Beginners Guide to Clean Eating
Whether you're looking to lose weight or to just get a little healthier. Well done on taking the first step.
Eating clean banished my food cravings cleared up my skin, gave me more energy, and helps me sleep better, just to name a few benefits.
Eating clean is simply eating more unprocessed foods. Foods that are closer to nature. It's not a diet. It's not a shortcut to a hot body – it's a choice you make every day. It's a way of living.
Eating clean means mainly eating organic, non-GMO. A clean, healthy diet should be focused on eating food as close as possible to its original state and reduce the intake of industrially processed food to a minimum. Avoiding anything packaged or containing added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, food dyes, artificial ingredients, fillers, etc.
As simple as it seems, it's also quite overwhelming and can be very confusing if you're a COMPLETE beginner. I mean, where do you even start? Many people think clean eating is boring when in fact, it's the opposite.
It's about discovering new ways to cook and taste whole natural ingredients. If you don't recognize an ingredient, your body won't either. You can absolutely create your fave dishes using healthier ingredients that taste so much better than the versions you are used to,
if it came from a plant, you should eat it like the body was designed to do. But if it was made in a plant, you should try and avoid it. Get familiar with the best-tasting in-season fruits and vegetables and become a master of seasons and spices.
Plan a date with yourself and visit your local farmers market every week to buy local, fresh, delicious, colourful, healthy and natural produce.
The benefits of clean eating
Adopting a healthy diet can have multiple benefits, for example, Weight loss. Healthy foods are usually lower in calories than junk food, making it easier to stay in a caloric deficit needed to help you lose weight: better mood & improved mental health. Healthy foods contain antioxidants and essential nutrients we need to keep the brain and nervous system happy. Improved gut health.
The fibre and antioxidants found in whole foods can help the good gut bacteria multiply—a healthy functioning immune system. Your immune system needs the antioxidants and nutrients found in real food to function properly—preventing chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Delaying the ageing process. Fab for us ladies who want to look forever youthful!! We age primarily because of the accumulation of oxidative stress over time. The way to combat oxidative stress is to, of course, live a healthier life but also to consume more antioxidants. You can find antioxidants in whole natural foods—reduced chronic inflammation.
A healthy diet, loaded with fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains and occasionally fish here and there, is anti-inflammatory. Thus it can help you reduce chronic inflammation, which is linked to major chronic diseases.
Failing to plan is planning to fail
Meal planning is going to save your life when you are starting a clean eating lifestyle. Many people function better on a schedule, and meal planning is essentially you’re eating schedule. You have everything laid out in front of you for the next few days, so there will be much less of a hassle when it comes to wondering what your next meal is. When you have to think about precisely what you're going to eat, it's much easier for your mind to wander off and think about all those unhealthy foods you are probably missing. Having the meals already cooked will help you stay on track and keep your mind at peace with your food.
Once you have decided what you're going to eat, take your clean eating shopping list and stick to that list. You may want to clean out your pantry and eliminate all processed and packaged foods so you can start fresh.
Create time in your schedule to cook. You may find it easier to cook batches over the weekend and freeze them. Or you may find it easier to cook daily or a few times a week but making extra, so you have leftovers for lunch the next day. You could use a slow cooker for cooking your meals or make tray bake dinners where you throw everything onto a baking tray and cook in the oven, which saves you time.
Look at my Pinterest board for healthy eating ideas. If weight loss is why you are wanting to eat clean, then take a look at my board macros and portion control for some really great ideas and visuals on daily eating plans. There's a section for clean eating for beginners with free printables for meal plans and shopping lists.
Stop eating refined carbs - junk, processed & packaged foods
Processed foods make you feel sluggish, grumpy, ravenous and often guilty. Often, they aren't real food but rather a slew of chemicals and synthetic foods created to taste like natural foods. The first thing that is important to understand is that although these junk foods are referred to as "food", they are not food. In my opinion, junk foods are food-like products that resemble food, but they are not food themselves.
Real food comes from one of two places: plants or animals, and that's it. Real food is from Mother Nature. It grows on the land, grazes on the grass, flies in the skies, or swims in the waters. Real food does not have a barcode, nor does it have ingredients, because real food is ingredients.
On the contrary, "junk food", just as the name implies, is junk. It is defined as "pre-prepared or packaged food with low nutritional value" and is also referred to as processed food. The catch? It often tastes excellent.
You are eating something that has been chemically engineered to make you want more of it. Food manufacturers spend millions of dollars to create products that reach the "bliss point"; the point at which the ingredients are optimized to deliciousness keeps you coming back for more. The bliss point is the exact balance of salt, sugar, fat and flavours that isn't too much but isn't too little and leaves your brain craving more.
You can even develop an addiction to junk food. Eating junk food regularly results in changes in some neurochemicals in the brain, just like developing an addiction to drugs. After developing a habit, you will just want to eat more and more junk food.
Look after your body, its the only place you have to live
Avoid vegetable oils and spreads.
