Do you ever have those days that you just feel like eating everything? Not so much that you’re extra hungry, but you just feeling like EATING?

I tend to feel like that if maybe I haven’t been making the best food choices lately, or haven’t gotten enough exercise in. Or not enough sleep.

After eating copious amounts of cake toppings on Thursday, after a very mild morning Crossfit workout I felt my self returning to the pantry post-smoothie bowl.

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Since I wasn’t particularly hungry and was more just craving the act of eating, I decided to try and be mindful about it, and offer some tips here on the blog.

For lunch, I had leftover lemon chicken rice soup again.

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Instead of having something bread-y on the side, I decided to opt for more nutrients than volume and lightly roasted a massive amount of kale with some avocado oil and nutritional yeast. I seriously felt so good after eating this—sometimes massive amounts of greens make me feel like a rockstar!

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Because the homemade salted caramel sauce was delicious, I made a little ice cream bowl for dessert, but tried to keep it a little bit on the lighter side by using chocolate Halo Top and not getting too crazy with the caramel sauce.

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I was feeling restless as well, so that afternoon I decided to get out of the house a little bit. First, I went to GNC to pick up some protein powder. I have mixed feelings on protein powder and definitely go through phases with it, but I’ve been enjoying smoothie bowls post-workout lately and wanted to up the protein content. Plus, I was curious to try the new Quest protein powder. (Ok, I guess at this point it isn’t really that new…) I picked up a few packets of salted caramel protein powder, plus some of the Flapjacked muffins that you microwave. I’m excited to try those!

I was planning on making a higher volume/high protein snack of a protein shake (milk+protein powder+ice) for a snack but my need for a nap caught up to me and all I wanted to do was sleep, not even eat.

I ended up hitting the track for a little speed work that evening as well. I’m trying to ease my foot back into things, so I did some 400 and 200m repeats, totally 1.25 miles. I haven’t run anything remotely fast lately, so I took it what felt like fairly easy, especially on the first couple. Here’s the crazy thing though. I wasn’t pushing the pace and it didn’t feel too hard, but I was curious where I was at so I timed a couple. I was right about where I was when I was doing all my track training for a class project (improving my 400m time) last fall. I timed a 400 and I think it was only 5-10s slower than my fastest time…and it felt easy. Um, what?

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Granted, it was probably 40 degrees warmer now than then, but jeez. So my friends: cross training is a thing. It works. If you’re out due to an injury, don’t be discouraged because you don’t lose nearly as much as you think! (That being said, certain muscles haven’t been used like this in a while and I’m still sore 3 days later..)

I forgot to take pictures of dinner, but we got The Counter. I made my own burger with a chicken breast, gruyere, tomato and lettuce, avocado, and garlic aioli on a GF bun, with a side salad. My family and I also shared sweet potato fries and garlic parmesan fries. They were delicious, but I woke up the next morning remembering why I don’t usually eat a lot of fried food…

I attempted a healthier-ish dessert to go with my caramel sauce. I wanted some type of cakey thing so I mashed up banana, cocoa, egg whites, and chocolate chips, and microwaved that. I topped that and some low fat vanilla frozen yogurt with caramel sauce, it everything was delicious!

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Snacks later that evening included protein chips and a granola bar—trying to keep it on the healthier side.

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I meant to write this post earlier this weekend, so expect a weekend recap in a little bit!

What do you eat on those days when you feel like eating everything?