"The Diet"- Days 1 & 2

Time for the good stuff! Here's a log of what I ate on days 1 and 2 of "The Diet", along with a few recipes. As a disclaimer, I am TOTALLY stealing other people's healthy recipes and ideas to take the "thinking" out of eating healthy right now. The "doing" can be hard enough without worrying about being totally creative on your own. I use Pinterest to gather my recipes and ideas and try to plan my meals a day in advance. Hopefully I'll work up to planning 2 and 3 days in advance, but "1 day at a time" has been my mantra so far! You can find my Eating Clean board on Pinterest where I'm saving recipes that fall within my "Phase 1" guidelines- plant-based, nothing processed, complex carbs/healthy grains, and minimal dairy & seafood. My Cutting Weight board also has some great ideas for healthier eating but are a bit more liberal on the guidelines (processed foods, dairy, pastas, etc). Due to the fact that I'm plagiarizing other people's recipes that already exist on the internet, I'll provide you with links to find them yourself, and supplement them with my own experiences and modifications.

Day 1-

Breakfast- a banana and more than 1/2 a cantaloupe
Lunch- egg fritatta with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, shallots and herbed goat cheese
Snack- the rest of the cantaloupe!
Dinner- crock pot southwest sweet potato, steamed broccoli with lemon juice, and a spinach salad with citrus vinaigrette and mixed veggies

The crock pot sweet potato is one of my most favorite things I've discovered to make in the good ol' slow cooker. The recipe can be found here, on the CrockPot365 blog. This crazy lady vowed to make every meal for a year in the crock pot and has some great recipes if you're like me and are crock pot handicapped. I make the recipe as is, or use whatever "Southwesty" type spice I have on hand. The awesome thing is it's SO moist that once you squeeze some lime over it, it needs absolutely nothing else! No butter, no salt, nothing. And now that we've moved into the 21st century (or 20th... we were behind) and purchased a microwave for the academy I can bring these bad boys for lunch or dinner. Load the pot up with 6 potatoes and you've got sides and snacks for a week!!!


Day 2-

Pre-workout- Banana
Post-workout- crock pot sweet potato
Snack- unsalted peanuts
Lunch- Kale & Apple Smoothie
Snack- baked kale chips & peanuts
Linner (I've recently invented this meal)- Spinach & veggie salad
Dinner- Almond crusted tilapia and Green bean & tri-color quinoa salad

One of the many brilliant ideas that have come to me by way of Pinterest are these handy mason jar salads. Basically, prep one big salad. Put the dressing at the bottom of the jar, place your proteins, nuts and other veggies that wont wilt on top of the dressing, then finish with your greens. You can keep these in your fridge for several days and they wont wilt! When you're ready to eat give it a few shakes and dump into a bowl. This is GREAT to keep on hand if you've run out of time to eat and need a quick fix... this will keep you from going through the drive through and hating life later. It's also great to have your side-salad already made and waiting so it makes meal time prep even quicker! Plus if you're like me, you can avoid letting a bunch of good veggies go to waste before you get around to eating them.