Check out my progress on A Healthy Eating Challenge
Hello again, bloggigans! Since I last wrote to you, I have been continuing the adventure of setting up my new apartment. I am happy to announce that I now have an organized desk space (in addition to a stocked kitchen). I’ll be sure to post pictures later in the week once more furniture arrives.
As you might imagine, all this move-in mayhem has left little time for preparing meals at home. Accordingly, most of my meals have been enjoyed at local sandwich shops and restaurants, presenting somewhat of a challenge. To me, eating healthfully is easy when you have access to a kitchen and nutritious foods. However, subsisting solely on restaurant fare makes eating healthfully a tad more difficult; with little to no control over the ingredients and cooking techniques, your meals can easily become excessively fatty and/or salty. Nonetheless, I sometimes relish the opportunity to maintain a healthy diet in such situations—after all, I always like a good challenge:)
What are some of your favorite tips for maintaining a nutritious diet when dining out?
Alright, let’s see how I performed in the face of a weekend-long healthy eating challenge.
Saturday
After a gym workout, I rushed back to the apartment to wait around for the cable guy. While I waited, I made a spicy egg white sandwich. This is the only meal I prepared for myself all weekend. Sigh.
One trip to Crate & Barrel and a Pottery Barn perusal later, my parents and I stopped at Crisp, a customizable salad shop similar to Green Tango. I created my own, with a decidedly Asian flair.
For dinner, my parents joined Seth and me at Hot Point Cafe, where I ordered a delicious veggie flatbread sandwich. Two thumbs up for the extra pickle-lovin’.
Sunday
This morning, Seth met me bright and early, before loneliness could ensue after my parents’ departure. He treated me to breakfast at the S-Bux next door to my apartment complex.
After running a few errands together, Seth and I headed to Whole Foods for lunch, where I treated myself to some lovely marinated tofu.
Be prepared to see lots of Panera in the future—having one right next door is dangerously tempting for a bread lover such as myself.
Now I am off to prepare for what is sure to be a big week of change. Good night, lovelies!
Filed under: Meals
Caroline Yoder, dietitian-to-be and all-around foodie.
You eat so admirably healthy! lol….no, seriously though
Gah – setting up apartments is no easy feat…I have no money for any good furniture and don’t want to invest in anything because I SO want to move a year from now…Enjoy your night!
Ack, I still am not a big fan of eating out…I guess the lack of control over the cooking method/ingredients/etc. bothers me. :/ When I do eat out, though, I stick to water or unsweetened tea for my beverage (or sometimes a coffee :]). As for food, I generally research the nutrition stats of various items before I go so I have a general idea of what I have to work with.
I also like the little things like ordering my dressing on the side and asking if I can modify my meal to how I’d like to eat it. While I was studying abroad in japan this summer, for example, I had to make use of this tip quite often. The concept of “vegetarianism” isn’t widely known, so I had to make do with the menu items offered and ask them to kindly leave off the meat in my salad (and no dressing, please) and to please not put ham on my vegetable sandwich (why is there meat included on a VEGETABLE sandwich? :/).
Oh, and if I’m not reeeeally hungry I’ll just ask a friend/family member if they want to split something. “Hey, do you want to get the half sandwich/half salad combo? I take one and you take the other.”
Eating out a lot is definitely a challenge! I much prefer to cook
Things definitely “feel” healthier when you make them yourselves. That, or if they’re from the Whole Foods salad bar
I think u did a pretty good job eating healthy while eating out-sticking to the raw kind of foods and simple cooking techniques usually ensures a healthy’ish meal and most places have a great amount of options too. I wish we had a whole foods and panera bread here, looks soooo good. xx
I definitely get depressed when I don’t spend enough time cooking. On the other hand, it’s nice to let someone else do thew work, especially when you’re very busy! I find that veggie sushi and Whole Foods are always easy options that remind me of my own cooking.
Salad and sandwich are my first choices for healthy eats!
I’m so jealous that you have a Panera right next door! I’d say yuo’ve done a pretty good job of eating well while having to go out. If I have to go out I ususally try to hit up a Subway…
Well it seems you managed exceptionally well in sticking to the healthy eating! I wish we had some places around my area where ya could get somewhere healthy to eat! xx
You are eating amazingly healthy food for someone stuck without a functional kitchen. Well done! You should be proud of your choices. (I on the other hand went out for onion rings the other night. Oops)
You ordered my favorite lunch from Panera. I love thei Black Bean Soup. I enjoyed reading your blog. It’s hard to make healthy choices when eating out, but everything you ate looked and sounded delicious!
I agree, it is harder to stick with healthy eating when dining out, but it looks like you were able to find a ton of healthy eats!!!
Wow, you make me miss living in a college town or at least some place big enough to support a Whole Foods. Although maybe I’m just not looking hard enough at small town Indiana. There are probably decent options here too. I just wind up cooking at home.
OMG! I am so jealous of all your fabulous meals! I love the feeling of eating healthy meals like that but time can be such an issue! I am in college now, and I have a hard time finding healthy things that taste good. If you have any suggestions of how to be healthier in school I’d love to hear them! Can’t wait to read more!