Healthy lifestyle

Holiday Series : Red Check!

This is yet another Holiday Series post simply because what reeks of holiday season better than a red checked flannel dress and a matching sweater? Not much… Therefore here is a Holiday Series fashion post, not to be mistaken for New Year’s Party outfit post as this is not and nor will we have such a post this year because we are 2 and a half weeks away from delivery and we will spend New Year’s Eve on our couch, binge watching a TV show. Next year will be an entirely different story, but this year we will skip the party and the party-related posts.

I am honestly amazed that we were able to take pics this far along in the pregnancy as my contingency plan included a one-month vacation before the baby arrived as I had this fixed idea that in the ninth month it will be impossible to move around and quite frankly I’d be too tired to get out anymore. That did not happen thankfully and thus far we have been able to go to the Christmas Family dinner, tomorrow we will attend a very important event and I have a (positive) feeling that everything will go smoothly until the baby comes. Yes, I did not forget about the name-revealing post, nor did I forget about all the promised baby stuff posts that we bought, but I have a feeling that those posts will work better once we will actually use the stuff we bought and will be more review-posts that presentation-posts thus making them actually useful for future moms-to-be.

On me:

Dress – ZARA; Vest – H&M; Boots – Rachel Zoe; Bag – Atelier Lemnia; Bling – Swarovski and Tous; Watch – Apple

Getting back to today’s business… I am feeling more festive than ever this year and besides the fully-decorated house, I actually made it my scope to get holiday clothes as well – see the Christmas sweaters and the plaid dress posts. For some reason all my past Grinch-y-ness did not emerge this year and I strongly suspect that hormones had a big influence on that. This post is yet another Christmas-infused mainly because of the colour theme and the fabrics (but you can’t actually feel the fabrics so you are going to have to take my word for it). I am wearing yet another ZARA XS dress that I paired with my Rachel Zoe over the knee boots – this winter’s uniform – and the thing that I loved about this dress from the first moment I saw it, was the fabric – both texture and print. This is the perfect plaid, flannel shirtdress! I am telling you, ZARA really outdid themselves this AW collection!

On D:

Sweater – ZARA; Jeans – ZARA; Shoes – Converse x John Varvatos; Watch – Apple

Obviously being a black and red combo, my Atelier Lemnia red clutch worked perfectly with the entire outfit and I seem to be wearing it more and more these days, thus making it one of my best investments of 2016. Also, to keep me and my belly warm I’ve also worn a great investment that I made at the beginning of autumn, my black knitted H&M vest. This one really turned out to be a very versatile piece of clothing during my pregnancy and I have a feeling that it will get a lot of action after I give birth as well.

D also happily wore the black and red combo. His focus piece of the outfit is the red check sweater that he recently found at ZARA – yes, ZARA, again! Right after I saw his sweater I thought of my dress and thus I made it my goal to wear these exact outfits during the Holiday mini-vacation. He paired the sweater with his ZARA black jeans and decided on wearing the Converse x John Varvatos black sneaks. Accessory-wise we both kept things on the down-low, with D only opting for his Apple watch and I only choosing to wear my Crystaldust Swarovski bracelet and my Tous ring alongside my Apple watch.

All in all, I have no idea how long we will be able to post until the baby arrives but I hope to get two more weeks of normal, every-other-day posting until I will probably take a short vacation. I do hope to be able to show you what I will be wearing at a very special event tomorrow, but that really depends on the weather and on how tired I will be. Also, I would like to continue the Holiday Series a bit with another amazingly delicious recipe that we found and that we want to try out. All those post depend on how well I will be feeling and on how energetic the bundle of joy will be as I am telling you, she really is an active baby.

December 28, 2016

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Souping…

I confess, lately it has been one cheat day after the other (yes, I am passed the ‘cheat-meal’ concept) and I have been eating not-really-junk-food but not as healthy as before either… It must be the fact that I am six weeks away from having to start and loose the baby weight and I honestly think that my brain just wants to be able to hold the fact that I’ve eaten all I desired against me from January onward and thus helping me either a) loose my mind or b) loose the baby-weight or both. Either way, yesterday I felt the urge to eat something green and because I am lazy af (read: I did not put any make-up on and thus I was not legally safe to get out of the house) I decided to use whatever we had left in the fridge to make something that will appeal to my very pregnant body and very rational brain.

