This is a blog of 2 tales.  Day 12 was really good but today was really hard.  I was in a picky mood and unfortunately I gave in to my sweet cravings.  So I have stuck to being vegan but eaten things I really shouldn’t have. As you are about to see!

pod is my current favourite go to food place as it has a good range of vegan foods and tries to be healthy and ethical.  Unfortunately they sock these Bounce balls which are completely addictive.

Ingredients: Almonds, oats, brown rice, grape juice, brown rice starch, rice bran, raisins, sesame seeds, vanilla, spirulina, sea salt, natural flavouring, brown rice malts and ginseng.  Each little packet contains 180 kcal.

I had this with a soy latte for breakfast.  It is moist, sweet and chewy.  Quite delicious but also has a high sugar content so is best avoided.  But if you see one, try them as they are really good!  42 g of absolute yumminess.

Lunch yesterday was amazing!

I walked round the corner to the market and bought this amazing wrap at the Turkish stall.  The dough is rolled out in to a huge circle and then spinach is laid across half the circle.  The half of dough with no spinach is folded over to create a spinach sandwich.  This is then cooked on a domed hot plate.  Once the bread is cooked, they fill it for you with your choice of fillings.   I had mine stuffed with salad: lettuce, saurkraut (nearly liking it!!!) onions, tomatoes and corn then drizzled with chilli sauce.

Totally delicious and amazing.  It would be even better with cheese in and when I am no longer a vegan I am celebrating with one of these packed with cheese too 🙂

For dinner I was meeting Gail.  I managed to get away at 5pm which is unheard of, and I enjoyed walking through London as darkness descended.  We went for an Indian and I had sag aloo (spinach and potatoes) with tarka dal and a house specialty with chick peas.  It was very tasty and surprisingly not as oily as curries can be.  I did think later though that it was probably cooked with ghee which means I have not been strictly vegan which would be disappointing.  I don’t know for sure though.

I got a bit lost walking to Gail’s and ended up at St.Paul’s Cathedral which looks magnificent at night time.  It is one of my favourite buildings in the world so I was not at all disappointed to be so close to it.

Today I had a black coffee and a breakfast smoothie from pod which contained banana, apple juice, muesli, soya milk and agave syrup.  It was good and made a change from the breakfast I usually make but too sweet.

For lunch I went back to pod and had their ‘Superfood Soba’ which is kelp and rice noodles in a vegetable broth with edamame, mixed vegetables, red chilli and coriander.  It contains 323 calories and was huge so it was warming and satisfying.  I will have that again.

pod’s website, click here, is great as it gives a complete nutritional breakdown of their food.  I wish all companies did that.  Forget traffic lights on foods, just provide the nutritional info so we can see what we are eating.

  If I had finished lunch there I would have been ok but I wanted sweet treats so I had a Bounce ball and a packet of popcorn and a packet of seeds.

Calories consumed today:
Breakfast smoothie = 590 ( I was shocked when I looked that up!!!!)
Soba noodles = 323 (really good value as tasty and filling)
Seeds = 152
Bounce = 180
Popcorn = 190

Total calories by end of lunch time = 1435

I drank herbal teas or black coffee so would have been ok if I stopped there but this afternoon there was a queue for tea.  There is always a bit of a stampede in the afternoon as the in-office cafeteria shuts at 4pm.  I misjudged the time and was in a queue.  Anyway, while queuing I noticed 2 little packets of nakd bars.  So I bought them both.  The ingredients are only nuts and fruits but my goodness, they are full of sugar and calories.  ‘Pecan Pie’ was 156 calories and ‘Cashew Cookie’ was 143 calories.  But a lot of those calories come from sugars.  So they are much better for you than eating chocolate bars as they have some nutritional value but should be left as very occasional treats.

They brought my total calories today to 1,734.  Low enough to prevent weight gain but not low enough for fat loss so I must cut the “healthy” sweet treats out.

To end on a positive note I have done a lot of walking during the past 2 days so I am very pleased about that.  I am working from home tomorrow and looking forward to making something healthy.  And vegan.