Let's Run Paris

Salut salut!

I've been wanting to join a running club for a while now, so I thought moving to a new city would be a great opportunity to join one as I obviously don't know the good running routes and it's a fun way to meet new people.

I found Let's Run Paris on meetup - a really good website where you can find so many different clubs..I'm going to investigate a yoga group soon.

I did my first run with Let's Run Paris last night. It was a 10k in the pouring rain which I know doesn't sound hugely appealing but it was great, the people were all really friendly and I got to see some pretty parts of Paris I hadn't been to before.

So, if you're in Paris (even if it's just for a week) and love to run, I really recommend joining. It's free and there are runs organised several times a week - you just have to look on the meetup site or join their Facebook group for details.

PARIS

I've moved to Paris!

This is a photo I took from the restaurant on the 6th floor of the Pompidou Centre - I definitely recommend dinner there - Amazing food and an amazing view, what could be better!?

My mum and I went to visit the Sacré Coeur in Montmartre. I couldn't believe how blue the sky was.. and the walk up to it was a great little work out!

...Just for ten months. I've been here almost a month now and am already in looove with this city. Before I came out here I was a little worried about how I would cope being a vegetarian - I've always found France to be the least veggie-friendly place. However, I don't know whether it's because Paris is a capital city and so has more of an international influence than other parts of France or whether it's because times have changed since I used to visit when I was little, but I've actually found that there is so much choice for vegetarians and also vegans when eating out.

So, I'm now making it my mission while I'm here to find as many health related / vegetarian and vegan friendly shops, restaurants, cafés and juice bars as I can to try and keep up a healthy lifestyle - with the occasional pain au chocolat or macaroon thrown in there...

I'm incredibly lucky to be living in le Marais, which is really central so everything is so easy to get to! Including this amazing fruit market just down the road from me which sells the most delicious fruit and veg ever - it all tastes 10 times better than the supermarket produce.

Such a smiley lady at the market!

For anyone visiting or living in Paris, this market is open on Saturdays from about 10am til 2pm and is really close to Hotel de Ville metro station.

Nama - Vegan Raw Food Restaurant

On Sunday I went to Nama, a raw vegan restaurant in Notting Hill, with three of my lovely friends Lucy, Frankie and Georgie. This was my first trip to a fully raw vegan restaurant - very exciting!

Having been a vegetarian pretty much my entire life, it was a new (and really amazing) experience for me to be able to pick absolutely anything from the menu - usually I just give it a quick scan for the little v sign.. Anyway, so Nama had me at the menu. There is a huge choice of a range of different foods, from wraps and salads to pizzas, curries and spaghetti dishes - and ALL the food is unprocessed, free from dairy, wheat and refined sugar.

I had the 'Italian Pizza'. The base was made from courgette and walnuts and it had the most delicious tomato sauce topped with a nut and seed 'cheese', caramelised onions, mushrooms, olives and sun dried tomatoes. It was amazing.

The Italian Pizza

Frankie had chilli which was made from walnuts, carrot, mushroom and pepper, with guacamole, vegan sour cream and corn chips - so yummy!

Frankie's chilli

Lucy and Georgie went for zucchini pasta with tomato sauce, caramelised onions, sun dried tomatoes, olives and mushrooms which was also really yummy (I tried them all..)

Beautiful Lucy with her zucchini pasta

After my unprocessed, raw, vegan pizza I felt like something sweet so I had a lovely little bottle of chocolate nut milk. Frankie ordered the chocolate ganache tart which we all had a little taste of - it genuinely tasted better than any other sugar-filled, processed chocolatey tart I've had in the past; the coconutty base made it incredible.

Chocolate ganache tart

Gorgeous Georgie with her chai tea, almond milk and coconut sugar (she was obsessed with that teapot)

I definitely recommend Nama to anyone who is interested in trying out some amazing raw vegan food!

Oat & Banana Energy Balls

I made these a while ago when I did the London to Brighton bike ride to keep my energy up for the 56 miles!

They're really quick and easy to make and you can either bake them or eat them raw, both options are really yummy.

