Tag Archives: meals

My First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits)

Posted on January 4, 2022 | Comments Off

The past few years I’ve been setting monthly challenges, and I’m going to continue doing that this year. I think it’s good to have daily, weekly, monthly, and annual challenges to help me accomplish quite a bit during a year. And I’ll be going over my goals/challenges for 2022 later this week, but I wanted to start with my January challenge since I think this is something a lot of people are doing.

But first, a quick check about my challenge for December. I challenged myself to speak up more for myself. I knew I needed to do this for so many aspects of my life, and I’m proud to say that I feel so much more confident speaking my mind and not fearing things. I do know there can be consequences for speaking up, but the things I’m speaking up about have consequences that I think are ones I’m willing to accept. Like with dating, speaking up means I might not have a date or a second date because I won’t tolerate specific behavior. And while I am trying to be ok with this idea, I at least can speak up more. I might be sad to not have as many dates because of this, but this is about quality over quantity. I don’t need to put up with someone who says something that is offensive or that doesn’t want similar things to what I want.

Obviously I can’t speak up quite as freely in all aspects of my life, but I am finding ways to make sure my voice is heard even when I have to do it less directly. And it’s reassuring to see positive outcomes when I do speak up so I have less fear each time I have to do it.

My December challenge was a bit more of a mental one, and my challenge for January is a bit more about my physical health (and maybe a bit of my mental health). And it’s also a modification on a challenge I did a few years ago. Several years ago, I challenged myself not to order delivery food for a month. And while I would love to say I won’t order delivery food for a month, with my crazier schedule I know that might not be possible. So I had to add a bit more of a challenge one way to reduce the challenge another way.

So for January, I want to try to limit both my delivery food and take out food as much as possible. This means that I don’t want to do pickup or drive thru options either. Sometimes, if I’m out running errands after work and I see a short line at In-n-Out, it’s just easier to get a hamburger than to go home and see what I can make for myself. But I’m slipping into bad habits again and doing this more often than I would like. I am not doing delivery food too often, but I know I need to cut back on that too.

But I am doing things to make this challenge a bit easier on me. I’m making sure I have easy to make meals at home. Frozen dinners aren’t the best, but they are better (and cheaper) than going out to eat or bringing food home. And this is a way to do a little bit of meal planning without putting too much pressure on this idea.

I do want to work on my eating habits and what types of food I eat, but I know I need to do baby steps because I can revert to old habits easily. And if something doesn’t seem too extreme, it’s a little easier for me to maintain. So that’s why I’m going a bit easier on myself and not saying I have to completely eliminate this from my life. I just want to limit it. And I think that is a good way for me to set myself up for success with this first challenge of 2022.

Comments Off on My First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged 2022, challenge, food, meal planning, meals, volt planner

An Almost Free Meal (or Amazing Food And Crazy Dating Stories)

Posted on August 16, 2018 | Comments Off

I don’t have a ton of birthday traditions, but one that has been a part of my life for quite a while has been getting my free birthday meal at Truxton’s. I have been doing the free birthday meal pretty much since the restaurant opened in 2006 so I’ve been doing it for 11 or 12 years. And it has been a tradition with my birthday twin Joanna for about a decade now (we aren’t totally sure when we started going together).

Since we’ve been doing this I don’t think we have missed a year. It’s too good of a deal to skip! In the beginning it was a free entrée and a free dessert for each of us. That was a ton of food but we had fun with it. Then a few years ago it changed to $20 of free food for each of us but they would combine them on a single bill so it was easy for us to plan to spend under $40. Then it had to be on separate bills and we had to be strategic. We realized that it was going to be too difficult to have a totally free bill, but we still only ended up owing a dollar or two.

Going into our birthday dinner this year, we had every hope that we could go for a totally free meal. We went to dinner the day after our birthday and I was so excited to have a great dinner and to hang out with an awesome friend!

Since now we aren’t restricted to a free entrée and dessert, we usually get an appetizer to share, an entrée for each of us, and a dessert to share. And for our appetizer we almost always get Monkey Bread because it’s so good! Since we knew we’d be getting that plus a dessert, we picked out our dessert to figure out how much money we would have for entrees left over.

