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honestly fitness

Friday Fare, Health

Friday Fare – Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

March 7, 2014

Woooow, it’s Friday already?? Umm, the weeks pass by too fast for me. And I have a lot of work due next week for uni, so that’s not necessarily a good thing lol.

Anyway, I thought I would show you all how to make a healthier and clean version of everyone’s favorite dessert: ice-cream! And since I loooove toffee, I thought I would show you how to make a healthy version of that, to drizzle on top of the ice-cream.

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

I was inspired to do this, because a) I freaking love ice cream, and b) I am in LOVE with banoffee pie. Read bananas and toffee in a pie. Together. Heaven in a pie. And because this ice cream is made out of bananas, I thought it would be delicious to pair it with a healthy and raw toffee sauce 🙂

This recipe was also inspired by recipes featured on Blogilates and The Detoxinista 🙂

And note, before you can do ANYTHING, make sure your bananas are ripe and sweet and then slice it up and freeze the banana slices overnight. This is a crucial first step, as the frozen banana slices is what gives you a deliciously sweet and creamy texture to the ‘ice-cream.’

Also PLEASE USE NATURAL PEANUT BUTTER and not just any old peanut butter 🙂

Alright, banana slices all frozen? Excellent, let us move on.

 

Healthified Ice-Cream with Toffee Sauce

Alice Williams
Healthy 'ice-cream' that literally tastes and has the exact same texture as ice-cream!
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Ingredients
  

  • For the Ice Cream
  • 2 bananas sliced and frozen
  • 1 tbsp Peanut Butter
  • For the Toffee Sauce
  • 12 pitted medjool dates
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • To make the ice cream
  • 1. Throw your banana slices (or you can gently guide them) into your blender, and whizz it until the consistency becomes smooth and creamy. This will be done very quickly if you have a Vitamix or Ninja blender and unfortunately will take longer with a less high powered one. I found that a food processor actually worked very well in getting a very ice-cream like texture, but perhaps that has more to do with the fact that my housemates food processor is perfect ..
  • 2. Then add your peanut butter to the mixture. Blend for another 30 seconds – 1 minute.
  • To make the toffee sauce
  • 1. Make sure you soften the dates by soaking them in hot water for a few minutes (3-5 is fine) first.
  • 2. Once the dates are soft, add the dates in first and blend them for a bit until adding in your milk and vanilla extract.
  • 3. Blend until your desired consistency (I wanted to leave mine a bit gritty and thick) and then either add to the ice-cream, on top or by swirling it in orrrrr just eat it. Hehe, it is really good.

Notes

Adapted from Blogilates and the Detoxinista
Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do!! I normally like to add some unsweetened cocoa powder to my ice-cream mix, or I stir in some unsweetened coconut flakes and dark chocolate chips. Experiment, the possibilities are endless!

If you make this delicious dessert and post it on Instagram, Facebook, or any form of social media, please tag me and hashtag it with #fridayfare and #honestlyfitness so I can find you 🙂 My name on all social media outlets is just ‘Honestly Fitness’.

Love you all so much, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And remember to indulge once in a while! I had a ridiculously decadent little dessert last night and plan to go out for Indian food with my good friends tomorrow night. Although health and fitness is important, it is all about balance. Don’t deprive yourself, and don’t go too crazy 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness

Common workout mistakes: Squats

March 4, 2014

Hey everyone!

So a friend recently asked if I could do a blog post about how to do squats with proper form .. what a great question!! Having correct form in any exercise, and particularly squats, is crucial to ensure that you activate the correct muscles and that you do not injure yourself.

The following is a short video where I show you how to do a squat with proper form and various ways of how not to do a squat! I am sorry the audio is quite static-y but alas, I have yet to get any professional editing software. Hashtag #brokeunistudent

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxB7ZD7YyoU[/embedyt]

Key things to take away from this video are …

1. Make sure your knees are not flying over your toes. Keep your knees in line with them.

2. Keep you back straight. Pleaaase do not hunch over.

3. Try and squat so that you are parallel to the ground. This all depends on your hip flexibility though, so do not force yourself to squat lower if you simply cannot.

4. Do NOT lock your knees when you come up. Keep them slightly bent.

Hope this helps you all! Squats are an amazing exercise because they work multiple muscles and challenge your stability. A great compound move that can be added to your routine, in a variety of different ways.

Honestly yours,
Alice

Products I love, Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary: Kayla Itsines Week 1

March 2, 2014

Hey guys!

I hope you all have had a great week. I have to say that this week was a bit of a struggle for me, mentally and physically. I had a lot of work due this week, in the form of readings and presentations, and my attitude was just all over the place. It was pretty strange, but this whole week I have just been in a really negative place, and not feeling particularly happy about my body.

I know it seems silly, and it is pretty easy to mentally beat yourself up, but sometimes it just happens you know. I just want you all to know that you are not alone, and that life is not always perfect and amazing. I try my best to live a healthy and active lifestyle and sometimes things do not always go as planned. But you know what, it is alright, and the important thing is to stay focused on the bigger picture. So what if I may have overeaten this week, there are 52 weeks in a year. So what if my body doesn’t look exactly like the perfect ideal I have in my head? Everything takes time and patience is key. I have always have insecurities over my body and sometimes it is soooo hard to not listen to the little voices in my head telling me that I am not good enough. But what has always helped me (plus yoga now too) is keeping a positive outlook on life and reminding myself that I am doing the best that I can, and reminding myself how awesome I really am.

review of Kayla Itsines Week 1

Kayla Itsines Week 1

Anyway, enough of all that. I bought the Kayla Itsines bikini body guide this week so hopefully that will help be battle my body insecurities over the next few weeks!

review of Kayla Itsines Week 1

For those of you that do not know about Kayla, I talked about her briefly in last week’s Sunday Summary post. She is a very inspirational personal trainer that made waves in the world of social media, not only for her toned body and healthy lifestyle, but for her client transformations. She released her bikini body guide a few months ago and it is basically a complete 12 week training guide to help you achieve that bikini body look (toned abs, arms and  legs). I have already completed most of the first week (just have one more workout left to do) and so far I love it!! She gives advice on cardio, and outlines a three week plan with specific workouts to do during the week which focuses on different parts of the body. The workouts really push you to your maximum and I am really excited to see the outcome at the end of the 12 weeks.

If you have any questions about her Kayla Itsine’s bikini body guide, leave me a question in the comments below. And if you are also doing the training guide, please let me know!! It is always great to find others on the same journey.

Cheers to a positive week everyone!

Honestly yours,
Alice