WIAW Real Food Challenge

Hi friends!  Happy Hump Day!  First up, I wanted to share our meal prep from last Sunday.  For Mr. Hungry I made my maple mustard pork tenderloin but with chicken thighs.  Here is how I changed the recipe to work with chicken thighs:

1. doubled the sauce (I had 3lbs boneless chicken thighs)
2. skipped browning the meat
3. skipped adding apples
4. omitted the potatoes

and here was the final product!

For my lunches, I made Collard Green Detox wraps which are on this week’s Real Food Challenge meal plan!  I added grilled chicken to up the protein content (this change was in the meal plan as well.) I also skipped the cabbage because the old wise tail says it can dry up your breastmilk.  I think that’s only if you put cabbage directly on your breast, but since I don’t have a huge supply, I’m not taking any chances.

I also wanted to share how I adapted this weeks meal plan to fit my needs.  What I did was cross of meals that I wasn’t going to make then I crossed off the ingredients that went with those meals.  I also made a few swaps and substitutions, like subbing brown rice for quinoa (I had brown rice packets in the fridge).

WTE Members can always ask about substitutions in our facebook group if they have questions!  For example, I’m still having oats for breakfast, but I’m following the recipe exactly. The last thing I did was make a list of what to meal prep and what needed to come out of the freezer when.

I created the meal plans to be a template for healthy eating, not something you stress about following exactly.  Instead, they are meant to be a tool to take most of the work out of healthy eating every week.  You don’t have to search Pinterest to come up with a meal plan every week, and you will always have variety.  However, you can make substitutions where needed to fit your needs!

Okay, so I thought I’d share what I ate on Monday for the first day of the What To Eat? Meal Plan Real Food Challenge.  Spoiler alert: I was not perfect, and I did not follow all the rules.  I did what felt right for me as a nursing mama.  If you want to join the challenge you can jump in at any time,  just sign up for a monthly or annual meal plan over at What To Eat? Meal Plans!  Here are more details on the challenge!

Breakfast

So we didn’t have the best or the worst night with the little man, we were up every 2 to 3 hours, and he was ready to start the day at 7:20 AM.  I had half of a Starbucks Flat White in the fridge leftover from Sunday, so I added 6 ounces of regular Keurig coffee to that plus 2 scoops of collagen.  I would not consider collagen “real food” at all.  However for me getting enough protein is hard enough throughout the day so I decided to keep the collagen!

For breakfast, I made overnight oats in a leftover almond butter jar.  I loosely followed the recipe for the almond butter oatmeal in this weeks plan meal plan, but I also used what I had on hand.  I swapped chia seeds for the hemp seeds and blueberries for the bananas.

That is the thing about the meal plans. They should be a template for healthy eating to make your shopping list and meal planning easier.  They aren’t meant to be something you stress about following.

In the oats were almond butter, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1/2 cup oats, and 1/2 cup blueberries.  I didn’t finish the oats, I got busy with the baby and forgot to eat the last few bites.  Whoops!

Around 11 am the baby was enjoying his “swing nap” that he takes midday.  I swaddle him up and bring out his sound machine, and he usually sleeps 1-3 hours this way.  Sometimes he wakes up and hangs out a bit then goes back to sleep.

I make sure to sit right by him the whole time on the recliner next to his swing. First I pump then I work on the computer for a bit.

While he was sleeping, I pumped and drank some lactation tea. I’m loving this one from Gaia herbs right now, it seems to have stronger ingredients than the other ones I’ve seen.

Lunch

Around 11 am I ate a collard green detox wrap for lunch, which was so yummy! I love it with the grilled chicken!

Afterward, I was feeling kind of snacky, so I ate some pumpkin seeds (also on this weeks plan as a snack.)

I’ll be 100% honest. I also ate a Hershey’s kiss that I did not photograph, so that was technically a real food fail, but I’m not gonna lose sleep over it.  The idea is to eat as much real food as possible, not beat myself up for having a treat.  I did recognize that I was probably tired from the long night up with the babe which is why I was craving sweets.  So, after nursing and playing a while, we headed out on a refreshing walk.

Walks are going better (he is a car seat hater through and through), he cried at the beginning and the end (when I snapped this photo), but he slept the rest of the 45-minute walk.

KJ was pretty fussy the rest of the afternoon, so it was kind of a blur, but at some point (I think around 4 pm) I ate an apple that I did not photograph because I ate it one-handed, then I went back for a few pieces of white cheddar.

Dinner

I realized I was still pretty hungry but wanted to go on a run when Mr. Hungry came home, so I didn’t want to eat anything too heavy.  I ended up eating a half a banana with a small smear of peanut butter pre-run around 4:15 pm.  When I got back, I thought dinner would be ready but turns out the chicken wasn’t done despite being in the instant pot for 10 minutes plus an hour on warm.  Plus the sweet potatoes weren’t done despite being in the oven for an hour.  So that kind of sucks, but my fault because I wasn’t paying attention. So, I drank a chocolate protein shake, restarted the instant pot, and put the potatoes in the microwave.

Finally, while Mr. Hungry was putting the baby down for the night, I ate dinner around 7 pm.  (We’ve been working on getting KJ to bed earlier which is a good thing.) This chicken stuffed sweet potato recipe from the challenge was delicious!  I only ended up eating half of it though because I was still pretty full from the protein shake.

The end!  Let me know if you guys like these types of posts!