What to Do with Leftovers and Honor Your Fullness Cues: Creative Ideas for Enjoying Leftovers

Leftovers don’t have to be a burden. With a little creativity, you can reduce waste, enjoy your food in new ways, and honor your fullness cues.

1. Make a "Leftovers Buffet"

Take a variety of bits and pieces from different meals and create a fun, balanced plate. Mixing flavors and textures can make your leftovers feel like a new, exciting meal.

For example:

• A little leftover pasta?

• A few spoonfuls of salad?

• A bite of roasted veggies?

• Some leftover grilled chicken or tofu?

This approach allows you to enjoy a variety without finishing a large portion of one dish.

2. Repurpose Leftovers into New Dishes

Repurposing leftovers into something fresh is a great way to keep things interesting. Here are a few ideas:

• Leftover Roasted Vegetables: Toss them into a soup or stew, blend them into a puree for a creamy soup, or stir them into a risotto or quinoa bowl.

• Rice or Grains: Use leftover rice to make fried rice, stir it into a casserole, or mix it with sautéed vegetables and protein for a hearty grain bowl.

• Cooked Meat or Tofu: Shred it for tacos, wraps, or sandwiches. Or, add it to a salad for a protein boost.

3. Freeze for Later

If you can't finish everything in one sitting, don’t worry—that’s what freezing is for! Portion out leftovers like soups, casseroles, pasta, or stews into smaller containers and store them in the freezer. This way, when you’re hungry again and craving it, you’ll have a ready-to-eat meal.

4. Rework Leftovers into a Smoothie or Bowl

Certain foods like fruits, veggies, and grains can be easily transformed into a delicious smoothie or bowl. Leftover fruit or roasted veggies? Blend them into a smoothie! You can add oats, chia seeds, protein powder, yogurt, and your milk of choice.

Leftover grains like quinoa or oats can be mixed with yogurt, fresh fruits, and nuts for a nutritious breakfast bowl or snack.

5. Turn Leftovers Into a Simple Salad

Salads are a fantastic way to lighten up your leftovers. Mix roasted veggies, beans, and proteins into fresh greens with a drizzle of dressing for a fresh take.

6. Compost What You Don’t Use

If you have leftovers that are no longer edible, consider composting them instead of throwing them away. Composting is an eco-friendly way to reduce waste and contribute to the environment.

The Bottom Line

With a little creativity, you can transform leftover food into new, exciting meals while honoring your fullness cues. Whether you freeze, repurpose, or compost, there are countless ways to manage leftover food in a way that’s kind to both your body and the planet.

Quick & Easy Workday Lunch: Caesar Salad Wrap with Rotisserie Chicken

When the workday gets busy and I want something satisfying, nutritious, and—most importantly—delicious, that’s where this quick and easy lunch comes in!

For today’s meal, I paired a Caesar salad kit with some convenient rotisserie chicken and wrapped it all up in a Joseph’s pita. And it took less than 5 minutes from start to finish!

Here’s how it all came together:

1. Grab a Caesar Salad Kit: I love how these pre-packaged kits make it easy to get my vegetables without any extra prep. All the essentials are included—crunchy romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and croutons. It’s the perfect base for this lunch.

2. Add Rotisserie Chicken: Rotisserie chicken is a total game-changer when it comes to quick meals. It’s already cooked, tender, and packed with flavor. I shredded a handful and tossed it straight into the wrap on top of the salad.

3. Wrap it Up: Instead of using traditional bread, I wrapped everything in a Joseph’s pita. These pita wraps really help to hold everything together in a neat, compact way.

In less than 5 minutes, I had a balanced meal that hit all the right notes: crunchy, creamy, savory, and satisfying. Not only was it quick to prepare, but it was also packed with protein from the chicken and full of flavor and crunch.

Do you have any go-to workday lunch hacks? I’d love to hear what you’re making for lunch when you need something quick and easy!

A lot of my clients—especially fellow parents—who enter my virtual office often bring up meal planning and preparation as a major topic. Whether it's finding time to cook or staying on track with their nutrition goals, many are looking for simple, quick, and balanced meals like this one. It’s always great to share tips like this Caesar wrap to help make healthy eating more manageable during busy workdays!

What is "Diet Culture"?

