When I wrote my last post about food, I had no idea how the post would be perceived. Since I no longer write much about food, you never know how readers might respond. Everyone needs to eat, and food and nutrition are an important part of running and working out.
I thought it would be interesting to showcase some of my favorite foods and meal staples. I’m not great at cooking, and I don’t shop at a lot of specialty stores. Most of my shopping comes from the three closest grocery stores to me: Wegmans, Shoprite and Whole Foods.
I shop at Wegmans and Shoprite for most of my groceries and Whole Foods for fish, steak, and some produce.
When someone asks your favorite food, I feel like it’s a weird question. You can’t compare items like steak to donuts, both are delicious but it’s hard to compare. I have a lot of favorite foods. I like sugary treats, but I also like a big juicy steak too.
Favorite breakfast item:
Breakfast is easy for me. I have a waffle with peanut butter. I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s always worked for me. I eat a waffle every morning, whether I’m running, racing or just resting. I’ve never had a stomach issue. I use Bisquick and just add water. I also use flour, egg, baking powder and milk if I don’t have the mix. I can usually run between 1-2 hours after eating. I don’t like to run on an empty stomach. I generally eat within 20 minutes of waking up, relax and then go for a run 1-2 hours later.
Lunch:
Lunch depends on if I’m at home or if I’m at work. Most people know I work at a local running store. It’s hard to predict a day in a retail store and no two days are the same. I can’t plan to bring a big meal because I might not have time to eat it. I could have plenty of time, or I could be snacking the entire day. I’ve become used to it, though, and I honestly don’t mind either way.
I usually pack easy to eat sandwiches or bars so that if we get slammed, I can still eat. It’s not like I can tell a customer “Go away I’ve got to get my lunch on”. I’ve been looking for an easy “bar” recipe if anyone has any.
Some quick and easy staples. Sometimes quick and easy means I order down the road from work:
Dinner:
I’ve said this more times than I can remember, but I am a very simple dinner person. I like meat, potato and vegetable. I rotate through all of them, but both my husband and I aren’t fancy cooks. Our meals tend to take between 15-30 minutes to cook. Luckily my husband is the same way. He cooks the meat, and I prepare everything else.
Some of our favorite meats:
- steak
- salmon or any pink fish (we aren’t fans of too many white fish)
- chicken
- Squid (yes, one of my favorite, if not favorite meats is squid)
The usual suspects
We frequently cook some vegetable or have a salad. My current favorite vegetables are eggplant and squash, but it varies.
Vegetables of (current) choice:
- eggplant and squash
- asparagus
Then, of course, there is the grain/potato portion of dinner. Current favorites include
- Pasta or rice (because it takes 5 minutes!) I went through a phase with pasta where I didn’t eat it much and always chose other items over it. Now I can’t get enough.
- Sweet or normal potatoes
- Bread from Panera. If you recall, my husband won a year supply of Panera bread from a race last year, and we use it to buy a loaf. Panera bread goes well with everything in my life.
As you can see, my husband and I are simple eaters. We don’t spend hours creating perfect food dishes. Spending a few hours is some people’s hobby, but we know we like fast, simple and easy food! We save fancy eating for going out.
Questions for you:
Do you prefer cooking simple food or fancier recipes?
Does anyone have any “bar” recipes?
I hate cooking. Thankfully, my husband is a good cook. We usually do really simple things. Breakfast is usually a protein shake with tons of fruits and veggies, we get lunch at the café at work (mostly salads, soup, sandwiches), and dinner is usually a meat and a veggie. We try to do some food prep on the weekend so we have less cooking to do during the week.
No bar recipes. Sorry 🙁
i’m working on a post to spotlight my husband’s cooking. He’s incredible–like i keep telling him to get on one of these cooking shows! I’m only good at breakfast foods and cookies. Basically my nutritional staples 🙂
Its like I see my food choice in this post! That’s exactly what I usually eat during the day – with the exception of the French toast bagel! Oh I used to have it a lot back in the states but can’t get it here 🙁
I like cooking simple meals like you. One of our staples that is a good overall meal is chicken/fish bowls. We will split a microwave bag of brown or jasmine rice, add in salmon or chicken, steam some veggies (usually broccoli but can be anything) and add a little cheese on top and VOILA!
I’m someone who loves to cook so I like to make elaborate fancy meals all the time. At the end of the day after a stressful day at work, I love to come home and cook for a few hours. Love it! I also like to make my own bars..I have a few recipes up on my blog and some in the works but the easiest recipe is 1 part cashews and 1 part dates. So good and so easy!
LOVE Panera bagels. I feel like it’s kind of blasphemy since I live near so many awesome bagel places, but sometimes I can’t beat a cinnamon crunch bagel! And I’m the same with dinner: meat, veg, potato (or pasta or rice). I think it’s because it’s what my mom insisted on when we were younger. My husband can just do the meat potato thing and be happy (or just something like a burger, plain because he’s weird) but I seriously won’t feel satisfied or like I’ve had a complete meal if there’s no veg.
