Week One

Week one challenge is to eat two different fruits or veggies with each meal. Not gonna lie, this is gonna be a hard one for me. I'm usually good with one fruit or veggie for lunch or dinner, but breakfast......... doesn't usually happen. I 'm not a huge fan of fruit, and that usually what you eat with breakfast.

  We will see how it goes. Here are some suggestions that i found on the 100daysofrealfood blog about how you can incorporate two fruits or veggies into each of your meals.

• For breakfast…
  • Put some small bits of fruit in your cereal or oatmeal (like frozen blueberries or bananas), and also have some fruit (like apples or pear) on the side
  • Mash up some bananas to go inside your pancake batter and offer a second fruit like grapefruit on the side
  • Make an omelet with chopped bell peppers inside and have some fruit to go along with it as well
  • Have a smoothie with your breakfast especially if you have to run out the door…you can easily throw in a lot of different fruits (and even veggies like spinach)

• For lunch…
  • Try making a sandwich or wrap with a veggie inside (like cucumber or lettuce or avocado) and also have some fruit on the side
  • Cut up some raw veggies that you can dip into something like hummus
  • Soups are often packed with veggies and would be easy to heat up (or take to work) if you had some leftover from dinner the night before
  • If you are going out to lunch consider bringing a banana or apple with you (or eat it beforehand) to supplement your meal…restaurants don’t usually offer very many fruit items on their menu

• For dinner…
  • Have a salad with your dinner as well as a side of veggies
  • Make a one-dish meal like pasta, stir fry, or quesadillas where you can easily mix in a variety of vegetables
  • Eat two vegetable sides instead of a starch like rice
  • Consider adding fruit to your dinner…I always think of dinner as a time to have veggies, but fruit would often be a good addition as well

Why the Blog?

 

    Yesterday my husband asked me why I made a blog about our health food challenge. So I thought I should probably tell everyone else too. I decided on writing a blog about our challenge and how we do on it every week, because i needed someone to be responsible on making sure that i stay on track, even if it is just to the computer because chances are nobody will be reading this but me. : )  I also wanted a place to record my new recipes, new places to shop and all my ins and outs.

           

      Hello and welcome to my blog. I am changing the way that our family eats, for the better. For the last couple of months, I have been following the blog, 100daysofrealfood.com. On this blog they talk about eating real, mostly organic, whole food, and anything in a box has to have less then five ingredients and things that you can pronounce and know what they are.
           
       I have been thinking about eating healthier, cutting out processed food, and just generally eating better. Of course an added bonus would be losing weight, since that baby weight just doesn't seem to want to come off.  But i had to do more then just thinking, I had to actually do it. Which was scary because I knew it would be hard, and not cheap. Its a shame that real, healthy food is expensive.

              So on 100 days of real food, they have a couple of different challenges that you can do. I decided that for our family, and my sanity and our budget, the 14 week challenge would be the best. These are the rules of the challenge:

14 Weeks of “Real Food” Mini-Pledges:

• Week 1: Two fruits and/or vegetables per meal – Eat a minimum of two different fruits or vegetables (preferably organic) with every breakfast, lunch, and dinner meal.
• Week 2: “Real” beverages – Beverages will be limited to coffee, tea, water, and milk (only naturally sweetened with a little honey or 100% pure maple syrup). One cup of juice will be allowed throughout the week, and wine (preferably red) will be allowed in moderation (an average of one drink per day).
• Week 3: Meat – All meat consumed this week will be locally raised (within 100-miles of your hometown). Meat consumption will also be limited to 3 – 4 servings this week, and when it is eaten meat will not be presented as the “focal point” of the meal. Instead meat will be treated as a side item or simply used to help flavor a dish.
• Week 4: No fast food or deep-fried foods – No fast food or any foods that have been deep-fried in oil.
• Week 5: Try two new whole foods – Try a minimum of two new whole foods that you’ve never had before.
• Week 6: No low-fat, lite or nonfat food products – Do not eat any food products that are labeled as “low-fat,” “lite,” “light,” “reduced fat,” or “nonfat.”
• Week 7: 100% Whole grain – All grains consumed must be 100% whole-grain.
• Week 8: Stop eating when you feel full – Listen to your internal cues and stop eating when you feel full.
• Week 9: No refined sweeteners – No refined or artificial sweeteners including (but not limited to): white sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, sucanat, splenda, stevia, agave, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, and cane juice. Foods and beverages can only be sweetened with a moderate amount of honey or maple syrup.
• Week 10: No refined oils – No refined or hydrogenated oils including (but not limited to): vegetable oil, organic vegetable oil, soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, organic canola oil, margarine, and grape seed oil.
• Week 11: Eat local foods – Eat at least 1 locally grown or raised food at each meal. This includes, but is not limited to: fruits, vegetables, eggs, grains, nuts, meats, and sweeteners like honey.
• Week 12: No sweeteners – Avoid all added sweeteners including, but not limited to: white sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, honey, maple syrup, date sugar, maple sugar, sucanat, splenda, stevia, agave, fruit juice concentrate, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, and cane juice.
• Week 13: Nothing artificial – Avoid all artificial ingredients including, but not limited to: sweeteners, flavors and colors.
• Week 14: No more than 5-ingredients – Avoid any and all packaged food products that contain more than five ingredients no matter what ingredients

Each week we will do one of these pledges, and try to keep the other rules in as  well, but maybe not be so strict. The whole point is to get us to eat healthier, and hopefully it will just become a habit and I wont have to think about it when i go to the grocery store. 

More to come...........

( Thank you 100daysofrealfood.com )