First of all, I have to thank you guys for your incredibly sweet (and in some cases enjoyably heated) responses to my encounter with the weight loss guru Starbucks barista. Rest assured that there was no harm done, and I’m still enjoying my cappuccinos, 2% milk and all…
… with a side of pink nails, naturally…
Newest nail polish obsession: Wild Strawberry by Revlon.
But I digress. Today isn’t about beauty or bimbo baristas; it’s about something far more enjoyable – food! It is WIAW after all. At this point I really don’t have any set theme in mind, so I’m just going to take a look at whatever pictures I have and go from there…
Unlike last week’s instalment, this week has me mercifully free of all stomach woes. Thank goodness. Not that I don’t enjoy eating breakfast all day, but sometimes even I get tired of cereal and yogurt…
Eggy bananafied oats cooked in 2% milk and topped with cocoa powder and roasted almond butter.
So I just realized that I’ve never really updated you guys on what I believe was an oat intolerance. It’s been about 8 months since I stopped eating oatmeal on a daily basis due to the adverse reactions it seemed to be giving me, and while I’m still not back to eating it regularly, the handful of occasions that I’ve had it over the past little while have caused me no problems. I guess I was eating too much of it and my body just needed a break? Whatever the case, I’ll be enjoying oatmeal again on occasion from here on in, but nowhere near in the amounts that I was eating before.
And while we’re on the topic of updates, I guess I should probably fill you guys in on the results of my little meal-bulking experiment. Going in to the whole endeavor, I had two major concerns:
- That I would eat bigger meals and still end up snacking just as much out of habit/boredom/whatever.
- That my stomach wouldn’t take kindly to bigger meals and I’d end up feeling sick/lethargic/whatever.
Well, I’ve still been snacking…
Deep Chocolate Vitamuffin with plain Greek yogurt mixed with coconut milk.
Maple-flax sweet potato fries.
Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
Plain Greek yogurt, strawberries, tangerine, Kashi GoLean Crunch.
… but nowhere near as much as I was before. I used to literally feel like I was eating all day because I always seemed to be picking away at something, whereas lately I haven’t been getting as hungry between meals and can usually get by with two or three snacks. Success.
As for my stomach not taking kindly to bigger meals? That one, unfortunately, turned out to be true. My stomach has never been a fan of having to work hard to digest bigger meals, and it made for some pretty uncomfortable times in the early stages of my experiment. Luckily, I think I’ve figured out something that works. Take this smoothie lunch for example…
Looks small, but packs a pretty good punch:
- 1 cup frozen mango
- ¼ cup oatmeal
- 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
- 1 Tbsp. coconut butter
- 1 cup milk
… and it kept me full for hours. Or how about this quinoa bowl dinner:
2 egg scrambled in coconut oil, quinoa with olive oil, dried cranberries, broccoli, avocado.
Low in volume, high in sustenance; and again, satisfied for hours. The trick? Adding energy dense foods (like oils). I used to be big on volume eating, scared that I’d be left hungry unless I stuffed my stomach ridiculously full, but all that really did was leave me uncomfortably bloated and still unsatisfied most of the time. With my current approach, it’s been the complete opposite: comfortably full and definitely satisfied. Success.
So, the main things I’ve noticed from my experiment? Well:
- I don’t snack as much.
- I don’t feel hungry all the time.
- My cravings for sugar have become less intense.
- I can focus on other things for a decent amount of time without getting distracted by thoughts of food.
- I did not become a whale by eating bigger meals.
All in all, I’d call it a success, and I’d highly recommend that you give bigger meals a shot if you find yourself feeling ridiculously snacky and unsatisfied all day. Happy Wednesday, friends!
. – . – . – .
Are you a volume eater? Or do you prefer more energy dense foods?
Random question: what kind of milk do you drink?
All your food looks amazing, I totally adore your photography too – please send some tips my way. Eggy bananfied oats – I want to try them now.. and I just ate breakfast!
There’s always tomorrow 😀
I’m happy to see you can enjoy oatmeal again! And I’m glad your dense meal experiment provided you with some good insight into the workings of your body. My stomach actually doesn’t do well with large meals either (I get a random pain on my left side when I overeat) but I find that when I eat more in the mornings/early afternoons I feel much more content the remainder of the day. I also end up snacking less and having less random cravings. I think the key (for me) is similar to you – eat normal sized meals (on the smaller side though) but ones that are jam-packed with dense nutrients like your smoothie.
I think that meal timing has a lot to do with it for me as well, and I’ve definitely noticed that I have a harder time staying content throughout the day if I don’t eat a good breakfast. I’m actually thinking about bulking up my morning meals a little bit more and seeing what difference it makes.
