Day four of the Clean Eating Project is coming to a close – thank goodness. All I want is some vanilla frozen (healthy!) yogurt to go with the beautiful peach I just ate. Is that a horrible thing to want? 🙂

Remember back to this morning when it was 8:30 or so and I had not had breakfast yet? Well, I finally made a smoothie at 9:30 this morning and it was the best tasting one of the week! The consistency was a bit too thin for my liking (especially since this is a meal for me, not a snack) but the flavor was fantastic!!

I started with a banana, which is an ingredient I had left out all week because I was eating the banana as a mid-morning snack instead. This really made the smoothie taste great. Here is what the Vitamix looked like before I blended everything together:

In the mix today:

banana, spinach, blueberries, almond milk, ice and peanut butter. Really – it was soo good. And pretty:

I want another one right now.

At noon time I ate my snack of pistachios, almonds and cranberries. The amount I eat as a snack is a small handful. Today I thought about how awesome some dark chocolate chips would be in this mix. So thankful I have a lot of will power when it comes to project – and I was thankful that the project was five days.

I had lunch today at 2 o’clock. My day got off to a late start today because I had an appointment this morning. Lunch was even better today, and I liked being able to eat so late. It helped the rest of the day go by at a faster than normal pace. Lunch was the same as yesterday: chicken, broccoli, red pepper, red onion, garlic and mushrooms over brown rice. Hot sauce added. (I checked the ingredients – I recognized all of them [cayenne pepper, vinegar] so I was ok with using it.)

This lunch was filling, thanks to the protein in the chicken, the fiber in the vegetables and the carbs in the brown rice – so well balanced! There was an amazing spread of food at work today. Cookies, crackers, bread, and so on. I did my best to ignore it all. But at 4 o’clock I wanted a cookie so badly, I could not believe it. Thank goodness I had packed a small container of peanut butter to eat with my apple. I might be able to get through almost anything (food wise) if I can still have my nut butters (I think I have said this before – but it bares repeating). An apple and peanut butter was my favorite snack growing up (celery, raisins and peanut butter a close second – or it might have been a tie). After all these years nothing really compares to this snack:

It kept me on the project today – if I didn’t have this snack with me I might have failed. But I like to think I would have remained strong and searched for more fruit or vegetables and stayed on track!

I got home and was so thankful that I had already prepared the bulk of dinner by making and cooking the bean burgers last night. I made a normal bean burger for my mom, including a whole wheat bun. It looked really good to me:

Her burger had a whole wheat bun (crave), spinach, avocado, mustard, tomato and ketchup. Then it was my turn to make my own burger. I put down a nice bed of arugula on my plate. Then I sliced up some avocado and added some tomato for good measure. Then I dropped my homemade bean burger onto the floor and yelped out of frustration. Yeah. These guys are tricky on spatulas, I guess. I was frustrated and hungry. Thankfully I had made a couple of extras, so I put another one on the already heated up skillet. Mom enjoyed her burger and bun with the fixings. Eventually, my second attempt burger re-heated (I cooked it last night) and I enjoyed dinner immensely as well. My dinner was very different from mom’s – but it was really good. I think this is one of the only times I have ever eating a ‘burger’ without a bun. Sad, but true.

There is hot sauce and (Trader Joe’s) mustard on my burger. It was great. I just love avocado!

SO. Some thoughts on my week, so far, of clean eating. It was a lot of work – cooking and / or preparing everything I ate. It took a lot of planning and a lot of time. I am amazed that I only went to the grocery store twice. Of course I am currently out of carrots, tomatoes, onions and peppers at the moment. I still have two meals in front of me that have to be clean. I’m not exactly sure what I’m eating tomorrow for lunch – but it will most likely involve a bean burger and some arugula. And an apple and peanut butter.

Clean eating made my kitchen a mess:

I used a lot of pots and pans. I used my food processor. My Vitamix was used every single day. I packed a lot of snacks and lunches. I got up extra early to make smoothies in the morning. I came home and made dinner every single night. Some nights I wanted pizza. One night I wanted to order Thai food. On Wednesday night I declined an invitation to a cookout and instead I made the bean burgers. I purposely planned the Clean Eating Project this week because I did not have any dinner plans with my friends. It would have been really hard otherwise. (Of course I could have ordered a cobb salad without the bacon. What!? Who wants a cobb salad without bacon…)

This week I dedicated myself to eating clean. I allowed myself to not go to the gym because I knew I had to focus on the project, and I wanted to write about it every night. I did go for my daily lunch walks, so I got some exercise in. Oh, and I ran 6.2 miles on Sunday 🙂 I’m going back to focusing on both exercise and healthy eating next week. I am sure I will be able to write too – it’s a delicate balance, but I can do it.

Day 5 of the Clean Eating Project is tomorrow. I am really excited. I am also excited for dinner tomorrow night which I have already planned out with my lovely and supportive partner. We are having healthy burritos and then some frozen yogurt.

Next week I am going to do my best to re-incorporate the things I missed the most this week, and still strive to continue to eat really healthy food. I think I will still be drinking smoothies most mornings – but I’ll throw in a Greek yogurt and berries for good measure, too. I am thinking of making the Vitamix black bean soup next week, too – because that recipe is awesome.

Good night, blog readers. I hope you had a lovely Thursday, too.