Weekend Fun - Housewarming Party + Trip to the Gym

Hello! How were all your weekends? Thank you for all your kind comments and birthday wishes to Toby on Thursday, I still can't believe he's 2!!

I haven't been near my laptop for the last couple of days. It's nice to switch off sometimes. (Although I have been reading blogs on my phone, still need some attachment to technology!!)

On Saturday I had my hair cut and then went to a housewarming party. My Mum and my little sister are moving into a new house with my Mum's partner in a couple of weeks, but they decided to hold the party while the house was still empty and clutter-free!

I took along 3 batches of brownies. Cut into half the size = approx 95 brownies!

Mum also provided lots of different cheeses, as well as lots of white and granary baguette sliced up - they bought 10 huge loaves but only ended up using 5 for the party - that's still quite a lot of bread!!

This was my first plate although, as we didn't each have our own knives, I learnt my lesson for the second plate and put the cheese directly onto the bread! This plate was still delicious though, it just resulted in messy fingers!

I also snacked on the nibbles quite a lot - I love vegetable crisps and honey-roasted nuts!

The party was over lunchtime, but I ate a lot more than I usually would at a meal, plus I had a few wine spritzers and some juice. We were there until 4pm so I didn't end up eating much in the evening, just a bit of the bread and cheese that Mum sent us home with.

One of the highlights of the party was meeting my not-quite-stepsister's new baby! He was only 9 days old and soooo cute! My Mum, my sisters and I all took it turns having lots of cuddles!! However, I don't feel comfortable sharing photos of someone else's child on here so you get stuck with photos of the usual faces instead - sorry! ;-)

*****

Today has been a quieter day, but started fantastically - with a bowl of chocolate!!

This might look a bit of a miss, but was in fact amazing. Cocoa blueberry porridge with a blob of chocolate brazilnut butter in the middle, and a crumbled mini brownie around the edge. Yum! I haven't had cocoa porridge in ages, but will definitely be having it more often again now. Do need to stock up on frozen raspberries though - I love it even more with those, but the blueberries were a good alternative.

Lunch was quite a light one as I was still feeling pretty sluggish from yesterday. Some leftover cheese with grapes - we'll be eating Mum's leftovers for a while I feel!!

Liam wasn't too impressed with the stinky cheese on my plate, but I love it!! :-)

Then this afternoon, *newsflash* I went to the gym! My little sister turned 16 just before Christmas, so is now allowed to go to the gym, so after she finished work off we went! I did about 45 minutes cardio and some weights. Not hugely energetic, but not bad for my first gym session in, probably, months.

I'd left Liam with instructions on how to make us paneer and pea curry for dinner, but I'd missed something key - we had no paneer in the fridge. Oops. Liam thought on his feet and used tofu instead. It was a bit spongy as it hadn't been pressed, but he fried it off first so it was still quite nice. With peppers as well as the usual peas, this was a different, but still tasty, curry. I was so hungry that I was just so glad to have dinner as soon as I walked in the door - thanks Liam! :-)

Unfortunately going to the gym seems to give me the munchies, and also the perfect excuse to eat...I've earned it right?!! Tonight's snack of choice is pretzels with chocolates. Liam has eaten most of the box, but the ones left are "too nutty" for him! I have no willpower when chocolates are lying around!!

Not the most brilliant weekend food-wise in terms of my weight loss goal, but at least I've enjoyed everything I've eaten, and got a bit of exercise in there too. I'm actually looking forward to Liam going back to work tomorrow so I re-focus on vegetables! I know I shouldn't blame him, and should have the willpower to eat well on my own, but it's so difficult to watch him constantly eating chocolates and ice cream without having any myself!!

What's the best thing you did this weekend? Do you find yourself more or less hungry after exercise? I never used to get hungry after the gym. I remember having to force myself to eat dinner if I exercised in the evening. Whereas now I happily take any excuse to eat more! Sigh. Need to get back to my previous ways!!!