Take a Peek at a Healthy Eater's Meal Plan
By: Stepfanie Romine,
SparkPeople Blogger
4/24/2009 5:52 AM
: 146 comments
You've peeked inside our fridges, and we've spilled our secrets about exercising in public. Now we're going to let you take a peek at our meal plans.
On a recent blog, someone wanted to know what a typical day is like for a SparkPeople expert in terms of eating. I remembered to both track my food and photograph it twice last week so I could share it with you. Do we eat the same foods? Would you eat what I eat?
I tend to eat a big breakfast, a moderate lunch and a slightly larger dinner, with one or two snacks. I love vegetables and always eat those before eating anything else on my plate. I don't eat meat or white bread/pasta/etc. I sometimes track calories, and I generally stay between 1,600 and 1,900 calories, the recommended amount from the SparkPeople Nutrition Tracker. (Honestly I'm usually pressing the upper limit of that. I like to eat!) I practice yoga daily and take Spinning, run and/or walk a few times a week, so I'm pretty active. I'm good at eating only when I'm hungry, but I have a bad habit of grazing when I'm bored or stressed.
Take a look at what I ate:
7 servings of fruits and vegetables
9 cups of water
Breakfast: (9 a.m.) I always loved oatmeal, but Kath over at KathEats.com helped me elevate my oatmeal to a new level. Kath tops her oatmeal with all kinds of goodies. My favorite is almond butter and a banana with a bit of vanilla soymilk and cinnamon. Today I changed it up with eight roasted almonds (I buy raw, so I toasted these in the toaster oven while my oatmeal cooked) about 2/3 of an ounce of chocolate chips (a new topping for me--it was so decadent!) and a cup of strawberries.
This was like dessert for breakfast. I will stick with my banana and almond butter most days, but I liked this!
Lunch: (1 p.m.) During last night's Spinning class, I concocted a strange but thankfully tasty recipe: Broccoli and Cauliflower with Whole Wheat Pasta in a Honey-Lemon-Thyme Sauce, topped with Bleu Cheese. I had the leftovers today and added a scrambled egg for extra protein. (There was about 2 cups here, half veg and half pasta.)
Snack: About half an ounce of almonds and pecans. I wasn’t really hungry but wanted to eat something small around 4 p.m.
Dinner: (8 p.m.) I try to cook from scratch, but between yoga classes and teacher training, I've been short on time. I steamed sweet potatoes, added a can of black beans and a carton of Trader Joe's Latin Style Black Bean Soup and called it dinner. I added some avocado and two slices of multigrain bread from the bakery near my apartment. (I also drank a gulp of pomegranate kefir while dinner was cooking. I had just returned from the gym and was starving!
Snack 2: (10 p.m.) I was still a little hungry an hour after dinner and carving something sweet. I had a half-cup of plain nonfat yogurt with two tablespoons of real maple syrup (I didn't mean to have that much--I overpoured!) and about 1/4 cup of Grape-Nuts. It was sweet and tasty.
6 servings fruits and vegetables
9 cups of water
Breakfast: I usually eat breakfast at work, and four days out of five, it's oatmeal. I shop for produce at the farmers market and small shops at our public market on Saturdays, so we tend to be low on fruit and fresh vegetables on Fridays. Today I had a rather boring oatmeal/multigrain hot cereal mix with pecans (broken into pieces to stretch them) a bit of sugar (not necessary, I decided. I couldn't even taste it) and some soy milk. It ate at home because I had a meeting near my apartment. I was really thirsty when I woke at 6 for yoga, so I had 6 ounces of coconut water.
Lunch: I tried a new Healthy Choice meal, Sweet Asian Pot Stickers, with an extra half-cup of Harvest Hodgepodge vegetables from Trader Joes. I forgot to pack my lunch but thankfully the SparkPeople fridge and freezer are stocked with healthy food! This was better than I expected. I really liked it!
Snack: 1 medium banana with 1 T almond butter. I am allergic to peanuts, so almond butter is a staple for me. I usually buy the raw crunchy variety from Trader Joe's.