While we could have gotten things cheap enough to make everything free, nothing that we wanted was in that range so we had to decide if it was worth getting things we weren’t totally wanting in order to have a totally free meal or if it would be better to get what we want and owe a little bit of money. We both agreed that we would rather have a meal we wanted and owe a little bit. We both were craving burgers so we got those with the parmesan garlic fries that I love!

The Monkey Bread was awesome too and we got a churro sundae to split as our dessert. We were both pretty full when we were done but it was so good and we were so happy to have a great meal together.

We also took a while to eat because we were busy catching up on life with each other. We both have had some crazy dating stories lately and we were going back and forth sharing some of the weirder ones. She was telling me a story of a guy who seemed like he was trying to gaslight her but was making it so obvious that he just sounded insane and confused. I was telling her stories of some of the guys who have ghosted me recently and how odd it was that someone could go from texting me every day to disappearing and not feel like they should say they aren’t interested. I will never understand guys who ghost, but at least we were both having a laugh in sharing our stories.

When we got our bills, we knew we would both owe a little bit. But we owed so little for our dinner that it was like we had a free meal!

Plus, we had free parking at meters since we had a later dinner so we saved money there! If we had to pay for parking, it would have been more than the cost of the dinner! And another one of our favorite things about this free (or almost free) birthday dinner is that we can leave a bit tip and feel like we are doing something great. Our bill was basically $40 before the discount and we each left $10 for a tip. So we were able to tip our server almost 50% on our meal! I know that some people don’t tip well when they get a discount, but we want to do the opposite since we know how much servers depend on tips. It also makes us feel like badasses because we can say we tipped 50%.

We stuck around after dinner chatting and catching up some more (we didn’t feel bad because there weren’t people waiting for the table and our server seemed fine with us hanging around). It was nice just to chat and have fun with a good friend. And I really did like that we were sharing dating stories because sometimes it feels like the crazy things only happen to me. While I don’t wish that anyone else has to deal with what I deal with, it does make me feel less weird and alone when I hear a friend has similar situations with the online dating world.

Joanna and I don’t really get to see each other in person that often because our schedules are crazy and we aren’t usually in each other’s part of LA. But I’m glad we have this tradition as well as our holiday time tradition so we do get to see each other at least twice a year. And I know that in a year we’ll be doing our almost free birthday meal again!

Comments Off on An Almost Free Meal (or Amazing Food And Crazy Dating Stories)

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, birthday deals, birthday twin, dinner, food, friends, fun, meals

Still Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?)

Posted on October 7, 2016 | 4 comments

I’ve been doing pretty well lately with food stuff. It’s not something that I don’t have to think about any more, but I’m definitely spending less time every day thinking about what I want to eat or what I should eat than I used to. It’s nice not to have my thoughts always consumed by food (no pun intended), but I’m still figuring out what is right and best for me.

I know that I can cook and that I can use pretty much all fresh ingredients, but that’s not always easy for me. There are plenty of times that I realize it is dinner time and I don’t have something that I can make easily. I don’t want to risk going to the store because then I will grab everything that looks good to me at the time. So it’s important to me to have prepared meals in my house that are easy for lunches and dinners.

I’m still really loving the salads I can get from Trader Joe’s and I eat those pretty regularly for lunch (it’s easy to talk to customers and eat a salad). But I do need variety from time to time and some of my old standbys (like peanut butter and jelly) just aren’t doing it for me anymore. So I have to find other easy things to make and a lot of those things end up being frozen meals.

When I was younger, I did eat the frozen diet meals on a semi-regular basis. But honestly those meals aren’t that tasty, they have a lot of chemicals to cover up for things that are missing, they are expensive, and they aren’t a lot of food. So I’ve been exploring more frozen food options including ones that I used to consider not healthy options in the past.

