great to actually meet her in person! She was lovely and I am hoping we will get together soon and try out some healthy hotspots in the Bay Area 🙂

San Francisco Tea Festival

On Sunday, a friend and I attended the San Francisco Tea Festival which was held in the Ferry Building in Embarcadero. Ironically we are both half British and thus have a keen appreciation for tea. One of the highlights of this festival was a stand featuring tea flavored chocolates! Now I will let the photos do the talking … be prepared for many, many photos of tea now.

This blog post is soooo long, I do apologize! I’ll end quickly by telling you how I stayed active this week while ensuring my foot recovered. It basically involved a lot of the elliptical machine (most boring method of cardio ever), focusing on the core and upper body (thank you Kayla Itsines week 2 arms and abs and pilates reformer), and yoga. I definitely ate a little bit more indulgently this week but it hasn’t really affected me weight wise. For some reason I decided that this week was mocha coffee week and I made a batch of my refined sugar-free and grain-free fudge brownies which I snacked on all week despite giving about 3/4 of it to my housemates!

[Tweet “Grain-free and refined sugar-free fudge brownies! No joke, click for the recipe”]

What did you get up to this weekend? Share, share, share!

Honestly yours,
Alice

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