What I Ate in a Day - May 2016
One of my more popular posts was when I revealed the foods in my kitchen. There's just something about seeing what other people eat. I, for one, have always loved to rummage through the fridges and cupboards of other people. Does this make me sound like a feral animal or a psychopath? Eh. I do it not with judgment, but with curiosity. I just love seeing what people eat! (And definitely for information gathering when working with clients.
I don't do meal plans, but I know nutrition clients love when I share a typical day of eating with them. So today I'm sharing with you!
While I'm all about everyone finding their own unique diet that serves them best (the basis of my Eat to Achieve online nutrition program), I know that seeing a rough guideline is a helpful starting point for many people. To be clear, this isn't "here's what I eat—now you go do the same", this is "here's an accurate snapshot of what a real food functional nutritionist eats on a normal day, so you can see what a day of real food might look like".
Beyond being potentially helpful, I do think this is also extraordinarily important. We're living in an age where ANYONE can dole out nutrition advice (I love you Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Hudson, but please stick to making movies rather than convolute the minds of the general public with more random "health" nuggets). Young girls and adults alike follow along with celebrities and coaches and bloggers and "experts" on social media, waiting to be told what to do. The problem is that sometimes advice isn't sound, and people are led into more confusion, more restriction, and more food fear.
So here's a peek at what a normal* day looks like for me—this is what I eat to maintain health in my 140-pound frame.
*I kept waiting for a “typical” day to record this, but then about a week and a half went by and I realized that no day is typical. I’m kind of all over the map right now. If anything, this is probably atypical since I ate one of my meals out of the house. But perhaps seeing a busier day for me is helpful. I left the house at 8:30am to teach yoga, worked at a coffee shop for the most of the day, returned home at 3:30, played around with my mini me and snuck in some more computer work...and then realized I didn't have much food in the house, so went a simple route with supper.
If this post gets a good response, then I’ll make this more of a regular thing, and you’ll get a better depiction of how it goes week to week.
6:30am
Water, fresh lemon juice, and sea salt.
After having my baby and then not sleeping for what felt like 12 years, I had some major adrenal gland issues, which eventually parlayed into autoimmune issues (I could talk about this forever and will probably eventually host a workshop on the subject because I think it's hugely important for women - especially newer moms - to hear about. If you have specific questions about it now, you can hit me up. I've taken on some clients with exhaustion and adrenal issues, but it's a complex subject for sure). ANYWAY...I pay close attention to my energy levels, and when I feel them start to dip, I do my best to support my adrenal health. Sea salt and Vitamin C both nourish the adrenal glands.
7am
Coffee, blended with about a teaspoon of coconut oil. This morning I had 2 cups.
I'm trying my damnedest to quit coffee...partly for reasons mentioned above. It's not working out well. I just love it so much. I love the taste, I love the ritual of it, I honestly don't feel like my morning has started until I've prepared my coffee a certain way. I've swapped it out for tea in the past (green tea, Yerba mate, dandelion, chaga)...it never lasts. I love coffee. What I've been doing for the past couple of months is brewing half (or even three quarters) decaf, the rest regular. Vermont Coffee Company is my favorite.
8am
Smoothie with banana, about 2 cups frozen strawberries, a ton of spinach, and water as the base - Hattie drank about 1/3 of this, FYI.
2.5 hard boiled pastured eggs (they were huge eggs) with salt and pep (H stole the yolk out of one of the eggs).
This is how I usually roll when I have a smoothie for breakfast. Instead of adding protein powder, I typically have some type of real, whole food protein on the side. I love hard boiled eggs for this. We hear a lot that smoothies are easy to digest, but that isn't always the case. They can often be very problematic for people dealing with digestive distress. The act of chewing something (like these eggs) can help to strengthen the digestive process.
11am
Apple, beef/apple Epic bar, and small almond milk latte.
My breakfast was pretty small, so I was hungry again by 11am. I was at Breaking New Grounds getting some work done—I'm ferociously working on creating new content for an upcoming project and I knew I'd be posted up for awhile, so I had packed snacks. About that latte...I told you I'm bombing the whole no coffee thing! (You can see my thumb in the photo because I felt so awkward about taking a picture of my coffee that I did it really fast and clumsily.)
1:30pm
Salad from Tacomano: lettuce, black beans, salsa, veggies, guacamole
This place in Durham has got a Chipotle type vibe, so you know the drill. I typically don't eat animal protein when I'm dining out unless I know it's well sourced, so instead I opted for black beans. I shy away from grains most of the time, so chose potatoes instead of rice or quinoa. The potatoes were heavily cooked in oil and really weren't any good, so I picked them all off. The guac was legit and there was a lot of it, and the salad was overall pretty hearty. To be honest, I didn't feel awesome after eating it, so I probably wouldn't go back there again.
3:30pm
Pear, sprouted almonds—maybe about 1/4 cup?
6pm
Sauteed veggies cooked in coconut oil and homemade beef bone broth (I try to always have some type of bone broth in the fridge or freezer). Such a go-to side dish. Takes about 15 minutes in a skillet. Things move quicker if you add some liquid (like broth) and cover towards the end.
Roasted sweet potato (slipped out of its skin).
Roasted wild caught shrimp - tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and some crab seasoning from Maryland, roasted in oven at 425 for 10 minutes. This couldn't get any quicker or easier. If I find frozen wild caught shrimp at the market, I always grab it to keep on hand in the freezer. The package of shrimp was 12 ounces, and I split it pretty equally between myself and my husband.
We usually eat later than this, but my husband was home and things got going early. Since Hattie was awake when we ate (normally we wait until after she goes down), she poached some of my shrimp and veggies and about half my sweet potato. That thing was HUGE, though. I wasn't going to finish it. I've been trying to get in more carbohydrates, but I have a tendency to fill up on the protein and non starchy veggies first.
And some dark chocolate (always, every night).
8pm
Ginger tea with full fat coconut milk, small bowl raspberries with shredded unsweetened coconut, and sunflower seed butter.
A few random notes:
This was a rest day for me, meaning no workout. And since I sat in a coffee shop for a good portion of the day, I was much less active than normal—not much movement outside of some mobility exercises at night with the foam roller and massage ball. I do tend to eat more on more active days/days when I exercise.
I am currently breastfeeding a two year old, although not much. This increases my caloric need somewhat, but probably not very significantly.
I drank about 4.5 large mason jars of water.
If you'd like to see more stuff like this, let me know! Also know that you can follow along with me on Instagram, where I post lots of my meals (as well as the kiddo's)!
