Clean Eating Challenge, Day 1

A few days ago, a friend mentioned she wanted/needed to jump start some better eating.  It got me thinking.  I need to do that, too.  My meals are healthy, but I've gotten lazy with snacking and desserts and other stuff.  To tell myself to stop eating that 3rd cookie, or to not grab those couple slices of cheese wouldn't work.  It would be fine for that moment, but in order to really get the effect, I needed to do a bit of a detox from all that. 

I need to drop some extra pounds*, I want to make better eating choices, and I'd like to possibly re-calibrate my system.  *I'm not sure that this eating will cause me to lose pounds, but cutting out the desserty stuff leads me to think it might... 

So, I challenged my friend to one week of eating as much from the earth as possible.  What that has come to mean for me, for this week, is the following:

• I'm eating fruits, vegetables, rice and other grains like quinoa, etc.
• I'm eliminating animal products (chicken, fish, eggs, meat, etc) with one exception:  skim milk.  But I'm only using the milk in my morning breakfast smoothie.
• No sugar, other than the natural sugars in fruits
• No bread/pasta
• Some basic condiments are acceptable:  salt/pepper, herbs, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, soy/teriyaki sauces, and my raspberry viniagrette salad dressing. 
• No coffee/tea, basically because I like sugar and cream/milk in my coffee and sugar in my tea, so because I'm eliminating those, I'm eliminating the coffee/tea

I think that covers it.  The original idea is one work week -- Monday through Friday.  I'll evaluate on Friday, and decide whether to carry this longer. 

So, today was the first day.  Here's what I ate:

• Breakfast:  smoothie -- made with frozen strawberries and blueberries, a banana, some spinach, a handful of walnuts, and about 3/4 cup of milk
• Snack:  half an apple, and a few baby carrots
• Lunch:  salad -- spinach, half an apple, red grapes, walnuts, avocado, with about 2 Tbs of dressing.  A couple chunks of pineapple. 
• Snack:  handful of grapes, handful of homemade red skin potato chips (baked, with olive oil, salt/pepper, and dill)

• Dinner:  stir fry veggies (red pepper, broccoli, edamame, carrots, baby bella mushrooms, water chestnuts) over brown rice -- flavored with soy/teriyaki sauces, salt and pepper

• Dessert:  half an apple and a banana 
• Lots and lots of water -- it's the only thing I drank all day, with the exception of a swig of OJ

I also made some baked edamame for snacking tomorrow.

Reflections:  I don't want to eat that much apple and banana in one day, but my biggest struggle here will be dessert.  I wanted strawberries or cantalope for dessert, but there were no good berries at the store yesterday, and the cantalope isn't quite ready for me to cut up. 

I'm not sure my body feels any different today. I mean, it is only Day1.  I was really tired -- but that's normal for a Monday, and a busy one at work.  I'm a little hungry now, after dinner, but that's not entirely unusual, either.   I am a little headachy, but it's not a migraine, and I'm not sure what's causing it. 

I know that after all this certain things will quickly and easily find their way back into my diet.  I don't believe there is anything wrong with chicken, or eggs, or cheese.  Or cookies, for that matter.  But for this week, I'm eating clean.  I'm hoping to feel better energy, a sense of clarity, and maybe a few pounds lighter.  We'll see how it goes...