What I eat in a day - recovery

Hello there!

So often I get asked about how much I eat or ate in a day in recovery.

Since it's so highly requested I thought I'd make a blogpost about it.

When I started to recovery I increased my intake to 3000cals a day. 

In hospital, I realised how much I actually needed to gain weight. I was on a 2500-3000cals mealplan but still needed addiotional things like nutri drinks (300ml a day = 300cals). ( I actually could have eaten more, like more bread for breakfast, but I wasn't mentally ready then and found nutri drinks easier to handle as I only had to drink it).

So, when I got out of hospital and started to lose weight on a "normal" diet, I realised I still needed 3000 cals (I still needed to gain about 5kg at home), so that was what I ate. 

Here's a typical day with my favourite things to eat:

Breakfast: Porridge with fruit and almonds

-40g oats, 1 grated carrot, 1 tsp chia seeds, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, sweetener if carrot isn't sweet enough, 200ml almond milk/soy milk

-any kind of fruit I have at home 

-a handful of almonds

-later some greek yogurt with chocolate powder

-->600+cals

(I usually ate a lot of almonds AND also cashews as a snack later)

Lunch: Pastasalad with an almondmilk-sauce and guacamole

-about 80g of pasta

-vegetables of choice (I love broccoli or asparagus with pasta, here I also added carrots)

-tomato sauce

-creamy almond-milk sauce (recipe will be up soon)

-guacamole

-->600cals

Dessert: Nicecream

about 2 frozen bananas, blended into nicecream

-->200cals

Snack: Pancakes (yes, as a snack :))

-pancakes (recipe can be found on my blog, it's an older post and I used kamut flour here)

-1 scoop of vanilla ice cream

-chia seed-chocolate-pudding-sauce thing (chia seeds soaked in soy milk and chocolate powder)

-any kind of fruit

-nuts (hazelnuts, pecans or walnuts are my fav with panckaes)

-->500cals

Dinner: Quinoa with quorn fillet, almonds and curry-tomato dip

-about 70g dry quinoa

-quorn fillet (alternative chickpeasalad)

-veg

-almonds (I loved quinoa with almonds, it was my favourite combination :D)

-sauce

-->600cals

Snack: Cornflakes with almond milk, flaxseeds and a handful of walnuts

I don't have a picture for that but it was usually about 60g of corn flakes with 250-300ml almond milk, a teaspoon of flaxseeds and a handful of walnuts :) Sometimes I also liked birchermuesli or just ice cream as a snack (like the one on the pic, but cornflakes was my usual snack)

-->400cals

All in all I ate 3000cals. I also snacked on cashews or almonds during the day which gave me some extra energy and healthy fats. I was scared of frying things in oil, today I recommend you to use olive oil for cooking, not only don't get things burnt, but also it's really good for you, it's a healthy fat which gives you a great skin and hair! ;)

However, I also need to point out that at the beginning I really struggled with eating so much. At the beginning, I constantly felt so full and stuffed, but after a while I got used to the amount I was eating and I even started to feel hunger again.
Sometimes, if my breakfast or/and lunch were too small, I ended up having like two night snacks or afternoon snacks... I just snacked then on biscuits or nuts.
Some people might think it's cool that one has to eat that much and they wish they could as well, but at that time I didn't think it was fun and it was really hard sometimes... I actually also started to mantain on 3000cals, I didn't even gain anymore, mainly because I was eating super healthy and still exercising too much. So my advice: Treat yourself more often to yummy things like Pizza or ice cream, chocolate, crisps, some cocktails with your friends ;) and do not exercise (especially if you're not weight restored!).

I hope this helps a bit. Ask if you have questions :)