How We Eat Healthy (Day in the Life, Amy)

We are trying to get back to somewhat of a normal routine, or our “new normal” maybe that would be a better description this Monday morning? So today we’re bringing you Part 2 of our “Day in the Life” series, and the topic this month is “How We Eat Healthy”. You can read Christy’s tricks in the first post here.

This is definitely an interesting time to write this post, being home ALL DAY, EVERY DAY now I can’t say I am eating as healthy as I have at other times in my life 🙂 (there is entirely too much baking going on!) but I am still trying my best.

A few years ago I wrote a longer post about how I eat. This is the follow-up post with recipes along the same lines. I have ongoing health issues from Lyme disease and diet plays a huge part in how I feel. It isn’t always fun, but it’s worth it to feel good. I have to be very careful about what I eat, and honestly after all these years these lifestyle choices are just habit.

My diet is not currently paleo-ish though it has been at other times; I do eat carbs, but I am basically gluten-free, and I eat very clean. I avoid processed, genetically-modified, or anything filled with chemicals and junk as much as I can. I avoid anything packaged for the most part, I figure if I make it myself then I know what is in it!

It has taken years to figure out the best way to manage meals for a family and still eat the way I need (try) to. I get tired of making a separate meal just for me, when I have cook something that is more geared toward my teenage boys I just try to modifying my meals, instead of two entirely different things.

For instance, if I make them burgers I’ll eat a turkey burger. If they are having steak, I’ll have a chicken breast. They like pasta so we do eat plenty of that, I just eat the gluten-free version.

Here are some of the things that I eat in the day. I am a creature of habit, and admit I tend to eat the same thing over and over mostly for simplicity sake.

Breakfast–Almost always, I eat gluten-free avocado toast, a homemade sausage patty (recipe in this post) and an egg OR oatmeal with blueberries and a piece of gluten-free toast. I drink coffee when I first get up but find I need breakfast after awhile, I also feel so much better with some protein early the morning which is why I include the sausage now.

Lunch–I am all about leftovers most of the time so I almost always eat what is left from dinner. I don’t tend to eat sandwiches, but in warmer months I usually eat some sort of salad with the protein left from dinner the night before. When we grill chicken breasts (at least once a week), I always try to make some extra for lunch.

Below is the salad I made yesterday after having chicken fajitas for dinner the night before. If I’d been stocked up per usual, I’d have added avocado and possibly corn but I didn’t have it in light of the grocery situation this week.

If I want some sort of snack I tend to eat almonds or an apple in the afternoon.

Dinner–dinner is our main meal of the day around here, I know that isn’t ideal for the sake of burning calories but my boys are usually starving after school and activities or practice and it is the only time we are all together during the day (well, except for the current quarantine I guess!). I like finding and trying new recipes, many of our dinner ideas are in this post here on Meal Planning or in the Two-Week Menu Plan I shared last week just as the quarantine kicked off.

Here are some places I like to get healthy dinner ideas. Clean Food Crush is an amazing website for healthy food ideas, also Skinny Taste. I like this website so much my daughter just brought me home this cookbook from the school book fair and we have been cooking from it quite a bit these last few weeks.

I pulled my favorite “healthy cooking” cookbooks out of my collection, you can see them below. All of these have been well-used over the years! OK, the Joanna Gaines cookbook isn’t really a “health” cookbook but it’s still a good one that I use quite a bit! 🙂

I recently purchased the Run Fast East Slow cookbook for ideas to help keep my teenage athlete fueled (that’s a hard one) and it’s full of great ideas especially if you are a runner or a more intense exerciser like my husband is. I am more of a walking/yoga girl so I don’t worry as much, but there are still some good ideas for keeping highly active kids (and adults) nourished in a very healthy way.

I hope this is helpful, I am trying to start sharing more dinner ideas on Instastories since I am emphasizing cooking, especially now that all five of us are home together each day.

XO,

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