I did manage to make a green dish, that turned out delicious and that could’ve been even healthier than it turned out had I not decided to use crispy bacon right at the end. Damn you D for buying the food of the Devil and leaving it at my reach! To be completely honest, I think that the salty goodness and the crispy texture of the bacon made this soup irresistible so I decided to forgive D for the error in judgement. If you too are one of those people that love a good sweet-salty combo as well as (kinda) taking care of your figure than this soup is an absolute must-try. I would like to go ahead and say right from the beginning that this is a no-brainer soup and I am not trying to prove to you that I can cook through this recipe, this is just another chapter of the ‘cravings’ series and honestly, a three year old could make this easy, fast and healthy soup.

What I found in the fridge and managed to use for this hot goodness:

600 g of fine frozen peas (the small fine ones are sweeter than the regular sized ones)
about 50 g of leftover diced bacon (if I had more I would’ve used more)
1 tsp coconut butter (any oil will do but this one brought out the sweetness of the peas)
1 pot plain yoghurt
1 white onion
2 tsp vegetable cooking base (because I did not have any vegetable in the house)

The simplicity of making something delicious:

First of all, take pics of what you are about to cook and send to your spouse to make him come home earlier from work (if that does not work, send him naughty pics).
Heat the coconut butter in the pot you will use to make your soup and add the roughly chopped onion – do not try and finely chop the onion as everything will be blended anyway.
Cook the onion until it is golden and tender and then add 4 cups of water and bring to boil.
Add the vegetable base and the peas and let everything boil for about 6-7 minutes.
Take the pot away from the stove and blend everything really well and then add the yoghurt.
After another good blend, bring everything to boil for another 3-4 minutes and that’s it.
All you have to do now is fry the bacon until it is crispy, put it on top of your soup bowl and enjoy!

This is quite a healthy dish with or without the bacon and I think it is perfect for those cold days when you just need something that will make you feel good about yourself because hey, it is green and therefore healthy but also will satisfy your not so good cravings thanks to the crispy bacon. As usual, I have provided both the portion nutritional info as well as for the whole thing thanks to MyNetDiary and the app too says that this is quite a healthy meal. D can vouch for the fact that it did taste amazing despite it being vegetable based and him being the ultimate meat-lover!

December 10, 2016

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Blair Witch Project…

So we are having a loooong weekend in Romania – like 5 days long and this means that despite having lots of time to snap photos, we are also very busy so text will be scarce until we get back to our usual routine. We do have lots to do these days like: buying Christmas presents – yes, I know it’s only the beginning of December, but at the rate my belly is growing, who knows if I’ll be able to move in the next few weeks; decorate the entire house plus the Christmas tree – we usually do this on the 24th, but this year I feel the Christmas spirit more and more each day and I can’t wait to have the whole house mimicking what I feel inside; and lots of other errands to run that we usually do every weekend plus we have to watch the Gilmore Girls like asap!

With all that on our bucket list for this long weekend, picture us trying to squeeze in some photoshoots because we do not want to miss any week of pregnancy and we have managed to take pics for every week so far. Because we have so many things to do I always have to think a bit about what I will wear especially since some of the tasks we are trying to complete this weekend require lots of standing and walking time and I have to say that is becoming more and more complicated on 10 cm heels especially when the walking and standing takes more than 4 hours (Christmas shopping!). I have come to the conclusion that no matter how well prepared you come for the present hunt (lists and everything) you still have to spend at least four hours in a shopping centre to (maybe) tick all the boxes on the list.

On me:

Dress – ZARA; Vest – H&M; Bag – Chloe; Boots – UGG; Hat – ZARA; Bling – Swarovski (ring and bracelet); Watch – Apple

This was the outfit I chose for the task of getting presents for everyone. Yes, I know this is not Christmas-y but rather on the Witch-y side, hence the post title, but it was comfy as hell and kept my body temp constant. This lovely embrodied dress is yet anther find from ZARA that D bought for me a few weeks ago – I knida’ like having him do my clothes shopping for me plus he is very efficient. I just love the reddish embroidery and the way it contrasts the black. Naturally I felt that I should not cover it with a long sleeved jacket and opted for my knitted vest from H&M which was a good thing as I wasn’t cold when I spent time outside, nor was I feeling hot inside the shopping centre. A hat was also needed as I confess that I wasn’t having a great hair day and that seemed to be the best course of action. I opted for my black ‘not that kind of girl’ felt hat from ZARA which I’m finding out to be a great investment so far as it works with most of my autumn/winter outfits.

