I have survived the second day of my clean eating plan. I am definitely having cravings (I love bread so much!) but I was surprised how I was able to get through the day with relative ease.

When I woke up I was tired (I am always tired during the week because my alarm goes off at an absurdly early hour!) but I was shocked that I was not hungry. I saw this as a victory!

After getting ready for work, I put all the ingredients (same as yesterday) into the Vitamix. The only thing that changed today was the amount of each ingredient because I was making a smoothie for my mom, too. I ended up making two and a half smoothies…

I put more blueberries in today, and the smoothie did take on a more purplish hue. It was very good. I also sipped on coffee with almond milk on my way to work. Some people that do the clean eating program stop drinking coffee. Let me tell you something – if I am cutting everything else out of my diet, I need my coffee! 🙂

When I got up to my office I was greeted by a lovely fragrance. It smelled like someone was baking fresh, homemade, blueberry muffins. I am not kidding you. I peaked around the corner and saw an AMAZING spread of fresh baked goods, coffee, juices, including my FAVORITE thing – croissants. I felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on me. I was so thankful that I still had half of my smoothie to sip on. I walked back to my office and did my best to ignore the lovely breakfast spread just down the hall. I was thrilled that within a few minutes I did not notice the fragrance anymore. Victory for will power! After the breakfast meeting was over, my friends called me to tell me that there were blueberry muffins left and I should help myself. But they also mentioned that there was fresh fruit, too. So I made a plate of fresh fruit. Strawberries, grapes and two slices of pineapple. It was all so good!

Later in the morning (around 11 o’clock) I had a small handful of almonds and organic (and non-sweetened) dried cranberries. This was a great morning snack, and I had more for the afternoon:

At noon I went for a walk even though it was hot as heck outside. My friends and I walked for thirty minutes. I was so happy to return to the comfort of air conditioning after our lunch time exercise and I was so happy to be eating a cool and refreshing salad for lunch.

I had been looking forward to the salad for a very long time – basically all morning. Not because I was starving, but because I was literally excited for the ingredients! It was a little bit different than yesterday:

Today’s salad had a hard boiled egg for protein, slices of avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, arugula and spinach. The dressing was a teaspoon of olive oil, a couple of teaspoons of balsamic vinegar and some freshly ground pepper. I loved every bite of this salad. But while I was eating it, I thought of how nice a slice of sour dough bread would go with this meal!

I was busy at work during the afternoon, and still feeling warm. I don’t know about you, but for me feeling hot does a lot to suppress my appetite. I bought an iced coffee in the caf at 3 o’clock and had another handful of the almond / cranberry mix. I got a call at 3:45 that my colleagues were celebrating a birthday and they kindly offered me a cupcake. I said a kind “no thank you” and kept working. I had a banana in my bag and two Larabars (because I think they are pretty clean even if they are a little processed – they were sort of my emergency back up plan). But I did not need any of my extra food.

I got home a few minutes before 6 o’clock this evening. I went to the fridge and got carrots and hummus to make a quick pre-dinner snack:

After I sat for a moment and ate my snack, I got into the kitchen and started cooking dinner. I cooked a chicken breast, steamed a bunch of broccoli, sautéed mushrooms, red peppers, red onions and garlic.

I heated up some of yesterday’s brown rice. I cut up two scallions. I chopped a couple of almonds. It took a while (no one said eating clean was going to be quick) but the end product was great!

Dinner tonight was pretty:

I put my food on a ‘lunch size’ plate – but it was still a lot of food. I ate it really slowly and enjoyed every bite. This will be lunch for tomorrow.

I will write more about my thoughts on the cleanse / clean eating tomorrow. But now I have to go clean up the kitchen and prepare my meals for tomorrow. See you soon!