What an Intuitive Eater Eats in a Day: The Labor Day Edition
Wondering what an intuitive eater eats in a day? Here’s a sneak peak into my day of intuitive eating. See how I put the principles of intuitive eating into practice in this day of eating. In this edition, I was back home at my parents house for labor day.
Hey guys! Writing this up from my parents house in Virginia, where I'm home for a long weekend visiting my dad after he had surgery a couple weeks ago. I planned on doing a What an Intuitive Eater Eats in a Day on Sunday, when I threw a pool party and cookout for my high school friends and their family, then cooked a really yummy seared salmon and couscous arugula salad for my parents for dinner. But I got so caught up in everything going on that I completely forgot to take pictures. Oh well - the day I'm sharing turned out to be pretty random, so for the sake of this series being as "real" as possible, maybe it's a good thing!
What an Intuitive Eater Eats in a Day:
We stayed up pretty late the night before, and I hadn't slept very well the previous week, so I slept in till 10:30 in the morning - it was fantastic and I could have easily slept another hour. By the time I got out of bed, walked the dogs and got myself together, it was 11:30, close to lunch time. I've had a lot of clients ask me what to do when they sleep in past breakfast. We don't have to eat at the same time every day, so don't worry too much about it. Generally speaking, our bodies do best eating something every 3-4ish hours, so just push your day back a bit. Also, even though I was technically eating breakfast, there's no rule that you have to have breakfast food. For some reason, a sandwich sounded waaay yummier than breakfast food, so I made a turkey and provolone sandwich with spicy pickles, avocado, and tomatoes on seedy whole grain bread. Extra spicy mustard FTW.
A few hours later, I was pretty hungry for a snack. I was craving something more substantial, plus (not to sound like a teenager again) my parents never have good snack food in the house. I will forever be that teenager scrounging through the cabinet for food. So, I heated up some leftover japchae with some kimchi. Have you ever had japchae before? It's a stir fried Korean vegetable noodle dish made with glass noodles, which are these chewy clear noodles made with sweet potato starch. My stepmom is half Korean so when we first got to Virginia, she made a huge Korean meal with japchae, fried rice, bulgogi and spicy pork.
Even though it was less food than I would normally eat by that time of day, it held me over until close to dinner time. I think sleeping in late probably threw my body off a bit, plus I was pretty dehydrated from hanging out all day in the sun the day before. While definitely I see a flow to my hunger/fullness, so most days I'm eating at approximately the same times, it can also vary a bit. If you're new to intuitive eating, are in eating disorder recovery or have had really chaotic eating patterns for a long time, your hunger/fullness cues might not be the most reliable. In this case, it may be smart to eat on regular intervals to reestablish cues. But since I've been at this awhile, I know that some days I'll eat more, other days I'll eat less, and it'll all balance out the way it's supposed to in the end.
Before dinner, we put out a big cheese selection for an appetizer. As basically anyone who knows me is aware, cheese is my absolute favorite food. It was funny eating it at my parents house knowing I was going to be typing this, because I remember in high school how my parents would put out cheese for entertaining, and I would go through pretty much a wheel of brie, so I was already stuffed going into dinner. Looking back, I was pretty deep into a restrict-overeat cycle. This time, I had a small bite of everything, then went back and had another couple bites of my two favorites. It took the edge off my hunger until dinner. As much as I love cheese, I know eating to the point of discomfort isn't the most fun way to enjoy it.
For dinner, the hubs grilled adobe chicken, which we served with leftover summer corn pasta salad I made the day before for our cookout, and leftover fried rice from our big Korean feast a couple days before. So random, but gotta love a good clear out the fridge kinda meal. As you can see, there wasn't a lot of vegetable in this meal...or in my whole day! That happens sometimes, and while certainly I feel best when I eat plenty of veggies, it's not the end of the world if I go a day without. Instead of focusing on nutrition in terms of individual meals or foods, zoom out to look at the big picture. While my dad didn't have many veggies, most other days do. A single day of eating isn't going to make or break health!
For dessert, I had a bite of lemon bar that our next door neighbor brought over. She makes the absolute best lemon bars - I think we got a batch of them almost every week when I was in high school! I wasn't sure if I wanted anything sweet or not, so I just cut a little piece off and realized I wasn’t in the mood for it. There's no rule that if you start eating a sweet, or any other food, that you have to finish it.
More What an Intuitive Eater Eats in a Day:
The White Pasta and Cauliflower Rice Edition
The I Ate Fancy Food All Day Edition
The Road Trip Edition