What’s up Wednesday! You’re not lookin’ any better, but at least you’re tastin’ mighty fine 😀 And if we can’t celebrate the weather, then at least we can throw a party and celebrate the food. Yippee!
Thank you, WIAW, for bringing a little sunshine to this girl’s otherwise cloudy day. And thank you, Jenn, for being the ever-gracious hostess.
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Sometimes Most of the time, the things I do make no sense. Case in point: I eat hot oats on hot days, and cold oats on cold days. I’m not really sure what was going through my head while I was making these last night, but I decided today would be a good day to have overnight oats for breakfast…
… blueberry coconut overnight oats, to be more precise. Last night I combined:
- ½ cup rolled oats
- 1 mashed banana
- ¼ cup Greek yogurt
- ½ cup coconut milk (from a can)
… and let it mingle in the fridge overnight. This morning I added some blueberries and slivered almonds, and went to town.
There’s no denying that this was a tasty way to start the day, but after a few bites, I found myself missing my beloved chocolate pudding oats and wishing that I was eating those instead.
Sometimes I try and switch up my meals for the sake of variety, but what ends up happening most of the time is that I just miss my standard favorites. Ahh well. At least I had more luck switching up my pre-workout/mid-morning snack…
That would be a protein cookie dough ball and an empty bowl that was at some prior point filled with a mix of cottage cheese and strawberry Greek yogurt. What? I got hungry…
Thankfully, I didn’t regret deviating from the banana/AB/chocolate pre-workout snack that I usually have, because this gave me all the energy I needed to power through today’s strength training routine. Boom. I’m definitely going to be feeling that one tomorrow. Lunges, you kill me.
And because lifting fires up my appetite like nothing else, I was more than ready to eat again when lunch time rolled around, but I decided to stick to the tried-and-true instead of trying to come up with something new, because my brain doesn’t work so well when it needs food…
Standard yogurt mess: Greek yogurt, Kashi Honey Sunshine, puffed wheat, Puffins, and trail mix.
&
Mango Tofu Protein Pudding with a salad beast that always includes: red bell peppers, cocktail tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, and cucumbers.
Pretty standard stuff. Nothing fancy or new.
BUT! for the past week or so, I have been dabbling with something new – I’ve been having a dessert alongside my lunch…
If you recall, last week I wrote a post about feeling slightly off and not knowing whether or not it was due to hunger. In the end, I decided to think less, eat more, and see what happened.
Best. decision. ever.
I’ll probably go into more detail about some of the things that I’ve figured out/noticed in tomorrow’s post, but yeah… dessert after lunch is definitely going to become a regular thing around these parts. As are these muffins. Gah. After a few hours of running errands, I was more than ready for an afternoon snack and decided to dig into another one…
… along with some almond butter protein frosting and a bowl of fresh summer fruit…
Thankfully, that managed to hold me over until dinner, at which point yet another repeat offender made an appearance…
And I’m not 100% decided on what my bedtime snack will be, but right now I’m leaning towards my favorite bowl of bedtime oat bran…
… with Greek yogurt, flaxmeal, and maple syrup.
Best lullaby ever.
. – . – . – .
As you’ve probably noticed, I eat a lot of the same meals/snacks on a regular basis. Today’s eats even included 3 bowls of oats, which is actually a pretty common thing. Do I see it as a problem?
Naaaaaah.
I know a lot of people attribute a lack of variety to lingering disordered behaviors, but for me the opposite is actually true. When I was in the depths of my ED, I was completely obsessed with making sure that I ate as many different foods as I possibly could throughout the course of a day, to the point where I wasn’t “allowed” to have the same food twice in one day, and my meals had to be completely different from one day to the next.
Exhausting. For real.
So, the fact that I can repeatedly eat the same thing and not spend hours thinking about food and trying to come up with new meals is actually a good thing. And to be honest, my stomach has been a lot less temperamental since I’ve cut down on the number of different foods I eat – I guess it wasn’t too big on having to digest so many different things, either.