Dinner: I keep a can of almonds in the car for nights when I'm ravenous on the way home from the gym. The chili lime kind are tasty, and just a few (I think I ate three) tided me over until I got home. (It's only a 10-minute drive!) I ate leftovers from last night: more black bean/sweet potato soup with bread. That bagel you see under "dinner" is actually a bialy that I picked up at the bakery when I bought bread for the week. I ate it between breakfast and lunch. Eating breakfast at 8 instead of 9 made me hungry earlier.
Snack/Dinner 2: On Fridays I leave room for a fourth meal late at night. I go to the gym or have yoga training until at least 8, I eat a snack, then we meet friends for a drink or dinner. I tend to eat a small meal around 11. (I had falafel and a pint of Bell's Oberon!)
So that's what I ate. I don't track my food every day, but I do track fruits and vegetables. I usually eat 6-8 servings a day. My meal plan isn't "perfect" (I need to get more calcium most days), but I think it's pretty healthy!
Did you find this feature interesting? Would you like to see more features like this one? Is my meal plan anything like yours?
On a recent blog, someone wanted to know what a typical day is like for a SparkPeople expert in terms of eating. I remembered to both track my food and photograph it twice last week so I could share it with you. Do we eat the same foods? Would you eat what I eat?
I tend to eat a big breakfast, a moderate lunch and a slightly larger dinner, with one or two snacks. I love vegetables and always eat those before eating anything else on my plate. I don't eat meat or white bread/pasta/etc. I sometimes track calories, and I generally stay between 1,600 and 1,900 calories, the recommended amount from the SparkPeople Nutrition Tracker. (Honestly I'm usually pressing the upper limit of that. I like to eat!) I practice yoga daily and take Spinning, run and/or walk a few times a week, so I'm pretty active. I'm good at eating only when I'm hungry, but I have a bad habit of grazing when I'm bored or stressed.
Take a look at what I ate:
Thursday, April 16
7 servings of fruits and vegetables
9 cups of water
Breakfast: (9 a.m.) I always loved oatmeal, but Kath over at KathEats.com helped me elevate my oatmeal to a new level. Kath tops her oatmeal with all kinds of goodies. My favorite is almond butter and a banana with a bit of vanilla soymilk and cinnamon. Today I changed it up with eight roasted almonds (I buy raw, so I toasted these in the toaster oven while my oatmeal cooked) about 2/3 of an ounce of chocolate chips (a new topping for me--it was so decadent!) and a cup of strawberries.
This was like dessert for breakfast. I will stick with my banana and almond butter most days, but I liked this!
Lunch: (1 p.m.) During last night's Spinning class, I concocted a strange but thankfully tasty recipe: Broccoli and Cauliflower with Whole Wheat Pasta in a Honey-Lemon-Thyme Sauce, topped with Bleu Cheese. I had the leftovers today and added a scrambled egg for extra protein. (There was about 2 cups here, half veg and half pasta.)
Snack: About half an ounce of almonds and pecans. I wasn’t really hungry but wanted to eat something small around 4 p.m.
Dinner: (8 p.m.) I try to cook from scratch, but between yoga classes and teacher training, I've been short on time. I steamed sweet potatoes, added a can of black beans and a carton of Trader Joe's Latin Style Black Bean Soup and called it dinner. I added some avocado and two slices of multigrain bread from the bakery near my apartment. (I also drank a gulp of pomegranate kefir while dinner was cooking. I had just returned from the gym and was starving!
Snack 2: (10 p.m.) I was still a little hungry an hour after dinner and carving something sweet. I had a half-cup of plain nonfat yogurt with two tablespoons of real maple syrup (I didn't mean to have that much--I overpoured!) and about 1/4 cup of Grape-Nuts. It was sweet and tasty.
Friday, April 17
6 servings fruits and vegetables
9 cups of water
Breakfast: I usually eat breakfast at work, and four days out of five, it's oatmeal. I shop for produce at the farmers market and small shops at our public market on Saturdays, so we tend to be low on fruit and fresh vegetables on Fridays. Today I had a rather boring oatmeal/multigrain hot cereal mix with pecans (broken into pieces to stretch them) a bit of sugar (not necessary, I decided. I couldn't even taste it) and some soy milk. It ate at home because I had a meeting near my apartment. I was really thirsty when I woke at 6 for yoga, so I had 6 ounces of coconut water.
