7 Day Clean Up: Eat Clean, Live Clean [Day 1]

This is part of the 7 Day Clean-Up Series. See all posts in the series here.

Introduction

Here’s the thing about leading a healthy life and eating clean: it takes constant work. Sometimes you fall off the wagon and have to reset yourself.

The 30 Day Clean Eating Challenge is a good introduction to eating clean, but this 7 Day Clean-Up is more of a check in that you can do anytime you feel like the siren song of junk food seduces you back to the dark side.

Eating healthy and exercising is tough, so don’t get down on yourself for

Day 1: Plan, Prep, Detox, Re-Focus

If you haven’t prepped for clean eating before, check out this post.

There are three things you should do on day one:

1. Remind yourself why you’re eating clean. There are so many important reasons to eat clean: you’ll feel more energized, you’ll live a longer life, you can continue to improve your body and mind — pick a reason that matters to you and write it on a post-it note where you can see it.
2. Pick recipes and go grocery shopping (but not when you’re hungry). Go grocery shopping with a list and a game plan about what recipes you’re going to make this next week. I don’t supply a meal plan because everyone is different as long as you stick with the clean eating basics, any clean recipe will do to help you reach your goals! We’ll be talking more about macro nutrients and other ways to make sure your diet is balanced later this week.
3. Detox, do yoga, meditate, and reset. The holidays are extremely stressful, so make sure you’re taking time out to relax. I took a meditation class, and saw my stress levels decrease dramatically. I highly recommend trying this body scan meditation and do it every day for at least a week to begin to de-stress. A clean life begins with a clean mind. Not to mention most of the aspects of unhealthy and binge eating stem from cravings and other constructs or emotional needs not being addressed in our minds.

Day 1 Recipes

On day one, I suggest making some foods that carry over throughout your busy week, like the following:

No Bake Peanut Butter Bites

Detox Fruit Waters

For the next six days I’ll also be posting brand new daily recipes, but for day one I’m suggesting these because the fruit water helps flush out the toxins in your system and the peanut butter bites help energize you with metabolism-boosting MUFAs.

Amy’s Advice

I was recently able to escape to Santa Barbara and sit down and catch up on my life and get back on track with healthy eating, which was my inspiration for this post. You can’t fault yourself for not being perfect: you have to just get your life back together and get back on track. Several green smoothies and kale salads and I’m ready to get back to my goals.

I’m also reworking my workout schedule, because due to my new job I can no longer make several of my weekly yoga classes, and I’ve been in a bit of a rut. Instead, I may try kickboxing or zumba!

I also did archery because in another life I am Katniss

Anyways, I hope you like the series. If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments! My Tumblr inbox is insane right now and I’m kinda scared of opening it because the cobwebs have probably turned into substantial spiderwebs, and I’m afraid of spiders. So.

Good luck and I know you can all reach your goals!

-Amy