Our first week of our real food challenge is complete, and I am thrilled with how it has gone. We’ve had plenty of delicious food to eat and surprisingly I haven’t craved sugar once. Michael had headaches the first couple of days going without coke but he seems to be over that now.
In case any of you out there are thinking about doing a real food challenge, or just want to try to eat a bit healthier, I’ve made a list of some of the foods we’ve eaten for inspiration (apologies in advance for the pictures – 1) they were taken with my cell phone and I just can’t seem to take a good cell phone picture and 2) we usually eat off red plates, which I’ve come to notice are not the most appealing color for food to be on…but at least you can still get an idea – I’ll try to take pictures with my real camera next week).
Our cheese, milk, meat, eggs, maple syrup, all of the veggies, and some of the fruit were all purchased locally (farmer’s market, Jackson’s orchard, Chaney’s milk, etc.). A few things did come from Kroger – mostly organic (avocados, spring mix, oranges, yogurt, butter, mozzarella, bacon).
whole wheat biscuits, bacon, and eggs
burger on a whole wheat pita with sliced tomato and avocado, grilled corn on the cob, and butter beans
pan fried potatoes with leftover crumbled up hamburger, tomato slices, and a peach
leftover potatoes and ground beef, corn on the cob, tomato slices, cucumbers with homemade ranch dip, and an orange
pizza: whole wheat crust and homemade tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese, onion, banana peppers, and green peppers; spring mix salad with homemade red wine vinaigrette
toasted whole wheat pita pocket with cheese, avocado, cucumbers with homemade ranch, tomato slices
mashed potatoes with fresh chives, zucchini and squash, a peach, spring mix salad with homemade red wine vinaigrette
Some other things we’ve eat that I don’t have pictures of are:
- homemade banana bread (delicious with just a little peanut butter smeared on it!)
- smoothies (peanut butter + banana or banana + various fruits, usually with some greens thrown in)
- trail mix (I just mixed peanuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, and raisins together)
- apples with almond butter or peanut butter
- whole wheat blueberry waffles with pure maple syrup
So anyway, that’s just a glimpse into our first work. Like I said before, so far so good. Now it’s time to go whip up some other yummy things for next week!
(P.S. our first week of our no tv challenge also went well – we actually chose not to use our allotted two hours of tv this week in order to read. I haven’t really missed it, I’ve just listened to audiobooks while I work around the house rather than watch tv like usual)
Good for you! I found your link on Works for Me Wednesday and think it’s great that you are trying a Whole Foods Challenge – you will feel so much healthier by the end!
Thanks for sharing! It is so much easier to imagine what a diet is like when you see several days’ real meals–and, unlike a lot of “real food” blogging I’ve seen, you are eating mostly simple things that are familiar to most people, instead of fermented liver with homemade buckwheat vinegar or whatever. :-)
Congratulations on escaping the clutches of TV!
That cracked me up! But I totally understand…I see recipes all the time that are a million ingredients and look super hard to prepare or have really weird ingredients that I’d never think of trying. I just want simple and easy, so that’s what we’ve been trying to do and it seems to be working for us :).
I’m loving not watching tv and I never thought I’d say that! I get so much more stuff done and I’ve read a ton of books recently.