#JanuaryJoy - Make some health & fitness goals

I am feeling super motivated right now fitness-wise.

I went out for a run on Sunday in the howling wind and rain (& snow at parts!) with my two running buddies Jayne & Joanne. I hadn't been on a proper run in months and months. It was tough. But I did it, and I certainly feel better for it. Thank you Jayne for forcing me to get out there & just get on with it!

I thought I would share with you some of my health and fitness goals for 2015 as part of the Florence Finds #JanuaryJoy series.

1. Exercise

You'll be so impressed with me - as I write this (on Monday night!) I'm in my gym gear and soon I'll be heading out to a try a zumba class.

I've been going to a Personal Trainer once a week for an hour session. I've been struggling to motivate myself, so this was my short-term solution until I get back into it good habits myself. I absolutely love the boxing exercises that we do - it's so good to just punch away all my stresses! I've signed up for another 4 week block, and this time I mean business.

My aim is to continue with the weekly PT sessions, and then in addition to this every week I'll go to at least one fitness class and do at least one run. There it is in black & white... no going back!

I weighed myself this morning and I'm 12 stone 2 lbs. How on earth did this happen?? My weight has yo-yo'd over the years, and I've gone from 13 stone 10lbs down to 11 stone and then back up to nearly 12 stone, back down to 11 stone and now I'm up at over 12 stone again. So very frustrating! My goal is to hopefully lose one stone and I'd like to be comfortable in my size 10 jeans again. 

2. Eat

I'm also keen to start regularly making healthy smoothies, and the Breville BlendActive will help me with this. I just need to get a bit more organised so that I'm getting up 10 minutes earlier each morning to prepare them!

3. Sleep

One last thing that I'd like to try, which will hopefully help me get up earlier in the mornings is a 'wake-up light' like the Lumie Bodyclock. I spotted on YouTube that ViviannaDoesMakeup has one and she swears by it. I really struggle to get out of bed on these dark mornings, so perhaps this is the solution for a more natural, less harsh awakening!

I also plan to limit the amount of time I spend on my phone when I'm in bed. My sister is of the opinion that mobiles are toxic, and I do tend to agree with her. I need to get into a healthier sleep routine, which will hopefully have a very positive impact on my general mood and wellbeing. 

So do watch this space to see how I get on...

Review - Breville Blend-Active

I was thrilled to be selected by BritMums to review a Breville Blend-Active Family Pack. The kids and I were super excited to give it a whizz! ;-)

{Glasgow Mummy on Instagram}

If you haven't heard of it before, the Blend-Active is a personal blender allowing you to create one-person portion blending for the whole family. The Family Pack comes with 2 x 600mL bottles and 2 x 300mL bottles.

The concept of this really appeals to me, and if only I could get up a little earlier I would be making healthy smoothies to drink en-route to work or on the school run (I'm yet to do this! With the dark mornings I'm really struggling to get up!!).

Despite it being winter, we decided to make some yummy milkshakes! Fruit ones for me and the littlest and a chocolate one for my son. He's all about the chocolate!

Basically we threw in some ice cream, milk and frozen berries into the bottle (added a dessert spoon of cocoa to my son's one to make it chocolate flavour), attached the blade cap, whizzed it until smooth and then replaced the blade cap with the drinking cap and we were ready to go.

The shakes tasted good (I demolished mine in minutes!), but I've found that using frozen fruit doesn't work all too well. Despite the instructions saying the machine can crush ice, chop tough fruits and nuts I found that with the frozen fruit I was having to blend it for a prolonged period and was worried that the motor was going to burn out.

We had much better success when we used fresh fruit.

{Glasgow Mummy on Instagram}

{Glasgow Mummy on Instagram}

{Glasgow Mummy on Instagram}

{Glasgow Mummy on Instagram}

The other evening R & I decided to film a quick vlog of me making a healthier smoothie... this time with avocado, chocolate and peanut butter. Watch below to see how we got on...



The Breville Blend-Active Family Pack has an RRP of £40 but it's currently on offer on the Breville website at £29.99. I think for what you get this is good value, but I wouldn't recommend it if you are wanting to prepare bags of fruit in your freezer for blending which is what I had envisaged I would be doing. It was definitely better with fresh fruit.

The machine itself is really easy to use and it's quick to clean it too - big thumbs up. I've been sticking the bottles into my dishwasher. Aesthetically I think it looks good too if you're going to have it sitting out on your kitchen counter. I love the lime green colour and it just happens to tie in with my kitchen colour-scheme!

I received a Breville Blend-Active for the purposes of this review. As always, opinions are honest and are my own.

{Simple Smoothies}

Laura, Life as An Hourglass, gave me the great tip that I should freeze any bananas that are starting to go off and then use them in a smoothie! I hadn't even considered that freezing a banana would be possible. What a great idea!

My eldest loves to make smoothies, and I have a Magimix processer which is perfect for the job!

We normally make strawberry and banana smoothies with fresh ingredients, but this time I had frozen banana and blueberries to use, as per Laura's suggestion above. We threw the fruit into the Magimix along with some natural yoghurt and some honey. It was delightful... tasted like an ice cream milkshake without having to use ice cream! (Frozen yoghurt is delicious btw... have you been to Cheer Me Up yet?).

Getting everything organised and ready to go!

I love my grey striped straws!

Laura has loads of great recipes on her blog and think she has some more juicing recipes coming soon. Next on my list is her carrot cake. Mmmmmm!!! 

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight