Day in the Life: Mel’s Meals is a weekly post showing you exactly what I eat throughout the day. You do not have to eat just like me, but I want to show you some of the healthy, clean eating meals that I throw together. I honestly don’t spend a lot of time cooking. I cook breakfast and dinner if I have the time, but sometimes it is a throw-it-in-a-bowl-and-call-it-dinner type of meal (aka my dinner below).
Clean eating and choosing healthy foods doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming, so I am here to help give you ideas for quick meals that are good for you. Check out yesterday’s Grocery Shopping & Meal Prep Week 7 post to see a little more detail about how I prepared these foods.
I am not kidding when I say I love to talk about food! Please feel free to ask me anthing… whether it be about my pre & post-workout supplements or how I cooked those dang Brussels sprouts to make them delicious, feel free to shoot me an email, Facebook message, or comment below.
Alright, well here is everything I ate and drank on Monday. I ended up with 5+ liters of water (1 right off the bat and 4 1/3ish throughout the day). Just so you know, I drink a TON of water and go to the bathroom all. the. time. I definitely like the way being hydrated makes me feel though, so it’s worth it.
4:30am Pre-Workout:
I started the day as usual, drinking 1 liter of water. Half of the liter I drank plain and the other half I mixed with 1 scoop MusclePharm Assault (fruit punch), my pre-workout supplement. I had 1 BCAA capsule pre-workout and another post-workout.
For a little snack, I had 1 Cocoa & Vanilla Protein Flapjack from Graze.com. Graze is a subscription box that delivers healthy snacks to your door. I don’t subscribe anymore, but still have some leftover flapjack packages (their version of a granola bar). These are not the most clean snacks, but I hate to throw them all away and they provide me with a lot of carbs for my workout.
6:30am – Meal #1:
Breakfast was a veggie egg-white scramble. It was made with 1 cup mustard greens, 50 grams zucchini and 4 egg whites. I cooked an additional egg over-easy and put that on top as well. On the side I had 1 slice Top Seed Organic Bread with 1 Tbsp homemade strawberry chia jam and 25 grams sliced banana. I also had one cup of coffee with a little stevia in it (1/3 packet or so). I thought I really wanted coffee, but only ended up drinking about 1/2 a cup.
10:00am – Meal #2:
Back to yogurt parfaits mid-morning! Safeway had Greek yogurt on sale, so it seemed necessary to buy multiple containers and eat it this week. Plus, I love them. I combined 1/3 scoop MusclePharm Combat Protein Powder in the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor with 6oz 2% Greek yogurt. I topped that with 25 grams sliced banana. I packed a snack-sized Ziploc baggie with 1 tsp hemp hearts, 1/2 Tbsp cacao nibs, and 0.33oz dry roasted, unsalted peanuts (chopped up). I poured the mixture over the yogurt just prior to eating. Easy and delicious!
1:00pm – Meal #3:
I had a haircut appointment at noon so I ate lunch afterwards at my desk. I had one burger patty made with 93% lean ground beef and whole wheat bread crumbs. I’d made these several weeks ago and put 4-5 patties in the freezer. I pulled four out to use for meal prep this week. I also had 3oz Brussels sprouts, 50 grams broccoli and 25 grams of carrots. I had roughly 1/3 cup 1% cottage cheese on the side with 1.5oz grape tomatoes and pepper.
4:00pm – Meal #4:
My mid-afternoon meal was a chicken salad. I had roughly 2 cups spring mix greens topped with the following: 5oz chicken (boneless, skinless), 1 tsp pepitas, 1 tsp sunflower seeds, 1/2 oz broccoli slaw, 2 Tbsp cooked quinoa, and 1 tsp crumbled bleu cheese. Donny made a salad similar to this (I modified it slightly) for a catering job last weekend. We had some of the ingredients leftover so I used them for meal prep!
6:45pm – Meal #5:
I REALLY struggled with dinner. Donny & I decided after work to do some yard work. After we were done, he threw together a quick dinner while I was filling him in on my day and then he left to return his dad’s mower. I sat with the doors of the refrigerator open for probably 2 minutes just staring, which is a long time when you think about it! I then got eggs out. Then decided I didn’t want eggs. So I got yogurt out. Then decided I didn’t want yogurt. I got a package of pork out of the freezer that I had cooked and saved for busy nights. I then put that back because I didn’t want pork. I got cereal out but decided I didn’t want cereal. I’m not exaggerating…I was a disaster. I wasn’t overly hungry (probably because of the heat) and nothing sounded good or bad to me. I ended up getting the pork BACK OUT of the freezer and throwing together a veggie bowl with pork and quinoa. Hahaha it was quite the debacle. I ended up defrosting the pork and eating 3oz of it (the cooked weight) and giving the rest to Kevin (Donny had taken Dougie Fresh with him). I added 50 grams Brussels sprouts, 50 grams zucchini, and 1/3 cup cooked quinoa to the bowl too. Then topped that with Sriracha and 1/2 tsp sesame seeds. Wow. So much debate went into dinner for me to just throw together my go-to meal! Geeze….
I still had some macros to play around with after dinner so I made some dessert! I melted 1 tsp coconut oil in a saute pan over medium heat. I sliced a small-medium sized banana (88 grams total) and sprinkled it with cinnamon and a touch of stevia. I added the banana to the pan cinnamon-side down and then sprinkled the other side with cinnamon too. I let that cook about 3-4 minutes on each side to “caramelize” a little. I removed them from the pan and drizzled 1/2 Tbsp cashew butter on top. It ended up being really good and it was SUPER easy!
Well that was everything for today’s Day in the Life: Mel’s Meals. I ended up drinking 5+ liters of water (I ended up drinking 1/4 or so after I got home from work, which I don’t usually do). I was one gram under my protein goal at 159 grams, 2 over my carb goal at 122 grams, and 2 over my fat goal with 55 grams. Remember, macro values are unique to each individual. Your macros should not (and will not) match mine most likely because we have different bodies and different fitness/eating goals. If you want to know more about tracking macros then let me know!
What was your favorite healthy meal so far this week?
