Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Everything I eat tastes delicious, looks like slop

A popular trend in the healthy living blogging community is WIAW - What I Ate Wednesday. It usually entails a really boring blog post with everything that person ate that day which is usually nothing but tiny portions, salads, and maybe a teeny tiny ramekin with about a teaspoon of ice cream. Although I could be wrong, because I almost always ignore them, since they make me feel like a hippopotamus in comparison.

Kari, Kara, Emily and I decided to do our own, totally honest, WIAW. We took pictures of our food all day, like weirdos (well, apparently I was the only weirdo who had to do this in public) and are posting them so we can compare what real people eat.

Today actually ended up being a good day to document my eats because my day ended up being less like a summer vacation day and more like a school year day. I woke up, ran 5 miles, worked at my school, and went to grad class.

I tried something else new and exciting today - bike commuting to work! 
I've worn a variation of this outfit to work all summer. Life is sweet.

I’ve always wanted to, I’m just paranoid about my bike getting stolen. With no kids, there were plenty of extra rooms to lock my bike in. It was actually really fun, even though I had to deconstruct my iced coffee to take it in with me. 

Coffee, mug, and bag of ice
A note about my food: I avoid being caught hungry without food at all costs. Some teachers try to be all “OMG I’m WAY too busy to possibly eat during my lunch”. Yes, our lunch periods are brief, but I don’t play that. Hungry Alyssa is something no one should ever be subjected to, much less innocent children. I consider making a point to never let myself get too hungry to be a public service, much like wearing deodorant. What this amounts to is me bringing lots of food with me when I’ll be gone for a good chunk of the day, and having something quick that I can heat up for dinner when I get home.

My breakfast brings me so much shame, but in the spirit of being truthful, I didn't change it just because I had to photograph it. I hate to admit it, but I went through a period where I got really into reading Healthy Living Blogs. I've moved on, but my main takeaway was overnight oats. I eat them almost every day. If you are lucky enough never to have fallen into that trap, it’s just rolled oats, greek yogurt, and coconut milk (in my case) that you let sit overnight and the oats get soft. I added banana and frozen berries (fresh berries are ridiculously expensive).

I ate this at work around 9:30, since I slept through my alarm and barely had time to run and shower.

So ugly, so delicious
Lunch (1:30ish) - quinoa, pinto beans, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and Trader Joes enchilada sauce. I make random grain salads like this a lot because you can make a ton on Sunday and have lunch for the week. Also, they mean I don’t have waste half my lunch period elbowing people out of the way to use the dirty microwave from 1972.

Same scenic location as breakfast

My fellow teacher and I finished all we needed to do a little early, so we called it a day (I LOVE summer) and I ended up with about an extra half hour between work and class. Just enough time for a quick 5K, bringing me to 8.1 miles for the day. Unfortunately it required a second shower, but life can't be perfect.

As soon as class started at 5:00, I had carrots and Vampire Slayer hummus (that’s actually the name!) which means double garlic. I perform the public service of eating to avoid turning into a bitch, I make no promises about the state of my breath.

Crunching carrots while classmates are doing presentations
is how I make friends 
When it was nearly 7pm and there was no end in sight, I busted into snack number 2. My friend laughed at me when I took out more food, then she laughed even harder when she saw me photographing it.
Because I know you could never imagine what yogurt looks like
Dinner was around 8:30 pm - leftover Trader Joes tortelli with frozen broccoli, sundried tomatoes, sauce, and tons of parmesan cheese. Some sort of pasta/frozen broccoli is pretty much my go to meal when we are low on food and I have limited time (before I do bodily harm to my husband from hunger).


I tried to use my phone and a fork so you can see
this is like twice the size of a normal bowl
And that's it for WIAW! It turns out that photographing food is a lot less fun than just immediately eating it.



14 comments:

  1. Our bowls are humungous like that, too. It's awesome.

    Seriously, quinoa AND overnight oats?? It's like I don't even know you. You're not getting fed like that when you come here in October.

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  2. Your dinner is the only meal I'd eat.

    Overnight oats looks like what Faith leaves in her diaper for me after she's eaten too many berries.

    Quinoa?? QUINOA?? You forgot your massaged kale salad and chia seed smoothie.

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  3. I will add that I respect your food quantities and this is why we can still be BFFs for life.

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  4. This looks surprisingly HLB-ish. Seriously...overnight oats, quinoa, baby carrots and greek yogurt? And NO DESSERT?? Your blog is named after chocolate.

    Also, I've been eating this 3 times this every day since Sunday.

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  5. I knew you were gonna get hammered for this one...this is all nice and healthy :)

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  6. What the F are overnight oats? Where's the sauce on the last one?

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  7. I was really hoping today was the start of Ice cream Diet.

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  8. I love quinoa salads too, but I can't do frozen broccoli. What is up with no breakfast until 9:30, I think that is the first thing I think about when I roll out of bed at 4:45. FOOD!

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  9. Looks quite healthy to me, there are vegetables and everything. Some days I basically only eat bread all day, that wouldn't be very exciting to see.

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  10. Seems healthy to me! I'm confused about the lack of candy/booze/dessert though.
    Pasta, brocolli and some kind of sauce is standard around here for dinner - mostly because that's the one thing Tim can cook perfectly every time without needing help. ;)

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  11. Seriously, Alyssa, where are all the desserts you always talk about?! I'm completely disappointed. I hate more desserts than you did yesterday!

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  12. That breakfast looks promising - except for requiring making it the night before - wow, that's way out of my attention span league.

    I like how breakfast and lunch already have utensils in them, like you started eating and then remembered you had to pause to take a photo.

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  13. I feel like we are the same about food, slop-wise. As a child I would take everything on my plate and mix it together. Just tastes better that way. Diff textures made it amazing!

    I made like quadruple overnight oats in a quart mason jar on Sunday and just finished it this morning - just had to add more fruit occassionally.

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