On D:

Jeans – ZARA; T-shirt – Pull and Bear; Jacket – SuperDry; Shoes – Nike; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Apple

I decided to wear my most comfy UGG boots, the over the knee knit cardy in black that you currently can not find online – I got them a few years ago – so I just linked the classic black cardy. But seriously now, if you do find them online anywhere please leave me a link below as I’d love to get another pair, maybe in a different colour as these boots are versatile af! Since we are talking about a fully black outfit, I decided to wear my only black bag (no big surprise there) – the Chloe one! This bag is so neutral and has such a perfect shape that I literally can not find another one to please me as much and actually decide to invest in it as I just know that I’ll always come back to this one.

D also embraced the black theme of the photoshoot and opted for his ZARA black slim fit jeans and a black t-shirt from Pull and Bear as he is well aware that he needs something short sleeved for the shopping ‘championship’. But because we did have a few days of close to 0 temps (and that was one of them) he decided to keep himself warm with his lovely SuperDry leather jacket. Shoe wise he also chose something very comfortable as we are both well aware of the fact that present shopping day usually means we will reach out move-goal in no-time therefore he opted for his oldies but goodies Nike sneaks.

As for the accessorising part of the outfits the only main difference is that D finally received his Apple Watch series 2 and now we can say that all our watches are bought in pairs. Besides his new gizmo, he also wore his Fossil bracelet and that was about it as he did not really want to get tangled in accessories while shopping. I also went a bit on the down-low where bling was concerned though I did opt for a big sparkly Swarovski ring besides my usual Crystaldust bracelet besides my Apple watch. Like I said we both were practical rather than bling-y that day.

December 2, 2016

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Purple Mash…

Back in the potato-cravings-zone, but this time on a more healthy note than before… Never did I ever liked mashed potatoes of any kind until I tried this recipe. For some reason, in my opinion, mashed potatoes were always done by those that are too lazy to actually fry them or bake them in the oven – the way potatoes are meant to be eaten – I mean, all you have to do is boil them and mash them and you end up with one of the most boring options to cook potatoes. In my opinion, no matter how much milk or butter you added to them they always ended up tasting like paper.

Since being pregnant means that you literally go a bit insane, this weekend I was craving mashed potatoes. But not any type of mashed potatoes, blue mashed potatoes because I thought they must taste great solely based on their colour and the fact that I decided to add some of my favourite ingredients plus skipping the unhealthy butter. Obviously, blue potatoes are only called ‘blue’ to confuse the shit out of you, because in fact they are purple. Like really purple! And you do need to use gloves when you handle them raw otherwise you’ll end up with purple-stained palms for a few days – trust me, not the greatest look! While blue potatoes are a bit more expensive than plain white potatoes, they do not taste any different or make a big difference from a nutritional stand point, therefore unless you do not want to a)get your hands dirty and b)eat something a bit different in colour, you can easily swap them for plain potatoes for this recipe.

Moving on to the recipe. Here’s what I used:

1 kg blue potatoes
400 gr greek yoghurt (instead of all the milk and butter – for a very creamy result)
20 gr of fresh dill
5 cloves of garlic
150 gr shredded mozzarella (or any other shredded cheese you like – I picked mozzarella because it is lighter and has less salt)

While making this takes about an hour, there are only a few simple steps to follow:

Take pics of the lovely coloured ingredients and then start chopping everything. Peel the potatoes and cut them, chop the dill and mince the garlic.
Boil the potatoes for about 40 minutes, drain them and mash them with a hand blender.
Add the greek yoghurt and blend some more.
The garlic and the dill are next into the blending pot.
In comes the shredded mozzarella which must not be blended but mixed really well with a spoon.
That’s it! All you have to do now is serve the purple mash in cups!

Besides it looking very interesting, it is very tasty thanks to the dill and the garlic while still being very satisfying to cheese lovers like me thanks to the mozzarella. This can be a side to any dish or you could consume it the way I did, on its own as it is really filling. It is a grade A food which means it is a healthy dish and it does not pack a lot of calories (only 211 per serving) while giving you a good amount of protein. All the nutritional info is courtesy of MyNetDiary app and I’ve uploaded both the serving info as well as for the whole thing. I divided the whole quantity to 8 servings. I hope you’ll enjoy my purple mash!