I’ve been working on tracking my foods carefully and I can find ways to make the higher calorie meals work into my day. And I’m discovering that it isn’t as hard as I thought in the past. I’m not eating that high of calorie counts for my breakfasts and lunches, and if I’m not having a binge episode I do have lots of calories left for my dinner. So making stuff that I used to consider off-limits are now perfectly fine for me.

Taking away the stigma of bad foods and good foods has been really good for me. I’m exploring more food options that I never thought I could enjoy (like frozen tempura shrimp) and I’m really liking it. I’m getting more variety in my meals and that is helping to keep things from getting too boring too quickly. There are still some things that I’m trying that I know can’t be a regular part of my diet, but it’s ok to find things that are good splurge meals from time to time.

I’m eating more frozen foods than I would like, but considering the alternative for me I think this is ok. I still want to find a good balance between prepared and frozen foods and cooking from scratch and that just isn’t coming easily to me. I still get annoyed that my food issues aren’t going away as quickly as I would have liked them to, but I’m seeing progress and trying to give myself credit for it.

The baby steps of progress aren’t always easy to notice on my own, but when I reflect back on my meals for the past month or so and realize that my days under my calorie goal are outweighing the days over the calorie goal, I realize that I’ve been making progress without thinking about it or noticing. I’m still not ordering delivery food and that’s something I’m proud about as well.

Hopefully more baby steps happen to me this way and that recovery is in my future soon. It will be nice to spend even less time focusing on food when that happens and I’m excited to see what the next baby step I make will be.

4 Comments

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge eating, eating disorder, food, meal planning, meals, progress

Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Posted on March 11, 2016 | Comments Off

I’m working really hard at cooking more at home. With my challenge for this month being no delivery food, I must have better options in my house to eat so I don’t fail at the challenge.

I think what I really struggled with in the past was the sheer number of options for foods to make. I have dozens of cookbooks (I recently gave some away so I think it might just be under 2 dozen cookbooks now) and all of them have lots of recipes that seem super delicious and I know I could probably make them. I’m a good cook and I can follow a recipe, so I don’t worry too much about not being able to make something (although I do worry about something not tasting good if I make it).

I think the other problem with a majority of the recipes in the cookbooks are the number of ingredients that a recipe requires. Maybe if I had a huge kitchen I’d keep a ton of ingredients on hand to be able to make anything with very little grocery shopping required, but that’s not my situation. My kitchen is a small but functional and I don’t have much storage or counter space. So I have to keep things limited that I store. So many of the recipes seem like I would have to fill an entire grocery cart with the ingredients just for that meal. That’s expensive, that’s a lot of stuff to store, and chances are most of it would spoil before I used it up.

So a lot of the things I’ve been making in the past have been pretty plain. I do a lot of the same veggie bowls that I made a year ago on the cleanse I did. Even though the meatloaf I make is a bit fancier, it’s still not a ton of ingredients and it’s really easy to put together. I keep lots of things that are easy to make (like turkey burgers and veggies) in my freezer so it’s not too difficult to put together a basic dinner. And I’m glad that this is a habit that I’m still sticking with.

But I’m still looking to bring more variety into my cooking because even though basic foods can be healthy, they can be boring. And I know that if I get bored with something I won’t keep eating it (that’s why I stopped making veggie bowls for so long). So I’m working on easy ways to add variety to the flavor of my foods but don’t require too much effort or shopping.

This past week I had a couple of different meals that worked out really well. Toward the beginning of the week, I made a turkey burger for dinner (which to me is perfect just plain on its own). But I knew I’d want a good side dish to go with it. I had picked up some broccoli because I figured I’d make broccoli at some point, so I figured this was as good of a time as any. I steamed the florets in the microwave and then put those into a bowl to cool a bit. Then I browned some butter in the microwave (it’s a bit messy, but the flavor is totally worth it) and after that was done added some fresh lemon juice to it. My mom does this to broccoli all the time and it’s one of my favorites. And it made a delicious and nice looking dinner that night.

Turkey Burger

Next time I’ll make more of it because I ate so much of it and I need to do some adjustments to the flavor of the sauce (I needed more lemon), but it was really good and reminded me how good healthy food is.

