100 Days of Eating Better: Week 1

Travis and I are trying to start eating better, and are following a modified version of the 100 Days of Real Food that we created. (See original post here). We're hoping to remove most processed foods from our diet and just eat better in general. We're doing this over 14 weeks (roughly 100 days), and each week we add a new "rule" as we've come to call it. Here's the rules so far:

Week 1: No eating out - at all

We're on our (almost)last day of week 1 and so far so good. We really didn't expect this week to be too much of a challenge, but we figured it was a good place to start, and we did it with only one hiccup. A family emergency on Friday caused me to eat out for breakfast AND lunch, but it was due to circumstances outside of my control.

I have to say, I'm already feeling better. Now I understand this could just be a placebo effect, but I'm not complaining. Feeling good is never a bad thing. I also know that this "no eating out" rule is going to help our wallets feel better too. (That, and we're going to be able to refinance our house in a few weeks! SO EXCITED!)

So, on to week 2. We are compounding each week onto the week before so by the end of it, we'll have 14 rules to follow. Again, we are following these as strictly as possible at home, however, we are not going to force what we're doing on anyone. If we're at someone's house for dinner, we are not going to refuse food because it doesn't follow our rules. People who do that are rude, and we don't want to be those people. So here are the rules for next week:

Week 1: No eating out - at all
Week 2: Try a new food

I've decided that the new food we're going to try this week is kale. I have a friend over at Here We Go... (you should check out her blog, she's a great writer!) who's little girl (just a few weeks older than Penelope) LOVES kale. I've heard tons of good things about it, but frankly, I've been afraid to try it. I've always sorta considered kale one of those "weird things that organic-and-tofu-eating people eat." (Ok, I do like tofu, but only in my hot and sour soup). I've seen it at the grocery store a few times and have been interested, but still a little scared. Well, this week, we're going to try it. I've picked 2 recipes that I am very excited to try: Sausage and Kale Soup and Kale Crisps with Sea Salt and Lemon. (I HATE that they're both Martha Stewart recipes!) and I'm hoping that we end up liking it. I'll probably do a recipe review on either/both.

So that's the recap from week 1, and the game plan for week 2. Here's to a good week!