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Fitness, Health, Sunday Summary

Honestly Fitness Recap: Kayla Itsines Week 8

April 21, 2014
Kayla Itsines Week 8

I am now 2/3 of the way through Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide!

Kayla Itsines Week 8

Yeah, I am that excited. Not even gonna give you guys a ‘hello’ or ‘sorry for being terrible at posting lately.’ I am truly sorry about that and I hope you can forgive the busy life of a master’s student for making me unable to post regularly! I have had a few personal issues too which have not helped anything, but mostly I am just really busy. This is why I decided to do a recap post, just to let you all know what has been going on in my life.

Okay … so back to workout news. The legs and arms workout for week 8 of Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide were bloody hard. Seriously, I do not understand how my legs still ache so much after all this time. I like it! Not complaining, more surprised than anything. I am actually rather terrified for the remaining 4 weeks as I have looked through the strength workouts, which look very, very hardcore. Wish me luck!!

In addition to continuing to work out regularly at my second home (the gym), I was doing pretty well food wise until this weekend hehe. I had planned a cheat meal for Friday night because some of my cohorts (code word for the people who started the MA program the same time I did) and I had planned to grab a meal together at Burgermeister.  And guess what Burgermeister serve .. burgers! Friday wasn’t too atrocious despite that though and had half a burger and some fries. Saturday night was pretty bad .. pizza, pasta, some wine … oops! Oh well, I haven’t had alcohol in the longest time and I stuck to just having one glass. The nice thing about this process is that despite eating ‘bad’ foods from time to time, I genuinely crave healthy food now and know that I could never go back on this lifestyle. I felt so bloated and just plain unwell, and although some foods are worth it in very small amounts, it is just not worth it to incorporate them into your daily routine. I am very happy with my eggs, veggies, quinoa and lean protein thanks!

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine from England called Shivvy came to stay with me and we had a lovely time. I am surprised at how well we both ate despite the fact that we went out quite a lot. I think the first 2 major desserts we shared put us off eating badly for the rest of the time! We were thoroughly tourist-y and did all of the San Francisco ‘must-do’s’ such as Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz island, Chinatown and Haight Ashbury. To conclude this recap, I leave you all with various photo’s of the fun times we had. Hopefully this makes you want to come and visit this beautiful city!

Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

My beautiful friend Shivvy

Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

Buena Vista Park

Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

Gotta love Off the Grid and food trucks! This was at Serramonte Center

Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

Alcatraz island is very windy …
Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

Golden Gate Bridge selfie!

Kayla Itsines Week 8 BBG

Some guy 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare, Health

Easy Shrimp Tacos

April 11, 2014

Easy Shrimp Tacos

This week’s Friday Fare is dedicated to my friend, Tenny, who requested an easy shrimp tacos recipe for the upcoming Cinco de Mayo!

shrimp tacos

I thought this was a great idea because a) I wanted to make taco’s anyway and b) Now you can all make these taco’s for your cinco de mayo parties, or to just eat and enjoy. This taco has my own Alice twist on it. Instead of cabbage, I have included spinach because then you don’t have to spend ages shredding cabbage. Plus, spinach is extremely healthy for you and very, very tasty. I decided to use guacamole to spread onto the taco (like butter on bread) AND also as a topping. The main ingredient in guacamole is avocado, which is a source of healthy fats and has quite a range of vitamins and minerals. Healthy fats are a necessity to aid your body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals too, by the way.

Your carbohydrate source comes from the corn tortilla’s, and your protein comes from the shrimp! I am a mega fan of shrimp (as those of you on Instagram know) because they are low in calories but quite dense in protein. For example, 4 ounces of shrimp is only 80 calories and has 18 grams of protein!

For all you students out there, I recommend buying frozen shrimp in bulk because it is much cheaper and it is really easy to thaw – you just put it in hot water for a few minutes and it is ready to cook.