Then on Wednesday night after my workout I knew I needed to cook dinner. I used to hate cooking dinner on workout nights, but I’m starting to be ok with it. In the past, I might microwave a dinner or get delivery after a workout because I was tired. But honestly it’s not that much harder for me to cook (I know, everyone has been telling me this for years but I didn’t believe it) and as long as I have things in my kitchen that are easy enough to put together I can get it done really quickly.

One thing that I’m a bit obsessed with right now are smashed potatoes. I use baby potatoes and cook them for a few minutes in the microwave. Then I smash them down with a paper towel and bake them until they are super crispy. I usually use my oven to bake them in, but on Wednesday I wasn’t using my oven for anything else. So I tried making them in my toaster oven. And to add some flavoring to them, I tried this new seasoning grinder I got at Trader Joes.

Garlic Salt

While the potatoes were baking, I cooked up some chicken sausages and thankfully I timed things out pretty well because the potatoes were done pretty soon after the chicken was. While I’ve made these potatoes a lot lately, adding this new garlic salt seasoning really made a huge difference and made them so good! I’m thinking maybe I’ll try this seasoning on some chicken next week.

While I’m super happy that I’m still keeping up with cooking at home and that I’m taking more chances and finding more things I enjoy making, I’m still worried that this is a phase and I will go back to my old ways. Maybe being cautiously optimistic is better than feeling overly confident that I’ve changed and will never go back to how I was before. I really want to keep making steps toward a healthier (and cheaper) life and I know that cooking is a huge part of that. Hopefully I’m able to keep this up.

Comments Off on Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged cooking, dinner, food, health issues, meal planning, meals

Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

Posted on February 26, 2016 | Comments Off

After doing so well with cooking recently, this past week was a serious let down for me. I had ever intention of trying to do some real cooking this week, but that never happened.

Part of it is due to my schedule. I got back late on Monday night from my trip. And while I did go to the grocery store, I wasn’t going to cook at 9pm for the week. Tuesday after work I had my WIF meeting. Wednesday after work was my workout. And while I could have cooked after getting home from my workout, I wasn’t feeling up for cooking after taking over an hour to get home. Thursday I had a friend at my house after work and I didn’t want to be rude and cook while they were here. And tonight I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner. It’s just not my week to have free time after work to prepare and cook meals.

I guess there were little places in my schedule that I could have cooked, but I don’t think I’m really the person to cook a meal that I don’t need to eat that night and to use all of it as leftovers. I’m still easing my way back into cooking and I think knowing that what I’m making is going to be my meal is more normal to me than just cooking and storing everything immediately. When I cook, I do get hungry (even if I just ate). So knowing that I will be eating that meal when it’s done is a way to stop the cravings to want to snack while I’m cooking.

Just because I’m not cooking doesn’t mean I’m eating like crap. I’m doing my lazy version of cooking with the easy to prepare things that I bought at the grocery store on Monday night. These aren’t the most balanced meals and I’m sure I could do better, but sometimes I need something easy like a waffle with peanut butter and a banana so I don’t get really hungry and order delivery food (which is almost never the good option). I’m finding better things to keep in my house to use as easy meals so I don’t feel like there’s nothing in my house to eat. A lot of these things are frozen, but I think that frozen food doesn’t have to be bad food. Trader Joes sells lots of good frozen veggie options and I love their frozen prepared brown rice. Those plus a protein (like the frozen cowboy burgers) are great meals that I can put together in minutes.

I’m lucky that breakfast is pretty easy for me, and dinner is easy enough (but I know it could be better). The place that I’m struggling is lunch. I used to miss lunch a lot because I would get distracted by work and forget (never good before having an after work workout), but I have an app that alerts me to eat by 1pm now. So at least I’m not forgetting anymore. But I’m still struggling about what to eat because it needs to be easy enough to prepare because I don’t want to step away from work for too long but also needs to be easy to eat since I have to take bites between customers if someone calls or starts an online chat.