November 22, 2016

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Red Wine At Dawn…

You know I am more of a ‘white wine’ kinda gal, but, to be honest, I am craving a glass good red wine like crazy – might that be an actual pregnancy craving? I have no idea, but since I can’t drink any alcohol for the time being I will have to suffice with wearing wine coloured clothes. Yes, I am aware that wearing bordeaux during the autumn is a cliché, but hey, I’m doing what I can.

As for the ‘dawn’ photos, I confess that we arrived at our location at dawn but the days the actual sunset lasts for 30 seconds and by the time we got the camera out it was night already so we had to take our first night photoshoot hence the questionable lightning. The street lights did not help us much either as most of Bucharest has this terrific yellow lightning and not much can be done about it no matter what editing programme you use. Overall I am quite happy with the way these pics turned out and that is why we decided that they are blog worthy. Fear not, as these amazing boots will have their photoshoot in the sun and you will be able to fully see the marvellous colour and texture they have.

On me:

Dress – Tom Tailor; Boots – ZARA; Poncho – H&M; Bag – Michael Kors; Bling – Swarovski (ring and bracelet); Watch – Apple

Talking about the boots…they fully comply to my current velvet-over-the-knee obsession and they come in this amazing oxblood shade. Mind you, I think these are the most gorgeous boots I have bought this season and because they are not as tall as the others (9cm heel) I will wear them to death this autumn. They are from ZARA which is really no surprise as they keep releasing new and amazing pieces each week. I am telling you, I have fallen in love with every singe item they have this season, but unfortunately I can’t go on a shopping spree, but I did get a few things in my pre-pregnancy size that fit just wonderfully the only difference being the cut – I currently need A-line or loose fitted dresses which (THANK GOD!) are both very fashionable cuts right now.

On D:

Sweater – Funky Buddha; Jeans – ZARA; Shoes – Converse x John Varvatos; Bling – Fossil and Tous; Watch – Longines

Because I love wine shades, a deep purple dress was absolutely needed because we all know where great red wines come from! This dress is yet another oldie from my closet that fits nicely over my bump and feels amazing. It is from Tom Tailor and I got it a few years ago and I must’ve worn it a hundred times at the office. While it does seem short right now, that is only due to the growing bump as it is knee length on a non-pregnant body. I finally got to wear the poncho I got early this autumn from H&M as the temps decided to be very forgiving the other day when we shot these photos (15 degrees C). Obviously, my outfit would not have been complete without my bordeaux Michael Kors tote. This is one great tote that is worth the investment as it is kind of a neutral colour and the shape and size of it allows you to carry all you need on a workday – I have been known to carry my laptop, iPad, phone, keys and all the other miscellaneous and completely useless stuff a woman carries in her bag.

Another topic I really wanted to talk about in this post is the new mens brand that recently opened a shop in Romania : Funky Buddha! They have these amazing pieces for men both fashionable and amazing quality and they are a bit under the ZARA price point, but have more punk to them. D‘s sweater is from Funky Buddha and, as you can see, the colour and the texture are great as well as the way it fits him. If you want to explore something different from ZARA and H&M give this place a try as it is really worth it! His jeans are form ZARA and they are D‘s current obsession – to be honest I do not blame him as he does look amazing in them. His shoes are Converse x John Varvatos and by the looks of it I will have to sit down and have a talk with him as he has a hundred more autumn shoes but because he is lazy he only wears the ones that are already at the door.

Bling wise I rediscovered this lovely ring form Swarovski that D got for me a few years ago and that I absolutely love. I also wore the Crystaldust bracelet and my Apple watch and called it a day. D wore both his Fossil and Tous bracelets and he decided to wear his Longines watch. So there was not much bling-ing going on this time around.

I am really hoping that these days we will have the time take a couple more pics of these gorgeous boots in the sun, but it would appear that we do have to get a move on that as the temps will probably drop really fast and I have a feeling that the sun will be a very rare gem on the Bucharest sky. If you are bored by the whole velvet/ over-the-knee obsession that I have, you will have to start checking our posts out in about a few weeks as that’s probably when the Ugg obsession will start, until then, it’s all bout the over-the knee boots!

