Good morning, blog readers. Welcome to Clean Eating Project Day 4. It is currently 8:27 AM and the only thing I have had so far today is a glass of water and I am currently sipping coffee out of my MET Opera mug, with a little almond milk stirred in. Still waking up in the mornings not hungry.

One of the recommendations when you have a week of eating very differently, as I am doing, is keep a journal. Write down what you eat and how you are feeling each day and at every meal. I love keeping journals, so I was looking forward to writing things down. I grabbed one of my unused Moleskine journals and stuck it in my work bag. I have been writing down what I have been eating and how I have been feeling.

Lots of writing:

This morning I got on the scale to see if I had lost any weight. I honestly did not think it would be possible that I would lose weight this week since I had been eating a lot of food. But guess what? In four days I have lost 1.8 pounds! I was really shocked and pretty excited. I guess saying no to pizza, muffins, cupcakes and cake really does make a difference?

Yesterday I wrote down some of the foods that I really miss. Here they are:

Yogurt (this is at the top of my list – thankfully a healthy food!)

Bread (sigh. I am such a bread addict. I miss having a piece of toast in the morning with peanut butter for breakfast.)

Frozen yogurt (It has been SO HOT and HUMID here in New England this week. I really wish I could eat some frozen yogurt! Or ice cream for that matter!)

Nutella. (What can I say? I love the stuff!)

Chocolate

Milk / cereal (even soy milk would be fine with me)

Cheese

PASTA (but thankfully I had pasta for Friday night and Saturday to carb up a little for last Sunday’s BAA 10K)

Blueberry muffins and baked goods in general.

What I love about eating clean:

I love salads, vegetables, nuts, olive oil, eggs, smoothies with whey protein, beans and fruit. I like eating all of these things. In the last three full days of the cleanse I have not felt very deprived. I feel really positive about what I have been eating.

A few things about the Clean Eating Project. First of all – how do people eat clean if they do not have a LOT of extra time on their hands?? I was in the kitchen on and off from 6:30 PM (when I walked in the door) until 9:30 PM last night. That is insane! (Coming from me, I think that says something since I love cooking and being in the kitchen!) If someone has a family, or other responsibilities how would they do this? Of course because I spent so much time in the kitchen last night, I will have to spend a lot less time in the kitchen tonight. I have already prepared dinner for this evening.

Last night I came home and went right into the kitchen to start preparing Mark Bittman’s bean burger recipe. I talked a bit about this on yesterday’s blog post. Here is the final product and the second part of my dinner last night:

After this bean burger I had a peach and a small bowl of cantaloupe. Fruit has been a great replacement for my nightly scoop of frozen yogurt.

I really love these bean burgers! I looked for the recipe on line last night because I let a friend borrow my Vegan Before 6 book, where I first encountered the recipe. The original recipe called for an egg to keep the burgers together (or at least that is why I think the egg was in the recipe). Unfortunately, this recipe did not call for the cilantro – and I was really sad that I forgot to incorporate that into the burger mix because it really made the burgers last time I made them. I formed the burgers and cooked a lot of them:

I can’t wait for dinner tonight! Normally I would totally have one of these burgers on a whole wheat bun or bread. Tonight I’ll be eating it on a bed of arugula and spinach with other vegetables on the side. I know it will still be very good!

I have to sign off for now and think about what to eat for breakfast. I will report back with a full recap of Day 4.