Cassie I decided to embark on a 21 day cleaning eating challenge and decided to share my journey after receiving a lot of questions when I posted about it on my Instagram. I’m a pretty clean eater in general, my diet always consists of gluten free and diary free recipes and I cook 90% of my meals. The reason I wanted to do a 21 day challenge is because I felt myself slipping when it came to my diet. I was starting to eat more processed foods (thanks to all the yummy snacks on Thrive Market) and just wasn’t feeling my best. Ever since I started working from home a few months ago I started snacking a lot and consuming more sugar since I was testing recipes for the blog.
In order to reset my body and try to stop the cravings I was having for sugar and snacks, I decided to cut them out completely for 21 days and decided to include alcohol with this challenge as well. I’m not a big drinker, I don’t drink on week nights and I only drink on weekends if it’s a social thing. The older I get and the cleaner I eat, the less I have the drive the drink. I know what it feels like to wake up feeling good and I hate the feeling of waking up and my day being unproductive or slow because I had a few drinks and my body does not like it. I almost feel like I have hangovers from just one drink now! Including this was an easy excuse to use when in a social situations when I don’t feel like drinking.
I always spend my Sunday mornings creating a meal plan for the week and putting my shopping list together so I can hit the store and get everything I need in one swoop. My change to my meal plan for this challenge was to include snacks. I don’t normally plan my snacks which is where I can fall into bad habits of grabbing chips or crackers so by planning them I’m more likely to follow it. I almost never cook lunch (unless it’s the weekend), I always make enough dinner to have leftovers the next day. When I first started the paleo diet a few years back I was cooking three meals a day and honestly felt like I didn’t have a life. All I did was work and cook. NEVER AGAIN. I learned from that and my life is so much easier now.
Here is what my meal plan looked like:
I love finding new recipes, I follow a ton of food bloggers on Instagram and it was because of those bloggers that I decided I wanted to try my own thing. Because I send this meal plan out to other people, I always try to link a recipe so other people have something to follow. Nowadays, I don’t really follow the recipes. Some of the recipes I’ve cooked so many times and changed them to my liking so I just know how to make; and others, I just use the base recipe as a starting point and tweak them. Here are some of my favorites from the week:
Little Bits Of One-pot Chicken Bacon Ranch Rice
I had never tried this recipe before and let me tell you, it was BOMB. I ended up using white rice because it’s what I had on hand and so it took me longer to cook. I also didn’t read the instructions entirely and did cauliflower rice instead of florets like it said to do but seriously, the flavor was sooooo good. I ate it the next couple days as lunch and topped it with avocado and it was a game changer for sure.
Little Bits Of’s Instant Pot Italian Turkey Meatball Soup
That’s right, I used TWO recipes from Kelsey at Little Bits of this week because she is my newest blogger find and I seriously love following her. I’m not a mom, but absolutely love following her journey through food and kids. She reminds me a lot of my sister. I also love a good pressure cooker recipe! You can’t go wrong with them because it makes dinner a breeze and hardly any clean up (which is my favorite style of cooking). This turkey soup because a new favorite. I can’t believe I didn’t have it all winter long. The flavors are on point and it really fills you up since you’re using bone broth and rice. This recipe is a MUST!
Paleo Running Momma’s Whole 30 Paleo Meatloaf
This meatloaf recipe is by far my favorite! The homemade ketchup is so good, just make sure you add in chipotle powder, it makes a difference! I also add in mushrooms when I’m sautéing my onion and garlic, it adds some extra flavor! The best part of meatloaf is you can service anything with it. I had it planned to do mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli but ended up doing salad with roasted broccoli and asparagus. It seriously hits the spot, feels like a comfort meal but without all the bad stuff!
I had it on my menu to have BBQ chicken but I ended up having a lot of leftovers in the fridge mid-week so I ended up having a leftovers night and I’m not ashamed of it. Letting food go to waste is not something I’m a fan of so we ate it alllll up! I also had it planned to make spaghetti squash and meatballs but for some reason it just didn’t sound good to me. Instead, I had some Maya Kaimal Vinadloo Indian Simmer Sauce so I cooked up some chicken in a pan, added in carrots, broccoli and the simmer sauce and let it all cook. I cooked up my spaghetti squash in the oven on 400º for 35 minutes then pulled it apart with a fork and poured over my simmer sauce and it was DELICIOUS. If you haven’t tried Maya Kaial sauces yet, you definitely should. The ingredients are clean and the flavor is SPOT ON.
My burger bowls are a staple in my house! They are extremely versatile and you can add all your favorite burger toppings and have the perfect bite every single time. My meal plan had me scheduled to have steak night but again (see a pattern here?) I switched it up and decided to do burger bowls instead. I served the burger bowls with a side of sweet potato fries – I make my fried by cutting a sweet potato, tossing in avocado oil, sprinkling with pepper, garlic salt and smoked paprika, and cooking in the over at 400º for 30-35 minutes.
I had planned my Saturday dinner but ended up at a birthday party so I decided to move my teriyaki chicken to next weeks meal plan instead. Having flexibility in your food is the key to keeping it fresh and fun.
WEEK ONE RESULTS
Don’t ask me if I lost weight because I don’t know. I actually hate stepping on the scale, I would rather base everything on how I feel. The scale is a number that constantly fluctuates but if I can consistently feel good, then I’m doing something right. After one week, my snacking craving has completely disappeared. By planning my snacks, I knew what my snack options were and most of the time I just didn’t have a snack. I tried to figure out if my snack craving was from wanting a break from working or if I was truly hungry and most of the time I just wanted away from my computer so I started going on quick bike rides to run my dogs instead. As for the sugar, I didn’t keep any sugar desserts in the house so it was easy. I absolutely LOVE dark chocolate so I did have some dark chocolate in the house but I’m a pretty picky dark chocolate person and always go super dark, with no added sugars or weird ingredients, so when I had a chocolate craving after dinner I allowed myself one square and I was happy with that.
Overall, I feel great! I can’t wait to continue on because I don’t feel like I’m missing something; I’m not dreaming about donuts and candy! It definitely gets easier as you go so on we go to week two!
