I have had a bad couple of weeks, for various reasons.  I have had a couple of sugar binges, not exercised much and generally eaten too much.  The results of which are that since I last weighed myself 10 days ago, I have put on 2 pounds.  I have had far worse results but I am frustrated.  However, the good news is that I weighed myself on my way in to the pool.  I was in the pool at my local Leisure Centre by 7:30am today and swam for half an hour which is an excellent start to the day.

Another good thing this morning was the bowl of mung beans I had soaked overnight, since finding an old and much loved cookery book in the cupboard inspired me to get back to eating raw. I put the majority in a sprouting dish and left the rest to soak until I cooked them for supper. I have often been drawn to eating a diet containing a high proportion of raw foods.  The recipe book I found dates back to 1985.  I didn’t follow a recipe but was determined to consume lots of vegetables today, many of them raw.  I picked some Swiss Chard and kale from the garden and put them in the blender with some tenderstem broccoli, cavolo nero and cucumber. Plus a banana and the juice of a lemon.I also added about 1/4 of an avocado, 1 tbsp flax seeds and coconut water. Check out the colour of that smoothie.  And check out the dated cover of the aforementioned cookery book !  I love that book and it was like finding a dear and treasured friend.  This is one of the first books that inspired me to eat healthily. This smoothie would not suit many people’s palate or even their fancy for breakfast but I really enjoyed it and loved the thought of all those nutrients. It is so much easier to be healthy when I work from home.  Lunch was a large salad.  As a base I put mixed salad leaves and spinach in a bowl with cherry tomatoes and tenderstem broccoli, stalks and all. I wanted something similar to coleslaw on the side but lighter so I finely shredded carrots and courgette and added a finely chopped spring onion. As a dressing I made a pesto mayonnaise.  This pesto is great as it doesn’t contain cheese so it’s good for the dairy intolerant in the family.  The white stuff in the bottle is not great.  As well as being egg, gluten and dairy free, it is flavour free too and not a particularly pleasant consistency.  Definitely not recommended. However, mixed with some pesto it made a pleasant enough dressing. I mixed the pesto mayonnaise in to the shredded vegetables. I enjoyed every mouthful of the vegetables eaten with a slice of the courgette cheesecake Lara made for us.Very very tasty indeed. I went back in to the garden to harvest more vegetables for dinner; leeks, kale and Swiss Chard. I had previously simmered the mung beans for about an hour until they were soft.  While they cooked I fried 2 onions in a large casserole dish.  I then added 2 small sweet potatoes, leeks, kale, swiss chard, carrots, 2 rashers of bacon and some vegetable stock.  When the vegetables were nearly cooked I added the mung beans and a teaspoon of smoky Chipotle sauce. It was slightly spicy, smoky from the bacon and Chipotle sauce, sweetness from the sweet potato and carrots and earthy goodness from the veggies.

I feel exhausted today.  The swim tired me out and it has been a demanding week at work.  But at least I nourished myself well today and I plan to do similar tomorrow.