So I guess a lot of people struggle when it comes to decision-making, but apparently not when those decisions involve chocolate – that was easily the winner in the chocolate vs. gummy bear debate, and while I’m definitely a big fan, I have to admit that I love chocolate and gummy candies pretty equally… what I reach for just depends on my mood. I will say that chocolate has definitely been seeing a lot more action lately, but I mostly blame that on Lucie and the amazing package full of Swiss chocolates that she sent me. I dug into a bar of truffle-filled dark chocolate the other night and basically lost the ability to form coherent sentences for a while…
Holy. My. God. Oh.
Translation: it was delicious.
And speaking of delicious, it’s that time of the week again where we devote the day to bragging about all the delicious things we’ve been eating. Yes, It’s WIAW! Except this isn’t so much what I ate on Wednesday as it is what.I’ve.been.eating.lately. Pft. Details.
As per usual, the day starts with breakfast, and yesterday’s was definitely a gooder…
Eggy bananafied steel cut oats topped with coconut butter.
I’ve still been eating oats on occasion (thankfully without any crazy reactions), but lately I’ve found myself craving simple bowls as opposed to the crazy combos that I used to come up with. They remind me of the breakfasts that my mom would make me when I was little – plain oats with milk and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Simple yet oh so satisfying. I actually have no idea when I started making my eats so elaborate and complicated, but I’m thinking that the blog world definitely had something to do with that phenomenon.
Have you ever noticed how rare it is to see a blogger eat a simple bowl of cereal with milk? It’s always: three different cereals, two different nut butters, three kinds of fruit, powders, chia seeds, superfoods – an entire production. And when it’s not, it’s always accompanied by an apology for being “boring.” Clearly I’m guilty of doing that myself to a certain degree, but I can’t help but wonder what happened to the days where I’d pour myself a bowl of Cheerios and call it breakfast without trying to get all fancy pants on it.
I think part of it has to do with an underlying expectation to be creative and interesting. People aren’t inspired by a boring bowl of cereal – they want to see things they’ve never thought of before! The pressure is on! That’s why I show you guys lunches like this…
Brown rice with an egg and parmesan cheese cooked in, then topped with marinara sauce and avocado.
… when, more often than not (we’re talking 5 days out of 7 here) I’m scarfing down a plain old turkey and cheese sandwich or wrap that isn’t really worth writing home about. We’ve got your bread, cheese, turkey… pretty basic stuff. It tastes good, but it’s not exactly life-altering or revolutionary as far as food goes. And in addition to that pressure to be creative, I also think that part of the complicated meal phenomenon comes down to simply wanting to avoid criticism.
I can’t even tell you guys how many times I’ve eaten a snack that was just an apple or just a small bowl of fruit and not wanted to show it because I knew someone would inevitably scream out “Disordered!!! Restricting!!!” or leave a more ‘subtle’ comment like: “You should try adding some nut butter to that“… or… “I can’t believe that satisfied you. I would be starving!”
Frozen mangoes – Fresh blueberries.
Well, sometimes it doesn’t satisfy me, which is when I snack on something a little more substantial…
Homemade cinnamon bun.
Chocolate Lifebar from Lucie. Very similar to a Larabar.
Plain Greek yogurt with a Weetabix and homemade applesauce.
But other times? Believe it or not, there are times where I really don’t feel all that hungry, and sitting down with a big bowl of applesauce suits me just fine…
No planned portions, no complicated add-ins, just me, a spoon, the entire batch of applesauce, and eating until I’ve had my fill. No, it’s not a perfectly-balanced snack with carbs, proteins, and fats, but it leaves me feeling perfectly satisfied all the same. Go figure. That doesn’t mean that all of my meals are insubstantial, boring, and solely made up of carbs and sugar…
Dinner at home: brown rice with peaches, slow-cooker ribs, and salad with goat cheese.
… but some of them definitely are. That’s life though, isn’t it? Going with the flow and trusting that everything will balance out in the end? And it does. I’ve become so lax with my meals and snacks because I’ve found that even without my constant hyper-vigilance, my body seems to manage just fine; and it’s kind of nice to have all that extra time to think about other, funner things like… well… that’s a secret that I’ll be sharing tomorrow 😉
Happy Wednesday, blog buddies!
. – . – . – .
Bloggers: do you ever feel pressured to eat a certain way or be creative with your meals?
Does it bother you when people make comments about your meals?
Do you make sure your meals are always balanced?
