WIAW - Monday #elf4health Edition

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I interrupt your normally scheduled day of work and n*sync holiday radio (just me?!?) to bring you this week's WIAW edition. New to WIAW? Hop over to Jen's website and let her tell you all about it. It's basically just a fun way to show a day-in-the-life via food. So, let's get to it!

This week my WIAW is all my eats from Monday, December 3, 2012. This also happened to be W2D1 of the Elf4Health Challenge and the challenge of the day was to eat at least 25-30g of fiber. So, let's see how I did...

Before I ate breakfast I went to the gym for a 5:30am 60-minute spinning class. I don't eat before going to the gym or working out, unless it's the weekend and it's a pre-planned long run (over 10 miles). I do drink loads of (unpictured) water during and after the workout.


Breakfast: 9am

 

What you can't read those nutrition facts from there? Well, that'd be a big fat ZERO for the fiber count.

 

While I suppose challenge wise, this was a big fail with no grams of fiber, it's still an incredibly healthy breakfast. Plus, every morning I have fiber via my (unpictured) morning coffee via benefiber-type powder.

My doctor "prescribed" two servings of this every morning as a way to help with my IBS (so sexy). I don't mention it much because adding this has helped with it INCREDIBLY and it doesn't bother me much at all any more.

Anyway, with the addition of the soluble fiber, I hit 6g (2 servings) for breakfast.


Lunch: 12pm

If you live near a Trader Joe's and haven't tried this soup-- try it. It's good. Not knock-your-socks-off fabulous, but definitely good for a quick, hot lunch. Yum. I, for the record, do not have a TJ's near me, but I do always stop and STOCK UP whenever I go to a city that has one. This was my first time trying this soup and I only got 1 can. FAIL, Meagan. Oh well. Anyway, take the soup (5g) add an apple (~ 5g) and a FiberOne brownie (which, btw, aren't GREAT, but are pretty OK. Try them cold. It makes them even better, which is weird, I know.) (5g) and that put my lunch at 15g of fiber. Add my once a day can of diet coke on the side and call it lunch!


Snack: 3pm

I spy a Santa Claus pepper shaker! Don't worry... I didn't sprinkle my almonds with pepper. Promise!

 

Speaking of Trader Joe's-- they have the best almonds. Sounds weird... I mean, it's a plain ol' nut. How can it be better or worse at some places? It can. TJ's is the bomb. Trust me.

Anyway, according to self.com, almonds are pretty BA on the nutritional front. Note: the info below is based on a 1-cup serving (which is a LOT of nuts!).

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Ok, so they aren't exactly low-cal, but they are an excellent fiber and protein source.

 

I had about 1/4 a cup, clocking in at 137 calories, 5g protein, and 3g of fiber FTW.

 

 

(Note: By here I had already ALMOST met the challenge with 24g of fiber, so I wasn't really too concerned with getting a HUGE amount at dinner.)

 

Dinner: 6pm

I definitely had 2 more pieces after this. Just being honest.

The Hubs and I made pizza! Can you tell pizza is the Hubs FAVORITE food? We only eat it like once a week so I'm not sure if you've caught on. ;)

Anyway, we made this on a Trader Joe's (woah! Just noticed I ate TJ's stuff ALL day. Yes, I am obsessed with this store. Our next move WILL be based on its proximity to a Trader Joe's. You heard it here first. Don' tell the Hubs.) garlic dough. His 1/2 was sausage and pepperoni with mozzarella cheese. My 1/2 was sausage and goat cheese. YUUUUUM. So, so, so good. Noooot so good on the fiber front, though. The sausage and goat cheese offered MINIMAL, if any, fiber (but loads of protein!), but the dough helped! 2g protein for 1/8 the crust. I probably had about 3/8 of the crust (Hey! Don't judge. I was hungry!) totalling to 6g of fiber.

Oh, and there was definitely a big bowl of low-fat ice cream for dessert. Inhaled it MUCH too quickly to snap a pic. Blogger fail, I know.




So, all in all I finished the #elf4health challenge with about 30g of fiber. Challenge = Dominated!

Quick review of challenge: To be honest, I didn't really THINK about my fiber intake at all during the day. I know I tend to get enough, so I wasn't really concerned. After looking at it as I was writing this post, I was a little surprised I didn't get even MORE. So, maybe I'm not getting AS MUCH as I thought I was and should be more aware in the future. I also noticed how tracking fiber is great... but, there are also other health needs too! I did pretty good on protein today, but that "didn't count". It's important to know there's more than 1 way to be healthy. I could have eaten nothing but FiberOne brownies all day and met the challenge, but FAILED at... life? Haha. Kidding. But, really-- I definitely wouldn't have been HEALTHY. Though, to be clear-- I don't think the point of the challenge was to not eat anything other than fiber. I think it was just trying to get us to pay attention to an aspect of our diet we might not pay much attention to. 

It's important to know there's more to "healthy eating" (not that I eat healthy nor am I anywhere remotely close to a "healthy eater") than just fiber. Or protein. Or calories. Or sodium. Ya know... the whole has to equal the sum of all the parts. Or whatever.