November 20, 2016

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Healthy Berry-Banana Bread

Truth be told, I am craving all Christmas-y treats – mostly sweets – if I really want to be honest… But, since it is not even December yet I have to contain my cravings and go for healthier versions of sweets therefore I give you the healthiest berry banana bread! This actually tastes better than it looks and I must say that it tastes better than those healthy berry muffins I baked a while ago (see recipe here). The thing with the colder months is that we all tend to crave hot and filling dishes, but that does not mean that they have to be calorie packed and filled with all sorts of unhealthy sugars.

A while back we both decided to try and eliminate sugar from our diet, at least when it comes to our home-made meals (no, we are not avoiding sugar at all costs and actually we do indulge in traditional desserts once a week). That made us look for ingredients that will still give our treats that lovely sweet taste without compromising on the health factor. This is why we chose raw honey, fruits and spices. With honey, a little goes a long way, while with fruits and spices, it’s more of an ‘all-you-can-add’ thing. Yesterday I was seriously craving something sweet and Christmas-y, and what better substitute to the classic Panettone than a cinnamon infused banana bread. The thing with this banana-bread is that I have never ever done one before and had no idea how it will turn out. I confess that I went a bit overboard with the frozen berries and therefore the bread was a bit more moist that I expected but it is really filling and does satisfy the sweet-tooth in a very healthy way.After all that rambling I think it is time to move along to the actual recipe.

Ingredients:

240 g whole grain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp coconut butter (melted) – this again will give you a bit of sweetness and flavour
2 egg-whites
2 medium over-ripe bananas (mashed)
1 cup of plain yoghurt
2 tbsp raw honey (we used a variety that has a bit of cinnamon in it and therefore gave it even more flavour)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon powder – for that Christmas feeling
60 ml coconut-almond milk (full of aroma)
200 g frozen berry mix

Steps to follow for this healthy goodness:

First of all preheat your oven at 175 degrees C and carefully arrange all the ingredients so that you can take loads of pictures.
Mix together the baking powder, the baking soda and the cinnamon powder in a small bowl and then put the mixture all over the flour and stir well.
Whip the egg-whites with the vanilla extract and the coconut oil and pour the mixture over the banana mash alongside the yoghurt and the honey, Make sure you mix everything really well.
Now for the tricky part… You will have to incorporate the flour and the milk into the mixture carefully, just like you did for the berry muffins (see here). I did it in three parts.
Carefully mix in the frozen berries and pour everything into a bread tray.
Off into the oven it all goes and 50 minutes later you will indulge in the best and healthiest berry banana bread! No guilt whatsoever!

While this takes a bit more time to bake than the muffins, it is more filling and it is healthier than the muffins. If you are hungry, you can always use smaller trays or even pour the mixture in a muffin tray which will probably cut your baking time in half. I have attached the nutritional info both for a serving (one 1,5 cm thick loaf) as well as for the whole thing (10 loaves) and as you can see this is a grade A food and therefore it is very healthy. All the nutritional data is courtesy of the MyNetDiary app. I hope you will enjoy this banana bread and soon we sill start baking heathy versions of all the Christmas sweet treats (apple pie, gingerbread etc)!

November 16, 2016

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Apple Watch

(Note: All Screen-shots are from my iPhone in regards to the Apple Watch. If you would like to see screen-shots of the UP App see the full post on Jawbone UP3 here)

It has been more than three weeks since I’ve switched from my Jawbone Up3 to Apple Watch and I think a review is needed as there are a lot of things to say and weight-in when a change like this emerges. I do not want to influence your fit band/smartwatch choices, but I do want to talk a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of having one or the other as well as show you how I use mine and truthfully what I think a smartwatch is most used for – let’s be honest, while it is nice to see who’s calling you on your watch, we’re not the FBI talking to our wrists therefore people talking on the ‘phone’ on their watch look stupid (to say the least) in my humble opinion. But hey, who am I to judge?

First I’ll start off by saying that I got the Apple Watch Series 1 in pink (obviously!). I did not get the Series 2 because besides it being waterproof – which in my case is completely useless as I am afraid of water and therefore stay clear of it as much as I can (daily shower not included in this category) all it has as an extra is a better (better illuminated) display and as D puts it, soon we will have white displays to look at. Since I got it right after the launch of the second series, I found it at a special price and it made no sense to me to miss the opportunity. That said, D will get the series 2 as he is the type that is mostly in the water whenever we are on vacation and waterproofing is something that he and anyone that is not afraid of the water needs in a smartwatch. Therefore, I do feel that this feature is needed for normal people and it definitely is worth the money.