There one reason I wish I lived more north in NJ, there are so many bagel places up that way!
I don’t cook either. I pretty much eat my free bagel at work in the morning, throw together snacks or buy something at Safeway for lunch, and make a grilled chicken salad with a baked potato for dinner. The less time it takes to cook the better.
I’ve been enjoying cooking more and more but I like to stick to simple recipes. If a recipe calls for certain ingredients that I don’t have I skip them and pretend they’re not supposed to be in it haha. Our dinners sound pretty similar! I am experimenting in the baking section though.. my dream is to make a mean dessert recipe that people beg me to bring to potlucks. I’m nowhere close to that though hahah.
I love things I can make in one pot or on one baking pan. Last night I baked salmon and broccoli and made a sweet potato in the microwave. That’s one of my favorite meals and it’s ready in 25 minutes.
Same here, all of my favorite meals take less than half an hour to cook!
I love to cook. I like trying a lot of new recipes, but I definitely look at the prep/cook time before deciding to make it. I am with you on meat, starch and veggies…well sometimes veggies! I am trying to get better about that, for sure.
I’ve never had squid! I eat fish but I’m not a seafood eater otherwise because of the texture! I also HATE fat on my steaks! I can’t eat fatty steaks! I’ve been so irritated cause Jon and I will occasionally spend a fair amount of money on steaks and if they’re fatty, neither of us will eat them! I LOVE Panera bagels! Are bagels included in the free bread?!
Together we could make the perfect steak team. I’ll eat the fat and you eat the actual steak.
The bagels are included and it’s awesome.
If I won a Panera card that included bagels, I seriously think that’s ALL I would eat. When we were younger, my parents would go buy bagels every weekend and that’s what I would eat pretty much every single day for breakfast. And now I could really go for a good bagel! I love Einstein’s too! I can’t believe people actually LIKE the fat on steak! It’s so hard to eat! Yuck!
I am fairly simple dinner maker, actually, all of my meals need to be simple! I get more creative when I bake but meals need to be quick and easy!
Simple foods all the way. I judge recipes on how many ingredients they have to decide if I’m going to make it or not.
I love simple eats. Though I also love to spend time cooking/meal prepping on the weekend. This usually means a stir fry of sort, super easy to heat up during the week or making shredded chicken or pulled pork in the crockpot and adding bbq sauce. Then I only have to add a veggie.
I agree that I think meal prepping is the easiest. We normally cook some sort of large meat which we have for the entire week.
I love simple, home cooked food! That’s cool you eat a waffle everyday YUM!
I definitely prefer the simple route when it comes to my meals… especially dinner. I think it’s mostly because I spend such a big portion of the day with food on the brain thanks to the blog, that I just need a break by the end of the day. Breakfasts and desserts, on the other hand, are where the creativity come out. And I totally remember when you used to share waffle recipes! I love that you’re still eating them regularly 😀
I don’t think we have Panera up in Canada! I HATE COOKING. I don’t really care about food. My mom ruined it for me, because she was always on a diet. ALWAYS. And she still is. There’s bad food, forbidden food, fattening food, in her world, and it drove me absolutely crazy. It still does, as you can see. LOL. So as much as I love reading fitness blogs, I kinda cringe at the food part of it all. I don’t give a flying F about it and in fact, I’ve still got so many emotional issues about it that I legit go out of my way to eat junk food just so that I can somehow piss off my mother.
Wow, I need to go back to therapy.
But anyway, I think I should try Powerbars again. I hated them years ago but I think in a pinch, they’d be okay, especially if you say so. 🙂
I can not imagine that Suzy. I’m just a terrible cook to be honest LOL.
I’m definitely with you on simple. I can typically whip up a tasty meal in 30 mins or less. Seasoning and sautteed veggies – currently on zucchini + eggplant = so darn delicious. I usually do cook up some protein twice a week so it is ready to go though. Same with quinoa or baked potatoes. Dinner needs to be easily thrown together or else I start snacking and ruin my appetite!
I am definitely a simple-foods “cook” (let’s be real, my bf is the chef of the house)- but given the busy work/workout/other commitments schedule, we usually opt for quick and easy, but healthy dinners. We like to go out for sushi or other types of food that are tougher to cook at home. Great post, super helpful and interesting!
I eat a waffle before running too! Although mine isn’t homemade, ha! I’ve never been able to work out on a empty stomach; I need a little something in my system to get me going.
Thanks for sharing 🙂 Makes me want to try waffles now. My stomach is always rebelling against me but that seems like it would digest well. I too love easy recipes. Lots of crockpot meals lately!
Do you fuel with anything during/post-workout?