Little quote from the rather epic 1991 motion picture ‘Hook’ for you there… (there is a reason for it)

Happy Monday y’all – “y’all” – I definitely can’t carry that off. Nor can I carry off the “Love Life! Live it to the max!” Monday cheeriness. But hey ho, it’s better than the usual Monday blues depresso talk you get. Speaking of depresso, I saw that on an ad this morning at some trendy little coffee gaff on my walk to work this morning (just casually drop that in there, 3.5 miles I’ll have you know). Yeah, they were saying their coffee acts as depresso (geddit? depressed? espresso? *sigh*) or something. For Monday blues. Whatever. Just give me the day off. Sorted.

Moving on! Big weekend this was! Anyone unfortunate enough to have me on Whatsapp or Instagram will be well aware that yesterday I decided to go to the pool and swim the full Ironman distance. Aka: 3900m, or 156 lengths, at my pool. NON-STOP. *high fives all round*. I did it in 90 minutes, some might say I nailed it. Now I am not one for trumpet blowing but on this occasion I’m gonna! When I started swimming again properly in October of last year I couldn’t swim more than 2 or 3 lengths without wanting to drown, I couldn’t stop breathing out my nose which meant I kept choking and I couldn’t do the three strokes and breathe technique. 6 months later and I can swim 156 lengths without any form of break and this week my wonderful friend (and ex-pro swimmer) Erin will be teaching me to tumble turn.

Now, the name of the blog is “fuelling the foodie” so I will get onto more exciting topics… like chocolate milk! As usual, Sunday rituals (I have BOTH days of the weekend devoted to little rituals #saddo) involved a food shop. As I am monumentally skint at the moment (we can thank the taxi driver that smashed me off my bike last week causing £400 worth of damage for that) I decided to go to Lidl. I love Lidl! Chicken? Check. Ridiculous amounts of veg? Check. Free range eggs? Check. Frozen berries? Check. A lot of milk? Check. Those are constants. Then in the 40 mile long queue (I exaggerate, but really, it is madness) I was standing trying to avoid eye contact with anyone and found myself staring at the Nesquik. Bloody Nesquik! Phenomenal stuff! Oooh, no wait, what’s this? LIDL OWN CHOCOLATE MILK MIX. Get…in…my…basket. Quick scan of the nutritional information – GOLD!

Chocolate milk I hear you cry? Yes! Loads of it! But only because after my 3900m swim (non-stop!!!! Did I mention that yet?!) I then went onto a 90 minute 90rpm spin on the bike. That averaged a calorie burn across both training sessions of nearly 1800kcals. I had already been sold the wonders of low fat chocolate milk post training by my jolly wise friend Mr Braniff. So, home, 2 pints of milk (told you I was greedy), 4 teaspoons of powder, shakey shakey. Party in my mouth.

Moral of today’s ramblings? Don’t be fooled into thinking new age products are going to be better for you. That chocolate milk gave me my carbs, my protein and my childish satisfaction in one super cheap super efficient consumption. I didn’t need electro/carby/whey/casein/pro/longtime/bla bla luminous yellow nonsense. Milk and fake Nesquik. Grand.

Kudos to Urban Energie once again for this gem.

As always, much love, C xxx

P.S. If anyone would like to know WHY the chocolate milk was so beneficial then just drop me a line. I joke. Go and email Urban Energie.

I didn’t write anything yesterday, I think that’s ok given I only started this three days ago – no one likes a show off. So, I thought I would mumble a few words about weekend training and, funnily enough, EATING.

I heart Saturday Kitchen – I mean I really love it – I have it on series record. What?! Actually I am watching it right now but I had to pause it because Tom Kerridge is making some monstrosity and his accent is putting me off. I was never good at writing or reading with background noise. Anyhoo! So, Saturday rituals. If I am at home on a weekend and I am not trying to conquer the crowds at Borough Market (if you don’t know about it, google it, then get there when it opens or prepare to die in a crush of duck confit sandwiches) then I am more than likely trying to get out of bed at a reasonable hour (I used to be really good at this but recently I have struggled – I don’t even have anyone or anything to blame), training, eating poached eggs and drinking coffee. Social life and everything else happens in and around those three things.