This recipe makes about 15 energy balls but obviously this depends on how big/small you want to make them.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of gluten free oats
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• 1 tsp Organic Burst's Maca powder (for an extra energy kick)
• Handful of dried cranberries or any other dried fruit (optional) 

Method

1. Mash the bananas into a bowl
2. Add all the other ingredients and mix well until it forms a doughy kind of mixture
3. Shape the mixture into bite-size balls
4. To bake place on a baking tray greased with a little coconut oil
5. To eat raw, refrigerate them for about an hour

These were a great snack during the ride as you can just pop them in your mouth. Also it's a common misconception that snacks that are high in refined sugar like haribo and many types of cereal bars are good for energy - they are at first but then because of all the sugar you are likely to have an energy 'spike' and then crash after a little while, which is not ideal.

Enjoy!

Home-Grown Strawberries

These are my home-grown strawberries! There's nothing better than knowing exactly where your food has come from, that it's completely organic and that you've grown it yourself.

As well as being pretty easy to grow yourself, strawberries have loads of amazing health benefits. They are a great source of vitamins C and K and are thought to be able to improve digestive health, to aid teeth whitening and cure skin irritations.

Also they taste sooooo good!

Low-Fat Vs. Full-Fat

It is unfortunate that the word fat has two meanings: one being the healthy and vital part of our diet that provides us with essential fatty acids and vitamins, and the other being the negative term used to describe someone who is unhealthy and overweight/ the extra and unwanted padding on our bodies.

Because of this double meaning of the word 'fat', many people seem to think that to lose fat from your body you need to have a low-fat diet. In this post I'm going to talk about low-fat vs. full-fat in terms of yogurt. Yogurt is just about the only dairy product I eat at the moment and it can be a really healthy addition to your diet, especially for vegetarians who need a little extra protein, and it contains probiotics which promote a healthy digestive system.

However, if I'm going to eat yogurt I never eat low-fat varieties. The fat that is reduced in low-fat yogurts is usually replaced with lots of refined sugar - trust me.. next time you're in a supermarket pick up a low-fat yogurt pot and compare the sugar levels to the full-fat pot. Sugar is added to make low-fat yogurt taste better, which for me is just more of an incentive to eat the full-fat version - why eat something that needs a load of sugar heaped into it to make it edible when the alternative tastes great naturally?

Although fats contain the most calories per gram, not all of the fat you eat is stored as body fat - but refined sugar is! So if you're going to avoid anything, avoid refined carbs not fat. However, in saying this it is important to remember that saturated fats from animal products (e.g dairy - doesn't mean you should never eat it but probably not all the time) and trans fats (chemically engineered to extend shelf life of products) aren't great for us.. so it's better to stick to plant fats in foods such as avocados and nuts.


Sources: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/truth-about-low-fat-foods
The Body Book, Cameron Diaz

Staying Healthy During Exam Time

For all of you out there who, like me, are piled high with work and feeling like you may as well just move into the library....this post is for you.

These couple of months can be really quite stressful with the run up to exams and assignment deadlines, but it's also the run up to, in my opinion, the BEST time of the year.. SUMMER! So during this time you may find yourself wanting to be even more fit and healthy so that you feel great in your bikini on the beach (or shorts for any boys out there...)

So anyway... The first thing I'm going to post about is something that I know a lot of people already do but I personally find it such a good way to stay healthy and that's to make sure you have a large supply of food that you have prepared so that you can just pop it in a tuppawear and take it to the library to avoid buying any of the processed rubbish they might sell in there or nearby. Or even if you're revising at home it can be a real time saver so that you can spend your revision break relaxing and enjoying your delicious food.

The other day I roasted an array of my favourite vegetables - butternut squash, peppers, sweet potatoes, beetroot and carrots - with a little drizzle of olive oil and some seasoning. I then cooked up a big batch of grains to have with them (quinoa, brown rice, bulgar wheat, whatever takes your fancy). And then I made lots of paprika hummus (literally one of my favourite foods ever and this homemade version is, if I may say so myself, much tastier than shop bought versions and by making it yourself you know that no nasty chemicals or added sugars are hidden in it). I'll put a recipe up for that soon!

Having healthy food available so you can make quick and easy but still fabulously nutritious meals is really handy in busy times. So keep filling yourself with goodness - it can be just as convenient as buying a quick bag of crisps and your body will be much more thankful for it.

Happy revising..... xx