This healthy dessert recipe by Peachy Palate for our friends at Pulsin is sure to make your mouth water and satisfy those sweet cravings!

Ingredients

• 80g whole chia seeds
• 20g cocoa powder
• 125ml oat milk
• 20ml maple syrup
• 30g Pulsin Cacao Maca Supershake Energy Blend
• 30g Peanut Butter of choice
• 375ml water
• To serve...peanut butter, dark chocolate shavings, yogurt or non dairy alternative of choice!

Method

1. Place all ingredients into a large jug. Give everything a good stir, place into the fridge and leave to sit for one hour. Stir up to ensure the chia seeds aren’t clumping up and then return to the fridge for 3 hours or overnight.
2. Place the mixture into a high speed blender; you will not be able to create a smooth pudding in a food processor.
3. Blend for 5 minutes until the pudding is thick and smooth.
4. Divide between serving glasses or bowls and top with desired toppings. Can be kept in the fridge for up to three days.

Sundried ambassador Anne Iarchy is a personal trainer and nutritionist. She shares with us her deliciously healthy sugar-free banana loaf recipe.

Truly sugar-free banana cake

A few weeks ago, I was working at the Woburn Tri for Life, and at the end of a very successful day, we had masses of bananas left. After eating a banana a day for a few days, the rest of the bananas I took home were a little too ripe to my taste (I do like them just yellow from green), so I decided to bake a banana loaf.

I have two recipes, one with sugar and butter, one with coconut oil and dates, but I really wanted one with no sugar at all. After all, ripe bananas are very sweet. I did some research on the internet, and I was really surprised to see how many recipes came up “pretending” they were sugar-free, but just swapping the sugar to honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup and other sweeteners.

Although honey is healthier than sugar (and that depends on the amount of processing of the honey), it has the same effect on blood sugar levels and insulin release than sugar.

Here is my truly sugar-free banana loaf recipe which still tastes amazing and is much healthier than any other you will find.

Ingredients:

6-7 overripe bananas, previously frozen and defrosted

1/4 cup melted coconut oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups of gluten-free self raising flour (this is what I used but self-raising flour will work fine too)

2/3 cup of walnut pieces

Method:

Preheat oven at 190C (Gas Mark 5)

Lightly grease an 8x4" cake tin

In a bowl, mush the bananas, mix the eggs, vanilla and coconut oil, till properly mixed.

Slowly add the flour bit by bit and stir well.

Stir in the walnuts

Pour into the tin, decorate with some walnuts if you want to.

Put in the oven to bake for approx 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted comes out dry.

Cool before slicing.

The cake came out moist and it was definitely sweet enough.

A slice of the cake makes a lovely healthy snack.

It keeps well for 4-5 days covered in foil.

Do you struggle to get enough protein into your diet? Did you buy an expensive protein powder and have no idea how to introduce it into your diet? Or just looking for a new and healthy breakfast to replace that boring cereal? Protein pancakes are a quick and easy way to have a highly nutritious and tasty breakfast! Here is one of our favourite recipes!

Ingredients:

• 1 sachet of Wheybox chocolate orange whey protein
• 50g egg whites
• 1 medium-sized overripe banana
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

1. Use a hand mixer to blend up all the ingredients until well mixed.
2. Heat some coconut oil in a pan and tip in your pancake mix, 1 heaped tbsp at a time.
3. Leave to cook for a couple of minutes. These pancakes don't use flour so they are slightly more fragile than usual, therefore you should cook the other side by folding them in half into a half moon shape!
4. Leave for another couple of minutes then pile on your plate and top with yogurt, nut butter and popcorn!

Thanks to the banana, these pancakes have a soft texture and are naturally quite sweet.

Claire Steels is a world champion duathlete and works hard for her fantastic racing results. We take a look at what this elite athlete eats in a day to fuel her for her big events.

Breakfast

Banacakes (pancakes with banana)

I have been playing around with how to make this breakfast for a while and I think I have cracked it! The mix is made up of 1 banana mashed up with 2 eggs. Beat it all together and cook in a small frying pan. You can split the mixture to have lots of smaller pancakes and it is a little easier to cook too! I top with peanut butter as I'm a bit of an addict!