I like this little ritual. Before I started training properly I used to get up, make a seriously non-lean breakfast and then generally laze around before inevitably going on a massive night out. Nothing wrong with a massive night out! I even have one coming up – dum dum dummmmmm…. Anyway, the funny thing is, people say to me “gosh you’re so disciplined getting up and training all those hours, eating your veg, you’re so healthy” bla bla bla. But it isn’t about that. It’s what makes you happy. I love food, ergo, I have to train. Training doing something I love, be it weights, out on my bike, swimming (I would say running but secretly I hate running) means I get to eat more food.

I think it is a shame working out/training/exercising/lifting/sweating – whatever you want to call it – has been made into this thing we HAVE to do. My sister is a great example, her Saturday ritual now features a class at Psycle. Psycle is essentially a really lovely glammed up spinning class, BUT, the changing rooms are posh, you get big fluffy towels and they have made it feel like a treat rather than an absolute nightmare. She then goes for some kind of atomic looking green juice with her friend before heading off to enjoy the rest of her day.

Don’t make it such hard work. When I first really started changing my diet and training, I walked. Yeah really. I just downloaded Spotify (I am seriously App know-how challenged), got myself some really nice skins (aka lycra leggings) and put my trainers on. I walked the 3.5 miles to work every day. MASSIVE difference in a matter of weeks.

My gingerbread green tea is starting to go cold now and Tom Kerridge needs to finish telling me how to make something with 40 litres of double cream so I will leave some little bullet points with you (I have been told these are popular).

1. Pick something you will look forward to doing not something you feel you should be doing

2. Incorporate good coffee and nice breakfast food (poached eggs and smoked salmon on lovely seedy toast is my preference – skip the butter)

3. Keep doing it – make it your ritual

Much love! C xx

Vegetables and excitement… they really DON’T go hand in hand. Plus you have to peel them, cut them, cook them. Yawn. Yesterday I said I would write about food prepping, again perhaps not the most exciting of topics but it IS very useful and a good thing to learn. If you are still going to Boots on a lunch time for a meal deal of a “light” sandwich, “light” crisps and a diet coke then I beg you to try this for a few weeks.

The thing about doing a big weekly cook in is that if, like me, you prefer to be organised for work (I will be gentle – I am bordering on OCD for a number of things) then this will be a revelation for you. I am often asked “what do you eat?” “how are you organised?” “how have you made such big progress?” (progress isn’t that big – I am just good at taking ab selfies). Well the honest answer is it isn’t easy. You have to be prepared to put effort in and exercise a bit of willpower – as Arnie says “Put the cookie doooooooooooooown”.

Anyway, enough about that – let’s talk roasting. So usually on a Sunday I go to the shops (We heart Lidl for veg and chicken) but this Sunday gone I was busy babysitting a friend who had overindulged the night before. So, my own advice went out the window and it took me until last night (!!!) to finally get myself organised. Now a pre-warning, I called this piece ‘extreme’ because I wouldn’t expect anyone else to do what I did last night. My lovely friend had been round for dinner (are you spotting a pattern here?) and when she left and I had loaded the dishwasher I realised I still hadn’t sorted my food for work. Now bearing in mind this was now 9:45pm – but – to give you an idea of how much you can do when you get good at it I managed to make the following: 1.5kg of chicken (I put a few tablespoons of water, one of these mental jelly stock cubes and a smushed up clove of garlic in the frying pan then throw the chicken in, give it a stir, cook it until its only nearly done and then throw it in a tupperware box to finish cooking – means no dry chicken – because it’s rank), 3 trays of roast veg (see image attached to give an indication of the amount of veg), a berry protein cake loaf and a huge pan of chia seed “jam”. I was asleep in bed by 11:45pm. Don’t try this at home. Instead, maybe this weekend, go to the shops on Sunday and buy as much veg as you can carry, pick the ones you like. I regularly do tomato, red peppers, aubergines, courgettes, butternut squash, mushrooms, red onions and garlic. Hack the whole lot up (Tip: You don’t need to peel butternut squash) throw it in a tray with a tablespoon of oil and a whole bulb of garlic cut in half, a big pinch a sea salt and a big grind of pepper. Roast at 200c until things are soft and starting to crisp at the edge. Cool. Tupperware. Fridge. Now you have veg to add to your chicken and you just need a few bags of salad leaves for the week. Feta cheese is a nice little addition too.

