What Do You Eat?
Candice Garlow
Member Rank ✭3✭
in Nutrition
Hello all! I’m curious as to what our AFS practitioners eat on a daily basis? My days pretty much consist of:
Breakfast: two eggs, toast and coffee
Lunch: Usually leftovers from dinner. For example, Spaghetti with meat sauce was lunch today.
Dinner: last nights dinner was an Italian sausage link, red, green, and yellow peppers with onions sautéed in olive oil, rice, and a fruit cup.
I count calories, and try to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I can. Also, I drink LOTS of water.
Comments
My go-to's:
Breakfast;
Greek yogurt+ cottage cheese+ granola
or
Oatmeal+greek yogurt+granola+whey
Lunch:
Lean pockets (yes, you read that right. You can refer to this post here if you want more information lol)
Leftovers from dinner
Subway if I forget lunch (maybe once every other week on average)
Dinner:
Usually consists of one of the following proteins, carbs, and vegetables
Protein: Boneless skinless chicken breast; extra lean ground beef or turkey; salmon
Carb: potatoes; ready rice; corn
Vegetables: Broccoli; onions; peppers; salad; spinach; mushrooms; asparagus
Method of prep varies but is always simple. Usually the protein is baked with sides, or part of a stir-fry or tacos if doing beef/turkey
Snacks: Apples; bananas; tortilla chips+salsa; mixed nuts
Over the weekend we will normally either eat out/order in once, or warm up a pizza once. More to save money than for anything "diet" or health related. Eating out is expensive man.. lol
I also usually have some ice cream once a week on average.. not because there is a rule I set for myself, that's just usually how often I "go for it". Sometimes twice a week, sometimes none.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
I actually graze a little bit until lunch because I get up around 6 AM and don't usually eat lunch until about 1 or 2 PM. I also don't wake up feeling hungry so I listen to my internal hunger cues to tell me when to eat!
I always start the day with coffee and water. Once I feel hungry, I'll eat a protein bar (Lemon ThinkThin bars and One brand Blueberry Cobbler or Maple Donut are my favorite right now). Then I typically snack until lunch. Quantity is dependent on how hungry I feel. I usually pack some type of fruit, vegetable, and a carb/something salty. I'll eat things like: carrots and hummus, cucumbers, apples, bananas, oranges, pretzels, salted almonds, and goldfish.
Lunch is always leftovers from the night before. I keep "emergency" black bean burgers in the freezer for nights we when may eat it all or there isn't enough leftover for both my husband and myself.
Dinner is pretty simple during the week. We get adventurous from time to time but our go to dinners this time of year are:
Hey @Candice Garlow ! Thank you for asking this question : ) From the looks of it, you are challenging yourself to have more structure with your eating habits and from experience I know thats not easy. To answer your question, M-F are pretty great for me, mainly because I have a routine down... and this didn't happen overnight. This took a lot of time, commitment and hardship to develop this routine and to stick to it.
Breakfast #1 (6ish am) - 3 whole eggs (scrambled or fried) on a tortilla, cup of coffee (there may be a few of these throughout the day haha).
Breakfast #2 (9am)- overnight oats with either cranberries or raisins.
Snack #1 (12-1pm)- protein shake (after workout).
Lunch - (2-3pm) 4 oz of chicken with some sort of vegetables (depends what papa joes has that catches my eye lol), greek yogurt.
Snack #2 (5-6pm) - cliff bar (white choc macadamia nut is my fav!), banana.
Dinner (7-8pm) - my wife cooks and its a variety of different things, but usually pretty nutrient dense.
Snack #3 (sometime before bed)- love to have another greek yogurt with granola, or I may have another banana with some peanut butter on it!
(I have the lamest taste buds, so I can pretty much eat the same thing and never get bored lol)
(try to drink 60-70oz of water throughout the day, but fall short) I feel I should mention that sometimes delicious snacks present themselves and I indulge. But I try to keep it to moderate servings.
Then there is Sat-Sun..... and thats all I can say about that.... lol. Something that I have been challenging myself with though. I don't have a lot of structure those days. I just have so much going on that I lose track. And yes, thats an excuse because I always have a lot going on. So, I'll continue to challenge myself on the weekends and slowly get better.
Below are some of my go tos =)
Breakfast- Something really quick- Protein shake, apple, cheese stick, BCAAs
Lunch- Chicken breast, low fat cottage cheese, crackers, bagged salad
Dinner- Salad, pasta with chicken breast, taco/burrito w/ chicken, beans, low fat cheese and salsa.
