Clean Eating: Day 3

Today was a new low...and it's only Day 3. And I definitely had ice cream last night while I caught up on Game of Thrones. Can't wait for next week!!

Since this has morphed into a 'try it' scenario I'm not being too strict or good. I knew going into today that I was not going to have the salad for lunch. There is a big-wig from my department visiting from the New Jersey office so we had a group lunch at a place nearby. I was okay with skipping the lunch anyways because there are only so many salads a girl can take and one less wouldn't kill me.

What I didn't anticipate was forgetting to pack the avocado! I was really looking forward to that snack too! Thankfully I was oddly busy this afternoon and didn't have much time to get hungry.

Breakfast was a 'parfait' of greek yogurt and blackberries with chopped up almonds and some ground flax seed on top. Mixed together is was just yogurt with stuff but if calling it a parfait made the BuzzFeed people feel better about themselves then so be it.

I made sure to chop up the fruits this time

It was alright. I don't think I got very good yogurt and that may be my issue with these yogurt things they insist I make for breakfast. I'll need to splurge for brand name stuff on week two to see if it makes a difference. Currently I just have generic Safeway brand non-fat plain greek yogurt. Even though it was palatable this morning I did not consume all of it and had another Fiber One bar. Those things are like crack! Thankfully tomorrow's breakfast is a tasty sounding omelette, I am looking forward to something that actually needs to be chewed.

Lunch was supposed to be asian chicken salad with tamari-lime vinaigrette. Basically the leftover leaves from my leaf boats of yesterday's dinner as the salad part with carrots and leftover chicken. Then mixing the leftover lime vinaigrette with tamari. Fun fact: tamari is gluten free, premium soy sauce. I had to Google it. The bottle I bought also happened to be organic because why the heck not. 

In reality I had bananas foster brioche french toast. Yes, it was as delish as it sounds. Unfortunately this didn't follow the dining out guide lines set forth by the challenge: 

CHEATER’S DINING-OUT GUIDELINES:
First of all, don’t cheat. But if you HAVE to, only cheat once.Stick with lean proteins. White fish such as branzino and sea bass is your best bet, and it’s available at most sit-down restaurants. Chicken or lean ground turkey are also good choices. Also, choose grilled, roasted or steamed instead of sautéed or fried.
Ask for double the vegetables instead of a starch. Instead of the french fries, rice or potatoes that might come with your protein, ask for a double order of vegetables (again, choose grilled, roasted, or steamed over sautéed or fried), or a salad with oil and vinegar.
If you’re at an Asian restaurant, ask for wok-tossed or steamed vegetables and chicken satay, with no sauce. At a Mexican restaurant, chicken or fish fajitas with no tortillas or sour cream are a good option. At a more casual restaurant, get a green salad — make sure there are no croutons or cheese, and that the only dressing you use is oil and vinegar — with grilled chicken or a turkey burger with no bun.

I wasn't even close to being on track! But my taste buddies thanked me so all is well. I did not snap a picture of this one since we were out at a restaurant and it was a business lunch. Not entirely professional to be taking pictures of my food when my boss's boss is present. However I did Google search for images of the dish and this is close to what mine looked like.

Instead of strawberries mine had bacon. Whoops?

So far in the day I am 0/2 as far as following the meal plan goes. I'd like to say it gets better but I can't lie.

Since I forgot my avocado at home I had it right when I got back from work this evening. Three quarters of an avocado with the juice of half a lemon, salt, and pepper. Oh. My. Delicious.

I am fairly certain that the tree that grew this avocado grew next to a bacon tree. It tasted like it had been hanging out with bacon for an extended period of time. I had tasted this a bit when I had the avocado with the wraps yesterday but didn't know what the flavor was coming from. There is nothing bacon-y in the fridge so I have no idea where this phantom bacon flavor was coming from. However, I am now afraid for any other avocado I eat plain because it can't possibly be as good as the one I ate today. Also I didn't take a picture but if you don't know what an avocado looks like you have more life to live and should get off the internet.

So now comes the adventure that was dinner. Roasted cauliflower and lentils. That was it. Just roasted cauliflower and lentils. Why did the person designing this challenge hate my taste buddies? You may have noticed I call them taste buddies, not taste buds. I treat them well and they are happy so they're my buddies. Normally. I fear they'll hate me after this challenge though.

I'm doing pretty good matching the pictures from BuzzFeed!

So I went in knowing my mom is not a fan of lentils and therefore I may not be a fan of lentils. She calls lentil soup, mental soup. Because you'd have to be mental to eat it! Ba-da-bum! I was skeptical but gave it a shot anyway. I do love cauliflower so had no trepidation about that. All in all the lentils were gross and you'd have to be mental to eat lentil. I tried it a couple times but did not have more than three or four bites. So I went and got the trusty honey barbecue sauce and had my cauliflower steaks with that.

I am supposed to use the leftover lentils in other meals this week but I think I'll just swap those out for some quinoa. Keeping with the small round food theme? I'm not sure if the quinoa will really work with everything else but it'll be better than the mental lentils.

Tonight's snack is heated almond milk with melted dark chocolate. aka hot chocolate. I think I'll partake in this one. Chocolate is always good and dark chocolate is even better. However, I'm still mostly full from gorging myself on cauliflower and barbecue sauce so I'll make that later and then add its review to the beginning of tomorrow's post.

And as a reward for sticking with me and reading this post, a picture of Calvin! He is grown out of an outfit I bought him and he was swimming in at the hospital when he was born. The little guy is getting so big!