I got a request for a day's dietary intake and the decisions and trade-offs I made. I'm going to have to do this from memory, and I didn't measure, but I'm game.
Yesterday wasn't exactly typical, because we were on the road home from Ohio. We woke up in a hotel in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, and drove several hours, having a fast-food lunch and stopping at the grocery store before going to the house.
Morning
I started my day with a bottle of water, a 40-minute treadmill run in the hotel fitness center, followed by a cup of decent in-the-room black coffee. The all-you-can-eat breakfast included cooked to order and other things served buffet-style. I am never tempted by restaurant pancakes, waffles, or French toast; my homemade ones are better. I don't like pre-sweetened yogurt cups. So the only choices I considered were oatmeal (the only whole grain around) or "fluffy omelette with choice of fillings."
I asked the waitress if they were two- or three-egg omelettes; she said "The eggs are already mixed up and the chef uses a scoop. He uses however much he needs to wrap around all the fillings."
I said, "OK, have him make me an omelette with lots of veggies, and the absolute minimum amount of egg necessary to hold it together." Cheese? "Sure, go ahead, cheese."
The omelette was still too big, so I gave about a third of it to Mark. I would have had tomato juice if they'd had it, but there were only fruit juices, so I stuck with coffee.
Summary:
- Omelette with about one egg, about half a cup of tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions, and about 3 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese, plus whatever oil it was cooked in.
- About 24 oz water
- 3 or 4 cups black coffee.
Midday
We carried a small supply of snacks in the car: my usual jar of almonds, a bag of oatmeal cookies sent with us by Mark's mom, a box of assorted granola bars, and a mini-cooler with grapes, string cheese, and a few apples. When I opened up the cooler to fetch MJ a string cheese, I snagged a few ice-cold grapes to quench my thirst.
The children were restless, so I suggested to Mark that we stop for lunch at a McDonald's or Burger King with a play structure. "We can eat while the kids play, and they can keep playing while you go to gas up the car, and then we can take their food with them in the car." I declared it a No Fries Day and took the kids' orders as we approached Exit 65 (I have memorized the exits at which fast food playlands can be found all the way from Minneapolis to Cincinnati).
I made my standard McDonald's order: two side salads and a grilled chicken club sandwich, of which I planned to eat about half. I ate the salads first and then opened the sandwich box to discover that they had given me a crispy sandwich instead. It's possible I ordered the wrong sandwich by mistake. I like that kind of sandwich, so I shrugged and decided to eat it instead of getting a different one. I had about half the sandwich plus a couple of bites, and then put it back in the box and closed the box.
Mark didn't finish his salad. "I forgot how big these are!" he said to me. I nodded — that's why I get the side salads. On the dollar menu, they are a pretty good deal.
Summary:
- 3 to 6 grapes
- Ice water
- Two McDonald's side salads, veg only, no croutons or cheese
- About half of one packet of the low-fat balsamic vinaigrette dressing
- 1/2 to 2/3 of a crispy chicken club sandwich — it's got cheese, mayo, bacon, lettuce, and tomato on it.
Dinner and afterwards
I was busy making a grocery list in the car, and I never got hungry for an afternoon snack. We got to the grocery store about 3:30. I had planned to have rotisserie chicken, salad, asparagus, and boiled new potatoes for dinner — that is my standard "we shopped right before dinner" dinner. But the children clamored for sweet corn, so I told Mark to cross the potatoes off the list.
This had to be a simple, quick dinner. At home, I tossed the asparagus in olive oil and put it in the oven to roast. I cut up the chicken, sneaking just one bite as I transferred the pieces to a serving dish. I rinsed the salad (a bag of hearts of romaine plus part of a box of arugula) and sliced tomato and lettuce. I cut the ears of corn in half and set them steaming. We had a bottle of dressing that everyone likes pretty well, so I just used that. We opened a bottle of wine and sat down to dinner around 5:15.
Originally we had planned to go to a 9 pm Mass, but two of the children had run a fever in the past 48 hours, so we didn't go. I was kind of relieved not to, honestly. I was tired and glad to be home.
We have sundaes on Sunday for bedtime snack. Afterwards I wanted more chocolate so I got myself some.
Summary:
- 1 rotisserie chicken thigh, with skin (yum) plus that bite I sneaked
- 1 big bowl of lettuce-arugula-tomato-cucumber salad with Brianna's "blush wine vinaigrette" salad dressing
- Half a plate of olive-oil-roasted asparagus
- Half an ear of sweet corn with butter
- 1 glass late harvest Riesling
- 1 small scoop vanilla ice cream with about a tablespoon hot fudge sauce and a generous sprinkling of chopped almonds
- 1 square Ghirardelli dark chocolate bar with sea salt
I said it wasn't a typical day but in some respects it was entirely typical: spur-of-the-moment decisions for breakfast and lunch, a planned dinner, children to feed, occasional detours. Anyway. That was yesterday.
I've sort of lost touch with whether that seems like a lot of food or not. Does it?
(update: calorie totals here)
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