Ok, so I’ve been wanting to comment on this post for a while now, but I kept getting distracted. So…just forgive me for being almost a month late to the party on this one! I can totally relate to this! I can’t even tell you the number of times I stopped in the middle of “creating a masterpiece” only to think, “Do I really need ALL of this?” And I swear, some of my most well-thought-out/balanced meals have left me totally unsatisfied in the end. Why do we feel that we have to “dress up” every single meal? Sometimes it’s just best to keep things simple…to appreciate the basics.
All that being said though, I am totally going nuts over that dinner plate! Brown rice and peaches with short ribs?! Mmm, sounds like heaven!
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I RARELY BLOG ABOUT FOOD!!!!!!!! I tend to eat the same-ish meals every day, and they’re not that creative – honestly I don’t really cook I just throw a bunch of stuff on a plate. I mean it’s delicious, but there’s no “recipe”, it doesn’t really warrant being talked about….yeah.
And the suggestion adding thing!! Like, okay, for NORMAL people, a piece of fruit can be a snack. You can snack on a couple carrot sticks. Like, it’s no big deal, not everything needs to be a production, and you don’t need to perfectly balance your carbs-fat-protein every single friggin time you eat! My go-to simple snack is clementines honestly, I usually grab a couple of them before I leave the house, maybe a baggie of pop chips too. Nothing fancy. Nothing needs to have like 8 billiion ingredients added in.
Anyway I like the way you eat and you take beautiful photos – so I do enjoy seeing what you eat even when it IS the boring stuff!
I think WIAW has desensitized me because I lack the pressure in that area — I like the boring eats just as much as the fancy ones though TOTALLY understand what you mean bout posting a plain bowl of fruit or cereal and people instantly coming up with suggestions for add-ons — I think they’re simply trying to be helpful so I leave it at that. Where I constantly do feel the pressure is to post recipes. I feel like since my life turned upside down I’ve been letting everyone down in that respect and it breaks my heart a little. I want to get back to work on that but, for now, its just comforting making the recipes i’ve already posted over and over again b/c they really are family favs around here. Gah. I’m the worst blogger =) hehe — love you girly! And I love your plain dishes just as much as the funky ones! always! <3
yummy, i really love egg white oatmeal and I’ve been doing the same combination wtih bananas and a little bit of almond butter, but i think ill try your combination later this weekend. i look forward to seeing more 🙂
It makes me sad when I see bloggers trying to “conform” to the “healthy living blog” food standards. I’m with you on this – eat what you want. I mean, who cares if your food doesn’t look nice or isn’t filled with chia/hemp/flax/nut butter/blah blah blah. Ultimately, you’re the one eating these foods. Plus, I find simple meals to be the tastiest. The more I add into the combination the more diluted and mixed all the flavors become (which I hate). Simple salads, rice bowls with beans and avocado, cereal with milk all = perfection.
I want this Lucie gal to send me stuff. It looks amazing and I can’t find fun things where I live. Amanada if you are open to share how to gained weight, please email me. I’m 5 feet 2, female, in 30’s. Tired of this. Not exercising, save for short , flat walks. Currently living with mom in horrednously blizzard town…and want to stay so badly and get health back to par. BUT if I stay here, I risk having to work in this town in future when “better” and that scares the crap out of me. So I’m destined back to a another province and a stranger for a room rental and not feeling “setled”. Feels so WRONG…yet, long term it might be best. God, I need confirmtion this is the right thing to do 🙁
I ‘d love to know how you
a) approach from the beginning digestion problems. I truly believe I need to make serious eliminations to first heal my guts
b) stop overeating at midnight (borederline binging, but no purging or exerciseing)
c) be okay with carbs when not exercising
d) reading HLB blogs when not exercising AT ALL but wanting to
e) how to be okay with buying crap food (when not burning it off)
a recent post that bothered me was one by Kath Eats and calories and those STUPID calculators 🙁
anyway, thanks. Email antime. I need some one on one guidance if possible.
Cinnamon Bun = YUM!
I like simplicity. A salad with 20 toppings isn’t a salad anymore, it’s a dumpster! I’ve always thought bloggers who spend so much time making such extensive meals are just…hungry.
Definitely an interesting discussion Amanda! The crazy mix of cereal thing always kills me… two kinds is one thing, but to me anymore is just confusing. Surprisingly this is something I have not felt (too much) pressure by. I of course include food on my blog (hello WIAWs) but when I post pictures, I don’t try much to make it look good and admit often that yeah, food looks ugly ahh well! However, initially I have felt pressure, the breakfast one being major… I thought my oatmeal with nut butter, jam, granola, peanut flour, etc, was an essential first meal. Nopeee!
you are right we (bloggers) certainly tend to make things more complicated. i am guilty b/c i always mix my cereals. i think part of this, though, comes from spending so much time reading other blogs and learning how to be creative with my food – not a bad thing!
