Today is Day 14 of our 21-Day Food Challenge. Just one more week to go! How are you doing? I’m actually doing alright. This weekend, I did have a little “cheat” but also did some extra cardio the very next day.

We celebrated my daughter’s birthday with family by spending a day at the beach. I’m glad it was my responsibility to buy food for this celebration because I could make sure we had lots of snacks and choices that were NOT on the “Do Not Eat” list.

Yes, I did have a cupcake, but other than that, I was pretty good about staying off the “Do Not Eat” list. I bought whole grain bread to make sandwiches and had turkey breast as well as chicken breast and peanut butter and jam for those who wanted. I also bought uncrustables for the kids so they could just grab something on the go because a lot of times, they don’t want to sit and eat. They want to play. With the uncrustables, they didn’t need to grab a plate, fork, and napkins to have a bite to eat. They could just grab an uncrustable open it up and eat – great “finger food.”

We also had chips and salsa, crackers, and fruits!

Like I said, lots of great snacks to munch on while spending the day at the beach.

So…how is your 21-Day Challenge going? Now that you have just a week left and have worked hard to “clean up” what you put into your body, do you think you’ll continue with your new nutrition habits?

So today is just Day 2 of our 21-Day Food Challenge and yesterday went pretty well for me.  How was your first day?

I had one person write to me saying,

I started it today and boy is it hard. Everything on the do not eat list is what I normally eat. Just 20 more days to go. Thanks for doing this…let’s see if make it.

Believe me a lot of that stuff was part of my DAILY diet too!

Other people wrote in and asked why we’re trying to cut out so much at one time instead of doing a few things at a time.  Well, that’s a good question.  However, I find that if you just cut out say ice cream and cake, then you’d probably end up “compensating” for that by eating more candy or cookies.  So while you may be eating less cake and ice cream, it really won’t make much of a difference if you start eating more candy and cookies.  That’s why we’re going for cutting out as much junk food as we can all at once.

Here are a few more questions/inquiries that came in yesterday:

• I didn’t notice beer or wine on either of your lists
• My only concern is whether or not protein bars are acceptable (they are chocolate-flavored and I believe have some form of chocolate in them).
• I’m worried about my cereals and pop. I know it doesn’t say cereal but my cereals are the sugary ones.

Beer and wine: these are definitely on the do NOT eat/drink list.  If you’re one of those people who drink one glass of wine a day for health reassons though, you may use your own discrecion on whether or not you’d like to continue during this challenge.

Protein bars: for the sake of this challenge, protein bars are acceptable.  Just check the fat content and try to choose ones that have a lower trans fat, saturated fat and total fat content.

Sugary cereals & pop: yes, pop is definitely OUT and so are sugary cereals.  Try looking for whole grain cereals instead of sugary cereals.

Then there was the question of COFFEE.

I realize that some people need their coffee to properly function at work.  Others actually get headaches if they don’t have their cup of coffee in the morning.  We certainly don’t want to adversely affect your work performance nor give you headaches every day.  Therefore, if you must continue with your coffee, you’re welcome to odify this challenge to fit your needs.  After all, gratefully reducing many of the other junk foods is still going to help.

However, if coffee is not really something you can’t give up and is just something that you don’t WANT to give up, then challenge yourself to at least reduce your intake.  Also, try to make “better” coffee choices.  For example, a cappuccino with whole milk is actually higher up (on the “better” food list) than an iced mocha latte with non-fat milk. On the “low” more “off limits” end, you have mocha, macchiato, ice blended, frappé, triple caramel vanilla buzz bomb, etc. so stay away from those as much as possible.

Well, that’s about it for now.  Let us know how this challenge is going for you.  Have you been good?  What’s been tough to give up so far?  Did you have to “cheat” yet?  Leave a comment here and let us know!

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avi4now/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
fruit photo source: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/oct00/k9093-1.htm
wine photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emurray/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0