Ajla’s ‘day on a plate,’ her favourite place to eat in Australia and her best mate Kruz 🐶
Let’s talk a little bit more about your life off the tennis court, can you take us through what life looks like for you in terms of your food and nutrition? What does your day on a plate look like?
Ajla Tomljanović: I love to be healthy, but I have this crazy sweet tooth. I have no problem to live my whole day having a really clean breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I always get this urge to have something sweet. I don’t restrict myself of sugar, but I will not overdo it.
So my day on a plate, I love to start my day with chia pudding. I learned a new recipe when I was in Sydney earlier in the year where I put Cocobella Coconut Yoghurt in my chia pudding. I had never done that before, it’s like a little dessert in a way, but a healthy dessert so I pretty much have that every morning. And then if I’m doing a more of a workout, I add like a piece of toast with avocado just to have more fuel, but these days I’m rehabbing so I’m just keeping it with the chia pudding bowl. I try not to snack too much throughout the day because then I get full quickly.
Lately for lunch, I’ve been keeping it really clean just with protein and rice like chicken or steak and not really adding too much. And then for dinner, I do a salad with quinoa and usually fish. I watch my intake of carbs when I’m not training. But honestly, when I’m training hard, I eat until I’m full because you have to. You can’t go to practice hungry.
Of course, you’ve got to fuel yourself properly! Okay, so you kind of skipped over the sweet part, but I want to know what that means. What are you eating when no one else is looking? What’s your secret little indulgence? Are you eating peanut butter straight out of the jar? Are you a fan of Tim Tams?
Ajla Tomljanović: Peanut butter, that’s on the healthy side! (Laughs) No, I have my stash of chocolates, I have Lindt or I have this Swedish one that you buy at Ikea. I’m so addicted to it. And then when I’m really feeling something special, I just ask my mum to bake a cake. It’s a chocolate hazelnut cake and it’s my grandma’s recipe. It’s been the cake that’s at every birthday and Christmas or if I’m coming back from a long trip and my mum wants to do something for me, everyone in the house knows that’s Ajlas cake. But also just having literally like one thing of chocolate with my coffee like does it for me.
Amazing. Beautiful. And can I please get the chocolate hazelnut cake recipe because that sounds incredible!
Ajla Tomljanović: Oh yeah, I know the recipe almost by heart by now.
Ok, so when you do travel back to Australia, tell us where are you going? Do you have a favourite restaurant that you kind of crave when you’re when you’re traveling overseas?
We’d love to know your recommendations.
Ajla Tomljanović: I don’t know if you’re going to laugh at me. But I love my Greek food in Australia, especially in Melbourne and I love going to this place called Stalactites.
That’s an institution!
Ajla Tomljanović: I love it. Like, I mean, I’ve never walked out of that place not feeling sick. (Laughs)
I don’t think anyone has, that’s the whole point of Stalactites. You go there to eat as much as possible. It’s such a cool place!
Ajla Tomljanović: And then I have like my other Greek place that is just so casual. You sit outside, it’s called Zeus. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it? So I don’t know why but I always gravitate to Greek food when I come to Australia.
Well, there’s so such a big Greek community here, especially in Melbourne. I’ve got a lot of friends that are Greek and l every time you go over to their house, you have to eat!
Ajla Tomljanović: You can’t go if you’re not hungry!
Exactly, it’s great! Ok, also we’d love to know of course, what is your favourite Cocobella product? Are you into the flavoured yogurts or do you love vanilla? Are you smashing coconut water on the daily?
Ajla Tomljanović: Of course I smash coconut water on the daily. That’s a must! And with the Cocobella yoghurts I, I love the passionfruit. But it varies, I’m not just strictly passionfruit, one week I’m obsessed with one flavour and then if I get sick of it I’ll go to another one. I’m not a plain kind of girl, I need flavour.
Yeah, I love the strawberry, that’s my go to at the moment. So you’re a super busy person, how important is incorporating ‘me time’ into your life and what does that look like for you?
Ajla Tomljanović: Me time is very important, I’m a bit of a loner naturally, I love spending time by myself (laughs) On the road, I get a lot of time to myself because between matches and practice, I’m in my room and I really love that. But when I come home, I love seeing my dog and family after a long time.
When I really need to switch off, I love going to the bookstore, I could spend hours just browsing through different things and I like to do it alone or I love taking my dog to his favourite park. Lately I love reading about different things, I was really into novels, but now I have a lot of cool books where you learn about the human body and mind, I wouldn’t call it self-help, but I’m just curious about these things so I spend a lot of time just reading. I also love music, so it’s those three things.
Wonderful. So tell us a little bit about your dog. His name is Kruz right? What kind of dog is Kruz?
Ajla Tomljanović: Kruz is a Weimaraner. We got him from Belgium, his roots are German, so he is a German doggie. He’s going to be eight soon, which breaks my heart, when I first saw the greys around his like face, I just want to cry. But he is just the best. He loves being around people, he is a people’s dog, he doesn’t really care about other dogs. And now I’m a little bummed because when I’m not playing he doesn’t get to go to the tennis courts and that’s his favourite place to just play. So when I’m training, he’s running around, I let him off the leash. And so many people come up to me and are like, ‘When did you train your dog to know exactly when to go and not to go?’ and I’m like, no, trust me he gets hit.
Oh my gosh that’s so cute! Does he get to ever come on tour with you?
Ajla Tomljanović: No, he is too big. There is one event he goes to which is in Charleston, South Carolina. So it’s like an eight hour drive from my house, because he really is not a good plane traveller.
Yeah, I can imagine it would be too difficult, especially coming to back to Australia. That’s a really long trip!! Laughs.
Stay tuned for our next instalment of our chat with Cocobella Ambassdor Ajla Tomljanovic where we talk about mindfulness and we get your answer to our Coco community questions!
