This weekend I have been very busy, but I found a super easy meal prep for my lunches this week. Jambalaya! I’ve never made jambalaya before, let alone a vegan version, but I needed something quick and easy, and I had a recipe card from some supermarket and thought I’d see if I could do it. I haven’t followed the recipe completely, I’ve made a cheeky cheat version with similar ingredients, but it came out so good!
Being frugal is easy when you enjoy one pot wonders. Larry and I are big fans of our slow cooker, and tend to make most dinners that way. Though we both tend to follow recipes, I’m also rather drawn towards making it up as I go along, and this recipe is one of them.
There are three key points in my blog tagline; happy, healthy and kinda broke. It’s not just something I say to look quirky and interesting. This blog focuses on living a happy and healthier lifestyle without breaking the bank, so when GiffGaff invited me to to Leeds to take part in their MoneyFit Challenge, there was no way I was going to say no!
The aim of the event was to encourage young adults to start using a healthy approach to their finances. GiffGaff are launching a new money service to help you get on the right track with your spending, keep an eye on your credit score and bills all in one place. Everything you need to monitor will be there on your phone, broken down and easy to understand. I have spent the past five years struggling to gain control over my financial situation. It wobbles up and down throughout the year, but after talking with some of the GiffGaff team, I felt like this is a great way to keep everything together so I don’t lose track of where I am with my payments and savings.
So, as the service is to help you get financially fit, it wouldn’t be right to have fitness related activities in celebration. Myself and many other northern bloggers met with the company at FireHouse Fitness where we took part in some fun, motivating, and body pushing activities!
My team were first up in the exercise round. The aim was to run on a treadmill for twenty minutes straight, while burning as many calories as we could. The more we burned, the more money we would earn (up to 200kcal). The highest amount of money we could take home was £40. I burned 168kcal, putting me in third behind two other bloggers, and giving me a total of £33.
After that we moved onto smoothies! The team was split in half, pink or green. Well, you’d think I would be on the pink team, but everyone wanted that, so I offered myself to the green team and made a spinach based energy booster, with apples, cucumber, lemon and a little bit of carrot. It was surprisingly nice!
Finally we talked to the GiffGaff team about their new service. One of the girls on my team was actually already with GiffGaff, and gave us a personal perspective of the service. It’s now something I am looking into for my own financial situation, and I encourage you to do the same if you’re in the same money boat as me.
Though money isn’t the most important thing in the world, it’s a good idea to do what you can to keep yourself stable and in control financially. with GiffGaff, you have everything in one place, reducing financial stress, and giving you more freedom to focus on other things in life that are important to you!
Guksu can be made in many different ways, but as I only work with basic ingredients, this is more of an inspiration than a proper guksu recipe. Non the less, it’s a perfect winter warmer and is super easy to make!
I am too lazy for breakfast in the morning and I know I’m not the only one. it’s so easy to forget to eat, but it’s the most important meal of the day! So I decided to throw together this super easy breakfast bar recipe which is not only vegan and healthy, but it’s absolutely delicious!
Honesty Hour: How many of you say every year that you’re going to get fit and healthy, only to look back at the end and find you’ve DEFINITELY not stuck to that plan?
It’s okay, it’s completely human and to be expected, but I don’t see why it should be routine each year. This doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t strive for a healthier year, but I think its’s time to focus less on the weight and inches, and more on getting our spring back and feeling fab. So here’s my resolutions for the year ahead:
One of the reasons I would often find my regime falling off the wagon was because I would go through the motions of working out all week for about two weeks or so… and then I would give up for a month and eat even more crap. So my new plan is to do two days of extra effort exercise (for me that is zumba and pole) and then have three days of short, gentle workouts such as lightly jogging or Wii Fit.
Over Christmas I have been driving around with Larry and we have passed some beautiful areas in the UK that I really want to explore, and there’s so many activities I keep seeing online that I want to take part in… So why am I not doing it!? I want to go hiking, trampolining, dancing… anything!
I know, I know… I love my food prep. However, with the schedule I have, I often forget and end up too tired to make anything when I get in from work (six days a week is enough to exhaust a gal). So I’ll be writing up a prep plan, which I will be sharing with you guys, and my fridge/freezer will be packed with all my favourite healthy meals!
Another problem I have come across when trying to stay fit was learning to rest and relax. I work so much, but my one day off a week is normally spent catching up on everything I haven’t done at home during the week. I’m planning on spending an hour an evening on my blogs so that my day off can be completely dedicated to myself! I’ve also booked more holidays from work so I can get a good few weeks off until the end of the work year.
