Day In The Life With VIDA

This post is sponsored by Vida

How was your Thanksgiving dinner? Are you full and ready to start December as your healthiest self, or did you eat mindfully and savor every bite? Ours was great, and I can’t wait to share the photos with you soon!

It’s been a long time since I’ve featured a full day of food – start to finish. I don’t know how I documented my meals for 5 years when I first started blogging! It is hard!! These days I photograph about 85% of meals (mostly the good ones!) and snacking is so sporadic it’s rarely worth documenting. (Think a few almonds and half of Mazen’s uneaten orange.) The good thing about photographing, though, is it forces you to be more mindful about the food you are eating. And perhaps most importantly, it requires you to make food look presentable, which in turn makes it more enjoyable.

I was recently introduced to a company called Vida that matches you with a one-on-one health coach. Vida asked if I’d like to review the app for a post, and I knew it could only be a good experience to chat about one’s health and wellness goals with a coach!A Vida membership costs $49 a month, and Vida coaches are not just for weight loss and wellness – there are coaches who specialize in personal training, managing stress, medical conditions, and even pregnancy.

After downloading the app, I filled out a questionnaire about my goals and personality, and was matched with Coach Morgan.

Morgan and I had a preliminary consultation to get to know each other and chat about what my expectations and goals were. Then she set up an action plan in the app for me:

We spent a week chatting daily on the app, which was just like texting. My phone beeped every time I had a new message, and we could send photos and articles right within the app.

So on the particular day I’m sharing, I went to athletic conditioning that morning. Up at 6am to workout hard! Coach Morgan was very impressed with my exercise routine – it’s clear (and always has been) that eating is harder for me to stay on track with. Matt had made French toast for Mazen and me. He actually served me three pieces but I put one back! Morgan is big on lower carb meals, so this was probably not her favorite breakfast of mine (she encouraged me to have scrambles and avocado most days!) but when your husband makes you breakfast you don’t turn it down 😉

I don’t tend to snack in the mornings, and had lunch at noon at Roots. I had a big bowl with rice, kale, feta, beans, avocado, pita chips and cilantro dressing. Plus BBQ tofu on top! I ate about 2/3 of this and saved the rest for the next day.

this !

After all that savory I was craving something sweet and jumped on one these cookies I had made the previous day when I got home. I wanted it more as a palate cleanser than anything else, and should have taken my own advice and reached for tea or my toothbrush instead!

A few hours later I had a few grapes and a cup of tea as a snack.

Dinner that night was a Friendsgiving gathering aka a big social event with lots of tempting food!

I had this plate plus a few small glasses of wine and a slice of pumpkin cake!

Overall this experience was lots of fun. Since I’m an Registered Dietitian myself, our focus was less on education of healthy choices and more on eating mindfully, something I always need a refresher course in. As I said above, it’s always a good idea to take a step back and look at your meals objectively with another person to recognize trends or habits you might not otherwise notice. I actually think this type of health coaching might be something I’d like to pursue if blogging ever comes to an end : ) I have always been most interested in the emotional and “tips and tricks” parts of a healthy lifestyle. Coach Morgan was full of great advice and sent me a handful of articles and ideas that I found helpful.

The first week is free, so you have nothing to lose to try it out! Download the app here!

Thanks to Vida for sponsoring this post and to Coach Morgan for all the cheerleading!