What I Eat in a Day as a Perimenopause Coach (It’s Not What You Think)

It’s 5:45 on a Thursday night. I’ve just walked in the door after a day where every meeting ran long and every email was urgent. I open the fridge and find half a container of rice, two pieces of leftover chicken, a lonely bell pepper, and a little spaghetti sauce from Sunday.

For years, that moment ended the same way. DoorDash for everyone else, and another sad salad with plain grilled chicken for me. I ate it at the counter while my family ate pizza, and I resented every bite.

Today, I eat in a way that makes me feel amazing, and I don’t feel deprived for a second. So in this week’s episode of The Midlife Mom Edit, I’m walking you through exactly what I eat in a day. But more importantly, I’m sharing what I’m thinking at every meal, because that’s the part you can actually take into your own kitchen.

LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST EPISODE HERE:

Why “What I Eat in a Day” Videos Don’t Work

You’ve seen them. Someone pans the camera over a perfectly styled smoothie bowl, shows you a cute lunch and a tidy little snack, and you’re supposed to walk away inspired.

So you try it. But between your work day, the weird ingredients, and the dinner your family won’t eat, you end up right back at square one, annoyed that you have to figure out food three to five times a day.

Those videos show you the food. They don’t show you the decision that happened before the food landed on the plate. And that decision is everything.

The Thought Standing Between You and Feeling Good

When you hear “anti-inflammatory eating,” does something in your body tighten up? Maybe you picture wilted steamed broccoli, or yourself pushing kale around a bowl while your family eats tacos. Maybe you hear a voice that says:

• It’s going to be too healthy.
• It won’t taste good.
• Cooking healthy is too hard.
• I don’t have time for this.

If you walk into anti-inflammatory eating believing it’s going to feel like deprivation, it will. Every meal gets filtered through that lens. It doesn’t matter how good the food actually is, because you’ve already decided it’s going to be miserable.

That’s why it’s so hard to get this way of eating off the ground. It’s not the food. It’s the story you tell yourself about the food.

And I’m not someone who has always loved vegetables. I LOVED Chipotle (those sautéed veggies and cheese sauce were my favorite). I loved cheesecake and pizza with crispy, curled-up pepperoni cups. For years, takeout was the plan more often than not.

But I started to notice that those foods made me feel gross for a couple of days, not a couple of hours. Bloated, puffy, tired, foggy, achy, and short-tempered with my kids. In perimenopause, those feelings got louder and lasted longer.

Inflammation isn’t something abstract. It’s the jeans you can’t button, the 3 p.m. crash, the cravings that seem to have a mind of their own, and the weight that won’t budge no matter how “good” you’ve been.

So my shift wasn’t “I should eat healthier.” I’d told myself that a thousand times. My shift was “I want to feel REALLY good, so which foods are going to make me feel that way?” One is a rule. The other is a choice.

Breakfast: Put It on Autopilot

When I worked in an office, breakfast caused a surprising amount of stress. Oatmeal or an omelet? Will I get stuck in a meeting before I can use the microwave? Will it smell weird? Why didn’t I meal prep this weekend?

That negotiation was happening during the busiest stretch of my day, while I was packing lunches, finding shoes, and answering texts from my team. No wonder so many of us grab a granola bar or skip breakfast entirely.

Breakfast and lunch don’t need to be exciting. They need to be on autopilot.

Most mornings, I eat a savory breakfast bowl:

• Steamed carrots and roasted broccoli or cauliflower
• A protein, like grilled chicken, roasted salmon, or another meat I have on hand
• A carb, usually diced roasted potatoes or brown rice
• A big spoonful of Bitchin’ Sauce on top

Yes, vegetables for breakfast. That bowl is warm, savory, and keeps me full for hours. It also makes it easy to get 40 grams of protein before 10 a.m., which keeps my blood sugar and my mood steady.

