What A Nutritionist Eats in a Day | Shelby Hummel, MS, LN

By Jackie Cartier
July 11, 2017

A perk of working with a dozen nutritionists and like-minded colleagues is seeing the creative combinations that are brought in for lunch. That nosiness curiosity was the inspiration for our blog series of what does a nutritionist eat in a day? So far we’ve seen two days of Alyssa’s creative meals (here and here), been inspired to try an new recipe with Britni and intrigued to try Brenna’s fast breakfast solution.

Today we’re following along with Shelby, another Nutritional Weight & Wellness nutritionist, as she shares how she eats throughout the week, what’s always in the freezer and more to get you out of any meal ruts.   

What does a typical week look like for you food-wise?

We usually meal plan on the weekend, but in reverse. We start by heading to the farmer's market or grocery shopping on Sunday, then we take it from there and piece together a meal plan based on what we found, what was in season, on sale, etc.  

That plan typically gets us through Thursday, and that evening we’ll go shopping again. For us, this type of meal planning allows flexibility. A perfect example is last week when we had a plan to get rotisserie chicken, but the co-op was out. It was 8:30 pm so we quickly got ground chicken instead and threw together tacos. Sometimes with my schedule, I get home so late (which I’m sure a lot of people can relate to) that we try to keep a few things on hand so that if the day falls apart, we have some sort of ground meat or eggs to make a quick meal. We might make a breakfast for dinner type of meal. It’s not always gorgeous, but it works!

Tell us more about what you keep on hand.

Sure. Let’s start with meat. In the fall we get a quarter of beef, so we typically have lots of beef options in the freezer, which are easy to pull out before I leave for the day. For more protein, I always have at least one or two dozen eggs and some sort of bacon or sausage.

We keep the pantry stocked with tuna, salmon, canned tomatoes and beans.

What are your five most used items in your kitchen?

Easy, the first two are our cast-iron skillet and Instant Pot, which I’d add was the best purchase ever. After those, I’d say butcher salt that my boyfriend Tyler makes. It’s a combination of dried herbs and sea salt, and we put it on everything. Then we always have berries or grapes, typically for snacks, but sometimes I’ll throw them in a salad. Lastly, coconut oil; it really seems like we use it for everything from brushing our dogs’ teeth, to roasting vegetables, and anything we cook in the cast-iron skillet.

Tell us more about the Instant Pot!

I’m sounding like a broken record, but we use it for everything, even bone broth! For instance, after we’ve eaten the meat off a rotisserie chicken, I’ll stick the carcass in the instant pot to make bone broth. We use the bigger silicon trays, about 1/3 cup in a cube, to freeze most of our broth. If we’re making a dish that needs a little bit of stock or a sauce with a flavor, we can put a cube in the pan versus trying to thaw out a whole container. It works really well. We also freeze broth in a small cube tray and give our dog frozen bone broth treats.

Breakfast

Leftover chicken and egg curry salad, with broccolini, bell pepper and zucchini, topped with lemon vinaigrette.

This was an “eat what’s in the fridge” meal with leftover chicken and veggies from the grill. There wasn’t enough chicken, so I added egg salad we had on hand. I love that breakfast doesn’t have to be “breakfast food” (plus I get tired of eggs), and I tell my clients that all the time.

Lunch

Rotisserie chicken with jicama slaw.  

The chicken is from the co-op and the jicama slaw is from The Weight & Wellness Way Cookbook and Nutrition Guide. I’m cooking my way through the cookbook right now, and I don’t think this slaw is on people’s radar, but it should be! It’s so good, we’ve made it two weeks in a row. I needed a double fat for lunch, so I added the cream and blueberries. The other less visible fat is the olive oil dressing on the slaw.

Afternoon Snack

Deli meat roll-ups, grapes and hummus and chutney for dipping.

I have deli meat roll-ups frequently as a snack. This day it was cucumber spears wrapped in ham with grapes for more carbs and hummus and chutney for dipping the roll-ups.

Dinner

Pork chop, potatoes and simple salad.

The pork chops went straight on the grill with our homemade butcher salt and a grill basket full of cubed potatoes with melted coconut oil drizzled over them. The salad is just greens with Salad Girl dressing. The little dollop you see on the side is a little more fat, Chipotle Lime Mayo from Primal Kitchen.

Bedtime Snack

Frozen blueberries with coconut whipped cream and sprinkled cinnamon.

This is a standard bedtime snack for me. I keep a six- or eight-ounce container of the coconut cream in the fridge to harden, which is necessary to get that creamy texture. When I want some cream, I pull the whole thing out and use the immersion blender with a little bit of maple syrup or vanilla extract.

And that’s a wrap on another day in the life with a Nutritional Weight & Wellness nutritionist! Sign up for our newsletter below to get inspired by our next installation when we tag along with Melanie.