so, yesterday Luke and I went on a bit of an adventure to Heaton Park!
an adventure that burnt over my usual days worth of calories, as it turns out…:L 

everything was beautifully autumnal, as you can see! We made friends with the squirrels (because we brought along some sunflower seeds for them ;) )
it included a 40-60 minute bike ride which was predominantly uphill (hence why it took so long despite only being about 6 miles away!)and then the park was absolutely massiveee so we were biking around it all day :P

in any case i think i’ll let the pictures speak for themselves :) such a great day, i would definitely go again! 

cycled 4 and a half miles in search of vegan butter for cookies that i have to make for the  VegSoc vegan tea party tomorrow which i’m not even allowing myself to eat due to my weekly challenge :P

and now i have ballet in < an hour.

an active day to say the least! off to make dinner now :)

keep fit my friends.

last night’s dinner, rosemary polenta with roasted squash and vine roasted tomatoes!

yumyumyum i’ve never had polenta before, and had no idea what it was. Turns out its a type of cornmeal :P deeelicious!

of and that’s tempura tofu in the white bowl and Luke got a spinach and mushroom strudel in red pepper sauce :D

all obtained at 1847, a vegetarian bistro in manchester city centre :)

i’m back in the good old US of a once more, with about 2 weeks before i’m due to set off for manchester yettttt again :P The test went quite well in the end, i answered 46/50 questions which was a good amount more than the first time :P i passed in my summer coursework and got 80% which is an A woooo :D so i’m quite pleased with that!

Whilst in manchester i had some vegan food adventures with my dear friend Molly
 

here’s an awkwardly resized picture of us in Scotland with an orange and some tea :P you can see why we get along…..

But yes, we made lots of delicious vegan foodsies (not all squeaky clean or healthy but we were revising so cut us some slack :P) and i shall be happy to link you to her fantastic blogpost about the very delicious but not fantastically healthy (though not THAT unhealthy thinking back on it…) Pancakes that we made! her pictures are a lot nicer than the crappy quality phone ones i offered up.

so you can see our pancake adventure here: http://veganconvert.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/american-style-pancakes-blueberry-and-choc-chip-pancake-recipe/

as for fitness, i havent been doing much cardio for the last couple weeks mostly due to revising and whatnot and not being able to ride being in england. i have been working a lot on  upper body, as i mentioned a few posts back my current focus is being able to hold a tucked planche and then raise into a handstand. progress is slow but the frog-stand to tucked planche poses have helped me get a little better at balancing my handstands and holding them for longer which is a great thing! 
today i rode 2 horses so that was pretty good and i’ll be continuing riding all week :) hoping to maybe get some biking in at some point maybe, possibly a run but i havent been in so long so i’m probably quite out of shape. Eating hasnt been stellar but again revision doesnt help, being sat around the house all day studying molecular genetics makes one prone to treating oneself with chocolate and quick easy meals…

i AM feeling a bit blech and tubby and out of shape but i know it wont take long for me to get back to being all good and active now that i’m free of stress :) a week of good eating and riding/exercising daily will whip me right back into shape!

anyway i may be baking tonight (portion control of course, but i owe my friend a decent batch of vegan cupcakes :P bad experience, dont ask) so if i do i’ll send a post out your way. i doubt i’ll make anything interesting for dinner i’m afraid as laziness prevails, but oh well. i’ll try to bring ya something interesting this week!

incoming possibly a video of me but we’ll see how i’m feeling :P

peace

Another beautiful day in Manchester -_- to be fair at least its not cold.

Me at my competition today!!! i came first overall for the individuals AND our team came first even though we were in last place after the dressage!! what a comeback :D

Here’s my showjumping round from my competition today! yes the jumps are tiny tiny tiny :( this one girl on one of the other teams was a huge wimp and was the ONLY ONE complaining about the jumps being “too big” ( they were like 2 ft max -_-)
frustrating to say the least. if you’re on a team you should be comfortable jumping at leastttttttttt 2 feet. sigh. in any case, the horse i got given refused pretty much everything in the demonstration and it was like trying to get a squishy rock to move. She was adorable though, and with some coaxing on my part i got her moving and didnt take any of her crap :P I was the only one who actually cantered round the course on her…..o_OOO yeah. the standards werent set terribly high at this particular competition to say the least :L i had fun though and a pretty great round. Enjoy viewing! :P xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

gorgeous japanese garden avec mon petit ami!