Variety is great, and all, but I love/crave what I eat, and as long as I enjoy it, I’ll eat it as much as I want. And when I get tired of it? Only then will I move on to something new…
Sorry for being boring… except not really 😉
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Do you eat a lot of the same things every day, or do you like to vary it up?
Do you ever switch up your eats only to wish you’d just stuck to what you normally have?
Your meals and snacks all look so yummy. I can sometimes eat the same things over and over-I go by what my body is craving and what I enjoy. I really love bananas for instance and have at least one a day, same way with veggies like lettuce, beans, etc.
I’ve switched my breakfast quite a few times and wish I’d just been smart and stuck with my original intent of eating what I had planned on eating. Now I try and just eat what I crave instead of always trying to switch it up.
Now, once I find something I like, I like to stick with it 🙂 And then when I get tired of it I move on and eat that for a while and then it continues on. It’s a delicious cycle 😛
Dessert after lunch is simply amazinggggg 🙂
How do you keep your muffins from molding??? I let mine cool out completely and then put them in a container, but after like 3 days they get a strong stench (esp. ones made with bananas), and they get sweaty and mold. 🙁
I put mine in the fridge after a while, and then in the freezer.
Thanks! 🙂
Keep eating what you crave lady! Even if it’s 3 bowls of oats a day, or nothing but carrots all month. If that’s what you want, honour it! I am so. friggin’. fed. up. of people thinking that you MUST have variety or you BLATES have an ED. It is infuriating.
I go through phases, and I’ll eat the same thing every day for 2months, then not touch it for 2months. So what? It’s what I want! I can remember so many times when I’ve thought ‘yeah I should switch it up now…just cos I should’, not cos I want to. And every time I’ve done that, I’ve finsihed the meal and just thought ‘meh’, not ‘aahh that was delicious!’ like I would if I’d followed the craving! Freedom with food comes from variety yes, but freedom with food also comes from allowing yourself to eat the same meal over and over – it’s about eating what you want.
Mmmmm I’m loving all those EATS! The bowl of summer fruit looks perfect ♥ So glad you’re feeling better with eating more btw!
I totally agree with you- eating the same stuff everyday is the BEST! I enjoy what I eat…so what if it’s too darn repetitive? I never enjoy it if I’m only changing it up because I think I’ve been eating it “too much” -.-
I do this all the time! I have a standard set of “normal” meals that I repeat so frequently its ridiculous (case and point: chocolate cheesecake for breakfast EVERY DAY.) But they’re just so good that I don’t want to stop eating them! I know someday will come when I eventually get sick of it (I used to eat a bowl of cottage cheese/yogurt/cereal/fruit/peanut butter for breakfast everyday for about 2 years) and will move onto something else. Its just the way it is for me. If I branch out, I’m almost ALWAYS disappointed…
Dinner’s the one exception. That’s different a lot, because I have to eat what my family’s eating (unless its a “fend for yourself” night, like last night when I had two varities of cake for dinner, lol.) But we still have our favorites: fajita night, taco night, pizza night…
All your food looks so good. Love the overnight oats with blueberry and coconut.
Ah, that is some really yummi meals you had Amanda! I want all of them 😀
I think it is completely normal (and healthy) to eat the same food over and over. Why should you use half your day to figure out new combinations and meals! And as good as you are on listening to your hunger and craving, I think your body will ask for excatelly what it wants-when it needs it!
And this was not a boring post- you have never ever posted a post I havent enjoyed reading!
<3
I try to vary it up but sometimes I just am stuck on eating the same breakfasts everyday because oats are just so darn delicious!
I’ve never been accused for not having variety in my diet, but my family does sometimes point out that I am, yet again, eating hot cereal or have to have peanut butter on everything (i do. It’s good on pizza, did you know? ;)). I eat a lot of the same base foods, but I switch up the way I eat them (or nit, deepening on how I feel). For example, nut butter can be used in/as a mix in, a spread, a topping, a smoothie. The same with hot cereal. I like to eat simple foods but love to vary the ways I eat them, ni addition to eating them in the same traditional ways a lot. In my sister’s words: “you take a very simple food and add lots of other simple things to it [generally in the form of toppings, I might add] to make it complicated”.
