Many people in my life ask me what I eat on a daily basis. My eating habits are pretty good, of course I slip every now and then because I'm human, but they didn't happen over night. I've been conscious of what I put into my body for well over ten years now. I'd say they have been the most refined in the last 2-3 years, but like anything that is worth doing, they are a constant work in progress. Although most of my posts will be individual meals I eat, I'll post daily menus every once in a while so you can get an idea of my days as a whole. I will also preface these posts by saying I've been having a really hard time staying on track these last few weeks with eating well all day long. It's so hard to not eat all the food when I get home from work! Also, I've been intaking a few more calories and carbs than I usually would because I have my first triathlon coming up on Sunday, woohoo!! Anyway, here it is:
Breakfast
I usually try to stay away from large amounts of dairy at any one sitting because it tends to mess with my stomach. I've done a bunch of "exclusion" diets over the years to try to get a better idea of what works for my system and what doesnt, dairy is in the "doesn't" column. BUT I've been really in the mood for yogurt recently, so this week I decided that was going to be my breakfast. I usually go for the non-fat (one of the only times I will get something this processed), organic plain yogurt by Stonyfield. It's delicious and reasonably priced for organic yogurt (usually $2.99-$3.49), but I went with non-fat plain greek yogurt this week for the extra calories and protein (triathlon, serious workouts). I try to get as many fruits, veggies and other good things for you into my breakfasts, I feel like it's a good way to start the day, so this is how it went:
The supplies:
Oops, forgot the cereal
So whats the most important part of a healthy lifestyle and/or losing weight? In my opinion, it's portion control. With that being said, MEASURE YOUR FOOD PEOPLE. It's key to everything. A giant pain in the ass? Yes. Are you constantly washing measuring equipment? Yes. But buy two sets of everything and get over it. Most of the time things can just be rinsed out anyway. Ok so here's what went into my yogurt:
Ingredients:
1 cup non-fat plain greek yogurt
1/4 cup crispy cocoa rice
1/2 blueberries
1/2 strawberries
1 tbsp ground flax seed
*If the fruit and cereal aren't enough sugar for you, add 1 tsp honey, but i didn't use it here. The honey pictured about was used as a sweetener for my coffee. I take it black with 1 tsp of honey (again, real food, no processed sugars or artificial sweeteners)
What did it look like? Deliciousness. Looks like a bowl of mess, but pretty darn tasty looking when it's mixed up. Even Zoox was begging for a bite (which he didn't get). Approximately 355 calories.
Lunch
Just ate it and it was delicious. Excellent concoction if you ask me. Josh and I joined a CSA (
http://thornapplecsa.com/) this year so we have A LOT of veggies we have to be creative with. It's supposed to be enough for a family of four for a week! Anyway, here ya go:
Ingredients:
2 slices of any kind of whole grain bread (the above is flax and fiber bread from Kroger)
About 1/2 of a cumcumber, sliced (the above are some kind of white cucumber species)
1 "slice" original swiss laughing cow cheese (stray from my usual "real foods")
1/4 small avocado
Handful of fresh basil
2-3 pieces lettuce of choice
Directions are pretty simple, toast the bread, put it all together, BAM.
Deliciousness coming in at approximately 405 calories
WATER CHECK!
Alright everyone, in the words of the ever genius Tony Horton, drink your water people!!! Besides coffee, and the occasional beer, all I drink is water. At this point in the day (1pm) I've had 5 glasses of water (1 glass = 8oz). This is pretty typical, but some days it's less and others more. I have an original
nalgene bottle that I use to drink water in at my desk. It holds about 4.5 glasses of water in it. Drinking lots of water is good for your skin, hair, organs, LIFE. So do it. Plus it makes you get off your butt and walk to the water cooler (and bathroom 8,000 times a day if you're like me). Although I've read that it's not good to drink while you are eating (it dilutes your digestive enzymes and decreases optimal digestion and uptake of vitamins and nutrients!!), it's good to drink at least 8oz of water 30 mins before you are going to eat. A lot of the times I think I'm hungry when I am just thirsty. If I drink a bunch of water before I eat I end up hydrating, find that I'm not actually that hungry, and over eat less often!
Snack:
I usually leave work at 5 and go straight to the gym so there's no way I cant eat before I workout. My snacks alternate, but nine times out of ten I eat a clif bar. On the menu today is a
crunchy peanut butter bar coming in at 250 calories. I say every week that I'm going to make my own protein bars to decrease sugars and preservatives but I've only gotten around to it once..... oops. I usually eat this between 3 and 5 depending on (1) how hungry I am from lunch, (2) what time I'm planning to workout because I like to give myself an hour to digest and (3) how busy I was in the afternoon!
UPDATE: So I had quite a few snacks today. In addition to the bar I had some peanuts (~100 calories worth) and this crazy korean rice snack I got from the asian market (buying supplies for some spring rolls coming soon....). They were lightly sweetened rice puffs basically, but they were chewy. It was strange. The entire package was 110 calories but Josh had a few, so I say I ate about 90 calories worth.
After the gym I usually have a protein shake (1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk and 1 scoop protein powder, 160 calories), today I know I did a little damage with the snack so I has it with water so save a little. Finally, I had some frozen watermelon after dinner, technically a snack (50 calories)
Dinner:
I didn't get the chance to actually make myself dinner until around 9 :( so needless to day it was nothing spectacular, but it was tasty
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1/2 cup mushrooms
1/2 cup yellow squash
2 full leaves dinosaur kale
5-6 fresh basil leaves
1/2 oz blue cheese
1 tsp olive oil
Garlic salt to taste
I sauteed the hard veggies in the oil and garlic salt, when they were about done I added the basil and kale (which I ripped into smaller pieces) and covered for 1 min or so to "steam" then I added the eggs. I usually let that cook for a little bit until the eggs are just about cooked through. Then I added the blue cheese and mixed everything together. It's supposed to be scrambled eggs of sorts but in all honesty I don't like to make another dish by scrambling the eggs in a bowl/cup so I do it in the pan. I like the break the yolks at the last minute because I get some less cooked yolk and it's delicious. For being so last minute (and low calorie, ~250), I enjoyed it, and I'd say someone else really wanted a chance to as well....
So that's it, for the most part. I drank about 10 glasses of water (80 oz). I would like to have drank more but that's the daily recommended intake for women so I'm ok with that. Plus the watermelon helps with hydration. My total calorie intake comes in around 1,631 and adjusted with the ~398 calories I burned during my workout, I netted approximately 1,233. Not too shabby. I usually aim for 1,200-1,300 if I'm trying to actively lose weight, but with the tri coming up I'm not too concerned! WOD (workout of the day) post to come soon.....
