Being married to a dietitian, my husband is often asked, “What does she eat? I bet she eats perfectly all the time!” He usually chuckles and tells them about my love for ice cream and all things salty, including tortilla chips with “plastic cheese” (you know, the liquid “cheese-like food product” you get from a high school football game concession stand? Mmmm…) Eating to feed both your body and your soul is important! If you what you eat most of the time is good for your body, then you can enjoy soul food sometimes without guilt or health consequences.

I thought I would take the opportunity to show you what one Registered Dietitian eats in a day…or rather, three days. I chose to include three days to give you a better average and to avoid the bias of a “perfect day” since I knew I would be recording it. As you read through this post, try not to compare my diet with yours. Everyone’s healthy looks different, and there is no one right way to eat! What matters is that what you eat works for your body, your life, your schedule, and your happiness. These days represent what works for me.

Day 1

7:00 am – The day started with a tropical smoothie that contained leftover banana and pineapple with some spinach, nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt, orange juice, and chia seeds. As always and of course, I had a cup of tea!

10:30 am – Mid-morning after a few hours of work, hunger set in and I had a piece of whole wheat toast with some spreadable butter.

12:35 pm – After my workout I was very ready for lunch! Lunch was a leftover mish-mash. A large salad with a salmon burger patty, sunflower seeds, croutons, and bleu cheese dressing. Clementine kombucha to drink!

1:30 pm – Not too long after lunch I realized that it hadn’t been quite enough and that I was needing a bit more in the way of carbohydrates for energy to get me through the afternoon. I had one of these marshmallow pies left over from our Memorial Day camping trip. It went peacefully.

6:30 pm – I gardened for a few hours and then I was ravenous! For dinner I made beef ravioli with marinara and sauteed mushrooms, onions, and spinach.

8:30 pm – While watching Captain America: Winter Soldier with my kids in the evening, I had one of these raspberry fruit juice popsicles. So delicious!

Day 2

7:15 am – We still had leftover  pineapple, so I made another tropical smoothie with pineapple, leftover fruit salad, and spinach. I also made toast and a poached curried egg, so I didn’t add the Greek yogurt to the smoothie this time.

9:45 am – Snack time! In between appointments I nibbled on some roasted ranch flavored chickpeas for some carbohydrate and protein.

11:30 am – After seeing another client and doing a quick pilates workout, I ate the last of the leftover salad and the leftover ravioli from last night for lunch. I chased it with a square of Dove chocolate. Yum!

1:15 pm –  Throughout the afternoon, I focused on blogging and admin work. I snacked on raw veggies w/light ranch dip and clementine oranges.

4:25 pm – Hunger set in and I still had one more client until dinner. I had exhausted the food I brought for the day, so I walked around the corner to Arby’s for some of their snack-sized curly fries. I. Love. Curly Fries.

7:15 pm – This particular night at our house is a “use up” night, so I get the night off from cooking and everyone eats their own thing. Tonight, I finished off some leftover homemade baked beans and butternut squash.

Day 3

7:35 am – Today I ate a bit of an unconventional breakfast. Today’s tropical smoothie included pineapple, 1/2 canned peach, spinach, orange juice, and milk. Alongside that was the rest of a half-eaten sandwich prepared by one of our boys and then abandoned. Poor sandwich. So I played garbage disposal today. 🙂  #momlife

12:30 am – I was running late to work and was busy seeing clients once I arrived, so I didn’t get a chance for my mid-morning snack. I was HUNGRY by lunch time. So hungry that I skipped my workout and went straight for food. Today, I ate some pasta salad that I doctored up with chicken, corn, and sauteed peppers and spinach. Once I started eating it, I realized that it didn’t have very much chicken in it, so I tossed in a handful of my roasted ranch chickpeas for some added protein.

