Hello, everyone and happy Tuesday, sorry for pushing this post back a day but I had to celebrate National Pack Your Lunch Day yesterday (click here for —-> tips on packing your lunch)! Last week I challenged myself to focus on making balanced meals. As I explained in the challenge post, some days I end up eating really low carb, almost on auto pilot. Although in the past low carb was a good diet strategy for me, I don’t really need to be going as low as I do some days. So last week I wanted to pay attention to making well balanced meals throughout the week. Let’s see how I did!
Monday
Breakfast- Cranberry Date Quinoa Breakfast Bar (slathered with sun butter and drizzled with honey)
Lunch- Salad with lettuce, shredded red cabbage, sprouts, deli turkey and skinny bbq dressing
Dinner- Sweet potato stuffed with spinach and hot italian chicken sausage
Tuesday
Breakfast- Green Chile and Cheese DIY Frozen Breakfast Burrito
Snack- Banana and Sun Butter
Lunch- Salad with lettuce, shredded red cabbage, sprouts, deli turkey and balsamic dressing
Dinner- Sweet potato stuffed with spinach and hot italian chicken sausage and side of Brussel Sprouts
Wednesday
Breakfast- Cranberry Date Quinoa Breakfast Bar (slathered with sun butter and drizzled with honey)
Snack- muscle milk
Lunch- Asparagus and Leek Fritatta (recipe coming soon)
Dinner- Tuna Melt
Thursday
Breakfast- Cranberry Date Quinoa Breakfast Bar (slathered with sun butter and drizzled with honey)
Snack- banana
Lunch- Salad with lettuce, spinach, deli turkey, and goat cheese, baggy of carrots
Snack- muslce milk
Dinner- looks gross but random—> some shrimp stir fry I made for lunch on Friday and leftover cranberry jalapeño chicken meatballs
Friday
Breakfast- sun butter and banana, I also had a muscle milk
Lunch- shrimp stir fry
Dinner-The BEST homemade refried beans with chips and half a grilled cheese sandwich
Self Analysis
Looking back through my photos I think I did a pretty good job at including high quality carbohydrates like whole grains, sweet potatoes, or beans for at least 2 meals and one snack per day. Considering what I’m used too I’m pretty happy with that! For all you fellow chronic low carb people out there you are probably wondering if I gained weight and the answer is no. In fact I snacked less at night than I have in 6 months or longer, I just didn’t have the cravings for sugar like I normally have. I didn’t record EVERYTHING I ate either. I usually snack on pistachios, baby carrots, muscle milk, or cheese and often times I thought to myself “Oh I’ll take a picture of this later”…not sure why I thought that because most times it didn’t happen. That being said, there wasn’t much I missed, most of what I ate is there in the collages (as ugly and unappetizing as some of it looks). I also relied a little to much on muscle milk to get adequate amounts of protein in. I often focus in on protein and fat because I know that will keep me full, adding in carbs made it difficult for me to find ways to get the amount of protein in that I’m aiming for. All and all it worked out pretty well, I think I had less cravings, more energy, and better healing time from my work outs. Those are all wins in my book! What about you? I’d love to hear about your tries at balancing your meals???
Questions of the day:
What is one food habit you have on autopilot you would like to change?
What is your favorite meal of the day?
Hard tie between breakfast and dinner, but I could honestly care less about lunch. Breakfast I love because I love the food, I love the beginning of the new day, I love coffee… Dinner because I love the end of the day where I can relax for a second with the hubby. So I guess if I have to choose then I chose dinner with the hubby (even though I prefer breakfast food a little better.)
Leave a Reply