If you don't know who Alexis Ren is, go check her out. Long story short, she is a beautiful model whose Instagram posts make 99% of girls wishing they could be her. But don't let this change anything about your body image. You are beautiful. 

I knew Alexis's diet was going to be pretty strict. How could you expect anything less from a model? Luckily, Spoon made it easy for me to follow her diet. I used these diet guides to determine what I was going to eat for the next week. 

My original thoughts were, "Ok, this is definitely feasible." I don't usually eat red meat, alcohol, or fast food. Plus, I live for fruit. But all I could focus on was the bread. Gluten is like my favorite food group. Giving this up was going to be hard. 

To make things worse, I had another obstacle on my side. I live on campus and eat whatever the school provides me. This doesn't give me too much variety. Also, I am always busy with a 20 hour per week internship, so I usually buy the to-go foods at on-campus retail stores. This gave me no variety when it came to finding healthy, approved food options. 

Nonetheless, I bared through. 

Day 1

coffee, tea, milk
Ashley Peek
I started off this diet on one of my internship days, so the to-go foods were already in play. My breakfast included eating a fruit cup from school and a GoMacro bar in my car on the way to work. I brought a to-go chicken salad and banana for lunch. Things felt pretty normal because I usually eat these kinds of things. So far, so good.

After work, I went to the store and bought some kale chips and trail mix since these are some of the snacks Alexis Ren actually approves of. Sadly, the kale chips I bought were so nasty, not to mention expensive. I highly encourage making your own.
Ashley Peek

Thankfully, after getting back from work, the dining hall had some decent food. I filled my plate with a small grilled chicken breast, some diced sweet potatoes, and garden vegetables. I wanted to make sure I had enough before 7 pm, so that I wouldn't have to go through awful hunger pangs later in the night.

Day 2

beer
Ashley Peek

Like Alexis, I usually workout in the morning. I had a banana for some pre-workout fuel, which thank God I was allowed to have. However, I was not excited when I read that she uses vegan protein powder. I greatly despise vegan protein powder, so I substituted with Organic Muscle Milk, since apparently she loves all things organic. 

Usually for lunch on Fridays I have a sandwich form the library because I have to get something I can bring to class. Since bread was a no, I had to come up with something new. I never tried the sushi on campus, so I thought I would give it a go. It was mushy and gross. That's the thing that is so unfortunate. This wouldn't be hard if I actually had some quality food to eat. 

I also decided I needed to be drinking more water. According to the guide, Alexis Ren drinks at least 2 liters of water a day. It sounds like a lot at first, but it is only half a gallon or 8 cups per day.

I decided to download the app Plant Nanny to make sure I would hit my goals. I highly recommend this app to anyone because growing your own adorable plant is very fulfilling. Just look at that face.

coffee, tea
Ashley Peek

Unfortunately, I struggled pretty hardcore with drinking enough water. For some reason I never have quite the thirst for water. My body is constantly just craving food. Drinking water is suppose to prevent this, but it was so hard.

Day 3

blueberry, strawberry, berry
Ashley Peek

I came to the conclusion that smoothies and eggs were going to be my go-to breakfast. I usually have a bagel sandwich for breakfast, but that was out of the question.

Still, I loved all of my smoothies. Breakfast was definitely the easiest meal of the day since I basically just had a bunch of fruit. I was always so happy waking up each morning because I knew I could eat fruit again after going so long without it.

banana, strawberry, peanut butter, chocolate
Ashley Peek

On this day, I may have broken a rule by having sometime after 7 pm. I didn't eat any dinner before, so as much as it wasn't ok, it was ok. Dinner happened to be at a mall, so I struggled trying to find something I could eat. Fast food was not an option, but I found a salad and wrap place in the food court that I thought would work. I ended up getting a chicken salad.

My self control was proving to remain steady as I had to pass so many sweets and free food at the mall. You don't know how sad I was when my boyfriend picked up 3 free samples of cookie cake and shoved them all in his face. Total restriction of sweets is so hard.

Day 4

fruit salad, apple, salad, mango
Ashley Peek

Usually, people are the worst at diets over the weekend, but surprisingly enough, these weekend days were the easiest for me. I spent the weekend off campus, so it was nice to not be confined to my campus food options.

I had some fruit, oatmeal, and coffee for brunch at La Madeleine. It was so refreshing to have something new. Also, I snacked on trail mix and I found that it filled me up so well. Gotta love healthy fats. 

