What I Eat In A Day

One of my post popular posts on this blog is my Deskside Lunches piece. As an update to this today I am sharing with you what I eat in an average day. Some of my favourite videos to watch and blog posts to read is 'What I Eat Wednesday's', so perhaps I could make that a feature on here? Let me know what you think?

As you can probably imagine I try to eat as healthy as possible in a normal day, but of course I’m not perfect. Today when I am writing this post I am hungover as hell and have eaten a slice of apple pie, a rocky road, a dark chocolate and pumpkin seed cake, a chicken wrap, three coffees and a plum. Like seriously, give yourself a break if you’ve eaten foods you’d prefer not to today. It’s OK! I believe you should always do what feels right for you, and today eaten a shit load of cake felt right for me!

Onto my food menu:

Breakfast

During the week breakfast is always the same for me: homemade granola with milk (normally whole dairy milk) and chopped banana. Occasionally I will add fresh berries if we have them or a squeeze of honey if I fancy something sweet. I will also drink a green tea or cappuccino from my Tassimo machine.

Lunch

The base for my lunch is always leaves – most often this is spinach but I also love baby kale, baby leaf mixed salad, rocket and massaged kale. To this I always add avocado (half, chopped into cubes), 1 carrot (chopped) and a 1/5 of a cucumber (chopped). That’s the very very basic salad. Then I will add protein: normally this is turkey but occasionally it will be feta, chicken or egg. Finally I add carbs; this changes quite a bit. Sometimes I opt for quinoa and make a big batch at the start of the week, but other days I’ll roast sweet potato and squash, use leftovers from dinner or make a big batch of hummus as add a tablespoon to my lunch box.

Snacks

I am a serial snacker and it’s something I’m trying to kick. I read in Amelia Freer’s wonderful book that snacking is actually really bad for our digestive systems. We are not supposed to have them in full-whack all day while we shovel more food in than we need. Healthy or non-healthy, snacks are not a required part of our diet and something I would love to phase out. Here is a list of some of my favourite snacks:

• Two clementine or one large orange
• Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples
• Plums and peaches (when in season)
• Kale chips
• Popcorn (usually from Propercorn which is sold at work)
• Raisins or dried cherries
• Seed and dried fruit mixes
• Hummus and vegetable sticks
• Banana and oat cookies
• Home made granola bars
• Raw cacao and seed bliss balls
• Or…. Chocolate. 

Dinner

This varies hugely day to day, but is more often than not plant based with additional protein. My dinners can range from a vegan black bean chilli with brown rice, through to sticky pork ribs with stir fried Chinese greens. I love cooking simple meals with plenty of flavours and textures. These are not restaurant dishes by any stretch of the imagination, but I like enjoying what I eat! I do experiment, but not outside of my comfort zone. For example, my boyfriend can eat rice with ANYTHING, but I can’t imagine eating rice with crispy fish, or having pasta with soy sauce, or mayo with an omelette.

I do repeat my favourite dishes, which is not something I used to do, and mostly look to creating ‘bowls’ now. I discovered the macro bowl on Pinterest and since then I have loved creating bowls that are packed with nutritious ingredients. These will always have a ‘grain’ base such as rice or quinoa, which is then surrounded with protein, veggies, sauces and greens. Here are a few of my favourite:

• Tropical Bowl: Pineapple or mango, jerk chicken, rice, guacamole, sweetcorn, bitter leaves
• Curry Bowl: Rice base with tandoori salmon pieces, carrot pancakes, peas with mint and chilli, onion chutney
• Mexican Bowl: Chile d’Arbol chicken, rice, guacamole, sweetcorn, black beans in chilli sauce, sour cream or yogurt dressing
• Chinese Bowl: Soy and ginger pork, rice or quinoa, edamame, raw spring onion and cucumber, steamed pak choi and choi sum and sesame seeds
• Morrocan Bowl: Quinoa, hummus, roasted carrots, beetroots, squash and red pepper, tzatziki, spinach

A few of my other staple dishes are fresher takes on the classics. For example I love courgetti/ zoodles and will often replace the wheat-base noodles or pasta with courgettes. An absolutely favourite dish in my house is cougetti with basil pesto, mixed seeds and fresh peas. Roasted in the oven with a little Parmesan, this dish is insanely good. We also love a big pot supper such as a curry, stew, soup, casserole or ragu.  These are easy to make and easily paired with greens, carbs or other proteins.

I hope this article was informative! If you would like me to do a ‘What I Ate Wednesday’ please let me know. I could also look at doing this as a video – branching out I know.

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