If you’re new on the blog, here is the scoop on my meal plans. Every Monday morning, I like to meal plan over my cup of coffee in the morning. It helps me feel in control of the week to have something of a game plan in terms of what we are eating! A few things you can always expect…my meal plans are really easy. Very little skill in the kitchen is required. I do not plan out every single meal. I think that is a recipe for failure. I pick 3-4 meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the rest are on the fly. I attempt to cook semi healthy with the occasional indulgent meal because I just love food good. We repeat a lot of meals. I don’t know about you, but once I find a meal I like, I want to eat it over and over again. I try to attach recipes when I have one I love, but recipes tend to overwhelm me. I am more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of cook. If you are more of a recipe lover, pinterest is your friend. Type in “poke bowl” and you will find bazillions of recipes. I always try to include a grocery list, too!

Here’s whats going on this week in the Geoffrion kitchen…

Blake and I are headed on a beach vacation Saturday for our anniversary and let’s just say I am not feeling my best. Workouts have not been a priority lately, so I am feeling squishier than normal. For me, eating healthy and working out is not about losing weight, it’s about feeling good in my own skin.

Summer always seems to be the season I slack off with workouts. There is always something way more fun (or delicious) calling my name. We eat out WAYYYYY more than usual in the summer. If only swimsuit season was the time of year I was at the gym religiously ;).

We leave in 5 days, so I am eating EXTRA clean this week. Things I cut out when we are trying to be really diligent with our food choices:

carbs: pulling carbs from my diet helps me create meals that are veggie based, instead of heavier carb based meals

sweets: the less sweets I eat, the less junk I crave

dairy: I actually don’t have anything against dairy. I think it is good for you in moderation (minus intolerances obviously) and I try to have a good amount every week. But when I am trying to feel extra trim, cutting out dairy eliminates a lot of bad things I eat (pizza, ice cream, dessert, cream pasta etc.)

alcohol: when I drink alcohol I tend to crave bad food the next day

snacks: a lot of the bad food I eat every week comes in snack form, cutting out snacking helps me stick to my clean meal plan

Things we add to our diet when we are trying to eat clean:

avocado: good + lean fats and it is very filling

lean protein: we stay away from heavier protein like red meat and stick to fish and chicken

hearty veggies: think rich vegetables that fill you up and satisfy cravings for rich & flavorful foods

So here is what we are eating this week:

BREAKFAST

smoothies per usual

frozen mango + pineapple, coconut water, flax seed, collagen peptides

frozen banana, almond milk, black coffee

frozen strawberries + blueberries, chia seeds, coconut water, collagen peptides

LUNCH

avocado salad (trying to recreate a salad we had at Pacific Standard Time) – 1/2 avocado, cucumber sliced thin, tomatoes, red pepper flakes, sliced almonds, evoo, balsamic

leftover salmon salad

leftover grilled veggies + homemade hummus

DINNER

baked salmon (marinade is evoo, garlic, lemon, parsley, s + p) + escarole salad (dressing is evoo, lemon juice, s + p)

tuna poke bowl served over mixed greens (tuna + cucumber + avocado + scallions + jalapeño + sesame seeds + soy sauce + sesame oil)

chicken lettuce wraps – we used THIS recipe last time and they were sooo good

grilled veggie salad (grilled red onion, zucchini, carrot, cauliflower, mushroom) veggies + escarole + avocado + balsamic dressing)

SNACKS

I know I just said we are ditching the snacks…but, eating extra clean always makes me STARVING. So in the event of a hunger emergency I will eat:

1/4 cup almonds + an orange

GROCERY LIST

scallions

escarole

iceberg or bibb lettuce for lettuce wraps

avocado

oranges

jalapeño

cucumber

tomato

cauliflower

zucchini

red onion

mushrooms

carrot

lemon

garlic

yellow onion

fresh ginger

ground chicken

sushi grade tuna

salmon

canned chick peas

canned watercrest

tahini

ALREADY HAVE

(I use these ingredients over and over again so I always keep them stocked)

sesame seeds

soy sauce

sesame oil

evoo

balsamic

almonds

frozen fruit for smoothies

collagen peptides

flax seed

chia seeds

almond milk

coconut water

hoisin sauce

red pepper flakes

parsley (I do not like fresh parsley, so whenever I use a recipe that calls for fresh parsley I sub for dried parsley)

Like I said, we eat out a lot. Sometimes I am just stir crazy and getting out of the house for a meal is necessary. I find that it helps if I have a list of healthier options for meals out. This week, in the event of an emergency and we need to grab a quick + easy meal out -> Sweetgreen

fingers crossed we can stick to it!

xoxo