Here I am staying true to my word with the Full Day of Eating post I promised you all last week. Although, if this had been yesterday then I’d still be writing the post today because I ate a lot of food and I enjoyed every morsel; which is the whole point I guess. I’ve noticed since I’ve been eating more carbs that I haven’t been craving sugary foods as much as I usually would and I hadn’t actually eaten any white or milk chocolate for three weeks before Pancake Day, even then I didn’t feel like it; I just ate it for the sake of eating it. These days I tend to crave natural sugars such as: stewed berries, bananas, natural syrups, sultanas, white rice and anything with oat flour. I think people think that I don’t eat very healthy because of the stuff I post to Instagram, but the majority of what I do post is made from healthier whole ingredients and when I’m not posting to Instagram, I’m chowing down on foods like I’ve posted below; which the folks of Instagram don’t really appreciate as much, as the chocolate and peanut butter. Even I go through my Instagram feed sometimes and question the food, but then I realise that I have finally found balance and a better relationship with food, so who cares!

I did my monthly food shop on the weekend and It always shocks me when I get around to it because even though I keep certain foods stocked up throughout the weeks, you can bet when it’s time to do my monthly shop I need more than I thought I did. Although this food shop was different to all of my previous food shopping lists because this time I didn’t buy any of my usual staples: eggs, butter, cheese and milk. It was a first for me, as I’ve never gone a day without dairy or eggs before, so not buying them is a first. While I haven’t cut them out completely from my diet, I haven’t been eating them as much either, so I felt it wasn’t necessary to buy them. I’d like to think that saved me a pretty penny, but I doubt it. I did however, buy some items that I swore I would never buy: soy yoghurt and tofu. I think I have started to fear these foods more than anything else because soy does have a lot of stigma surrounding the effects it has on the thyroid gland, which is why I have always tried to stay away from it. However, I decided that I already have a messed up thyroid anyway and as the soy content in the products isn’t very high, I would eat these in moderation. Plus, they were on offer so that swung it for me too.

Breakfast – 11pm

I never really ate muesli until recently. I’ve always been a savoury breakfast kind of girl and eggs, cheese and Quorn sausages have always played a huge part in that. So when I wake up fancying something sweet, it’s always a surprise to me. This muesli concoction, while delicious is more of a summer-time breakfast, which it most certainly isn’t. But, as the muesli had plenty of different elements to it, it wasn’t boring and I enjoyed it. I topped the muesli with stewed berries, sultanas, pumpkin seeds, coconut syrup and Alpro, vanilla dairy free yoghurt. 

I did also make a vegan mocha protein shake from the gardenia plantbased protein too and I also added Sukrin brown sugar alternative to it with half a cup of Almond Breeze, reduced sugar almond milk as well; but the protein powder ruined it for me. So I didn’t end up adding it to my breakfast because it was VILE!

As for the Alpro vanilla yoghurt, it was so good. Although, I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe tofu blended into a yoghurt. But it tasted like the real deal: nicely sweetened, creamy and I noticed it had loads of tiny flecks of vanilla through it too. I also bought the plain Alpro to use as ‘mayonnaise’ in sandwiches.

Lunch – 1pm

Did you see those huge  protein oat pancakes that I posted to my Instagram yesterday? They were delcious and topped with about 10 different toppings. I’m sure of it. I loved them and I came so close to making them again today for lunch. But as I ate sweet for breakfast I needed something savoury for lunch. I decided to try and make a protein spinach wrap out of oat flour; which I wasn’t sure was going to work and it didn’t – they sucked! Although, my dog ate them and seemed to enjoy them. Instead I made a quick minestrone soup with whatever root vegetables I could find in my fridge and tossed in some Rizopia pasta shapes for a touch of nostalgia. It reminded me of the kid soup that I used to eat  when I was younger, but with chunky veg, a little kick and a lot of nutrition. Obviously there was a slice of buttered crusty white bread on the side too, which I spread with vegan spread – don’t say the M word please *eye roll* 😉 I will be posting the recipe for the minestrone soup next week and you can check out the Rizopia Fantasia pasta shapes here.

Afternoon Snack – 3pm

I’ve been craving nutri-grain bars for months, but from experience I know that high sugar foods never taste as good as I remember and they always leave me dissatisfied. So I made my own cereal bars this morning. They are vegan and the batter/dough was so bloody good. I guess I rolled them out too much before I baked them though, because the filling was sparse in the finished product. I still enjoyed far too many: they weren’t overly sweet and had a nice grainy texture to them. I also fed one to my sister and she enjoyed them; even went as far, as to say that they tasted like the real thing. I’m not so sure about that, but I did enjoy them. I filled my ‘nutri-grain bars with the date jam  that I made a few weeks ago and coated the bars in extra oats too – they were good: packed with nutrition and naturally sweetened. My dog definitely didn’t get to eat these.

Dinner – 6pm

The weather this morning was lovely, but extremely cold. Although, I do I enjoy the cold, Spring, icy mornings. But come the afternoon it changed: the heavens opened and down came the rain. I would sell my right arm to go somewhere warm right now and FYI that is my most dominant arm, so you can see how desperate I am 😉 Comfort food was definitely on tonight’s agenda and a hot steak and gravy pie by Quorn was exactly what I needed. I served it with some roasted baby parsnips, carrots and hassleback potatoes with a homemade gravy that could have a killed a man. I’m just so glad I didn’t add it all to my food because I would have probably been in A&E from dehydration and liver failure – so salty! I ended up making a small amount of Bisto vegetable gravy and thoroughly enjoying this whole meal, plus those baby parsnips were to die for. Quorn have always done very nice vegetarian pies and they are packed with flavour, in my humble opinion. I just hope they get a move on with their vegan range and start adding more products to it.

Evening Snack  – 9pm

I picked up these bags of chips the same time I made my Holland and Barrett order the other week. The propercorn has all gone now, but I did get a few bags of these weird chips that seem to be all the rage at the moment; over social media. I did plan to save them for nine, but around a certain time of the month I become uncontrollably ravenous, so I opened them not long after I ate my dinner and boy are they good. They remind me of the Square crisps, but with a lot more flavour and a huge kick from the chilli; plus a nice crunch. I couldn’t taste the lemon as the chilli was very overpowering. The best thing is that there is approximately 130cals in a 28g serving – just over half of the bag – and they are much lower in fat than potato crisps: healthier and tastier too. I would definitely recommend these. I can’t wait to try the Quinoa chips and also the Hummus chips I bought too.

And that’s it. Another full day of eating which was mostly vegan. I did have three or four cups of coffee too and I had a rare can of diet pepsi, which I never have, but I fancied and it tasted awesome.

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