What a Great Day Looks Like

Last week, while feeling particularly gross during a certain time of the month, I broke out my clean eating book.  If you don't know who Tosca Reno is, I highly suggest you check out this book on Amazon:

The truth is, I know without a shadow of a doubt that when I eat clean, I feel amazing!  What gets in my way sometimes is my own laziness.  To be successful, you really do have to be on top of planning and prepping, and honestly?  Sometimes I just feel like being lazy.  This past weekend, however, I decided to plan out a clean eating week for Monday-Friday.  I will give myself some wiggle room on the weekends, but there is no reason why I can't eat clean while at home.  I work from home, so I rarely go out for lunch or breakfast, so that part is easy.  My husband will eat pretty much whatever is in front of him, so that's not a problem either.  

Here's a look at what today looked like:

Breakfast
7 AM
Biggest Loser Oatmeal Protein Pancakes (2)
No sugar applesauce, 1/2 C.
Brummel and Brown Yogurt Butter (1 tbsp)
Coffee with Skim Milk
3 slices turkey bacon
*Note: I put a smear of the butter on each pancake and then I dip it in the applesauce, then eat what's left of the applesauce with a spoon the normal way.

Snack
10 AM
Fuji apple
Smuckers natural chunky peanut butter (2 tbsp)
Water

 Lunch
1 PM
Tuna avocado salad on whole wheat wrap, with spinach and tomato
Tangerine
Water
Note:  Just mash up an avocado and then mix in a can of tuna.  Season to taste.  I just used ground black pepper and a small squeeze of wasabi sauce.  I think I might skip the wasabi sauce and add just a pinch of salt tomorrow.

Snack
3:30 PM
Chocolate brownie Quest bar
Coffee with skim milk

Dinner
8 PM
Stir fry:
Sesame oil
Trader Joe's Seafood Blend (shrimp, scallops, calamari)
Broccoli slaw (just the veggies, no other ingredients)
Mushrooms
Onion
Brown basmati rice

Snack
10 PM
Plain Greek yogurt
Raw organic honey (1 tbsp)
Nature's Path organic ancient grains granola with almonds (1/4 C)

This is more food than I EVER eat when I'm not eating clean, and the calorie count is not bad at all.  This ended up being 1845 calories according to My Fitness Pal.  My goal is 1400 per day with more whenever I exercise.

Speaking of exercise- I had an incredible day at the gym today.  I'm having to take some PTO before the end of the year, so I've been leaving every day at 3.  It's awesome.  I spend a little time straightening the house and then I do whatever I want until my husband gets home.  I knew I was going to go to kickboxing at 6:30 tonight, but I figured I'd go get in some extra weights and whatever else I could squeeze in before the class.  I ended up with 30 minutes of weights, 15 minutes of the elliptical on level 15 to really burn out my legs, an hour kickboxing class, and then met up with my husband on the treadmills and did a 15 minute interval session of 1 minute run/1 minute walk. Talk about tired legs!  Now realistically, I can't spend 2+ hours in the gym every single day, but it was nice to choose this today over sitting at home on the couch for three hours being unproductive.

I hope I can keep up the good work with the clean eating this week to break me out of my upswing in pounds that happened around my birthday weekend, which was almost a month ago, so I have to get a move on.  I was down a smidge this past Saturday, but I had my period, and I still need about 4.8 pounds to get back to where I was, and then obviously I'd really like to keep moving down.  I start Galloway training for the half marathon in a few short weeks.  If I could lose 5-10 pounds before then, it would really help.  The lighter I am when I run, the less it hurts, obviously!