She’s got some smarts, my sis does 😀
ps: I have to agree on the overnight oats. I am not a big fan (weird and sorta slimy to me). I am not the biggest fans of oats in general, actually. They just don’t fill me up at all, and I prefer soft and creamy hot cereals.
I should clarify, that NOW I am not told I eat no variety. When I was in the midst of my disordered eating, I ate a very small range of watery, low-calories foods, and my mom certainly noticed. Now I eat those same foods, because I love them, but am not afraid to branch out or embellish them with high-calories things if I want. I am more open to tyring new things now that I am more ED free.
Oh yeeah I deffo sometimes try something new just to wish I had stuck to my old faithful!!
I’m deffo making those muffins btw! 😀
I have a pretty steady routine of meals I like. That being said, it does change but only after I totally exaust a food obsession. Overnight oats..for a while I could not get enough of them, now I never think about eating them. Currently, I am eating enough spinach that I should be turining green anyday now:) Give the body what it wants:)
I don’t know why some people have an issue when you eat similar foods, we all have our favorities and our cravings and there’s nothing wrong with that! I personally like a lot of variety but still always come back to my fave meals of green smoothies and big salads. My husband eats oatmeal every single day for breakfast and would happily eat pasta every single day too, I love the fact that we are all different in those ways 🙂 Your breakfast does sound lovely, especially using proper coconut milk 🙂
I eat a lot of the same stuff every day. I’m going on two months of eating the same breakfast each day. If I try to make something else I just don’t feel satisfied and wish I’d made my usual breakfast.
All your oat creations look awesome. I love the lighting on the photos.. it’s beautiful!
SO GLAD you posted this! I still feel like I’m in the place where every single meal has to be different during the week…if I repeat something it’s going to be “too much” of that one food and my body will hate me for it. So I try to vary it up, but then I miss the food that I actually wanted to eat. It’s good to know that thinking lesss and worrying less about switching things up really works-I’m gonna have to get to that place soon!
This post makes me feel a little better, I tend to eat the same foods all the time. When I try to deviate, I regret not having what I usually do. Also, when I want to make something different I tend to obsess more about what im going to make. Great post though!
Breakfast and lunch are usually the same every day for me…but I always eat different dinners! I find that I get stuck on cycles where I really love a certain food for awhile (bananas one week and sliced peaches the next), but I try to make myself try new foods! Trying more things has made cooking and eating a lot more fun.
Your muffins always leave me daydreaming. I really, really, really want a fresh warm homemade muffin. Sigh. I’ll buy an oven toaster when I move next month!
I usually prefer variety. If I eat the same thing more than two days in a row, I get bored. There are very few things that are always welcome on my table. Moussaka and banana sandwich are the magic words. Repetitive eating was a part of my big bad weight loss plan and not really a part of who I am. But I quite often have “Never again!” moments while experimenting with new food 😀 .
You make your overnight oats look so good! But when I tried OO with yogurt and milk, I really didn’t like them… that was last summer though so maybe they deserve another shot. That was definitely an example of when I tried to switch up my breakfast and regretted it. 😛
I don’t tend to eat a lot of the same foods in one day, but I don’t really think it’s a problem if you do. If you don’t eat what you’re craving, then you’re not going to enjoy your meal… and what’s the fun in that?
Awwww 😀 I love this! It is so important to respect your cravings, and I am glad you found which way your body operates best. Personally, I need variety in my diet or else my stomach goes crazy. If I don’t mix up my meals, then my stomach will start hurting like crazy! But that’s just how I work. Everyone’s different. We all just need to find what works best for ourselves 😀
Goodness I just love every post you write… of course I can relate to all of them so very well! I eat the same things all of the time, because they taste so good and I know I am getting the correct nutrients I need for my body. It is hard to continuously come up with new things to eat, especially when you are hungry!
It’s interesting that during the worst of your ED you would try and eat differently all of the time… for me, I stuck to the same.exact.thing. day in and day out because I “knew” this method worked for weight loss. It was pretty boring and sad to tell you the truth- forcing yourself to eat “safe” foods all of the dang time. ugh!