It’s not worth it. The chocolate was eaten. Move on and do better the next day.
I don’t want to look back on 2018 and think that I didn’t stick to anything that I knew would be good for me. I don’t want to set resolutions that feel unattainable and eventually become nothing. I want a year where I don’t worry about my weight, my body shape or anything like that.
Here’s to a happy and healthy 2018! What are your resolutions for the year?
If there’s anything I often reiterate on my blog, it’s that everything I write comes from my own personal journey. This means I want to be honest when I find that life isn’t going as planned.
It has gotten increasingly cold in the past month or so, and now I’m working two jobs, I find it increasingly harder to get out and about doing whatever I need. I noticed I’ve only been going to the gym for zumba, as there’s no classes I enjoy anymore, and it’s too busy to use free weights when I have the time to go, so I cancelled my membership. I’ll still be doing Zumba, but at a local community centre that’s only £1. I’m trying to pole twice a week, but that seems to have been a struggle over the past couple of weeks.
Though I know I’m working twice as much, and only have one day off a week, I can’t help but question whether it’s the cold season that’s having the biggest impact on my lack of efforts. As I’m writing this, it is 4pm, I’m still in my pyjamas and I’m wrapped in a duvet on the sofa. I just don’t want to move! So it’s time to make some changes.
As mentioned, I aim to do Zumba each week, and I’m trying my hardest to keep up with the pole as much as I can, but I need to also get a grip on my routine, my writing and even my diet.
I feel like my diet isn’t too bad, but I have been eating out after work a lot as the idea of cooking frozen food when I’m already frozen myself is something I try to avoid, and if I do eat at home, it’s usually snacks. I need to stop this! So I’m filling my cupboards with soups, microwave rice and any other healthier foods I can which don’t involve reaching into the freezer.
I will keep you guys updated, and hopefully my writing will motivate me to make more effort… Especially fitmas!!!
I have always considered myself to be a “fitspo” blog, but a while back I found myself falling out of love with the word as I noticed there were a few people who considered it to be the new skinny. so I thought I would remind myself and others how the perception of fitness has changed over the past couple of years.
When I first started this blog, I wasn’t truly aware of what it meant to be healthy. I’m no expert on fitness and nutrition, but to constantly wear myself out at the gym and worry about whether I am eating right or not is not good. As many of you may already be aware, I have been trying to move away from this focus, and to instead balance a healthy lifestyle with a happy one.
A lot of online platforms are changing the game when it comes to health and fitness. PopSugar are a very encouraging website if you’re looking for health guidance, with not only mouth watering recipes that are good for you, but there’s also body positive articles which bring you down to earth and remind you that you don’t need to have the body of Miranda Kerr for your body to be beautiful. That’s something we need to see more of.
Even Cosmo are jumping on the bandwagon, and they don’t just cover exercise and body talk, they actually cover medical stories too, which some people could feel motivated by reading. I may be slightly biased, however, as the header image on the website is a girl in a sports bra eating a huge slice of pizza…
I will admit that I don’t get the same encouragement from magazines. I have never been a big magazine reader, but now and then I give them a chance and I will feel like I have wasted my money. Why? Because I buy it based on what’s on the cover, hoping to find some handy guides, but it is mostly just advertising. I know that many magazines make their money through promoting products, but there is often so much jammed into the articles that it’s basically saying “you will never be worthy unless you waste your money on these.” So to round that bit up… Don’t turn to a magazine if you want health and fitness advice.
Social media? I will be honest here, if you want the right advice or inspiration then you need to look in the right places. I have followed various accounts on Instagram only to unfollow them later because their views aren’t as healthy as I originally thought. I stand by Blogilates religiously, but I will also recommend Grace Fit (especially for booty inspiration… not that it should be a specific goal, but it may convince you to not skip leg day). But also remember to follow smaller accounts to create social encouragement and interact with one another.
So this is my take on the great things, and a slight view on the bad things, about being fitspo! What do you do to keep yourself motivated?
I looooooove chilli! It’s my go to meal when I’m never sure of what to make, but I always make it differently depending on what I have in my kitchen. This isn’t my first chilli recipe, as I have written a couple back on my Tumblr, but with only six ingredients, I think this is my easiest recipe yet.
Not long ago I was sent a sauce packet to review from Capsicana. I did create a meal and take photos, but as I’ve been away, I haven’t had the chance to write anything up yet. Well, now is the time! My memory may be a little bit hazy, so I’m mostly going to talk about how I cooked the food.
Continue reading “Capsicana Review: Brazilian Chilli & Coconut Sauce”