This weekend reminded me that there is actually a variety of foods I could eat following this diet if I had the means to it. I wish I could cook myself stir-fry, make veggie burgers wrapped in lettuce, or put together spring rolls for myself. I am so limited to the already limited healthy options on campus. 

However, I did start to notice differences in my body. I hadn't lost an incredible amount of weight, but I could definitely tell that my body was starting to tone up faster than usually. Still, I worked out everyday for about an hour or so, so don't think Alexis Ren's diet is the end-all, be-all for weight loss. 

Day 5

cereal, muesli, oatmeal, porridge, granola, wheat, oat, corn, milk, buckwheat
Ashley Peek

I woke up today so excited to be able to eat fruit again. After my morning workout, I channelled my inner Alexis and made a smoothie bowl at the dining hall. Usually they make it too thin, but today it was thick enough.

This whole super-busy-on-campus lifestyle has made it really hard to follow this diet. For lunch I bought a fruit cup, carrot sticks, and pretzels with hummus. The pretzels have gluten, but I was desperate.

To make matters worse, I came across my biggest obstacle today and I wish I could say I overcame it, but I didn't. You would think being a nutrition major would make this diet easy, but no.

In my lab class, we were sensory testing different nut butters and yes, some had extra sugar. Not to mention my professor brought out cookies and other desserts I couldn't resist. I could already tell this is a diet I personally would not be able to withstand. 

Day 6

avocado, chicken
Ashley Peek

As the end of diet came, each day I wished more and more it was over. The little slip ups were turning into deeper trenches of failure. I did fine for breakfast with a KIND bar, fruit, and coffee. Lunch was decent. I had two oranges, gluten-free cereal, and another KIND bar. But since my internship was far, I got back to campus extremely hangry.

As you may know, going to the dining hall hangry never turns out good. There were no good vegetables—shocker. I couldn't eat fruit, so I stuffed my (first) plate with potatoes, corn, and eggs. I realized I was avoiding healthy foods like fruit to stick to this dumb diet, so I said screw it and got some fruit to eat.

Later in the night I went for a run. It was awful because I couldn't even fuel my body because I couldn't eat after 7 pm. That is one downside of this diet. You can't even think about working out at night because you will get way too hungry.

Day 7

milk, juice, coffee
Ashley Peek

For the last day, I was determined to do well. I continued the same routine for breakfast, a smoothie bowl and eggs. For lunch I had brown rice, chicken, carrots, a banana, and frozen bananas for dessert. For some reason, I still had a food craving, specifically a sugar craving.

I really didn't want to let up just yet, so I settled for a small GoMacro bar and a KIND bar. But as I passed the gym on the way back to my dorm, I came across the commercial smoothie bar, Freshens.

They just came out with this cookie dough smoothie and I had been dying to try it. I really don't like their smoothies that much—but it's cookie dough, so I needed to try it. For some strange reason I thought it would be ok, but looking back, I'm pretty sure there was at least 40 grams of sugar in that. 

I kind of figured I wouldn't be hungry for a dinner after having so many snacks, so I settled for some trail mix for the rest of the night. A side note to all my Texans: this Texas Hold 'Em Trail Mix at Kroger is so bomb by the way. You need to buy it. 

nut, legume, vegetable, cereal
Ashley Peek

This next day I woke up with so much weight off my shoulders. Finally, I could eat what I wanted without feeling guilty. But as many times as I failed, I don't think this diet is that hard to follow. My own routine makes it pretty hard, but if you have the ability to actually buy food and make things yourself at home, then it is definitely doable. 

Still, I'm not very big into the whole "restricting" thing. If I want to eat fruit after 7 pm, I am going to eat fruit after 7 pm. Fruit provides so many nutrients to the body, so it shouldn't be something you have to limit. Better that than french fries. 

Also, everything is fine in moderation. I found that totally restricting my sweets—especially since I have the biggest sweet tooth—made me go crazy. I sometime allow myself sweets, which controls my cravings a lot better.

From all of this, I wouldn't recommend following Alexis Ren's diet to a T. It's great that I didn't have to count calories, but there are so many other ways to eat a healthy diet that is way easier to balance. Although I may need to add some more vegetables into my diet and restrict my sweets a little more, I personally prefer my own eating habits.