hello my people! I hope you’re all well and happy this sunny sunday afternoon/evening :) I had a very pleasant weekend with my boy which i will share related pictures with you all in the next post. He coaxed a rather reluctant Lacey into going for a short run on saturday morning, which i am now thankful for ;) We visited a Japanese garden just outside of Manchester and it was lovely! except i got pooped on by a bird….not so nice. 
This weekend was pretty great food and exercise wise!! and i am thrilled to announce that i sneaked a peek at my weight on friday and saturday and i saw 140 for the first time :O :O :O so exciting! i will do my official weigh in tomorrow morning and hopefully i can share a lovely 140 point something number with you all :) The pretty and fit challenge has been going decently, and i think the exclusion of sliced bread has really helped me knock off some pounds. i’ve also started doing some pop pilates every day which has me feeling good!
hopefully by the end of this week (friday i hope, also marks the end of the P&F challenge) i will be into the 130’s :) then i’m off to greece on saturday morning if you can believe it! it’s come up so fast, i’m really excited :D straight after that it’s paris, and then when i return from paris it’s easter and i will probably have a very indulgent day to celebrate the end of lent :L after that though i think i’m gonna try to sorta kinda keep to the lent diet. not as strictly, but i’ve been making so much progress and i would hate to lose it all in one fell swoop!
today after Luke left i  went for a ~30 minute+ jog/walk with some hill work :) it was surprisingly pleasant…the weather was great, i felt good and quite capable, not like i was going to die :L all  nice things. if the weather keeps up i’ll keep going for runs off and on this week, and also doing my pilates and maybe Ri30 if i’m feeling up to it :D Now that i’m making progress again i feel so much more motivated to push myself and really stick to my healthy eating!
all that said, i have a big essay due in on friday so i really gotta crack down and start writing that. Tomorrow i have my french listening exam, which i’m feeling pretty decent about, but obviously i will be doing some extra studying tonight and tomorrow :) Also i have an away competition this week for riding, so excited about that!!! gahh so much to do in so little time. But it’s good :D
OH and on friday i got to play with some amazing lizards and snakes and frogs at the museum!!! i took some pictures on my phone so i’ll post those too :)
anyway i’m off for now, peaceeeeeee 

heya. just thought i’d stick in a short post before heading to sleep :)
The week has been nice so far! last two days i’ve ate great, and i did a bunch of pop pilates last night which has me feeling quite sore today. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice break off doing the Ri30 videos! so i’m definitely gonna do it some more in the days to come :) it’s the dreaded pms week so i’m feeling really demotivated cardio-wise, but i find i can always stick on some strength stuff and be happy with it so i’ll humor myself.
I had riding today for an hour and most of the lesson was flat work- and i was on this mare that was making my arms wanna fall off :L she was a sweetheart, dont get me wrong, just very…strong :P I’m actually quite glad for it cause i broke a good sweat during my lesson and felt like i worked extra hard! We jumped a few fences at the end and she was fantastic :) i have another competition next week yay!!! i will let you guys know how it goes :D if i didnt mention, i had a competition last week and our team won and i got third in the individual bit :)
Tomorrow i’ve got to go to this short meeting at 12 and then i suspect i will be spending much of the day in the library working on a paper that’s due in next week, and sorting out my online assessments as well as catching up on lectures. Then on friday i get to go to the museum and play with the amazing frogs that live in the vivarium!!!!!!!!!!! [/zoologygeek]

i’ve been eating well, sticking to the plan for the most part :) my “treat” is a raspberry and blueberry soya yoghurt, and i gotta say, lent has given me a new appreciation for what we can consider “dessert”/”treats”:P my mouth waters at the sight of these bad boys. They are so delicious. I think being off all sweets and sugary type things has allowed me to appreciate things like yoghurt and even just plain old fruit a lot more than i did before. I’ve been trying some new berries, raspberries last week and blueberries at my boyfriends house this past weekend :) for some reason growing up i didnt like either of these things. what a strange and crazy child i was o_O next on the list is blackberries! and eventually i’d quite like to try a pomegranate…i know iot’s not a berry but it’s a new fruit :L now i’ve got a craving for strawberries. curse you, expensive fruit!!!
but yes, all that said, my lent challenge has been going really well.  Not to say i’m horribly, tortuously tempted much of the time when i’m at the supermarket or passing by a bakery or and ice cream shop or eyeing up all the sweets at the self checkout :L of course a couple weeks in i was really in the mood to have a nice night in with some malibu and a big 2 litre bottle of coke , and i still would be happy to indulge in that xD but it’s been a good experience nonetheless. i DO have the willpower and the capability to live without all these frivolous but delicious extra things in my diet, and i’m healthier for it. When lent is over i will probably have a day or two where i just mow on chocolate and vegan ice cream and french fries and pizza and cake and SEA SALT AND CIDER VINEGAR KETTLE CHIPS avec le boyfriend (we often dream of this day when we’re together, it’s a little sad xD) as disgusting as that sounds. but afterwards i plan to be certain to heavily moderate these things. i’ll still have them, but in small controlled portions and savour the hell out of it. i hope! 
i’m not expecting a lot out of my weigh in this coming weekend due to the fact that that special time will be approaching so i’ll probably be all bloated and feeling disgusting. Alas, i push on to fight chocolate cravings!
have a good week everyone :)
peace