I’m working on meal planning (but not looking at bulk cooking as the plan) right now. I know that if I plan things out better, I can grocery shop better (and probably spend less money) and I won’t have the “what can I eat” feeling at mealtime. While I had a decent plan going last year on the cleanse, I think that it worked for me so well because the lack of variety. I need more variety than what I had then, but too much variety is too overwhelming and too expensive. The balance is tough to find, but I’m working on it.

I know this weekend will not be including cooking because I’ll be out-of-town again, but I’m hoping after getting back from that trip I can get back into my groove and continue to enjoy lots of healthy, delicious, and easy meals that I cooked myself.

Comments Off on Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

Posted in Food, Tough Stuff

Tagged cooking, meal planning, meals, planning, scheduling

Splurging In San Diego (or Back To My Boring Food)

Posted on April 10, 2015 | 1 comment

While I was in San Diego, I didn’t really worry about what I was eating.

The hotel that we stayed at had a full breakfast. So I ate eggs and a banana both mornings I was there (I also had a muffin one morning). Most of the other options at breakfast were carbs, and I’ve learned from experience that I do best when I have some protein at breakfast.

We didn’t really do lunch any day. I got something to eat, but it was more of a “grab what you want” sort of situation. I pretty much had leftovers from dinner or some of the banana bread that I brought down.

And for dinner, the first two nights my mom cooked. They were super delicious meals and she also made dessert. My family’s favorite dessert is her triple layer brownies (the bottom layer is the gluten-free brownie that I make). I had a brownie each night.

We also went out to dinner at the restaurant in the building that my grandma lives in for the last night. That dinner is usually 3 courses, but I had to leave before dessert.

With all that eating, there was pretty much no exercise. Most of the day each day was spent in my grandma’s apartment. I really didn’t get out for a walk or anything each day. I didn’t think about the lack of exercise since I was so focused on family stuff.

That’s not the routine that I’m used to. But fortunately, I didn’t gain too much weight over the few days I was in San Diego. And as soon as I got home, I got back to my regular food.

I’m really eating pretty boring these days. But I’m ok with that. I like having a routine and a plan of what I will be eating throughout the day. I’m still working on what I want as a regular breakfast (right now it’s a multi-grain waffle with peanut butter and a banana), but I’ve got my lunch down.

At least on work days, I’m eating almost the same thing every day for lunch.

A turkey burger on top of some veggies (usually peas, corn, or broccoli). It’s a good meal to eat and I’m fortunate enough to work from home so I can make a nice lunch each day.

My dinner tends to be a rice bowl. Whether I add beans and veggies to the rice or a veggie burger, it’s usually brown rice based. I do want to work on adding more fruits and veggies to my meals, but I don’t want to force it either.

I’m sure that eventually I will get sick of this for lunch and dinner, but for now it’s working for me. And by making a majority of my days “good days”, those splurges I have occasionally don’t hurt my weight loss efforts too much.

But I am still thinking about those triple layer brownies. I wish I had one to eat today.

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged cheat meal, food, health issues, meal planning, meals, San Diego, weight loss

Vacation From Meal Planning (or Finding It Hard To Go Back)

Posted on March 6, 2015 | Comments Off

While on my trip, I didn’t worry too much about what I was eating. I knew I’d be drinking a lot more than usual and I didn’t want to stress about counting calories. So I pretty much just entered what I had at breakfast in MyFitnessPal so I wouldn’t lose my record of how many days in a row I’ve tracked my food.

Breakfast was pretty easy. We got a free continental breakfast at the hotel so I had hard-boiled eggs, fruit, and toast. Nothing too crazy. Lunches were pretty sensible as well. I ate more bread type items because I wanted to help soak up some of the alcohol, but the portions were pretty reasonable.

And dinners were more extravagant. We went out for nice dinners the two nights we went out and I got what I wanted without worrying about calories. I had bread at dinner, enjoyed some great pasta one night, and got to enjoy a truly incredible steak (worth the wait!).

We didn’t have dessert any nights and we did some walking each day. So by the end of my trip, while the scale was up a little it wasn’t unreasonable.