Lunch

Pesto chicken wraps

I make these filling wraps with spinach, rocket, avocado and a bit mayonnaise. Lots of protein to keep me fuelled and vegetables for their health benefits.

Snacks

Banana topped with sunflower seeds and honey

I have this almost daily! Sometimes as part of breakfast, sometimes as pudding, or sometimes just as a snack! 

Dinner

Pizza!

Racing in the morning! Pizza is my favourite pre-race meal! I love all of the training and racing that comes with being an elite athlete and a big part of that is because of all of the food I get to eat, and I have always been a huge pizza fan! For this meal, I opted for a pre-made pizza base and then added my own topping because I was feeling creative! I went for my own version of a Quattro: tomato puree base, pesto chicken (leftover from lunch), caramelised red onion, mushrooms, spinach, rocket, and parmesan cheese. It was amazing and the race went pretty well too!

Read more from our What I Eat In A Day Series

Chances are you have a rough idea what the Atkins diet is, and now you're hearing people talk about being on a 'keto' diet. But what does it mean? Is it an effective way of losing weight or just another fad diet?

What can you eat on a ketogenic diet?

The ketogenic diet is an extreme low carb diet plan which aims to aid weight loss through achieving a state called 'ketosis'. When your body is in a state of ketosis, it burns fat as fuel instead of carbohydrate and the theory is that this is a good way to drop body fat. However, it is an extremely complicated and scientific process and must be followed very strictly for it to work. 

With regards to what you can eat, the keto diet is strictly high fat, low carb. To be more specific, nearly no carbs at all. As soon as you slip and eat a small amount of carbohydrates, your body will snap out of ketosis and you will pile on weight due to your body storing the carbs. Ketosis is a state our body adapts to naturally when food supplies are low; it is a form of starvation mode. Whenever the body is in starvation mode, it naturally wants to hold on to as much energy as possible because it thinks there's a low food supply. So if you slip up or eat a snack, you'll hold on to it more so than if you were not following a keto diet.

A typical keto meal plan will consist of eggs, bacon and other fatty meats, double cream and other high fat dairy, and vegetables. You strictly cannot eat any sugar so that means no fruit or junk food, no starch so no potatoes, beans, or legumes, and no grains so no bread or cereals. It is a ridiculously tough 'diet' to stick to and it is advised that you should employ the help of a trained physician or medical professional as it is so complicated. This is not a diet to be taken lightly and it is strongly recommended not to follow it if you have not done proper research first.

Is the ketogenic diet safe?

The ketogenic diet was actually originally created as a way of controlling and treating epilepsy, and diet regimens like this have been used for hundreds of years. When modern treatments and anti-epileptic drugs became more widely available in the early 20th century, the use of extreme fasting diets declined. However, people began adopting this regimen for weight loss and interest has spiked in recent years, especially following the fame of the notorious Atkins diet. 

There are a lot of negative side effects to being in a state of ketosis. Most infamously is the bad breath you will suffer. You will also suffer from increased urination as ketosis is a natural diuretic and this will also lead to suffering from an extremely dry mouth. It is also highly likely that you'll suffer from the 'keto flu' which has symptoms including headaches, nausea, fatigue, and cramping. As the ketogenic diet employs a lot of fasting, be prepared to be very hungry a lot of the time too!

In answer to the question, "is it safe?" the answer is only if it is followed properly. Any type of fasting or extreme change in diet should be monitored by a healthcare professional otherwise it could be potentially dangerous. If you still want to try this diet after reading the above, make sure you do your research first and are fully prepared. 

How many carbs can you eat and still be in ketosis?

If you limit your carbohydrate intake severely by eating less than 15g per day, you will enter ketosis more quickly. You can eat up to 25g of carbs per day and still be in ketosis. Any more than this and you risk snapping back and storing fat. Your total carbohydrate intake should be no more than 5% of your total daily calories. You should have 75% fat and 25% protein. This is really not a recommendable ratio of macros and you should proceed with extreme caution.