To Snack or Not To Snack?

Hello lovelies!

I'm here again with another lifestyle-y, clean eating-y, weightloss-y post. Hmm.. need to think of a better way to phrase that!

I hope you all don't mind that my blog posts have gone a little in this direction but as I'm a busy student (on teaching practise at the moment..eek!) I have very little time to wash my hair let alone be investigating what beauty products I like but the one thing that I am doing is consistently (or trying to) be eating clean and getting my gym sessions in. Therefore it's all I can really write about unless you want to hear about what lessons I'm doing every day which I think is doubtful!

So today's post is going to tackle the age old question to snack or not to snack?

I feel like most people are coming round to the idea that 5 meals a day warrant a healthy diet. In an ideal world all five meals would contain pasta for me but the extra two are in fact snacks.

In the morning in between breakfast and lunch I usually have some nuts. Almonds are my absolute favourite. I keep a bag in my handbag at all times! They give you that boost to keep you going. That extra protein doe! And if you're in the USA check out this website Nuts.com they have such a huge selection of different types of nuts(and types of almonds!!) that you can get in different quantities. They ship to the UK but not Ireland yet unfortunately but I'm tempted to place an order with them using parcelmotel..

In the afternoon in between lunch and dinner is when I can either be the best healthy girl going or the biggest binger going, I get home from college, teaching practise or work and I'm starved! STEP AWAY FROM THE WHITE BREAD ALICE! I used to have a vegetable juice at this time which is such a great way to get extra greens in, they genuinely do fill you up and I grew to love the taste. The only issue for me with them which is lame excuse is that it requires you to have a lot of fresh veg ready to go at all times which like I said being a busy (and poor) student can be difficult and the machine I have is a b!tch to clean! So I've stepped back from them at the moment and I opt for some fruit or rice cakes with peanut butter or home made vegan basil pesto.

Snacking keeps us going, it stops me from overindulging because once I'm hungry I need food pronto, I mess up when I'm hungry. Keeping that dangerous level of hunger away is my aim!
Nuts.com also have some really great information around healthy snacking,why it's important to do so and what to snack on. I'm no expert but they have some over there that can vouch for me when I say SNACK time!

The lovely Nuts.com is promoting healthy habits and would love for everyone to join in. They aren't paying me to talk about the website or giving me any freebies and to be honest I've really stepped back from blogging and not to be rude but I ignore most of my press emails these days. But I couldn't ignore Nuts.com's passion for this healthy lifestyle and when looking at the site I got lost looking at everything they had to offer there is so much! I really just wanted to share it with you all instead of keeping it to myself. So check them out and let me know if you place an order or if you learn something new from their great sources of info. I'm definitely going to be trying some of their healthy snack recipes for studying and concentration (hello exam season!!)

So what's your opinion on snacking? Do you just steer clear out of fear of overindulging or have you found snacks that keep just the right amount of full until your next meal?
Comment or write me on twitter, would love to know your opinions! @alibowring 

 Until next time,

All my love,

Alice May 

xx

Weight loss: The first two stone are gone, but how?!

Hello my loves,

For the last three months I have been on a healthy living/ weight loss journey and so far I'm down two stone so thought I would share what I'm doing and then perhaps update as I continue on with this new lifestyle change.

The key words in that first paragraph are lifestyle change. I probably sound like a broken record as it's something everyone always says but it's true. There is no quick fix, not fad diet you have to simply treat your body like a temple and go from there.

I have enlisted the help of a personal trainer and this was the best decision I could have made because he makes up a plan for me where I do two one hour sessions of training with him per week as well as a detailed description for a third day to do myself. He also gave me a meal plan with guidelines on what to eat and when to eat. Having him waiting for me in the gym twice a week means I'm forced to get up and go because either way he'll charge me as well as he holds me accountable so I'm less likely to go off plan or decide not to go to the gym by myself on the day I don't meet him.

What do I do in the gym? If you're familiar with crossfit at all the type of stuff I do is like that. My trainer is an 'aspiring cross fit athlete' so obviously he likes and believes in the method so does it with me. It's lots of body weight exercises such as planks, squats, burpee's, mountain climbers and so on some of which I'll then do with weights, actual weights like dumbells, kettlebells and dead lifts and a little cardio with a 50 calorie row to warm up at the beginning and a little run on the treadmil at the end. Gone are the days of sweating it out on a treadmill for an hour and heading home.

I'm sure you've heard of the term 80% diet 20% exercise and I 100% agree with it, I have only missed one workout the entire 3 months but there are weeks where my diet isn't the best and I notice things like not loosing any weight, feeling lethargic and just crap in general so I am a convert. The gym for me is fun because I can feel myself getting fitter and stronger(I dead lifted 40kg the other day, how insane!!) but even my trainer when after the first 6 weeks and I had a big loss said you can tell you're eating really well because you can kill it in the gym and go home and eat crap but you're numbers are telling me you're not.

