What I eat in a day

I’ve been asked to share what I eat in a day, and I’m happy to do so.  I’m always curious to find out about daily things that other people do too.  It’s always really interesting!

Starting off in the morning when I first get up at 6am I have a big glass of water then make myself a steaming hot cup of tea (trim milk, no sugar thank you, nice and strong).  I drink this, sometimes two if it’s a Sunday morning.  I then go for my walk if it’s possible time-wise/weather-wise, otherwise I go in the afternoon.  After my walk I have a shower and then my breakfast.  For years now I’ve eaten chopped fresh fruit with mixed raw nuts and sometimes other goodies like sunflower or chia seeds for breakfast.  After that I have a homemade soy latte.  I brew up my Bialetti and stir in with soy milk I heat in the microwave.

On the weekends I might have gluten free toast with butter and jelly or gluten free bagels with cream cheese.

I don’t do morning tea, just another cup of tea and a few more glasses of water throughout the morning.  At the Estee Lauder event featuring makeup artist Victor Henao someone in the audience asked him how to do your foundation so it lasted all day.  His answer was surprising – drink more water!  He said dehydrated skin sucks the foundation in and it makes a big difference when you are properly hydrated from within.  Fascinating!  I’ve always drunk a lot of water - for decades - so maybe that’s why I get comments on my skin being nice.

Lunch is usually a big salad on weekdays, made up with whatever ingredients we have around – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, celery plus protein such as cold roast chicken or lamb and chopped avocado.  On Fridays we have ‘bought lunch’ (just like at school) – our favourite is sushi, I have fresh (not smoked) salmon and avocado.  Lately on Saturdays we’ve been making gluten-free mini-wraps topped with gourmet sauce as a base, shredded mozzarella cheese, sliced mushroom and capsicum and salami.  Sort of a mini-pizza.  Sundays are a bit more loose too - I'm more relaxed on the weekend and don't worry so much about getting scurvy from not enough vegetables (although I probably do still have my 5+ a day even on a vege-lite day, what can I say, I love vegetables).

When it’s colder we have homemade soup or quiche for lunch and a side salad.  Since my husband and I work together we eat the same 99% of the time.

Afternoon is my danger time for nibbling non-nutritious snacky/sweet foods, so I have a handful of raw almonds if I get hungry.  Mostly though, if I make sure I have enough protein at lunchtime, that gets me right through to dinner time.  When I had a personal trainer for a while years ago, he looked at my food log for the week and told me I didn’t eat enough protein ‘like a lot of girls’ were his words.  It’s true too, I’d rather have carbs than protein.  But I do it, I eat the protein and try and keep a lid on the carbs (and by carbs I mean potato chips, not good carbs) because I want to have a long and healthy life.

Dinner is quite early at the moment because it’s Autumn here and it gets dark just after 6pm, so it already seems later than it is.  We usually eat not long after we get home from work and that way there is a lovely long evening stretching out in front of us and plenty of time to digest.

For dinner we often have oven-cooked meals like roasts or bakes, and always with loads of vegetables.  It’s not often that we’ll have rice or pasta meals, they are kept for occasional treats.  In my new book 'Thirty Chic Days: Practical inspiration for a beautiful life' I devote an entire chapter to the topic of eating real food because I believe it is so important.  I promise the book will be out very soon; it's in the final, final stages of proofreading and editing!

After dinner I usually have a peppermint or fruit tea with two squares of dark chocolate.  It’s best that I have only that type of chocolate in the house because if there's anything more junky I'll eat it like there is no tomorrow.  Dark chocolate is different though, I can happily have just a few pieces and put the packet back in the pantry.

Edited to add photos:

Breakfast on a normal morning - this one is feijoa and pineapple sprinkled with gluten-free berry flakes cereal, chia seeds, walnuts and coconut flakes.  Soy latte for afters.  I usually have more nuts but I was running low.  I like a couple of brazils for selenium (New Zealand has very low selenium soil), almonds, macademias etc.  Sometimes I have a few big spoonfuls of thick, unsweetened green yoghurt and sometimes I don't.  I don't add milk.

Salad for lunch.  Lettuce, homegrown tomatoes, capsicum (bell pepper?), cucumber, avocado and chicken breast cooked the night before with double cream brie on gluten-free crostini.  I didn't have dressing this day because the avocado makes it all so yummy together.  We try to always have avocados on hand to have half or one every day because they are soooo good for you.  I don't usually have the cheese and crackers every day, that's a treat for when I'm at home/maybe once a week.  At work I'll just have the salad bowl.  It's a big bowl though!  It takes me ages to get through (I'm quite a slow eater) and, when it contains both protein and avocado, keeps me full right through to dinner time.

I finally remembered to take a photo of my dinner before I scoffed it down (chicly scoffed it down).  This night we had crumbed chicken thigh cutlets (I usually have one piece, but they were small so I had two).  I make my own coating with gluten-free crumbs, and have a play around with seasonings.  This mix was particularly delicious using chicken salt, yellow curry powder, cumin and hot chili flakes (it wasn't too hot overall though, just a light tang).  With the chicken we had roast potato, pumpkin and onion, and steamed cauliflower and broccoli.  With gluten-free chicken gravy (not homemade but I do homemade with a proper roast).  It was delicious!

And that’s me!  What I eat in a day.  If you have any specific questions I’m happy to answer them in the comments.  I’d also love you to let me know any tips you have for eating in a chic and healthy way.