Sharing Mel’s Meals with you has been fun for me. It has helped me focus on eating a variety of foods and changing things up from week to week. Before, I would generally switch proteins, but not much else. Now I am trying new recipes to keep my meals from being BORING!
I made two new recipes from the October issue of Clean Eating magazine and enjoyed eating them this week. Donny & I also made pasta for dinner along with pesto shrimp… yum! Clean eating doesn’t have to be super intense or difficult. I try to stick to whole foods that have had minimal processing. My diet consists (especially recently) of a ton of vegetables, plus fruits, meats, eggs and whole grains.
If you have any questions about how I made any of these foods, then check out yesterday’s post Grocery Shopping & Meal Prep Week 20. If you have other questions then please reach out! Email me at eatliftplayrepeat@gmail.com, comment below or shoot me a Facebook message.
4:30am – Pre-workout:
Monday started same as always, with a liter of water. I drank half the liter plain and used the other half to mix with MusclePharm Assault, my pre-workout supplement. I also had one BCAA capsule pre-workout and one post-workout to help preserve muscle during my workout.
Personally, I like to have a little something to eat before an early morning workout but I don’t want to overdo it. I had 1/4 cup 1% cottage cheese mixed with three drops of vanilla crème liquid stevia (this stuff is expensive, but lasts forever!) and also 20 grams sliced banana. I like to have a little protein and also a few carbs before exercising first thing. The cottage cheese banana combo is perfect for me.
6:30am – Meal #1:
Breakfast was coffee and one slice of Ezekiel bread topped with 1/2 Tbsp almond butter and 1 tbsp homemade peach chia jam. I also had 6 scrambled egg whites with 50 grams broccoli, then a side of cottage cheese (1/4 cup) topped with 1 oz grape tomatoes and homemade “Everything Bagel” seasoning.
Lately I have been drinking my coffee black and actually enjoying it that way. In fact, I’ve been drinking it black since we got back from Portland and I like actually tasting the coffee. Weird, right?!
I meant to have 1 egg + 5 egg whites, but I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing and only did egg whites. By the time I noticed, the egg yolks were already in the trash. I really wanted one, but dumpster diving for egg yolks is not something I’m willing to do!
10:00am – Meal #2:
Breakfast #2, aka my mid-morning meal, was a Greek yogurt bowl. 6oz 2% Greek yogurt was mixed with 1/3 scoop MusclePharm Isolate protein (vanilla) then topped with 20 grams banana, 30 grams strawberry, 20 grams kiwi and 3/4 Tbsp cashew butter. SO good and a little tropical flavor going on.
12:30pm – Meal #3:
On the menu for lunch was 3/4 of a serving of recipe from Clean Eating magazine Braised Chickpeas with Sweet Potatoes (with some adjustments to the recipe). I topped that with 1 Tbsp toasted pine nuts and also had 1.5oz green beans and 3oz chicken breast.
4:00pm – Meal #4:
My mid-afternoon meal was a serving of the Loaded Beef Gyro Bowl from Clean Eating magazine. Each bowl was roughly 4 oz beef (measured before cooking) plus red onion, 1/2 cup spinach, 45 grams cucumber, 1 oz grape tomatoes and 50 grams bell peppers. Each bowl came out to just under 200 calories with 24 grams protein.
200 calories is a little less than I like to have per meal, so I added 1/2 serving (0.9oz) pistachios (measured in shell).
6:30pm – Meal #5:
I had planned to make pumpkin French toast for dinner, but we realized we didn’t have maple syrup. We decided to wait and instead made pasta! I had 3.5 oz shrimp (measured cooked) mixed with 25 grams pesto. We had Ancient Harvest Gluten Free Lentil & Quinoa Pasta in the pantry, so I made 1 oz of pasta (measured before cooking) and topped that with 2 Tbsp marinara.
Along with pasta and shrimp, I had a giant spinach salad. 1 cup spinach was topped with 1 oz grape tomatoes, 30 grams raw baby carrots, 1 oz snow peas and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I also added roughly 1 tsp fresh grated parmesan cheese.
Well, that was everything I ate throughout Monday, from start to finish! I ended the day consuming 163 grams protein (3 over my goal), 117 grams carbohydrate (3 under my goal) and 48 grams fat (5 under my goal). I like to keep my numbers +/- 5 grams per macronutrient, so this still fits. My calories came out right around 1,550.
If you have questions about how I prepared these foods then comment below, send me a Facebook message or email me at eatliftplayrepeat@gmail.com.
What healthy meal(s) did you prepare this week?
