Clean Eating Day 1

Day 1 was very successful, and I enjoyed everything that was on the menu. The Clean Eating meal plan calls for 5 mini-meals during the day, so each day I will have a breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and then dinner. The meal plan is on page 77 of the Jan/Feb 2009 Clean Eating Magazine.

Breakfast is listed as Honey-Almond Oatmeal topped with 1/4 cup of berries and 1 cup of tea.
The oatmeal is their recipe which is 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup skim milk, 1 teaspoon natural (unsalted) almond butter, and 1 tsp honey. Mix all the ingredients and place in microwave for 1 minute, stir, then microwave for another minute. 1/2 cup of milk was not enough liquid so I added additional water as needed.

As for the 1/4 cup of berries. I couldn't get myself to measure out a measly 1/4 cup of berries, so I'm sure I had more like 1/2 cup.

My first snack was 1/4 cup walnuts (unsalted) and an orange. The meal plan called for 1/3 cup of walnuts, but I wasn't sure that I liked walnuts enough to have 1/3 cup. I was right. By the end of the 1/4 cup that I packed I couldn't have stomached another walnut. I liked them plain, better than I thought or remembered, but the fewer the better of these (unless they are in banana bread).

Lunch was the Pea Soup that is in the magazine. It didn't say how much, but the recipe provides the nutrients per 1 1/4 cup serving, so I figured that was what the meal plan wanted me to have.

I may have had more like 1 1/2 cups. I think my pea soup was lower in calories than the magazine's nutritional information, because I replaced the 1 pound of deli chicken sausage with a veggie meat alternative. I will go into detail about the recipe for the soup when I have it again Wednesday. But this was what it looked like after 8 hours in the crock pot on low. I turned it on before I went to bed, so it was ready in the morning to take as my lunch.

The magazine calls for an afternoon snack of 1.5 cups skim milk (or milk alternative) and 1 scoop of protein powder. This snack also worried me, because while I have had protein powder in shakes, I never had it simply mixed with milk (I usually blend it with ice, peanut butter, and bananas for a meal). I was actually surprised how good it was. However, next time I have it I'm going to shake ice up with it, because I think I would like it really cold even better.

Oh yeah and with the shake I was supposed to have 1 cup of green veggies. I thought this was weird to have with my protein shake and decided to add the green veggies to dinner.

Dinner called for 6 ounces of extra-firm tofu (or grilled turkey breast), mixed vegetables, 1 tbsp Simple Vinaigrette (a homemade dressing which I will also provide the recipe for tomorrow), and 1/8 cup flaxseed.

Well I was too hungry to weigh, press, or bake the tofu. So I ended up with less than 6 ounces of tofu, but a tasty way to prepare it. I sprayed a frying pan with Pam and threw about 1/3 a block of the tofu in the pan (which was most likely closer to 4.5 ounces of tofu) and stirred it around with the 1/8 cup of ground flax seed and 1/2 tbsp of the Simple Vinaigrette.

I then dumped the cooked tofu/flax meal mixture over my cooked mixed vegetables and mixed greens. I then topped it off with the other 1/2 tbsp of the homemade dressing.

The meal plan for the day ended there. However, after I got home from the gym, I ate some yummy grapes. I'm really used to more fruit than this meal plan provides for...wait until later in the week when part of my snack is "12 grapes"!! I LOVE grapes and to count out only 12, seems crazy to me.

My gym workout (before the grapes) was 20 minutes warming up on the treadmill and then 6 different upper body exercises (each 3 sets of 10-12) that focus specifically on the shoulders.