WIAW- Decreasing the sugar

On my Best Body Bootcamp Recap post yesterday I noted that one of my mini goals for this week was to reduce my sugar consumption. Now I don’t consume any processed or refined sugars or artificial sweeteners, but I do eat a hell of a lot of dried fruit- mostly before workouts- and I also tend to use maple syrup in dressings or marinades, and my sunwarrior and Vega protein powders are sweetened with stevia. I wanted to try and cut back on it this week, and so the only sugar I have been consuming has been from fresh fruit. I think sometimes your taste-buds can get a little out of sorts when they become accustomed to higher levels of sweeteners whether natural or not.

These are my eats from yesterday which was a day off for me, so I had a lovely chilled day and managed to be pretty productive too. I kicked it off as usual with my hot water and lemon.

For the last few weeks I have been living off juices and smoothies for breakfast which I absolutely love, there are just so many flavour combinations! However this morning I fancied a change so I made this raw buckwheat cereal bowl, inspired by Brendan Brazier’s one in his Thrive book.

Raw Buckwheat Cereal Bowl

• Chop one banana into chunks
• Add 1 Tbsp ground Flaxseed and 1 Tbsp of hemp seeds
• Add 1/2 Tbsp Cacao nibs (or Cacao/Carob powder)
• Add 1 tsp Cinnamon
• Grate a chunk of ginger
• Add 1/2 cup of soaked buckwheat groats
• Drench in non-dairy milk, I used the liquid from a can of coconut milk.

This totally hit the spot, although it would have been better with some protein powder, but sadly I am off it this week

Me and Nick spent the morning cleaning and tidying the house as we had a flat inspection later in the day. I also made some juice pulp crackers so I snacked on a few before heading to the gym.

I went to the gym and did Strength workout A from Best Body Bootcamp which was 2 mini circuits of 15 minutes comprising of 3 moves each. I did 5 rounds of both mini circuits in just over 30 minutes, I found it really hard going, I just feel pretty fatigued and like I was going through the motions a bit. I followed this up with the usual killer 20 minute HIIT on the dreadmill. I was a bit of a mess at the end of this, tough one today!

I refueled with a smoothie, had to get one in sometime today, my day would not be complete without!

This was more like a frozen shake really! I used frozen banana, frozen blueberries, fresh kale, half an orange, some maca (to nourish the adrenals!), and a shot of fresh wheatgrass. Really good, but again missing the protein powder, hope I’m not too sore after today’s workout without it! I don’t use the protein powder because my diet is deficient or anything, I used it as it enables me to recover quicker between workouts, so I am able to workout almost every day. I do notice I am a lot more sore when I go without it.

I also snacked on a few of the organic almonds and pecans that I had soaked:

I love soaking almonds they taste even better, these tasted like marzipan! I store this little container in the fridge for the week so I always have some soaked ones on hand.

I carried on with the intensive cleaning and other chores, the apartment has never looked so tidy ha! It was like a workout all by itself though!

I had lunch mid-afternoon, my favourite thing to do lately is to make up a really nutrient dense salad. I’ve also stopped having beans and grains in my lunch salads and am just focusing on beans at the moment, I definitely seem to function better without the mix of the too, and don’t have any energy slumps or tiredness post-lunch since doing that.

This was organic spinach/rocket/watercress, sliced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, 1/4 avocado, 1/2 cup of aduki beans, sliced raw red cabbage, sauerkraut, soaked pumpkin seeds, 3 tsps of omega oil, drizzle of braggs, loads of nutritional yeast and a big dollop of a simple homemade hummus I made using chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, sesame seeds and a little tahini. This was really delicious, I love just throwing stuff like this together at the minute.

I followed up lunch with a small plum which wasn’t very nice- they are not great right now, I won’t be buying again! I also had an apple which in contrast was quite nice.

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and then caught up on the BBC’s nature documentary Africa whilst eating this baby:

Hello cantaloupe! I treated myself this week- I never buy melon unless it’s on offer as it’s too expensive in Ireland, but I really fancied some this week, I enjoyed this half a melon immensely!

I decided to make up a big batch of soup for the week, so I threw a load of chunky vegetables together, this will be great for lunches this week. I hand-blended it after cooking, so it’s got a nice thick texture.

While the soup was cooking I made dinner, one of our favourite easy dinner’s is stir fried veggies, it’s always a good one to have when you have lots of leftover veggies that need eating!

I stir fried loads of veggies in coconut oil, lime juice, apple cider vinegar and braggs. I used onion, garlic, green + red cabbage, yellow bell pepper, broccoli, snap peas, pak choi, mushrooms, carrot, I added some fresh grated ginger, coriander, and some cinnamon as well as some chickpeas. I served Nick’s over rice noodles and mine over millet with a drizzle of sesame oil on top and some sesame seeds.

I had a relaxing evening and enjoyed half a mango post dinner and a bowl of fruit later in the evening.

I have to say I am finding it hard to stay away from dried fruit and my protein powder in particular, but it’s only a week so I know I can reintroduce them then. Anytime I go to snack I always kind of crave something sweeter- like a nakd bar/protein bar, dried fruit with nuts, so it’s been hard to kind of get out of that habit.

Overall I think it was a pretty varied and balanced day of eats, with lots of yummy fresh fruit + veggies.

What was the best thing you ate today?

Any other dried fruit lovers out there?

Related posts:

1. WIAW- Soc-cess
2. WIAW- Raw Vegan Cleanse Day 3
3. First ever WIAW!
4. WIAW week 2
5. WIAW- Juice, Juice and more Juice