Healthy Eating Challenge Day 1 - Recap

Hello friends,

Well here is my short and sweet recap of my first day on my health eating challenge, or HEC, as I'll call it from now on.

Healthy Eating Challenge 

• Eat 3 servings of fruits AND vegetables per day
• I had 1 serving of V8 juice which is a serving of veggies and I had one big serving of peas with dinner

• Remove all alcohol from diet completely  
• I ended up actually having 1 beer last night. I came home and was cooking and talking with Paul about my day and completely forgot what I was doing and when I realized I actually spit some out in the sink. I'm pretty sure Paul that I was insane but I ended up drinking 1 beer kind of by accident. Guess I have gotten into a mindless habit of having a beer after work. I'll have to work on breaking this habit. 

• Remove all soda from diet (with the exception of seltzer)
• No problem here. I had one 10 oz. glass of seltzer when I got home

• Remove all fried foods from diet this includes: french fries, onion rings, fried shrimp, fried chicken, mozzarella sticks, basically if it is fried it's a no-no
• Again no sweat. No fried food for me.

• Remove all fast food items from diet. Bye-bye Big Mac. I'll miss you. 
• No problem. Didn't have any fast food yesterday.

• Reduce the amount of red meat from diet to no more than 2X a week
• So last night I came home and Paul had already made dinner....well it was in process. He was making an Indian lamb dish so I ended up having red meat but the good news is I figure I made the challenge to just eat LESS red meat so I'm thinking this was a win here as well. Which means the rest of the week I have 1 red meat left.

• Increase the amount of healthy fish to diet to 2X-3X a week (making sure to observe general recommendations when it comes to fish with high mercury counts)
• I made a smart decision and had sushi yesterday for lunch. I had spicy tuna with salmon. YUM. I think I can totally get on board with this more fish rule. 

• Exchange all white rice for brown rice and eat portions of no more than 1/2 - 3/4 cup cooked
• Again, since Paul was cooking dinner he had already put the rice in the rice cooker when I got home and it was white basmati rice. I tried to stick to my proper portion but I ended up eating too much white rice today. In addition, the sushi had white rice as well. Going to try to cut down the carbs today. 

• Recognize and eat proper portions on smaller plates
• I felt pretty good about my portions today. I didn't over eat and listened to my body. Although I did snack on some popcorn after dinner. And my dinner was larger than it should have been but I'm on the right track. (I struggle with dinner portions so this will be where I need to focus)

• Begin each meal with 8-10 oz. of water (may add ice, lemon, lime, etc. if desired) 
• Check. I drank my water before breakfast and lunch and had a glass of seltzer before dinner. I can improve this though. 

• Drink 8-10 glasses of 8-10oz. of water per day. More if exercising
• I wasn't drinking all that much water yesterday. Not sure why, I think I was just busy and kind of forgot but today I'll get in my allotment. I drank around 6 glasses of 8-10oz.  I can do better here.

Bonus: Getting 30 minutes of activity a day. Activity can include: walking, running, swimming, yoga, stretching, hiking, etc.
Went for a walk last night with Paul after dinner. It was probably only about a 15 minute walk but still got some movement.  

All in all I'm really pleased with my first day of my food challenge. I think the areas that I will need to work on more than others are getting my water in, reducing my dinner portion, watching out for rice quantity, and also working hard in getting my 3 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables in. 

I'm on the right track though and I'm feeling good this morning! 

More later friends!