You Eat What?!–A Day in the Life of My Food Adventures

Friends, I don’t have a normal Friday round up today, sorry! Instead, I have a round up of a different sort for you.

Lately, I have had quite a few requests for information on how I eat throughout the day, both from blog comments and colleagues/friends.

While I do post a fair amount of recipes around these parts, I have never delved too much into how I actually eat in a day, or rather, what I actually eat in a day.

This is for a couple of reasons:

• Everyone is unique and I don’t want my diet to be construed as any kind of advice as to what will work for someone else. I’m not a nutritionist, and I am not qualified to give anyone advice on how they should eat – I only know what works for me, for now. My diet evolves and adjusts according to what I have going on in life and how I feel.
• The topic of one’s diet can be really emotionally charged – for some reason, people get really worked up about the absence or presence of animal protein in other peoples’ diets, and, honestly, I just don’t want to go there on this blog. I am about positivity and helping people feel good, not about negativity and criticizing why one way of eating is superior to another.

As I have thought more and more about the requests, I realized, my main mission is to show people that eating healthfully can be easy, tasty, and really not that expensive. What better way to expound my philosophy of eat healthy to live healthy than to actually show you what I consume on an average day?

While I was in “realizing mode,” I also came to the conclusion that because I eat quite a lot, I am living proof that women do not need to subsist on a meager 1200 calories a day, which so many women I know try to do! I am at a healthy weight for my height, and I don’t keep it a secret. See, I’ll tell you: I’m 5’11” (6 feet on a good day when I stay on top of my yoga), weigh 160 lbs, and have 22% body fat.

I generally eat around 2400-2600 calories a day, sometimes less, sometimes more. Could I lose a little? Maybe, but, my body seems to regulate itself to 160 time and again – so I reckon it’s my “set point” and don’t worry about it further. I weighed 160 when I graduated from college, and 15 years later, I weigh the same, but I am way more toned and actually have defined muscles. When it comes to weight, I’d rather be 160 and happy than 150 and cranky from trying to lose negligible weight. Life is about being happy, not stressing over a number on a scale, which certainly doesn’t lead to happiness.

And with that long intro, here is an equally long post with pictures from a day in my life of food. If you find this boring, I will not be offended if you skip this post. If you’re interested, I hope you find some value in the below!

A Normal Day Around TKT

Wake Up – 6:30

I’m in the car and off to the pool by 7:00 a couple times a week, so I have a small “First Breakfast” of a banana and either a DIY Lara Bar (if I have any on hand) or a Kind Bar. This day, it was a Coconut Kind Bar. I have yet to try to re-create Kind Bars, but it’s on my long term to-do list.

Home by 8:30, and second breakfast around 9:00 while I kick off my work day.

Second breakfast is usually a green smoothie or a version of this chocolate avocado pudding, or, if I have lots of time, some easiest pancakes ever topped with blueberries or strawberries. Today it was a green smoothie with: 8 oz Almond milk, 1/2 cucumber, 5 sprigs mint, juice from one lemon, 3 Brazil nuts, 2 handfuls baby kale, 1 cup frozen mango, 1 scoop of Plant Fusion protein powder.

If it’s cooler out I’ll also have some hot tea, like fennel or dandelion root  tea to go with it.

Work until about 11:30 and then lunch.

After a 6-month gluten ban, I have re-introduced a little bit of gluten back into my life with flying colors, so I usually have one gluteny/carby thing at lunch – and only at lunch — which has lately been sourdough bread with the filling from this wrap (lentils, mushrooms, olives, carrots, cabbage). I put the higher carb item at lunch because I usually have an afternoon workout. I’m back in triathlon training, so, 2-a-days are not uncommon.

Why not gluten free bread? Why not wheat bread? Why sourdough? Well, I’m not Celiac and don’t particularly like gluten-free bread, and usually the flours used to make it spike your insulin more than just normal bread. I like wheat bread, but lately, I just prefer sourdough. It is a bit easier to digest than wheat bread, but the bottom line is I like it, which is what matters.

Today, I ran for an hour in the late afternoon, but had such a crazy afternoon I didn’t have time for a snack beforehand. I’d usually have some sort of small snack before this workout, like a couple of dates and some nuts or some roasted chickpea snacks. Just something small.

Dinner

Big salad – made with whatever I have on hand ,but always including some sort of protein on top. You really can’t go wrong with a bunch of fruits, veggies, and nuts mixed up in a big bowl!

This had baby kale, spinach, red bell pepper, radishes, snap peas, broccoli, raspberries, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, a kiwi, garbanzo beans, cashews, a few coconut flakes, some dulse powder, some turmeric powder, and a simple olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing.

Evening Snack

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have an evening snack. But, old habits die hard, and this one goes back to being a young kid. And, I don’t like to go to bed hungry since I usually have a workout on tap in the morning. So, I try to keep it clean and reasonable in size.

5 strawberries, 2 cantaloupe wedges, handful pistachio nuts, bit of coconut chips

What you may  notice from this day is that pretty much the only things that came out of a package which were “processed,” so to speak, are the Kind Bar and the sourdough bread. Everything else is pretty darn clean, but I’m not always perfect. From time to time, I like some dark chocolate covered ginger, caramel corn, or the occasional cookie. At the end of the day, it’s not about perfection! It’s about progress, and moving to a place where your body can actually use the fuel you put in it.

If you made it this far, I’m super impressed. I hope this was worthwhile, and thanks for reading!