I love reading about the bizarre diets celebrities follow, but none have caught my eye quite like that of Christina Aguilera. It’s been reported that she followed the 7-Day Color Diet for a period of time, during which you are to eat a different color of food each day of the week. The diet is based on a book of the same name, written by Jessica Weisel Courtney and Mindy Weisel and published in 2003. The book wasn’t in my local library system, so I made due with the information found online.
The colors you’re supposed to eat from that week are white, red, green, orange, purple, yellow, and rainbow in that order. The idea is that each color provides a different set of vitamins and health benefits, so this is a way to get them all. Aside from the color of the day, you can add in eggs, chicken, milk, and cheese as "core foods."
It was hard to find a lot of information on the diet online, so there were some things up for debate. Some sources said that you could also incorporate foods from the white day into the rest of the week as additional core foods, but since I couldn’t verify that, I kept it to a minimum.
Day one — I ate only white foods.
I slept in on day one, so my breakfast was just a banana with almond milk.
For lunch, I made my favorite veggie burger recipe, that uses oats and chickpeas as a base. Most of the non-white ingredients in the recipe are optional, so I went without them, but I did take some liberties with the spices. The recipe just isn’t any good without the cumin and chili powder. I paired the burgers with white rice.
For dinner, I had eggs, diced potatoes, some leftover chickpea burger, and I topped it all with white cheddar cheese. I loved everything I ate this day, but it certainly didn’t feel like the healthiest day of my life.
Day two — I ate only red foods.
For breakfast, I took advantage of the "core foods" and ate eggs topped with red pepper flakes with tomato slices and strawberries. Eggs and fruit is a pretty normal breakfast for me, so it didn’t feel strange at all. I snacked on strawberries and apple slices throughout the morning.
For lunch, my plan was to have red kidney beans and red quinoa, but my grocery store didn’t have red quinoa. The best I could do was a red quinoa and brown rice mixture, which I added cheese to for a little extra fat.
For dinner, I made red lentil pasta with marinara sauce, and I sprinkled in some leftover kidney beans I had, which worked surprisingly well. The sauce did have onions and garlic, so I’m hoping the "adding white foods is ok" articles are right. I added in the extra tomato I had from breakfast to try and minimize waste, even though this diet made that feel impossible.
Day three — I ate only green foods.
For breakfast, I had a smoothie. I used a pre-made mix instead of fresh produce because I felt like I was buying too much produce I couldn’t eat within the designated color day. The mix had kiwi, green apples, cucumber, and spinach. I added almond milk and fresh spinach to the smoothie, and it was delicious.
I drank some green tea because my office had it and it felt appropriate.
For lunch and dinner I had the same thing — Lima beans, sauteed spinach, roasted asparagus and zucchini, and half of an avocado.
This was my favorite day, by far. I eat a ton of green foods in my diet normally, so putting these meals together was a breeze. I could have easily done a full week of green foods alone.
Day four — I ate only orange foods.
I had yet another smoothie for breakfast, again using a pre-made mix. This one had mangoes, oranges, mandarin oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes, and pineapples, which I picked out. I snacked on an orange around mid-morning.
For lunch, I was sort of at a loss. There really aren’t that many orange foods I could find, and I felt like I was going to use up all I had at dinner. I ended up going to the grocery store and finding a can of butternut squash soup. The only non-orange ingredient in it was apple puree, so I still counted it as a win. It was also really good.
For dinner, I had roasted baby carrots, sauteed orange peppers, and sweet potato fries. This was the first day that I was left really unsatisfied. I don’t know if it was a lack of protein or the lack of interesting foods, but I went to bed hoping the rest of this week would go by fast.
Day five — I ate only purple foods.
I was not feeling this day at all. I knew I was going to be unsatisfied just by looking at the food I’d bought.
For breakfast, I had eggs with dried blueberries and grapes. I forgot that I actually hate grapes, and it turns out my sacrifice was for naught since I accidentally got red instead of purple grapes.
For lunch, I had a smoothie from Grabbagreen. You can make your own smoothie, so I asked for all the purple ingredients they had — acai, blackberries, and blueberries. Then I added a banana for some more flavor and protein powder for more calories. It was really good and surprisingly filling. I couldn’t take a picture because I was working through lunch, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
For dinner, I had roasted eggplant and cauliflower and paired it with salmon. The salmon wasn’t technically on the "allowed foods," but my energy was dipping, and I needed some protein. I know cauliflower is kind of having a moment, but the purple cauliflower, which I’d never had before, is far superior.
My energy was so low today that I constantly felt like I wanted a nap. I also had a headache. I don’t know if either of those things is related, but I can’t help but assume they are.
Day six — I ate only yellow foods.
On this day I was so tired of smoothies, so I made an omelet for breakfast with breakfast potatoes from the white food day. That stuck with me through the afternoon, so I just snacked on lemon tea and pineapple slices.
I had an appointment to get a filling that afternoon, which I had completely forgotten about. It hurt a lot more than I thought it would, and I ended up making another smoothie for dinner — yes, after saying that I didn’t want a smoothie today. It was almond milk, pineapple, and bananas, and it was the best smoothie I’d made all week. My pineapple to banana ratio was way off, so the smoothie ended up more white than yellow.
Day seven — I ate all the colors of the rainbow.
The final day of the diet is "rainbow," meaning you can combine foods from all the previous days. Based on that, I decided to follow another one of Christina’s diet plans— one she stuck to during her nearly 50-pound weight loss.
Her exact plan was —
- Breakfast: Bacon, blueberries, avocado
- Lunch: Chicken with salad or vegetables
- Dinner: Chicken/fish with rice and vegetables
- Snacks: Celery with nut butter and a shrimp cocktail
I did the best I could to follow the plan but made a few changes to include the food I had left. Instead of bacon for breakfast, I had eggs, avocado, blueberries, and spinach.
For lunch, I made a salad from the salad bar at my local grocery store. You can probably tell how excited I was to add all the colorful veggies to my plate. The salad included spinach, kale, pickles, squash, carrots, bell peppers, green beans, tofu, and beans.
For dinner, I had a hearty bowl of rice and veggies from Yafo Kitchen, a local Greek restaurant here in Charlotte. Again, I was thrilled to see so many colors in my bowl. This one had rice, chickpeas, cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower rice, eggplant, carrots, and onions.
I don't think I could do this again.
One thing I found odd about the color diet is that it doesn’t include many whole grains (the ones that are usually brown), which are my go-to foods to stay full longer. I tried to add them in whenever the colors allowed, but ultimately I just felt hungry a lot of the time.
The diet was also expensive! Many of the ingredients went to waste because I couldn’t eat them the next day or the next. I did my best to use similar ingredients for lunch and dinner to mitigate that, but sometimes it was unpractical and doing so made the diet extra boring. A better cook or someone more creative than me may have been able to put together exciting meals, but I struggled every day of the week.
Basically, as great as it is to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into your diet, getting all the vitamins and nutrients you need can only come from eating all the colors of the rainbow. A better diet long-term, and one I might try next, is to challenge myself to eat each of these colors every day.
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