Three meals, two snacks and a shake

What does a full day of eating look like for me during the week? Three straight meals, two snacks and a protein shake.

If you’ve been checking out my “What I Ate Wednesday” posts for the past few weeks, you may notice I’m a creature of habit. While my meals are colorful and include all the food groups, I pick and choose from a handful of healthy go-to items and combinations.

You may think this looks routine and boring, but it’s actually a lot of variety for me. In fact, I used to eat a peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich for lunch every.single.day up until a few months ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been health conscious, but it wasn’t until transitioning into a full-time fitness professional that I really started to understand the importance of eating real and quality food as energy and fuel, rather than relying on a lot of packaged items.

Now, here’s a look at everything I ate yesterday, which was a typical workday at the gym.

Breakfast: 5:30 a.m.

Overnight oats, topped with a banana and cinnamon. Green tea, sweetened with stevia and almond milk. This week, I made my overnight oats with some new gluten-free rolled oats I found at Trader Joes, which are heartier than my previous brand.

Snack: 9:45 a.m.

Cottage cheese, topped with crushed almonds. I love this snack combination. I bring the almonds in a little baggy and crush them up with the bottom of my water bottle in the break-room at work. It’s always a good way to wake up sleepy trainers mid-morning.

Post-workout: 12:15 p.m.

Protein shake. With water, I mixed one large scoop of Muscle Milk Light Vanilla Creme powder, which includes whey protein, 100 calories, 12 grams of protein and 7 grams of carbs. It’s the perfect recovery beverage after a one-hour resistance workout.

Lunch: 2 p.m.

Salad. This salad is a catch-all of some leftovers from our usual Sunday taco night. Grilled chicken, black beans, cherry tomatoes, grilled peppers and cabbage over some spinach leaves. I topped it with some balsamic dressing.

Snack: 5 p.m.

A fresh fuji apple and some trail mix. This trail mix has seeds, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, cranberries and all sorts of goodness. And yes, I have an apple slicer to make those pieces look so even.

Dinner: 8 p.m.

Veggie pasta delight. Delicious. Colorful. Perhaps my favorite home-cooked meal. I made this using my spiralizer. Did you catch my post on how to make zucchini noodles? That’s the same recipe I used here. Basically, it’s zucchini and squash noodles, topped with spinach, cabbage and tomatoes that were sauteed in coconut oil, as well as some pasta sauce and a couple of hearty turkey meatballs. I could eat this every single night.

I followed up dinner with a few swigs of almond milk straight from the carton. Because sometimes, that’s how I roll.

Happy Wednesday, my friends. I hope your week is going well.

Do you like recap posts featuring the things that I eat?

If so, check out my previous posts, all of which are hosted by the “What I Ate Wednesday” creator: Peas and Crayons.

1. A full day of eating in pictures
2. Another full day of my eats and drinks
3. Real food isn’t always pretty
4. Do you have a balanced dining out strategy?
5. What I ate and drank all day

Questions of the day

Do you eat the same things every day or prefer variety? What’s your favorite snack food?