October Unprocessed: Update

This year I took on the October Unprocessed challenge. It's been an interesting month. Here are my findings:

1) When your only qualifications for processed are "ingredients you would find in your kitchen" then you can still have tons and tons of tasty treats, such as everything from Liddabit Sweets (our favorite sweet stand at the New Amsterdam Market), ice cream from Blue Marble (which is now being stocked at grocery stores, can you believe it!?), and special work cupcakes. However, we did give up certain clearly-processed sweets like anything from the CVS. Plus, most of the sweets we did have (minus some super-special work chocolate-chip-cookie-covered Oreos) were organic and came from local, sustainable food places. That made our treats even sweeter!

2) At first, not having the choice of processed foods was especially difficult at work. There are so many cereals and snack bars to choose from, but I was very tough on myself in that regard. The only thing from work I let myself have was catering (and cupcakes), and even then I cut down on my bread and pasta intake. After about a week, though, I started bringing in more food from home and overcame my hunger and cravings that way.

3) Roasted broccoli makes a great dinner when you're eating at 9pm. It also makes a good work lunch.

4) I ate a lot more vegetables in general! Almost every day (minus weekends), I've eaten at least one serving of a real, healthy vegetable. That may not seem much to you, but for someone who literally hates vegetables (especially the healthy ones!), it really was a challenge. Covering things in cheese and/or pasta sauce can greatly help, though. Also chugging water and swallowing it along with the barely-chewed vegetables can help, too. Although, I don't think that's how people are supposed to eat anything except maybe pills. I do take a lot of pills, which is probably where I got the idea.

5) Having a supportive partner makes all the difference. I gave the BF Sundays off from Unprocessed October so that he could enjoy his football games to the fullest, but he didn't even take them! He stuck with me through the whole month. The only exceptions he took were a few sodas here and there to help ease a migraine, which is totally understandable. He's the best!

To all of you who tried October Unprocessed I hope it went well for you! I certainly plan on carrying over my habits from October into November and beyond... with a very strong exception for midnight on October 31st. No one denies me my Halloween goodies!