Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

Over the past six years, I've shared hundreds of quick and dirty tips on various aspects of diet and nutrition,

but of course, it's how you put it all together that counts. And the years many of you have asked me to share

what I eat on a typical day. Well I'm not sure there's any such thing as a truly typical day

but this week I carried a camera and a voice recorder around with

me for an entire day and I recorded a real-time diary of everything I ate. Now I

got to tell you it was tempting to script out and photograph a perfectly balanced meal plan with glossy photos of gourmet meals,

but I thought it might be more useful to share what actually happens in real life.

And if you'd like to see the photo diary, it's all at Nutrit

dot quick and dirty tips.com.

It's about 730 and I've just made a fresh pot of coffee. I almost always start my day with a cup or two of black coffee. I really enjoy the flavor of coffee and it's just a nice way to wake up and gather my thoughts for the day.

And of course people who regularly drink coffee also enjoy a lot of health benefits like reduced risk of

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and diabetes and certain kinds of cancer but for me

it's really just a pleasant way to start the day. Now I'll confess to you

that I don't tend to wake up very hungry and that's probably because I eat dinner

fairly late in the evening.

But there's no reason that you have to eat the minute you wake up, especially if you're not hungry yet.

It doesn't kick-start your metabolism for the day.

In fact, eating when you're not hungry in general is not a great idea.

After I've had my coffee, I usually like to take a walk if my schedule allows, and today it does.

I have a nice route mapped out around my neighborhood.

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