Lunch: I tried a new Healthy Choice meal, Sweet Asian Pot Stickers, with an extra half-cup of Harvest Hodgepodge vegetables from Trader Joes. I forgot to pack my lunch but thankfully the SparkPeople fridge and freezer are stocked with healthy food! This was better than I expected. I really liked it!
Snack: 1 medium banana with 1 T almond butter. I am allergic to peanuts, so almond butter is a staple for me. I usually buy the raw crunchy variety from Trader Joe's.
Dinner: I keep a can of almonds in the car for nights when I'm ravenous on the way home from the gym. The chili lime kind are tasty, and just a few (I think I ate three) tided me over until I got home. (It's only a 10-minute drive!) I ate leftovers from last night: more black bean/sweet potato soup with bread. That bagel you see under "dinner" is actually a bialy that I picked up at the bakery when I bought bread for the week. I ate it between breakfast and lunch. Eating breakfast at 8 instead of 9 made me hungry earlier.
Snack/Dinner 2: On Fridays I leave room for a fourth meal late at night. I go to the gym or have yoga training until at least 8, I eat a snack, then we meet friends for a drink or dinner. I tend to eat a small meal around 11. (I had falafel and a pint of Bell's Oberon!)
So that's what I ate. I don't track my food every day, but I do track fruits and vegetables. I usually eat 6-8 servings a day. My meal plan isn't "perfect" (I need to get more calcium most days), but I think it's pretty healthy!
Did you find this feature interesting? Would you like to see more features like this one? Is my meal plan anything like yours?
 You will earn 3 SparkPoints |
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Comments
I like how one blogger had a ratio of 1:1 veggies/pasta in the broccoli pasta dish. I started doing that with my dinners. It is much more filling:)
Thank you so much for this blog. I made slight changes to my eating plan and my calories decreased by about 500 per day! I can't wait to weigh-in on Sunday:) - 5/2/2009 11:54:45 AM
Great pictures by the way - 4/28/2009 11:21:44 PM
But even though I eat differently than Stepfanie, too, I'm glad she shared this with us. It's cool to get ideas from seeing what another healthy person eats. I'm going to HAVE to try the delicious almond-butter-banana oatmeal. - 4/28/2009 12:45:57 PM
Thank you:) - 4/28/2009 6:03:27 AM
I enjoyed the read, and would like everything you ate. Good meals. Yum.
My steel cut oatmeal cook ups always include fruit- apples, cranberries, yada yada- oh, and flax, cinnamon, nutmeg, and nuts. I l love my oatmeal concoctions. - 4/27/2009 1:34:52 AM
I love oatmeal as well - I eat it every morning with some frozen berries added - they defrost and help cool down the oatmeal! - 4/26/2009 5:00:15 PM
I like the food choices i make, and i love seeing what others are eating.
I do know that sometimes I will fall into a pattern... I"ll get creative for awhile with my cooking, then it will be a whole bunch of the same over and over..Good stuff, but nonetheless, makes it more exciting when you change it up with new ideas. - 4/26/2009 3:24:00 PM
I LOVE oatmeal for breakfast too!! I make mine with vanilla almond milk. Sooo good. :) - 4/26/2009 10:55:08 AM
Eating dinner at 8pm, was not. Unless you stay up until midnight.
I try to only have a snack of fruit after 6pm.
I'm a bit like BMORE73, I like my meat, and I don't digest raw veggies well.
If I get OUT I can stay away from snacking. I try to walk everyday but I hate the wind. (and a sailor I was)
I eat Oatmeal with rasions every-scond or third day, eggs with "bubble and squeez", that's precooked veggies and rice, and lean porkchop, is my prime breakfast, or veggie soup. Just gotta stay away from the toast and potatoes.
thanks for sharing. - 4/26/2009 5:05:34 AM
My meal plans contain meat because I'm not a veg. However, yours looked yummy and healthful! - 4/25/2009 10:46:03 PM
YUM! You diet suits me fine (not very fond of sugar).....which used to be almost the same as mine when I was a vegetarian, add to that an Indian meal every other day! Stay healthy !! - 4/25/2009 12:53:26 PM
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