Shrimp Tacos

Alice Williams
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with these tasty and healthy shrimp tacos!
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Ingredients
  

Ingredients

  • For the taco's
  • 2 corn tortilla's I used blue corn tortilla's from Mi Abuelita Bontia Naturals
  • 1 cup fresh spinach
  • 4 oz shrimp or 8 jumbo shrimp
  • Juice of half a lime
  • 1-2 teaspoons cumin
  • 1-2 teaspoons garlic salt or 1 clove of crushed garlic and 1-2 teaspoons of high quality salt
  • For the Guacamole
  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 2 crushed cloves of garlic
  • Juice of 1/2 a lime
  • 3-4 cilantro leaves
  • Optional - 1/2 diced jalapeno

Instructions
 

  • 1. Prep the guacamole first. Trust me, you will devour the taco's and forget all about the guacamole if you have not made it first! To do that, mash all of the ingredients listed above for the guacamole in a small bowl and set aside.
  • 2. Now get a large frying pan and put over a high heat. Wait 30 seconds to 1 minute until the pan is quite hot and then put the taco on it. Cook each side of the taco for 30 seconds to 1 minute - until they are lightly browned.
  • 3. Once both taco's are cooked, you can spread your guacamole onto them. I used about half of the guacamole I made to spread onto the taco's. Then add a layer of spinach onto your taco's, will require about 4 spinach leaves, depending on how big they are. Set aside for now,
  • 4. Saute the shrimp in a frying pan, using either coconut oil or olive oil. I used a spray olive oil to minimize the calories and fat since I am getting a substantial amount of healthy fats from the avocado already. Sprinkle the cumin and garlic salt over the shrimp, and then drizzle the lime juice over the shrimp. Please adjust the amount you add to your taste.
  • 5. Once the shrimp has cooked (does not take long, maybe 5-8 minutes?) place them evenly onto your taco's, and place another layer of spinach on top of them. Add some more guacamole if you want, and some salsa if you have made or have some as well.
  • 6. Place a few cilantro leaves on the top of the taco's (if you want), drizzle some more lime juice on them and then fold, and enjoy!
Shrimp Tacos

Shrimp Tacos

 

Shrimp Tacos with guacamole

I hope you have all enjoyed this week’s edition of Friday Fare! I love this recipe because it is quite a light dish, yet very satisfying, tasty and healthy all at the same time 🙂 I prefer to use corn tortilla’s because flour tortilla’s tend to have a lot more ingredients in them whereas corn tortilla’s are much simpler. Annoyingly though, flour tortilla’s do have more protein and fiber but corn tortilla’s have less calories. And for those who are intolerant to wheat and gluten, corn tortilla’s are the obvious winner here. I think corn tortilla’s are tastier too hehe, but that is just my personal opinion!

As always, if you recreate these, please please use the hashtag #fridayfare and tag me in your post so that I can see them! And if you like the posts, why not subscribe .. 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness

Girls, please lift weights

April 9, 2014

I feel as if most girls are allergic just to the idea of lifting weights.

“No, I just stick to cardio.” “Are you kidding, the weight room is full of guys!” “Mmm, but my legs will get bulky, right?”

I am sure many of you have heard this before (or have said this), and honestly the only one I kind of get is the second comment. Because yeah, most weight rooms are full of guys, but don’t let this put you off. Sure they may stare at you, but that’s just because it is a rarity to see a girl lifting weights. If anything, take a friend with you so it won’t be as intimidating or ask one of the personal trainers at your gym to teach you a few exercises.

Lifting weights will not make you bulky, UNLESS you are eating a diet which will not aid in fat loss. I used to think I was getting bulky from lifting weights but in reality, it was because I still had some extra fat. So because I was not losing any fat, I looked bigger because there was muscle AND fat. Although I still have some excess fat I currently want to lose (it is a long process ..) when I first starting lifting weights and following an eating plan that aided in fat loss, I saw a big change in my body. Cardio will only take you so far. Cardio can help you lose fat but lifting weights (or just resistance exercises in general such as using resistance bands or TRX) will help shape and firm your ‘problem area’s.’

There are also certain area’s of the body that you just will not be able to tone up unless you use weights. Case in point: the back. My body has this lovely (sarcasm people) tendency to store fat in my back (it’s disgusting) and I only started to see improvement in this area when I started using weights to strengthen and tone my back. It’s pretty exhilarating actually to see my progress, and how I am able to use heavier and heavier weights .. and a more defined back!

So please ladies, rethink your approach to weight and fat loss. Cardio is an important factor but not the ONLY factor. What you eat also plays a role, and using weights will help shape your body. Plus food for thought – a lot of yogi’s will train using weights to help them do advanced balancing exercises which require a great deal of upper body, core and lower body strength. And I do not know about you, but I have never seen a ‘bulky’ yogi.

What are some of your favorite exercises? Mine are currently cable back rows and doing sit ups on a bench with a 10 pound weight 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice xxx

P.S. The gorgeous lady in the features image is Juennifer, and she lifts weights 😉