I'm attempting the Buzzfeed Food Clean Eating Challenge - Day 1

While I was perusing my Pinterest Healthy Recipes board looking for inspiration for some diet friendly recipes I came across the Buzzfeed Clean Eating Challenge that I'd pinned a while back.  I'd looked at it a couple of times before but discouraged myself from giving it a go.  "I have too many groceries I'd waste", "I have dinner plans this weekend", "I don't have time for this", and so forth.  Well, despite the fact that I'd be jumping in mid-week, and that I'd have to cut it short for an upcoming out of state conference, I decided to go for it.

So, I downloaded and printed all the PDFs and put them in a binder (a throwback to college, but sometimes I prefer printed text, especially in the kitchen).  I took a quick inventory and was off to Kroger with my grocery list. 

The Kittens were helping.

I was pretty well stocked before, so I decided to stick with the boneless, skinless chicken breasts I had in the freezer and figured plums could substitute for clementines as a snack and so on.  I had most of the dairy, beans, grains, oils/spices/whatnot, and about a third of the produce.  I still ended up spending about $150 at Kroger, but many of these items I'll have leftovers for at the end of the challenge, as well as some of them working in week 2 as well.

Needless to say, I had to remove the beer to the basement beer fridge and things still felt crammed in the upstairs refrigerator.

I still forgot the dates.

The pantry fared much better.

One big hurdle was the fact that this eating plan was designed around the 9-5, M-F schedule.  This works perfectly for me except for the fact that I am starting the diet on a Tuesday, which is day 3 of the eating plan.  I can't just jump in on day 3 because so many of the meals require leftovers from previous days, so I have to start on day 1.  Since that day's lunch required cooking (like, not prep ahead cooking) I swapped it for the day 7 lunch.  It wasn't till after prepping I realized this meant 3 kale-based meals in one day.  I have a feeling I'll poop well tomorrow.

Smoothie packs = remember to slice the bananas before freezing

I am not fond of mango.  Especially now that I've I've had to slice one. But I'm willing to be adventurous.

"Helping"

Finally got to use produce from my own garden (that wasn't basil)

Post-Krogering.  The beer has been moved.  There is a kitten in my kale.

It still felt a bit... gritty.

 So I woke up this morning and had my ambient ingredients at the ready and my smoothie pack in the freezer for my breakfast day 1 kale and banana smoothie.  I don't have one of those fancy super blenders so this took a substantial amount of work to get blended and still had a bit more of the kale texture than I'd prefer.

 The salad tastes great, but I don't know if my kale bundles were super sized or what but this is a 9 cup container stuffed to the gills. I think my jaw hurts from chewing too much.  I used roma tomatoes as I'm not terrifically fond of tomato and they seem to be more 'mato less mooshy tomato innards.

My snack of carrot sticks and hummus (they are pretty generous on the dosage for the hummus - 4 tablespoons instead of the standard 2) packed in my thermal bento container I got for winning a Curves Christmas challenge a few years ago. 

I meant to get my chicken out of the freezer this morning to thaw, I'll have to be creative with that later.  Tonight I make a big batch of chicken, quinoa, kale (cooked this time), and some homemade orange vinaigrette.  

I get a pear with almond butter for dessert.  Also not a favorite of mine.  I got a Bosc instead of the usual so maybe I'll fare better with this.

I also need to prep my overnight oats, kale (kale again, yaaay)/chickpea/fennel salad, and sliced tomato/feta/balsamic snack for tomorrow.

After this I should be done with kale for the week.  A friend of mine asked me if kale was high in fiber or something.  I described kale as such:

"Kale is like lettuces' beefy older cousin that smokes cigarettes and once got caught shoplifting at the Speedway station.  It's still tender on the inside but needs some tough love to break it down first."

Speaking of which, I've been working my way through this salad for like half an hour now.  It's tasty but I'm so done with raw kale at the moment I'm considering just picking out the feta.

I also accidentally splurge earlier and had a Dum Dum Pop at the doctor's office.  And I'm having a coffee, because, you know, this isn't Russia.