5 Meal Ideas

Continually, food becomes one of the hardest things to navigate and for good reason. As a coach, we are trying to figure out the best means to eat in a way that helps your goals but with the ability do so in a way that creates a good relationship with food.

For a client, you are trying to eat in a way that gets you one step closer to your goals but also trying to learn why you should eat this vs. that and all the nuances about food. On top of that, food is marketed DAMN well, it’s around us all the time, and all the delicious stuff is placed in front of us constantly.

I am generally not a “meal plan” person but I do enjoy handing out a few ideas. So today I want to lay out 5 meals (really 4 meals and 1 deliciously easy dessert) that I have whipped up across the last few weeks that I find to be really REALLY good. 

Let’s dive on in!

1: Protein French Toast

Ingredients: 

• Bread of choice (2-3 slices)
• Egg whites (I try to use ½ cup for every piece of bread)
• Cinnamon 
• Vanilla extract
• Sugar free sweetener (optional)
• Pumpkin pie spice (optional)
• Raspberries (½ cup)
• 2% Fage Greek yogurt (hefty dollop)
• Sugar free syrup (up to you)

Directions: 

1. Get a strong serving of cinnamon and vanilla extract into your egg whites (this is where you would also add the pumpkin pie spice and sweetener if needed)
2. Dunk your bread into egg white mixture so both sides are soaked
3. Cook the soaked break in a pan until golden brown before flipping (medium-low heat)
4. Once you flip the bread, pour in the remaining egg white mixture over the french toast
5. Once the french toast is done, stack the pieces up and put your raspberries (I like them warmed up in the microwave), greek yogurt, and sugar free syrup on top.

Breakdown for 3 pieces

Calories: 563

Protein: 51

Fat: 8

Carbs: 81

Fiber: 5

This one is FILLING but delicious. Save it for a nice weekend when you have some extra time and I bet your kids will like it too!

2: Quick and Easy Chicken Bowls

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast (2)
• Rice of choice (1 cup)
• Olive oil 
• Pineapple salsa (2 tbsp)
• Low fat sour cream (hefty dollop)
• Garlic powder (1 tsp)
• Onion powder (1 sp) 
• Salt (pinch)
• Pepper (½ tsp)
• Paprika (½ tsp)
• Chili powder (1 tsp)
• Shredded cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Rub your chicken with olive oil and all the seasonings as your pan heats up to a medium-high heat.
2. Brown the chicken on both sides then cut into small chunks
3. Put your rice in a bowl and add your chicken on top
4. Add your sour cream, salsa, and cheese to the bowl and you are god to go!
5. We just did a big meal prep of these bowls and for the first time and cooked the chicken in the oven. This was much easier for the extra servings. So, all the steps stay the same just toss your chicken on a rack in the oven and cook at 400 for 25-30 minutes.

Breakdown per bowl 

Calories: 760

Protein: 65

Fat: 28

Carbs: 57

Fiber: 3

3: Turkey and Sweet Potato Skillet 

My wife makes this a few times a month and It is THE BEST. It’s one of my favorites, even though she is sick of it.

Ingredients:

• Ground turkey (1-1.5lbs)
• 1 sweet potato 
• 2 cups of spinach
• ½ of a yellow onion
• Mozzarella cheese (1 cup)
• Onion powder (½ tsp)
• Garlic powder (1 tsp)
• Salt (1 tsp)
• Pepper (1 tsp)
• Chili powder (1 tsp)
• Paprika (½ tsp)
• 2 cloves of garlic

Directions:

1. Get your turkey in a pan with a bit of olive oil on medium heat.
2. While the turkey cooks you can prepare your vegetables. Cut up the sweet potato into small quarter sized chunks. Dice up your onion and portion out the spinach. Mince the garlic too while you’re at It (unless you wimped out and used pre-minced garlic)
3. Once you cut up the sweet potato you can toss It in the pan with the minced garlic and all the seasonings as the meat begins to cook through.
4. Stir everything together occasionally as It cooks
5. Once the meat is fully cooked, place in your spinach and sprinkle all the cheese on top to cover as much of the pan as you can.
6. Place a lid on the skillet and turn the heat down to a simmer. Let that sit for 10-12 minutes until the cheese is fully melted and the sweet potatoes are soft. 
7. Serve It up and enjoy!

Breakdown- This will feed 2-3 people pretty easily so I am going to break down the nutrition portion as 1 serving if this was to have 3 servings.

Calories: 482

Protein: 50

Fat: 24

Carbs: 22

Fiber: 3.5

4: Overnight Oats (one of the many overnight oats recipes)

Ingredients:

• ½ cup of oats 
• 1 tbsp of honey
• ½ serving of plain Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp of cinnamon
• 1 small graham cracker
• 1 scoop of protein powder (vanilla tastes best here)
• ½ cup milk of choice (almond, 2%, cashew)

Directions:

1. To be completely honest, I’m obsessed with the apple and cinnamon premade oatmeal so I used two packets of the lower sugar kind and It was amazing. Add your oats, ½ a cup or two packets to a mason jar.
2. Next goes in the honey, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, protein powder and milk. I also have added sweetener in the past but using the packets no sweetener is needed. 
3. Stir all that together and let It mix ever so nicely.
4. Toss that in the fridge to sit overnight.
5. When you go to eat It, crumble up 1 graham cracker on top and enjoy!

Breakdown

Calories: 564

Protein: 38

Fats: 9

Carbs: 83

Fiber: 10

5: Protein Ice Cream (My favorite thing in this world)

Kate got me a Ninja Creami and a few months back and It was a turning point in my life, ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ingredients:

• 1 core power vanilla protein drink 
• 4 mint Oreo thins

Directions:

1. Pour the protein drink into a container and freeze overnight
2. Blend It up or toss It into a Ninja Creami until desired consistency. I haven’t done It before but you could probably do the same thing in a blender.
3. Toss in your 4 Oreos and do a quick blend with those.
4. It will turn into something that looks like a blizzard from DQ, it’s amazing.
5. You can use any vanilla protein for this as well. I don’t have any right now so I used a pre-made core power drink- It did not disappoint.

Breakdown

Calories: 310

 Protein: 27

Fat: 10

Carbs: 27

Fiber: 1

If you are looking for any more ideas or have any questions about these recipes just shoot me over an email! I am always happy to talk about food!

In good health,

Jeff