Since most of our stuff is from Apple, I did not even look at other smartwatches as the OCD side in me likes everything to match and thinks that everything works better if it’s from the same brand, so no, I did not even show a bit of interest in other smartwatches. As with any Apple product, the installation is easy and fast and, unless you did not came in contact with another Apple product before, you’ll find the menu to be intuitive and very easy to use. Getting started was fairly easy, my iPhone detected the watch immediately and I was set.

Jawbone UP3 vs Apple Watch experience – health tracker

Activity Log

For the first few days, I kept both my Jawbone and my Apple Watch on just to compare the two. The nice thing about the watch is that you can see all your notifications on your watch so, if you are like me and always leave your phone somewhere in the house, you will not miss any notifications/phone calls/messages/Instagram or Facebook notifications ever again so this is a big plus on my Jawbone band. Also the screen helps a lot in keeping up with your activity. However, let’s not forget that the Apple Watch costs double than the Jawbone UP3 but it also does a lot more than track your activity. As step trackers they have the same accuracy, however the Jawbone band detects when you are exercising more easily than the Apple Watch and that is a big plus especially if you do not want to constantly log every walk you take beforehand so that the Apple Watch can measure it (both in time and length). This is one thing that I did not like as much about the Apple Watch – it fails to detect exercise on its own while the Jawbone UP3 does that impeccably.

Sleep Log

Another feature that the Jawbone UP3 has and the Apple Watch does not have is the ability to track your sleep on its own. Again, for the Apple Watch you have to manually log in when you go to bed and set an alarm to wake up – I hate alarms, but that is the only way I can track my sleep. I suspect this is because the Apple Watch uses a third party app, called Pillow to do that. Do not get me wrong, I think that the sleep tracking on the Apple Watch is a million times better than the analysis I used to get from my Jawbone UP3 and therefore, alarm or no alarm and as much as it bugs me to manually log when I am getting into bed, I think that in this category the Apple Watch is by far better. Now it all depends on how much you value a good sleep analysis. For me this is very important and that’s why I started loving the Apple Watch quickly.

Nutrition

This, in my opinion is where the Apple Watch won me over for good. Again we are talking about using a third party app and to my best knowledge the best one out there so far is MyNetDiary. This app is so complete and so easy to use! I just love it. As opposed to the Up App, I can find most of my daily food choices without having to add them myself (I hated having to add all the nutritional info to most of my food), so one can say that the database is way larger and that makes the whole logging experience a lot better. Another cool feature that this app has is the ability for the user to make their own recipe and divide it either by serving or weight. This is very helpful when you want to cook stuff and also keep things as healthy as possible. I also love the fact that this app is easy to use but I hate the fact that it does not sync with the activity tracker on my watch and therefore it does not give me a throughly ready-calculated calorie count and I have to do that by myself. It does however sync with the step-numbers on my watch and it makes no sense to me why they didn’t manage to sync it to the Activity app.

Mindfulness

This is a feature that the Jawbone UP3 does not have, or at least not to this level. The Apple Watch can track your heartbeat live and when it gets too high it usually makes you take a 1 minute break. The Jawbone UP3 only tracked your resting heart rate which, again might or might not be important to you. It is to me, especially during my pregnancy and it will probably be important post-pregnancy when I will restart going to the gym regularly.

All this data is nicely stored in the Health App that the iPhone has pre-intalled and that most people do not use until they get an Apple Watch – or at least that was my case. This is a very good nutrition analyst in my opinion and not much else. I mean, yeah, it does put everything together and all but it does not tell you anything. It does however do a great (and I mean GREAT) job at analysing your food (vitamins, minerals, etc), which no other app does. This again is very important to me right now, and to be honest it always was important, but the Up App did not provide that. This is something that I loved from the very beginning and really made me change my mind and go from the Jawbone UP3 to the Apple Watch.

This is where the comparison between the Jawbone Up3 and the Apple Watch stops as the Jawbone is just a fitness tracker while the Apple Watch does so much more. If you are only interested in a fitness tracker, then go for any of the tracking bracelets out there (I loved the Jawbone UP3) and save your money. However if you want more than that, keep on reading.