5:30 pm – I ate a lot of pasta salad for lunch, so I never got hungry for my afternoon snack. Plus, we were eating an early dinner so we could get to my son’s band concert on time. For dinner, I made pupusas (a Salvadoran savory corn “pancake” with chicken, cheese, and refried beans). I topped mine with salsa and ate a couple of leftover spiced pears. More kombucha to drink!

9:30 pm – After the concert, they had cookie trays and I love me a good white chocolate macadamia nut cookie! So delicious.

So there you have it! Three pretty typical, if not unvarying, examples of days in my food life. In hindsight, I perhaps shouldn’t have chosen 3 days in a row simply because I eat a lot of leftovers so several things showed up repeatedly. For example, I don’t usually have a smoothie every morning, but I did for these three days since we had leftover pineapple we needed to use up.

Other than that, these days show the typical pattern that works for me: balanced healthful meals with a treat or two just about every day. I love the food that I eat. Having plenty of tasty healthful foods I love and not denying myself “unhealthful” delicious treats in moderation makes for a great and delicious balance. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or ideas for other posts you would like to see!

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The sun is out and it’s time to think about getting out and enjoying the beautiful outdoors! In this post, we’re focusing on hiking and backpacking! Whether you’re a brand new hiker or seasoned backpacker, a little preparation can make your time on the trail easier and more enjoyable. We’ll kick off this series with a focus on endurance. To start, begin training at whichever level is currently a challenge for you.

Level 1: Beginners

If you haven’t been walking in a while, that’s the place to start! Begin by walking at a moderate pace for 5-10 minutes as a warm up, then pick up the pace to a quick, comfortable clip. Go for short walks, gradually working up to at least 20-30 minutes. Begin with 2-3 days per week and increase to a goal of 4-5 days weekly as you become more fit. When that becomes easier, move on to level 2.

Side note: This is also a great time to train your feet – wear the shoes you plan to hike in! Word to the wise, don’t remove your calluses. They are your friends!

Level 2: Current Walkers

If you already walk regularly or if walking is a piece of cake, it’s time to up the ante a little. Literally – go up! Add incline into your walks to work different muscles and to add a cardiovascular challenge. You can do this by adding hills or stairs into outdoor walks, increasing the incline on your treadmill, or walking up stairs. If you have a flight of stairs in your house or in your community, walking up and down them can help build up the muscle groups you’ll need for safe hiking.

Stair mills or stair stepping machines can also work well here, but do not neglect the importance of training yourself to go downhill. Most often, the majority of soreness we experience after hiking is from walking down, not up! Incorporate more ascents and descents into your training and you’ll find your time on the trail much easier. Again, I recommend wearing your hiking shoes. Sometimes inclines help you find friction points that weren’t there on flat ground! This can help you prevent disastrous blisters on the trail.

When you become trained for inclines, move on to level 3.

Level 3: Seasoned Hikers

If you’ve hiked or backpacked regularly in the past, or if you’ve worked up to training on hills or stairs, it’s time to add an additional challenge by carrying weight. Even if you are only planning to hike, not to backpack, training with weight can help your muscles and endurance grow stronger to make long-distance hikes easier.

If you are planning to hike with no pack (or a very light pack), you may choose to train with ankle and wrist weights, since they will prevent adding stress to your spine and make regular hiking easier; however, a backpack will also serve this purpose. For you backpackers, it’s time to get your pack out. Add some weight – dumbbells, soup cans, books, rocks – and go for your training walk. Continue to include the inclines from level 2!

Optional: If you are planning a long-distance backpacking or day-hiking trip, gradually extend the length of your training sessions. You don’t necessarily need to train for as long as you may be backpacking, but the farther you go, the fitter you’ll be!

Stay tuned for the next post in this series on training for hikers and backpackers – joint stability!

Disclaimer: While I am an exercise professional, I have not been hired as your exercise professional and I am not familiar with your individual health. As always, check with your doctor about your specific health situation before beginning any new exercise program.

