One of the hardest parts of eating clean is turning down the tasty snacks that you know are bad for you. You don’t have to starve yourself of course or eat all that strictly. There’s nothing wrong with a nice pasta dish packed with vegetables and meats…
But what you should avoid is that massive chocolate cake after dinner that will add 450 calories to your diet and leave you feeling sick. It provides zero nutrition and it sets your diet back in a way that can sometimes be hard to recover from psychologically.
But don’t worry – there’s a trick!
What is CBT?
CBT stands for ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’. This is a psychotherapeutic approach that involves training the brain to overcome negative thoughts. The belief is that your thoughts can reinforce negative beliefs and can have unwanted effects on your behaviour.
For instance, if you’re trying to get over a phobia of heights, the thing you need to change is the thought process that involves imagining falling or telling yourself it’s not safe!
What Does This Have to do With Eating Clean?
So what does all this have to do with eating clean?
Simple: it gives you the ability to reprogram your thoughts and thereby to remove the desire to indulge in cakes etc.
To do this, you simply need to think ahead and focus on how you’re going to feel after the meal. Focus on the cake and the taste and you’ll produce the reward hormone dopamine. Instead, you need to focus on the last time you made yourself feel sick from eating too much cake. You probably felt bloating, stuffed and guilty and most likely you couldn’t finish it. Concentrate on that sensation and suddenly the cake doesn’t seem so appealing.
Now instead, imagine how good it would feel to have a refreshing dessert that would perk you up and leave you feeling good about yourself. How about a hot drink? Or maybe you could get an ice cold lemon sorbet that will cleanse your palette without adding too many calories!
This makes all the difference to your desire for pudding and you’ll find that you actually would prefer the fresher dessert. If you do this regularly enough, then you will actually create new associations to the point where you actually don’t want to eat that huge cake.
The same goes for reprogramming your diet in every other area too!
If you’re trying to improve your diet, you’ll often find it’s easier to focus on the things you want to remove from your current eating habits rather than trying to add things.
And the best way to make that successful is to focus on just the smallest things that will cause the smallest change to your feeling of fullness and energy throughout the day.
Here are some very easy ways to cut calories and reduce the amount of junk in your diet!
Get Rid of Soda Drinks
One of the very best things that anyone can do for their diet is to remove soda drinks from their diet. That means no more Coca-Cola and no more 7-Up. Why? Because these drinks are absolutely packed with simple sugars while offering nothing healthy in return. They’ll make you feel hungry and they’ll add lots of calories while contributing to lipogenesis (fat storage).
Choose the Right Coffee
What’s just as bad or arguably even worse is when you stop by Starbucks on the way into work and grab yourself a large Americano. There’s nothing wrong with the coffee – rather it’s the large amounts of cream, full-fat milk and chocolate sprinkles that get added. Simply switch that morning beverage for an Americano or a black coffee/sea and you’ll instantly save yourself the damage – cutting your diet by 100-200 calories immediately.
Stop Adding Sugar
Another tip is to stop adding sugar to your tea. Once again, this adds unnecessary calories and then creates hunger pangs following your release of insulin that will suck up all of your sugar and leave you shaky.
Moreover though, adding sugar to everything makes gets you accustomed to things tasting sweet. In other words? You develop a sweet tooth. And now nothing you eat is going to be as satisfying unless there’s sugar on top!
Remove the Butter
Butter isn’t unhealthy for you as such, but if you’re trying to reduce your calories specifically then lathering this onto everything you eat really isn’t going to help! Get used to eating your sandwiches with just the spread and you’ll find it easier to lose weight!
Share Dessert
Even when we’re dieting, it can be hard to turn down a nice dessert when everyone else is indulging – especially because we may feel as though we’re being boring or preventing others from enjoying their food.
The simple answer? Offer to share with someone! You’ll save money and calories!
Wouldn’t life just be a lot better if you had more energy?
Serious – low energy is probably responsible for a huge proportion of our problems! It’s low energy that makes it hard to wake up in the morning, it’s low energy that makes us not really want to exercise and it’s low energy that prevents us from performing our best or really enjoying life.
