Trying a Clean Eating Challenge

"Strawberry Splash" by Petr Kratochvil

A friend from high school days is hosting a clean eating challenge this week and I joined. I committed for five days to eating natural foods, exercising 30 minutes a day, and some other things.

So today I ate oatmeal, raspberries, almonds, and cottage cheese for breakfast. I chose regular oats instead of the apple-cinnamon packs my kids eat. Fewer additives, right?

For lunch, I ate a peach, cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, strawberries and a salad. I thought about how to keep my salad "clean," so I left out the light ranch dressing and croutons. Instead, I put Parmesan cheese to try and give the spinach, mushrooms, and almond salad taste. It was okay. Thinking I may have to look at some "clean" recipes for salad dressing, but I only like ranch dressing. I hate all the other types of salad dressings.

I ate celery and peanut butter for a snack, but I left out the protein powder. I sometimes add protein powder.

I made a chicken, mushroom, and brown rice entree for dinner. As I added lemon pepper, I wondered if it was "clean." I know what the ingredients are. I made some peach, blueberry crisp too. For the vegetable, I grabbed the frozen mixed veggies. I looked at the shrunk, mutilated veggies and threw the freezer burn mess away. Luckily, we had a second bag of mixed veggies.

I'm wondering where all this energy came from to make dinner: I went to bed by 10:30 two nights in a row! I also walked for 30 minutes today, fell on a few yoga poses, and skipped around. All this with pushing, holding, or avoiding a toddler. All in a day's work.