Happy New Year! Get Ready, Get Set for the 28-Day Challenge!

If you’ve decided to join us on the 28-day Whole Living challenge or just want to read along to see our progress, we will be starting the action plan this Monday, January 3^rd.  So in order to prepare for the first week, Whole Living has some suggestions to get ready over the weekend.

Start sipping water:  Start every morning off (get started today) with a warm cup of water and lemon.  I’ve actually read about this before in the book You Are What You Eat.  Supposedly it’s a great way to cleanse your body and start a detoxification process.  And don’t forget to try and get the recommended 8 glasses of water every day.

Begin to cut out caffeine:  Cutting out my morning coffee will be the hardest thing for me I think.  So starting today, I am going to try and only drink herbal or green tea.  Whole Living suggests if you drink 2 cups of coffee a day, replace one with herbal or green tea on Saturday and both with herbal or green tea on Sunday.   Also examine your diet for other sources of caffeine that you can start cutting out (step away from the chocolate!). 

Gear up:  Since part of this challenge includes exercise, make sure you are prepared with appropriate clothing and shoes for indoors and outdoors, if you plan on walking/jogging outside.

Create a sanctuary:  Find a quiet space in your house that is relaxing and a good place to meditate or just unwind.  Maybe it’s just a reading chair or maybe you create a little mini sanctuary around your bathtub.  Whatever it is, make it a peaceful place for yourself.   

Prep the kitchen:  There are 21 recipe suggestions on the website to get you through the first week, along with a shopping list.  If you want to strictly follow their food suggestions, we’d love to hear your feedback.  However, I know more than half of those recipes will not work for my family.  So I plan to make some changes to the shopping list for my family so they don’t totally disown me and start going out to dinner without me! 

Because week 1 consists of cutting out dairy, wheat/gluten, peanuts, soy, alcohol, corn, all added sugars, and processed foods and beverages, I plan to stock up this weekend on fruits, vegetables and other nuts, including quinoa (more about this super food on Monday).  At first I was worried about breakfast because it seemed that everything I eat for breakfast is on the “foods to avoid” list…eggs, yogurt, bagels.  But then I realized that the oatmeal I eat on a regular basis is whole grain and does not contain wheat.  I still think week 1 will be tough and I’m afraid I’ll be hungry all the time, but I’m going to try and stick to this program to get its full benefit!    

So, in summary, when grocery shopping this weekend to prep for week 1, the foods you want to avoid are:

Added sugar

Processed foods or beverages

Alcohol

Caffeine

Wheat/gluten

Eggs

Dairy

Peanut products

Fruit juices

Soy, including soy sauce

Corn

The foods you want to stock up on are:

Fruits

Vegetables

Nuts (no peanut products) – substitute almond butter for peanut butter

Whole grains

I’m also always pressed for time, which is when I usually fall off any sort of “eating healthy” plan I’m on because I just don’t have time to prep the food.  So since I’m grocery shopping for only a week at a time, I plan to prep my fruits and vegetables as much as I can by washing everything right away and cutting, chopping or slicing in advance.  It’s also nice to have snack-size portions of nuts or fruit or vegetables on hand for when the munchies pay a visit.  But if you try and eat 5 or 6 small meals every day rather than 3 large meals, it should keep the munchies at bay. 

Happy New Year!