CFC: Days 6 & 7

I'm home from Massachusetts and almost done with the Clean Food Challenge.  Today is day 7!  I'm happy to report that, other than one specific indulgence (more on that later), I was able to stick with the CFC while traveling.  Quite honestly, it was really easy and just proves that it's not hard to eat healthy even when you're on the road and at restaurants.


I had a great time in MA, especially since I was able to shop at both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.  We don't have either where I live.  This was actually my first time at Trader Joe's and I am completely hooked. Oh, how I wish we had one closer.  I hear one is supposed to open in Albany, NY, but that's about 2 hours south of me.  I travel there often throughout the year, so I'll be able to stock up when I go, but it's not close enough for me to do my weekly grocery shopping.


Since I have two days of CFC to report, I'm going to break it down by day:

Day Six

Breakfast:

I had the orange mango banana smoothie from Starbucks, but I asked them to make it without dairy.  I also ate some mixed nuts.  I was hoping to get oatmeal at Starbucks, but they didn't have any.  So, this is what I ended up with.  It was really good.

Lunch:

I ate this in the food court at the mall.  It's Dal Makhani from the Indian restaurant.  It was really good and contained no "unclean" ingredients.  (Oops...when I just looked this up to make sure I spelled it correctly, I realized that most recipes use butter.  So, it might not have been as clean as I thought it was.  Oh, well. There's nothing I can do about it now.)




Dinner:

This was my favorite meal of the day.  It's from the salad bar at Whole Foods!  Since they list the ingredients in each item, I was able to choose things that were allowed as part of the CFC. At the bottom is a bed of greens, and on the top is kale slaw, sesame tofu, dolmas, black bean and corn salad, quinoa, cranberry and cashew salad, edamame, shredded carrots, roasted mushrooms and eggplant, roasted garlic, hummus and a falafel.  I loved this so much and wish I could eat it every day.

I didn't really have any snacks on Day 6.  We were running around so much that we didn't have the time to eat other than when we got the above meals.

Day Seven

Breakfast:

I had another smoothie for breakfast.  We went to Trader Joe's first thing this morning and then left to come home from there.  So, we stopped at Starbucks to grab breakfast for the road.  This was a perfect option!


Lunch was really just snacks in the car.  I had a tropical Lara Bar and some tortilla chips, along with orange segments and baby carrots.  It wasn't very exciting, but it held me over.


Dinner was a huge salad with tons of veggies and beans on top.  I didn't take a picture because I had two kids crawling all over me with "welcome home" excitement.


I also snacked on some cashews and dried fruit.


So, here's the part where I have to come clean (pun intended).... 


I knew going into this challenge that I was going to be traveling during the last two days of it.  I also knew that I would be traveling with one of my girlfriends and that we would want to drink wine together in the hotel room.  I mulled it over in my head in the week and half before the challenge started, and I weighed my options.  I considered postponing the challenge, but I really wanted to do it with everyone.  I wasn't concerned about eating clean during the trip because I knew I could find plenty of healthy options, and I really liked the challenge of doing it.  But, I wasn't sure I was OK with refraining from the glass or two of wine I knew we would want to drink while hanging out in our hotel room.  So, I decided that I would let myself do whatever felt right when the time came.  I didn't bring any wine with me, but my co-worker did. We didn't have any on Friday night, but last night she decided that she wanted to have some.  We were hanging out in our hotel room and enjoying some girl time, and it just felt right.  So, I decided to have a glass.  I know it's not allowed as part of the clean food challenge, but I don't feel bad about it.  I still ate clean 100% of the time I was in MA, and I still consider the CFC a success.  So, there you have it.  I'm not going to lie about my weekend and pretend that I didn't drink the wine.  After all, this blog is a reflection of my life...real life.