This regime has been my go to for over a year now. It changes from time to time. Sometimes I do frittatas, sometimes I do curries, soups, salads, tabbouleh. It always gets done in bulk and used Monday-Friday. I cannot stress how important the food you eat is to your overall goals. Trust me on this. Ten years of training three times a week in the gym but not eating right saw ZERO improvement. 6 months working with a professional (you must surely know him by now) and hello abs. Jus’ Sayin’.

So – food prep! As big and extreme or as small and simple as you like. Oh and also start buying frozen berries. I will tell you why when I write about desserts and sweet things to stop you mugging the newsagents when the cravings take over……… C xx

I had to google how many zeros were in a billion, that’s almost as scary as the figure itself. Speaking of figures (no pun intended – lies – it’s a great pun), that amount mentioned there in the title was the projected spend within the weight loss industry for 2014. I cannot be the only one that reads that figure and find’s it hard to believe? BILLIONS – BIIILLLIIIOOONNNSSSS…. Just let that sink in.

What’s my point? Well it’s lunch time, that means I get to eat more food. Highlight of the day, you think I’m joking. Anyway, on the tube journey of doom to work this morning I was that really annoying person reading Stylist when someones face was essentially pressed up against my shoulder – PERSONAL SPACE PEOPLE! – so, reading Stylist and there are 4 pages devoted to this whole ‘Protein World’ debate. Now don’t start waging in with your feminist POV’s – that is not my point here. My point is simply this – why are we spending billions, lining the pockets of dickheads like Arjun Seth (Sorry Mr Seth, but you are undoubtedly a dickhead) when the obvious answer is staring us in the face? I remember reading, no, watching a film clip about the most powerful dieting tool – Our hand. The hand holds the fork, the fork spears the food, the hand is raised to the mouth and we as a result get bigger or smaller dependent upon what food was speared upon said fork. Protein shakes, juice cleanses, detox teas – NO! Do not buy into that!

I’m at risk of going off on a tangent here but basically, I said this blog would be about training and food and I’ll be damned if I write a load of opinionated nonsense and end up like every other social networking nobhead (sorry for the swearing Mum). My training and foodie/nutritiony life over the past two decades condensed into a random assortment of words would go as follows: diet, stress, count, monitor, obsess, stress again, starve, binge, bit more stress and obsess for good measure oh and let’s finish with another diet. When I say diet I mean “Atkins” I mean “Weight Watchers” etc etc. I’ve been there and I have done it and I know how it feels to yoyo and feel disappointed. Anyone that has seen my instagram (for the love of god don’t follow me mum) will be well aware that I have spent the best part of 18 months really going back to basics with training and food. I spoke to professionals (See Mr Braniff for actual online coaching) and I banned the phrase “I am on a diet”. The result? Well, it depends on your goals, but I am pleased.

So, lunch time and a prime moment to “feed” (god I am on fire today) into my next post which will be all about food prepping! My god, calm down people……

(for anyone not aware – I have a shameful amount of food selfies on Instagram – catmac1987 – we will discuss some of those another day)

Well I finally got round to it, palms are definitely NOT sweating right now. Never having been a fan of judgement and a regular on the “oh my god who cares what she had for breakfast” (oh the irony – do not bring up my instagram account, I know, OK?!) scene, I have finally decided to, yes, write a blog.

Why? Well apparently I have a way with words and I can knock together half decent “healthy” meals in the kitchen. Funnily enough I am fairly certain there are a number of others that hold these attributes but I am hoping to bring a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’ to the “fitness blog” entry. What the hell am I talking about… basically I want to cut all the detox, spirulina, bee pollen nonsense and write about things that I have found interesting along my “journey” (URGH!) to a stronger, leaner, happier body. Sunshine, protein lolly pops and squats. Ta daaaaaa…

So, first few hundred words written, I will now tootle off back to my 9-5 and dream up something exciting to write about later on. 100 ways to make broccoli appealing – oooooonly joking. C xx