I love to read blogs and watch YouTube channels. My favorites are those related to fitness, diet, tiny house living, minimalism, and gardening.
A common topic for fitness and diet blogs is, "What I ate today" and while it doesn't sound exciting, I always love to see what people are eating to stay healthy. Plus, I get questions all of the time about what I eat. Therefore, I decided to do my own blog post of what I typically eat in a day.
If you've been following my blog, you know that I'm tracking my food so that I can make sure I'm getting enough protein every day. It's been a challenge. It has required a change in mindset. For years, I've thought that I as long as I was eating a healthy plant-based diet, I was fine. Plants have protein.
And yes, they do. But after tracking my food for a couple of weeks, I've realized that I haven't been eating nearly enough to fuel the workouts I've been doing. It has been a work in progress and I'm learning to eat in a completely different way.
To clarify, I eat a mainly plant-based diet. I've added fish into my diet, as well as eggs, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheese. Otherwise, I eat plant-based proteins such as soy milk, vegan protein powder and protein bars, tofu, tempeh, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, and peanut butter. I also try to get at least 3-4 servings of vegetables every day, in addition to a couple of servings of fruit.
I tend to eat the same things throughout the week, so currently, I'm trying to find meal plans that meet my protein goals, as well as my carbs and fats, while still staying within my calorie range. Some days have been better than others, but it's getting easier and the app on my phone is so helpful. (I use Cronometer, if you're interested.)
I've also found it helpful to enter all of my foods for the day into the app the night before or the morning of; that way, I know exactly what I'm going to eat for the day and I can tweak things to make sure I'm meeting my goals.
Yesterday was a great day of eating. I stayed within my calorie range and got 143 grams of protein. I started the morning with a cup of black coffee, a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter, and my pre-workout drink. I can't work out fasted. I have to have something in my stomach. I wake up hungry most mornings, so if I try to work out without a pre-workout snack, my energy tanks and my stomach growls while I'm working out!
After my workout, I had a smoothie made with chocolate protein powder (currently I'm using Plant Head Protein Powder), 1 cup of unsweetened soy milk, 1 tbsp of ground flax seed, a big handful of spinach, a cup of frozen berries, and a cup of cold water.
For my mid-morning snack, I had an IQ Peanut Butter Chip protein bar.
Lunch consisted of a salad made with a can of tuna, a raw blend of kale, brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbage, and broccoli slaw, along with grape tomatoes and a miso and ginger vinaigrette.
My afternoon snack was plain greek yogurt mixed with vanilla Shakeology and a half cup of fresh blueberries.
Dinner was a quick throw-together because I'm taking a knitting class and needed a quick meal, and I was out of leftovers, so I scrambled two eggs, 1/3 of a cup of liquid egg whites, and added broccoli and spinach. I had two slices of whole grain toast on the side.
And, of course, I drink a ton of water throughout the day.
That's it! That's what I ate! But it's seriously a lot of food and I feel full and satisfied so far. Honestly, this is similar to what I was eating before, but I'm adding more protein to my breakfast and eating more protein-packed snacks, which I really wasn't doing before. Hmmm....maybe this is why by 5:00 I'd be starving and would want to eat all of the junk food in the pantry??
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