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For the first time in Dietitian on a Diet history…we have a tie! In honor of this very momentous occasion (and because, why not?) I am holding a giveaway!

You loved both Eating Well on a Budget and Weight Lifting/Strength Training. One will be my next feature and the other will have to wait until another poll. Which is it gonna be? Here’s your chance to decide a) what my next feature will be and b) what the giveaway prize will be!

Here’s how to enter:

1. Like/follow Dietitian on a Diet on either Instagram or Facebook (or both for extra entries!)
2. Comment on the post featuring the image above. Include your vote (Eating Well on a Budget or Weight Lifting).
3. Tag friends who you think might like in on the action! Each friend you tag is an entry in the giveaway as well as another vote for your choice! Voting ends at midnight October 2nd. The winner will be selected on October 3rd by a random drawing.
4. If the winner picked Eating Well on a Budget, they will receive the Pampered Chef quick slice I use in my weekly food prep (you can see it in action here!). It cuts my food prep time in half! If the winner voted for Weight Lifting, they will receive a 6-in-1 high density massage roller kit for ironing out all of those worked-out muscles.

Ready…start tagging! May the best feature (and prize) win!

Which diet or lifestyle would you like me to feature next on Dietitian on a Diet? Choose carefully! 🙂 The poll will be open until midnight September 30.

When you start to eat well, it can feel like a time drain at first! To help out, consider all of the resources available to you. Not everyone prefers apps or tech-based toys but for those who do, they can be time game-changers. While many websites and apps (hellooooo social media…) tend to waste time, strategic use of time-saving apps can actually help make wellness easier and more streamlined. For the tech-lovers out there, here are 5 of the best healthy eating apps for your Apple or Android device. All of them are free except one, and it’s only $1.99.

1. Zipongo (free on the App Store and Google Play)

Best for: easy-to-use recipe app (and some meal planning)
How it works: Set up your dietary preferences and allergies, then peruse the vast recipe database, divided into a variety of categories (including low-calorie, in season, and 15 minutes or less, among many others). From there you can select your favorites and add recipes and their ingredients to a shopping list (divided by grocery department).
Pros: The app boasts many healthy recipes and the categories make them easy to search through. It’s convenient to add the ingredients to your grocery list, and the divided list saves time wandering in the grocery store.
Cons: There is not an easy way to create a digital meal plan from the recipes you choose.

2. Pepperplate (free on the App store, Microsoft store, Google Play, and Amazon, available as a full website)

Best for: meal planning (and a self-created recipe database)
How it works: Create a recipe database from your personal recipes (entered manually) and imported recipes from over 30 different recipe websites including All Recipes and Eating Well. Add recipes to a meal plan and then to a shopping list (divided by grocery department).
Pros: Meal planning and creating your shopping list is very easy to do, and again, love the divided grocery list.
Cons: Requires a time investment to set up at first, but only until you have a good database built up.

3. Fooducate (free on the App store and Google play, available as a full website)

Best for: choosing healthful foods
How it works: Use the “Food Finder” section to scan a barcode or search for a product and see it’s “grade” based on an A through D grading system. The app also provides an explanation for the grade and tips or alternatives to improve nutrition. The app also has recipes, a food/health tracker, and a “diet tidbits” section.
Pros: I love that it includes the explanation behind the grades, so you can know whether or not a new food or product is something you want to include. For the most part I agree with the explanations and they are backed by evidence.
Cons: The food tracker is not the easiest to use and I preferred to ignore that part of the app. Also, don’t allow “bad grades” to label a food “off limits” if you really love it. Just eat it less often and/or in smaller portions!

4. Harvest – Select the Best Produce ($1.99 on the App store)

Best for: tips for produce selection and storage
How it works: Enter your state and get a list of produce that are in season and information on how to properly select, store, and use them. The app also gives information on the typical pesticide levels found in each type of produce.
Pros: Great way to expand your repertoire of fruits and vegetables, and the pesticide content info helps prioritize organic purchases to save money.
Cons: Unfortunately, this app is only available for Apple devices. Some users found the information on produce seasons in their area to be inaccurate.

