10 Day Clean Eating Challenge Recap

Hello! How’s it going? Today I’m sharing my thoughts on the Clean Eating Challenge I did and what I ate. It was good for me to stop eating treats every day. I don’t know when it happened but I realized I was eating some sort of dessert after lunch and dinner (and randomly throughout the day). It wasn’t out of hunger it was just convenience, fun, taste… and I wanted to shut it down and get back to intuitive eating and a healthy diet.

The ‘official’ Herbal Cleanse is the first 10 days of the 24 day challenge.

I didn’t even realize people only did the first part of the challenge until my friend Chandra did it a while back. She says she can’t do the whole 24 days (this girl loves a good happy hour, but who doesn’t?) so she’s done the 10 day cleanse to reset her diet and get back on track.

We agreed to do it together and keep each other accountable by checking in with updates, pictures and our challenges on What’s App. That really helped! If you do any kind of diet challenge definitely consider asking a friend if they want to do it with you and keep each other on track.

And yeah, you don’t have to do a ‘real’ cleanse to do a Healthy Eating Challenge with your friends. Just choose the ‘rules’, the timeline and how you’ll check in – then go for it!

We agreed that we weren’t shooting for perfection, just progress. So our Healthy Eating Challenge rules were as follows…

1. No straight up junk food / crap. This includes: chips, fried food, cookies, candy, cake, chocolate covered Doritos, ice cream…

2. No alcohol. This includes: Sangria – even though it can technically be considered a fruit smoothie.

3. Yes to eating: lean protein, veggies, fruit, low fat dairy, whole grains.

The focus was on ‘eating clean’, which can mean different things to everyone. I was okay with things that were processed like yogurt, but did try to focus on whole foods.

The hardest part for me was not eating random chocolate or cereal. The hardest part for Chandra was not drinking alcohol, especially because she had some business dinners during the cleanse.

I didn’t take pictures of everything I ate, but did try to do a few “What I Ate” blog posts to share ideas. I’m okay with eating the same thing everyday during the week. I like to change it up and go out to eat on weekends but can probably eat the same breakfast and lunch 6 days a week for 2 years before I get bored of it. So, the ‘what I ate’ posts don’t have a lot of variety – but that’s how I like it.

Typical Day on 10 Day Cleanse:

Pre-workout: Iced Coffee* and toast if I was hungry. Some days I’d skip it, other days I’d have 2 pieces plus a banana.

Breakfast: Green smoothie with protein powder, spinach, almond milk and topped with almonds and apples.

Snack: Spark (and fruit or nuts if I was hungry). I was usually able to skip a morning snack because the protein shake & nuts kept me full.

Lunch: Big salad with leftover chicken, hummus and carrots

Snack: Yogurt, popcorn, nuts, toast with PB.

Dinner: Roasted veggies (usually broccoli and cauliflower), chicken or fish, sweet potato or corn tortillas.

Dessert: Hot tea with stevia and milk. Some nights yogurt or fruit if I wanted something else.

*During the 24 Day Challenge you don’t drink coffee and switch it out for Spark in the morning. I still drink coffee since I don’t think it’s ‘bad’ or hurting my diet. But if you want to stick to the guidelines 100%, skip coffee and drink Spark.*

(The picture below is in a sports-bra. Doesn’t it look like a regular bra? I ordered it from Brooks online.)

Results: I am really happy with how quickly I was able to get back to eating more fruits and veggies and less random donuts and cookies. I wasn’t perfect but cutting back on unnecessary junk made me feel like I lost weight. I might have just gotten rid of junk food bloating, but whatever – I felt better!

I didn’t drink alcohol during the challenge, which is good too. Nice to know I’m not a complete alcoholic. #kidding

I am happy that I kept myself accountable and made it a priority to choose fruit when I would normally eat a cookie. The calorie count was probably around the same – but I was eating more vitamins and less processed flour and sugar.

Half way through the challenge Chandra was down 3 pounds and it was motivating to stay on track. The check-ins definitely helped.

Now I’m going to try and get back to a good balance of 80% healthy and 20% sangria (or whatever sounds like a good lil treat that day).

 

Question: Do you have a friend you talk to about RUNNING or EATING?

Yes, I talk to SR about running, Chandra about eating and Vegas about not judging me when I’m eating chocolate in bed.

__________________________________________________________________________________

You can get more info or buy the 10 Day Cleanse here

You can get more info or buy the 24 Day Challenge here

 

 

The post 10 Day Clean Eating Challenge Recap appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.