My problem has been getting back on track with my food. I have been doing so well for so long, and this week has been extremely difficult for me. I’ve eaten things that I thought I’d be able to avoid and not have as temptations in my house.

I’m not trying to make excuses for myself, but this week was a crazy week. I’m working out at weird times (or at least weird for me), I’m working as second job at night, and I’ve got the film festival I work for this weekend. So I’m not able to eat on the schedule that I’ve been doing in the past. And the stress and tiredness I’ve been dealing with lowers my willpower and doesn’t allow me to make the best choices.

This weekend is going to be pretty bad food-wise. I’m working at the festival both days this weekend from about noon until 11pm. It’s at a bar, so I will be able to order something to eat for a large lunch/dinner meal (I’m thinking about eating a later breakfast and then eating something around 4pm to be it for the day). There are ok choices at the bar, but it’s still going to be food that I didn’t prepare myself. I’m looking at their menu online to try to plan things out the best that I can, knowing that things might get crazy and plans have to be flexible.

But after this weekend, I’m really hoping to get back into the groove that I was in. The big positive I’ve been trying to remind myself is that I’ve only had about a week of slip ups and my weight is still significantly down. I didn’t wait until I gained back all the weight (or all the weight plus some), before realizing that there is a problem and trying to make a change.

Comments Off on Vacation From Meal Planning (or Finding It Hard To Go Back)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge, binge eating, dinner, eating disorder, food, lunch, meal planning, meals

Bringing More Food Back Into My Diet (or Staying Vegetarian For Now)

Posted on February 20, 2015 | Comments Off

This past week was my first post-cleanse week. Right when I started the cleanse, my plan was to have a steak on my first post-cleanse day. I was craving meat like crazy and that seemed like a good way to celebrate doing a cleanse (and being vegan) for 28 days.

But as the days in the cleanse went on, that plan started to change. I am still in the weight loss challenge at Orangetheory (1 week left to go with that) and my need to have a steak right away went away. Plus, I’ve got an amazing trip coming up next weekend with my mom and sister-in-law and my mom made reservations at a fancy steakhouse. I’m sure that that steak will be so much better than anything that I can make, so I’m going to wait.

My first post-cleanse grocery trip was a little overwhelming. Suddenly I could get whatever I wanted. If I wanted ice cream, I could have it again. If I wanted frozen mac and cheese (one of my favorite Trader Joes splurges), I could buy it. But I tried to focus on eating similarly to the cleanse plan.

I did get some frozen turkey burgers and frozen tilapia to keep in my freezer, but right now I don’t know if I’ll be eating them anytime soon. But they seemed like good “emergency” meal things to have. But I’m pretty much vegetarian at home right now.

The main things that I brought back into my diet were eggs and dairy. I’ve been eating eggs (1 whole egg and 2 egg whites) for breakfast most days. As much as I wanted to keep just having fruit for breakfast, that never satisfied me. I need protein in the mornings. I usually scramble the eggs up with some spinach and onions and top it with a 1/4 cup of cheese (which is the actual serving size and not just me dumping some cheese on top). I also added some greek yogurt back into my diet. I love to use it instead of sour cream for baked potatoes (my mom and dad now do that too). So I had it on Saturday night with some sautéed potatoes and onions. It was so yummy!

I also had a meal out this week. When I was in San Diego, I went out for dinner. There weren’t a ton of choices on the menu that seemed like good choices and almost everything had meat on it. I’m sure I could have asked for things to be made without meat, but the menu said “no substitutions” all over it. I feel good about my choice of Huevos Rancheros, but my body did have a big jump on the scale the next day. Not being able to control the oil, seasonings, and salt is not good for me as far as losing weight.

I tried not to freak out about the weight gain. I knew it must have been from salt in the food. But I had some good clean meals the few days after and that weight gain is gone.

My weight now is just under where it was at the end of the cleanse. So I’m still heading in the right direction even with the weight gain from Monday’s dinner.

