After giving birth to Makenzie, I discovered one of the best things ever. Food is not the enemy! In fact, my body told me EAT if you want to get in the shape you hope to achieve. And as I grew deeper in my faith and recognized my body as something of value, I began to see the importance of respecting it and fueling it adequately. I finally chose to listen to my body after years of following crazy food rules and ended up in the best shape of my life. I took that same approach post-Braedon and, wouldn’t you know, I made the same sort of progress and feel pretty dang good if I do say so myself. Eat well. Have energy. Live well. Get a healthy, strong, FIT body. Don’t mind if I do!

It always saddens me when I hear about diet plans with recommended calorie intakes of 1200 calories. I truly believe its possible for a healthy individual with no metabolic issues to lose weight eating more than that. I hope to display that you can certainly eat enough food to fuel your body well, feel satiated, and still make progress.

I certainly don’t post all of my eats on a daily basis, so for today’s What I Ate Wednesday post I wanted to give a rundown of ALL my typical daily meals and how they add up. I even broke out the Eat Smart Precision food scale I received at the Fitbloggin conference to get accurate counts for you all. I ate as I normally do, but simply measured the portions I typically use. The scale made measuring for the day easy and accurate since I could choose to measure in grams. Note: If you measure things, always use grams. You get more food. Reason enough for me!

Oh, flashbacks to competition prep days! It’s been a long time since I’ve measured things besides the occasional check on portion sizes or for recipe purposes. And it’s certainly been forever since I have measured things like raisins! Nevertheless, I wanted to get an accurate depiction, so here we are. Besides - calories beware. You don’t scare me!

Pre-Workout:

Banana = ~ 110 calories

Breakfast:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats cooked in water
• 4 large strawberries diced
• handful of raisins (ended up at 26 grams)
• big blob of peanut butter (ended up at 29 grams)
• splash of unsweetened vanilla almond breeze to reach the right consistency + almond milk in my iced coffee (~ 1/2 cup)
• sprinkle of brown sugar for sweetener (~ 1 tsp?)

Grand Total = 467 calories

Lunch:

• flat out wrap
• sliced deli ham – 4 oz
• 1 garlic herb laughing cow wedge
• mustard
• handful of spinach
• thick slice of tomato
• 2/3 of a mango
• 2 large carrots chopped into sticks
• 2 tablespoons Sabra Roasted Pine Nut hummus

Grand Total = 432 calories

Afternoon Snack:

• whole wheat English muffin
• spread of peanut butter on each slice (equaled 14 grams)
• spread of “just fruit” strawberry jam on each slice (equaled 12 grams)
• 6 oz container vanilla Chobani yogurt
• handful Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal (equaled 22 grams)

Grand Total = 448 calories

Dinner:

• 3/4 cup cooked whole wheat penne pasta
• chopped cherry tomatoes
• diced zucchini
• diced mushrooms
• chopped artichoke hearts
• chopped black olives
• 1 oz feta cheese
• 1.5 tbsp Ken’s Northern Italian dressing

Grand Total (estimate on this one because I got so sick of measuring): 450 calories

Dessert:

• Private Collection cookie ice-cream sandwich while finishing up The Bachelorette

Total = 240 calories

In total, I ate 2147 calories on a typical day of meals. I haven’t changed my eating habits from when I made progress on my Body After Baby journey. I usually eat a good deal more than this on weekends as I consumer more “treats” and have a hunger monster at work every Saturday after my long runs. Sure, every body is different. However, I know in light of certain diets, it can appear that we need to eat less less less. From my personal experience, I find the opposite. My body will only reach the places it has when I give it what it needs. And I want to show the value in eating enough. Enough is different for each body…but why not push the limits to get the most quality fuel you can to it? Eating is fun. Enough with the starvation!

• Do you ever track your food at all?
• Because I’m curious – your thoughts on The Bachelorette if you watched!

I discovered something this morning. Apples no longer reign as my favorite fruit. The crispy satisfaction of chomping my way through a pile of apple slices no longer commands my attention on a daily basis. And although I will always welcome them back with open arms mouth every summer, berries and mangoes inevitably let me down when that chill starts to creep in the air. So if they can’t play nice, I can’t play nice and call them my favorite. Enter banana.

After I realized an entire container of strawberries had turned rotten on me before ever getting my hands on them, I had to resort elsewhere for my daily bowl of oats. So, I did the inevitable and scooped up a banana to slice over my bowl with the standard blob of peanut butter and sprinkle of raisins.

And then, I entered tasty heaven. That banana made my bowl more filling and literally left me mmmming out loud on more than one occasion. I’ve had banana with my oats before, but something about today solidified banana as my favorite.

What makes banana gain the title of “Tina’s Favorite Fruit” even more solidly? I can’t get over how versatile they are! Bake with them. Eat them straight up. Gulp them in smoothies. I only wish my already finicky…”regularity” shall we say…could handle numerous bananas every day. Alas, I will have to choose. Oatmeal or smoothie? Oatmeal or smoothie? Oatmeal or smoothie? Or banana muffins??? As you can see, endless possibilities for a happy belly!

Today’s lunch also featured endless possibilities for a happy belly.

But more on lunch in a second. My good friend, Nikki, came up to my neck of the woods for some shopping, girl time, and lunch today. We met up at a local outdoor shopping area around 10 am to beat the heat for a gentle stroll while hopping in and out of the shops. I’ve mentioned my touchy relationship with shopping before, so I tried to reign in the wallet today. But LOFT always gets me with their special deals – like $6 basic tees that I live in. I love LOFT!

After walking around for about an hour, we headed in to the sandwich shop Which ‘Wich to pick up an easy and delicious meal. I have three favorite foods: 1) pizza, 2) ice-cream, and 3) sandwiches! So, I cheat and pick foods that you can have in a million different flavor combinations. They’re still my favorite. :p <--- that would be me, being mature and sticking my tongue out at you

I mean how can I not love sandwiches? Look at this bad boy!

Every time I have gone to Which Wich I end up with a different sandwich and every time I cannot get over how good it is! Today’s sandwich included a black bean patty, hummus, black olives, mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Talk about a flavorful combination. Let’s take one more look, shall we?

Yes. Versatile food delights me. Versatile food wins my complete adoration. I heart you, bananas and sandwiches! Now, where’s my pizza and ice-cream?

• Tell me your three favorites: FRUIT? FOOD? STORE?