My favourite alternative breakfast – very customizable

Some days I want a good breakfast something healthy but tasty, of course! But I do get fed up of the same old bran flakes or muesli or omelette  so I started to experiment with yogurt and basically just chuck in whatever I want – extremely simple but you can make it as healthy (or unhealthy) as you like, add things to get certain nutrients or flavours, whatever tickles your fancy on a particular day.  I’m going to share two personal favourites of mine.

Vanilla yogurt, seeds, honey, fruit & cereal:

Delicious breakfast – YUM!

This breakfast I used Onken fat free vanilla biopot yogurt – of course, you can use any yogurt you like. Check labels to make sure there isn’t tons of added sugars.
I then topped it with some fresh blueberries (about 50g), Alpen muesli cereal (20g), natural vanilla seeds (15g) and 0.5-1 tbsp drizzle of pure honey. You can obviously use any type of seeds you like; sunflower would be nice, and any fruit that you currently have in the house.

My other favourite combines two of my favourite flavours, banana and cinnamon:

Gotta love the banana & cinnamon combo

For this breakie (and one which I ate today, it was very yummy indeed) I used Onken yogurt again, but this time I used the fat free natural yogurt (any natural or greek style yogurt will work). I stirred in 1 tbsp pure honey, which gives enough sweetness to cut through the sometimes sharp taste of natural yogurt. Sprinkle over 0.5-1 tbsp ground cinnamon, depending on how cinnamony you want it (I know, that isn’t a word!) and then top with slices of banana.

These are also great as a dessert or mid morning snack and I love that you can switch it up depending on what you have in the fridge/fruit basket and you get your fix of yogurt.

What are your fave combos?

Stubborn with oneself – unable to resist

For my very first post (other than my ‘About me’ page) I thought it fitting to talk about being stubborn and insistent with oneself when it comes to running.

Do you ever tell yourself ‘today is my rest day’ and then go ahead and completely ignore yourself? Yes, I do too, a lot! I woke up feeling incredibly ill today and so told myself this exact statement (notice how I use the word ‘statement’, trying with all my might for it to be just that?) I’ve had a good few days combining my Jillian Michael’s ripped in 30 and running, along with a great run I had under a week ago of 8.25 miles. So yeah, I thought a rest day won’t hurt. It lasted until 9pm and there it was, that itch, you know the one right? The incredible itch to run that you just can’t shift.

And then there is the ‘lazy feeling’, the ‘my energy levels are non-existent’ because I didn’t workout today feeling. One day is all you ask, you just want one rest day but your head says different. I often have a little voice (always have done, maybe I need to see someone for that?) which will go against me. This voice will tell me I’m lazy if I haven’t done a workout and it’s hard to ignore it.

How important is it to listen to your mind? If you’re body feels great and you’ve had adequate rest (albeit from being ill)…. I’m known to be stubborn at the best of times and I guess that is with myself too.

So I caved, got my running gear on and off I went before the sun completely went down and ended up having a fantastic run. As someone who had never been into running, when I did start, I read and read loads on running for tips and advice. I drilled it into my head that speed is NOT important, at least for the time being. But isn’t it nice to finish a run, take out your phone, check your app and see that you’ve had your best run yet? As much as you try not to focus on speed, I’ll bet there’s that little competition in every one of us to always improve one way or another. I am not currently training for anything – I started to run purely for fitness which turned into running for fitness and enjoyment, but I still get a feeling of accomplishment when I’ve beaten my personal best. As much as others will insist they don’t care for numbers, they must do a tiny bit, right?

So I ended up running an avg speed of 6.9mph with an avg pace of 08:44 min/mi for 3.14 miles. My best was my 3rd mile at 7.0mph and a split of 08:31. Total time for 3.14 miles was 27:26.
(Remember I’m not currently training for anything, so I’m not doing crazy 6:00 min/mi, but it was personal gratification)

How much do you stick to your plans? Are you completely rigid? Push yourself? …. I think sometimes listening to your head also is a good call, even when it contradicts what you’d told yourself earlier.

Early morning sunrise over the mountains – a view I get to enjoy on one of my runs.