Hello lovely people! I love posting recipes on here, but I thought I'd give you an idea of how all the food I eat, both home-cooked and not, integrates into my daily routine over the course of a week. Not every day looks the same; I think it's important to remember that you will likely crave different things on different days, but having a variety of meals and snacks on hand can help you be best prepared to listen to your body without spending a crap ton of cash. Meal prep, or cooking a big batch of something delicious ahead of time, is a huge part of how I ensure those meals and snacks are stocked up in my fridge at the start of a busy week. Having a few basics on hand like fresh or frozen fruits and veggies, cheese, yogurt, trail mix, snack bars, peanut butter, eggs, beans, pasta, rice, and bread can help fill in the gaps.

Fun foods like chocolate or chips, and tasty drinks you enjoy like wine or beer or soda are also good to keep around. Yep, a nutrition blog is telling you to keep "junk" food in the house. Allowing yourself to have these foods in the house will help you actually satisfy your cravings, and after a while, might just help you feel less out of control around the foods typically labeled as "bad."

Anyways, here's some of the meals and snacks I ate this week! I want to stress that just because I eat a certain way doesn't mean you should eat this way. I personally like the taste of whole grains, so choose that option often, and feel most satisfied when I have a balance of carbs, fat and protein in each meal or snack. I hope this gives you a few ideas to help you explore balance in what you eat!

Breakfast:

These awesome banana pancakes (made ahead and then toasted them). One day I topped them with honey and yogurt, and had side of blood oranges (PSA: only $2.49 for 2 lbs at Trader Joe's right now!!). Another day I took a few as I ran out the door.
Whole wheat toast with honey or jelly, eggs + cheese, and sumo oranges (that winter citrus… so good)
Whole wheat toast with peanut butter, grabbed a yogurt and a banana as I ran out the door

Lunch:

A random and delicious crockpot tortilla soup (I'm still perfecting the recipe but it had greens, two types of beans, chicken, tortillas, spices, olive oil, tomato and veggie broth), topped with crispy tortilla strips, avocado, and cheddar cheese
Southwest chopped salad mix from Trader Joe's with extra avocado
PB + J on whole wheat bread with apple slices (this was perfect for a day when I didn't have a lunch break)

Dinner:

Same soup and salad as above (I don't always like having the same thing for two meals in a day, but this soup and salad were dang good)
Steamed broccoli + roasted sweet potato + cheese, and a Lara bar to go (I literally had 5 min to eat this night, yikes. I was not super satisfied by this dinner, but sometimes life just gets in the way!)
Went out Friday and split a DELICIOUS margherita pizza and salad with my roommate

Snacks:

These PB Chocolate Chip Chickpea cookies (I count these more as a snack than a dessert, because they're not "real" cookies)
Lara bars
Trail mix
Cheese slices
TJ's pita bite crackers
Bananas, apples, or oranges
Those pancakes I also ate for breakfast!

Dessert:

TJ's salted dark chocolate almonds
Chocolate chips (cheap AF way to get your chocolate fix)

Drinks:

Water
Coffee with whole milk (mostly from home, but also bought an Americano twice this week)
Wine - a little bit of red, a little bit of white
Yogi Teas bedtime tea

Alright so that's been my week! I'm officially in need of some groceries now and have lots of homework to do the rest of this weekend. If you feel a bit stuck with cooking and meal prep, and are wondering how to do it in a way that facilitates Intuitive Eating, I really like this helpful blog post from Robyn Nohling.

Happy Eating!

A week of eats - January/ February