It can be rather annoying having people make all sorts of assumptions about your food, which people WILL DO no matter what. I think it can be helpful though (GASP)…call me crazy! Whenever someone says something about my eating choices, patterns, etc. I just ask myself if it’s true or not and either way I DONT LET IT BOTHER ME. Sometimes other people will notice things that you wont and that can be a good thing. Other times, people will noticce absurd things that are not true at all–just ignore those things. Main point: what most people think, doesnt matter! I know thats a hard concept to understand and I think most people with ED’s or who had ED’s are a very sensitive bunch (myself included). It’s so important though to realize that you CANNOT and will not be able to ever “eat perfectly” be perfect to EVERYONE! It’s not possible. Someone is always going to have something to say about you. That’s why developing confidence and love for yourself on a whole is sooo important! 😉
xxo
I don’t think you should have to justify the way you eat.
Honestly, with your post and Carrie/Freya’s problems with this I really think people need to be less concerned with others’ eating habits and more attentive towards their own. When you have an ED background, everyone under the Sun likes to come across and pick on every little habit as ‘abnormal’ either because it makes them feel insecure in their own style of eating or because they have very narrow conceptions of what ‘normality’ is.
The most ‘normal’ people I know are men. Men at my gym who don’t have any concept of eating disorders, who run marathons and want to be strong and uber-fit (and goodness me, they are!) And they eat the same range of foods, day in, day out. One has had the same porridge combination for brekkie every day for the past eight years, without deviation. Another has a variation on eggs/beans/mushrooms/toast/tomatoes for two out of three meals regularly. Are they disordered? Nope.
Like you, when I was a restrictive eater (as opposed to an overeater as I am now) I HAD to have tonnes of variety. I could never eat the same thing twice, even if it was a vegetable. But when I was little with few ‘issues’ with food I always ate Weetabix for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch (tuna mayo before being veggie, red leicester cheese after) and some kind of pasta bake for dinner, with fruit, chocolate or my Mum’s baking for snacks. Now I go through food obsessions (protein oats last year, then polenta, now green smoothies) and although I know I’m still very disordered, I don’t think that lack of variety inherently indicates a disorder, just as eating a lot of volume foods does not.
Eat what you want, want what you eat. If you’re strong and healthy then any naysayers can bugger off, pardon my French.
xxx
I’ve thought about this some more (apologies for spamming your comments section with my thoughts…) and because I suffer from BED I might have a different view to most other people on this. When I’m bingeing, I don’t eat the same foods either. I move from one food to the next to the next, because nothing is ultimately satisfying.
The only times I’m approaching anywhere near a reasonable attitude IS usually when I’m repeating foods. I think perhaps most people that don’t focus on food, or make it the be all and end all of their lives, just eat on the hoof and do tend to repeat things. Not that striving for variety is bad at all, but I don’t think it’s necessary to feel any guilt at all over not branching out, so long as the reasons are not motivated by fear of the other foods, and only each individual knows that for themselves, despite the people out there that like to presume they know exactly what others are thinking.
You don’t have to apologize at all, Jess. Your comments are always well thought out and much appreciated 🙂
Hey girly,
very yummy eats, I know i said this on your previous post but i actually think i have fallen in love with your muffins. Oh gosh that actually sounds a little rude. hahaha you know exactly what I mean.
I have a hard time changing around my breakfasts but the rest of the day, im perfectly happy to eat what ever despite already having the same thing, I figure why not eat the foods I love all of the time, makes it so much fun. 😀
Have a great day 🙂
Hmm… I confess I eat exactly the same thing every day, until dinnertime, which will be some variation of veggies/protein source/carb source. And my day will ALWAYS end with a bowl of homemade yogurt, no matter what time. Yum. I admit I am still recovering and regaining normal food habits, but at the same time, I adore what I eat and I really do look forward to what I have for each meal and snack, day in, day out. I’ve thought about it and I think that even though I have been in recovery for a little over a year now, after such restriction for so long, food still seems a little like a real novelty for me and so I want to be sure I enjoy every bite I have – maybe to avoid the possibility of a ‘wasted’ meal?