The problem is that it takes energy to start changing your lifestyle and to do things like exercise more or sleep better to improve your energy… so where do you begin? The answer is simple: you begin with your diet!
There are tons of ways that you can improve your energy levels through your diet, here are just a few!
Glucose Hit
One way you can add more energy using your diet is just to consume more glucose. This won’t give you long-term energy but will instead help you to improve your energy in the short term and give you a small kick when you’re struggling.
And interestingly, one of the best ways to get that hit of glucose is to ‘cheat’ and have glucose from man-made, processed sources. A glucose tablet is one option, another is to eat Wine Gums!
MCT Oil
Using glucose on a regular basis is not a recommended way to keep your energy levels up though. Instead, it’s better to use MCT oil, which comes from coconuts and other natural sources. This type of oil doesn’t get absorbed by the body in the same way as other fats and it encourages the body to produce ketons – a type of energy that has a lot of particular uses for the brain.
Chia Seeds
If you want an example of someone with high energy levels, then look no further than the Tarahumara tribe! This group of indigenous people are able to run hundreds of miles in a single go and they accomplish this at least in part thanks to chia seeds – seeds that are capable of absorbing several times their weight in water!
Iron
Iron is used to create the red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. More iron = more oxygen where you need it – meaning in turn that you’ll have more energy.
Vinpocentine
Another way to get more oxygen around your body when you need it is to cause vasodilation and widen the blood cells. This can be done with any food containing nitrates – including garlic. But vinpocetine is a natural ingredient that goes one step further by ensuing the vasodilation occurs mainly in the most important regions of the brain.
CoQ10
Meanwhile, anything that can increase mitochondrial energy metabolism will greatly enhance energy levels – CoQ10, PQQ and creatine all being very good examples (and all being found in organ meats).
When you think of ‘healthy’ food, what do you think of?
For many of us, this doesn’t exactly bring to mind a gourmet meal. Instead, you might think of healthy foods as being those typical ‘low fat’ sandwiches or crisps that have had all the moisture sucked out of them. Maybe you think of bread that is about as thin (and tasty) as a piece of cardboard!
Whatever the case though, healthy food doesn’t actually have to be this way. In fact healthy food should be all the stuff that you really want to eat. After all, this food is meant to be really good for you; so it makes sense that it would be tasty and satisfying!
Where Diet Food Goes Wrong
Diet food unfortunately is completely unhelpful for the most part. This is food that has had the fat removed from it, based on the incorrect belief that fat causes heart problems. We now know that fat is actually good for us and even slows down the absorption of sugar as well!
What’s more, is that it’s fat that makes us feel fuller! And while it contains more calories, this simply means we need to eat less of it – and less of everything else as well.
What Healthy Food Really Looks Like
The first clue that healthy food should actually be tasty and even indulgent comes from the Mediterranean Diet. This is an entire continent of people who are in fantastic health despite eating a diet that would technically be considered unhealthy by many ‘experts’.
People on the Mediterranean Diet live longer and have great heart health – thanks to the saturated fat content and things like resveratrol found in red wine.
At the same time though, the Mediterranean Diet includes a ton of different fruits and vegetables all arranged beautifully on the plate and displaying a ton of vivid colors. Greek salad contains tomatoes, feta, cucumber and pepper and is packed with goodness!
Meanwhile, the inclusion of oil on top actually ensures that all those nutrients are absorbed better.
When you eat like this, you actually enjoy your food and you feel full and satiated. Thus you don’t get cravings or feel the need to snack and you also get to enjoy eating – the way you should!
It’s not just the Mediterranean Diet that offers these benefits of course. The take home message here is rather a very simple one: eat a varied diet and make sure you enjoy it!
Clean eating is a smart way to obtain better health, but unlike fad diets, you can eat delicious, nutritious food. You won’t have to give up carbs or bring your calorie intake down to unobtainable levels or do anything else that’s bad for your body.
Instead, you can eat great tasting food that gives you energy and strengthens your body. You can enjoy clean eating in everything from full meals to desserts to appetizers. Appetizers are a staple of everything from parties, to sports events to family get togethers.
To stick with a clean eating plan, you’ll want to make appetizers that taste great but still contain food items that are only good for you. Everyone loves foods that crunch. That’s why potato chips are so popular.
But because potato chips are processed and high in fats, they’re definitely not good for you. But that doesn’t meant that you can’t enjoy crunchy foods in a healthier way. You can substitute sweet potatoes for regular ones for a healthy alternative and make your own crunchy chips.
You’ll need to use 2 cups of sweet potatoes. If you have a larger crowd for the appetizer, just increase the amount of sweet potatoes that you cut up. Slice the potatoes as thin as you would see regular potato chips.
Mix these cut potatoes with ½ tablespoon of olive oil and a ½ tablespoon of sea salt. Make sure the potatoes are well coated. Then place them flat on a cookie sheet and bake them for about an hour on 250-300 depending on your oven.
When it comes to appetizers, who doesn’t love breadsticks and pizza? But those items are loaded with ingredients that are bad for you. Unless you turn them around and make them the clean eating way.
To make cheese breadsticks, you would use a head of cauliflower. When substituting cauliflower for the cheese breadsticks, you have to make sure the cauliflower is extremely dry so that it can stick together like dough.
You can dry cauliflower by first putting it into your food processor so that it looks creamy but don’t cream or mash it. You want there to be some tiny lumps in it. The mixture should look like thick rice once you’re done.
Dry it out by putting it into a cloth and squeezing until all the juice is drained. After you do that, put the mixture in the microwave and cook it for 7-10 minutes depending on the wattage of your microwave.
You’ll need less time for 1,100 watt microwaves. After it’s done, mix the cooked cauliflower with ¾ to 1 cup of shredded cheese of your choosing. Add ½ teaspoon of garlic power and 1 teaspoon of oregano or Italian seasoning.
Mix with 3 eggs and sprinkle the mixture with salt and pepper. Put the cauliflower spread very thin on parchment paper. Don’t use wax paper. Place in the oven on 400-425 for 20 to 25 minutes.
To make the pizza crust using cauliflower, you follow the same steps for the cauliflower cheese breadsticks except you would use a pizza pan and double the recipe if needed. You would also add organic tomatoes, cooked bell peppers and thinly chopped meat of your choosing. The pizza makes a lot and can be cut into thin rectangles to serve a large group of guests.
When you’re eating whatever junk food is handy, it’s pretty easy to grab a bag of chips or a package of cookies and toss them into the car with you. When you want to eat clean, however, you’re going to want to make sure you have some healthy on the go snacks on hand to take along.
One of the best things that you can take with you when you’re not at home is fruit. You can find a variety of fruit that’s tasty for the whole family. Apples are a good choice and so are oranges.
You can pack sliced strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in a take along dish for a snack that’s deliciously sweet, but still healthy. Grapes that are cut up along with plums make a great on the go snack and so do bananas.
Raisins make great take along snacks, too. If you’re looking for an on the go vegetable snack that has some crunch to it, then choose something like sliced cucumbers or celery.
Carrots make a great clean eating snack and so does broccoli or cherry tomatoes. Nuts are always handy and extremely portable. You can choose ones like cashews or almonds.
If you like natural peanut butter, you can toss a jar of it into the car and spread some of it on apple or celery slices for a protein boost. You can find natural trail mix packages to take with you on the go that come in a variety of different choices.
You can make your own bags of individual trail mix if you want to always have a grab and go snack choice available. Just mix some granola, nuts, and dried fruit such as cranberries.
Granola is a favorite clean eating on the go snack and so are whole grain crackers. You can spread peanut butter on crackers too for a filling snack. If you’re going to be traveling some distance and you have a personal cooler that you can take with you to keep snack items chilled, then you can pack foods such as string cheese or Greek yogurt.
When you know you’re going to be out of the house, you can also prepare some great tasting snacks the day before. One of these snacks is string sweet potatoes. All you need is a tablespoon of olive oil for every sweet potato you make.
Cut the potatoes into thin little strings about half the size of ordinary shoestring potatoes. Mix the stringed sweet potatoes with the olive oil. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 7 minutes, take the potatoes out and mix them around, then return them to the oven and repeat the process twice more.
The potatoes should be done after about 25 minutes depending on your oven. When they’re nice and crunchy, let the potatoes cool off and then place them in individual snack bags. A serving size equals one sweet potato. You can sprinkle sea salt or cinnamon on them for flavor.
Choosing to follow a clean eating plan is a way that you can get rid of foods that aren’t healthy for you in favor of ones that are. By choosing wholesome foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and staying away from processed foods, you can improve your health.
You’ll feel better, gain a boost in your immune system and have more energy to boot. Unfortunately, if you don’t know how to create a clean eating plan the right way, you can end up with something called orthorexia.
What Is Orthorexia?
While clean eating is certainly a way of eating that’s good for the body, some people take it to the extreme. They become so obsessed with healthy eating that they choose to ignore certain foods or entire categories of food because they think the food is dangerous.
They focus their attention on foods that they believe are natural, gives them only positive health benefits and can detoxify the body. This belief is in fact, an eating disorder when fear develops of eating anything else.
The right way to embark on a clean eating program is one that is helpful to the body and personally satisfying. But when it becomes all that the person can focus on, it can become an obsessive mindset.
When you have an obsessive mindset about food, it can lead to things like limiting your food intake to the point that your body can’t function. You can drop your calorie count so much that you end up developing anorexia.
When you start to cut out more and more foods from what you can and can’t have to eat, it can cross the line between healthy and unhealthy eating. You can eat healthy, natural foods and follow a clean eating plan but cut back on your food intake so much that your body is no longer getting the nutrients that it needs.
Not only can this lead to a calorie restricting diet that’s bad for you, but you can cause damage to your organs. In order to work correctly, your body has to have a certain amount of proteins.
It also has to have plenty of foods like leafy green vegetables, other vegetables and fruits. You also need to have some form of fat in your diet. Cutting out all fats isn’t a good idea when it comes to wanting to eat healthy.
There is a difference between orthorexia and anorexia. With orthorexia, people with the condition have a tendency to pay strict attention to the quality of the food.
The focus is more on whether the food is healthy and pure and organic. With someone who’s struggling with anorexia, it’s the amount of the food rather than the quality of food that’s the issue.
The danger, however, in orthorexia, is that it doesn’t take much for the obsession with eating pure to spiral out of control and become a deep rooted eating disorder that can negatively impact the health of the person.
This is the biggest danger of orthorexia. If the wrong focus on eating clean isn’t changed, it can become a mindset that’s simply too difficult for some people to overcome on their own.
They become so picky that no food is good enough, and they end up eating so little that it resembles a case of anorexia as their frame whittles away and internal damage is done.
How to Recognize If You or a Loved One Is Suffering
Having a lifestyle where you practice clean eating is a good thing. There are so many health benefits you can reap if you do it. But when it crosses over into orthorexia, then something has to be done.
To understand what you’re dealing with, you have to first learn to recognize the signs and symptoms that you or someone you care about is struggling with the condition.
With orthorexia, one of the first things that’s pretty noticeable is that there will always be changes in the way that a person acts toward food. It starts with an obsessive mindset about the types of foods that you or someone you care about will allow themselves to eat.
The type of food that’s chosen will become a huge deal. You’ll notice that you or your loved one is spending a lot of time planning out the foods that are going to be eaten.
This amount of time will be over the top and become the single most important issue in your life. Along with the excessive time spent planning what foods you’re going to eat, the act of going to buy the food and shopping for it will also radically change.
There won’t be any more quick trips to the store. Choosing the food inside the store will take a lot of extra time as the food items chosen must be “just right.” After the food is purchased and brought home, a lot of time will be spent in getting the food ready to eat.
It will become almost like an art form – and the time it takes to ready the food will increase drastically. Once the food is ready to eat, the time spent eating the food will also increase.
You’ll notice that the act of eating the food is no longer about spending time with friends or family having a meal. Because the meal itself will be the focus. Some people relate the obsession that turns into orthorexia as a similar obsession a person feels when they need a fix from a drug addiction.
In addition to being overly focused on foods that are “allowed,” there will be a change in the way one perceives foods that are not allowed. You’ll notice that someone who is suffering from orthorexia can’t stand to be around foods that aren’t clean foods.
It’s not just the physical act of eating that you’ll see change, either. People who begin to view eating through the lens of orthorexia develop psychological changes in how they treat food.
They will have a firm, unshakable belief that the foods they choose hold a power that ordinary foods don’t have. They will believe that by not eating the “bad” foods that they’re going keep anything bad from happening to their bodies.
They believe if they follow a clean eating plan, it means they’ll never end up getting cancer or develop heart disease or have a stroke. They believe that if they do have a medical condition such as cancer that clean eating is automatically going to get rid of every last cancer cell and their health will return to normal.
People who suffer from orthorexia believe that clean eating is the answer to whatever ails them. People who have orthorexia have a “my way or the highway” attitude about clean eating, too.
They think that if anyone eats something that they don’t, then they’re wrong or not enlightened. They also believe that people who don’t eat the same way that they do aren’t as healthy.
Orthorexia can make people have a distorted image of weight loss. They’ll look at their bodies in terms of good or bad eating. Foods that aren’t clean mean they’ll get fat and foods that are clean mean they’ll have a healthy body weight and never get sick.
What they can’t realize is that orthorexia often leads people to become very ill because their body is lacking in nutrients. Plus, the strict limiting of food will lead to rapid weight loss to the point that the person’s BMI drops to an unhealthy level.
Orthorexia isn’t something that someone can simply snap out of because it’s a deep rooted belief about food. However, if it’s not addressed, the decline in health will continue to the point that the person could become dangerously ill or even die.
You need to watch for certain signs such as not wanting to eat in front of anyone else. An obvious weight loss with no interest in most food. Pay attention to anyone whose diet is so strict that there are very few foods on the list of what they will eat.
If someone looks like they’ve lost weight to the point of being gaunt, that can be a symptom of orthorexia. If someone experiences anger, crying, embarrassment, shame or emotional outbursts because they ate the “wrong” foods, that’s another clue pointing toward the condition.
Anyone who wants to spend more and more time practicing clean eating fasts for the purpose of repeated, prolonged detoxifying is a sign that the person is suffering from orthorexia.
You must understand the actions of someone with orthorexia is based on a compulsion and needs to be addressed so that the proper mindset toward clean eating can be restored.
Orthorexia Can Transform Into Anorexia Easily
Orthorexia begins when someone becomes so obsessed with the quality of food that they eat that it takes over their life. Anorexia begins when someone becomes so obsessed with the scale, their image and the amount of food that they eat that it takes over their life.
There is a compulsive behavior at the root of both conditions and orthorexia can easily swing over and become anorexia because the thoughts and actions of both are often parallel.
There is a strong belief between choosing food that affects your health to the point of becoming irrational. The amount of and types of foods eaten grows noticeably smaller, often restrictive to the point that list of what you can eat is only handful of items.
Orthorexia, like anorexia, can impact your daily life. It can lead to withdrawing from social events because of the beliefs and actions about foods. Both conditions can cause the one suffering from either to feel a deep sense of shame in regards to eating food.
There are strict beliefs that must be adhered to and to violate those beliefs leads to self criticism and feelings of unworthiness. The amount of time spent planning, buying and preparing food escalates to the point that it can take up a good portion of your day.
Food becomes one of the main things that you think about in both types of eating disorders. Feeling upset, anxious or out of sorts if the foods you’ve limited yourself to are not available.
If anyone points out that your eating habits are unhealthy, it makes you feel extremely upset. The basis of both conditions is found in the burning need to try to create order or have control over your life.
People with the conditions try to find self worth in making sure they keep tight control over what they eat. Making sure you stick with the foods that you consider okay is something that you must do and it becomes an obsession to the point that you’ll make extreme decisions centered around the food.
With orthorexia, people are focused on getting healthy to the point they can’t see that they’re not healthy. With anorexia, people are focused on losing weight to the point that they can’t see that their weight is no longer healthy. Both conditions drive the person to seek to purify their bodies and food or the lack of it is the way they do this.
Putting an End to Unhealthy Health-Obsessed Eating
Clean eating is good for you if it’s done correctly. Once someone puts an end to having an unhealthy obsession with the wrong thinking about food, there’s no reason why they can’t enjoy the healthy aspects of clean eating.
There’s not a huge list of things you need to obsess over. It’s simply about making healthy changes. You can start by watching your processed foods but don’t eliminate them.
Don’t make any food a “bad” food. Instead, focus on packaged foods that are healthy. There are some out there that have only a little amount of processing and they’re not unhealthy.
Pay attention to the amount of vegetables that you eat and make sure that you don’t skimp on these. You need the vitamins and minerals that these foods give your body.
They’re healthy and low in calories so they’re good for you to eat even in large quantities. You do want to watch the saturated fats, but don’t eliminate fat from your diet because that’s not healthy.
Instead of saturated fats, look for ones that are actually good for your body such as olive oil. Make sure that you don’t overdo it on the alcohol. While you can have some even on a clean eating plan, just don’t have more than you should.
Choose drinks that offer health benefits for your body such as red wine. Watch out for the sugar that you consume because sugar can be addictive – plus, too much of it isn’t good for your body.
You don’t want to say never and get into the mindset that causes you to label foods. Just look for foods that have a lower amount of sugar in them if you plan to have something sweet.
When you refuse to make any food off limits, it won’t become a compulsion that can lead to an obsession with not having it. If you have a sweet tooth, natural sugar – such as from an apple – can satisfy the craving as easily as a sweet like candy will.
Look for foods that don’t have any additional salt since salt is something that if it’s in high quantities isn’t healthy. Have your clean eating plan filled with whole grain foods since these are loaded with nutrients, fiber and help keep you feeling full.
If you eat meat, choose meats that are lower in fat and ones that are better for you like fish or poultry. The key to clean eating with the right mentality means not focusing on the food or even how much healthier it is. It’s simply a lifestyle change that can help you live longer, happier, and more fulfilled.
Everyone knows that clean eating is good for you. That’s why this way of eating has surpassed other eating plans. However, if you’re not careful, the way that you choose your foods might actually end up being bad for the earth.
The path that foods take from nature to end up in your kitchen might be one that does more harm than good to the area where the food comes from. While it’s certainly something to applaud if you are eating clean, you want to make sure that it’s the green way of eating.
You want to protect the earth, not diminish it or cause hardship for other people. The area where your food is grown can be one that’s causing a struggle somewhere else. As a responsible consumer, you want to make sure that your clean eating plan isn’t causing damage to the earth.
Some foods that are popular in clean eating come from areas around the world where having enough water is a problem. In areas where there are droughts, some foods put an ecological drain on the limited water source.
Besides the strain on the water supply in some areas where foods used for clean eating are found, there can also be a hidden, darker side in the process of getting the items from the grower to the store shelves.
Some of the foods that people may unknowingly be purchasing can be traced back to areas where people are working for very little pay and in dangerous or inhuman circumstances.
Many people on a clean eating diet will purchase fresh greens that come pre-washed, pre-cut and bagged because it’s convenient. You’ll find a healthy, organic selection at most grocery stores.
While these greens are handy and great for your diet, it’s not so great for the environment. When natural foods are placed in bags for convenience sake, the plastic ends up in landfills because it’s not recycled.
The plastic can leak into the ground as it decomposes, which can take 10 centuries to completely decompose. Plus, the pre-washing of these greens contributes to the water waste.
There’s never anything good about wasting the earth’s natural resources. Sometimes the demand for certain foods on a clean eating diet drive up the cost in areas where the product is naturally grown.
