Easy ChiaChocPud Breakfast Idea

Hi all!

So this is just a super quick post with one of my favourite recipes for a super speedy breakfast. I often find when I’m on earlies- which means I start at either 8 or 9 and have to leave a house an hour before that. I have stopped having cereal for breakfast as it doesn’t have enough of the good stuff in it and leaves me craving a sausage sandwich by my morning break. Toast is a no-go as I don’t eat bread, and if I have time I will make an omelette, however most mornings I will admit that I don’t usually have time, so I make my breakfast the night before.

This saves me 10/15 minutes in the morning, and if I make it in a tub it means if I am really pushed for time that I can actually eat it once I arrive at the office. This is super simple and literally takes only 3 minutes to make once you know how much of each thing to use. Just grab an ordinary mug- not a large mug unless you are really hungry- and a dessert spoon.

Take one full cup of your favourite milk [mine is unsweetened almond] and put it in your vessel of choice. Half fill the same cup with oats and add to the milk. Then add a dessert spoonful of chia seeds, one of maple syrup [the proper stuff, absolutely NO ‘maple style’ syrup], a spoon of almond or sesame butter, two spoons of organic cocoa powder- the really dark stuff, and a few drops of vanilla extract. Stir, stir, stir it up until it is all blended, then cover with cling film and pop it into the fridge overnight. It’s that simple, and it comes out tasting just like those chocolate porridge sachets that we used to have as children. Personally I like it cold, but you can blitz it in the microwave for around 1.5 minutes to warm it through. If I want a real treat on weekends I will drop some flaked almonds and cacao nibs on the top! No refined sugar, a massive hit of all the good things such as vitamin E and magnesium [absolute skin SAVIOURS guys, I can’t even tell you], and keeps me full right until lunch. It’s a great breakfast also if you struggle to eat first thing on a morning as it tastes like a real treat and doesn’t require any chewing.

Please note that this was inspired by lizzieloveshealthy who I found on Instagram and has her own wonderful website, so if you want some healthy, sugar free, dairy and gluten free treats then stop by her website.

I hope that this post has given some of you some ideas on how to revamp your breakfast, and I will see you all very soon!

B xoxo

Get Healthy With B 2.0- I’m sorry sugar, it’s over.

Hi all,

Okay this blog post has been several weeks in the making as I really wanted to give this a decent shot before I preached about it on the internet. Sugar consumption has been a talking point in the press for months because apparently, we’re all having too much. Hands up, I was SHOCKING. Seriously, I don’t even want to see the maths behind it because I think I would have drowned in a bag of sugar. Cakes, biscuits and Haribo were absolutely my weakness, I don’t really eat chocolate as I’m dairy free (although I have been known to demolish the odd Double Decker). I also don’t really drink alcohol so that wasn’t the issue here. I also worked in a boarding school, which meant that I had my meals prepared for me three times a day and they were designed for growing children, not prone-to-podge adults. Let’s not even talk about the bloody tea trolley.

Then I realised. I could make all the excuses that I like, but at the end of the day, if I didn’t change, health problems were on the horizon. I really wanted to reduce my sugar intake, get healthy but where the hell to start.

The short answer is: books. This is where I always turn for answers! There was a lot of buzz around Madeleine Shaw and if I’m brutally honest, out of all the ‘clean eating books’ she was a. in the sale and b. the one with the most good reviews on Amazon. Her book has me hooked from the word go and I was nodding along with pretty much everything she said. The thing that broke my heart in all of the books I turned to was: CUT DOWN ON REFINED SUGAR (ie the stuff you get in Hobnobs, sob sob). Miss Shaw suggests cutting it out altogether for six weeks, but I suspected that I might die if I did that so I challenged myself to three weeks. I only lasted 8 days but as one of my friends said ‘I’ve never seen you go 8 hours without junk never mind 8 days’. So I did another 7 days. And another 7. And lo and behold a new habit was formed (although I have to leg it through the junk food aisle in Lidl).

Whilst Miss Shaw’s advice was BRILLIANT and a lot of her recipes and ideas are absolutely fantastic (I will do a proper review very soon!), at my stage of life, ie. unemplyed, I simply cannot afford most of the things in her book on a regular basis. The same for the River Cottage book shown above. ENTER THE HAIRY DIETERS. I love these three books and they have pride of place on my shelf. They have essentially reinvented all of the classics in a healthier way. So whilst I am not eating any refined sugar (except for a treat now and again), I am not necessarily eating fully clean as I am still having bread (wholegrain) and wholewheat pasta.

However I still need my sweet treats but I am trying to make things from scratch, I am going to get some pictures and show you really soon, so for example fruit and nut cookies that are refined sugar, gluten and dairy free (and flipping delicious), home made chocolate spread (because who needs a partner when you have that) and fruit.

What I am trying to say in my sleep-deprived-due-to-babysitting-duties fashion is… it’s doable. You can break up with sugar. You will have some wicked headaches and feel hungover for a couple of days, but you can do it. And once you have, you do feel different. For me a lot of it was about control, as well as being healthy, and I get a real kick out of exploring this amazing sugar free world of exciting new recipes. I don’t feel as sluggish at all, and people have commented that my tummy looks a lot flatter (although that might be due to all of the crunches I have been doing).

Over to you. Have you guys ever thought about divorcing sugar? Have any of you done it, or even better, have ideas to share?
I really hope that this helps some people to make changes, even if all you do is walk away from the tea trolley once in a while.

Until next time,

B xoxo