It’s always important to prioritize living a healthy lifestyle, and making choices that are good for your overall health and wellbeing. We all want to do our best to eat right and feel good. However, dieting isn't, and never will be, equivalent to living a healthy lifestyle. In fact, dieting is just about the worst thing you can do for your health. The extreme calorie restriction and nutrient deprivation that we put our bodies through when we go on a diet puts the body into a state of stress, which actually sets us up to gain weight rather than lose it. The stress caused by dieting is also bad for the immune system and for maintaining stable moods. In our culture today, diets go in and out of fashion the same way clothes and hairstyles do. It seems that there is always a new trendy diet to try. This is diet culture. Diet culture has completely warped our sense of what it really means to live a healthy lifestyle, by prioritizing weight and shape over health and wellness. Diet culture convinces us that we need to resort to drastic actions, such as cutting out entire food groups, or adhering to rigid ways of eating, in order to be healthy. Diet culture promotes fad diets as legitimate options for achieving optimal health and nutrition. Diet culture teaches us to fear food, and to distrust our bodies. 

It is easy to spot the influence of diet culture around us when we know what to look for. Any person, brand, or company attaching any kind of moral virtue to food is promoting diet culture. When we look at food through the lens of diet culture, we are only able to see “good” and “bad” foods, and as a result, start to see ourselves as “good” or “bad” for eating them. This is where the concept of “cheating” comes from. You can “cheat” on a diet, and the outcome is feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness. However, when you are living a life of true health that is balanced and focused on overall wellness, foods no longer have a moral virtue attached. There is only food, and how your body responds to the food you put into it. You are not a failure or a “cheater” for eating cake, cake is not “bad”. You are simply a human being, listening to and honoring your body, and choosing to nourish your soul as well as your body. It is about time we reject the influence of diet culture, and stop attaching morals to the food we eat. Food just simply doesn’t have that much power!

Diet culture can be extremely toxic, but you can choose to consciously reject diets and diet culture, and live a healthy and balanced life. The mixed messages coming from diet culture can make it very difficult to make decisions about food and nutrition, so it’s always advisable to consult a qualified Registered Dietitian Nutritionist about implementing good eating habits. Registered Dietitian Nutritionists use evidence based nutrition principles, and are trained to give expert health advice.

What is Health At Every Size (HAES®)?

It seems like every time you watch TV or go online, you get bombarded with advertisements for products related to weight loss. Whether it be the pioneer Weight Watchers, or the sketchy calorie-burning supplements, there is a giant business built on getting people to shed the pounds. Like me, you may be disheartened to see weight loss touted as the cornerstone of health and wellbeing. But what if health didn’t have to revolve around weight status?  

 This is where the HAES approach comes in. HAES stands for Health At Every Size, and it dismisses the notion that one size or one weight is synonymous with good health. Rather, physical and emotional wellbeing can occur at any size, and improving the quality of life begins with practicing healthy behaviors, not losing weight.  

 You may wonder, if HAES is a weight-neutral approach to good health, what are its guiding principles? According to the founders of the movement, there are three main components: Respect, Critical Awareness, and Compassionate Self-care. Respect involves celebrating body diversity, and appreciating differences in our attributes, like size, age, race, and gender. Critical Awareness relates to challenging scientific assumptions about people living with overweight and obesity and honoring personal experiences. Lastly, compassionate self-care is about finding joy in movement and eating according to what we need and what we like.  

Unlike dieting, the HAES approach is not meant to induce stress. Traditional weight loss methods are purely a numbers game, whether it be counting the calories you consumed that day or tracking the scale value each night. Not meeting these goals can lead to a sense of failure, which induces stress and undermines good health. Furthermore, it drives the faulty assumption that you cannot be healthy until you reach one size. Instead, the HAES approach values emotional wellbeing, encouraging people to celebrate who they are and to prioritize self-care over body size.  

Since HAES is a relatively new approach to health improvement, there aren’t any long-term studies that show its impact. However, several short-term studies suggest that the HAES approach has positive effects on behavior and appetite. For example, in one study, a group of 78 people using the HAES approach maintained their weight, while improving their energy expenditure and eating behaviors. Psychologically, groups members improved their self-esteem, body image, and depression. Even one year after the study, the HAES members were able to sustain the results, unlike the comparison diet group that initially lost weight but gained it back.  

Now that we understand what the HAES approach is, how do we incorporate its principles into our own lives? Some concrete actions include eating honoring hunger cues without limiting intake, incorporating walks into daily routines, or setting a defined sleep schedule every night. If you don’t know where to start, it’s always worth chatting with a local dietitian nutritionist.