Snacks- Low fat cottage cheese and crackers, protein shakes, fruit, popcorn
Guilty pleasures- ICE CREAM ❤ microwave warm up meals, tortilla chips and queso, and basically everyother good tasting food =)
@Candice Garlow, this is such a neat question to ask! Thanks for asking. Rather than tell you what I eat (because I don't think it's that interesting and it's very similar to a lot of what's listed above), I'd rather provide a short commentary on looking too closely at what a bunch of fitness professionals eat (or do in general).
I think it's very common for many people to look at what "in-shape" fitness professionals eat (or do for exercise for that matter) and want to know more about it. It make sense on some level; we're fit, we have knowledge, and it might be easy to glean insight from looking at our habits. I think there is certainly some usefulness to doing so. At the same time I think it's important to exercise caution in looking too closely at a fitness professional's dietary habits and trying to mimic them too closely. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, many of us have very active jobs (being on the workout floor for hours a day, sometimes burning upwards of 1000 extra calories per day just because of our jobs). Secondly, we have workout time literally built into our day. The average fitness professional probably works out 4-8 hours per week (if not more). Considering both of those items there, we have a lot more flexibility to consume more calories (and even less healthy calories) because we expend so many calories during our day.
The next factor that is very important to consider is environment (on multiple fronts). The first environmental factor to consider is we're in a very healthy environment for most of our day (when we're at work). Secondly, many fitness professionals are either not married or don't have young kids at home. Even if they're in a relationship and/or have kids, they're likely to be in a relationship with a someone who also values fitness and healthy eating. Collectively this means their home environment is very conducive to eating healthier more often. So environmental factors really set fitness professionals up for success in terms of their nutrition (and other health habits).
I say all this to just throw caution to the wind of anyone emulating a fitness professional's lifestyle, diet, or exercise regime too closely. Keeping that in mind, when you look back through the above thread, find what little nugget or two could work in your lifestyle and pull that out and try to implement it. Basically try it on for size and see how it fits. Don't worry about trying to replicate anything too specifically. It's not that anyone can't do so, they certainly could if they wanted. It just tends to not be very realistic (or even advisable) to implement wholesale eating changes similar to the dietary pattern of a fitness professional for the reasons I laid out above.
Michael E. Stack, BS CFP CSCS*D CPS
AGENT OF CHANGE, CEO, & Exercise Physiologist
That is a great point, @Mike Stack!
@Candice Garlow, I, for one, am not a huge fan of emulating what specific foods I eat in order to stay "in shape" or "fit". I do however, feel that giving you some concepts that I like to follow with each of my meals throughout the day may help provide some guidance. This is now way, shape or form a "meal plan" but rather a few questions that I like to ask myself every time I sit down to eat a meal.
Question 1: Do I have a source of protein? Whether that comes from an animal source (like eggs, yogurt, beef, chicken, fish, etc) or from a vegetarian source (tofu, lentils, etc.) I always want to ensure that there is some sort of protein source with each meal that I have to help me recover and build muscle (not to mention help keep me full, for more on that, there is a great article that talks about the benefits of protein here https://afs.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/162/what-are-good-protein-bars-and-shakes#latest)
Question 2: Do I have a serving of carbohydrates? Contrary to popular belief, I am a huge fan of having a quality complex carbohydrate to help keep my energy levels high, and my recovery on point (for more info, check out this link here https://afs.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/171/are-carbs-healthy)
Question 3: Do I have some veggies somewhere on this plate? Veggies provide a huge micronutrient benefit that we may not get from various protein sources or complex carbohydrates. These foods are also low in calorie so it allows me to hit a point of satiety while tricking my brain into thinking I am eating a boat load of food (have you ever seen the containers of lettuce at Kroger, that entire container is 1 serving!!!!)
That is how I go about eating for each day. As far as timing, it all depends on what I have going on for the day and what my schedule looks like. However, I know if I can answer yes to each one of these questions, I am in pretty good shape as far as food is concerned!
I hope that this helps out a little bit :)
Chris Eskin
Actually I understand @Candice Garlow 's question and curiosity. I'm always curious about what fitness people eat, do they really like tofu, do they have any easy meals or snacks that I can add to my repertoire, do they have the same cravings I do, do they still eat a burger and fries once in a while, and do they feel guilty about it?
I'm not as interested in emulating what fitness professionals eat, because I figure their job is to be fit, including eating a certain way in order to achieve it.
My job is just to be as healthy as I can be and work on not making myself miserable with guilt when I stumble in my attempt! :)
Yeah it's a balancing act here. I think there is nothing wrong with being curious about the foods others' eat and perhaps thinking of incorporating some of the things that you haven't thought of yourself. That said, emulation is obviously not the goal, just some learning/idea generation.
Great thread all around here.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator