What Is Clean Eating?

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Clean eating may sound like a cliché, but it’s simply treating your body right. It includes eating food in a natural state, in smaller amounts, while avoiding those things that are harmful to the body. It’s not a diet, but a lifestyle approach to food – leading to an improved life, one meal at a time.

Eating Clean keeps you feeling great and full of energy, without feelings of hunger, lethargy or deprivation. You won’t count calories & you won’t diet. Best of all, eating clean guarantees results because it follows health laws that “must work.”

These practices keep your blood-­sugar levels stable and the best part is that if you need to lose weight it will happen almost without you having to try. Why? Because your body comes back to balance!

This dietary choice does not have major restrictions, and does not require switching meals between high protein, low carb, high fat, etc.—as many of these allow you to lose weight quickly, but because of their restrictive nature, cause weight gain to crash back.

When you practice clean eating, you are beginning the process of tracking where your food came from and understanding its origins. Unlike other diets that must be gradually worked towards, or ones that leave you feeling sick or fatigued from sudden depletions of carbs or sugars, clean eating still allows real, natural substances to continue flowing through your body, leaving you feeling better immediately. The basic idea is to eat “real” or “naturally grown” foods.

Here’s how it works! Eating clean is NOT a program that:

• makes you starve yourself

• makes you count calories, points, carbohydrate grams or fat grams

• requires you to buy prepackaged, pre-­portioned food

• requires you to take pills or potions

Further it:

• allows normal fat breakdown and get rid of excess, unwanted weight.

• eliminates unnatural, processed and additive foods.

It’s simply based on whole foods with most of their nutrients intact. That means you can eat:

• Vegetables

• Fruits

• Nuts

• Seeds

• Organic grass-fed meats

• Ocean caught seafood

• Organic eggs

• Legumes

• Fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, coconut water, kombucha

• Peanut butter free of chemicals, preservatives, or partially hydrogenated oils

• Healthy sugars i..e. raw honey and pure maple syrup

• 100% whole (ancient) grains, brown or black rice, quinoa, oats, whole wheat, sprouted whole grain bread. Keep these in moderation.

• Full fat unsweetened dairy products i.e. Greek yogurt plus healthy fats i.e. coconut, olive and avocado oil.

That means portion your plate with 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 protein (more if active with fitness) and 1/4 healthy carbs. Use additional fruits and healthy fats in moderate amounts.

How long will it take until I see results?

• Your body will detox quickly - within the week.

• You will receive more energy.

• Weight loss or good health depends on starting weight, genetics, amount of exercise, and how dedicated you are to eating clean. But is has never failed my clients if adhered to.

• If you need to lose weight, healthy weight loss is about two pounds a week. The body stops losing at the weight it is most comfortable at.

A note to ponder:

If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. Preparation ahead of time is crucial to meet success. Waiting to get hungry before making food decisions means it’s already too late. Make sure you fridge reflects what you will do this week. Chuck the pizza and white bread and put in the veggies and lean meats:

Avoid products containing these trigger words:

1. Enriched – it means that vitamins and minerals have been stripped

2. Bleached – bleaching removes most of the nutrients which leaves empty calories

3. Flavoured – manufacturers use sugar, salt, oil and unrecognizable ingredients to enhance the flavour of foods

4. Carrageenan – its a fat replacing additive that creates an harmful substance during processing

5. Low Fat/No Fat – when fat is removed synthetic emulsifiers and thickeners are added to make food taste better

6. Sugar Free – means synthetic and artificial ingredients are added instead

7. Soy – only consume Non GMO soy products due to estrogen influence

8. Sugar – look for organic cane sugar. If the product list “sugar” its made from sugar beets which is GMO corn

9. Aspartame, Acesulfame k, Sucralose, Sorbitol, and Malitol– use stevia instead

10. Phenylalanine or Phenylketonurics – often found in beverages, diet sodas, sugar free gums, and other sugar free products.  They are neurotoxins and they kill brain cells.

11. Xanthan Gum – its processed using petrochemicals

12. Olestra – indigestible fat substitute used primarily in foods that are fried and baked

Have fun on your journey!