Days 3 & 4 Recap of the BuzzFeed Clean Eating Challenge

This is the recap of days 3 and 4 of my clean eating challenge. See prep day and Days 1 and 2.

Day 3: Tuesday Breakfast
Blackberry-Yogurt Parfait

After my somewhat horrific experience with overnight oats (blech, never again), I was admittedly pretty hesitant about this parfait. I’m just not a Greek yogurt fan. The recipe doesn’t include honey, but I put some honey on each Greek yogurt layer anyway.

Day 3: Tuesday Lunch
Asian Chicken Salad with Tamari-Lime Vinaigrette

By the time lunch rolled around, I was feeling pretty good. I was hungry, but just so, as in not starving like yesterday. Day 2 was so hard…

The combination in this salad was a great one, and I’ll definitely make it again one day.

Day 3: Tuesday Snack
Lemony Avocado

I’M SO SAD!!!!!!! I love avocado and was so very much looking forward to having this snack. However, I guess I didn’t wrap the plastic wrap around my leftover avocado enough (from the cabbage wraps dinner), or let’s just blame the avocado as being a finicky fruit, because it was browned. Instead, I ate two clementines.

Day 3: Tuesday Dinner
Cauliflower Steaks with Lentils

Just to give you an idea of hunger, let me tell you about my night. After work, I ran an errand and didn’t get home until about 6pm. Then I start prepping the cauliflower steaks. Then I put the lentils on the stove. As it goes, I guess, the lentils took over 2 hours to absorb all the liquid and cook! The BuzzFeed recipe says it’ll take only half that time so I don’t know what went on, but I ended up eating the cauliflower first (at about 7:45pm) and was satisfied (they were so good, and I eat for pleasure a lot). When the lentils were done, I wasn’t hungry.

I ate some anyway to try them (and then ate the full portion allotted for dinner because they were that good), but the point is that I ate my snack around 3pm and then didn’t really get hungry until the smell of roasted cauliflower filtered into my nostrils.

I think this clean eating is working!

Day 3: Tuesday Night Snack
Chocolate Milk

I’m not a chocolate fan. And now that the food holidays are done, I don’t have any plans to restock my cabinet with chocolate for any reason. Instead of the chocolate milk snack, I ate the same snack from Day 1: a pear with raw almond butter. Again, I wasn’t actually hungry for food, but I was allowed a night snack and by God, I’m going to have a night snack.

Goodnight!

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Day 4: Wednesday Breakfast
Scallion & Feta Omelet

Now this is what I call a breakfast!!! Like everything else, I’m using goat cheese instead of feta because feta makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, that’s what a rushed omelet looks like on hump day, but at least it was good as I scarfed it down standing in the kitchen and ready to bolt out the door to make it to work on time. It’s just…you guys…I can’t be bothered to make pretty breakfasts when I have to be at work at 8am. No bueno.

Day 4: Wednesday Lunch
Greek Salad with Lentils and Lime Vinaigrette

I was definitely looking forward to this lunch because the lentils from last night were amaze. I love that the lentils recipe called for me to add some apple cider vinegar! But did you know that seedless cucumbers are massive? Well, they are, and I used a whole half of one in here. That’s approximately 50,000 1/4-inch cubes.

Day 4: Wednesday Snack
Mango-Banana Smoothie with Chia Seeds

A pretty okay snack that I would make again. Almond milk is a little watery so it had the texture more of a juice than a smoothie, but the taste was there and it sustained me until dinner time.

Day 4: Wednesday Dinner
Roasted Chicken Breast with Fennel and Spinach

I had shared my big batch of roasted chicken that I made on Sunday with my husband. So, I was short on chicken for this meal. Instead, I had some rotisserie chicken (without the skin) and sauteed spinach.

Day 4: Wednesday Night Snack
Dates with Almonds

Borrrringgggg.

Overall, I’m feeling better and better about this clean eating challenge. I’m drinking all the water I need to and feeling really great about it!