Monday, August 31, 2015

a month of clean eating

i started a 30 day clean eating and exercise group with my friend kari (who i met at efy when i was 14 or so) at the beginning of august.  ryan did it with me for a bit, but hurt his foot and was out for the exercise part for a lot of the time.  its amazing how much easier it is to avoid sugar when blue bell is gone!  as timing would have it, blue bell came back on the last day of the challenge group :)

we did an exercise program called 'cize' every morning at 6.  its a dance program that was fun to try out.  

this band came with the program and isaac made sure i wore it.

i helped callie with a doterra event the first night of the challenge and had said i'd bring lemon bars - not realizing i wouldn't be able to eat them.  self control!!

around the same time, one of the guys i worked at black bart's with started a facebook page called 'society for the preservation and promotion of the family dinner' and encouraged people to make food from scratch and sit down to eat as a family.  we posted pictures of our food each day.  i got pretty creative trying to stick to the food guidelines for the challenge, so it was extra fun to try to come up with good stuff.

salad with hawaiian bbq chicken

pasta and meatballs, salad with homemade tortilla strips.

i love a tupperware full of veggies already cut.  i put a tupperware like this on the table almost every night and the boys are so good at eating them.  cody insists that he needs four of each since he's four, so of course isaac need two of each. so pretty isn't it?

leftovers with a thai salad that we tried because it used papaya (which we got in our bountiful basket and didn't know how to use).  not so great.

another thing i love is roasted veggies!  one pan for enchiladas and one for snacking.

pizza pockets with fruit and veggies.  i finally found a hummus recipe i love and i'm addicted.  

taco salad with just salsa for a dressing and pineapple spears.

grilled chicken and mushroom/pineapple combo with brown rice.  every time i grill, i wonder why we don't do it more often.  so easy!!

we got eggplant in our bountiful basket and there's really no way i like it, so we tried out ratatouille again and it was pretty tasty this way.  we also got beets and discovered a recipe for beet chocolate cupcakes with beautiful beet colored frosting.  they were so good.  the missionaries couldn't even guess what was in them and didn't believe cody when he said it was beets!

we tried lots of other fun recipes this month.  ryan and i worked really hard to cut out processed sugar and processed foods.  it was tricky at first to get away from the bready/cracker snacks that usually like, but i ended up loving just veggies and hummus or greek yogurt for a snack instead.  and i learned to love berried on pancakes and honey in oatmeal instead of sugary syrup or brown sugar.  i'm not sure if or how much weight i lost, but i definitely trimmed down a bit.  i think cutting sugar makes the biggest difference.  i do love my sweets and ice cream, but moderation definitely makes a difference.

No comments: