“Eating Clean” for 20 days

For the past 20 days I have been “eating clean,” which in this case meant only consuming foods that are within the top two tiers of Michi’s Ladder. When starting this challenge, my goal was to see if I could make it through the entire 20 days, while also maybe losing a few pounds to become more tone. Some of the food I ate the most would be cut out of my diet completely like pasta, cheese, crackers, and other delicious snacks. But after being inspired by 200+ other people taking the same challenge on a facebook event (including my girlfriend), I decided to give it a try.  

The first couple days were really rough. I had to always carry the list of foods I could eat all times with me, and had a hard time picking out actual meal options at the grocery store. After some help from my girl friend and a little more time however, things got easier and I wasn’t struggling as much to think of things to eat.  

It turns out that eating healthy is somewhat expensive, which would explain why so many Americans are overweight. Why not pay less money for more food? I went through around $50 of just fruit alone per week, not to mention another $20 for vegetables plus $15 or so for random healthy snacks (like brown rice cakes).  You really do have to set aside some extra money if you plan on eating healthy. 

By the last week of the challenge I was pretty much used to eating fruits or granola in substitution for crackers and cheese, and turkey burgers with stir fry vegetables were actually not as bad as I thought they would be. Unfortunately however, I was pretty spoiled as a kid when it came to meals and as a result, I still have a very hard time eating a lot of vegetables today. No matter how many times I try to eat spinach or egg plant, I feel like it will always be disgusting to me. 

Overall, I’m very happy that I forced myself to “eat clean” for 20 days.  While I did lose most of the weight that I wanted to, I didn’t choose to do this diet for that reason; I wanted to teach myself to eat healthier, and to realize the actual benefits of it. By just changing the way I eat and following my normal 6 day a week workouts, I was able to get more tone and lose weight…in only 20 days! That really proves to me that no matter how much cardio you do, it’s really diet that comes into play when trying to lose weight fast.  While I will be going back to eating many of the foods from my normal diet today, I am going to try my best to consume them in more moderation in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.