Our Clean 20 Experience

I have been waiting quite a while to tell you about this one.  I bought this book probably 3 months ago

The Clean 20

I read it.  I thought it sounded like a challenge.  I started counting 20 days from everything.....but there was always someone's birthday, we were out of town, there were holidays....there was always something.  Finally we decided we would just go for it.  We started on Saturday, June 23rd.  I warned everyone that the 4th of July would fall in our 20 days but they all said, let's just do it...it will be fun.  Ok, nobody said that.  They basically said let's just do it and get it over with.  Well I took that as a resounding yes!!!

I like the book  Essentially he explains all the clean foods you can eat.....think nothing processed, organic fruits and veggies, lots of chicken, fish and turkey.  After he explains why we should eat this way he lays out the 20 days.  Each day, you have a couple of choices for breakfast, a snack, a couple of lunch choices, another snack, a healthy dinner and an optional after dinner snack.  

I didn't take a ton of pictures but a got a few

Here is how we celebrated the 4th of July cleanly

That's a delicious turkey burger, with turkey bacon on a whole wheat bun with homemade baked sweet potato fries, corn on the cob and a side of fruit (mango, peaches and grapes).  I know.  You are totally jealous, right?  Honestly, it was pretty good.

After the first 5 days my husband announced he had lost 5 pounds......mentally I throat punched him.....but in reality I just smiled and told him that was great.  At that point, I had lost absolutely nothing.  I really wasn't sure we would lose any weight.  We eat fairly healthy....with a few cheezits, fries and cookies thrown in.  So the whole weight lost thing was just going to be a bonus.  The main thing was to get some of the bad stuff, especially sugar out of our system.

Personally, my toughest struggle was not having the one coke I have each day.  I enjoy the taste, the fizz, the experience of having a coke.  So for sure that was my struggle....but for only the first week. The other struggle was watching TV.  Perhaps we watch more Food Network than the average household but that was a struggle and every commercial no matter what channel we were on made my mouth water.  But since we were all doing it together.  I survived. 

I made little ziplocs with the approved amount of almonds, walnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds and whole grain pretzels.  

The key was having a healthy snack that I could pick up easily.  I bought a ton of fruit and kept is washed and ready. 

I even used my food scale and measured out the 3 ounces of chicken we could have.  The prep for this whole gig was no joke.  I had to cook ahead and make everyone their little zippie so they could pick up their bag and go.

By week two I actually had dropped a few pounds.......and yes I did feel better. By the end of the 20 days I had lost 8 pounds.  I have a feeling I can put them back on a lot faster than 20 days.... let's all hope not.

What I am really taking from the experience is having healthy options ready and accessible to me so I can make good choices AND I am more focused on appropriate portion sizes.

It really was a good experience.  

If you check out the book, let me know what you think.