Like I said earlier, this watch is like your mini iPhone on your wrist. It basically has every app on your phone and it has most of the abilities you phone has. That being said, you must keep it connected to your phone for it to actually work and having your phone in the near vicinity usually makes you use it as opposed to using the watch. There are a few situations where I used the watch to answer and talk on the phone – when I was too lazy to actually get off the couch or when my phone battery was almost over – but overall, I use my phone. Also, it is nice to have the ability to reply to messages but scribbling every single letter on your watch tends to be time-consuming but helps in the earlier mentions situations.You can also check Instagram, use Shazam and lot more apps that are compatible with the watch. The interface, as I said at the beginning of the post, is very user-friendly, and, especially at the beginning, you are tempted to over-use it.

The Watch app on your phone allows you to customise virtually anything about your watch (see the print-screens) and also gives you a full insight on your device (apps, notifications, setting, font size, sounds, app layout, etc). The battery life is decent, and because I want to wear it all day and night, I usually charge it before I go to sleep for about 20 minutes and again in the morning for about 20 minutes, but if you do not want to wear it during the night you could get away with only charging it once.

Overall I am very happy with my watch and I have been using it non-stop for the past three weeks which means that I have been ignoring my other beloved watches, but I did also keep my Jawbone bracelet at arm’s reach as whenever I want to wear another watch I need something to track my activity (yes, I am crazy like that and that craziness only got worse one the doctor forbade me to got to the gym during the pregnancy). So, is the watch worth the money? Hell yeah! Not saying the same thing about the watch bracelets that Apple are selling and are waaaay overpriced – if you know a good third party bracelet seller for my watch please leave a comment below as I am really bored by my Sport band that the watch came with.

November 14, 2016

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Rollin, rollin, rollin…

Remember that old Limp Bizkit tune? Rollin’? Yeah, that was the soundtrack of my teenage years and it suddenly started playing in my head again the moment I started rolling this puff pastry perfection. This again is not an everyday food as this is nowhere near healthy. This is rather a weekend treat, or more say a monthly treat as the only healthy ingredient here is the parsley and, to be honest, there is not much of that either. But just as all teenage pleasures are, this is something amazing and not at all healthy. However, this is extremely easy to make and it can be really filling and satisfying during a cold rainy autumn day.

I can honestly say that this has all my favourite ingredients in it, including the puff pastry and, as with all the great food inventions, I have not had something similar in ages – like ever since my metabolism decided to give me a kick in the ass and make me adopt a more healthy lifestyle. Now that I am pregnant, I do try and keep it healthy and I am rather careful about the quantity of food I ingest, but from time to time (‘a weekly or more often’ time to time) I indulge in all of my favourite foods because hey, I am going to get fat anyways so I might as well enjoy life a bit. That being said, I try and indulge in mostly homemade fat-bombs as I have some sort of control where the ingredients are concerned. Which brings us to today’s recipe… as the temps lower, I tend to crave more fatty, not-necessarily-healthy foods that give me that much needed mental sanity during pregnancy.

Here’s the ingredients we used, but you can actually use whatever makes your tummy and brain feel happy:

1 layer puff pastry – you can buy this in virtually any supermarket and if you want to make a sweet roll try the slightly sweetened version though I prefer to use the unsweetened variety for sweet treats as well
1 cup of olive Philadelphia cream cheese – I use this variety for the earthy olive taste and because it is light and easy to spread
100 g diced bacon
1 red onion – medium sized
80 g graded emmentaler
80 g grated mozzarella
50 g parmesan flakes
20 g fresh parsley – the healthy ingredient (notice the ratio between the one healthy ingredient and all the rest)

The mechanics behind this amazing roll:

Mince the onion and the parsley and place all the ingredients in (preferably) clear bowls for the photos.
Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C.
The fun part begins… Gently unfold the puff pastry layer and spread the Philadelphia cream cheese first – this way all the ingredients will stick to the pastry.
This is where it becomes interesting. No matter which order you close to add the ingredients, the important thing is to always add a layer of cheese in between the other stuff thus making everything stick together because everyone knows that cheese is the glue to life!
This is my ingredients order: cream cheese, onion, grated emmentaler, parsley, grated mozzarella, bacon and parmesan flakes.
This is the step where that Limp Bizkit mega-hit kept playing in my brain – now you gotta roll that thing up making sure you do not a)spill the contents, b)rip the pastry.
Once you safely roll the ‘thing’ you gotta cut it – again a BE CAREFUL! moment – I cut in into 2 cm thick loaves.
Place the rolls on a tray and into the oven they go for about 20 minutes – make sure you check on them after 15 minutes as the buggers tend to burn quickly.
That’s about it!

