WIAW - Hot Weather, Cold Food

Hello! Happy What I Ate Wednesday! :)



I don't know about you, but I can't even think about eating hot food in this gorgeous weather. So this is the cold food edition of WIAW, my meals from Monday - the first day of the summer holidays, whoop whoop!

We started with a nice relaxed morning, and a delicious smoothie for breakfast. Izzy requested a fruity smoothie, so this one had banana, frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, almond milk and a little agave. Topped with a coconut butter "shell", my first time eating coconut butter this way - so fun!

Eaten outside in the sunshine, the garden at the new house is perfect for this.

Lunch was also eaten outside, a salad of leftovers from the weekend - salad & coleslaw mix topped with a big blob of caramelised onion houmous. And water - luckily my body is naturally wanting to drink loads more water in this weather - so important.

Mid-afternoon I dug into my Wholefoods stash for a bag of popchips...

These were quite nice, but not my favourite. But to be fair, I'm not a big crisp person anyway. I also had an unpictured nectarine before lunch and some fresh pineapple after the popchips, summer = fresh fruit!

I tried to think of something that I wanted to cook for dinner, but in the end my salad cravings won again. This time topped with a nectarine, the last of the Pie d'Angloys cheese, and a drizzle of agave nectar...

This was fantastic - cheese & fruit is always a winner, and I adored the extra sweetness from the agave. I'm not normally such a salad eater, but I think it's more laziness than anything else - chopping salad veggies always seems like such a chore. I'd bought a couple of bags of mixed salad for my friend coming at the weekend, which made these salads extra easy, but I really must make the effort to have salads more often - so delicious.

Once Liam got home from work I went to the gym for a body pump class. This was my 3rd time trying out the new release. The previous Monday had been a bit rubbish as the instructor hadn't really known the routine - kept missing moves, referring back to the booklet etc. Then on Friday I went to Body Pump at a different gym, with a different instructor and it was fantastic! The instructor had so much energy, it was contagious. I upped my weights on all the tracks but didn't really feel it, her enthusiasm carried us all through. Then this Monday was back to the regular instructor, but better than the previous week. I kept my weights at the higher level and felt it a bit tougher than Friday but not too bad - still a really enjoyable class. I've decided to try to fit both Body Pump sessions into my week as often as possible. The Monday one suits me best as it is later and more local, but the Friday one is such a great class that I want to make the effort to get to it whenever I can. I also go to spinning on Tuesday which I've been really enjoying lately, and will go to Boot Camp on Thursdays on the days I can't make the Friday Body Pump - I only go to 3 evening classes a week otherwise it's a bit harsh on Liam always having to do the bedtime routine etc as soon as he gets in from work!

Phew, that can be the "fitness" part of today's WIAW post! I've been enjoying all my exercise a lot more lately which is great, but I do definitely prefer weights to cardio - one of the main plus points of spinning is that the 45 minute class flies by so quickly...I'm always surprised when the instructor starts getting us to stretch at the end of the class.

Anyway, back to Monday. After Body Pump I came home and ate a Happy Kitchen pecan brownie, but seemingly was too tired to take a photo. By the time I got home it was 9.30pm so I didn't really feel like having "proper" food, and these brownies are divine - so rich and chocolatey.

Do the things you eat tend to "match" the weather, ie cold foods in hot weather, warm foods when it's cold, or do you stick with the same sort of meals year round? I know a lot of people still eat salads in the winter, but I always find that I crave warm stodgy comfort foods when it's cold. Hot weather though, and I fancy lots of salad, fresh fruit and iced coffee! :)