5. Plant Nanny (free on the App store, Microsoft store, and Google Play)

Best for: promoting hydration
How it works: Enter your weight and choose a cute little baby plant (and a flower pot). The app tells you how much fluid to drink each day (count anything that doesn’t have alcohol or added sugars in it!). As you drink, you water your plant. As you water your plant, it grows. Once it’s grown up, place it in your garden and plant another! If you don’t drink enough one day, your plant will be wilted the next, and if you underhydrate for two days, your plant will be dying on the third. Drink enough on the third day or your plant dies!

Ironic, isn’t it, that it took this app to get me, a dietitian, to drink enough water in order to keep my animated plant alive (as opposed to keeping my actual real body healthy)?
Pros: For the right personality, it’s delightfully cheesy and motivates you to hydrate. The plants are cute and there are several to choose from. Watering your plant is easy and not time-consuming.
Cons: Since the app only uses weight to estimate hydration needs, it overestimates if you have a higher BMI. If your BMI is over 30, find a “normal” weight for your height, add about 25 lbs, and use that as your weight in the app for accurate recommendations.

It’s time to start another feature, and this time I’m adding a new category of features: healthy lifestyles!

This category includes tips and advice on living well within different lifestyle factors: kids, tight budgets, tight schedules, picky eaters, you name it! So now is the time to vote. Which factor should I feature to help make your healthy life easier?

Eating Well on a Budget

We’ll talk about every trick in the book for making a healthful lifestyle as cheap as possible. It doesn’t have to be crazy expensive and often it’s actually cheaper than buying “cheap” junk food! I’ve been playing around with cutting our food budget while keeping it healthy for years, and I can tell you it’s possible to eat well on a tight budget (and I can show you how)!

Eating Well in Less Time

We are all busy! A tight schedule can leave little margin in our day (not to mention our energy) for keeping up healthy habits. Let me help you find healthy habits to streamline your life and make healthy work for your mind as well as your body.

Eating Well and Reducing Waste

For most American households, the vast majority of our trash bins are full of food waste and plastic food containers. A few easy swaps can significantly reduce the amount of food-related garbage in our landfills and be healthy for the planet as well as for you.

Vote in the poll below to let me know which feature is most helpful for you!

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Be sure to enter your vote for Dietitian on a Diet’s next feature! The runners-up are:

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This is a style of exercise training that involves training at…well, high-intensity intervals. This pattern of exercise involves alternating between lower- and higher-intensity bouts of exercise. Research shows that incorporating high intensity intervals can provide many of the same benefits as lower-intensity exercise, but with a shorter amount of time spent exercising. HIIT workouts are often promoted for fat loss, aerobic fitness, blood sugar management, decreasing inflammation, and improving cholesterol.

Intermittent Fasting

The term “intermittent fasting” has been used to describe a wide variety of eating styles and schedules, all based on the premise that fasting has metabolic benefits. These eating styles incorporate regularly scheduled “fasts”; some include complete fasts for 1 or more days per week or 1 week per month, but often (and for the style I would be following) intermittent fasting involves limiting the “eating window” to a certain part of the day and fasting for the remainder. The primary goals with intermittent fasting are often to 1) lose weight, 2) increase energy, or 3) reduce inflammation.

Budget-driven Meal Planning

This is actually a brain-child of mine, compiled from everything I have learned about how to drive the cost of healthful groceries down as far as possible. This way of purchasing food and eating has cut many of my clients’ grocery costs by 25%, even while eating healthful food. One particular client, with a family of 8, decreased her grocery bill by 50%! In this I will share what we spend on groceries, where we shop, how I save money, and how I do it all while eating healthfully.

Be sure to vote for the diet or exercise plan you most want to learn more about!