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Fitness, Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 12

May 18, 2014

kayla itsines week 12

Wow. I cannot believe I have finished Kayla Itsines 12 week bikini body guide! Feels surreal that it has already passed so quickly … 12 weeks is a really interesting amount of time. In the grand scheme of things it really is not that long, but at the same time, so much can happen in 12 weeks. In the course of these past 12 weeks, I have:

  • finished Kayla Itsines bikini body guide (try it here for free for a week!)
  • finished my first year of graduate school (don’t know how that happened lol)
  • watched my blog grow, receiving over 1,400 visitors at its peak
  • became an I’m Fit Possible ambassador
  • joined the POPSUGAR select fitness program
  • continued my yoga practice and am much more flexible
  • can do over 180 push ups in a 30 minute workout session
  • can now do 70 pound lat pulls

Okay, I will stop there haha! Those are the accomplishments I am most proud of 🙂 And of course I am extreemely proud of my boyfriend for getting into the PhD program at the University of Utah, but I can’t really count this as my own personal accomplishment now can I? 😉

I am so grateful to everything that has occurred in the last few weeks, and I cannot wait to see what the future has in store. Your reality is what you make of it, so make sure you are doing what makes YOU happy. Do not focus on what others will think of you or what they will say. Although for the most part people are supportive of what I do, I still get some passive judgement about the choices I make. But I don’t really care and if I have to continue to state why I am doing what I am doing, then I will continue doing so.

kayla itsines week 12

You are probably all wondering whether or not I will be posting progress photo’s, huh? 🙂 I do want too, although I am not sure when (check on my instagram because if I do post them, I will post them there). Don’t get me wrong, I am EXTREMELY proud of my progress, although I do worry about the negativity I may receive: “There’s no change.” “She look’s worse” etc etc. It isn’t like I have developed a six pack or a thigh gap lol, but I have tightened up a lot and am much stronger although I do not really think the photo’s can accurately convey this. I am definitely going to continue with the bikini body guide and will probably just repeat it until Kayla’s new book comes out. Maybe that time round the abs will be showing 😉

Also I just wanted to share this graphic with you that my friend sent me. I think it is fantastic and fits in well with my philosophy that diets are unnecessary!!

Good diets fad diets and ugly diets

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness, Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary – Kayla Itsines Week 11

May 11, 2014
review Kayla Itsines Week 11 BBG

Kayla Itsines Week 11

Kayla Itsines Week 11 BBG

I literally spent Tuesday through Saturday with the stiffest and most sore legs I have EVER HAD!!! For those who follow me on my bikini body guide journey, you will know that I have now completed week 11 of Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide .. yay! On Tuesday, I did my leg workout and although I have done it once before in week 9, I truly pushed myself to the max this time. Hence the stiff legs for almost the entire week! It was pretty ridiculous, every night I would go to bed thinking ‘okay, so tomorrow they won’t be sore anymore’ and then wake up with equally sore legs -__-

I love the workouts for week 11 though. They are so intense and really make you realise just how strong you are. I have to say, the ab workout for this week has been my absolute favorite of the entire guide. It hits every part of my abs and makes them feel oh so tight and toned afterwards.

The arm workout is great too, although I have much more of a love/hate relationship with it. I did approximately 157 push up variations when I did my arm workout for this week, so hopefully that gives you some indication as to how ridiculous it is. But hey, at least now I can do that many push ups!! I normally do my workouts in the group exercise room at the gym, but for some reason an unannounced class was being held in there when I arrived on Friday, so I had to do it in front of all the cardio machines. A little embarrassing to say the least but I did look pretty bad ass doing all those push up variations, so it didn’t really matter in the end.

In other news, I was doing SO WELL on my #HFsugarfreemay until this weekend. It was my boyfriend’s graduation and so I wanted to bake him some yummy treats which inevitably ended up with me tasting these yummy treats too .. oops. Regardless, I think trying to stick to sugar free as much as feasibly possible as it is really quite helpful. It made me stop putting honey in my tea, stevia/brown sugar in my coffee and just made me think more about whether I really wanted that dark chocolate or not 😉 I am all about balance so having sugar/sweets/ice-cream or whatever once in a while is alright as long as you are being mindful about your choices and not completely gorging on whatever your indulgence is. With that in mind, I will leave you with a photo of my boyfriend and I at his graduation, haha.

Kayla Itsines Week 11 BBG

So all in all, it was a great week and I am so excited (but kind of sad) to be finishing Kayla Itsines bikini body guide next week. Be excited for that next week and also for a really, REAAALLLYYY exciting post on Tuesday. Trust me, you will not want to miss it!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

May 2, 2014

As you may (or may not know, it’s cool if you don’t lol) I have been working on a yummy dark chocolate chip coconut cookies recipe for this week’s Friday Fare! The inspiration for this recipe honestly came about because I had all the ingredients in my cupboard and I reeeeally was craving cookies .. I love cookies, hehe. These cookies are kind of like a beginner’s guide to taking the healthy step forward – a few people have commented on how even though the recipe’s look great, there are several hard to get or expensive ingredients in them. And I totally understand, not everyone can live near a Whole Food’s with a bulk bin section!! So these cookies have ingredients that should be easy enough for you to get at your local supermarket 🙂

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Don’t they look awesome?

I used a combination of oat flour (which you can make your own by just putting some rolled oats in a food processor and whizzing it about for a few seconds) and whole wheat flour, coconut oil and dark chocolate to make a healthier chocolate chip cookie. I really like oat flour because it has quite a lot of fiber and protein in it, and I used whole wheat flour because a) it is super easy to find in supermarkets and b) as opposed to white wheat flour which usually is stripped of all its nutritional goodness, whole wheat flour contains all of the fiber and vitamins that are supposed to be there. Coconut oil makes everything taste better (in my opinion) and contains a lot of healthy fats, and the dark chocolate is there to balance out the sweetness that comes with the brown sugar. Although brown sugar really is not that much healthier than white sugar, it gives a richer flavor and more moistness to the cookie. Like I said, this is a beginner’s guide to healthier cookies!

They are also dairy free as I used Almond Breeze’s almond and coconut milk.

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Alice Williams
Melt in your mouth dark chocolate chip cookies with coconut.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup oat flour
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk I used Almond Breeze's almond and coconut milk blend mmm
  • 1/2 cup or 4 squares of 70% dark chocolate pieces I buy the Lindt kind and break it up into small chunks, you can use a knife to chop them too
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp high quality salt

Instructions
 

  • 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheit
  • 2. First, mix all of your dry ingredients (MINUS the dark chocolate) and then mix all of your wet ingredients. Now you can fold in the dark chocolate chunks.
  • 3. Roll the batter into small balls (should make 12) and then use a spoon to flatten them out on your baking pan.
  • 4. Bake the cookies in the oven for 8 minutes and then take out.
  • 5. Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes and then enjoy!

Notes

The cookies are meant to be a bit more cake-like in taste 🙂
Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

I hope you all enjoyed this edition of Friday Fare. I had a lot of fun making these (and eating way too many in the process) and I hope you have just as much fun as I did. Next week I am thinking of featuring a sweet oatmeal dish but made using an interesting and different process from just boiling the oats or letting them soak overnight … 🙂 Either that or some sort of Thai curry.

Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

If there is ever anything you would like me to make (a breakfast, dessert, salad or etc) then please let me know. I say this every week but I truly love hearing from you and appreciate your input and suggestions.
Have a great weekend everyone!!

Honestly yours,
Alice