Hello and good morning!
And of course, happy WIAW! Thank you to Jenn and her inner chickpea for hosting!
So, this month’s theme is sensible snacking. And for once in my life, I think I’m actually going to follow the WIAW theme 
There seems to be a bit of a continuum when it comes to people and snacks. Some people stick to three square meals with nary a snack in sight. Other people seem to avoid meals because they’d rather just munch on things throughout the day.
I think I’m right in the middle. I can’t do the three square meals thing, but if I try to have a lot of little snacks instead of meals I never quite feel satisfied. So I’m a 2-3 snacks a day sort of person, with a little bit of veggie or fruit grazing in between. I plan out my snacks in advance, because frankly, it’s easier that way.
On gym days, my first snack of the day comes before I head to the gym, so literally 10 minutes after I wake up. It needs to be something that I can throw together quickly.
Yesterday, I went for half a protein shake (unsweetened vanilla almond milk and 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder) with about a serving of Fibre 1.
Between the gym and heading to work, I have breakfast.
Oats with sliced strawberries and an egg/egg whites. Yesterday I was feeling the oats despite the fact that it was pretty warm and sunny outside. Cannot escape the oats craving, even in the summer!
I’m usually ok to make it to lunch without another snack, but yesterday my office had a morning meeting so the leftover fruit and pastries made it into the mailroom. Enter: a few hunks of unpictured watermelon. Watermelon is one of those fruits that I really like, but rarely buy out of pure laziness. Apparently, I like to have fruit access quickly?
Lunch: Asian-style coleslaw with some leftover pork tenderloin from dinner the night before. All classy in tupperware and plastic bags I made the sauce for the coleslaw by mixing almond butter with a bit of water – good, but next time I would add soy sauce to add a bit more flavour. And probably sub almond butter for peanut butter, but right now I’m all out (the horror!). Baby carrots on the side for crunch.
An afternoon snack is definitely needed to get me through the rest of the day. Because I work at the front desk at my office, it needs to be easy, quick and something I can pick at all sneakily. Bars, mixed buts and trail mixes have become my afternoon regulars. Yesterday, I had one of these:
(and clearly, forgot to take a picture)
These bars are pretty good – the stats are awesome, but the ingredient list is a little long/unpronounceable. Taste pretty good, but there’s a bit of an aftertaste. Overall, not bad for a store-bought protein bar. Still – I think I need to make some homemade ones soon.
Dinner
The snack monster comes out a little bit when I prepare dinner – which in this case, was pizza:
I sauteed half an onion, half a bell pepper and a few handfuls of spinach and tossed them on a whole wheat crust with red sauce, turkey summer sausage, and shredded jalapeno havarti. Snacked on: various things before they went on the pizza
My plate:
Two pieces and a bit of salad on the side for some extra veggies. Followed by a few chocolate covered raisins, because the sweet tooth always kicks in at night.
Speaking of sweet tooth, my last snack of the day always needs a sweet element. Lately, I’ve been making Sara’s pumpkin mug cake a lot.
And clearly, I’m too lazy to plate it nicely Topped with a bit of cashew butter.
So, for my snacks I tend to go for higher in protein and lower in sugar, and with enough calories to tide me over until my next meal (or the next day). Seems to be working for me right now!
<— Honeydew, cantaloupe or watermelon? I’m torn between cantaloupe and watermelon. Both are fantastic.
<— If you know you’re going to be out of the house for lunch, do you bring or buy? I bring. I’m pretty sure that over the entire school year, I bought a lunch maybe twice? Healthier and cheaper to bring it from home!
<— Where are you on the snacking continuum? Avoid snacking or super snacker?
<— What do you look for in a snack? High protein, grab and go, healthy fats?
