Spinach, mushroom and chick pea stew

Once a week, I'm allowing myself more relaxed carbohydrate rules and this is the day! On Saturday, I ran 13 miles in preparation for the Sussex Beacon Half Marathon on 22nd February, followed by three hours of beach volleyball (except, it was so cold the sand was like concrete). What with that and the fact that I've been in the gym for three hours devising Pilates style workouts for clients, along with swim specific training, my body is in serious need of some refueling!
This is adapted from a recipe in yesterday's Guardian Weekend magazine by Yotam Ottolenghi as I didn't have all the ingredients he used.

Tin of plum tomatoes
1 tsp tomato puree
4 tbsp tamarind (available from most good ethnic stores)- soak in boiling water, remove seeds
Tin of chickpeas
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 fresh red chilli, sliced
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach
Handful of chesnut mushrooms, sliced
2 1/2 tsps toasted coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp of black mustard seeds
Low fat greek yoghurt to serve

To start, place the coriander seeds under a grill for a minute, remove and pound to a powder in a pestle and mortar. Meanwhile, saute the onion, mushrooms and chilli in a little olive oil for a five mins. Add the puree and mustard seeds. Cook for a few minutes, and then add the tomatoes, chickpeas, tamarind and coriander. Bring to the boil, add some water if needed, turn down and simmer with lid on. Keep your eye on it in case it gets a little dry but when it looks like a thick stew, add the spinach leaves, stir in. Serve on it's own with a dollop of low fat greek yoghurt, or add brown rice or quinoa.

Asian Salmon with seasame and chilli dressing

This is perfect for a quick meal or dinnner party.

For the fish
Clove of garlic sliced
Inch of fresh ginger, sliced
Spring onions, sliced
2inches fresh hot chilli, sliced
1/2 fresh lime
fillet of salmon

Shallow fry the garlic,k ginger, chilli and spring onion until the garlic is crisp and golden, but not burnt. Remove and drain on kitchen roll.
Place salmon in silver foil parcel, squeeze over the lemon and place the shallow fried veg on top. Place in an oven 200 degrees. Bake until cooked. Meanwhile make the dressing.

Dressing
Splash of rice wine vinegar
Spalsh of Fish sauce
Dash of soy sauce
1 clove of crushed garlic
Fresh chilli to taste
Lime juice
Pinch of seasame seeds
Mix well together and use to dress the fish and salad. I've served this with a fresh leaf and quinoa salad but you could have wholegrain rice or steamed greens.

Salmon and Feta Frittata

If you come home from work and you're starving and don't want to spend hours in front of the cooker, this will do the job. Mix it up to include anything you want on top - here it's salmon and feta, but try roasted pepper and feta, asparagus and ham, the list is endless.
Simply whisk together four eggs, lightly fry any of the harder vegetables first, pour the egg on top. Let it begin to set, then top with any other ingredients and pop under a hot grill. It will begin to puff up beautifully. When browned, cut and eat. (you can save the other half for lunch).

Win a trip to New York - and get fit!

Fitness expert, Matt Roberts has helped transform the bodies of a many a celebrity. And now he's set to take on the challenge of getting the nation fit and in shape.
Matt and his team will be visiting selected John Lewis stores from 31st Jan - 28th February. Book to see him and he will record your statistics - body fat, weight, aerobic fitness and body shape, and set you a personal goal. Revisit eight weeks later to be re-examined and the person who demonstrates the biggest positive change overall willl win a four day break in New York for themselves and a partner - plus a state of the art treadmill.
No, if that's not reason enough to get you off the sofa watching Celebrity Big Brother and out to the gym, I don't know what is!
Log on to www.mattroberts.co.uk/getfitbritain for more information.

Snack attack - Cottage cheese and ruby grapefruit

For today's installment, it's not technically a meal but a snack. And to be honest, it's the snacking that I think is the main culprit when it comes to weight gain. Snack right and you're sorted.
Try ruby red grapefruit mixed with low fat cottage cheese. Not only is the cottage cheese an excellent source of protein but studies have shown that grapefruit aids weightloss.
In a study by the Nutrition and Medical Research Centre in San Diego,California those who hate a grapefruit with each meal lost 3.6lb in twelve weeks, compared to 0.5lb of those who didn't.
All well and good these studies, but try it yourself. This really does fill you up, and it's nice!

Diet, diet, diet....

We're only six days into 2009 and already, I've read about a million different diets - the detox diet, the All New Atkins diet (shamelessly making a whole new bucket load of money off the back of the same principle), Cheryl Cole's diet (chicken in cream sauce anyone?). No wonder most people get confused about which to follow.
Well, to make it all clearer for you, I'm on a bit of a health kick to shed the excess carb loaded pounds put on over Christmas and will be posting daily recipes for you to follow.
I'm following a diet containing slow releasing carbohydrates with most of my meals being protein based. As the body uses energy sources provided by carbohydrates first, cut back on this and it is forced to switch to the energy stored in fat. That's the science in a nutshell, although on a practical level, it also makes sense.
White fish, eggs and salad are all low in calories, bread (who has bread alone - think about the butter, jam, honey, peanut butter - the list is endless), pasta (and sauces!) are not.
So, my posting for the day is Salmon and Quinoa salad with pomegrante.
1/2 mug of quinoa
Seeds of 1/4 fresh pomegrante
1 tin of pink salmon
Unlimited brocolli florets
pinch of pumpkin seeds
1/4 hot chilli, chopped.
lemon juice to dress

Cover the quinoa in water, bring to the boil and simmer until cooked. Meanwhile, steam or cook the brocolli. Mix together in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, dress with lemon juice and there you have it! Delicious and the quinoa serves as a carb fix. It's a bit like couscous but is in fact a protein. Genius! (the grain, not me).

Treadmill training

You wake up and it's raining. You go to bed, and it's still raining. And if it's not the rain, it's the wind or the cold. The dismal British winter is what causes most women to give up on their fitness programmes in exchange for longer under the duvet. Yet, there is a way to carry on your shape up programme without it meaning you'll have piled on a stone by the Spring.
Whilst Fitbitch isn't a fan of treadmill running, come the winter it can be an indispensable tool. You simply have to know how to use it, so that you don't get bored rigid by the end of the week.
The best way to do this is to combine some interval work on the treadmill. Try a five minute warm up, at a comfortable pace, and then increase to a run at 80-90% maximum heart rate for one minute, before dropping down again. Repeat ten times. As you get used to this, try running fast for two minutes, increasing your pace or have less recovery time.
Another alternative is to do intervals of hill running. Start off doing a five minute warm up, then add 0.5% incline every minute, building up to ten minutes. Then work you way back down again.
This will not only help prevent you dying of boredom (or quickly learning every MTV video going watching the TV) but you'll continue to burn calories after you've finished training because of the benefits of interval training. And you'll be warm!
Alternatively, if you still find that boring get some friends and see if you can copy this YouTube video - it's hilarious. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aeeR4Vnvs8U