Real Food Week 1 Recap plus Week 2 Challenge
Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Random
Well, the first week was a success! It was fun to try to figure out how to make sure we were each eating at least two fruits or vegetables with each meal. It sort of bled through to everything else; it seemed odd to eat something really unhealthful with a side of steamed zucchini and some cherry tomatoes. My lunches were especially healthy – it was easier to just bring it each day then to try to buy something that had enough fresh produce to fulfill the requirement.
I also found myself making (slightly) better choices the two nights we ate out – I even chose salad instead of fries one night. I know. Since we know what is coming in other weeks (e.g., only 100% whole grains), we're also making some better choices at the grocery store. As we go through, trying to clear out foods that will eventually be deemed not so good, we're replacing them with what will be the better choice. For the most part. I mean, I still bought canned whipped cream to go with the fresh strawberries we got at Whole Foods this week. What? The sweetener restriction is still a few weeks away. The challenge this week: the only beverages we should consume are water (still or sparkling), coffee, tea, milk (cow or other) and wine. And if we want to sweeten our coffee or tea, we can only use pure maple syrup or honey. Now, I thought it was wine or beer, which seemed to be the rule of the full challenge, based off of the blog comments. I'm fine with beer being included, because it is suggested that there are some benefits to alcohol in general (although wine seems to be best), and because beer isn't a big concern of mine. Austin will look to keep to the average of one alcoholic drink per night, and I'll try very hard to not have hot chocolate all week. We're also keeping up the two fruits/veggies this week because we both really liked that. We're traveling this weekend to an amusement park, so that alone should be an interesting challenge within a challenge.