For starters, they're produced via chemical extraction, making them highly processed. Some oils also contain high levels of omega-6 fat linoleic acid. Studies in animals and isolated cells suggest increasing inflammation, potentially raising your risk of weight gain and heart disease. Although clean eating discourages all vegetable oils and spreads, it's essential to eat a moderate amount of healthy fats. These include fatty fish, nuts, and avocado. If you can't avoid vegetable oils altogether, choose a good quality cold-pressed olive oil.
Choose food from ethically raised animals.
In addition to fresh, unprocessed foods, clean eating involves selecting food from ethically raised animals. Livestock is often raised in crowded, unsanitary factory farms. The animals are typically given antibiotics to prevent infection and injected with hormones like estrogen and testosterone to maximize growth. Eat organic and grass-fed meat and dairy. Similarly, choose fish and seafood that are wild and not farmed. Read more about this here.
Eat fermented foods
Eating fermented foods can also boost the number of beneficial bacteria or probiotics found in your gut. 70% of our immune system is in our gut; our gut is also the primary serotonin production site. It is believed that our gut bacteria can, both directly and indirectly, influence serotonin levels. Maintaining a healthy gut is essential and frequently neglected. This directly impacts depression, weight gain, sleep disturbances, skin irritation like eczema. Stomach disturbances like gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, and heartburn can all be signs of an unhealthy gut.
Fermented foods that contain a wide range of bacteria are more likely to offer extensive health benefits. If possible, choose fermented foods that list several different bacterial strains. best to check the label to look for the mention of "live bacteria," "fermented," or "probiotics." However, as well as lasting longer, fermented foods often contain a variety of 'good' bacteria that can benefit our health if they can survive the journey to our gut.
Probiotics have been associated with various health benefits, including improved digestion, better immunity, and even increased weight loss. Some of my favourite fermented foods include kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, miso, kimchi, live yoghurt. Please take a look at my Pinterest board gut and immunity health for more information.
Start nourishing your body from the inside out
Eat plenty of vegetables
Get as many veggies as you can - cruciferous, dark leafy greens. The idea is to make sure you have a variety of vegetables on your plate (as many colours of the rainbow as you can get) and to vary the vegetables you eat as often as possible. Put colour on your plate and enjoy a rainbow of whole fruits. These brightly coloured fruits and vegetables don't just look good; they're nature's power foods.
The best way to get various nutrients and vitamins is to diversify the colours on your plate—nutrients and vitamins such as disease-fighting lycopene in red tomatoes and beta-carotene in sweet potatoes. Try a different vegetable or fruit every week and challenge your kids to eat a rainbow every day; the one who eats the most colours at each meal wins.
Drinks lots of water
Observe a plant before and after watering and relate these benefits to your body and brain. The amount of water in the human body ranges from 50-75%. So is it any surprise that we should drink lots of water? Pure, unadulterated water. Not soda. Not fruit juice. Not coffee. How much water should you drink? It differs depending on several factors, but a rule of thumb: at least eight glasses a day.
If you don't seem to like water on its own, try flavouring it naturally with lemon, mint, ginger, lime, lemongrass, cucumber or some fruit pieces. Or perhaps drink some herbal teas or green tea as well as water so you can sip through the day and keep hydrated.
Read labels
Become an ingredient snob (without becoming obsessed). Real food doesn't have a label. That's why you need to start reading nutrition labels and caring about what's in something before you buy it. I understand that life is busier than ever, and convenience foods are fast and easy. But I'm talking about the guidelines for what you should do to eat clean.
You are only punishing yourself by not being inquisitive and understanding what added sugars, artificial food colouring, preservatives, and chemicals are in food. Ideally, you want to buy food that is made with natural ingredients, not chemicals. This is processed, absorbed, and used better by the body. It will probably taste better too!
So, look at labels, not for the calories, but the ingredients. The ingredients should read like a shopping list. If there are some ingredients that you either couldn't find in a supermarket or would never put in a recipe yourself (like ammonium sulfate), which is added to bread products and is also used in commercial fertilizers. Or propylene glycol, which is an additive that stabilizes moisture to prevent ingredients sticking together or drying out, (which is toxic in high doses), then skip it. It's best if the ingredient list contains no more than six different.
Take baby steps, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
The older you get, the more conscious you should start to get the food you're putting in your body if you've grown up on a diet filled with junk and processed foods. It's about time you start feeding your body something that will expand your life. I must state that following a clean eating regime takes time. It took me years to reach the stage where I'm at now.
Instead of cutting everything out altogether, I would recommend introducing new foods to your diet weekly. Do not follow the all or nothing method. This rarely works, and you will be setting yourself up for failure. This is particularly important if you are starting from a highly refined, industrial diet. Your body will need time to adjust to your new meals and cleanse itself inside out. Give it time, allow for it to be de-gunked gradually, one step at a time.
Eating clean is a type of lifestyle that you need to adapt to. You don't have to think of it as dieting. You are just going to start providing your body with better nutrients to function better in the long. If you are looking for some more support, I offer a coaching package. Get on the right track, get healthy take a look at the details here.
Looking for healthy recipes? Please take a look at my recipe blog right here.
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