If you’ve ever wondered what eating “real food” actually looks like during a normal workweek — not the Pinterest-perfect version, but the version that fits into a real life — this is it.
No elaborate meal prep. No fancy recipes. No expensive ingredients you’ve never heard of.
Just simple meals I’ve been eating on repeat for years because they taste good, keep me full, and don’t require me to spend my entire Sunday in the kitchen.
One thing you’ll probably notice pretty quickly is that I eat a lot of the same foods. That used to bother me. I thought healthy eating meant constantly finding new recipes and making different meals every night.
Now? I’m perfectly happy repeating meals I enjoy because it makes eating well so much easier.
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First…coffee.
Because nothing happens around here until I’ve had at least one cup.
Coffee has honestly been one of the last places where I’ve been willing to mess too much with what I like. For a while, I was still buying flavored creamers even though they contained ingredients I was trying to move away from in most of the other foods I bought.
These days, we still use Laird Superfood Creamer, which I really like, and I usually blend in some grass-fed butter too. Lately, I’ve also been experimenting with homemade creamers using things like dates, coconut cream and half-and-half. I haven’t landed on the recipe yet, but I’m getting closer.
And this is actually a pretty good example of how eating better has worked in our house. Eating 100% clean 100% of the time isn’t realistic for us, and it’s not what I’m suggesting you need to do either (unless you want to of course!). Making a better choice when you can still counts. Replace one thing you buy all the time with an option you feel better about. Get used to that, then maybe tackle something else.
One small change. Then another. Over time, those changes add up.
Breakfast
Breakfast is probably the most consistent meal of my day.
Almost every morning I’ll scramble one or two eggs with about half a cup of Good Culture cottage cheese mixed right in. If I want even more protein, I’ll add a splash of liquid egg whites too. A little garlic salt, a piece or two of Izzio sourdough, some blueberries or blackberries, and breakfast is done.
If you’ve never mixed cottage cheese into scrambled eggs — don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. You honestly can’t taste it, but it makes the eggs incredibly fluffy. Good Culture is my favorite specifically because it’s not as liquidy as most other brands. It blends right in instead of making your eggs watery.
The whole thing takes maybe ten minutes.
More importantly, it keeps me full. Years ago I’d eat cereal or toast and be thinking about food again before lunch. This breakfast keeps me from wandering into the break room secretly hoping somebody brought donuts.
Lunch
Lunch is where a little bit of planning saves me from myself.
I work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, so I prep lunches twice a week instead of trying to cook everything on Sunday. Sunday covers Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday covers Thursday and Friday.
That’s it.
Right now my lunch is usually some version of ground beef or turkey, butternut squash cooked in the air fryer, and frozen broccoli florets from Trader Joe’s. That broccoli is one of my favorite shortcuts — I throw it into my lunch bag frozen in the morning and by lunchtime it’s thawed and ready to heat up.
I’ll usually pack a snack too — a Perfect Bar or GoMacro bar, Greek yogurt (or cottage cheese) with fresh or frozen fruit and a little Purely Elizabeth granola (no seed oils, actually delicious, comes in a ton of flavors). It’s one of those things that’s always in our cart now.
I used to think healthy eating had to be complicated. Turns out, repeating meals I actually enjoy works a whole lot better.
Dinner
Dinner is basically the same formula with different flavors.
Chicken. Ground turkey. Turkey burgers. Ground beef. Whatever protein we have. Then roasted vegetables — usually broccoli, sweet potatoes, or butternut squash in the oven.
One thing we buy over and over again is Bachan’s Japanese BBQ Sauce. Clean ingredients, incredible flavor, and it completely transforms a basic bowl of meat and vegetables into something I actually look forward to eating. We put it on everything – so good!
When the kids are here, they let us know pretty quickly if we’ve made the same dinner one too many times. Loud opinions, all around. When it’s just us? We’re perfectly happy rotating through the same five or six meals without a single complaint.
You don’t need a recipe for this…
I want to point something out because I think it matters.
I don’t use recipes for most of this. Like, almost never. Only when the kids are here and I’m trying to switch things up so they don’t completely revolt.
The rest of the time it’s just a matter of putting the right things together.
Protein. Carb. Fat.
That’s it.
Fat for us is usually avocado, olive oil, or cheese — whatever makes sense with the meal. The protein and carb change based on what we have. The formula stays the same.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically the same approach I use in The Real Food Reset. The whole guide is built around meal formulas instead of recipes — structures you memorize once and repeat forever with whatever ingredients you actually have. No Pinterest rabbit hole required.
If you don’t have The Real Food Reset guide yet, grab it here — it’s the most practical thing I’ve put together for making real food eating actually stick.
If I get home hungry
This used to be my danger zone.
I’d walk through the front door absolutely starving, stand in front of the pantry, and eat whatever I could find while I figured out dinner. If there was cereal…one bowl somehow always turned into two.
Now I know myself better. If I’m hungry, I eat something real before dinner — an apple and a cheese stick, a bag of Lesser Evil popcorn, or a handful of nuts. Just enough to take the edge off so I’m not making decisions on an empty stomach.
That one little habit has probably saved me from hundreds of “what happened?” evenings.
Where we shop
People ask where we buy our groceries all the time and they’re usually surprised when I say almost everything comes from Trader Joe’s. Probably 95% of what we buy comes from there.
We buy organic whenever we can, and in our area it’s actually less expensive than the regular grocery stores nearby. You do not need a Whole Foods budget to eat real food. That’s just not true.
A note on my days off
I’ll be honest — on my days off I will sometimes live on coffee until 1pm and not even realize it. Not bragging. Not recommending it. Just being real with you because I think it’s important that you know the person writing this doesn’t eat perfectly every single day either.
Progress over perfection. Even for me.
On macro tracking
I’m currently tracking my macros and I think everyone should do it at least once. Not forever — just long enough to actually see what a serving of something looks like and realize you’re probably not hitting your protein. Eye opening. Annoying at first. Worth it.
That’s a whole other post though.
The bottom line
We buy a lot of the same foods every week. We keep ingredients simple. We repeat meals we know we’ll actually eat.
It’s not glamorous. But we feel good and it fits our real life.
If you’re trying to eat more real food but aren’t sure where to start, grab the free Real Food Cheat Sheet — it’s what I wish someone had handed me years ago.
Download the Real Food Cheat Sheet here and take it with you on your next grocery trip.
Because wellness shouldn’t be complicated.
