22 Helpful Tips For Completing BuzzFeed's 2016 Clean Eating Challenge

Going clean was a little harder than expected, but it was well worth the work.

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

I love to cook, and coming off the holidays full of baking, drinking, and merriment, I needed a fresh start. Call it cliché, but I wanted to realign myself for a great year, and eating right was the best way to do it.

Enter BuzzFeed's 2016 seven-day clean eating challenge. The "healthy eating bootcamp" — which is easy to follow even for beginner chefs — has everything you need, including photos, videos, printable recipes, and a complete shopping list. Below are my tips and photos, though I didn't remember to snap every item. Some were just too good to wait!

I hope you get the chance to give this a try, and here's to a fun 2016!

Day One: Sunday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

The challenge really starts on Saturday with the shopping, but Sunday is a cooking day. Here are some things you should do to start the week off right:

* Read everything. You may need to adjust your schedule a bit to keep up with the cooking, such as moving some of the preparation around. If I hadn't read ahead, I wouldn't have been able to complete everything without some very late nights.

* Get your cooking appliances situated. I forgot I had a small food processor until Wednesday. It definitely would have come in handy earlier in the week.

* Buy mint and lemon. You drink a lot of water during the week, and if you're not used to it, this will help you jazz it up a bit.

* Empty your dishwasher. There are SO many dishes. Just be prepared.

* Spring for the pomegranate seeds. I bought a whole pomegranate, but it was past ripe. Go ahead and splurge on the already-separated seeds.

Day Two: Monday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

It was super helpful that the challenge accounted for people's work schedules, and all my coworkers started to be curious. It ended up being helpful knowing they'd want to see the food all week.

* Plan breakfast. This is the only weekday breakfast I had to cook at home. Give yourself time if you usually eat at the office.

* It's OK if you don't finish each portion. This surprised me, but I didn't finish breakfast or the evening snack. And I didn't have time for the afternoon snack, but I wasn't hungry. These are filling meals.

* Keep the pumpkin bark in the freezer. Since I had only a small amount, I put all the remaining bark back in the freezer. That way, I could grab it any time.

Day Three: Tuesday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

The stuffed acorn squash impressed everybody at lunch.

* Soak the soup. Tuesdays are usually busy, so I actually prepped everything for the soup on Monday, let it cool in the pot, and then put the pot in the fridge. It was so easy to blend and reheat when I was home, I could actually sit down for dinner and enjoy it.

* Throw the remaining proteins in the freezer. This applied to the ground turkey for Sunday and the tempeh for Tuesday. I now have them handy for meals in the future.

* Try new spices. I have a lot of spices on hand, so getting the most out of a curry powder purchase wasn't something I worried about. My boss gave me a Za'atar spice blend for Christmas, so that went in the soup. Awesome.

Day Four: Wednesday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

Hump day! It also was nice to get through half the week knowing I'd have more of my kitchen counter space back.

* Let the tofu warm up a little. After pulling my lunchbox from the fridge, I got distracted making lunch. The tofu softened a bit, so it was easy to cut and complemented the crunch of the cucumber.

* Go easy on the goat cheese. I love goat cheese, but I was a little dubious of it in the "rice" bowl. It tasted great, but if you're not a fan, don't use the full ounce.

* Keep the bark in the freezer. Again, I didn't finish the portion, so I just put it back in the freezer. Nice I've got a super yummy snack for another night.

Day Five: Thursday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

This was one of my favorite days: It had everything I really enjoyed!

* Keep an eye on the smoothie liquid. It seemed like the milk wasn't enough, so I added a bit of water. That made it like a smoothie instead of like soft serve.

* Go for color. I sprang for the potato medley at the store, so I had a mix of red, yukon, and purple potatoes. The purple was such a nice touch!

Day Six: Friday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

This was the hardest day. I didn't feel like I took in enough calories early, so I was starving by mid-afternoon.

* Add a little more sweetener to the mug cake. You'll need to adjust for calories, but I don't like eggy-tasting food that isn't eggs. I needed something more just to bring out the pumpkin flavor.

* Use about half the fennel. This is really a Thursday prep tip, but it wasn't until Friday that I realized I was never going to eat that much fennel.

* Give the mash more steaming time. The potatoes softened, but I needed to add about two minutes to get the turnips soft. This was very yummy though.

Day Seven: Saturday

Emily Jasper / Via Instagram: @emilymj6

Last day! I had a date, so I didn't make dinner or my evening snack, and then I had to make a couple other substitutions due to timing.

* Use hot sauce. I didn't want the extra liquid from the salsa, so I decided to use hot sauce with the baked eggs instead. They were so yummy!

* Don't overheat the steak. I didn't want a cold lunch or a half-and-half one, so I reheated it all. But I was sure to heat the steak separate at about 70% power to keep it from getting too done.

* Toast yourself! I enjoyed the two glasses of wine that are allowed, knowing I did a lot of cooking all week.

Challenge completed!

I really enjoyed the challenge, and the biggest takeaway (other than feeling great) is that cooking a few nights a week feels a lot more manageable going forward.