May Goals: Food

For me, May is about food. I mean, to be perfectly honest, that is on my radar at all times. But specifically in May I have a few things I want to work on.

My main goal is to establish healthy eating habits. Don’t worry, I’m not going to become a health freak, gluten doesn’t scare me, I will still eat red meat. For me healthy eating means planning. It means not rushing out the door and not having a plan for lunch. I mainly want to focus on lunch because I feel like that is real weak spot for me.

To begin, I started by mapping out my week. A big obstacle for me is that I am very active and don’t often eat at home. I felt like mapping out my week to see what I was doing and when would really help me. Once I did this, I was able to see that on Tuesday I had bocce and would be eating pizza, on Thursday I could not bring my lunch to work because I had an early meeting and didn’t want to leave anything in my car for three hours, also breakfast would be provided at that meeting. This was actually a light week for me, so it was a good start to my meal planning.

Once I mapped out my week, I decided what I wanted to eat for each meal. I know that if I work out I am super hungry, so I planned larger breakfasts on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday I worked out but my meeting provided breakfast. On Monday I just ate oatmeal because I did not work out. I also like to have larger breakfasts on the weekends. My favorite breakfast food is eggs. (I know, duh.) I made eggs with a side of veggies for both of my make at home larger meals.

Breakfast: fried eggs with feta and hot sauce with a side of tomato, orange pepper and asparagus

For lunch, I decided I’d do some salads. I’m never super excited about salads, but they are healthy, easy and I know I can spruce them up with things I actually like. To prep, I bought lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, mini bell peppers and feta. I also wanted some protein so I planned to include chicken with each lunch. On Sunday I cooked up some chicken breast with a marinade that I chopped up and stuck in the refrigerator to add to my salads throughout the week. I also added chicken leftovers from a few of my dinners. On Thursday, since I could not bring my lunch I just went to parents house, which is a 2-minute drive from my office. I ate a tomato tart and had some turkey and cheese. I felt like those were good choices, but even as I ate these I noticed a big lack of vegetables in comparison to my other meals.

Lunch: salad with marinanted chicken, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and feta

For dinner, I basically always plan to eat chicken. This isn’t new, I love chicken. I especially love chicken thighs. The thighs are more flavorful, especially if you are eating the chicken as is, not burying it in sauce or anything like that. For Monday I made a delicious chicken thigh meal with tons of veggies and did some elbow pasta on the side to make it a little heartier. I always cook extra in case I need it for later this week. Tuesday was bocce and I ate pizza (again, this is OK with me, I just want to prepare myself). Wednesday, I went to Hardywood bocce but because I’m not the main person that night anymore I didn’t stay the whole time and was able to come home by 8:00 to cook myself some dinner. I used my leftover pasta and mixed in some pesto, then cooked up the rest of my chicken thighs and added some veggies. It was super quick and easy and still relatively healthy. Thursday I went to see the new exhibit at the VMFA, had some wine before the lecture and a few bites of cheese to tide me over. I came home and ate all my leftover chicken and veggies I had from both meals I already made this week.

So far I feel pretty good a few days into May and I think I have done pretty well. One thing I need to figure out are snacks. I was hungry before I went to Hardywood on Wednesday and ate some seaweed (I swear it’s good), but need to plan for those hunger attacks. I’m open to any advice on that!

#Food #Goals