Hey, hey!
Keeping in mind this week’s challenge, I started this morning with a healthy breakfast: a French Toast Breakfast Scramble with sliced banana, dried cranberries, and a couple of big scoops of almond butter. I also had a glass of freshly pressed juice. In the mix: romaine lettuce, mustard greens, apple, lemon, celery, carrot, and ginger.
So, how are things going with clean eating this week? Things went fairly well for me, but I honestly can’t say I was at 90% all week. I probably hit about 80% most days, which I still consider a success, especially compared to the previous couple of weeks. Improvement is improvement, right?
A couple of things that worked for me:
- Snacking on fresh fruit. I know fruit is not dessert, but I splurged this week and bought (expensive) organic grapes and apples to snack on after dinner as a sweet treat. As you know, I hate wasting food and money, so having really delicious fruit in the fridge encouraged me to eat it, which meant I didn’t go nuts on chocolate or other desserts.
- Incorporating at least two different veggies at lunch and dinner. I’m good about including protein and healthy fats in all of my meals, but making sure I had at least two different veggies on my plate also helped to satisfy me while getting some more nutrients into my diet.
A couple of things that I struggled with:
- Dining out. When I dine out, I typically splurge a little, but knowing that I had this clean eating challenge on my plate this week definitely made it difficult. On Monday night, Mal and I went out to dinner with a couple of our friends. Right from the start, I knew my eating wouldn’t be 90% clean, but I did the best I could. I shared some fried pickles with everyone (obviously, not clean), but I ordered what I thought was a fairly healthy meal: a bowl of chili (still trying to increase the iron in my diet) with a side of broccoli. Not terrible, but it was still kind of a challenge to eat clean.
- Afternoon snacking. I found myself getting hungry around 3:30/4:00 PM on a couple of days this week, so I’d end up snacking on random bites here and there. They were usually healthy (grapes, almonds, pickles), but sometimes they weren’t (tortilla chips, granola, peanut M&Ms). And once I started to eat those not-so-clean snacks, I couldn’t stop. For instance, one handful of granola led to like 10 handfuls of granola. In the future, I either need to eat a more substantial lunch or use my plate method and actually take the time to make a well-rounded snack to eat.
Health News & Views
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A Plyometrics Workout to Jumpstart Your Day
Questions of the Day
How’d things go with your clean eating this week? What worked for you? What was tough for you?