Hi, friends! Top of the morning to ya! It’s Wednesday morning, which you may have figured out now means a What I Ate Wednesday post a la Jenn!

Let’s hop right in with the good stuff!

Yesterday morning, I grabbed my standard piece of fruit for a pre-workout snack as I run around feeding little children’s mouths and getting ready for the gym. I don’t like working out with a heavy stomach because then great workouts will make me want to vomit. And vomiting is no fun, agreed? 😉

I completed a full body weights workout followed up with 30 minutes of light elliptical action. No intervals. Just slow and steady. It felt calming, which is just what I needed after the hectic mindset I had earlier. And cereal was just what I needed after a great workout.

Have you heard that cereal is actually fantastic for a post-workout meal because it has plenty of carbohydrates to refill energy stores and some protein as well from the milk? I believe it because cereal sounded good for post-workout today. Have you also heard of Fiber One’s new Honey Squares 80 calorie cereal?

I got a box of this cereal to sample free of charge and have fallen fully in love. I assure you the company did not buy my love. In fact, I promptly went out and bought myself two more boxes while on sale – using two coupons of course. Pick up $1.00 off and $0.75 off printable coupons to use for yourself after hearing how good this stuff is.

It has the perfect crunch, just enough sweetness, ingredients that don’t make me feel like I’m a rat in a science lab, and a healthy dose of fiber (40% daily value!). And I will admit – I like that it has a lower calorie count than most cereals because I can fill up on even more. I love cereal, but I can easily go heavy on the pouring and end up with three servings. Three 80 calorie servings = way more reasonable than three 180 calorie servings. Not that I would know or anything. Ahem.

I devoured a large bowl topped with my diced strawberries and raisins combo. You didn’t think my favorite oatmeal topping would disappear now did you?

None of my meals really got any more difficult than a bowl of cereal the rest of the day either. In fact, I almost feel a little embarrassed by the sheer ease, laziness, and packaged-ness of most of the day’s eats.

Lunch:

A grilled ham and swiss sandwich. Carrot sticks, cucumbers, and hummus. Watermelon.

Snack:

A S’mores Lunabar and a container of Chobani greek yogurt.

Dinner:

I actually pulled out more produce for dinner. I chopped up a zucchini, two small summer squash, a small head of bok choy, some onion, and some mushrooms to stir-fry all together. Since I didn’t feel like cooking a full meal, I turned to the freezer for some packaged chicken egg rolls we had to use. And while the nutritional stats aren’t terrible in those little eggrolls, I can’t deny their super processed state.

I almost felt embarrassed for showcasing meals like cereal, packaged bars, and frozen eggrolls in a What I Ate Wednesday post. No cooking. No creativity. Nothing fancy. Nothing perfectly unprocessed with zero added sugars and zero disodium guanylate.

Then I remind myself I still strive overall to eat as high quality as possible but also without stressing myself over every meal choice. I can’t feel embarrassed for eating what suited me yesterday despite it not living up to some of the standards that occasionally seem prevalent in the blogging world. I always appreciate blogging for opening my eyes to new, fun ways to eat mindfully and beneficially to my body. At the same time, I also have to remain aware to not allow the “blog food standard” I create in my head to overwhelm my decisions. So, I had my egg roll lazy meal day. Chomp.

• Are you a cereal addict?
• Do you ever feel a certain unspoken standard for food on blogs? What do you think are the pros/cons?

Wednesday morning has arrived again! Funny how quickly it comes up with a short week. Note = not a complaint by any means.

I devoured some pretty tasty eats yesterday. I could even say my meals yesterday rivaled the ice cream, cheesecake bars, and healthified /proteinified twice baked potatoes from this weekend. I know I had quite the full, satisfied belly all day long. Also not a complaint by any means. Time to share the delectable feasting with you all for another edition of What I Ate Wednesday!

I warned you that my meals this week would inevitably include two things – berries and watermelon. So it should come as no surprise that my breakfast looked the exact same. And that I don’t feel the need to take a picture of said exact same breakfast two days in a row…so behold the recycled photo!

I have no shame in recycling blog photos when necessary. Besides…it’s so pretty. Plus, I can only have so much creative energy when it comes to food. And I had creative juices going for lunch.

A plate chock full of color! We have quite the load of produce to work through this week so I piled up the watermelon, grapes, carrots, and cucumber, then got to work on the star of the show. English muffin pizza!

We had some fire roasted diced tomatoes for another recipe that I needed to use. What better way than to make pizza sauce for English muffin pizzas, right? Maybe not super original, but definitely super delicious!

I blended up about 1/4 cup of the fire roasted diced tomatoes with an immersion blender while my English muffins got started toasting in a toaster oven. I then topped both muffin halves with the sauce, oregano, red pepper flakes, and shredded cheese. I toasted them a few minutes more until the cheese got nice and melted. Pizza for lunch = win!

When snack time rolled around I wasn’t as hungry as normal and only wanted more fruit. I shall seriously miss the plethora of fruit when summer comes to pass. But let’s just pretend that will never happen, mmmkay?

I crafted together a yogurt bowl to reflect my love of summer. Pineapple Chobani yogurt. Fresh mango chunks. Bites of banana. A splash of light coconut milk. A sprinkling of Cheerios. 

The tropics in a bowl with such a perfect blend of textures and flavors.

After so much delicious food I probably could have stopped there for the day, had dry toast for dinner, and still gone to bed with a happy belly. But where’s the fun in that?

Instead, I went big with one of the best recipes I have stumbled across in blog land recently. “Best” namely because its so easy. And Mama Pea only has her own cookbook and all. I kind of adore her. Big hugs, Sarah! The peanut noodle bowl was a huge hit! 

I adapted it only the slightest bit – zucchini instead of bell pepper, no cilantro, udon instead of rice noodles – so please give her recipe a look and get in on the tasty action!

And that’s where we end – with me fully intending to eat the exact same things all day today. Delicious, filling, nutritious, and fun? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

• How often do you use blogs for recipe inspiration? 
• What is a food combo that never fails to leave your belly super satisfied?