Hi friends! Has this week been flying by for anyone else? It’s been a busy but good one over here in fANNEtastic food land!
Let’s kick off today’s post with a little packed lunch inspiration.
I worked out of the UberOffices most of this week, and that means lots of packed lunches! Here’s what I had yesterday.
For my entrée, a big salad with mixed greens, lentils (canned), feta, 90 second brown rice, and a few shakes of this pre-chopped veggie mix that I picked up from Trader Joes. I love this stuff – makes adding veggies to salads really quick and easy – no chopping required!
Ready to eat:
For dressing, I mixed the juice from one tiny lemon, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a couple squirts of dijon mustard together in a little baggie and stuffed that in the top of the salad container. That way my salad wouldn’t get soggy before I was ready to eat it!
I also packed some random leftover string beans for some extra veggie power, but ended up saving them for today because I wasn’t feeling them yesterday. I just ate them a little while ago – yum!
Plus an orange to eat after the salad. I like ending lunch with something juicy!
For snacks, I packed a bunch of stuff. First was some of this leftover veggie, egg, cheese, and sausage scramble that we had as an easy dinner on Tuesday night. I was planning to have this as a morning snack but ended up not needing it and having it in the late afternoon instead. Powered me through some evening AnneTheRD client meetings!
I also packed two Nourish Snacks, but only ended up eating the coconut/almond one (which is delicious, btw). The half popped popcorn is waiting in my bag in case I want it today!
One thing I’ve been working with a lot of my AnneTheRD clients on is remembering that hunger varies day to day, and that’s okay. I feel like with a lot of the diet approaches, you’re told to eat xx calories per day with the assumption that you’ll always be the same amount of hungry/need the same amount of food. Obviously we all know that exercise can change hunger, but a lot of other things can, too – things like sleep, hormones, how much you ate the day before, etc. I always remind my clients that if you eat something one day and it’s perfect, then you have it the next day and you’re still hungry after you finish, that that’s okay – and that you shouldn’t ignore that hunger because ignoring hunger backfires!
A good example of this is my meals so far this week. Yesterday, I had my standard Perfect Microwave Banana Oatmeal for breakfast at home before heading in to the city, but when I made it halfway through I decided that was enough, so I packed up the rest of the oatmeal to have later on that morning in the office. I ended up going to a lunchtime yoga class at Epic Yoga via ClassPass:
And then not eating my packed lunch (the lentil/rice salad and orange I showed above) until about 1:20 when I got back to the office.
Today, on the other hand, I was super hungry at 11 so I ate my lunch then because I decided that a snack wouldn’t cut it. So, moral of this long winded story is to listen to your hunger – and understand and accept the fact that it won’t always be the same every day. Don’t let that freak you out – and don’t try to ignore your hunger or stick to arbitrary meal times if they aren’t working for you that day. Listen to your body, my friends!
In other news, I was back at the track this morning!
Since I’m racing the GW Parkway Classic 10 Miler on Sunday with Matt my coaches had me do something different from everyone else – they had me run 2 miles on the track at a steady pace that built slowly into my race pace goal (7:45 min/miles). After I was done, I did a few strides on the field (starting slower and building speed) before calling it a morning. Normally before a race I would do a slow run, but my coaches have had me doing these short speed building workouts (not crazy hard intensity, but stretching my legs) a few days before and I think it helps to get me in the mindset! As for the rest of this week, tomorrow will be another rest day and Saturday I’m doing a light morning yoga class to stretch out. Then Sunday it’s go time! Hoping to set the PR that I nearly/kind of set at the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler that wasn’t actually a full 10 miler two weeks ago. 🙂 Fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain like the weather says it will as of now!
I’ll be back tomorrow with this yummy spring veggie quiche recipe for you guys to enjoy this weekend. Until then – have a great day!
p.s. Jason and I recorded a podcast interview with the team at Runner’s Connect recently to talk more about our Nutrition for Runners program. In it, we discuss why dieting is the wrong way to look at nutrition, misconceptions runners have about breakfast, and how runners can avoid making the most common nutrition-related mistakes. Click here to listen to it if you’re interested!
