So You Wish You Were Skinnier: 3 Main Meals

Happy Monday off everybody! So glad we were able to get a long weekend!

Let’s cut to the chase. You want to be skinny. You eat really really healthy for a few days, do an amazing workout and are committed to having the perfect body. You are constantly thinking about what you put in your body, counting calories, and feeling like you have to work out more. Then after a couple days, you kind of give up and binge. This pattern repeats. Work out, binge, work out, binge, workout, binge. All your efforts have now been reversed and what was the point? But if you stop eating or cut out lots of your favorite sweets, you’ll be happy… right? You’ll finally feel confident? Wrong! I KNOW THE FEELING! I skip breakfast, wait 20 minutes, and check myself in the mirror… thinking I’ll now have a flat stomach and cinched waist. The girls you see with the impeccable bodies… They either have an insane metabolism or they just don't eat. Isn’t it tiring to be preoccupied with calories, stressed about weight gain or loss, and constantly feeling unsatisfied. First off, please read this post on body image. I talk about my own body insecurities and more tips on how to build your own self confidence when it comes to your figure. This post, however, will be more focused on reshaping how you view food and how my eating patterns and food choices allow me to maintain the figure I want WITHOUT dieting.

My mindset: Balance

Yes, I love dessert and junk food, I mean who doesn’t. I do have a high metabolism but for some reason, I feel like I have to be careful about what I eat nonetheless. I eat healthy meals: a solid breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Knowing that I eat the three primary meals allows me to carelessly enjoy some carb heavy snacks throughout the day and dessert each night. Dieting implies that you might try some restricted food plan for a given amount of time and resort back to your old habits of eating. To me, eating healthy isn’t dieting, it’s self care and fueling my body with clean meals. What's more effective is establishing a more realistic and sustainable way of eating that can be incorporated permanently into your lifestyle.

Part 1 (this post): Lunch, Breakfast, and Dinner

Part 2: Snacking

Part 3: Dessert

Main Meals: Making a real effort to eat full, main meals throughout the day is probably my overarching tip for you. Snacks are great for a little recharge or pick me up but you can not rely on snacking your way through the day. Hearty meals will keep you feel satisfied and are essential to providing your body with the nutrition that you need. Sometimes we give into the fast food and junky meals because it tastes better than a salad. This might be true but healthy food can taste DELICIOUS, if you’re following the right recipes. I’ll present to you some simple and general meal ideas. Here are a few sites that make for more elevated and healthy meals: Epicurious, The Spruce Eats, Half Baked Harvest, The New York Times

Breakfast

• This post I wrote a few months ago details my top healthy and quick breakfast favorites! Also, I wanted to add that for breakfasts, I love to eat a lot of fresh fruit: oranges, apples, strawberries, black berries, blueberries, kiwis, grapefruit. Make yourself some eggs or do a full bowl of fresh fruit! It’s ok to eat pancakes, french toast, or a sugary cereal a few days a week... let yourself eat the yummy and sweet morning delicacies that make you happy!

Lunch:

I am a big salad girl! I feel most healthy when I eat a yummy salad with fresh vegetables and a delicious dressing.

• SALADS: Caesar, Cobb, Chinese Chicken, BBQ, Italian Chop, etc

• Other lunch options include soups (with winter bean, lentils, peas, red pepper, carrot), hummus and avocado in a veggie wrap, tuna melt, egg salad or tuna salad on crackers.

Dinner:

Healthy food can taste delicious. Even better than greasy pizza and other fast food. My mom has used the same approach for cooking healthy dinners for my entire life: protein, grain, vegetable. I’ll share a bunch of options for each category and you can mix and match to create a ton of different meals

• Protein: Chicken breast, Chicken Wingettes, Pulled Chicken, Steak, Ground Beef for Burgers or Tacos, Trout, Sea Bass, Tilapia, Turkey, Salmon, Ahi Tuna, Cod, Tofu, Lamb, Pork, Egg, Sausage, Cold Cuts, Impossible Meat

• Grains: Quinoa, Farro, Wild rice, Couscous, Brown Rice, Whole Wheat Bread, Corn, Spinach Pasta, Orzo, Basmati Rice

• Vegetable (remember to pan fry with lots of seasoning): Green beans, brussel sprouts, steamed carrots, brocolini, stir fry snap pees and peppers, sweet potato, zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower, onion, potatoes, onions, asparagus, squash!

People talk a lot about intuitive eating. This means eating until you're full and knowing your limits. It means having the self restraint and not over eating when you’re not hungry anymore. Listen to your stomach and remember that it’s ok to push a plate of food away when you know you’ve had enough.

You got this,

Sophia