I think I’ve commented here before that I definitely sometimes feel pressured to be eating in a certain way and I do sometimes feel judged by what I eat or don’t eat but really I think that has got to stop and I’m trying very hard to limit outside influences in how I choose to eat, be that blog readers or other blogs. I just want to eat what makes me feel good. I guess the problems come when people start to compare, we are all different so what is satisfying and healthy for one person is not for another. One of the reasons I like WIAW is that you do get to see more ‘normal’ meals!
Honestly for me it is sometimes the opposite…I pile so much crap in my bowl that it exhausts me to even fathom writing out all the ingredients on various social media platforms ;-). Seriously though, I do think that there is pressure to be super creative with meals in the blog world, but really sometimes all we need is the simplest of things to fulfill our cravings.
You always say what I’m thinking. Get out of my head! 😛
Bloggers: do you ever feel pressured to eat a certain way or be creative with your meals?
I used to post pictures of my food but I don’t anymore. If I were to take pictures of my food now, people would probably get so bored with seeing the same thing all the time. I’m the kind of person that when I find something I like, I will eat it for weeks, maybe even months before I get sick of it.
Do you make sure your meals are always balanced?
Sometimes. But when I’m craving a burger and chips, a burger in one hand and chips in the other is what I call balance. Just not everyday 😛
Definitely a perfect definition of balance in my mind 😉
That’s a big reason why I’ve stopped posting WIAWs for now, I just get in major grooves with my meals and tend to get hung up on one or two things for awhile, and eventually move on to something else. I do like having a variety of foods from day to day but I felt like my WIAW posts were still really repetitive because I’d only remember to take pictures of meals that looked suspiciously similar to all the other weeks’ photos.
And I also feel a strange pressure to have very balanced meals. I might not have a veggie with every meal or snack, but I always get a carb, protein and fat source. I guess I just want to make sure I cover all my bases, but sometimes I’m really just craving one of the macros and it’s frustrating to always have to balance things out perfectly.
As a blogger, I definitely feel like my foods are boring, but I like them–so what’re you gonna do? It does sometimes bother me when my one coworker always comments on how much/how often I eat (which is a lot). I don’t know why. I know he means nothing by it, but I still don’t know why it’s worth commenting on. I tend to just prefer balanced meals. I like oatmeal in the morning (carbs), and then prefer to have meat with like, every meal, so protein isn’t an issue, and I’ve overcome my fear of fat and have thoroughly embraced it. So naturally I think it balances out. I’ve never really counted macros and have no intention of doing so. I’m all about creating less stress, especially around food, and since I’m bad at math anyway, math just equals stress.
Whoa, WHOA, hold the phone! You found coconut butter in CANADA!?? Please enlighten me, I must know where to get the coveted stuff!
I get it in Planet Organic, which is a Canadian organic food store chain. They have quite a few stores across Canada, so maybe there’s one close to you?
I never though of when people say “wow.. that would never fill me up” was so condemning to some people or that it came across as judgmental. I’m a BIG eater, and I have been known to say that. I will be very careful to not say things like that in the future. For someone who hasn’t struggled with an eating disorder, I would have never though of this! Thank you!!!
We bloggers do put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make our food pretty or creative. I’m with you.. sometimes I just want a banana and a cup of almond milk. period.
Awwr! I know you would never mean it in a snarky way, but yeah… my ED past definitely makes me a little more sensitive because in my mind a comment like that is kind of like a subtle suggestion that I’m not eating enough. Hopefully the sensitivity will fade with time 🙂
It all looks so delish! And although I am off sugar, that cinnamon bun looks like the kind I used to eat when I was a kiddo.
Happy WIAW- cheers!
great post amanda! definitely hit some close points as to why i think i stopped blogging so fast. so glad you are back 🙂
While I’m not a blogger (everyone should be thankful for this, lol, I’m quite the rambler!), I definitely can imagine feeling pressure or some anxiety about what others might think about my food choices since I consider myself “recovered” with the quotes around to imply that there are still subtle issues that I deal with daily, but that don’t actually interfere with my health since I don’t act on them.