I don’t know if I’ll be adding meat back into my diet this next week before my trip. I have a full day tomorrow where I won’t be home from 11am until maybe 10 or 11pm and then the next day is the Oscar party (I’m hoping that I can make good choices while I’m at the party).

But the main thing I’m doing (which is one of the lessons I learned at the end of the cleanse), is that it’s ok for me to have a treat or splurge every once in a while. It’s safer for me if those treats or splurges don’t happen in my house so that they don’t become a regular part of my diet. And when I’m not out or enjoying a treat, I need to focus on good clean foods at home. That way I can balance it all out.

It’s taken 31 years and a lot of different diets, but eating right without being super restrictive is finally making sense to me.

Comments Off on Bringing More Food Back Into My Diet (or Staying Vegetarian For Now)

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged cleanse, dinner, meal planning, meals, treat, vegetarian

My Fit Foods (or Looking At Some Post Cleanse Options)

Posted on January 29, 2015 | 3 comments

Now that I’m almost half way through the cleanse, I’m starting to think about what I’m going to be eating post-cleanse. While I’m going to do a small splurge, I do want to maintain a healthier lifestyle and keeping the majority of my diet fruits and vegetables.

So when I was invited to My Fit Foods in West Hollywood for a tour and hear more about their plan, I jumped at the chance!

This particular location of My Fit Foods (they have several locations in a couple of different states) is pretty close to my house and I’ve passed it when driving around town probably a few hundred times (I guess I pass it twice a week on average). But this was the first time that I ventured inside.

I was greeted right away by Chelsey who is one of the nutrition coaches at the West Hollywood location. She told me how My Fit Foods was started by a personal trainer who wanted to make sure that his clients were going to see results from the work that they did inside the gym and outside the gym. So he created My Fit Foods to help his clients eat right and get the right balance of nutrients to help them maximize their workouts (and their results!).

My Fit Foods is a meal service that has options for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. People can pre-order several days worth of food or they can come into the store and buy what they need and want.

Everything that they have is fully cooked (no need to heat it up unless you want your meal to be hot) and they have lots of dietary restrictions that they can accommodate (like gluten-free, dairy free, vegetarian, Paleo, and low-sodium). And the food is good in your fridge for 4-5 days, so you can have several days of meals in your fridge and ready to go.

Chelsey explained that when most people get started at My Fit Foods, they take part in their 21 day challenge. In the 21 day challenge, you get paired up with a nutritional coach like Chelsey and they create a meal plan for you. These plans can be customized to your tastes and dietary restrictions. I got a change to check out some of the 21 day plans, and they look amazing! They have lots of different food options for each meal (all the dinners look super incredible and delicious so I can’t pick a favorite!). During the 21 day challenge, you come into My Fit Foods about twice a week and they have all the foods that you need for the coming days ready for you to take home!

It’s so simple for people to follow! I’ve done a meal delivery service before in college and for the first few days it was awesome. But because the service had so few options, after a few days, my meals were repeating themselves! I quickly got tired of the same few things rotating through. But when I looked at the 21 day challenge menu, while you might get some things twice within the 21 days, there is enough variety available to not repeat things every week!

After customers complete the 21 day challenge, most of them continue to order their foods from My Fit Foods. They can create their own meal plan or have guidance from a nutritional coach. But it is completely customizable and you do not have to order all of your meals from them if you know that there are a few days where you don’t need dinner (for example).

And for people who just need an occasional meal (so you don’t get delivery food that you regret), you can walk right into a My Fit Foods and pick up a single meal. They even have microwaves and tables there so you can eat inside if you don’t want to bring it home (or if you are having it as a lunch and don’t want to eat at work).

Finally, Chelsey showed me some of the supplements that they have available. I’m learning more and more about supplements now that I’m doing the cleanse, and what I think is awesome about the ones at My Fit Foods is that they are packets that contain everything you need (no need to purchase 5 or 6 different bottles).

