100 Days of Real Food: We Did It!!!

Alright friends I owe you a little recap of one of the most difficult challenges we have ever done, The Real Food Challenge. For 100 days we embarked on an amazing journey to learn more about food then we ever thought we would learn. Our goal from this challenge was to eat 100% real foods and hopefully at the end to feel great and continue this challenge into our lives forever.

The first few weeks were the toughest. I was constantly in the kitchen making our own breads, crackers, pizza dough, nut butters, whole wheat tortillas, homemade whole wheat buns and so much more. It was exhausting, but then it became a habit. As all things are hard at the beginning, but then only get easier when you keep on keeping on.

I then discovered a local bakery that makes whole wheat bread with all real ingredients and decided to purchase that instead. I love my bread maker, but the challenge was I couldn’t add a lot of things to it that made it taste so great. I now cannot wait to bust it back out and try some other bread recipes. I still will make my own nut butters, pizza dough, and buns, but I am happy now to buy store bought tortillas and breads!

Did we stick to it 100%? We did cheat just a couple times. Once I had some Frozen Yogurt after a ½ marathon and another time I enjoyed pizza at my cousin’s birthday party because there were no other options.  Hubby pretty much threw in the towel when it came to going to other people’s houses, but stuck to it at home.

So what did we learn? Eating ALL REAL FOOD is HARD!!!! Our world is filled with preservatives and overly processed foods. It’s hard to stay away from them when eating our or eating in. Did we feel different? Hubby said he felt good, but didn’t notice a huge change. I felt good, but not much better then I normally feel.  I loved buying from our local farmers, it gave me a since of community that I have never experienced before.

What were the cons? IT WAS EXPENSIVE!!!! It is a lot cheaper to buy non organic and non-local. For the most part it was worth it, but our grocery bills were out the wazoo! I will still buy local produce and organic meat as much as I can, but it might not be all the time

Are we glad we did it? YES! I know now what it really means to eat only REAL FOOD and how easy it can be to eat 90% of the time unprocessed stuff.  I feel now that we make even better choices because of the RFC and when we know what is in our food it always makes us feel better. I know for Hubby it was a real eye opener and Idon’t think he would ever do it again!!!

Overall thoughts: We have come to the conclusion that for us balance is the best.  We believe in eating as much real food as possible, but not killing ourselves over having FRO-YO (which I missed) once in a while or a Starbucks Latte with sugar free syrup.

So what is our plan from here? To continue to eat as healthy, unprocessed, and as local as we can, but once in a while going out for a little guilt free pleasure!

So friends, do you have any questions for us about the RFC? We are an open book?