No Bake Almondy Prune Bites

Hey all! How's everyone's Tuesday's going?!

After a long traipse on various blogging sites yesterday, I came across a recipe for these No-Bake Almond Prune bites. Actually, the recipe originally contained dates, but I replaced them for the prunes seeing as they were already in the cupboard ;). You can find the original recipe here.

This is a super rapido recipe and doesn't require a whole lot of ingredients. All you need is:

140g raw unsalted almonds
3 TBS peanut butter (or almond butter - I used peanut for the same reason as the prunes...)
Around 14 dried prunes
A small handful of sultanas
A dash of almond milk (I used around 5TBS)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chop or blend your almonds (I used a food processor to ground the almonds, but I'm thinking roughly chopped would create a better overall texture), followed by the prunes (chop chop!). Add the 3TBS of peanut butter and mix. Gradually add the milk, TBS by TBS. Then use those arm muscles to their best abilities and mix it all together. Nice one.

Now you just have to roll into balls and place onto a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking tray, and pop into the fridge! Et voila. Each little bite contains approx 80 calories, 5g fat (only 0.4g being saturated, so mostly the good kind!), and 7.6g total carbs. Also, 2.2g protein - not too shabby for a (somewhat glorified with a healthy make-over) cookie!

I will be consuming one as a pre-workout treat this afternoon (or rather in 20 minutes, actually), as I have a gym induction at 5pm. I'm planning on joining a local community-based gym, because I literally feel lost without my regular exercise routine (now that my parents are back I can't quite use the living room as my makeshift gym zone... (Byebye daily Jillian Michaels, sad face).

It's offering a year's membership for £200, which excludes the BOGOF deal - so, £100 each when you join with a friend - or boyfriend, in my case! Not bad, huh?! Can't really go wrong there.

Wish me luck!

WANTED: a Good Gym!

There's a few requirements that every gym should meet, yet in my experience, some gyms fall short of these very basic things, and this ultimately puts me off from becoming a member.

I've only actually been a regular gym attender since late May - beforehand, I chose to run outdoors and I attended group exercise classes instead. I guess you could say I was a bit of an anti-gym kind of person, as I considered it far too pricey and almost intimidating to become a regular gym-goer (sad, huh?).

However, moving back home from university meant that I could no longer rely on my beloved group exercise classes (an average week consisted of circuits, pilates, dance aerobics, and legs, bums and tums - how I miss these classes!), for which I paid a measley, student-savvy 8.50/month(!). And so, my ventures into becoming a fully-fledged Gym member began.

I started out at the Olympiad gym in Chippenham for a couple of months, the same gym that my boyfriend had already been a member of for the past 1-2 years. This was a good gym for a few reasons: it wasn't too big (or small), it had mirrors, it was modern and had suitable air-conditioning, the machines were great, you could watch the TV if you so wished (music channels tended to provide motivational imagery along the lines of perfectly-sculpted women writhing around the screen - always a good reason to work out harder, no?), and windows offering a view of the park, essential for distracting myself whilst pounding the treadmill.

Since my boyfriend moved out of Chippenham, we've tried a few other gyms that just haven't been up to scratch. The first should have been excellent, but was the equivalent of an ice room and was also too big and too quiet - call me egocentric (I am definitely not, fyi! Don't get me wrong!), but I like to be surrounded by people whilst I'm working out, whether it's to see what others are doing or just to be in an environment whereby everyone is pushing themselves, I think it generally makes me work out harder.

The next gym was too cold (not temperature-wise this time) and factory-like. It offered basic equipment and machines for a basic price, so for some people it is completely suitable. However, my boyfriend complained about the lack of mirrors (also egocentric, apparently!) - and so it was on to the next one.

We attended a local bodybuilding gym a couple of days ago, an 80's-throwback style of gym, complete with floral curtains upstairs in the cardio room and various old posters of ripped male and female bodybuilders scattered around the walls. Equipment also appeared to be from the 80s! It wasn't worth the 25pound/month price, that's for sure.

And so the conclusion prevails; until a move back to Chippenham (and thus the Olympiad) is more prominently on the horizon, I will make do with the free kind of gym: exercise DVDs, home equipment, and fresh air/pavements.

A boring post to say the least, sorry guys and gals!