The mindset piece: I don’t decide what I’m eating for breakfast when I’m hungry. I decided a long time ago. When you decide ahead of time, you’re relying on a plan past-you made for present-you, not willpower in the moment.

Lunch: Same Structure, Seasonal Flavors

Lunch is a salad. I know, I said I resented the salad. But the old salad was the same few boring ingredients all year long. The salad I eat now changes with the seasons.

In summer, I go light and bright with salad greens, blueberries, raspberries, clementine slices, my protein, crunchy bell peppers, and a citrus vinaigrette.

In fall and winter, I want something heartier. I’ll use kale or spinach with chopped romaine, roasted acorn squash, dried cherries, roasted pecans, chicken, bell peppers, and quinoa or brown rice, with a thicker, creamier dressing (usually Bitchin’ Sauce again). It feels like a sweater-weather salad.

You don’t need a brand new recipe every day. You need a reliable structure and a few small, fun swaps. Give yourself permission to repeat. Repeating is a strategy.

Snacks: Ask One Question First

I used to eat five or six times a day. A lot of the time, I wasn’t actually hungry. I was tired, stressed, bored, or crashing because breakfast and lunch weren’t doing their job.

Now my snack has one purpose: a little extra protein in the afternoon. Some days it’s a smoothie with frozen spinach, frozen strawberries, half a banana, and vanilla Equip Prime protein. Other days it’s a peanut butter chocolate Equip Prime bar.

Before I reach for anything, I ask myself: Am I hungry, or am I something else? Food won’t fix stress or boredom. If I’m actually hungry, I eat. No guilt, no drama.

Yes, I Eat Chocolate Every Day

Every day, I have two Hershey’s Kisses after breakfast and two after lunch. I used to have Hu dark chocolate, but dark chocolate is off the table for me right now, so I made a swap.

I’m a health coach who helps women lose weight in perimenopause, and I eat chocolate every single day, on purpose, with zero guilt. When you know your treat is built into your plan, you don’t spend the afternoon fighting with yourself about it.

Deprivation creates rebellion. Permission creates peace.

Dinner: Component Cooking™ for the Whole Family

Remember that Thursday night with nothing defrosted? It looks completely different now, thanks to a strategy I teach inside The Perimenopause Weight Loss Method called Component Cooking™.

You cook three nights a week. Those nights leave you with components (a protein, a carb, roasted veggies, a sauce), and on the other nights you remix them into brand new meals. Monday’s grilled chicken becomes Wednesday’s tacos. The brown rice becomes the base for a Buddha bowl.

Dinner is where I have fun. I make the foods my family already loves, like nachos, tacos, pizza, spaghetti, and pizza meatballs, with small swaps for me:

• My taco is open-faced on a bed of rice.
• My spaghetti sauce goes over roasted cauliflower and potatoes while my family has regular noodles.
• My nachos start with grain-free chips, extra veggies, taco meat, and Bitchin’ Sauce baked in.

Nobody’s eating a sad salad while everyone else has pizza. If you believe that eating healthy means eating alone or making two dinners, that story is keeping you exhausted. You can feed your family and yourself from the same pan, on the same night.

Two Things to Try This Week

Look at my whole day: a savory breakfast bowl, a seasonal salad, a protein snack, four Hershey’s Kisses, and a fun family dinner. Where’s the deprivation? I don’t see it.

If you’re constantly telling yourself that healthy food is boring, you won’t enjoy anything you eat. Not because the food is bad, but because those thoughts guide your feelings and your choices. So this week, try two small things:

• Put one meal on autopilot. Breakfast is my favorite place to start. Decide what it is, keep it easy, and eat it every morning for a week. Notice how you feel at 2 in the afternoon.
• Catch the deprivation story. When you hear “this is too healthy” or “I’ll never stick with this,” ask yourself: Is that actually true, or is it an old story? Then ask the better question: What makes me feel good?

You’re not depriving yourself. You’re nourishing yourself.

Want to see exactly how I eat? Grab my free 21-Day Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan here.