Summary: buzzfeed clean eating challenge

Well, I survived the first week of the Buzzfeed clean eating challenge. I certainly learned a lot, and had some crazy mouth adventures, but after much deliberation*, I've decided not to continue the second week. Not that I'm going to immediately run out and grab a burger and fries**, I'll just resume my regular eating plan for the rest of the month, starting with the abundance of leftovers this past week has supplied.

*not that much deliberation  **this might happen though

After a week of following the clean eating plan, here's what I learned (both about the plan, as well as myself):

What I learned after a week of the Buzzfeed clean eating challenge:

Pros

pretty good recipes

This plan has some pretty good recipes if you need new ideas to shake up your boring old food routine. Aside from a few miscalculated ingredients, the instructions were easy to follow and a lot of it came out really tasty. I learned that I might actually like cooking (gasp!), or at least am better at it than I think.

photogenic meals

Aside from easy to follow and mostly delicious recipes, the food itself was very pretty to look at. Even with my lack of culinary enthusiasm and simple iphone camera, I was able to whip up and capture some pretty impressive looking meals.

sets a plan

The best part of this food challenge is that it gets you to set a plan and schedule meals. You are forced to think about the food you are eating: you have to make everything yourself, measure things out, plan for leftovers, and account for each meal throughout the day. 

you feel good!

Although it feels like you are CONSTANTLY cooking or eating all week, you won't feel bloated or overly full at all. The meals for this plan really do make you feel good, and it also seems to help clear out the system, if you know what I mean

Cons:

too many recipes

While the meals for the week are all unique to keep things interesting, in reality it's actually way too much food to buy and prep for one week.  Maybe I just suck at food storage, but since I'm not a fresh produce wizard with a magical time-suspending refrigerator, I ended up picking out bits of things that were going bad before their time came up in the schedule, and even had to replace a few items entirely. Thus defeating the purpose of getting all the groceries in one shot (which I normally do every week with much success)

not practical

To piggy back off the first point, this meal plan is oddly not very practical, particularly in how it uses up leftovers. For example: cooking half the asparagus on the first day, and then saving the rest for the very end of the week; or buying collard greens the first day, when you don't really need them until after shopping for week 2; or making chili then freezing half to use a week later. None of this makes sense to me. I have no problem with leftovers, and would much rather make one thing and use it up over consecutive days rather than make something new every day and THEN go back to whatever was leftover three days later.

costs too much 

Because of the volume and variety of foods needed for the plan, it would easily cost at minimum $100 per week, not counting the amount of food waste and replacement. I usually average 50 bucks a week on food, and don't have to throw anything out. So, yeah

not enough fueling for workouts

Something that actually surprised me about this week was how EXHAUSTED I was. The whole week. And it was one of the least busy weeks I've had in a long long time. Yet I was almost literally dragging through each day, particularly during my workouts. While this food may be clean, it's more about eating less junk and cleansing the body, less about fueling with energy. As an 'athlete' (I use that label extremely loosely), I was struggling through my workouts this week, yawning through both training sessions, and bumbling through cardio. And it's not like I was doing anything extraordinarily challenging. The lack of coffee did not help.

doesn't work with my schedule

The primary reason why I can't continue with another week is that this meal plan, while fun and interesting, simply doesn't work with my schedule. I don't have time to be whipping up fancy omelettes in the morning before work, nor do I want to be cooking for an hour when I get home, exhausted, at 9 o'clock at night.  I just ended up snacking on dates and almonds while waiting for the food to cook, thus defeating the purpose of the week! I do much better with meal prepping at the beginning of the week, and having my meals planned out and ready to go when I leave in the morning and get home at night.


In Summary:

I had a lot of fun testing out this food challenge and explored a lot of new things that I would never have otherwise tried (I'm looking at you fennel) and made some really delicious meals (most especially you, mind-blowing lentils). It's important in life to know when to let things end. We had our ups and downs, good times and bad, and the time has come for the clean eating challenge and I to part ways. We had a good run, maybe we can stay friends.

This morning I gleefully welcomed coffee back into my life. Let's never be apart again

Want to follow along from the beginning? Start Here, then check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, and Day 7