Since this is a very unhealthy and amazing dish, packed full of fats (the unhealthy type) and calories, you should consume it with caution. It does not look extremely unhealthy if you decide to only have one serving, but let’s be honest, can you really stop after only one roll? I couldn’t and hence this is definitely a dish that I will make as rarely as possible.

It is however extremely tasty and filling and you will probably stop after two or three servings. The nutritional info is curtesy of MyNetDiary and since they rated it as a class D food it only goes to prove my theory – this is not a healthy food! But it is great for those long weekend chilly afternoons so give it a try!

November 6, 2016

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The second trimester – in pictures

This is the picture-post that sums up the last three months of carrying a very special load in my belly. As you know, a ‘feelings’ post is right around the corner, so I’m not going to write anything about how I’ve felt this second trimester here. Also, as opposed to the last similar post (click here for the first trimester), I’ve also selected some photos of only myself, as I feel that my fattening needs a bit of pic-detailing just to help you really see the evolution. Hope you’ll love this post as much as you like the first trimester one.

The Forth Month

My evolution during the forth month

The Fifth Month

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My evolution during the fifth month

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The Sixth Month

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My evolution during the sixth month

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October 29, 2016

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Healthiest berry muffins

These muffins are some of the healthiest sweet things you are going to find on this blog or online, for that matter. They contain absolutely no sugar or any derivates of sugar and no white flour whatsoever. And, as an added bonus they do satisfy your sweet tooth, while also giving you some healthy nutrients.I must admit that I did use some frozen berries as those were handy at the time, but they are just as healthy and tasty as fresh berries and, to be honest, it doesn’t really matter which ones you use.About a week ago, D came home with a bag of frozen mixed berries but did not hint anything, so this week I decided to take things into my own (baking) hands and surprise him with something that is both healthy (so it won’t upset my weekly diet) and tasty (to satisfy his growing sugar cravings). There are times when I think that he is the pregnant one as he seems to have all sorts of cravings lately but I think that is partly due to the fact that he, being the gentleman that he is, is trying to keep up with my weight gain so that we can loose it all together after the baby comes.

Back to the muffins… as you’ve probably noticed, I prefer to eat savoury rather than sweet things therefore making a tray of sweet muffins is usually not my first option, but this time, I really wanted to try and make the tastiest and healthiest sweet muffins ever. They are way easier to make than it appears and only take about 40 minutes for basic ingredients to turn into perfectly moist and tasty muffins.When you think about muffin perfection, there are a few boxes that must be ticked: moisture and softness. Usually you get this by using large amounts of butter, but I did not use any here, I only used a tablespoon of coconut oil and tried to get that softness and moisture by using plain yoghurt. True, I could’ve used greek yoghurt but that would’ve just added to the fat count and I was really curious as to how these were going to turn out with simple yoghurt – they were great!

Here’s what you’ll need for 12 muffins:

240 g wholegrain flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt (not too much)
1 tbsp coconut oil (melted)
2 large egg whites (no yolk)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
125 g plain yoghurt
2 tbsp honey (I used a mixture of cinnamon and honey as I can already feel the Christmas spirit and I need to put cinnamon in everything)
1 cup milk
240 g red berries (I only had frozen at hand but you can use fresh)

What you need to do for the next 10 minutes:

Preheat the oven at 175 degrees C and mix together the baking soda and the flour in a bowl.
In another bowl, put the egg whites and whisk them for a couple of minutes then add the vanilla extract, the coconut oil, the yoghurt and the honey and mix it all together really good until there are no lumps left.
Carefully start incorporating the flour mixture and the milk – I used a spoon for each as that is going to make it easier to control the texture.
Sprinkle the frozen berries with flour as that way they are going to keep your batter from becoming murky-grey because of all the juices. If you are using fresh berries there is no need to do that.
Incorporate the berries into the muffin mixture and fill in the prepared muffin tray.
Put them into the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are golden and look done. Before eating them, let them cool for 10 minutes – trust me they are better when they do not burn your taste buds!

That’s it! Healthy deliciousness on a tray that is easy to make and does not require any ‘exotic’ ingredients. All the nutritional information is from the MyNetDiary app that I totally recommend as it really helps you check everything you eat and has a huge database. I’ve put the serving information as well as the info for the entire quantity of the muffins. Hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did!