Clean Eating Day 4

Today was a work day for me, so make a quick breakfast.

I've had a lot of firsts this week, I think this is the first time I've cooked real oatmeal on the stove!

Add a little maple syrup, cinnamon and brown sugar - yummy! and extremely filling!

 For morning snack I had a big bowl of strawberries and blueberries, and for lunch egg salad, no bread this time. For afternoon snack I had 1/2 an apple with a tablespoon of peanut butter.

For dinner, I had chicken on low in the crockpot all day, shredded it and make some home made bbq sauce (recipe here, I added more maple syrup and some truvia to make it sweeter) on a piece of whole wheat organic toast, Sweet Potato fries (just took 1/2 a small sweet potato, cut in small pieces, added a little olive oil and seasoning), and peas. SOO yummy! Will def make again!

Clean Eating, Day 3

Day 3 went great! I don't work Tuesdays, so its easier to be at home and plan out and make food. For breakfast, I made whole wheat blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup. I believe it's the first time I've had real maple syrup! It was kind of odd compared to the stuff I'm used to, but ok. Definitely something to get used to!

Whole wheat pancake (mix from Aldi) with fresh blueberries and real maple syrup.

For lunch I steamed some fresh broccoli, put a little mild cheddar cheese (cut from block) and warmed it up a for 30 seconds in the mic to melt the cheese.

Apples and all natural peanut butter. I got this yesterday for the first time. I mixed it but it still tasted kind of oily. I added a little hazelnut spread to it and it was better :)

Dinner was my absolute favorite!! I was going to just make my 3rd and last kabob and corn like I did the last two nights, then i decided to get a little creative. I cooked the kabob on the stove with olive oil and lawry's season like i did before and cut my corn off the cob. I warmed up some whole wheat fajita tortillas, added a few thin slices of pepper jack cheese on top and a little plain greek yogurt (tastes the same as sour cream!) This was SOOO delicious, tasted like it came from a higher end mexican restuartant! Will definitely make again with my extra kabobs!

Tonight I was a little brave and tried out an avacado pudding recipe I found on Allrecipes here.Not gonna lie, I was pretty skeptical about avocados in pudding, but it had good reviews, so thought I would give it a try. It was very thick, I added double the amount of coconut milk and also added 1/3 cup stevia (sugar alternative), because the cocoa powder was really intense.

  

My 3 year old Addelyn was the first tester. She is extremely picky but fully approved!

Gave a little to my 10 month old Leila as well and she liked it too!

I was kind of iffy on it. It was OK, but I didn't think it was amazing. Not sure if I would make it again. Maybe for my girls! ;)

Clean eating, Day 2

Monday, back to work today. Had to have something quick for breakfast, I usually do cereal, but didn't have any clean cereal, so opted for a piece of 100% whole grain organic toast with peanut butter. Quick, easy and yummy, that's what this whole day was about!

100% whole grain organic toast with peanut butter.

Lunch, homemade egg salad (chopped hard boiled eggs, mustard and real mayo with olive oil) on 100% whole wheat organic bread. I took off a piece of bread and just used one because it seemed like too much. It was super filling and yummy! I also had some strawberries and a naked juice smoothie, my new fave!

For dinner, (not pictured) I had a chicken bob and corn off the cob like yesterday, I had 3 kabobs on clearance from meijer, so had to use them up before they go bad, will probably have the last one for lunch tomorrow. I was still hungry after dinner so made a piece of toast with meijer natural hazelnut spread (like nutella) SO SO yummy, especially when the toast is still warm and its all gooey.....mmmmmm!!

As I'm writing this (10:30 pm) just got done baking some homemade granola bars. I used a recipe I found on pinterest here and altered it just a little. This was my first experience with coconut oil! I used coconut milk (again a first) instead of regular milk and cut down the strawberries from 1 cup to 1/2 a cup and threw in some cacao chips, yummy!

The finished product! Smells delicious! Will let you know how they taste tomorrow :)

Journey to health, beginning to eat clean, Week 1, Day 1.

So this is my first blog post at a new blog. Nothing fancy yet, just wanted to get started! I created this blog while I explore clean eating, in hopes to make it real and inspire others. How did I get here and why am I doing this?