Sometimes I wish I would get sick of my meals so I can branch out a bit – how is it that can I eat the exact same thing for a good year and still crave it daily?! – but I have to say, on the odd occassion that I do (like when eating out) satiety-wise it’s not usually worth it and I can’t wait to get back to my usuals! Although socially I know it is always worth it to get out there and not retreat from the world in order to stick to my food.
Thanks for showing that we are not alone or weird in this, that it’s okay!
Sure its okay 😀 I think one of most difficult things about recovery is that we tend to overanalyze our behaviors because it can be hard to tell what thoughts come from the healthy part of our mind, and what thoughts come from the disordered part… Is this normal? Is this my ED? Is this what I want?… We can drive ourselves crazy with these kind of questions and still never really find a good answer. The best thing to do is stop thinking so much and just go with the flow 🙂
I do quite like variety now. my ed was the oposite though I literally ate the same foods for months on end everyday. Their is only so many time syou can eat a boiled egg for dinner!! So now I eat different things although I do have my staples like apples, yogurts, and oatmeal which I eat every day pretty much. I feel that you should just eat what you like if you don’t like something you shouldn’t eat it just to show variety.
I go through phases of food and eat them repetitively because I enjoy them. Food is pleasure and if it tastes good, why only eat it occasionally?
I tend to eat similar stuff each day, it is easier and takes less time and I already know I love it :)But it is not the same exact thing day in and day out, just similar stuff with different flair. Yet I do like variety too, I like to experiment when I have extra time or going out to a new place I like to try something new because I might find a new “thing” to add. Eating what you crave is what I find most important!
I sometimes even wish I ate more different meals daily 🙂 But I have my favourites that I love and enjoy and find tasty, so I always go for them 🙂 I think that eating what we find tasty and good foor us is actually really the best what we can do:)
I usually eat the same breakfast or lunch. It just varies on what I want. Lately I just want a smoothie so I’ll have that or I just eat eggs.
Eating what you love/crave/want is totally fine.
I love oats before bed. If I’m hungry before I go to sleep, I tell my mom to make me some oatmeal. Hah. Too bad she’s not here except I’m not hungry. I just had German chocolate cake.
Aye, I eat the same breakfasts and lunches (ie oats in some form for breakfast and a sandwich and something else for lunch) and my snacks just tend to be rotated. Dinners are different because that’s when I have the time to experiment but usually I stick with the same things for the same reason as you – I like them!! There’s nothing wrong with that!
OMG yes I have definitely experienced regret when switching up my eats. Like the other day, I decided to have granola and yoghurt as a snack instead of my dark chocolate cookies and milk and I regrettttttted it because I NEED CHOCOLATE IN THE AFTERNOON OR I’LL DIEEEEEEEEEEEEE. The reason why I didn’t die is because I nibbled on a piece of chocolate to take away the MADNESS. But the moral of the story is to eat chocolate. every. day. NO EXCEPTIONS!
xxx
This is along the same lines of my post yesterday, so as you already know, I definitely stick to a lot of the same foods! What’s good is good!
I have never commented before, but just wanted to express my admiration for your posts and ability to express yourself in a dignified, well thought out manner. You obviously put a lot of thought into your blog and convey your reasoning and motivation towards your recovery and food choices brilliantly.
My two cents about the repetitive food choices is that every human whether they’ve been disordered or not is that we each have a variety of 20-30 foods that we base our diet around. These main foods vary from person to person, but we all utilise these base foods for the majority of our diets. It is fairly common that meals are repeated thousands of times throughout an individuals lifestyle. For example, my parents eat the same meal for breakfast every morning – porridge in the winter with fruit and cereal & toast in the warmer months. So I don’t think you are trying to cling to your disorder at all (not that it matters what i think at all, because your food and consumption is not for me to judge).
Humans are creatures of habit and this is reflected in not only our food choices but our behaviours towards clothing choices to how we drive, to our relationships and beyond.
Thanks again for such a great post.
Victoria
Thank you, Victoria, for your comment and kind words 🙂
This post was awesome. Boo-yah! Oatmeal is GOOD! 😀