Confessions of a Fitness Instructor

The 411 on what I eat…

First of all if you’re new around here I’ll tell you upfront I’m not a vegan or vegetarian.  I’m not a big meat/poultry eater and I don’t like seafood.  Since the world is so keen on placing labels on everyone I would be considered a flexitarian.

On average I eat meat/poultry once or twice a week.  The rest of the time I obtain the majority of my protein through dairy and nuts.  I do eat eggs but eating them on their own isn’t my favorite, I prefer them in a recipe – like perhaps a cookie or cupcake recipe

My husband has ulcerative colitis and therefore our meals are made only using foods he can eat which limits our menus drastically.  Whole wheat or whole grain pasta and bread? No dice.  Any raw fruits or veggies, and many cooked fruits and veggies are out, no sharp or aged cheeses, etc.  Basically he can’t have anything that is greasy, gassy, rough, or spicy.  He can’t even have pepper.  So with that in mind, if I want to have any of those foods I have to make two separate meals and with my work schedule I simply don’t have the time to do that very often so I make what he can eat.  And yes, that means I eat white bread, pasta and rice.

Personally, I do prefer my vegetables raw so while he has his sad little overcooked veggies, I munch on their raw counterparts Oddly, I’m not a big fan of lettuce, so unless it’s a Caesar salad I will generally have my salads sans lettuce.  Yes I know I’m weird.  Leave me alone.

I am also I huge juicing fan.  Until very recently I enjoyed juicing my own fruits and veggies in my vintage Juice Tiger.

But sadly, the Juice Tiger died not long after it’s inventor.  These days I’m juicing it up in my snazzy new Breville Juicer!

I also enjoy slugging back smoothies whenever I get the chance.  If you can’t tell I’m a bit of a juice drinking fiend.

(in addition to the insane amount of water I drink weekly, and my milk and chocolate milk consumption).

When I eat

I teach 17-19 classes each week Monday-Friday which means I average 4 classes each day normally morning/noon/late afternoon/early evening – all the normal meal times.  So I generally eat a snack in the morning, a snack late morning, a lunch early afternoon, a small meal/large snack late afternoon, and then a meal later in the evening, sometimes followed by another snack if I’m still hungry.

When I teach classes I wear a heart rate monitor to keep track of how many calories I burn through exercise to make sure I consume enough food to make up for the deficit and on most days that means consuming 3000+ calories.

In order to consume that many calories in a reasonable time frame, I tend to eat calorie dense foods (cheese, milk, nuts, etc) when I can.  It also means I partake in baked goods from time to time (cookies anyone?).

Overall, I tend to eat a healthy diet with a few less than stellar things thrown in here and there.  I like to live by the 80/20 rule.  Eat good 80% of the time, and eat whatever I want 20% of the time.  Life is for living and I honestly don’t want to live a life where I can’t happily eat a bowl of iced cream now and again!

Here on the blog I like to share some of my healthy – and not so healthy – foods, but it isn’t my main focus.  It’s very rare for me to post all of the food I eat in a single day, normally it just a snapshot or two of a few of my meals/snacks.  Rest assured, I eat more than what I show you – much more