I've heard people talk about "clean eating" for a long time and I just thought it was absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic. I was pretty thin through high school and starting gaining weight shortly after I got married. I'm going to get out of my comfort zone here and talk numbers!

When I was pregnant with my first daughter Addelyn, I started out around 150 pounds and ended up over 190 lbs at the end of my pregnancy, 9 days overdue, so I gained over 40 lbs, too much. She was born in April of 2011.

I did get below my pre-pregnancy weight but it was in different places and I didn't feel as thin as I was before. In the fall of 2012 I became pregnant with my 2nd daughter, Leila. I was much more cautious with weight gain with this pregnancy. I lost weight in the beginning from being sick but then gained it back plus around 20 lbs, so much healthier the 2nd time around.

Since she was born last June, I have lost almost 25 lbs, so the pregnancy weight plus some. I'm currently around 140 and although I love that number on the scale, there are still areas I need to work on, especially my core, gut, but, thighs area. I'm ready to get to the next level of fitness. I joined a gym a few months ago and it is helping some. But I know to get truly healthy, I need to do more than that.

Awhile back I read Jillian Michael's book "Master Your Metabolism". I thought if I could have the metabolism like I did in high school, when I worked at Burger King and ate it practically every day and still be skinny, I could make this work. The only thing I remember from that book was this, If it doesn't have a mother and if didn't grow from the ground, don't eat it. That was not was hoping to hear from this book! I wanted some easy fix, not eating like a crazy healthy person.

The more I've read about it, it really does make sense. Real food, that food that grows from the ground and comes from animals, that's the food God created for us, and the food our bodies know how to process. Crackers, Chips, cookies, Regular and Diet pop, really anything packaged, is full of chemicals and preservatives. We like to ignore the ingredient lists that contain 50+ ingredients that we can't pronounce. But really, we are poisoning our bodies with this stuff. You want to know why cancer keeps rising? Its all this chemicals and fake food we are putting in our bodies. Its easy, convenient, and tastes pretty darn good, but it's killing us.

I just got done with a 6 week weight loss challenge with some friends, and I did ok in the beginning but then I get to that 140 mark and I get stuck, I just can't lose any more. So I decided, you know what, I'm going to try this clean eating deal for ONE week. One week won't kill me, I can do this. I need to explore this. So I did some research on eating clean, found some ideas on Pinterest (check my healthy foods board, I found tons of yummy ideas!)

I just completed my first day, and I have to say it wasn't too bad. I don't think this is as hard we make it out to be. Personally, I'm kind of picky, not nearly as bad as some, but I like to stick to basic foods, like chicken, beef, veggies, I'm not adventerous with like fish and foreign food etc.

So here's my day 1 food!

Breakfast, 1 piece of organic 100% whole grain bread, toasted with a little unsalted butter, one scrambled egg, 1/2 banana, a few blueberries and 1/2 a glass of OJ. 299 calories.

Lunch - BLT! 2 pieces of organic 100% whole grain bread, toasted, bacon (I want to get some Turkey bacon, but wanted to use up what we have first, this is center cut bacon and I pulled off as much fat as I could), lettuce, tomato and real mayo with olive oil. A small salad with light raspberry vinaigrette dressing. 302 calories.

I was started to get my sweet craving. Luckily I was prepared, I picked up a bag of 60% extra dark cacao chips yesterday. I melted some of those with a little bit of peanut butter, spread it on 1/2 a banana on wax paper, let it cool in the fridge and voila! SOOO delicious and exactly what I needed. 173 calories.

Dinner - premade chicken kabob from Meijer deli made a quick dinner! Cooked in olive oil with a little Lawry's seasoning.

Dinner - chicken kabob, corn on the cob cut off, fresh green beans. SUPER delicious. Only 252 calories total!

Snacks - throughout the day, I munched on some green grapes, blueberries and cantaloupe. Tonight we made our own popcorn! With some real melted butter, salt and some white cheddar seasoning, it was delicious! 1 cup Popcorn with 1/2 tbsp butter was only 81 calories!

 I wasn't probably 100% clean, with dressing and seasoning etc, but I'm not going to go super extreme with this. But I'd say today went really great. With some planning, it really isn't too hard. I'm keeping my eyes open for easy, real food that I love. My starting weight for today was 142, I'll update at the end of week and see how big a different this clean eating makes! I hope you continue to read and follow this journey with me! :)