A Week of (Mostly) Clean Eating

As I mentioned this morning, Jenny at LoveEatRun posted about “keeping it clean” yesterday.  She recently moved to Korea with her baseball-player fiancé, and she wrote about how the past few weeks haven’t been the greatest for her, eating-wise.  As a result of her not-so-great eating, her cravings for sweets have spiked, which ultimately leads to eating even more junk food. 

With that in mind, she’s challenged herself to eat better for the next seven days.  She said she knows that with her current lifestyle (living abroad, traveling), it would be difficult to eat 100% clean, but she’s striving for 80%.  She said she will consider it a success if she can cut back on the sugary sweets and processed snacks she’s been loading up on lately.

Jenny put out a call for others to join her in this personal challenge, and I was immediately on board.  It’s a little less extreme than the other 100 days of Real Food challenge I mentioned last week, and much more doable for me right now.  As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying to refocus myself using mini goals before my trip to Florida in a couple weeks, and this kind of challenge is right in line with my personal goals anyway!

I’m glad she made it clear that she is striving for 80% clean because I too can already foresee some obstacles:  My coworkers are throwing me and my other fellow student employee (hey, Mel!) a going away pizza party lunch on Wednesday, and while I would normally politely decline the pizza in favor of my homemade lunch, you can’t turn down pizza when it’s in your honor!  And secondly, Billy and I are hosting a graduation BBQ for family and friends with all the traditional fixings on Sunday – hot dogs, burgers, chips, cookies, cake – which I will be taking part in. 

With that said, I know it’s not going to be perfect, but I’m going to give it my best.   After all, 7 days of 80% clean eating is better nothing!  Jenny suggested everyone who wants to participate post our (mostly) clean eats and link up to each other, so that’s what I plan on doing. 

Day one, here we go!

Breakfast:  Overnight oats (quick oats, plain Chobani yogurt, skim milk, chia seeds), topped with strawberries and kiwi

Morning Snack:  Apple + superfruit green tea

Lunch:  Salad with romaine lettuce, spinach, broiled chicken breast, carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, and chipotle hummus

Afternoon Snack:  Trail mix with peanuts, almonds, raisins, and M&Ms

Dinner:  Baked chicken fingers with honey + homemade French fries + green beans

Evening Snack:  2 or 3 small cookie butter oatmeal cookies + 1 cup skim milk (recycled picture)

And just because I didn’t get a chance to post about it earlier, today’s workout included a HIIT treadmill workout and an upper body + core strength workout that looked like this:

If you would like to join us in the keeping it clean challenge, check out Jenny’s page and leave a comment below… I would love to see how you choose to eat better this week!

Happy healthy eating everyone!