Having gone through an ED though, I get extremely annoyed when my mom, for example, will explain in detail AND throw in little lies about how she prepared a meal we’re eating… “Don’t worry, there’s barely a teaspoon of oil in here, and look, we have enough for 3 days so that means you’re getting like 1/9 of a teaspoon!!!” …. I know you really put in like 3 tablespoons but the thing is, I don’t care anymore. (If it was 3 tablespoons per serving though, then admittedly I’d probably freak out a little.) But seriously, I eat normally now and NEVER complain about how foods are made, except at restaurants, and yet I still get regarded with hesitancy and suspicion.
And I’ve never been sure of how to balance my meals… I never paid attention to macros and all that. During my worst, it was all about the least amount of calories. Even if it had more saturated fat, if it was X calories less, I’d eat it. Now, I just try to eat some more fats and protein, but I don’t consciously think about balancing my meals. I just eat until I’m full 😀
😆 I think it might be a Polish woman thing because my mom is exactly the same way when it comes to explaining how much of something she used. Her teaspoon is basically the equivalent of 1/4 cup so I don’t even bother asking anymore.
Isn’t coconut butter amazing?
I’m not a blogger – but I love all things food, and I often times have “boring” snacks or meals too. Like tonight for example, I just had a banana and far too many handfuls of Quaker Oatmeal Squares for dinner! Simple is good 🙂
I guess I can say, as reader, I’m not all that interested in “creative” crazy meals.. I’ve definitely noticed how, well, strange so many bloggers meals are! I wonder like, why they eat some of these things, like chia seeds in oatmeal, spread made out of protein powder, dehydrated vegetables, or whatever, and also why none of them seem to eat simple meals form childhood.. Like, where do all the cultural roots or even personal tastes go? I eat cereal with milk and banana several days a week for breakfast, no nut butters, protein paste or powdered kale.. and sometimes just like Toast. I’m not protein deficient or overweight 😉 It would be refreshing and more relatable to see things like that, or even some fast food here and there ( and not the healthiest possible option with no sauce/cheese/bread.. I’m not saying that’s a regularly healthy habit, but it’s, like, normal!). I hope none of this is offensive at all, I respect everyones right to write/eat/post whatever the _ _ _ _ they want…these are just observations. Interesting topic!
You may just be my favorite reader ever 🙂 Absolutely loved hearing your perspective on this!
Oatmeal with banana and coconut butter is such a good combination! It makes me feel like I should be on a beach in the Caribbean or something. 😀
I can definitely relate to feeling that pressure to be creative with my meals… but about a year ago I got fed up with it, so then I just stopped blogging as often and stopped blogging my daily eats. I’m pretty sure no one wants to see my oatmeal breakfast 7 days in a row haha.
I totally feel pressure to make creative and “pretty” foods. Shoot even your meals intimidate me!! Half the time I try to make my food exciting, and the other half Im just like whatever get in my mouth Im hungry. And to be honest, most of the time I throw everything into 1 bowl or 1 meal because I want it all and cant decide!! Thats why I do the 2 cereal thing. I want more flavors half the time. But I am guilty of adding extra fruit to it to make it look more colorful! Sometimes I wish we could just go back to being kids and just eat, plain and simple.
your lunch looks awesome! some much random going on always makes the best!
Chocolate covered gummy bears, have you tried them? Delish if the gummy’s are not too stale, best of both worlds! Many times I don’t recount what I’m eating because I’m sure SOMEONE somewhere will have something negative to say about it. If it tastes good & I like it, I’m going to eat it 🙂 I guess as bloggers we do put ourselves out there for the criticism train to smash into…now I’m rambling & that’s another post for another day about opening ourselves up 😉
I haven’t tried them! But you’re the third person to comment about them so now I’m pretty much convinced that I have to either make them myself or go out in search of them.
yum, brown rice with peaches, who woulda known!! Im amazed by that combo 🙂 And I really want to make my own homemade applesauce now, is it better than store bought? Im guessing thats a yes!?
Omigosh! It’s not even fair to compare the two! Chunky homemade applesauce is seriously the best thing ever… the liquidy store-bought kind doesn’t hold a candle to it.
Personally, I don’t talk too much about my food on my blog. I’m not quite to the point yet where I’m 100% confident being like “HERE’S WHAT I ATE, FEEL FREE TO JUDGE ME!” You know what I mean? Maybe one day I’ll participate in What I Ate Wednesday though!
You stole the words right out of my mouth – seriously, I love plain eats and love no-fuss meals… Simple can be so satisfying and scrumptious. I definitely do my fair share of strange and lofty combos, but sometimes things just left in their truest form taste the best 🙂 And by balanced you mean a bowl of veggies with dessert oats for dinner? Then yes, haha – balance means a little bit of everything that I want at the time…