I am definitely a volume eater (and ALWAYS have been), but even so I find that I can wait longer between meals and snacks if I bulk up the energy density of my meals. There are times when I can eat a huge salad and be hungry two hours later, only to realize that I didn’t add enough energy-dense ingredients.
Glad to see that your little experiment is working for you!
OK girl! I’ve missed you!
Do you remember me? hahaha. You were one of my FIRST EVER blog readers when I first started out!
That last meal of yours made my mouth WATER like crazy. I looooove quinoa, eggs, broccoli, and avocado, but haven’t had them together! And then adding something sweet, too? GENIUS BABY!
I have you in my blog reader now! LOVE YOU
I do remember you, hun, and I know you’ve been on a pretty epic quinoa kick lately 🙂 Definitely try combining them all – so, SO good.
Yay I’m glad this experiment worked out well for you! I’m a fan of energy dense foods too – big salads and meals with too many veggies just make me feel bloated and unsatisfied. I prefer having grains, a protein, some veggies, and lots of healthy fat in my meals to keep me satisfied. It usually still ends up being a pretty big portion though haha.
Also that’s awesome you’ve been able to eat oats with no problems! Egg white banana oatmeal is my favourite breakfast ever… I probably eat it 6 out of the 7 days of the week. 😛
I’ve been doing the same thing lately. It’s weird, I used to be hungry every hour and I never thought I would be able to make it from lunch to dinner with only a couple of snacks in there. It’s amazing what a beefed up breakfast or lunch can do!
love that eating larger meals is working for you!!! also love that you added cocoa powder to your bfast and had a smoothie for lunch. i think in person – we would get along just fine my friend…. 🙂
I blame you for unleashing the cocoa powder monster in me 😛
Your food looks unreal! Can you cook for me ?!? I definitely prefer fuller fat meals, with fat sources from plant based sources primarily.
Yay for adding oats back in! I think it’s probably a good idea for everyone to take small breaks from foods they love to avoid developing intolerances to them–I know I have a few foods I can OD on and I wouldn’t want to have to give them up. One weird intolerance I’ve recently developed is to onions. Cooked ones really mess up my digestive system for some reason and even fresh ones are bad. I have no clue why I just randomly developed this since it’s not like I’m obsessed with onions or anything. But it would be nice to be able to eat them, since they’re in pretty much every cuisine!
I only drink almond milk now as a vegan but when I was younger, I couldn’t drink anything but skim because that’s what I grew up drinking. When we went to other people’s houses, I would refuse to drink milk because they’d only ever have 1 or 2% and it tasted gross to me.
I am most definitely an energy dense eater! There’s no way I’d be able to pack away the calories I need if I didn’t include lots of healthy fats and grains on my plate. In fact, lately many of my meals have been vegetable-less, merely because I don’t have room for them. The nutritionist in me cringes, but I know that this period will pass, and that once I reach my goal, I’ll have a little more leeway. In the meantime, gummy vitamins are my best friend. 😉
The mango-coconut butter protein smoothie bowl looks amazing. I think I’ll give a variation of it a try tomorrow (sans mango, as I don’t have any…but I’m thinking raspberries might make a good substitute?). xoxoxo
There are days where I can’t be bothered to get many veggies in either, but like you said, it’s all about looking at the bigger picture 🙂 I don’t think our bodies analyze how they’re doing on a daily basis – we just got into the bad habit of doing that ourselves.
I love dairy! I can’t go a day without a few glasses of milk, some yogurt messes, and cheese! And always always either the full fat or 2%. I have some pretty bad memories of nonfat chemical-laden artificially flavoured yogurt and watery skim milk… Never again!
And I’m so glad you got oatmeal back into your life! Creamy-milky banana oats mm!
Loving the sound of your dinner! And I always add egg whites + banana to my oats now- so creamy!
uhhhhh, how about you come visit and make me meals? that smoothie bowl is making me swoon. and then the quinoa bowl?! overwhelmed. 🙂
Your nails look great! Love your food pictures… you have such GREAT pics on your blog.
I just cannot believe that Starbucks barista! I can’t get over it. People have a lot of nerve.
Milk has always bothered me so I very rarely drink it… Almond milk in my cereal and skim if I do need milk for something!
GREAT SUCCESS!! (please tell me you’ve seen that movie lol). I’m really glad oats are back – I have heard of that happening to people where they eat too much of something and it starts bothering them. I’d be interested to see if peanut butter were that sort of thing for me actually….although, if it really is an allergy I kinda don’t want to put myself through the reaction for a test haha! And I’m SO glad the experiment worked out for you – I think it works for a lot of people, actually. I too will always need snacks – I’m not a “3 squares” kinda person – but adding more calories to my meals earlier this year helped a ton. Especially in a new office setting, I didn’t want to be snacking all the time. I did it a bit differently, I added more carbs and not fat (since that’s more of what I need with endurance training), but it really did work. My stomach isn’t built for only eating 3 times a day though and you know, I like snacks, so I’ll keep it the 3 meals/2 snacks kinda like you do. It’s good not to be distracted by your hunger all day!! That dinner sounds AMAZING too….