This doesn’t mean that clean eating is something you should stop doing. It means that you should be aware of the origin of your food. If it comes from an area that’s already struggling with resources used to produce that food, then you should look for an alternative way to buy that item. You want to make sure that what you eat is as good for the earth as it is for you.
Clean eating is best for your body and there are some habits that you can start that will make your journey easy easier as you switch from unhealthy eating to healthy eating. Make sure that you never go without breakfast.
No matter how busy you are and even if you’re running late, don’t skip it. Get into the habit of always eating breakfast. You need this meal because your metabolism will slow down if you skip breakfast.
For someone who’s always in a hurry, there are quick clean eating breakfasts you can have such as a fruit smoothie that you can make the night before. When you’re following a clean eating plan, you need to get into the habit of keeping up with your water intake.
Without the right amount of water, you can dehydrate. Plus, getting into the water habit helps to prevent you from becoming too hungry and tempting you to grab an unhealthy snack.
Because you need snacks when you’re clean eating, you don’t want to wait until you’re starving to search for something to tide you over. You need to get into the habit of having snacks ready for the moment that you’re hungry.
Keep your kitchen stocked with clean eating snacks that you can have at home or that you can pack up and take with you if you’re going to be out running errands or away from home.
Get into the habit of pausing when you feel the need to eat something that’s not healthy. Ask yourself if you want that particular food because you’re craving it or if you’re simply hungry and anything will do.
It’s those anything will do mindsets that drive most people to reach for snacks that are full of empty calories. Make it a habit to practice the first, second, third method of choosing snacks.
Always choose the freshest option first. For example, when you’re hungry, an apple is the best first choice. But if it’s not available, then pick applesauce that doesn’t contain any added sugar.
Begin the habit of keeping a clean eating meal file. Look for new meals to try out so that you always have something new to look forward too. Boredom on any eating plan can quickly derail healthy food choices.
When you’re clean eating, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that portion sizes don’t matter, but this isn’t true. Get into and stay in the habit of making sure your portion sizes are within a healthy range.
It’s also a good idea to have the habit of eating lean protein at mealtime and making sure that you have complex carbs included as well. This will keep your energy from dipping and keep you from getting hungry as quickly.
Clean eating is a simple, inexpensive way to eat healthy. Because it’s good for the body and easy to do, the popularity of this eating plan continues to rise. The basic concept behind clean eating is based on guidelines that anyone can adhere to.
You start by making sure that the foods you have for your snacks and all of your meals are natural ones. You would pick food items that are as close to the way that they were made in nature over picking foods that are processed.
When foods are processed, you can usually tell by the packaging. These items will usually be in cans or boxes. If it has an ingredient label with more than one or two items, then it’s usually processed.
To avoid processed foods, look for items that are found in your produce section such as leafy green vegetables and fruits. Non-processed foods are ones that are brought to the store in the same state in which they were grown.
They’re not put in cans or covered in preservatives or anything additional. When you’re following a clean eating plan, you’ll want to make sure your menus are based on unrefined foods.
Refined foods are foods that have been changed from the way they were grown into something where the makeup of the original isn’t the same. For example, white rice was changed from its original state of brown rice.
You want your diet to be filled with whole grains as much as possible. This means that you should eat things like brown rice or legumes. Some people are addicted to sugar but sugar isn’t good for you and when you’re on a clean eating plan, it’s best to avoid it.
You can have sweets in place of sugar such as honey. Don’t skip out on the protein. You need that for healthy muscles plus, it gives you the energy that your body requires. You can eat smaller portions of protein throughout the day and in many different forms such as beans or poultry.
You also need healthy fats like olive oil in your clean eating diet. You need to pay attention to the amount of salt in your diet. You’ll usually be able to limit your intake of salt once you stop eating processed foods.
When you choose clean eating, the food is in a natural state which doesn’t contain all the additives that processed foods have. It’s these additives that can negatively impact your health.
You’ll want to spread your meals out over the course of the day rather than having three large meals. For some people, this will mean making sure they add filling snacks in between meals.