What A Nutritionist Eats in A(nother) Day | Alyssa O'Brien RD, LD

By Jackie Cartier
May 5, 2016

We’re back with day two of what a nutritionist eats in a day. We’re still tagging along with Alyssa, the newest Nutritional Weight & Wellness nutritionist and good cook, which we saw here.  

Let’s dig right in! Pun intended…

Breakfast

Ham and wild rice casserole, with scrambled egg and fresh red bell pepper. Lemon poppy-seed muffin made with coconut flour and protein powder topped with organic cream cheese.

As I mentioned here, I love utilizing leftovers at breakfast. In this case, the prior night we had a ham and wild rice dish, so in the morning I combined it with eggs cooked in butter. I sometimes get tired of eggs, bacon or breakfast sausage, which I think a lot of clients can relate to. My advice is to keep it creative! Breakfast doesn’t have to look like a “traditional” breakfast. For instance, if I had taco meat left, I’d throw that into an egg scramble for a Mexican-type breakfast with salsa, avocados, etc.

For this breakfast, I also added a lemon poppy seed muffin because I knew I had a super busy day and wouldn’t have time to eat until lunch, so this muffin and cream cheese were the perfect additions. I usually make a batch of these whenever I have time and freeze the rest. Here’s the recipe I modified awhile back. It equates to one egg per muffin, which in addition to the protein powder, is 10 grams of protein per muffin along with 9 grams of carbohydrate and 12 grams of fat per muffin.

Dry ingredients:

• ¾ cup coconut flour
• 2 scoops protein powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Wet ingredients:

• 12 eggs
• ¾ cup coconut oil or butter
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 4 Tbsp. organic lemon zest
• 4 Tbsp. poppy seeds
• 2 tsp. almond extract (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Add coconut flour, protein powder, salt, baking soda and powder to food processor. Pulse to combine.
3. Add the remaining wet ingredients and blend until smooth.
4. Scoop into well-oiled or lined muffin tin.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins with 10g protein per muffin.

Lunch

Seasoned ground turkey topped with braised cabbage and bell peppers.  

I made this ground turkey in the morning, seasoned with sage, salt and pepper, to have meat prepared for both breakfast and lunch. Then the braised cabbage is cooked in the oven with lots of coconut oil and a little bit of chicken stock so it would get softer instead of drying out.

Eating lunch for me varies between noon and two, so I really have to be aware of my day and know when I’ll be eating. Since this was the big breakfast day I didn’t feel the need to have a starchy carb, but I usually add one.

Snack

Snack-sized protein shake.

They come in handy because sometimes my schedule doesn’t allow time to chew! I often make a batch of shakes by quadrupling the recipe. Then I’ll put them in mason jars or storage containers and freeze them…but we go through them so fast we rarely need to do that!

Dinner

Grass-fed beef patty on gluten free bun, topped with cabbage, pickled green beans, spicy mayo with broccolini, spinach and a boiled egg on the side.

This was a special occasion meal. I came home from work, and my husband had this all put together. It’s basically a burger with ton of delicious additions that you can see in the caption. Because it was a special occasion, we got gluten-free buns from our local co-op to try. After the meal we both agreed the meal would have been better without them!

For the toppings we had spicy mayo my husband made; it’s just a splash of pickle juice, dash of organic hot sauce mixed in mayo, a favorite of ours. The boiled egg looks random but it was supposed to be on the burger and didn’t fit! I actually added the egg to the meal because I had a long day and needed some extra protein that evening. In addition to the burger, we had broccolini sautéed in olive oil with parmesan cheese and lemon, along with some raw spinach for more greens.  

I wanted to share a photo of one of my husband’s meals, so this worked out great. We are pretty equal in sharing the responsibility of cooking, but I’d say he’s way more creative in the kitchen. He’ll seriously put kimchi juice into anything. Not for this meal, but recently he made his own ketchup with kimchi juice as the “secret ingredient.” Burgers are a specialty of his, with tons of different flavors. A couple months ago he made a grass-fed beef burger with pickled green bean juice and tons of grainy mustard mixed in the patties. It was great!