….and as for what kind of milk I drink? er….on the rare occasion I drink milk-like things, it’s soy or almond – I can’t tolerate real dairy milk. But I just HATE milk straight-up, so I rarely drink it….but I should probably find a way to force it down, calcium is good I guess….blehhhh. I don’t know why I have such an aversion to it! It’s not even a food-fear/ED thing…*sigh*
I have seen that movie, and quote it frequently 😉 And yeah… peanuts are a legit allergy for me, so I’m not going to be doing any experimenting with those, but it’s nice to have oats back. And it’s definitely nice to snack… I honestly have no idea how some people claim to get by without it. As for the milk, I never drink it straight up either, but I’m not against having it in the form of lattes and cappuccinos
True that, love my soy cappuccinos! Actually now i think.of it, i bet i could get myself to drink it if i put chocate syrup in it! 😉
Isn’t it incredible how much more busy your mind can be with other things when it is not hungryyy?! Brain needs energy to think about other things. 🙂
Yay for your stomach feeling much better!! I swear it’s the smoothies.. they are a cure 🙂
hehe i think i fall into the ‘enjoyably heated’ category 😉 ..i like little snacks throughout the day – i have trouble with my sugar, so if i eat a big meal i basically fall asleep lol i did a post on food and energy the other day (which foods give you the most, etc.) but i’m planning on doing another on timing of meals next month 🙂 ..liked your quinoa pic – i just started eating it! 🙂
What a fabulous post! Love what you wrote. I enjoy drinking rice milk and coconut milk- since I’m lactose intolerant!
Glad your experiment was pretty much a success & you learned some more about yourself & your tummy. I’ve been beefing up my fats (oils, avocado, nut butters) & find that I feel more satisfied when I incorporate these types of foods. I used to be afraid to cook w/oil or butter, but it’s really the way to go… food tastes better, keeps you more satisfied, & adds some healthy fats to your diet. Happy Wednesday!
I seriously cannot get over the ridiculousness of that baristas comment…its one of those things that is so stupid and ignorant that it is just kind of hilarious. Psh, if I drank dairy I would probably even go for whole milk, imagine how that barista would react to that. 😉 Anyways, nutrient-dense meals seem to work best for me too, especially on days where my hunger is through the roof. Often time I have to end the night with a big spoonful of healthy fat in the form of nut butter to further satisfy the hunger beast too. No harm in that though. 😉
Sounds like a perfect way to end the night; and if chocolate is involved, then that’s even better
I’m glad the eating experiment was a success! I used to focus on quantity, too, but never felt satisfied. Now I focus on quality. I also found my sugar cravings to go wayyyy down. 🙂
I want all of this! Especially the sweet potato fries, they look amazing!! I usually go with soy milk 🙂
Since stopping intense weight training a couple weeks ago, I have been trying to cut down on calories and I started loading on fruits and veggies and took in less protein. The result has been I have been starrrrrving and snacking more because I’m left hungry. I need to pick foods that are low in calories and high in protein or fiber or I never feel full 🙁
I’ve found that adding in a good amount of healthy fats really helps with satiety levels.
I like a mix of both! Volume for meals and energy dense for snacks.
All of your food looks fantastic! I am defintiely a volume eater, though I’ve cut back on doing that since my trainer has me eating 7 meals a day. Volume and frequency don’t mesh well. 🙂
I’m glad to hear you can eat oats again! I’ve been eating them every day for like a year and a half so I’m waiting for the day my stomach calls it quits. I started getting the same side effects you were but I realized it was mostly due to the fact I was eating oatmeal and, well, only oatmeal. My body was just hungry in general. Now I don’t get the feeling anymore! 🙂
I drink skim milk – i know, i know dirty water. My mom brought me up on Skim and it’s the ONLY kind I ever drank as a kid. Now, I think anything with % is disgusting. It’s too creamy for me. I can actually tell when a latte is made with anything but skim. It’s so wierd. Haha.
Hopefully your stomach doesn’t call it quits on the oats! I’m starting to worry that mine might pull the plug on my yogurt/cereal addiction as well. Eep! And I can tell when my lattes/cappuccinos aren’t made with 2%… they’re a lot less creamy that way 😛
I feel a lot more satisfied and full when I eat 3 main meals throughout the day and only snack if I’m actually hungry. But I find that I typically don’t snack! And I drink almond milk. Your quinoa bowl looks delicious!
Oh, and I drink Almond Milk, Sweetened. It’s the only one I can get here and it tastes like a dessert 😉