What am I eating though? My diet is really simple and now that I've been doing it for a while it all makes sense. I have breakfast, snack, lunch, vegetable juice, snack and dinner everyday. All of my meals contain protein sometimes animal proteins such as eggs, chicken or turkey but also in nuts(I have a crazy love for almonds). I have brown rice but can have other grains such as buckwheat or millet but to be honest I love rice and it's the easiest for me to cook so I stick to that. I have it at lunch time with vegetables and protein and at dinner I have raw veg and a protein so usually a salad. At that time of the day I don't need carbohydrates so it makes sense to not have them that late. I can see why my Granny always had her dinner in the middle of the day now, I feel like that's what I do!
My snacks are nuts and seeds. The nuts keep me full in between breakfast and lunch and the seeds between the juice and dinner are more so I don't snack on other 'bad things'.

So that is basically how I have lost the first 2 stone out of a lot more that I need to lose but this is just the beginning and so far I'm loving it!
I can do a blog post on a what a normal day of eating looks like if people are interested because if I include anymore in this post It will be a novel!
Keep on an eye on my YouTube as I plan on making a video about it all soon but in the mean time I'm always posting my meal prep and workouts on instagram so make sure you're following me there, my user name is AliBowring (same as twitter).

Until next time have a great day and I will talk to you soon,

Alice May xx

How to Weigh Yourself

How to weigh yourself. This might seem like the silliest post but from talking to friends and family it seems a lot of people don't actually realise they aren't weighing themselves properly ie they are doing so in a way that you won't get a proper reading during your weigh loss/gain.

I am not telling you that you must weigh yourself everyday or at all this is for the people that do weigh themselves all ready. I personally like to weigh myself once a week (on the Sunday to be exact).

When to weigh in

The best time of day to weigh in is first thing in the morning. Before you eat or drink anything and before you get dressed. Remember all of these things have a weight so when they are on/in you they will add to your weight. Try to set a day of the week that you know you will have the time to weigh yourself. This is why I chose Sunday's as very little happens on a Sunday for me and I'm not rushing to college. 

Preparation to weighing yourself

So this might be a bit TMI but before you step on the scales make sure you have gone to the bathroom first to 'relieve your bowels'(ie pee and poop! The 2 P's!). Try to be wearing as little as possible so no dressing gowns or the likes(I usually am just in my pyjama top discarding my bottoms beside the scales!)

What scale to use

This is up to you entirely wheather you use a digital scale, physician balance beam scale or those run of the mill little ticker ones as I call them(don't know the real name!) as long as you know how to use it correctly it's fine. I would say however to use the same scales every time you weigh in as different scales can be off a bit here or there but it doesn't really matter as long as you're using the same one, by using the same scale each time; your actual changes in weight will be accurate. Does that make sense? 

Keep in mind..

Your scales can break and especially if it's a digital scales the batteries might run out. Digital scales can be wrong at times due to 'technical difficulties' or even temperature believe it or not! 

If you are exercising trying to lose weight or tone up remember you can and probably will gain muscle mass and muscle weighs more then fat so if the number isn't moving look in the mirror, how do your clothes feel? There are other ways of tracking your progress then starring at numbers on a screen.

I hope this post has helped some of you out there. I am in no way, shape or form telling any of you to start weighing yourselves all I'm doing is providing information to those that all ready do. Don't become a slave to the scales- none of this weighing yourself daily business, I mean if you do then you won't see much of a difference. Isn't it more fun to see a nice change at the end of the week/month... etc?

Until next time I hope you're all well and I'll talk to you soon,

Alice x

PS I kinda like this idea on weighing myself...

Healthy Lunch Recipe: Chicken Wrap and Jelly!

Some of you may know that I am trying to be healthier in a bid to loose a few pounds as well as just being well healthy! 

I have been eating this for my lunch, it's surprisingly very tasty and low in calories, fat, sugar... basically it's just good for you! I've been taking this lunch to college so it's good for a packed lunch as well as if you're just having a spot to eat at home.

To start you'll need a wrap. You can use 1 large 'brown' wrap or 1 small white wrap(this is from Weight Watchers and only 107 calories)

  As a substitute for Mayonnaise you can use Greek yogurt, I've been using one from glensik but any will do.(I had to make sure none of my family ate all of the yogurt on me- hence the label!). Spread a tea spoon full all over your wrap. I know yogurt seems like the last thing you would put on a wrap but trust me it's pretty good! 

It's chicken time! It would be better if you cooked a fillet of chicken yourself but for convenience I got this roast chicken from Tesco. Dice the chicken and line it in the middle of the wrap. You can also use other meats such as turkey. It's important to have protein in every meal.

Next add some lettuce. I used mixed lettuce and again any lettuce goes. I normally only like ice burg but for some reason in this wrap it tastes pretty good!

This is the best part of the wrap for me. It truly makes it taste absolutely delicious! Drizzle a little across the chicken and lettuce.

You can also add other vegetables such as peppers or cucumber. Veggies are good folks!

Roll your wrap up, tuck in the edges and voila! You have a tasty lunch ready to eat or store in the fridge for tomorrow's packed lunch!(I always make my Lunch for college the night before)

If you're like me and you like to have something else with your lunch specifically something sweet. These jelly/jello pots from Hartleys are perfect! They have no fat and at less then 10 calories per pot you would be silly  not to include one in your lunch! 

So there is a lunch that I'm enjoying so I thought I would share it with you all. Let me know if you would like more posts like this with different ideas for healthy alternatives.

Until Next Time, I hope you're all well and I'll talk to you all soon,

Alice x

PS This is  the first post using picture's from my new camera-thoughts?!