It was so awesome to get to go into My Fit Foods and sit down with Chelsey to learn all about it. They are definitely going on my list of good and fast choices that I can make if I’m not able to cook for myself. It’s so much better for me to run in there and grab a lunch than for me to get some fast food. And I need to be looking at smarter choices from now on if I want to continue the path that I’m going on. And it looks like My Fit Foods will fit into that plan perfectly!

3 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged food, health issues, meal planning, meals, weight loss

First Time Bulk Cooking (or Making My Kitchen Smell Yummy!)

Posted on December 11, 2014 | 3 comments

Inspired by my cooking confidence that I gained while making the salmon dish, I decided to try something else new.

Bulk cooking.

I looked up a lot of ideas on Pinterest and various websites to find some basic things that should be easy enough for me to do. I decided on one basic protein (chicken breasts) and a couple of vegetables. I hadn’t completely decided on the vegetables prior to going to Trader Joes because I wanted to see what I would find and if anything inspired me.

I ended up buying the chicken breasts as well as broccoli, green beans, red onions, red peppers, and sweet potatoes. I also got some baby carrots, sugar snap peas, and hummus to have as snacks.

It was one of my more expensive shopping trips, but I was buying food for the week. Plus I usually don’t buy meat (at least not meat I have to prepare) so that was a bit more expensive. But considering that this should be my only shopping trip for the week and that I’m not eating take out or delivery this week, it actually is less than I would usually spend.

Before I knew it, my kitchen was looking like this.

I cut each chicken breast in half lengthwise and put a little olive oil and some Trader Joes seasoning on them. Then they baked until the insides weren’t pink anymore (about 35 minutes). The sweet potatoes went in the same time that the chicken went in, but they ended up taking a little over 2 hours to bake (starting at 400 and then ending at 450). The broccoli, onions, and green beans went in when the chicken was done. I did learn my lesson with the green beans that I overcrowded them and they steamed more than they baked, but they were still yummy. And the onions were perfectly caramelized!

Overall, I think my first try at bulk cooking went really well. My timing of things was a bit off, but that’s to be expected when you aren’t a big cooker.

All the food went into storage containers to cool before going into my fridge.

With everything in the fridge, it looked more crowded than it usually is, but since it’s just me at my house, that’s fine.

I made my first reheated bulk dinner the next day after a workout. I put everything on a plate and microwaved it (I’ve since learned that I need to smash up the sweet potato otherwise it doesn’t heat all the way through). My first plate looked beautiful and was very yummy.

I’m not sure if I’m going to bulk cook every week. I’m going to see how this entire week plays out. In a typically week, I can cook on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays so I’m toying with the idea of doing some bulk cooking but then cooking a recipe on those days and having leftovers on the day between cooking days.

Either way, this is a major step for me. I don’t know why I’ve been holding back on cooking for so long. While it’s a bit tough considering how small my kitchen is, it’s not impossible. And now I’m eating much healthier (and much more food since everything is lower in calories than frozen dinners). Hopefully I can make this trend continue just like my workouts have been.

3 Comments

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving, Shopping, Weight Loss

Tagged bulk cooking, cooking, health issues, meal planning, meals, recipe

Tag Archives: meals

My First Challenge of 2022 (or Trying To Get Back To Better Habits)

Like this:

An Almost Free Meal (or Amazing Food And Crazy Dating Stories)

Like this:

Still Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?)

Like this:

Cooking Routine (or Adding Flavor)

Like this:

Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

Like this:

Splurging In San Diego (or Back To My Boring Food)

Like this:

Vacation From Meal Planning (or Finding It Hard To Go Back)

Like this:

Bringing More Food Back Into My Diet (or Staying Vegetarian For Now)

Like this:

My Fit Foods (or Looking At Some Post Cleanse Options)

Like this:

First Time Bulk Cooking (or Making My Kitchen Smell Yummy!)

Like this:

Follow me on Twitter

Like Me On Facebook

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives

Tag Archives: meals

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Share this:

Like this:

You Might Also Like

Connect With Me!

Subscribe To Finding My Inner Bombshell!

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Me On Instagram

thejenlevin

Recent Posts

Archives